Chapter Text
“I told you, gambler, that it is a terrible idea.”
Aventurine watched his colleague rub his temple, raising an eyebrow. “And why is that?”
“The chances of a positive outcome are few and far between. Surely everyone else at the table here understands that. Tell me, why do you even want an Intelligentsia Guild representative’s advice on the matter if you aren’t going to listen to a word I say?”
The blond man folded his hands together on the table and took a deep breath. Why, indeed. If he’d had his way, Dr. Ratio wouldn’t be there. However, if their team excluded the Guild in this discussion, they risked turning a small crack in trust into a large fissure. Unfortunately for him, they sent Ratio.
“You are here so that your council feels involved. It isn’t my fault that your suggestions are all slow and inefficient.” He peered at the doctor over his glasses. “Do you want to get those archives back?”
All the eyes at the table flickered between them. Frowning, Ratio nodded.
“Then we have to act now, or else it gets either sold or destroyed. Funnily enough, they aren’t patient.”
“We risk far too much diving into this situation unaware. None of us know what they might have set up, but it will most likely be better than your failed protections.”
“You just—”
“Enough.” Everyone’s heads turned to the door on a synchronized swivel, where a silhouetted woman wearing a large hat now stood, arms crossed. “I’m sorry to interrupt whatever game of ping-pong you two were playing, but we have an issue to solve.”
Aventurine straightened in his seat, donning his best smile. “Jade! Thank the Aeons that you’re here. The doctor was—”
“I’m sure.” She shot him a look as she placed herself at the head of the table. His smile faltered slightly. “Now, let’s get to it.”
In turn, he and Ratio presented their plans. His was direct, to infiltrate and tear down the thieves’ base in the same breath. Ratio, however, preferred drawing them out and retrieving everything while they were distracted. How he intended to convince them to leave, Aventurine did not understand. It would be much simpler to enter armed with saccharine grins and knives up their sleeves than to play some long, complex mind game. As Ratio insisted on the built-in safety of his idea, Aventurine flicked his pen between his fingers, chin resting on his other hand. Safety didn’t get results. Risk did.
“Are you even paying attention, gambler?”
He drew his focus back in. “Of course I am. I just think it’s a bad plan.”
“You—”
Jade raised a hand, silencing them again. “While I don’t think it’s a bad plan, I do think it could take too long. Is that a risk we want to take?”
Ratio sighed. “We risk time, or we risk people. I would much rather risk time.”
“How much research was lost?” asked Aventurine. “Are you willing to lose it forever, when we have the chance to get it back? And, Lady Jade, do you think I’d let you down?” He stared at her, blue-and-pink eyes meeting grey. “I bet I won’t.”
She watched him for a moment, before nodding. “Alright. It’s settled, then.”
Smirking, Aventurine watched Ratio catch up to the silent conversation that had just happened between the two Stonehearts. He stood from his chair.
“But before you go,” added Jade, extending a folder to him, “take this. I have a different project for you to work on.”
He took it, tilting his head to read it. Interastral Penfriends . “A pen pal service? How am I supposed to do this while I’m on the mission?”
“Oh, we’re sending someone else to retrieve the archive. They aren’t a big enough threat to warrant a whole Stoneheart,” she said with a laugh. “Which leaves you with plenty of time. You’ll be a great fit.”
“A dangerous mission doesn’t warrant a Stoneheart, but this does?” scoffed Aventurine. He glanced at the doctor, who looked somewhat amused at Aventurine’s disgruntledness.
“Think of it as maintaining good faith with the rest of the Corporation, and the universe at large.” She stood, pushing in her chair. “Alright, I won’t keep you any longer.”
With confusion plastered on his face, he exited the meeting room. As he went home, he wondered whether or not he’d actually won.
When he returned to his penthouse apartment, Aventurine stretched out across his bed, the folder propped up by plush pillows. If he had to read this nonsense, he’d at least do so in comfort.
It really did feel like empty, mushy nonsense. According to the contract, he would have to participate in and promote the IPC’s little pen pal initiative for an entire year. He wondered uselessly if he could worm his way out of it, though that would never happen. It would look bad for such an important figure in the company to reject one of their own programs. Sighing, he flipped to the next page.
“‘Interastral Penfriends: Connecting friends, old and new, across galaxies.’” Did they really think people would sign up for this? Pay their hard-earned credits to talk to someone they had no good reason to care about? But apparently Jade thought he could keep it interesting for a year.
He pushed his hair out of his face. There were plenty of people he could call in for the publicity part. The participation side of things would be the real bother. As he read the rest of the folder, ideas started to form in his head.
He could do it.
*****
“And now… tonight’s special guest, here to show us a brand-new program that the IPC has been cooking up… it’s that dazzling Stoneheart, Aventurine!”
He flashed a bright smile to the camera. “Thank you, Owlbert.”
“So, what do you have for us today?”
Aventurine relaxed into the soft sofa as he explained it over again. “The way it works is simple. You just fill out a few interests in your profile, and the system matches you up with someone like-minded. From there, the two of you can exchange messages online, or even send paper letters.”
“How exciting!” interjected Owlbert.
He leaned in. “And don’t you worry about security issues. Our team will be hard at work verifying each and every profile to make sure you don’t end up at the hands of a scammer.”
The interview went on, with Aventurine reciting his carefully prepared script. A grin here, a laugh there, and he knew the audience would be eating from his hand. When the livestream ended, the gambler even gave Owlbert a high-five.
As he got in the car to go home, he checked his phone to see the general reaction. Skipping past the typical celebrity-culture fans screeching about his hair or his outfit (among other things), he saw people already saying that they wanted to sign up. Whether or not there would be user retention was a problem for the future, but for the moment, it seemed to have gone over successfully. Signaling to his driver, the car started on its way.
He supposed he should probably make his own account. He’d already paid for it—although he thought that the contract ought to have given him free access. Not that he needed it to be free, of course, but it would have made sense for a sponsorship to do that. He pulled it up on his phone and punched in his name, then paused with his fingers hovering over the box for his interests.
Interests. Now that he thought about it, he’d never really considered what he was interested in. He supposed he could put gambling as one, and maybe shopping or fine dining. As he submitted them, a little pigeon icon popped up. By tomorrow, it told him, his account would be verified and he could start exchanging messages. Apparently, the system had already found similar profiles. The thought occurred to him that it was quite similar to dating apps, and he laughed to himself. It definitely wasn’t the designed purpose, but hey! If it worked for someone, good for them.
Soon enough, the car pulled up at his building. Thanking his driver, Aventurine sauntered up the stairs to get ready for an evening out. The night was still young, and he wasn’t going to waste it.
*****
The next day, Aventurine woke up halfway fallen off of the couch in his apartment, disoriented and with a pounding in his head. He gathered himself, taking in his surroundings. At least he’d made it somewhat onto the couch and not just passed out on the floor. Yawning, he blundered his way to the coffee pot and started it up. And thank goodness it’s the weekend. Once he’d ingested the necessary amount of caffeine and had a snack, Aventurine set himself up in his room. Without much better to do, he figured he might as well check his penfriends account to see if anything had changed. As he opened it up, he noticed a slight oversight on his part.
Seeing as he’d made the account under his Stoneheart name, put his interests as things that were recognizable to his personal brand, and gotten verified, people had (quite easily) put the pieces together that it was him. He opened the message request tab and immediately facepalmed. There were at least a hundred people asking him to be their pen pal. Oops.
He chose one at random. Maybe they would have something interesting to talk about. Their introductory message seemed innocuous enough, with just a simple ‘hello!’ He decided to reply, and got an immediate response.
“‘O-M-G you are real, let’s be best friends now,’” he read aloud, sighing. “Oh, no.” No one was going to treat him like a normal person, were they. A year of this? Really? That wouldn’t do at all.
With that, Aventurine decided to make a new account. New name, new interests, anything would do. Rin, likes cats, fashion, and adventure. After another day, it would be ready to go.
Perfect.