Psycher Chronicles

Interlude IV

Sudden Exposure

(Rachel Powers)

“Tonight, on The Insiders’ View, we are going to discuss the topic that everyone is buzzing about, and that is the new action super star that Hasty herself is trying to pull off. Not since the times of Michael Jackson have we seen such blatant high quality action movies right in the middle of the street by a noted pop-icon. Are we on the verge of seeing Hasty break into yet another realm of entertainment?” Rachel Powers begins her speech as the screen splits to show the hosts underneath, while the image of the now famous lightning bolt from the end of the world was shown.

Rachel was the seasoned anchor that was a pioneer for women’s broadcasters. While she was not the first to trailblaze across the field, her sassy and imposing nature caused her to be compelling and seen as a sex icon even after spending decades within the bright lights of television. While her days of working for a big network were over, she found herself recently reemerging from the shadows of her career with this new podcast series that seemed to be able to bridge a generational gap that her former networks were unable to bridge themselves.

On the screen there were of course multiple close-up views, but then a view came to life from a building on the opposite side of the street that was at the exact perfect height to both record and show the stylized visual effects that went into play.

In the view a large arcing bolt seems to come from out of nowhere, across the Pittsburgh skyline and arc straight in front of Hasty and her conveniently chosen Helper. The Helper, along with her two friends in attendance both have a look of shock on their face as they clearly had no clue what was going to happen. The sudden and intense bolt of energy caused their faces to be perfectly illuminated, showing not one not two, but three different skeletal structures just waiting to be hidden.

“Now look at this,” Rachel begins, causing the screen to stop at one particularly bright burst of lightning. “Look at this attention to detail, how we see not one, but three different body types being displayed in just the group of four here. Hasty and her helper both have the same greenish hue to their skeletons, showing that they are likely from the same cloth. Then we have the taller friend, who clearly can be seen with the visage of a werewolf coming out. Then we have this last friend, the almost normal girl and her normal structure. This level of detail is impressive on its own, but take a look a this.” Rachel continues to break down the scene.

With this next set of instructions, the scene switches to yet another view from a different building slightly closer than the one that has been filling everyone’s social media feeds for the past few hours.

“Added to the tension surrounding this whole thing is the fact that the four main culprits have seemingly disappeared from the public eye since this staged encounter.” Rachel began.

“I know, but isn’t this all a huge publicity stunt?” Lidia Roper asked.

While Rachel Powers was the symbol of age and wisdom, Lidia Roper was the much younger and energetic version that very much resembled a younger but hungrier Rachel Powers. While Rachel had seemed to shrink slightly due to age, Lidia was tall, long legged and showed off those legs on almost any occasion she could.

“Yeah, at this point without even the police investigating we know that everyone is safe and just getting ready to appear at the concert.” Gina Martin added.

Gina, a tanned beauty probably looked familiar as she was the former Miss Brazil who captivated the world with her poise and prowess on many action movies. Only to have her career cut short when she broke her leg in an injury that never healed correctly. Still, even to this day, her beauty was undeniable, though unlike her younger counterpart, Gina never showed her legs, always instead opting to wear pant suits that hugged her waist and backside, while giving her legs ample room to move about.

“Good point Gina. There are many rumors going about on the internet, and we are here to talk about them all. But first, we have an Insiders’ View exclusive. That’s right, we have never before seen video from a different angle that also recorded this exact event.” Rachel begins.

The camera image is slightly older and a bit grainier than the other video feed, but this one had clearly been touched up by AI rendering software.

“One thing we wanted to point out was the fact that there were apparently stunt people within the crowds. For look at this, with this angle you can see the hundreds of people that gathered, and if you look closely you can see more wolves, along with what appear to be vampires.” Rachel began, pointing out three people from the crowd that had more odd colorations around them.

“These people seem to be the opposition faction.” Rachel continued.

“Wait, okay. I see the dark outline basically saying that they are darker or a different faction. I get that, but how exactly are you going to say that they are vampires?” Gina Martin asked, offering a bit of controversy to the declarations that were being bandied about.

“Simple, if you have werewolves, you need to have vampires as the contrast. Haven’t we all seen the vampire hunter series? You know the one where the vampire falls in love with the werewolf?” Rachel said, while waving her hand in a trying to remember gesture.

“Love my Lykanthropy?” Gina asks.

“No, that was a horrible comedy and not really a vampire thriller romance.” Rachel responded, before tapping her finger to the side of her head. “Don’t worry, it will come to me, but I am being told that we need to move on. Anyways, we are showing this as we expect there to be more of this type of theatrics at Hasty’s up and coming concert. I have a feeling that with how popular this event was, we have just seen the start of this.”

“Wait, how can you guarantee that this type of thing will even happen again? I mean, I get it, it was clearly a big publicity stunt performed to drum up attention to buy some of the live streaming tickets that were now going for triple the original asking price, but what do you mean?” Lidia Roper asked.

“Well, as we all know, or are finally coming to understand. This event here was clearly staged. The Helper and Hasty were the only two who were seemingly in on it, everyone else was filmed to show their honest and genuine reactions to the spectacle.” Rachel began, pointing out the shocked looks.

“But to have AI programs ready to record and alter each person, is a feat of focused movie magic that people have only been dreaming about, yet Hasty, always one step ahead has managed to do just that. She managed to make an AI algorithm that overrode everyone’s recordings and live streams to show this amazing piece of cinematic history.” Rachel continued, speaking a theory that had been posted on the deeper parts of the web, but have suddenly gained much more traction as experts weighed in on the different film angles, where everyone tried to understand what was happening.

“Wait, you believe that crazy story about Hasty and her team being able to work with the local businesses and cell phone providers for everyone that was recording within her immediate proximity to have the AI generating software forcefully uploaded to their phones, just so they would be part of the mass hysteria?” Gina asked, a bit incredulous.

“Look, I’m not stating this. I am just stating the direct comment put out by Hasty’s camp, related to this incident.” Rachel clarified.

“You mean that note that only came out after supposed leaked portion of the AI code used to Detect The Monsters Nearby was made publicly available to everyone? The same one where you put it on and use the flash of your phone to see if your friends and family are one of these monster groups?” Lidia began, holding up her phone and showing that she in fact had the noted AI application installed.

“Oh wait, you have it?” Rachel asked.

“Of course I do, why not. The funny part is, that the program then tags the person that you captured as being supernatural, and then allows for anyone else who scans that same person to get the same exact results. It’s kind of fun and addicting, to be honest.” Lidia said, then flash.

“What was that?” Rachel asked.

“Oh I just took one of you,” Lidia began looking at her phone and then her face seemed to go in slack jawed amazement as she looked at her screen.

“What is it?” Rachel asked, concern evident in her voice.

“You, it’s you, but in this image, you have a purple hue around you. Do you know what that means?” Lidia asked, a note of concern in her voice.

“Kill the segment, cut to commercial.” Rachel said.

Click.

The screen went black as the last episode of The Insiders’ Views aired.