Chapter 66: The Admiration That Wanted a Name
The water of the Canal Saint-Martin was the color of faded slate, reflecting a sky pregnant with the promise of evening rain. Green-painted iron footbridges arched gracefully over the sluggish current, and along the cobbled banks, people drifted in the cool April air—couples leaning on railings, friends spilling out from cafés with glasses of wine, cyclists weaving through with the silent urgency of eels. The scent of damp stone, fresh bread from a nearby boulangerie, and the faint, organic tang of the water itself hung in the breeze.
Briv Rodin sat on a bench facing the canal, a thick sketchbook open on his lap. He wasn’t drawing the scene before him. Instead, the page was a chaos of half-formed shapes: intricate geometric patterns dissolving into organic, vein-like structures, a face suggested by a few careful lines but left deliberately incomplete. His charcoal-stained fingers moved restlessly. He’d been here for an hour, pretending to work, waiting.
He saw Zoruk approach from the corner of his eye. The man moved through the casual afternoon crowd like a shadow passing over sun-dappled water—present, but somehow separate. Briv took a slow breath, squared his shoulders, and didn’t look up until Zoruk was standing beside the bench.
“Ah,” Briv said, closing the sketchbook with a soft thump. He offered a lopsided, defensive smile. “The audition continues. Is this the second round? The one where I get judged for having feelings but, you know, excellent boundaries? I should have prepared a monologue.”
Zoruk sat down on the bench, leaving a careful foot of space between them. He watched a bateau-mouche glide silently under the nearest bridge. “This is a cooperation test, Briv. Not an audition.”
“Right, right. Cooperation.” Briv ran a hand through his short dark hair. “Which, in your parlance, means spilling my guts. So, what’s the theme today? Unresolved daddy issues? Secret kleptomania? My unhealthy relationship with almond croissants?”
Zoruk turned his head. His gaze was calm, absorbing. “Today, cooperation means naming the fantasy. Without pretending the respect you showed made it harmless.”
The humor drained from Briv’s face, leaving sharp intelligence and guarded tension behind. He looked out at the water. “We covered this. I never stalked her. I never followed her in real life. I never demanded replies, never slid into DMs with ‘hey beautiful,’ never acted entitled to a millisecond of her time. I liked her posts. I commented sometimes—funny stuff, I hope. She replied to a few. That’s it. That’s the whole fucking case file.”
“I agree,” Zoruk said, his voice even. “You were, by any measurable standard, respectful. A digital gentleman. So why did those small exchanges become the central artifacts of a five-year narrative?”
Briv’s jaw tightened. He picked at a fleck of charcoal on his jeans. “They weren’t artifacts. They were just… interactions.”
“Alya Dumont has three million followers. She likely receives thousands of comments a day. Yet you remember the exact timbre of her replies to you. The specific jokes. You’ve curated them. Why?”
“Because!” Briv’s voice was sharper than he intended. A passing cyclist glanced over. He lowered it, leaning closer to Zoruk. “Because in a world where everyone is screaming into a void, her replying felt like… a signal. A moment of contact. She was kind. She was funny. She felt real for those three seconds. Not a brand. Not an image. Real. And when you spend most of your time feeling like a ghost in your own life, those moments of real contact from someone who seems to glow… they matter. They become evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
“That I wasn’t completely invisible,” Briv said quietly, the admission pulled from him.
Zoruk nodded, as if noting a clinical fact. “And the others in her orbit are very visible. Remy Bernier stands beside her in reality, not in comments sections. He touches her. He shares her silence. Corinne Chagnon controls access to her, decides who gets close. Rachelle Lebas knows what she eats for breakfast, what makes her cry, what she’s afraid of at three in the morning. Georges Bernier can provoke her, tease her, disrupt her world from inside it. They all have a tangible place.”
Briv let out a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah. That’s exactly the problem. They have a place. I had… distance. A really well-mannered, respectful distance.”
“So distance became your proof,” Zoruk mused. “Because reality never had the chance to contradict the story. Remy might fight with her. Rachelle might resent her. Georges might annoy her. Corinne certainly manipulates her. You never had to deal with any of that. You only ever received the curated, kind, funny version. The perfect digital girl.”
The words hung in the damp air. Briv didn’t speak for a long time. The canal lapped softly against the stone embankment.
“It’s not her fault,” he finally said, his voice rough. “She doesn’t owe me anything. She was just being nice to a fan. I know that. I know that in here.” He tapped his temple.
“But?” Zoruk prompted, the single word a soft prod.
“But if I met her tomorrow… if I walked into a room and she was there, and we were introduced…” Briv trailed off, watching a leaf spin in a slow eddy near the bank. “Part of me would want her to look at me and see me. Not just a new person. Not just another face in the crowd. I’d want her to somehow… recognize me. To feel that those five years of quiet, respectful admiration meant I was different. That I’d earned a special glance.” He grimaced, disgusted with himself. “I hate how unfair that sounds. I hate that I even think it. She doesn’t know me. She shouldn’t know me. I’m a stranger who liked her photos.”
“Yet the fantasy persists,” Zoruk said. “The fantasy that your restraint was a kind of virtue that should be rewarded. That your silent, non-invasive worship should grant you priority over the men who are actually in her life, dealing with the messy reality of her.”
Briv put his head in his hands for a moment, then looked up, his dark eyes clear and pained. “Yes. That’s the fantasy. And I know it’s bullshit. It’s the prettiest, most polite form of entitlement. I built a cathedral in my head from a handful of digital bricks. And sometimes I still go and sit inside it.”
Zoruk watched him. The human capacity for self-awareness intertwined with self-deception was always fascinating. “Lord Olmer Larothus values creativity. He values restraint. But Tethys Dome Colony Season Five will be a furnace. It will expose whether a man like you can accept people as they truly are—flawed, complicated, and entirely separate from the stories you build around them. Or whether that polite cathedral will collapse into something more dangerous when faced with the real, breathing, disappointing woman.”
“I wouldn’t hurt her,” Briv said immediately, his voice fierce.
“I believe you,” Zoruk replied. “But obsession doesn’t always manifest as violence. Sometimes it manifests as a clinging resentment when the fantasy refuses to become real. Or as a strategic move to insert yourself into her narrative, to force the connection your respect never earned. You could become a pawn for someone else aiming at her, simply because your desire makes you easy to manipulate.”
Briv absorbed this, the truth of it settling like a cold stone in his gut. He thought of Corinne’s calculating eyes, of Georges’s chaotic energy, of the entire ecosystem around Alya that he’d only ever observed from a satellite’s distance. “What do you want from me, then? A confession? A promise to forget her?”
“I want useful truth,” Zoruk said. “Not for me. For you. To delineate the map of your own heart before you are thrown into a territory where every contour will be used against you. So tell me, honestly: what is your useful truth about Alya Dumont?”
Briv stared at the water, his artist’s mind turning over impressions, moments, the subtle geometry of a public persona. He spoke slowly, carefully.
“Her sweetness is real. It’s not an act. But… she knows. She knows exactly how powerful a small kindness from her can be. She knows a ‘like’ or a funny reply can make someone’s week, can fuel a fantasy. She’s not cruel about it. She might not even be fully conscious of it all the time. But she’s aware of the weight her attention carries. She’s been living inside that dynamic since she was a teenager.” He paused. “I don’t blame her for it. How could you live like that and not be aware? But I don’t want to pretend, to myself, that those replies were just innocent, weightless moments. They were transactions. Tiny, benign ones. I gave her admiration; she gave me a flicker of validation. It meant nothing to her. It meant… a lot to me. I need to stop pretending otherwise.”
The confession hung between them, simple and stark. The defensive humor, the intellectual guard, had all burned away, leaving a raw, honest core.
Zoruk stood up. “Then you have cooperated.”
Briv looked up at him, his expression weary. “And? What’s the verdict? Am I a risk? Should I be left behind?”
“Lord Olmer does not discard creative potential simply because it comes with emotional complications,” Zoruk said, brushing a nonexistent speck from his sleeve. “He understands that desire is a powerful engine. The question is whether it can be harnessed, or if it will overheat and destroy the machine. You’ve shown you can look at the engine. That’s a start.”
He gave a faint, almost imperceptible nod and began to walk away along the canal path.
Briv sat on the bench, the cool metal seeping through his jeans. The fantasy was named now, dragged out into the grey afternoon light. It looked smaller here, and sadder. But it was still his. He opened his sketchbook again, not to the chaotic patterns, but to a fresh page. He started to draw the bridge, the water, the honest, unchanging lines of reality. His hand was steady.
Zoruk did not look back. He had his measurement. Briv Rodin was not a stalker, not a threat in the conventional sense. He was something perhaps more insidious in the context of the Dome: a romantic. A man who had built a love story with only one character, and who now had to face the terrifying prospect of the other character walking onto the stage with her own script. The risk was not violence. It was the quiet, desperate distortion of reality to fit a beautiful, lonely dream. That kind of distortion could be a weakness. Or, in the right environment, a weapon waiting to be picked up and used.
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Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris. After Zoruk’s second meeting with Briv Rodin.
The crisp April air in the Jardin du Luxembourg carried the scent of damp earth and blooming hyacinths. Sunlight filtered through the still-bare branches of the chestnut trees, dappling the gravel paths where Parisians and tourists strolled past the green metal chairs and the ornate Medici Fountain. Children guided small wooden sailboats on the grand basin with long sticks, their laughter punctuating the calm. It was a tableau of orderly leisure, a stage set for a quieter kind of confrontation.
Rachelle Lebas arrived first, her pace brisk and irritated. She wore a practical grey sweater and jeans, her arms crossed tightly over her chest as she scanned the area near the fountain. She’d received the location pin from Zoruk with no explanation, just a time. Her patience, always a thin layer over a simmering vigilance, was already worn through. Seeing Corinne approach from the opposite direction, looking like she’d just stepped from a light editorial shoot in a tailored cream coat and sleek trousers, made Rachelle’s jaw tighten.
“Fantastic,” Rachelle muttered to herself, not quietly enough.
“Rachelle, darling,” Corinne called, her voice a melodic blend of warmth and amusement. She navigated the gravel with effortless grace. “A garden meeting. How pastoral. I half-expected a picnic basket. Or a subpoena.”
“Where is he?” Rachelle asked, ignoring the greeting and glancing around. “And why are you here? I thought your consultations were strictly private club affairs.”
“My consultations are where they need to be,” Corinne replied, her eyes already cataloging the crowd, assessing, always assessing. “And ‘he’ is precisely eleven seconds late. He enjoys the punctuation of a deliberate entrance.”
As if summoned, Zoruk appeared from behind the line of marble statues, moving without hurry. He gave a small, polite nod to each of them. “Thank you for your punctuality. Shall we?” He gestured to three empty chairs arranged in a loose triangle facing the water.
They sat. Rachelle perched on the edge of her chair, back straight. Corinne relaxed into hers, crossing her legs as if settling in for a mildly interesting performance. Zoruk sat between them, a neutral point in their tense field.
“This is a cooperation test,” he began, his gaze resting on the tranquil surface of the fountain pool. “The subject is Alya Dumont. Not her fame. Not her beauty. But the people who claim to protect her.”
Rachelle let out a sharp, derisive breath. “Great. Well, she protects Alya like a brand with a pulse.” She jerked her chin toward Corinne. “Damage control, market positioning, accessory coordination. It’s all product management. Protection is just the PR-friendly term for containment.”
Corinne’s smile didn’t falter, but her eyes cooled a degree. “And Rachelle protects Alya like a friend who wants a medal for answering messages. The long-suffering lieutenant who mistakes emotional labor for moral superiority. It’s very touching, in a exhausting sort of way.”
The insult hung in the spring air, sharp as the chill. Zoruk let it settle, watching the two women. He said nothing.
Rachelle leaned forward, her voice low and intense. “At least I am her friend. You’re a paid employee. Your concern invoices by the hour.”
“My concern ensures she has a career in which to have friends,” Corinne replied smoothly. “But we’re not here to debate our job descriptions, are we? We’re here to confess our insecurities. That’s the real cooperation, isn’t it, Monsieur Zoruk?”
Zoruk acknowledged her with a slight tilt of his head. “What each of you fears losing if Alya stops needing you. That is the question.”
Rachelle looked away, toward a child chasing a pigeon. “I fear losing the person behind the image,” she said, the defiance gone from her voice, replaced by a raw honesty that surprised even her. “The one who isn’t sweet all the time, who gets moody, who leaves her dishes in the sink. If she doesn’t need my protection, does she stop showing me that? Do I just become another fan?”
Corinne watched her for a moment, then looked at Zoruk. “I fear Alya being swallowed. By people who confuse access with intimacy, like Briv Rodin and his five-year parasocial cathedral. By men who hide their need behind a dignified silence, like Remy, hoping she’ll just intuit the emptiness. By charming provocation that masks a deeper hunger, like Georges. The wolves aren’t always snarling. Sometimes they just look… interesting.”
“You’ve listed threats,” Zoruk noted, his voice calm. “But you haven’t answered the question. What do you fear losing, Corinne?”
A muscle ticked in Corinne’s jaw. The memory of the Place des Vosges, the crushing abdication of control, flashed behind her eyes. She smoothed her coat over her knee. “I fear her walking into a room I no longer have a key to. I fear her being safe enough, smart enough, that the door I guard just… becomes a wall.”
Rachelle snorted, but it lacked its earlier heat. “So you lose your purpose. I lose my person.”
“And both of you lose your claimed territory,” Zoruk said. “The defined space where you matter to her. Without that, who are you in relation to Alya Dumont?”
“Someone who knows her better than any of the vultures circling,” Rachelle fired back, turning to Corinne. “You see spreadsheets and strategy. I see when she’s faking a smile because her stomach hurts from anxiety.”
Corinne’s smile returned, edged with a dark playfulness. “And I see when she uses that very stomach ache to avoid a conversation with Remy that she doesn’t want to have. I see when she lets Briv’s ‘respectful’ admiration linger because it’s easier than establishing a firm boundary. I see when she leans into your protectiveness, Rachelle, because it means she doesn’t have to fight her own battles. We all see parts. You mistake proximity for comprehension.”
“And you mistake control for care,” Rachelle shot back.
Zoruk watched their volley, the protective friend and the polished manager, each armed with truths about the other. “Understanding,” he interjected, his voice cutting through cleanly, “can become a form of ownership when it refuses to let the other person change. You have both built identities around a static version of Alya—the one who needs you. What if she evolves past that need?”
The question silenced them. A breeze rattled the dry branches above. The cooperative test wasn’t about working together; it was about exposing the solitary nature of their devotion.
“Give me one useful truth,” Zoruk said, looking from one to the other. “Not an accusation. Not a defense. One observation about Alya Dumont you can both agree on.”
Rachelle and Corinne stared at each other, a silent war of wills over a shared territory they hated to acknowledge. Finally, Rachelle looked away, gritting her teeth. “Fine. She’s sweeter in public than she feels in private.”
Corinne nodded slowly, conceding the point. “And she’s more aware of the power of that sweetness than most people around her want to admit.”
“Go on,” Zoruk prompted.
Rachelle sighed, the fight draining out of her, leaving fatigue. “She lets people protect her sometimes because real confrontation exhausts her. It’s not always weakness. Sometimes it’s just… efficient. She picks her battles.”
“And she knows,” Corinne added, her tone shifting to one of professional admiration, “that protection can be a useful tool. When she wants to stay universally loved without having to choose sides between, say, Remy’s quiet need and Georges’s noisy disruption, she can retreat behind the wall of us. She lets us be the bad cops, the filters, the boundaries. It keeps her hands clean.”
The realization settled over them both, uncomfortable and illuminating. Their roles, which felt so vital and self-defined, were also permissions Alya had granted. They were functions she utilized.
“So she’s not just protected,” Rachelle said, the words tasting strange. “She’s… using the protection.”
“She is letting protection become part of her influence,” Zoruk corrected softly. “A strategic vulnerability. That is the first shared truth of Paris.”
He stood up. The meeting was over. Rachelle and Corinne remained seated, not looking at each other, the elegant spring crowd swirling around them. They were not allies. But they were no longer enemies in quite the same way. They were two women who had just glimpsed the same unsettling machinery inside the beautiful doll they both cherished, and saw, for a second, that the doll’s hand was on one of the levers.
Zoruk melted back into the flow of pedestrians along the gravel path. His work was done. He had taken the manager who had been broken open and the friend who was fraying at the edges and forced them to articulate the geometry of their service. Lord Olmer Larothus would find the data valuable. On Tethys Dome, where there were no managers, no best friends, only competitors and cameras, understanding that Alya Dumont’s sweetness was both real and tactical was the difference between being used by her and being destroyed alongside her.
He left them in the dappled light, each alone with the new, uneasy knowledge that the person they were most desperate to protect might need their protection least of all.