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"Hey V, how are you?"
I greeted the girl who answered my call.
"How can the person who's half a corpse be doing?"
"Don't exaggerate. You have more than enough time to find a solution to your problem. And that's exactly why I'm calling..."
"Uh-huh... Vik already told me you brought him an interesting girl with a burned-out doll chip... and here you were saying you didn't know where she was..."
"I didn't know. It's just that it wasn't hard to find her... anyway, I wasn't looking. Judy just got a case of the conscience, and she decided to help her ex one last time."
"I see... well, from what I gathered from Vik, there's nothing to pull out of her. The doll chip, as it burned out, did a pretty good number on the rest of her chrome..."
"I won't argue with that, but no one's stopping you from talking to her. I think she'll be able to tell you who could have done that to her, and it'll probably be..."
"Yeah, I thought about that, too. It'll probably be the person who's actually the client."
"Uh-huh, but that's not why I'm really calling..."
"Oh?"
"Rogue sent me the time and place... to be more specific, tomorrow at twenty-two forty-five, you have to be in the Afterlife. She has a lot of things to do, so they won't be waiting for you."
"Hmm?"
"She has some info, but it still needs to be checked. I think she believes she'll be able to do it by tomorrow. And then she can give you that info..."
"Give? You said 'give'?"
"Yeah... I already paid for the info, so don't blow your chance."
"David..."
"V... let's just agree, just shut up and don't blow your chance."
"Alright... thank you..."
"No problem..."
I ended the call and leaned back in the chair I was sitting in. We had already gotten some sleep, but taking jobs now would be too dangerous. And this opinion was shared not only by my girls but also by Rogue and Regina, who had almost directly advised me to just live for myself for a month...
And right now, none of us knew what to do...
"David, listen... I have a project..."
I glanced at Judy.
"Well... if you want to help me, of course... and the other girls can join in, too, for more info to analyze..."
"I'm not against it, but what's the project?"
"Well... I want to try to record two braindance tracks and layer them on top of each other."
I shrugged.
"I'm not against trying it. It should be interesting, and setting up the equipment for that kind of recording could be very, very interesting."
"Uh-huh..."
Kiwi, who was in on the conversation, nodded.
"...and we'd have to work on the software a lot..."
"Thanks..."
Judy smiled openly at us and rushed into my arms, giving Kiwi a peck on the cheek on the way, which flustered our runner a lot.
Hugging her, I happily felt Judy's butt.
"Ahem... David, if you don't stop, we're not going to be discussing technical details right now, but something else..."
"Well, I'd like to see that..."
Kiwi couldn't help but comment on what was happening.
"Well, I'm not against it either; maybe Kiwi would even join us, but..."
I gave Judy a peck on the nose and pointedly hid my hands behind the back of the chair I was sitting in.
"...I can see in your eyes that you're more interested in discussing the details of this project... so let's call the others over. Lucy, at the very least, would be very useful, and Panam and Becca might offer up some unexpected solutions..."
"Alright..."
And Judy's eyes lit up. A couple of minutes later, the girls from different parts of the apartment came over, and we had to explain what exactly we needed from them...
We spent the entire day trying to figure out what Judy was planning. Not the main idea, but how she was planning to execute it on a technical level, on a software level, and how she was planning to combine all of it...
"Uh... why is it so complicated?"
We all froze, looking at Panam in surprise. Even Becca, who was mostly just throwing out possible, and partly crazy, ideas, looked at her friend with outrage.
"Panam, what do you mean?"
"Well, why do you need such a complex way to synchronize the tracks?"
"You know how to do it more simply?"
Judy looked at Panam with interest.
"Maybe... just don't get mad..."
"Don't drag it out..."
"The Basilisk."
Becca was the first to understand what Panam meant, and she smiled happily, nodding. I figured it out right after her, but I didn't get a chance to say anything, as Becca decided to explain our brunette's brilliant idea herself.
"A Basilisk has two pilots, one for the vehicle and one for the cannon. And to make the controls as synchronized as possible, it has equipment for synchronizing the pilots. Panam is probably suggesting we use that kind of equipment to synchronize the people who will be recording the braindances."
"Hmm..."
Judy thoughtfully tapped her index finger on her lips.
"We could do it a little more simply..."
"More simply?"
They all looked at me in surprise.
"Yeah, we could take the synchronization software from the Basilisk and put it on a special shard, and also connect our ports for a closer connection between our chrome. Of course, this is just the first option; later, we could just use a specially tuned shard for the recording..."
I drummed my fingers on the table.
"But in general... we have to try it. But first, we need to get the software and, after installing it on the shard, we need to optimize it for our situation, because I'm sure there's a lot of shit in there that's just not needed for a braindance recording."
We spent the rest of the evening just solving the problems we had set for ourselves, which turned out to be very interesting. We had to take a couple of breaks for food, of course, and I had to take a break to cook that food. But even so...
As I was lying in bed, hugging a very sleepy Judy, I realized that this was the kind of downtime we needed... not a job for someone else, not a picnic, but this kind of friendly get-together where we discussed a problem that was interesting to all of us, without any deadlines. Although I was a little hasty about the picnics...
And picnics could easily be combined with working on this problem...
And in the morning, as I was making breakfast, the doorbell rang...
"I'll get it..."
Lucy went to the door.
"And what do you want?"
Lucy either didn't get an answer to her question, or the person who came was talking very quietly.
"Judy! It's for you!"
"Just a sec!"
Judy was in the bathroom at that moment, so she didn't show up in a second, but about five minutes later. And the whole time, Lucy was out of my line of sight. I suspected she was standing at the door and not letting the visitor into the apartment. And I was already starting to get a suspicion about who had come to visit us...
"And what do you need?"
Judy's voice was a little annoyed.
"Alright... come in... but if you say a single word about my family or friends..."
A threat was in my braindance master's voice.
"...I will personally throw you out the window. Do you understand?"
Now I had no doubt about who had come to visit us, and when the door closed and Judy and Evelyn walked into the kitchen, I wasn't surprised at all. On the contrary, I just ignored her.
"Alright..."
Judy nodded to her guest toward the couch and stood with her back to me, perching her juicy butt on a bar stool.
"I came to thank you..."
And a silence descended on the kitchen, which Judy had to break.
"And?"
"Judy... thank you for saving me... I don't know what would have happened to me if you hadn't pulled me out of the Clouds..."
"And you still prefer to ignore the obvious. I didn't pull you out, David did."
"I doubt he would have done it if you hadn't asked him to..."
"He probably wouldn't have..."
Judy shrugged, as if there was nothing wrong with that. Although, remembering the look in her eyes when she asked me to save her ex... she probably would have run off to save her herself. So she only seemed detached and uninterested in the conversation now.
"...but do you really think I would have pressured him? If he had refused, you would have stayed where you were... with Woodman, and he would have continued to sexually assault you..."
"That's exactly why I'm here... we have to do something..."
"We? Have to?"
"I got lucky this time..."
A sad little chuckle was in Parker's voice.
"...they found me early, were able to pull me out, and took me to a good ripperdoc who was able to remove the implant. But who's going to be next? Woodman has to be stopped, and even better, we have to take control of the Clouds..."
I barely managed to hold back a sad sigh.
"Well, let's say we stop Woodman... there's nothing difficult about that... I've already thought about it. The club's management would just be completely taken over by Maiko..."
"That bitch?! She's no better than that freak! She won't do anything! She won't change anything! And Woodman... you know yourself that you have to take out not just him, but the Tiger Claws, too..."
"Uh-huh..."
Judy nodded in understanding.
"...well, let's say I agree..."
I noticed sparks of joy in Parker's eyes.
"...who's going to be in charge?"
"You and I..."
Parker got up a little and, after taking a couple of steps toward Judy, she put her hand on her shoulder. She wanted to put it on her hip, but after noticing something, probably the emotion on my girl's face, she changed the direction of her hand.
"We? Parker, did you not understand anything? There is no 'we' anymore... 'we' ended when you broke my heart..."
"But you..."
"Yeah, I asked David to save you. Yeah, I left you a small sum of money so you could get out of the city. But that's just a sign of the good things that we had between us. That's it..."
"But Judy..."
"No, Parker, we're not on the same path... and besides... you just don't understand what you're trying to do."
"And what's wrong with my plan?"
"Well, for example, who was supposed to take out the bosses in your plan? You? Or maybe me? Oh..."
Judy, clearly grinning, continued after a couple of seconds.
"...that was probably supposed to be David, wasn't it? And what would happen after that? Oh, I'll keep going; don't bother yourself. You were probably going to play on our relationship with him, and use that to get him to guard the Clouds. And when everything stabilized, you would have just gotten rid of him, me, and the girls..."
"Not you!"
"Yeah, right..."
Judy nodded, and a mocking laugh was in her voice.
"...of course, you wouldn't have betrayed me again. And of course, you wouldn't have wanted to be at the top of the Clouds all by yourself."
"I didn't..."
"Parker, who are you trying to lie to?"
"I didn't..."
"Alright, that's enough. If that's all you came here for, then get out of here..."
"I..."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. You came to say thank you and to try to play on the feelings you thought I still had for you. You wanted to use that to climb higher. In short, it's business as usual; you wanted to do the work with someone else's hands."
"You don't..."
"Enough... now get out."
"This is..."
"Parker, you missed your chance that I decided to give you, and now there can't even be a friendship between us..."
Parker finally got up and went to the apartment door. Judy went after her and, after slamming the door shut, she came back looking much more annoyed...
"Damn it... I need to call Maiko... warn her about a certain psycho's ambitions..."
Judy even kicked the couch, after which she spun on her heels and literally collapsed onto it. Her eyes lit up, signaling that she was making a call...
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