Tryna close the space between who I am today

Sylvia wandered through the streets of the shopping center with a feeling of uncertainty in her chest. She’d split off from the others to go her own way, mainly because she needed some time to think about things.

A lot had changed over the course of the last day- especially with all the new women added to the show. She’d been planning entrances for all of them back when she was the host, but when Dakota had taken over and later abolished the Auditionee system, she found herself in a place where she didn’t quite know what to do.

“There’s a lot of chaos here… I hope Daddy can handle it properly,” she thought to herself, stroking her chin.

One of the reasons Sylvia had gone off on her own, besides needing the time to think, was because she was looking for someone.

“Sylvia?” Kim looked up in surprise when the blonde walked into the room. She tensed. “What are you doing here? Looking for some skimpy clothes?”

“Thought about it,” Sylvia nodded. Then she shook her head. “But you know… I really just wanted to talk to you for a bit, Kim.”

Kim shifted uncomfortably. “Me? Why?”

“Because you’re a smart gal, that’s why!” Sylvia chortled, skipping over to the counter and leaning on it, looking up at the lingerie-clad saleswoman.

Kim returned the stare with a suspicious expression. She didn’t fully trust the other girl, especially when Sylvia was obviously buttering her up like this.

“…I mean it, Kim! You were always one of my favorites,” Sylvia cooed, twirling a lock of her hair.

“Is that why you shoved me into a job like this, with horrible working hours?” Kim asked, crossing her arms over her chest. She didn’t even mention the skimpy “uniform” that she had to wear.

Sylvia shrugged. “I mean… that was the audience…”

Kim sighed. It was clear that Sylvia was here for a reason. If she wanted to get back to her slow day, maybe the best thing to do was hear her out.

“Fine. So what did you want? I’m assuming when you said ‘talk’ it wasn’t just about shooting the breeze with some gossip.”

“Exactly correct!” Sylvia chirped. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about my new transformation!”

Kim blinked. “New transformation? But you didn’t get one. You had immunity, remember?”

“Ah ah ah!” Sylvia wagged her finger from side to side. “That’s not what I’m talking about! I mean the transformation that I got from Rose! At the end of last round?”

Kim gasped. “Oh! That’s right! Because of your other transformation!”

“Yep,” Sylvia nodded. “I copied Rose’s Method Acting. And now, I can use it to copy any transformation I’m curious about, for a period of 24 hours.”

Kim was starting to realize what Sylvia was going for now. “So you want to use Method Acting to copy one of my transformations, to see if you’d want to take it permanently, is that it?”

Sylvia grinned.

“Uh… no.”

“Huh?” Kim scrunched up her face in confusion.

“Your transformations all seem like a massive pain in the ass,” Sylvia pointed out. “None of them are sexy at all! Daddy definitely wouldn’t be swayed by me dressing up like a schoolgirl, not when my current clothes are so seductive already!”

She posed, showing off her skimpy outfit.

Kim’s eye twitched. “You know, more than half of these were created by YOU,” she pointed out, which Sylvia conveniently ignored.

“Regardless, I don’t need to copy some transformation that would turn me into a wage ****,” Sylvia huffed. “No, I wanted your advice on who I should borrow a transformation from!”

Kim had no idea why Sylvia would come to her of all people for that. “Why not ask Dawn? She’s a lot smarter than I am. Or Carly? Doesn’t she have that transformation that makes her give advice for how best to appeal to Nick?”

“Yeah, all that’s true, but I wanted you!” Sylvia said, her eyes sparkling. “After all, everyone else is getting along while you’re here all alone by yourself, and that’s no fun! You should get a chance to feel like you’re part of the group as well!”

Kim’s eye twitched, but she managed to keep a smile frozen to her lips. “Well, gee. I so appreciate you looking out for me with your… charity.”

“Any time!” Sylvia chirped, either ignorant of or ignoring the sarcasm oozing out of the other woman’s mouth.

Kim groaned and rolled her eyes.

“…Okay, fine, let’s think about it this way,” Kim said, leaning forward on the counter and resting her chin on her hands. “This is a lot like trying to find the right fit for an outfit, yeah? What clothes look best on you.”

With her current job, Kim was starting to become rather good at stuff like that, even if she’d never had an interest in clothing and dressing up before.

“I guess you could say that, yeah,” Sylvia nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve gotta find the right transformation for me, exactly, Kim!”

“But it’s not so easy,” Kim pointed out. “You only get one shot a day. So at most, you can copy, what, 12, 13 transformations before you have to make a decision? That means one from each of us or so. It’s pretty tricky to guess the right one.”

“I know, and that’s the problem!” Sylvia groaned, ruffling her hair in frustration. “So many good choices! I’m rubbish at making decisions like that!”

Kim rolled her eyes. That wasn’t exactly the kind of statement a former host should be making. “So the way I look at it, it’s like a customer doing some shopping. Normally on the sales floor, it’s our job to get people to forget about what they came in here to buy. Oh, you’re just looking for some light bulbs? Well, why not get some new door handles while you’re here? Stuff like that.”

Sylvia just looked more confused, so Kim clarified her position.

“You can’t fall for stuff like that,” she explained. “If you’re going to get distracted by whatever shiny bauble you see on the shelves, before long you’re saddled with a ton of debt and three hungry kids at home with your oldest daughter working her ass off to earn a little extra spending money…”

A cloud passed over Kim’s eyes as she stared vacantly off into the distance.

Sylvia waved her hand in front of Kim’s face to snap her out of it.

“…Oh, sorry. What was I talking about?” Kim blinked, coming back down to earth.

“I think you were having some war flashbacks,” Sylvia replied.

Kim blushed. “Sorry. Anyway, my point is that nice, flashy transformations you like, those are distractions. You need to think strategically with this tool of yours, Sylvia. It’s a valuable weapon. You know, in seducing Nick. That’s the idea, right?”

Sylvia blushed, and nodded. “I, uh… yeah,” she admitted. “That’s what I’m looking for. A transformation that Daddy will just adore!”

Kim hid her real thoughts behind a polite smile. She didn’t have the heart to tell Sylvia that the real problem here was that Nick couldn’t shake the conflict between seeing Sylvia as his daughter and not seeing her that way.

But that wasn’t any of her business.

“What you need to do,” Kim continued, “is figure out what kinds of transformations Nick would find appealing. I assume that part should be easy, yeah? After all, you’re the host. Part of your job was to know what aroused Nick, so you could win him over with that.”

Very quickly, Sylvia was having trouble looking Kim in the eyes.

“…Sylvia?”

“Weeeelll…”

“Haah…” Kim sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Why am I not surprised that you’re completely in the dark about the kind of stuff Nick likes?” She asked, shaking her head. “Sylvia…”

“Well I thought I did!” Sylvia protested. “Daddy likes tomboys, doesn’t he!? But my hair is already really short! And I know I’ve got a slender figure, but there aren’t any transformations I can take right now that would improve that! Is it my fault that the voters didn’t want Dani to be a full Amazon? No, it is not!”

“Wasn’t it, like, practically a tie vote?” Kim remembered. “And didn’t you say that because it was so close, you were going to use your veto to combine the two of them together?”

Sylvia stared at the floor. “I think I remember something like that…” She muttered.

“You could have just used your veto to give her the Amazon transformation straight-up, but you thought it would be sexier if she had a curvy body, too,” Kim continued. “And grew out her hair.”

“Well-! I mean-!” Sylvia’s mouth flopped open and closed as she tried to defend her position. “I was trying to make things more appealing to the audience!”

Kim shrugged. “All I’m saying is that you didn’t really seem to care about Nick liking tomboys back then, so…”

“This isn’t helping me!” Sylvia wailed in frustration while Kim tried not to smile.

“I think it might be more helpful than you think,” she giggled, shaking her head. “Look, Sylvia, I think you’re going about this the wrong way. I bet my instincts were right the first time. If you go talk to Carly about what transformation you should borrow, I think you’ll find that she’ll have better insight than I do.”

Kim sighed and leaned back, shaking her head. “I’m probably one of the worst people to talk to, because my transformations didn’t help me get closer to Nick at all. It was my personality that did that.”

“I can’t copy your personality, though!” Sylvia whined.

Kim just shrugged. “Look, Sylvia, it’s clear you want Nick to look at you that way, but I don’t know if a transformation is the best way to do that. Wouldn’t it be better to spend some time with him so he’ll fall for you naturally? That’s what I did.”

“You didn’t have to go around calling him ‘Daddy’ all the time,” Sylvia dryly pointed out. “Compared to that, a schoolgirl fetish is way more normal.”

“Nick doesn’t have a schoolgirl fetish!” Kim snapped, turning red. “R-right?”

She hadn’t really felt him stare at her in any particular way when she was wearing those clothes. Not even on their dates. If he was hot for schoolgirls, he really wasn’t showing it.

Hmm… maybe I just need to be a little bit more direct about it, Kim thought, considering maybe going a little skimpier when it was time for her next night with Nick. The amount of exposure and sexiness in her uniforms was rather variable.

Sylvia scowled as she watched Kim consider her own options. This wasn’t helping her position in the slightest, darn it!

“So you don’t have a way to help me?” Sylvia sighed.

Kim shrugged. “Look… I do have one idea if you want to get closer to Nick, but it doesn’t have anything to do with your transformation.”

“No, that’s fine! Anything helps!” Sylvia shook her head eagerly. “What is it? What were you thinking of?”

“Well… think about it like this. You want Nick to get to know you better, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So he’ll fall for you?”

“Yup.”

“So spend time with him.”

Kim’s answer was a very simple one. And yet when Sylvia heard it, she deflated like a balloon.

“Spend… time with him?”

“Yeah. Just the two of you? A date? It worked wonders for me,” Kim shrugged. “I mean, I’d never gone on a date before, before I came here. How do you think I started falling for him so fast? Because I got to know him. And because he got to know me. Isn’t that what you want? For him to see past the whole ‘Daddy’ thing and really get to know you as a person?”

Sylvia shifted uncomfortably on her feet and looked down at the glass case filled with panties. “I… I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Why not?” Kim raised her eyebrow.

“Because… I’m me.”

“Huh?” That was something that Kim didn’t even register. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sylvia bit her lip. “I mean… I’m me,” she said again. “I’ve done some really messed up stuff… I’m the one who brought everybody here in the first place.”

“You were just doing your job,” Kim pointed out. “Believe me, I’ve worked plenty of jobs that I regret.”

“Uh-huh. And how many of those jobs involved tormenting people? Torturing them against their will?” Sylvia sighed. Even if she didn’t see it that way at the time (or even now) it was hard to deny that what she’d thought was just a perfectly normal, acceptable job was actually the furthest thing from.

Kim frowned. “Uh… only, like, three of them?”

“What?”

“Never mind. Look, Sylvia, there’s not some cheat code to this, okay? Take it from someone who’s never had anything come easily in her life before, if you want to get over the obstacles standing in your way, you need to work hard,” Kim advised. “No shortcuts. Just put yourself out there and try your hardest to get Nick to like you.”

Sylvia made a sour expression. “Well, that’s all nice and well and good to say,” she muttered, shaking her head. “But it’s not like I can just go up to Daddy and ask him for a date! He’s probably busy, enjoying himself with the other girls! And that’s what I should be supporting, right?”

Kim raised her eyebrow. “You’re asking me for advice on that, now? Look, Sylvia, I’ve got work to do, so-”

“Ah!” Sylvia’s eyes lit up. “That’s it! Thank you, Kim, you’ve actually been a lot of help!”

“Huh? But I didn’t say anything that special,” Kim frowned, wondering what had changed between Sylvia’s little rant seconds ago, and the look of optimism on her face now.

“You were saying about a date, right? I just remembered!” Sylvia took out the list of things she could purchase, and a wicked conspiratorial grin spread of her lips.

Kim gasped. “Oh, you mean…”

“That’s right!” Sylvia slapped the sheet. “Take a look at this baby!”

• 5000 BP: One day with the Master (On the Purchaser’s next scheduled night with the Master, if applicable, for a 24 hour period starting from 6:00 AM of that day, the Purchaser and the Master will be isolated from the other Contestants on an intimate date, the details of which will be determined at the time of purchase.)

Kim sighed. “I should have figured it would be something like that,” she said, shaking her head. “So you’re just gonna buy a date from him, then?”

“Well… I’d like to, but…” Sylvia shook her head. “I’m a bit hard up for cash right now, you see. I’ve got the lowest amount of BP! 2000!”

“Yeah, imagine being broke, that sounds just awful,” Kim said sarcastically.

But Sylvia was still smiling for some reason.

“This is the smart play,” she cackled, looking over the sheet. “With my Method Acting transformation, I just need to borrow a transformation from someone else! A transformation that will make me some money, you know what I mean?”

Kim could definitely understand that. It seemed a little crass, but-

“Wait, why are you looking at me like that?” She asked, frowning. Sylvia was staring at her thoughtfully, like she was considering her order in a restaurant.

Then Kim got it.

“Wait, Sylvia, let’s think about this for a second,” the clerk said, holding up her hands. “This job makes almost nothing! There’s no chance you’ll get another 3000 BP in just a day! Especially not with both of us working!”

“Not a problem if I just use Fuck the Voters to steal the job for the rest of the round,” Sylvia chirped, catching Kim off-guard.

“Sylvia, are you nuts? I thought you were just talking about experimenting with it! Come on, this is just reckless!” Kim groaned.

Wait… why am I fighting this again? Kim realized that Sylvia was strongly considering stealing a job that she frankly didn’t really like in the first place. Maybe she was thinking too hard about this.

“You’re right… maybe it is,” Sylvia agreed. “You don’t make a lot of BP from this job anyway… Yeah, I think I’m not gonna take this one, then,” the blonde sighed.

Kim wanted to punch herself in the nose. She could have had a full week of dodging her worker obligations if she’d just kept her damn mouth shut!

“No, if I want to make some BP with a transformation… there are much more lucrative transformations to take,” Sylvia considered. “I know! I can copy Rose’s transformation! I can use Method Acting to copy Side Piece of the Action, and then I get a bounty sheet! I’ll clear as many bounties as I can in one day, and get a whole mess of BP from it!”

Kim stared blankly at the other girl. “I-I guess that works,” she acknowledged. “Are you sure Rose is gonna be happy with that, though?”

The actress didn’t exactly seem like the kind of girl who would be happy when someone stepped on her toes.

Sylvia scowled. “Kim! It’s like you’re not even helping!” She groaned. “I’m just trying to make some money! Aren’t we the workers supposed to uplift each other, not kick each other down?!”

“You’re not a worker,” Kim fired back. “You’re ex-management.”

“Yeah! Ex! Now I’m just a cog in the machine!”

“You were a cog in the machine before. Now you’re an even smaller cog.”

“This is NOT the point,” Sylvia huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “…But you’re right. I should at least ask Rose if I can copy her bounty transformation for the day.”

“Yep, that’s a good thought,” Kim nodded. “At least then she won’t get angry at you if-”

The end of her sentence was cut off by the ding of the bell. The two girls looked up to see someone walk into the boutique.

Kim stiffened when she saw who it was, and Sylvia’s eyes lit up.

“Ah! Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin!” She chirped, rushing over to the slender woman who had entered the shop with a quizzical expression on her face. Sylvia stopped in front of her and put on her best customer service smile.

“Welcome! How can we help you today?”

“Hey!” Kim snapped, scowling. “I thought you weren’t going to take my job?!”

“Shh!” Sylvia shushed her. “I’m trying to make a sale!”

Kim sighed and rolled her eyes. So much for worker solidarity.