Fallout town's southern area, inside a spheric office room built on the town's iconic crater's walls. 

A woman wearing an elegant, two-piece dark blue suit with a light blue shirt is sitting behind an elegant chair as she buried her head into a stack of paper, ignoring the beautiful view of Fallout town her window gave.

The woman's name is Charmaine, and she's one of the many brokers to make their living inside Fallout tone, though she is considerably more successful than a sizable chunk of most others who share the same occupation.

She is currently viewing several written reports on one of her clients, who happens to be in debt to her as well. Kaden Solomon was the audacious bastard's name.

He was a part of a now-destroyed group of scavengers, which shouldn't have been relative if not for the fact, Pashina, the leader of said scavenger group, saved her life once a long time ago. 

So when the young man, the only survivor of Pashina's group, came knocking on her door, asking to borrow some money, she didn't hesitate to lend him as much as he needed. 

Despite Charmaine not being in the loan shark business, unlike most of her counterparts, she made an exception while not intending to pressure the young man in any way or form purely out of her goodwill towards the now dead Pashina.

However, Charmaine had a reputation as a professional to uphold, so she strived to hide her goodwill, disguising it as opportunistic viciousness to shake the young man for everything he owned and then some to teach him a lesson.

A little tough love never hurt anyone after all. 

And much to Charmaine's amusement and exasperation, her attempt at teaching the young man a lesson through tough love backfired, for he was merely feigning weakness to reverse the situation and become the cardholder himself instead.

It has been a long time since anyone outplayed her like that, leaving Charmaine both impressed and pissed off at the same time.

Charmaine did not really need the money she lent to Kaden all that much, and she could recover from the loss with a week or two of her routine business, but she humored the young man, giving him what he wanted; easy missions.

Charmaine did it out of a mixture of conflicting emotions; curiosity to see what the young man would do next, along with a desire to return the favor and outplay him when he least expected it to return the favor.

You couldn't be as successful as she was in a hostile environment such as Fallout town's brokering scene without developing a healthy amount of professional pride after all.

She would humor the young man, for now, and teach him a valuable lesson when the chance to do so arises, but that is neither here nor there.

'Already making friends, I see,' Charmaine thought to herself as she read through the report about Kaden picking a fight with a local lowlife gang from the north side.

'Crippling the gang leader instead of getting rid of him to avoid future troubles...?' Charmaine raised an eyebrow as she reached the conclusion of the report. 

'An ulterior motive, or could I be overestimating him...?' She put away the report, deciding not to overthink it, and taking a wait-and-see attitude.

She picked up another report, sighing at how troublesome using paper to convey information like a cave dweller of some sort. But it was and still is the safest way of communication, as anything digital is prone to be hacked. 

However, she dropped the paper as she heard a knock on the door. "Come in," she said in a neutral tone as she turned to look at the door. 

"One Kaden Solomon showed up unannounced asking to see you, and he's not taking no for an answer, ma'am," said a man wearing a fancy gray suit.

"Let him in," Charmaine said with a sigh as she gestured for the man to leave, and he obliged, giving a polite nod as he turned to leave, closing the door behind him. 

A minute or two later, the door swung open without a knock, this time as a young man with glowing green eyes and long black hair came through it. The young man had a shameless smile on his face as he made himself at home, proceeding to take a seat on the leather sofa without an invitation to do so.

"Hey, Charmaine," the young man said as he helped himself to the whisky bottle on the table in front of the sofa.

"Mr. Solomon," Charmaine greeted in an indifferent tone, seemingly unoffended by the young man's shameless attitude as she turned to look at him.

"I see you've dressed appropriately this time, at least," she bitingly remarked with a raised eyebrow as she gave him a once over, noticing he wasn't in the same bloody, dusty set of clothes he showed up wearing when he came to borrow money.

"Yup, and it's all thanks to the generous amount of credits you've been kind enough to lend me," the young man replied with a smirk, shrugging his shoulder.

"Speaking of that, when do you intend to pay me back, exactly?" Charmaine asked, changing the subject after seeing her attempt to provoke the young man fail. 

"It shouldn't be too long, especially with how generous you've been while giving my guys easy missions," the young man replied as he poured himself some whisky, causing Charmaine to snort in disdain.

"I see," Charmaine said, finally giving up on provoking the young man. "So, what brings you here today, Mr. Solomon?" she asked, trying to get rid of the young man so she could go back to her work. 

"Well, I'm here to give you a useful piece of information as thanks for helping my guys and me so much," the young man said with a smile as he took a sip of whisky. 

'Trying to patch things up, eh?' Charmaine thought as she narrowed her eyes. "And what kind of information would you have that I wouldn't already know about, Mr. Solomon?" she sarcastically asked in a dismissive tone.

"Something that I've been planning since I came here, and you'll be the first to know about because it hasn't even happened yet," the young man replied as he emptied his whisky glass in a single gulp.

"Color me intrigued," Charmaine said as she crossed her arms in front of her chest, trying to hide her curiosity.

"Well, a good number of the northern side gangs are going to stop existing in two days," the young man said as he stood up. "I imagine many people will kill to get such information beforehand," he added as he picked up the whisky bottle from the table, making it disappear somehow.

"Neat trick," Charmaine said as she watched the bottle disappear. "But you haven't explained how the gangs will disappear," she added with a raised eyebrow. 

"Such a piece of information would be valuable indeed, but only if it happens, and I only have your word to go by," she explained while giving the young man a meaningful look, causing him to stop at the door as he tried to leave. 

"And your word doesn't mean much, Mr. Solomon. No offense, of course," she concluded while waving her hand to the side.

"Fair enough," the young man said as he turned to look the Charmaine. "I guess I deserved that," he said with a chuckle, causing Charmaine to snort again as he made his way back to the couch. 

"Then allow me to elaborate," the young man reluctantly remarked. "You should already know about the gang leader whose arm I cut off after beating the sit out of him, no?" he asked, causing Charmaine to nod. 

"Well, he just came out of a meeting with the majority of the gang leaders from the north side," the young man explained with a smile.

"The conclusion of that meeting was that I'm a threat they needed to get rid of," he added in a mocking tone while doing air quotes in the air.

"So they'll rally up their forces and attack my little compound to just that in three days," he added while raising three fingers. 

"Then it looks like you're the one who's going to disappear, Mr. Solomon," Charmaine mockingly remarked in a dismissive tone. 

"Do I look like someone who's about to be disappeared by a bunch of lowlife thugs?" the young man asked with a confident smile. "At any rate, I've already said what I came here to say," he added as he stood up, walking towards the door. 

"So do with that what you will, but I would bet on me if I were you," he concluded as he made his way out of the room, but not without forgetting to snatch another whisky bottle from the shelves near the door, making it disappear. 

"Interesting...," Charmaine remarked with a thoughtful look as she watched the young man's shrinking back as he left without even bothering to close her door.

...

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