Collide Gamer

“So now we can add a strip club to the list of places we had sex at,” Rave said as she put her pants back on, an endeavour that took a bit around her firm butt, as always.

“Was that on your bucket list?” John asked, handing Metra her clothing out of his inventory. She clicked her tongue because it was more than she wanted and way more than she was fine with. However, they also needed to walk back after this, so she didn’t have a choice. For Aclysia, she already headed back to the table, on John’s wishes she was to engage Scarlett in some friendly conversation. That was both to keep this weirdly friendly conversation going and to check how her listening capabilities went.

The idea was quite simple. John and Aclysia had numerous conversations over the last few days, largely over the same topics. With every conversation, John had added a few more details. For John that had been over the course of five days, for Scarlett it had been just one. If she had listened in on all of it, she would hopefully drop any hints in that direction. However, if she had only listened to some of it, and that was the way more interesting thing to find out, some of those things would be new to her.

It wasn’t the most waterproof trial, but it was a start.

“Let’s just say I am making a bucket list,” Rave winked once she finally wiggled her butt into her jeans. “I should’ve worn something stretchier.”

“Can’t wait for the summer and to see you in a skirt again,” John provided his personal opinion.

“Tired of my butt? Jeans and yoga pants show that off way better,” his girlfriend reminded him and playfully tapped her own backside.

“That would be a crime against humanity, no, but you also have legs for days and I want to see those naked again.”

Metra pulled her clothes a last time and then they left the men’s stall as the group. “While we are on the bucket list, how about we have sex in the actual strip club, instead of just the toilet?”

“Way too public,” Rave denied the idea.

“You just had sex in a stall.”

“When will ya get it into your metal skull, Mat? People can know I am having sex, they are not supposed to see me have it.”

“That’s why you are no fun.”

To the sound of friendly bickering, the trio returned to the table. It lay in awkward silence and John could only contribute to it as he sat down ever so slowly while watching Scarlett and Eliza.

“Don’t you like cherries?” Scarlett asked, delivering one on top of a pile of cream with the help of a spoon. Now John had no idea when the ice-cream had gotten there, but it was there. Eliza was also no longer on their side of the table but under Scarlett’s right arm. “Come on, open wide.”

John had a hunch and used Observe. “For heaven’s sake, Eliza,” he groaned when he saw that Scarlett’s all F’s had just turned into two F’s and a D- in Oral.

The blood mage blushed, which was rare in and of itself, opened her mouth, was then fed a cherry and whipped cream, swallowed that, and then finally answered. “I don’t fucking know what happened! First I just wanted to check her panties – which were gushing like the Niagara Falls by the way – then we got talking about some bullshit and suddenly I was pressing my face into her pubic hair covered cunt!”

“Which is neatly trimmed, by the way,” Scarlett added while shovelling some more ice cream into Eliza’s mouth. The confused masochist just clicked out of the conversation at that point, having nothing but curses to add. Similarly, Metra was laughing continuously from that point onwards. “Gotta say, little girl, you are better than my vibrator.”

“That still doesn’t answer how,” John drily stated.

“Like that Observe shit doesn’t tell you that I can be quite persuasive,” Scarlett pointed out. It was true that her Charisma was absurdly high. “Anyway, I just pointed out how degrading it would be to be used on a toilet by a virgin while reminding her that, if she really wanted to, she could break my spine with her little finger.” That was also true, her physical stats were barely above the average human. “Little Eliza here thusly was completely sure she was still in control, making her very vulnerable to suggestions, such as that you guys were having sex over there anyway, so why shouldn’t she have a little fun?”

“You know this doesn’t exactly bode well for you being a loyal member of this harem,” John pointed out; he was not happy about any of this. “If it just takes 5 minutes with a woman pushing the right buttons for you to get on your knees.”

“Fair,” Eliza actually looked scolded and sad about the state of affairs. Even as she was further fed cherry ice cream, her mood didn’t visibly improve. “I swear to fucking god – if that’s what it takes – that I wouldn’t go any further than licking some hairy cunt though. I won’t touch a cock or anything like that.”

John did believe that at least, solely because of how ashamed she looked of the situation and the fact that she actually swore it by that, in her opinion, fictional sky wizard. “Fine, but come back over here. She has ice cream, but I have an empty lap.”

In less than five seconds Eliza was right there, actually taking the best of both worlds by removing the ice from Scarlett’s possession. The blood mage giggled in a deranged way as John then took over the duty of transporting the cold sweetness into her mouth.

“Let’s resume whatever this is,” the Gamer then said in a deep, demanding voice. ‘I think I can take control of the situation now,’ he thought as he analysed the memories of the conversation Scarlett and Aclysia had while he was gone.

Scarlett lit a new cigarette, took a sip of whiskey, then decided to say. “No, first you tell me if that was really the best test you could come up with to probe my capabilities.” With that simple comment she smashed the ball right back into his court. “Like I would fall for the old details trick.” She puffed out a cloud of smoke over the table with a dismissive expression on her face. “Fucking amateur.”

“It was the best I could come up with, given the tools at hand,” John defended himself. The mood finally swung out of the young adult horny flirting and into what was actually meant to be discussed here. “Not the best, I admit I am relatively new to all of this, but I wouldn’t say it was futile. You wouldn’t do me the favour of telling me whether or not you are omnipresent, would you?”

“I am not,” Scarlett mumbled into her cigarette.

“See, that’s why I needed to-“

“I mean I am not omnipresent,” she interrupted him. “Not that I am not telling you.”

“…Why the hell are you so open about all of this?” John was just confused at every turn here.

“Because it makes you unsure about everything,” Scarlett said right into his face. “You are in such a kerfuffle with your own thoughts, trust, empathy and a latent sense of past betrayal all intermingling and creating nothing of value while I could sit here and rip you off so easily without sacrificing anything of value to me because you also got the quintessential knowledge that can hurt me – I exist.”

John’s hand clenched around the glass holding the ice cream at the mention of the past betrayal. “What do you know?” he was no longer in the mood for any mind games.

“Two things, that a person so good-willed he heals someone after flaying the skin off their arm for merely spying on him had a knife plunged into their back in the past,” Scarlett then nodded towards his hand, “and that somebody who causes cracks in a glass is unlikely to have fabricated such an event.”

John put the glass on the table with a smacking sound, parts of it fell off from the prophesized cracks running through it.

“Honestly surprised, must have cut really deep if that breaks your cool, you don’t strike me as the easily angered type,” Scarlett continued on; her eyes were as calm as a water-cooled circuit running at normal capacity. Right now, he was giving her everything she wanted just by feeding her lots of information through his behaviour.

He took a deep breath and calmed himself. “Okay, let’s turn this analysing shtick around again,” John declared, “although I won’t get as personal. The reason why you are being this honest without taking proper advantage of it is because you know how much I hate being spied on,” a small lipped smile appeared on Scarlett’s face, “and you don’t want to end up on my bad side.”

She raised the whisky holding hand and extended her index finger. “Correct,” the word still echoed in the removed corner of the larger room when she took a sip. “Is it working?”

“You are a good negotiator, great flirt, but also terrible at not getting on my nerves on this topic,” John gave her the desired feedback. “Currently, you just reminded me why I should smash this table and give you to Siena for a short span of time – Exactly the same thing I did to that poor informant you mentioned earlier.”

Swirling her drink in complete cool, looking at the shadows that shifted anticipatingly under the table, Scarlett said nothing for a while. “But you won’t,” she finally stated.

“But I won’t,” he admitted and finally relaxed completely. Siena’s click of the tongue echoed in his mind. “Well, you have been working so hard to keep the reigns in this conversation, why don’t you tell me why you came forward with this meeting. I assume it’s so I don’t go around asking the right questions?”

“To the wrong people, yes,” Scarlett told him. “If some backwards mob boss figures something out, I can just have him quietly removed, with you that is not an option, and you are the type of mind that would ask the whole city for clues. Can’t have anybody else figure out the truth in the process. I already have one enemy who knows, I don’t need the whole world to.”

“So, you figured, better have the talk from the start and maybe work something out,” John nodded to himself. “It also seems like you desperately wanted to flirt with me.”

“Look at the mirror next time you get out of bed and tell me, if you were a horny woman with no one to do in her ivory tower, that you wouldn’t want to tap that,” Scarlett justified that behaviour. “Although I would have still met you here if you were a fat, ugly bastard with phimosis. You being a massive stud was just a cherry on top.”

“Uh-huh,” John raised an eyebrow. “What are we talking about then? What will you give me to stay quiet?”

“Everything,” she answered straight-up. “My guild, my connection, my resources, my body. Whatever you need, Thorne will be your loyal vassal.” That was way too easy, there had to be a giant catch on this. “On a few conditions.” There it was. “You will help me eradicate everyone else who knows about me, you will keep this alliance secret until I give the OK, you will respect Thorne’s autonomy and I will have a seat on whatever governing body you install.”

Those all seemed fair. “Before I agree to any of that,” John looked at Scarlett intensely. She didn’t strike him as a bad person, but she also spoke of removing disturbing elements with a coldness that only someone used to giving execution orders could. “What drives you?”

“That what drives everyone in this city: money and power,” Scarlett answered.

“How much money and what kind of power? Wielded for what purpose?”

Those questions only seemed to amuse the bloodstained Technomancer. “As much as I can get and for those who can get more,” she answered. “You seem to look out for the little guy, right, John?”

“I try,” he told her.

“I find that weak,” Scarlett freely admitted. “The way you do it is less offensive to me than pumping them full of my money so they can just leech off of me is. Actually, just giving them tools to raise from the muck again is something I do myself.”

“Why did I find them desolate then?” John asked.

“Because they swore loyalty to you, not me,” Scarlett told him. “I am not running a charity. They better bring something to the table, and the only thing those fuck-ups have left is their bodies. That I can work with.”

“It took them one day to start constructing something.”

Scarlett closed her eyes, “That doesn’t sound like humans to me. Do you mean it took a few individuals of the mass one day to motivate them to construct something?” That was certainly another way to look at it. “Here is the thing, I don’t give a shit about any of these regular people. I am not a good person, I don’t want to be, I want to be successful, and for that I need people that are qualified. Everyone else? I won’t help them, but I won’t kill them either, they are on their own. As to what kind of power,” she opened her eyes again, different circuits danced inside, “with every cable plugged, with every advancement made, I grow more influential. In this modern age, I am pretty much a goddess and I fully intend to play my cards. You don’t strike me as someone who will stop me.”

“I will moderate you though,” John was blunt about that.

“Fine,” Scarlett shrugged. “I don’t like it, but as influential as I may become, I won’t be powerful. Whenever you decide to end me, that’s it.” Pure pragmatism reverberated in her voice. “So, I will sail with the tide, rather than struggle and waste my resources in the process.”

“That doesn’t sound like you will be the most trustworthy of vassals,” he pointed out.

She smirked knowingly, “A reason for you to keep pleasing me is good for both of us. Anyway, this was fun,” she knocked on the table and got up. “I installed an app on your phone, it shows you when I am listening and you can also contact me through it. Let’s talk soon, I never had phone sex before.” She put on her clothes and hat. Cigarette in her mouth she raised her hand in goodbye and soon thereafter vanished out the door.

“What a weird gal,” Rave commented.

“Yeah,” he said, “but we can work with her – I hope.”