“Hmm. I did not realize you were so naive.” Rin gave me a level look from across the table. “Have you kept your head stuck in the sand? I suppose you were nearly living under a rock, or on a rock, isolated on your mountain as you were.”

Rin and Tevin had arrived only moments after my message, and we were all sitting around the table in the main room of my place. They had found the hallway empty by the time they had pulled their shoes on and left their own apartment, Dalls apparently having left on his own accord.

“Yeah, he never went to academy either, you don’t run into that type in basic Ed.” Tevin added, giving Rin a knowing look.

“The hell does that mean?” I asked.

They shared another look, before Tevin tried to explain. “You never had to rub elbows with the brats of nobility during basic, they have their own schools. So you’ve only known, well… average people, the working class. Especially since the Links came down, which only made everything worse.” He coughed and glanced around.

“I’ve swept the place, we are on a loop. No one should be listening in.” Rin added. Tevin relaxed a little, giving him a thankful nod before continuing.

“Some of them are alright, the nobility, I mean. Most of them… Well, they’re terrible. How do you think someone who has never been told no in their entire life acts? I’ll tell you, it’s not with compassion. I made the mistake of winning a sparring match against one of Richter’s nephew’s second-cousin’s kid or something during my first year at academy. He threw a tantrum and had me jumped by the truancy officers and thrown into some remedial punishment class for a month. If I wasn’t so good at what I do, that probably would have been the end of my career then and there.”

Tevin gave a strained smile at the dredged up memory, and Rin took over. “Common people are just tools to be used, and now that you’re a titled noble you will be expected to act like one. You can push back, but it will create friction between you and your new peers and higher-ups. I am sure Dalls has already slunk off to file a stack of complaints. No one likes it when the new guy rocks the boat.”

I looked between the two of them, feeling a headache start to build. I rubbed my temples with my thumb and forefinger. “This shit is cracked. Is it really that big of a deal?”

“Why, exactly, did you fire him?” Rin countered.

I gave him a look, hesitant to say. I’d been evasive about the details of why I had kicked the man out, and Ali had yet to emerge from her room. I still felt embarrassed and angry enough about the situation to not want to put it into words. Saying it outloud would make it real. Yet, if I could trust anyone it had to be these two.

“Er, so he… When I came home…” I struggled to start, looking back and forth between Rin’s serious level eyes and Tevin’s encouraging grin. “Damn, this is uncomfortable. I’ll just be blunt. He had Ali throw herself at me.” I couldn’t look at them as I said it.

Rin let out a snort, and Tevin’s eyebrows went up before he asked. “Wait, wait, wait. Like a sex thing? Hah, I agree with the sentiment, you need to get some, but yeah, I can see that setting a prude like you off.”

I turned back and glared at them. “It’s not something to laugh about! It’s messed up. I was given like a 6 hour window for some food and sleep, and I come home and she’s waiting for me at my bed all dressed up in some sex kitten getup. I don’t have time for this crap.”

Tevins eyes went wide. “Ooh-ho-ho. What was she wearing?” He asked with an interested grin.

“Oh, shut it. Things will be awkward enough without you drooling over her.” I gave an exasperated sigh. “You can keep finding your women elsewhere, it’s not like you have any trouble with it.”

Tevin made a show of frowning but his eyes still crinkled with amusement at the corners. “That’s not fair, man. Or do you just wanna keep her all to yourself?”

I noticed a rare smile flash across Rin’s face, and I glared at Tevin. “Seriously, I get the feeling she’s been through enough, and I’m dealing with enough bullshit without you stirring up drama. She’s off limits, that's an order.”

My mobile chimed with another message, probably a reply from Katie, but I ignored it for now.

“Fine, fine.” Tevin relented before changing the subject. “How are the trials going?”

I shrugged, still rubbing at the headache building behind my forehead. “We’re making progress, but I don’t feel all that useful, to be honest. Everyone is treating it like some huge scary and dangerous time crunch situation, but it's been pretty tame so far.” I sighed, then thought about the situation with the squams and somehow cracked a smile over it.

“It was funny, actually. We found a room filled with these huge slug things. They’re supposed to be harmless but one of them latched on to Sallis, the aspiring pilot dwarv I was telling you about, and she absolutely lost it.” I said, unable to bring any of the humor into my retelling of the story.

When I looked back up to gauge their reactions to the story, I noticed they were both looking across the room. I turned my head in the same direction and saw Ali standing at the end of the hallway, back to wearing her normal uniform but still looking a little red around the eyes.

A long moment of silence hung over us and everyone's attention turned to me. Not really knowing what else to say, I blurted out what was on my mind. “You okay, Ali?”

She looked a bit like a deer in the headlights at my question, but quickly recovered. “Yes, sir. Is there anything I can do?”

I shook my head. “No, not really. I’m good, but… actually. Come sit with us, we need to sort some things out.” I pushed one of the nearby chairs out with my foot.

Her face hardened and she nodded, carefully stepping across the room and sitting down stiffly. She perched on the edge of the seat and stared at me, ramrod straight and well clear of the padded backrest of the solid wooden chair.

Everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to speak. I gathered my thoughts for a moment before laying things out, too tired to be anything but blunt.

“Ali, I appreciate your service and all that you do for me, but I’m still getting used to being waited on. This is all still so foreign to me. I’m not some high-born aristocrat who expects to be pampered and obeyed without question, and I don’t think I want to ever get used to that sort of treatment.” I mostly held Ali’s gaze as I spoke, with an occasional glance to the other two seated at the table as I spoke.

I shifted uncomfortably and continued. “I don’t consider you some servant, any of you. I know I have to give the orders, but what I need more are friends I can trust, and I think I can trust the three of you. So, with that in mind, I need us all to pull together and sort out something that works. I don’t know what that looks like, so I’m going to rely on you three to find a solution.” I caught Rin's eyes for the next part. “If Attendants have such ridiculous expectations, I don’t want an attendant.”

Ali jumped in her seat at my words and broke in, interrupting me before I could go on. “Sir, please don’t fire me too.”

I waved down her objection and shook my head. “That’s not what I mean, I like you, I respect you. I enjoy having you around because you’re a huge help and have been very reliable, but we apparently need to change your, umm… responsibilities. I don’t want any confusion like this to come up again if we start taking on more people and things get even more complicated. If we need to change your job title to something else to change your duties, then that's the way we’ll do it. ”

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I looked to Rin, who I had placed in charge of this kind of thing in Dalls absence. He met my eyes for a split second and slumped in response, looking down and lazily scrolling his tablet as he spoke. “We can demote her to Maid, but it comes with less than half of the pay scale. There are no real lateral moves for Attendants, they are a unique assignment. She would qualify as a Chef, but that's considered a professional position and will require some licensing and to pay out a significant raise. Or you could move her over to the security team, which would be easier and cost less. If you go that route it would be wise to hire on new staff to take care of your place, and you would have to deal with whatever new situations that brings up. If any of the other nobility find out you don't keep any house staff it will effect your standing.”

Everyone looked back to me after Rin finished with his informative drone. I thought it over for a beat, then looked to Ali. “Well? What would you want?”

She blinked at my question, obviously not expecting to get to weigh in on it herself. When she did not initially answer, I made a rolling gesture with my hand and tried to coax it out of her.

“This isn't a test or anything like that. I really want to know. What would your top pick be?”

She looked away and her lips tightened into a small frown. She answered after a few seconds, her voice regaining some of her normal confidence.

“I wouldn’t mind being a full Chef, there is honor in that… but, I am not sure I want to give up my combat and weapons license. Attendants have a tertiary bodyguard role, it’s the only reason I chose it.”

I turned back to Rin, who sighed and answered. “There are some legal consequences and forms to fill out, but if you trust her to have the power to sign for things in your name, the Personal Assistant role checks all of the boxes.” He waved his hand dismissively at me. “She could still do the cooking, cleaning, and shopping for you as well as maintain her licenses. It would open the door to some other licenses too, if there is the desire for it.”

“Could I trust you with that, Ali?” I asked her and held eye contact to see her reaction. I thought I could trust her, and maybe I was making a mistake with that trust, but in my eyes the only way to see if someone was trustworthy was by extending it to them first. So far, I had seen nothing but diligent professionalism from her. Even her attempt at seducing me seemed to be something only done out of a sense of duty.

If she could pursue what she wanted down such a path and remain as stalwart as she had, I trusted her to do right by me if I gave her the chance.

She gave me a wary look, as if she did not quite believe me. “Is this a serious offer, sir?”

“It is if you’ll drop the sir and just call me Nick from time to time.” I gave her a smile to show I was partially joking.

The corners of her mouth twitched, showing a trace of a smile in return. She nodded and looked me in the eye as she said, “If you will trust me, I will not break that trust, Nick.”

“Great,” My smile turned into a grin, “then it's a done deal. Rin, get the forms figured out and I’ll sign them when I can. I seriously need to get some sleep and get back into the fray, so I’ma let all’a ya’ll handle this.”

Rin let out another snort of laughter at my words, poking a button on his tablet that caused my comm to chime again in response. “There you go, mighty leader. Approve that and get to bed, you need all of the rest you can get. Talking like that, it will take some seriously solid results if you want to keep your precarious new status.”

He stood up and started to leave, heading towards the nearby front door. “I’m hoping you do, by the way. You might be a dumbass sometimes, but you are a good friend. Let us know if you need anything else. Come on, Tevin.” He added as he walked out.

Tevin looked after him for a second, then back to me. He looked like he wanted to stay, but still rose from his seat and followed after Rin.

“He’s right, you’re a good dude. We got your back, you go get out there and make humanity look good.” He offered a smile before closing the door on his way out.

I remained seated and pulled my comm out, seeing that one of the messages was indeed from Katie, and the other was a package of forms organized and ready to authorize with a single button. Rin might dislike his new bonus job as group organizer, but he was already damn good at it.

I checked the necessary boxes and let my comm scan both my thumb print and my eye to authenticate that it was actually me, and it automatically sent all of the documents off to wherever they needed to go. I checked the time and saw that nearly an hour of my limited rest time had already passed. I opened Katies message and started to read her response, when I was interrupted by Ali.

“This is real.” She whispered, still sitting nearly motionless on the edge of the chair.

I looked up from my tiny screen and saw that she had her own small mobile comm out, and she was looking down at it with awe. One of the forms I had just approved seemed like it had been sent to her directly.

“Is that your new contract?” I asked.

She met my eyes and nodded, showing a mix of surprise and happiness. “Yes, I will read it over, of course, but it looks right so far, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.” Her lips cracked into a real smile, which was a whole new look for her.

I smiled back, “Absolutely, you’ve been a lot of help. We can talk about other licenses you might be interested in eventually too, but that will have to wait until after the trials.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose for a moment, wishing the headache would go away, then stood from my seat.

“I’ll trust you to hold the fort down, because I really need to get some sleep.” I glanced at my comm and checked the time again.

She rose as well and gave a small bow. “Of course, I will make sure you are not disturbed while you rest. Sleep well, Nick.” She gave me another smile.

I couldn’t help but smile in return, happy she had actually dropped the sir for once. If having to pay her the higher salary out of my pocket meant she would drop the constant honorifics and not have to offer herself up as a plaything, I was more than happy to bear that price.

I headed back to my room, pulling my mobile comm back out along the way and stopping to read Katie’s message in private once the door closed behind me.

Sender: CLE Admin K.S.R. - Subject: Re:Where the hell did you find this asshole?

My apologies, Ambassador Spenser. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I would visit you personally, but there is a situation that has required my full attention. Despite that, I’ve pulled Dalls from your staff and relocated him, you won’t have to worry about him again. We can schedule a meeting to sort out a better staffing arrangement if you would like, or you can take charge and seek your own. I need you to be happy and comfortable so you can do the best work possible. Let me know what the budget looks like and I can see if I can shake out a few more credits from the Director.

Council Liaison Executive

- Katie S. Rodergious

I sighed and closed the message, glad she had not taken my heat of the moment message personally. I crossed the room and took a quick shower to rinse off the dried sweat from my extended run in the Link, then headed to bed. As I was starting to drift off to sleep, I realized Max had been far too quiet since I got back, so I probed around in my mind for him.

“What’s up, boss?” his voice answered in my head.

I thought back to him, ‘You’ve been quiet, and I wanted to ask something, I just forgot what it was’. I went over my chaotic thoughts, my worn out mind struggling to put my finger on the thought I’d had earlier.

“Oh, yeah. I already told you, I unlocked some stuff a while back. You’ve been getting stronger and stronger for a month now, and your bones have nearly finished fixing themselves too.”

My eyes snapped open in the darkness of my room, he had apparently noticed and not forgotten what had been on my mind, which made sense after a moment's thought. I’d wanted to know how I had kicked open that steel door so easily. ‘What do you mean my bones are nearly fixed up?’

“Well you can’t just be stronger and not end up injuring yourself, and by extension, me. Your muscles would have started tearing tendons or breaking some of your own bones without some intervention. I could have sworn we already went over this.”

‘So I can just kick in steel doors now? How strong am I going to get? It will be tough to hide that kind of thing if you’re going to make me into some super-human thing.’

“I don't know, you’ll figure it out. It’s not like you really go anywhere anyways, and you’ll be thanking me when shit hits the fan.”

I huffed and closed my eyes again, letting my mind wander instead of giving him another inner monolog reply. I couldn’t let myself worry over that just yet, I had to get some sleep so I could return to the trial. There would be plenty of time to fret over the details later.