“Will you tell me some of those plans?”
She smiled. “Why not, we are working together, after all. They can use our background in theater to work the propaganda angle.”
It was only a portion of the truth, but she also suspected that Jonas knew this. He accepted it easily enough.
-“I’ll send Ir to discuss that angle with you, so that we don’t step on each other’s toes.”
+“I’ll send Ir to coordinate with you, so that we don’t step on each other’s toes. That’s what he’s been working on.”
+“Did you not say he looked nothing like you? You certainly have the face for a propagandist.”
+Jonas laughed. “He arguably looks better. Just different. On that note, will you have your, uh…human self do the propagandizing?”
+She waved the question away. “I will work it out. For now, do you have any more news on Yared and his handler?”
+“Not too much more. Demma has been heard to mention the System as a country, but so far hasn’t mentioned the word secession. Yared’s latest post is along similar lines as his last. Fluffy, if you’ll forgive the metaphor. The little bit of us teasing each other went over well, and there were a few comments elsewhere on the ‘net that others caught talking about the fact that at least the System still seemed to have fun in it.”
+“Any other comments about secession that you have seen?”
+He shook his head. “Same little blips from some of the crazier people. More of them, perhaps, but it hasn’t bubbled up too far. There’s a bit more chatter about the legal status of the System independent of other nations, but the S-word hasn’t come up yet. You heard any here sys-side?”
+“Not except between us,” she lied.
+Jonas needn’t know all of her plans, nor that the propaganda work had already begun. Nor, for that matter, that she was still in contact with Dr. Carter Ramirez, phys-side, who still had reputation of her own, her own knight in the British Isles. After all, if he was going to continue to maintain some of his leverage of the situation, oughtn’t she do the same?
+“Alright, well.” Jonas frisbeed his plate into a trash can by the buffet tables. “I guess we’re in a holding pattern on that front until the news breaks elsewhere. Until then, keep kissing babies and shaking hands. Or shaking babies and kissing hands. Or whatever it is that not-a-politicians do.”
+Before she could respond, he winked to her and blipped out of existence, likely back to his home sim.
+True Name remained a while in the sim, falling back into the habit of planning and rumination, memorizing the pieces and their locations that Jonas had pushed onto the board, and thinking about all of the lies she had told today.