JC Sunshine
The news wasn’t good. It was so bad, in fact, that you could tell even with the sound off. The anchor’s face showed sadness, concern and even a little bit of anger.
The Hands of Justice, a mysterious group pledged to bring down the Bolognian government, had struck again. There was no way to find them, either. They had fled to the rural expanse, an area outside of the city where Bolognian Security had very little influence, if any.
JC Sunshine turned off the TV. He didn’t really care, he had his own problems to deal with. It had been three months since his technical assistant Ricardo died and he still hadn’t found a way to get his show back on the air.
First he had tried to run the whole thing himself. Why shouldn’t he be able to? He had, after all, survived a zombie apocalypse, escaped from a space jail and saved Christmas, and that was just in one season. How hard could running a web show be, he had thought.
Turns out it was beyond him. He also had no luck finding a new technical assistant, either. Not that the Bolognian talent pool had dried up, just JC’s wallet.
Even JC’s loyal dog Rex refused to take the job. In part, JC figured, because he liked being co-host too much to step behind the camera and in part because while an inanimate, stuffed, fake Hallmark dog can work as a sidekick in sort of a Brechtian way, relying on one for technical cues was, to put it mildly, not a great idea.
#1 Fan Suzie
Things seemed hopeless. With no show to keep him busy, JC really didn’t have that much to do. No one visited, either. No talk show meant no talk show guests. It also meant no massive bandwidth usage, so his neighbour and impossible love interest Jenny had no reason to stop by demanding payment for using her WIFI.
Even his number one fan Suzie stopped showing up. JC considered calling her before realizing that he had no actual way to get in touch with her. She just always showed up.
Rex had seen her a few times, out on the town. Rex had quite the active social life, but JC wasn’t jealous, how could he be. Rex was all he had.
JC knew he had to do something. He needed his show back, but that wasn’t possible, not without Ricardo. Then something occurred to him, he could get a better show, a real show, on real TV. JC was almost stunned by his sudden confidence but even more surprised that he hadn’t thought of this sooner.
But how could he get on TV? Real, respectable TV, not some internet thing. Looking for inspiration, he turned the TV back on. They were still talking about the Hands of Justice and the threat to Bolognia.
Boring, he thought at first and was about to turn the tube off for a second time but then it dawned on him. If TV was talking about how we needed to catch the Hands of Justice, then if he caught the Hands of Justice, he would be a hero and surely get his own show on TV.
Rex
For the first time in months, JC was excited and inspired. He was also blissfully oblivious to the fact that the entire Bolognian establishment, including many well-trained intelligence professionals, had been looking for this group for a long time to no avail and his only experience was his show, which, despite playing on just about every theme imaginable, from SCI FI to zombies to feminism , never did a spy episode or even one James Bond joke.
Regardless, JC’s mind was made up, he would find the Hands of Justice and save Bolognia, guaranteeing himself a spot on regular TV. Remembering the one bit of useable information he got from the broadcast, he stood up and called to his best and currently only friend:
“Rex,” he said, “pack your bags, we’re going to the country. What, boy? We’re getting a new TV show. People will pay attention to us.”
But someone was already paying attention. Across town, in a very expensive building designed to look not all that pricey, the head of Bolognian Security was flipping through surveillance photos, unimpressed.
Amateur hour, he thought to himself. No way this was a Hands of Justice encampment. Probably just some people out for a weekend in the woods, he could even see what looked like a kid and a dog in the far right. He started composing an email with “terrorists don’t drive SUVs” as the subject line when he got a text.
He immediately thought it was his wife, then thought it might be his girlfriend. He hoped it was his girlfriend. For a career security officer hardened by years of dealing with some of the trickiest criminals imaginable, very few things seemed better than the prospect of receiving a good paddling at the hands of his mistress, followed by dessert, of course.
This was better, though. This was what he was waiting for. There hadn’t been a new development on the case, his only case, the case of the Hands of Justice, in months, and now this.
Every time a citizen takes any form of public transportation in Bolognia, their trip origin and destination are recorded and attached to their permanent file. Generally the entry sits in a database, gathering proverbial dust. When someone takes a trip to a watched area, like the rural expanse, security agents will look into it, as they do when a person of interest takes a trip anywhere.
When a person of interest takes a trip to a watched area, the head of Bolognian Security is notified immediately by text message. As most of these messages prove fruitless, he usually deletes them, never giving them a second thought, this time, though, he called his superior, his only superior, the president of Bolognia, immediately.
“Sir,” he said with a mix of confidence and uncertainty, “JC Sunshine is on the move.”