Dwax and Kahara, the young lovers they are, decided to go on missions together. Warrow wanted to stay and tend to the garden due to his inability to take sudden and deliberate action. The dark lord look-alike could often be found tending to tomatoes, potatoes, and wheat with a smile on his face. A juxtaposition for ages.
The city was mostly safe except for the mutant bug populations and occasional algae methane explosions.
They walked around the city and placed invitations to the lab. After they've done that, the true fun will begin.
Kahara brought a camera with her. It was the kind of camera one would have a hard time affording as a middle-class hobbyist. The purpose? Taking the most ridiculous pictures they could.
Kahara stole a mascot costume from a restaurant. With her green skin, when her face peeked out from the stem, she truly looked like a tomato. Dwax picked a banana costume. They stole some bicycles and rode their way to the government building. They had no qualms about breaking in since the government was now defunct. Kahara excitedly said:
"Before the catastrophe happened, there was a man on the internet who claimed that there was a huge siphoning of resources from the government to the vote-selling organizations."
Dwax knitted his brows.
"What are you hoping to find? I doubt it is anything we can ever hope to walk in and look at."
Kahara rolled her eyes.
"Well, I mostly came here to fuck around. It's not like I will really find anything." The AI lit up to welcome its guests.
"Hello citizens. What would you like to do?" Kahara stepped out to say,
"We would like to look at all the corruption, please."
AI shimmered.
"Certainly, the corruption complaint center is on the second floor." Kahara and Dwax went to the second floor as instructed.
"I would like to file a complaint!"
The banana man and the tomato woman stood there, dignified, standing up to the corrupt government.
AI shimmered into existence near them.
"The responsible government worker is busy. How may I help?"
The government worker is dead in her apartment.
"I would like to file a complaint with the following text:
The government has been slacking off lately. All the government workers seem to be lying around all the time."
The AI shimmered again.
"The complaint has been filed."
Kahara mischievously smiled.
"What happens to the complaints? Could you walk me through that?"
AI shimmered again.
"Redacted. The citizen named Kahara Morelli doesn't have enough authority."
Kahara smiled. The citizen didn't have the authority to follow up on their complaint.
"Are the individuals who have the authority alive?"
The AI brought up a long list of dead people.
"They are not."
Kahara puffed her chest.
"I, Kahara Morelli, would like to offer myself for the position."
The AI shimmered again.
"A crisis state was detected. Kahara Morelli's request has been found reasonable."
Just like that, Kahara had become vice mayor.
"The complaints go unanswered at the rate of ninety-nine percent."
Dwax was recording the whole conversation. Kahara had thought this would be funny, so she put him up to it.
"Compile the complaints by names and put them in a timeline. Color code them, so complaints that have been taken seriously would be green and complaints that have been disregarded would be red."
The AI obliged.
"Superimpose the timeline of mayors on the visual."
Kahara started laughing. The only complaints that have been taken seriously were the ones that the current mayor could use against their rivals.
"Dwax! come here! Let's take a selfie!"
A banana and a tomato took a selfie with multi-trillions worth of corruption.
"AI, make all the proof that these corruption cases are true public and send the visual you created about it to every cell phone that is still operational. include a message about a safe haven near the biolab center."
The AI shimmered and found out false complaints from true complaints. The paperwork could be counted as evidence. What resulted was a list of proven corruption cases.
Everyone who came to power, without exception, was scum. Kahara knitted her brows.
"This corruption is quite concerning. As a solution, this vice mayor will declare herself Her Tomatoness. Every government AI shall refer to Kahara Morelli as Her Tomatoness."
Kahara's smile was a bit dampened. Her entire life, she had believed in the system. Yet those who've run the system have treated the citizens like targets to rob. Naive people to con. She got conned. She got conned so badly. She remembered all the times she struggled to make rent. The government officials were shifting funds to themselves. Of course, she would struggle to pay rent. She has been stolen from just above the poverty line. She has been stuck in that sh*t job, barely surviving.
She gritted her teeth. Then she took a deep breath to calm herself.
"AI, give all the previous mayors humiliating nicknames related to their particular corruption. Change every mention of them to include the nickname in brackets between name and surname."
AI shimmered again.
"Done."
Kahara smiled at Dwax. The man was happy to be in a banana costume.
"Let's get out of here. There is nothing to do here anymore. Let's take pictures with memorial statues while in costume."
Dwax climbed on a statue of a pilot who was stepping on a rock and looking at the distance with his chiseled face. He pretended to be looking at the same spot as him with a comedic face. A banana man and a hero had made quite the pair.
Next, Kahara climbed the Constitution Monument and added a clause.
"Don't be a douche; be cool."
Dwax crouched on a rock like he was the friendly neighborhood banana man. He leapt to a nearby tree and dangled like a monkey before landing on his feet.
"Man, I have to say, this new body of mine is quite robust." Kahara picked Dwax up.
"Your banana force is no match for my tomato force."
Being lifted and played around, Dwax panicked and started to flail.
"Put me down! Put me down, AAH!"
The tomato woman smirked. The smile brought shivers down the banana man's spine.
"How do you feel about being manhandled by a tomato woman?"
The banana man was on all fours, in shock, breathing heavily.
"Damn, you are strong. I didn't know you were this strong."
Kahara puffed her chest. "Well, now you know."
Dwax rubbed his chin.
"Let's unfreeze some meat from restaurants nearby and have a cookout."
They found a fancy restaurant that was meant to serve the lobbyists swarming around the government buildings. The beef there had gone bad because they didn't freeze their meat. They had t find a nearby supermarket to bring meat in. Luckily for the two, their fancy wine was intact. They opened the oldest and most valuable wine and started to have a fancy steak dinner.
A tomato woman and a banana man were having a date in a fancy restaurant. They both twisted their faces to match that of a posh asshole. Thir lips perked, their chin went up, and their forehead creased.
"Your wine, sir." *Fancy moan*
"Certainly ma'am. How do you like your steak, ma'am?" *Fancy ugh*
"It is most exquisite, my dear sir. Quite indeed." *Puckers her lips profusely. *
They finished their meal and went back to cycling. Kahara picked up a fancy game console for the research center. They had everything there except for fun.
When they returned, they failed to boot it up. The machine had failed to connect the firm computers on the other side of the planet. Everyone there was dead. Now there were no games for anybody.
Kahara rolled her eyes. She was sick and tired of being spoon-fed inconveniences by the system. Game companies were unable to provide her with the game when she had already purchased it. Why wasn't it automatically available as long as the servers were online? Why couldn't she play the games she already has offline?
She took a deep breath and calmed herself. She had already gotten herself a toy. She got up, intending to find and bother Dwax. She found him exercising. One of the burly researchers was teaching him how to. She didn't know what it was, but Dwax had always had a knack for making friends. This was what she noticed about the man. She decided to watch him struggle from a distance.
Dwax was pushing weights while the researcher was observing him. He then switched to sit ups. He then pulled his legs to his chest while sitting on the bench. Kahara felt a sense of love overwhelm her when she saw Dwax struggling so hard. Here was a man who answered the world's call when he heard it. He needed to be muscular, so he started exercising. He wasn't complaining, and he wasn't giving up halfway. He especially tried to do the hard things.
She smiled. She was glad she acted boldly and snagged that man early.