Hard Luck Hermit

Corey had never actually been involved with television at all back on Earth, but the broadcast studio on Centerpoint still seemed remarkably familiar. They had a backstage area with green rooms, makeup, busybody production assistants, and even a tray of little snacks to peck at with a dispenser for some variety of space-coffee. Much like alcohol, most species had developed their own form of coffee, and thankfully the forms were mostly interchangeable. Corey sipped at the vaguely coffee-ish beverage and waited behind the scenes while Tooley finished her pre-production.

“Hey, you’re Corey Vash, right?”

Corey glanced over his space-coffee at a short, barrel-chested alien covered in white fur. Corey had never seen them before, but they were wearing the uniform and accouterments of most of the other staff at the broadcasting station.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Corey said. “You need something?”

“Nothing serious, just wanted to ask a question while we got you here,” the alien said. “We’re doing another showcase thing on inspiring men here in a couple swaps, you want in?”

Corey looked around at the hustle and bustle of a televised event designed entirely to celebrate women.

“You’re doing a women’s event and a men’s event in the same week?”

“It’s a big universe, human, we got people who hate women, we got people who hate men, we got people who hate genders you’ve never even heard of,” the alien producer said. “We get subsidies for doing a certain amount of diversity programming every solar, gender’s an easy thing to tackle.”

“Naturally,” Corey said. He’d never expected this event was about anything else. Also like on Earth, multimedia conglomerates didn’t actually care about diversity and inclusion, they just wanted the financial benefits of looking like they did. “Pay the same?”

“Little better, actually,” the producer said. “You’re a man and you’re an Uplifted species. More brownie points for our inclusivity department.”

“I’ll think about it,” Corey said.

“You do that,” the producer said. “Oh, and, uh, speaking of people who hate men, you might want to try and stay out of the way. Maybe we ain’t take this female empowerment stuff seriously, but the purple lady does. Very seriously.”

The producer wandered off and started shouting at some other production assistant, leaving Corey wondering who the purple lady was. He didn’t have a great history with the color purple.

“Corey!”

The more familiar voice of Tooley was a welcome interruption to some bad memories of purple. Apparently she was done with her preparations.

“What do you think? Do I like whorey enough?”

“I assume,” Corey said. She looked like a librarian in a weird hat to Corey, but apparently that was how prostitutes dressed on Turitha.

“Great. All those fuckers back on Turitha are going to be so mad about this.”

“Assuming they even watch it,” Corey said. Transit treaties and other agreements meant the infonet channel broadcasting this program extended to Turitha, but just because it was an option didn’t mean any of the natives would watch it.

“Just knowing it exists will piss them off,” Tooley said.

“And maybe inspire some other little girl to become a hotshot pilot one day,” Corey suggested.

“Eh, fuck that, I don’t need the competition,” she said.

“No interest in being a role model at all?”

“Corey, you’ve met me. You’ve spent time with me. On several occasions, you’ve had sex with me,” Tooley said. “Tooley Keeber Obertas is not a role model.”

“Who?”

Corey’s thoughts gut pulled right back to purple when he saw a striped purple face turn in their direction. A towering woman with heavy brows and horse-like ridge of hair down the middle of her head and back took one look at Tooley and Corey, and then grabbed the nearest production assistant.

“What the fuck are they doing here?”

The woman was very obviously pointing in their direction, and Tooley and Corey exchanged a nervous glance.

“They were...invited?”

The assistant looked as confused as the purple woman looked angry, and she looked furious.

“They were invited? I was invited! In what fucking universe do those degenerates get invited to the same events as me?”

“You got a problem, lady?”

“Tooley, maybe we just don’t engage,” Corey mumbled, with the warnings about the “purple lady” fresh in his head.

“Shut the fuck up, fishbit,” the purple lady snapped. Corey was mostly caught off guard by being called “fishbit”. He had no idea what it meant, but the purple lady said it as if it was a slur. “Yes, I have a problem with you, you shiiv-drenched whore.”

“Oh, that’s really the look I was going for, thanks,” Tooley said, admiring her own outfit once again. Her preening only served the further enrage the purple lady. Innocent bystanders started to back away.

“Well, at least you recognize it’s all you’re good for,” she hissed, as she slowly marched in Tooley’s direction. In spite of her opponents far greater height, Tooley did not back down nor allow herself to be made to look small as the purple lady stared her down.

“What exactly did I do to piss you off, you nutjob?”

“You don’t- I suppose you wouldn’t, you’re probably illiterate,” the purple lady said. “I’m Kor Tekaji. I solved the LUCA problem?”

Neither Tooley nor Corey had any idea what the LUCA problem was. Corey remembered an old saying from Earth: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt”. Apparently Tooley had a similar thought in mind, because she kept her mouth shut.

“Right, right, stupid. Let me explain. LUCA means Last. Universal. Common. Ancestor,” Kor said, emphasizing every word like they were children. “For us Kentath retrogrades, that means finding our common genetic heritage, the DNA sequences that link us all together to the Kentath.”

Corey only very vaguely remembered the details of how that ancient progenitor race had spread new species all over the galaxy, so he continued to keep his mouth shut.

“I hand-sequenced genomes of hundreds of different species, I matched base pairs, I eliminated common mutations,” Kor said. She had the same mix of arrogance and fervent passion in her voice that Tooley did when she talked about flying, mixed with a not-so-small helping of sheer rage. “And I solved the problem that thousands of the universe’s best geneticists failed to solve. Alone.”

“Okay, sounds impressive, why are you pissed at me about it?”

“Because two fucking swaps after I single-handedly changed the course of medical history, you and your crew of brain-addled testosterone sponges managed to stumble your way into blowing up some aliens,” Kor hissed. “And suddenly the slack-jawed group of morons known as the general public only cares about building more weapons and trying idiotic piloting stunts.”

“Wait, are you mad at us because we saved the universe?”

“No, I’m part of the universe, I appreciate being saved,” Kor said. “What I do not appreciate is that the saving was done by shameless, idiotic, drunken degenerates like you.”

She looked at Tooley and Corey like they were nothing more than garbage, and sneered at the fact they were even in the same room as her.

“Look at yourselves. Do you think you deserve to be here, that you deserve to have people mistakenly think you’re anywhere close to my level? Do you really think you deserve to be seen as anything other than the trash you are? I am a hero, I am an icon, I deserve pages in the history books, you deserve to die a slow death from liver failure while you lie homeless and forgotten behind a dumpster.”

“You’re being-”

“Don’t you dare speak to me,” Kor said, as soon as Corey opened his mouth. “As soon as I find out whatever genetic mistake led to us requiring your gender, I’m going to correct it.”

“Wow, you are fucking insane,” Tooley said. “And I have met some really, really insane people.”

“I don’t care how smart you are, you’re just being a jackass,” Corey said.

“Don’t talk to me!”

Kor moved as if to suddenly grab him by the throat, but Corey sidestepped her -if only barely. She was surprisingly quick for someone who apparently worked in a lab. One of the production team in the background loudly called for security, which at least made Kor take a step back.

“Both of you need to find whatever hole you crawled out of and crawl back in,” Kor hissed. “Before all the idiots finally catch up to me in realizing how worthless you are.”

Kor backed off, only to avoid any potential consequences for her attempted assault, leaving the two isolated again. Tooley stared at her for a few seconds before shaking her head clear and turning back to Corey.

“Why’s every arrogant motherfucker want us to retire so bad?”

“You’re remarkably unbothered by all that,” Corey said.

“Yeah, like I said, bitch is crazy, who cares what she thinks?” Tooley said. “Also, this is a broadcast station. Someone was recording that, right?”

Seven different people raised their hands.

Exactly one swap later, Tooley kicked her feet up and read the headline “Prize-winning geneticist ousted after televised tirade”.

“Told you,” she said to Corey.

“I believed you,” he said back. They had cancel culture on Earth too. “Surprisingly fast, though.”

“Judging by the way that bitch acted, they were probably looking for excuses to get rid of her,” Tooley said. “Yet another indispensable service I have provided to the galaxy.”

She put the headline aside and leaned back to relax, putting the blind arrogance of people like Kor and the Ghost out of her mind. Maybe she was a terrible role model, maybe she didn’t deserve any of the attention she was getting, but-

But-

But she had it anyway. So she was clearly doing something right. Tooley would figure it out later.