Removing the cover, Roman glanced down at his member for a moment, wishing it could relay to him what had taken place.
A smile formed across his face. Was he seriously thinking about animating his cock?
Roman tried not to mess around too much with modifying any part of his body, knowing full well he didn’t have that type of control. Maybe in a couple years he would be able to do something like increase the flow of blood to his penis, but not now. As for now, a solution like that was off the table.
Besides, he had a pretty good feeling he had performed well enough last night.
More images were coming to him now, Ava leaning over him, her red hair in his face, his teacher on top, her hips gyrating before she reversed it, Roman watching her ass move up and down as she looked at him over her shoulder, licking her lips and moaning.
“Fuck…” he whispered, suddenly feeling aroused again.
There had been a lot of tension between the two, and what an outlet for it to inevitably find.
He remembered standing at one point, both of them moving to the wall, the fire user bent forward and spreading her cheeks, Roman on his knees licking every part of her, entering her again, fucking the pain away.
She had told him to finish on her tits, but he hadn’t been able to pull out in time, he remembered that much. It had been a clumsy, passionate session, but that was usually how drunken sex went. And she hadn’t seemed too disappointed as she moved to the bathroom to clean up, returning to Roman and making out with him again as he fingered her.
What a night.
What a fucking night.
Roman thought for a moment about spooning up next to Ava, seeing if they could rekindle what they had started last night.
And he almost did.
Looking down at her nude body that wasn’t covered by the blanket, he saw the curve of her lower back and knew he would fit perfectly between her legs, that it would only take them a moment to start back up again.
But in the end, Roman simply got out of the bed, doing his best not to disturb her.
He walked into her bathroom to find scorch marks on the countertop, wondering what that was about. He saw the toilet hadn’t been flushed, so he flushed it after relieving himself. Roman took one look in the mirror, combing his white hair out of his face and noticing a little white stubble on his chin, his orange eyes bloodshot.
Sort of regretting what he was about to do, he fired off a mental message to Catherine, the wind user he needed to be part of this plan. As he quietly dressed, still feeling the effects of the alcohol, the message came in from Catherine telling him she was free.
What about breakfast? Roman thought back to her. I know several good places.
Sure. I mean, I wasn’t planning to do anything today anyway.
He finished buttoning up his shirt before sending another message. Where are you?
I am near the Robmon District, Catherine thought back to him.
Let’s go to the Star Diner on 33rd and 17th. It’s usually a little less crowded than the other ones. I think their chef is better too. I should be there shortly.
Great, I’ll get ready and see you there in about an hour.
Roman brought Coma to life, the masked doll standing almost immediately. She didn’t yawn, stretch her arms, or do anything to indicate she had been out for an extended period of time.
“I’m going to drop you and Casper off at the safehouse,” he told her. “I have to go meet the wind user, Catherine, the one I was telling you and Emelia about. If everything goes well, she will help us tonight.”
“Good.” Coma’s red eyes darted over to the couch, where she saw a loose bra.
“Things got interesting last night,” Roman said as he put on his jacket. “I’ll just keep it at that.”
“It looks like it,” Coma said. “Did you enjoy yourself?”
“From what I can remember, yes.”
Coma shrugged. “I wish I could try alcohol. It would be nice to just do something and not have to remember it if you didn’t want to.”
“That’s not what alcohol is for,” Roman told her as he ordered a teleporter.
“It sure seems like it.”
Roman chuckled. “Maybe you’re right,” he told her as the teleporter appeared, a frail woman with the sides of her head shaved and the rest of her hair in a long, highlighted ponytail.
A swirl of energy took shape at the back of the woman’s neck, the energy forming a pair of enormous hands that reached out to Roman and latched on to his body.
Soon they were standing in the room Nadine had prepared for Roman. A small place, but cozy enough, with fresh sheets on the bed and a set of folded towels on the nightstand.
“Just dropping her off here,” he told the teleporter as he handed Casper’s limp body to Coma.
“Got it,” the teleporter said, not wanting to go any deeper into whatever weird shit was happening here.
“I’ll be back shortly,” Roman told Coma, and for once he moved over to her and brought her into his arms, hugging her. “Thanks for understanding.”
“I’ll take care of Casper,” she said.
“She shouldn’t be very hard to take care of in her current state.”
With that, Roman and the teleporter vanished, reappearing in front of Star Diner. It was a rainy day, so Roman immediately went for the shelter of an awning, using his power to stretch the edge of the awning out just a little bit further to prevent the rain from getting on him.
The teleporter saw him do this and paused, looking at Roman curiously for a moment, not giving two shits about the rain.
Roman shrugged, and she disappeared in the same bizarre way she’d first appeared.
Rather than wait outside, he headed into the diner, realizing he was a bit early. He needed some time to sober up, which was why he took the first booth available, one by the window, and immediately ordered a pot of tea.
The tea came and Roman started drinking it up, hoping he would be able to cut some of the fuzz away. His mouth tasted like shit, and he was starting to regret that he hadn’t cleaned up a little bit back at the safehouse. Realizing his error, he moved to the bathroom and checked himself out in the mirror again, running some water on his face and sort of fixing his hair.
It would have to do, and he hoped his disheveled charm would be something Catherine liked.
He returned to his booth to find a fresh pot of tea waiting for him. The pot sat on an embroidered swath of fabric in the center of the table, a cup already poured for him. Even though it was hot, Roman gulped it down, ready for its effects to kick into gear.
The tea he had chosen was one with both caffeine and detoxification properties. He poured another cup, noticing the fuzz starting to go away. He drank this one too, feeling a hundred times better than he’d felt just moments ago.
This was one advantage of Class Es.
The intelligence-based exemplars were able to come up with dozens of superfoods, potent energy drinks, and other enhanced foods that made healthy living relatively simple. Even the junk foods of Centralia were packed full of vitamins, natural sugars, fiber, and other things that kept Centralians living well past their primes.
Roman considered for a moment having a teleporter bring him a hangover-curing energy drink, but with his third cup of tea, he was truly feeling rejuvenated enough to forgo this option. And it was at about this time he saw a woman with white hair outside, a red braid dipping behind her right ear.
She had created a cocoon of wind preventing any of the rain from touching her. It was subtle, but it looked almost like she was walking with a force field around her. The Northern Alliance exemplar named Catherine wore a brown dress, a brown bow in her hair, knee-high socks, and shiny leather loafers with brass buckles.
She couldn’t see Roman as she approached, which gave him just a little bit longer to prepare, to get his mind in the right place and his story straight. He wasn’t going to lie to her, but he needed to be careful how he worded things, consider
ing he was asking her to do something illegal.
Then again, she didn’t know he was an exemplar yet, so maybe that would give him a little leverage once she saw what he was capable of.
Only time would tell.
Catherine entered the diner and Roman turned to the door, offering her a slight wave. She sat in front of him and, as she did so, the waitress slid by and pressed a menu onto the table.
“Anything you recommend?” she asked, a goofy smile taking shape on her face. “Also, hi—I should probably say hi.”
“Hi,” Roman said.
“So, it’s been awhile…” she said.
“It has,” came Roman’s response. “But we’ll catch up later; let’s order first. And as for what I recommend, their breakfast specials are pretty nice, good size, well made. I usually go with the ‘Economical,’ but you may want something else.”
“An Economical sounds good,” she said. “And oatmeal as well. I would like some oatmeal.”
“Great,” Roman said, nodding the waitress over. She approached quickly, a little sass to her walk. She took their order, not really making eye contact with him as she scribbled it down on her little pad.
“So…” Catherine started to say.
“I guess I should just come right out with it,” Roman told her.
“I’m listening…” A flicker of concern spread across her face, which she quickly covered up with another goofy grin.
“No, it’s nothing bad. Well, that depends on your definition of bad. We’ll just say it’s not great. Definitely not great. But first off, let’s start with what I can do for you.”
“What you can do for me?” Catherine asked.
“I know that we temporarily solved your immigration issue, but it could come back to haunt you, especially if you try to extend your stay in Centralia,” he said, taking his immigration advisor voice. “To extend your stay, you’ll need to file a DS-3650, and they will definitely be looking into your past issue when you do. If that fails, you may be able to extend by filing another DS-3650 while your first DS-3650 is processing, so two processing at the same time, which keeps you legal if the first one is rejected. It also gives you time to apply for the Centralia visa lottery. A long shot, but worth it. Of course, I can also forge all Centralian papers so you don’t have to do any of that, making it seem as if you were born here. Is this something you’re interested in doing?”
“I don’t really want to go back,” Catherine said. “The Northern Alliance can be…”
“Different?” Roman asked when she couldn’t come up with an adjective.
“Difficult.”
“Never been, but I did just get back from a trip to the Eastern Province. It was definitely eye opening.”
“You went to the East?” she asked, clearly impressed. “What were you doing there?”
Roman lowered his voice. “So, there’s a lot that you don’t know about me. And it would take me quite some time to explain all the details. But, for what it’s worth, I’m not who you think I am. So let’s start with that. I am actually an exemplar.”
“An exemplar?” she asked, giving him a curious look. “Are you being serious right now?”
“Do you need evidence?”
She nodded.
“Okay,” Roman said as he cast his hand over the silverware, the fork pressing off the table, splitting at the middle and reforming into the shape of the letter X. The spoon stood upright, the round portion sliding down and forming a belly as two legs sprouted from the bottom. He walked both the utensils over to Catherine and had them bow at her.
“What’s your power exactly? Are you some type of metal manipulator?”
“I can pretty much manipulate anything, aside from wind,” he told her.
To illustrate his point, he formed a hole in the top of the teapot, the tea lifting out of it in a spinning cylinder. Then he settled the water back down and removed the hole he created, everything back to normal.
“Anything?”
“My power allows me to animate inanimate objects. But I guess this is just a way to say that I can manipulate any type of matter. And I mean anything. Elements, I’m not as good at, but ones like water, ice, those things are relatively easy for me to utilize. Soil would be another one.”
“Fire?”
“To some degree, but it’s not something I’ve played around with as much as I’d like,” he told Catherine. “So to continue our earlier discussion about why I went East, I headed there because I wanted to see about a situation facing our world.”
“What kind of situation?”
For a moment, Roman thought he would lie to her.
Maybe he would tell her that Margo had killed all the world’s healers, and he was tasked with killing her. But in the end, he stuck to the truth, knowing that he was already out of bounds in what he would ask her to do.
He knew he was betraying Ava in that moment, and he wondered how she would react to this. Aside from that part of this, there would be severe repercussions if he didn’t make Margo’s death smooth and quick; Roman hated this fact, but he wasn’t going to let Margo do any more damage to the people he cared about.
He was doing this for Celia, the real Celia, but in a way it was also about Celia the doll. As he gave Catherine the overview of what had happened to him thus far, Roman tried to keep his voice steady and calm, even though recapping everything only made him angrier.
“Okay, so your wife is dead, and this lady named Margo, who has the same power as you, animated her corpse?” Catherine asked after he’d finished.
“Sorry. It sounds crazy, and it is crazy.”
“And now she is holed up in your home along with several other powerful exemplars, waiting for you to eventually return.”
“Yes, so she can kill me.”
“And then she would likely animate your body and make you her slave, too—am I understanding this correctly?”
The waitress returned with Catherine’s oatmeal and set it on the table. Brown sugar was sprinkled on top, and it came with a side of blueberries and glazed pecans.
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“Well, that’s some story, Roman,” Catherine finally said.
“Good, so now you’re up-to-date.”
“And you want my help in taking her out, am I understanding that part correctly?”
“Well, I was going to explain a little more before I asked…”
“Sometimes it’s better just to say what’s on your mind.” Catherine reached her hand across the table and placed it on Roman’s.
“Yeah, maybe that is a better idea.”
Of course, Roman had left out a lot of details, like how he had been explicitly told not to go after Margo, and he hadn’t mentioned Ava and Mister Fist’s team at all. He also hadn’t said anything about Nadine, Lisa Painstake, Eli, or his dolls.
“And what you are offering me in return?” she asked.
“What do you want?” Roman asked, his eyes moving from Catherine down to her fingers as they drummed against his hand.
“Money would be nice, but there are other things you could help me with.”
“Money I can get, and as for those other things, like I said, if it involves forging documents, I’m pretty damn good at that as well. Do you have any money?” Roman asked.
“Yes, a little…”
“Give me the smallest denomination you have, and the largest.” Roman told her.
Catherine got out the money he requested, and Roman looked down at it for a moment, memorizing all the details on the higher denomination. He already knew what it looked like, Centralian currency known for its beautiful pictures of famous landmarks. It didn’t take very long for the smaller denomination to match the higher.
“I have to do the backside too.” Roman flipped the bills over and did the same replication trick.
“Okay, I’ve seen some pretty impressive powers, but that is fucking awesome,” Catherine said.
“So that’s what I can offer you. I only need
a few hours of your time, tonight. This is mostly about me doing what I need to do here.”
“We should probably have you change some more notes before I help you,” Catherine told him.
“Works for me. I can change as much as you’d like. I can also get your paperwork in order.”
Roman and Catherine’s Economicals came, each consisting of a slice of toast, two eggs sunny-side up, and grilled ham.
“I’m in,” Catherine said. “We can go back to my place after and take care of some of the paper.”
“I just want you to be safe in all this,” Roman told her suddenly, regretting that he’d said those words in the first place. “It’s going to be dangerous.”
“I’m fine with danger,” Catherine told him.
“And you don’t have to do it…”
She shrugged. “I’ve already agreed to do it, Roman, and I will help you make this go as smoothly as I can. Who else is on our team? There is a team, right?”
“Sort of. Basically, we have a telepath, who doubles as an empath. She should be contacting me soon about my doll.”
Catherine stopped cutting her egg for a moment and looked up at Roman. “Your doll?”
“One of the things I’ve learned to do is animate, um, life-sized dolls to fight for me. I’m guessing that sounds a little strange, but they can be quite powerful, and it frees me up to do other things while they’re fighting.” He looked at his power dial. “This is how I judge how much power I’m using, to make sure I don’t use too much.”
“I’ve seen a power dial before,” she told him, “but dolls? Are you talking about sex dolls?”
“It was an idea I got from this guy at…” Roman swallowed hard. “I got the idea from this guy named Sam, who mentioned something about it at a meeting I go to. I thought—why not train them to fight with me? As it turns out, when I animate them, they take on parts of my personality. And one happens to be a pretty good fighter.”
“I see,” Catherine said.
“I’m guessing all this comes off as a little weird, right?”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
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