MN — Mahallem News
Live Broadcast — Special Edition — Sherpia
The Mahallem News logo appeared in the top-left corner of the screen with the graphic seriousness of a channel that, at some point in its editorial history, had decided that credibility was primarily communicated through sans-serif fonts and dark blue tones.
The anchor at the main desk carried the posture of someone covering serious events—square shoulders, a calibrated expression of gravity, the kind of presence journalism schools teach as authority without alarm.
“The attacks in Veldren, Sherpia, remain the main topic of this edition,” she said, with a voice developed over years to convey urgency without triggering panic, a technically difficult balance.
“Three simultaneous points, twelve operatives confirmed, zero civilian fatalities.
The Empire has not yet issued an official statement regarding responsibility, but sources close to the Council—”
It cut to the correspondent in Sherpia.
He stood on a street in Veldren that had been cleared but still carried the texture of a place where something had happened—the absence of normal movement, the presence of more uniform order than usual, the kind of emptiness streets take on when the reason people are not there still lingers, even after the event itself has passed.
“Veldren is calm this afternoon,” the correspondent said, as Sherpia’s wind did what wind always does to outdoor microphones.
“The population that witnessed the attacks is cooperating with authorities.
The regional headquarters has confirmed all operatives have been contained.
What has not yet been confirmed is the origin—”
It cut again.
Back to the studio.
“We have an update,” the anchor said, with that minimal shift in expression anchors use to signal that something has changed without saying something has changed before stating what has changed.
“Our field team has gained access to Emperor Liou, who is currently—”
The camera showed a street.
Not Veldren’s street.
A street in the Island City—the district instantly recognizable to regular MN viewers by its specific architecture, its pale stone catching sunlight in a particular way, the type of storefronts lining the façades.
The field reporter—young, live feed equipment in hand, with the particular energy of someone who had found what they were looking for and was thirty seconds away from producing the best segment of their week—was walking beside someone.
Beside Liou.
Who was with the poodle.
And wearing garments that were a variation of his earlier beach attire—equally light, equally pale, equally communicating that the Emperor of Mahallem had left his residence that morning intending to exist comfortably, not to be broadcast live to the national news channel.
The poodle looked at the camera.
The camera looked at the poodle.
The reporter, with the urgency of someone not about to waste the access they had obtained, pushed the microphone toward Liou with the motion of someone who had already started recording before permission was granted—the journalistic approach of those who understand permission and timing rarely arrive together.
“Your Majesty,” the reporter said, voice slightly accelerated with professional urgency.
“What do you intend to do about these events?”
He continued looking forward for a moment.
With his usual expression—that careful absence of expression the world had learned to read as presence.
Processing, likely.
Calculating, possibly.
Having a morning that had included a poodle, a market, familiar atmosphere in the air, and now a reporter with a microphone in the street.
He opened his mouth.
“Fuck,” Liou said.
“The problem belongs to the people.”
The camera kept rolling.
The reporter kept holding the microphone.
The poodle continued walking beside Liou with its usual dignity.
No one spoke for a moment that lasted exactly long enough for the live broadcast to reach every screen on Mahallem News with the flawless technical quality of a channel that had invested heavily in transmission infrastructure.
At the studio desk, the anchor wore an expression.
It was the expression of a veteran broadcaster processing, in real time and live to an entire nation, a statement from the Emperor of Mahallem that did not exist in any crisis-response script she had ever studied.
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
“The Emperor,” she said carefully, choosing each word as if stepping on uncertain ground, “has expressed his… position… regarding the events in Sherpia.”
Back to the Island City street.
A soldier on guard nearby, uniformed and moving with controlled urgency, approached Liou and leaned in to whisper something at a volume too low for the camera.
Liou turned his head.
Looked at the camera.
At the broadcast indicator.
At the red “LIVE” signal on the reporter’s equipment.
He processed.
What followed was one of the most technically sophisticated demonstrations of real-time damage control ever witnessed in that square, and simultaneously completely ineffective, because live disavowal to an entire country that has already heard what it heard contains a structural flaw no execution quality can fix.
“What I meant,” Liou said calmly, turning slightly toward the camera with the posture of someone delivering a considered statement rather than retrieving one, which was precisely what he was attempting to do, “was that the problem… belongs to the people.
In the sense that the people of Sherpia are central to this issue, and the Empire’s response will reflect that centrality.”
The reporter looked at Liou.
Then at the microphone.
Then at the camera.
He made the professional decision to say nothing, because there was nothing he could say that would improve the situation for anyone involved, and plenty that could make it worse for himself.
“The Empire is monitoring the situation,” Liou continued, in the same composed tone, “and the response will be proportional, coordinated, and in the full interest of the citizens of Sherpia and Mahallem.”
The poodle looked at the camera.
Then at Liou.
With the expression of a creature cataloguing future reference material.
“Thank you,” Liou said to the reporter, as though concluding an interaction that had ended before it began.
And continued walking.
With the poodle.
With the aura.
With the posture of someone who had not just said “fuck, the problem belongs to the people” live on national news, and therefore required no adjustment in walking behavior whatsoever.
The reporter stood frozen in the street, microphone still raised.
Looked at the camera.
The camera looked back.
“We return to the studio,” he said.
At the desk, the anchor’s expression had changed.
It was the expression of someone who had spent their career covering the Empire of Mahallem and developed a capacity for processing the unexpected that was well above average.
And had just encountered the limits of that capacity.
“The Emperor Liou,” she said with surgical precision, choosing what to say instead of what had just been said, “has issued a statement regarding the events in Sherpia, reaffirming the Empire’s commitment to citizen safety.”
A pause.
“We continue to follow developments.
After the break, analysis with our experts on—”
The specialist already on screen in the split view had the expression of someone who had heard everything and was now calculating how to academically analyze “fuck, the problem belongs to the people” with appropriate rigor.
It was going to be a long afternoon at MN.