When last we left Ruby, she had gone to Buenos Aires for the annual tango festival. In Argentina, Ruby fell on hard times and found herself doing a burlesque tango show at a brothel. One night, when Ruby’s fishnets were on their last leg and tips were low in walked Miguel Luis Manana Naranja, head of Espanovision, the second largest media network in all of Latin America.
Miguel took one look at Ruby’s tattered fishnets and determined, furry face and decided that she was his new it girl, er hamster. He whisked Ruby out of the brothel and into a whirlwind of fancy parties, private jets and lavish dinners. He gave her a gold plated hamster wheel for her new penthouse apartment and made the producers of As the Wheel Turns create a part for Ruby based on her life in the brothel.
At first Ruby was overwhelmed by Miguel’s kindness and all the luxury. Her water bottled was filled with nothing but imported French sparkling water that had been blessed by deaf -mute nuns. She had her own private stash of silkworms who worked day and night spinning out fresh silk for her bedding. Miguel took her everywhere with him. But the fast life was wearing on her. She found herself shooting up pure Columbian coffee and snorting echinacea just to get out of bed in the morning. She was far from her punk rock feminist ideal.
One night Miguel took her to one of his high stakes poker parties. He said she was his lady luck and had to go with him when she tried to decline out of exhaustion. She half heartedly threw on a long silk gown, did a line of coffee and smeared some lipstick on her tiny hamster lips.
At the poker table, Miguel was losing big to Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch wanted control of Espanovision and Miguel had gambled everything he had, except his shares in the company. The final straw was when he gambled Ruby on a bet to get everything back. Ruby was pissed, she wasn’t possession he could dump when the stakes were high. Before the game could continue, Ruby ran out of the night and away from her luxury life.
She found her way to a clinic for coffee addicts in Peru. While there she became obsessed with the stories she heard of the Shining Path. After her life as a capitalist tool, she wanted to contribute to a great cause, and the Shining path seemed the way for her to do that. When she was strong enough, she packed up a simple rucksack with bread and nuts and trecked off into the Peruvian countryside to throw herself in with the rebels.