Dinner with Nate Pendulum: (And a reminder of 'The Case Of The Breakfast Spunk').

Nate shakes Cindy’s hand when you introduce them to each other and he seems surprisingly shy almost nervous when she flashes him a broad smile.

You spend a few minutes catching up with your old friend. As you had already learnt at the strip-bar, Nate had spent the past 9 months working as a courier. He had been trying to re-enrol in a university course but was having trouble putting the PRIZE Tokens for tuition together. The strip-bar paid better but was too irregular and in any case, despite his still well-maintained physique and looks he was done with that kind of work.

The conversation turns to mutual acquaintances. Nate asks you about Aurora Bennet and whether you’d made any progress with that case and reversing the effect of bimbofication.

Nate knew Aurora having met her at a house party before she had been bimbofied in a GAME. Nate had hooked up with her that night and they had dated for a few weeks afterwards but the fling had soon fallen apart more or less mutually. At that time three years ago, Aurora was a hard-working maths student and her dream was of eventually becoming a programmer for high-orbit satellite placement when she graduated Shoubu. There was no world where she didn't leave Shoubu and consequently, leave Nate. They had both agreed to stop sleeping together before it became a heart break situation.

Nonetheless Nate had always had a soft spot for Aurora. In a way she was also trapped in Shoubu. Even when she physically left the campus at the end of term for the outside world, her magically induced bimbofication would remain with her.

Nate had stayed in touch and tried to look out for her. One of the conditions of her GAME loss beyond a raw IQ drop was that her mind was sometimes even more addled with sheer horniness but Nate almost always resisted the urge to take advantage of his now hyper-promiscuous airheaded friend. Almost always. Nate was a good guy but he was also only human and it had to be admitted that sometimes bimbo-Aurora could be very persistent with wanting to satisfy a particular man; You’d found this out a couple of times yourself when you had had meetings with Aurora, though you didn’t have nearly the same inherent code of ethics as Nate did.

Throughout your conversation Nate didn’t entirely seem his old self. He was still the good natured, philosophical guy you remember, but there was something off. A nagging part of you was having doubts about Nate’s current abilities with the opposite sex. Like a veteran boxer with the fight beaten out of him, maybe fourteen years of Shoubu was taking its toll.

Nonetheless you were determined to press on with your plan. After the catch up you turn to business and lay out why you had sought Nate out.

“Nate buddy, I’ve got myself a real humdinger of a case here and I need your help I think. I’m not asking for free though, there’s definitely a chunk of PRIZE Tokens in it for you,” you say, glancing over at Cindy who gives a small nod. Ultimately, she’d be paying that expense.

You explain Cindy’s predicament, taking particular care to mention also that her rival was of a particularly nasty temperament.

You explain that you weren’t asking Nate to do anything that Mandy wouldn’t consent to as such but ultimately if the opportunity arose getting some semen into the blonde cheerleader would end this whole GAME. Cindy lent forward her hands in her chin and explained that she would be very grateful. You see Nate swallow a bit too deeply for the confident guy you remembered when he looks at the Latina making this suggestive gesture.

Nate said he was sympathetic to Cindy’s plight but was **** to get involved with a GAME that would enslave Mandy.

“I know how these things go Mason,” he said “sooner or later it will require a lot of deception and serious fucking around with people. Maybe this Mandy and Sam deserve that but I’ve been responsible for too much collateral damage on your cases over the years. I’m out.”

“Ah come on Nate,” you say “it hasn’t all been that bad. There have been wins that we can be proud of and that wouldn’t have been possible without you. Remember Dr Torben? We reversed the result of that GAME LOSS he’d trapped those freshman students in. And in their very first week at Shoubu no less.”

Dr Torben had been a music lecturer that had WON a GAME with some new music students. It made them lose their singing voices unless they drank his spunk each morning.

“You convinced me to do that one for free I recall,” you remind Nate encouragingly. “And what about Henry Corner” you continue, “the senior that wasn’t going to graduate because of that dumbass from that frat house. You remember? About five years ago, the GAME with the tattoos? That got resolved cleanly. Everyone walked away with dignity. And you really helped in that one.”

Nate didn’t look convinced. “But every time it’s pot luck how it shakes out Mason. Maybe not for your client, they are usually ok. But everyone else. For every Henry Corner or freshman music student, there’s an Andrew Goldstein or the girls debate team from six years ago or a Sandra Bellington. They have to live the consequences of how you moved the GAME in your client’s favour whether they deserveed it or not.

"In fairness, Goldstein could be re-circumcised" you think to yourself, but you do have to supress a grimace at the second mention of Sandra Bellington in under 24 hours. That was a case you didn’t like to be reminded of.

And it was true that the girl’s debate team six years ago had been a bit of a debacle. Your client had walked away satisfied but you should have been a bit more careful with your wording of the GAME that altered the tournament rules and what constituted Second and Third Place participants sharing the Fourth-Place prize. That had been pretty harsh on Heather Tullis who had been an innocent bystander in that whole affair.

Though in your defence there was no way of anticipating that the girls would be happy to take their prize in front of the audience during the award ceremony itself!

“I’m done with that kind of thing” says Nate “I’m sorry Cindy. This rival of yours seems like a real bitch but I am not sure this is really my wheel-house anymore”

Reluctantly, you can see Nate’s point. Nonetheless you still think he’s Cindy’s best shot for winning the GAME. You need to convince him.