Right Back After This

Episode 34

It would've been simple. The people following the live feed wouldn't have thought twice about his mic being turned off for a minute, at least not until the additional context came out. The editors would've cut it out for everyone else. If she'd let him say his piece he could've proven everything he needed to prove, or at least confessed what he needed to confess, something, anything, and he wouldn't be as desperate as he is.

But Sonja is now loudly suggesting they do a performance, and the fans are screaming for it, like the managers knew they would, like the crew is encouraging. It's all fake, and it's blasting Riz's eardrums, and he's going to lose his mind.

"Are you sure?" he's saying, so completely out of his body, grinning and laughing as if he gives a shit and the impending doom isn't eating him from the inside out. "We shouldn't... we can't..."

His protests are an act, but deep down, there's a genuine part of him that wants to delay this, needs to delay this. He makes eye contact with Sonja, and she still looks peeved at him. He can imagine what she's thinking: 'it can't be that important that we can't talk about it later'. And she's almost always going to be right- her instinct to keep up their image is important. It's what would save them in any context but this one.

He spitefully hopes she knows that whatever happens next, it's at least a little bit her fault.

"Oh, alright!" Shia throws his hands up with a laugh. Normally, Amello would be the one so cheery, and indeed that's what they were all waiting for. Amello isn't quiet, per se, but he keeps glancing Riz's way. Worried. Because he knows Riz didn't get what he needed. Riz dumped a heavy load on him for nothing. At least he got that stolen moment in the exchange. "Come on, let's give the people what they want!"

Riz's emotions sit heavy in his body, but nothing else around him is real. The people surround him, the two or three dozen of them that paid more than Riz's entire family is worth to be here; and then Riz is walking onto the deck, and there are fans below, swimming in a pool and sitting around it and standing on the beach behind. The people he was just speaking to stand just behind fences, security guards showing up from nowhere to keep them from stepping onto the deck themselves. The pink microphone is Riz's. He's sweating from fear and there's terror in the bottom of his stomach, sadness in his heart and anxiety in his lungs. His throat is closed and he wants to do anything but this. If he gets through this, he isn't safe. If he gets through this, it gets worse.

He waves at the crowd, does some cutesy act of blowing a kiss, posing, shit that makes him sick on the best of days. What does he even have left to do? His only option is nuclear and he doesn't think he can do it without Sonja's help. Without her, he doesn't have something that can record Ares, aside from his own implanted mic. Could he lie, pretend to turn it off himself, leave it on? There's a beep, but even if he talks over it, Ares probably knows to look for the light, especially if that's something Kiel figured out himself. That thought makes him even sicker than just recording Ares alone might've done. Because even if it's only the premium, top-tier subscribers, that's still a lot more people listening in than- than deserve to.

Riz considers collapsing, feigning something medical. He can hear Paloma yelling at him, not wanting to hear his excuses, putting him next on the list of people to replace, making him and Wrenley fight it out for who gets to stay. Wrenley's wrapping her fingers around her microphone stand slowly, like she's afraid it might burn her. Riz fears the same.

He has no clue yet what Ares is planning, but there's a possibility that if Riz just collapses, and is taken to the medbay, Ares can get him out of there before he has a chance to at least plead his case one more time. It's nothing but a faster way of getting him to the point where he has to face Ares and hope that pleading is enough.