CHAPTER 8: On Assignment

Income....a small amount. Expenses, especially bills, a lot. This is the problem Suzy Kent found herself in. She had a job...technically, at "Hey Wow!" magazine but few there knew who she was other than "New Girl". She had an assignment to complete: Interview 3 ordinary citizens of Sim City about what they were wearing, why they were wearing it and where they got it.
Fortunately for Suzy, right across the street from her house was a woman who was checking her diary. Before she moved on, Suzy ran over to interview her.

"Hello, ma'am, can I interview you about what you're wearing....I'm from "Hey, Wow!" magazine"

"Erm...sure" said the woman. "What do you want to know?"

Suzy wasn't sure what to ask; she had the bare minimum training in this kind of thing. She looked at the woman's outfit and started to pull questions out of thin air.

"So....do you like the colour pink in general?"

"Yes"

"Erm...do you have many outfits in pink?"

"Some"

"Do you think pink's going to be the in-colour this season?....oh, she's gone"

Suzy was left to scribble down the notes for subject number one. The trouble with stopping people in the street was that they were often busy trying to get somewhere and didn't want to talk. What she needed was a place where people weren't going to go away in a hurry but at the same time not be burdened with work or things to do. The perfect place for her next interview was Magnolia Blossom Park.

When she arrived, there weren't many people around. Suzy took out her notepad and started sketching the park to pass the time whilst she looked for someone suitable to interview. But she didn't have to find them...one found her.

"What are you doing? Can I see?" said a bespectacled teenage girl dressed in grey and black.

"Sure, it's just a doodle of the park. Nothing great"

"I like it. Are you an artist?" said the girl.

"Only in my spare time...I'm a fashion journalist trying to interview people about what they like to wear" replied Suzy.

"I like to wear black" said the girl. "Sometimes grey, mostly black. Black suits my mood"

"I see you like to wear both black and white at the same time? Is this to symbolise the duality within the human soul? Both light and dark, perpetually divided with no mixing, no hope of reconcilliation?" the girl continued.

"Well, actually, it's a Mod thing with me" replied Suzy.

The teenager pondered this before saying "my brother's stuck on the monkey bars...I have to go now."

Suzy wrote up some more notes before thinking about where to go next. Downtown Willow Creek!

"Excuse me, sir...can I interview you? I'm from "Hey, Wow!" magazine...sir?....What about you, madam? No, have a nice day!"

"Now it's a cryin' shame no one can spare the time to answer a question from a pretty lady" said a male voice behind her. Suzy turned around to see a cool looking black man addressing her.

"Can you spare the time, sir?" she said.

"Call me Bakko, Bakko Jang" he replied with a smile. "Sure, go ahead"

They talked about his up to the minute, with-it style, which he claimed was part of his public image as a popular entertainer in town.

Bakko, once started, found it difficult to stop talking...on any subject. Suzy eventually had to make excuses to get away (get a new notebook) and write up what she had learned from her three interviewees.

It was getting late in the day and as she was in town she decided to pop into the Blue Velvet for a drink.

The chat from the regulars was convivial, the drinks flowed. Without fully realising it, Suzy had been goaded by the bar staff into singing at the club microphone. One person who was present that evening would go on to write that her singing combined the style and grace of a cat being bathed combined with the sensation of tin foil being dragged across the teeth. Nevertheless, by the time Suzy staggered out of the club, she was 24 Simoleons better off through tips.