Phase 2: The face-to-face meeting

As you blinked yourself out of your dizzy, unconscious state, you noticed two equally distressing changes from when you'd fallen. The first: as your tongue explored the upper part of the numb interior of your mouth, you were fairly certain a tooth had come loose from that punch. The second: you were now occupying a room covered in the orange-glowing monitors associated with Namaste, lining both the ceiling and every wall in a 360 degree range of vision. The pictures on each showed the name-- "Namaste"-- followed by the hands clapping together and making a well-meaning bow.

You realized you were sitting in a chair with arms, and while you were capable of turning your head, you couldn't move your body. It didn't seem that you were tied down in any way, yet you were still unable to move. Remembering Promethia's stasis-like state earlier, you felt a chill run up your spine.

"Trapped, Ciao! You did a lot right, but didja know? Back in the early days of video games, there were some games that weren't designed to be winnable. They were just designed to pump quarters out of poor saps. That's what I've been doing: eating all your quarters," Despedida explained, as she slowly walked out from behind the chair, carrying a laptop computer in the crook of one arm but looking otherwise the same as ever. Her dark brown hair and exposed, caramel-colored skin took on an orange glow amidst the eerie lights of the monitors. "I can give you some of those answers you've been craving now."

You asked her again: why? She was a long time Goodbye Girl with a sterling record among her peers. What reason did she have to betray everyone this way?

"Well, to start, it's less like I betrayed anybody and more like..."

You theorized: she'd been playing both sides from the start. The Deliverers and the Goodbye Girls... she was aiding both, right?

"Ha ha, that's really dumbing it down too much! If somebody makes a PvE-- player vs. enemy, in case you don't know-- video game, you don't say he's aiding both the players and the enemies in the game, right? Simply put, I'm the one with the most power out of anyone un the modern world. The world runs on computers. I'm the best there is at computers. Therefore, I'm not a CEDIT agent or a Deliverer terrorist-- I'm the world's programmer!" With a pretty smile that didn't match her message, she gestured around the room with her free hand; the one eye visible beneath the brim of her cap was shining. "Get it, homeboy?"

Ignoring the pain in your skull, you shook your head and asked her to clarify. Surely spelling this out clearly wasn't beyond the abilities of a modern God?

"Okay, okay. I guess it's a little unsatisfying if you hit the credits scene and you still don't know what the story was all about, so I'll explain it to you," she responded, leaning against the glass wall on one side of the room and pushing the brim of her cap up with two fingers. "My story ain't all that long or complicated, though. It's actually as simple as this: I've always been a wiz with machines. I was dirt poor and came from a nothing family, but my techniques were strong enough to get me scouted by CEDIT. Kinda like a character in a gacha game who isn't SR rarity, but her stats are real high, you know?"

As you nodded vacantly, she tapped a few letters on her laptop's keyboard, then pulled up a familiar screen: your own computer's files, containing research into CEDIT Russia. "I worked for a little while in the way an agent ought to. My tech abilities leveled up, kinda like I was grinding the normal way. Then, I was scouted for a project that you may be familiar with... by which I mean I was abducted by the Russians. That's right! I was another just like little Tschau, taken by the crazy Russkies who wanted to turn us into super soldiers. I guess they saw my talent for machinery and thought they could do something with it. I did not grow up in Russia, I'll tell ya that much, so they reached way outta their way to grab me."

Despedida's history had always been a blank space. With a start that seemed to amuse Despedida, you explained it out loud: it was a mystery because, like in Tschau's case, her history had been wiped by the Russian branch. In Tschau's case, there were helpful villains like Bortnik willing to expound on and on about her history to educate folks like you, but in Despedida's case, oddly, nobody seemed to be looking for her.

"Bingo!" Despedida chuckled, firing one finger gun at you in an amiable gesture that made you crave the old, unspoiled relationship between the two of you. "You're paying attention! Anyway, lemme ask you another question: you ever watch one of those films where they modify somebody into like, a cyborg? Ever read Zetman?" When you didn't respond, she continued on regardless. "The most dangerous thing you can do is put power into the hands of somebody who is capable, hungry, and wants it. So whereas poor little Tschau turned into a puppet dancing on somebody's strings, I quickly mastered the technology that was being implanted into me. For me, though, it's really simple: just one eyeball!"

She lifted her hair, showing you the eye that was usually hidden. It looked normal enough... until she tapped it once with her finger, causing it to glow with that familiar Namaste orange. "Hope I'm not grossin' you out. Though, if you read Zetman, something like this is nothing," she chuckled. "Anyway, those dumbasses put some truly legendary technology into the head of one of the greatest mechanical minds in the generation. By the time I'd dissected it, studied it, and learned from it, I was the greatest scientific mind in history. Bortnik ain't shit, and you know why? Because by the time I 'escaped' CEDIT Russia, the whole science team and Bortnik were all wearing new brain-cases in place of skulls, turning them into my first pawns."

You felt your face getting pale, but you powered on regardless: she'd said "first pawns."

"That's right. At that point, I already had a stacked deck, but the worst part is, I had nothing to use it against. You'll never get better at a game you don't play! That's when I started creating the Deliverers, to flush good CEDIT agents out of hiding. I knew I was the smartest, but there had to be more to learn, right?" Despedida pressed another button, then brought up an image of Vaarvel, your fellow agent, on the screen. "My efforts bore fruit and I met her... the one who'd become the uncrowned leader of the Goodbye Girls. An impressive woman! However, I was also the one thing she couldn't fight: someone who knew everything there was to know about her history and identity and was fully prepared to release it to the world."

Clenching your teeth, you ventured a guess: that's when she turned Vaarvel into another of her puppets, right?

"No, actually! Instead, we made an agreement. Neither of us would reveal each other's identities to anyone. As the greatest agent and the greatest technological mastermind, we'd more or less stay out of each other's way. Of course, I know she's been investigating mind control in all of its forms to try and fight back against me. I, in turn, have been throwing new obstacles in her way at every turn, even if indirectly. I guess you'd call us rivals..."

You asked her why she hadn't killed you yet.

"Ha! You can't imagine how much a person like me gets off on explaining their convoluted origins to a guy like you," Despedida grinned devilishly, pausing to push her hair back into her favored arrangement. "I can see you hate me now, but you gotta think about it this way: half the technological advancements the world has now can be attributed to me. It's not just technology, either. I've got folks in my pocket who are achieving far beyond their means because they've had their brains replaced. You wouldn't believe the list if I told you! Mathematicians, scholars, politicians, engineers, you name it... even ninjas!" She smiled meaningfully, then tipped the brim of her hat down. "Other agents, too."

Your eyes darted upward; you wanted to move your hands to feel around your own hair, but they were still frozen. Finally, you understood why you couldn't move, as several commands flashed across the screens around you. Most of them couldn't be read, but one was pretty obvious: your name, followed with lines of code.

You asked her how long you'd been under her control.

"I haven't assumed direct control very much so far and, to be fair, you were damn impressive even before I got in you! As for when I got in there and tinkered around, well... can you think of any times where I would have had access to your brain without anybody around to see?"

There were a few possible answers, but in most of those cases, she'd have had another Goodbye Girl around to spoil the fun. You came up with one thought and clicked your teeth angrily.

"You got it, huh?" she questioned, as her shining lips curled into an amused smile. "The time with Bortnik. I knew a time would come up somewhere in that mission. From there, it was checkmate. Yeah, Tschau was there, but she was already mine, remember? I opened up your skull and programmed you like an AI in Perfect Dark."

A long held breath escaped from your chest as your eyes darkened. Even up till this point, you'd held on to a light at the end of the tunnel, that your thoughts were your own, even if you couldn't trust any of your allies. How were you supposed to overcome a foe that can control your body and issue commands directly to you?

"You know... I lied. There is another reason you're still alive right now," Despedida admitted, lowering her eyebrow wistfully. "You're like the save file I can't make myself clear, or the reset button I can't push. You get it, right? You're not like anybody else I played the game with."

You frowned uncertainly, though your ears perked up at what seemed like an opportunity.

"It's actually pretty lonely at the top. What I'm saying is: I've been a solo queue for the last I-don't-remember-how-long. Having somebody who played video games with me, came kinda close to matching wits on me... has a bit of a sexy side... it wasn't bad at all. I guess what I'm saying is, the reason I had Promethia drag you here and spilled my guts is that I'm not actually ready to take this game back to the rental store. You get me?"

Growing frustrated, you asked her to explain exactly what she meant.

Despedida sighed, then turned her eyes down to her monitor, almost bashfully. "You really don't get it? I'm saying you're staying on the roster. You're too valuable to just toss away like the other Ciaos. I want you as my piece, like Tschau, but not quite so brainwashed.... Or, if it makes you feel any better, think of it as playing my piece for now, but with the opportunity to advance to the role of a player, like me or Vaarvel! As long as you're playing the game, you can still win, right? Only thing is, I can't fully control you or I lose the creativity that's helped you get where you are now... which is a good position, even if it don't seem that way," she giggled. "So I'm gonna need your word that kinda like Vaarvel, you'll keep up the ruse of the Goodbye Girls. Be our co-conspirator! You can try to mount an offense in the dark like she is, if ya want, but mostly, just keep up the charade. That's not so bad, right?"

Despedida approached you, smiling down as she let one finger trace up the length of your tie, then played with the knot just below your neck. "You like it, right? Being a super spy. The intrigue. The romance. The fucking. All that stays if you agree to keep playing the game. Call it: The Goodbye Girls, a Story of Subterfuge! Sounds sexy, right? There will always be terrorists to fight, whether I'm cooking them up or somebody else is. We can keep these James Bond stories going for a long, long time, way after Daniel Craig'd be about to shoot himself." She closed her fist around the loop of your tie, then pushed her breast against the chest of your coat, smiling into your face. "I'm saying you're cute enough to survive, homeboy. So if I give you your body back, you're going to stay cute... right?"

You knew that even if she gave you your body back, your brain would remain hers. There'd be no escaping from her fallback option of frying your brain or freezing you like a statue. What could you possibly do in a situation like this?

You did have one ace up your sleeve: Despedida seemed supremely cocky in her ability to control you and didn't seem willing to dispense with you either. Perhaps your position was better than it seemed... maybe even good enough to set your own terms?