Gearhead.

Diamond was right, besides Asa’s choice wasn’t really much of an improvement over what we already had. I selected it and it popped up on both their phones.

There was some bitching, but it all died down by the time I finished dropping off my carpooling buddies. I was actually starting to like most of them and they had some good stories about Blackgate.

I checked after they’d left and the only news was that Diamond wanted me to call her when I got a chance. Since I finally had the car to myself, I did.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Can we talk privately?”

“Hang on.”

I turned on the headphones and fumbled them out while sitting at a red light and put them in. “We’re good. What’s up?”

“I saw the missions page…”

I considered for a moment, then remembered That’s What She Thinks. “Listen, the app just generates those, I didn’t--”

“Eli, it’s got six missions related to breeding. That’s way more than any of the other topics.”

“Wait, what?” I only remembered one or two, but as I pulled them up, Breed the Rapetoy/Widow/Housewife/Influencer/House ****. Jesus Christ. When had that happened?

“You didn’t see those?”

There was a moment of hesitation, but no disbelief.

“Asa.” We said at the same time.

“I’ll see if she can join the call, in the meantime…Rapetoy? House ****? What the hell, Eli?”

“Look, Frannie you know about, but Asa can show you the details. Skin…look, that’s on her. Clearly the choices are partly about me, but they’re also about them and you saw the options! I tried to push it in a more positive direction and it sorta worked, a whole ‘race mixing produces better results thing,’ ‘black women are so hot white men can’t resist,’ but it only sorta worked.”

“We can discuss that later, maybe I’ll listen in next time, or watch, to see if I can help…” Diamond muttered those last bits in a way that reminded me the **** Toggle was at minimum. But she hadn’t asked me to change it…

That was a problem for later.

“You’re welcome to, any time.”

She snorted laughter at that, but a moment later, she conferenced Asa in, as I was walking inside my building.

“Asa, what’s with all these breeding missions?” Diamond asked.

“What breeding missions?” she asked in a manner which was so suspicious it might as well have been a confession.

“Asa,” I let my voice go low.

“Okay…uh, you remember when we were doing the Skin thing?”

“Yes.”

“So, uh, I was making the choices, so you could focus on her and on keeping her safe from Frannie.”

“Right.”

“And there was that mission about breeding her?”

“Yes…”

“So, uh, I thought that she shouldn’t go first…and then the mission to breed me popped up. And I was surprised that the others didn’t have such missions and when I thought about them…they all appeared.”

“Interesting,” I said, as I was in a fucking stairwell.

“So all of us can prompt missions now…that’s something to keep in mind for the future.”

Mission Unlocked: Choose a favorite and designate them Harem Lead. Reward: Harem Lead can command targets same as you and gains the ability to earn SP. This cannot be altered absent mission rewards.

There was a moment of silence, “Okay, I’m not doing that.”

“We should discuss it,” Diamond said.

“No way to do that fairly and the S-other thing is a possible purchase. I’m not choosing.”

I got to my floor and walked out…there was someone lurking around the corner from my place, keeping an eye on the door, but the mere fact that I’d noticed them meant they weren’t as dangerous as most of my recent visitors.

“I wouldn’t hold it against you if you wanted to choose her,” Asa began, while Diamond was saying basically the same thing.

“There’s someone watching my door,” I said.

“Walk away!” Asa ordered.

“They’re not that good.”

“You’re not any invulnerable!” Diamond pointed out.

“Do you even have your gun?” Asa asked.

“Nope,” I admitted, though I was sneaking around to come up on them from behind, so I was whispering, which was suspicious as hell, but this would be over before they could do anything, except call 911 if it all went to total shit.

If there was a team, I’d need to Parley, or hope Intimidating Presence made them back off, but it was one person, short, female, curly hair, wearing an overcoat, even indoors, but no weapon bulges. Only a ‘nice ass’ bulge’ in fact I grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around, “Why are you spying on--wait, do I know you?”

The girl tried to jump, but my hand kept her in place.

Target Unlocked: Romy Jackson: +48 SP

Oops.