“Kinda surprised ya were willing to give up your anonymity to get this done,” Rave pointed out when they all were back in the presidential suite. The press event had concluded without further hiccups. Immediate developments could already be seen on multiple sites, John scanning things by hand that Scarlett had summarized for him already. A pure ‘I want to see for myself’ action.

“Not really related,” Scarlett stated, snapping her fingers in Beatrice’s direction. “Be a good girl and fetch me a drink, Bae. Something you just need to pour into a glass with ice in it.” The unspoken part was that the Technomancer didn’t trust the servant to do any mixing without a clear list of instructions and measuring tools. A very wise policy, given Beatrice’s tendency to slap meals together for maximum nutrition, rather than taste.

“At once, Scarlett.” The passive maid took a little bow and went to the minibar. As they had refused most room service, it hadn’t gotten restocked in the past few days. So far, that wasn’t a problem, but with the almost alcoholic around, there would certainly be some holes in the arrangement of bottles soon.

“Maybe you should keep it down for a little bit?” John suggested. When they had met shortly before the speech, it had only been Undine’s healing powers that had brought Scarlett back from being a walking corpse. “Just saying, seems like your tolerance has decreased drastically.”

“What absolute fucking nonsense,” she waved off in a clearly pissed fashion, a motion she used effectively by also grabbing the glass Beatrice had returned with. “The name escapes me right now, but there is this concept that work is done less effectively the more time you allocate for it to be completed.”

“The baseline logic of procrastination?” Rave suggested.

“Stressing your workers out to no end because you allocate the minimum possible time?” John had an alternative in mind.

Scarlett sipped on her drink, swished it around in her mouth for a few moments, then made a pleased sound. “Parkinson’s law,” she stated between gulping down that first sip and putting the entire remaining alcohol, scotch judging by the colour of it, into her system in one fell swoop. “Same thing, double, add one more ice cube,” she commanded Beatrice.

“At once, Scarlett,” the passive maid said the same words, took the same little bow and probably even retraced her steps and exact motions to a clockwork-like degree of accuracy.

“Back to the initial topic,” the Technomancer crossed her legs and John couldn’t help but be reminded, by that simple motion, that he hadn’t had her in way too long. Way too long being defined as longer than 24 hours. Now, he felt, wasn’t the time, though. “I had planned to reveal myself to the world around this time anyway.”

Rave hummed, ordering a drink from Aclysia, then declared, “Nope, I don’t get it. Okay, which one of ya two Brainiacs wants to explain to me why we just did any of what we did.”

John and Scarlett exchanged a glance, one of the redhead’s eyebrows rose in a challenging fashion. ‘Guess we’ll have to see how many layers of this I can peel open on my own,’ the Gamer thought. “The immediate thing we gain from this is a bit of control over the narrative that’s been going on,” he began to summarize what he knew Rave already understood vaguely. “It’s by no means perfect, but because we have now so thoroughly undermined the foundation on which this entire media scandal stood, we have the momentum and this whole thing will likely fizzle out in one or two days.”

“The whole incident made clear that we need a better media team,” Scarlett added when she got handed her second drink. “Fully active central media from us, better relations with other newspapers, contacts even in those that are lukewarm towards us. That we even got caught on the backfoot by this is embarrassing.” After a moment turning the, presumably quite cold, glass in her nimble fingers she bluntly said, “And never, ever, agree to a fucking show without our own recording of the event.”

“No need to remind me,” John’s voice a clear grumble, and he suddenly felt like a drink himself. “Aclysia, can you get me some of the usual? Low part vodka though.”

“Of course, Master.” Aclysia was on the move immediately. A tiny green streak was following her around, Sylph’s constant chatter mixing with the city jazz playlist that Scarlett had put on the television the moment she entered. Gnome and Undine were in the spa room, while Salamander had excused herself earlier and was just wandering around the building doing something. Siena, however, was on the couch with John and Rave, Scarlett having claimed one of the armchairs for herself.

John just observed all of this because he was feeling pretty great hanging around like this. Although the fact that they were all wearing clothes was a bit out of the norm after the last few days. Soon he had his hands on his own glass, filled with orange juice and vodka, and happily put little doses of poison into himself. “Second point,” he continued, “is that I actually needed someone within Amacat to negotiate with. Since I didn’t find anyone with the proper will around here to make changes, having Scarlett insert herself like this is like a heaven sent.”

“I can take a seat on the council, it is my right by company value,” Scarlett once more supplied additional information. “Plus, I already put the topic of joining Fusion on the table.” Her voice, already on the deeper side for a woman, went even further down in her satisfaction.

“In a pretty blunt fashion,” John criticized, having arrived at the conclusion that it had been too on the nose. “Just stating you are pro annexation is not going to sit particularly well with the leadership or the people, I would say.”

“It would’ve been a mistake if you did it,” Scarlett agreed over the cusp of her glass. “I, however, can do whatever I want. Because I’m not pro annexation, I’m pro joining. Have you forgotten what the people below the leadership want?”

The Gamer had not forgotten in the slightest. “Political representation, yes, I am aware, but I am not trying to start a revolt here.”

Scarlett blew air out of her nose as if she found it ridiculous to say that. Her attitude towards all tools being fair, if the context justified the means, meant that she likely was all in favour of stirring up the mob for their own means. Himself, John would have been happy to keep that as a last resort; he thought the council could be convinced easier.

“Anyway, reason number three.” John postponed that discussion with the Technomancer; he wanted happy relaxation for now. They could have their strategy meeting later. “Scarlett being hidden is actually dangerous for us.”

“What, how?” Rave blinked numerous times.

Finishing up her second glass, Scarlett beckoned Beatrice close with a seductive wiggle of her finger. Indulging in one desire after another, the Technomancer first kissed the maid in a horny fashion, then got a third drink on the way. “Because we are at the mercy of whoever else knows about me,” she said, staring at John and his new and improved frame of better visible muscles under the fashionable suite.

“And we don’t even know who all does,” the Gamer added, smirking at the knowledge that his mere sight was slowly turning Scarlett on. “The only person we know about for certain, and that’s bad enough, is the Horned Rat. Red here staying hidden forever would have meant that somebody could have just pushed out the truth about her existence, and thus how Fusion came to power in such a smooth way, and deal damage to our reputation.”

“And her being in the open changes that how?” Rave wasn’t quite following.

“It’s easier to run a counter-narrative if the subject of the myth is already out in the open.” John put down his glass and pointed at the contents. “This is only orange juice.”

Rave raised an eyebrow; she didn’t get where this was going, but she got that she was being toyed with here. Nevertheless, she took the bait. “No, that’s orange juice and vodka,” she stated.

“Right, so it’s your word against mine, unless you have a way to verify it,” John’s voice was reverberating with a challenging tone.

“Lemme take a sip,” Rave suddenly leaned towards the glass. Before she could reach it, Aclysia, at her master’s mental command, put it out of range. Grabbing the air, stretched over his lap, his girlfriend complained, “Oy! How do you expect me to verify if ya won’t let me try?”

John furrowed his eyebrows in a playfully angry way. “Why would I let you take my drink or, even worse, pry into the social life of someone based on some rumours one of my enemies put out there? Mighty petulant of you, to demand that level of authority.” He reached out and gave her a heavy smack on the bottom. “Bad girl!”

“Bad girls want vodka!” Rave pouted when she got back to sitting straight. Doing her the favour, John handed her his drink. With a mischievous look on her face, she emptied what remained in one go. “Needs more vodka,” she declared, offering the glass to be taken back.

The Gamer didn’t, instead giving her an accusatory stare. “I heard you had cherry juice in that glass, isn’t that right?”

“Uhm… it was orange juice with vodka?” The Lightbringer wasn’t following that as well. “Ya can still see the remains here,” she pointed at the little puddle that seemingly always remained in a glass. The orange colour couldn’t possibly be mistaken for cherry.

Letting out a series of disgruntled noises, her boyfriend did take the glass back anyway. “The point is, even if the used glass doesn’t reflect it as well, that we can just keep saying the story of Scarlett being an Amacat CEO is true. Everything else is a conspiracy. No, you may not unlawfully inspect her background on a mere rumour.” In a deserted tone he added, “It’s pretty outstanding how good you can hide dirty secrets in a principled, libertarian society. Not that I’m saying the alternative yields better results.”

He looked a little bit at the empty glass, just quietly. There was one of those moments where he knew what he wanted to do next, but his brain just decided to be completely in blockade mode and first inspect that thought without actually questioning it. Only for him to then raise the glass to Aclysia after an awkward pause. She took it smoothly and got his refill on the way.

“If they were to level that accusation in the vacuum of a non-revealed Scarlett,” John said after clearing his throat, “then that would lead to people just filling in the gaps themselves. We would have to deny things or fill those gaps along the way. Usually that leads to looking way too suspicious. Especially if the information laid out by the enemy slots so well into the way Collide started off. It’s not a situation in which we outright loose, but in that information war we start on the backfoot and that’s pretty bad.”

“Okay, but now that Scarlett is out in the open, people could just use scrying magic on her to confirm stuff, right?” Rave asked, not quite understanding yet whether this was the smartest way to act or not after all.

Scarlett looked up from her third drink just as John got his second. “In the information war over the public, the only thing that really matters is perception,” she stated outright. “Scrying magic has the drawback that its hard to share by means other than words. Unless there is a guy so credible everyone is swayed by his report, whatever he gets out of observing me, it’s just another voice in the field. Plus, I have already taken precautions.”

She had indeed, and they were of the incredibly strong variety. It cost John a whole 3000 mana before he went through her barrier of complete information clouding. Above that, he slowly got the revelations of an Observe sheet that was her false identity. Level 52, very intelligent, lowly adapt at electrical magic, but no mention of technomancy. At 10’000 mana spent, he finally did get a corrupted version of her real character sheet. They had tested this quite extensively. Only because she had wanted to be friendly to him specifically, had their first meeting even yielded a truthful result.

“Not that this is a flawless strategy either,” John pointed out. “There rarely is such a thing. If I was attempting to counter this out myself, I would just talk about the Technomancer that is the heir of Thorne and leave out any connection to this Scarlett,” he gestured towards the genuine article. “At which point I would gladly invite people to investigate to find out there is no such person anywhere in the tower and-.”

“Please do spare me further theories,” Rave pleaded, having heard enough from her boyfriend’s strategic side. “I get it, having her out in the open actually minimises risks. Dunno if I get all of the details, but I get the concept. Just one more question: would it really be THAT bad if people learned about Scarlett? Ya two make it sound like Fusion would just miraculously collapse if it ever got public.”

“It would be kind of bad.” John tried to gauge the worst damage it could do. “It would definitely be a stain on our reputation. Nothing that would collapse any system though. The people who would be the angriest would probably be the higher ups here in Amacat and the people we beat along the way. Otherwise, the worst thing about Scarlett being a known factor is that all enemies will be on the lookout around their devices.”

“So not that bad, got it,” Rave summarized for herself and gave him that ‘I know you’re overthinking stuff again’ look.

“Good… so yeah, that’s the three reasons why she would have wanted to reveal herself. Did I get everything, Scarlett?”

“You forgot one,” she answered, sliding out of her vest and then throwing it on the back of her armchair. “The initial one, funnily enough.” When John sat there mulling for a few moments, Scarlett just shook her head in a downright mocking manner. “Look at you, unable to see the obvious things.”

“Do tell me, because I’m feeling stupid but I just don’t get the thing…” he said.

“Now that I have a public persona, I can run the fuck around wherever I want,” she blatantly stated, and John did feel like a proper idiot. That was, indeed, absolutely obvious. “Which includes actually hanging out in public with you or going to a beach. Do you know how fucking odd it is to never have been to a beach?”

“Wait, what?” Rave almost keeled over from surprise. “Ya never went to a beach in your life? Ya live in NYC!”

“Best I got was a strip of sand next to a swimming pool,” Scarlett reported; she didn’t seem too disgruntled with this. “My fucking idiot of a father always liked to keep me hidden, by whatever cost.” She put her drink down for the moment and just relaxed in her seat. “At least he didn’t make the mistake of spoiling the shit out of me and make me some sort of bratty princess,” she stated fingers drumming on her knees.

“Craving a cigarette?” John guessed.

“You have no fucking idea,” the bloodstained Technocrat stated, grabbing a cigarette from her vest and then searching for a window or balcony on which she could get her fix of nicotine. Instead, she got to take a surprised look at Aclysia offering a fire. “What suddenly got your cogs lubricated, Aclysia?”

“This establishment is not owned by Master,” the weaponized maid stated. “As I hold no respect for people that ignore him in his time of need, you are welcome to ruin this environment along with your health.”

“Only temporary then,” Scarlett grumbled into her cigarette, moving her head so that the tip aligned with the flame once Aclysia put the flame on. “Not great, but I’ll take what I can get,” she exhaled the smoke slowly into the air.

“Master,” Beatrice spoke up from the sidelines, holding her smartphone. “Report: the half-hourly update of your missed calls. Number: 38. Accumulation over: 2 hours total. Would you like me to list the names of callers?”

“No,” John waved off, putting an arm around Rave. “We’ll wait a little bit before we get back to them. Let them dangle.”

Sometimes, the Gamer liked to be at least a bit petty.