“Oh, man, I’m so sorry. But it doesn’t matter, right? I thought you loved each other. You’ve been doing the rounds for what, seven years?”
Canvas opened his arms and blurted out, “That’s what I keep telling him! I don’t care, he’ll always be handsome for me. But he pushes me away.”
Hector thought about it. “Well, he is still young. And I’m sorry, but he does seem a bit vain. He’ll understand some day that looks aren’t the only thing in the world.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely a problem.” There was a long pause. “Hector, I assume you don’t have my 10k?”
Hector held his hands together. “No, I don’t...”
Canvas stood up, making Hector flinch. “Okay, look, I’ll come by next month, we’re cool. I still owe you my life, this armour is sweet. But I gotta make it look good for the other shopkeepers, all right?”
Hector nodded bitterly. “Okay. Are you gonna punch me?”
“Nah, I’ve had enough wrecked faces already for this decade. I’m just gonna yell at you, okay?” Canvas said, and waved his rifle around.
Hector perked up. “Oh. Yeah, I can live with that, it’s fine.”
Canvas walked up to the door, then turned around, yelling at the top of his lungs. “And then I’m gonna smash your knees, you skinny weakling!” He pointed the enormous rifle sideways at Hector as if it was a finger, but, he noted, the actual finger was off the trigger like a pro. “I’m Canvas, bitch! You don’t fuck with Canvas! Say it!”
“I-I don’t fuck with Canvas!” Hector said, acting scared. It wasn’t that hard in front of the scary security soldier.
“That’s right, bitch. Now go back and make some money to pay up.” He turned his voice down. “Thank you for listening. Good afternoon,” he said to Hector, then joined his patrol men and walked away.
Pickle showed up next to Hector, her hand behind her back. “What was that about?”
Hector leaned back and looked at her butt. There was a pistol there, she was holding it out of sight. He chuckled. “What were you planning to do, take them all out? And then what, once Ares gets alerted? Take out their reinforcements too?”
“Shuddup,” she said, rolling her eyes and walking away.
“And then the APCs with like twenty armed men inside? And then the shaped-charge drones? All of them?” he shouted after her.
As she left the shop round the back she gave him the augmented finger.
DROP ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN
“Ah dinnae ken why he’s being so nice to me?” Bobo asked in the middle of working out. Hector had just come upstairs to check up on them, saw them working out and brought fresh orange juice for them both. Then he went back down to man the shop.
“Well,” Pickle said, “I think he likes your body.”
Bobo immediately turned her head to face her.
“Not like that,” Pickle chuckled, raising her palm in surrender. “At least not unless you want it as well. No, I think Hector wants to dress you up with his armour.” She downed the orange juice in one go, looking thirsty.
Bobo was taken aback by that, she stopped lifting weights. “Reely. Just thon?”
Pickle clicked her tongue. “Well, think of it like a boy playing with Barbie dolls, but the dolls are life-sized and instead of dressing them up in skirts he likes to dress them up in armour, and the girls have the strength to crush him if they wanted to but he’s so nice to them they all just want to ride him and please him.”
Bobo raised an eyebrow and made her scar change shape. “Thon’s... quite an analysis.” She drank her juice.
“I’ve been here too long,” Pickle scoffed. “Anyway, more orange juice?” she offered, stepping out for a break.
“Aye,” Bobo said, then finished her sets. She had gotten rather sweaty and she wiped herself with her towel. She took a whiff of herself and decided to hit the shower. “I’m goin’ fer a quick yin!” she shouted, starting the water. It was nice and cold. She just stripped on the spot making a pile of clothes on the floor, and got inside, leaving the door open.
Pickle left the glasses on the kitchen counter and came in the bathroom. She checked herself in the mirror.
Bobo rubbed up with shower gel. “I liek hew this smells,” she said, taking a strong sniff.
Pickle glanced at her, “Yeah, it’s nice.”
“Whit’s botherin’ ya?” Bobo said, half finished with her shower.
“Why do you think something’s bothering me?” Pickle said, taking out her single eyebrow with a tweezer.
“Yer following me into the shower, huffin’ and puffin’ and I dinnae think you’re into wummin...” Bobo shrugged. “So... What’s this aboot?”
“Yes, you got me. I’m just worried about the qualifiers, Bobo!” Pickle sighed, grabbing the sink.
“Hey, lass. Failing means yer playin!” Bobo nodded, offering her wisdom.
Pickle clicked her tongue and looked to the side. “Okay, I guess. But I don’t want to mess this up. This is getting to be good. Very good.” She turned to face Bobo. “Isn’t it?”
Bobo got out of the shower and dried herself.
Pickle looked pained, staring in her eyes, waiting for an answer, her quivering lips begging for it.
“Aye,” Bobo nodded. “It’s good,” she lied. “Pure dead brilliant.”
DROP ONE HUNDRED TWELVE
Pickle pushed him out of the gynaeconitis. “Go to the VIP room, make an appearance. They will chit-chat about you whether you go up there or not, it’s not every day a new team shows up.”
Hector sighed as he was being pushed along. “Okay, fine. I’ll go.”
At the door, he found the world’s biggest and friendliest bouncer, a top-heavy man with a suit by the name of George.
“Hey, man! What’s up,” Hector said cheerfully.
“Everything is fine, Mr. Troy,” George said, being professional. He patted him down a bit too harshly.
“Something’s up. What is it?” Hector said as he was being manhandled like a toddler.
“Something...” George said, as he was tugging Hector’s pants around, “happened at that party at the Pinups, as you might recall...”
“Yes. What about it?”
“And someone, invited a person that got all up in Mr. Nicomedes’ face. Not to mention that Mr. Nicomedes still thinks that invited person had something to do with all the mess.”
Hector already had his arms in the air, so he just emoted. “I didn’t do it! Seriously.”
“Yeah, whatever,” George said, patting down his sleeves and under his arms. “I’m still in the doghouse about it.”
“Oh, I’m sor-”
“Please keep moving, you’re holding up the line,” George said, his expression hard. He moved on to the next person who was indeed waiting to get in the VIP area.
And Hector knew these guys didn’t like to be kept waiting. He lowered his head and walked inside. It was the same deal as last time, but now, coming in, he realised he recognised a few of the faces.
Nicomedes was there, with his short stature and his pimp suit. Drinking, smoking, groping his Pinups, being obnoxious as always.
Leontarius had an entire couch to himself, with champagne and snacks and two of the Beasties beside him. Hector pulled up their stats in the owner’s app, but he was stunned by the first one and completely ignored the second.
Name
Redacted
Alias
Echidna
Strength
3
Speed
3
Strategy
2
Sexiness
2
Cup Size
D
Augmentations
26%
Team
Beasties
Position
Enforcer (Longsword)
Wins
562
Losses
147
Income
24500
Sponsorships
Feral
Augmentations
“Hephaistos’ bloody limp, she is expensive,” Hector muttered to himself. She was worth more than his entire team put all together. Echidna met his eyes, hers were glinting yellow slits.
She was a Beast, all right.
What kind of thoughts needed to reside in a person’s mind to do this to themselves? Augmentations, he understood. Be faster, stronger, connect to the veil, or even have a bigger penis. All that was easy nowadays. And plastic surgery to meet the impossible beauty standards, he could understand that too. He had a girlfriend some time ago who was consumed by trying to look like the godlike beauties she saw everyday in the media. He kept telling her it was fabricated, and she knew it, but still it ate her up internally. It destroyed her when she realised she couldn’t keep up.
But this?
It seemed to him this went in the opposite direction. No, Echidna wasn’t ugly, but it was certainly a fetish. Going against the flow of evolution, looking like a beast. Ears, fur, tails, animalistic eyes. Some liked it, some didn’t mind the variety, some were seriously turned on by it.
He managed to rip his attention from her, and it wasn’t that easy. He went to the bar to get a drink, the barista there was wearing a tux for some reason. It was all so posh. Hector thought about the word posh, and how it popped into his mind. It was that encounter with Frank, that’s what it was. Hang around two seconds with that bloody bastard and all you say is ‘mate,’ and ‘blimey.’
Hector drank the bitterness down with a shot of ouzo and asked for another.
He heard the commentators, the match was about to begin. He found a spot at the front where he could watch his team. There was a woman there, wearing an expensive fur. Since she had no augmentations at all, he assumed she was someone’s wife, not an athlete. She seemed bored and someone was definitely not paying attention to her. Glancing back at the owners drinking and laughing at the back, he introduced himself. “Hello there. I’m Hector Troy.”
She turned to him, and ran her gaze from top to bottom, assessing him. She smirked and said, “So, you’re the new team owner that’s been making waves, are you?”
Hector chuckled. “Well, I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Which one of the two?” the woman asked, smirking.
“Both, actually. None of this was planned.”
She shifted in her seat. “I see.”
“I was sent up here to make friends,” Hector said, wincing a bit.
“Really?” she drolled, looking at him sideways.
“I didn’t get your name, sorry?” Hector asked, his attention now on the field. He could just read her name on the public data from her veil, but Hector was a bit old-fashioned. He preferred to meet and greet the analog way.
“I’m Cipriana Lewis,” she said, and offered her hand.
Hector didn’t know why, but he instinctively leaned in and kissed it.
She started just a tiny bit, then turned the side of her mouth. “Oh, a gentleman. We don’t get a lot of those these days. How delightful that we have this chance to speak.”
The commentator was out of practise, he kept rambling on. “Pickle is back with a vengeance. The girls are hot, so cool yourself off with a Pickle Juice Slushie, the drink that turns your tongue green. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Available online for same-day delivery.”
DROP ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN
Hondros walked in on the HPP store with two very powerful athletes in tow. They were armoured with top-of-the-line gear and armed with both swords and machine guns. He waved his pudgy hand around, and raised the upper lip, showing a bit of his teeth. “So, this is the Pies’ headquarters. How... quaint.”
Hector bit down on an insult, and forced a smile. “Yianni, lovely to see you here. What’s up?”
Hondros laughed heartily and his belly jiggled up and down, pouring over his suit’s belt. “Well, congrats on winning the match last night,” he said with a flourish of his hand.
“Thanks...”
“After such a victory, I merely wanted to check up on the athletes I loaned out to you,” he continued, pacing around the shop. He ran his fat fingers over a suit of armour on display.
“They’re fine,” Hector said defensively. He had a really bad feeling about this social call all of a sudden.
“They are, they are...” Hondros said.
“And they’re not your athletes, after all,” Hector said, gripping the side of his desk, drilling holes with his stare into Hondros’ enormous back.
Hondros spun towards him. “For all intents and purposes, they are my responsibility,” he said shocked, mouth open. He sniffed, “You see, you and me have a contract, and I have a similar contract with their owner that spells out my obligations to him.”
Hector really didn’t like where this was going. He took in a breath. What he really wanted to do was to get up and sock the bastard in the mouth, but he was sure his girls wouldn’t let him reach a metre close to him. “Just say what you came here to say, you must know by now I don’t like all this circling around the subject.”
Hondros stepped closer and touched his fingertips together from both hands, making a bow. “Of course.” With another flourish, he pulled up some data on the veil and sent them to Hector. As Hector’s eyes scrolled through them, Hondros explained. “You see, under our contract, the two athletes are to be kept in top condition, both in accommodation and inside the field.”
Hector shut his eyes tight.
“I had Dainty Feet send me a full-body picture of her body, and she is not in top condition, as you can see.”
Hector opened his eyes. The picture of the girl with just her panties and plenty of bruises on her body floated in the air before them. “Yes, those happened during the match.”
Hondros started. “By Dionysos, no, my friend. I’m not accusing you of anything. But the facts are the facts, and these bruises do activate the relevant clause in our contract.”
“What’s the surcharge,” Hector said, gritting his teeth.
“It’s only 500 per square centimetre of bruising, as spelt out in the contract, of course,” Hondros said helpfully. He pulled up their contract and highlighted the relevant bit.
Hector made a mental calculation. “But she’s all bruised up!” Dainty Feet had a nasty bruise mainly on her thigh and left buttcheek.
“Yes, I can see that. It will be 12.3k, I’m afraid.”
“What?!” Hector exclaimed.
“We can round it down to 12k,” Hondros said without missing a beat. He clicked his tongue. “I’m sure you’re good for it, no need to pay immediately...”
“You can’t be serious!” Hector threw his arms in the air.
“As serious as my sixth heart-attack,” Hondros nodded.
“What? How are you still alive,” Hector said, taken aback.
Hondros shrugged. “It’s only thanks to Apollo’s medical plan, the one called ‘Die Hard.’ You might want to invest in it at some point. Anyway, here’s the invoice on the sum total of the surcharges for Dainty Feet.” He sent it on the veil. “Now, as for Cadena’s living conditions...”
“She’s just fine!” Hector snapped back and stepped in front of Hondros. The two girls changed their footing, they were no doubt ready to pounce if he tried anything. He wasn’t gonna, he wasn’t a fool. But he could scream in the bastard’s face all he wanted, and screw them all.
“I’m afraid not. She isn’t sleeping well, look at her medical data,” Hondros said, pulling up the relevant stats.
Hector swiped them away, making them vanish from the veil between them. “She had been screwing a barman on Syggrou street every night! It’s not like it’s my job to lock her in the room so she can get some rest,” he shouted in his face.
Hondros tsked. “But I’m afraid it is,” he said with a worried frown. “These girls, you see,” he said while presenting the two inside HPP with his upturned palm, “have no free will. They are simply voluptuously-shaped animals. You need to tell them when to eat, when to slee
p, and when to spread their legs so they can be fucked.” He shook his head. “I know you’re new to this, but the sooner you let go of silly notions, the sooner you can actually make a name for yourself, if a career is what you’re still pursuing in this business,” he said with a calm voice.
Hector pointed a finger at him. “You’re wrong. They’re not what you just said. Yes, you’ve broken their spirits, but they’re still people.”
Hondros laughed heartily at that, then stopped and his face turned serious in an instant. “As you see, I’ve taken your advice and keep more serious defences around me,” he presented his two bodyguards with a flourish of his hand without turning to them. “Destiny?” he ordered, tilting his head to the side.
“Yes, Master?” one of the two athletes replied instantly.
“Cut off your left hand,” Hondros said, not looking back at her.
“M-Master?” Destiny pleaded, confused.
Hondros turned to her. “Don’t worry. I’ve been meaning to augment it anyway. Come on now, don’t keep me waiting. Chop chop,” he grinned, his finger on top of the Tase button on his owner’s app.
Destiny gulped once, unsheathed her sword and with a powerful slash, she sliced her left hand at the wrist. It thudded on the shop’s floor, spewing out blood from her stump. She cried out in pain and fell on her knees.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Hector shouted and ran up to her. He tied up her hand with his belt. Then he hurried to get a first-aid kit from his workshop, and sprayed her stump with the hemostatic liquid. “Hold it up,” he said, propping her hand up, above her heart.
The poor girl cried, her face that of pure, agonising pain, but she nodded and held it there. The other athlete called for an ambulance.
“Now,” Hondros said as if a human being hadn’t just crippled herself at his command, “about those surcharges.”
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