by P. S. Power
She let it go, and just ate the rest of the food, trying to watch people attentively enough and speak when spoken to, saying the right things. It worked well enough and, she realized, it was close to what everyone else was doing to. It seemed engaged and interesting, but the meal passed without anything of note being said at all.
It was interesting. Boring too. She had to hide a smile when she thought that, since, really, it was a good thing when the world was a bit slow and drab. No bombs were going off, no one had tried to kill her in days, and her new fight training program was working well enough that it might make a difference in how her friends were trained in the future.
Heck, she lived in a place where she, personally, could both fly and teleport, or would be able to, as soon as she finished healing. That was awesome. After all, she was pretty much a superhero now, wasn't she? For that matter she was even famous for it, really.
She could whine about being bored, but only if she wanted to admit to being a mindless twit at the same time. Since Gwen didn't want to do any such thing, she just focused on what was coming. A fight with a little kid, who, she was nearly certain, would be kicking her ass, and then a party with a major chunk of the most powerful and famous people on this world.
So, yeah, boring.
Smiling, she looked at Clara and signaled both her, Ethyl and Beth over as soon as the meal ended and everyone was released to go and do whatever it was they needed to before bed. She waved everyone into a sitting room, and the other women all looked at her intently, as if she had something truly special to announce to them all. Really, she didn't.
She looked happy though, knowing that she was respected here, if nothing else.
"I was thinking that we should plan out a strategy for Clara? I don't know what you want to do, but after a few months of rest here, I'm sure you'll be pulling your hair out, trying to find something to do." She was teasing, lightly, saying a few months, which was due to the fact that Ethyl had proclaimed Gwen too much of a doer.
Apparently that was about the time span that the slightly older woman had in mind however, since she nodded and instantly pushed that out.
"Well, perhaps in a few months. You are of course welcome to stay here as long as you need to dear. After an ordeal like what you went through, with those awful people planning to take your life, well, I can imagine that one might never fully recover." She really seemed to mean it too, but the ex-whore had a very different idea about things like that, having lived through things worse than that, several times.
"Oh, thank you Mrs. Vernor. I couldn't impose however." Then, the woman just stopped and looked away. It was pretty clear that she really felt uneasy, but just didn't know what it was she wanted to do.
Gwen shrugged. "Then don't. If I were you though, I'd use this opportunity to figure out what you wanted to do and impose a little. Ethyl means what she says, but you could use her help to get a new life going, if you wanted. Beth and her people too. If it were me, I'd try doing everything I could, to see what I wanted to do, and use this time to build contacts. Gain some new skills and all that. See about getting on as a loader for one of the airships or something, try that out. Or, I don't know, you can cook? They always need women willing to do that on the ships, I hear. Plus, I don't know, you could do so many things that I haven't even thought of, I'm sure. I tend to pick the hard way, for this place. Ethyl? Do you have any ideas?"
It turned out that the woman did, many of which involved skills that Clara already had. Including the ones from her days as a prostitute.
"You could teach young ladies that sort of thing, after all. Or, I imagine, boys. It's a rather niche business, but it's the way that most get their experience before marriage."
Gwen blinked. First because it was incredibly blunt, and coming from Ethyl's mouth. Second, because, while it made sense to simply take classes or have a tutor, she hadn't figured that people here would actually do that sort of thing. It turned out that most didn't, but the rich and powerful sometimes hired such people, and a certain Mrs. Vernor had the right contacts to put the word around about it, if Clara wanted.
Gwen wondered if shaking and chanting about cognitive dissonance would make sense to anyone there at all? It wouldn't, she knew, so she nodded, and pretended not to be shocked.
"There you go, I wouldn't have thought of that at all. You should try out whatever catches your attention, or fancy. Right now you have food, a warm bed and a nice enough roof over your head. With that and a bit of will you can own the world, if you want. Or find a nice husband."
Bethany hadn't spoken much before that, but she nodded then.
"That's a very good point. We might have to manufacture a past for you, if you want a truly fine man, but that can be done. Between Gwen and I, we could pretty much make you into anyone you wanted, on paper."
Clara shook her head, but smiled a little. She didn't speak for a long time, but seemed pleased and a little shy, which wasn't like her at all.
"I could be a charger, Gwen said? That Peter of yours, he said that he'd help me learn it, proper I mean, before you started to teach him how to fight. Could I learn that, and maybe meet some of your people Beth? I don't know as any would want to work with me, being how I was, but the ones I've met have just been people. I didn't know that before. I thought you'd all be scary. Mean. And..." She looked at Ethyl and smiled, knowingly. "I could teach boys and girls what to do in bed. It isn't hard, with a bit of practice. Do you really think anyone would pay for that though? I mean for the act in the moment, sure, but for the skills?"
Mrs. Vernor, looking as if she were speaking about high tea, or the color scheme of a party smiled regally and looked the whore right in the eye.
"I do. Especially if you do more than one thing, so that it will seem a special favor, when you deign to give your instruction. Yes, that all sounds very reasonable to me. Beth?"
The detective looked happy suddenly and nodded.
"We have people coming in tomorrow, so I think you'll have a chance to see that we're all just people. We're always trying to find helpers for people in field positions. I know you can do it."
So did Gwen. A trained monkey could do it, as long as they knew a few simple commands. That and how to get basic food around, and clean. Clara could clean pretty well, and cook, so it seemed like she might just fit in there. It didn't pay very well, but it was enough to live on, plus a bit.
It didn't settle the woman's life, but by the time they all left for bed, a few hours later, the woman had some options that didn't require her to take anything up her behind that she didn't want to. It was, Gwen knew, about the best she could really do for the lady.
Present a chance to improve her life, and then push her, enough that she actually tried a few things, to see if she could do them.
Anything else would be trying to live her life for her, and that, she knew, wasn't her job. No, Gwen had quite enough life of her own to live.
Thank you, very much.
That it was true now, well that was nothing short of amazing. Thinking that she went off to bed, actually feeling happy for once.
Chapter twenty
Gwen woke up, wearing a padded leather combat outfit that had been provided to her for the testing, with a taste of blood in her mouth, a sore jaw and a strange feeling that her little helper had cheated somehow. She wasn't the only one, it was clear, since, even as she managed to stand up, some of the others that had been involved were still on the ground.
It wasn't unfair though, was it? Yes, it was pretty clear that Peter had stunned them with a blast of telepathic force, partway through the fight, but his instructions had been to figure out a way to win, unarmed. There had been no other guidelines given. Since he was still standing, and the rest of them weren't, that had to be considered valid. Before anyone else could speak about it, Gwen rubbed at her jaw and faked a laugh.
"Well, there we go! Why don't you go and get healed up, Pete, and then you can collect your reward?" She waited for the boy to scam
per off, a lot less hurt today than the one before. Really, even though she'd been knocked out pretty hard, the rest of them seem less hurt too. It had been a very fast and efficient fight really.
Adam Westmorland, the man in charge of them all, looked at her and made a face that was incredibly sour and let it stay there until everyone else stood, even as Bethany stood by with a composed expression on her face, with Clara right next to her. It was funny, seeing the differences in expression. The older man shook his head a little, seeming disgusted with her, but his words didn't reflect that at all. She didn't know why it was, but it was pretty clear that he just didn't like, or seem to respect, her very much.
He grumped at her, rather than simply speaking. "I suppose that you'll recommend we put all our Special Service personnel through your new training? I have to admit, it seems effective. Less traumatizing too. Peter seemed happy at the end there, which is a thing that we normally don't get to see at the end of training."
Gwen thought for a minute and then shook her head, which got a surprised look from Adam at least.
"No. I'd go slower than that. It works, and will have powerful longterm effects, but he's addicted to the device used in training. That's a problem, and might alter how he can be deployed in the future. Just as a general rule, we have to make sure that we never let anyone have control over a unit like that if they're going to use it on themselves. That means keeping people in some kind of significant training all the time, for now at least." She shrugged, then wished she hadn't as a horrible pain ripped through her right shoulder. "I had a single ten second exposure to it, about five days ago now. I'd knife you in the back for another hit, if it was offered, just from that. So, no, we shouldn't do that to the already trained troops. It's a very different program so, I'd suggest we use a few trainees, and go slowly at first."
There was a snort, and Adam actually smiled at her, as if to let her know he'd already realized all of that.
"You wouldn't stab me in the back just in the normal course of things?"
That nearly had her taken aback. After all, she'd always been relatively nice to him, hadn't she? Any negative feelings came from the other direction. Or had at least started there.
"Nope. You're practically one of my best friends. I might even try to resist doing it for the reward, but I can't promise that." Which was, she realized, true. She just didn't have that many people in her life. More than she'd ever had before, but it was still a pretty tight group of people. Adam wasn't her real pal, maybe, but she knew that, if she needed something reasonable and possibly not even all that safe or sane, he'd get it for her.
Since that had basically happened with Peter, she knew it was a real thing too.
The man snorted again, adding a stuffy sounding little harrumph to the end of it, which made him seem both grumpy and oddly pleased. She just didn't get that at all.
"Very well then. We'll go with that plan. Work with Manly on that. I take it that you'll be using the older protocols for your own training then? Mona hasn't mentioned a change there."
"Yeah. I'm not looking forward to it, but I also don't want to mess things up, given what I'm trying to learn. Doing it the way it always has been done is probably for the best." Even if it would leave her shaking and trembling in the dark, more than she already did at night.
That thought left her afraid for a bit. Not of the training, but of dark things coming out of the air. She looked around and suddenly wondered if becoming a full blown addict to pleasure might not be better than living with that? As time went on it was becoming worse, not better.
She could still see the rent in space with the old things behind it, every time she closed her eyes. She could feel the fear, and it was growing. If Erin Debussey had been alive, she would have slapped the woman while lecturing her on not being a moron. Who heard about super terror beasts and thought that it sounded like a brilliant idea to invite them over to tea?
Dead magicians and evil scientists?
Gwen wanted to limp back to her own room, in order to change into real clothing and to wash herself, after the beating she'd taken at the hands of the boy. There was work to do though, first. That, it seemed was up to Beth however, thankfully.
She moved forward, her face still wonderfully composed.
"Adam? This is Miss Clara Samberg. She's interested in meeting with more of our people, perhaps with an eye toward future employment with us?"
The man smiled and looked at the well dressed, but medium good-looking woman. For her it seemed legitimate and like he was, suddenly truly interested and possibly entranced. Gwen nearly felt slighted by the reaction, since she always got a mildly disapproving vibe from the man, herself. Then, Clara wasn't a strange woman from another reality, or half as bossy as she was. Maybe it was just that?
"Certainly! Do you come with recommendations? Do you have prior work in a related area? Child care perhaps?"
Clara smiled a bit and then flipped a single palm upward. Her voice wasn't shy sounding at all, which was about right, given that she was surrounded by Westmorlands, and they weren't going to really judge her, Gwen didn't think.
"I can cook and clean, and Bethany has helped me learn the basic commands to get people into their A-states, as well as some other things. I helped with my younger sisters, when I was younger." It was actually pretty good sounding, to Gwen. The women looked side long at Beth, who was still facing Adam directly and kept going. "I was a whore for ten years, so I worked with a lot of different people. I have to admit that I only recently realized that you Westmorlands weren't evil, however. I was... Ill informed."
The admission seemed nearly like too much to Gwen, but Adam looked even more interested, about the Westmorland bigotry part and how the woman was reacting to the change in information, rather than the prostitution part. That got ignored totally.
They discussed that for a while, and the only time Adam made a face, it was when Gwen's name was brought up, as having been part of what changed her mind.
It was enough that, finally, Darrick, who had a nice black eye on the left hand side, winced and looked at the older man.
"Adam, perhaps you could make an attempt at not being a complete arse? Miss Farris may have made your job a bit harder, but she's also done many things for the Kingdom. Even the King finds her tolerable, for those reasons." As a dressing down went it wasn't that great, but Adam made a sour face and glared a bit, at Gwen, and then gave his own man a nod.
"A point. Well, we should be getting back to our day then. Miss Samberg? I hope to see you again soon. You should come and review the facilities at Central? We have several field agents that would love to have a new companion. Everyone." Then he walked off, leaving Manly and Beth behind, but taking the rest of the people with him, walking about ten feet away and being handed Teletransport spheres. They vanished one by one, which took about forty seconds, since they weren't all in a hurry. They would push that to five seconds each if they had to. They'd all come out at exactly the same spot, which would make a mess, along with killing people, if they did it. Technically you could also die if someone put a solid object in the path of the person coming in too. It had been mentioned during her new training, though she couldn't recall who had said it. Part of what she'd done had been learning to avoid things like that.
It was, along with how expensive the things were to have charged, one of the reasons why regular people didn't often get to use the things. It cut way down on accidents. Gwen had never heard of one happening in real life, but it was clearly a real risk. It was one reason why they weren't used in war very often. Since a bit of pre-planning could have all your forces dying before they even got into the right location.
Now, she'd been in on a battle where they used exactly that trick to get into place, only to have the enemy block them, but even people without magic could have beaten it with just a bit of creativity. Stringing some wire over the best landing fields would do the trick, she bet.
The remaining two Westmorlands just ignored how r
ude their boss had been to her, and walked back into the house, moving smoothly and without limping or seeming hurt at all. That was due to them being smarter than she was and staying out of the testing area, altogether. It made sense, being that Beth was only so-so as a fighter, at least without weapons, and Manly was needed to provide the sweet, sweet pleasure as a reward.
That sounded dirty, even inside her own mind.
Clara however frowned.
"There's one that has a strong dislike for you, Miss. Did you tell him to go and suck his own cock, or something?" She was being crude, and knew it, but Gwen didn't respond to that part. She was a virgin, but not a prude. Not really. Except that she sort of was. Otherwise she would have used Katherine's body to get with a few men already, wouldn't she?
"Nope. He never even asked, or I probably would have tried it." She grinned. It was a fake thing, but she thought she nailed the expression pretty well. "I would have failed at it utterly, no doubt, but I would have done my best. I don't know what the deal is, to tell the truth. No one will explain it to me. Well, maybe it's just one of those things? Sometimes people just don't like each other."
There was a look that passed between Manly and Bethany then, a lingering thing that spoke of inside information. Gwen let it go, since neither of them said anything about what, specifically that might be. If they weren't saying, then chances are, they wouldn't. They'd just get that stuffy look and go silent like everyone did in this place when they knew something you didn't but it wasn't polite to speak about.
Instead of being grumpy about it, she started back into the house. After all, if there was a healer around, she might be able to catch some healing, if it was allowed. That meant, since she had the idea, that Gwen needed to go off and find Peter, which worked out pretty well, since the lady that was there to help him, who looked to be about thirty or so, started in on her without asking if it was supposed to happen. She was hurt, there was a healer, so it took place. That was all.