I grinned as I finished my notes. Doctor Skinner's mind control construct was still beyond my ability to replicate, but not beyond my ability to understand and learn from. And learn I did! There were subtler strands in the grand web of causality, nigh-invisible threads that, when pulled, could influence a great many things. Pull this thread, and disperse a tropical storm before it became a hurricane. Pull that thread, and someone else wins the election. Pull those threads, and you roll more sixes at the craps table.

It was going to be a bit longer before I could build anything that would use any of these principles, and most of them were complicated enough that a psychic formula, even made by me, wouldn't be enough to make it useful. I'd have to build a big honkin' machine to do it, and that'd be hard, expensive, and time-consuming.

And despite all these caveats, despite the fact that I hated this toxic art, I was reaching a height most specialists never reached. I was good at what I did. There was a sense of pride in that, even when I wasn't proud of what I did.

Of course, man could not survive on pride alone, and neither could I. I'd been sitting here for six fucking hours, and god I was hungry.

"Hello, Nicky," I said, as she pulled her hand back. She had, it seemed, been just about to knock on my door. "What's up?"

"Lisa and I tried to do some training," Nicky said. "Starting with some werewolf beginner rituals, but... None of them worked for me. Her own spirit sight couldn't figure out what the hell was happening with my spirit-half. Oddly, she was able to see I had a spirit-half, which confirmed Akane's theory."

"Good and bad news then," I said. "I've been developing some new skills myself; maybe I'll be able to diagnose the problem from an angle Lisa can't see from."

"There's something else," she said.

"Oh?" I asked, inviting her to continue. An invitation she needed, because she was hesitating.

"...It's about the bet," she said quietly.

"In what regard?" I asked. She probably wanted me to drop the whole 'commanding officer' thing, which was honestly fair and valid. I did it at first because I'd thought she was an insufferable twat who I could only get along with if I firmly established my own dominance, but then we, like... talked to each other, like adult human people with any modicum of social intelligence. I probably shouldn't have done that 'pulling rank' stunt at breakfa-

"I think that, in addition to the prior terms, you deserve an additional reward for your victory," Nicky said.

Oh right, I was thinking with my upstairs head, in a house full of horny lesbians who apparently all wanted my girldick and nothing else. My bad.

"A kiss from a princess," she continued. "A worthy reward for such a herculean labor, I think."

"...I see," I said carefully.

"The precise details of this kiss, I leave in your hands," Nicky said. "I trust you to know your tastes better than I do, and I want this to be as fulfilling for you as it can be."

Translation: Please stick your tongue down my throat.

I nodded, and placed gentle but firm hands on her shoulders, pushing her back and against the wall of the hallway across from my door- which I closed behind me with a quick flex of my technopathy. I leaned in slowly, savoring the flooding of Nicky's face with blood, the way her pupils began to dilate, and the sound of fabric against fabric as she rubbed her thighs against each other.

"Even without turning on my telepathy, I can read you like a book," I said quietly, my breath hot down her neck as I leaned in further. "I know what you really want, here. What you're too afraid to come out and ask for, what you're leaving barely unsaid in implication."

I gave her a quick, chaste peck on the cheek, and then stepped away, taking my hands off of her.

"And you're not getting it until you use your words like a grown-up," I said, before heading down the stairs. I still wanted lunch, after all.

----------------------------------------

"Hey, Akane," I said. "What's up?"

"I want to talk about our relationship," she said, plopping herself down in the chair on the other side of my desk. "...Wait, are you getting enough sleep?"

I blinked, realizing I'd taken off my sunglasses while I worked on my latest project.

"Don't worry about it," I said, waving dismissively. "I'll live."

"That's not... please take a nap," Akane said. "But. After this conversation. I do still want to talk about our relationship."

"Fair enough," I said, leaning back in my chair. Living in this house was an interesting experience, I'll tell you what. "What's up?"

"So, I'm your peer, now," Akane said. "A junior partner in our collaboration, but still a partner. Right? I mean, you called me Doctor Sakurai out loud."

"That is true," I said.

Stolen story; please report.

"You also said that we could date after I stopped being your apprentice and I became your peer."

"That is only technically true," I said. "I told you that we would not date while you were still my apprentice and not my peer. And when you suggested that afterwards we could date, I got annoyed with you. So, no, I didn't commit to dating you after your apprenticeship ended."

"Would you like to?" Akane asked.

"No," I said.

She pouted. "What's wrong, Roxy? Are you not poly? Do you just not like me? Is it something to do with your plans to go back to A-510?"

"I'm not interested in a relationship," I said. "Nicky, earlier today-"

"She told me," Akane said. "And... I think you did the right thing there, regardless of your end goal. Making her stop and really think before she makes any sort of commitment is probably for the best; she seems almost like she's in a bit of a manic phase, now that she trusts you and Lisa."

"Honestly, I just wanted to fuck with her," I said. "I don't actually expect her to grow a pair and admit to what she wants."

"Ah," Akane said.

"Anyhow," I continued. "Yes, I do still plan to go back to A-510. Within a year, in fact. And, well..." I shrugged. "I'm actually quite comfortable with where our relationships are, currently. Some cuddling is necessary for general health, but escalating past that more or less isn't. I mean, you can still have your polycule with Lisa and Nicky, I can't and won't stop you, but I'm not really interested in participating."

Of course, there were also other considerations, that I simply didn't particularly consider to be her business. I was Banished. A Demiurge wrought in isolation, jealousy, and generally not much of a healthy social life.

Having friends and roommates who I liked and could be affectionate with was new and a little tense. I was afraid, always, that some buried wrongness or toxicity would burble up out of me, and everyone would quietly tolerate it until they hit their breaking point and I needed to find a new place to live. And I was familiar with the concept of having friends and living with people- although the prospect of being friends with the people I lived with was somewhat new.

Romance, though? I've been in exactly one romantic relationship, when I first enrolled in college, and it barely lasted the semester. I fell apart and got recruited into a science-themed cult. I was less likely to end up in another cult this time around, but when my memory plots a straight line from 'having a girlfriend' through 'devastating heartbreak' to 'the worst thing that's ever happened to me,' I feel like, perhaps, I've got a good reason to be gunshy about sleeping with people who have connections to very important and powerful forces in this world.

No. I would stick with platonic cuddles and plausibly deniable gaiety if I knew what was good for me.

"We can't do this without you, Roxy," Akane said.

"You don't have to, and should not, squander your chances at happiness because you're worried about me," I said.

"It's not that," Akane said. "You're important to everyone who lives here, in ways none of us can replicate for each other. You're the tall, sour, noir-ish glue that holds us all together... also, you're the only top in this house."

I blinked a few times.

Then I burst out laughing.

"Okay, yeah, that might be an impediment," I said, grinning. "But you'll find a way around it. Or you won't. It does have to be stated that this ultimately is your problem, not mine."

Akane sighed. "Fair enough," she admitted, before standing up and turning away. "I'll see you later, Roxy."

"I'm thinking about gumbo for dinner tonight," I added. "Maybe try something new, use some mutton instead of chicken and sausage."

"Sounds good."

The door clicked behind her as she left.

I was alone in my room.

----------------------------------------

I was tinkering with a 3D printer to distract myself when my phone rang. Well, okay, it wasn't really a 3D printer. It could do 3D printing, but it didn't just do 3D printing, and also had five-axis CNC milling capabilities, as well as-

My phone rang again, and I stopped thinking about my overengineered toy and answered it.

"Roxy here, what's up?" I asked.

"Liquid Courage. Got some leads from Skinner's boy Friday. We're having some real detectives look at the mundane leads, with zoning and shit, but the rest of it is yours to deal with."

"Fair enough. Send 'em over, and I'll set some hounds on it," I said. "Although, for certain hounds, we're gonna need to put Lisa and Gideon in the same room for at least a minute or so."

"Why's that?" Liquid Courage asked.

"Her spirit hounds work like real hounds," I said. "They need to know what smell they're looking for. They need connections to follow- fresh ones. Gideon's our freshest connection towards Skinner and any of her compatriots, so the spirit hounds need to start at that end, and follow from there."

"Ahhh, got it. Then why can't she just..."

"Because we don't know Skinner's spiritual scent, so to speak. We know it's probably on Gideon, but Gideon probably has like a thousand spiritual scents on him, so... we gotta narrow it down, somehow."

"Well that's just inconvenient."

"I'd advise against telling a druid that to their face," I said. "They have to live with it, and can also turn into eight foot tall murderbeasts. Yes, even the ones with patron animals significantly smaller than humans. I have seen a wererat turn into an eight foot tall Master Splinter knockoff and then play the role of Shredder."

"That may be the single dorkiest thing I have heard this month, and I work a tech job in Silicon Hills."

"Wh- Oh, that's what you people call Austin in this universe," I said.

"Well where's the hub of the tech industry where you're from?"

"Austin was still important, but the big hub was Silicon Valley, also called the Bay Area, in... uh... southern California, somewhere. I don't know. I'm a Texas girl. I don't give a shit about California."

"San Francisco?"

"Maybe. I don't know shit about California, aside from being wholly unfit for human habitation."

"You're thinking of Arizona. Or Nevada. Or Utah. Or-"

"Yes, I just described the entire American southwest, I get it."

"Not the entire southwest. There's parts of California that aren't in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada, after all. And you'll find that, overwhelmingly, those parts are where people actually live."

"Stop trying to humanize Californians you goddamn sympathizer," I groused. "Anyway, send me the leads, I'll get to work on those."

Liquid Courage hung up, and I found a list of leads in my inbox. Time to get to work.