I sat at my desk typing out an incident report. I’d just been forced to delete one hundred and five worlds in a row. The first one hundred and three worlds weren’t too much of an issue.

The first one hundred and two worlds were bog-standard affairs that had already reached a game-over state. All the inhabitants were either already dead or dying. With the bulk of those worlds' populations having been killed off before the worlds could be brought to the attention of the DPAA and the House of Antipodes that sat above us.

All that was left for me to do, was to assess the damage, transmigrate the souls of any survivors, eliminate any lingering threats, and give the world a good scrubbing and reformating so that the cosmos could give the dimension a clean start.

World one hundred and three was empty of life, because all its inhabitants had already been migrated to a number of fictive worlds and sub-dimensions, so all I was really dealing with was an empty shell.

The one hundred and fourth, and one hundred and fifth worlds, were where I’d been forced to put some real effort in. The one hundred and fourth universe still had over a third of its population, but there’d been a universe-wide infestation of fast-breeding, soul-eating, trogs that had forced me to purge the whole world lest the trogs make it into that world’s nearest neighbors.

I saved those that I could but honestly, that wasn’t much. Maybe a few trillion so or so, which isn’t much when you’re talking about an entire universe. The closest equivalent I could make, would be having the whole world be on the verge of destruction only being able to save the denizens of a single city block. Then I was forced to personally burn down the rest of that city, and the state, and the nation, and the world...and I had repeat that process, and realize that I’d actually gotten lucky when I was able to save that one city block.

The infection was so contagious that my rescue efforts were cut short once I realized that the planets themselves were becoming trogified. Turning into massive, endlessly hungry, cancerous lumps of stupidity and hatefulness.

The whole universe was erased with the sole consolation being that the planet of evil mages responsible for the trogs and their spread throughout the universe wasn’t spared from this fate...No matter what kind of deal their foolish emperor thought he could make. In fact, I chose their world as the primer for my little universe ending bomb.

The one hundred and fifth universe had its entire population intact. Ending that universe was difficult but thankfully this wasn’t an emotional difficulty, like the fourth universe. I wasn’t forced to slay another universe full of people.

I just had to go through the incredibly fiddly process of compressing, and then transitioning, all their souls into a fictive world. Then I had to strengthen the universal laws and metaphysical encoding for that fictive world, so it wouldn’t be a pain in the ass to make the fictive world into a “real” world later down the line.

I ended that particular day at the office early. I figured it’d be fine because I’d fulfilled my personal quota of resolving the crisis of thirty thousand worlds per day. Which naturally fulfilled the DPAA’s quota of assessing and “attempting” to resolve the crises of ten worlds per day.

I also had an appointment I needed to get to that day. So around noon I left the offices of the DPAA and teleported to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I hadn’t suddenly gotten a hankering to see one of the world-famous Pittsburgh gladiatorial matches. I was there to meet with my business partner.

I’d found a business to join up with. Offering resources, guidance, and funding in exchange for a large portion of their shares, some directorial control, and the status of a “mostly” silent partner.

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There was a sharp buzz followed by the crooning of a certain late nineties pop sensation.

“Bugger…”

Henrietta Albani snapped out of the crafter’s fugue she’d been under. Looking up from the worktable she’d been bent over. Wiping her brow with a rag stained with sweat and machine oil. It was currently four-fifteen. Henrietta had a meeting planned for four-forty-five. The fact that she hadn’t already prepared and collected herself by this point in time was unacceptable. For her being less than two-hundred percent prepared was the same as being late.

She quickly but meticulously put all her tools away. Despite just being a branch-member of the Albani family, Henrietta had inherited a fair amount of her grandfather’s genius and possessed the same cognitive-powers that old Nicholai had.

Unfortunately, being a bright bulb in an already blindingly well-lit room wasn’t very helpful. Henrietta might have been far more talented than many of her peers but there were many who were almost as talented, with better connections and enough resources to make up for the difference.

Thus Henrietta’s current troubles, and the importance of her guests in solving them.

Henrietta Albani was a woman of ambition. Ambition with a capital “A”. Even if she hadn’t gotten to the point of dreaming of becoming the next head of the Albani clan, she definitely wanted to be part of the family’s foundation.

For now, her goal remained the same as it had been during the night of the deal in Prospero, before that fiasco with the Inoue clan. She wanted to become one of the clan’s youngest executives and gain directorship within Albani Electronics. The parent organization and founder for all other Albani brand products.

Henrietta should have achieved that particular goal by now, but things in Prospero went sideways. Instead of returning in glory and accolades, she ended up having to be bailed out of jail and it was all she could do to avoid having her idiot cousin’s hellbeast mother kill her.

Even after Henrietta brought back Peppino’s worthless soul by making a bargain with a goddess underworld that the Albani family had ties with, she’d had to spend years repairing the damage the Prospero deal had done to her reputation. She’d lost a lot of face for both herself and her branch of the family.

Now, Henrietta was over thirty. She’d more or less returned to her former-status, but was diminished by that fact. A junior executive in her twenties was a talent. A thirty-year-old junior executive was barely still on schedule..Average at best.

Winning the stiff competition that separated the Albani family’s senior executives from the juniors meant standing out. Being average wasn’t enough. Ergo being average was the same as being at the back of the pack, because everyone less than average was by the default not really even in the race.

Which returned the topic to the matters of today. Henrietta didn’t lose everything from the Prospero fiasco. Just nearly everything. She was still a junior executive of the family. Besides, impressing her seniors and getting promoted by nomination there were other routes to climb the staircase from.

One of those routes was becoming the director of a successful start-up and having the promotion to senior executive included as part of the merger agreement. This was the trial that Henrietta had chosen. This was the mountain she was forced to climb because all the others were either impossible, being only available to the Albani main branch’s members, or they were demeaning involving concessions that Henrietta simply wasn’t willing to make. Concessions that would sap the promotion of any meaning.

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“Henri, how the hell are you doing?!” I said. Proffering my hand.

“I’m well...And you, Mr. Kaylan?” said Henrietta. Clasping my hand her five long dainty fingers and giving my arm a surprisingly firm shake.

“Please, Mr.Kaylan is my father...Or he would be if such a person existed. But in either case, call me Monty,” I said. Laughing at my own terrible joke.

“Ah, yes...Very well then… Nice to see you again, Monty. Let’s start that tour of the factory.”

Remember when I said I was going to look into venture capitalism? Henrietta was the one I’d ended up deciding to do business with. I’d known she’d be a good candidate back when I saw her as a piece in the game.

I’d used my akashic connection to read her history and get a general feel for the kind of person she was and found that she was exactly the kind of person I needed. She was ambitious, self-motivated, and smart. She was someone who needed me but didn’t actually need me. In other words, she was someone who was going places, and all my intervention would do was make the trip much faster and smoother.

Thus after the game, I’d arranged a meeting. One meeting led to another, and then another, and after talking terms, I became a partner in her new company Doorknocker Solutions.

I got a static thirty-percent of all existing and future shares, which included voting power and economic value. I went a step further and made sure our arrangement was included in the company’s articles of incorporation. Adding a couple of clauses that would assure that it’d hurt like the dickens if my partner tried to phase me out.

I was meeting her today because the tech company we’d been building together for the past four years was finally at the stage of starting full production. We’d elected to purchase a factory and manufacture our goods ourselves rather than outsourcing because outsourcing was a great way to get your trade secrets and schematics stolen.

Henrietta was currently walking me through a building that looked a lot like a set on some industrial-grunge horror flick.

“As you can see we’re starting off with over twenty-five thousand square feet. Not including the attached warehouse. I figured we could expand to another site if things got better in the second quarter,” said Henrietta.

“Sure...Sure...I’m more interested in what kind of setup you envision for this place?” I said. Barely paying the spatial issues any mind because I knew could always expand the factory’s dimensions with magic if push came to shove.

“Well, I have a contact in Guangzhou with a few hundred units of automated TH-19841s manufacturing units that we could probably get hold of for a discount. I figured we could get a hold of those for a start and expand from there based on any unexpected needs of our product line-up.”

Her tone was confident and firm. She swiped the tablet she was holding and I suddenly found myself looking at a two-hundred-page text document that broke down the exact manufacturing bots she was talking about and the prices she thought she’d most likely be able to acquire them from.

I tapped my chin and made a few edits. Sending back the document with several changes made.

She startled, but only a little. Her expression remaining neutral, despite the momentary lapse of her body language. By now, Henrietta had likely come to the conclusion that I was at least partly cybernetic, and that I was well-adept at making use of my computerized-mind.

“Hmm...An interesting proposal, it’d probably save us around five million, but these are models from ten years ago. Nearly obsolete,” said Henrietta. Frowning as she read the new model numbers I’d sent her and matched them with images of the actual machines using an app that was preloaded onto her tablet.

“Well, I’m fairly certain that my own facilities could modify those units and bring them to current day standards and above,” I said.

“Nh, alright then...I’ll aim for the SM-40400s then, as you’ve suggested,” said Henrietta. Looking skeptical one moment and then resigned the next.

“Excellent…As for the factory. I think it’s good enough. If you could manage to pick up a little more of the surrounding area that would be good as well. Whichever the case, I’ll reimburse you by covering a fourth of the cost as we’ve agreed,” I said.

“Understood, I’ll look into it,” said Henrietta. Moving on to the next topic of our little meeting.