Chapter Text
A famous Old World saying goes, “history is written by the victors”, implying that the version of events recorded and preserved for future generations carries with it the biases and influence of the author who, generally speaking, overcame some form of opposition in their pursuit of power and influence. Ms. Koril Aniseya gazed upon the motto of the conservation firm left to her and her children by her late wife carved into the wooden frame of her burial plot beneath the orange tree in their family greenhouse and pondered if Thread Independent Media Enterprises would endure to record and preserve their own history and, consequently, emerge victorious. In her opinion, little else mattered besides the ultimate victory of seeing her children make their mark upon the history of the city which they called home and what better way than to be the ones writing that story. The Aniseyas were destined to make the editorial choices that would determine the legacy of society’s greatest names and she would stop at nothing to endure it.
***
The sun rose through the towers of Brendok Square, Nu-Coruscant, the weak rays of light piercing the network of gaps through buildings and scattering through the haze that embraced the city like a lover, falling on Verosha Aniseya. The city never truly quieted, but in these few stolen moments of morning, Osha could close her eyes and just breathe. A tepid spring breeze blew in from the south, and she clutched her can of warm Twi a bit tighter. The drink was a weak facsimile of true tea, a luxury that few could afford any more, but it sufficed. Osha took a sip, allowing the grassy bouquet of the drink to overpower the grimy smell that rose from the pavement far below and the ozone fumes of vehicles that passed by on the nearest mag-pass.
Nu-Coruscant emerged around two centuries prior from the remains of the Old City like a cancerous growth and expanded into a super-metropolis three times the size of the original, buoyed by the international powers that facilitated trade between the Continent and the West. From these ruins sprang corporations that would come to run the city, if not in name, in influence. Those who flocked there seeking opportunity either chose one to climb or tried their hand at creating something new, navigating the complex jungles of inter-corporate politics and leaning on the big players like parasitic vines: just enough to grow, but never enough to become a threat.
Society changed with the city, in places overgrown with ritual thought long dead. Most street kids never encountered such antiquated practices as stuffy social gatherings and arranged marriage, instead preferring the efficiency of a bullet, but the city elite still ran in tight-lipped circles. Executives signed business deals over curated canapes and knowing the right person who knew the right person meant more for promotions than hard work and merit.
To be fair, the same happened in Osha’s family. Out of the five of them, her mother had always preferred the older two who seemed from youth to understand her ambitions. Eurus and Sarria mirrored Koril, always watching for who pulled the currents of a room and knowing the right words to attract allies themselves. Osha found the whole dance tiresome. Why couldn’t people say what they meant?
Her mother had served as chief executive for Thread Independent Media Enterprises, shortened to TIME, for twenty years now, carefully nudging each of her children into positions that played to their strengths- Mae as a netdiver, scouring the old web for lost media, Osha in analysis, synthesising and reporting on new and old materials, Jaalyn in data management, cataloguing and organising new acquisitions, and the older two in talent acquisition and trend analysis for new materials- all in the hopes that somehow, the business could stay afloat in the age of conglomerate media giants. Osha, Mae, and their mother each inherited a portion of the company when the Aniseya matriarch died and never intended to sell, but offers from Centralised Media Solutions, the closest thing to an information MegaCorp, continued to roll in year after year.
“Osha! Come on, Koril will leave you behind again!” came a voice from inside the family’s flat. She turned, taking one last sip of Twi. She sighed and tossed the can into the recycler port in the wall.
Most that knew the family considered Mae-ho Aniseya the most ruthless of the Aniseya children. When the girls made their society debut at 18, their mother arranged an adequate media stir to catch eyes, but not enough to attract too much attention from those of less congenial social circles. Mae relished in her newfound power over those around her, aggressive to the point of grating, though Mother Koril always encouraged it. Osha had not inherited that particular trait, instead reflecting her late Mother’s levelheaded demeanor. She hurried through the foyer and called the elevator pod to the top floor.
“You look like shit,” Mae’s eyes scanned over Osha’s rumpled appearance, though without malice. Despite her many similarities to Mother Koril, she’d always had a soft spot for her twin. Maybe because they remembered a time before their mother became a stim-fueled micromanagement machine. The elevator door dinged its arrival.
Mae straightened her jacket in the mirrored wall of the lift. Her appearance was pristine as usual, eyes rimmed with dark khol and chrome shined to perfection. Osha frowned at her reflection. In comparison, she better resembled a outer rim street rat. Her braids fought tooth and nail to escape their elastic prison and her pantsuit wrinkled across the front from sitting on the balcony. She ran her hands over the creases in a vain attempt to smooth them.
“Koril’s gonna give me shit regardless. It’s just how she is,” she said as the lift came to a smooth stop at the 15th floor.
The woman herself paced the lobby area, yapping like a small dog into her comvice which, like always, blinked at her temple. The implanted device projected an image of the unlucky soul on the other side of the call into her hawkish yellow eyes, while her flycam whirred to stay in front of her, her shoes clicking against the polished floors.
“Well I don’t give a fuck what those synth-brain borgs in maintenance say, they can’t take the page down today!” Koril pulled a small bottle of white pills from her oversized purse and tipped three into her palm. She tossed them into her mouth and bit down with an audible crunch. Mae gave Osha a conspiratorial look before ducking towards the doors. Their oldest sister Eurus handed her mother what would likely be her third can of Twi for the day like the good little shadow she was. Not that anyone would ever accuse Koril’s oldest daughters of hiding in the shadows. Today Eurus and Sarria sported matching silver and purple pant suits with dramatic hooded capes. Always on the lookout for the newest big trend, the sisters knew how to stand out, it was in their nature. While not Osha and Mae’s full-blooded sisters, they clung to their mother like clouds around a skyscraper, reflecting back her anxious light.
The middle sibling, Jaalyn, on the other hand, melted into the bench they sat on, paging through something on their tablet. Jaalyn never quite fit in with either their older or younger siblings. They were the result of Mother Aniseya’s prior relationship before she’d met Koril, and as such carried a passing resemblance to the twins, but quailed under their stepsisters’ vibrant presence, instead preferring silent observation to showy displays. Osha had tried to get them to switch from the tablet to a comvice, since the implants were less strenuous on the eyes, but Jaalyn had staunchly decided that they were not interested in any sort of permanent modification, regardless of its usefulness. “If my body is a temple, I wish to dedicate it to the old gods,” they had said haughtily, side-eying their siblings with their usual superior attitude. As a result, they were the only Aniseya whose temple didn’t sport the indicative triangles of a comvice, their jawline and cheekbones unbroken by the lines of cyberware to detect and relay voices. They’d also staunchly dismissed any attempt from their more stylish stepsisters to force them into clothing of a socially acceptable style, leaving their general appearance closer to that of an old world human than most.
A silver magcar pulled off the lane that ran by the building, coasting to rest on the metal platform outside the sliding double doors of the lobby.
“We’ll talk about this later, car’s here,” Koril snatched her flycam and returned it to its port behind her ear to terminate the call. “Everyone load up. Osha, do you understand the concept of wrinkle remover? Jaalyn, get your nose off that screen!” she barked.
The five siblings climbed into the backseat of the vehicle, their mother taking the passenger’s spot, and the engines whined as they took off. Within seconds, Osha’s body lurched with the distinctive jarring of the car connecting to the mag-line, followed by the g-force push against the seats as they accelerated towards the centre of the city.
Osha leaned on the window, the buildings around them growing taller and newer as they sped through the city. Glowing lights of advertisements reflected off other passing cars and the scaffolding of new construction like a neon sunrise. The Aniseyas lived in a part of the NuCoruscant outer rim called Brendok Square- a magnet borough for the up and coming as well as families whose power waned. It was a place of opportunity and ruin, distinguished by well-built but older residential towers like the one the Aniseyas called home. By contrast, developers in the mid-rim were always building off of what was already there, grafting their additions to each other like medicos. Further into the city, in the Core where the MegaCorps had full control, the old was demolished entirely, making space for gleaming towers like a circle of teeth.
The TIME main offices were located a few klicks from the Core, in a mid-level complex with several other small and upstarting enterprises. Perhaps at one point, when Mother Aniseya had been at the helm, it had been a stalwart of media acquisition, preservation, and analysis, encouraging the thorough retention of all media, regardless of entertainment value, but since Koril took over, they had pivoted to focus on what Mother Aniseya would have called ‘tabloid trash’.
TIME’s netsite homepage focused primarily on speculating over society gossip; who was related to who, who was seen in an Outer Rim club, what was the newest deal between MegaCorps and the like. They got reasonable traffic, perhaps not as much as some of the larger organisations like NuCo News or The Vergance , but it sustained itself. The company also held records and analysis for a handful of companies, mostly from overseas, but those contracts were ending and not renewing at an increasing rate. The majority of their backing came from the retention and recovery of oldnet records from before the Cataclysm for Augment Medicos, one of the forefront authorities on medical and aesthetic enhancements in the city.
The wind whipped as they disembarked at the office pad. A salty tang in the air forecasted rain soon and Osha and her siblings scurried inside as their mother made sure the payment for the car went through. The autodriver’s eyes flashed green as the credit transfer processed successfully.
“Osha! Remember! 0930! My office! Jaalyn, you’re at 10!” Koril shouted after her retreating brood. Osha waved a hand, not looking back at her mother on the platform as she passed through the doors inside.
***
The offices of Thread Enterprises held three floors of the building. The first floor, which was really the 78th floor of the building as a whole, held the facilities and analytics departments. Second floor was a large open space filled with the activity of writers and developers flitting between desks like flybots. The third floor held mostly administrative offices and larger conference rooms. Osha settled into her chair at her favourite table, tapping an icon on the flat surface to initiate a connection to her comvice. She pulled her stylus from her bag, already dreading the task of going through her messages. A projection of her workspace appeared in the air over the table, the little envelope of her inbox blinking a menacing ‘57’ in the corner.
Osha sighed and, switching her status to ‘in office’, tapped it with her stylus. Messages scrolled across her vision, most of little importance. There were a few notices from server maintenance detailing what parts of the netsite would have to go down today. People operations had sent their monthly reminder to update employee profiles to ensure accuracy of beneficiary and contact information. Jaalyn had forwarded her the typical array of archival snaps, as well as notes that would inevitably tie the image to some greater conspiracy. Those went right in the garbage. She was just reading a rather dry memo regarding the second floor restroom when a ding notified her of an incoming contact. With a breath of relief, she saw the name on the notification, tapped behind her ear to release her flybot, and answered.
“Hellooo!” Came the ever-cheery voice of her best friend after Mae, Torbin. His face popped up in a corner of Osha’s workspace, hovering over the dirge of messages.
“Morning Toli.” she said, wishing she had another can of Twi.
“Busy day over there, right?”
“Koril’s insisting on one-on-ones. I think it’s just an excuse to criticise us individually.”
“Typical. Hey, is she still hosting that social tonight?”
Osha leaned back in her chair. “Probably, I haven't heard otherwise. You know how she gets about keeping up appearances.”
“Good. I’ve heard chatter that there will be some new faces showing up. Some new money hotshot who’s snapped up the old Temple offices. They’re saying he’s an up and coming info broker which makes him…”
“A new prospect. Great.” Osha grimaced. Her mother would have plenty to say about this.
“He’s supposedly a bit of a silver fox too.” Torbin said conspiratorially. Osha rolled her eyes.
“Even better, mother will be thrilled. I guess I’ll see you there then?”
“You better!” Her friend snickered, the call cutting off as Osha ended it. She ran a hand over her face and decided she needed a break before her appointment with her mother.
***
“Osha dear, get the door behind you please.” Koril said, waving her daughter into her office. She sat behind her expansive black enamelled desk, flicking through something on her comvice, slowly stirring her glass of ice water with one manicured finger. Osha closed the door softly, careful not to smudge the glass that really did nothing for privacy unless her mother decided to flip the switch to turn it opaque. The room felt like an extension of their home, the floors covered in Old World style woven rugs and the walls filled with sealed shelves of pulpbooks. The space had a lingering scent of decaying wood and tobacco- one of Koril’s many vices. A potted bird of paradise sat in a corner, ensconced in an elaborate glass enclosure, small fans whirring to circulate the purified air within. Heavy curtains covered much of the office’s wall of windows that would have otherwise shown a mediocre view of the nearby building stacks.
“Sit down, you’re staring around like a stimhead. You’re not on stims, are you dear?” Koril said, snapping her fingers and pointing at one of the sleek chairs that sat across from her.
“No, ma’,” Osha perched on the edge of the chair. She slid back a couple inches, her pants unable to create enough friction against the shiny plastic.
“Good. It would be a bad look for us.” Koril nodded. “You’ve been doing pretty well for yourself.”
“I’d like to think so,” Osha said, shifting slightly on the slick seat. “My article views have been steady at least.”
“Your last piece was a little heavy on the conjecture though. You can't be saying things without proof.”
“I have proof!” Osha said, knowing well enough that the argument would get her nowhere. They’d had this conversation a dozen times before and it always had the same result.
“And people don't care,” her mother said with the finality of an executive. “Besides, it could get us into trouble. Just focus on getting the trending topics out there. We have plenty of fine writers who are good at their jobs. You should focus on networking. You and Mae are my best hopes at outreach right now.”
Osha fought the urge to roll her eyes. Arranged internships or ‘outreach’ as her mother liked to refer to them were common among families looking to move up through society. Short of hostile takeover, it was one of the most effective ways to gain influence over an industry or switch lanes. TIME was stable, but her mother had always had higher ambitions than a mid-sized media group could provide.
“Speaking of the matter, I expect you both in top form at the social tonight,’ Koril said. “Try to be gracious hosts.”
“Thanks, ma’,” Osha pressed her lips into a thin line. She flinched as her mother flicked beads of cold water at her, the droplets flying from her sharp manicure.
“Cut that out! You’ll get wrinkled and we can’t afford to fix that right now,” Koril’s own forehead stayed as smooth as the surface of her desk, but her eyes flashed with a familiar judgement.
Osha carefully set her face into a neutral expression.
“Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?” she deadpanned.
“That’ll be all, dear. Send Jaalyn in on your way out. That child will be the death of me, you’ll see. She’s been poking their nose through the physical archives again, ” her mother said, pulling her bottle of pills from another pocket. Osha stood, making sure the chair had not moved from its designated space and walking from the room.
“She’s your problem now” she said to her sibling who stood picking their nails in the hall, her thoughts already preoccupied with how she could get out of that night’s event early.