The Cosmos, The Arrivals, Book 1, Chapter 1, Babs: Bikini Babe, now Monitor of the Cosmos House, Day 1, Section 5, Babs: Mudpit Memories in the Backyard. Gamers who know which Cam to link to catch Babs when she emerges around the corner of the House, and a hovering Cam near the Back Door acquires her and tracks with her until she pauses near the Back Door Landing. ¶ Babs surveys the deep grassy Backyard that awaits the arrival of the Cosmos Pledge. Despite being surrounded by a hedge and tall trees, it is hardly sacrosanct; aside from the hovering Back Door Cam, Babs scans across the top of the hedge, observing that nothing prevents paparazzi from spying from adjacent houses or from a car parked in the alley behind the House. ¶ Bikini Babe’s {crescents d’areolage} flash through her mind. She flushes. “You paparazzi leech on me,” she declares to her surreptitious admirers. “Just because you rogue cammers take down my image doesn’t mean you’re following the Rules. You might harvest my body, my movements, and my acts. But you distribute them to unofficial channels. You know that.” ¶ ¶ Whether Bikini Babe is so interesting that Cams alone cannot satisfy the demands of her admirers will remain one of BB’s concerns and uncertainties. ¶ BB crisscrosses her arms across her breasts and occults her areolage. She considers how her fortune has improved. {I have more freedom of movement.} Babs carefully steps off the old concrete to wiggle her toes in the scrubby grass and dirt. {I’m allowed to go a lot of places I wasn’t before. Except I don’t want to go there wearing only this Bikini. Especially this one.} ¶ BB’s gaze follows the cracked concrete walkway down the left side of the Backyard until it passes between the Garage and the prickly hedge. Babs wonders if the side door on the Garage is locked and realizes she now plays a new role. {That’s terrain that I control now.} BB accepts responsibility. {And if I want to know about locked, I shall let one of my Pledge crawl through the scratchy bushes to find out.} Babs presses her lips together. {But maybe that’s too much to ask a Pledge to do.} ¶ Babs runs her eyes around the near side of the Garage, along the alleyway; they come to rest at the far right, at what BB knows is the Post Henge. Seven thick Posts sit in the ground, solid, arranged in two facing rows of three, with a seventh Post at the end. Seven Posts for Seven Pledge. BB resists revisiting memories from last Term. {At least not right now. Because right now the Backyard and the Post Henge lie within my dominion.} ¶ Babs gathers her breath and turns away from the Henge. {I’m not sure I have it in me to train seven Cosmos.} ¶ BB takes a deep breath, shakes her babambas in her clenched arms, and moves toward a patch of bare earth in the middle of the Backyard. Babs moves carefully but breaks into a smile. “I’m not a Pledge anymore! I can walk on the grass. I can walk anywhere I want!” ¶ Well, not anywhere, nobody can do that! ¶ And besides, the Backyard might be secluded, but every sway of flesh in the Bikini demands Bikini Babe’s diligence. {I know that Gamers surveilling me quest the faintest provocation: a nipple pop, boob spill, hair leaking out, or butt a-crackin.’ The paparazzi would go crazy to catch me.} ¶ BB’s eyes narrow on the depression where rainwater has kept the dirt moist. Is this a flowerbed or a garden in the making? No. “I know you why you are not about to be planted with vegetables or flowers,” Bikini Babe says to the patch of bare earth. “And I know firsthand why Gamers call you the Mudpit!” ¶ Babs looks at her feet and takes a step closer, into the wet part of the shallows. Toenail polish flashes crimson red into her eyes. BB swallows, then reaches her five manicured toes forward, and depresses them ever so carefully to feel the wetter earth. She leaves a soft footprint behind, but she doesn’t mar her toenails. {It is a slippery reminder of what I had to do here in order to obtain my two pieces—my bi-kini—and then promote and Opt Monitor this Term.} ¶ Babs looks at her footprint and reconfigures slightly. {What my Roommate Janet and I had to do. Right here in the Mudpit. What we did, Roommates Together. We mud wrestled two other Cosmos Pledge and dispatched them to the Nugget.} ¶ Correct: to the strip club not far from the Village. The losers, former Cosmos Roommates Penny and Coco, Opted Down Together and shall indeed remain Strippers this Term. ¶ Babs accepts. {It wasn’t a nice thing to do.} She looks at her fingernails, matching crimson red. She recalls that her lips are crimson red too. Bikini Babe casts a glance down at how her crescents acquire tan lines. She bites her upper lip and blushes. ¶ Babs turns her back on the Mudpit, uncrosses her arms, lets them swing to her sides, and settles herself. Bikini Babe had beaten her way to Monitor status with a mixture of brawn and brains that had included more good scrap than she had realized at first.