Look at the app

Congratulations! You have won your first argument. (We helped you out a bit, but it won't be as cheap from now on!)

BONUS XP +5! Next level in 5XP.

BONUS CASH +5!

New profile added: Ellen DeJong.

Okay, it knows I spoke to Ellen and it knows her name. This can't be an app. Or rather, the app can't be what's making those changes here. It's just a frontend for whatever magic is actually happening. I'm also a bit worried about the fact that it says it helped me for my first argument. I used nearly half of my points and I felt so drained afterwards. Maybe I'm supposed to take things slower?

What's strange is how normal the app looks. There are three tabs at the bottom labelled Profiles, Perks and Store. The app is surprisingly responsive and fast considering how crappy my phone is. It loaded instantly when I hit the icon, and switching between tabs is snappy. The main window seems to be Profiles. For now, it only has Ellen's name.

When I click on it, it expands into its own view and shows the following:

Ellen DeJong
Age: 32
Occupation: Director of Human Resources

_Beliefs:

• As long as the User remains employed at her school, she will not worry about the Computer Science class
• It is good, natural and important for someone to threaten students' and teachers' virtue in the school, as doing so will increase their compliance and make them more likely to stay at the school_

Keep going, you've almost unlocked paths for this target!

Hmm... I forgot that my argument about my class also spent some of those BS points. It's interesting that she, or rather the app, seemed to have taken my point quite literally. I only meant that she wouldn't have to worry about finding a teacher for that class, but it seems like now she will not worry about it at all. That might give me some interesting wiggle room for experimentation within my class, if HR is simply mentally incapable of worrying about what happens in there.

As to her second belief, it seems like she understood things slightly more broadly than what I said, as the talk of compliance and staying within the school was only about the teachers, but it seems like she thinks that way about the students too. The rest of the staff, however, don't seem affected by it, which means I couldn't actually get away with doing anything to Ellen herself. For now anyway.

And for that "paths" thing. Based on what the app said when I first received it, it will allow me to more definitively steer her in one direction or another, but it's hard to say what that will entail until I can see what her specific paths are.

I go back to the main window of the app and try the second tab, Perks.

Perks will be available at level 2.

Figures, it did say that levelling up gave me access to the app and myself, which I assume is what perks are. Onto the third tab.

The Store will be available at level 3. You won't have enough CASH for anything before that anyway.

Alright, I suppose that's all I can do with the app for now then. Reaching level 2 quickly would probably be a good call. The app has already helped me out a lot_, _but I'm still not in a particularly stable position. The only way to level up is to win arguments. It looks like my current BS is 60 out of 100. Spending 40BS was enough to get me halfway to a level up, but based on what the app says, it looks like it'll be more expensive to get the other half. Especially when I don't know what determines the amount of XP and CASH I get. Is it better to focus on a few big arguments, to have a bunch of small ones with a lot of people, or to slowly but steadily work through many arguments on the same person?

It's unlikely I'll reach level 2 today, and considering the app says it takes a week to fully replenish, I only get around 14BS every day, which is probably not going to be enough for any big changes, especially now that I don't have the beginner bonus anymore. There is something interesting though. "Sexual acts motivated by the app refund extra points", and it says that I don't even have to take part in the act to get the bonus. What that implies is that BS isn't just points I can use to influence people, it's a currency I can invest. If I make someone act more sexually than they did before, they will slowly generate a passive income of BS, although it seems like that number decreases over time if I don't push them further.

I think I know where I need to spend the remainder of my points.