Chapter 5
Monica reluctantly opened her eyes after one of the greatest headaches of her life woke her up. Which was quite an achievement since she had spent most of her life among people whose inferior intelligences would cause her to contemplate the reasons for her suffering from her superior intellect. Meaning she had a life full of headaches.
But as she tried to get up, she realized that she couldn't. As a matter of fact she couldn't move anything from neck down, she was tied down!
"Morning sunshine!" And the culprit behind it was sitting right next to her bed, smiling in a way no sentient being would like as the first thing they see in the morning.
"You." She said, her voice hoarse and not strong enough to even yell.
"Me." He said, his abominable smile still on his face.
"I believe we have gotten off the wrong foot. Now, we will play twenty questions, Seith edition. Rules are simple, I ask you a question and you answer without lying while also trying to give good enough answers that I don't kill you!" The monster before her clapped his hands with a snicker.
Damn her decision that she made while sleep deprived and incredibly hungry! She should have chosen someone else to mug!
This was fun.
Monica Rappaccini, that was the name of my new 'friend', was answering each of my questions with honesty while trying to make herself sound as good as she could.
Sure, I could have gotten any of the answers I wanted by ripping them out of her mind and I probably would before killing her, but this was fun.
I had learned that she had powers, a Tinker. Someone who can create technology that was far beyond current capabilities of humanity as long as it was within their specialization, and her's was toxicity.
That green beam gun had used an energy of toxicity, whatever that means. But she admitted that making weapons was somewhat harder for her and that the gun she used against me was literally made out of trash.
Interesting, but all nice things had to end.
"Hmm, I see. Unfortunately our little game has come to an end." I said with a huge smile as I looked down at Monica before conjuring a knife in my hand.
"P-please, don't!" She said, her voice quivering with fear.
"I'm sorry but there just isn't anything you really have for me, might as well take this chance to learn how powers work."
"I already told you!"
"Not your powers, powers in general." I rolled my eyes at her.
"I can tell you that too!" At that I vanished the knife in my hand. Her value had just risen quite a bit.
"And how do you know about it?"
"I once worked for a company called AIM! They are an organization that tries to learn as much as they can about parahumans!" She yelled, her limbs pushing against her bindings.
"And this organization just tells all their members about such knowledge?" I raised my eyebrow, it didn't sound believable even if humanity as a whole were dumbasses.
"No… I hacked their computer and learned it." She averted her eyes as she answered.
"I thought you were a toxicity tinker?"
"My skills in hacking has nothing to do with my powers, I am a genius even without them!" She said hotly with a glare that could have intimidate me if she was, you know, intimidating.
"Well, considering your state I guess they didn't take kindly to that." I laughed even while reassessing her worth in my head.
If she had been merely some woman who could make Gadgets in only one category, a category that I could easily imitate, then she wouldn't have been exactly worth keeping around until I had a proper power base in this city. But if she was also smart enough to do things like hacking, even if she got caught, along with her tinkering; then she was worth keeping around.
"No… the damn ingrates didn't like me learning more than they would allow and tried to kill me. It's why I am in a dump like this city, I had to lay low." She said with a dark look in her eyes, probably because how much laying low had actually helped her.
"Hmm, give me a moment." I said as left her alone for a moment and started to search for what I wanted. It took a bit more than I would like but I found it.
"Here, sign this." I showed Monica the parchment in my hand, made out of manticore skin.
She read what was written on it with a blank look before she turned her head to me with a glare.
"This is practically a slave contract! Not even corporates make it so obvious in their contracts!" She yelled.
"Of course they don't. Corporates are pussies."
"That's not what I meant!" Heh, she was funny.
"Why on earth would I ever sign something like this!" Oh, I knew the answer to that one.
"You will get food, water, shelter, protection and if you belong to me then I won't have a reason to cut you open." I listed all of the reasons and saw her pride and self preservation conflict within her eyes.
Our talks with Monica showed that she was immensely prideful. She thought far too highly of herself, so I couldn't keep her around without having her on a tight leash. Her pride would lead her to do something stupid, like try to overthrow me. Better nip that in the bud.
Luckily for me, her pride wouldn't win against self preservation simply because her pride was a part of her self preservation. 'I am not the kind of person who should die here' is the way she was more than likely thinking.
"…where do I sign?"
I smiled at her as I snapped my fingers and the bindings on her right arm were cut off.
"Here." I said as I gave her a quill, a favorite of mine made out of Snallygaster feather and filled with its blood.
"A quill, really?" She said with an unimpressed look.
"Call me old fashioned." I shrugged as she huffed and signed the contract. So I snapped my fingers once more and vanished the rest of her bindings.
"Welcome to my little group, Monica Rappaccini."