The Number One Star in the Interstellar Era

ASTRID slowly opened his eyes. A yawn escaped his lips before he stretching his arms upward to wake himself up. He then reached for his Terminal that was on top of the bedside table. He put it there last night before went to bed so his sleep wouldn't be disturbed.

Today was his first day back to school after a month long leave. He wanted to have a good sleep, so he would wake up in a good mood. He looked at the floor and saw that the foldable mattress Reas slept in was already gone, probably already tucked neatly in the cabinet.

His brother must be already on his way to the military academy. The other usually leave the apartment very early whenever he had to return to the academy. Astrid almost always woke up with Reas already gone.

He then opened his Terminal and his eyes immediately widened when he saw the number of missed calls from his friends and Ellis. His agent being the one with the most number of missed calls.

Astrid's brows furrowed. Did something happen while he was sleeping?

He quickly called Ellis back. He would call back the others later. If something really did happen, it's important to know what it was now. And since Ellis was the one most likely to know what it was, she was the one he called first.

It didn't take long for the call to connect. Ellis' face appeared on the screen. Astrid quickly noticed the dark circles under the other's eyes. Anyone could see that she probably only slept for a few hours. Or maybe she hadn't slept at all.

"Good morning, Sister Ellis. I'm sorry if I wasn't able to answer your call. I know something must have happened. Can you tell me the details?" he immediately said.

Ellis stared at him for a moment and then sighed. "It's fine. Everything has already been resolved."

"What?" Astrid asked in bewilderment.

=====

So, let us all go back a few hours earlier, when the arguments on [Cyberspace] was at its peak.

[So, it was that One Leaf's fault. What are you doing, getting in the way of Nadia and Astrid when you're just a writer?]

[Maybe she has a crush on Astrid. LOL.]

[Can you people not speak on our One Leaf?! Our writer has no interest in such things! Don't tarnish her image by saying such stupid things!]

[In the first place, this wasn't even One Leaf's fault. It's Nadia Beck's fault for posting something so ambiguous. It's as if she wanted both Astrid and One Leaf to be hated!]

[Hey, don't throw the rock at Nadia! She's the victim in all this!]

[What kind of victim are you talking about? Shouldn't it be Astrid?]

[That's right! You all drag his name like this as if he killed your dog or something, only to find out that you killed the dog yourself.]

[Oh please. For all we know maybe this Astrid Townsend seduced both Nadia and One Leaf.]

[Upstairs, I kind of agree with you.]

Then a post from Clover Ltd., a publishing company that also handled most of the well known writers in the Empire, appeared. It's the company where One Leaf was signed. That post was followed by another from Polaris.

[Clover Ltd v: As malicious comments have been floating around <Cyberspace> about one of our writers – Miss One Leaf, we at Clover Ltd will make sure to protect our writer. If you are intentionally spreading false rumor about Miss One Leaf without any evidence, we will treat you as a criminal and promptly sue you.]

[Polaris v: We at Polaris always put the well-being of our artist first. Any malicious rumors and false information will be investigated thoroughly. To those who will be found guilty, please, be prepared of any lawsuit that will come your way.]

These two posts didn't really stopped the comments about Astrid or One Lead. Instead, they were fueled even more.

[What's this? Are you even stopping our freedom of speech? Do you think we were still in the Blue Star Age?]

[Don't worry. That's just lip service. These companies never really go through with their threats.]

[True. They always say they're going to sue, but at the end, they still don't.]

As the comments on [Cyberspace] related to Astrid, Nadia, and One Leaf continued to accumulate, a certain post completely stopped the arguments from all three sides.

[@astridsnumber1fan: Evidence of Nadia Beck's media manipulation.]

Then attached to it was a folder filled with evidence.

The first one was a record of someone buying a blank Terminal. Following the cash  transaction, it all led to Nadia's bank account. That wouldn't actually be that much of a shocking evidence if not for what followed it.

It was the ID of the blank Terminal. This ID belonged to an already deceased person. But surprisingly enough, the ID of the person who made the post that started this whole controversy was the same as the ID on the blank Terminal that Nadia bought!

But that was not all. Some controversies before that that was related to Nadia and that somehow benefited her reputation were also connected to a lot of ID Terminals that were supposed to belong to an already dead person. The more shocking thing was these blank Terminals were all bought from the black market using Nadia's bank account.

People could argue that this set of evidence could be easily manipulated and faked. But then, as if to tell them 'nope, this is not fake at all', a couple of videos were attached after that.

This video compilation were all CCTV footages of her with other artists. These artists were the ones who had been victims of her little media play. The footages showed how the 'photo evidence' that 'indicted' these artists came to be. It showed how everything was just her own orchestration.

How could people tell? Simple. Every time Nadia was done, she would smirk like some villainess that had just finished a scheme.

And everything was captured on video.