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TBoB - Book 3 - Chapter 36 - Aftermath (Charlotte PoV)
🕑 Added 2025-01-24 16:51:03 +0000 UTCHey... Get to find out what's up with the rivalry from Mirage's side.
Charlotte PoV
When I stepped off the lift onto the executive floor of Miller Hardlight Sciences everything was dark, and quiet. Not exactly what I would have expected for a Wednesday afternoon. Either the place went under, or Benedict must have been sulking again. Crossing the abandoned floor, mentally ordering each polarized window to clear as I went, I made my way to Benedict’s office. The only person still at their post was Anthony, Benedict’s personal assistant. The man nodded respectfully to me as I strode past.
Even though the door was locked, it opened to my personal codes. The smell of expensive synthetic alcohol hit my nose the instant I stepped into Benedict’s office. I’d expected to find the man himself behind his desk, slaving away like usual, but instead I found him reclined in one of the expensive purple lounge chairs he kept for entertaining guests. He was wearing one of his over the top purple suits, a crystal bottle on the table next to him, glass in his hand.
“I’ve never seen you drink during a work day,” I said quietly as I stepped up next to him and gently pulled the glass from his hand. “Feeling guilty about something?”
“Please don’t tease me right now,” he moaned, sinking further into his chair. “I feel bad enough as it is.”
I perched on the chair across from him, placing the drink on the table next to me, out of his reach. “Then why the hell did you do that? You heard the news, you knew why Evelyn and the others attacked the council building, yet you still tried to interfere. That’s not like you.”
“You know why,” Benedict groaned. “It’s Evelyn, ever since I met her she’s been nothing but stand-offish, and aggressive towards me, and her attitude rubs me the wrong way. She treats me like a corporate stooge! I’ve spent years trying to change things for the better. Countless hours and billions of dollars lobbying for the council to institute harsher penalties for companies that sacrifice their indentured servants, break contracts, and take advantage of the citizens. And it was working. I was slowly making a difference in the lives of the people in this city.”
He sat up and ruffled his hair. “I’m proud of my accomplishments! The opinion of just one person shouldn’t make a difference to me. Why do I let her get to me so much?”
“Do you want my opinion?” I asked.
“Please,” he replied, slouching in his chair.
“I think there are three reasons she gets to you. The first is, she’s an undercity resident, one of the people you’ve been unable to help over the years. Despite all the money we’ve sunk into public work projects and politicking over the years, we’ve never once been able to get a toehold in the undercity. The residents just don’t trust outsiders, and who can blame them? They’ve been screwed over by nearly every other entity in this city.”
I stood up and walked over to Benedict, pulling him up until he wasn’t sitting in a slouch anymore.
“The second reason is, she doesn't want to work with you. Not only does she not like corporations, but she refuses to join the Family. You’re so used to people falling under your charms, that when someone doesn’t, you don’t like it.”
Benedict groaned. “And the third?”
“When she puts her mind to something, she gets things done. She doesn’t care about the rules, the laws, or what other people think, she just does it. And she’s effective. You’ve been working so diligently to change the system from within, for so long, that it bothers you when someone gets more done by ignoring the rules.”
“I… can’t deny that.” He tried to slouch down, but I didn’t let him.
“Now, darling, please tell me what was going through your head when you ‘rescued’ the council members. I know you heard about what happened below. This couldn’t all have been about Evelyn.”
“It wasn’t. I just kind of panicked, okay? Like I said, we’ve spent years trying to change the system, and I thought it was working, until I heard the council tried to take down a plate. Everything we’d worked towards, discarded the instant it was convenient. What’s worse is, before I could even begin to figure out what was wrong, and how to fix it, Evelyn and her friends decided to just tear down the entire system. I saw years of work going down the drain in seconds. I offered the rest of the council members sanctuary, and locked them in rooms downstairs until I could figure out what to do. Now that I’ve had time to actually think about the issue, I admit that removing the current council and replacing them with a more reasonable alternative is better. I just felt like things were moving too quickly.” He sighed, “It’s like you said, I probably blamed Evelyn because she was trying to institute serious changes, while I’ve been stuck making minor improvements.”
“If it makes you feel any better Evelyn’s involvement was entirely driven by the fact that people were in danger, and the fact the council pissed her off. It was entirely driven by emotion, and the need to help others, it wasn’t politically driven at all. She doesn’t want anything to do with choosing a government, or participating in an interim government, she just wanted the council out,” I explained, sitting on his lap.
“That doesn’t exactly make me feel any better. It just means she’s a better judge of character, and getting things done than me,” Benedict pouted.
“She just has different priorities than you,” I replied, patting him on the back.
Benedict seemed to collect himself. He sat up a little straighter, and nodded confidently. “I’ll just have to do better in the future. Stop letting what Evelyn does get to me, and concentrate on my own projects. If I learn anything from this, it should be that I need to think outside the box more. We probably could have done more if I had been willing to bend the rules, just a little bit.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said with a smile. “You should probably apologize to Evelyn later, she was really pissed at you earlier.”
“Apologize?” he replied indignantly. “She beat me once I released the council members to your custody, did you know that?”
“Then you should also send a nice thank you gift to Hel later too. Apparently Evelyn was so irate that she needed to be sedated before coming here,” I told him. “I’ve seen what she does when she’s angry. It usually involves that massive bear of hers, and immense property damage to her target.”
“Right. Apologize to Evelyn and thank Hel, got it,” Benedict said.
“Good,” I said, leaning forward and placing a kiss on his forehead before standing up again. “Now Darling, it’s almost dinner time and we have reservations, but I refuse to go anywhere with you while you smell like a distillery. Please go use your private bathroom to get cleaned up, I’ll call your secretary to deliver a fresh suit.”
The man nodded, and pushed himself to his feet, before headed to the back of the small office. “Wait for me love, I won’t be long. When I come back, I’ll look like a new man.”
“I can’t wait,” I replied with a smile.
Comments
Irish Not Sane
Corporate stooge trying to do good is still a cooperate stooge. Mirage is a cooperate stooge because it’s what he knows and as he admitted, he doesn’t like working outside of that. P.S. I like starting my subscriptions at the start of the month and I forgot last month…
Shannon Livingston
It's quite alright. It's something that I realized while writing myself, and only through talking to you, and my friends, did I realize that now would be the optimal time to find out exactly what makes mirage tick. I appreaciate the comments!
Shannon Livingston
-Thinks- In business? Probably. She's definately the more shrewd of the two. Mirage is relatively straight forward, he keeps pushing forward with what he knows which, as we saw here, was one of the reasons he and Teddy but heads. Her unconventional ideas and workign outside the box doesn't sit right with him.
Simon Casey
Thanks for the chapter! This addresses the concerns I had about Mirage very well. We get to see what we've been told before but had no evidence of in the past(beyond secondhand testimonial), that he's someone genuinely trying to do the right thing by working within the system, who freaked out and made some poor decisions when faced with the reality that his slow machinations were tossed out the window as soon as appeasing him was less important to the companies than trying to maintain grip on power. I'm still not a fan of him and his methods at a personal level, but that doesn't make him a bad character. I do hope that as things transition to whatever new government takes over the city that his revelation that he should have been willing to bend the rules a bit expands into a realization that some of the rules he's trying to protect only exist to harm people, and that being moral means changing those rules even if he in general works to preserve order, but there is drama in him failing to realize that too, so it could go many different ways. Thanks again for writing such an engaging story. I realized later that my comments on the last chapter might have been a bit demanding, and I'm sorry if they came across that way. Ultimately, as the author you should do whatever you think is best. That said, the reason I spoke up is because I'm so invested in the story that I care how it develops, and I really appreciate your willingness to read feedback, whether you end up following it or not.
Kahunabob
Kudo's to Charlotte / Stalking for knowing how to handle her man. Being strongwilled is a good character trait. Especially in a Samurai. But if it crosses the line over into headstrong and obstinacy? Not good for someone who's in essence the destructive potential of a 100 megatonne nuke. Charlotte here comes across here as a "Power behind the Throne" as it were. It wouldn't surprise me that for all her gentleness in handling Mirage, she's by far the more ruthless of the two.
