✅1️⃣ Trusting the Babysitter

Chapter 14 - Taking Charge

"Lizards, duck!" Adam called out, not even glancing up at Claudia's screen this time. He could see the enemies clearly once he'd got more power diverted to the internal scanners, and he could see the appearance of a brood of alien warriors seconds before they descended on the room where Claudia's marine squad was in the middle of a drawn out engagement with the last other player on the map. The soundtrack for the last couple of minutes had been nothing but the echoing crackle of energy weapons.

Claudia signalled her remaining men to hide behind barrels, and switched off her scope and shields. A second later the room was plunged into darkness, lit only by silvery-white beacons from the rival team's electronics. A second later there was a crash that sounded like it came from everywhere at once, and the speakers emitted sounds of physical violence and screams from all around. Claudia forced herself to wait, with no idea how many enemies were still in the room; be they computer-controlled lizard creatures or a human opponent's last man.

"Anything on the sensors?"

"Just fighting. Don't be scared, baby, you're doing great. Give it ten?"

Claudia smirked a little at the inappropriateness of the comment. As if a little kid would even be allowed to play this game. But Adam was probably more embarrassed than she was right now. And she was starting to trust his judgement in this game. Figuring out that the lizards would go first for the player who had their gear turned on when the lights went out had made a big difference to her score line so far.

Ten seconds later, she was sure that the sounds painted a picture of a fight that was drawing to a close. She popped up behind the crate that was giving her shelter, and waited for her satellite player to turn the lights back on.

On the far side of the room, there were a couple of marines with pink flags on their armour trying to fend off three lizards. They weren't having a good time; the new aliens had turned out to be a big problem when they got too close, and it seemed that the enemy's only teammate was a specialist. Not good for short-range engagements, and not good for fighting in the dark.

Claudia quickly tapped a couple of buttons and a couple of grenades splatted against the far wall. The opponent tried turning to see where they had come from, and was promptly decapitated by the closest lizard. Claudia's assistant proved himself more competent than the average AI, and opened up with a burst of semi-automatic fire to stop the creature turning on them. With all of the opposing players now dead, the match would end as soon as they weren't actively in combat. And in this case, it only took a couple of well-placed shots to drive away the remaining NPC combatants.

"Twenty-seven points," she read off the screen, as she put her controller down for a second. "Not so bad."

"Such a clever girl. You're really good at this, you know."

"I know. It'd be even more impressive if I was really whatever age you're treating me as."

"Sorry. I think I have to keep talking to you like a little kid. Maybe Lorelei thought it would make you feel humiliated."

"No problem. You're probably a good babysitter anyway. Would you be paying so much attention to my hobbies if I were the kid you're looking after?"

"Maybe. Depends if you were happy to play by yourself. And if you're doing something that interests me. Which you are, by the way. I don't get enough chance to play with others, and I really wanted to get in on one of these tournaments. You know there's no league table for Guidance Operations unless you're helping a main player, yeah?"

"You haven't got friends to buddy up with?"

"Not now. They all ditched Aegis for racing games this year. I've been solo since the SC4 events stopped."

"That's why you're trying to impress me then? Looking for a teammate?"

"I... uhh..."

"Right. One more?"

"You being a big girl now? Don't need a diaper change?"

"No!" she snapped, blushing brightly. "Okay you're supposed to be mean, but there's no need to go that far."

"I have to check, little one. Don't worry, if you're being good then maybe you'll be allowed to wear big girl clothes later. Won't that be fun?"

Claudia closed her eyes and tried to ignore him. He checked her pull-up diaper, which was just as dry as he had expected. It was one more level of humiliation, and she wished more than anything that she was able to give the order to stop that. But she wasn't allowed to, and there was no way around that.

"Good girl," he said, and patted her on the head on a way that would normally have ended up with any guy flat on the ground. Claudia didn't like to be touched, and that was one of the things that had led to her cool-and-aloof reputation. But today, when he was doing his best to help her in a difficult situation, she knew that he didn't mean anything by it. He'd done his best to make sure she was comfortable in her punishment, and he'd decided to play with video games rather than childish toys, which would make a world of difference to her rankings. Not to mention having a player who could look over her shoulder while she was playing, so she didn't need to describe what she was facing to some satellite player she'd been matched to automatically.

"Okay. One more?" she asked again.

"Do you need to go potty first? I know you're a big girl, but you should be–" Adam stopped, took a deep breath, and shook his head. "Sorry. It's easy to get carried away."

"Just like a baby. And yeah, using the bathroom before engaging is probably a good idea. Just in case it turns into a twenty-minute war of attrition again."

"Good girl."

Claudia got up and went down the stairs to the landing, stepping carefully over the clutter that separated her staircase from the rest of the landing. And then she stopped, suddenly nervous as she saw Lorelei standing there waiting for her.