"Aaron, this game is awesome!" whispered Harry in awe, as he finished a play-through of the completed game - with all the art, music, and story elements perfectly integrated.
"It gave me the chills," said James.
"I don't normally play Visual Novels, but this was so good. I couldn't stop," said Mario.
Aaron nodded somberly. "I am gratified that you believe this game is worth playing. Let's see what the wider internet thinks," he said and hit the publish button.
"Well let's celebrate!" shouted James, and they quickly ordered dinner and cheered with soda.
----
"Hey Daphne! You've got to check this out!" said Richard excitedly, showing her his laptop screen.
Daphne looked at the screen, mildly interested. "That looks quite interesting, Richard," she said, boredom evident in her voice.
"Interesting is an understatement! This game is amazing! The art is beautiful, the music is great and the story is so dark and twisted! Oh! I've finished it," said Richard torn between satisfaction and longing for more.
Daphne's eyes widened in shock as she saw the end credits roll.
"Richard! Pause it!" she shouted, her heart racing.
Richard quickly paused the game and looked at her in confusion.
"What's wrong Daphne?" he asked, seeing her go pale and tremble.
Frozen on the screen was a name that Daphne had never expected to see again.
A vein throbbed in Richard's forehead as Daphne fumbled and pulled off her engagement ring.
"Richard, I need to talk to you about something," she said, her voice trembling.
Richard looked at her in confusion. "What is it Daphne? You look like you've seen a ghost," he said, his voice laced with concern.
"That name. Aaron Zakhrov. He is a ghost from my past," said Daphne. She placed the ring in Richard's hand and closed his fingers around it.
"Richard, I need to tell you the truth. Before I came to England, my name was Daisy Eddington. I was Aaron's classmate and girlfriend. My parents were able to escape the clutches of a Senator Clarke. Everything I am today, I owe to him. He saved my life," she said, tears welling up in her eyes.
Richard pulled her into a gentle embrace. "Daphne, I don't care about your past. I love you for who you are now. You are my everything," he said softly.
"Please Richard, you need to know this," she said, her voice trembling.
"All right Daphne. I will listen," said Richard, his voice gentle and reassuring.
Daphne took a deep breath and began to tell Richard everything. She told him about her life in St. Ignatius Academy, her friendship with Aaron, and how he had saved her from the bullying and harassment of Emily Clarke. She told him about her family's escape from the clutches of Senator Clarke, and how they had to leave everything behind to start a new life in England.
Richard listened intently, his heart aching for Daphne as she recounted her painful past. He could see the pain in her eyes and the tears streaming down her cheeks.
He was silent for a minute as he fought down the surge of jealousy, and finally asked: "Aaron would be 15, now that you are 19. Would you like to wait for him Daphne? Or should I say Daisy?"
Daphne shook her head and dried her tears.
"No, Master Richard. Aaron may have been my first love, and I own him a great deal. But I am now Daphne Devereux. I am yours. Mind, body and soul," she said, gently kissing the fist that held her engagement ring.
Richard smiled and kissed her forehead. "Thank you for being honest with me, Daphne. I love you even more now that I know the truth," he said, his voice warm and loving, before his expression turned sly.
"And I think I know just how we can repay Aaron for all that he has done for you," he said, a wicked grin spreading across his face.
Daphne's heart raced as she looked at Richard.
"What do you mean Richard?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Richard slipped the engagement ring back onto Daphne's finger and smiled wickedly.
"Well, I do some criminal profiling work for Interpol, so I know that they have been investigating Sarah Clarke for a while now. With your testimony, we can finally bring her to justice. And as for Aaron's game. My new adult video game streaming platform would be the perfect place to make it shine. It has just the right amount of suggestive content and dark violence to resonate with my target audience," he said.
Daphne knelt before him, fresh tears of gratitude streaming down her cheeks.
"Richard, I don't know how to thank you. You are so good to me. I love you so much." she said, her voice trembling with emotion.
Richard smiled and gently lifted her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes.
"Sarah Clarke hurt what is mine. And Aaron protected what is mine. I crush my enemies and reward my friends." he growled, deep into his "Master" persona.
"Give me a few minutes to slip into something more comfortable, Master Richard" said Daphne, shuddering at his tone.
Richard grinned and nodded, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
Daphne quickly slipped into her walk-in closet, and willed her pounding heart to calm down.
"Daisy Eddington was Aaron's girlfriend, and she's dead now. I'm Daphne Devereux, and I belong to Master Richard now," she thought as she slipped into a black leather corset and matching skirt, and pulled on a pair of thigh-high black leather boots. She then carefully applied her makeup, and fastened a black leather collar around her neck, and clipped a leash to it.
She carefully placed the leash in her mouth, got on her knees and crawled out of the closet, her heart racing with excitement, for the things that Master Richard would do to her.
----
Aaron awoke to several messages from his bank.
"Holy Hell!" he yelled unable to contain himself.
With a deep breath and massive effort, he contained his excitement and calmly knocked on Andre's bedroom door.
"Hey Aaron what's up?" asked Andre sleepily opening the door.
"Master of Arcadia just grossed forty million," said Aaron.
"What the hell? We didn't even market it!" yelled Andre.
Aaron's phone buzzed with a group call from Harry, James and Mario.
"We went viral," he said answering the call.
"We did more than that! It's all over YouTube and mainstream gaming outlets!" said Harry excitedly.
"It's not all good press though, lots of them are slamming the art saying it's misogynistic," grumbled James.
"That's SJW snowflakes for you. Pay them no attention," said Mario.
----
Andre entered the loft with a Japanese man in tow. "Gentlemen, this is Mr. Kazuya Honda. He represents SEGA," said Andre, introducing the man who bowed politely.
"Hello Mr. Zakhrov I have heard that you are the mastermind behind this game," said Mr. Honda with a heavy Japanese accent.
Aaron nodded. "I thank you for your interest Mr. Honda, but we are still students. I cannot speak for my colleagues, but I wish to finish my education. I cannot commit to a sequel or a contract for any other games at this time," he said.
"I understand Mr. Zakhrov, and we are not looking for an obligation at this time. We wish to acquire the rights to publish and localize your game for the Japanese market," replied Honda.
Aaron thought for a moment. "Very well, SEGA will have exclusive publishing and localization rights to Master of Arcadia and any other future projects Sirius Software develops for the Japanese market. However, we retain all source code and intellectual property rights. SEGA will also manufacture and sell physical media for our games in both the Japanese and International markets. Does that sound good?" he asked.
Honda's eyes widened at the mention of physical media.
"That sounds excellent! Mr. Esposito and I will handle the paperwork," he said shaking Aaron's hand.
----
"What the hell do you call this?" demanded Sarah Clarke slamming a tablet showing screenshots of Master of Arcadia in front of Ivan in the staff room at MIT.
"None of my business. Aaron Zakhrov has been legally emancipated. I have no responsibilities over what he does," said Ivan.
"Do you have any idea of what I can do to you?" hissed Sarah.
"What? Are you going to whip me half to death like you did Michael Eddington? Go ahead, I daresay I deserve it for abandoning my precious son when he needed me the most," said Ivan bitterly.
Sarah raised her hand to strike him, but it was caught by a large, hulking man in a black suit. "Sarah Clarke. I am inspector Duncan from Interpol. You are under arrest for human trafficking," he said in a British accent, twisting her arms behind her and into handcuffs.
----
"Talk about poetic justice," chuckled Andre putting down the newspaper. The headline was that Senator Clarke had been arrested by Interpol for running a massive human trafficking ring in Europe and Africa.
He looked at Aaron. "Would you like to reconnect with your parents? Now that Sarah Clarke has been arrested, there is no further need for estrangement," he said.
Aaron shook his head. "Ivan and Annette seem happy with their daughter. I will not disrupt their happiness," he said.
----
"Aaron, are you sure you want this site as Sirius Software's headquarters?" asked Harry, nervously looking around the eerie abandoned lead mine, Aaron had just spent nearly 4 million of Sirius Software's game revenue on acquiring.
Aaron casually brushed dust and cobwebs away from a small metal table and placed his laptop bag on it. "I'm thinking ahead Harry. This mine will be the perfect spot for our in-house nuclear reactors." he said.
"Are you living under a rock or something? We're barely making any new sales from Master of Arcadia. How are we going to get the cash or even the permits?" asked Mario.
Aaron gave Mario a long stare. "Modular heavy water reactors," was all he said.
"Wait, you want my prototype modular heavy water reactor? I was laughed out of the room when I presented that proposal to my professors!" said Mario incredulously.
"So what? They were renewable lobby obsessed morons anyway. So are you in or out?" asked Aaron.
"Are you building a game studio or a nuclear power company?" asked James.
"I can't believe that you boys are about to graduate, and still don't understand the concept of vertical integration and grid independence," scoffed Aaron, as he walked around the mine shaft, checking the walls with his flashlight.
"Wait. Let me get this straight. You want to build a nuclear power plant inside an abandoned lead mine to power a game studio HQ?" asked James, his voice rising to a squeak.
"You can pretend to be Lex Luthor all you want, but Sirius Software isn't Lexcorp! Heck, you barely have enough cash left after you blew $4 million on this dump!" snarled Harry.
Aaron gave them a smirk, pulled out his laptop and showed them a map of the mine and the surrounding area:
"This land parcel is four square kilometers. This here is the abandoned lead mine that we're standing in," he said, pointing to a section of the map.
He zoomed into another section and said: "This area here is a lead contaminated groundwater source, and an uncontaminated aquifer over here,"
"OK, so we have a lead mine and a water source. What does that have to do with a game studio?" asked Harry, still confused.
Aaron pulled up the schematics for the modular heavy water reactor. "We stick four of these puppies here in the mine, and hook up the groundwater sources to a heavy water distillation plant. Poof, we have an always-on power source for the render and server farms," he said.
"And where are you going to get the Uranium from? The local hardware store?" asked Mario.
"From the appropriate channels. Just like everyone else Mario," countered Aaron.
Andre pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I need a stiff drink. Or maybe lead poisoning. Do you have any idea the kind of legal and political red tape this harebrained idea of yours is going to need to cut through?" he thundered at Aaron.
Aaron gave a smile that sent a chill down Andre's spine. "That's where you come in Andre. If you boys are on board, we can spin off new nuclear, energy and construction companies that you can have full reign over, with Sirius Software being your first client, and this being your first project," he said.
"You're still going to need super-villain levels of money and political clout to pull this off, which you don't have boy!" blustered Andre.
"That's why we're going to do this in phases, and use the new companies to secure venture capital funding on their own merits," said Aaron.
"Phases?" Mario asked.
"Phase 1 would be to secure this mine and start working on the modular heavy water reactor. Once you demonstrate commercial viability, you can secure funding for production, so money in your pocket Mario," said Aaron.
"And I suppose phase two would be to build the water treatment plant and the heavy water distillation plant?" asked Harry.
"Can you think of a better construction project to sink your teeth into Harry?" asked Aaron rhetorically.
"And I suppose tying both those phases together would be the build out of a local energy grid?" asked James.
"But of course. And what better way to prove that you're the best energy company in the business?" asked Aaron.
"Stop! Stop!" shouted Andre, holding up his hands.
"Aaron, I'm just an IP lawyer. You're going to need a full-blown legal army and maybe even a few senators and congressmen in your pocket to pull this off. I can't help you with that," he said.
"I'm sure I'll be able to find at least one senator or congressman smart enough to see how this project would act as an economic and industrial force multiplier," said Aaron.
Harry, James and Mario went into a long huddle, while Aaron nonchalantly packed away his laptop. After several minutes of deliberation, they broke and then nodded together.
"All right, Aaron. We're at your disposal. But if this goes south, we want a clean escape plan." said Harry.
"In that case, we'll make the new companies private limited liability companies, and Sirius Software will be the sole shareholder initially, and will still have a 90% stake regardless of who decides to put venture capital in. Andre, can you do that?" asked Aaron.
"Well, it's your money, and your neck on the line here, so fine. I'll do it," grumbled Andre.
"Good. Then incorporate them as Sirius Energy, Sirius Construction and Sirius Nuclear. And get the paperwork done by the end of the week," said Aaron.
"Yes sir," said Andre, rolling his eyes.
"Harry, I want a full Environmental Impact Assessment, and come up with blue-prints for the reactor facilities with Mario. James, I want a power grid plan as well. Let's get the design phase done before graduation," said Aaron.
"Yes sir," said James and Mario, seriously, as they all piled into the minivan Andre had rented for this "inspection" trip.