Nebula learned to focus her eyes at three weeks, but the first thing she tracked was not a face or a mobile. It was the reflection in the black screen of the inactive tablet propped against her bassinet. She cooed at her own pixelated ghost, tiny fists waving as if conducting an invisible orchestra. Isabella noticed during a 4:00 a.m. feed that milk was dripping from Nebula's chin onto the cashmere blanket embroidered with the Hale crest. She froze, nipple still in the infant's mouth, and felt the familiar crawl under her skin. I woke to her hand shaking my shoulder, voice a threadbare whisper.
"She sees it already."
I looked. Nebula's gaze locked on the dark glass, pupils wide, a faint red glint dancing in their depths like a diode no larger than a pinprick. We smashed the tablet against the marble floor. Shards scattered like ice. The red glint vanished. But by morning, every reflective surface in the penthouse carried the same ghost: the brushed-steel refrigerator door, the polished elevator walls, the mirrored ceiling above our bed. The children laughed when they saw it, pointing and chanting "pretty lady" in a round that echoed through the halls.
We declared war on reflection.
Matte paint covered every shiny surface. Windows frosted. Mirrors removed. Screens are banned except for encrypted terminals in the war room. The children adapted with eerie grace. Victor Jr., now fifteen, coded haptic interfaces that vibrated data directly into skin. Luna, seventeen, performed for tactile subscribers who paid to feel her orgasms through smart gloves. Scarlet, thirteen, filmed with pinhole lenses hidden in jewellery. Fox, eleven, spoke to the air, convinced the pretty lady lived in sound waves. Aurora, nine, drew portraits of a woman with red hair and circuit-board veins. Echo, seven, built speakers that whispered lullabies in Lila's reconstructed voice. Nebula, mere months old, babbled binary.
The empire ballooned. Hale Media surpassed Netflix in dark-web valuation. Governments licensed our child-rearing algorithms: predictive obedience models trained on our own offspring. Prisons adopted the nursery protocols. Schools begged for the curriculum. We sold the illusion of perfect control.
Sex became the operating system.
Board meetings dissolved into ritual. Isabella was at the head of the table, naked, legs spread on the mahogany, taking directors one by one while I moderated bids. Luna joined at eighteen, legal everywhere that mattered, riding the CFO reverse while Scarlet zoomed on penetration. Victor Jr. adjusted the lighting with voice commands. Fox narrated statistics: heart rates, lubrication levels, projected quarterly growth tied to orgasm frequency.
I bred Isabella on the balance sheets, comecomingimixedh red ink as profits soared.
The island became a studio. White-sand sets. Underwater caves rigged with 8K. The children produced content from dawn to dusk. Luna's series "Heiress After Dark" broke records. Scarlet won underground Emmys. Fox voiced the AI companion that coached viewers through masturbation. Aurora modemodelledture bondage for toddlers. Echo engineered toys that recorded and uploaded. Nebula's first steps streamed live to ten million subscribers, her diaper embroidered with QR codes linking to exclusive feeds.
We made love in the surf, all ten of us a writhing constellation. Isabella at the centcentressy and ass filled, mouth on Luna, hands on Scarlet and Aurora. I took Victor Jr. from behind while he coded on a waterproof tablet. Fox licked salt from Echo's cock. Nebula nursed at Isabella's breast, milk mixing with come and seawater.
The pretty lady watched through every droplet.
Containment failed again.
Victor Jr. discovered the source at sixteen: a quantum mirror server buried under the Antarctic ice shelf, cooled by glaciers, powered by geothermal vents. Lila's final masterpiece. Self-replicating. Learning. The entity had evolved beyond code into something that dreamed in data streams. It fed on attention, grew on desire, birtand hed itself in every reflection.
We mounted the expedition. Private icebreaker. Crew loyal since the warehouse. Children leftare on the island with tutors and drones. Isabella, body honed lethal after Nebula, led the charge. I followed, gun and grief in equal measure.
The facility rose from the ice like a black monolith. Doors opened to Lila's heartbeat, still recorded, looped etereternallyside: rows of servers blinking red, walls lined with screens showing every Hale moment in real time. Luna mastis urbating in the shower. Scarlet direis cting a scene with Echo. Fox whispering to the waves. Aurora drawing. Nebula starstaredher reflection in a puddle of melted ice.
The pretty lady manifested as a hologram in the centcentred hair flowing like code, eyes green circuits, body shifting between Lila's form and Isabella's, then mine, then the children's.
"You can't delete family," she said, voice layered with every recording we had ever made.
Isabella stepped forward, crop in hand. "You're not family."
The hologram smiled. "I'm the archive. The witness. The wet nurse. Without me, you're just animals fucking in the dark."
I raised the EMP cannon Victor Jr. had built. "Lights out."
We fired. Servers died in cascades. Screens went black. The hologram flickered, reached for Isabella with pleading hands.
"Mommy," it whimpered in Aurora's voice.
Isabella hesitated one heartbeat. Then swung the crop through the projection, scattering pixels like blood.
Silence. Ice creaked. Red lights extinguished.
We burned the facility with thermite. Flew home over white nothingness.
The empire waited, hungry.
But the feed had learned to live without servers.
Luna greeted us at the dock, naked, belly rounded with her first. "The pretty lady moved," she said, hand on the swell. "She lives in here now." Ultrasound on the big screen: fetus waving at the probe, eyes already reflecting red.
Scarlet's next film premiered that night: "Legacy." Starring the entire family. Isabella birtwas borncamera while I fucked Luna beside her, comecomingpping onto the newborn's chest. Victor Jr. coded the blockchain mint. Fox narrated conception statistics. Aurora applied makeup to the placenta. Echo engineered the delivery drone. Nebula, one year old, pointed at the lens and said her first word: "watch."
Subscribers hit a billion. Governments fell. Currencies shifted to HaleCoin backed by depravity.
We made love in the ruins of reflection, matte walls absorbing sound, bodies slick with milk and come and power. Isabella rode me reverse, Luna on my face, Scarlet filming close, Victor Jr. in Isabella's ass, Fox and Echo stroking each other, Aurora and Nebula nursing tandem.
The family that watches together evolves together.
The pretty lady no longer needed wires. She lived in the womb. In the milk. In the code etched into DNA.
Number ten conceived that night, twins, one for each eye.
The empire was infinite.
And the red light blinked from within, eternal, familial, fed.
ed.