DIVA
Arlon Benjamin's daughter, and his best hope for the continuation of
Benjamin name and the ideals he's tried to promote throughout his
career, both business and criminal. She's everything he hoped for, and
everything her brother isn't; smart, conscientious, in tune with her
father's thinking, socially progressive, and mindful of the needs of
others, realising that money has its uses but that's ultimately only a
means to a hopefully more enlightened end.
Or, anyway, that's what she wants her father to think, and the old man buys every line of the story she's been selling him.
Arlon's no fool, but his daughter seems to inhabit some
female-shaped blind spot that he's had his whole life. He was brought up
in an orphanage; she grew up in a world of wealth and privilege,
attending a private college out in Virginia Gardens and an exclusive
finishing school in Europe. He lived rough on the streets; she looks
down on those streets from the fiftieth floor windows of corporate
boardrooms in the Needles. He had to work - and fight - hard for
everything he's ever achieved; she was given it all on a silver platter,
wrapped up in hand-woven silk bow from one of the many Shianxi
boutiques where she has carte blanche credit.
So what did the old man think was going to happen? His world
isn't hers, and she hasn't been formed by the same experiences he has
been.
Don't get her wrong; she loves her father and respects what he's
trying to do, but it's never going to work. At least, not the way he
wants it to.
He's right about one thing, though. The old order in San Paro is
crumbling, and something's got to be there to take its place. He's
preaching street revolution and self empowerment - like anyone really
gives a shit about that kind of tie-dye philosophy stuff anymore? - but
she's talking market placement and brand recognition. The SPPD are an
irrelevance, due to crash and burn in a municipal funding crisis coming
right round the corner any day now (or sooner, if the civic disobedience
campaign - the one covertly financed by her father, at the suggestion
of his new friend Mr. Waskawi advocating non-payment of city taxes,
really starts taking off) but it's the Praetorians that get her
attention. Justin Teng can flash that six-figure smile in as many
primetime infomercials as he wants, but all Teela Benjamin sees is San
Paro Old Money circling the wagons and doing what Old Money does best,
which is looking after its own interests.
Bonita's friends at that private college out in Virginia Gardens
and at that fancy European finishing school? They used to laugh at her,
call her daughter of the Red Hill garbage recycling king. They see her
now, cruising down Silver in an electric blue sports car with a phalanx
of heavy-armed and ovestruck G-King gangbangers, and they don't dare say
shit.
Shifting power centres. Market placement. Brand recognition.
Getting the G-Kings name established, and making sure that the Benjamin
family business is there at the transition of power from Old Money to
New.
Daughter to the Red Hill garbage king, or genuine San Paro gangster princess - which would you rather be?
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