“Yes, I like my
high school very much. Himekaizen is so much fun,” Christina said
and giggled inanely.
The anchor gave
her a pained but professional smile in return. Most likely the woman
had seen more than her fair share of beautiful airheads flaring into
fame just to be forgotten half a year later.
Well, you're
going to remember this interview,
Christina thought. You
fired first and I'm responding with heavy artillery.
“Is there
something special that makes you like your school that much?” the
anchor asked.
Christina stared
into two uninterested eyes facing her. This
is where you expect yet another brain-dead answer.
“Yes, as I'm a
foreigner I'm very happy my school doesn't tolerate racism the way
Red Rose Academy does,” she said and made her face light up in a
wide grin. Christina knew it made her look stunning, and it offered
the anchor an opportunity to gloss over the uncomfortable message.
“I’m happy
that you have found a school to your liking,” the anchor said and
didn’t look happy at all. Her smile hardly reached her eyes.
They quickly
moved on to Christina’s model career and she made an effort to
balance between being an airhead and a professional model. Christina
had to keep her persona as the billion dollar empress in check,
because it was one thing to stride down the catwalk as haughty
royalty and a totally different one scaring away a television
audience who thrived on cuteness.
After the talk
show Christina changed into her baggy incognito set of clothes after
checking for needles and other booby traps as usual. She found
nothing, and hadn’t really expected to here at a television studio,
but better safe than sorry.
When she left the
studio she walked to the bike stand where her body guard stood
waiting patiently. But for the attack on Ulf her agency would have
dropped him by now. After the assault there was no way she’d have
her privacy back.
“Pleasant
evening?” Christina offered.
“Yes miss,”
her bodyguard answered. Nothing in his voice indicated whether he
found anything pleasant or not.
Christina
shrugged and mounted her bike. She plugged in the earpiece to her
headset and dialled one of her newfound contacts in the computer
club. After a few rumbling sounds, ‘ringtones’ didn’t really
describe the feeling of ringing someone in Japan, he picked up.
“Ageruman
here,” she said. They had agreed she’d announce herself even
though he saw her contact information when she called. Just in case
anyone stole her cell.
For once she
didn’t care if the paid muscle heard her conversation or not. She
was embarking on a dirty smear-campaign and any kind of
rumour-mongering would further her case.
“I’ve dropped
the bomb on the show,” Christina said.
“They could
edit it out.”
“Yeah, and
break the contract. Costly, dangerous and they’ll never see a teen
model on their show again.” Christina didn’t know if the penalty
would really stretch that far, but her contact at Uniclo, Alice
Kerringer, had pulled some strings of her own.
“In don’t
believe you,” came the response.
Computer geek
and
a coward. Immediately
after that thought Christina felt ashamed of herself. She did this to
avenge Ulf, and he started out his professional life as a computer
geek himself. “At the moment I’m Uniclo’s little mascot and I
told my contact there what could happen to their Korean and Chinese
market if they glossed this over.”
“Why should I
care about Koreans and Chinese?”
Just because
we don’t accept that kind of behaviour at Himekaizen doesn’t mean
there aren’t anyone who thinks
that way. “Would you
care to repeat that for me?” Christina said and made an effort to
lace her voice with the next ice age.
“Sorry
Ageruman-san. I apologise. That was uncalled for.”
Uncalled for,
my arse. You’ll be ostracised until graduation if I want.
“I don’t mind, but I’m certain Hamarugen-san would be unhappy
if he heard you say those things,” she said instead and felt her
stomach cramp at the lie. She cared very much. You didn’t build a
global fashion empire if you truly believed in eugenics.
“Ah, sorry. My
bad.”
Your bad
indeed. Ulf had garnered
his fair share of adoration in the computer club after he ran some
kind of tech
seminar there a few weeks ago.
“Anyway, the
show goes live tomorrow at five pm. Could you start those voices of
indignation from half past five?”
“Sure, and
you're certain you only want those sites seeded?”
Christina nodded
as she biked. “Yeah. I'll give you a new list and a new starting
hour later.”
He only needed
the list. Explaining demographics would take too long. Explaining how
she happened to know exactly where that TV-channel made an impact was
impossible, and she didn't really know. Christina gambled on the
demographics being mostly the same in this world as in her old one.
She'd make certain the ugly
rumours about Red Rose reached other local communities like rings on
the water.
Next on her
agenda was setting up a live protest. One that could be traced back
to 9:1 but no further. After that a few well placed libelous
newspaper articles. As far as she knew the right wing loonies at Red
Rose would take the bait, and Christina already had Noriko's consent
to detonate the real bomb.
Sorry Ulf, but I
won't let him stay peacefully in his grave. She'd use the evidence on
the suicide victim, because that evidence included damning photos on
two teachers and the principal of Red Rose. When I'm done with you
arseholes you're going belly up. Not even right wing loony parents
will place their kids there.
Christina used
the time at a red light to place another phonecall and continued her
smear campaign.
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