Tales From Heller

In The Pale Moonlight

CW: Sexual harassment

Even Frank thought that "bring your stuffed animal to school" day was an unusual event to prioritize the second week of school, but he privately thought the thematic dissonance hilarious, and so allowed it when Jason insisted this would be an excellent way to bolster student morale.

"It's whatever the expression is, 'bread and circuses.' It costs us nothing to have students carry around their animals with them and give them to me and my team to catalog for our social media during lunch, down there in the robotics room," Jason explained matter-of-factly.

"What social media? We don't have social media."

"Who knows what we'll try next."

"Fair enough, I'll allow it as long as your team handles all the work," Frank said, and that was the end of that. It was lucky that Jason was in charge of procurement for his department, and that he was able to make sure he was the only one looking at the invoices. Why hundreds of computer chips, microphones, motors, and security cameras were ordered, or why Jason had stayed at school until ten one night soldering, or why he insisted on being the only one cataloging the stuffed animals would thus be a fact for him alone to know.

Beth, naturally, brought Cheddar, and along with Regina and Juliet, they posed with their stuffed animals for a photo before putting them in a plastic bin to be cataloged.

"Why are we doing this anyway?" Beth asked Juliet.

"Because it's a fun way to build school spirit," Juliet replied, knowing nothing about why this event was approved but choosing to maintain faith in a higher power. This higher power, that being Jason, inserted all the cameras in record time (it was a miracle what one could do when motivated under time pressure) and returned everyone's possessions by the end of lunch with a token of his appreciation.

Beth was one of the unfortunate ones who placed her teddy bear with eyes staring at her bed from her dresser, a view of her room that couldn't have been more perfect if Jason had tried; for the others, sometimes he'd have to use the motor to nudge the stuffed animals overnight or hope that when knocked down, their targets would reposition them more appropriately. Perhaps if she had looked more carefully at night, when she was tucking herself in, she would have noticed Cheddar's head tilt quizzically, but since Cheddar was always there she had no reason to think of him as anything but furniture. At some point that evening she returned to her bedroom and gave Behrooz a call; Jason received a notification saying camera 85 had audio, and tuned in.

"Hey... yeah, yeah... no, I don't remember Juliet saying that, we don't really talk about work. No, nothing at all... I don't see why she would. She never told me about anything like that... this summer? No, we were busy... swimming at the lake and cooking, what else? Look, if Juliet has a problem with you, she hasn't told me about it. You're the best, nobody's out to get you. It's all right... dinner? I have cheer practice... some other time. Juliet wanted us to join her and Frank? Oh really... uh-huh... yeah, we aren't doing that... OK, good. I need to finish my homework. Love you."

But Beth didn't start her homework immediately. She put her laptop to the side and lay down, head forward, like she thought if she pressed herself into her covers it would act as camouflage from Cheddar's watchful eye. What had Behrooz said? Sure, Jason could have checked his phone records, but that seemed like a lot of effort—it was hard work enough going through the AI-curated highlights, work that would at least be rewarded in college with some killer data science projects. It would be more interesting to piece together the pieces himself, as if he had a front-row seat to a one-woman show. She clearly was annoyed about something, and Juliet was involved—say, what was she up to? A quick switch over to camera 52 indicated she was doing her evening stretching, with the camera maybe ten degrees off from the same panoramic view he had in Beth's room. Nothing his motor couldn't fix... just a few small pushes, and there went her own teddy bear, falling onto the floor. Jason could hear Juliet put her leg down and walk over.