✅1️⃣ Trusting the Babysitter

Chapter 16 - Playing Games

After dispatching another three opponents, Claudia was really starting to wish she had been allowed to use the bathroom before the match began.

"It's the enemy LZ," Adam commented, oblivious to her discomfort. "When the last man dies, the sector they spawned in disappears. We got like two minutes max before the next one's on you. I'm sending a shield to one of the vendors, but there's no time to hack more."

"Right," Claudia mumbled. She'd have a little time before her new opponent got here, she was sure. Camping wasn't ideal, but the vending machine was in the corridor outside her chosen ambush point. She sent her demo guy to collect the new gear that Adam had promised, wishing it had been an ammo drop instead. Still, she was forbidden from asking for things she needed, and she assumed that would mean in-game resources as well as more practical things. She was entirely dependent on her babysitter to notice what she needed. If she didn't have a satellite player on his phone in the same room, that would have been an insurmountable handicap.

"Got a force shield, boss," a voice sample came from the speakers. Claudia tapped the D-pad to call the man back to her side, and then allowed herself a brief moment to relax. She'd not tried this game mode before, and the last opponent had been pretty good, but there was still a chance she would be able to win one more. But she needed to pee now, and there was no way to pause in the middle of this hectic match. This was the biggest break she was likely to get.

She lowered the controller for a second, but kept her hands on it. She stared into space for a moment as she felt her bladder start to empty, and then felt the warmth spreading around her crotch. She couldn't help blushing as she realised she was wetting herself again, the only reassurance being that it wasn't her fault. As the pressure inside her faded away, she felt a little more comfortable and let out a small sigh. That made her blush more, but there was no way that the babysitter would have noticed. Was there?

She couldn't worry about it any more when a proximity alert told her that someone was approaching. She peered over the nearest barrel and snapped her scope into night-vision mode.

"Are you okay, little one?" She tried to put Adam's voice out of her mind as well. "You seem distracted. Do you need a nap? We can just win this game, and then take a little break. Can you keep going another five minutes? Oh, zombies coming. They're herding them, will you be okay with some scary monsters?"

The only answer to that was a burst of laser fire, and two deadlings collapsing in the doorway. Adam was talking rubbish, but he'd at least said what she needed to know, and she was confident that he would be focused now on gaining control of the environmental systems in order to give them the slightest advantage over FoxyChocolate's team.

After the zombies came a squad of colonist marines, and then a team of mercenaries, and then some player using some custom skin that Claudia didn't remember off the top of her head. As the game went on, they seemed to be getting better. Or the lack of resources was hitting harder than she realised. She found that she was counting every shot, and relying heavily on her quick scope to make sure that every shot was a kill.

She was glad of Adam's presence. She was used to finding someone in the random pool to play satellite, or relying on the AI. But there was never enough time to tell them what she needed, even talking constantly. And Adam seemed to be capable of multitasking better than any guy she'd ever met; keeping track of the threats on his phone screen as well as looking up at her display so he knew exactly what she was short of. He couldn't always give her what she needed, but even with the randomness of the hacking minigame he always managed to deliver before it was a game breaker.

"The zombies are deployed adjacent to the removed sectors," he commented. "It has to be. So facing the last guy you beat, if you move to three o'clock and then turn to seven, they're almost guaranteed to meet your opponent first. Maybe offset the handicap from limited resources some. Do you understand that? Are you –"

"Thanks," Claudia cut him off. She could tell front his tone that the next words were going to be condescendingly asked if she knew which way the numbers on a clock were or something. There was no time to talk more before the next lot of marines were on her. And this time, despite all her skill and one almost-miraculous save when Adam turned out the lights at just the right moment, she finished the round with only one man standing and ammunition only for the joke weapons.

"I'm going for shotgun, but it's levelled– Sugar! You got more frog ray ammo at the north vendor if that's any good to you. And they're herding the lizards, so you–"

There was no more time for discussion, and the other player was on them. The heavy weapons marine did his best, but with only grenades he couldn't do much once the enemy got too close. Claudia was on her own, and the enemy had a very neat trick with a bunch of limpet mines and gravity caltrops. The screen faded to black, and at last she could breathe easily.

"Wow. That felt like forever."

"Yeah. You did really well, it was nearly an hour. Can you count the people you beat? Look, it's one, two, three..."

"Eleven," Claudia interrupted. "And it looks like it's scored as... a series of duals, but with an increasing multiplier for each match after the first. Quicker too, I'd never manage eleven duos in an hour."

"What a clever girl. You did really well there. And I guess this is a good mode to play for the tournament. That multiplier looks kind of crazy, you're getting more than double for number nine. They'll probably rebalance it down later, but it's probably good to stick to those for today if there's time. Now, do you need another drink before the next one, or are you getting hungry? Are you sure? It's nearly lunchtime, and you might start getting cranky if you're hungry. Okay. Do you need to go potty again? That was a long game. I think you–"

"I'm fine," Claudia cut him off again, instead of continuing to answer by nodding and shaking her head. She didn't want him to keep asking about that. Her diaper was no longer feeling warm and wet, going slightly clammy, and she couldn't bear for someone like him to find out that she'd wet herself. She just wanted to go to the bathroom and change, but she couldn't say she needed to go because she wasn't allowed to tell him. There had to be a way around it, maybe she could just go, but she wasn't sure if even that was allowed. Or if his instruction to treat her like a baby would make him stop her.

She swallowed and gasped as she felt Adam's hand slip inside the waistband of her jeans. She hadn't even noticed him coming closer, she was so lost in her own thoughts. Suddenly she was afraid, even though she knew he didn't have any choice. He'd been told to check her diaper, and that's just what he was doing. She knew she couldn't hide it, maybe Lorelei had even planned this. But she couldn't bear for him to find out like this. It was too humiliating for words, an embarrassment she simply couldn't tolerate. But there was nothing to do except squirm and try to get out of his reach. And Adam was still stronger than her, it seemed. His fingers pressed the clammy diaper against her skin, and she whimpered as his fingers brushed against her skin. This was too much, way too much, but she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She closed her eyes, and tried to pretend that this whole thing wasn't happening.