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Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Four - Wine and Dine

This couldn't last. Eventually I'd have to Reload, and this entire conversation with Louise would be dust in the wind.

I took a sip of Louise's wine, then leaned back in her seat.

"Comfortable? We can sit in the living room. Come," Lousie said.

She gestured for me to take my sandwich with me, which I did. That ended up requiring two trips. I didn't want to leave Mister Couchtop behind, and I only had so many free hands.

The living room was a little small, cozy, with a faux-fireplace ringed by bricks. A few trophies lined the top, and there was a long couch as well as a few comforters. The back of the couch had some jackets tossed over it, and there were some loose shoes left on the floor, as well as some of Minette's cat toys.

I settled into a seat across from Louise. She bent over by the fireplace and clicked it on, and soon fake fire was burning in the fake fireplace while real heat radiated out of the machine. "Better?" she asked.

I nodded.

I knew this playbook.

Once, in a future that would never be, Lousie had invited me here. I was younger, in a way. A whole lot more naive. I actually ate up some of that company propaganda, and I thought--not that I didn't still think it--that Lousie was hot as hell.

The short-cut hair with the hard blue streaks, the overdone makeup, the way she always smoked, even when it wasn't appropriate. Her accent... yeah, the accent really did it for me. The C-ranker body helped. She was fit, lithe and so casually powerful that it was intimidating.

The me of that future had been smitten pretty hard. Then some mission came up. We guarded a portal while one of the D-rank teams went in, I couldn't even remember which one now. Things went sour in there, and they came out, bruised and injured. Louise was their reinforcements, and as far as I could tell, that meant that they only barely scraped out a victory, though it wasn't without more injuries in the team.

Louise had been... in a mood. Then she picked me out from the E-ranker guards and I followed along.

She brought me here, talked a little, and then the next thing I knew I was pinned down under her in her bed. I think she might have been a little drunk? I don't know. I didn't not enjoy it. It was fine? I'd had better since, but... yeah.

What I didn't enjoy was her kicking me out of her apartment the next morning while clearly fighting off a hangover.

I didn't even get a goodiebag or a free taxi ride back home. Hell, I think she kept my socks.

I spent months thinking about it, and the more I dwelled on it, the worse I felt.

And here I was, back in Louise's home once more. She sat across from me, knees bent beneath her, both hands cupping a rather large cup filled halfway with wine. "So?" she asked.

"So... I legitimately don't know what Seraph was thinking. I.. okay, so I might have gone out with some friends and sniped a portal out from under them."

"One of theirs?" she asked.

"Freshly opened. They hadn't claimed it yet," I replied. "Open to anyone, really. We just made it there first. Didn't bother grabbing anything within, just tackled the portal and finished it before they could get into position. I guess some footage got out, enough to identify me."

"I see, it makes some sense, then."

"Really?" I asked. "They would chase somebody down just for stealing one portal?"

Louise scoffed. " You do not yet know how these corporations think. Risk mitigation is extremely important. They would go very far, much further than you would expect, to protect their own interests."

"Far enough to break into my house in the middle of the night and try to kidnap me?" I asked.

"Why not? Either you join them or you die. In both cases, they win. Of course, you found a third option that they will not like come morning."

"Join them?" I asked. "Do you really think I would join people that do that to me? Would anybody?"

"Corporations like Seraph have ways of convincing people to do things. They can make offers that you cannot refuse, or offers that you do not want to refuse. Money, sex, reputation, the life of people you care for." She shifted in her seat, unfolding her legs, then folding them back up the other way. Then she made a small meaningless gesture with her hand. "Do you have any idea how much a good ranker, one with potential, is worth? I will tell you this. It is a lot and yet it is nothing. Do not think that just because you are a D-ranker now that you are immune to the desires of these companies."

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I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. "Seriously, I... I thought that once I reached the D-rank at least, I'd be out from under their thumb."

"I can tell you that C-rank isn't enough either. You merely gain the ability to bite harder when they push you too far. It is respect in a way. It's... risk mitigation."

"Fuck." I stared down into my cup watching the wine swirl. "So then what? Seraph has barged into my house. I'm not sure if I'll feel safe there anymore. They obviously know where I live now. Obviously know that I fucked with them."

"And now they know that when they fuck with you, it costs them a lot. How many people did you injure?"

"Two" I said "Grover or Glover or whatever his name is, and the sergeant of their D-rank team."

"See, expensive. More expensive is the way that Luna Corp will rub their faces in their failure. By tonight, all of the people in the know will be talking about this. It will be forgotten by next week, as these things are, but a week can be a long time for a company. All they need to do is lose two or three customers who hesitate because of the blemish, and they'll lose millions now and more later."

"I find it hard to give a shit about their Q4 earnings report," I said, voice flat.

Louise laughed, and I found myself remembering why I was so fond of her, once. "Oui, I can see why. Don't worry so much about that, then. Worry more about yourself."

"I'm worried about myself plenty," I replied. "What would you do, in my shoes?"

"Go shoe shopping?" she asked. "Sneakers are not my thing." She laughed again at my flat look. "Make allies. They increase your worth, and they make it that much harder for the corporations to want to target you. I hate to say it, but if you worked for Nethergain or another big diving corporation, they wouldn't have tried this. They did it because Luna corp is weak."

"Then why are you in Luna corp?" I asked.

Louise hummed, touched the rim of her cup with a delicate finger, then traced it around the edge. Where her finger passed a thin layer of ice remained. "I like being the big fish," she said.

"I bet," I muttered. I sighed, then downed the entire cup.

This wasn't going to work. I didn't want to stay here overnight. Hell, I wasn't even sure if she had a guest bedroom or anything like that.

So, before things grew too fuzzy, I pulled the trigger and Reloaded.

I was back in my apartment, long before Seraph kicked the door in. Shifting around, I got my feet under me, then rubbed at my face while sitting on the edge of my bed. Another go at it. I'd gotten it once, so I was pretty sure I could do it again. Maybe I'd nail Glover hard enough to actually kill him? Though... no, that might make things worse. Seraph got upset when their soldiers died. Injuries were one thing, but death was too much.

Wild, how they expected kindness while they were the instigators, but that's how big fish did things, wasn't it?

"Bigger fish," I muttered as I stood up. I reached over and gave Mister Couchtop a scratch between the ears. He moved up, pressing his head against it. "Sorry, Mister Couchtop. You were this close to making a cute French girlfriend, but I don't think it would have been healthy for you."

It was time to make friends.

After I savoured kicking Glover's ass again. My relationship with Louise was all sorts of complicated, but with Glover it was easy as pie. I hated his ugly face and wanted to hurt him a lot.

If only everything else could be so simple.

***