The Lie

Scarlet and Tiffany, with their twin maxed scores at 100, huddle beside me as I open up the AMA.

Sofia Najbreit, Score: -120 (as Markus) (+30), 55 (as Claude) (+48)

“That’s a good score, right?” Tiffany asks.

“For the amount of time we’ve spent together? It’s pretty damn amazing,” I say.

“Do you think we can trust her with the truth?” Scarlet asks, glancing at the bathroom where Sofia must be redoing her make-up and applying a fresh coat of perfume to disguise the sex-smell that lingers in the air.

“Maybe not all of it, not yet,” I say. “I don’t think she’s against us, not with the way thing have played out. But if Father could catch her off guard, or if something were to change her mind…”

“We should wait until you’ve built a stronger relationship with her,” Tiffany says, completing my thought.

“Exactly,” I nod. “Her score with Markus is still low enough that telling her the truth might drag down her combined score closer to 0 than 50.”

“But she never had the chance to meet Markus for herself, only Claude,” Scarlet says. “All she knows are the lies that Father must have told her, all the terrible things that you supposedly did.”

“Well, you were hardly born when I left,” I say, “and Tiffany, you weren’t even born then!”

“Yeah, but we at least grew up with Linda around, and she made sure to set the record straight with us. Or, well, at least tried to tell us enough things that contradicted Father’s words that I ended up pretty confused,” Scarlet says.

“It always seemed suspicious to me that Father was so insistent on curating this particular image of you,” Tiffany agrees. “It all seemed so unnecessary.”

“What did Father say about me?” I wonder.

I wasn’t in the household to hear his lies, once I was gone, and it’s morbid curiosity as much as a defensive measure that I’m asking.

Scarlet blushes in response to my question.

“Well, when we were younger, we weren’t really told details,” Tiffany says, looking a bit embarrassed too. “Just that it was a very bad thing that you had done. And that you were a really bad person. A really, really bad person.”

“Then, once we’d learned about the birds and the bees, well…” Scarlet glances at Tiffany, her voice trailing off.

“****,” Tiffany says quietly. “Father told us that you had committed ****.”

“But you know that’s nonsense, right?” I ask, looking at the two of them, hoping with all my heart that they’re with me.

“I mean, of course, we know now,” Scarlet says. “But at the time… it left quite an impression on me.”

So that’s where Scarlet’s fantasy comes from, I think to myself, catching her eye.

“Yeah, and it wasn’t like we were digging around for evidence on it. We just heard two different stories from your mom and Father, and I guess… well, Scarlet and I kind of just tried to forget about it best we could, you know?” Tiffany says.

“But my scores with the other sisters in the family, like Kara, Maddie, even Mandy, they’re all so much lower than yours were, at first,” I say.

“I don’t know about that,” Scarlet shrugs. “Maybe it’s because Father got the first word in. I think Linda only realised that it was important to tell us the truth because Father got to all the other girls first.”

“You should ask Erin about it,” Tiffany says, thoughtfully.

“Her score with Markus was never particularly low either,” I say. “I wonder why that is.”

I pull out my phone, and send her a text.

Done with your nude prancing in front of the camera already? comes Erin’s reply a second later. Vidocq and crew still haven’t finished the first step.

Not quite done with the photos… but you wouldn’t believe what the hold-up was, I reply.

Well, tell me about it, she says. But to answer your question: I mean, it was pretty damn obvious to me that either Father or Linda was full of horseshit. And the balance of evidence lay in favour of your mom being right and you being innocent, but it was such a shitty thing that you were accused of that, you know, on net it ended up being a negative for you. But I bet you my score went up pretty quickly after I met you.

How’d you know that? I ask.

I update my beliefs based on new information, she replies. Like any rational human should.

Tiffany, looking at our conversation over my shoulder, makes a face.

“Tell her she’s a massive nerd,” she says. “But that that’s why we love her.”

Love you too, Tiff, comes Erin’s reply a second after I do.

Sofia comes out of the bathroom then, all freshened up.

“You ready to continue with the photoshoot?” she asks, looking lively and excited about the prospect of having her nudes taken now.

“I’ve still got to wash up,” I laugh. “But I won’t take long. Don’t you girls get too frisky while I'm in there.”

“I wouldn’t want to clean up again anyways,” Scarlet replies with a smile.

The moment I’m in the bathroom, I open up the text that I’ve received from the group chat containing Vidocq and his crew.

I scroll through the photos and the walls of text that have been posted. It seems that they intercepted the package and are talking at great length about what the lines of digits printed on the piece of paper are supposed to be.

Great, another fucking code, I see Irene’s written.

Give me a couple hours, bet you I can crack it, Emmanuel says.

We might not have that long. We’ve just barely placed back the package in time for Ricardo to find it, Vidocq writes.

It’s a clue that we can use, Emmanuel writes.

It’s another message that they could be using to conspire against us, Vidocq types.

I can sense the anger bubbling in his veins, and I stifle a laugh. I know how to crack this code, too, and they are going to be perplexed when I decrypt these latest series of messages for them.