Chapter One Taranis #2
“Four to six weeks. Usually companies have to submit a bid including a sample contract, short-term proposal, and a budget. They go back and forth with Mr. Singkham until eventually a contract is agreed upon, and only then will Mr. Singkham let you sit down and meet with them. The process could take months if you’re unsatisfied with the first few clients they bring in. ”
Let you. The rest of the words blend and blur, but those two stand out in sharp clarity. Mr. Singkham letting me do anything feels . . . like something I should have taken care of a long time ago.
But I will. Soon.
I release a dissatisfied huff. Simone doesn’t flinch. I’d like to keep her on, because she isn’t skittish like so many others I’ve hired, but if she doesn’t give me better news, and quickly, she’s going to end up as collateral.
I clear my throat as I put the papers down and place my hands on top of them. However, before I can speak and send electricity skittering over her skin, Simone chooses that moment to stand up a little straighter, adjust the glasses balanced on the end of her nose, and save herself.
“I know it’s not my place, Mr. Taranis, but I did have one other suggestion not on your list.”
I wait. The rope of the guillotine is taut.
She sets down her binder and gestures at my newspaper-covered desk. “May I?”
I give a small tip of my head, and she moves rapidly, her fingers flitting over the papers, dragging a few of my least favorite to the top. The ones where the Wyvern shimmers in his new fucking suit, in his new fucking skin, his perfect little bride-to-be standing right beside him in half of them.
I grip the cold edge of my desk, wondering if I’ll be able to break this one with a touch. I went through three wooden desks before I migrated to concrete. So far, it’s held up to my ire. She better get to the fucking point.
“Look here.” Her finger moves, not over the headlines but over the tiny, tiny text between the caption and the photograph that reads photo credit: Monika Neumann.
“It’s on every paper. Online publications too.
” She reaches into her pocket and withdraws her phone.
She already has the latest headlines pulled up, and as she scrolls down, I notice that same name listed beneath every photo in every article.
“And their social media—well, his social media; hers is more personal—you can see here that his following had two major explosions. One after the Forty-Eight Hour Festival, when you were all photographed together and this image surfaced.” A picture of the Wyvern, the pink monstrosity, staring down at Vanessa adoringly, his hand tipping up her chin as he leans down to kiss her.
The worst part about the photo? You can see my blurry fucking outline in the background, talking to Ms. Lemon, the witch.
“And of course, his first major post. Three million likes. And this was before his transition, when he didn’t have even ten percent of your following.”
I know what photo she’s going to show me next.
It’s a picture of the Wyvern as a Black man with glowing brown skin and fire in his gaze, traveling up a tunnel carrying no fewer than six humans draped over his broad frame.
It was a daring rescue after an avalanche.
I hadn’t been called in for it, nor would I have wanted to go if I had been.
But with power over fire, he’d been an easy candidate. And he’d delivered.
“All of the rescue photos were taken by the same person. She was on-site with him.”
“In the snow?”
“Apparently, from the reports I’ve seen produced by The Riot Creative detailing the incident, she snuck into the tunnel after him.”
I frown. “She could have died if the tunnel collapsed.” Likely would have. Humans are so frail. Pathetic.
Simone nods. “Correct. She’s known for taking big risks.” She opens her little binder and pulls out a stack of photos—these featuring neither Champions nor villains.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter as I comb through the images. Some of them are . . . hard to look at. Even for me.
Armed militants wearing uniforms I don’t recognize, whose badges are written in various scripts I don’t speak, hunkered down behind large bags of sand, machine guns peeking out from over the tops.
The camera nestled among the guns captures the moment a militant is shot in the head, eyes rolled back, blood spatter visible as it shoots out the back of his skull.
“For fuck’s sake.”
Another image shows the desert, soldiers posing next to the mutilated body of a man in a different uniform. I glance at another picture, this one of a white man with short blond hair and a filthy beard trapped in a tire. It’s on fire.
“Get these off my fucking desk.”
She does, gathering them up before setting others down in their place.
“Those photos are all Monika’s. She’s a war photographer.
They say she’s the best of our generation.
She has exhibits too.” The new photos Simone shows me are mostly portraits taken from unusual angles or in the reflections of other objects.
“Your point? Other than to make me want to lose my lunch?”
She takes a fortifying breath and gathers all her glossy little pictures back up into her leather notebook, which she holds against her chest. “I think that with the right photographer, you might be able to use even the most average PR firm. After all, The Riot Creative is small. They may be good at what they do, but they aren’t that good.
The significant differential here might just be the right photo ops.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but Monika’s seem to be worth a million likes. ”
I flick my gaze up at Simone, thinking that in this moment, I wouldn’t like to gut her. It’s an odd feeling. “Good,” I say.
She exhales, her lips twitching in the smallest makings of a smile.
“Very good, Simone.”
By now, Simon has returned and stands just inside my office, clutching his own binder to his chest and watching his coworker in awe.
“Who is her present employer?” I ask.
“I’m not certain if she’s on an independent contract or if she’s a full-time employee of The Riot Creative, but they are her primary employer—not the COE.”
“That’ll make things easier.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Set it up.”
“Do you want me to set up a meeting between the two of you in private first, or move directly into a contract buyout with The Riot Creative CEO?”
I sit up and make a frustrated sound. The backs of my hands crackle with blue energy. “I want to meet with Mr. Singkham and Ms. Theriot first.”
“Of course,” she says, not batting an eye even though that was not one of her two suggestions.
“And I want you”—I point at Simon—“to set up meetings with the next three PR directors on Simone’s list. The short list, not the red one,” I say, disgusted.
“Done.”
“Go.” I wave my fingers at Simone and Simon and, as they leave, lean back in my seat. I pull up Monika Neumann’s social media, finding it surprisingly sparse of any personal content. It’s mostly photographs advertising her gallery; each of them has thousands of likes.
There’s the occasional shot of her posing in her gallery alongside others—posts that were clearly a collaboration.
I find something off-putting about her as I swipe through one of the few self-portraits I find, though I’m not sure why.
It’s not her looks, which are predictably human and, in that, unexceptional.
She has dark-brown skin and evidence in her features of an East Asian heritage.
Her hair is cut short, straight across at her chin and falls there in waves.
She’s got bangs, round cheeks, narrowed eyes, puffy lips, and a wide nose.
A bigger girl, her tits and thighs are thick, and she’s got a waist. In the self-portrait I’m staring at, she’s wearing a short dress that hugs her body from cleavage to mid-thigh.
I don’t see many curvy girls online dressing sexy, I realize with a frown.
The few that pop up in my feed, which is dominated by news—news about me—are usually expertly dressed and covering up all their soft bits.
But not Monika. She’s not hiding. She’s confident.
More confident than I want her to be, given the conversation I’d like to have with her.
Returning to her self-portrait, I see that it’s a brand deal she has with Nikon advertising some model of camera.
The caption reads Out from behind the lens, and the first picture is of her, seated sideways on a fluffy ottoman so that her profile is visible.
It’s a black-and-white photograph, and she’s looking into the distance at something that’s got her smiling.
I roll my eyes. I mean, what’s she possibly smiling at?
Her horde of cats? She’s got cat lady written all over her.
The rest of the pictures in that gallery are all the same: annoyingly sentimental, making her look unusually confident, content, and even sweet.
As if she likes the life she has and has the life she likes. I can’t stand her already.
I’m about to exit the irritating app when I notice a single image that’s not a photograph, but looks more like a flyer. Monika’s face appears on the front, surrounded by a frame that is made to look like paper lanterns. I click on it.
Bridging Cultures and Celebrating Success: Jinju Lantern Festival Kicks Off at the South Korean Embassy October 5th
I am so excited to be joining Ambassador Min-hyuk at the Korean Embassy to celebrate the Jinju Lantern Festival kickoff this fall!
I still can’t believe I’ve been counted among the guests of honor alongside some of the most influential South Koreans living in the US—including one of my personal icons, Elizabeth Cho, who founded the Gallery Reconstruction Project to provide space, and funding, for emerging artists to get their start.
I am a personal recipient of one of Cho’s grants and can honestly say that I don’t know where I’d be without them . . .
Yada yada.
As well as supermodel Grier Kim-young, one of the first biracial Black Koreans I ever met, outside of my own family oc, and who I had the pleasure of photographing almost a decade ago now.
Americans and Koreans and all are welcome! Come see me! I will be displaying some of my photographs as part of the South Korean Embassy’s Bridging Cultures series . . .
“Simon!” I shout, forgetting that I already dismissed him. I angrily send him a text, which he takes two full minutes to reply to. I frown. Simone would have been faster.
He calls me instead of texting. I pick up the phone, hostility clogging my throat, which diminishes only somewhat when he begins speaking in response to my text right away.
“Yes, Taranis. I spoke with PR and there was an invitation sent to our team for the event, but they declined as it doesn’t serve our interests. ”
Our. Our, our, our. Who the fuck is our?
“Would you like me to have them go back and accept?”
“Yes . . . no. No, actually. Don’t change anything.” My mind is working. I scroll back through her feed to the picture where she looks so happy, staring at her cats. “Check for me if Monika Neumann is single.”
“She is.”
“How do you know? Did you check?”
“Oh, I am . . . I, um . . . Well, you see . . . the thing is that I kinda asked her out when she was photographing you and the other Champions for the Forty-Eight Hour Festival shoot, and she, uh . . . she said she doesn’t date.”
Jesus Christ. I rub my hand down my face, wondering how it is that I ended up on this planet. Among all higher life-forms that exist across the galaxies, humans must surely be the dumbest. “And she wasn’t just telling you that to get you to go away?”
“Well, I . . . have kind of been following her since. On socials. I mean . . . not in a creepy way. I just really like her photography . . .”
For the love of god—a.k.a. me.
“And no, she’s not, um . . . seeing anybody.”
“Good. Then get the other meetings set up. I have a plan.”
Because a contract is always nice, but the real way to ensure a woman’s cooperation is to approach her as a man—not that I am one of those.
Human women are fickle and easy to manipulate, and it will be more effective to ensnare her through charm than through contracts.
A little smile I’ve perfected over the years, and she’ll be mine.
The COE will be mine.
Humanity will be mine.
As for the Marduk and the villains?
We’ll either cement our alliance, or I’ll move to plan B and kill him.
And this all begins by taking control of the news cycle, and Monika Neumann.