Eyes of the Firestorm?
Fennec's Stream
Date: 23 September 2084 By: Fennec
“Hi hi, ShiroFennec Deeeeeeeeeeeeesu! It's your favorite firefox, here to save the day from that big scary firestorm thingy up north!" With a fireman's hat on, the fox(currently)boy spins in with a personal tornado of fire swirling around him, laughing the whole way into frame. "Ha ha ha! A smile best befits a he- what do you mean it's out already?" While chat berates/laughs at/consoles the streamer, Fennec flicks a few videos onscreen - the fire's initial start, the reports of a manastorm, the destruction of acres of forest and a few small homes, a few areas mysteriously untouched by the flames - before finally settling on a feed he likes. "Here, fine, look chat. There's a plane dropping water on the fires. See? I could fly one of those I bet!" A big, dumb grin, then the matrix fox pauses.
"Alright, chat, let's take a second at the start of this one to get reeeaaaaal serious, 'kay? I promised someone real smart that I'd open up the stream with this - believe me, they earned it, even if I can't really shout them out." A wink and a smug grin. "A-hem! Now, chat, you already know not to believe everything you hear. You should also be real careful about trusting someone who's making money by selling you new, outrageous headlines! Now, that applies to everyone you hear news from - even me." For a brief moment, the fox looks at the camera with the best serious expression he can muster.
"But look at this freaking Horizon feed! I mean, ridiculous! They really think people are gonna buy that this was just an accidental fire sparked by someone tossing a cigarette? No way! I~ have an inside source that says runners went out in those woods. This super neat old guy who was a smokejumper type dude - this is his hat I'm wearing by the way, not the real one obviously but like I did a digital model - he told me that some elf asked him about how tough it would be to go into a firestorm like that, not a day before the manastorm started to wane." A finger taps against the hat, rattling it in place atop Fennec's head. "Now, I dunno about -you- chat, but I think that coincidence is a bad word. So this stream is definitely getting demonetized again, send help!!"
He pauses long enough to read off the half-dozen pity cashchats that come in, humming with a big happy smile by the end. "Thanks, thanks thanks thanks! I dunno what I'd do without my little tailtips!" A clap of the hands, and a spin swirls tails in front of the screen - bringing a new graphic with them.
"Now, chat, here's the deal. There's hidden facilities up in those SSC woods - and a manastorm coming out of there? No way it's a coincidence! This has to be some corpo experiment gone wrong, and the runners made off with the weather control McGuffin! So we're gonna be taking bets! Mods, get the bot up? I want best guesses to come in on where the next fiery manastorm's gonna hit, chat! I'll give you a hint - Aztechnology's moving into the sprawl now that their boy in the mayoral race has won!" With a wink of one eye and a dollar sign in the other, the matrix fox gets the bet pools rolling as the stream moves on from anything that could be called even tangential to 'news'.
Related Run: https://shreloaded.net/wiki/Eye_of_the_Firestorm