Felix turned his head to the dark corner he knew Miu would be in. “Miu, could you coordinate with some of the Others to get things arranged? I’ll also need Kit in here. I want to see where she ended up with the Indentured package.
“I’m going to make Mr. White a job offer here and I want to make sure we have an appropriate contract that we can put together.”
“What do you mean, you’re going to make a job offer? How can you offer me a job? This is a pawn shop, isn’t it? Why would you need an engineer?” Mr. White’s voice sped up as he asked each successive question.
Miu materialized out of the shadowed corner and lifted a hand to her ear. “Shadow to… Shadow to Pancake,” Miu said between gritted teeth.
“Pancake here!” came Andrea’s shouted response, which Felix could hear through Miu’s earpiece even from where he was sitting.
Miu flinched at the sudden response and shook her head angrily.
Probably shouldn’t have let everyone make their own call signs. Your own fault there, Miu.
Chapter 20 - Free Lunch -
Felix sat down with his tray in the first dormitory floor’s dining hall.
Managing to surprise him, Felicia had built it to accommodate everyone on the floor and two below.
Everyone in Legion fit into this single dining hall. Felicia already had teams of Andreas excavating down, building out several more of these dining halls and attached dormitories. And every other type of room that they’d need.
Lunch today was actually rather good. Lasagna, garlic bread, and some type of vegetable medley.
After eating in the dining hall a few times, he realized he didn’t care at all what his food costs were. Whoever their cook was, they were a master, and Felix would ply them with whatever ingredients they asked for.
Andrea dropped down beside him and immediately smashed her right side up into his left.
“Andrea, I can’t really eat like this,” Felix said, his left arm forced out behind her back.
“Ah! I’ll feed you, then! Say ahhhhhhh,” she said, holding up a forkful of lasagna.
“Andrea, I don’t—mmphff!” His words were lost in the mouthful of food that she stubbornly forced on him.
Growling, he looked ahead as Lily sat down in front of him. She was dressed as she always was. Beautiful and professional.
Kit took the seat on his right, making a happy cooing noise over the food. She loved eating.
Lily had apparently seen what had happened and daintily scooped up a chunk of lasagna on her fork and then held it out towards him.
A perfectly pretty and evil smile turned her lips and she raised her eyebrows at him. “Don’t leave a lady waiting, Felix; if she’s allowed to feed you, I believe I am too.”
Felix found himself getting annoyed and pointed his fork at her.
“Oh? You want to feed me? Certainly, certainly.” Lily laid her fork down and then opened her mouth wide at him. Her tongue slowly moved up and touched her incisors and glided across.
Felix looked to his right, his cheeks heating up. Kit was watching him from that side as well. Her own smile was less predatory, though full of mirth.
“You do realize she gets a rise out of it. She, and I know this, gets off on the fact that you refuse her. That whenever you even get close to flirting or hitting on her, you run,” Kit explained as if talking to a child. She ate a bite of her own lunch and then pointed back to Lily with the empty fork.
Felix slowly turned his eyes back to the soul-eating lawyer. She’d returned to her meal, her cheeks a faint red.
She’s not wrong, is she? Lily was always the one being chased by suitors, police, and supers alike.
Didn’t mean he wanted to mess with Lily right now. She’d give him twice as bad later any he gave her now.
Kit, though, Kit he could harass.
Looking to Kit, he swallowed and then gave her a grin. “As if you’re any better. You prod at me to figure out my reactions so you can try and predict what I’m thinking. Since you can’t read me.
“Should I share those thoughts with you? Should I tell you about what went through my head when I was putting you back together? Piece by piece? When I saw you for everything you were?”
Ha, two can play that game.
Kit immediately turned a bright, fuming red and turned her face forward. Her left hand came up to shield herself from his sight.
“Was that when she was all broken and meat and stuff? Ioana told me about that. That you were like corpses and you brought them back from death.”
As soon as Felix turned his head to answer Andrea’s question, she shoved her fork into his mouth again.
Grunting, he started chewing the mouthful and glared at Andrea.
Who only smiled at him, tilting her head slowly forward to peek up at him from below. Her mismatched eyes peered at him through her blonde bangs.
“You could take me apart and put me back together in whatever way you see fit. Or a few of me, if you like,” she whispered in a promising voice.
Felix stopped chewing entirely and stared at the young woman.
She still made it a point to sleep in his bed every night. Sometimes at his feet, sometimes on him, beside him, or even on the floor. That arrangement took on a whole new meaning with that one statement.
Andrea was definitely attractive. Especially when she got coy or energetic. That girl-next-door charm of hers changed in a heartbeat when she tried.
“How was that? It was embarrassing, but I did it. Did it work?” Andrea asked, turning her head to Lily. “Did I melt his boxers? Will he want to sleep closer tonight?”
Lily choked on her food and pressed a napkin to her mouth.
Felix turned a wide-eyed glare on Lily, who was hiding behind her napkin.
“Felix, the indentured servant program is going well,” Kit interrupted. “We’ve had a number of people ask for their families to be put into the program.”
Kit fingered a paper out of her messenger bag at her side and laid it down in front of him.
Felix slowly turned his glare from Lily to the paper.
It was a balance sheet on costs and return on investment based on pay and job title.
They were well in the black.
Beyond in the black. The pawn shops were making money, but the estimated costs of the work everyone else was doing was all in savings. And it was a lot.
“All the children are being enrolled immediately, after an evaluation and tutors if they need it.
“The school seems to be enjoying the influx of children; the empty desks are filling up, and their tuition is filling their account.
“It doesn’t hurt that we converted all that debt into ownership and controlling shares.”
That little bit of business had soothed Felix’s ire. The debt was wiped out, and instead they now owned a majority of the school. An eighty percent controlling share, no less.
Felix nodded his head, following along.
“We never did find out what auction Mr. White’s son went to, but I’m happy to report they both turned up this morning.
“Mr. White is already in his lab at work. His son is training with Ioana.”
“Pity. We could use more people. I think the auctions will become more and more scarce as time goes on,” Felix said. He moved the sheet of paper back to Kit.
Andrea shoved another forkful of food into his mouth. He felt the Beastkin’s tail swish back and forth against his back.
Sighing through his nose, he gave up. Picking up his plate of lasagna, he set it into Andrea’s tray and then pointed at her own mouth.
“For me? Goodie! I’ll feed you mine and eat yours. Being your personal secretary is great.
“It’s kinda like when people date in movies.
“That reminds me!”
Before he could figure out what the wolf girl was doing, she handed her personal tablet to Lily and then grabbed Felix’s face.
With quick, agile fingers, she rearranged his hair, brushed something o
ff his cheek, and then forced him to look forward.
“Smile!” Andrea said, pressing into his side.
Felix did as instructed and smiled at Lily, not quite following along.
“Great! Get ready, Lily!” Andrea commanded. Andrea’s fingers snatched his chin and turned his face towards her own.
Then she kissed him wetly on the corner of his mouth, pressing herself right up into his shoulder.
Pulling back from him and giggling insanely, she made grabby hands at Lily.
With a smirk, Lily handed the tablet over to her. “I expect you to return the favor.”
“Of course, of course. Just let me know when and I’ll get the Others involved,” Andrea promised as she began flipping through what looked like photos of him and her that were just taken.
“What in the actual fuck did—” Felix started.
“Oh, Felix? Dimitry left a message for you about thirty minutes ago. He’d like to arrange a call to discuss his first favor with you,” Kit interrupted him. Again.
His thoughts derailed at that, his anger instantly cooling. Turning his head to Kit, he lifted his right hand in a questioning gesture.
“He did? Alright. Let’s set up a call or a meet for an hour or two from now. After this, I’m supposed to let Ioana and Miu kick my ass for a while.”
Then another forkful of lasagna was jammed into his mouth.
“Mmmm!” Felix turned his head towards Andrea. Halfway there, he found Lily smiling at him with an empty fork, still in front of him.
“Eat up, dar-ling,” said the demoness in her best impression of Andrea’s voice from earlier. Her eyes were teasing and warm, her smile hungry.
“Oh, you have a little something there, dear,” Andrea said, getting in front of him. She grabbed his face, licked her fingers, and began wiping at his face with them.
All around him, his people watched.
They were watching.
Felix began shuddering in absolute rage as Andrea patted his cheek.
Flopping into the chair, Felix watched Miu cross the room and take up residence in a corner.
Two Others took the door, while Andrea Prime was practically in his pocket. She was working on something on her tablet but stayed glued to him.
Tapping the screen on his desk, he pulled up Dimitry’s number and hit the send button.
The phone connected on the first ring.
“Felix. Glad you could get back to me so fast. I need to call in one of those favors.”
“Good to hear from you, Dimitry.
“And yeah, that’d be part of the agreement. What can I do for you?”
“I think I have an infestation and I could use an exterminator. Make sure you bring your mind reader to find the rats.
“Say, tomorrow morning, eight o’clock, my place.”
“I’ll be there,” Felix said.
There was no response to that, since the line had already gone dead.
How did he know about Kit?
“Rats? I hate rats. I had to deal with them a lot when dealing with targets who were in not nice places,” Andrea grumped unhappily.
Felix closed out his program and slept the desktop display.
“I think he means informants. People who work for the cops. Not actual rats,” he explained to the Beastgirl.
“Oh, that makes sense.” She poked at something on her screen and then bounced up and down twice. “There!”
She flipped her tablet around and showed it to him.
It was the background for her tablet. A picture of them smiling into the camera. One of those that had been taken earlier that day.
She tapped the desktop and it switched to the picture of her kissing him. She tapped the screen again and it was another photo of them together, but this time in the car.
Then it was a picture of a number of Andreas sleeping next to him in his bed. Though on him might have been more accurate. One was spread across his lower legs, another next to him had a leg thrown over his stomach and hips, and a third had wrapped herself up around an arm.
A fourth one was above him sleeping lengthwise across the pillows with an arm over his face.
Sleep hadn’t been as refreshing as it used to be. That change certainly lined up with after she’d weaseled that concession out of him.
Now he knew why.
“Andrea… how many pictures like this do you have?” Felix asked, looking over the top of the tablet.
She gave him a grin and leaned forward towards him. “A lot.”
“I… see. And you didn’t give these to anyone, did you?”
“No, no. Of course not.”
“Good.”
“Just Lily, Kit, and Miu.”
Felix felt his face screw up in a grimace at that.
“They’re all well taken,” Miu promised from behind him.
His intercom beeped once, then came to life.
“Mr. Campbell, I have a…” There was a pause as an Other questioned whoever it was for their name. “John Smith here to see you. He says he’s here from the Department of Slave Affairs.”
Thinking, Felix tilted his head down, staring at the ground. Reaching up, he thumbed the intercom button. “I’ll meet him in the Gold conference room. Please have Kit and Lily notified.”
Andrea Prime stood upright beside him and began tapping things into her tablet.
“I should be there in—” Felix paused as Andrea caught his eyes.
She held up one hand with all five fingers splayed. Closed her hand and did it again.
“Ten minutes,” Felix finished.
Andrea Prime nodded her head and turned back to her tablet.
“Consider it done, Mr. Campbell.” It had taken some serious work to get Andrea to be able, or at least willing, to call him Mr. Campbell when she used an Other to man the front desk.
In the end, it was Lily who had managed to get her to do it.
Now that he thought about it, those two were thick as thieves as of late.
“I have a couple Others preparing a suit for you. A squad of guard Others are setting up in Gold.
“Miu, I’ve taken the liberty of alerting your people of the situation.” Andrea looked up from her tablet, waiting for a response from either of them.
“Good work,” Felix and Miu said in unison.
Ten minutes later to the second, Felix sat himself down in the conference room named Gold.
Lily sat to his right, Kit on his left, Miu a half step behind him.
There was also an Other in each corner, armed with SMGs.
The poorly named John Smith walked into the room, took a look around, and then held up his hands.
He looked to be in his early thirties, brown hair, blue eyes, nondescript. Neither tall nor short, overweight or skinny.
One of the Others immediately moved in and frisked him roughly and thoroughly. She pulled out a handgun from a shoulder holster underneath Smith’s jacket. Opening the door, she handed the weapon to someone else and continued with her search.
“Wearing a wire, nothing else,” the Other reported, moving back to her corner.
“A little paranoid, Mr. Campbell?” Mr. Smith asked, dropping his hands to the side.
“I am indeed.
“You may want to turn off your electronics. Maybe put them on the table, even. I’d hate for all the electronics on your person to go dead. This building tends to eat electronics at times. My people constantly complain about it,” Felix said in a flat tone.
Mr. Smith looked up to the corners of the room, finding himself on two different cameras. “Uh-huh.”
Taking out what appeared to be a phone, with an attached cord that came up through his sleeve, Smith set it on the table. Then he pulled out a second device as well.
He deliberately showed both being powered off, then pushed them to the middle of the table.
“What can I do for you today, Mr. Smith?” Felix asked.
“As I said to your receptionist, I’m an agent for the newly formed Departme
nt of Slave Affairs.”
Pulling out an identification card, he flipped it open and held it out to Felix.
It read literally as he’d described.
Slave Affairs. John Smith. Investigator - Field Agent.
“I’m here as you’re a registered slave owner. Specifically, a major holder. We’re reaching out to those with a large interest in slaves to discuss changes we’ll be implementing.”
“I’m listening.”
“Glad to hear that, Mr. Campbell. Specifically, there is going to be a tax on all income generated by a slave equal to four percent of the value. This went live last month and this’ll be the first month that it’ll come due for payment.”
Lily was taking notes into a holographic projection from her tablet. Kit was staring through the man’s head.
The Others behind Mr. Smith had their weapons trained on the man’s back.
“Message received. Anything else?” Felix asked. He didn’t care, nor did he really want to deal with this right now.
Mr. Smith blinked at the casual acceptance and dismissal.
“Next year, the loophole caused by paying your own slaves will be eliminated,” said Smith.
“I understand. Anything else?” Felix repeated once more.
Mr. Smith smirked and then gestured at everyone around Felix. “Could we perhaps speak alone for two minutes? That’s all the time I need.”
Felix sighed and then nodded his head.
Lily had already spelled a shield around him. It would remain regardless of where she was. He was as safe as he could be already.
“Fine. Two minutes. Everyone, please clear the room. Make sure the recordings are paused.”
As one, they closed up their workstations, tablets, and messenger bags, packed up, and left.
The last one out the door was Miu, who he imagined was probably now standing on the other side of the door waiting.
“You’ve built quite a harem,” Mr. Smith said, smiling at Felix.
“What was it you wanted to discuss?”
Felix had other things he had to take care of today and his calendar was booked. After this, he was due to sit down and go over possible upgrades for the building.
“We both know there’s a multitude of loopholes right now with the slave system. Our beloved leader made it legal, but didn’t invest any time in its infrastructure. The system. Taxes. Anything, really.
Super Sales on Super Heroes Page 23
