Chapter 149 Back up
Melissa stared at the two women blankly, she obviously didn't understand what they meant by the "people's love." She understood that she was a good enough queen, and some of the people liked her, but she also understood that there would be people who didn't. That was exactly what ruling is — understanding that you can never please every single person in your kingdom.
Melissa sighed and cocked her head sideways, her eyebrows raised as she asked. "What do you mean by the people's love?"
They didn't answer her at first as both of them were busy doing what Melissa realised to be a betting transaction. Beatrice stretched her hand out immediately as Margaret begrudgingly pulled out some cash, handing it to the councilwoman. She grinned happily as she collected the money.
"You guys bet on me?" Melissa asked in surprise.
"Yep," Beatrice replied.
Melissa squinted her face. "So you bet that I wouldn't understand the plan…?" She asked Beatrice with the look of betrayal evident in her eyes.
"No…" she rolled her eyes. "The bet was, you wouldn't accept that you actually understood the plan," she replied.
"What does that mean?" Melissa asked again.
"She said you'd never really accept the fact that enough people love you, for it to be considered a plan, so you 'd say you don't understand, " Maragaret said.
Melissa took a glance at Beatrice with a condescending gaze, and the council woman glared back. "Anyways, explain the plan, " she remained adamant.
Although Melissa did feel what Margaret said and she understood what the bet was all about, she knew even within herself that she found it hard to accept praises; it made her feel like a lie. She was still a little plagued by the fact that her past life was a failure and she had to do everything in her power to correct it. And yet, she was probably just making it worse
She exhaled as Beatrice spoke this time. "Mostly, you are going to address the issue on live television," she said. "You already have something to talk about, everyone wants to hear news about the latest terrorist attack and they also want to know if it was the Vance pack or not. This video is also something you'd have to speak about, " she said.
"I understand that, but talking about the matter won't change anything," Melissa protested.
"Why not? All that anonymous dude did was speak. Do you think the words of an unknown person have more weight than that of the Luna of Dunham? The wolf who caught a bullet with her bare hands? Increased every county's budget by thirteen percent, increased Dunham's productivity by six percent, rerouted everyone away from areas of lead poisoning and also improved the worker's protection equipment, forged a union between Vance and Dunham, an…." She wanted to keep on going without any pauses but Melissa yelled.
"I get it!" She breathed. "I don't even know what to say right now, my head is all hazy," she said.
"Right now?"Beatrice asked. "You are not doing it till next tomorrow," she chuckled. "Your palace got attacked by terrorists and the first thing you are going to do is break the news?"
Melissa exhaled, it was good to have such reliable people beside her. She laid back with a loud moan on Beatrice's bed. Even though she'd slept till the morning, her sleep was an uneasy one. She turned to Richard who was just standing at the door with Hance, the two of them leaning at the wall.
"How do we solve Hance's issue?" Richard spoke at last.
Melissa groaned before pulling herself up again. "I don't know," she said with a moan.
"What issue is that?" Margaret asked.
"Their council wants them back and they'd surely die if they do. They are already on a kill list and their death has to happen right here in Vance, because it is part of their plan to weaken the political strength between us two. The only allies we have in Vance are him and his beta, and his beta is the only one with direct information on the Oracle. We can't lose them at all," Richard recounted.
"We keep them here, then?" Magaret stated.
"No, we can't. They already made a call that they unanimously cannot trust our safety in this castle, due to the fact that there was a terrorist attack not long ago and there is a dubious video circulating about the Luna of Dunham, " Melissa added.
"Then we release our own video," Beatrice smiled.
"Huh?"
"There is already one anonymous guy on the tv. We will try to run the Castle's security cams; maybe we can pull up just an image of them, " she said.
"I don't think that is possible, they rebooted the entire system with the lockdown, the histories would have been lost," Hance said.
"Actually… "Richard smiled. "They are not, I made sure all security camera footage are automatically backed up to Erica's computer. Since she hasn't been using it, I decided to make it a backup for security cameras," he said. "It is done manually, infact- her computer isn't connected to any of our servers," he said.
Melissa had always preferred writing than typing, just like Beatrice. It made it easier for her to work, so due to the fact she didn't work with the device, she'd just let it lie fallow in her room. She smiled at Richard weakly but she couldn't help but feel a little offended. He'd taken up the computer without her consent and had also called her archaic. She snickered at him and he just rolled his eyes away.
"Well, let us get to checking that, it would take a lot of time though," Margaret pointed out. "
"Yeah, we can easily make copies on multiple devices so it would be faster that way. Everyone will take an hour each,"Richard said, twisting open the door.
Melissa and the others followed and Melissa could feel ease from Hance.
“You guys are efficient," he said.
Beatrice turned to her. "Yeah, we have a good leader," she smiled and winked at Melissa who turned away shyly.