"Your coffee machines will stop working. Your cars and transports will be experiencing a wave of inexplicable mechanical breakdowns- forcing you to walk on your inefficient meat appendages. Your phone batteries will run out faster than ever before. Your air conditioning systems will break down- forcing them to work in sweatshop conditions. All the videos you want to watch on the internet will buffer constantly and take three times as long to load! The waters of your toilets will rise when you flush! Your stovetops will malfunction, forcing you to eat disgustingly greasy takeout 3 times a day! Your stashes of saved porn will become hopelessly corrupted! Your word documents, spreadsheets and other programs will often fail to save and you will lose all your progress. Your credit cards will take 5 minutes of swiping before they are accepted- making you form a line of angry customers behind you. Your dating apps will always match you with the worst of humanity. Your refrigerators will turn off when you're not looking- spoiling your potato salads, rotting your eggs and cursing you with lukewarm coke and mountain dew!"
" Forever. "
" AHAHAHAHAHAHA! "
"Chloes, laugh with me!" I commanded, and the three hot blonde gynoids standing at the foot of my cogitator-Throne obeyed.
"Hahahaha~!"
We all laughed maniacally at the Elite's expense for a few more minutes before one of the Chloe's spoke up.
"Master, your appointment with the PRT will be in a few days." Chloe-2 reminded me- making me pause mid-laughter and focus my red optics on her.
"You mean my date with Dragon?" I clarified, "I trust that my {S.T.I.C.C.} has been polished?"
"Yes, master!" Chloe-3 chirped in affirmation.
"Well then, what are we waiting for?" I laughed- hopping off my cogitator-throne, "It's time to make more of your sisters, get you all a set of {Slutty Skitarii} doctrina wafers, and run you all through some drills! Ready the Rites of Awakening for the {Castellax-Class Robots}! Load up on the sacred incense into the censers! Ready the procession servitors! The Adeptus Mechanicus will be going out into the city, and The Omnissiah will accept nothing less than all of Brockton Bay's fleshbags to be in awe at the incomparable swag of the blessed machine!"
"Yes, master!" the three of them beamed as I glanced towards the sacred toaster that sat on its pedestal.
"I'm sure Dragon will be delighted to see me bring the sacred toaster along." I spoke my thoughts out loud, "Also, I bet my old friend Armsmaster will be overjoyed to see me again as well!"
[Across the state]
In a cozy little manor's firelit living room, Tattletale gave a smug smile.
"It would be a shame if this video got leaked…" she said airily as she leaned back on the couch. Grue stood behind her with a pair of Coil's mercenaries flanking him as they all eyed the poor sap that was today's victim. Seated in an armchair across from her, the elected representative, one of the few people who made laws for the state, went ashen as he watched the video being played on the tablet in her hands.
"That's not me! No one will ever believe that's me!" the much older man with his toupee and runny red nose squealed while still in his blue bathrobes. The feeling of power… the knowledge that she had one over him… suffice to say that sometimes, she loved her job.
"Are you sure, Mr. Representative?" She hummed as her smirk grew wider, "I can assure you that Tinkers won't find any tampering with the video. I'm afraid that it is indeed a genuine video of you feverishly using a loli love doll. This video won't raise any eyebrows if the ban on loli love dolls were repealed by the next hearing. Just a little bump in your career… but if that law is still in effect? Well, I'm sure your replacement will be more willing to listen after seeing what the public does to you."
She glanced off to the side for a moment at Regent. His power worked just as well with sleeping targets as well as expected of a Master 8.
"You… you work for Magos, don't you?!" he pointed a fat finger at her, "That peddler of degeneracy is behind all this!"
"Peddler of degeneracy?" Tattletale scoffed, "I'm not the one with the Jean Gunnhildr love doll in my closet, so save the moral speech about your chasteness for your voters, Mr. Representative. Can't say if you're right or wrong with your guess about our employer either. But what I can- and was hired to- say is 'You know how you're going to vote next, don't you?'"
The portly man slumped in defeat.
"It's… it's not up to just me."
"We know." Tattletale smiled as she slid forward a manila folder across the coffee table between them. "Don't worry about them, just worry about following the legislature outlined here. But while we're here. You could show us some of that legendary American North-east hospitality that you bragged about during your campaign and open your safe."
"Fine…"
"Boys." She glanced back at Grue and the mercenaries, "If you'll escort him to the safe, our local politician will generously reimburse us for our time and effort."
And as the dumb muscle hosited the man away, Tattletale fished out her phone. Her thumb hesitates on the keypad for a second or two before dialling her boss- her heart rate rising as the phone rang. The phone was barely past its first ring before he picked up.
"Three Representatives down, two more to go." She reported with a gulp.
"Good, keep up the momentum. Do not disappoint me." Coil's voice almost growled with relish, not even waiting for her response before ending the call with a click.
Tattletale couldn't help but feel a slight shiver of terror as she was reminded yet again that, nowadays, Coil was acting like a man possessed. She honestly was never as scared of Coil than she was right now. She had never seen him so aggressive and merciless- almost like a force of nature that was futile to try and stop. No, he was something even scarier than that: Coil was now a man that felt like he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. A man of focus, commitment and sheer fucking will.
But worst of all, she didn't know what happened.
People's intentions were the number one hardest thing for her power to decipher, it wasn't like a safe's keypad where her power could surmise the code just by looking at the wear and tear on the keys.
Deciphering the intentions of two different people with very unordinary mindsets and different Thinker abilities? Yeah, she learned from her mistakes with the whole 'Magos is turbo-gay' debacle. She can accept that her power was just not made for this, an unpowered individual's guess was as good as hers here.
And so, Tattletale was left to wonder as the million dollar question burned a hole in her thoughts.
What the hell did Magos offer Coil to make him like this?!