The Client
The face on her Holovid glared up at her: Vincent "Kingmaker" Darrow, a media mogul turned secret broker. Darrow was a man who traded scandals like currency, wielding influence over the city’s fractured leadership. "You can't trust anyone anymore," he had said during their earlier meeting, draped in an impeccable steel-gray suit that seemed to absorb the room’s light. His voice had been smooth, calculated. "I need you to find proof of a treasonous conspiracy tied to President Alder’s inner circle. The truth, Elara. Bring it to me before it’s too late."
Too late. That phrase hung heavy in her mind. She knew Darrow didn’t care about the political landscape or the collateral damage—but she did. Elara wasn’t leading this mission merely for currency. The briefing files detailed whispers between corporate titans and officials of New Manhattan’s elite. If what Darrow suspected was true, loyalty and power had supplanted justice as the new currency of governance.
But loyalty to what? To whom?
The Dive
Her target: a high-level cabinet member named Corwin Black, Chief of Infrastructure and a man both reviled and feared. Whispers claimed he was an architect of the city's growing divide between its wealthy high-rise dwellers and its forgotten slum inhabitants, relegated to the Underglow below the neon skyline. Elara’s task was to implant a mind-jack interface and sift through Black’s memory logs. The job was almost impossible—his neural defenses were rumored to be state-of-the-art. But Elara thrived where the impossible flirted with chaos.
She found him dining in a rotating penthouse restaurant encased in swirling holo-lights. She entered disguised as a poised socialite: her leather jacket traded for a shimmering crimson gown that hugged her athletic frame, the circuitry of her usually hardened boots hidden under the tailored flow of her attire. The soft clink of glasses and the murmur of elite conversations were punctuated by her sharp heels as they met marble.
The air reeked of power—liquor aged three centuries, delicate scents engineered in vats, and the tang of ozone produced by marble-cleaning bots. Black, a barrel-chested man with steely features, sat at the head of his entourage, his polished obsidian suit blending into the dim background. But his eyes—calculating, predatory—betrayed his awareness of everyone in the room.
The Memory Heist
Moments later, their paths intertwined. A casual conversation here, a polite laugh there. Elara leaned into her role with precision, the burning adrenaline of her real mission hidden beneath her composed exterior. A fleeting touch of her hand on his wrist—enough to disguise the mind-jack implant—and the hack was initiated.
Inside Black’s memories, the world unraveled into a digital tapestry of color and sound. She pieced through fragments of deals made in dimly lit rooms, encoded messages exchanged over secure lines, and long stares at ghostly figures who bore the president’s insignia. Then she found it—the shattered mirror reflecting a sinister truth.
There it was, a conspiracy orchestrated to ensure the survival of the elite while condemning the Underglow. Hidden beneath flowery diplomatic phrases and coded transmissions was a plan to deliberately sabotage infrastructure repairs, redirecting funds to private financiers and artificial islands built offshore for New Manhattan's wealthiest.
But the memory went deeper than policies; Elara saw Black’s personal betrayal—an oath-breaking meeting with Vincent Darrow himself. The transaction was there: the eyes of the Kingmaker cold and uncaring, exchanging secrets with heavy symbolic weight. Darrow wasn’t a broker for justice as she had thought. He too was a player in the game. A kingmaker’s game.
The Twist
Elara yanked herself back to reality, her pulse racing as the realization hit her. She had been double-crossed. Darrow was leveraging her to eliminate Black, but not for the greater good. He wanted to ascend into Black’s shadowy network and replace him. They weren’t opponents; they were the same breed of beast.
Her blood chilled as Black’s voice shattered the momentary silence: "Interesting place to lose focus, isn’t it?" His glass of wine still in hand, he stared directly at her. A faint sly smile pulled at his lip. The mind-jack had tripped an alarm. "You should’ve known better than to trust Darrow. But I’ll make this simple—walk away. Forget what you’ve seen, or the Underglow collapses tomorrow."
Elara’s throat tightened. The weight of her choices crushed her chest. If she exposed Black, Darrow would claim victory, suffocating the city under his control. If she stashed the truth, the Underglow would falter, abandoned to darkness. Standing there in her crimson gown—a beacon of deception—she understood what needed to be done.
The Ending
When she returned to Darrow’s office the next day, she held none of her usual poise. Rain dripped from her jacket, forming a pool at her feet as she dragged the memory file across his desk. His anticipatory grin faltered as she spoke: "Interesting thing about memories. Sometimes, you have to edit the intent."
The file she’d delivered was corrupted—exposing only Black’s plans, while burying Darrow’s involvement beneath layers of falsification. Elara watched as realization dawned in his eyes. Before he could react, she disappeared into the rainy haze of the neon labyrinth, free from the chains of power and betrayal that had ensnared both men.
Out there, amid the shimmering streets and cold shadows of New Manhattan, her purpose burned brighter. Truth wasn’t an absolute—it was a weapon. And in a city of players and pawns, Elara Voss had learned to wield it better than anyone.
The Source...check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: Trump's Cabinet Selections: Prioritizing Loyalty Over Experience
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