The Inevitable Eclipse

Chapter 10 - Suspicions and Skepticism

"What do people care about more? Children or old people?"

Illumina was leaning against the wall of the meeting room. Clarissa sat at the head of a long table, two of her closest advisors either side of her. Two men, one was broad and bald, with an annoying habit of making inappropriate comments passed off as humour when Illumina was in the room, 'well, who's the lucky boy who gets to take you out tonight?'  The other was quieter, brooding. He frightened her even more than the first man.

"Children, definitely children," Said the bald man, everyone called him Trip, Illumina wasn't sure what his real name was.

The other man, who's name was a mystery to her, nodded.

"Really?" Clarissa furrowed her brows. "Alright, then."

Illumina stared. Was she really that out of touch?

Still, Clarissa ruffled some papers and continued. "We should have a dance to raise money for children. The Night Fall are calling us uncharitable." Translation: greedy and power hungry. "We need to get the people back on our side. We will use the land that City Hall once stood on and have a dance to raise some money."

"Seriously?" Illumina said, the last time there was a dance was before Clarissa had taken office.

Clarissa looked over to her, unimpressed. Clearly superheroes were meant to be seen and not heard in those meetings. "With very intensive security, obviously. This isn't just an opening for The Night Fall to blow something else up. We want to build up morale, and the people's trust in us again."

Maybe Void was starting to rub off on her, but that didn't sound as convincing as it would have a few weeks ago. 'Build up morale and trust' what did that even mean? Was it the knowledge that there was some 'personal' tension between Void and Clarissa that made her doubt? In all the time that they had been working together, she had never mentioned that. As far as Illumina knew, the two had never met face to face.

"Sounds great!" Illumina said, then before she could get ahead of herself thinking about what colour dress she might wear, she added, "Am I the intensive security?"

"Partly," Clarissa said. "But I also want to remind people that you trust us, because they trust you. You will be on the main stage with me to introduce everything. You will also say a few words but don't worry, you won't have to write them, I will do that for you."

"Of course."

***

"I heard that Clarissa is going to have some sort dance to raise money for a children's charity." Ivy told The Night Fall later that night.

"Where did you hear that, Sparrow?" Hawk asked calmly. She didn't get the sense that he was interrogating her, he was measured and thorough, Hawk never left a stone unturned.

Ivy quickly learned that there were levels to The Night Fall. There were the leaders and the thinkers, so far she had counted three; Hawk, Void, Owl. Then there were the muscle, the people that carried out the heavier tasks, they planted the bombs that tore down the buildings. There were the so called artists, the ones who painted the beautiful murals on the walls about hope and rebellion... or whatever other vague word they used to justify their terror. Then, there were those who were in charge of recruitment. Surprising, Void wasn't technically one of these, although he did bring a certain appeal to The Night Fall. These people searched for any cracks in public opinion of Clarissa, they searched all corners of the internet for any videos or text posts that had slipped through the cracks the ones (often anonymous) that were complaining about Clarissa and her methods, then they found the creators of those posts, and those who had liked them. Most of the time, those very accounts stood in that room a few weeks later and slid into one of the other groups.