Aradeen Kethrak doesn't feel any pain as he dies. A shame, really. He deserves to.

The blade's monofilament edge cuts through him so easily and without so much fanfare that his killer is already half a klick away before the inertia of his final steps causes his head to separate from his body. As it hits the ground, the top of his cranium separates along a second cut, taking the top third of his brain with it as it settles like an upside-down bowl. Even his guild's best trauma teams and doctors won't be able to reassemble that sort of injury.

Later that evening, city residents are bombarded with news stories decrying the assassination of the Araketh Industries Guildmaster as brutal, savage, barbaric, and, according to one talking head, "a rare exception to the overarching protection SecWatch provides the city."

Honestly, it was none of those things. They know that. Of course, the media outlets are required to say them regardless. It is explicitly written in the charters the megaguilds hand out, the ones that give the outlets the "right" to broadcast to the public.

Each and every network and channel toes the line. They act like they don't have a choice. But they do.

And they keep making it with each feature, each highlight, each clip. Each one is a choice made, a knee bent, a credit earned.

Junon Caprice smiles as the floating heads parade across his feed. They're pulling out all the stops this time. Really trying to get sympathy from the people. Everyone acts like a dead GM is some big loss. Like Aradeen Kethrak specifically is some big loss.

It's not. He's not. Even to the guild he led. Araketh Industries has a new Guildmaster installed within eight minutes. One reports says that those eight minutes cost the megaguild just under four billion credits.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Junon shrugs and leans back on their threadbare sofa held together almost entirely by QuackCrete™ adhesive strips. Not bad. Maybe the next guild will lose even more.

Junon would love nothing more than to see the megaguilds bled dry. But he's fine with it being the people running them.

SecWatch is everywhere already. They're hunting the killer, but they won't see them. They're nobody. Just another face in the crowd. It won't be long before they catch someone for the killing. It just won't be the real killer.

If too much time passes between the killing and the capture, then not only will SecWatch look incompetent—because they are—but Araketh will also look that way. And weak. And they can't have that. Bad for the image. Bad for shareholders.

No, they'll set up some patsy in a few days or next week. They'll even find the "murder weapon" on them, tying them explicitly to the crime. Probably another few items or pieces of "evidence" that they can say are connected in some tangential way. Just enough to remove lingering doubts from the minds of the idiots who still believe that SecWatch is on their side.

Then, the guildie media will do their best to discredit everything the poor schmuck ever did, personally and professionally. They'll attack their character, their integrity, their morals, their intelligence. Everything.

The public will eat it up.

The networks will run op-ed after op-ed about what a great leader and role model Aradeen Kethrak was. They'll highlight the "all-time profits" and "explosive growth" that Araketh Industries experienced under his supervision, conveniently leaving out the superlative costs and extraordinary degradation in quality of life that ordinary people faced as a direct result.

Junon can't wait to see the talking heads claim that Kethrak was cut down in the prime of his life—the CEO was over 70 already, for fuck's sake—and that he left behind a loving family whose lives are now going to be shattered.

That way when the hammer comes down disproportionately hard on whatever scapegoat they pin the murder on, the public won't see them as a person who was consistently wronged by the system Aradeen Kethrak helped build and maintain. They won't see he's just like them. In doing so, the public won't be sympathetic enough toward to get riled up and step out of line.

It'll work. It always works.

People aren't stupid. The public is.