– Misfits 8 – Ice Cold Drinks

Seth sighed, but eventually just shrugged. He was getting paid and to be honest he was a little scared of Chris after what had just happened. Chris seemed to know more about what was going on than anyone else. How had he found him? How had he found that girl? How did he know what he could get from the girl when she didn't even know it herself? So many questions and Chris wasn't very forthcoming with answers.

In the car Chris gave Seth directions for the next location.

They eventually pulled up to a bar leaving Seth even more confused. He just followed along. He would figure out what was expected of him soon enough.

The bar seemed normal enough since it was just the very start of the evening it wasn't very busy yet.

The bartender was a pale average height young woman sporting an alternative look with sleek glossy black hair down to her collar bones and blunt bangs down to her eyebrows. Though most of her make up was on the light side the only exception was her eyes which sported a heavy application of eyeliner, shadow, and mascara. She had a mole just above the right corner of her lips. She wore jeans and what seemed to be black sleeveless band tee. He had no clue what band it was supposed to be though. Either it was one that didn't exist in his original universe or they never made it over to the states.

Despite being in a job that relied heavily on customer interaction she seemed quite at odds with actually interacting with the customers.

[IMG]

Chris walked up to the bartender and got her attention. "We'll have two pints of lager," he said.

He made sure not to make it obvious he was paying attention to her too much as she poured their beers. He didn't want to startle her after all. She was one of the people that received one of the more dangerous powers from the storm.

After paying he didn't initiate any further contact and found a seat with a good view of the bar where the two of them could sit down to drink while Chris kept an eye on Lily.

After a minute of silence while Chris nursed his pint and Seth downed it a lot faster Seth finally couldn't hold it in anymore. "So why are we here?" he asked.

Chris smirked mysteriously. "You should know soon enough. Hopefully," he said.

Seth shot him an exasperated look from across the bar table. "Whatever. Since you don't want to tell me. Want to tell me about what your plans are after this?" he asked.

Chris took a deep breath considering things for a moment. "If things end well today I'm thinking of expanding our cooperation," he said.

He paused for a moment before making up his mind.

"I think you working for me would be in your best interest," he said using his newly gained power of suggestion in a less obvious way. He didn't want to entirely subvert Seth's personality. Just to make him to accept the job and work with loyalty. Just having Seth be convinced that working for him was better than striking it out on his own or working for someone else. Although using an ability to manipulate someone's mind felt a little gross it was better than being dead and having an unchecked power broker working in his area seemed like a good way to end up dead if Seth's behaviour in the original timeline was any indication. He hadn't been very responsible when selling powers after all.

Seth seemed to consider it for a little. "You're probably right. I don't even know what's going on with myself yet. So what were you thinking of having me do?" he asked hesitantly.

Chris smiled since it seemed it had worked. "Just expanding what I'm already having you do today. You probably already have an idea of what is going on even if you probably can't quite believe it. However the storm gave people powers and obviously your power allows you to trade people's powers by touching them. I was thinking about investing a large chunk of cash in you as a start up fund for a underground business buying powers. The sooner the better. The longer people have their powers the less likely they will be to sell them to us and also the value of the powers will skyrocket once recognised." he said.

Seth nodded slowly in understanding.

Chris took another sip of his pint. "Think of this like working in computers. It was best to start a computer business early on like Microsoft and Apple rather than starting one now that the market is saturated and there is less money to grab," he continued.

Seth started smiling more now that he was seeing the value in the proposition Chris had for him. "Ok, I guess I can understand that. How would we go about this?" he asked.

Chris smiled conspiratorially. "I'll be the one fronting the money and making the decisions while you act as the face and of course facilitate the trades using your power. There is one big rule though. You message me whenever you buy a new power and I decide whether I buy it from you, you hold it because it is too dangerous, or if it can be sold on," he ordered, once again using his power of suggestion to enforce it.

Chris took another sip. "Do we have a deal?" he asked, despite knowing Seth really didn't have much of a choice after he had used his power on him.

Seth nodded reaching out his hand which Chris shook firmly. "Deal," he said.

Chris nodded. "Good, as long as things go well tonight I will hand you a lot more cash than what you earned today to get started. I want you to focus completely on setting up a location and advertising your business as soon as possible. Get started first thing tomorrow morning. Also I will probably have some more one off jobs like today for you down the line for some extra cash," he said.

-X-X-X-

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Writing Soundtrack: Bitter Ruin - Various Tracks