The End Game

Honora arrived for the supper Lillianna had promised on a day that Raphael and Dorothea were due to be at work.

"Thank you for inviting me," said Honora. "And thank you once again for the loan of the vintage clothes. You really saved our production."

Lillianna waved that off. "No, not at all, I'm glad I could help. Your group really did them credit. I utterly enjoyed the play, and I'm so glad you can make it today."

Lillianna was indeed thrilled. She had pulled off the timing of this precisely. Georgina would already be at MaestroTech as they spoke, undergoing the 'rehearsal'. In theory, Lillianna shouldn't expect her brother home for hours, and shouldn't expect Dorothea to come at all. In practice, Lillianna knew her brother would insist on taking any fight someplace more private than their offices.

The conversation through supper was light and easy. There were good reasons that the original had become such close friends with Honora, and they had a great deal in common. And not least, between the two of them, neither had to worry that the other was only befriending them because of their wealth and status. They were lingering over coffee when the door slammed open loud enough for them to hear in the dining room. Perfect timing

"Lillianna!" called Raphael. "Prepare yourself. You have a presentation to give at the convention."

Lillianna and Honora stood up.

"It's getting rather late," said Honora tactfully. "I'd better start heading home."

"Lillianna!" called Raphael again, sounding halfway up the stairs. "Where are you?"

"Here!" replied Lillianna, before turning back to Honora. "I really enjoyed tonight. We must do it again soon."

"I—" said Raphael, coming through the archway and then coming to an immediate stop. He fruitlessly ran a hand through his hair in some attempt to restore it. "Excuse me, I didn't realise you had company."

"I was just on my way out," said Honora, offering her hand. "But it is good to see you again. I must invite both you and Lillianna over soon."

Dorothea, who had been trailing Raphael like a duckling trying to catch up with its mother, came in just in time to hear that.

"And your fiancé as well, of course," added Honora.

"Oh, so you do know that he's engaged, do you?" asked Dorothea.

"Ah, yes?" said Honora, obviously taken aback by Dorothea's rudeness. "Lillianna mentioned it."

Raphael grabbed Dorothea's arm in a grip that looked like it hurt. "That's exceedingly kind. We look forward to it. Do you have a safe way to get home?"

"Yes, that's not a problem," said Honora. "Thank you again, Lillianna. It was a wonderful evening."

"It was good having you here," agreed Lillianna.

Dorothea glared at them both as they edged past her out of the archway. Once they were out of earshot, she turned to Raphael. "You promised not to see her again."

"For heaven's sake…" said Raphael. "I don't think that was even the same girl you complained about last time. And she obviously wasn't here to see me. I wasn't even supposed to be here. Stop trying to deflect from that mess you created with Janina."

"Georgina!" corrected Dorothea. She didn't know which part to be upset about first. "And I didn't create that mess, you did. You drove that poor girl to tears with your questions."

Raphael snorted. "She cried because she realised she wasn't getting away with her scam, and we knew she had nothing to do with that presentation. She couldn't even answer the most basic of questions."

"She couldn't answer because she was too stressed," said Dorothea. "Stressed by you being such an aggressive… wolf towards her."

"Do you really think we could have risked MaestroTech's reputation by letting her give a presentation she knows almost nothing about?" asked Raphael.

"So she's not good at speaking," said Dorothea. "You could cancel the talk at the convention without coming that close to implying that she stole the whole thing."

"And you," said Raphael pointedly. "You could have chosen a presentation without implying that Lillianna stole the whole thing. Especially seeing as how it was, in fact, stolen from her."

"You're just taking her side again for no reason," said Dorothea. "Why are you so convinced Lillianna was the real author? Can't you just admit--"

"Because I fucking watched her write it," shouted Raphael.

Dorothea flinched back. Even Lillianna, coming back into the room, was taken aback. It wasn't that either of them were hot house flowers who hadn't encountered crude language before, but it was the first time Lillianna in a long time that she had heard it from Raphael. Raphael was incensed beyond any level Lillianna had seen before.

Raphael continued more quietly, "Even if I hadn't seen it for myself, she told me it was hers, and her word is good enough for me. How could you possibly take the word of this random girl off the street over Lillianna?"

"Because Lillianna said she didn't do the work herself," said Dorothea triumphantly.

"What?" asked Lillianna. "No, I most certainly did not."

"I overheard your video call with Georgina when I was here for lunch," said Dorothea, crossing her arms, and looking like she had won. "You said she shouldn't try to claim authorship of the project, even though she was the one who wrote it."

Lillianna frowned. "Sunday before last? That was a warning for a completely different project. A project we haven't even started, actually. The industry presentation was never group work in the first place. How would that have even worked?"

"You already warned this girl about stealing your work?" asked Raphael.

"Yes," replied Lillianna. "I had heard some things about her (perfectly justified it seems), so I thought I'd subtly remind her know about the logging software. Nothing confrontational. I just said that other people wouldn't be able claim the wrong work without a hacker. I didn't expect her to take that as a suggestion!"

The series of expressions on Dorothea's face was amusing. Lillianna had entirely expected Dorothea to take it as a suggestion. Dorothea knew that there was something wrong with Lillianna 's version of events, but it was close enough to her own memory for her to doubt herself for a minute. That, in turn, was just long enough to convince Raphael that Lillianna was telling the truth.

Before Dorothea could regain her footing, Lillianna continued, "And Dorothea, you said you just overheard this? You weren't even in the room when I was talking to Georgina. The only possible way you could have heard it is if you were intentionally eavesdropping on me. What are you doing, listening in on my private conversations?"

"I wasn't—"

"And all this was before we even submitted our final presentations," overrode Lillianna. "That means you already knew there was a question about the genuine authorship before you announced it. You could have done a proper – and private – investigation about this all before it all became public."

"You knew about this in advance," said Raphael, appalled.

Dorothea uncrossed her arms to plant her hands on her hips. "I saw a wrong and I corrected it. What did you expect me to do? Lie to make your sister feel better?"

"I expected you to come to me," said Raphael. "So that we could have found a solution together that would not have damaged anyone. We could have avoided all this. I could have told you this Georgina girl was making it all up and I had proof that Lillianna was the real author. I really can not comprehend why you didn't. I have never given you any reason for you to mistrust me."

"Never given me…" said Dorothea in disbelief. "Can you really say that with a straight face when I just caught you breaking a promise to me? Or do you really think I'd believe it's just co-incidence that Honora was here again?"

Lillianna shrugged to herself. Dorothea was right. It wasn't co-incidence. Just not for any of the reasons Dorothea thought.

"Yes," said Raphael, by now thoroughly exasperated. "No reason to suspect I'd be biased to Lillianna over you, and absolutely no reason to suspect I've been in any way unfaithful. I don't know where this jealousy is coming from, but I have never done anything to deserve it. It's entirely in your own head."

Lillianna decided that this was time. She projected her intention to take advantage of her successful bet to the system with the prepared information.

As an immediate result, Dorothea heard her own system prompt her, "Would you like to investigate to acquire evidence in your current argument? We can offer a small discount."

"Yes!" said Dorothea silently, "I want proof of their infidelity I can show Raphael, like… like… web cam footage, or photographs or something."

"Ah," said the system. "I'm afraid that would cost more than your credit limit, even with the discount."

"What?" asked Dorothea. "The fee for taking images of events that have already happened isn't that high."

"Creating photographs of events that happened isn't expensive, true," said the system. "Creating new memories and inserting them into the minds of the participants is more expensive, based on how true to character it would be. Inserting a memory of infidelity between Raphael and Honora… well, let's just say that it would require an entire personality re-write for her to believe that she was ever sexually attracted to Raphael. I'm afraid you just don't have the funds for total personality rewrites, no matter what we borrow."

"That can't be true," said Dorothea.

"I'm afraid the very high-end items in the store can only be bought—" said the system.

"Not about that!" interrupted Dorothea. "About the sexual attraction. They were having an affair in my previous life."

"I shouldn't give information away for free," said the system, "but I think I've already spilled the beans a bit. No. They most definitely were not having an affair."

These were lies, lies and more lies. Like on That Night when she had died. Lillianna told Dorothea that her influencer career had fizzled away into nothing because Raphael had stopped buying followers for her after the divorce. Lillianna was playing games, not only content to destroy Dorothea's career, but to make her think it was her own fault as well.

"Lillianna deliberately dangled Honora in front of me to make me think you were having an affair. It was her way of pushing me towards a divorce," said Dorothea in sudden realisation.

Dorothea was speaking about her future life as if it was her current, but she was ironically once again entirely correct. In context, however, she wasn't doing her case any favours if she was trying to convince Raphael that she was justified.

"Perhaps," said Lillianna, only just not quietly enough for Dorothea to overhear, "we should call medical professionals? You always said about how kind and generous Dorothea is. Perhaps this is some sort of breakdown. This can't be her true nature."

Raphael's expression had hardened. "Perhaps I am just seeing her true nature for the first time. Dorotha, I don't think this engagement has been good for you. I think we should go our separate ways."

"You're breaking up with me?" asked Dorothea.

"I think it's for the best," said Raphael with a kind smile, retreating fully back into his diplomatic shell as if the angry person never existed. "You deserve to be with someone you feel fully confident in. I can see that this relationship isn't making you happy."

"But—" said Dorothea.

"I'll get a driver to take you home," said Raphael with great finality.

Dorothea was ushered firmly out of the house with all her possessions that had migrated over. That was it. The wicked witch was dead.

"I'm sorry," said Raphael once she was gone. "You were right. I was acting like you were both equally to blame in your arguments because she'd brainwashed me into thinking you were just jealous of the attention I gave her, and that you were being a snob because of her background. I let you down."

Lillianna came over to give him a hug. "That's okay. I mean, you weren't entirely wrong about me. I am sorry she didn't turn out to be the person you thought she was. You deserve to be happy."

And he would be. Raphael was temporarily depressed but would emerge stronger for it. It was a good ending all around. Even the main character now had a large blank canvas ahead of her, where she could perhaps even find genuine success and happiness by relying on herself, rather than by exploiting others.

If Lillianna knew anything about main characters, Dorothea wouldn't, but that was entirely up to her. Lillianna had succeeded at her own goal. And spectacularly at that, even if she did say so herself. Another world bit the dust.