The Outsider (Outsider #1) ✔️

Chapter 59 : The Emperor's Ball

Dusk was sitting the parlour, stunned. She just could not wrap her head around the stormy mess that was swirling around her. She now understood Catherine's fear that she will be punished for this. As she pondered this, she saw video of the Emperor and feared that the things had gotten really out of control.

She had no way of knowing that Crown Prince Julien wanted an opportunity to put her in focus and that Prince Louis was only leveraging the opportunity given by Catherine. He and Rosemary were coordinating with Oyster who was the Protocol Officer of the emperor and bound to take action on this the moment Catherine had become involved. But even Rosemary and Louis did not have an idea of how efficient and powerful the media managers of the Imperial Government were.

The results were pretty spectacular. In a single day, Dusk had gone form an unknown to a household name in the country. With that, Micro-Mega and Techredulous had come into the limelight, which suited Rosemary pretty well. Her media-shy kid cousin becoming one of the trending topics of discussion in the country was a bonus.

As Dusk rubbed her forehead in frustration, even as the dreaded call from her home came in. Luckily, it was her sister Dawn, not her mother.

"OMG! You are in Regis? What in the Heavenly Spirit is going on? You are the guest of the Emperor! You know he spoke of you on Holovision? ANOTHER PARTY? Do you ever study?"

"Dawn, don't make such a big deal about all this. I was invited to the Ball basically because some important person needed to meet me about some matter related to my company."

"Oh! so the news is true? You own a company? You kept all this a secret? There are some posts that say you earn a million dollars a year!"

"ARE YOU CRAZY? DO YOU KNOW WHAT A MILLION IS?" Dusk shouted before she realised that everyone was looking at her. "It's a new company that I have been asked to join, even the real work has not been started. I don't earn huge sums. Stop being stupid and don't say anything about this matter to Mom."

"Fat chance! The Mayor has already called Dad and they are showing Modern Youth and Glam People channels continuously on the Holo-Projectors for last 20 minutes. Sales in the Tavern has gone up 30% at least today, everyone seems to be coming here. I even have screen grabs of you working on that aircraft. My Heaven! You look like one of those business tycoons. You must give me a ride in your jet plane when I come to visit you." Dawn was going on like a high-speed train, jabbering away excitedly, not letting Dusk say anything more.

Finally, Dusk told her that she had to leave for the meeting and cut the line.

As all of them were now ready, they came out to the atrium to meet with Louis. Dusk and Catherine got cheers from everyone. People around again ran for opportunities to take more pictures. Louis turned to them and said, "Oh good! Now that we are all ready, let's move."

... ...

They arrived at the Main Palace, the Emperor's Residence in Regis. The AI controlled gates opened for their fleet of cars to come through. They had to wait for the outer gates to close before the inner gates opened to allow them into the palace driveway. 100 ceremonial guards saluted as they drove up to the entrance of the main palace.

It was dark already and all around them the huge trees lining the driveway were decorated with tiny batter powered twinkle lights on every branch. Some of the twinkles winked in and out in patterns of the Royal Crest. The space between the trees had strings of light embedded on the ground, among the grass giving a magical look.

Dusk looked at the trees and they reminded her of the desert fireflies, and suddenly felt homesick. However, that feeling vanished in a few seconds as her mother's image flashed in her mind.