"How you doing, kid?"

Brock looked up at Mikael, the swordsman's insouciantly-leaning frame straightening up from his perch opposite the entrance to the infirmary. Brock felt... complicated, leaving his first therapy session. It seemed weird to bare his soul to a vampire, but as Skeeter had explained, 'who better to mess with your mind than a perfectly engineered psychic predator?', and the pale man had a patient and understanding manner entirely at odds with his ominous appearance. It was difficult at first, but eventually Brock found himself opening up more and more.

Especially after sharing some stories with Skeeter.

"...'m fine. Feel better than I did before."

Mikael cocked an eyebrow but didn't press further, for which Brock was grateful. He didn't feel fixed, not by any stretch of the imagination, but talking with Skeeter had helped settle the tempest swirling inside him somewhat. It was strange, how just verbalizing some of his emotions had helped him process them a bit, but the Director had been as good as his word, and Brock felt more grounded than he had the day before. His steps felt lighter as he fell in beside Mikael.

"So what are we doing today? More training?"

"Yup, pretty much the same as yesterday. Harem modules in the morning, then we'll do some more wellness checks, see if anything happens."

Brock made a face.

"Those harem modules are gross."

Mikael shrugged.

"Gotta be prepared, kid. Part of it's learning, but a big part of it is also desensitizing you to the techniques you might be exposed to. Forewarned is forearmed, you know?"

"I think I already know that buying someone as a slave and making them devote their life to you is wrong," Brock grumbled as they reached his hideously shaggy cubicle, but then he stopped mid-stride.

"...why is there elevator music coming from my chair?"

"Brock! I made upgrades! To relax and soothe you! I have six million, nine hundred and thirty-five thousand, two hundred and twelve smooth jazz songs! They will help you be the best you!"

Brock looked over at Mikael with the dead eyes of a man trudging towards the gallows. The swordsman clapped him on the shoulder with false heartiness.

"Whoops, welp, looks like it's time for me to go do busy, important work. Lots of it. Have fun with the training, kid, see you at lunch!"

Brock glared at the swordsman's hastily retreating back, then slumped down into his stupidly comfortable and stupendously ugly furred recliner. The vaguely irritating sounds of a saxophone nestled into his mind like fungal parasites, and he reached for the magiphone nestled in a grotesque shag cradle atop his desk, a golden screen with the words 'PRESS ME' emblazoned on a red button floating above it.

"ERROR: Settings menu cannot be accessed while training module is active. Please return your attention to training module."

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"...goddammit."

The next three hours were just as mind-numbingly horrible as the previous day, filled with a ludicrously inventive amount of ethical, moral, physical, and emotional violations that all shared the same theme of 'let's treat a person like an object,' and Brock let out a shuddering sigh of relief when the final training module ticked over to 'finished,' accompanied by the fading wail of a flute hitting notes that shouldn't exist.

"Okay, then," he muttered in grim determination. "Now that that's done with..."

His hand reached ominously towards the magiphone, Bindy's unaware form doing celebratory hipthrusts in a circle around the flashing 'finished' banner still hovering above his desk. Just as Brock's fingers were about to make contact with the glossy black rectangle, Bindy swirled up and into the air, dragging the cheery notification with him like a ribbon dancer, and then vanished with a flash into a golden communication pane.

...did that fucker just wink at me?

"ERROR: Settings menu cannot be accessed while communications module is active. Please return your attention to communications module."

As Brock let his hand fall back down to his lap with a tiny defeated sigh, the Director appeared on the shimmering golden screen.

"Good afternoon, Brock. I apologize for the intrusion, but a matter concerning you has arisen."

"What now?" Brock groaned. "I'm supposed to meet Mikael for lunch."

"Operator Thorne has been apprised of the change in schedule," the Director replied smoothly, "and a meal will be available when you arrive at my office. Would you like a behemoth burger, or a basilisk banh mi?"

"...banh mi. No jalapenos though."

"Very good. Your magiphone will direct you, and make haste. The Council members awaiting you are quite short-tempered, and it would not do well to be tardy to their appointment. We have much to discuss beforehand."

"...wait, the who-"

"LET'S GO BROCK!" Bindy screeched, the golden screen imploding itself back into a familiar hated shape with a crackling snap. Startled, Brock jerked into an upright stance as his magiphone zipped into the air and starting doing circles around his head. "TIME TO BE THE BEST YOU YOU CAN BE! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!"

"That's it you little bastard-"

Brock's snarling attempts to swat down the merrily shouting magiphone were met with the exact opposite of success, and he soon found himself chasing Bindy down the wood-paneled halls at a dead sprint, rage and adrenaline fueling his steps. Unfamiliar faces of all kinds flashed past, divided equally between shocked disapproval and shocked hilarity, but his attention was focused solely on the bobbing tablet floating mocking millimeters out of reach.

"Get... back... here... gonna... kill... you..."

"Good work! You can do it Brock! I believe in you! Turn right here!"

Brock skidded around another corner, Bindy coming tantalizingly closer, then threw himself into a full-on dive at the wretched device. As his feet left the ground, he realized he was leaping headfirst towards a wall.

"OOooooohhhh shhhhhiiii-"

A coruscating gray portal slipped into existence in front of him.

"-iieeeeetttttt-"

A moment of discontinuity, and then Brock popped out the other side in a perfect headfirst slide onto the polished wooden floor of the Director's office. His leather trenchcoat buoyed him frictionlessly across the room until he collided face first with the throne-like desk at the far end of the chamber in a skull-splitting crash of tangled limbs and snapping bones.

"-ow."

A long sandwich landed on his head, dribbling bits of lightly sauced meat, fresh cilantro, and pickled carrots and radish down his face. Bemused, he pushed one of the meat pieces into his mouth.

"...that's really good. Why's all the food here so good?"

"Magic, Brock," the Director replied, leaning over the top of his desk to stare down. "Magic. Now, while I applaud your alacrity, perhaps next time you need not take my suggestion to make haste quite so literally. I am slightly more forgiving than KB."

"...pshpshpsh..."

"What was that?"

"...friggin Bindy's fault..."

"You know," the orc said congenially, hands flicking through the gestures of a spell that reassembled the sandwich ingredients onto a plate on the ground next to Brock's slumped form, "you can change your settings in-"