Chương 698: Chapter Seventy-One - This Action Will Have Consequences

HypeMonger: Posted: Sept 15, 2047, 09: 32 AM Wow! Have you heard of Hope//Punk? It's like, the best TTRPG ever! WhatIfGooseIsCuteToo: Posted: Sept 15, 2047, 09: 41 AM What? Like, it's better than DnD7e? Fuck off. HypeMonger: Posted: Sept 15, 2047, 09: 43 AM No, really, it's super cool! BirboTheBirb: Posted: Sept 15, 2047, 10: 02 AM I... think that user is a bot. --Archived conversation on Z. com, 2047 Next on the list was the media. I... had no idea how to tackle that.

A big part of me wanted to ask Lucy her opinion, or Gomorrah, but like, I didn't need them that much, did I? I could handle this on my own. Besides, I wanted to get it over with, and if I went back home, I'd be too distracted by how pretty Lucy was to concentrate fully on this job. So, for now, I just needed to figure out how to contact the media and tell them to chill out. That was going to be tricky.

The main issue being, of course, that this wasn't one group. The four corps I'd just visited had headquarters and CEOs and people that I could walk up to and slap down the rules in front of. The 'media' problem did have a few corps involved. A few news channels had their own buildings or sections of buildings at the very least. But a lot of the 'news' companies that had reached out to Gomorrah were small-fries.

Little internet-only companies with five employees and even some influencers and drama-tubers that fed off of whatever shit was going down like rats rifling through the trash. So, how did I convince all of them to stay the fuck away? I was pretty sure that just threatening them wouldn't work. Life was cheap for journos.

As far as I could tell, the average wanna-be journalist got off on stories of their heroic journalistic predecessors getting bombed for sticking their nose in places that bomb-owning people didn't want them to be. I mean, I got it. There was some serious balls in being the one to break open the story that some fuckers were fucking around, or proving that some dipshit was doing a genocide in their backyards, and going out in a literal bang was cool as fuck...

Like, it was the same reason people joined the army, even if they knew they had even odds of losing life and limb. It was still kind of glorious, wasn't it? And they even got the nice edge of knowing that they were in the ethical and moral high ground as they got poisoned in a hotel room or tripped out of a hundredth story window. That was the kind of drama-hungry busybody that I had to convince not to show up. I was pretty sure that the bigger the threat, the more some of them would salivate at the opportunity.

So, how did I convince them not to show up? I was on the roof of the last corporation I'd visited's HQ. They'd tried to make it so that I couldn't get in. Closing all of the garage doors and locking up in a hurry. I'd had to use a grenade as a lockpick to break in. Fortunately, they decided not to test me once I was in. Now I was mostly using their roof as a place to pace and think. Also, it was probably making them sweat down there, wondering if I'd change my mind and go back downstairs. It didn't matter.

The pacing was good for thinking, even with the New Montreal rain coming down all around me. I continued to walk, drawing a long circle around my bike. The media sorts would be showing up, even if we told them not to. But... maybe not if they thought others would be there, right? There wasn't too much value in sending a full news team over, or sneaking over as a paparazzi, if others were going to get in officially, right?

"Hey, Myalis, can I bounce some ideas off of you?" Certainly. I'm sure you've come up with something unique and interesting.

"Don't kiss my ass so much," I said. I was trying something new. I suppose positive reinforcement is lost on you.

"Damn right." So, what's this dumbass idea you stumbled upon? I laughed.

"Okay, so... news folk, they're gonna show up if we tell them not to. But I think they might not show up if they think there's a lot of their competitors there already. Does that sound plausible?" Surprisingly, yes. I see where you're going with this. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Yeah. So we 'give permission' to some companies, and tell the rest not to bother and that they'll be shot on sight. The usual. Wait... no, that'd encourage some of them. We'll just embarrass them publicly instead. But the real plan is that we're not going to give permission to any of them. Can you draw up a form on like, a site or something that we can send to all the media sorts? Something they need to fill out to attend. Maybe tell them that there's a neat badge that'll keep the IFF from gunning them down."

But you have no intention of sending any such badges, correct?

"Yeah. But they won't know that until it's too late," I said. Surprisingly devious.

"Damn right," I agreed.

"Now... some of them are gonna want sound-bites and shit too. Let's do one of those meetings with the press. What're they called?" A press conference.

"Yeah, that," I said with a snap of my fingers.

"We set one up on the far end of the city, invite everyone over, and don't bother showing up." I feel like that may, more than the previous trick, insult the media. Right. Not being invited was one thing, and they'd eventually find out that no one was but that would be like... a clever trick that wasn't necessarily insulting. Having them show up somewhere only for no one to be there was a whole different story. I paced back and forth a bit more, then had an idea. I opened my contacts list and scrolled down.

It wasn't far until I found the person I wanted to call. The line rang twice before someone answered.

"This must be important." I grinned.

"Hello, Emoscythe Mordeath Noir," I replied.

"Using my proper name, Stray Cat? You must be after something," she said. I shrugged, even if she couldn't see it.

"I might be... okay, so yeah, I'm definitely after something. A distraction, mostly."

"Go on," Emoscythe said.

"So, I've got the media on my ass over our little conclave event coming up this weekend. I've set up one way to distract them. I'll be sending them this thing that asks them to fill out a form to apply for media permission badges. Don't intend to hand any out, though."

"So that they assume that they were merely not chosen," she said.

"Some will communicate with each other."

"I can say that the choice will come down to the day before the event. It'll give them too little time to react," I said.

"At least, I hope."

"Don't underestimate the speed at which that kind of person moves," Emoscythe said.

"But yes, overall it's not a terrible way to reduce the number of journalists and paparazzi you'll have to deal with."

"Yeah. For the rest, I was hoping that threats would work, and I was thinking I'd set up a nice press conference that'll happen at about the same time as the conclave. You know, to drag people away."

"I see. And is this where you explain why you're taxing my very valuable time?'

"Well, I don't want to piss them off and send them to an empty room somewhere," I said.

"It's a bit mean, you know. So I got to thinking 'which mean bitch do I know who'd love some media attention' and your name, the whole thing, popped up in my head."

"Cute," she said. There was a long pause.

"I suppose that there might be something to that. They may still be upset, but I can at least provide some amount of a distraction, though the type of media would be all wrong."

"Type?" I asked.

"Drama-chasers and political newscasters aren't the sorts you'd usually invite to the kind of events that I host. Though... It may be fun to challenge myself to design a runway show based on the designs and fashion choices of the gangs present at your event. I'd have mere minutes to design appropriate looks tailored to each."

"That doesn't sound possible," I said. Not for a human. I bet Myalis could do it... though she'd throw in cat ears and tails and probably too much leopard print. Emoscythe scoffed.

"Watch me. It'll be with the wrong audience, but that'll only mean that the fashion world will have to play catch up and will hate themselves for missing something entirely unique."

"So, you're in?" I asked.

"You will owe me a favour for this. I'll send you the details." She hung up.

"Uh... what kind of favour?" I asked, but there was no one to answer... at least until Myalis started to laugh in my head.