[b]Crystal:[/b]

Crystal thinks about this. “Let’s put that aside for now. Would you rather start with the cake, or the salad next?” She thinks about it, and then finishes the last spoonful of the first-try cereal. “Hold on a moment.”

When she comes back, she’s lugging a dress mannequin from the bedroom, and she sits that at the kitchen counter where she had been sitting. “That might be better. How about we try cooking for… Mrs Killamanjaro instead.” She glances at the poison cereal. 

Privately, she’s half-expecting one of the steps for making the salad being to dice the intended diner directly. If that’s what needs to happen here, then it’s better to have a diner who won’t interrupt by complaining about it. 

[b]Spearmint:[/b]

“Well now, don’t you think you should have started with that? Don’t want to get caught giving orders from ignorance.” Chaka opens and closes an instrument case full of light body armor that fits like a bodystocking and labels it. “Cops have started targeting kin more, and there’s only one thing for it when that happens.” She pulls the next instrument case open, it’s just full of sniper rifle rounds, and closes and labels it. “Here’s the thing, Spearmint. When they put one of ours down, it’s almost always found to be unlawful. A few pigs get fired for it, maybe, but dead’s dead. When one of ours kills in self defense, it’s usually legit. This,” She taps the case of bullets, “is the only way any of us are going to see our day in court.” 

“Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six, you ever heard that one?” She catches she’s getting heated and crossing a line saying that, and shakes her head. 

She’s walks herself back, instead. “I’m not selling to gangs, Spearmint. My clientele are streamers, camgirls, content creators, organizers, activists, small time independents. High profile enough they’re scared of being made an example of, can’t go to the cops because that’s half of who they’re scared of. Maybe a couple girls who can’t get a restraining order, ‘cause the courts fucked ‘em on it.”

“Didn’t you wonder why I didn’t look surprised about a girl like you showing up here?” Chaka looks back at Spearmint, over her shoulder, and stands up with a hand on her hip. “You’re the kind of girl I’m used to taking care of. You looked like you could use some protection.” 

The sales pitch never comes after that, she doesn’t suggest anything. She wasn’t saying that to you as a prospective client.

[b]The Fucking Internet:[/b]

While Red holds a sorbet up to Eli’s eye so they can lap the runoff that trails into their mouth and clean the taste out that way, videos of the fight are already starting to go up on social media.

This is, of course, around the same time the [b]SES[/b] team has nothing to do from their investigation, and probably don’t have anything better to do than mess around on their phones. Whether it’s killing time at the site waiting for something interesting to happen, or waiting on a train back out of Zeus, it amounts to the same here. 

So here’s my question; What kind of social media shitfights does November get into when it’s Red getting dragged? Is this a meaningful, calculated swaying of public opinion through calculated delivery of memes, or is this getting caught in the weeds of a 27 chain reply thread with the single most obnoxious dickhead on Reddit they can find? (Reddit still exists, it’s just had 60 years of getting worse every year, yet somehow exactly the same.)