Episode 2

THE REALITY BAR AND GRILL: Scene III,

'January 1, 2015' 1500 hrs.

Show Title:

'Taffy Three Goes Hollywood'

Synopsis: Hollywood production company associated with the sitcom 'Taffy Three' arrives at the Reality Bar and Grill.

Scheduled for broadcast. Air Date: Week 1

The Earl of Detroit. What a funny title, Jessica thought to herself. Lucky Lucy stopping in Christmas Day had sure dented her own personal individual view of the world, and more than just a little bit 'somewhat', too.

Now here she was, here helping out a bunch of mostly white guys move a bunch of stuff off of the dozen or so motor homes that had started to show up about one in the afternoon, just like her dad had said they would. The entire alley behind all the closed stores on down the block was packed with trucks loading things into the empty furniture store next door with fork lift trucks and the whole alley just hummed with sound of the motor homes generators. Busy men were up on the telephone poles stringing wires into the old bar, a crew of men was carrying in some of the strangest stuff she'd ever seen: An old refrigerator that someone said probably set Lucas back a million bucks, and they'd put down a steel ramp to push the thing up and into the bar, where they put it right in the corner with just enough clearance so the left sided hinged door would open. The old long banquet table got pushed back against the wall and an old television set got hung up in the bar off of a chain and hooks thing that someone had come by and painted so it would look old. There was a electronic thing of some kind above the television set, but you couldn't see it from the way the loose tile covered it over. A thin wire ran down the seams of the other holes all over them tiles and someone came along and carefully painted it out. That old big clunky looking tube TV up there on that black wooden perch was strange.

Before they'd put it up there on the shelf, they'd taken the case off of it and it sure didn't look like the insides of any TV Jessica had ever seen before either, but she'd never seen a group of technical people remote control a red refrigerator prop and something about the way it was behaving wasn't making them happy and they were peering into the bottom of it and now it was up on jacks while the techs replaced one of the 'Dyson's' (whatever they were, ) on one corner of what she now understood was a very sophisticated Hollywood prop that operated by remote control. The now-wearing-Jeans-and-a-T-Shirt blond girls with 'Pixie Unit 3/Detroit' on the front and something similar on the back but with different Pixie cartoons standing on what looked like a photograph of a tattoo of someone's butt.

Having the Pixies around had certainly made her own life more interesting. She'd shown them around the upstairs and pretty soon, their was a dozen copies of Paris Hilton scrubbing every single surface in sight. Being confronted with a six pack of parker house rolls had flashed through her mind seeing five of the girls on their hands and knees vacuuming the hell out of the rug in the living room. Whatever they were using left everything looking the same, except it felt real clean under your hands. Like the surface had been rubbed and polished like it was some white persons house that had a maid to do that sort of thing. She'd helped Cynthia's mom that one time Cynth had the flu and couldn't help her mom clean houses and she'd gone along with for eight nights and sometimes filled in if Cynth had a hot date, or any date for that matter.

There were men with jackhammers breaking up concrete next door to the bar, so being in the old closed night club part of the Grill; as it was known in its late thirties and forties and fifties padded chair elegance that was long gone from her daddy's bar where they lived. Lucky Lucy, my dad is buds with Lucky Lucy, and as he'd laughed and told me, 'Sweeties, this is Unit business, but you just got volunteered into this Unit, and starting New Year's Day, you'll be seeing some serious high powered money be coming around here and parking their Swift Leslie's all up and down the whole alley while they be getting busy putting on a television show right out of this bar we're standing in right now. Jessica, these technical people are all Props guys and they'll be setting the stage for the whole series. Something amazing is about to happen and you're just going to have to roll with it. Now we can discuss this until we're blue in the face, but the clones here are just a Pixie Unit 3 'good looking blonde Paris Hilton look-a-likes' sight gag. We have a prototype model here made out of real pixie dust and technically they are all real life actresses and you're being filmed right now. Go ahead and gap at whatever you want and anyone on the crew will be glad to explain what they do, but could you hold the technical questions until happy hour, please.'

And here this naked white girl looking intent every now and then, or 'having to take a call' as the other Paris Hiltons on the floor are passing a joint and coughing too hard to talk. No phone, just 'oh hey, did you look at the script revisions? uh huh ... yeah, well, that's the point, we're not attacking anybody. Someone ever develops nanotechnology to the point you need a brand name, well? Huh? Have I got you there or what? Nice playing reality dice with you today, Keith, and pity you unloaded the Dino, I'd have plunked down some serious green on that little machine. My future personal bonus to myself this year is going to be a yellow Targa top. They as nice a ride as a long distance touring machine, or are we still in the days of kidney damage era of motor sports? ... Ha! Well, what do you expect from a fine hand made machine like that! Think they got a warehouse full of that parts just sitting there? Naw, they sent the file to a reader and then to a.dwg file and then to the CNC machine and hey, presto. Into the box and out air cargo that afternoon ... hey! Cool! You want to buy a used Presidential Limo, one owner, Detroit Model super cruiser used, do you? (laughs) Bye, sweetie! Bite me!' click and 'back to being helpful set assistant showing someone around what what going on in the dance floor area and all kinds of crates being unscrewed and the lids lifted off. Tables were set up and parts were being taken out of boxes, those odd silver cell phones recording the tags and off down the conveyor belt they went in their bright color coded bins that were being put onto moving bin racks. 'First Unit Robot Assembly Being' across the back of one guy's T shirt, only his tattoo had this leering little Pixie cartoon on the tattoo and she swore it winked at her! Her 'Paris Hilton Clone' pixie person, who was 'a unit assistant in real life, ' was willing to do nudity as a set extra and so had bleached her hair for the role and the t shirt is this geek had on has an optical illusion paint on it that makes it 'wink' when the shirt has a current run through it. 'This is the kingdom of the super geeks who make movie magic happen. Right now they're getting out the gear out we're going to need for the remote cameras in the bar and the crew has to be clear of the set by three o'clock, so they're hustling their buns off and I'm your assigned keep-you-out-of-trouble-person and also out of people's way's when they are moving gear through.'

And were they ever! Around the old upper deck where people could eat and see over the tops of the dancers to the famous bands that used to play in the Reality Bar back in the day, now there were big wide banks of television controls consoles and techs plugging in dozens of cables under them and places where there were special boxes that kept the cables out from people's feet. All sorts of people were bringing in so many strange things into the old ballroom that she couldn't believe that it was the same dark dusty room with the old fashioned kinds of lights that hung on the walls, and screens of glass dividing up the room so as you walked around there were all those old pieces of glass all etched with designs from 1930 or so. Now every single piece of glass in the room sparkled and the entire room had been scrubbed and the painting crew was already starting in on the back wall of the stage, looks like getting it ready for something, but what? And what were those racks for those guys were assembling on the stage itself? Man, I had thought my daddy had flipped out the other night, but here I am, and my life just changed because of this so called Game these people play called 'Detroit' and now I have to start learning 'how to play Detroit' and now this whole Hollywood big production number just pulling up and starting to off load stuff just like they'd done it a hundred times before. Now here were all these people moving into the alley and those

people with the jack hammers next door and a lot had just changed since lunch, that was for sure.

Anyway, the Paris Hilton Clone assigned to her had explained how they had worked out this 'Indy pit stop set up' as part of their being a mobile production unit that generally gets assigned to major on site news events. Every truck was rigged for the fastest set up times possible and these guys would have this Unit up and running by the time the Army guys showed up and the 'them just wandered into the bar scene is shot. By the time we're done making up the set in the bar, you won't be able to tell that anything is new in there at all.' Except for the refrigerator with the coke bottles on the top that never got returned for the deposit over there in the corner that looked like it had been there for years, which it hadn't.

Whoever was putting this thing together certainly had an awful lot of money behind them. Jessica had asked that pixie girl unit assistant if maybe she could pick up a job there, doing something or another, then she gave this funny look, and a kind of odd laugh, and said, 'Dear, hasn't anyone told you yet you're going to be the lead role in 'Jessica's Rabbits' in two weeks time? You're leading also in 'The Reality Bar and Grill', Detroit Unit, you are in the role of 'hostage' in Boris One, and the Hollywood Reality Patrol hasn't been looking out for you very well, but this could easily get you an Emmy; it's a sure fire shot at one anyway.'

Now, when Jessica had told that pixie girl she didn't know what she was talking about, she didn't know anything about acting, Jessica had a lot of trouble believing what she was hearing. Her daddy was busy talking old war stories with a bunch of the old guys on the set who's main job was apparently to just say they were there watching over things, but they didn't have anything to do while their crews was shoving stuff around and screw gunning it out of the cases and when the pixie girl had stopped all that noise with 'Line: silence on the set, back ground movement only, resume activities and then told her what the stuff was with the plans for her, she'd gone into a state of shock. 'Listen, sweetie, we're not going to screw you over with the contract. All you have to do is react naturally to whatever stuff this crew springs on people that stop into your daddy's bar. Now can the crew go back to working now so we can get this place set up for Mirror World? We'll be heading into golden time if we continue holding this shot. Noise be okay with you now? Nod your head. Thanks, dear, ' pause 'Pixie unit three release.' and instantly the whirring of the screw guns resumed and off into the much quieter bar area the Pixie Unit 3 girl and she had gone.

'You want something to drink?' she asked Jessica, who was about to go and get a glass and fill it up from the bar hose fountain that still worked, even though it only had two buttons that would have flavor in them, the others just gave out soda water.

It's not often you get assigned a Pixie, 'as part of your perks on the set' and the fact that there was another already walking up with a tall glass of ice tea with a slice of lemon on the top and a straw that bent in the middle sitting in it. 'Your iced tea, Jessica. Welcome to Mirror World Productions. What we have here is a 'reality TV comedy ambush' and some high tech tricks we're going to edit together here and what our studio audience are going to see is this crew fixing up this bar. Only they won't see what we're doing to the place right now. This is the 'behind the curtain' area of the stage we're turning your dad's bar into. It will look the same, but it isn't going to be the same. We don't have time today to wire the flat screens in that will replace all the blue glass mirrors in the bar area. This will let us project animations 'into' the walls. We'll paint the flat screens with white paint, so they'll look like painted walls and we'll project the same color as the wall is right now. You won't be able to tell that anything has been done to them when we're through. The TV set we just hung has a whole slew of special effects in it, including lasers we can project images onto the ceiling with. Mirror World is able to 'intrude' on 'the Real Reality Bar and Grill' which is what we are thinking of changing the name to in the third or fourth week. We're going to be doing that to the men's room, too, and the shower tent sets are also Mirror World and the mess tent they're still not sure of, but there is a scene blocked out in the movie for that tent and their's talk that they'll just do it in Russia and toss some bench tables into it and get away a little cheaper over here in the 'real Detroit'; those flat screen Mirror World walls aren't cheap. So must have been quite a shock, finding out your daddy is playing the Earl of Detroit, eh?' And they'd talked about that for a while and she was pretty nice people, just that she looked just like all the rest of the Paris Hilton Clones now wandering around in jeans and t shirts. The Paris Hilton Clone said that except for herself, none of the other Clones really knew what was going on, except a sight gag. Extras don't get no respect, she'd giggled. No, seriously, you were brought into the Unit's secret by your father basically outting himself in front of everyone down at the bar Christmas and so you're cleared for whatever you want to know, but this is your ride out of here and Unit Taffy 3 has your back. Your daddy really is THE Earl of Detroit in this Real Reality Game we are about to let loose and you are inside the Cube. Welcome to your new reality, and about all we'll say about it right now, is that it will be interesting around here from here on out, and this is the first time you've played Detroit, and wow, you must be pretty flabbergasted about all this stuff, right?

Oh, yeah, that would certainly be about right, lady, you got it in one. And when she'd said that, the Clone had gotten really excited about 'achievement of startlement reaction' and what ... does ... that mean? Something she'd think about when she went to bed, but right now, all this expensive equipment being put into place by these guys hustling their asses off, soon as one guy had the wire bundle down, the next thing that happened was a big piece of equipment showed up in front of someone and before the burly guys carrying even had it set down, the guy with the clip board was wiring up the plugs into the back of the consoles being grouped around the big horse shoe shaped mezzanines overlooking a dance band stand that had been once been packed by a bunch of long dead musicians. Motown and the Sixties had killed what remained of that older era's bands as a music club draw, as far as people going out and dancing, the old big bands were long gone and wedding receptions that were big enough to fill that size of a room were fewer and fewer in Detroit as time went by and there it sat, this big huge never-used relic of Art Deco elegance that the Pixies had spent all night cleaning up. She'd heard them through the register in her room that let some of the heat out of the bar and up to her room so it wasn't so cold when she and her dad finally went upstairs after the last of the customers packed it about ten thirty or so. Truth was, a few of them had jobs they had to get to in the morning and couldn't be keeping the kind of hours they did when they were kids, as more than one of them had mentioned. They'd kid her about boys and she shrugged it off. So far, there wasn't any boy that had come within her zone that she'd felt even vaguely interested in. Sometimes she wondered if she was attracted to girls, but decided that she wasn't really interested in them that way, either. Cynthia and Anne were about the only two girls she hung out with and they were both away at some relatives-gathered-someplace-else-besides-Detroit.

She'd asked her dad how much of this stuff she could talk about and he'd laughed. 'Honey, can you see anyone believing any of this stuff? Seriously, you think you can get one single solitary person to take you seriously if you start talking about your daddy being The Earl of Detroit and Lucky Lucy and ol' 4Eyes? You're smart, you do the math, ' and he'd grinned at her and winked. 'You want to talk to someone about this your own age, so why not have those friends of yours over and blow their minds with a couple of Clones? I'll clear it with the Unit director and we'll video it for 'Jessica's Rabbits' and it'll go over good in the 8 to 15 demographic.' Jessica had just looked at her daddy like he'd grown a second head and he'd grinned at her. 'Seriously, invite them over, we'll stick some cameras in your room for while they're here and you can tell them all about it and have the Clones wait on them hand and foot, order whatever you think will blow their minds the most. Crystal and Lobster Thermador, perhaps a sushi tower? Little drinks with umbrella's in them, perhaps? Pedicures? We have a full make up truck here, perhaps some expert advice on make up tricks? Believe me, the Unit will roll out all the tricks they can for you Jessica, you just have to give them some lead time to work up the prank. You get stuck, turn on your TV.'

'I don't have a TV.'

'No, you just got one this Christmas, Jessica. Along with an iPhone X from the guys who are renting your dad's bar to make this movie in. By this time tomorrow, we'll have this place looking like they've never been here. But we want you to see what's going on here so you'll have an idea of what types of things we're doing and how we're doing them. 'Nothing is as it seems in Mirror World' is the more or less motto of Mirror World. It's a very paranoid kind of espionage world that story takes place in and this Unit, 'Taffy 3', stumbles into here, in ... about six and a half hours from now, and you'll meet Jack then. Jack's in a somewhat similar 'Cinderella Story Line' only his is much more of a comedy about how things sort of snowballed out of control on this temporary duty assignment the army sent him on. The new TV supposedly is a part of the iPhone X system these people in Mirror World use, but it's not quite like the way things are done here. Don't worry, Jessica, you'll do fine, ' her daddy Earl told her.

'Just look around and ask questions of me and I'm your go-to girl for whatever you need to know about, or if you need something on the set. Since this is all 'set' right now, just ask for whatever you need and we'll get it for you. I understand you have a couple of girls you know from school you pal around with. Since you're cleared for the real truth about what's going on here, whenever you feel it's the right time, you can tell them about us. We think it would be fun to surprise them with servants bringing them whatever they asked for, wouldn't it? I'll coach you on how to set up 'instant service gags' later on so you can see how that trick is done. Everything around you is real, Jessica, but its all 'real tricks' you'll be seeing and showing you how this place is being wired up right now gives you the idea of just how complex this game is going to become. Nobody will notice that Mirror World is even there, but just under the paint is going to be screens where we can have little animated cartoons and real life like looking aliens wandering around inside the bar. If any of your dad's customers act surprised, just take them over to the wall anywhere and we'll project a cartoon or person's face onto it there and show them how this bar was put together, but they have to promise not to tell how that trick is done until we're done with filming, okay? Showing how these tricks are done is what people will be watching part of the Comedy and Drama Hour have to figure out. This is the first time anyone has ever tried to blend fantasy and real reality together like this. Everyone is going to pretend they don't notice the pixies in the wall, or just take them for granted. The actors who are playing the demolitions and pyrotechnical crew from Hollywood are always pulling pranks on each other to show off their tricks, so 'pranking' a team of soldiers seemed like something fun to do while they were waiting around and had broken out a piece of gear to impress the locals with and it was a projector TV they'd rigged so the guys would be facing the men at the table with their backs turned to the projector. It's taped up atop the old TV set hanging off of chains from the ceiling that isn't really an old TV set.' Just as the old red ice box had a whole table full of stuff being unpacked out in the ball room and big industrial shelves lined up to put the different 'packages' that would be used for different 'gags.' The TV set could have its insides replaced with or even the whole unit could be replaced with another different type of effect. One 'television' being carefully unpacked was exactly like the one they were just getting done hanging now, except it was clear plastic with dozens of internal chambers that were being filled with water the last time Jessica had walked by the table the 'TV Crew' were working at. All of the insides seemed to disappear and she'd stopped and they'd explained to her how they had five more of the things to unpack and double check for leaks before putting them onto the shelves. They had a small scissors jack to lift the thing into place and told her that one of the props weighed seventeen hundred pounds, which was why the skinny old black painted chain was actually titanium, so it would hold the weight. They'd finished looking around and the Pixie that was Jessica's 'gofer' and who seemed nice enough had talked about what Jessica's 'character' was all about. 'Oh, that's easy! Your dad just came out of the closet as a time traveler and now he and his friends are about to play Detroit.' The good looking blond paused for a second. 'Detroit is a game time travelers like to play.' She'd shrugged. 'Reason why it's okay to tell your friends about us, is that your friends are the only ones that can see us. Nobody would believe you and as far as realizing that this is a lot more real reality goes, you are going to need some help with taking care of your pet rabbits. That's the term we call the two kids your dad has assigned you to taking care of, and don't worry, however you do with this job of acting is just fine. You might think of it as 'ambush comedy' and as far as 'black humor' goes, you really can't get any blacker than this, now can you? I'm not talking about race here, I'm talking about 'black humor' as far as what the Comedy and Drama Hour is doing. Whatever you believe is fine with us and we simply don't care as long as you don't use violence here, we're fine with whatever your local customs are, but the humor in this is a bit on the dark side. Here you are, standing in your dad's bar, we're getting the sets set up next door for the showers and mess tents and people will start wandering in here in just a while and you have this big secret you can't figure out how to tell anyone about. So whatever you figure out is part of this game. Being able to talk to your friends about it and see what they think, if we can wire up your room so we can get that scene down, then the viewing audience is going to be able to follow what you three come up with. And besides, won't it be fun to be waited on hand and foot? We're all highly paid professional actresses doing this Paris Hilton's Clones sight gag and one of us knows how to do pedicures and another silver service, which is a very English type of high class service. Once you get the hang of 'setting up the gag' we can start getting some seriously fun stuff to do going on around here. Having a half a dozen white girls that look like us carrying your books to school? Or coming into the lunch room and spreading out a nine course meal for you and your friends? Baby girl, you simply have no idea of some of the stuff we've got planned for you and your two pals! Jessica, seriously, this is a real deal thing going on right here right now and while it's just a television production, it's a very big budget television production, though the actors coming into this place at 3 PM don't all know that. Some of them won't be aware that they are being filmed at all, some will have lines worked up and our crew will be done with the stuff in here by then and the bar set will be live. They'll sit around for four and a half hours and finally in will walk Jack and his three pals and find out that they are working for the first group of guys and sit down and get to know each other. Then they'll leave and everyone will be talking about them afterwards and you can tell the regulars that they'll be shooting this television show right in the bar. Point out the 'new old TV' and the tech crew will show these folks some of the tricks we have up our sleeves and invite them to take a look into the ball room if they don't believe you.' She grinned at Jessica. 'Think that ought to convince them this is really really real?' Jessica smiled back. 'Remember, the actors won't be in on this stuff we're talking about, so telling the regulars just to ignore the cartoon characters wandering around peering into the place. We are going to be really fucking with those white kid's minds!' And even though the Pixie was white herself, when she'd said that, she'd done a very credible black accent and Jessica just cracked up. 'Ambush comedy. You never know what to expect in Mirror World, right, kid? Your dad flips out Christmas and six days later you're a star in three shows you never heard of and maybe up for a few nice awards because of 'Jessica's Rabbits' and now all this is happening. Go ahead and just gawk when you feel like doing that, or ask questions or look around at what's going on inside your home and relax, it's real reality TV, and you're allowed to just be yourself. Yes, your daddy is a real time traveler, no, we never admit that's even possible, but we will admit that he is playing one on TV. You obviously have a very vivid imagination to be able to think up something as insane as a four legged person named Lucky Lucy as being the Empress of Four Universes, much less your father as being The Earl of Detroit. Now 'whose who' in that particular pecking order I'll leave up for grabs, simply because it's too complicated to even try to explain the Quanta and where they come into all this. Lucky Lucy is a friend of the Quanta and so is your father, who is also the owner of The Old Reality Bar and Grill' we're standing in right now, and we're still sub Cube 1. Garunda Communications is a none existent communications company that has significant time and money invested in this little stunt and we have just ninety days to teach people how to play Detroit.'