Cineres Romae

The Band struck up a jaunty tune, the crowd went wild. Two cabaret girls dressed all in pink kicked high above their heads. As they danced, they sang along with the band.

“Well brunettes are fine man

And blondes are fun

But when it comes to getting the dirty job done

I'll take a red headed woman

A red headed woman

It takes a red headed woman

To get a dirty job done

Well listen up stud

Your life's been wasted

'Til you've got down on your knees and tasted

A red headed woman

A red headed woman

It takes a red headed woman

To get a dirty job done”

On her mark Boudica ran out on stage, wearing a surprisingly modest but no less electric pink pantsuit. Though it was only as modest as her white shirt beneath the jacket could allow, and her bimbo cleavage **** three buttons open as she jogged.

She landed on stage and was greeted by the love of the audience and the tongues of the show girls. They traded slobbery kisses until the crowd died down.

“Thank you for tuning in everyone, you’re watching Hotel Talk and as always I’m your host Boudica!” Her voice had no trace of accent, it was pure California. “Thank you my dears!” She spanked the babes on the ass and basked in the roar of the crowd. “We got a great show for you tonight folks but I’m gonna give you fair warning I might be a bit cranky, I just had a heck of a bikini wax!”

“Boudica what the hell?” Randy was strapped to the couch next to Skylar.

The cat-dressed blonde watched the two younger redheads dance across the stage, “are those your daughters?”

Boudica spun and fell on her throne. Once a comfy-looking lounger, it was now a full on throne decorated in pink and furs. "Just a little signing bonus! Looks like our guests are eager for their interviews.” She laid across her chair effortlessly sexy. Boudica had never been so. She was sexy despite, despite her yelling and awkwardness. “Today we’re joined by Skylar, the second host to ever get canceled. This is pretty exciting! We didn’t get Colt in here when he was on **** row, so this is quite the scoop.”

Skylar was sweating her whiskers off. “How do you even know about Colt?”

“It’s on the cue cards!” Boudica laughed. She leaned in, empathetic to the gills. “Skylar how does it feel to be facing the end?”

“N-nothing has been decided yet! I haven’t heard word from my producer…”

Boudica pouted. “Come now don’t be coy. You’ve never been one to settle for mediocrity. Would you rather slink back to your show, or go out in a blaze of glory looking fabulous in that leotard!”

Skylar kicked her feet. “I don’t want to get canceled! I want to go to Disney World! It’s not fair! I’ve run 19 perfect seasons, why are you girls so difficult?”

Boudica tutted and wagged her finger. "She's a shy one folks, Skylar answer the question. How do you feel now that you're facing the end of existence?"

"Don't you want to ask Randy any questions?"

"Skylar." Boudica tisked like a parent.

"I hate it okay?" Skylar threw her hands up into the air. "Thanks to you, I'm, I'm being eaten by anxiety! I'm facing the end of my existence as I know it, and I didn't even do anything. You just found some kind of trick!"

"There we have it folks!" Boudica jumped to her feet. “That’s how contestants feel every moment of the show, just on the edge of oblivion, on the edge of ****! And I brought that feeling to a host! I’d say my **** is complete, wouldn’t you Skylar?” The crowd wooped happily at whatever she was saying.

“****, what are you…”

“Maybe not quite yet, I still haven’t hit them where it hurts.” Her eyes glowed with pink sinister intent. It was all the power of her sin, powered by the host. Her sin held the strongest way over all viewers of this show. She entered their very hearts through the screen.

Skylar threw herself on her knees, as so many mortals had to her. Her sniveling many times more pathetic than any of her own victims. “Randy’s right, I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to make people happy, I…”

Boudica ignored her, and instead started cheering. She jumped up and down and spread out her legs.

“Bimbos bimbos ra ra ra! All this studio does is lies, viewers viewers save our lives! So if you hate our rapey vibes, change the channel and unsubscribe! Goooooooo cancel culture! Woo woo WOOOHOOOOOO!” She did a tight backflip and ended the routine with the splits.

The world rumbled. The lights, the set, the audience vibrated as if an earthquake had come loose.

“What was that?” Randy asked in utter confusion. The furniture around was starting to hiss and evaporate. The shows girls were crumbling like a chocolate bunnies at Easter. Even Boudica's pink outfit was coming undone. “What did you do?”

She shot to her feet and shoved Boudica out of the way. “During the vote, what were you doing with your phone?”

“Just a little shopping.” Boudica winked and got to her feet.

The entire complex began to rumble. Like the Titanic when it hit the iceberg.

“Someone tell me what’s going on!” Randy was on his feet now, the straps around his now nothing but threads. All the furniture on stage was being pulled to the right by some gravitational pull.

Skylar yanked the phone out of Boudica’s rapidly disintegrating pocket.

Upgrade!

Woohoo Girl+: when giving her cheer, Boudica can encourage others to do what the subject of her cheer is doing or encourage them to follow her own example.

Upgrade!

Woohoo girl++: Boudica can now lead groups in cheer, compelling those she cheers for to follow her example or instructions. These instructions can be no more complicated than what can fit in a short cheer.

Skylar dropped the phone. It began to slide stage right. “You used my power to…”

“Weapons will always fall into the hands of the enemy Skylar. A little lesson of war.” Boudica stood proud and naked as the lights began to flicker.

“Did you know you could…”

“Of course, all that cam girling I was doing, I was testing it out in small doses. Pushing them to say certain things, to vote for certain activities. But I could only encourage them to do things they were already doing. It wasn’t until the vote with Trent that I thought about upgrading it. I figured I could get the people who were already sticking it to the network to leave, but now I got everyone.”

“What’s going on?” Randy Screamed.

“She did it.” Skylar mumbled her skin pale as cream. “Boudica won… there’s no one watching.”

——-

The Network was in chaos, in the blink of an eye their subscriptions plummeted. Viewership dropped to almost nothing only people who weren’t actively watching the screen had avoided Boudica’s instruction.

Change the channel and unsubscribe.

Hotel Talk was a popular show, but it’s not like all or even most of the fanbase watched it live… until Trent got replaced. The event had been record-breaking. For five minutes, Hotel Talk was the most watched thing ever to air, anywhere ever. Trent's Producer was vaunted, praised, he was a god amongst gods.

Now there was nothing.

How his office was suspiciously silent. Boudica's connection with I'm severed. Announced by nothing more than the sound of something incredibly ancient squirming and squealing like a ant under a magnifying lens.

The hallways were lit only by red emergency lights. The denizens of the studio fucked frantically like it was their last night live. Things were on fire. Otherworldly screams seemed to seep out from every crack in the door. The walls cracked and broke apart.

“You’ve ruined everything!” Skylar screamed as she pulled Boudica down the hall by her ear. “Without the audience, this all falls apart!”

Randy was following behind them. “That’s because we’re empty shells Skylar. We stand for nothing but our own hate and greed. We can’t survive without our base even though it was their minds we poisoned!”

“You were so much less annoying when you were a horny meathead!”

Boudica offered no fight, she was in ecstasy. “This is why I was born!” She cried. “And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock. And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her?“

“Shut up!” Skylar threw open a door, it opened into the void.

Randy grabbed Skylar’s shoulder. “You’re seriously going back to Colorado? After all this.”

“We’re facing our end with honor Randy. I’m still loyal!” She shoved Boudica in.

“They turned on Trent for ratings. They don’t care about us Skylar. How can you be loyal to them?”

“Because we don’t have anything else! We’re not humans as much as we want to be, as much as we long to be. There’s no one waiting for me to come home. All we have is the next season, and you used to understand that.”

Randy looked at her and then the void. He wanted so much to reach her, to help her find joy in all this destruction. He wished he knew how Boudica had gotten to him, but there was no secret to waking someone up. “You were a good boss Skylar, it’s the job that was rotten.”

She watched him jump in.

Skylar then turned to the burning hall. How did Cicero and Cato write so beautifully as their republic died?

She considered that this could be the end of it all. Maybe the viewers wouldn’t come back. Maybe the subscriptions would stay canceled. Maybe everything here was destined to sink back into the void.

She considered that she might survive. What would she tell of this empire of fantasy? This disgusting machine. What would she say of the filthy creatures who called themselves Hosts, whom she called friends?

Nothing, she realized.

She had no opinions on this place at all.

All she could think of was a dream. “We almost made it to Disneyland.”

Her phone buzzed as a bundle of tentacles spilled out of an air vent and pulled up three rutting employees at the end of the hall. “Skylar here.”

“There’s been an escape!”

Skylar sighed. “Yeah, I know I just sent her back. Listen, I wasn’t able to stop Boudica in time. We’re about to get canceled. Get the crew out of there, hide them with any friendly host who will take them. I’ll face the boss alone.”

“It wasn’t just Boudica.”

“What?”

“Cleopatra is gone too…”

Skylar smiled. “These girls really are something. Get everyone out of Colorado, lock the doors behind you.”

“What about the contestants?”

“The producers and Lucifer are old friends they’ll work something out.”

“And Cleopatra?”

“I’ll find her. I have to ask her a question about the fall of Rome.”

“Why?”

Skylar giggled and hung up. “She met Cicero Silly.”