“So, first we have a psychopath running around in Europe, an arsonist in Australia, and now a literal clown in America. Please tell me you have at least some good news.”

“Well, the clown, Cassy, does not seem so bad.”

“Ooh, and what makes you think that?.”

“She is mainly known for making balloon animals.”

-- Private meeting between two politicians that cut funding for orphanages. A month before, they were thrown out of a window with nothing but a balloon animal parachute.

The woman’s face has completely changed as she stares at me in both shock and horror. Yeah, this is nice. Maybe I should go hunt down some more pimps on the weekend. Making their little empire crumble and taking away all their power does have something satisfying to it.

“So, are you done staring?” I ask after I am done enjoying the moment.

The woman jumps up. “Who are you?” she asks with fear in her voice.

“I am the consequence of your actions.” I say with a smile that is all teeth.

She crawls even deeper into her seat, staring at me in fear. “Why are you here?” she asks in a tiny voice.

“Ooh, I don’t know, maybe because you are putting chips in people to mind control them.” I say.

“It is not really mind control yet, just controlling the body. We haven’t gotten the whole mind control part yet.” she gets out.

“We?”

A look of shock appears on her face before it turns into a smile. “Yes, we. I did not come up with this plan alone,” she says

“That makes sense, but I am still kind of disappointed. I assume that this is not the only site then.”

“You be correct. We don’t have many, though we need to keep it compact, and all we have is another one in Prague, and one in Paris.” She says confidently.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, a bit suspicious of the sudden change.

“Simple, I am a woman of business, and that means I can be a lot more useful to you alive than dead.” She says conspiratorially.

“I see this is some kind of deal you want to make, and the locations of other brothels is what? The opening bid?”

“Yes, coerced. I can work for you and give you all the information you need.”

“That does seem interesting. I do have one condition,” I say

I could swear that I saw a brief moment of surprise on her face before it went neutral again. “What would be the condition.”

“I thought working for me was better than being dead.” I say, a bit confused.

Ooh, there is that fear I had been missing for a while now “No, I mean, yes, you are right, but I would still like to know what I am getting myself into.” she says with a smile.

“I see. Well, it is simple; I need to make sure you don't betray me, so I want to put surveillance on you,” I say, with a sweat smile.

“That is a lot better than what I was expecting?” she says.

“Would you prefer it If I whipped you instead?”

“Would you?” the woman asks with shock.

“Well, I would have to find a whip first, but I am sure you have one laying around in this hell hole.”

“Please don’t! I agree to the surveillance. That is no issue at all.” She quickly says.

“Good, thank you. So, who were you working for?” I ask.

She pauses and then looks at me. “Why do you want to know that?”

“Because them being involved in these types of things is really bad.” I say, getting annoyed.

“Yeah, but those people have several fall guys in between. Even if I testify against them, the claim won’t hold.” she explains.

I gesture around the room. “I don’t tend to deal with the law.”

“Right, that is true, but these are dangerous people. People that can say the word and a squad of assassins is sent after you.” she says.

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“Well, I appreciate your concerns. But that is a problem for me to deal with, not for you, so are you going to tell me, or are you going to make me reconsider our deal? “

“No, of course not. I'm sorry. Years in the industry have made me wary of these people. I work for Eric Dorson, but I don’t think he is the leader of this. He works directly under Shantal Wagner.”

“That name does ring a bell.” I say, wondering.

“Yeah, she is quite powerful and knows to cut off the faces of people who slighted her,” she says between clenched teeth.

“Ahh yeah, now I remember; I was asked once to look up the validity of those rumours.”

“You find anything?” the redhead asks, actually looking curious.

“I tracked it down to a private military company called the grey… skulls?… steel? You know what. It does not matter. All I know is, that at that point, I was asked to stop looking.” I say with a shrug; I still had the file somewhere and might as well open the case again, now that I have my own company.

“I see, so what's next?” the lady asks.

“You are giving me your pants,” I say in a neutral tone.

“What? Why?” she asks, looking at me in shock.

“Because you decided not to include pants in this costume, and I am not going outside in my panties.”

“Can you not, like, take it off one of the guards?” the woman asks, while gesturing at the corpses.

“I don’t like the idea of wearing the clothes of a dead person, but you are more than welcome to take one of them after you give me yours.” I say, with a smile on my face.

The woman sighs and takes off her pants, throwing them to me.

“Thank you,” I say, before quickly putting them on.

I then stand up, putting my hands in the jumper pockets. Making sure the lady has her back turned to me, I take out the pistol and aim it at the woman's left leg. Then I fire. Fuck that hurts. Why do guns need recoil? Anyway, she falls to the floor as I blast her kneecap out.

She cries out in pain. “Why did you do that?” she gets out, after some laboured breaths.

I giggle. “Because I thought it would be funny,” I say with a smile.

“But why? I thought we had this deal worked out?” she says with fear in her eyes.

“Yeah, well, I lied.” I say, grinning ear to ear.

“You psychopath!” she shouts as she glares at me.

“You know, people keep calling me that, and I have to disagree. I do feel like I have some of the boxes ticked off for a psychopath; I don’t have all of them, so that just makes it an insult instead of a useful comment, you know.”

“There is something seriously wrong with you.”

“Hmm, well, that is rude. Anyway, we had our fun, but it is time for me to go, bye-bye.” I say before leaving.

“Wait, are you just going to leave me here? What if I bleed out.” She cries out desperately.

I walk back, crouching down, grabbing the girl by her hair and dragging her up so we can be at eye level. “Yes, I am. I am abandoning you, just like how you abandoned those girls to get abused. Not a good feeling, is it?” Then I let go, dropping her again. “You better crawl your way out of here.”

I leave the room, making sure to realign my mask properly with my face. Okay, it was time for phase two of the plan, finding the bastards that were feeling me up and cutting off their hands. I summon my claymore and get to work.

‘Lyssa, make sure to track any calls or messages she makes, please.’

On it.

Four people with missing arms later, I am standing outside. Making sure no one is watching us. Well, that was rather disappointing. I kind of hoped they would have been woken up by the pain, but we can’t have everything. I guess that means it is time for phase three.

‘Lyssa, get me a lighter, please’ I subvocalise.

Are you sure about this plan?

‘You think it is not going to work? Bubbles told me the sleeping gas was flammable.’

No, she is right, but the concentration is high enough to burn the whole place down, destroying all the evidence.

‘So what is the problem then?’

There are still living people in there.

‘Yeah, living people that literally force people to sell their bodies against their own will. I don’t think that qualifies them for life.’

Lyssa thinks that you should at least consider before you commit mass murder.

‘Ugh, fine. If you can find any among them that is innocent of any crime, I will go back in there to drag them out.’

It stays quiet after that for about a minute.

‘Lyssa, something wrong? You don’t usually take this long to get stuff done'

All of them are guilty.

‘Are you pouting? What is wrong? You never had any problem with me killing people before.’

Lyssa has no problem with killing evil people; Lyssa's problem is that Lyssa thinks that killing so many people will not be good for your mental health and that you require more therapy.

‘And that is a problem? You are literally in my head, and as far as I am aware, you can’t leave, so it does not matter, right? Because I have you as my therapist for the rest of my life.’

True. Lyssa will make sure the rift between Evelin and Maniac does not grow any bigger.

New Purchase: lighter

Points reduced to... 284

‘Rift? Oh well, it is good to have you.’

I turn on the lighter and then throw it into the building. A huge shockwave blasts me back as the gas is set alight, burning the inside of the building. I quickly stand up and skip away, humming a classic tune of Adel.

It takes me about an hour, and a quick dip into a fast food joint to grab some food, but I make it to the discussed meeting point without any issues. Yui and Elena are talking to the dolls, that just started to come to, after having been put to sleep by the gas.

“Hey everyone, I brought food.” I say happily.

Some of the dolls look at me with suspicion, while others walk up to me to get some food. Once everyone has some, Yui grabs me and takes me aside.

“Why do you smell like smoke?” she asks

“Because I set the dollhouse on fire on my way out.” I say.

“Why the hell did you do that?” she almost yells at me.

“To remove all the evidence of us being there, also now they think the dolls died in the fire instead of escaping, so we have more time to bring them somewhere safe.”

I see a concerned look on Yui's face. “Sofia, I know we did a good thing, but I don’t know what to do with these people.”

“Oh, I already called in some favours. Someone will be here to pick them up, then their chips can be removed, and they can go back to society if they want to.”

Trading in favours would mean you actually did something to help the other vanguards at any point.

‘Shut it’

“I see, that is good to hear. I was getting worried for nothing then.” Yui says with a smile. “So what is the next move?”

“You go back to the hotel, inform everyone what is going on and I bring these people to safety.”

She deflated, “So you don’t trust me.”

“Wait, what? Why do you think that?”

“Because you are sending me away again.”

“That is not because I don’t trust you. That is because my contact likes to be anonymous, and you are a hacker, so you are kind of scary in that way.”

“You think I am scary” she says, bouncing in excitement.

“Yes?”