The glorious, frustrated scream echoed through our living room, followed by a string of creative curses that would make a sailor blush. On the big screen, GasFunk slammed his fists on his desk, his face a perfect mask of agonized defeat.
"{I got an incomplete ending again! FUCK! How? I did everything! I solved the piano puzzle, I found the hidden locket, I didn't even die the hallway! What does this game WANT FROM ME?!}"
I took a long, satisfying sip of my soda, a grin spreading across my face. There was nothing quite like watching a master gamer get utterly schooled by your own creation. It was better than movie night.
"He is getting closer, my love," Grandma Nadia said from her armchair, not looking up from the pair of my socks she was diligently folding. "His frustration is… authentic."
"It's a very stressful game, sweetheart," Mom added, sorting a stack of freshly laundered t-shirts. "All those foggy streets and creepy noises. It makes me jumpy."
I chuckled. "That's the point, Mom. It's supposed to get under your skin. And Nadia's right, he's close, He just needs to stop lingering and make a run for it on the next cycle."
It was a weirdly perfect domestic moment. Here I was, Sael Hardcox, aka Sael VT, aka the secret architect of the video game currently breaking the internet, lounging on the couch with my mom and grandma, critiquing a playthrough like it was a daytime soap opera.
A week had flown by since the big corporate meeting, and life had settled into a new, comfortable rhythm. A rhythm that now included my family being casually aware that my entire corporate empire was run by, as Mom put it, "a veritable bouquet of brilliant women."
Nadia set down the folded sock and fixed me with a look that was equal parts warmth and warning. "These women who work for you now… these lawyers and directors. They are sharp, Ambitious…. Successful. A den of vixens, if you ask me. You must keep your wits about you."
Mom nodded in solemn agreement, a matching look of maternal concern on her face. "She's right, honey. It's one thing with Kate; we know her…. But so many new faces… and all so… capable. A man, any man could get ideas."
I couldn't help but laugh. "Ideas? What ideas? It's just business! Besides, have you seen the population demographics? 90% of the workforce is women…. It was statistically inevitable my staff would be all female. It's not a harem; it's a census report."
I got up and walked over to them, a mischievous glint in my eye. I snaked an arm around each of them, giving them a gentle squeeze and poking them in the waist, their most ticklish spot. They both squirmed and giggled, their serious admonishments completely forgotten.
"And anyway," I said, my voice dropping to a playful whisper, "why would I go looking for trouble when I've got the two most beautiful women in the city right here, fussing over my laundry and watching horror game streams with me? My hands are plenty full at home, thank you very much."
They both swatted at me, laughing, their worries evaporating into the comfortable, familiar air of our apartment. It was our little dance. They felt it was their job to worry, and it was my job to reassure them, even if my reassurances were 100% completely, totally sincere.
I plopped back down on the couch, my mind drifting away from the cursed town of Silent Hill and toward my very real, very new corporate structure. Nadia wasn't entirely wrong, even if her phrasing was… colorful.
Let's be real. As a red-blooded male with a libido that could power a small city, the situation was… agreeable. Highly agreeable.
It wasn't just that my employees were women. It was the caliber of woman in this world. The beauty standard here was cranked up to eleven and then the knob broke off. Back on my old Earth, you had a spectrum. You had your average folks, your cute folks, your pretty folks, and then way up at the top, your stunning supermodels and actresses.
Here? There was no "average." The gene pool had been stirred by necessity and radiation into something… spectacular. The woman who served me coffee at the kiosk downstairs could easily have been a magazine cover model in my past life. The "plain" librarian type had a quiet, elegant beauty that would stop traffic.
And my family? Mom, Nadia, Vera, Bella, Emily? They weren't just beautiful; they were in the "celebrity" tier of this world's looks. And the actual celebrities I saw on billboards and streams? They looked like they'd been sculpted by gods with a very specific, very appreciated aesthetic sense.
So, being the only guy in a boardroom (or VR conference room) filled with brilliant legal minds like Kate, Sabine, Amanda, and Saiko—all of whom also happened to look like they'd stepped out of a high-fashion spread for 'Gorgeous Lawyers Quarterly'—wasn't exactly a hardship. It was, to put it mildly, one of the better perks of the job. I wasn't about to act on it, but a man could appreciate the view. It made the whole "building an empire" thing a lot more enjoyable.