Huma looked over the footage of the Esther Okerye interview while sipping mineral water. Originally, of course, the footage had been terrible. Esther had no screen presence and no charisma. It was deflating, really, to hear about all of these amazing feats that Esther had done and then meet the real person who was so...lacking. Of course, Huma was not as shallow as all that. Huma knew that it was what was on the inside that counted. But alas, the sad peons who populated the once great nation of the United States had to be dazzled by an image. So an image is what Huma gave them.
The new Esther, a plausible improvement on the old one, was rugged. Huma knew better than to condescend to the baser male instincts of half the viewing public by making Esther too conventionally attractive. Indeed, wherever possible, they needed to fear Esther, just not in a way that emphasized Esther's racial makeup. So Huma set the skin tone up slightly- an easy enough task, since Esther was already half white. Esther's limbs became more lithe and pointy, and the dark combat suit was lightened up. Touch-ups in the form of bumpy areas better emphasized Esther's muscles. And of course, the most important part, Huma made sure Esther's face was angrier. Esther always had a mild expression of contempt in these interviews, and that was golden. Huma was hesitant to try to ask Esther to do that more, since Esther was obviously making that face unintentionally. But then, Huma was pretty sure Esther had never actually watched interviews before, at least not with an eye for imitation, which was just as well.
Today, though, Huma was not interested in spreading a proactive message. Today, Huma was going to interview Jill Smith. Huma was only going to get a single attempt at this- the media appearance that would define Jill Smith's public identity until Jill Smith died, which would hopefully be sooner rather than later. This was a task of such immediate importance that Huma had even agreed to come all the way to freezing Chicago to do it. Though the task of moving equipment and identity proofers had not been quite so difficult as Huma had worried, Huma was already looking forward to returning to the east coast. Sitting in the green room, Huma looked expectantly at the warning light. With a soft buzz and a faint red light, Jill Smith had arrived. Huma yawned, stood up, and stretched. Today was going to be a wonderful day.
As per arrangement, Jill had sat in the interview chair on stage before Huma came out. When Huma did come out, waving and smiling to the crowd, Jill looked confused.
"What are you doing?"
Huma finished the set before sitting down. This was important- anything could be edited in to the shots as long as they were sitting in chairs. But the opening unique one of Huma's entrance had to be unbroken.
"I guess you don't have much experience in show business huh?" said Huma. "Don't worry, it's just the opener. Nothing to do with you."
Huma took a good look at Jill. Those were interesting clothes she was wearing, in some sort of odd camouflage pattern. Huma faintly recalled hearing from somewhere that Jill used to be an Olympic athlete, or possibly just an aspiring one, and had access to high quality equipment. The clothes didn't fit that well, but Huma still had a rough idea of Jill's body shape. The build was athletic, as to be expected, but Jill was shorter than Huma was expecting. Strange. Well it didn't matter. Most people look the same height when they're sitting down, and standing up, who can tell when someone's legs have been airbrushed for length?
"All right," said Huma, sitting down. "So, you're a new face. Exceptionally so. In fact, I don't even have any proof you are who you say you are."
"Well, there's," Jill said, looking around, "Uh, no one else here. So...why are the walls pulsating?"
"Just a fraud prevention measure," said Huma. "Nothing you need to worry about that. But anyway, your name, occupation, why are you here?"
"Right!" said Jill, straightening up. "My name is Jill Smith. I'm the commanding officer of the Hunter's Guild of the Free State of Iowa, and I'm here along with the rest of the Hunter's Guild to insure that free elections take place."
"Really?" said Huma, leaning over with her thumb and pointer finger, wrapped around her chin. "Because elections don't usually take place on, when are they scheduled, December 29th, yes?"
"Yes, the fifth day of Christmas," said Jill. "I think that's very appropriate."
"Why?"
Jill moved as if to say something, but suddenly wasn't sure. Huma had seen this countless times in the past with inexperienced interviewees. They just babble the first thing that comes to mind without even thinking about it. Rattling Jill was proving even easier than Huma had expected.
"Never mind," said Huma, hoping to instill in Jill a false sense of security. "It's fine, really. So how do we know that you're the real Jill Smith, and not just an actor?"
"Well, I have a tattoo," said Jill. "Do you want to see it?"
"Of course," said Huma, smiling. A tattoo would, of course prove nothing, since no one outside of Iowa knew anything about what kinds of tattoos the Hunter's Guild did or did not have. But it could nonetheless prove embarrassing.
And it embarrassing it most certainly was. Jill was gleefully showing off a wolfshagen, a widely-known symbol of racist white nationalism. Granted, it wasn't quite a perfect fit. The basic outline of the three lines was there, but there was also a detailed rendition of a hammer and sickle, suggesting a fusion of Nazi ideology with Soviet style communism. Granted, the hammer and the sickle were not that close to each other in the design. As a matter of simple impartiality, Huma briefly decided to humor the idea that the augmented memories was incorrect, and that this was all a matter of coincidence. But Jill herself quickly and gruesomely disposed of that motion.
"This is a, uh, well it's kind of hard to explain, maybe a community image? Long ago when our Scandinavian ancestors came to Iowa, they were escaping oppression at the hands of nobles. So they would run off into the woods to escape, except that then they had to escape from the wolves. But we don't have to worry about wolves, we have to worry about mountain lions."
"Mountain lions?" asked Huma.
"Forest lions?" asked Jill, weakly.
"Try pumas," Huma said coldly.
"Right, that was my next guess," said Jill nervously. "Anyway, um, I was kind of drunk at the time, but I know the tattoo made more sense back then. My friends helped me design it. Them and the tattoo girl anyway."
"You mean the tattoo person," said Huma, patiently this time.
"Uh yeah. That's what I meant to say."
Huma was vacillating between trying to decide whether Jill was trying to be provocative or if this person was just stupid. This whole situation was very curious. Surely Jill realized that this was the best chance available to make a case to the rest of the world that what had happened in Chicago was not a military coup. How could this Jill Smith be so incapable as to not even know the right language to use? How could such a person topple the Chicago police?
"So then," said Huma, "how did you topple the Chicago police?"
Jill stumbled out of her chair a little bit. Huma was definitely leaning to the idiot end now.
"H...hey," said Jill, "that's...that's not an accurate representation of what happened at all. We were invited to keep the peace. The Chicago Police would have destroyed the whole skyline if we hadn't been there."
"I see," said Huma. "And who invited you?"
"Well, um," said Jill, fidgeting in her chair some more. "There was this guy...in the woods...and I thought he was a deer, but then I found out about what was happening here, you know with the Nazi Dogs."
"The Nazi Dogs?"
"Yeah, I brought the clippings and everything. They're in my-"
"Let me finish," said Huma. "Yes, we all know about the Nazi Dogs. But how exactly were you planning to solve that problem?"
"We came to the protest to make sure they didn't try anything. And we did!"
"You were expecting the protest to be attacked by the Nazi Dogs. That's what you're saying."
"Of course!"
Huma was tempted to just end the interview right there. Why bother editing, or doing anything, when faced with sheer imbecility such as this? What possible modifications could Huma make to the footage that would be any worse than just showing it as it was? Still, Huma was a thorough person by nature, and it was always better to have more footage than less. Huma tried to subtly take a deep breath, and smiled.
"Would you like to tell me some stories about how you and your friends in the Hunter's Guild have fun?"
Jill nodded eagerly, touching the tips of her thumb and pointer finger into the upside down P signal that Huma knew all too well. This Jill person evidently thought that it was possible to transmit any manner of hate speech to this audience with Huma none the wiser. What a fool Jill was. Huma didn't become the most respected journalist in the country by just letting that kind of stuff go unnoticed.