Corrupting Power
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Quaranteam: Book 2, Ch. 42
🕑 Added 2025-06-24 00:57:59 +0000 UTCChapter Forty-Two
August 2nd, 2021
“C’mon, Andy, put yer fuckin’ back into it,” Lauren said to him as he pulled Taylor’s hips back towards him, the two blondes putting him through his paces early in the morning, because the two of them needed to get to their workout and get to the 49ers training camp.
The last few months, he felt like he’d barely seen the two of them, although he also had never seen them happier. It was as if the new world had been a perfect fit for them, neither of them with much in the way of male friends or family whose loss still haunted them. Taylor’s infidelity before Andy met her had been long since forgiven by Lauren, and the two platinum blondes spent every night wrapped up in each other’s arms. They’d come by for their regular appointments, and they were always at the weekly family dinner, but for the most part, they were living their own life, their best life, and mostly just sharing a house with Andy.
Still, when they came together, the Aussie and the Californian valley girl made sure that Andy never felt like he was imposing, but a very welcome addition to their lives. To Andy, it almost reminded him of the three years he’d spent in therapy, where his therapist would always make it clear how proud she was of him getting back into her office every week, even when he was at his darkest, but he didn’t spend much of the rest of his time thinking about therapy. The two brought big, fun energy to their encounters, and Andy suspected it was because they wanted to keep his spirits up, especially as chaotic as his life had gotten in recent months.
One thing he’d definitely learned about all the women he was partnered with – they talked about him quite a lot when he wasn’t around. How was he doing, what was he thinking, what sort of problems he was facing on both a short- and long-term basis. And it wasn’t because Andy wouldn’t tell them when asked – it was simply that he couldn’t always remember who he’d told what or when. His life was coming at him a thousand miles a minute, it felt like, and he didn’t always have time to tell everyone what was going on. So if there was something they wanted to know more about, he trusted they would ask him. And in return, if there was something they wanted to talk to him about and he hadn’t brought it up, he hoped they would prompt him into talking about it.
But before Lauren and Taylor would ever let him have those conversations with them, they were going to make sure he had some of the most athletic sex of his life. For the two blondes, having sex with him was supposed to be a good, honest workout, and over the last few months, Lauren had been making sure Andy knew what everything in the downstairs playroom was for.
For example, what they were currently fooling around on was called a sex swing, and Andy had known that from the moment he’d seen it, but he’d never used one before, and he could sort of understand the appeal of it now, as it made it much easier for him to maneuver Taylor, especially since she’d put on a few pounds of raw muscle. But he was a little confused by the harness part of it, which seemed to be a belt around her waist.
“You’ll love this,” the Aussie bragged as Taylor looked up at him, her body already more than a bit sweaty, the younger blonde giggling at him. “Taylor, splits time.”
The younger blonde started pushing her legs further and further apart until they formed a perfect T with the rest of her body. Lauren made sure to push his cock hilt deep inside of Taylor’s pussy and then she started to rotate the younger girl, her feet still a few inches off the ground even when pointing straight down. The belt was designed to cling to the swing but still let the person in it twist and turn, and Andy got the strange sensation of the person he was screwing being screwed onto him.
“This is such a weird fuckin’ feeling,” Taylor said with mischief and amusement in her voice. “It’s kinda fire.” She brought her legs up and in, folding them against her chest, as holding the position for a long moment seemed quite difficult, balling up into an almost fetal position, but with Andy’s shaft still inside of her, as Lauren continued to spin the platinum blonde around and around. “God, I hope you nut me soon, big man, ‘cause I’m gonna pop any fuckin’ second here…”
At least she’d agreed to stop calling him ‘Daddy,’ he figured. He’d given up trying to talk Hannah and Asha out of it, but Taylor was older than the two college coeds, if not more mature than them, theoretically. But he’d always been amazed that Taylor and Lauren worked together quite as well as a couple as they did. Lauren was so confident and put together, and Taylor could have an identity crisis over ice cream flavors.
“I’m not far from it…” Andy admitted, and before he knew it, Lauren was behind him, her arms wrapping around his neck, leaning her head down to whisper into his ear like a devil on his shoulder.
“I always miss this, when we’re apart,” the tall Aussie said, knowing her words could help push him over the edge. “You and I make her cum in such different ways. She’s soft an’ tender with me, but you bring out the wild’n’wooly side of’er. I get the lady in the streets, you get the fuckin’ freak in the sheets… but strewth, she does fuckin’ love how you make her come apart, Andy. Who cares why? It’s so bloody good… She belongs to me, but I still belong to you, and that means, she’s yours as well… so claim what’s yours, Andy… it’s so hot watching you do it… watching her come undone because of you… fill her up! Creampie my bitch!”
Lauren’s hands had been doing a number on his chest while she’d talked him up, and his resistance had melted, so when Lauren finally reached up and grabbed the swing and started banging Taylor’s bundled little form faster and faster against his cock until finally, the inevitable happened and he poured his seed into Taylor’s womb, triggering her orgasm as she squealed in a high-pitched trill. Taylor’s sounds of release could sometime trigger Maya’s dogs into a barking fit if they were around and she was close enough.
As they both started to come down from their respective highs, Lauren moved to scoop Taylor up in her arms and release her from the sex swing before laying her down on one of the nearby mattresses in the playroom. “Thanks, sweetie,” Taylor said breathily. “I didn’t think that harness was going to be quite as exhausting as all that, but that thing’s a fucking workout!”
“It’s being suspended up in the air like that,” Lauren told her. “Sheridan’s been warning you that it’s a lot harder than it looks for months now, but oh no, you were convinced you knew better.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll apologize to her,” the smaller blonde said as she tried to get to her feet, still finding her footing a little unsure. “Wow. That one hit harder than it usually does…”
“I felt the same way m’self earlier when ya done me, Andy,” Lauren said, looking at him expectantly. “The Team size thing increase the intensity for alla us?”
“We certainly think so,” he said, grabbing a towel to wipe himself down. “You two are partners five and six since the group regen earlier in the week, and everyone’s saying the orgasms are stronger and fade slower, like it’s trying to further reinforce us in the habits of doing it regularly.”
“Like any of us were complaining before,” Taylor giggled. “But I do feel like I’m still tingly…” She glanced down at her thighs and tilted her head to one side. “And I’m surprised I’m not leaking, considering it felt like you pumped a geyser into me.”
“That’s another side effect we’ve noted,” Andy chuckled, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge they kept stocked with water, Gatorade and foods that were used for playtime. “Women’s bodies seem to be keeping my jism to themselves, absorbing it into the body much faster now. Piper said the same thing, and said she could feel it sort of seeping into her, making her feel all warm and tingly. She said she liked it.”
“Oh, I do!” Taylor said eagerly, as if she’d worried Andy had misunderstood her. “It’s just a surprise. If I wasn’t on birth control, I wonder how it’d affect me getting pregnant.”
“We think it just draws it up and tries to push for it. At least, that’s what Whitney said it felt like. Nicolette’s already pregnant, so it didn’t really change much there.”
“I don’t know if anyone’s said thank you for being cool with Nicolette and Whitney wanting your kids, big man,” Taylor said, “but I’m sure they’re probably too fuckin’ proud to admit how much they desperately wanted them. They just weren’t sure how to broach the subject to you.”
“I would’ve been happy to talk to them about it, Taylor. That goes for you and anyone else in the family.”
“Even Hannah?” Taylor grinned at him.
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told her last time she asked – as soon as she’s graduated from college, if that’s still what she wants, I’ll bang her once a day until it takes.”
“You know she’s going to take you up on that starting on graduation day, right?” Lauren laughed with the sort of confidence that told him she’d spoken to the coed about it before now.
“Yeah, I figured that, but four years is a lot of time, and we’ll see if she changes her mind by the end of it.”
“That girl’s gonna be done in three, she wants it so bad,” Taylor added. “Maybe sooner. I think you underestimate how badly that girl’s got baby fever.”
“I mean, I know it’s going around the house but—”
“No. Andy. You don’t understand. Think back to how Emily was a bit ago, and multiple that by, like, a million bajillion. She’s gone a bit stark baby mad. Any chance she gets, she’s in the nursery with Matty and the twins, helping Jade take care of them,” Taylor told him. “She doesn’t just want a kid of her own; it’s practically all she thinks about.”
“She needs—”
Lauren wrapped her arms around him and hugged him gingerly. “Andy, you’ve got to start letting go a little. You cling too closely, and some of these girls are gonna fuckin’ resent you a bit for it. If you tell Hannah that she can get preggers as long as she finishes college, you know she’ll absolutely go for it. She doesn’t want to let you down. None of us want to. But the heart wants what the heart wants. And hers is screaming ‘motherhood!’ at the top of its lungs. You gotta respect that. She’s gonna be struggling the longer she’s gettin’ fuckin’ pushback against that. The two of you need to find a midpoint where she gets what she wants, and you make sure she isn’t throwing ‘er life away by making the decision too fuckin’ lightly. Talk with her. Figure it out. But don’t make her wait too long.”
“Do you think she’s going to be able to handle it, Taylor?”
The smaller, younger blonde nodded at him. “She’ll make it work, big man, I promise you, and it’ll make her so happy. Maybe you could even make it a birthday present for her in October… that’ll put her at giving birth in the summer, during the break…”
He nodded, considering it. “That’s definitely doable, if she thinks she can manage being a new mother with being a student.”
“I think she has to, babe,” Lauren said with a playful, knowing smile. “The fuckin’ FOMO is literally eating her apart.”
“How’ve you two been since the mass regen? Everything feeling like it should? Nothing acting like it shouldn’t?”
The tall Aussie shrugged. “Ain’t felt that much different, all said’n’done. You, Taylor?”
“Other than the x-ray vision?” Taylor said, as Andy nearly dropped his water bottle. “Kidding! I’m kidding! Jeez Andy…”
“Don’t do that!” he said, laughing a bit nervously. “You might not be kidding, and that terrifies me a little bit! Have you talked to the NFL about what changes might be coming to you?”
“I made a phone call yesterday,” Lauren sighed, moving over to sit down on one of the couches. “But I also pointed out – this isn’t anything I asked for. I didn’t choose this. And as far as I can tell, so far, it’s only made me more of who I already am… all that fuckin’ visual overlay stuff, for me, seems like it’s relegated to just the basics. It ain’t nothing more’n having a cellphone screen over my eyes. Not even close to what the buggers’ve gone and done to Lexi and Melody. Speaking of, you really need to talk with Lex. I think she’s struggling a bit with all that’s happened the last coupl’a days.”
“How so?”
“I don’ wanna speak for ‘er, but she says it’s all felt a bit out of her control, like she isn’t in the driver’s seat for her own life anymore,” the Aussie told him. “And I get it. It’s a lot. For her, for all of us. Things are changing, and it’s beyond our control.”
“It’s kinda beyond my control too, Lauren,” Andy told her, getting a little bit nervous.
Lauren looked up at him, aghast that he was jumping to the wrong conclusions. “Darl, no,” she told him, smiling with as much empathy as she could. “Nobody’s blamin’ you for this either. You gave each an’ every one of us the option t’reject addin’ Ophelia and BD, and e’ery one of us agreed you couldn’t just leave them with Vikovic, even if it meant our day t’ day changed some. Yeah, we’re different, but I don’t think we’re gonna know how different for a while. An’ if it turns out it’s too fuckin’ much for the NFL, well, we’ll sort it out as we move forward. That’s their call to make, not ours. Right now, I think they just want to give people something they can look at and pretend like life is going back to something resembling the normal they used to know.”
“They’re going to be broadcasting the games internationally,” Taylor said. “And people all across the world are gearing up, just like the teams are the same they’ve always been, despite the fact that it’s all women.”
Lauren sniffed in annoyance. “They’re less worried about it being all women than they are it not being full contact anymore. As if the carnage was the only reason people watched the games.”
“It was a lot of the reason people watched, Lauren, believe me.”
“Well, as the head of NFL said in the conference call they had with all the teams last week, any television is better than no television, and the studios are just starting to get produced content back on the air this fall, so football will be there with them,” Lauren grumbled. “Is it true that ABC’s picking up the rebroadcast rights to Em’s ‘Looky Loos’ show here in the states, just to fill up air-time? Aren’t they going to have to censor the daylights out of it?”
Andy laughed, perhaps a bit more openly than he’d intended. “Well, you know how the Brits have gotten, ah, a bit more frisky than anyone thought they ever might? Apparently Congress has decided that what with all the sex Americans are now having on a daily basis, for their own survival no less, the ‘sex stigma’ on television, radio and the internet needs to die. Now, they don’t want it to turn into wall-to-wall sex, but sex is now a basic survival necessity for most living human beings. So they’re going to introduce something the Brits have had for a long time called ‘the watershed.’ Basically, starting on August 1st, between the hours of 8pm and 4am, network television can have sex and nudity on it, without restriction, even on public airwaves. Cable television is getting even more lax rules. Sex isn’t ‘pornography’ anymore. It’s just part of day-to-day living. Networks are free to air what they want, although there will be a required message reminding men and women who are part of the Quaranteam generation not to experiment around outside of their partners. Other than that, it’s open season. So ‘Looky Loos’ will air uncensored, but on ‘after the watershed.’ They’re even grabbing other shows from across the world that used to be too racy to fill timeslots. I just saw this morning that NBC’s going to be rebroadcasting that crime series you said you loved so much from back home, Lauren. ‘Undertow?’ No, that wasn’t it…”
“They’re gonna start showing ‘Underbelly’ here?!” Lauren gasped with glee. “Anna Hutchison’s one of my first girl crushes. I can’t wait t’ fuckin’ show it to you, Taylor…”
“Anyway,” Andy said standing up, “I should go check on Lexi, see how she’s doing, if you think I should be worried about her.”
“Don’t tell her we toldja, Andy,” Lauren said. “She’ll be happier thinkin’ ya picked it up on your own.”
“I did pick it up on my own, Lauren,” Andy chuckled. “I just hadn’t gotten there yet. Or I got distracted. Maybe both. Thanks for reminding me, though. You two should definitely shower and get back to practice. Opening kickoff is in a month, and I know you want to put on a good showing. I bought us a skybox over at Levi Stadium, so you know we’ll usually be there watching when we can be.”
“Wait, bought a skybox?” Taylor asked, her eyes widening a little.
Andy shrugged a bit sheepishly. “I have money now. People keep reminding me of that. And a lot of the existing owners of skyboxes died, so I didn’t have to pay all that much to pick it up.”
“A’wright, a’wright, I get the message,” Lauren grumbled as she and Taylor pulled on their grungy clothes, knowing they’d shower both before and after practice. “We’re off. See you at dinner, hopefully.”
Once they were out of the room, Andy said quietly, “Show location of Lexi Coleman.” He was still getting used to having such a powerful tool at his disposal, but he also didn’t want to neglect it, and making sure he was using it regularly meant he wouldn’t forget it existed. A 3D map of the mansion showed, then turned into a 2D version of the map, as it displayed that Lexi was in the gun range, also in the hidden level of the manor. He’d been a little surprised the blueprints he’d see in his mind included the lower level, but he eventually realized they were constructed from his own mind, not taken from any source available on the internet.
That was the one thing that bothered him the most about the upgrades, that he’d mostly kept to himself, although he’d pointed it out to Phil. Whatever the nanites in his blood were doing, they were also tapping into the wifi access from his cellphone, through Bluetooth, although he’d certainly never authorized it. But, sure enough, when he looked through the Bluetooth devices, he came across one simply marked, “YOU,” and he didn’t have access privileges to turn it off. He’d considered immediately turning off his cellphone, but decided he needed to let it run and see how it went.
As he got to the shooting range, he was impressed at how thick the walls were and how good the sound dampening of the area was, because he couldn’t make out the sound of gunshots until he opened the outer door, and even then, he could just barely hear controlled handgun fire. The shots were barely louder than a single hand clapping, although he knew that was a lie. Once he got through the passthrough and into the observation area, he could clearly hear the sound of gunfire popping through the air. If he wanted to move into the next room while she was shooting, he definitely wanted to put on ear protection, to keep his ears from ringing. So he slapped on a set of earmuffs and moved into the range itself, where Lexi was unloading her standard handgun into a series of moving targets on the far side of the range.
After she’d finished with her magazine, she set the gun down on the counter in front of her and relaxed a little, taking off her earmuffs. “Hey Andy,” she said to him, taking the magazine out, flipping the safety aside then setting the weapon in two pieces in the counter. “We heading out somewhere?”
“Not right now,” he said to her, “but I wanted to talk to you a bit, make sure you’re doing okay. You’ve seemed… a bit off the last couple of days.”
“You noticed, huh?” She offered him a weak smile and then shrugged a little bit. “You want the short version or the long version?”
“Seems like it’s weighing on you pretty heavily, so maybe let’s do the long version so you don’t skip out on any important details, okay?”
“Can I ask something… really important first?”
Andy’s face took on a look of concern. “Of course, Alexis, you can always ask me anything, anytime, anywhere. What do you want to ask?”
“Can I have a hug?”
Andy’s concerned look melted away as he wrapped his arms around his protecting angel, holding her tightly for a long moment, neither of the two of them saying anything for what felt like an eternity, but he could tell she just needed to be held, and since she guarded him 99.999% of the time, he would happily fulfill the role for the other 0.001%. He kept his arms wrapped around her, and she nestled in tightly, trying to burrow her body as closely against his as she could. She wasn’t crying, but he definitely felt like she was relaxing her form and mind as much as she could.
A few minutes later, she finally pulled back from him and looked up at him with empathy. “Thanks. I appreciate that. Shit’s been getting very weird, and I haven’t been entirely sure how to make it all make sense in my head.” She moved to slide a new magazine into her pistol then loaded it into her holster before gesturing for him that they should leave the shooting gallery. “The new targeting skills are pretty wild,” she told him. “I’m pretty sure you might be one of the safest men on the planet at this point. Me, Melody and Niko all seem to have this ‘aimbot’ in us, for lack of a better term, but I think mine’s the most accurate, since neither Niko’s or Melody’s are as good with long guns as mine is.”
“How so?” They stepped out of the shooting range, letting the door close behind them, knowing the motion sensors would turn off the lights in a few minutes after detecting no motion.
“Neither Melody or Niko have as much sniper training as I do, so their ability to spot things like wind velocity and the amount of drag it’s going to have, as well as the effect of gravity over long distances… stuff that comes from a lot of time spent practicing long range shots under a variety of conditions, weather and the like… I got all that in the CIA,” Lexi said to him. “And it seems like all that knowledge is incorporated into my tracking system. I had to tell it the first time, but it seemed to know exactly what I wanted from there, and now I’m just as good as I would be with a dedicated spotter next to me. That’s… that’s very strange.”
“But cool, too, yeah?”
She smiled up at him, nodding in agreement. “Sure, cool too. But how much are these nanites going to do for us? Are we becoming cyborgs? And, y’know, I don’t think anyone asked me if I wanted to become Robocop.”
“You’re a long way from Robocop, Lexi,” Andy said. “You’re, like, 95% biological still. Probably more.”
“But my body’s got a Bluetooth connection to my cellphone?”
Andy stopped a moment, tilting his head. “You figured that out? Who else knows?”
Lexi smirked a little bit. “I don’t think anyone else has noticed, but I wouldn’t put it past Whitney knowing about it. She’s pretty in tune with all her tech, and she’s probably investigating it, so you might want to talk to her about it. But I’m getting off track. This… stuff… in our bodies… it’s changing us, Andy. And I didn’t sign up for any of it.”
Andy sighed, offering a little shrug. “I get it, Lexi. I do. But we’re all sort of in the same boat. We signed up for this to survive, and now we’re learning to live with the long-term consequences of all of it. None of us really knew what we were signing up for when we agreed to this, but here we are. None of us wanted to die, so we did whatever it took to live through it… Besides, honestly, I’m surrounded by the most amazing women I’ve ever met. I can’t think of anyone I would want in our Team who isn’t in it.”
Lexi laughed a little bit and slugged him in the shoulder. “Don’t lie. I know if it wasn’t for Phil, you’d be all over Linda.”
That took Andy by surprise, and he had to laugh. “Are you kidding? She’d eat me alive! Don’t get me wrong, she’s gorgeous, but I know to stay out of my weight class.”
“And it doesn’t bother you, her and Aisling hooking up now and then?” Lexi said, tilting her head to one side.
Andy smirked wryly. “She told you about that?”
“I knew it!” Lexi laughed, pumping her fist in the air. “No! No, she didn’t, but you just confirmed it, Mr. Slick!”
“Ah, she won’t care that much anyway, as long as you don’t go bragging about it to people outside of the house,” Andy said. “And no, I don’t mind. I told everyone, as long as they’re safe about it, if they want to entertain sexual relationships with other women outside of the Team, that’s fine, although I’d like to know about it. So far, only a few people have taken me up on it.”
“A few?” Lexi asked, suddenly swerving her head to give Andy her full attention as they reached the newly repaired elevator. “Who else?”
Andy waggled a finger at her with a laugh of his own. “Oh no. No getting shit out of me that easily. Anybody else you want to find out, you’re going to have to do it on your own.” He tapped the 2 button on the elevator and the small chamber began to hum as it crawled upwards. “The Air Force did a pretty good job in repairing this thing after the attack.”
“Repair nothing,” Lexi said. “They replaced the whole thing while you were in Washington, soup to nuts. Linda didn’t want anyone getting triggered or freaked out if they ended up seeing a bullet hole somewhere, so she made sure the crews were thorough as possible. So, not to linger on the thing too long or anything, but you think I’m a bit paranoid about the whole ‘turning into robots’ thing?”
The elevator dinged and the doors opened, the hidden entrance parting to let them step out onto the second floor. “Okay, I’m only going to say this once, Lexi, because you’re partner to a science-fiction and fantasy writer now. A robot is a completely mechanical machine. A cyborg is a mix of mechanics and biologics. Got it?”
“Are you really nerdsplaining to me, boss?”
“Lexi, if I looked at your pistol and called it Saturday Night Special, how would you feel?”
She scowled at him, narrowing her eyes. “Angry, because I know you know the difference between a .38 revolver and a .45 auto-mag and and… and I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
Andy grinned impishly and gave her a little shrug. “Don’t mock my areas of expertise, and I won’t do the same to you. Robot. Cyborg. Two different things.”
“Fine. Fine. So you don’t think me worrying about turning into a cyborg is doing me any good?”
“Well, we’re all already cyborgs now already, I think,” Andy said, considering what he knew about the nanobots and their modifications. “But if you want to be worried about it, it’s fine. I just wouldn’t let it become a day-to-day dread.”
“Oh, so more of a lingering existential ennui then?”
“Exactly.”
They headed down the hallway of the second floor, but had to stop outside of Emily and Sarah’s studio, because there was an army of cardboard boxes with ‘Wormhole Warlords’ logos on them spilling out of their door like a landslide, as well as a lifesize cardboard standee of Emily in her ‘Year 4’ Dahlia Hairtrigger costume, although it wasn’t a photo, but a very stylized drawing.
“What the holy hell is this?” Andy laughed as he poked his head into their studio, seeing another dozen or so boxes stacked up inside, filling up a decent part of the room that was usually mostly empty, except for Emily and Sarah’s desks, their makeshift audiobooth and the mini green screen area that took up one side. “Hey, I’m Andy Rook. I’m here to rescue you!”
Sarah started giggling as Emily looked at him with great relief, walking towards him. “Oh, thank goodness, Andrew, I’m so glad you’re here. Are you familiar with the card game ‘Endless Empires’ at all?”
“Of course I am, Em,” he responded. “The two Phils, Eric, Xander and I meet up once a month to play a few games of Admiralty. Phil generally drags me to every prerelease, although they haven’t been having any since the pandemic started. We’ve been playing on and off for like twenty years.”
“Yes, well, it seems they’re going to be making up for lost time. You’re familiar with their three Daggerfall Academy expansions, yes?”
“Sure,” Andy said. “I played in the prereleases, but I didn’t go hard core into collecting the set. I don’t really play Standard that much anymore, just Sealed events and then the Admiralty variant.”
“Well, if you’d like to have a complete set for all the existing Daggerfall Academy expansions, you just need to take all these boxes away from here and open them up and maybe find some way to keep them handy, because I think you also need to teach me how to play the game,” she said.
“Good lord, is that what all this is?”
“This is 3 cases each for the three existing Daggerfall Expansions and the fourth one, which they’re going to launch at the end of the month. They’d like us to come and play at their 3E event in London at the end of the month.”
“I thought you were trying to distance yourself from all the Daggerfall stuff after all the fallout from the E.F. Winston stuff about her being anti-immigrant,” Lexi asked her.
“Mmm,” Em said, walking over to her desk, picking up a letter, holding it out to her to look at, although Andy also read over her shoulder.
It was from Cori Steelcutter, the game’s lead designer for the last twenty-five years. Andy knew Cori a little bit – she’d been a staff writer on “Night Court,” and had given plenty of talks on harnessing creativity that Andy had either watched online or attended. The letter was a printout but looked to be hand signed, and Andy suspected it was because Cori’s handwriting was atrocious. He’d seen it before.
“Ms. Stevens or should I say Mrs. Rook!,
It’s been a while since we spoke, but hopefully you remember me from our meetings several years back. I’ve been watching recently your difficulties in dealing with Ms. Winston’s public decrying of immigrants and their rights, and we, too at Wormhole Warlords, have been troubled by her statements. However, the deals are signed, and neither we nor Ms. Winston can back out of us having an expansion based out of every one of the books/movies. That said, I propose we do what we can to make things a little less painful. If you’re willing to come to our Endless Empires Experience (3E) in London at the end of August, even for just a day, we’ll happily make a hundred-thousand-euro donation to the immigrant charity of your choice, something which I think we’d both agree will piss off Ms. Winston something fierce.
We’re also advancing our release schedule for Daggerfall Academy expansions, and instead of releasing a set every two years as we had been doing, we will be doing one a year until we’ve finished out our contract. If you’d like to come to any other 3Es in the future tied to further Daggerfall Academy releases, we’d be happy to continue that donation pattern. Of course, we’ll also give you a panel at these events where you’re free to speak your mind, and if you want to decry Ms. Winston’s deplorable stance, you would, of course, be free to do so. We’d also love it if you wanted to play some while you were there, and we would, of course, guarantee your security while you did, but if not, we would understand.
Regardless, the accompanying shipment includes 2 cases of each of the Daggerfall Academy expansions as well as the upcoming one, set for release first week in September, which we will be having prerelease events for at the 3E in Berlin. The tall boxes include uncut rare/legendary rare sheets for each of the four sets, as well as the original art for your ‘hero’ cards, bought with money from my own pocket from our artists, who usually sell that art on the secondary market. And, of course, I threw in one of the cardboard standees for shits’n’giggles, and my only regret is that I won’t be there to see your face when you first lay eyes on it.
When E.F. Winston came out as anti-immigrant and anti-trans, we weren’t sure what to do, because the contract we’d signed with her was pretty ironclad, and you may not know this, but a good portion of the EE community falls into one or both of those categories, so when you took a public stand against her intolerance, it showed us we could have the courage to do the same, and not be in violation of our contract, and, in fact, increase our sales rather than decrease them. You have been a guiding light for us, and for that, we want to do everything we can to say thank you.
You can reach me via email or phone, and I look forward to hearing from you, even if it’s just to offer us a polite ‘thanks, no thanks.’
Your fan & friend,
Cori Steelcutter
Endless Empires head designer
PS. Tell your husband we love the Druid Gunslinger books over here at WW, and we forgive him for ‘The Trouble With Werebears.’ Everyone gets one freebie mistake.”
“Wow,” Andy said. “That’s a whole lot to dump on a person all at once.”
Emily nodded with a weary sigh in his direction. “Yes, well, with the boys dying to DuoHalo, there’s really only me left to speak for the movie cast, and I know the boys, for all their flaws, wouldn’t have wanted the films legacy to be tainted with the horrible aftertaste of E.F. Winston condemning people on the color of their skin or their gender. So I have been coming forward and speaking up, not just on my own behalf, but on behalf of those who are not around to give voice to their concerns anymore. I feel that is what the boys would’ve wanted from me.”
“I hadn’t realized it was weighing quite so heavily on you, love,” Andy said, taking one of Emily’s hands into his own.
She smiled up at him and nodded. “From the time I was 15 and starting to study for my GCSEs until I was finishing both uni and the last film at age 25, these movies consumed much of my waking life. I cannot afford for all of that to have gone to waste because the old bint who wrote them decided her being wealthy meant she could flout her intolerance publicly. I shall not have it. Not on my watch.”
“If you want to go to the 3E, Em, I’ll happily go with you. In fact, if you want a whole support group, I can bring over a bunch of the Teams and we can make a long weekend of it,” Andy said. “Both of the Phils had Pro Circuit points for Endless Empires back in the day, so I’m sure it wouldn’t take much arm twisting to get them to go. Greater Phil still followed their Pro Circuit pretty closely, even if he doesn’t play in it anymore.”
“How good was he?” Sarah asked him.
“Not,” Andy laughed. “He got 2 Pro Circuit points total over his career lifetime, with a Top 64 finish, but he loves drafting, he loves theorycrafting and he loves talking about the game.”
“Well, you boys are welcome to do whatever you want to with the cards, I suppose, although setting some aside to teach me how to play would probably be a good idea,” she said to him.
“We can do that. We can even have an open teaching day, where anyone who wants to learn can come in and get lessons. You, Sarah… I bet Phil’s probably already taught Linda, and ten-to-one Violet knew before she met Phil.”
“I appreciate that, Andrew. And yes, I would very much like to not only go, but also spend some time playing at the event, even if I’m still learning. I’ll call and let Cori know.”
“And when you talk to her, let her know there’s a reworked version of ‘The Trouble With Werebears’ coming out next year,” he laughed. “I knew it was a mess then, I know it’s a mess now, so I’m fixing the damn thing, so people stop giving me crap about it. It’s nearly finished, and I rewrote nearly the entire last third of the book. It’ll be much better, I promise.”
“Hey Andy,” Lexi said. “You think those folks over at Wormhole Warlords might be interested in turning our family into an expansion set for their little card game now that we’re all cyborgs?”
Andy chuckled, rolling his eyes a little bit. “Not unless you’ve got a spaceship on you.”
“Not on me, on me…” Lexi giggled.
“She lost it in the jungle,” Sarah cackled before grabbing Andy to maneuver him into blocking the line of fire of whatever Lexi might throw at him.
Lexi, however, looked shocked and then laughed. “How DARE you!”
Comments
Edward Becerra
And the shots at a certain once lauded, now racist and bigoted author aren't hard to spot, and I enjoy them in a sad way. My late fiancee (it was cancer) loved JKR, and was bi-sexual. She was heartbroken by JKR's sudden turn to "I'm rich now and you're not. I can as bigoted as I please with a personal worth of one billion dollars."
Edward Becerra
I've already bought the Kindle version of the first book, and don't regret having done so for a second. Now, my only choices are "save up to pay for a higher tier membership" or "save up to pay for physical copies of each book". Hard gorram choice to make.
Cynthia Parker
Still love this series and all the spin off series also. i'm going to have to cave and buy the physical books when they are all out however many there are.
Mehntal1st
I love the nods to Magic: the Gathering in this chapter....even naming a character one of the current terrors of the Standard scene. :o)
