21. Crisis Management
DeAndre led Buttons away from the rude girl, who started to follow them, still holding her phone up in front of her, shouting the racist accusations and swearing at Buttons and Miss Pendrake. Heads were turning in their direction.
“Bitch, leave the kid alone,” Jamal could be heard telling her off.
In the palace, the door from the hallway opened, and Mom walked into Goggles’ office. She had been watching the stream.
“Rippa… Buttons…”
“Yes, I know.” Rippa held up her hand to silence her mom. She was, after all, working right now.
DeAndre had the presence of mind to open up Rippa’s stream on his phone again. By talking into Buttons’ mic and hearing Rippa’s response through the stream, DeAndre and Rippa had been discussing what to do.
“Maybe lose her and then go inside somewhere?” Rippa suggested. Her eyes darted left and right as she was now tracking four video feeds. The Buttons-cam and the Hayasaka-cam, DeAndre’s Twitch, and her own stream.
“I’ll try,” said DeAndre.
Thankfully, the large girl was… also heavy and out of shape. She soon started to fall behind, unable to keep up. Out of breath, she stopped and dialed someone on her phone.
DeAndre took this opportunity and led the group around a few random corners in quick succession.
“There, let’s hide there,” Jamal pointed at a small cafe, and ushered the girls inside. DeAndre waited a few seconds to see if the annoying woman had caught up. It seemed they had lost her for good. Relieved, he entered the cafe.
The group let out a sigh and sank into some comfy-looking sofas. DeAndre went to the counter to order drinks for everyone.
Rippa felt relieved, too. She was a little annoyed that both her and DeAndre’s chats were treating the whole thing like some exciting video game chase scene. They were spamming ‘Cinema’ emojis.
Dad sent a message from work, as well. “That was stressful.”
Rippa shook her head, but smiled.
Goggles cleared his throat, making her turn around. He raised his head above his monitor setup and pointed at Rippa’s mic.
Rippa muted the microphone.
“She has called her friends,” Goggles announced.
“What?” Rippa and Mom said at the same time.
***
DeAndre returned to the table with a tray of two coffee mugs and two glasses of orange juice, only to find Buttons slumped on the sofa and sleeping.
“Sorry. She’s a little frail and needs to rest,” Rippa explained to her viewers and DeAndre. ‘Great. Just great,’ she gritted her teeth.
The two men tried to talk to Miss Pendrake, but the girl tapped her lips and shook her head.
“Ah! Sorry, didn’t realize,” DeAndre apologized.
“Wait, hold this,” Jamal handed over his phone to DeAndre, and then made some hand signs.
‘Fuck,’ Rippa gasped. ‘Why does he know Sign Language?’
Much to everyone’s amusement, Miss Pendrake tapped her eye and shook her head.
Rippa facepalmed. ‘Bruh, you aren’t blind!’
‘LOL rejected!’ DeAndre’s chat was having a good laugh at Jamal’s expense.
And so, it fell on Rippa to engage with the two men sitting across the table via her stream on DeAndre’s phone and the Hayasaka-cam. With her mom pacing in the office and knowing the large girl from earlier had called reinforcements, Rippa’s mind wasn’t really in it, but she tried.
She was immensely grateful to DeAndre and Jamal. They were actually quite a funny duo, and DeAndre was very good at leading conversation to flow organically. They were hard-carrying Rippa’s halfhearted stream. Rippa was sure that if DeAndre kept this up, his channel would double or maybe triple its viewership in about a year. Faster, if he got some lucky breaks.
Twenty minutes passed, and Rippa heard Goggles stand up from his desk behind her. He came to Rippa’s station and stood beside her.
‘Shit.’ She muted her mic. “What’s happening?”
“I told Buttons and Miss Pendrake to lose the men and find a quiet spot. They need to come back.”
Rippa glanced at her monitor. On DeAndre’s Twitch stream, Buttons was still asleep on the sofa. Next to the kid, Miss Pendrake sat perfectly still, listening to the two men’s banter.
“Maybe tell them she needs to use the bathroom?” Rippa suggested.
Goggles shook his head. “Unfortunately, the cafe’s bathroom is out of order and is locked.”
“How do you know?” Mom interjected.
“I know.”
Rippa bit her lip. She pointed at Buttons on the Twitch stream. “She needs to wake up.”
“Buttons is trying,” said Goggles with a sigh. “Three thousand years, yet she still doesn’t have full control.”
Rippa snorted. ‘Great.’ She unmuted herself in the girls’ voice chat and raised the volume to full.
“Buttons! Wake up!”
The kid jerked, and her eyes flew wide open. Even Miss Pendrake flinched.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Goggles gave a thumbs-up.
Rippa didn’t need to tell Buttons what to do. The pilot had already been informed of what needed to be done. Now the issue was… how to get rid of these two men.
“Oh, must have been a bad dream,” DeAndre commented on the manner in which Buttons woke up. “Calm down. Have some juice, and I’ll call you an Uber to get you home. Alright?”
Rippa looked up at Goggles. He wasn’t happy with that arrangement.
It was a nail-biting few minutes waiting for Buttons to finish up her juice. Goggles was intensely watching something in the distance. Mom was pacing back and forth. But on Rippa’s monitors, DeAndre and Jamal kept bantering with Buttons, and both chats were clueless about what was happening.
“OK, let’s get going,” DeAndre suggested once Buttons was done with her juice. “I’ll walk you to the main road and call you an Uber. Wait, where do you live?”
Buttons just smiled.
“Ah, yeah… we are on air.”
“The train station would be fine,” said Buttons.
Rippa grimaced. ‘Why not call an Uber to right there?’ But as soon as the group exited the cafe, she realized why. The cafe was in a pedestrian zone.
Goggles groaned when Jamal’s cam showed DeAndre holding Buttons’ hand. As the four started walking toward the main road, Goggles reached out and tapped on the monitor. “No, no, no. Not that way. The other way.”
But it fell on deaf ears. DeAndre couldn’t hear him, and Buttons wasn’t in control of where she was going.
Rippa’s chat had picked up Goggles’ voice and was spamming ‘the butler is here.’ Rippa slapped her forehead for not muting the mic.
The group turned a corner and bumped into the large girl.
“Fuck!” Rippa screamed.
With the girl, there were half a dozen shady-looking youths in dark hoodies and balaclavas.
“There she is! Kid beat up my bitch!” one of them shouted.
“Now you done fucked up. You fucked up!” the girl shoved her phone in Buttons’ face.
“Shit!” DeAndre picked up Buttons and turned around. Carrying the kid, he quickly headed the other way.
Jamal tried to reason with them and stop them, but they just ignored him and followed DeAndre, keeping pace with him.
The large girl was clearly streaming the whole thing. She was loudly talking, her phone still raised, filming Buttons’ face now resting on DeAndre’s shoulder.
“A narrow space!” Rippa shouted. “Find a choke point. Miss Pendrake can stop them!”
“No, no. That will make it worse. They have guns,” Goggles shot the idea down immediately.
Mom stopped pacing. Rippa turned her head.
“Yes, they do,” said Goggles firmly.
Rippa’s chat exploded.
‘What does he mean?’
‘How does he know?’
‘Who’s Pendrake?’
Rippa was speechless. ‘What now?’
In the meantime, Jamal had caught up with his friend.
“What do we do?” DeAndre demanded.
“Busy place!” Jamal was thinking fast. “Let’s go to a busy place. They won’t hurt a kid when people are around!”
DeAndre adjusted his hold on Buttons and sped up. Behind him, the gang was still following.
‘She’s live on Instagram,’ a viewer said. ‘Search Shanaqueen.’
“Who?” Rippa was puzzled, but then quickly realized what they meant. She opened yet another browser tab and searched for Shanaqueen on Instagram.
There it was. A live feed from the city. Buttons’ expressionless face on DeAndre’s shoulder, her eyes looking straight into the camera.
“She done fucked up! We gonna beat that Nazi kid to shit!” Shanaqueen was telling her viewers. “Everyone, come to…” she then quickly scanned for street signs, and gave the name of the street for everyone to know. “Come punch the Nazi, y’all. We gonna beat that Nazi kid and that pasty racist cracker.”
Rippa’s phone rang. It was Dad.
“Filippa! Get her out of there!” Dad screamed.
“I’m trying!” Rippa screamed back and hung up.