Taking the bait

Lillianna didn't have to do any real work on the presentation. The original had already done that once, and Lillianna had purchased the absolute recall functionality from the system store many worlds previous. But what was important in this particular trap wasn't the end result. It was establishing to Raphael that she had, by herself, done all the work on the presentation. And establish it long before it even came under question.

To that end, Lillianna worked on it whenever her brother was home. She fetched various resources from the house's private library while her brother was reading. She printed out variants of graphs and pictures and asked the staff which ones they felt were easier to understand. She even 'discretely' asked her brother about his experience in particular matters, and then made sure to weave those insights into the finished product.

By the time the chosen day of her trap arrived, Lillianna had all her preparations in place. It was a Sunday, and Dorothea was invited to the family lunch, prepared by the staff in advance before they took the rest of the day off. Raphael no doubt hoped that Dorothea and Lillianna would get to know each other better and like each other more.

As an extra touch to her scheme, Lillianna invited Honora around that morning, shortly before Dorothea herself was due. When the doorbell rung, Raphael came out as well, no doubt wondering if it was Dorothea come early. Lillianna brushed past him, the sound of her heels echoing against the exposed marble floors, the raised ceilings and the decorative columns of the entrance hall.

"Hey Raphael, you remember Honora, Uncle Pete's daughter? Don't worry, she won't be here long, and I absolutely will be down to join you for lunch when Dorothea gets here."

Lillianna promptly hustled Honora up one side of the grand stairs. 'Uncle Pete' wasn't a blood relation, but a courtesy title given to an old friend of their parents. The two siblings had lost touch with most of them as Raphael had been too busy and Lillianna had been too young. Lillianna had only just started to reach out to them again as she approached graduation, so Honora was still an acquaintance rather than a friend. Lillianna doubted that Raphael remembered her at all.

"Nice to see you again," called Raphael ironically from behind them as they disappeared upwards.

"Sorry to invite you here when I'm just going to have to kick you out again so soon," said Lillianna, "But it's really the only space I have for a while. I wanted you to be able to choose for yourself, and I figured you and your group would want to know as soon as possible if this isn't going to work."

"No, not at all," said Honora. "I'm the one who should apologise to putting you to so much effort. We're all incredibly grateful for your offer."

Lillianna's conscience was mostly clear for once. She would not have spent any points for so small a goal. When the amateur dramatics group Honora belonged to had reported a problem with some of their costuming, Lillianna had volunteered to help. It was an ideal opportunity to unnerve Dorothea, since Dorothea had been convinced Honora had been having an affair with Raphael. She had not. While the original Lillianna would have been absolutely thrilled to have Raphael divorce Dorothea and marry someone like Honora instead (and had told Raphael so, multiple times), she would never have tolerated her friend being the side-chick. But Dorothea had been easy to rile up then, and Lillianna did not think it would be any more difficult now. The more Dorothea was off her game, the easier it would be to play her.

"Still," said Lillianna, "Please don't think my complete lack of proper hospitality is any reflection on how I feel about getting to know you. Let me arrange some time with you to make up for it in future – after you've finished your performance and have more free time, of course."

"I'd like that, thank you," said Honora.

Honora gathered what her dramatic group needed from the vintage wardrobe Lillianna had inherited from her mother, and promised that they would take extreme pains with keeping them safe. Lillianna timed the interaction carefully, and when the bell chimed once again, issued Honora back down the stairs.

The two women passed each other in the entrance hall, and Dorothea's expression went white and then red with rage upon seeing her. Dorothea pulled Raphael ahead with her as they moved through to the dining room, leaving Lillianna behind to see That Woman off.

"I don't want you seeing her again," said Dorothea.

"Who, my sister?" asked Raphael, like Dorothea was joking. "That might be a little difficult, considering we share a house."

"No!" replied Dorothea, irritated, although she would have been thrilled if he did. "That girl. Honora."

"Is that her name?" asked Raphael. "I thought it was Hannah."

His pretence at not even knowing the girl made Dorothea wonder if the problems had started even earlier than she had realised. "You don't know her very well?"

"I don't think I've said more than two words to her in my life," said Raphael.

"Good," said Dorothea, feeling smug that she had so neatly trapped him in his own lies. "Then you won't have any objection to promising to not spend any time with her in the future."

"I…" Raphael looked towards the door. They could hear the footsteps of Lillianna approaching. "You know what? Sure. I promise I won't spend time with her. But we do need to have a conversation about your jealousy. I hope you realise your reaction isn't reasonable."

"You didn't see how she was looking at you," said Dorothea. "And who knows what kind of encouragement Lillianna has been giving her."

Speak of the devil, Lillianna came through the archway and Raphael's expression smoothed out. Dorothea knew she didn't have any chance of continuing the conversation with an audience, but Dorothea was okay with that. She had achieved enough of her goal for now. Raphael was now on notice that Dorothea was not oblivious to his companions and would not put up with any indiscretions. And perhaps he would also be a little more aware of how his sister was constantly trying to tempt him away from the right path as well.

Lunch was painful, but Dorothea hung on, pasting a polite smile on her face. She would not have Raphael claiming that she was the one making unnecessary waves. After they finished eating, Raphael was called away on an emergency. He swore to her that he'd come right back and they could continue with their afternoon plans. It wasn't the first time he had done this, and it wouldn't be the last. Dorothea pretended to be gracious and resigned herself to selecting a book to read in the sitting room they so pretentiously called a library.

"I'm sorry," said Lillianna, obviously insincerely, "I have a video call with Georgina to discuss a group project and the computer is set up here. Do you mind if I use the library for a minute? I won't be long."

"Go ahead," said Dorothea with another forced smile, picking up her book and moving out onto the terrace. The terrace was equipped with both shades and heaters to always have an optimum temperature, but Dorothea wasn't fond of it it. It was too rigid and twisted the nature into unnatural forms.

One of the library windows was (unusually) open, and Dorothea could see Lillianna adjusting the computer just through it. Dorothea had wondered what about this conversation Lillianna had deemed so important she needed privacy to conduct it, and decided that she might as well find out for herself.

Lillianna breathed out a quiet sigh of relief when Dorothea took the appropriate chair. Lillianna could have come up with infinite plans for how to drop this information in Dorothea's ears, but it was always nice when the first attempt was successful. She started with the speakers on to reassure Dorothea that Georgina was genuinely on the other end of the call.

"Sorry, there's quite an echo," Lillianna said, slightly amused that she'd spent the entire day apologising for things she'd done with deliberate intention and forethought. "Let me quickly swap to headphones."

After that was the most technically complex work Lillianna had done since she'd arrived in that world. It was a skill she'd started training when she'd lived a life as an interpreter. After learning to excel at simultaneously listening to a sentence in one language while speaking the previous sentence in another, she'd trained herself for an even more complex task. Listening while speaking something unrelated. She could only do it in short bursts, and only if nothing unexpected was said, but that should be enough for this meeting.

With someone else she would have used more direct force, but Georgina was too cautious to burn any unnecessary bridges. She would have politely agreed to anything Lillianna said, and that was not the impression Lillianna wanted to give – nor the reputation Lillianna wanted to have.

In the end, most of the conversation was handled perfectly adequately by just not mentioning which project Georgina and Lillianna were hoping to collaborate on. Then, with a little nudging, Georgina was lured into providing the correct cue.

Georgina said, "I'm always a little nervous about group projects. One person always gets left to the bulk of the project alone."

"The software the university uses keeps a record of who did which piece of which work," said Lillianna. She then muted the microphone and continued with, "_so unless you happen to know a better hacker than the ones I can hire, there is no way of proving I didn't complete the industry tour presentation entirely alone_."

Georgina replied over the top of her, "I know, but it's still a hassle to get the lecturers involved, and most of the time they just give everyone the same mark anyway."

Lillianna wove herself back into the conversation, unmuting between the first and second sentence. "_So I highly recommend you stay quiet._ It is the path of least resistance, and least effort."

"Right?" agreed Georgina. "They always say they'll consider individual effort, and then they never do."

"_Just accept that you've been outplayed,_ and then pretend it's training for how work in in real world teams will be."

"Like they have any experience working in the real world!" laughed Georgina.

Lillianna shared her laughter, adding just a slight tinge of condescension. If Georgina noticed it, she probably assumed it was aimed at the lazy professors, but an eavesdropper would have an entirely different impression. That was enough. Lillianna did not want to oversell things. She wrapped up the conversation with a promise to speak again shortly and left the library, job done.

Seated quietly on the terrace, Dorothea was thrilled with the gift that had just been dropped in her lap. Why had she not considered this before? Lillianna must have been exploiting the hard work of others even as early as university. She had no talent of her own. And no wonder the presentation had been so outstanding. Dorothea had even been a little concerned that her selection of another presentation might raise a few eyebrows, but now… well, now she wouldn't have to.

Unfortunately, Dorothea could not perform a knock-out blow and expose Lillianna to the school and MaestroTech as the cheating low life she really was. Raphael had very strong opinions about keeping family matters private and not exposing anything that could become a scandal in the press. Dorothea would have to be more subtle than that. But still, humiliating Lillianna and helping Georgina by returning the proper credit to her all at the same time? This she would need to accomplish, even if it did cost her a hacking token. Since Lillianna had suggested it, she couldn't disappoint her by not following through.