Yes. I can’t put it off any longer.

I kept talking. “When I started at Arkham, I got…a superpower, I suppose. Though it took the form of a phone application called the submission accelerator.” Asa pulled out the spare phone and passed it over, showing her and then I activated her as an additional user, and instantly she saw the app appear.

“What?”

“The instructions and information are all in there. But it basically locks in increased submission, until a subject is unable to disobey. I didn’t ask for this…but I haven’t rejected it either.”

Her eyes flickered back and forth between the phone and me. “Sit there, let me read, you’ll answer my questions as they come up.”

I nodded.

“And you, you knew?” she asked Asa.

“For about a week. We needed to unlock a perk to let you be an additional user, just like me. You’re the only other person who knows.”

“Who else is in here?” she asked, rhetorically, flipping through the phone. “Skin? Jesus. But not Jasmine? Who the hell--HARLEY FUCKING QUINN? THE PSYCHO WHO KNOCKED YOU OUT?”

“The whole list is in there. Jasmine isn’t in there because to be entered you have to be someone I’ve touched, I’m attracted to and who has wronged me in some way,” I explained, tonelessly, not looking at her, trying not to let her concern effect me.

“How the fuck did I wrong you? We never even met before our first date and that wasn’t wronging you!”

“I’m not sure, but I think it’s probably about an old insurance claim for a fire. I’m pretty sure that the little game up front would not have been enough.”

She wanted more information about the claim, I gave it to her and she checked her files on her phone…apparently it had been a fuck up by her department, one she’d signed off on. Not deliberate, just a fuck up. But that was a distraction and we both knew it. “What did these other women do?”

“Alyce? I don’t know. Penelope? She’s working with Scarecrow. Francine? She’s working with Joker.”

“And was a serial **** and blackmailer. Until we got her under control,” Asa cut in.

“The criminals have either attacked me, or just attacked a broader society I’m part of, as best I can tell. Never even met some of them, used the What Even Is Touch upgrades to get them added.”

That diverted us again, but we came back to it when we couldn’t avoid it any more.

“Asa, I guess the app thinks breaking up with me was enough. Kianna…came after me with a baseball bat.”

“And tried to ruin our relationship for the entire time we were together to keep me a pure innocent little three-hole-fuck-slut…who wasn’t dating you,” Asa added with a smirk.

“Jenna’s a supervillain contractor. Bridgette is Bridgette.”

“What does that mean?” Diamond asked.

“Shit, I never told you that, did I?”

”No.”

“Remember how your boyfriend told you I claimed not to be dirty, but I’d been tossed out?”

“Yeah. You obviously weren’t.”

I smiled at that. “No, I wasn’t. Bridgette was. She was my partner. She worked for the Penguin. I never suspected a damn thing.”

“We really do need to find her,” Asa noted. “You’ve got the tools, just need the time.”

“Yeah.”

“What about this Katie Kox?”

“Spy for Penguin, a friend of mine got killed investigating her and she tried to use me as a source.”

“Jewelz Blu?”

“Total bitch, kept trying to seduce me away from him and ruin his career because he had the gall to date someone she wanted,” Asa explained.

Diamond scrolled down, she was clearly putting off Skin to the end, or thought it was obvious. “Jesus, is that Catwoman’s real name?”

“Yep.”

“You touched her when she dropped off the jewels…how did she wrong you?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“And Skin did that whole fucking GCPD hack. Andre was furious about it.”

I nodded.

“So, we’re all your…mind controlled slaves?”

“No. You aren’t. But yes, you do have to obey me, unless I delete you from the app, in which case, you’ll be free. I don’t know if the changes made will be undone.”

Helpful Hint: Nope!

The phone buzzed in her hand and she looked down and winced. “What the fuck…”

“It’s not my superpower, not really. The app is its own thing, but I can make choices, or refuse to make choices. And I can choose what orders to give, or not give and I’ve done my best to behave…”

“Jesus…fine, with me, maybe. But what about Andre? Did you do something to him? What did you do to him?”

“Almost nothing. The cameras, everything with Asa? That was before I got the app. Whether he was actually a cuckold, or just a voyeur beforehand? I genuinely don’t know. I said he was a cuck when he explained what he was doing and he agreed…but then again, he didn’t have a lot of choice did he have?”

“How did you do anything to him? I doubt you find him attractive.”

“Check your profile,” Asa said. As she read through, she realized what had happened and blanched. Before she could speak, Asa spoke again, “Click the icons by the checkpoints. It’ll show you the options he didn’t choose.”

We waited as she read through.

“Shit. I mean…shit. I’m glad you didn’t…but look this is obviously leading up to you asking if I want to be deleted from the app. Why wouldn’t I?”

I opened my mouth, then shut up. “You need to make that choice, free of anything I say. Asa, can you tell her why you didn’t want to be deleted?”

“Two reasons. I love you,” she said, looking directly into my eyes. Then she turned back to Diamond, “Also, he’s not the only one with this power. We don’t know how many, but if you’re under him, no one else can ‘claim’ you.”

“I’ve made it more than forty years without ever running into any other app user. That’s not a real risk. Probably. But…if that’s around…no way the superheroes haven’t stumbled over it before now. The only way that wouldn’t happen is if it was either warping reality…”

“It can do that, but it claims it’s limited in relationship to superheroes and supervillains due to the ‘Editors.’ But see some of the things available for purchase in the store. Maybe they couldn’t get caught.”

“It’s warned you a lot about getting caught,” Asa said.

I nodded.

“Which means that if it gets caught…well, at best it cuts them off entirely, at worst, it kills them. And to everyone else, it just looks like someone with a mind control power, running their own little cult or criminal group. How many stories like that have we heard over the last twenty years?”

I considered. It was pretty common. Not in Gotham, but elsewhere…

“Shit.”

“Shit.”