Inspired Planeswalking (Worm/Multicross): Chapter 19

[The Worm — January 20, 2011 — Thursday]

When I arrived at Taylor's house for the second time, I was greeted by a coffee table with tea and pastries. Which made me feel less like an introductory NPC and more like a reformed Panacea.

Perhaps because of Taylor's unprovoked hostility the day before, she didn't outright hit me with any ultimatum-style questions. Instead, just gave me the opportunity to continue Rainbow Kitty's story, largely focused on her "cats and mice" worldview and the economic reasons why she had ended up in the Wards rather than incarcerated.

Now, I knew Sophia was a violent psychopath who had killed several people — though almost certainly gang members — and that her worldview was completely screwed up.

Even so, there were three reasons I wanted to soften Taylor's opinion of her a little.

First, Sophia was a young and VERY attractive woman. So my subconscious automatically granted her... not indulgence, no, but "I Can Save Her" leniency. At least until I found out more details.

Second, Sophia's flaws made her easily recruitable. She wanted to become the apex predator? Well, soon I'd be the only person with enough knowledge and technology to make that possible. Naturally, with very strict control over my gifts' use.

WTF, I needed to recruit her or anyone else? Because, from a legislative and law-enforcement perspective, illegal things like drone armies or robots impersonating real people had completely different priorities than ordinary crimes. The same was the case with the status of a versatile Tinker among villains. So before I could be fully confident in my own security, I indeed needed proxies and a teams. Preferably publicly associated with me only by "I just sold them tinkertech" context.

The third reason was the most important. Canon explicitly stated that Sophia's aggression was heavily influenced by her power.

Yes, by every metric she was worse than Bitch, but was she really that different? Or that different from the typical crime-hunting transmigrators in fanfiction? Canonical Sophia had a long list of issues. But many of them weren't her choice and—again, largely because of her age—didn't make her beyond redemption. Theoretically.

Therefore, at some point during my explanation of Rainbow Kitty's worldview, I introduced Taylor to the rather popular among para-psychologists theory about detrimental power influence. After explaining the cases of Bitch, Accord, and Labyrinth, I suggested that Rainbow Kitty also has a power-related aggression issue.

Taylor, unsurprisingly, hated the idea.

To calm her down a little, I asked her to make up her own Rainbow Kitty and Ruth stories and, for about half an hour, listened to events involving the Trio and a dozen other girls.

Unsurprisingly, they were largely about the central torment of bullying: while an individual bully often saw their actions as insignificant, because there are a lot of bullies, the victim experienced an endless torrent of those actions, or lived in suspense of them.

At one point, I pulled out a notepad and began sketching psychological profiles of the Trio. Describing them less as malicious monsters and more as a tiny cult of mentally unwell people. Very plausibly, with Rainbow Kitty's power influence at the top of the hierarchy, at least as an amplifier of physical violence.

Eventually, our discussion about trauma and superpowers shifted toward Brockton Bay's cape scene and the Power Classification system.

Of course, I carefully avoided mentioning anything that wasn't already available on the wiki. Not so much because of the Simurgh or Contessa, but because of their local discount version. Part of the Thinker Trio who had effectively manipulated Taylor into becoming the primary anti-Scion weapon.

Which, together with the Danny–Scion and Fortuna–Annette parallels, raised a great many questions for me, answers to which I planned to get next month; directly from the author.

At the same time, I tried to give Taylor a comprehensive understanding of Brockton Bay's parahuman threats. Especially emphasizing that Thinkers, Precogs, and some Trumps were vastly more dangerous than everyone else.

Overall hinting at something like this: "Sophia is a cape involved in complex — potentially Thinker-related — illegal activities, so acting rashly could be very dangerous, and we both should understand and take into account a lot of details."

Not the most convincing story, but because it was very useful to Taylor, she simply went along with it.

After I described Brockton's capes and their place on the related Classification scale, I gave her the opportunity to ask cape-related questions. Which stretched my Thursday visit to a total of four and a half hours. With excellent results. By the end of our conversation, I finally caught glimpses of the real Taylor hiding beneath a thick shell. Shy, naïve, insecure, skittish. Inquisitive, observant, shrewd, systematic.

Possessed surprisingly large gaps in practical knowledge and was sometimes inconsiderate; the same Taylor who, in canon, had been genuinely surprised to discover that venomous insects became dramatically more dangerous under her control because they could sting repeatedly instead of only once.

And even more surprisingly quickly closed such gaps with a sharp mind.

Unlike the first day, we parted on friendly terms. Naturally, still with her considerable suspicion and mistrust, yet there was already a tiny smile accompanying her "See you tomorrow."

[The Worm — January 21, 2011 — Friday]

I started our third meeting by explaining that no superpower was useless. All of them had its own strengths, weaknesses, and ideal conditions for use.

At the same time, powers did indeed vary, first and foremost, in versatility. Which, in turn, was almost always counterbalanced by some glaring weakness or limited physical manifestation.

Take Lung, for example. At first glance, he was an absurdly powerful cape, yet most of the time — and especially during the opening seconds of a fight — he effectively had no powers at all. After which he received awful versatility outside direct confrontation.

Even in a prolonged one-on-one fight, Lung was weaker than Purity, who herself also was an ideal target for a sniper. And both were child's play for Masters or versatile Thinkers capable of discovering and exploiting their glaring weaknesses.

In response to Taylor's question about the absurd versatility of Tinkers, I explained that their abilities usually weren't all that different from Dauntless's. They were essentially "Item Trumps" who just selected designs from a highly specialized database and then channeled — limited by resources and time — charges through baloney rituals.

Created not an unlimited number of super-items, but only as many as they could keep recharged through periodic "maintenance rituals." Usually, no more than a few dozen fully functional devices.

At this point, Taylor was absolutely convinced that, regardless of my motives, I intended to do everything slowly and subtly.

Which made it an even greater shock when, as an example of an exceptionally versatile power, I suddenly named insect manipulation.

Under different circumstances, Taylor would have blown a fuse. But after she'd already accepted so many rules of our little game and been given so many shiny things to lose? She hesitated. Which gave me an opening to start listing every conceivable application of such a hypothetical power.

Navigation. Tracking. Reconnaissance. Silent assassinations. Crowd control through intimidation alone. Capturing and restraining people with webs. Covert sabotage on almost any scale. Transporting items. Insect decoys. Harvesting and using venoms and acids. Fortification, armor, traps woven from silk and chitin. Swimming by controlling aquatic insects.

The longer I continued, the more awe appeared on her perfectly motionless face.

If she had been a typical young woman living a typical life, discovering additional applications for her power wouldn't have mattered more than urgent security concerns. But Taylor had so little security and hope that my words felt more empowering than threatening. At least so far.

"If such a hypothetical parahuman could independently control any number of insects within a two-block radius, then the defining feature of that power wouldn't be insect control, but multitasking. And such a power would be better to consider as... perfect control over millions of self-replicating small drones: manipulators, sensors, venom and silk producers.

Which makes such a superpower borderline A-Class one.

In the hands of an evil person, such a power could easily be used to kill everyone inside a stadium or contaminate an entire city's sewage system.

But in the hands of someone intelligent and genuinely good? In a team with 2-3 compatible capes, such a cape could potentially cripple, if not destroy, a gang like Empire Eighty-Eight. Within weeks."

Barely recovered from freezing after my first statement about bug power, Taylor froze again.

Once again, reevaluating countless things anew.

"Stop," she pleaded.

I stopped.

Taylor took a long breath and, despite her outward calmness, obviously was struggling to bring the mixture of so many different emotions under control.

"I... don't know what to say," she admitted after at least a minute of silence, intensively looking at me. "Or what to do. Call the PRT? Yell at you and demand answers? Thank you?

But... at least now I understand why you said that Tinkers and Precogs are the most dangerous of all. Max, don't you want to... give me an example of that kind of power too?" she asked sternly.

I reflectively nodded.

"Let's say I once had a dream about a cape whose power had two parts.

The first - one-time postcognitive vision. Sort of a glimpse of what the future would have looked like if he'd never become involved." I instinctively paused, half expecting to see an opening portal. When it didn't, I continued. "The second - accelerated learning and an enhanced memory."

"It's a very strong power," Taylor said slowly.

"Strong and fucked. Very... demanding. Burdening him with obligations he never asked for.

Making many things very predictable and rather boring. And some... just off."

Taylor nodded in understanding.

"'Without his involvement..." she hesitated and cautiously asked, "What future would Bug Cape have?"

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

"Because their world had over five hundred thousand capes, many of which had very unusual powers, hypothetical Dream Cape couldn't reveal the details.

In broad terms, without his involvement, the Bug Cape's future could be summed up as: 'Doing The Wrong Things For The Right Reasons.'

Because of her extreme inexperience, almost suicidal escapism, inability to trust anyone but herself, and, of course, her extremely versatile power, she... made a lot of mistakes.

From her perspective, justified ones. Since... how could she really know before getting involved by deeds that seemed better than any other alternatives?

"And from everyone else's perspective?" Taylor asked flatly.

"It depends. It’s very complicated and polarized. Let’s just say that, despite a lot of light shades of gray, her canvas doesn’t have black, and leave it at that."

"What was the biggest mistake she made?"

"Specifics aren't important. Really. Great power requires great responsibility, which requires great wisdom, which requires time and mistakes.

So, given her inexperience and circumstances, most of her mistakes were largely unavoidable. And after Dream Cape's involvement, they became, to a large extent, impossible to repeat. Which, of course, has its own disadvantages, too."

"This... doesn't sound very optimistic."

"It wasn't."

"And because of those mistakes..." Taylor said slowly, "...Dream Cape decided to help her avoid them?"

"He decided to contact her for many reasons. But yes, preventing unnecessary chaos caused by her... learning curve was one of them. But not only. Also because of her enormous potential. Of her strong moral compass. Because she was a young woman, too—"

"Yong woman?" Taylor sharply asked.

"Yep. Since he wanted to tease her a little. And if everything goes right... well, he was a healthy young man, and she was a healthy young woman. So why ignore the natural advantages for better understanding and cooperation if it was possible not to?"

"The way you're describing it... doesn't sound romantic. It sounds manipulative. Like he — already knowing her weak points — wanted to play with her feelings," Taylor accused, obviously for me trying to hide how flustered she was by cold indignation.

"You are not wrong. It isn't really romantic, and it is somewhat manipulative. To some extent, you're right about the weak points too. And that's exactly why Dream Cape decided not to hide his own intentions and instead openly proposed such a possibility. If it didn't suit her, she was free to refuse. But let's get back to our situation." I stretched my hand and, looking in her eyes, said, "Give me your hand."

Taylor looked at my hand as if it were a snake, then asked coldly, "Why?"

"It's a trust test."

"I've only known you for two days," Taylor pointed out.

"Yep, hence the test. If you don't want to, just say, 'I'm not going to give you my hand,'" I said, keeping my hand extended.

For a while, Taylor simply stared at it, obviously searching for a justification to refuse.

And there were plenty. But none of them outweighed the implications of refusing something as simple after so much of my frankness, and the long-lasting consequences such a decision might have.

So, very slowly, she reached out.

I gently took her hand and began moving it lazily in small, random directions.

"What are you doing?" Taylor asked.

"Look at your hand. Do you notice anything unusual?"

For a few seconds, she stared at me, then looked down at our moving hands.

"No. What am I supposed to notice?"

I stopped, opened my palm, and let her pull her hand away.

"Hold your right arm straight out."

She shot me another suspicious glance but complied.

"What am I supposed to notice?"

"Hm..."

"Max... you're scaring me," she said, lowering her arm.

"All right, all right." I smiled apologetically. "Like I said, becoming a parahuman comes with little quirks."

I gestured for her hand again. This time, when she gave it to me, I began gently rubbing it between both of mine while looking at the expressionless, blushing Taylor.

"Purely hypothetically," I asked, "what kind of power-related quirk do you think Bug Cape might have?"

"More precise motor control?"

"Not a bad guess." I nodded. "My theory is that she can offload emotions into her swarm. Not suppress them in real, just reduce how much they're expressed through her main body rather than through the swarm's one.

Without knowledge about such offloading, fully subconscious. And the stronger her emotions become - the more pronounced her 'robotic' visuals. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Yes? Thanks. For... interesting story. About Bug Cape," she at the same time stuttered and didn't. As though a robot were trying to imitate human hesitation but could only reproduce the sound part of it.

"My pleasure," I gave her a subtle smile. Then I stood up, said, "Come with me." And walked into the hallway toward the mirror, where I turned to Taylor and said, "Stand in front of the mirror."

Once again, she faced a hard choice.

"The first 'trust test' wasn't enough?" she asked with a hint of resentment.

"It's no longer a trust test, but a trust and relaxation exercise."

"With someone I barely know?"

"Yes. To know him better," I said, and after a dozen seconds of her hesitation, added, "Come on, do I really look like someone who, if he wanted to harm you, would try to do it by wringing your neck — which is physically almost impossible — or strangling you?"

"Words like that don't really inspire trust!" she said with a hint of anger.

"Sincerity is good. Sincerity is bad. Women..." I shook my head and sighed.

"I could just say no?" she asked.

"Yes. But with a caveat. 'No' is amoral if there isn't any counterbalance to it.

If a person could use a constant 'No' to just skip everything to what they want, then why shouldn't they abuse it at the expense of other people's time and effort?

So, yes, you can say 'No.' But at the cost of already my own 'No Means No.' The possibility that I would never propose to you the exercise I'm proposing right now," I mansplained to her a little about gender equality rules, and subtly reminded her that from an anthropological perspective, men have always had more reasons and opportunities to say a firm 'No' to women than women have to men.

"If you're talking only about a 'trust and relaxation exercise,' why couldn't we do it tomorrow?"

"Because, as the more experienced person in such matters, I think it's better to do it now.

Because I want to, and propose to, do it exactly now.

Because such is my decision.

What is yours?"

After carefully studying my face, Taylor stepped in front of the mirror. I slowly moved behind her and said, "Thank you for your trust. I know — at least partly — how difficult this is for you."

I gently rested my hands on her shoulders, which, with the rest of her body, became completely rigid. "Now, look at yourself in the mirror," I said quietly. "At the tension in your body."

"If a stranger put his hands on your shoulders, you'd be tense too," Taylor defended herself.

"You're right. But this isn't about me. Try to find your tension's... scope." After a few dozen seconds, I began gently massaging her shoulders. "Now, try to very slowly relax."

"What if I don't want to?" she said quietly.

I immediately stopped massaging her and removed my hands, meeting her eyes in the mirror, and calmly asked, "Should we go back to the living room?" Essentially, saying to her: "Oh, you don't like my confident initiative? Okay, then take the leading role and responsibility, when I will take your role of strategic critic."

"I... don't know," Taylor admitted.

"That's okay. I don't know a lot of things either. What does your intuition tell you?"

Taylor let out a deep sigh. "Fine. But only... this. Exercise. Nothing more."

I placed my hands back on her shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze.

"Don't avoid risks and mistakes; seek the safest ones and squeeze as many lessons out of them as possible while preparing for greater ones," I stated one of the core ideas behind my Elis project. Especially important in a Worm world, where the cost of inexperience and mistakes was many orders of magnitude higher than nature had ever intended. "Now slowly relax."

As she relaxed, I intensified the massage, kneading not only her shoulders but also the lower part of her neck.

At one point, her body started trembling, and she froze again. I gave her a reassuring look, and soon the trembling resumed.

"It's okay," I said after she partly hid her pink face by looking away. "Keep going."

When her trembling became a tremor and her legs were obviously growing weak, I said, "That's enough. Very good." Patted her shoulder and returned to the sofa in the living room, giving her some time to herself.

Half a minute later, Taylor returned to the room and immediately asked in an iron voice, "Was this really necessary?"

"Taylor. I already told you. If you're not comfortable with my... bigger help, we can have a purely professional relationship."

She hesitated. "I... I just don't know how I'm supposed to interpret all of this," she admitted, much less aggressively.

"As something straightforward. Honest. And fair."

"Fair?" she repeated.

"Of course."

I held out my hand.

"Give me your hand."

Taylor extended it, obviously expecting me to take it.

Instead, I simply looked at it.

"What are you doing?" she asked in annoyance.

"I'm demonstrating that your expectation that I'm somehow obligated to take your hand is somewhat unfair.

You don't owe me anything. But I don't owe you anything either. Yes, despite the popular belief that the person who takes the initiative must want the outcome more, and therefore has the greater obligation to do more or compromise."

I took her palm and started rubbing it gently between both of mine. "Do cycles of periodic small relaxations.

I owe you only two single things: safety and consent. Which you have. Everything else? Only as a result of fair reciprocal exchange."

"Rom—" She paused. "Relationships shouldn't be so transactional. That's... wrong."

"Wrong only for people who want to cheat with prices. Transactionality isn't about greed; it's about accountability and a better understanding of who does what best.

In our case, also about my want of straightforward and fast simplicity. Efficiency.

As I already said, I don't harm you and respect your choice. But you should also respect my choice to do things efficiently."

Specifically.

Our relationship can exist on two independent levels.

The first is professional cooperation. I invest in you through knowledge, training, education, money, and so on, and in return, when needed, I receive your help; of course, with your possibility to refuse.

The second level... more complex. Let's say it's also about training, but more intense; with bigger emphasis on self-control, improvisation, and cognitive skills."

Taylor frowned. "It doesn't sound like... things... normal... romantic things."

"No. I'm talking about the multipurpose use of sexuality anywhere where it could be used as an additional crutch. It's a complex topic, but with very simple rules.

I tell you to do something. And you either just do it, or ignore the suggestion entirely. If something is wrong, unclear, or uncomfortable to you, you simply say one word: 'Negative,' and I will stop. That's all."

She frowned. "And I, of course, couldn't tell you what to do..."

"You could try," I chuckled.

With her free hand, Taylor lifted her glasses and began massaging the bridge of her nose. "Earlier you said about fairness, but what you're proposing isn't very fair; it's ultimate."

"It's... normal.

Suppose a woman invited a man to help her with her studies or fix her computer. The man came, helped her, and left. Was he an idiot?

No. For hundreds of thousands of years, men became sexually excited by sexual stimuli or by their own initiative. So, when a woman tried to operate outside those natural patterns, of course the man didn't respond.

It's the same with me. It's the same with me. The more you act outside those natural patterns, the less I'll see you as a woman. As I said before, if that doesn't suit you, that's okay. I can see you simply as a person. But if you want me to see you as a woman, you should behave like one."

"And equality is outside of such 'natural patterns?'"

"Not equality. Undeserved equality.

Taylor. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

You cannot want a relationship with a man who is better than you and dream about equality with him.

You cannot at the same time give to a man less than he gives to you, and demand from him... anything; not after contraceptives and feminism killed the only reason such a trick worked in the past.

Yes, you indeed could have equality by giving a man at least as much as he gives to you, but let's be honest, women rarely want something like this. I don't know what you thought about me last night, but I'm 100% sure that wasn't about your sponsoring and protection of me."

"But we could be equal by giving to each other equally, right?" she asked stubbornly, at least visually ignoring my insinuations.

I shrugged. "Let's talk about this when you become my equal by the most important metrics, okay? Until then, by virtue of being more knowledgeable, more proactive, richer — sorry, but that's not entirely my fault — smarter too, I have more right to choose the format of our relationship than you do.

And I have already named my choice.

So, or roll with it. Or not. Or try to become my better. But don't be an immoral hypocrite demanding equality without giving me as much as I give to you."

"My parents were happy without calculation of the usefulness of each other!" she protested.

"After years of studying and balancing each other's needs, and compromising for the sake of long-term investments. When right now we are talking about early stages of relationship."

Taylor frowned her red — from now, perhaps, not just because of my persistent kneading of her palm — face. "By your own words, I'm..." she stopped. "If I were a Bug Cape, one of the most powerful capes in the city, then my worth would be astronomical!"

"Yes and no. Bug Cape indeed has great potential. But before that potential can be realized, she needs investment. And for the sake of the result that, even on its peak, would still be situational, potentially replaceable, and dicey."

"Dicey? What do you mean by this?!"

"Does Bug Cape have medical records for every goon in the city to identify those who are allergic to insect bites?

Does she have money to hire cape lawyers in case of a sham — and because of the enormous size of her swarms, aren't sham — insect-related accusations?

Does she know what to do if her actions would suddenly lead to the appearance of the Butcher in the city?

Does she know how to hide from snipers, or talk to the local PRT Director, who is one of only two survivors of Nilbog's town and is paranoid about biological powers?

Things like this. As I said before, there weren't universal powers."

Taylor bit her lip. "It's not going to get any easier, is it?" she asked quietly and defletedly.

Instead of answering, I gently released her palm, pulled an apple-sized soft-rubber ball from my pocket and tossed it to her. She caught it, looking puzzled. I gestured for her to throw it back. She did. I caught it and tossed it back again.

"Some things do get easier, mostly through preparation, experience, adaptation, habit. Some don't."

"And if Bug Cape joins the Protectorate?"

"If she trusts Dream Cape even a little, then it's... not a bad solution, but only after March or May. Before that, it's a very bad idea."

"And Bug Cape, of course, should trust him more than a government agency..."

"That's her decision whom to trust.

"And how is she supposed to know Dream Cape isn't just a villain trying to manipulate her?"

"Has he said anything that was an outright lie? Or anything that didn't make sense?"

"Probably not."

"Then if he is a villain, he's at the very least a very honest one. Which isn't so bad, is it?"

The corners of Taylor's lips turned up. "And is he a villain?"

"No. He doesn't believe in government-created labels like that. But if he still uses them, then he'd be a practical Hero with a Rogue's streak, and with some Ideologue qualities; those are capes motivated primarily by philosophies."

"And what is his philosophy?"

I thought for a moment. "Without a solid and widespread personal and social understanding of inborn human nature, things like liberty, education, democracy, and many other once believed to be universal solutions, can't save humanity from itself. Or something like that. Anyway, does your dad work on Saturdays?"

"Yeah. Until five. He leaves around seven in the morning."

"Then let's continue tomorrow at eight. Sound good?"

She nodded.

My right hand went to my pocket and soon gave her — what I justified as "not a gift; just emergency telecommunications means" — a high-end smartphone.

"I'll let you know once he's gone," said Taylor, still pink but no longer nearly as tense, with a hint of eagerness in her voice."

"See you tomorrow, then."

"See you tomorrow."

⸻⸻x⸻⸻

Driving home, I replayed the past three days with Taylor in my mind.

There were two Great Principles of seduction.

The first principle was: "All outside opinions about female seduction are false," about the absurd diversity of people.

The second principle was: "Seduction is about personal empathy and intuition," about the need for universal tools to understand that diversity.

But understand diversity for what purpose?

The third principle was so obvious it barely needed stating: "Seduction is about giving people what they desire."

Exactly those three Great Principles were Giacomo Casanova's main tools.

He ignored romantic social norms.

Used empathy and intuition to understand what women actually wanted.

Gave them precisely that, and in return received their thirst for more.

With Taylor, I was following the same playbook.

In Worm, Taylor took the initiative so often that it was easy to forget why exactly she did so.

Only after every nearby authority figures had failed her. And only after everything familiar, stable, and desirable had begun collapsing around her. Taylor's reactivity really did begin to look like initiative.

"Queen of Escalation?"

More like the "Queen of Stabilization, Paladin Edition." Or "Taylor Hebert: Emergency Mode."

But what was she like during the rare moments when she wasn't under pressure of circumstances?

A girl who above all wanted to return to pre-bullying normalcy and reliability.

And over the past three days, I had given Taylor exactly that.

As for normalcy, not perfectly, far from it, still, much better than what she had she met me.

But in case of reliability? Oh boy.

If you know something works, why look for something else?

I had essentially stolen and combined Tattletale and Dinah roles, filling Taylor with the promise of reliability cheats. Plus, by demonstrating my own imperfections, I offered her an outlet for her inner normalcy and responsibility itches; for a price, but a tiny one, if any.

Because of lingering parts of my upbringing, part of me felt guilty for being so efficient at this. Despite the "Discretion" principle, what I had done wasn't all that far from offering her longevity.

But I just couldn't bring myself to do things less effectively than I could. Or spend much more time on her.

More time spent with Taylor meant greater attachment, and therefore distancing from perhaps the only stable good way to use Kaleidoscope - sexual tourism.

In my situation — with absolute power and zero accountability — sexual periodic biological need was the only stable human motivational fulcrum I had. All other neocortex's abstractions carried risk to slippery-sloping my use of Gates toward empire-building, ideological control, global scientific experimentation, and so on. Not necessarily surely bad, yet less reliable.

So weakening it just due to negligence with emotional attachment and harem shenanigans would be not only amoral, but also very stupid and potentially catastrophic.

'But fuck, today there again were so many contradictions between my promiscuity goals and seduction efficiency,' I thought irritably about my too generous promises for Taylor.

Trying to understand how I could optimize such things even further. At the same time, promising much fewer obligations about the future and not suppressing free will by too generous one-time offerings.

At first glance, an obvious solution was just lying, but such accumulation of false knowledge and contradictions leads straight toward loss of mental integrity and identity collapse.

'I need more indirect leverages. I wouldn't have to promise so many if I could show Taylor that I'm also a Tinker 8+, or such.

Romantic relationships exist for mutually beneficial exchange. So, the moment one side loses the ability to reciprocate, the relationship becomes something else.

In real life, typical women shouldn't want a relationship with someone like Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne. Why want something so unlikely that any real hopes and dreams about it are doomed for unpleasant disappointment? No, it's better to use connections with such unreachable persons for more practical things: self-validation, connections, a backup lifeline.

I require something like this, but without the social status part...

Bio-augmentations?

Perhaps. Well, soon I'll have at least something to start with in this direction, isn't it?'

From Monday to Friday, I visited the Diamond Maker universe 10 times.

Three of those visits were duds. In one, the scientist didn't have the diamonds; in the second, he had been arrested by the police; and in the third, he had already spoken with an old man and then left with him.

So, for Gate, I needed just 2 more days. Or rather tomorrow and Sunday morning. Perhaps 3 days, if I wanted to go to the Diamond Age universe with 12 Inspired Inventors' charges.