The Protagonist System

As Veder, I spent the day with the secretaries and we actually had a great time. Normally, that would be surprising, except we had caught several more discrepancies and tracked them down, fixed them and reported them to the finance department's director, and continued to work.

Plus, today's shift was only for 10 hours and it ended right at 4 P.M., which we had meticulously planned for and used our collective breaks to spend the last 20 minutes of the shift relaxing and setting up their work for Monday, since they had to go back to doing only their regular secretarial work until I was available after the academy let out that afternoon and then we could continue the fun.

I easily arranged for another Delamain taxi ride, which was an AV to avoid all of the traffic on the streets, and the 4 women were very appreciative. In fact, they all agreed to head out to party and would meet up at the club later tonight. Since I didn't want to assume I was included, I didn't say anything or offered to meet as well, since I had Denise's date to get ready for. Depending on how that went, it would set the tone for any later meetings, assuming there were any.

Delamain dropped them off first and Denise made me promise to come by and pick her up in half a hour. I did so and also agreed I'd pick her up in my own car to give her enough time to get ready, so she didn't have to rush. Again, the 4 women looked appreciative and not just Denise.

I thanked Delamain for the prompt service when he dropped me off back at Atlas Incorporated where I had left my car. I entered and saw Atlas sitting there behind the counter watching a news broadcast about how the city looked brand new and there wasn't a trace of garbage anywhere.

“What are we going to do with all the rioters we detained last night?” Atlas asked me.

I thought about what happened when he sent out bills for services that morning and chuckled. “Tell them to pay a modest detainment fee for breakfast and lunch, then kick them all out. We are a registered prison facility and not the NCPD, so we can't charge them with anything or hold them for longer than 24 hours.” I smiled knowingly. “They don't know that, though.”

Atlas laughed as well. “All right, free money is free money.”

“Fix up the cargo hauler into a passenger carrier to ferry them back home and they'll never know where the facility is.” I said and walked by him and went into the back room and out the back door.

“All the workers do, though.” Atlas said back.

“They won't say anything, because the facility has better housing than where they live now.” I said and climbed into the car. “Just offer them the upper levels as living quarters.”

“That's a good idea. Most of them will take it, because it gives them apartments in the city center an massive bragging rights.” Altas responded. “Have fun on your date.”

“I will.” I said and kind of marvelled at myself for literally thinking out loud with myself. It let me work things out even faster than if I had done it all internally.

I pulled out into traffic and found that it was flowing fairly quickly, even though it was getting close to rush hour. Apparently, the newly repaired streets and sidewalks had everyone out and about as they marvelled at all of it. The news had covered the majority of the repairs and showed off how well Atlas Incorporated had fixed everything.

I drove home and parked, went upstairs to the penthouse, and had a shower. I was mentally tracking the time and had plenty of it to get ready. The drive back might be a bit problematic if I wanted to keep my promise with Denise, so I transfigured my suit into the latest male fashion and put it on. I left off the gun this time, since there was no way to hide it under such formfitting clothing.

I left the penthouse apartment and went back down to the car and drove it through the backstreets and alleyways that other people had also taken. It was almost funny, because everyone used to avoid them with all the garbage that had clogged most of them and they didn't want to deal with being attacked or having to backtrack to find another route.

I reached Denise's megabuilding right on time and sent her a message that I was downstairs. I also asked if she wanted me to come up to wait or she could send me a message when she was ready and I would come up to get her then.

She messaged back that I could come up to wait and I locked the car and set some magical protections on it before I entered the building. It wasn't like the one I lived in, so it didn't have a security desk or a security guard to register with.

I rode the elevator up to her floor and made sure there were no cameras as I pulled out a basket of fruit and a bottle of expensive wine from my inventory. I thought about adding flowers, then remembered there weren't anything like flowershops or any places to gather them in the wild. In the back of my mind, I thought about changing that.

Her door opened for me when I approached it and I stepped inside her modest apartment. It was much cleaner this time and I held in my laugh at seeing it. She had been offended that I had seen her living like a slob before and did her best to correct it over the last few days, despite being exhausted after her long shifts work.

I didn't sit down and stood there in the middle of her living room as I waited for her. It was about 10 minutes later when Denise left her bedroom and she wore a mix of her own clothes and some of the high fashion she had been given the night before. She had even spent a few extra minutes curing her hair and giving her golden locks nice cascading waves that almost covered her cyberware implants.

“I like that look on your face.” Denise said and sauntered over to me, then she froze when she saw the basket of real fruit and a bottle of wine from the 1960s. “Oh... oh god.” She whispered as her breathing sped up. “Oh, my god.”

“Relax, I have plenty more in storage.” I said and that was the wrong thing to say to relax her, because her breathing became ragged as she continued to panic. I set the bottle down on the table with the basket and took her into my arms.

Denise needed quite a few minutes to calm down and her eyes kept darting to the wine bottle. “Do... do you know how much something like that is worth?” She asked and looked up at my face. “And you... you have... plenty more in storage?”

I thought about a good response to that. “Would now be a good time to say I own 50% controlling interest in Atlas Incorporated and he owns the other half?”

Denise gasped at that and then fainted.

“I'll take that as a yes.” I joked and waited for a couple of minutes, then gently woke her.

Denise didn't look panicked this time, which was why I had proverbially ripped the band-aid off of telling her I was super-rich. “You're not kidding.”

“Not even a little bit.” I said and motioned to the bottle. “The only reason that's worth so much is because it's so rare, right?”

Denise nodded and her hands clung to me a little tighter.

“Well, if everyone knew I had... say, a thousand bottles of it... how rare would it be?” I asked.

“A thousand...” Denise stopped talking and took a deep breath and let it out.

I could almost feel her analytical mind going over the numbers, which was why I asked.

“The rarity would change to scarcity, reducing the inherent value of the product; but, if you only made 10 of them available for sale, the relative price would skyrocket, because of the limited amount on the market.” Denise mused.

I smiled warmly. “Exactly. It's manipulation that drives up the cost, not the product itself. If only one bottle existed...” I started to say and Denise made a distressed sound. “...then it would become priceless, since the inherent value has nothing to do with the scarcity value. It could taste like drek and people would still pay a huge amount to have it.”

“As a status symbol.” Denise said, finally getting it. “You're giving me a status symbol.”

“If you want it to be, yes.” I said and she looked surprised. “You can drink it and enjoy it casually, then show off the empty and quite intact bottle.”

Denise caught her breath. “Oh... oh, god. That would... imply...”

“Yes, it would.” I said and motioned to the door. “Shall we go? I'm eager to get to the main part of our date.”

Denise gave me an incredulous look and then huffed, let her death grip on me go, and she picked up the priceless bottle. Her eyes darted around the modest apartment, as if looking for somewhere to stash it. I took pity on her and dumped out the food basket on the table, placed the bottle in the basket, and then covered it with some of the fruit and arranged the rest around it, as if the basket was overflowing.

“That's actually quite clever.” Denise said with admiration.

“Thank you. I try.” I said and handed her a banana. “Eat that to keep up your strength as I drive us to the restaurant for our reservation.”

Denise nodded and opened it as I led her over to her door and we left her apartment. She took a bite of it when we reached the elevator and softly moaned at the taste. As a real banana, it was full of potassium and natural sugars that stoked the body's engine quite well.

I led her out to the car and held the passenger door open for her. She blushed slightly and climbed in, the banana half finished, and she sat down and savored the yellow fruit as much as she could. I climed in on the driver's side and drove the car to the restaurant.

It was located in the Westbrook district in Japantown. Denise had been too involved eating and enjoying the banana to notice the scenery. I parked in a reserved parking spot and climbed out of the car, walked around it, and opened Denise's door. I helped her out with a hand and her other hand held the banana peel as if she didn't know what to do with it.

I took it from her with my free hand and walked her over to the building's entrance. The lobby looked almost normal when we entered. The bouncer in front of the elevator did not. The fancy suit he wore made him look like he was wearing his grandfather's clothes and the scowl on his face didn't help dismiss that image. He looked like a pouting child.

Instead of talking to him, I let Denise's hand go and pulled out a written invitation to the club on floor 42 and the reservation. It was fake, of course. Things like that didn't exist. But, it did have the right information on it and he seemed to still as he checked it, then he grunted and stepped aside as he hit the elevator button.

I nodded to him as the elevator opened. I handed him the banana peel and then led Denise inside. She looked surprised and embarrassed as the bouncer glared at the peel in his hand as if it offended him in some way, then the elevator doors closed.

“I can't believe you did that.” Denise said with a shaky laugh.

“He's a bouncer and is used to being dismissed.” I said and she gave me a pointed look. “I would have greeted him and asked him how he likes his job if I thought he wouldn't stare at me with a blank face and not know how to answer me.”

Denise gave me the same look for a moment and then barked a laugh and relaxed. At least until the doors opened on floor 42 and she saw where we were. “You brought me to the Dark Matter club.”

“Just for the meal.” I said and she gave me an incredulous look. “I'll leave the dance club part of the date up to you.”

Denise lost the look and nodded. We approached the bar and a quite sexy woman behind it gave us appraising looks. I showed her the private room reservation and she directed us where to go, then assigned a personal waitress. Denise almost looked hostile as another barely dressed woman led is up the stairs to one of the nicest rooms.

“I'll be right back with your meal.” The waitress said in a sexy voice and left.

“We didn't even order.” Denise said, her voice stern.

“I took care of that when I made the reservation.” I said and waved at the wall of windows and the darkening sky. “I picked this room because of the view that I wanted you to see.”

Denise looked skeptical until I took her hand and led her outside onto the balcony. The entirety of Night City could be seen from this high up and it looked gorgeous, especially after all the cleaning Atlas had done. There was also no prevalent garbage smell to mar the experience.

Denise held my hand as she stared out at the glittering lights of everything around and below us. “It... it almost looks fake.”

“It does, doesn't it?” I asked. “If only everyone could see it like this. The beauty it has within it, and not the cesspool it really is underneath.”

Denise huffed and leaned against me. “I want to say it's not that bad, except we've both seen the paperwork and what people will do to screw everyone else over to get a few more eddies than what they earned for themselves.”

“True, true.” I said and turned to face her. “I hope you know that I did this for one reason and one reason only.”

Denise turned to face me, too. “You're showing off.”

I shook my head. “No, I'm showing you what I can do if I wanted to.” I motioned around us. “This, all this, is just stuff. Really expensive stuff, yes. But, it's just stuff. It's all meaningless unless you can share it with someone that means something to you.”

Denise blushed at that. “Rubbing beautiful women wearing skimpy clothes in my face is what you want to share with me?”

I smiled at that. “Again, no. I think your friends have that part covered already.”

That comment made Denise laugh as she remembered the fashion show the nigh before. “They were kind of blatant about it, weren't they?”

“Yes, because they knew you are starting to have serious feelings about me.” I said and her blush deepened. “I just wanted you to know that I feel the same way.”

“Dinner is served.” The waitress said and we turned to look at her.

She still wore a barely there outfit that left nothing to the imagination and neither of us took advantage of that. We also saw the food laid out on the long table and Denise gasped at what had been prepared.

“Yes, that's real beef.” The waitress said and stepped back and gave a wide sweeping motion with her had towards the table. “Please, sit down and enjoy it.”

Denise gave me a look full of desire and I gave her a quick kiss in return. We entered the suite and I sat her down, then sat myself. The food was actually quite good, if a little off. The seasoning didn't fit with the sauce, which I accepted without complaint.

Why didn't I fix it? Because Denise was chowing down on it like it was Ambrosia from the gods. She had never had it before and the different spices didn't affect her at all. I quietly thanked the waitress and asked her to return in half an hour to bring dessert. She smiled and left, looking a little sad that I hadn't asked her to climb under the table to suck me off while I ate.

I really needed to stop reading people's minds so much, especially in places like these. I thought and joined Denise in eating as much of the prepared food as possible. She really did enjoy it much more than she would have at any other place, because she was so used to eating synthetic foods.

Since I didn't want to disappoint her, even knowing that she was the one that had asked me for a date, I had arranged this part specifically to let her know that she could have this whenever she wanted. Like I had told her, eating like this only meant something when you were with someone that meant something to you.

*

Denise was a little too full to enjoy dessert as much as she wanted to. The real meat for the main meal was just too delicious to pass up. She had barely touched the potatoes and vegetables, despite them being her favorites as a child. She almost had to waddle back to the elevator, she was so full.

She was also very grateful to Veder for bringing her here and showing off, even if she usually hated it when a date tried doing things like that. It was his explanation that he wouldn't have gone there without her that made her accept it and she also felt warm and tingly inside because of it. He had spent all that money for a room inside an exclusive high class club for her and then said it was meaningless if she wasn't there to share it with.

That just ticked off all the remaining boxes she had for spending time with someone. He had already ticked most of them off with his behavior, respecting her job, and then treating her and her friends with politeness. He was the least corpo-like corpo she had ever met and was glad that she had met him when she did.

He drove his fancy car to where she wanted him to go, which was in the Watson district. He didn't say anything when he parked and saw what the bar was that Denise wanted to go to. He helped her out of the car and she felt surprisingly better after he did so. She wasn't as bloated or tired.

“Come on, it'll be fun.” Denise said and held his hand and led him through the metal gate and across the courtyard to where two female bouncers stood. One wore what looked like panties and a leather vest, and that was it. The other looked like a classic punk rocker chick with a mohawk and everything.

“I'm not so sure about that.” Veder said as one of the bouncers picked up a baseball bad and set it onto her shoulder, as if ready to swing it.

“Don't mind her, she's just protective of the girls inside. They're the Moxes, it's what they do.” Denise reassured him and waved to the two women before she opened the front door. The curtain of shiny sequins did not bode well for a normal club experience and Denise paid the cover charge for the both of them at the front desk.

She led him down the hallway through another set of doors into a gigantic room with a huge bar, a large dance floor, and a crowd of people. The music was thumping and could be felt through the floor. The people were dancing, lounging, and drinking, giving the whole place a surprisingly normal vibe, despite it being the usual place to have sexual encounters.

There were booths along the wall, private areas, several stages, and a dancing pole that was unoccupied. Denise led Veder over to one of the booths near the back of the room and three nearly identical squeals of delight greeted them.

Her coworkers were already there and Denise pulled Veder into the booth and they were quickly surrounded and then hugged in greeting. It was the start of a full evening of drinking, dancing, chatting, mingling, and having a lot of fun.