Owning an entire town, even a small, irradiated one named Pussyville, was a surreal feeling. It wasn't just the scale of it that hit me, but the quiet understanding of what it represented in this world. This wasn't just a real estate deal; it was a statement of power and a glimpse into the harsh realities of life on this reshaped planet.
I leaned back on the couch, the sounds of GasFunk's latest failed attempt at Silent Hill fading into the background as I mulled it over.
Clean, safe, centrally located land in a mega-city like New San Antonio was a premium so high it was basically a fantasy for 99.9% of people. That's why families like ours were crammed into partitioned apartments, stacking generations on top of each other. The government, in its cold, pragmatic way, liked it that way. Dense populations were easier to control, manage, and tax. Why spend unimaginable sums to de-radiate and develop vast tracts of land on the outskirts when you could keep everyone packed tight in the urban cores?
But lightly irradiated land? The stuff that would give you a nasty cough and a higher cancer risk after a few years of exposure, but wasn't an instant death sentence? That was plentiful. And it was cheap. The official policy seemed to be a shrug of indifference. The cleanup was astronomically expensive, and the return on investment for the government was basically zero. It was a problem they were content to ignore, letting these forgotten places rot on the periphery.
That's where people like me—the stupidly, newly wealthy—came in. What was a multi-million-dollar nuisance for a government was a bargain-bin price for a private entity with vast resources and a long-term vision. We could afford the cutting-edge scrubbers, the robot construction crews, the shielded materials. We could buy a problem and turn it into a paradise.
That's why the rich and powerful out here didn't just live in penthouses; they built fortified compounds on reclaimed coastlines or, in my case, bought entire townships. They created their own little bubbles of safety and luxury far from the smog-choked, overcrowded heart of the cities. My purchase of Pussyville wasn't an anomaly; it was me finally playing the game at the level my bank account demanded.
Sunday had handled the vast majority of the digital paperwork, her algorithms slicing through bureaucratic red tape that would have taken a human team decade. A little digital elbow grease, as I'd thought of it, was a massive understatement. It was more like she performed a full-system bypass on the entire New USA property acquisition network, leaving behind perfectly formatted, pre-approved forms with all the right digital signatures in all the right places. We hadn't asked for permission; we'd presented them with a flawless, completed fait accompli. It was easier for them to just stamp it 'approved' than to figure out how we'd done it.
A few hours later, the familiar, comforting aroma of one of Vera's stews filled the apartment. It was dinner time, the one true constant in our whirlwind of a life. I took my usual spot at the table, looking around at my family. Despite the high-limit black credit cards I'd given to each of them—a gesture they'd all accepted with warm hugs and then promptly treated with apparent reverence—nothing had changed.
Mom still hummed the same old tunes as she set the table. Nadia still complained, with a hidden smile, that there were never enough clean forks. Emily was practically vibrating with energy, no doubt planning her next stream, and Bella was quiet, a soft smile on her face as she listened to everyone else. The food was the same hearty, comforting food we'd always eaten. The only difference was the quality. The vegetables were crisper, the meat more tender, the bread fresher. We'd upgraded our ingredients, not our recipes. Our life, our love, our weird little family dynamic—that had stayed perfectly, wonderfully the same.
Kate's absence was noted. Her chair sat empty. "She sent a message," Mom said, passing me a bowl of steaming rice.
"Swamped with work… She said she's 'untangling corporate precedents' and will eat at her desk."
I nodded, feeling a pang of sympathy mixed with pride. I'd thrown her into the deep end, and she was not just swimming; she was doing the butterfly stroke towards the horizon. "She's building an empire," I said around a mouthful of stew. "It's hungry work."
"She is a good woman," Nadia stated firmly, and everyone at the table murmured in agreement. She was already being woven into the family tapestry.
The conversation, as it often did these days, turned to my work.
"This game of yours," Vera said, shaking her head as she served herself more stew. "It truly has an ending? A real one? Or is it one of those artistic things that just… stops?"
"It has an ending, Aunt Vera," I assured her. "A few of them, actually…. A bad one, an okay one, and a true ending that explains… well, a lot." I didn't add that the true ending heavily implied a sequel.
"Is anyone even close?" Emily asked, her eyes wide. "GasFunk seems like he's about to have an aneurysm."
I chuckled. "He's the closest…. He's just overthinking it, The key isn't to fight the cycle; it's to embrace it. To run through it faster and faster. He's lingering, trying to find secrets, when the real secret is to let go." It was a fun little metaphor I was proud of.
A gentle silence fell over the table for a moment. Then, Bella spoke up, her voice a little hesitant. "Sael?"
"Yeah, Bella?"
She looked down at her plate, then up at me, her dark eyes hopeful. "I have a big bowling tournament tomorrow. The regional qualifiers. It's… it's a really big deal for me. Would you… would you maybe like to come? To watch?"
The reaction from the family was immediate and unified.
"Oh, you should go, Sael!" Mom chimed in.
"It would be wonderful for you to support her," Nadia added with a warm smile.
"Yeah, get out of this stuffy apartment for a few hours," Emily said, grinning. "Do some normal people stuff."
I looked at Bella, at the hopeful, vulnerable look on her face. The old Sael would have crushed that hope with a cruel, dismissive remark. The thought made me feel a twist of guilt that wasn't even my own.
I smiled at her. "Yeah, Bella… Of course I'll come., I'd love to." My schedule was, for the first time in a while, miraculously clear. The corporate machine was built and humming, my legal directors were off conquering their respective worlds, and Sunday could handle any fires that popped up.
"What time should I be ready?"
The radiant smile that broke across her face was worth more than any million-dollar deal. "Ten AM? It's at the lanes on 5th and Grand."
"You got it," I said.
"I'll be there." It was a date. Well, a cousin date. A promise to step out of my digital fortress and be, for a few hours, just a guy cheering on his family. And honestly? I was looking forward to it.