"Is this the 'all the people we've saved from starvation with our IntelliCrops' section of propaganda hour?"

"As beneficial as rainmaking technology will probably be once it gets past the more-or-less-still-a-prototype stage, no, that's not why you're here." She reaches into her suit pocket and pulls her phone. She taps at it for a little bit, and then hands it to April in landscape mode. 

On the screen is a representation of Earth, and a large number of very small dots in a cloud above it. The dots in the cloud are moving, with some disappearing off the edge of the screen, and other does appearing on the other side. 

"What am I looking at, and will there be accidental hurricanes if I touch it by accident?"

"No accidental hurricanes," she says with a small smile. "It's a map of every artificial satellite currently visible from Saint Genevieve," she says. "Tap on one of the dots. Any dot is fine." 

She will very suspiciously do this.

The dot expands when tapped; a little dialog box pops up to identify it as being owned and operated by the Chinese Ministry of National Defense. Another dialog box pops up next to it with the text "Tap to Track." 

"...?"

"You can go ahead and tap that," Morrison says, looking over her shoulder. "And the next one too, though maybe wait after that tap, though. It shouldn't let you without my biometrics, but just in case." 

She taps to track.

One of the tubes on the top of Chac Four comes to life and swivels, pointing in a direction. A new dialog box pops up: "Tap to Engage." 

"And what does this button do?"

"It'll give you a list of options for how to engage," Morrison says. "It won't do anything unless you press one of those, and it'll ask for my fingerprints first."

She taps to engage, VERY grudgingly.

She is presented with three dialog choices: "Disrupt", "Destabilize", and "Destroy".

"...I am not pressing any of those buttons."

"That's pretty sensible of you," Morrison says. "Nothing would happen right now if you pressed any of those buttons, because Eve Yang hasn't finished putting you in the system. You have to have your own phone and biometric ID. But once you're in, and you actually wanted to, you could fry that satellite. Or if you didn't want to destroy it, you could use the laser to push it out of orbit, or mess with its communications." She reaches out her hand to take the phone back from April. 

She hands it back. "So, what section of propaganda hour is this?"

She taps the phone a few times, the tube on top of Chac Four swivels back to the default position, and she puts her phone back into her pocket. "This isn't propaganda," she says. "This is an explanation of what we can do, and what we do with that ability. With a little bit of a fun demonstration added on." She smirks a bit at that. "If you were a villain from book, or a movie, what would you do with this device?" She tilts her head at Chac Four. 

"See, it sounds like you're trying to do the 'oooh, look at how cool and powerful you can be' section of propaganda hour, but the thing you need to understand is that I don't want to shoot down Chinese spy satellites. I want to be a lumberjack."

"That's really not what this is about," Morrison says. "Look, I'm trying to tell you what we actually do here, by going into detail about something specific, so you can extrapolate from it. This isn't propaganda, this is me trying to explain a specific aspect of our business model, so you know what we're about. I picked it because it's flashy, which is fun, and also because it has an expected implementation, which we subvert, to make it easier to understand how we work. Do you want to know what we do here, or not?" 

"I would love to know what you do here. I would also love if you would pick a less propaganda-hour way of telling me. Like, I get it, I'm sure this is a very fun little Disney ride for you, but I am not having fun, okay? I am not having fun because my house exploded. I am not having fun because my uncle died of pancreatic cancer. I would like to get off the Disney ride now."

Pippi meows, and then rubs up against April's leg, clearly trying to be comforting. 

"Thanks, Pippi."

"My apologies if it sounds like I've been having fun at your expense. I suppose... it's been a while since I've had a chance to show off all of our cool stuff to someone who's allowed to see it all." She sighs. "I'm sorry if it feels like you're on a ride that you can't get off, but right now your best chance to survive is to learn this stuff, at least for the Lombardy Convocation in a week. After that, we can try to figure out how to transition things so you don't have to be in charge and won't be in danger. You can then go be a lumberjack if you want to be. And I'll try to be clearer about stuff that's going on instead of trying to impress you with all the cool toys. Alright?" 

"Yes. Okay. So. What do you do with your satellite-sniping laser system?"