“I—I don’t know.” He thought of his conversation with Chess the night before—alternate universes and fairy-tale lands.
The Girl Queen had brought him to where he could get a better look at the palace through the trees. It wasn’t as big as he remembered. Just a house, really. Tall flashing windows, a rooftop gilded with yellow-gold leaves. A palace to a young boy desperate for fairy tales, but not actually a palace.
Are they real, the things I see?
He turned back to her. “You’re . . . real.” A real girl, in a real place. It wasn’t his own world. It was some alternate universe.
Her arms were slim and strong around his shoulders again. “I’m as real as you are.”
Dylan’s shoes sunk into the muddy bank of the stream. The silt on his sneakers shone like copper. His vorpal glinted like scales on a fish tail. He could see it.
Like a halo of light around him.
2.
WHEN WE WERE TV
(ten years from now)
BRIXNEY
My training at Flavor Foam went something like this: “First you punch the proper button on the machine, which releases the mold—maybe of Robert Pattinson In His Heyday or Cartoon Princess Number Five.” That was my manager speaking. One of two managers, so I tend to think of him as Mr. One. I think of the other as the Other One. Mr. One is skinny as a mendicant and always has his palms pressed together as if he’s begging me to do these things. Please, please press the button next to the corresponding image. Please don’t break the mold, or if you do, please try to land safely on your ass when I give you the boot.
“The mold goes on the souvenir plastic plate,” Mr. One begged, extending his palms toward me and the mold in turn, “and then the nozzle of the injector goes into the top, and then the edible foam goes into the mold. Does the customer want a flavor gel? Most likely the customer does. Use the gel gun to shoot that in too.”
He gave a very long pause here and squinted at me with concern, like he wasn’t sure I could handle all of the instructions at once. The gel gun dripped purple goo on the counter. “It’ll be your job to clean this up, by the way,” he whispered to me.
I nodded and wondered if he meant right then. But he plowed on.
“The mold gets removed in two pieces,” he said, breaking it apart and tossing said pieces into the return bin, “and then you’ve got Boisterous-Berry Action Star Turned Family Film Dad or whatever.”
We stood back to admire the Flavor Foam Head’s paternal grin. The purple gel glistened in the overhead lights. I secretly think Flavor Foam Heads are the weirdest snack ever invented. They’re supposedly made of “plant proteins” and “stabilizing agents,” whatever that means. I suspect they might actually be made of injectable wall insulation, but they’re somehow delicious, especially with Fudgsicle flavor gel. Plus, they’re low-fat.
And the foam looks good onscreen—shiny and colorful and weird enough to make you look twice. Flavor Foam has cameras jutting from every corner and TV screens mounted on the walls so customers and employees can enjoy a few minutes of manufactured fame. The thought that Flavor Foam’s customers can watch me screw up onscreen used to horrify me. But now I’m used to it.
“We have all the FeedBin molds over here.” Mr. One indicated a new machine on the counter. “These are a big hit with kids obsessed with the videos on FeedBin that’ve gone viral. They want to eat Flavor Foam Heads of ordinary people who become overnight Internet sensations, like Grumpy Boy Swearing He’ll Never Sneeze Again. But don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only kids who want this. Adults want it too. They want to get Man Who Makes Millions Selling Comic-Con Costumes Out Of His Basement so they can smash in his Flavor Foam Head as punishment for his undue success.”
And for his weird haircut, I wanted to add.
I’d actually watched some of that guy’s online feed once. He’d installed a camera in his basement so you could see how he carved up styrene sheets for costume armor. But the camera was attached to the ceiling, so mostly you got to see the back of his head as he leaned over his worktable.
People will watch anything halfway interesting on FeedBin, even a video of someone eating weird food like flavor foam. All they want is to get lost in Random Internet Weirdness Land.
These days I’m pretty much stuck in Crippled By Debt Since Sudden Death Of Parents Land. Hence the new job.
“And Brixney?” Mr. One pleaded, palms pressed to his heart. “We like to be camera-ready at all times here. So, the Woe Is Me face? That’s not going to work.”
I gave him a sudden, startled smile that probably made me look like Toddler Confronted By Hungry Water Fowl.