The hivemind is conquering for me?

“Ah, Lady Sophia, a pleasure to see you once more. I must formally thank you for allowing me to borrow your Fiancée for my mission. We had an exceptional time together, didn’t we Apollo?” Kathrine said as she placed my arm between her breasts.

Sophia rolled her eyes at the obvious provocation and simply smiled professionally. “It is nothing Lady Kathrine, My Apollo truly is exceptional and from what he has told me, he thoroughly enjoyed his time with you as well. He really must have left an impression if you wish to do business with your former blackmailer.” Sophia said to provoke a reaction from the red head.

Kathrine simply smiled, unfazed. “Oh the past is in the past dear and It was simply a business deal in my eyes. Now lets not start our meeting negatively hmm? We want to flourish together, not impede one another correct?”

I sighed internally as the two women stared each other down. I had a gut feeling they would be firing shots at each other the whole time the meeting took place. Shortly after the polite greetings, we made our way to the VIP booths.

As we sat down, Kathrine and Candice sat to my right while Sophia and Samantha sat to my left. I felt some relief when it was Candice who sat directly next to me as it meant that Kathrine would actually be taking the meeting seriously and would not use the opportunity to grope me like back on Alexandria.

Samantha was also sat directly to my left and she was a good girl when working and would not try anything. As though reading my thoughts, Samantha looked up at me as I thought that and smiled lovingly before she began spreading out documents on the table.

Candice began doing the same and before I knew it, the table had no visible surface that was not covered in documents of data pads. Just looking at all the business jargon was giving me a headache and I was happier than ever that I grew up with the hive, away from all this shit.

After a few minutes more of prep time, Kathrine spoke and officially began the meeting. “Let me start of first by saying this. My interest in starting business with you is strictly because of Apollo. He gave me some interesting ideas and being connected to you could make us both a lot of money. I suggest we start with the legal side of what our business partnership would entail before we get onto the good stuff. Agreed?”

“Agreed. We deal in money making, both legal and nefarious. It should be first priority that our fronts are secured first before we take a look what is in the back so to speak.” Sophia stated, making Kathrine nod her head.

“Exactly. Now as a public figure, my spending and money flows are somewhat monitored. That is why I use shells like my mercenaries as large piggy banks so to speak. I suggest that we split our collaboration into three stages.”

Candice then edged over a piece of paper as Kathrine continued. “First, I formally hire you into my company as a business liaison. You are a ghost of a woman who has become very successful in a short amount of time relatively speaking. As such, Hiring someone like you to give ‘tips’ on my business ventures with appease my board of directors.”

Sophia narrowed her brows and asked. “You want me to work for you? I thought this was supposed to be a mutual business venture.” Kathrine Rolled her eyes. “Are you actually just a pretty face with no brain in there ice queen? Like I said this was step one of three. Yes you would ‘technically’ be working for me, on paper only. You would have to make one personal visit to my company so I can introduce you to some people before I start shelling 250,000 credits to you a month to begin to paper trail of wage that will blossom into our next steps. After that one visit, you wont have to appear again and just enjoy the extra cashflow for a few months until step two.”

Sophia went over some papers with Samantha and nit picked with Kathrine as she asked question after question about what would be expected from her during stage one. I had begun to regret taking the middle seat in these talks as I now had now way out or any way to alleviate the boredom that was brewing.

Eventually stage was was agreed upon by both parties with Sophia getting allotted 400,000 credits a month, but she would have to appear at the Hyllus tower every two weeks for a four hours a day.

Happy with the result, Kathrine continued. “Ok, now that step one is out of the way, we can move onto step 2. After being so impressed by your work at the company, I start to give back and begin ‘investing’ in your current business and your upcoming expansions. Before you ask, these can be whatever you want. The new expansions will simply be shells for cash flow, but if you want to use them for actual work if you have the man power, that will be fine. These shells will be used to then fund the back end of your business primarily and I will be getting cuts from the expansion that my money brings in over time of course.”

At this point I just gave up listening and began meditating with my eyes open. While the meeting concluded for the next few hours. I spent some time relaxing with my kitty cat. She had not fully recovered from the fight last night, but she was perfectly fine and could receive my cuddles and scritches with no problem.

We could not really play as the Chonkinator was still being the good blanket she was to Onyx, so after giving her plenty of affection, I sat nearby and focused on safely expelling my energy out of my body to prevent further Psionic decay like I had been doing since the other night.

After a short while of expelling, I opened my eyes to look around my Mindspace. Although the place did not look any different, it was emptier and the weight in my mind eased up slightly. Ares’ energy was still trapped inside however and I had no plan on removing it despite it being the cause of my current predicament.

Having been inside my Mindspace for the last few hours, I decided to check up on the meeting. Regaining sight in my eyes, I blinked a few times as they had become very dry. I then listened in on the conversation that was taking place.

“-while I do need supplies Kathrine, I am not sure how effective your team will be at smuggling them down onto the planet. If you give me the names of your teams at tomorrows meeting, I may be open to the scenario, but until I learn of their efficiency, it is a no go.” Sophia stated.

Kathrine crossed one leg over the other as she thought for a moment. “Fine, I will bring a list, arms smuggling is too profitable to withhold the information of grunts after all. Right then, with that out of the way, I think we should call it. My throat is getting sore from talking all these hours.”

‘Oh thank you universe.’ I whispered internally having come back at the perfect time. “Oh, its only been a few hours Kat, are you sure we should postpone till tomorrow?” I said bluffing.

Kathrine and Sophia gave me a look before the latter spoke. “My sweet you have been in your mediative state for over 7 hours, it was not subtle.” I ran my hand over my head and began scratching it. “Oh…”

Candice snorted as she attempted to supress her laugh at my reaction. However, she stopped when Kathrine gave her a look. Attempting to change the atmosphere I joked and asked. “So taking the fact the room is still intact, I assume that the talks went well?”

Sophia and Kathrine then looked at each other before Kathrine spoke. “Well is not the best word to use as we have been going back and forth on the same points for hours. Your fiancée is inscrutably detail orientated Apollo. It is almost respectable. However it is the reason why I have to cancel all my plans for tomorrow to meet her again. I was supposed to be having mother and son time with my little Natty. He is going to de devastated. He has been saying how much he was looking forward to our outing all week long.”

Little did Kathrine know, when Nathanos got the message later on about the cancelation, he actually danced in relief at the news. The man loved his mom, but she was just too much to be around on his own. He made it a point to buy Apollo a drink if they meet again as a thank you for creating yet another miracle for him.