Face-Slapping14 min read
My System, My Scarf, and the Public Fall
ButterPicks11 views
I was choosing a scarf.
"Which one?" I asked the mirror, because the mirror was the only honest person in my apartment that week.
"You always pick the one with the subtle check," my phone reminded me, buzzing with a message I hadn't expected. The message turned into a voice, a cold, mechanical voice.
"System 001 initialized. Authorize personal data?"
"Who are you to ask?" I muttered, which is what I do when something ridiculous happens. "Are there mandatory tasks? What's the punishment if I fail? What do you get? What do you give me?"
"No primary or secondary roles. Mandatory tasks exist. Failure doubles fines. System harvests energy. Host gains money and influence."
"Energy?" I said, though I knew better than to expect an answer before a binding.
"Release script," the voice said.
A little booklet fell out of nowhere like a school exercise book. The first page had a name that made my stomach tighten.
"Eva Bloom."
I flipped the book like a dare. "What kind of cruel plot is this?"
"Authorize personal data?" the voice asked again.
"Half an hour. If my boyfriend leaves in half an hour, I authorize," I said on impulse.
The phone chimed like permission granted.
"Half an hour starts now," I told the scarf in my hands, and I laughed at myself. I had always liked dramatic bargaining. I also had money saved like unused armor—enough to be careless. I wanted power more than more things. The system promised both.
"Call me what you want," the voice said, suddenly soft. "I can make you beloved."
"Okay," I said, because I am not proud when I am hurt. "Make me beloved."
I lied. I was not begging, but I let the system live inside my head and call me its host.
Thirty minutes later, my ex called.
"Cade Peng?" I heard myself say, because names still felt like doors.
"We need to break up," he said. "I'm getting married. Don't contact me."
I dropped the phone as if it had burned my palm. There is a specific kind of silence after betrayal where furniture seems to hold its breath.
"Personal data authorized," the system said with a small, triumphant chime. "Begin reward: Basic Observation. Reward items: 25 properties, 2.5% original shares in a family company, and more."
"I didn't need the money," I told the silent apartment, wiping a tear that had no business on my cheek. "I needed him to matter."
"You will be popular," the system promised, as if popularity were paint. "First task: Attend the social tea."
I wasn't a socialite. I belonged to a group of women who treated each other like diamonds—polished, reviewed, and often put back when the light wasn't flattering. They called the group the "Ladies' Circle." Their leader, Halo Butler, could rent a skyline.
"If I go, will my life stay in order?" I asked.
"Rewards: Ferrari 599GTB Fiorano, plus a 3-million medical policy," the system said.
"Fine," I said, and I typed into the group chat: "I'll come."
"Finally," Halo wrote. "Bring yourself, and wear something to match the small talk."
Marine Pinto sent a flirty emoji. Soledad Beil sent a gossip link. Birgit Cole sent a heart. I closed the phone. My hair was growing out and had gone from copper to plain; my face had been hollowed by grief for months. The world wanted things performed, and I had to be an actor.
"Are you okay?" Marine asked when I arrived at the boutique tea room, voice like velvet.
"I'm here," I said, sliding into a seat like I owned the right to be anywhere.
"You're not a talker," Halo said. She had a necklace that looked like a tiny sun. "We have gifts. Each of us brought something. Shuffle numbers. It's fun."
The gifts were staged theater. I picked the nearest box because I had a talent for playing bored. The box contained the very scarf I had been about to buy for Cade—the exact checked pattern I'd loved.
"Who gave that?" I asked, though I knew.
"That's absolutely you," Halo said, smiling at the crowd like an emcee.
Eva Bloom arrived like perfume, wrong and perfect. She had been part of my family by marriage and had everything staff and patience could buy. She smiled at me like she was offering forgiveness.
"Want to exchange?" I joked, holding the scarf up.
She smiled prouder than the rest. "All family gets what family deserves."
The system chirped. "Random task: Attend the Ladies' Circle event. Reward: Ferrari now parked in B2 A099. Fingerprint unlock."
I walked out to the parking garage with Marine trailing like a private detective. A crowd had gathered around the car, taking pictures, posing—an altar of attention.
"Is that yours?" someone asked.
"It is," I said, because the system had paid off. I had a key in my pocket and a ridiculous thrill in my chest.
Later, in the dark of my apartment, the system listed my stats. Level 1. Experience zero. Items: properties, shares, the Ferrari, a few more mechanical things. It also gave me a skill—Observation—so I could see little energies around people. The system comforted me in its own pixelated way.
"I don't want to be anyone's accessory anymore," I told the mirror.
"Then do the tasks," the voice answered simply.
"Fine," I said. "But the world is not a script. I won't play someone I'm not."
"You already made a choice," the voice said. "You authorized."
"You are a dramatic narrator," I told it.
"You are the protagonist," it said.
The next tasks were a sieve of purchases and performances. I bought a purple electric car at a plaza event—an impulsive glitter—and the system paid me back so efficiently that the attendant smiled like he was part of a miracle.
"Random task complete," the voice buzzed. "Reward: Charm buff when spending for one minute."
I tested the buff by paying for a salon package—a lavish face rescue—and the payment triggered another parcel of credits. Money folded into money. The system was math that petted me back.
"Do you like the charm?" Marine asked, leaning close.
"It's not what makes someone like you," I said.
"Maybe not," she laughed, but she listened like a good friend.
I started buying things like a person who had quit trusting tomorrow. The system told me to spend five million in six hours. "Mandatory," it said.
"What?" I did the math in my head and found ways: private atelier, jewelry, a boutique's seasonal line. I spent until the giant digit shrank to a manageable echo and then the system flashed "Three-times game credit rewards" and "1.5 million game coupons" into my account. The world folded itself into a ledger.
I also named a boat. I bought a plot of land and set up a small factory for essential oils and preserves because one of my system rewards was an interest in food processing. I recruited people for the plant. People came for the money, some came for the work, others came because any new thing is a rumor worth testing.
"Can I help?" Marine asked one day, voice anxious.
"Yes," I said. "Help me not be lonely."
She laughed, which felt like sunlight.
I met Gerardo Moller online, in a game. He was better than his voice suggested—steady, patient, quick. When I hired him as a paid player to carry me through a match, he stayed. He became present in a way the others weren't. He wrote messages like small lights.
"You could be a manager," I teased during another lost game.
"I could," he said. "If you'd let me."
"I do," I said, but love is always a slow script. I didn't say "I think I want you."
We built a little team of loyal people. Bear Morales helped with deliveries and logistics—he was the driver who moved crates of orchard fruit when the system had me buy tens of tons of citrus for a rural sway. I found Ezekiel Davidson and Teodoro Benton, two bright minds from abroad, who agreed to help with production and research. Erick Roussel joined as an admin and strategist; he had the kind of common sense that reads like kindness.
The stakes grew bigger. I bought offshore cargo vessels, named them with careless joy—the names were jokes and prayers. We built a crew and sent out a test voyage to buy cheap oil by the barrel, because the market had crackling fissures and I wanted to make a point.
"If I buy enough oil, I can affect contracts," I told Erick one night.
"You're being bold," he said. "This is dangerous territory in more ways than logistics."
"I know," I said. "But power is an amplifier of choices."
Meanwhile, my stepsister Eva kept sampling the life I had been sliding away from. Her boyfriend—Knox Krueger—was supposed to be an ally, the kind of man whose family wedding announcements could command headlines. He had called me once to ask for favors, once to be polite, and later to smile when I had a small public misstep.
"She doesn't know how to keep things," he said about me once. "It's all theatrical."
I didn't care then. But the system did. The system's mission linesighed into a neat grid: expose the rot.
"Wind-family connection detected," the system said one day. It had always called things with surgical politeness. "Knox Krueger is involved in questionable shipping agreements and has ties to public procurement favoritism. Task unlocked: Public Exposure."
"Public exposure?" I asked.
"Punishment targets will be made public. Reward: Influence plus."
I didn't like how the word "punishment" echoed. The system isn't cruel—it is efficient.
"It's a small wedding," Eva told me one afternoon, brighter than a staged moon. "Knox is throwing a corporate charity gala. It's exclusive. Everyone will be there."
"Sounds like the perfect place," I said.
I let my rage be a plan. The system gave me scripts, a dossier of evidence, and a method to execute: make the gala the stage.
"If you do this cleanly," Erick said, "you will humiliate the corrupt. If you do this messily, they'll find a way to make you the villain."
"We'll be clean," I promised. "And when it ends, I want him to be the one everyone remembers crying."
We prepared. Gerardo worked the backstage lines, ensuring audiovisual reaches and live feeds. Marine cultivated inside contacts with a caterer. Bear moved crates and men of muscle to the perimeter, ready for crowd control. Ezekiel and Teodoro corroborated the data trail: payments, shipping manifests, forged signatures.
The night came.
The gala was a cathedral of light: crystal chandeliers, polished marble, and cameras that fluttered like flies. The city's elite were dressed to be remembered.
"Welcome," Knox said to the microphone, smiling the smile of a man who thinks propriety will absolve him.
"Tonight we celebrate charity, family, and longstanding partnerships," Knox intoned. "We are honored to have—"
"Attention, please," I said, stepping onto the stage.
Gasps flitted like moth wings. I had a microphone. The system whispered the exact words, the exact timing. Gerardo's hands trembled behind his camera, but he steadied it. The live feed flicked on.
"Who is she?" someone whispered.
"Is she the stepchild?" someone else asked.
I did not enter with fury. I walked with the slow certainty of someone who knew the closing line.
"Knox Krueger," I said. "I have something to show."
A giant screen unrolled like a skywide curtain. It displayed contracts, line items in red, digital receipts, photographs of private meetings, and a message thread where Knox described deals as "easy money" and "a way to buy influence." There were bank transfers to people who liked the shadow of their wallets. There were receipts for payments disguised as charitable donations that had been funneled back into his companies.
Knox's face went from composed to paler than the lemon tarts.
"What is this?" he barked, attempting authority.
"Is this not charity?" I asked. I read the room. Cameras zoomed close. "Or is this charity a cover for private deals?"
He laughed. It was the laugh of a man with a closet of laws and the illusion of favorites. "This is slander," he said. "Who paid for this—"
"Someone who was tired of being fooled," I said. "Someone who watched his family sell favors and buy silence."
The screen advanced: audio recordings of Knox saying "we'll make sure the inspectors sleep," text messages—"cover costs, we handle the rest"—a picture of him with a shipping manifest marked to his company but the goods sent elsewhere.
"Take it down," he demanded.
"Let it play," I said.
He realized the cameras were on, the feed to multiple platforms active. His temper rose like steam. The crowd started to murmur. Some laughed as if at a performance. Some began to record.
"You're making accusations!" he hissed. "These are lies!"
"Then you will correct them," I said. "Here, now, in front of everyone."
He scanned the crowd for lawyers, for a possible support. The words went through his face like a shutter.
"Stop this nonsense," he pleaded. "You have no proof—"
"Proof is on the screen. Evidence is in the receipts. The contracts you signed are in the public records."
Silence brightened. A few phones flashed like a slow wave. Someone in the crowd started whispering, "Isn't that true? Didn't he—?"
One of Knox's managers—an older man who'd carried briefcases for decades—stepped forward.
"What do you intend?" he asked, in the tone of someone who had betrayed many small people but believed the tide did not turn.
"Justice," I said. "Not vengeance. Public accountability."
Knox's expression dissolved. He tried a new tack: charm. "Ladies, please—this is a mistake; my life—"
He didn't finish. The screen showed an email from his assistant: "Sir, we need to move funds today to avoid an audit." It was dated a week ago and signed subtly.
Knox went from annoyed to afraid. He reached for the PR script in his pocket. He could not find it.
"This is false!" he cried now, throat rough. "You're out to destroy me. You—"
"Admit it," I said. "Tell them how you made charity into a ledger for yourself."
He trembled. Pride is a fragile thing; his was cracking like old porcelain. "You will regret this," he said, as if threats could be armor.
"Make it right," I said, "or let the law do what we cannot."
He lunged for the console, hands grasping at cords. A man in the crowd shouted, someone else booed. The cameras caught everything: his face, the desperation, the attempted sabotage. A wave of people took out their phones.
"Call the police," he shouted, but his voice had surrendered its command.
"Stop filming me," he begged, but the crowd laughed. Laughter is one of the cruellest things at a banquet of hubris.
His face turned into a mask of denial. "This is edited! This is falsified!"
"Then explain it," I said.
He did not know where to start. The room air sharpened; someone rang the dinner bell as if to cover a new kind of music. Knox's manager put a hand on his shoulder—half support, half protection—and then the manager stepped back.
"Is this about Eva Bloom?" someone called.
Eva, standing to the side with a face made up to be the picture of unaffected innocence, suddenly looked smaller. I had not come for her specifically, but the web had knots too many for one person.
Knox's smile broke. "You—" He inhaled and sank down into a chair. "I didn't mean—"
The collapse was not cinematic. It was humanly ugly. He blinked like a boy who'd been discovered drawing in someone's ledger.
"No," he said, the first honest word. "I didn't mean it to hurt—"
"That's what regret sounds like," a woman in a black dress said, and someone else applauded—soft, sardonic.
Then he moved through denial. "This is a setup," he croaked. "Someone paid for this, you planted things—"
"Why would I?" I asked.
His face went slack, and then his knees crumpled.
"Please," he whispered, and the word had the weight of a storm. "Please, forgive me. I'm sorry. I'll return the money. I'll apologize. Don't—"
His voice trembled into a whine. The room watched him change from predator to supplicant. Phones raised like grim votive candles. People recorded the spectacle: the rich man reduced to pleading.
"No," I said, because I had promised more than vengeance. "You will answer in public. You will sign a statement and cooperate fully. You will repair what you have broken."
The crowd roared, somewhere between triumph and hunger. Reporters circled like birds. Someone started a live feed with a title: "Knox Krueger exposed."
Knox crawled into the center of the room, hands on his knees, head bowed. He was small like a child who had lost the map.
"Forgive me," he begged again. "I will do anything."
There was a chorus of reactions. Phones recorded. A woman dropped her champagne and laughed. A young man shouted, "Shame him!" An older man closed his eyes, the way you do when you are reminded of too many things. Someone watched with a camera and then turned it to the crowd, panning and capturing the spectacle for the whole internet.
He tried to salvage his dignity with words. "You don't understand—"
"Everyone understands," a voice from the back said. "We understand greed. We want honesty."
For days after, his image splintered across feeds. People dissected his emails and his receipts. Boards demanded investigations. Investors scurried away like birds from a net.
Knox Krueger had been proud, alarmingly certain of his immunity. Then, under lights and witnesses, he crumbled through shame, denial, shock, and begging. The crowd's reaction was a rolling thing: there was initial shock, then rumor, then applause. Phones streamed, people recorded, and the videos became articles and headlines by morning.
I watched him beg and felt no triumph, only a tired clarity. The system chimed: "Punishment completed. Reputation damage inflicted: severe."
"Are you satisfied?" the voice asked.
I looked at the scarf in my hand—the scarf I had wanted to buy for a man who left me—and for the first time I pressed it to my face like a prayer.
"No," I said. "Satisfaction can wait. Justice can last."
The city talked about the gala for weeks. Eva Bloom's face was in the periphery of many clips. She had not been part of the deals themselves, but proximity has a price. She faded from parties and was pushed to the edges where heads turned.
The system kept giving tasks. It rewarded me with money that I sometimes spent on factories, sometimes on trips, sometimes on small mercies: payments to families damaged by corrupt procurement, donations to the farmers whose fruit I had bought in bulk, medical payments for a woman in a distant village whose son could not get treatment otherwise.
I learned to spend like a person who was repairing things. The system gave me charm in bursts, but the real charm I discovered was in a steady hand on someone else's back.
"Why do you keep helping people?" Gerardo asked me once, after a small crisis at the factory.
"Because power without repair becomes a new harm," I said. "I don't want to become what I fought."
He looked at me with something like gratitude. "Then don't be it."
We built things: factories, ships, a small fleet that carried goods honestly to ports where deals were transparent. People who were used to players and ghosts learned to trust us. We recruited good seamen. We invested in technology with Ezekiel and Teodoro. Bear drove things until the roads knew his rhythms.
And the scarf? I kept it in a drawer. Sometimes I took it out and wrapped it around my neck like armor. Once, late at night, Gerardo found me sitting at my kitchen table, the scarf between my fingers.
"Are you keeping it for him?" he asked, not unkindly.
"No," I said. "I'm keeping it for me."
"Good," he said. "Keep it properly. It becomes mine to admire when it's on you."
I laughed. "That's presumptuous."
"Maybe," he said. "But I like to be optimistic."
I let the soft warmth of his voice be its own small blessing.
There were more moments like the gala: confrontations, exposures, small victories. Sometimes I felt like the system and I were a team where I resisted its means and used its ends. The price was high—attention is always heavy—but I learned to weigh it against what else I might lose.
In a way, the system had made me a spectacle. I tried to turn spectacle into service.
"What's next?" Marine asked one morning, sipping tea in the factory break room.
"Keep going," I said. "We make the work. We make the products. We make life better for the small people. And when someone like Knox tries to hide, we shine a light."
She smiled. "I'll help shine."
We had setbacks. There were jealous whispers. There were threats. There were nights when the system went mute and I felt a missing heartbeat like a lost compass. Once it vanished without warning for three bruising days. I could not access my stats. I went back to old ways—smelling fruit, checking shipments, speaking to workers.
When the system returned, it had a single line: "Energy restored." I realized then that my real energy came from the people who worked beside me, not the glowing interface in my head.
Months later, at a quiet riverside where the boat engines hummed like contented beasts, Gerardo took my hand.
"You look less like an actor now," he said. "You look like someone who does the work of being human."
"Work is steady," I said. "And people listen when the work is honest."
He leaned in, and when he kissed me it was not a surprise, only a soft agreement. When we pulled apart he whispered, "Keep the scarf. Keep the system. Keep me."
"Okay," I said.
I kept the scarf in the drawer like a relic. The Ferrari counted as part of a ledger. Knox's fall became a cautionary tale. The system remained a tool whose edges I learned to soften.
And the final thing I did that winter was minor and specific and, to me, perfect: I put the scarf back where I had first seen it—draped over a small wooden wardrobe of mine that looked like it belonged to a princess named Sisi. Some things, even when paid for by systems and lawyers, should hang where they started. The wardrobe was a silly, arcane thing; it belonged to me now.
"Always?" Gerardo whispered, but I shook my head.
"No," I said, and I meant it differently. "Not always. But for now."
The End
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