Chapter 27
The time for Tiff to sit down and really dig into her Class was long overdue. It had become very apparent that ignorance was not bliss, nor was it an excuse for failure. The last few days certainly didn’t feel like winning, so Tiff wanted to reverse that fortune. After spending a relaxing evening being cuddled by her mom, Tiff booted up the TAS computer and got to work.
If she could brute-force studying for tests she had to take the next day, she should also be able to struggle through this, right?
The first order of business was checking the various System alerts she’d been ignoring.
[New Controlled Areas established. See TAS for details.]
[Quest Complete! Reward Available.]
[Quest Complete! Reward Available.]
[Quest Complete! Reward Available.]
[Quest Complete! Reward Available.]
[New Quest Available!]
[New Quest Available!]
Feeling slightly overwhelmed, Tiff knew if she didn’t start somewhere, she wouldn’t start anywhere at all. Figuring the Quest “rewards” would be the least exciting, she brought those up first.
[Quest: King of the Hill. Complete!]
There’s only room for one monarch at the top. Defend your throne.
Reward: +250 Infamy
[Quest: Know My Name]
Instill fear into a lesser Villain. The mere mention of your name makes them tremble.
Reward: +12 Infamy
[Quest: Assimilation]
Defeat a rival gang boss and absorb their territory.
Reward: +3000 Infamy
[Class Quest: A Fitting Image]
Spread your infamy.
Supervillain (locked) 5789 / 5000
Reward: Dark Queen’s Regalia
This was basically what Tiff expected: a bunch of Infamy increases with no tangible benefits. Receiving +3000 Infamy made her frown. The Quest to take down a gang leader was certainly the most impactful item on the list, but she didn’t think it was over 10 times more valuable than defending her territory. She assumed the lesser Villain she traumatized was Don Lorenzo, and she really couldn’t argue with that. He had it coming after ordering his goons to attack Victoria with lethal force.
Tiff had mostly forgotten about [A Fitting Image] since she wasn’t actively trying to increase her Infamy. The reward intrigued her, since it was only her second Quest to give her anything other than Infamy. The first time was her TAS, so she assumed the Regalia was also related to her Class. She also assumed it was clothing, since she was pretty sure that’s what “regalia” meant. She mentally clicked on the Quest and hit accept.
As soon as she did, a massive garment bag started phasing into existence, materializing with the same dramatic flair Tiff had unconsciously used when shoving her Stats in front of Don’s face. While she wanted to cringe, she also thought it was pretty cool, especially since the garment bag was shaped vaguely like a coffin and black smoke oozed over her room as the bag took up most of her bed. As soon as it became solid in the real world, crimson petals exploded around it, filling her room with the faint aroma of roses before swiftly vanishing. Tiff crept up to it cautiously and gave the zipper a tug.
Before she could even peer inside, one of her new Quests made itself known.
[Class Quest: Nobody Cared Who I Was…]
A real Supervillain requires presence. Don the outfit.
Dark Queen’s Regalia worn: 0/1
Tiff waved the screen away with mild annoyance and gave the garment bag her full attention. It was, as she expected, a dress. But not like one she’d ever seen…at least, not in real life. She’d heard of Victorian gowns and seen them in TV shows, but the closest thing she’d seen in real life were Halloween costumes, and those…had decidedly less fabric. Tiff struggled to remove it from the garment bag and lift it up; it had to weigh over 20 pounds.
Because this was a System reward to her, Tiff assumed it was the right size, but when she finally managed to get it to a place where she could really look at it, the fabric of the skirts pooled in heavy layers on the ground.
It was a dramatic Gothic Victorian-inspired ball gown crafted from black velvet with deep crimson lace trim. The gown featured a tightly corseted bodice, an exaggerated standing fan collar, sharply pointed shoulders, fitted sleeves that flared into lace-trimmed bell cuffs, and a layered cathedral-length skirt with angular overskirts. Rich velvet draped over cascading panels, creating a regal hourglass silhouette reminiscent of a vampire queen or dark fantasy empress.
All things considered, it was way too much, and Tiff wouldn’t be caught dead wearing it. She heaved it back into the bag and shoved it as far over on her bed as it would go. She warily pulled the Class Quest back up and groaned. This was going to be another one of those things she couldn’t just ignore, wasn’t it? When she tried doing that with her core, the System gave her an ultimatum: place it down, or it would do it for her. So what would happen here? Was the System going to stuff her in the dress if she refused to put it on?
…actually, that might be really helpful. She had no clue how she was supposed to squeeze into this thing, and now that she thought about it, why did Victoria get a cool transformation sequence and yet she had to do things the old-fashioned way? Uncool, System. Uncool.
Tiff turned her attention back to other things, such as Infamy. What was it good for? Did it do anything other than make wanna-be mob bosses pee their pants? At least, she assumed it was tied to her Villainous aura. And what exactly did she need Influence for? Since her first alert prompted her to consult her TAS, that’s exactly what Tiff did.
Interestingly, focusing on her personal System screen also allowed her to interface with the TAS. It didn’t allow her to visualize any of the menus without the computer, but she could control parts of it with her mind. Such as cycling through the options and zooming around her map. And when she looked at the alert about the Controlled Areas, the map automatically zoomed in on them.
The map zoomed in to an area roughly the size of four city blocks. It encompassed several small neighborhoods, multiple shopping arcades, and one main strip. Tiff assumed that the large road was 5th Street, and when she thought about the names of the roads, they appeared.
Yes, indeed, that was 5th Street, exactly where the old gang was. Now, Tiff didn’t imagine that all those gang members magically disappeared. She figured that most of them had probably heard the news by now that their boss got…replaced, but would they really see it that way? Some might welcome the change in management, but Tiff could easily see a world where the small gang was like a family, and all the relatives were now holding a grudge against her.
But regardless of the potential family drama Tiff placed herself in, she had acquired legitimate real estate. 5 more buildings started flashing, just like the 24-Heaven was, and Tiff assumed those were now under her control.
Great. Absolutely fan (space) tastic. How was Tiff supposed to offer Premium VanDyne Protection (™) when they were more than a block away? She couldn’t walk that far in a reasonable amount of time. Not to mention she was REALLY not interested in throwing Victoria up against a new set of rabid wolves.
And now that Tiff thought about it, didn’t Don say they had half a dozen places under their control? So why was Tiff only inheriting 5? While Don might have been using vague estimates or overestimating himself, Tiff had a hunch that these flashing stores were the ones that either willingly moved under her umbrella of leadership, or maybe it might be better said that the other ones were too loyal to the 5th Street Gang and needed more “convincing” if she wanted to Control them too. At this point, Tiff thought 5 more businesses were more than enough for her small plate.
Especially since, now that she looked closer at the map, one of the businesses was actually a shopping center. Hadn’t Don said something about The Plaza? Maybe that’s why one of the flashing squares was much larger than the rest. She was about to click on it when something else caught her eye. The 24-Heaven had a tiny triangle with an exclamation point inside of it, telling Tiff that something there required her attention. When she clicked on the corner shop, the rest of the map faded away, and Tiff was once again left with a slowly revolving 3D model of the convenience store.
[24-Heaven]
Status: Controlled, Damaged
Classification: Retail Outlet
Income Type: Money Laundering
Frequency of Pickup: Weekly (Next Pickup Available in 5 Days, 17 Hours)
Specialization: Cheap Goods
Hmm. Tiff couldn’t argue with that. 24-Heaven was cheap…both in the quality of its products and in how much they cost. Still…”damaged.” Tiff felt bad about that; she really did. No amount of mental gymnastics could hand-wave away the fact that the store was almost destroyed strictly because of her. If she hadn’t been there…none of this would have happened.
But what could she do about it? It sucked and Tiff had no idea where she’d go to get her cheap soft serve now, but it wasn’t like she was a general contractor.
And that’s when the System offered her some options.
[Area Secured. Repair?]
…what?
This wasn’t a video game. Tiff was pretty sure real life didn’t act like a city-builder, where you could demolish a whole apartment complex with a click of a button, and roads didn’t magically upgrade themselves just because she had extra money lying around.
And yet…there was a repair option. Tiff’s curiosity got the better of her and she pushed the button.
Nothing obvious happened.
The ground didn’t start shaking and a magical dump truck and bulldozer didn’t materialize from the core in her closet. Tiff let out a huff of breath; she’d hyped herself up too much. But when she looked at the screen, a new description appeared.
[24-Heaven]
Status: Controlled, Under Repair (8 Hours, 37 Minutes)
Tiff’s eyebrows flew through the roof. As much as she never wanted to step foot into that strip mall again (until the next time she wanted ice cream), she was extremely curious as to what was going on. Was she wrong? Was this a city builder?! Was she about to go down in history as “The Dark Queen Who Couldn’t Plan a Road To Save Her Life?”
She was terrible at SimCity!
The only version of the game she was vaguely good at was a PC remaster of the original. 2000? 3000? Heck, the one from the Super Nintendo? And that was only because she knew cheat codes which gave her infinite money. As soon as they introduced things like water and sewage systems, on top of a “crime DLC” that introduced Heroes and Villains, Tiff was out.
…maybe she should have paid more attention, not that she thought about it.
But what was interesting to Tiff was that hitting that repair button didn’t cost her anything. She assumed that fixing up a building wasn’t cheap and she wasn’t going to pay for it. She twirled the little building around, looking at the incredibly detailed model’s damaged areas. Tiff tried to hold back a cringe; her eyes landed on the hole in the wall Victoria had been blasted through, and it was bad. Half of the back wall of the shop had been completely knocked away, leaving a jagged exit wound of crumbling cinderblocks at least 15 feet wide. Two of the beer coolers had exploded and the soda machines were pretty much vaporized. That hurt Tiff’s heart; those were some of the cheapest sodas around. A 64-ounce Grande Gulp only cost a buck fifty! Sadly, those days were likely over, unless the repair function was going to magically fix those too.
Tiff was about to scroll away when yet another feature caught her eye: Upgrades. Tiff was very curious. Her favorite thing about almost any game was the upgrades. Who wanted to play the entire game with the base loadout when you could make things better? Especially in games like Cookie Clicker, where the dopamine hit of number go up was like an injection of adrenaline straight to the head.
But when she clicked on it, it didn’t offer any new information straight away. Curious and slightly frustrated, Tiff tried clicking on the busted walls.
No.
She couldn’t upgrade something that wasn’t physically there.
She tried upgrading the coolers and the soda machines…but they came back with a message saying Unavailable.
So what gives?
Tiff spotted something out of the corner of her eye and held her breath.
The soft serve machine!
Barely daring to breathe, Tiff clicked on it…and she nearly had a heart attack. It worked! A new box popped up, but in her excitement, she ignored it. She tried clicking on other areas of the shop, and a whole slew of upgrades were available. It seemed like, so long as it wasn’t destroyed, she could upgrade it. With some restrictions. Tiff couldn't upgrade individual snacks, for example, though in her opinion no amount of upgrades could fix Combos.
Other options were available…but greyed out. A tiny pop-up informed her: Insufficient Funds.
Tiff frowned. She didn’t have any funds, so why weren’t all the options greyed out? The System responded. A tiny revolving dollar sign in the bottom corner of her screen displayed her available balance.
[Vault Value: $4500]
Huh…that was the money she’d previously tossed into the core. Tiff figured the money originally came from 24-Heaven…so maybe it should go back in? Tiff nodded to herself as if she’d just made some magnanimous decision, but now she had a new dilemma. Of the things Tiff could upgrade, only two things really drew her eye.
The NBA JAM arcade…
…and the soft serve machine.
There was a clear winner, and it was not on fire!
Tiff clicked the soft-serve machine and hit the button.
And immediately winced.
[Tastee Freeze Soft Serve]
New Unit: $30,599
Individual Upgrades
So buying a new machine was out. She didn’t have “new car” money to throw at ice cream. The individual upgrades were marginally better.
[Tastee Freeze Soft Serve]
Extra Flavor Valve: $500
Reinforced Casing: $300
Efficiency Module: $275
Premium Refrigeration: $250
Optimized Cycling: $200
Tiff began to sweat.
Was she really about to do this?
Yes. Yes, she was.
She hit the button.
Tiff watched as the vault value plummeted, but surely this was a righteous cause. Never before had Tiff felt so justified in spending $1425…though to be fair, she’d never spent that much money before, period.
What was done was done. Tiff wasn’t going to spend any more time stressing over it. She saw the machine’s status change to [Processing Upgrades] and exited the map before she could be overcome by buyer’s remorse.
But now that she knew she could (potentially) alter a physical location using a very much not-physical System interface, Tiff wondered what else she could modify. The first thing that came to her mind was her own home, and if there was any way to afford her family more safety, Tiff was willing to make a sacrifice.
Sadly, she didn’t think about this until after she splurged on an ice cream machine, but that was going to stay in the forgotten past and never get brought up if she could help it. Tiff located her home in the middle of her neighborhood, and for the first time, clicked on it.
Much like her Controlled Areas, her house was lit up. But instead of flashing white for a moment, her house was a solid, bright green. Clicking on it brought up another 3D model.
[Dungeon]
What a sad, sad dungeon. But Tiff wasn’t planning on decking her house out with traps in the entryway or caltrops in front of the bathroom. Tiff saw it list an option the 24-Heaven hadn’t given her: Reinforce Walls.
It didn’t cost her anything, so Tiff only hesitated slightly before she selected “Yes.”
Perhaps she should have given it more thought.
This time, the room did start trembling…but even though everything was shaking violently, nothing on her shelves fell off. No glass shattered and the giant garment bag sat exactly where she’d pushed it over onto the side of her bed. Tiff, extremely well trained in the art of California’s mandatory earthquake drills, instantly shoved herself beneath her desk. The shaking only lasted several seconds, but in that time, both Tiff’s mom and sister cried out from somewhere else in the house. Moments after it stopped, they both burst into Tiff’s room, concerned, but fully relieved to see she was unharmed.
The only problem now…was that she had two rubberneckers.
Tiff couldn’t think of a way to weasel her way out of her awkward situation, because Amy instantly locked onto the TAS display and Tiff couldn’t lie about it. Besides, she didn’t want to keep on keeping secrets. It was tiresome and left her feeling fatigued.
“Did you feel that?!” Amy asked, bounding into Tiff’s room. Melissa tromped heavily behind her, squeezing herself into the doorway as best as she could. “That was a mega-earthquake! It had to be at least a billion on the Richter Scale!”
“That’s not how the scale works, Amy,” Melissa frowned. “Tiff, are you alright? That was a lot of shaking.”
“I’m fine,” Tiff instantly nodded, climbing back into her chair. “Nothing even fell.”
“Strangest quake I’ve ever seen,” Melissa muttered, but that’s when Amy gasped.
“Tiff, your, uh, thing is showing!”
Tiff crinkled her eyes as her lips drew thin.
“Amy…,” she sighed. Her sister wasn’t always the best with words. But Tiff could see where Amy was staring and rolled her eyes. Unfortunately, so could Melissa.
“What’s this?” She asked, taking a seat on the floor next to Tiff. She leaned in to see the monitors more clearly, but she wasn’t the parent well-versed in technology.
“Mom, may I introduce you to a computer?” Amy teased smugly. Melissa rolled her eyes.
“How about I introduce you to a spoon, you little brat? You’re never too old for a paddlin’.”
Amy stuck out her tongue, but turned to look at Tiff nervously.
“So, Mom, this is my Class,” Tiff explained awkwardly. “I told you I’m a SuperVillain. This is what it lets me do.”
“It gives you a monochrome rendering of our home?” Melissa asked. Tiff gave her mom credit; she didn’t think Melissa would guess the current building strictly because of the layout. But then again, when a person lived in a place for over 20 years…that was practically an eternity….
“Oooh, it does more than that!” Amy bounced up and down excitedly. Now that Tiff had opened the floor for discussion, she must have figured it was safe to spill the beans. At least Amy’s enthusiasm was endearing. Amy tried to wedge herself between Tiff and the monitors, but she stopped herself before she could go scrolling away on the map.
“What were you doing, looking at our house?” Amy asked. She gave Tiff a case of side-eye. “Were you spying?”
“No,” Tiff rolled her eyes. “I was investigating my Controlled Areas.”
“You have Controlled Areas?” Melissa asked. Tiff’s eyes widened.
“Do you know what those are, Mom?”
“Not really,” she shook her head. “They’re a political thing. Governmental Classes deal with them; it’s the kind of thing you see with voting districts.”
“Ah,” Amy nodded sagely. “You see, Mom, Tiff owns the whole area now!”
Melissa clearly ignored Amy and raised an eyebrow at Tiff. She shrugged in a what can you do sort of way.
“Apparently, it isn’t only for politics,” Tiff sighed. “Or, maybe, I don’t know, it’s all politics, and these two things are connected…but Controlled Areas are also owned by gangs. I have a feeling other Villains might fall into that category, too, but I don’t know.”
“Hmm,” Melissa frowned. “So you have an Area. What exactly can you do with it?”
“I really have no clue,” Tiff sighed. “I know I can read things I probably shouldn’t be able to see. They look like System emails. Are they really emails? Are they System prompts other people get? I don’t know. The only one I peeked at looked like a payment slip.”
Melissa nodded but said nothing. She leaned closer to the screen.
“So is this really our house?” She asked. “Boy, the level of detail is really crisp.”
“Look! Look!” Amy cried. She zoomed into Tiff’s room and three little figures popped up. “Look Mom, I’m on TV!”
Amy waved, and her little figure on the screen waved too. Melissa chuckled and flexed her bicep, watching her counterpart mimic her. Tiff simply tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. This was the family she was stuck with.
They got bored after several seconds, and then it was back to the questions.
“So…what exactly were you doing?” Amy asked.
“Before everything, I was trying to sort through all of my System Alerts,” Tiff sighed.
“If you’ve ended up with a political Class, I imagine you’ve got a fair few of them,” Melissa frowned. “Your dad has a cousin who was trying to become a senator.” She shook her head and chuckled softly. “For a couple of years, family reunions were ass.”
That…didn’t really explain anything, but that was as much as Tiff could expect from her mom.
“I get more Quests than anything,” Tiff explained. “More than anything else, I’m always getting Quests.”
“Oh?” Melissa hummed.
“Yeah,” Tiff shook her head. “Like I said, they’re always trying to make me more evil. In fact, today I completed several Quests, and all of them gave me Infamy.”
“Ohhhh,” Amy’s eyes sparkled, but Melissa frowned.
“I don’t like that the System is trying to shoehorn you into an Alignment,” she said. Tiff threw up her hands.
“Neither do I! But in this case, at least I can understand why the System did it. Victoria and I demolished a shop.”
“RIP 24-Heaven,” Amy said sadly, giving a mock salute.
“Maybe,” Tiff said hesitantly. “Or maybe not.”
Both Amy and Melissa turned to look at her, so Tiff decided to explain.
“Well, you see, that’s apparently my Controlled Area. When Tori and I, uh, took over their protection service, I gained it.”
“You what?”
“Tiff and Tori knocked over the corner store!” Amy beamed. Melissa nudged Amy away and rolled her eyes.
“It’s…complicated,” Tiff sighed. “But, basically…yeah? There was a previous gang, but after today, they’re kind of…not. Anymore. I think? I, uh, gained some of their Areas, too.”
“Ohhhhh, sweet!” Amy pumped her fist in the air. Tiff shook her head. Soon, she would need to have a sit-down with her sister and explain that this wasn’t a game.
…except for the parts that were eerily like one? Amy would, without a doubt, be better at city-planning than Tiff was.
“No, not sweet,” Tiff said. “Especially since I’m now responsible for them. I’ve got collection dates and everything,” she sighed, but Melissa gave her a flat stare. “What?”
“You’re running a protection racket?” Melissa asked dubiously. “And you dragged Tori into this?”
“Technically, I’m pretty sure Tori dragged me into it,” Tiff groused.
“I don’t care who dragged who,” Melissa crossed her arms. “You’re dropping it.”
“Sure,” Tiff shrugged. “If the System lets me. I don’t know if it will. It seems to have some very…strong opinions about what it wants me to do. And, at the very least, we should visit them at least once, you know, to let them know they’re free or whatever. Gotta let them know somehow, right?”
Melissa frowned. She was clearly not on board. Tiff couldn’t blame her. “Enough of all that,” Melissa eventually said. “So that’s what you were doing? Sitting at your desk when the earthquake hit? I just wanted to check in on you; I’m glad it wasn’t serious."
“Actually…,” Tiff said, looking away.
She spent the ten minutes explaining that, in theory, by chance, it might just be possible, in the slightest way, that the earthquake could be considered her fault. And not an earthquake. Which then led to her describing the repair function of her system, how the 24-Heaven might not actually be doomed, and how Tiff had found out she could reinforce the walls of their home…which she did. Without permission.
In hindsight, it was very dumb.
But Melissa’s ire was sufficiently curbed as Tiff hastily explained the other option, the one that let her upgrade. Tiff explained that, so long as something wasn’t broken, it looked like she could upgrade certain parts of her Controlled Areas. So far, that mainly included things like appliances, and because Tiff wanted to show it off, she zoomed in on the kitchen microwave.
Now, there was nothing wrong with the family microwave. It wasn’t a particularly fancy model, but at the end of the day, it did the job. By that, Tiff meant it popped popcorn without burning one side of the bag and nuked leftover mac’n’cheese with little weenies just fine.
But…It could be so much better!
Tiff clicked on it and cycled through the upgrade tab. Melissa and Amy were instantly sucked in. Tiff felt slightly dirty, looking at her family’s shining eyes…like some sort of used car salesman or somebody in one of those infomercials on TV. After a solid 30 minutes of squabbling, during which Tiff was rolled away from her own computer so the two could stare, the two addicts had pimped out the microwave with all the bells and whistles. It came with timers; it came with settings. It had (what felt like) hundreds of options.
It also cost nearly $500.
Both Melissa and Amy stared at it in satisfaction…but it soon became clear to Tiff that they weren’t serious. And more importantly, they didn’t really believe her that the System could actually do anything to their microwave.
And to be honest…neither was Tiff. Not entirely. So, after a moment of indecision, Tiff said heck it. She hit the button.
“Wait…,” Amy said. “You can actually buy things?”
“What did you think you were doing?” Tiff asked.
“Playing around!”
“Well, you weren’t!” Tiff smirked. “Though I’m curious to see what actually happens.”
Amy immediately jumped up and bolted out the door, most likely to see if the microwave had transformed. Her disappointed moan told Tiff that it had not.
“So,” Melissa said, tilting her head, “Did you really buy something? How? With what money?”
“From the protection money,” Tiff sighed. “Tori earned us $4500.”
“You squeezed four grand out of the corner shop?” Melissa said, completely exasperated. “Tiff, I have half a mind to make you give it back.”
“Can’t,” Tiff shrugged. Melissa frowned and Tiff pointed to the screen. “The System already ate it.”
“Tiff…,” Melissa said, squinting at the Vault Value. “That says $2490. Where did the rest of it go?”
“I…,” Tiff quickly averted her eyes. Melissa stood up to her full height, crossed her arms, and gave her best let me hear it disappointed-parent look. Amy snuck back in and Tiff sighed. This wasn’t something worth hiding.
“I may have upgraded the 24-Heaven’s soft serve machine.”
Melissa blinked several times rapidly before closing her eyes with a heavy sigh.
“I’m getting too old for this shit,” she declared. She turned her back and walked straight to the door. “You girls don’t stay up too late now, or you’ll be slugs in the morning. Tiff…don’t spend all your ill-gotten gains in one place.”
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