19. The Test Run and the Ring of Cameras
Mom came with a couple of small backpacks, which Rippa had worn when she was young. Of course, Mom hadn’t thrown them away.
“So, what’s happening?” asked Mom.
Miss Pendrake stood still as Rippa put the street-cam gear on her.
“Miss Pendrake is taking a stroll in the city,” Rippa said, explaining the whole test run plan, while adjusting straps and placing the shoulder mount.
“Now, I’m gonna start streaming,” said Rippa, starting a private live-stream on YouTube from Miss Pendrake’s phone. She then opened the link on her laptop to see if everything was working.
“Say something.”
Miss Pendrake blinked.
Buttons approached her and spoke into the DJI mic clipped to the girl’s lapel. “Hello, hello.”
The YouTube stream on Rippa’s laptop echoed, “Hello, hello.”
“OK, mic is good, too,” said Rippa, mounting the phone on Miss Pendrake’s shoulder strap. She looked back and forth between her laptop and the phone and adjusted the camera angle. “Wait, hang on, what’s your data plan?”
“I will handle the connectivity,” Goggles assured. “No need to worry about that.”
***
Rippa bit her nails as Miss Pendrake stepped out of a toilet stall in a relatively quiet section of the train station. Goggles had waited until the bathroom was vacant before opening the portal. As the blond girl exited the bathroom, the everyday noise of the train station intensified.
The whole thing was being played on a 32-inch 4K monitor that Goggles had spawned and connected to Rippa’s laptop, now resting on the coffee table in the tea room. Rippa, Mom, Buttons, and Goggles sat on the sofas and watched Miss Pendrake walk out of the station.
The girl had been instructed to wander around, preferably in busy areas. After all, the whole point of the test run was to see if it was safe. If Miss Pendrake stuck to quiet streets with few people around, that would defeat the purpose.
Mom was confident it would be fine. The gangs were in the town east of Rippa’s place. The city was to the west.
Rippa, on the other hand, argued that, gangs or not, there might be people who’d remember Buttons and Miss Pendrake from the viral clip, and they might suddenly feel the urge to punish the “Racist Taco Truck Girls.”
For about an hour, nothing much happened. Miss Pendrake walked through the busiest parts of the city, brushing past people. She stopped and examined a parked Porsche for a few minutes. She also stopped at a toy shop to look at a small lion plushie. Nobody did a double take or shouted, “Hey, you are that racist girl!”
Buttons got bored and fell asleep.
Rippa herself was getting bored. Nothing was happening.
“By the way, why is she… her?” Rippa tried to make small talk.
“You mean Miss Pendrake?” Goggles asked back.
“Yeah.”
“Well, one day, Buttons saw something on Netflix.” He glanced down at the child sleeping on Mamapin’s lap. “She ran up to me and said, ‘OK, Google, I want a Saber.’”
“That’s it? That’s the reason she exists?”
Goggles shrugged.
Somewhere near the Convention Center, Rippa noticed the foot traffic getting denser. Up ahead, there was a large gathering.
“Ten o’clock. There’s something going on,” Rippa said in the voice chat. “Let’s go check it out.”
Miss Pendrake heard the instruction through her earbuds and headed that way.
As the girl made her way there, Rippa noticed an anomaly in the passersby. Occasionally, someone dressed up as an anime or a game character would walk by. A few of them even nodded to Miss Pendrake. Once the test subject got close to the gathering at the plaza in front of the Convention Center, it dawned on Rippa. She groaned.
“That’s a cosplay event.”
It was indeed. People with cameras and phones gathered around a cosplayer in thick rings. There were several such rings, with people going back and forth between them.
And, much to Rippa’s chagrin, a ring formed around Miss Pendrake.
“Wow, you do have the face. Good call on the character,” someone shouted over the noise. “Casual version?”
“Oh god…” Rippa facepalmed. ‘I walked her into that.’
“This is good.” Goggles, on the other hand, was OK with the development. “This is a high-attention situation. It serves our purpose.”
Boxed in, Miss Pendrake had nowhere to go. Somebody handed her a hamburger, which she ate quickly on the spot while flashes kept blinding the camera on her shoulder strap.
And then, Rippa’s phone beeped. A message in her Discord server, mentioning her directly.
It was a photo of Miss Pendrake calmly eating the hamburger. “Rippa, what’s Hayasaka doing here?” the message read.
Rippa sweated. Oh, wait!
“What you mean? She’s here with me and Buttons,” Rippa replied.
Other members in the server spammed LOLs and LMAOs.
“Saber-face, indeed,” someone replied.
Meanwhile, Miss Pendrake was saved from her predicament by an event staff member, who noticed she wasn’t wearing a registration lanyard. The official dispersed the crowd and politely requested that Miss Pendrake refrain from inserting herself into the event without registering first.
Rippa yawned through the next hour as Miss Pendrake made her way back to the train station. Nothing significant happened. Nobody suddenly jumped her, shouting, “Die, racist Nazi!”
When Miss Pendrake came back to the palace through the portal, Goggles patted her on the back and congratulated her on a job well done. Madam J.D. also congratulated her junior colleague in her own silent way.
Overall, the test run was successful. The city seemed to be safe. The Buttons-cam was a go.