Out with the Results

Justine stood for a moment before snapping her fingers. The butler came up and took the wine glass out of her hand. He took a small bottle and sprayed it around her face. She shooed him away before twirling around. The green of her dress changed into a deep burgundy.

She grinned at the contestants. “And welcome back to the show. The audience has made their voices clear. I’ll say that some of you will not like it. Not that some liked any of their options at all.”

She took a deep bow. “We did have several audience members write in saying they had no idea what some options do. We do apologize for that. In the future, we’ll have a simplified description for those people. As for the guess of the transformation title, we kindly ask those who keep spamming complaints into them to redirect them to our HR department. The purpose of that voting section is to guess what puns or references the writer had in mind while writing them down.”

Straightening back up, she waved her hands around. “Those disclaimers aside, it’s time for some proper audience-voted transformations. The way we choose the order of who gets transformed is simple. We’ll start with the loser of a challenge and work our way up to the winner. Since there was no challenge for these transformations, I have decided to go in reverse order of the popularity poll. I do believe everyone knows what order they come in. So please get on stage as quickly as possible, or I will be annoyed. One thing before we go.”

Justine clapped her hands, and the lights around Thomas exploded. Thomas flinched as that happened and patted his suit. The lights he found had not left a mark on his suit.

“Thomas, dear, please get back to your seat. I know I did not let you speak a single word about what you thought about the choices. As compensation, I’ll let you comment about the transformation pick. I would appreciate those comments to be snappy.”

Justine turned towards Mica. “Now, hunny, please get onto the stage.”

Mica slowly stood and dully walked up the stage. Justine grabbed Mica's right shoulder and pulled her in close. She drew the microphone toward her mouth. Mica clenched her hands on her red dress.

Justine purred into Mica's ear. “So, about what the audience chose for you. That option you were worried about. Well, the audience luckily gave you a bit of a break. They choose a Convenient Bond as their top choice. Over half the audience wanted this result. Now, let’s bring some magic to this show.”

The sound of clapping startled everyone besides Justine and the butler. They turned their head wildly all over the place to try and locate where those claps came from.

Justine smiled and waited for the clapping to die down. “I want to say that the audience can see what you see, chica. Your fellows and master do not have the same pleasure, at least not now.”

Justine snapped her fingers. A screen popped into Mica’s vision as if her AR glasses were still on. Mica checked her glasses' power level. A low battery light was all she got out of it. Mica blinked, and the screen vanished. She scanned around her to see where it had gone.

“What was that?”

“Well, dear, is it not obvious? That’s the effect of your transformation.”

“Well, how…”

When she concentrated on talking to her host about how the transformation worked, that screen popped over Justine. She could now see that two images were floating over Justine’s ears. By the right ear, there seemed to be a cat in a loafing position on a pile of clothes. The left ear depicted an indeterminate shadow.

“Where are the meters?”

“My poor, pitiful Mica, your low placement gave what would have been reasonable meters into the images you see right now.”

“Well, that’s not my fault. How…”

Justine put a finger onto Mica’s lips. As she did so, the cat got up from its loaf to a sitting position.

“Enough of the talkies for you. Thomas, would you like to comment on the situation?”

Thomas leaned forward from the sofa. “Dr. Norwood, I apologize for getting you wrapped into this somehow. I’ll …”

As Mica concentrated on Thomas’ words, the images around Justine disappeared, and two images appeared around Thomas. One was of a tea kettle with puffs of steam coming out of it. The other was a book of some form. The title of the book was ineligible from where she was standing.

“Please, Dr. Haywood. I ask you to only comment on transformations. Otherwise, we’ll be here all day.”

Thomas glared at Justine. “Well, my gracious host, I have nothing to say as I can not see what she sees. Only that her ‘choice’ seems the most conducive to aid her in this malformed show.”

“Doc, it's up to Ms. Norwood to see if that is true. Mica, get off the stage and let the next person on. Or do you want something more? It is a shame that my favorite to win was only able to get second.”

Mica shook her head and ran back to her seat. She closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. Justine grinned at Mica for a moment before flicking her gaze towards Agatha. Justine snapped her fingers. The butler appeared next to Agatha and offered her his arm. Agatha took the assistance and wobbled her way up the stage.

“Madam Quirke, how are we doing? Please, don’t give that look. Refer to my previous comments on what you need to do. I'll be quick and Quirkey for your convenience.”

Justine snapped her fingers. The butler took a restaurant menu from his jacket and handed it to Agatha. Agatha stared in confusion at the incoherent letters and numbers on the menu.

“See, painless enough for the first half. Your transformation is Bletch Arse. It’s a bit ahead of the other two in first-choice votes. However, if we expanded the second-choice vote, it would have the majority of the audience. As it stands right now, it is a plurality. Now, dear, you need to pick an option. If you refuse to pick within the next thirty seconds, I’ll be picking for you.”

Agatha looked at the incomprehensible menu. Then, she pointed at the first option on the menu. Nothing seemed to happen except Agatha's face acquired a spattering of freckles. They slowly appeared on her face like a Polaroid shot.

“For those wondering, the option she picked was Redhead. Now some of her options only have a small field of interpretation. Other options can have a wider course for interpretation. And there is always the possibility of mixing them around, for example, getting a Redhead British Professor. And for some like the British choice, we can take from all sorts of time ranges. Anyways, after twenty-three hours pass, she will return to her ‘original’ state. She will then have an hour to choose her next option. We had a physical menu for this round. However, she will have a similar arrangement to Dr. Norwood for future picking. And as we go on, we’ll hopefully have more options to show. Well, Madam Agatha, care to say something?”

Agatha looked at Justine as though she was considering a particular rotten apple. “Ye’re just askin’ for yer audience. Ye want to show what ye, or this show, can do. If I could get away with a bit o’ **** right now without any bother, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Ye a fierce shite.”

Justine dramatically swung her right hand towards her head. “Oh, you wound me with that. By the way, my dear did you notice your word choice? I hear a slight tiling of Irish in there.”

“What the bleedin’ hell ye on about?” Agatha paused, frowning at Justine. “What the hell! This isn’t just a wee bit. Why the bleedin’ hell do I sound like this?”

Justin purred out. “Well, my dear, it is straightforward enough. Do you recall what I said about your transformation?”

“It’s called Redhead…” Agatha frowned and then exclaimed. “Oh hell, that’s where the bleedin’ accent is comin’ from.”

Justin gave a Chester grin “You got it in one my girl.”

Agatha took a moment to breathe in and out rapidly. Then, more normally, she said, “It seems that if I pay attention, I can control the bleeding accent.”

“But it does take a lot of effort, doesn’t it? And as much as I would love to explore more of your transformation, we have a schedule to keep.” Justin waved her hand towards the seats.

Agatha stepped towards the lawn chairs. She paused and glanced towards Justine. Justine shook her head and waved her onwards. Agatha continued and passed Alexa on her way to the stage.

“Agatha. Are you ok?” Thomas said while furrowing his brows.

“I feel fine. Don’t worry about me.” Agatha said as she sat down.

Alexa stopped two paces from Justine and folded her arms. “Let’s get this over with.”

Justine grinned broadly. “Someone is impatient. You do know that we have several rounds of this. Why in such a hurry?”

“Whatever you are doing, I cannot prevent it, so get on with it.”

“Well, dear, I can take my own sweet time if I want to. However, we have a schedule to keep, so I suppose you have a point.”

Justine gave a small courtesy to Alexa. “Your reasoning resonated with a plurality of our audience. Very impressive indeed. You know what that means. You get what you want with It All Adds up!”

Justine stood up and snapped her fingers. Light purple lights popped around Alexa before disappearing again. The butler appeared carrying a tablet to Alexa.

Justine waved at the tablet. “Here’s your tablet of progression. Before you complain about anything, your placement on the popularity poll has added some extra challenges for you.”

Alexa grabbed the tablet out of the butler’s hand. She stared at the tablet for a spell, then pressed the power button. The screen came to life, and a list of scrambled jumble letters filled her view.

Alexa sighed. “Like how this device is in code.”

Justine gave a wink toward her. “Exact-a-modo, my dear. You can ponder all you like from your seat. Thomas, any thoughts?”

Thomas locked onto Alexa’s eyes. “I believe this was the best option for you out of the ones up there.”

“I know.” She said as she walked to her seat and fiddled with the tablet.

Justine exclaimed “Well, that was a boring ass comment. Well, folks, we will be right back after the messages.”