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It was the dawn of a new chapter of a confused FrangleSIM bitpire named "Vip", and the 2nd to last place he wanted to be was a bookstore. The 1st last place he wanted to be was a bookstore with a sketchy overweight stranger approaching for no positive purpose he could think up.
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Mr. Flick approached Vip with a guilty smile that said he was about to ask something dreadful of him.
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"Hello!"
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"Who the hell are you?"
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"My name is Mr. Flick. I'm a publishing agent, and I'm having some trouble with one of my writers. I was wondering if you could help."
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"I don't even like reading, never mind writing. How the hell am I supposed to help you write books?"
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"No, not me. I'm just a publishing agent, I can't write books either. I need you to help this writer, as he's stuck, you see."
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"How can I help, again?"
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"I didn't tell you. But I'll tell you now."
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"Spit it out, fat guy."
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"Ah. Um. Well. You see, the whole teen vampire niche is quite popular right now, and my writer's stuck on god knows what, if he's stuck on anything at all. Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with teens, vampires, or popular fiction. I was wondering if you could go nag the hell out of him for while."
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"How's that gonna help?"
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"I'm not sure. But nothing else is helping. It's the most creative thing I could think of."
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"What makes you think I'm a vampire?"
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Mr. Flick gave Vip a fearful look. He hadn't even considered that Vip was a vampire, as he was almost entirely sure they were just fictional. That Vip spoke as if it were perfectly possible for him to be a vampire even though he wasn't one caused Mr. Flick a bit of distress of a type he couldn't put a precise diagnosis on. "Oh? I'm sorry, I just, uh, assumed. No, no, that's fine. A vampire would be preferable, of course, but I have full faith in--"
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"I didn't say I wasn't a vampire. I said why are you so sure I'm not one?"
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Mr. Flick's expression deepened from distressed to fearful, foreshadowing a terror dependent on the next few lines of dialogue. Even a delusional teen who considers himself an immortal killer could be quite dangerous.
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"Well. Are you...uh..."
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"A vampire?"
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Mr. Flick took a step back, but held his ground and kept from fleeing. "Yes. Yes! Are you a... a vampire?"
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"No."
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Mr. Flick's expression eased completely; the foreshadow of terror vaporized. The kid clearly had no motive to lie, and any deception skills common among vampires were irrelevant, as there was obviously no such thing as vampires.
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"I'm a bitpire."
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The terror now flew across his face, having bypassed the foreshadowing completely in favor of shock value. It faded just a bit as he regained his composure and put his hope in the fact that a teenager who thought he was a bitpire wasn't anywhere near as dangerous as a real life vampire, which Vip clearly was not. (The hope partially depended, though, on what the hell a bitpire was, hence it was a good inquiry to postpone moving forward.)
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"What's a bitpire?"
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The teen replied with an enthusiastic tone and set of mannerisms completely isomorphic to those generated by delusional imagination, sociopathic ambition, and hospitalizable psychosis spawned from regular ingestion of illicit substances.
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"I'm not sure myself, really. I'm like digital, or something. My version of god is two morons playing some dumb video game. Nothing I can do about it. I guess I'm here to just wander around or something while they go take a leak. Or maybe they left me on overnight or something. I really don't remember. I don't have much of a memory. Literally. I think their gaming system is cheap or something."
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"No memory! Good. Skip doesn't have much of one either, which is partly why he can't come up with a topic. Why don't you go harass him and see if it helps? Just pretend you're a vampire. You sound close. And, perhaps you'll get some points for a worthy mission accomplished!"
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"Aren't I evil? Maybe I'm supposed to kill him and I get more points for that."
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"Inspire him, kill him, either is great story material. Take your pick, just get going. Here's your uh, 'allowance' for it, I suppose one might say. I'm sure Skip can come up with something more creative."
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Vip looked down at the dollar in Mr. Flick's hand as if it was a slice of sun-dried horse manure. "I might not know much about human ways, but I'm pretty sure that's not a hell of a lot."
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"Sorry, I was just testing. I really shouldn't have. My morals are usually much more intact, but the urgency of the situation has me unnerved." Mr. Flick pulled out another dollar bill and handed the two toward Vip, who had precisely the same reaction as to half their value.
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"Alright, $5."
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Vip yawned.
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"$10?"
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Vip whistled.
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"Here's 50 !@#$ dollars and a verbal agreement to some infinitesimal franchise rights if you inspire Skip to start the next best teen niche. Now go harass Skip for as long as it takes for the staff to recognize you're bothering a customer against his will."
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"If I get kicked out, I get another 50. The mall's the only other place around, and buying stuff should keep me too busy to bump into a cop and bring up what kind of laws apply to hazing employees and minor kids."
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" 'Bringing up', not 'bring up'. And it's rhetoricdal to modify 'kids' with 'minor' as the latter is already an intrinsic compotent of youth. Unless you meant 'minor' in the sense that you're unimportant, that is, on the great stage of life in which no one is more important a character than anyone else. Although that would still make 'minor' rhetorical, but it would certainly be a lesser sin."
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Vip took this as tacit agreement.
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"I normally wouldn't harass your grammar," Mr. Flick continued, continuing his ploy to thoroughly establish that there was a perfectly valid and legal form of verbal harassment going on, one easily confused with the opposite by anyone not dealing with professional literature, "but it's the sort of thing Skip will try to scare you off with, as it comes like breathing to him, and I just wanted to give you a heads up. Just ignore all that. It's generally harmless to everything but an editor's ego."
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"What if he punches me when he realizes I'm not an editor?"
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"That's what the $50 is for. Now scram. You have a job, now, and you're already late. He's the one with the dazed lobotomy staring blankly at his notebook."
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Vip looked down at the cash amount he'd reluctantly settled on, and shrugged. "Alright, whatever."