Intimacy

Rose and Missy slipped into the smaller girl’s room after a short rinse in the showers. Vista had been on the clock for such a long time, it seemed only right that she would head to bed. Their rooms were close together, as well, and only someone watching them in particular would even notice that they didn’t split up in the final hallway.

Fraternization within the team was looked down upon, but so unfathomably ubiquitous among capes in the adult leagues that any attempt to enforce a taboo was doomed. Something about capes seemed to draw them to other capes, for good or ill. Flechette had at least one supervillainess stalker back in New York, for example, though by all reports March was still operating in Lily’s hometown instead of coming to Brockton.

Missy couldn’t explain why today was the day she and Lily finally made their move, but it was far more a question of why they hadn’t done so already than why they were doing so now. She’d always considered herself straight, but that fact didn’t even register in her mind. Instead she wondered if, perhaps, she’d been too busy mourning Dean? She had loved her teammate dearly, after all. She still did, in a way she honestly didn’t love Flechette.

That didn’t matter, not when their hot mouths met. Not when their uniforms scattered across the floor of Missy’s room. This wasn’t about love; it was more simple, animal than that. Flechette’s fingers were calloused, rough against Missy’s body. They simply kissed one another for some time, tumbling into the small twin bed next to Missy’s desk and interlocking their bodies.

It was a blur of lust, touching one another. Some detached part of Rose’s mind was glad that neither of them were allowed to have long nails anyway, which would have been a hazard with Vista’s awkward fumbling. She was remarkably pure, actually, without so much as a toy to her name, and that made her very **** to more experienced hands.

Rose was a virgin, as was proper for a Barovian lady, but Lily was altogether too gay and horny to reach eighteen without accumulating some expertise in the art of pleasing another woman. Precisely who she’d slept with had been a big and unquestioned blank in her memory, but it had certainly happened at some point.

Had Gil been told of this gap, and the fact that Rose was aware of it, he would have certainly logged it as a bug. Laziness on the part of the aging up process. Alas, Rose had very little desire to discuss the particulars of her sex life with Gil at this time. If he was correct and she was able to complete the mission on his behalf, he likely already knew of the generalities and that was quite enough information for him.

She relaxed, wrapped up with the small blonde woman, but she couldn’t stay for long. As she slipped out, she quietly cursed herself for using up her daily ration of shower time before she had sex. She’d reek of it for the rest of the day, which would probably have its own consequences.

Ah well. In any event, it was time to file her transfer request and take a nap.

••••••••••

Gil did in fact get credit, though he didn’t notice until nearly a full day later. Processing all the meat into thin, dried strips continued to be a time consuming activity, and storing it was almost as lengthy a process. By the end of the second day, Gil had to put Blackpaw into his ball just so that he’d stop stealing any that were left out.

Snow and Keilnei, naturally, took to the task with gusto and didn’t stop there. While Keilnei cured the hides, she coached Snow through the process of making broth from the bones. Gil absolutely approved, and both he and Candress helped where they could.

Their dinner was a thick, salted broth with some fresh vegetables mixed in, and it was positively divine. They hadn’t touched any of the preserved food yet, and given Rose’s report he thought they might be able to put some of it to work.

It was strange; modern era settings were often a place where food was extremely plentiful and easy to get. Kevin could offer other testers food just as easily as Vanessa could pass out materia. That all relied upon a network of tenuous, fragile supply lines, though. Once a city didn’t have a constant stream of food coming in, they were as bad as deserts. Worse, actually, as the people in deserts tended to know how to survive in deserts far better than urban folk in a foodless city. If Gil wanted to play nice with almost any faction in Brockton, he could seriously sweeten the pot by offering them food and water.

He was shocked out of his musing by Keilnei, who put down her bowl and turned to face him.

“Why do you do what you do?” She asked, looking at Gil directly. “This traveling business. Why do you do it?”

“Why does anyone do anything?” Gil said, deflecting.

“My people travel between planets in order to survive.” Keilnei said, deadpan. “What about you? You mentioned that there are many like you. Do you all have the same goals? Why do you not meet and pool resources more often, if so? More importantly, what does this Company do?”

“Oh yes, Master Gil!” Snow said, clapping her hands. “I’d like to know too.”

Candress could read him well enough that she didn’t want to intrude, but she didn’t countermand her colleagues. She looked at him curiously.

“We meet up when we can. I don’t like to talk about it.” Gil said. “The Company works in mysterious ways.”

Hardly anyone liked hearing that their world, their lives, and everything they knew were illusions. Not even a finished product meant to entertain a rich asshole, but an early rendition meant to refine an artist’s craft. He’d once done a test where a bug caused everyone to become fully self aware, and it hadn’t been pretty.

“I’m not asking about The Company.” Keilnei said, “I’m asking about you. I apologize if it is poor dinner conversation, but if I am to be your wife for a time, I’d like to know my husband’s goals.”

“I’m just saving up for retirement.” Gil said, “Same as anyone.”

“But if you become young again whenever you die, how will you ever need to retire?” Snow asked, “That’s when you are too old to work anymore, isn’t it?”

“Or when you don’t have to work.” Gil said, sighing. “That can happen too, with the right investments.”

“What do you intend to do, then?” Candress dared to ask, “If you could do anything?”

“I’m going to become a god. A real one.” Gil admitted. “It’s damn expensive, though. At least if you want to do it right.”

That made all his girls go silent, though for somewhat different reasons. Each of them had their own ideas of what a god was, all inaccurate. Snow was probably closest, as her world had a bastardized form of Christianity as the primary religion. Closest still wasn’t particularly close, but she had an accurate sense of scope.

“What can you buy, that would make you into such a being?” Keilnei asked at last.

“A soul forge.” Gil said, “The Company can’t make their own souls, but they can empower others to do so. They rent out the tools to people wanting to make their own worlds all the time; that’s the cheapest way to do it.”

He had an edge of disdain in his voice at the thought.

“Not the method you intend to use, though?” Candress asked. “Why not?”

“Any souls made are forfeit to The Company, from the moment of ****.” Gil said, his voice becoming hollow. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

Every permutation and possibility was laid bare in the moment of ensoulment. Every possible reaction with certain genetic predispositions or cultural practices needed to be understood on some level, or the soul created would be shallow and brittle. Unable to grow and change beyond their allotted role, such souls were unfit for anything but instinct-driven animals or unimportant background individuals unworthy of a name.

A soul loom would allow someone like Gil to make a true soul, though it was a draining process. It had been likened to raising a person from birth to adulthood, alone on a desert island with nothing to distract from one another, compressed into a few minutes. That didn’t even come close, but again, was accurate in scope.

To create a being of infinite possibilities and then turn it over to The Company after only a single life, likely to ne wiped clean and used as a minor NPC, or at best used as a tester? Gil hadn’t been able to accept that.

Gil kept quiet after that, focusing entirely on the soup, and eventually Keilnei took the hint. She’d pried somewhere she wasn’t wanted. The rest of the meal was awkward, with Gil remembering the one time he’d used a soul loom.

The next day, he trained Silky and Candress with the materia. She understood the procedure quickly enough, but he wanted to drill the concept into them until the magic felt like part of her. The repetition helped him calm down, and by evening he was back to fondling Keilnei for the fun of it.