The voice was soft, calm, and directly behind me. I didn't jump. I turned slowly, my face a carefully constructed mask of blankness. It was Maya. She stood there, holding her large sketchbook, her sharp eyes missing nothing.
She gestured vaguely to the empty space where my system screen hovered, invisible to her.
"You have this… intense focus. Like you're reading something no one else can see. That's how you coordinate it all, isn't it?"
I said nothing. My new 'Silent Threat' skill seemed to thicken the air around us. The library was mostly empty, but the space between us felt uniquely isolated, cold, and dangerous.
She wasn't deterred.
"I'm not going to tell anyone," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Why would I? This is the first interesting thing that's happened all year."
She took a step closer and opened her sketchbook. She flipped past dozens of pages filled with drawings of heroes. They weren't the flattering, heroic poses from the posters.
She had drawn Captain Comet looking bored during a press conference, Lady Lux subtly checking her reflection in a shop window, Stronghold looking confused by a complex piece of machinery.
She saw them not as gods, but as flawed, vain people.
She saw the truth.
Then, she flipped to the last few pages. My breath caught. She had drawn the rally.
A stunningly rendered pencil sketch of the banner falling onto the orchestra. A chaotic scene of students roaring with laughter.
And the final, full-page spread… it was a drawing of me.
She had depicted me sitting in the bleachers, but she'd used shadow and perspective to make me look like a queen on a throne.
My face was calm, but my shadow stretched out long and dark, its tendrils touching the drone, the AV booth, the maintenance door.
It was a breathtaking piece of art, capturing the absolute truth of the event. She hadn't just seen what happened; she understood it.
"The heroes are a brand. The villains are all gone. The world is bored," she said, her eyes gleaming with an intensity that matched my own.
"You're not boring. You're a storyteller. A director. And I..." she tapped the sketchbook, "...I'm a documentarian. I want to chronicle your work. I want a front-row seat for your next performance."
It was an offer of alliance. An application for a job I hadn't advertised. My mind raced. She was smart, observant, and talented.
An asset. She was also a massive risk.
A loose cannon who could expose everything. My instinct was to refuse, to intimidate her into silence just like the others.
But the system had praised my 'tactical acumen.' A true Puppet Master doesn't just use fear. They use talent. They use ambition.
Maya wasn't offering her loyalty out of fear, but out of a shared disdain for the world's hypocrisy. That was a bond far stronger than terror.
I still didn't speak. I simply took out my datapad and typed a single sentence.
Why should I trust you?
She smiled, a quick, sharp flash of intelligence.
"Because a historian who betrays their subject has no story to tell. My art needs a muse. And you, Luna, are a masterpiece of chaos in the making. Exposing you would be like burning down the museum. I'm not an idiot."
She tore a small page from her sketchbook, wrote a contact number on it, and slid it onto the table between us.
"Think about it. Every great villain in history had someone to tell their story. Otherwise, they're just forgotten footnotes. And you are not a footnote."
She gave one last, appraising look, a nod of respect from one artist to another, and walked away, leaving me with the slip of paper and the echo of her words.
That evening, I didn't go to the mart right away. I let my pawns sweat under the fluorescent lights for a few hours before I made my appearance. When I finally entered, the effect of my new skill was immediate and profound.
The moment I crossed the threshold, all three of them froze, their fear amplifying tenfold.
Leo dropped a bottle of synth-soda, which fizzed and foamed on the floor. Without a word, without even a glance from me, Jake scrambled for a mop.
Mark, who was at the register, stood up straighter, his hands visibly trembling as he tried to look busy. My control was no longer just a memory of a threat; it was an active, oppressive aura.
I could direct them with a flicker of my eyes. It was beautifully efficient.
I walked past them, my footsteps silent on the clean floor, and retrieved a single, cold energy drink from the cooler. As I left, I tossed a credit chip on the counter without looking back.
Walking home under the neon glow of the city's false gods, I pulled the slip of paper from my pocket. Maya's number. She was a risk.
A massive, unpredictable variable. But she was right. What was a villain without a legend? What was a masterpiece without a museum?
The game was getting more complicated, but it was also getting infinitely more interesting.