Trial Three: The Future. You have no children. No protégé. No backup file.
The .rar file icon. A padlock. Then, slowly, the lock turns green. Files spill out like confetti from a broken piñata. The Trials Of Ms Americana.rar
The soundstage dissolves. She stands on a flatbed truck, alone. No crowd. Just a single drone overhead, live-streaming to zero viewers. Trial Three: The Future
FLASH: A classroom. Students hold tablets. On the tablets: a new mascot. MS. CYBER-PUNK. She has purple hair, a CRT-TV for a head, and says “based” unironically. The students cheer. a CRT-TV for a head
She lights the sparkler. It hisses. Then fizzles.