Blood of a maiden. Bottle of scotch. Mouthful of slander.<br/><br/>Brew in the heat of a thermonuclear warhead.<br/><br/>Serve cold.<br/><br/>Every time, the recipe for chaos was different. With experience, one could piece it together in the strangest of situations. Sometimes the chaos was a battlefield with gunfire and explosions, a media circus with reporters shooting photos and misquoting out of context… and sometimes, it was drama.<br/><br/>Maggie Greer was at home among chaos; not because she was particularly good at improvising under pressure or even at seeing everything clearly in such mess, but, because, she hired people to do all those things for her. In fact, she didn’t really even<i>like</i>dealing with disorder, but having such an advantage over everyone else in situations like that had its benefits. When the pleasure slave—as Maggie presumed the girl’s function—hit the floor and everyone’s attention shifted at her, the ambassador took the moment to put her headset back on, hidden under the thick, wavy locks of her hair. Maybe no one noticed, maybe they did, but there was enough confusion going on that it probably didn’t matter, anyway.<br/><br/>“Looks like we need a medic here,” she noted casually, much in a similar tone than Toshimi did, so that it wasn’t apparent that she was talking through her coms. The woman’s expression radiated with excitement, although it’d be hard to tell what caused it this time. A simple idea, sparked by an opportunity… If she could get the girl moved to a private clinic before anyone else showed up, Maggie would have so much more control over the situation that it was ridiculous to think about… not that any of it was of much use to her, financially or politically, but she simply had to see through what she had started. The Ethonian girl, totally unmoved by her rudeness, had suddenly cracked wide open at the sight of this green alien. Was it just the past that they obviously shared, or was there something that Maggie could learn from this creature?<br/><br/>“Ah, I was merely curious,” the woman had replied to Toshimi right before the news broke in, and even though that curiosity made her want to stay for a prolonged chat, the opportunity was too good to let slide. When the AI confronted the group afterwards, Maggie took it as a cue to take her leave.<br/><br/>“I better step out of this before I cause any more drama,” she gave the excuse, stood up, and stepped away from the table with one last smile at the alien, ignoring everyone else, “Until we meet again, Toshimi.”<br/><br/>Just like that, the ambassador was gone. Within a few moments, the medics would make their way to the bar, and Maggie had no plans to be anywhere nearby when they did. Unless the Ethonians had done their homework, and if they actually had some way to share information like most civilized people did, it wasn’t immediately obvious that this particular private clinic was actually owned by the Black Dragon. Once the girl was laid on the gurney, Maggie would be able to know her every move, and even now, the three guards positioned around the bar saw exactly what was going on at the table that she’d left.<br/><br/>“Give me everything you got on one Inviere Cain—” Maggie spoke quietly to her mic, “—Yes, and find out who this ‘Toshimi’ is——Yes, the alien, I forget the name of the species——Oh, right——Well, she’s called ‘Li Li’, but focus on the other two——Let me know when you have her at the clinic, or if anything goes wr— Oh,<i>fuck</i>.”<br/><br/>The entrance to the bar was blocked by a ferocious crowd, and while Maggie recognized most of their faces, the protruded microphones immediately gave it away. An ambush. Here, of course—they weren’t allowed in the bar.<br/><br/>“Madam Ambassador, is it true that Black Dragon equipment was used in the terror attack on the Oasis cruiser?”<br/><br/>“Can you confirm that the attack was in fact an assassination and not random at all?”<br/><br/>“Madam, three of your own people were killed in the blast—why are you smiling?!”<br/><br/>One out of three she could do. Good enough.<br/><br/>“Evidence suggests that some of the devices were indeed our merchandise,” the ambassador relied the answer that the voices in her ear whispered, “<i>We</i>are<i>not</i>responsible for how our products are used, and all of our clients are evaluated as the law states before any deals are made,” then she heard a chorus of the word ‘Ethonians’ and decided to speak a few words of her own, “At this time, there is no reason to believe that the Ethonians have anything to do with this attack, at all,” and that was all the hyenas were going to get out of her tonight.<br/><br/>There. Give this ‘Cain’ something to think about if she happened to turn on the news… Something, besides snatching and grabbing her favorite toy. If this crazy scheme actually worked, the blue-haired girl would come after her, Maggie was certain of it, but how long would it take before the punk pieced it all together…<br/><br/>Would she notice the eyes of the Dragon fixated on her before the medics even got the girl out of the bar? Would she pay attention to the route they would take; not to the public hospital, but closer to the outer hull of the station where big corporations and factions had their private docking bays? What if the bleed was simply not serious enough to keep the girl on the move for long enough… And what about the—shit, the AI, was it possible that<i>she</i>could see through to the ambassador’s true intent? No, no way. For now, her people were simply helping a bleeding girl to a clinic. Yet… how deep had the machine read to her facial expressions? No, no, calm down. They might be good, but they’re not mind-readers! And if the alien was to detain Cain from intervening… oh, yes, this one was actually not a bad thing at all.<br/><br/>…and in the end, would they get all the way in, all the way through the doors that Maggie could lock down at her will?<br/><br/>Excitement building up, the ambassador took her time, preparing for the moment of truth, before speaking the question to her coms, “Where are they now?”<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>