"Ah, Mr. Trask is castigating us again, Brad. Did you know?" Reka said conversationally.
He was somewhat ruing the decision to help her download the natter app on her phone, though Brad had to admit this was the most normal they had ever been as a couple. His fiancee was doomscrolling on the couch while he set up their smart tv. Reka's old apartment didn't have one. The plan was to watch "Love is Deaf" together. It was a show where prospective partners could only communicate with body language, would be interesting to see how Reka interpreted it.
"What's he saying exactly?" Brad asked absentmindedly while putting in their wifi password on the tv.
"Oh, the usual, how I'm a liar and can't deliver what I promised."
Reka didn't sound angry at all, and for some reason that was scarier. "How can he say that?" Brad asked back. "You've delivered thirteen crystals in the last year. That's thirteen gigawatts of clean energy, nothing to sneeze at."
"Even so," she said, "we'll miss the delivery this month. The new tooling takes priority. This Trask fellow is using it as an opportunity to stir up opprobrium against us."
"There's got to be something we can do," Brad said helplessly. Elron Trask was petty as fuck. Reka rejected one offer and he'd been taking passive aggressive swipes at her on social media for the better part of a year.
"Worry not, my love," Reka said evenly, putting down her phone. "The man is a charlatan. He can no more replicate my crystals than he can produce an electronic carriage of quality. His words are meaningless, and, as Julie assures me, I do not lack for defenders among the denizens of natter."
That much was true. Any time Elron attacked his fiancee her stans would mobilize, turning the comments into a war zone.
"Speaking of Julie," Reka continued, "our guests will be here soon."
"Should I order the pizzas now?" he asked.
Reka hummed in thought. "Perhaps not until after the interviews have concluded. Ah, they approach."
A blue MWB, of the same model as their own car, pulled into the driveway. Julie got out, and she was followed by three young women Brad didn't recognize.
When Reka opened the door Julie pulled her into a crushing hug. "Reka, you didn't have to buy me a car!" she cried happily.
"Nonsense, my friend," Reka corrected her. "You've been more than helpful. This is but the first reward of many. Our debt to you is great."
Julie blushed, turning her face away in embarrassment. "Geez, Reka, you really know how to talk to a girl...anyway, I've brought them. You wanted loyalty, right? Well, here it is." She indicated the three nervous girls behind her.
"Brad, this is my cult," Reka said brazenly.
He paused, waiting for the automatic translator in his brain to kick in. Surely she didn't mean...no she was serious.
"When did you get a cult, honey?" he asked uneasily.
"Reka means her fan club," Julie clarified. "And there are more at the university. I only had room for these."
The stalkers, he realized. Why were they hiring Reka's stalkers?
"Candice and Liz will be sooooo disappointed," one blonde girl said. The other blonde nodded.
Actually, they were all blonde, Brad noticed.
"Candice and Liz also have a year of school left," Julie told her. "Reka was clear, graduates only."
His fiancee clasped Julie on the shoulder. "After all, education is important. What kind of person would I be if starting my company early kept my boyfriend from finishing his degree?"
The fan club nodded sagely, muttering words of agreement.
Right...
"Should we invite them in, honey?" Brad asked.
Reka inclined her head. "Welcome to my palace, girls."
Julie and company filed in, gathering around their living room couch.
"Your house is beautiful, queen!" one of the girls praised.
Brad left to go get more chairs; it would be a tight fit otherwise.
"Ah, thank you, my love," Reka said, directing him where to put the chairs. "You may all be seated. We can begin the interviews whenever you're ready."
The girls suddenly looked nervous.
Taking pity, Reka offered them a bit of comfort. "This should mostly be a formality. I've already had reports of your capabilities from Julie. I only wish to confirm."
She picked up her phone. "Let's see here, Miss Schneider, accounting major, correct?"
"Please call me Stacy, Dr. Fekete!"
"And you may call me Reka, Stacy," she said kindly.
"But, I co-couldn't," Stacy stammered.
"I shall be Dr. Regis or Mrs. Regis soon enough," Reka said. "Best not get used to 'Fekete', Stacy."
Brad really liked the sound of that. Hearing "Mrs. Regis" nearly made him melt.
"That said, there is no need for excessive formality here. Your primary duty, Stacy, is to assure our company, Regency LLC, pays all appropriate taxes on time, every time. Is that agreeable?"
Stacy took a deep breath and clenched her fists. "You can count on me, Dr. Reka!"
Reka nodded in acceptance. "Very well. Now on to-"
The doorbell rang.
"Brad could you?" Reka asked, but he was already moving.
There was an Asian guy on their doorstep.
"Reka, is he a part of this too?" Brad called out.
"Yes, this simplifies matters, actually."
Brad let the new guy in, not really knowing what was going on. The man looked just as confused as he was. Sorry, buddy.
"Mr. Andrew Son, welcome," Reka greeted. "You come highly recommended as a robotics expert."
"It's an honor to be here, Dr. Fekete. You can call me Andy," the man said nervously. He looked young. Was he a prodigy? Who recommended him?
Reka didn't bother to correct him on her name. "Olivia Austin!" she called out.
"Yes ma'am!" the girl, presumably Olivia, sounded off as if she'd just been singled out in boot camp.
"You two will be working together. Regency LLC is in possession of an AI agent known as Galiban. We are in need of an articulated robot arm of unusually small dimensions capable of high-precision manipulation. This arm must be able to physically integrate with the Galiban AI. I emphasize this is critical to our next generation of crystal production. I've forwarded the specs to both of you."
Andy and Olivia glanced at one another awkwardly. Reka took their silence as agreement, as she often did, scrolling on her phone once more.
"And finally...Alice Glass."
The poor girl froze in terror. Julie rushed to comfort her. "Reka, this is the shy one," she said in a stage whisper.
Abashed, Reka's tone became more gentle. "You're a marketing major, right?"
Alice mumbled something that might be construed as a "yes".
"Well," Reka explained, "Regency LLC doesn't advertise, as such, so your job will be something more akin to a social media manager. We have official accounts on every major platform."
Julie rubbed small circles on the girl's back. "You can post good clap backs against Elron, right?"
Once it looked like Reka didn't have anything else to say Brad stood up. "So, who wants pizza?"
*******
Alice's Point of View
They were normal! By Elbereth Evervirgin they were normal! Alice was struggling to reconcile what she knew about Brad and Reka with what she was seeing.
Alex Kagan's soul was ripped from his body by the blackest of magic and they just sat there, eating pizza, talking about the future, and humoring Reka's fan club with good grace.
There were definitely magical artifacts in this house; Reka's jewellery was only the most obvious. She sensed something else, something darker, but there was no way to break contact and search.
Reka's friend Julie had somehow confused her fear with fragility and was sticking by her side like a mother hen.
Alice was better than this. She'd spent the last year studying the blade. The fencing club thought she was training for the Olympics, but no, Alice was seeking the power within. In the other world, tapping into her "fighting spirit" was almost instinctual. When battle was joined, all she had to do was take a firm stance, grip her sword, and unlock that little box in her heart. Righteous fury would suffuse her being, allowing her to strike harder, move faster, and cut down demons she had no business fighting as a mere mortal.
A year, it had taken a year of pushing herself to the absolute limit before she could awaken even a fraction of her former power, but awaken it she had.
Her peers in the fencing club were quite shocked when she went from the best among a group of amateurs to completely untouchable overnight. Time slowed down, the sword in her hand became one with her very soul, and instinct took over. It still might not be enough.
It might never be needed, she thought glumly.
After Alex, Alice's greatest fear was that the mage couple might kill again, but it hadn't happened. If anything, they seemed benevolent, sharing their power with the world.
She took this job to watch. If ever those two put someone else in danger, Alice would act, but until then...she needed a job. The pay for managing the company's natter account was ridiculously generous. Recent grads couldn't afford to be too picky in this economy.
When the pizza came everybody sat down to eat, and there was a good bit of jostling to get close to Reka. Brad, of course, had pride of place. Alice couldn't get a clear read on their dynamic.
Reka did most of the talking, but whenever Brad said anything at all she'd stop and listen. Did that mean he was in charge?
"So, who do we sell the crystals to?" Stacy, the old leader of the fan club, asked.
"The Department of Energy," Reka informed the table. "It seemed the safest bet to go with the authorities. I thought we might breed good will by refraining from overcharging."
"You could definitely get more in the private sector," Olivia, the only engineering major in the fan club, offered.
Stacy rested her chin on her hand, chewing thoughtfully. "Maybe, but the bidding war would be chaos, more trouble than its worth. The crystals aren't nuclear material by themselves; they need to be fueled first. I have no idea how this would be covered under the regulations, though."
After the initial shock of the job offers, Stacy and Olivia were acting surprisingly normal, Alice observed. It would be nice to have a Party again, even if she was technically a spy.
"Since we're doing business directly with the government, I might be able to find some tax incentives," Stacy added.
"Just don't get too creative," Brad said. "The last thing we need is legal issues, especially with Trask and Blimp looking for any reason to take us down a peg."
"It is as my love says," Reka instantly agreed. "So wise he is." She stroked his arm fondly, almost intimately. It made Alice a little uncomfortable.
"So what's your story, Andy?" Brad asked. "Ever thought you'd be working for a fusion company?"
"Definitely not," the Korean man answered, at least Alice thought he was Korean. Didn't one of the members of TSB have the last name "Son"?
"I was a robotics researcher at Barnaby Mango University, got offered a boatload of money to work at Alter, the self-driving car place, and that's what I've been doing the last couple of years, pretty boring actually. How did you even find me?"
"How did we find him?" Brad asked Reka.
"Galiban recommended him," she answered simply.
Andy raised an eyebrow. "The AI picked me?"
"Indeed," Reka said. "I set our thinking machine to scouring the internet for a maker of automatons, and you were the most favorable candidate."
Andy laughed nervously. "I'm flattered, I guess?"
Reka seemed normal before, but now she was talking strangely. Was Brad's magic wearing off?
"What about you, Alice?" Julie prodded gently. She was not fragile! If anything, her fear had degraded into confusion. Brad and Reka didn't seem dangerous.
"What about me?" she asked right back.
"You don't have to if you don't want, but could you tell us a little about yourself?"
The less said about her, the better.
Stacy, the traitor, answered for her. "Oh, Alice was the captain of the fencing club; she's really good. There aren't a lot of D1 fencing schools, but Alice actually got an offer to transfer to one."
Reka's eyes locked with hers. "A devotee of the sword, eh?"
"No, no, nothing like that," she deflected. "It's just a hobby." And now Brad and Reka knew she could fight. FUCK!
"You know," Andy interjected. "There's a famous MMA gym in San Guillermo. It's not fencing, but the footwork might carry over a little. Just a suggestion," he said awkwardly.
That wasn't a terrible idea, Alice thought. It wasn't like she could carry a sword everywhere, and she'd need some kind of training to keep herself sharp now that he job was posting on natter.
The evening wound down after that. Reka told them they could all stay the night, even live with them if they wanted. Stacy and Olivia agreed instantly. Andy had an apartment in the city, and Julie actually needed to be back at the university the next day.
There was no way Alice felt comfortable sleeping under the same roof as these people, not until she knew more. Julie dropped her off at a hotel. She'd start looking for a place of her own tomorrow.