Earlier in the day, he met with a representative of Lucid Guild. They offered more money than any other guild or agency that he's met with thus far. Even his lawyer seemed surprised. He explained to Lawrence there was more salary compression in guilds compared to agencies because there's less individual negotiation and representation. 

Guilds specialize less than agencies by dint of their size but they do still specialize. Lucid Guild had a specialization in psychics, and Lawrence had strong psychic powers that they really wanted. And they had a lot to offer him too. Combat espers tend to be more compatible with other combat espers, psychic espers with other psychics, so on and so forth. And Lucid has more psychic espers than average. They think they could find a very compatible partner for him much more easily than any other organization.

They would also be able to offer a lot of specialized help: practice to improve his backlash efficiency, his precision, ways to mitigate the effects of his backlash. 

Lastly, Lucid Guild is the guild of Kang Jaeha — the A-rank psychic esper, the only one who has the ability to remove Nightmare's mark on a person.

It was a very good pitch. Part of him already had the thought that Lucid is the obvious winner and he should cancel the rest of his appointments and start the next steps with Lucid, but. Lots of money are on the line, here. There are only a few appointments remaining. He should be diligent and finish it through to the end. Maybe Quasar Guild will be able to offer something better...

The person Quasar sends to talk to him is... quite unlike the reps from the other guilds, even at a glance. He's not a corporate mook in a nice suit looking professionally done up; he is a tiny blond bombshell with numerous piercings on each ear, wearing a golden choker over a tight T-shirt with sleeves that only go down a third of his upper arm and do a good job of showing off a very fit torso, baggy slacks over combat boots, bracelets, and eyeliner.

"Yo. What language?" he asks, in English, as he offers a hand to shake.

He is. Certainly one of the representatives of all time. Lawrence resists the urge to let his eyes wander and part of him thinks that he should be awarded an additional classification for that.

Oh. His eyes are golden. Is he an esper? Why send an esper to this kind of meeting? He permitted the testing center to make his backlash (or what he said was his backlash) public, so maybe they're sending an esper they think would be compatible?

"English, please." He shakes his hand.

They are not compatible! Lawrence yelps and recoils. He's not used to the feeling of incompatibility, yet. He really ought to — the brochures said that most esper pairings will be neutral or incompatible.

He shakes his hand a bit but his reaction is less strong and more like he expected this. He sits on his designated chair in a decidedly slouchy fashion and says, "Ha Si-yeon. Backlash's indecision, power is that I can do things, A-rank, mostly combat and rescue but occasionally specops. Nice to meet you."

Right. Lawrence and his lawyer sit too.

"Nice to meet you as well. Lawrence Lopez Lacson, backlash is difficulty moving, power is control of movement and mind sensing. A-rank," he says by way of introduction, even though all this information is something everyone coming here already knows.

"This is Ramos Sanchez, my counsel." His lawyer bows slightly.

"Yo," he says to the lawyer. Right and index finger pointing forward close together slide down, summoning his holographic commscreen. He taps at it for a couple of seconds, and a contract appears in a flash of weirdly localised light on the table. He looks at Lawrence again. "Do you wanna talk about contracts or let your lawyer look over it while we talk about the real interesting stuff?"

Wow. He's read about commscreens during their preliminary research, but to see one work in person is another thing. A good pitch tactic, to show off what he could receive in such a visceral way, if he joins.

"Real interesting stuff sounds good."

"Cool, awesome." He slides the contract over to the lawyer. "So, uh... welcome to being an esper, I hope it didn't suck too much, I don't actually usually do this kinda stuff so I don't have, like, a script. I'd try the pitch they used on me but I'm a bit, uh," he taps one of his earrings so it jingles, "unconventional."

?????????????why did they send this person???????????

Is a man wearing earrings that unconventional? Well, he doesn't have his ears pierced and has never worn earrings, so he supposes that's a point in favor. It's unconventional compared to the other people he met with. Who. Actually prepared.

He's kinda curious now as to what pitch they used on him. "Thank you for your concern," he says instead. "What makes Quasar Guild real interesting?"

The lawyer will take the contract.

"Didn't need to do the bulllllll uh stuff that other guilds make you do so you always look perfect in public, mostly. Also they, like, care about people as individuals, but I was instructed not to say that 'cause no one believes it when you just say it. But yeah like, I don't really know how it is in the Philippines but in Korea? We gotta look perfect. All the time. It's obnoxious, and Quasar isn't like that." Another earring jingle. "And I really hated having to wait for corporate approval for my wardrobe choices like my previous guild did."

His lawyer and his research told him about how Korean and Japanese guilds are very invested in the public perception of their espers but. He didn't know it was that bad.

Yeah, he's right that Lawrence doesn't believe it when he just says it. The fact that he was instructed not to and just said it anyway is so funny, though. Or maybe he was instructed to say that he was instructed not to say...

So the appeal of Quasar is that it doesn't have standards? part of him feels like saying, but it would be incredibly rude. 

His expectation for the meetings was that the representatives would already have their pitches prepared and would deliver them but. Si-yeon just said that he didn't have one. So he's a little confused and directionless about where to go, from here.

And, he realizes belatedly...Si-yeon said that he's A-rank. Him spending fifteen minutes on Lawrence was worth like. Hundreds of thousands of pesos or something. It is a signal for them to send such a high rank esper to speak with him, even if that esper is......really unprepared.......

"How is Quasar not like that?"

"Your contract guy can tell you more about it but Quasar sees itself as... being a resource for the espers? Like yes technically they are my employers but the way they put it is that that's just funneling the money I'd be making anyway to me, and making every other part of being an esper easier. If you want to have a public image you can, they have people whose whole job is that, you'll have tons of resources at your disposal to become the Instagram hero of your dreams, or to back the charitable causes you want and bring awareness to them, or whatever. But if you want to literally never interact with the media ever and never have to give anyone an interview you can do that. And you don't have to pretend like the fact that you're in a relationship with your partner is a dirty little secret. ...if you are, that is, not everyone is, my own situation there is a bit complicated."

He has the gremlin urge to poke the complicated relationship situation. He has learned enough to know that espers get into some very heated drama. Sometimes literally. He suppresses this urge.

No media requirements is a big plus. But, and he may regret thinking this later, he doesn't think he's that averse to interacting with the media? He definitely wants to get media training first thing after signing with anyone. He's not sure how valuable or special it is outside of the Korean context. 

"Having no obligation to interact with the media is valuable; thank you for telling me that. That Quasar is accommodating of espers who don't want media attention is good. But don't all guilds and agencies function as resources for espers? Their incentives are aligned; they're invested in maximizing the effectiveness of their espers."

"Eeeenh," he says, doing a so-so gesture with his hand. "Guilds are NGOs, right, and they're more, like, collectivist? About it? Than, like, Western agencies, for example. There's a ton of politics, and overlooking individuals to focus on the good of the guild as a whole. And like I can't think of any other guild over in my corner of the world offhand that doesn't have a policy of hierarchy based on esper ranks, overt or not, other than Quasar. And even the hierarchy that does exist is, well—the way prez says it, hierarchy is only useful when it has a use, otherwise it's just an inefficient waste of everyone's time and talents. ...that sounds shorter and snappier in Korean.

"Anyway what I mean to say is that most guilds want you to be a well-behaved cog in a nicely oiled machine rather than getting you everything you need to be the best you can be, yourself."

That makes sense. He is privileged in that he's of high rank, but...he agrees that someone's rank or esper power is not indicative of whether or not they'll be a good leader.

"That certainly sounds like a very good deal. But what does Quasar get out of all that? If it's giving me all those resources? From what it sounds like, I should be the one pitching you on why I ought to be permitted to join."

"...okay so like the story here is that prez, that's the guild president, he was like super rich and super bored and for some reason he had to interface with like espers and guilds and he went 'wow you all treat your espers like things to use and this makes me angry, I'm gonna fix that', so he went and figured out how to put his reams of money to good use. So, goodness of our hearts, really!"

"That said I think they asked me to come here of all people 'cause your power might be useful for specops and they probably wanted me to sound you out on that."

Oh. He doesn't know what to think about that. It has the same energy as a corporation going "we're all one big family here and we work hard and play hard". It has the same energy as his parents giving him things he didn't ask for and expecting him to be grateful for it. The bad thing about transactional dynamics is that people only see you as an object. But it doesn't lie about you being treated as an object.

He has thoughts about how that doesn't seem like a stable equilibrium but the second part is indeed, real interesting.

"I don't know what you mean by specops."

"Special operations. Mission Impossible, action movie, spy stuff. 'Cause, you know, it turns out that dungeons aren't the only bad things in the world, and not all espers are working towards the common good or just being accountants."

He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. At least it's coming from a guild and not a government. Do they actually really want him to do interrogations? Except they don't know the real flexibility of power...right? But no, there have to be espers that can like. Read minds and stuff. Or maybe tell what power another has? Is that a thing?

"Could you elaborate? To the extent you can — I assume there's a lot of confidentiality involved. How do you imagine my power being useful for that?"

He knew that not all espers worked in dungeon clearing. Espers with 'useless' powers notwithstanding, a lot of espers worked in industry or construction. Belatedly, it makes a lot of sense that they would do this type of work, too.

"Psychic powers are real flexible. Sometimes they trump each other in ways you don't expect. You being able to sense minds even when you don't know they're there is genuinely pretty rare. Knowing for sure you're not being eavesdropped on is very good.

"The other bit, about controlling movement, can be a lot more useful against humans who are more creative and less, like—singleminded—than dungeon monsters, sometimes, and even a second's advantage can decide a conflict. But that's secondary, really, there isn't that much direct conflict per se, and I'm usually better at that than just about anyone."

He looks for a moment like there's something else he wants to say, but he seems to decide against it, and the moment passes.

Lawrence notices the hesitation but he doesn't know what to think about it.

"That's not true," he says reflexively. "My power doesn't detect hidden microphones or cameras. It doesn't detect someone putting their ear to a wall to hear a conversation on the other side."

He sighs slightly. "After I figured out my powers, I thought that I would be the sort of combat esper you bring out to deal with boss monsters and then put away, because I don't have very good sustain. Or something along those lines — I don't know much about dungeon clearing tactics and strategy. And I came into negotiations assuming that, and for the most part it was correct. Most people do want me to use my powers for that. Dungeon clearing is a very well established esper profession.

Using my powers on humans is," he says, like he didn't just use his powers on humans a whole bunch several days ago...how to say this in a non-rude way..."fraught."

"Yeah. It really is. And doing dungeons is, like, totally fine, of course. And you'd be buried under so many confidentiality clauses like you don't even know, trust me, it's nowhere near as cool and fun as Tom Cruise makes it look. But it is something I sometimes do, and so if you wanted to think about that possibility, it'd be open to you."

He feels like he doesn't really know what to say about that. He supposes he can be some kind of anti-esper agent??? If he signs with Quasar??? Maybe for another kind of person it would be really appealing and a selling point. He doesn't know. He mostly just feels scared about the thought. Scared about how, him existing means other persons like him exist. Scared about being made to use his powers in ways he doesn't want them to be used. It's funny, because he isn't really. The most moral person. He's always kind of seen himself as. Amoral? Or, more concerned about equilibria and arrangements rather than morality. Maybe it's trauma from being raised by really religious parents. It's so ironic, that someone who kinks on mind control would get a mind control power. He doesn't even know whether he's into mind control, still. Now that he's awoken. The thought feels so awful to contemplate, now.

"Do you like doing it? Why did you get into that type of work?" He's assuming that Si-yeon chose to do it and not that Quasar ordered him to, because it seems like that's not the Quasar way of doing things. Or, at least, it wouldn't accord with his words.