From the day he had met a shy little boy, anxious and afraid in his new situation, he had couched me in my studies with the diligence of a doting fath...r. His efforts helped me stand near the top of the newest crop of Mages.He did me another great service; in arranging Duke Roblar's interviews, he had given me the very first slot, and I suspect, dropped a few laudatory remarks in the duke's ear. In whatever fashion, after a scant half-hour meeting, I was offered the position, at the princely sum. ." I thought about it for a moment then sighed and closed the gallery on my phone, then opening Skype and calling her for a voice chat, much like a phone call.*Sound of connection being made*Her: "Hey love! What's up?"Me: "Just wanted to talk to you, you know, keep my mind off of cutting..."Her: "Oh..right...our promise. Sure, I can help you out. It can help me too, haha.."Me: "Awesome, so I wanted to ask you something Jasmine..."Her: "Yeah, sure. What is it?"Me: "Um...where exactly do you live. “Let me ask you this, in all seriousness, would you, at fifteen, have felt right using chess to manipulate a girl into having sex when she didn’t really want to? Or use it to put a girl or guy off her game in a tournament?”“Probably not, because I was too introverted to even think about doing something like that. I told you about losing my virginity.”“That your best friend in the entire world, who you knew from age five, who you shared everything with, had to basically walk you through it. “It’s very important, it concerns station security, I’m a member of Doctor Katherine Reid’s science team appointed by Chief Moralez.”At that the marine hesitated, bringing up a wrist-mounted tablet computer embedded in the bulky wristguard of his suit and tapped in some commands. Clayton waited impatiently, practically bouncing on the spot as the marine checked it out.“Says here a Doctor Reid and company are permitted temporary access to the control hub by order of the security chief, but.