Dinner, or was it breakfast? I was not sure, time lost all meaning in the real world. It was just a quick pit stop during the nights in-game.

Anyway, the meal started out very awkwardly as first Mia, then Kira stood up in front of everyone and half-heartedly apologized for their behaviour. The frosty attitude from Mia towards me was noticed by Alicia, who was subdued throughout the meal. As we neared the end of the meal, she had barely said ten words, very unusual for her.

“How is Mister Shell?” I asked, dearly wishing to have some normalcy. I hoped that bringing up one of the pets would bring her out of her shell.

“He’s fine. Missing you,” she mumbled. Yeah, the tension between me and Mia was definitely affecting her.

I ruffled her hair. “I miss spending time with him and you as well.”

That earned me a big bright smile, and for just a moment she was back to her old happy self. Then she glanced at her mother and she became subdued again. The rest of the meal was rather strained as well, Mia barely said two words to me.

As she rose to go back to her room with Alicia, I said, “We need to talk before you log in again.”

“I guess we do,” she said frostily and walked away. As they went out the door, Alicia looked back at me with an anxious and sad expression on her face.

They had barely gotten out the door, before the next problem propped up. Janice, Denise’s aunt, and parent of two children came over in a huff. “You need to fire Miss Elleby.”

I was flabbergasted. “Why?”

“She’s teaching Michael and Michelle about the Great Scare outside the curriculum,” Janice complained. Michael was nine if I remembered correctly, while Michelle was seven, and ten months, as she liked reminding people.

“As a former teacher, I do not see a problem in that,” I said cautiously. “Why is this a problem?”

“Because she’s teaching them false stuff,” Janice said loudly, getting everyone around us attention, including Miss Elleby. I looked in her direction and saw she was giving me a confident smile.

“Okay, can you give me an example?” I asked with a tired sigh. Leadership was really a burden.

“She’s telling them that only Perennial Industries provided shelters during the Scare to those without money, the rest of the companies only provided room for those that could pay,” the complaint came. “Which is untrue, my family was in the Silvertech shelter during the Scare, and we were not rich or stockholders.”

“Let me take a wild guess here, your great-grandparents were either computer technicians or in healthcare?” I asked.

She looked taken aback. “Who told you that? What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’ll take that as a confirmation, then,” I said. “I’m sorry to inform you that the only reason your great-grandparents got into the bunker was that they were hired to do a job there.”

“They never said anything, and that’s not what we were taught in school,” she insisted.

“Because of article eleven in the founding of the Corporate Congress—”

She interrupted me, “Aha, there’s only ten.”

I shook my head. “No, there’s actually eleven, we’re only taught about the ten. The eleventh can be found in the original legal documents. The other companies knew that they had suffered greatly from the Scare, but Masters’ grandfather still needed the help of the other big companies to remove the idiots that almost sent us into a nuclear war.”

“Why aren’t they teaching this in school? You never mentioned it,” Edward asked from nearby.

“I couldn’t, article eleven. You know the lectures are recorded, if I had mentioned it, I would have been fired. What I did instead was that I encouraged you several times to go read the original document, not the one found online, in textbooks, and so on,” I replied with a smile.

“So what is article eleven?” Ainsley asked curiously.

Sarah who had grown up with Miss Elleby knew, and her answer showed. “Article eleven is all about limiting Perennial Industries and any old or new companies they might own. Including the fact that article eleven should not be taught about, nor should the fact that only Perennial’s bunkers took in everyone.”

“It also encompassed a whole media strategy for how to boost all the other companies’ reputation,” Miss Elleby added.

“How can they get away with something like that?” Masuro asked indignantly.

“Apathy, a fuckton of resources used on publicity, article eleven,” I answered with a shrug. “They’ve managed to make the founding document uninteresting, it is kept in an uninteresting place. Not very many people want to travel to the north pole just to read a document that is available everywhere. In an incomplete form though.”

“How come there’s not a public outrage about this?” Janice asked.

I gave a slight smile when it was explained to people, they thought it was wrong, but they would rarely if ever, do anything about their indignation. “At the time it was directed at the idiots in charge. At the war-hawks who nuked North Korea. It was a blessing in disguise that their ballistic missiles failed, so they could not retaliate, and that China saw the wisdom of not starting nuking it out with the US, and that Russia was more interested in selling nukes and weapons to other countries who hated the US or China. Or both.”

“I did not know that,” Janice said defensively.

I gave her a warm smile. “Not a lot of people do, but I think that it is important for children, for all of us, to learn the truth. Without the truth, how can you make an informed decision?”

“You’re right,” Janice conceded.

“However, it’s your children, you’ll get to decide what they should be taught,” I said and stood up. “I got some household obligations I need to take care of. See you inside the game. We need to buckle up, one more game day and we got ourselves a village. So relax, and get ready to bust your asses.”

“Says the guy who spent two days doing nothing,” Philmore grumbled with a wink.

“All part of the plan,” I quipped. As I left I heard Janice apologizing to Miss Elleby.

‘Why are things falling apart? Things went so well, but now it seems like the guild is fracturing,’ I thought to myself as I made my way to Mia’s room.

When I knocked I was half-afraid I would get a “Go away!”, but I did not, instead the door opened to release a happy Alicia who ran over and hugged my leg. “Daddy, you’re here. Mommy said you weren’t coming!”

It felt weird, but at the same time pretty darn good being called daddy by this little bundle of energy and joy. Before I could say anything she went on, “Are you here to see Mister Shell?”

“Not this time, honey, next time. I swear,” I answered her while ruffling her hair.

“Pinky swear?” she asked holding up a crooked pinky.

“Pinky swear,” I said solemnly, trying to hide a smile.

“I guess you better come in then,” Mia’s voice drifted out from the room. She did not sound pleased.

I gave Alicia a big smile. “We better do what she said, or we’ll be in trouble.”

She grinned back at me but went inside with me following her. I gave Mia a serious nod. “Mia, we need to talk.”

“You want to talk? Talk as in a dialogue, not fucking dictate at me,” she snapped.

“Mommy, you said a—” Alicia started to say with a frown.

“Alicia, could you go next door to Miss Elleby? She’s waiting for you,” I asked calmly. “Your mother and I need to talk.”

She looked back and forth between us. Before she nodded and went out the door. As soon as it closed, Mia screamed at me, “Don’t tell my kid what to do or not, she’s not yours, you fucking bastard!”

“I wanted a chance to talk, where you could be as abusive as you want, which is apparently a lot,” I said calmly.

“Fuck you!”

“Go ahead, curse at me, scream at me, and when you’re done behaving like a child, lashing out, we’ll talk like adults,” I said softly.

“Did you just call me a fucking kid?”

“No, I said your behaviour was that of a kid. Lashing out at everything,” I pointed out.

“Fuck you, get out of here. It’s over.”

“It’s over, okay. However, we still need to talk about how things are going to be moving forward, you’re still an employee,” I continued, without a trace of emotions in my voice. Inside I was a turmoil of warring feelings. Anger and sadness being the most prevalent.

She started sobbing at that point. “I just broke up with you, and you don’t even care!”

“I do care, it affects me greatly,” I said in a heavy voice. “However, I don’t have the luxury of falling apart, because I’m responsible for almost a hundred people, and you’re a disruption to that balance. So we need to figure out how to handle this.”

“What the fuck do you want from me?” she sneered through her tears. “You got your rocks off and now you’re throwing me aside.”

“Stop trying to manipulate the situation,” I said a bit irritated. “You broke up with me. Like two minutes ago.”

“Because you didn’t appreciate what I did for you!”

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, this started because you acted like a child and lashed out at everyone,” I said coldly, getting tired of her attempts at manipulating me, her trying to make me feel guilty.

“Okay, so I fucked up, no reason for you to turn on me!” she screeched.

“I didn’t turn on you, I treated you like my other employees.”

“I’m not your employee, I’m your girlfriend!”

I sighed, her yelling was getting tiring. “You’re both. I told you from the start I would treat you no differently than any other employee.”

“I didn’t think you would be such a cold-hearted bastard who could turn his feelings off,” she pouted.

“So you’re mad that you can’t manipulate me into better treatment. Is that all you wanted out of this relationship?” I asked.

“No,” she answered quickly. I wished I could believe her, but the widening of her eyes when I accused her told a different story.

“I don’t appreciate manipulation,” I said coldly. “We need everything on the table if you want to give this a shot, whether that being you’re to remain affiliated with me or Blue Lotus.”

“Why am I the one defending myself suddenly?” she demanded.

“Because you’re the one in the wrong,” I answered plainly. “Do you wish to continue being a member of Blue Lotus?”

“Of course, I don’t want to be without a job,” she said heatedly. “I need a roof over my head—For Alicia, of course.”

“Okay, then the next question is: Do you wish to continue seeing me outside of work?”

“Maybe,” she said with a shrug.

I took a deep breath. “Good, now tell me have you done anything in your attempt to gain my affections that I would not approve off.”

“How should I know what you approve of or not?” she shot back, crossing her arms.

“If you don’t feel comfortable telling me, then I’m pretty sure that counts. Your crossed arms tell me you’re defensive, wanting to hide something,” I pointed out.

“What, you’re a mind reader now?”

“No, just body language,” I answered with a sigh.

She was silent for almost a minute. “Fine, I used a basic skin while modelling your virtual office. An office you deleted I might point out, you never appre—”

“Stop trying to turn this around on me,” I interrupted her starting tirade.

She glared at me. “I used the skin to look and sound like you, then I told that bimbo reporter to fuck off and leave me—you alone.”

“You did what?” I said, closing my eyes, everything suddenly making sense. Why Hannah had stopped coming around. Almost. “That was only recently, but she has not been around for a long time.”

“You asked me to handle media request, I denied the dumb bitch, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer so I had to make her back off.”

“Why?” was the only question that sprung to my mind and out of my mouth.

“Because she was shoving those big cow udders of hers in your face. I couldn’t let your attention wander!”

“What the heck have you done?” I raised my voice and lost my cool for the first time so far. “Have you any idea what kind of damage you could do? You self-centred bitch!”

“Did you just call me a bitch?” she screeched.

“I apologize for that,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Doesn’t change the fact that you might have damaged the guild a lot. I think it would be best if you packed your things and got the fuck out of here.”

She was silent for a long while, looking at me with big eyes. “You would throw me and Alicia on the street?”

“No, but I don’t see any option, you’re actively sabotaging the Blue Lotus, if you were only hurting me, then it was one thing. You’re hurting everyone else with your little schemes, for what? To sleep with your boss and get better bonuses?”

“No!” she denied. “I care for you.”

“Really? If you cared for me at all, you would’ve known I would have hated that pretentious office you—”

“I did that to give you a place to project power, you’re going to be an important figure. You’ve all of us following your footsteps, you’ve inspired hundreds of other people to do something similar,” she said after interrupting me. “I wanted you to project power so you could save more people.”

“By making me look like one of the people that are the reason for the problem?” I asked with a sad smile.

“Okay, I was wrong about that, but that—”

“You’ve been doing so much that just screams manipulation, I don’t know if I believe you.”

“Please don’t throw us out,” she begged. “You wouldn’t want to throw a small child out on the street, would you?”

‘There she goes again,’ I thought with a sigh.

Before I could answer her, she immediately said, “No, wait, sorry! I didn’t mean that. I was trying to manipulate you again. I’m really sorry, it’s just my natural reaction. Please, we can work this out.”

“Maybe,” I said tiredly. ‘Was this just another manipulation? Giving the illusion of her realizing her mistakes?’

“Please, give me another chance,” Mia begged.

I thought for a minute, she did not interrupt me in that time. I came to a decision, it was not easy, because it felt like I was giving in to her manipulation. “We’ll continue being guild leader and assistant in the game. Outside of the game, we’ll arrange dates, getting to know each other outside of work or the bedroom. Spend time with Alicia. Do this the right way, slowly and get to know each other, instead of starting with sleeping with each other at every given opportunity.”

She looked conflicted for a moment, before saying, “Okay, let’s give it a shot that way.”

“I’ll leave now, you should think about what you tell Alicia, let me know so we are on the same page,” I said and walked out of the room, feeling drained. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a warm bed and just isolate myself from the world. Since that was not an option, I went to the pool to swim some laps.

When I entered, I saw Kira swimming laps. I did the natural thing for me, I turned around and walked away from another confrontation. I was too drained to take another emotionally laden conversation. Instead, I went to my pod and took my frustration out on the targets on the shooting range.

The motion of loading, aiming, pulling the trigger, and then repeating, had a hypnotic and calming effect on me, much like swimming a lap or two would have had. I had to get my headspace fixed, we would be finishing the village soon, then I had to prove if the dungeon in the mine was really meant for me or not.

Deep breath. Aim. Pull the trigger. Bullseye. Reload. Repeat. Bullseye. Repeat. Bullseye. I was consistently hitting the bullseye for the first time, but I could not celebrate, I just felt numb inside.