I have three places in the apartment where I work on my projects. Three places that I used for taking things apart, putting them back together, and puzzling out the mysteries of my new universe.

There was my workshop where I worked on enchantments, potions, devices, and magitech. There was my lab where I worked on research projects whether magical, biological, spiritual, or technical. Finally, there was the study which normally was just a study, complete with a desk and divan for lounging in.

However, if I wished I could turn the study into any number of facilities because it held all my spares for the equipment that were harder to fabricate or print, and at least a couple extras of the items that were easier to create.

I was currently in my study. Working on the piano I’d recovered from the job in Pennsylvania. I’d been remaking it. Refurbishing it, changing all the old parts for parts that were more responsive to anomalous energy.

I’d also been making some alterations to the piano. Steady changes that I figured would either be necessary or simply nice to have, for when the spirit that lay dormant within the piano woke up.

I wasn’t doing this with any ulterior motive. Nor did I have any ultimate goal in mind. I was just an immortal doing what immortals do. Finding a novel way of killing time.

Plus, I found it somewhat therapeutic working on the old instrument. The piano was once a thing of beauty and there was something very fulfilling to me about bringing back its vibrancy.

I was currently working on replacing its strings with ones with better tensile strength, higher aetheric resonance, and a responsiveness that could be likened to muscular fiber when enough were gathered together.

Balancing that last detail against all the others was my greatest concern. This piano wasn’t just a musical instrument. It was also a body. Or was it the conduit for creating a body? I wasn’t quite sure which angle I would ultimately follow.

All I knew for use, was that I needed to make sure that the instrument could properly serve as a physical vessel for the spirit when it had finally recovered.

“Hm...It’s not sounding right.”

I used my telekinetics to press the eighty-eight keys of the piano. Listening to the notes in sequential order, and matching them against a sound index I’d created based on what brand new pianos were supposed to sound like.

I took out the strings, and replaced them with another set I’d printed that were made a few microns thicker. These new strings were created from a designer molecule with a heavier atomic weight.

I tested the notes again and this time I was pleased by what I heard.

I didn’t need to test the tensile strength of the strings. I’d already done that when I was developing that substances that would be used for printing the strings.

I knew exactly how much stress the strings could take, and I knew how they’d respond to extreme heat, moisture, and cold. With time manipulation I was even able to test how they’d respond to ravages of time.

“Mhm, I think that’s enough for today.” I said. Speaking to myself.

The equipment in the room shifted. Folding into themselves and sliding into the walls. Out came the chairs, desk, divan, and bookshelves. The last thing that disappeared was the piano itself.

Until I decided to work on it again, the piano would rest under a dome that sat above a yin-generator and reappear in its usual resting place in one of lesser-used living rooms. The yin-generator would provide a flow of yin-element aether that would nourish the spirit sleeping within the piano.

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Once I finished up in the lab, I decided to head to the living room to just sort of relax for a bit before working on my next pet project. When I got to the living room Margot was there. Which actually was something of a surprise, since I expanded the apartment Margot had tended to haunt the media rooms, abandoning the main living room to me and Mint.

“Hey…” I said.

“Hi.” said Margot. Eyes glued to the wall that had converted itself into a television screen, and the half-dozen or so animated fighters, that were moving around on the screen.

I didn’t say anything else, I just sort of settled in. I had no problem with anything Margot chose to do with the apartment’s common space because there were literally more rooms than we knew what to do with. Even if that wasn’t the case I had a full entertainment suit inside my head.

I browsed the web on an AR screen. Checking a few emails from businesses I’d quietly been getting in touch with, seeking to contract out my services. While Margot and I no longer needed money for most things, my habits and experiences made me want to secure a second and third stream of steady revenue.

Figuring out how to set up that second stream was easy enough. Passive income was a good way to make money so long as you didn’t need that money fast and weren’t too concerned about it staying liquid.

I’d been investing a lot of my share of Margot and I’s payment from the jobs we were doing for the player’s league into stocks, bonds, and real estate.

We weren’t making any real money yet because I didn’t have all that much money to invest, but with the help of my akashic feed and my predictive algorithms, I’d eventually have a nice little money-tree growing.

The third revenue stream would come by way of a handful of business deals. I neither needed, nor wanted, anything too obvious or showy. I’d learned the best way to make money without drawing too much attention was to make other people money and let them be the target of all the envy and admiration that would come.

So long as the contracts were ironclad, and enforced by magic, and one made sure that the other side was properly afraid of making you come and seek your rightful payment through more forceful means, there was rarely any problem.

It also helped that instead of targeting, whales and sharks, that might get greedy and think to swallow me whole, I’d built up a modus operandi of going after businesses that were on the verge of failure.

In those cases, if I picked my target right, and played my hand skillfully, I could basically be an unseen executive. Supporting and controlling the company’s growth from the shadows.

The tricky part was getting started and getting someone who was desperate enough to take the bait, malleable enough to fall under my influence and do as I say, but not so helpless that I’d have to carry them forever after I’d saved their asses.

If possible, I would ‘like’ to add the requirement of finding someone upright and honest, so that I wouldn’t have to worry about being stabbed in the back. However, this was a business, and I generally didn’t trust people readily enough for that to matter.

Even if my future partners/patsies were honest to the point of saintliness that wouldn’t stop me from watching them for the slightest sign of betrayal.

I’d also be drafting a contract with so many breach penalties that if the laws of man were left to enforce it, instead of the apathetic and amoral laws of the cosmos, it’d be borderline unconscionable.

I sent a few emails to some people. Politely closing a few dialogues, while also working to keep a few other dialogues going.

I also did a few searches in other industries because I wasn’t really liking how things were going with my current search, and I was thinking I might need to broaden the number of businesses I was looking at.

I’d been courting tech and weapons companies but they seemed to either not be interested, or to be far too full of themselves. I decided I’d see how companies that worked in either agriculture, textiles, home care, cosmetics, or pharmaceuticals responded.

If that didn’t work out I’d look into the aeronautics and automotive industries. If things still remained iffy, I’d do what I always did when finding a business partner wasn’t panning out… I’d find a bunch of broke but promising college students, pay off their student debt, woo them with sweet words, and manipulate them into creating a start-up while keeping my name out of the public record.

One way or another, I’d get that third revenue stream. Eventually building a small power that would allow me a bit more economic and political freedom in my new world. I wasn’t asking for too much. I was just trying to get Margot and I to the level of influence an average mid-tier clan of mages or supers would enjoy.

Once I was done with all that, I just sort of zoned out on the couch. Staring at nothing. My restless mind focused on the one other person in the room. Margot.

I realized that her hair was wet and her skin flush and moist. All cues that she’d just come out of the shower. Which was itself a cue that she’d just finished a training session. Either going through a round of time-dilated cultivation, or fighting her way through a scenario in the training hall.

I couldn’t help chuckling as I watched her sit, rocking place as she brutalized the controller in her hands. I had this sense that in another time and place, Margot would be the kind of person who drove people crazy.

The kind of person who said they “totally flunked” their tests but still ended up with As and high Bs.

The kind who’d you manage to drag to all the same parties and stupid events you went but would still manage to make the honor roll, while you had to figure out how to snag your report card before your parents got hold of it.

The kind of person who always looked like they were slacking off when in reality she was reality putting in two or three times the effort as everyone else.

It was two parts endearing, and one part annoying because it made me feel anxious about my own contributions to our partnership. I couldn’t help wondering if I was doing enough and planning far enough ahead.

It was like having a kid you expect to only do “okay”, totally exceed your expectations for them. Suddenly they’d had all these prospects and you’d be left feeling shitty, because you couldn’t afford to send them to the Ivy leagues where they belonged.

Ugh…

Maybe that wasn’t the best metaphor to use when thinking about someone I was currently in a complex emotional and sexual entanglement with. I couldn’t help recoiling from that line of thought as it occurred to me that I was probably old enough to be the young woman’s grandfather many, many times over.

Thankfully, my inner-smartass woke up and reminded the part of me that was busy cringing that if we were going down that rabbit-hole, I was probably also old enough to be everyone on or in this universe’s grandfather, which included most of the oldest devils, gods, and spirits. Weirdly enough that calmed me down.

It’s hard to get all bothered by age gaps when you’re literally so old that finding someone closer to your age would be nearly impossible. Especially since all the single people around your age are paranoid, megalomaniacal, sociopaths.

Immortals didn’t often date other immortals. First off, dating was a very ‘mortal’ thing to do. Being immortal meant you no longer had a lifespan to worry about, which meant that the whole breeding to have species-based immortality schtick and the drives and impulses associated, stopped being so engrossing.

By the time one was a member of the undying, you usually had countless ‘other’ things to do besides worrying about mating and offspring.

You were also a lot less trusting about who you let get physically, emotionally, and spiritually, close to you. There were far too many stories about undying entities being eaten, absorbed, or otherwise slain, by their lovers.

I can tell you that there was more than a little truth to those stories, as someone who’d both been a living-cauldron and then managed to turn it around on the other person to suck them dry.

Which made me feel a little uncomfortable because it made it sound like the only reason I was with Margot was because she wasn’t a threat to me.

A thought that I was relieved to find was easily banished when I remembered the tether and our contract and realized that she was probably the one person in all the cosmos who could hurt me the most right now.

Though that opened up a question of whether getting involved with her like this was my way of unconsciously neutralizing an obvious threat.

Eventually, I just decided to box up my unhelpful, anxious thoughts, and put them aside. I was hungry now which meant it was time for snacks. Plus, I needed to feed Mint. The little dog was still growing and was constantly hungry.

“Hey, M… You hungry?” I said. Getting up off of the couch.

“Er… I guess?” said Margot.

“Cool… Any requests?” I said.

“Mh… Anything’s fine.” said Margot.

“Alright.” I said.

“Oh, and I think I found something interesting for our next job.” said Margot.

“Cool. You can show me later.” I said.

“No problem. I literally just sent a text file with the details to you, using my interface.” said Margot.

I nodded as the file pinged into my system and was pleased to see Margot was making more use of her interface. If this continued, I’d see if she wanted me to expand its functions to the point of making her laptop and smartphone completely redundant.