The Storywriter: Enter the Joketress

The Grand Palace Theater had been condemned for twelve years, but tonight, the velvet stage was lit with stolen halogen construction lamps that hummed with a sick, buzzing whine.

Center stage, standing nearly six feet tall in polished platform heel-boots, stood the woman who called herself Joketress.

Her tailored, two-tone magenta suit hugged her frame with ridiculous sharp elegance. Her peroxide-blonde hair was swept up into a messy, gravity-defying beehive pinned with literal fountain-pen nibs. In her white-gloved hand, she balanced a stolen brass conductor’s baton, tapping it against the cheek of Mayor Vance, who was zip-tied to a folding chair with heavy electrical tape slapped over his mouth.

“Now, now, Vanny-boy,” she cooed in a bubbly, bright soprano that belonged on a Saturday morning game show. “Don’t scrunch your nose like that. The lighting in here is dreadful enough without you giving me frown lines to write around.”

She spun on her heel, her long legs carrying her across the rotting boards in two impossible, elastic strides. She stopped right at the edge of the apron, leaning down to peer directly into the darkness where the row of tied-up police detectives sat on the concrete floor.

“You see, boys, before I was the headline, I was just the girl who fetched the coffee for the hacks in the writers’ room. ‘Polish this dialogue, darling! Fix this plot hole, sweetie! And make sure you smile when the male leads take credit for your third act!’”

She clasped her hands to her chest in fake, fluttery ecstasy, batting eyelashes coated in lilac mascara.

“So last month, I decided to polish a script myself. Starting with the city budget.” She let out a pealing, musical giggle that echoed off the damp masonry. “And then the police pension fund. And then—oops!—the water treatment plants. Three little keystrokes! And suddenly, everyone stopped telling me to fetch coffee. They started begging me for mercy! Isn’t that just precious?”

A detective in the front row spat out a bloody curse, thrashing against his binds. “You’re out of your mind, lady. The Feds are tracking your IP right now. You’re going to rot in a federal pen!”

Joketress stopped dead in her tracks.

The wide, cartoonish pageant smile vanished from her face so fast it felt like a slap. Her towering silhouette straightened, every trace of bubbly playfulness draining into pure, glacial stillness. She stepped off the stage, dropping down without a sound, and strolled up to the shouting detective until her shadow completely swallowed him.

She leaned in close. When she opened her mouth, the high-pitched entertainer’s voice was gone. What came out was a low, gravel-deep baritone that vibrated right through the detective’s ribcage:

“A federal pen...” she rasped, the word dragging across rough gravel. “...cannot write a single sentence that I haven’t already edited.”

She tilted her head, her eyes wide, unblinking, and utterly empty.

“They tell you that justice has the final word.” Her voice sank half an octave deeper, rattling the floorboards. “If the law owns the ink, then who owns the hand that holds the pen...?”

She paused. The whole theater held its breath.

“ME.”

Then, as fast as a lightning strike, she threw her head back, bursting into that shrill, ear-splitting party-girl laugh again, practically skipping backward toward the backstage exit.

“Anyway! That’s our time tonight, cuties! You’ve been a dreadful audience, truly bottom-tier!”

She reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a golden detonator shaped like a miniature microphone. With a smug, mocking wink, she brought it to her lips.

“To the poor little Storywriter out there who thinks he’s going to fix this city...” She tapped the red button with the tip of her painted nail, blew a theatrical kiss to the room, and stepped into the shadows. “...Draft one was a failure, babe. Let’s see how you handle revision.”

Behind her, the theater’s water mains cracked open with a deafening roar, flooding the room in ice-cold murk, while Joketress’s mocking, sing-song laughter echoed through the ceiling vents, completely out of reach.