Season 4 Episode 4: Fooly Chloe

April 22, 2012

Alex sits on the honeycombed back platform of a fire engine, a heavy blanket wrapped around him like a shawl. He stares at the ground, watching the little rivulets of water running from the bottom of a fire hydrant, over the lip of the curb and across the blacktop's cracks. The sweet smell of charred lumber hangs in his nostrils. The house, half caved-in, has only bits of the frame remaining above the first floor, and even this is singed black. The predawn air is partly opaque with all the smoke. It stings his eyes.

A gray hand grabs his shoulder. He can't meet its owner's gaze.

She sneers: "you did this, didn't you."

Alex doesn't move a millimeter.

"So this is why they wanted to get rid of you. God, you're so fucked up. I never should have let your mother talk me into letting you stay."

Alex doesn't move a millimeter.

"You can forget about ever coming back. I don't care where you go, but you won't be with us. Go die for all I care. Worthless little shitstreak. You're no grandson of mine."

May 21, 2012

It's the first warm meal Alex has had in weeks. How pathetic, to be over-the-moon for steamed green beans, pasty mac 'n' cheese, a gelatinous loaf of meat product and hardtack cookie, all on a stained, cracked, segmented tray. Still he wolfs it down.

"I saw you."

Alex, sporkful of green beans in his mouth, looks up in confusion.

"I saw you drawing that bird at the window. What kind of bird was it?"

Alex swallows, and takes a sip of his milk. "What do you want?"

"An answer to my question, gosh. What kind of bird was it?" The girl swings her legs over the bench and sits facing him. Alex notices that all ten of her fingers are wrapped in gauze at the tips.

"It was a kingfisher."

"Can I see?" She motions for the notebook sitting next to Alex on the bench. He picks it up, flips it to the page in question, and slides it across the laminated tabletop. She spins it 180 degrees using the frictionless surface of the table; then, picking it up, she wolf-whistles. She gazes at the sketch, holding the pad with her elbows locked, twisting it back and forth like a steering wheel.

"I didn't finish it," Alex says.

"This is good shit. You an artist or something?"

"Can I please have that back?"

She hands it to him. He closes it, puts it under his butt for safekeeping.

"What brings you here?" She asks.

"Got kicked out."

"Well assumably. Why?"

"Who are you? I don't want to talk about that."

The girl puts both hands on top of her head, holding one of her wrists with thumb and forefinger like a bracelet. "I'm no one. Been here for a while."

"What's your name?"

Now it's the girl's turn to pull out a notepad, hers much smaller. She takes it from her the right butt pocket of her shorts, opens it up to a certain page, and makes a tally mark -- one among many. Then, counting the sets of five, she finally announces: "30. New record. Went a whole month."

"...What?"

She swings the notepad closed with one hand holding it by the back, like a chef flipping an omelete. "Days since someone asked me my name. It's an interesting stat to keep track of around here. Don't though. It'll just make you depressed."

"That doesn't -- well, what's your name?"

"I don't like names. I don't like people knowing who I am."

He furrows his brow. Then, trying to force the matter by introducing himself instead, he says: "I'm Alex."

"Nice to meet you Alex," she says, and shakes his hand. She swings it theatrically up and down a few times, her arm forming a sine wave with his. "Hey. Listen. If you do decide to keep of track that stat, you don't get to reset it to zero now. You blew your wad too early. You didn't wait for me to actually ask."

"What should I call you? Don't you have anything like a nickname or something, at least?"

"Persistent. I like it. Well, I've been called L.A. Blue Girl." She twirls a bang around her finger to indicate the obvious reason why.

"That's kinda weird."

"True, true. Hmm. If you don't like that, you can always call me Camelia."

"So are you an artist?" Camelia asks.

"I'm not really anything. I like to draw, that's all."

"I mean. Do you wanna be an artist?"

"It doesn't pay the bills."

Camelia laughs. She points at Alex with a bandaged finger. "Those don't sound like your words. Those sound like the words of someone who told you not to be an artist."

"My dad."

"Dads are the worst. Fuck dads."

Alex eats his green beans.

"What do you wanna be if not an artist, then?" Camelia asks.

Alex shrugs. "I haven't thought about it."

"You're what, 14? And homeless. You might want to think about it, is all I'm saying."

"You know..." Alex begins. His frustration is apparent on his face, but he's too non-confrontational to tell her to go away. Instead he tries the diplomatic option: "I just got here. I don't want to think about stuff like that right now. I just want to eat."

"Are you good with computers, Alex?"

"Huh?"

Camelia pantomimes typing. "Ticketty tack. Coding. That's what they tell folks nowadays, right -- learn to code? And we're right next door to Silicon Valley so hey."

"Yeah. I'm good with computers. I did FIRST Robotics and took a class on programming, too. It was fun." He frowns. "What made you think I'm good with that stuff?"

"It's your style, you know? The way you draw isn't like some hippy dippy INFP type. You just straight up drew that bird exactly as it was -- like your hands are photocopiers. What I mean to say is you've got an analytical eye. Like me." She bows her head slightly forward and quirks an eyebrow, the one above the eyepatch, as if sharing an inside joke, but Alex is at a loss. She leans back again and stretches luxuriously, spine forming a right angle with the chair. Speaking through a yawn, she adds: "It's no surprise you're into techy stuff... if you're too much of a wuss to chase your passion, you'd make a really good code monkey. For sure, for sure."

"Well I want to do something I'm passionate about," Alex says. "Sure, I could make a good living as a programmer or something, but what's the use if I'm not happy?"

"Fair. Totally fair! I like you, Alex. You don't want to sell your soul for a buck. So... if that's the case, go be an artist. Nothing's stopping you."

"But..."

"But you're a pussy. No, that's fine, I get it."

Alex winces and looks away.

"Let's lick this pickle. You want to be passionate but you're afraid to fail. It's a classic catch-22."

"I guess."

"But you only think there's nothing in a nice, safe technical field that you can be passionate for," Camelia says. "You haven't even looked, have you? You haven't pushed yourself. You haven't done your research. You haven't found someone to aspire to!"

"Someone to aspire to? What, I should go and try to be like Bill Gates?"

"Fuck Bill Gates. There are so many cooler people in the world. Better people." Camelia stoops way in, supporting herself on one arm against the tabletop. "Find a person who's doing something really world-shaking. Someone who's got fire in them... someone who has passion. Someone who's got so much passion for what they do that it's actually crazy. And let her be your inspiration."

Alex nods, considers this. After a beat, he says quizzically: "Her?"

"Or him. Or xir or who cares. Whatever." She stands. "Man alive. I've been yammering at you way too long. Sorry. It's kind of my way."

"No, that's fine. I haven't really had a conversation with anyone in a while." He ruffles the hair on the back of his head, laughing. "I guess I kinda forgot how to talk to people!"

"You're sweet," Camelia says. "Watch yourself around here. There are people with a sweet tooth lurking. And keep an eye on your possessions too."

"Oh... yeah." Alex takes a sip of his milk. "Hey... we talked so much about me, but what about you? What are you passionate for?"

Camelia's friendly demeanor vanishes. Her face and voice alike go utterly blank. "I'm passionate about revenge."

"Re... venge...?"

She turns and goes. Alex watches her leave the little mess hall.

He stays in the shelter for several months, and never sees her there again.

---

You are Alabaster Soliloquy, porn protag with a penchant for paizuri and international man of incestery. You survived Palau, and all you got was a qt shut-in wearing this T-shirt.

As you approach Whitney's office, you can hear voices beyond the closed door. It's precisely what you expected, and feared:

"...to select a campaign manager. One who can keep her focused on the issues--"

"Oh, sure, sure. I've got someone in mind--"

You burst in. At Whitney's desk sits David Darkbloom. Both stop talking, and look at you in surprise, Darkbloom swiveling in his chair.

"Alabaster--" he starts.

You grab him by the shoulders of his blazer and tug him back. His chair tips, and him along with it. He flails his arms to no effect -- topples, spills across the ground with a thud. You swing your legs over his supine form, wrapping his tie around your fist. Stooped over, with Darkbloom on the floor between your feet, you crabwalk him from the office, using the tie as a leash. You drag him into the C-suite hallway and down towards the conference room at the other end. He kicks and tries to fight himself free, but can't.

"Alabaster--!"

"You motherfucker!" You scream, still dragging him. "You're in jail, Darkbloom. You hear me? You're back in jail! I'm putting you back in the fucking superjail!"

Whitney briskly follows, and stands at the threshold of her office; Kay, Nelson and Armstrong are already at theirs -- all watch on with bewildered expressions. Noelle races up, hand on her holster, but she isn't sure what to do in this instance. She was charged with protecting you from danger; what should she do when you are the danger?

You stop at a random spot in the hallway. Darkbloom grabs your arm and uses it to haul himself up to his butt. "What the hell are you--"

You punch him in the teeth, knocking him flat onto his back again. "It wasn't enough for you to live inside my sister's head for a year! You have to fuck with her life even more now?"

"For god's sake! Stop!"

"Did you just murder a congressman, Darkbloom? You fuck! Answer me!" You're on your knees on the floor, straddling his chest, as you wail on him.

Darkbloom, bloody and battered, manages to spin himself onto his side, dumping you to the ground. He wrenches his now ruined tie free of your grip and rises punch-drunk to his feet. You're upright too -- just in time for Darkbloom's fist to make contact with your forehead. You go stumble-hopping backwards; Darkbloom charges. He barrels into you and knocks you down, looms over you: "You utter depraved buffoon!" He thunders. "You out of control brat!"

With gritted teeth you grab his ankles and trip him. Somehow it pops into your head to take off one of your shoes, and climb atop him, and beat him with it. You slap him over the skull again and again, leaving dirty streaks in the shape of your sole's treads on his cheeks and forehead. Darkbloom, grunting like an enraged caveman, swats at the air between the two of you in an attempt to fend off the vicious shoe-slaps and protect his face. He finally catches it with the back of his palm and knocks it loose. It spins like a frisbee into the nearby wall. Seizing the advantage, Darkbloom hauls back and punches you two times in quick succession, square in the eye socket.

Reeling, literally seeing red, you wrap your hands around his throat and press down with your thumbs. Darkbloom grabs at your wrists and tries to pry your fingers away. His face turns colors, first a harsh crimson, then a deepening purple. Sweat pours down his forehead and mingles with the blood and grime.

"I'll kill you," you growl. "I'll kill you every single day from now until the end of time, until it sticks, you piece of shit. I promise that I will not leave this fucking Earth until I SEE you die!"

Your vision fills with stars. When it clears you're staring straight up at the ceiling.

Then, delayed, there suddenly comes the crackle of pain radiating like a fireball from the back of your skull, all the way around your head. Whitney is holding a fire extinguisher like a golfer after teeing off, her chest heaving, face a grimace of anger. After a moment she lowers the makeshift weapon, then drops it entirely. It clangs against the thinly carpeted floor.

Your speech is slurred and you just know a concussion is already beginning. "Yoooou--" you say, glaring up at her from where you lie.

"ME?!" She wails. "YOU! You stupid fucking fuckshit! If you kill Dalton's body, we're all dead! All of us! Are you trying to get us killed, Ally? Jesus fucking crimminy Christ!"

You sit up. "What did you know about this?" You demand. "Did he tell you that he was doing this? Did you help him murder a sitting member of congress?"

"You're bucking fughouse, Ally. Crazy. Crazy!"

Darkbloom is on his feet. He circles you, pulls his jacket straight by the lapels. "Whitney is right. You are completely off the reservation. Get yourself together."

You're bounding after him again -- it's Noelle now who comes between the two of you, gun drawn and held down at her legs, other hand pressing against your chest with thumb and forefinger. "Step back. Calm down."

From behind you, Rose's voice, as she comes stomping into the C-suite: "I am for certain fu--"

She trails off, as she realizes what a scene she just walked into. Striding up and standing by your side, she finishes the thought: "I am for certain fucking hallucinating right now, because there is no way in hell that David Darkbloom was allowed to murder a congressman while we were in Palau."

"Apparently so," you fume.

Rose looks from your face, to Darkbloom's hiding behind Noelle. "Did he attack you, Alabaster?" She asks, appalled.

You point at him over Noelle's shoulder. "You're in jail, Darkbloom! You're in jail!"

"This is a farce," Darkbloom says. "You are a paranoiac and a lunatic."

"Oh!" Rose shouts. "That's pretty goddamn funny coming from the king of mass surveillance. The rank hypocrisy--"

"Are you really gonna let this happen?" You ask Whitney. "Are you seriously letting David Darkbloom manipulate you like this?"

"Manipulate--" Whitney says. She balls her fists and stomps. "You dickweasel. Manipulate me!"

"What else should I call it," you say, "when you're just going right along with this-- ludicrous idea of his, to run Cerise for congress--"

"It's my idea!" Whitney snaps. "It's my fucking idea, Alabaster!" You wince at hearing her deploy your full name. "You think I'm some sort of idiot. No, I get it. You don't think Whitney, stupid little Whitney can come up with anything on her own. You don't trust me. You think I'm going traitor just because I have a two second convo with bio-dad. Asshole! You stupid asshole! You're the stupid one!" Her eyes are welling up and her voice is shaking.

"Whitney," Rose begins.

"You shut up, too! Fuck you both!"

Darkbloom tries to lay a consoling hand on Whitney's shoulder; she slaps it away. "Go to hell," she sneers. "This isn't your in, David." She wheels and returns to her office, slams the door.

"Should I ask why everyone is treating Dalton Cantor as if he's David Darkbloom?" Noelle asks. No one responds to her.

"You killed him," you say. "I know you killed Isstein, David. And somehow or another you put that idea in Whitney's head. This has your name written all over it."

"I did no such thing," Darkbloom says.

"You're in jail!--"

"I am not in any goddamned jail," Darkbloom roars, stepping past Noelle. He squares up to you. You stand your ground, ready for round 2, and this time you've got Rose on your side, who's just itching to go as well. "You had better adjust to your new reality, Alabaster, or you will alienate yourself from everyone around you. Even your insufferable shrew of a wife here. I am trying my very best to help you all save this company, and yourselves, from utter ruin. That means working with me. Cease these temper tantrums and violent outbursts."

He pushes past you, and goes to his office now, and like his daughter, he slams the door.

---

You're bent over a sink in a bathroom at school, shorts and panties stowed in your backpack. Vivian, wearing only her skivvies, sits on her knees on the grimy tile floor beneath you, licking your quim from behind.

You're not sure how you ended up like this, lezzing it out with a pervy billionaire in a public restroom, but you are. Maybe worse than that is it isn't even the ladies' room -- Vivian led you by the hand into the men's bathroom, saying that it only made sense to do it there. Why? Because she intends to fuck you like a man.

Of course Vivian is no man -- she's an extremely short girl. You have to keep your stance wide to lower yourself enough for her upturned face to reach. You grip the sink's porcelain tightly, afraid that if you slip, gravity will force your legs all the way apart and you'll wind up doing the splits with your naked cunt against the dirty ground.

"Why can't we just fuck in your limo like every other mor-- ghh--" Your complaint gets pinched off by Vivian diving deeper. Her button nose penetrates your asshole and her tongue buries itself up to the root in the tight chute of your pussy. You feel the wet seal of her mouth latching itself to your fuckhole, the connected orifices both drooling. She suckles sweetly. But over the course of a few moments her suckling becomes desperate and erratic. She sounds like a dog at its water bowl as she inhales, exhales, whines, laps at you. You reach back to stroke her hair. Although you might put up some token resistance, you'll never say no to a tongue wiggling around inside you, and she knows it. Alabaster Soliloquy, Vivian Darkbloom, and the rest of their demented friends have turned you into a dirty whore. No -- rather, they awakened the dirty whore that was always there, and now you're having fun exploring the limits of your own depravity...

Jutting up from between Vivian's legs is a lifelike rubber cock, secured around her waist by a harness. Chin touching your chest, you peer down at it. Vivian paws at your thighs and eats you, oblivious, lost in her own personal heaven. But you're focused on that monster. It's as thick as her fucking leg. About the size of Alabaster's dick. The reason Vivian is kneeling down below you and sucking out your cunt right now isn't just because she loves the taste so much -- although she does -- but also to get you ready for a violent fucking.

She recently told you her philosophy of life: she's interested in anything that helps her orgasm. If something helps her orgasm, it's good; if it doesn't, it's bad. Her goal is to orgasm as many times as possible before she dies. And so that's what this is: her quest to cum, even if it means risking her reputation or even her very freedom, and debauching a teen girl in a filthy men's toilet. You feel like you're being led astray, taken advantage of -- and that, itself, is also fun.

Vivian stands. With a dainty foot, she pushes a stack of three of your textbooks into position. When you put your drawers in your backpack, you took these out, because you knew Vivian would need the extra height to fuck you properly. She steps up onto a copy of US Government: Democracy in Action, and promptly fucks the dildo into your pussy with a hard, fast thrust. You'll never get used to that first thrust of a cock spreading open your little pussy hole -- forcing its way in. It's beyond pleasurable. It's divine, enough for you to understand why Vivian has her hedonist's worldview.

She slowly sinks the cock into you. Despite the booster she's using, you still have to practically squat, and she still has to fuck at an awkward upward angle. Looking into the streaky wall-mounted mirror, you can hardly see the top of her head behind you as she fucks you. It honestly feels as if you're being raped by a little girl. And since it's a role you're fond of yourself, your brain is swirling with unwholesome flashes of imagery -- a playdate gone terribly wrong, a tea party turned lewd... it's like you're being tricked into doing something awful with a too-precocious neighbor girl...

"Have you been sleeping around, Amber?" Vivian asks.

"Huh?" You're half delirious from the wonderful squishy feeling of your cuntal walls peeling back to make way for Vivian's thrusting dick, so you're slow on the uptake.

"I asked, have you been sleeping around on me?" She gets seated in you to the base, holds your hips with two weak, pale hands and begins to pump you in and out. You feel every fake vein and ridge of the plastic cock scraping your insides in that delicious way you've come to love. "This penis is slipping in much too easily. Are you having sex with Alabaster Soliloquy? Answer me truthfully."

"Yes!" You spit. "He fucks me. Got a problem? Jealous? Fuck me better if you want to take me back, huh?"

"Whoever said anything about taking you back?" Vivian asks, haughty. "Perhaps I would enjoy passing you back and forth between us."

You let your head droop. The pleasure of getting pounded is taking over the higher reasoning centers of your brain. Vivian's reach is just long enough for her to snake her hands underneath your thin tee, and find the little buds of your breasts. She squeezes them cruelly while she uses you. Muttering half-incoherently, to egg herself on more than to egg you on, she lets loose a string of degrading obscenity: "you nasty, repulsive whore... two-dollar prostitute... beautiful, communistic terrorist... darling little cunt... you would even let me fuck you like this... you would throw away your ideas just for me to rape you, wouldn't you..."

The door opens. A student you recognize steps partway in. And he must recognize you too, class president, getting railed by another girl in the boy's room. His jaw hangs open as he stands there with his hand against the open door.

Vivian is still ranting and raving, having not even noticed the intrusion. "Beautiful, adorable... your low-class pussy is so bewitching, Amber, you filthy slut temptress..."

The boy turns 180 degrees and leaves without a word. The saloon-style door swings back and forth in his wake.

"Vivian!" You call over your shoulder, trying to snap her out of it. "Someone walked in--"

"...and wet, and whorish... do not lie, you would spread open your legs for anyone... unbelievable... amazing..."

You find the strength to stand fully upright, and the plastic dick slides out of your horny pussy. Vivian is panting, and undeterred. As you step past, she just circles you, and hops up, settling her butt into the sink's basin. She fits like it was made for her specifically.

"Fuck me please," she says.

You shake your head in utter bewilderment. But that giant cock which was so recently plowing your internal walls, still dripping with your juice... and the awesome cameltoe the dildo's harness gives Vivian... your brain is turning to mush again looking at it all. She's like some sort of evil hermaphrodite succubus demon, come to use you up and spit you out -- a wealthy 0.001%-er hungry to devour you for fun.

You lean over the sink again and wrap your lips around the toy. You go down on Vivian, the way your older sister taught you to go down on a dildo. It's an important life skill. You gag and sputter, an expert in self-degradation. Vivian holds your ears. She wants you to put the dildo on and fuck her next, but she'll settle for this, for now... she likes the spectacle.

Your tongue, swirling around veined rubber that's tangy with your own cum, finds that the dildo's piss slit is actually real -- it's a real hole. You pull your irritated esophagus off the cock and peer at it, confused. Vivian, noticing, explains: "this model ejaculates. Watch."

She reaches behind her and grasps a handheld pump that you hadn't noticed. When she squeezes it, a blast of creamy white cum hurtles from the dildo's tip and splatters you in the face. It's some sort of lotion or something, you guess -- but unscented, and with the sticky consistency of semen... Vivian must have shopped around for just the right analogue. It's like she really blew a load on you just now. It runs in clumps down your cheek and over your lips and chin. A couple stray gobs stain your shirt. Your heartbeat quickens and you feel the thrill of adrenaline... this is amazing. You scoop some of the stuff off your face with three fingers, and gaze at it.

"...Amber?" Vivian says, maybe noticing a strange look in your eyes. You're standing tall again, and grasping the fake cock.

Getting the picture, she unhooks the clasp of the harness from her ass and allows you to pull the dildo off her. As you take it in hand, she hooks her thumbs in her panties and slides them down, baring her pretty little cunt that looks 1,000% illegal. It's shiny with arousal, especially under the garish lighting of this school bathroom.

"Why didn't you tell me this thing cums?" You demand. "Sheesh."

"Apologies. We are in public, after all. I preferred not to make too much of a mess... it seems I've already soiled your school clothes..."

"Oh, forget about that--" you begin.

"Fine. Then, please, if you will..." She wiggles her butt and parts her stocking clad knees for you.

She wants her fuck, all right... but you've got something else in mind. "Hold on," you tell her. You use the suction cup at the base of the dildo to steady it on the sink's rim. Hoisting yourself on the balls of your hands, you raise your body just enough to slip your pussy over the angry-looking, hyper-realistic head -- then let it slide all the way in. The shaft of the cock slams into you with gravity's assistance and disappears into you entirely. You can see just the slightest cylindrical bulge in your tummy from the outside, evidence of how this massive tool is distending you beyond what you were made for. With your pussy kissing the cold porcelain, your height is only barely enough for you to stand impaled on this giant cock against the sink. You have to stay on tiptoes to do it. But... fuck... it feels so, so good.

You grope blindly beneath you for a few moments, before finally finding the dangling hand pump. You clasp it tight and give it a hard squeeze, like trying to juice a grapefruit. You can actually feel the toy buried inside you expand a little, as the synthetic cum races up its internal tubing -- and then a split instant later, the utter bliss as it rockets out and paints your deepest parts. It's almost as good as getting cummed inside for real.

You steady your weight with a palm against the sink and use it to pull yourself up just a little. Your feet leave the ground. You gaze lovingly down at the mess you just made inside your own cunt. The small part of the dildo you can see is glistening, the sink's edge is greasy with fake cum and your crotch looks like you just got back from a gangbang.

You should really stop at this point. Vivian is right. You're in public, and you've made enough mess as it is. This is about the volume Alabaster cums whenever he drops a load in you anyway, so you've gotten your fill and it would be greedy to go for more. You'd be like a fat kid who doesn't know when to stop chowing down on cake. Plus, keeping it going might be dangerous. You could definitely get addicted to this feeling. You're hooked on it enough already.

You squeeze the pump again.

You watch, sighing, as the white slime overflows from you and spills everywhere. It runs in ploppy clumps down to the floor. "Oh fuuuck," you breathe, "that's it... that's it..."

"Is this your particular fetish, Amber?" Vivian asks. But you're too busy sperming yourself to answer. You squeeze a third and fourth time and delight at the sensation of getting full, so full you feel like you'll burst. You fantasize that you can actually see your tummy bulging even worse with the volume of it. You want to make yourself look pregnant. You lift yourself slightly up and down on the cock as it cums, to make sure that it coats your inner walls completely. And you even swear you can feel, up at the tip of the cock, a pocket of cum that's trapped up there, between it and your womb. And you swear you can feel the opening of your womb drifting open, parting like a mouth, to kiss the cock-tip, and greedily suck its cum out. You're the one in your own oblivious, personal heaven now.

But Vivian puts a temporary stop to your fun. She takes the pump from your hand and holds it out of your reach. You can't pry it back without getting off the cock... and getting off the cock would be like pulling a plug from a hole in a dam...

"Is being inseminated your fetish?" Vivian asks again.

"That's not really a fetish, is it?" You answer. You're high on the endorphin rush of having a cock blowing inside you, but you've got a feisty, argumentative spirit anyway. "That's basically the whole point of sex, right? So actually it's the opposite of a fetish."

Vivian squeezes the pump. A blast of sticky, warmed-over lotion joins the bucketful of slop already sloshing around inside you. Your lip quivers, and you bite down hard on it. Your eyes cross, rolling up towards the back of your skull. Your muscles seize and tighten.

"I think in your case, it is a fetish," Vivian says.

"Do that again," you beg. It's even better when you're not the one in control of exactly when it happens.

She squeezes. Once, twice... she keeps filling you past a point you didn't know existed. You cum on the cumming dick. "Fuck!" You wail. "Oh fuck, that's so good... again, please, again... just keep going..."

But no joy. "It's empty," Vivian says.

"Oh come on," you beg, irrational, out of your mind. "I need it... there's gotta be more."

Vivian twists herself into a pretzel, getting on her belly in the sink's basin and reaching way, way down below for her purse on the ground. She finds what she's looking for, though -- a large bottle of the lotion that was in the hand pump's reservoir. She unscrews the dispenser cap from the lotion -- and runs the tubing of the dildo's ejaculation mechanism past the hand pump's other side, directly into the bottle.

"Yesss," you hiss, "yes! Give it all to me!"

You lock your elbows and use both hands to hump your entire body up and down on the sticky, seemingly ever-expanding toy cock. Vivian slowly plays with her pussy as she pumps the bottle's contents into you. You close your eyes, enjoying the contrast of the cock's oppressive rigidity and the soft, gooey explosions cumming at random intervals from its tip. This dick is beating you up inside and soothing the hurt at the same time with its warm jizz.

When you open your eyes again, you gasp; Vivian is peeing. Even as she digs her fingers through her pussy, the piss is shooting in a hard, steaming stream from her urethra, against the shallow basin's bottom. Since her butt is over the drain, there's nowhere for the mess to go. The sink quickly begins to fill, until Vivian is sitting in a yellow pool of her own hot pee. She just keeps masturbating, tiny jaw slack, knuckles splashing in the liquid, while she jizzes you with the lotion.

Under your feet is an equally disgusting mess. The entire floor is slick with fake cum -- your books and backpack are practically swimming in it. To add to your perverse enjoyment, and increase the insane risk, you throw off your shirt, and kick off your shoes, to stand totally naked in the middle of the room. Vivian rubs her piss into her cunt and cums her brains out. Her voice is small but extremely loud, echoing off the tile walls. The rank smell of Vivian's pee fills your nostrils, joining that of your mingled arousal, and it gets you higher, if that's even possible. You say to Vivian, adopting that girlish tone you like to use: "I'm so lucky... he's cumming so much..."

"Pee on me, too, please," Vivian instructs. Her voice is much deeper and throatier than normal. "We're in the toilet, after all..."

You drawl, playing at naive reluctance: "Hmm... are you sure? Okaaaay..." Not breaking your pace on the spurting cock, you use your thumb and forefinger to part your pussy lips. You flex your abdomen and force your bladder to empty. First as a trickle, but building force, you hose Vivian with a golden arc of piss. It travels upwards, from her wet cunt, across the length of her nearly emaciated torso, staining her black bra, and then all the way to her neck, and her face. You're pissing all over Vivian Darkbloom's pretty face while she fucks you full of cum. She lets her mouth hang all the way open and catches what she can in the back of her mouth. She gargles it, swallows some, and spits the rest out. The rest that she doesn't catch in her mouth she just lets run all over her, down into the sink, to join hers. Her twat is now totally submerged.

"Daddy's cumming so much inside me," you mewl, even as you piss on Vivian. "He must have been ree-eeally backed up today..."

Vivian doesn't even blink before playing along with the fantasy you just laid on her. "You have a hole made to please him. This is why he fucks you."

"Hmm, yeah," you giggle, "you're right, huh."

Piss is dripping from her raven hair as she presses the bottle and fills you with the almost infinite liquid slop. "Is this your highest aspiration in life? To be a receptacle for semen?"

"Uh-huhhhh," you agree in a singsong voice. "What else is there?"

"What if he grows disgusted of you, Amber? What if your pathetic, revolting behavior makes him throw you away when he's done ejaculating?"

"Ohhh no," you say, and a genuine pang of grief tinged with weird erotic thrill passes through your entire body.

"Are you okay to be used even like that? To be used up and tossed aside like garbage? As long as you get the semen you love so much?"

You're orgasming harder than ever before, but your face is wet with tears too. Smiling through it all, you nod: "Yeah... at least I'm a good spunk hole while he wants it, right?"

"He wants to urinate inside you, too. Will you be his meat toilet, Amber?"

"Uh huh... I'll take anything he wants to put inside me..."

She chucks the finally empty bottle away, and it clatters unheeded across the ground, under a stall. She dunks the hand pump beneath the steaming pool of your mixed urine, to fill your gash full of pee. It's a much thinner, but hotter liquid, and you can feel it scrubbing the inner walls of your uterus clear of the viscous lotion like a power washer. Then it all mixes up and swirls around and you can't tell the difference from one or the other anymore, you're just full of this nasty, smelly, dirty, frothy mixture -- all the way full, into your deepest parts, and leaking it out like the messy bitch you are.

Into the room walks another male student. This one you also recognize, and he most definitely recognizes you. Auburn Brantly.

"Amber--!!"

You grin wolfishly, lecherously at him. Ear to ear. Vivian continues to fill you, and you continue to leak all over the place. "Hey Raisin Brant," you say, winking. "Sup?"

He turns a shade of red you've never seen, and flees the room in... shame? Jealousy?

Not long later the sink is empty... there's truly nothing left to pump your quim with. It's sad moment when you realize that the fun is winding down. Vivian helps you off the fake dick, and as you come off it, a torrential wave of piss and lube comes pouring out of your well-used fuckdump. If the ground wasn't already in a gross state already, it definitely is now. Your things are ruined, too.

"We will need to clean this up," Vivian says. "And quickly... your first period classes will probably let out soon, and we have already been seen, several times..."

Smilingly slyly, you drop to your hands and knees and beckon Vivian to join you.

"Amber..." she says uncertainly. But you're tugging her by the wrist and all but forcing her down. You can be the bad little girl too. She already knows what you're intending, but you demonstrate anyway, and start to lick the slimy brew up. Vivian's face is a shifting canvas of emotions. First genuine disgust, shock... then piqued interest, mounting lust. The idea of doing something even this depraved clearly gets her cunt juicing too, because she reaches between her naked, baby-smooth thighs and begins to diddle herself. She slithers to her belly with you and joins you in cleaning it up with your mouths.

You turn your head this way and that while you work; your face and body become totally coated in it, like a pig rolling in mud. As you slurp and suck and lick the stuff up, your tongues frequently meet, and mingle, and you kiss each other tenderly. You exchange loving smiles; so lucky to be sharing in this perversity, together.

---

Rose and Darkbloom are seated directly facing one another beside the boardroom conference table. Rose holds a small clear tube of concealer up next to Darkbloom's cheek, comparing the tones. She shakes her head, puts the tube back in her purse on the table, and digs noisily through it for another. Finding what she wants, she compares his skin to the new shade now, and this time she comes away satisfied. She uncaps the tube so she can start applying the concealer to Darkbloom's twin black eyes.

But you, standing over your wife's shoulder, disagree with the selection: "That's too dark."

"Just a hair," she says. "And the other shade was too light, so this one will have to do."

"You should go lighter if you have to go one way or the other."

"What are you talking about?" She glares at you over her shoulder. "Do you know how faces work, Alabaster? It's more natural-looking if the skin around the eye is darker, not lighter. I'm going to blend it anyway."

"I know how faces work. Fuck. The whole point is to cover up his black eyes. Not accentuate them."

"This is how you do it. It's so much more natural if-- God. Do you honestly have to stand there and give me makeup advice, too? Could you maybe let me do one fucking thing without trying to one-up me?"

"I'm just saying. I always go a little lighter. And no one ever noticed---"

"Well I go darker and no one ever noticed mine, either."

She turns, and puts the brush to Darkbloom's orbit, and applies the makeup. The expression on Darkbloom's face could not possibly be more judgmental -- of both of you.

Darkbloom leaves the room, headed, he says, for his office.

"You're in jail!" You warn him on his way out. He grumbles.

"Well, Ally," Rose says when you're in private again. "I guess in Whitney's brain we both fucked up, somehow."

"Darkbloom did this, right? I'm not crazy?"

"Of fucking course he did it," Rose says. "There's no such thing as a coincidence. Awfully suspicious that convenient deaths just keep happening whenever they benefit Darkbloom financially or politically, isn't it?"

You arch an eyebrow.

"Do not even. I am not in the fucking mood."

You move on. "Do you think Whitney--"

"Based on her reaction? No. She's oblivious, as usual. Where's Cerise?"

"Took an early day. Having a congressional campaign dumped in your lap is pretty tough to deal with."

"Is she running?" Rose asks.

"Is she -- fuck, I don't know. No? She shouldn't. A, it plays right into Darkbloom's insane... whatever the fuck it is he's planning. B, she would be a shitty congresswoman. C... no. Just no."

"You don't want her to move to DC," Rose says.

You massage the bridge of your nose. "That's assuming she wins. Which she wouldn't. She'd be a total loser. It would be a disaster, believe me."

Rose puts her things back in her purse. "Well, flip a coin. Who wants to go play cleanup duty with Whitney?"

[x] Go talk to Whitney. [[x]On your own / with Rose / don't go yourself, send only Rose]

[ ] Let her cool down.

Whitney didn't lock her door, so that's a positive sign. She stands at her window with one hand behind her back in that extremely executive pose she adopts whenever she's ruminative. You wonder whether it's an affectation she picked up to act her part a little better, or whether it just comes natural.

"Take a look," she says, not glancing back at you, but jerking her head in the direction of the wall-mounted TV.

You turn and look. A reporter is speaking: "...stunning footage captured by a bystander of this PIT maneuver being executed on the suspect's vehicle." A shaky vertically-shot cell phone video shows exactly what the reporter describes, a police cruiser forcing a black SUV with a totaled frontend to fishtail and spin out at a 90 degree angle. Then, rushing from the vehicle, the driver gets all of about 20 feet before going down, dogpiled by policemen.

The anchor is still speaking. "...identified as Deshawn Washington, who police describe as a known associate of wanted gangster Tyrus Kang. Kang, who was ousted from the board at tech giant Darkbloom Analytics when his criminal associations came to light, is currently wanted in connection to a shootout that happened at a property he owns."

"Tyrus?" You breathe. "Why would Tyrus do this...?"

Whitney strides to her desk and shuts the TV off with the remote. She sits. "Think about it."

"I am thinking about it."

"Two reasons, maybe. A, it's a message. Everyone called Isstein our bitch-boy, right?"

"Not in those terms, usually."

"So he kills our bitch-boy because he wants us to know he's coming for us. Or option B... you said Tyrus has a freaky eye implant now, right?"

"Probably. I saw him pick it up in the Sapphire Club."

She motions at you with a palm. "There you go. If he's got an implant, he's got, like, a data uplink. He's playing 4D chess with the rest of us now. Probably knows bio-dad's alive. Probably wants to drive a wedge between us. What better way, than to do some crazy shit using bio-dad's same mopus on a Hyundai?"

"Modus operandi," you correct.

"Fuck you, Ally. Fuck you. You almost ruined everything just now." Real anger drips off her every syllable.

"I still don't believe it. This is too convenient -- maybe Darkbloom is working with Tyrus, somehow--"

Whitney pounds the desk. "Fuck you! And do you think I'm working with him, too? You accused me of murder just now! Fuck you! How dare you! You know who I've killed, Ally? One person. Vasily fucking Kerimov. I killed him for you. How dare you. How dare you!"

"You need to look out around Darkbloom," you say. "We need to keep our eyes on him. He can't be trusted. Just remember that."

"You do think I'm stupid! How many times are you going to tell me not to trust David Darkbloom? You think 'cause I've got his DNA, I'm like, under his spell? Or you don't think I'm bright enough to talk to him without him pulling Darth Vader mind tricks on me. As if you're so much smarter. Get out of my office, Alabaster, I swear to fucking god."

She's sobbing.

Instead of leaving, you go over to her and hug her. She weakly tries to push away, but you won't relent. "I love you," you tell her, over and over. You kiss the crown of her head. "I love you."

"I'm so fucking scared," Whitney sobs into your stomach, hands to her face. "I'm so scared of everything. I'm losing it... I can't take this anymore. I need my mom. I need everything to be normal again. I need you... I need you to fucking trust me... I'm gonna fall apart if you don't trust me, Ally. You're like the only person I can trust, so... if you think that of me... if you think I'd be like that... why... you stupid fucking asshole..."

You rub her back. "I trust you," you say.

"I'm losing it," she sobs.

"We'll get your mom back. Alex, too."

She cries for a long time, and you do your best to soothe her.

"Was it really your id--" you begin, but think better of asking that. Instead, you try: "Why do you want Cerise in congress?"

"Bio-dad had this plan, right, for me to run the company and Viv to be President. That was his idea. But the truth is, he thought too much of me. Way too much. I can't run this place. I can't even work the fucking coffee makers. I need Viv right here, and I need her here forever. She's the real CEO. I'm just sitting here playing Freecell." You glance at her monitor -- she really does have a Freecell game open. "I need Viv's help. Now more than ever. So my idea was different. Maybe our girl in Washington could be Cerise, instead... right?"

"But why her? Of all people."

"She's got everything... people love her. They wouldn't shut up about her after she testified at the Senate. She's the one and only person connected to us who has anything like popularity. Isn't she? She'd win liberals with the whole gay wife thing. She'd win the alt-righty *chan types with the NEET feet thing. She'd win men by being cute, women by being all, this-is-my-fight-song. Silicon Valley dorks with circuit bending. Idiots by being smart. Smart people by being cool. Cool people by not really being cool at all and so not actually a threat to their own coolness. Politics is all about, like, triangulation, right? Cerise is the Bermuda fucking triangle, Ally."

Whitney has rarely made a more startlingly cogent series of points. You're awestruck.

"Tell her to think about it, at least," Whitney says, snorting back her snot, and wiping her nose with the back of her hand. You grimace.

"Sure," you say.

"Are you feeling any better?" You ask after she seems somewhat composed. You want to be sure.

"You're an assmunch."

"Okay, but are you--"

"I'll tell you what'll make me feel better. Let me fuck your sister tonight."

"Which one?"

"The gay one."

"That doesn't narrow it down."

"Cerise, fuckwit."

"Love pile's not canceled?"

"I fuck even when I'm mad. Especially when I'm mad. Anyway, Cerise didn't piss me off. So yeah. Love pile is still a go."

---

Whitney needed some space, and you needed some lunch, so you're riding the elevator down. At the lobby, as you step forth, you encounter a spongy barrier; you step face-first into Charlotte's sweater puppies.

Rebounding off them, you step back, and cock your head. Her arms are folded, and she's got a look on her face that you recognize. You've seen it on her daughter countless times, but never on her. That blank, dull-eyed gaze that signals violent jealousy.

"M-Mrs. Mallory?" You stammer.

She leans forward, squints at you.

"Are you--" you begin.

"You can call me Mom," she says flatly. "We've been over that. Haven't we?"

"Y-yeah."

She stares.

"...Mom?" You try.

But she doesn't say anything. After a few moments, you turn, and step sidewise past her. Only as you pass does she turn, and only to track you with her suspicious eyes.

You hurry off, feeling freaked out.

You eat your lunch, and by the time you're done, your freaked-out mood has been replaced by antsy energy. You've got a bit of time to kill before the end of the day.

[ ] Find Mom in the kitchen.

[ ] Find Rose2 in the theater area.

>[x] Find Noelle in the gym.

[ ] Find Charlotte in her office.

You stand and walk to the windows separating cafeteria from gym. What a sick joke it was to construct the building this way, taunting the indulgers with this constant view of the self-deniers.

Inside, a sight you didn't expect. Noelle is jogging on a treadmill. Well, that makes sense, on reflection. She's a former agent, and current bodyguard; she needs to keep in shape. You never thought of her as particularly fit, but then again, you've never seen her physicality put to the test. Right now she's maintaining pretty well at a cruising pace of what's got to be a 6-minute mile or so, not too shabby -- and other than the sweat pouring off her, she doesn't seem any worse for the wear. The expression on her face is serene and untroubled.

She seems to be winding down. The machine slows automatically, and she adopts a looser, less determined form to match the slower rate. Then, a shark circling in the water. That absolute motherfucker. Saul gets on the treadmill next to hers, and strikes up a conversation as he begins to jog. Doesn't he pull enough action from this gym without edging in on your own personal bodyguard?

She tugs the earbuds out of her ears and perks up as he talks to her. You feel ill.

He says something that makes himself laugh, but Noelle's face is just mildly perturbed, perhaps a bit annoyed to have her music interrupted. A quick back-and-forth ensues, then, followed by another laugh from Saul, this one obviously more awkward. Noelle says something quick, that leaves Saul momentarily speechless. Then he's rambling as Noelle's machine draws to a stop. He rubs the back of his head, laughing, eyes closed; and Noelle uses the opportunity to walk away. He's still talking by the time he opens his eyes to find that she's gone.

---

You find Noelle at the benchpress machine, doing reps. You circle and stand over her.

"Oh boy," she says, peering up as her muscles heave and flex with the load. "I guess the entire Mallory family is gonna try to fuck me today."

"I'm not a Mallory," you huff, insulted. "I'm a Soliloquy. Always have been, always will be." You watch for a moment. "Don't you need a spotter or something?"

She laughs at you. "Okay, fine. Spot me."

You puzzle over how to spot her on a machine like this. The weights are all contained inside a rack and move on a connected steel pulley.

"You don't need a spotter on a machine like this, dumbass," Noelle finally informs you. "Wow. How have you gone your entire life without knowing that? Don't you ever work out?"

"I work out all the time," you lie.

She sits up, and uses the terrycloth rag around her neck to wipe the copious sweat from her brow. The black leather of the seat she was lying on is coated with her perspiration too. She stinks -- in a way that's not unpleasant. "All right. Show me."

You eye the weights. She was lifting 100 pounds. That's not too hard, right?

>[x] Show her.

[ ] Uh, this is my rest day. Hey, let's relax in the sauna.

>[x] Show her.

Noelle stands. You're already swinging your legs over the workout bench when you notice her grabbing a nearby roll of paper towels and a squirt bottle. You don't mentally connect what you see to a reason why she would be doing that; and as you lie down, she grimaces at you, aghast. "Don't you want me to wipe the bench down first?" She says.

"Uh."

"You fucking freak."

You shrug that off. You wiggle yourself into a comfortable position beneath the hand-grips, and do some deep breathing to center yourself. It's just 100 pounds... no big deal. You grab hold of the bars, curling and uncurling your fingers around them in a way you suppose looks like this is something you do regularly.

She goes over to where the weights lie in the rack and asks: "How much do you lift?"

"Huh?"

"Where should I set it?"

"Uh. This is fine," you say.

She frowns at you.

You try to lift. And you succeed.

You even do a couple reps.

My God, Alabaster Soliloquy, you're the strongest man on planet Earth. You're doing it. You're goddamn doing it, just as you claimed you could. You're lifting a--

"Oof," you grunt, as Noelle sits down on your chest. Her butt, through her cotton shorts, is wet against you.

"Need a spotter?" She asks.

"No," you wheeze.

"Your form is absolute shit," she says, leaning in. "You don't lift, do you."

"Uh... not usually on a machine like this."

"Not ever."

"You don't know that." Man, this is getting tough. How many times are you supposed to do this before you quit? 10? 20?

"Do you like a sweaty girl, Alabaster? Is that the whole reason you're doing this, to wallow in a pretty girl's sweat like some kinda pig?"

"Please," you say, rolling your eyes. "I've got enough dominatrices in my life, as I'm sure Kay made... abundantly clear..." you puff and huff with the exertion. Talking isn't the best idea right now, especially with Noelle's weight pressing down on you.

"That's all right," Noelle says, sitting back again, shrugging. "You don't need to be submissive to appreciate the delicate scent of a girl after working out."

"Are you speaking from experience?"

"--What?"

"You sounded wistful just now, that's all."

She rises up onto her heels, and then lets her butt come down again. The force of it makes you gasp, and you drop the weights. They clang in the rack.

"You bitch!" You snarl.

"This bitch is protecting you, so watch it. You scrawny weeaboo. You couldn't lift your way out of a paper bag, admit it."

"I just lifted as much as you did!"

"This is my warmup. It's 100 pounds, Alabaster. And you're all winded just from that."

"I'm winded from your fat ass sitting on my solar plexus."

"I'm not fat," Noelle pouts. She glances around as if scoping for eavesdroppers, then grins down at you. "Hey, is it true? Your wife pegs--"

"Shut the fuck up. That's fake news. You're fake news, Noelle."

She cackles. "You know, working out always gets my blood pumping. How about you?"

"Sure."

"Pffthaha. Okay. It's been a while since we had sex, hasn't it?"

You frown. "You said you weren't going to fuck me again. Your words."

"Yeah, and I'm not. That's no excuse not to fool around if I'm horny, though, right?"

"What has gotten into you?" You say.

"Blame it on the nail house. Or just the hormones stirred up by working out..." She leans on you with both palms and slides her butt back and forth across your chest, suggestively. You can feel the warmth emanating from her crotch like the output of a furnace.

"Let's go back to my office," you tell her.

"No way. You're gonna try to bend me over and get your dick in me again. I already said I won't fuck you."

"Make up your mind."

"Play with me. Right here."

"You have got to be out of your goddamn tree, Noelle."

"Hey, if Kay Vera is good enough to screw in public, and your other girls get to caterwaul like a bunch of bitches on heat all day in their offices... you can play a bit of rub and tug with your bodyguard during her break, right?"

She looks all around again, this way and that, to make sure the coast is clear. You do, too. This machine is a bit out of the way and the few people nearby are intently focused on their own workouts. If you do it discreetly...

She hooks her thumb in the leghole of her shorts and pulls it way up. She doesn't have panties on. She winks. "Go ahead, Alabaster, you freak. Feast your eyes."

You feast your eyes.

"But do more than look," she adds.

It would be hard not too. A cunt as pretty as Noelle's is just begging to be toyed with. You part it with the fingers of one hand and explore it. It's the first time you've seen it in such bright lighting, all of its folds and crevices, and the merest hint of stubble on her bare, puffy mound. It drips, with sweat, and feminine arousal.

As you play with her, you notice that her eyes are fixed firmly forward. Tilting your head back, you glimpse why: she's looking into the mirrored wall that's only a couple feet away from the machine. Her eyes are glazed over.

"Keep going," she says pleadingly. "Put your fingers in me."

"That's pretty vain--"

"Yes it is. I like my pussy. And I like seeing things inside it. Put your fingers in me, please... I feel really empty right now, you know."

You won't deny her. You slip a couple fingers past the tight ring of her hole. She grins in perverted enjoyment as she watches it happen.

"I feel like a fucking charity worker here," you grouse. "What's in it for me?"

Without missing a beat, Noelle reaches back and slips her hand into the waistband of your trousers. You gasp. "Noelle--"

"Shh. If you don't make too much noise, no one will notice. Just keep doing what you're doing."

You close your eyes and just enjoy the sensation of it. If you're seen, you're seen. It wouldn't be the first time someone at work caught you getting your rocks off. And Noelle's petite hand wrapped around your dick in your pants is the sort of delicate relief you need right now. It soothes all the anxiousness in your heart and replaces it with the buzz of sexual pleasure.

"You're pretty good at this," Noelle whispers. Your chest is totally soaked with her sweat and joining it now is her cream. You're going to have a tough time explaining this to the fucking bloodhounds who live with you, but you don't care at the moment. You masturbate each other to your hearts' content. Noelle watches the action in the mirror, sighing and occasionally wincing as you jab your fingers a little deeper than she's comfortable with. The inside of her pussy is hot, extremely so, probably from all the physical exertion she's been doing. Your ministrations are only making her hotter inside, too, and wetter. As she gets more aroused, she gets softer also, like her muscles are tenderizing in preparation for a cock to enter. She could really use a cock, you think -- yours -- she could use your load of cum inside her.

You're getting carried away. The efforts of your fingers are beginning to make a noise that people could overhear. And Noelle's hand pistoning up and down on your shaft is the same way; the steady fapping of it it noticeably loud. You pray for a quick ending because you just know that someone is going to figure out what you're up to.

"Okay, we can fuck."

Your eyes widen. "What?"

"I changed my mind." She stands, and takes off her shorts -- right here in the middle of the gym. You look all round, half disbelieving. But no one is paying any attention. She quickly settles back onto you, smiling devilishly, and puts a finger to your lips. "Shhh," she says, "remember. Quiet. We'll get away with it."

"Jesus Christ, Noelle--"

She reaches back and unzips your pants and frees your cock. An instant later, her hot, sweaty pussy is swallowing you up.

"God, that's nice," she mutters. Her eyes roll back. "You really don't deserve a dick this good..."

"You're crazy. You've gone absolutely crazy."

She falls to her elbows against you, and shuts you up by locking lips. In a reverse missionary, she humps back and forth, her perspiration providing a sort of lubrication for your bodies to glide with ease. Meanwhile, you tongue each other like teenagers. You've been an exhibitionist, but somehow this feels more dangerous than usual... more daring. And the risk of being caught only thrills you, and makes your dick throb harder.

"Remember when I joked about being pregnant?" She asks, pulling back a bit.

"I-- well, yeah..."

"What if I told you it was true?"

"Fool me once... you're fucking with me."

"Yeah. But it might be true after this, huh?" She fucks up and down atop you, and you feel her little pussy fluttering around you. "Are you gonna cum inside me on a dangerous day, Alabaster?"

You half choke. "Don't pull hentai cliches out right now--"

"Oh, sure, fine..." she sighs. "But really, though. This is a pretty dangerous day."

"Then don't let me cum inside..."

"Huh? Shouldn't YOU take responsibility?"

"Fuck--"

"Unless you stop, your cum is definitely going to wind up inside me."

"Fuck. I can't stop."

"All right then," she purrs, and kisses you again. "Stir up my baby room."

"Goddamn it--" Your nuts tighten, and you feel it happening. Noelle does nothing to stop it, and neither do you. In full view of anyone who would care to glance your way, you sperm Noelle's overheated pussy on a fertile day. She grins deliriously and writhes atop you as if to make sure it goes especially deep -- and watches the action in the mirror the entire time.

---

You eat ice cream with Noelle in the cafeteria. Hey, you burned enough calories for a little extra snack, right?

"So I take it that somehow David Darkbloom lives inside Dalton Cantor's brain now," she says. "In an implant?"

"Yeah."

"You need to tell me these things if I'm supposed to protect you and Whitney and the rest." She stirs the ice cream with her tiny spoon and frowns at you, cheek on fist. "How am I supposed to keep you safe if you're not giving me all the info?"

"Excuse me for not trusting you--"

She groans. "Oh, get bent with this trust spiel. Either retain me as your bodyguard or fire me, but if you retain me, trust me."

"Fine," you agree. It's maybe a bad time to be responding to ultimatums, because you're definitely not going to fire the owner of a pussy that nice right after you just got done fucking it.

"And I gather that you're planning a half-cocked mission to Vail to rescue Renee and Alex," she adds.

You nod.

"I'm coming," she says. "I'd like to see Mara dead myself, anyway."

>[x] Okay.

[ ] No, you're not.

---

You're naked in the back of Vivian's limousine. Not for any particularly sexual reason -- just because your clothes are ruined.

Still, you idly play with each other while you talk. You get a bit lovey-dovey sometimes.

"Hey," you say. "Why are you so obsessed with me, anyway?"

"You're an interesting girl, Amber. That is all."

"I think it's because you've got daddy issues."

She paws at your tits. "I am thinking of stones and glass houses at the moment."

"Haha. No, really. You think I killed your dad... and what's more rebellious than shacking up with the bitch who iced pops?"

"Perhaps," Vivian agrees. "Or perhaps I just adore this little orifice of yours..." she pets you down there, and you have to push her hand away. You're too ticklish from all the use earlier to go again for real.

You keep her at bay by kissing her, and she hungrily returns the gesture. Skipping school to dyke it up with her was a pretty swell idea, if you do say so yourself... but you just know you're going to be sore tomorrow.

When you pull back from the kiss, a little trickle of blood is coming down Vivian's cheek, from her tear duct. She doesn't seem to notice. You can't help gasping in fright.

"Viv -- your eye..."

She blinks, and rubs her cheek with her thumb. The blood smears across her skin. She pulls her thumb away now, and glances down at it. "Oh. Pardon me."

"For what? Your eyeballs exploding?"

"It's... these terrific migraines I've been getting. Along with that I'm also getting a terrible pressure behind my eyes... I apologize if you're worried. It is really nothing to be concerned over."

"Worried, shit. YOU should be worried. You should, I dunno, go to a doctor if your eyes are bleeding. Just a thought."

She only shrugs, and wipes the rest of the blood away.

"Are you seriously not gonna get that checked out?"

"I know why it happens," Vivian says. "A doctor cannot help."

You feel more than a little uneasy, but you know well enough to drop the subject.

The limo pulls up to the gates of Darkbloom Analytics, and she steps out. She turns and leans in through the rolled-down window. "My chauffeur will take you back to Alabaster's," she says. "...Unless you would like to spend the night with me, at my home?"

"Mom would be too worried. Anyway, it's Alabaster's turn with my pussy tonight."

"Mm. Then I will reserve it for tomorrow."

>[x] "Hey, wait -- skip work and hang out with me today."

[ ] Go back to D-- to Alabaster's for now.

You get dressed at Vivian's house -- or try to, between her attempts to fuck you. This girl is insatiable, a total slut. And her wardrobe is utterly bizarre. There is nothing even close to normal -- or comfy -- to be found in her many closets. Only business formal and her weird gothic Lolita gear. You decide to doll yourself up, and go for a ritzy dress. You don't get the chance to wear stuff so audacious -- or expensive. This outfit has got to cost north of $10k. Vivian is only too happy to help you with it, and even does your makeup for you. You look like Pippi Longstocking got crossed with Wednesday Addams in a freak teleportation incident, but hey, you pull it off.

You spend a few hours together at an arcade. It feels like a date -- you're not sure you've ever had an honest to goodness date before. Unfortunately, no one else seems to realize it's a date, because about two dozen different guys try to hit on either you or her, or both, during the excursion. Oh well. You've got a pretty mean tongue, but nothing can measure up to the way Vivian turns potential suitors down. She can say volumes with a withering stare, and if the guy is too dull to get the message from that, she can end his entire life with a few choice words, delivered properly. "How disgusting," is a favorite of hers. You'll have to use that one.

Vivian is bizarrely good at claw games. She wins you three stuffed penguins before you have to inform her that you're all penguined up for life and don't require any further penguins. No more penguins. Really.

You get the chance, in turn, to show her that you're a monster at DDR. Even in a dress, you've got it. She watches transfixed as you perfect clear several songs.

At the end of it all, you take her somewhere you think she ought to see. Vivian isn't particularly athletic, and she struggles to climb the tree, but you help her up.

You're perched together at a distant remove from Dalton Cantor's sprawling backyard, and you watch through binoculars. Dalton, or the man his family assumes is Dalton, plays and tussles out there with a young boy, while his wife tends a grill.

"Have you been spying on him like this since day one?" Vivian asks, more curious than anything.

"Someone's got to keep an eye on him."

"Whitney is doing so," she says. "She keeps him bugged around the clock."

"Never hurts to have a second set of eyes on him," you say.

But the truth is, you feel weirdly disturbed by it all, and can't take your eyes away even if you wanted to. It feels unfair. This man who ruined your life, in two different timelines apparently, or whatever -- gets to have a second chance with a loving family. You wanted Vivian to see it because you wanted to know you weren't alone in feeling this way. She watches as he tosses the old pigskin back and forth with the kid, who's all of about 8. They laugh and joke and play-tussle.

"Father never showed such affection to me," Vivian says.

That's all you needed to hear -- you're not alone.

"Of course, it is part of the role he has to play," Vivian says, reasoning it out to herself, to justify it. "Dalton was always a... very loving father."

"What an asswipe," you mumble.

She looks at you. "Would you hate me, Amber, if I told you that I still love him?"

"I dunno. He's your dad. Can't help that." But you feel a pang of resentment in your heart regardless.

"I try not to," she adds.

"Do you have an implant?" You ask her. "Is that why your eye -- you know."

"Yes." She clasps your hand, and holds it tight. "Please do not tell anyone. Some suspect -- none know. It can be between us."

"Okay," you say, and kiss her.

---

Alex lies on his cot in the cell he shares with Renee, staring at the ceiling. "What's your happiest memory?" He asks.

Renee, sitting on the edge of her own cot, doesn't need to think. "Seeing Whitney and Vivian after I got out of prison," she answers. "Seeing how beautiful they were... how much they had grown and all the things they had accomplished."

"That's so nice."

"What's yours?" Renee asks. This is a positive sign, she thinks, and she wants to encourage it -- to lift Alex's spirits.

"Did I ever tell you that I was homeless? As a teenager."

"No... no, you didn't. But that can't be a happy memory, can it?"

"Why not?" Alex asks. "I was at this one shelter for a little while. Homeless youths, you know. A lot of mixed-up kids... well, I guess I was a mixed-up kid too. They wanted to keep us occupied so we wouldn't get into trouble. Every few months as a charity kind of thing, they had a bake sale. Proceeds going to funding for the shelter. And we had to bake a bunch of goodies and then sell them out front of a grocery store. I was only there long enough to do one bake sale, myself."

"How did it go?"

He smiles at the recollection. "It was amazing. I'm no good with cooking, but apparently I'm good with selling. I got more sales than anyone else... more than anyone at the shelter had EVER gotten at any bake sale. Everyone was so happy and proud of me for that. And then because of that, the manager of the store gave me a job, and when I went into the foster program, he took me in."

"That's really sweet of him."

"Well he..." Alex trails off. Instead of elaborating, he moves on. "The sale itself was just so fun. I think about it a lot." He pulls himself up into a sitting position and faces Renee. "I keep thinking that some day I might want to set up another bake sale. You know?"

Renee smiles. He's talking about the future -- a future beyond the walls of this cell. "That's a wonderful idea, Alex."

But Alex is deathly serious. "Ms. Carte... Renee... would you want to be in a bake sale?"

"Why not? I mean, I've never been much of a chef myself either but--"

"You have to be careful when you cook," Alex says, "or you might end up burned."

"Sure. I'm not that bad of a--"

"Are you sure you'd be okay with being in the bake sale I set up?"

It finally clicks in Renee's head. Her heart drops. She steadies her voice and says: "Well, we need to think about logistics. We want to make sure it works with everyone else's schedule too."

"Sure," Alex says, "but I don't want to wait too long."

"I understand. We've still got a bit of time to sort it out."

"Okay," Alex agrees. "Just let me know, though. I wouldn't want to set up a bake sale if you're not on board."

"Thank you, Alex."

Alex lies back down and moves the conversation on -- this exchange is a brief interlude among many other normal topics, slipped in as discreetly as possible so that any eavesdroppers might miss its real import. Renee feels ill for the rest of the night regardless.

The next morning, while Alex and Renee work at their stations, Mara visits.

"Give me a status update," she demands of Renee.

Renee answers, with hate in her eyes: "I am still several weeks out."

"Bullshit," Mara sneers. "You have your project files from Penelope, you should be more than capable to adapt those in a shorter period of time. You are purposely delaying."

"Think what you want."

The armed men surrounding Mara do not have a friendly demeanor to begin with, and Renee's impudence only makes things worse. Renee knows she's on thin ice, but isn't sure how to proceed.

"You will be ready by Tuesday or I will kill you," Mara says simply.

"I guess you're going to kill me, then," Renee says, shrugging. "You're asking the impossible. I can't be ready by--"

"I will kill Whitney and Vivian, too."

Renee exhales. "Vivian -- oh my God. You would. Even your own daughter, Mara."

"You said it yourself. She is more yours than mine. She cast her lot in with you people. So she can die with you too. It makes no difference. Will you be ready to operate by Tuesday or not?"

Alex pipes up: "We'll be ready."

Mara wheels on him. "You. I heard your sneaky little code speak. You are plotting something."

"Huh?" Alex says. "The codebase for Diogenes is nearly complete... it will be ready to go by Tuesday. I promise."

Mara motions at a man behind her: "This is Lev. He will be helping you debug your code. If he finds any discrepancies or errors, he will report them directly to me. The people you love will pay for your mistakes. Remember that."

"He's welcome to take a look," Alex says. "I could use the help anyway. The rest of the programmers here are awful."

Lev, an unbelievably corpulent and pigfaced and odorous man, circles and sits beside Alex in a wheeled chair that creaks beneath his heft.

"You are trying to be too clever by half," Mara warns Alex. "You are not ready for the retribution that stepping out line brings. You will finish your work and hand it over like the servile worker bee you are."

Alex turns wordlessly towards his keyboard and begins again to work.

"Are we understood?" Mara demands. When Alex does not reply, she adds: "You are just begging to get someone killed, Alex. Answer me."

He turns to her again. "I know what I am now," he says. "Maybe you don't."

Mara smiles. "You're just a brainy little fairy in over his head. Nothing more. Don't forget yourself."

"See? You're wrong." He leers at her. Her breasts. "Maybe before I kill you, I'll show you how wrong you are."

It turns out even Mara Darkbloom can be taken aback sometimes. After all her threats and vicious treatment, he would say even something like that without compunction.

"Lev can look at my code all he wants," Alex says. "He won't find anything out of bounds. The thing I'm planning involves slipping a knife into your eyeballs after Ally comes here and frees me. I don't need malicious code for that."

"I will enjoy watching you die," Mara says, voice quaking with rage.

Alex, unbelievably, befriends Lev.

Although Lev personally heard Alex threaten Mara with rape and death, although Lev is charged with sniffing out the subterfuge that Mara believes lurks in Alex's work, although Lev is not meant to trust Alex even one iota, it is hard to resist the charm. Alex has that effect on people. Because the person Lev actually discovers banging away at the architecture of the Diogenes platform is totally different from that first impression: he's a sweet, toothless, harmless, jovial -- feminine -- young boy. Not a mutineer.

Lev does his job, though. He reviews Alex's work in keen and painstaking detail. But he finds nothing untoward; hovers over Alex's shoulder day and night to watch the boy work and never sees him do anything besides diligently add to the program logic of Diogenes.

Lev is quite clearly impressed with Alex's vision and efficiency as a coder, and soon finds himself frequently praising the work. Alex turns pink and smiles at the praise every time, batting his eyelashes, giggling -- stroking Lev's arm, saying it's really nothing special. Lev takes to calling Alex "little bird," a nickname Alex warms to and blushes to hear. Sometimes Lev comes out with an idea of his own, usually a stupid or unworkable one; Alex unfailingly praises it as a great one, and thanks Lev for the help.

On Saturday evening, the blooming relationship hits a minor snag. As Alex types, Lev notices what Mara might call a discrepancy. "Go back up to that line," Lev commands, pudgy finger streaking the screen. His voice is harsher than it's been in quite some time.

Alex shows him.

"What is the purpose of this?" He asks. "Explain yourself. I am not following."

"It's a placeholder for now," Alex says. He sounds oblivious to Lev's suspicion. "Ugh... I should comment my code better! Hee hee. I'm so awful at that kind of thing. I'm sorry if you're confused here. It's all my fault. Anyway, it's going to monitor the clock speed of the grain and lower the amperage draw if it goes too high. That's all."

"Have you not already put that protection in place? I saw you working on similar code days ago."

"It needs redundancy. The worst thing would be if the processor overheats and burns your eye. That could ruin the device and maim the user... anyway, I need a little bit more progress on Ms. Carte's design to know where the right limits should be."

Renee, from across the table, at her own station, frowns at him. She wonders what he's playing at.

Lev suspiciously reviews the code for several long minutes, looking for the trick. He can't discern it. It's finally Alex who interrupts, asking: "Are you hungry, Lev?"

"A bit."

"I'm starving! Look, I know it isn't when they usually give me lunch, but -- I would be SO appreciative if you could--"

"Hmmph."

"Lev?"

"I can feed you, little bird," he says. "I have a cabin here. Plenty of food. You are right, we should take a break."

"Oh -- thank you! You're too nice to me, Lev."

Lev stands, and uncuffs Alex from the table. The other programmers in the work area seem a bit uneasy with the favored treatment being bestowed upon the hostage, but they don't dare to speak out of line. There's an organizational hierarchy at play; Lev is way too high up the food chain to countermand or so much as question his decrees. He leads Alex out by the hand. "Let's go get you a worm, little bird."

"Hee hee."

Renee watches Alex leave, speechless.

He doesn't return until much, much later that night, dropped back off at his cell by Lev himself. And he won't speak when he does get back, although after Lev is gone, he passes the sleepless Renee three packs of cigarettes plus a lighter before lying down.

---

Darkbloom Analytics has a small auditorium which is used for media functions and pressers. Today at a dais stands the new CIO, Anna Soliloquy. Although Darkbloom Analytics is one of the most important companies on the planet, the constant shuffling of its C-suite is only a minor news item in and of itself by this point, par for the course that it is. And so the outside interest in Gal's ascension is pretty low-level. There is only a smattering of reporters here to ask some softball questions. The entire thing is slated to last 10 minutes or so.

To support Mrs. Soliloquy, at her side stands Mrs. Soliloquy -- Cerise, that is -- as well as the rest of the board. You and Rose are way off to the side, ancillary to the ancillary; here to be quiet and observe, Armstrong made abundantly clear.

Gal stares doe-eyed and thunderstruck at the maybe two dozen journalists sitting randomly dispersed in metal folding chairs in the otherwise empty room. It's even weirder, you think, seeing Gal in a dress suit, than it was the first time you saw Cerise in one. It just simply doesn't look right. Like seeing a linebacker in a tutu.

They lob a couple questions her way: Are you excited to accept the position? What can you tell us about DBA's new pivot towards the restaurant industry? How will you beef up cybersecurity? Are you worried about foreign interest in Sand Reckoner?

A couple flashbulbs go pop. The questions subside, replaced by silence. Gal is quivering, and gripping the edges of the dais so hard her knuckles blanche.

"We're all super excited!" Whitney says, to fill the silence. "Ga-- Anna is going to be great. Just fantastic."

"She's a brilliant woman," Armstrong agrees. "A real super lady."

"I bet -- but we'd love to hear from her!" A journalist jokes.

"i--" Gal begins, leaning forward to speak into a small mic mounted in front of her. It shrieks feedback through the room. You, Rose, Cerise and the rest of the board bodily wince -- all save Spancer, who seems unfazed.

Gal turns whiter, if that's possible, and her head recoils like she just touched her forehead against a hot stovetop. She tries again: "i--" A beat passes. Attempt #3: "i-- i... BLEGHH" She vomits all over the dais, the floor, and herself.

---

Inside the executive dining hall, Gal sips hot cocoa, which Cerise even put marshmallows in. She's wearing a fresh change of clothes and seems not okay again after her little vomming episode.

"im sorry" she tells you all.

"It's fine. You did fine," Armstrong insists. "Believe it or not? Not in the top 5 worst press conferences I've ever personally witnessed. Not even top 20."

"thank you"

"You're not PR," Whitney says. "That was the flast time you'll ever have to face the public."

"THANK you," Gal says, much more emphatic and actually putting a bit of affect into her usually affectless voice.

"We have much to discuss before Chloe's arrival," Vivian says. "Your main task will be to ensure that her access is suitably restricted -- and to countervail any trickery she might deploy to get around it."

"yes"

"We're all counting on you," Nelson says. "Good luck."

Gal sips her drink and keeps her eyes cast firmly down. She picks a marshmallow out and chews it sadly. She doesn't particularly like to hear that she's being counted on, even if she knows it.

Into the room bursts Fazil -- rushing towards you all. "Yes! Hello! May I introduce myself?"

He holds out his hand for Gal to shake. She reluctantly accepts the gesture.

"I am Fazil, yes, pleased to be meeting! I wanted to avail myself right away of anything you might require. But! More to the point! I am gathering that you, yes you, Mrs. Soliloquy, you are Galatea?"

"i..." Gal murmurs, looking from face to face, unsure whether Fazil is a person who should be kept in the loop. You intercede for her: "Yes, she's Galatea."

"My goodness!" Fazil says. "Let me tell you, this is not the countenance I expected to match to the name! You caused no end of ruckus, you know, back in the day!" Gal blushes. Fazil laughs it off. "No matter! That is not meant to be taken harshly. We are meeting today as friends after all. Yes? Oh, I am so excited. You simply must tell me your methods, how you devised them -- to remain anonymous despite my very most studious efforts to demask you! Are you really Galatea? How fantastic. I was picturing a 200 kilo man in his mother's basement in New Jersey. You are maybe the opposite of that! Please do not be shy, there is so much I want to learn from you! I am your student, Mrs. Soliloquy, or should I say Galatea? I am in your tutelage!"

Gal is looking like she might vomit again, so you gently lead Fazil from the room. "Let's give her a bit of time to onboard before we overwhelm her with lots of questions, huh?" You get him back out into the hallway.

"Oh. Yes, of course!" Fazil is genuinely remorseful: "I am being so impatient and inconsiderate. Tell Gal to forgive me, if you can. Please understand, this moment for me is as if I am a novice basketball player who has met Scotty Pippin!"

You're not the world's biggest sports buff, but you think there are probably better NBA superstars to have used in that analogy instead of Scotty Pippin. Michael Jordan? LeBron James?

Back in the dining hall, Whitney wants an answer to the question: "So, Cerise? Are you gonna be a congresscritter or what?"

"Erm," Cerise says.

"I don't wanna push," Whitney says, "and plus we've got time to figure it out. We'll hold the announcement until after Operation Jigglypuff, even if you decide to go for it."

"Would you please stop calling it Operation Jigglypuff?" You grouse.

"No."

"Do you know me?" Cerise asks Whitney. "I hate the public almost as much as Gal does."

"it's true" Gal says.

"So how am I supposed to be a politician?" Cerise asks.

"That's fine," Armstrong says. "Politicians all hate the public. That's bog standard. The few freaks who care about serving the public good always end up burning out."

"I think you'd make an excellent congresswoman," Nelson says. "And it would be so historic. You'd be the youngest woman ever elected to the House!"

"That's all well and good," Rose says, "but we need to do what's right for the family. It has to be Cerise's choice."

But Cerise is uncertain. "Alabaster?" She says. "What do you think?"

>[x] You should run.

[ ] You shouldn't run.

Cerise sighs. "I guess I'm outvoted."

"You've got exactly the kind of shitty personality that goes far in Washington," you say. "We'll have a President Soliloquy sometime soon. Exciting, right?"

She flips you off. You flip her off.

"Think of the frequent flier miles though," Whitney says. "You'll be jetting back and forth between DC and Palo like every couple days."

"You're doing a great job of talking me out of this," Cerise says.

"Heeh."

"I'll get the necessary preparations made for your announcement," Armstrong says. "We want things squared away when we decide to pull the trigger. There's a lot of scandals we'll be playing whack-a-mole against."

"Scandals? Like what?" Whitney asks.

Armstrong wildly, frustratedly just motions at all of you with both his hands as if that alone is enough elaboration. And it is.

"Congratulations," Rose says, laying a hand atop Cerise's. "You'll need a campaign manager, of course. I volunteer."

"Fuck no," you say. "You can't even win a high school student council election. If any of us should manage her campaign, it's me."

"What? You cheated. That hardly counts. I know you cheated--"

"Blah, blah, blah with the cheating shit. Christ. Get a new act, Rose."

"I'm gonna prove it, Alabaster, you fucker, watch me. I'll have you retroactively impeached."

"You have got to be shitting me. You're still going on about impeachment? Five years later? Does it drive you up the wall that bad to know you couldn't get it done? To know you lost--"

"I didn't lose--"

"You lost--"

"I won. I fucking won that election. I got more votes--"

Armstrong bangs the table with his fist. "Shut the fuck up," he barks.

You shut up.

"I'm gonna manage her campaign. Me and Vivian."

Vivian nods. "A professional campaign requires professionals to run it," she says. She looks from you, to Rose. "Your talents, such as they are... would be better suited to... other things."

"Our best path is to clear the primary field of opponents," Armstrong says. "Keep them out of the race so you clinch the nomination uncontested. Pure warchest fundraising, gladhanding, backroom kind of battling, nothing public. Since you'll be running as a Democrat, it'll be a cakewalk come the general. You'll hardly have to campaign at all. If you don't win it by at least 70 points, it's because I'm rusty."

"Hold on," Cerise says. "Can't I run as an independent?"

"Why?" Armstrong says.

"Becuase... that's what I am?"

"Okay, but why?" Armstrong repeats.

"Because -- now hold on a second," Cerise says. "I can't just join a political party I've never been a part of, to win an election--"

Armstrong laughs like he's hearing a favorite joke. "Okay. Okay. You've got a lot to learn. That's fine. Listen, let's talk later, all right? Meanwhile I'll fill out the paperwork for the Dem primary."

"Wait--" Cerise says, but Armstrong is already on his way out the door.

"Learn to dodge the concerns of your constituents like that," Nelson says as he watches Armstrong depart. "You'll be well on your way if you can master that."

---

In her first act after arriving on campus, Qiangxiang had all the employees in her department from VP to coffee boy line up in the lobby like enlisted men at boot camp awaiting room inspection. Now, she walks down the line with clipboard in hand, checking off names, asking the occasional question, and doling out the occasional firing. It's more than a little bit creepy. Whitney accompanies her to countermand any decisions she doesn't like.

"Kenichi Takagawa," Qiangxiang says with a frown, coming to Ken Smith.

"Howdy."

She looks him slowly up and down, from his Stetson hat to his bolo tie to his snakeskin boots. "I see you've traded one degenerate culture for another," is her assessment.

"Horse apiece I reckon."

"What do you do?" She asks.

"I work with our robotic units. SMATTERS in particular."

"We will not require your services any longer," she says. "You may go."

"You're not firing Ken," Whitney tells her. "I like him too much. He's such a character."

"Retaining employees for sentimental reasons is precisely why there is so much organizational rot within this company."

"Suck my asshole," Whitney sneers.

Qiangxiang ticks Ken's name off the list -- but there will be no firing for him today.

She begins towards the next person down the line, but Ken speaks up, staying her. "I got me some mighty impressive units down in the R&D labs. I suppose seein' 'em might change your tune about how useful I am."

"I sincerely doubt it."

"Never say never, little lady. I've got over 1,000. There's bound to be one you're fond of, too."

"Mm."

"Me? My favorite is unit 731."

He grabs his belt buckle with both hands and tugs it a bit from side to side, to straighten it. He smiles at her. Qiangxiang isn't fazed, but nor does she find a biting insult to lob back; she just moves on.

You watch the proceeding from atop the second level hallway overlooking the lobby. Most of the rest of the board is there, too, to scope out the scene -- only Gal, who's busy with the tasks set out for her, and who anyway doesn't like open-air public spaces, is missing.

"Ice bitch," Armstrong mutters. "Fuck, she creeps me out."

"She's 16," Nelson says. "How bad can she be?"

"She is extremely dangerous," Spancer answers. "I advise maximal caution."

"Let us stay our assessment until we meet formally," Vivian says. "She should be up in the conference room presently."

Down below, Qiangxiang stops in place, to tip back a small tin of mints to her mouth, and chew them. As she chews, she looks up, and makes eye contact with you. And the way she chews something as innocuous as a breath mint is at once disturbing and alluring... you get the eerie sensation that it's a gesture directed specifically at you. Then turning, she continues with her quest to rival Whitney for the highest rate of employee termination at Darkbloom Analytics.

"I should be there at the meeting as well," Darkbloom says.

"No," you sneer. "Fuck you. You're in jail."

"The last thing we need is for Chloe to suspect the truth of our current situation," Darkbloom says. "As far as she knows, Dalton Cantor is a normal board member in good standing. To bar me from a board meeting, the first in which she takes part -- would raise suspicions--"

"We'll come up with an excuse," you say. "We'll say you've got important business, or something."

"Vivian," Darkbloom pleads. "Tell your obstinate boyfriend to be reasonable."

"I will not intervene," Vivian says. "Fight your own battles, father."

>[x] Let Darkbloom attend the meeting.

[ ] Bar him from coming.

"s-suck m-my dick, m-m-m-m-mother... m-m-motherfucker" Gal says.

"Good try," Armstrong says. He's giving Gal some last second coaching before the meeting, sitting together with her in the boardroom. "Now some people -- some people put emphasis on the 'suck' and some people put emphasis on the 'motherfucker'. It's a matter of personal taste. For instance, I'm a motherfucker guy. Suck my dick, motherfucker. Nelson, he likes to put emphasis on the suck."

"Suck my dick, motherfucker," Nelson says.

"Like that."

"You're both idiots," Kay says. When the fuck did she show up? She freaks you out worse than Qiangxiang. "Suck my dick, motherfucker." She cups her crotch obscenely. "That's how you do it."

"Okay, that's another option," Armstrong says. "Kay puts emphasis on the dick. It's a bit unusual. But valid."

"s-s-suck my dick.......... motherfucker"

"Good, good," Armstrong says. "We'll keep working on it."

"does anyone put emphasis on the word my" Gal asks.

"Huh?" Armstrong says. "No. That would be... very strange. No one does that."

"maybe that can be my thing"

"Your thing?"

"you know like my gimmick"

"That's pretty advanced territory. Maybe once you master the basics."

"but hear me out"

"Fine. Sure."

"you put emphasis on the word my -- because then it's like they've been sucking so many dicks that you need to tell them which dick specifically to focus on"

Armstrong nods. "Huh. Well, I see your point. But that's kind of a stretch, for the other person to figure out."

"It's all in how you say it, I guess," Nelson tries.

Vivian enters. "She is on her way. Are we ready?"

As ready as you'll all ever be, you suppose.

"It is a pleasure to finally meet you all," Qiangxiang says as she shakes your hands each in turn. When she gets to Gal -- who's her typical flighty and frightened self -- and takes her hand, she grips it so hard that Gal's knuckles shift one over the other and it looks like Qiangxiang is only seconds away from shattering the bones. Gal squeaks. "Are you going to keep your eye on me?" Qiangxiang asks in a mocking tone. "I suppose you are up to the task."

You lay your hand on Qiangxiang's arm and scowl at her. "You won't make friends here by pulling this power move bullshit."

Next she shakes Armstrong's hand. Armstrong is maybe taking a sort of fatherly shine to Gal, or maybe he just likes to one-up people, because the iron grip he gives Qiangxiang actually causes an audible crunch. Qiangxiang just smiles at him, and doesn't let on even a hint of pain. After a few moments, Armstrong finally lets go. Qiangxiang steps back, hand already bruising badly. From her purse she pulls that same tin of mints, and eats another couple, maybe as a way to distract from the pain she must be feeling.

"Restaurants," she says, pulling the hem of her dress forward and sitting at her chair. The rest of the board seats themselves too, you included. "I hear this company has decided to waste its time and energy on restaurants."

"It's a pivot," Whitney says. "Oh, yeah -- meeting is in session." She bangs a little gavel on the table. You have no idea why she got it in her head to start doing this, but she did; she formally announces meeting by gavelling them in and out.

"You needn't concern yourself with those things," Vivian tells her. "Your task is to help us complete Diogenes. This will take 100% of your time and energy. All else will remain under our auspices."

"Why am I to take orders from a girl who is little taller than a thimble?" Qiangxiang says. "What shall you do, Vivian, if I refuse your directives? Gnaw at my ankle?"

This is going to be rough. You've had the sense for a while now that Qiangxiang is a sort of mirror-universe Vivian -- Vivian through a scanner darkly. Their clash is going to threaten the rocky partnership before it even truly begins.

"I am your COO," Vivian says. "If you refuse my directives, you will be replaced. We are partnering with Broad Dynamics on a purely voluntary basis. Such partnership can be ended voluntarily as well."

See -- there it is.

"i will onboard you with all the needed project files," Gal offers, speaking as if from a memorized script, which you assume it probably is.

"Speak when spoken to, slave," Qiangxiang says without glancing her way.

"She can speak whenever she goddamn w--" Whitney begins. But it's Gal who cuts her off, speaking on her own behalf:

"everything is routed through me -- chloe. your workstation, your personal cell phone, all of it. in hacker terms: i own you. so in that sense... in that sense it's you who is the slave"

Armstrong arches an appreciative eyebrow. Darkbloom, who is far from thrilled to have to work alongside the girl whose hacking led to his ruin and death, is less impressed.

"Did Sir give you permission to wear that outfit?" Qiangxiang asks with a smirk. "It is so awfully conservative. I thought he liked to show you off."

"suck my dick motherfucker"

Qiangxiang titters in her smug, self-satisfied way. Gal blinks rapidly, holding back tears -- it was a nice try, but Armstrong was right, it's a weird way to say that.

Whitney is more straightforward. "Go fuck yourself, Chloe. If you want to come here and play Roast Me with us, we can just get rid of you, like Viv said."

"You cannot get rid of me," Qiangxiang tells her. "I understand that the investors are already running scared, now that Mara has left the board. Imagine how scared they will be once I make clear to them that I intend to tank every single company in their portfolio if they do not divest of their holdings in this firm."

"I--" Whitney begins.

"We can crash and burn whole sectors of the American economy just by calling in debt -- and directly shutter our own domestic firms on our shores that so many of your investors hold stock in. Even suggesting that we could do it will make every single one of your investors dump you like a sack of refuse. Do you even understand what I am saying, right now, Ms. Darkbloom, or have you lost all focus like the ADHD sufferer that you are?"

"We understand perfectly well," Vivian says. "We understand that if this company fails, your own research will falter. We are in a MAD scenario, to speak in game-theoretic terms."

Whitney glowers.

"This is the carrot," Qiangxiang says. "Working together. If we do not come to an amicable relationship, there is the stick. I can order you all killed on my whim."

"I'll beat your ass before you make the call," Whitney thunders.

Qiangxiang ignores her. "Let us discuss the terms of our agreement to help against Mara."

"She's a common enemy," you say. "The terms are that we all kill her because it benefits us all."

Qiangxiang smirks. "Hmm. What reason is there for me to ally with you, Ally, rather than ally with Mara?"

"Because we're the winners," Whitney says.

"I believe that Mara has a great deal of research of her own," Qiangxiang says, "conducted by people under her command, as well as Renee Carte, and Alex Best -- probably they are working on a new generation of ocular implant. The fruit of that work, when we seize it, will belong to me, and to Broad Dynamics. Those are our terms."

"No," Vivian says. "We will mediate your access to those materials the same as any other. Moth-- Mara's work products, if she has any, are developed from ours as a basis, and belong to Darkbloom Analytics."

"I have a small strike team of 10 well-armed and well-trained men, augmented by our Xi Shi implant, at the ready to assist you," Qiangxiang says. "They are the favored black operations team that Broad Dynamics uses for risk-fraught, time-sensitive assassinations. Mara can be dead by this time tomorrow if only you agree to grant me unmediated access to the future of the Diogenes project. Otherwise, you can continue with whatever ill-conceived shoot-em-up scheme you have planned."

[ ] Deal.

>[x] No deal.

"We've got all the strike team we need," Whitney says. "You're not getting your hands on our shit, Chloe, unless we say you can."

Anger shadows Qiangxiang's face. "You are so confident for a girl who is so unbelievably beyond her mental capacity. You could hardly succeed as a cashier at a grocery store last year. Now you think you can run a company with costs to rival a small nation's GDP. No wonder your organization lies in ruin -- it has you at the helm."

She takes her little tin of mints out again, and dispenses another couple into her mouth.

Drawing his line of sight from the tin in her hand, up to her face, Darkbloom regards her wryly. "Freshening up?" He says.

Qiangxiang doesn't respond, does not even acknowledge him. She continues to Whitney: "I should not be surprised that you refuse my help. Why should I even waste the energy to threaten you, when you will ruin yourselves of your own initiative? I am--"

"Does your uncle still make you suck his cock?" Darkbloom asks.

You have never seen Qiangxiang wince until this moment. She snaps her head in his direction. Her voice is shaky: "Pardon me?"

"I said does your uncle still make you suck his cock. Does he still ejaculate down your throat the way he did when you were little?"

Qiangxiang stands, trembling all over, and tears are streaming down her face. She spins, and exits the room without even an "excuse me." She just goes.

The boardroom is awash in stunned silence for several long moments before Whitney finally breathes: "holy shit."

Darkbloom sips at a glass of filtered water before turning to Whitney and saying with the air of a tutor: "know your adversaries. Surface-level insults can only try the weak. For those like Chloe, you must find the things from their personal history that hurt the most -- and twist it into their gut like a dagger."

"How did you know that?" Whitney asks.

"Broad Dynamics has been a thorn in my side for several years now. I am of course well familiar with the peccadilloes of its board -- its CEO in particular. And Chloe has been an up-and-comer for quite some time, herself. A prodigy, that one." He nods at his other daughter: "of course, not as impressive as you were, Vivian."

"Thank you, father."

"Guess I'm chopped liver," Whitney says.

"Now now," Darkbloom says smoothly. "If you were not also impressive, I would not have named you CEO."

---

Noelle, helpfully, has a map of Vail and its surrounding countryside printed out and lying on the desk in a meeting room, a couple stories down from the C-suite. You stand over it with everyone at the company who's in the know, save Qiangxiang -- this is an all-hands-on-deck powwow.

Amber's here, too.

"Will's Golf seats five if ya squeeze," she says.

Noelle dutifully writes this on a whiteboard with marker: TOYOTA GOLF, SEATS FIVE

"Can't we use something with a little more horsepower?" You say.

"He likes the way it handles. He's used to it. It'll be fine, trust me."

You shake your head. You don't like the idea of fleeing Russian mobsters in a hatchback from 1999.

"It is nondescript," Vivian says. "If you are to be tailing a man all the way from California to Colorado, you would do well to use vehicles that do not draw attention to themselves. Whitney's supercars are... not suited to such a mission."

"Aw, come on," Whitney says. "Every other asshole in the valley drives a Lambo or a Ferrari. The rest drive Teslas. And from what I hear, Vail's the same way."

"Mm. And interceding that is hundreds of miles of hoi polloi who drive hatchbacks from 1999. You do not want to be detected before you get there."

"We'll take our Volt," Rose says. "It seats five."

"We?" You say. Then: "Our?"

"That car is a marital asset now," Rose says. "It belongs to me, too."

"Oh no no nooo you don't," you growl. "It's mine. I paid for it."

"Thank you for paying. You got a lot of value for your half of it."

Noelle is already writing on the board: CHEVY VOLT, SEATS FIVE

And under these two models, she's writing seating arrangements:

>TOYOTA GOLF

Will Levy

Amber Catachresis

Alex/Renee

----

----

>CHEVY VOLT

Kay Vera

Alabaster Soliloquy

Noelle Keki

Alex/Renee

----

----

>Who, if anyone, will fill out the rest?

>Spancer

>Darkbloom

>Rose

>---

---

Mara picks the grain up from Renee's desk.

"Is it complete?" She asks.

Renee nods.

"A new generation for a new platform of mind-machine augmentation. What have you designated it?"

Renee shakes her head. "I don't know. It doesn't make a difference what you call it, honestly. David always came up with those silly names."

"Oh, don't be so modest," Mara says, setting the grain back down. Suddenly, she kicks her foot up, onto the seat of Renee's chair, right between Renee's legs. Renee startles.

Mara, leaning in, and leering evilly, says: "He let you name one. Didn't he? So nice was he to his favorite mistress. Greek, Greek, Flower, Greek, Greek -- one of these things is not like the other."

Renee glares right back at her. "Yes. You're very smart, Mara, congratulations. One night after we fucked, while he was lying in bed with me instead of you, I told him the name to use. I've always liked camellias. Shame that he misspelled it, but then, I guess he had other things on his mind."

Mara laughs. "Camellias are gauche, though, aren't they? I prefer dahlias." She eyes the grain. "Yes. Dahlia is apt. An upgrade over the inferior model."

---

Mara lies on an operating table. She is sedated, and her eyeball is on her cheek.

Renee has the power of God over her right now. In her surgical mask, with forceps in hand, she knows she can stab Mara right in her brain, and end this nightmare.

But it's not so easy, is it. Of course it means death, instantly, from the coterie of armed goons who surround Mara at all times, now included. Which she would not be so hesitant about -- she would gladly give her life to save the lives of the people she loves in California. But she wouldn't be the only one to die. Alex is assisting the operation, and they would kill him, too. And then... and then after that, the retribution. You can cut the head off a snake and still be poisoned. The people in California won't necessarily be safe just because Mara is dead.

She looks to Alex for guidance. After all, he was thinking in the same desperate terms not too long ago.

Alex locks eyes with her and shakes his head, just ever so slightly. It's a no-go, then.

She installs the grain and puts Mara's face together again.

---

In their cell that night, Alex is frank:

"They'll kill us in a couple days, maybe. As soon as they're reasonably certain there's nothing left for us to debug."

"You're right."

"We don't have a lot of time. What you wanted, back there -- the reason I didn't..." he trails off. "It isn't only Mara. Her servers and all. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"Yes."

"What do you think, then?"

"One more day," Renee tells him.

"Okay."

---

"Well, it's time," Armstrong says after lunch. He stands, and beckons Nelson to stand with him. He glances down at you. "Thanks for eating with us today, instead of down in the mess hall with the commoners. I'd love to stay and chat, but I have to go see a man about a whore."

"We will let you know when the meeting with Rowan has concluded," Darkbloom tells you. "Be ready to tail him."

"Where are you meeting?" You ask.

"He wanted to meet off-site, naturally -- away from Whitney's prying eyes. He suggested a cafe on Middlefield, near Hoover Park--"

"Oh my fucking god," you say.

"Is there a problem?" Darkbloom asks, confused.

"Nevermind. Yeah, we'll be there."

Darkbloom nods. "Amber and her strange little boyfriend--"

"They're just friends," you cut in.

"Amber and her strange little friend who's a boy should get ready, too. First changeover in Gilroy as planned. I will meet back up with them in Bakersfield at changeover two."

Your car and Amber's will leapfrog the journey. One will remain behind Rowan's car for a period of a hundred miles or so, then stop off to refuel. The second car will take the first car's place behind Rowan -- while meanwhile the first car hurries ahead to the next fuel stop, and so forth. This way, Rowan will be less likely to notice that he's being followed.

"Good luck," Darkbloom says, and means it. "See you in Vail."

---

"I don't see what's so important about that thing," Hugh says, handing the bat over to Tyrus. He stands with him in the middle of a deserted lot in San Fran. Deserted save for them, and about a dozen of Tyrus's men. "I had to break my balls to get this out of evidence at the FBI field office. Can't believe you're paying me a million bucks for one Louisville slugger."

Tyrus takes the bat in hand, and practices swinging it a few times. The sonic crack of air is vicious sounding all on its own. "Sentimental value," he says between swings.

"Yeah, I get it. Your gay husband used that sucker to murder people, so you want to pay him some kinda--"

Tyrus takes the bat to Hugh's Achilles heel, with form befitting a PGA golfer. Hugh collapses to the dusty ground, howling in agony.

"You fuck! You broke my fucking heel bone!"

"You show Marquis the respect he deserves," Tyrus sneers. "God rest his soul. I will not have you talking in that tone about him in my presence."

"My fucking heel! Oh Christ, fuck!"

"Say some more shit, and next time it's your skull," Tyrus says. He nods at one of his men. "Get this asshole to a hospital." Then, to his other men: "Let's go. We've got a date in Colorado."

---

"Hey, Will?"

"Sup."

You lean over the center console, one hand on that strange robot motherfucker Spancer's shoulder in the passenger seat. "Can you stop at my place before we head to the gas station? There's something I gotta pick up."

"Yeah, no sweat."

---

Your house is so creepy, when you walk through it with no one else inside. You hurry through the foyer, up the stairs, into your room.

You stand in front of a picture of George W. Bush.

You're not sure what it is that's making you do this... but somehow it feels like you need to. You pull the picture back, and open the safe, look down at the glowing red implant.

You stare at it for a long moment, as if expecting it to speak.

"Are you me?" You ask it.

Of course, it can't reply.

"Do you want to take a road trip?" You ask.

Through your window, Will is honking his horn like a madman -- he must have gotten word that Rowan whoever-the-fuck is on his way.

You take the implant and put it in your back pocket.

END OF EPISODE 4.