November
Lucy's Age: 3
Lucy has become extra morose as the holidays have gotten closer and closer. She still speaks very little, so I can only assume that she's linked this time of year to her abandonment by her parents. I've had to speak to Mrs. Agosti several times about not decorating the apartment, but each time I return after an extended absence I find that she's hung up a decoration of one kind or another.
At various times she's hung up strings of popcorn running from the crown molding on one side of the room to the other, poinsettias next to the leather sofa, chains of paper rings around the coffee table, even plain glass balls that had been decorated in a dozen ingenious ways. I quite honestly had forgotten there were so many different kinds of Christmas decorations.
After the last couple of times, I confronted her, speaking quite sternly about the matter, but she just looked repentant and pointed out that she hadn't hung up any particular kind of decoration that I had expressly forbidden. I tried backing the prohibition up with a shaping, but it didn't seem to make any difference.
She continues not to put up anything I've expressly told her not to display, but is still finding new types of decorations which to her mind are still acceptable. I could force the issue if I was so inclined, but that seems to be a losing proposition.
Using non-mentalist means is likely to just make her extremely unhappy and risk driving her away while exercising my powers could very well strip her of some of the initiative that makes her a valuable employee.
I suspect that I'll continue to refine my ability to work the kind of subtle shapings required to avoid ruining a human after just one or two services, but for now I've definitely come up against boundaries beyond which I'm not going to be able to influence Mrs. Agosti. In the future, I'm going to experiment more with just implanting a desirable belief inside her mind.
I'll probably still run into problems with the way she sometimes interprets a given group of beliefs, but it should be better than what I've done in the past. Inserting workings into a person that are solely focused on creating a specific action hasn't proven as reliable as I would like, and it's much more crude and limited in scope.
For now I suppose that Lucy will just have to toughen up. If she's to be any use to me, then she'll experience much worse than this before all is said and done. Even so, I've taken to spending even more time at the house than I was before. I'm able to manage most of the aboveboard business transactions remotely with my laptop, and that is where I'm spending the bulk of my time lately.
I continue to successfully identify market opportunities that provide a reasonable rate of return on my capital. Given that I'm maintaining my expenditures at a level well below my earnings, over a long enough period of time I will be able to achieve any level of wealth imaginable. Realistically, I'll probably eventually reach a point where I no longer have sufficient time to manage all of my working capital, but I'm unlikely to arrive there anytime soon.
While the return on the legitimate forms of commerce helps put me at ease regarding the future, I'm still seeking faster growth, to which end I've continued to use the White Tears to move various illegal commodities as I come across them while working for Imastious.
Things have slowed considerably since the Red Hand Consortium was knocked back on its heels, which has meant that Imastious hasn't used me as frequently as normal. I've considered creating some opportunities by stirring trouble back up between the Latin Kings and the Red Hand, but have schooled myself to patience.
I can't expect to be able to carry on that kind of shell game indefinitely and it's better to accept a lower rate of return in exchange for avoiding creating a confrontation with Imastious that I can't yet win.
Because of my lower mission load, I haven't been leaving the second apartment as often during the early evening, which has resulted in Lucy coming into my room more frequently than she has in the past.
She then waits until I'm absorbed in some bit of analysis or another before climbing up onto my lap. I sternly told her that she wasn't to touch the keys on my laptop, and after that one attempt she has never tried to push any of the letters.
I've got a desk that the computer actually sits on, but it's still almost impossible to do any typing with a three-year-old on your lap. As inconvenient as her newfound habit is, it's one of the first real signs that she's starting to bond with me, so I've decided to let her continue with this new nightly ritual. I've been able to rearrange my workflow slightly such that I'm mostly doing research in the evenings now so that Lucy isn't interrupting as much as she otherwise might be.
My efforts to convince Mrs. Agosti to turn the thermostat up to a more reasonable range in the evenings have so far failed to meet with any success, but I find that once Lucy is on my lap, sometimes with her arms around my neck, sometimes just with her back to me as she watches my screen, that I'm no longer cold. Her tiny little body puts out an astonishing amount of heat.
I need to remember to make some notes regarding some new recruits to the White Tears that I could possibly groom to take over the gang once I've spent some time applying some of the loyalty conditioning techniques I've been developing on Mrs. Agosti. It will have to wait until tomorrow though as Imastious has ordered me to rendezvous with him down in the financial district. Hopefully whatever job he's going to throw at me is less boring than the last few have been.