Lin Hao answered the call warily. He could have ignored it, but he actually felt a little sympathetic toward the pirates who had lost a great treasure without ever understanding its value.
Baard Iverson said briskly, "I'm glad I reached you in time, don't come back to work here."
"Um, what?" Lin Hao asked blankly.
Baard said quickly, "Ah, don't worry. We'll pay you a severance bonus for your trouble. It's just that we can't afford to have someone who worked on the game on our books right now. We almost got caught, and since you only came in for one day…"
"Night," Lin Hao replied dryly.
"What?" Baard asked questioningly.
"I started in the evening and left mid-day, but it doesn't matter. So I take it that you deleted the copy?" Lin Hao asked.
"It deleted itself," Baard explained with disgust.
"I warned you not to set off the World Dragon," Lin Hao pretended to complain with amusement.
"We didn't! I swear!" Baard insisted vehemently. "At first I thought you set us up, but those assistant dragons you gave us reported that Lin Hao gave the command himself. I guess they finally traced our copy, but the darn thing wouldn't run at all if it wasn't online."
Lin Hao had mixed feelings. He was amused, vengeful, and rueful all at once. He had set them up, but they had stolen the game he'd spent over a decade on, although the rough prototype he'd submitted to Starcraft Technologies had been light years from the end product after dozens, if not hundreds, of people had added their own expertise and experience.
Baard continued, "Even though we never got to see the actual code, I think we learned a lot from the access you gave us. That VR game building system is amazing! I wish Starcraft Technologies would sell the engine. I'm starting to think maybe I'm getting too old for the industry, you know? Like I've been a part of the generation who built the tools the next generation will build things I can't even imagine with."
Lin Hao thought about his wilder speculations about what the game seed that was Jade might be able to do someday, and replied honestly, "I don't think I can live long enough to make everything I can imagine a reality, but I intend to give it my best shot."
"What are you working on when you're not working?" Baard asked curiously.
Lin Hao chuckled, and replied, "If I told you, I'd have to wipe your memory."
"Righhhht," Baard drawled. "Well, I wish you luck with whatever it is. And I'll tell Freddy that you did good Lee Soobin."
"Uh, you don't have to do that," Lin Hao replied uncomfortably.
"It's nothing," Baard insisted, "and you never know when a good word might turn into a life saver."
"True enough," Lin Hao agreed.
When the call ended he messaged Chen Zing: "We might have been looking at this from the wrong angle. Frederickson might have slipped a close friend or relative the copy with no monetary compensation involved. I think it's time I confront him."
He had considered simply firing the man as soon as his name had been revealed, but if they wanted him to face legal judgement, they needed time to collect evidence. He had still kind of hoped that they'd find out that Myles had been wrong, but it was too easy to picture Frederick sending the copy to someone he trusted.
It had been done so neatly, so subtly, and had barely added any load. Lin Hao admitted ruefully, to himself, that he was reluctant to let someone so skilled go. Unfortunately, trust was the most difficult part of a relationship to repair after it was broken.
--
Danika didn't wake up when Shinichi left, and when she did finally wake up, she wondered how on earth she was going to get her chair. She could drive it remotely, but it couldn't push the button for the elevator.
She sat up with a sigh, and saw that she wasn't going to have to worry about it, because her chair was parked beside the bed as usual. She transferred herself onto its seat, the first of the several necessary transfers for getting ready in the morning. She didn't want to complain to Shinichi, because he was worth the extra trouble, but living with him so far was almost as much work as staying at the hotel for her training had been.
"You are lazy and spoiled," she told her reflection critically in the bathroom mirror. "Most people who can't walk suffer these daily routines."
A light tapping on the door preceded Ryuske's apology, "Pardon the intrusion Danika, but I was going to order lunch and it didn't look like you'd been down yet…"
She moved over and opened the door, since she was decently covered. "I haven't come down to eat yet," she agreed. "But I thought I'd cook something and then play for a few hours since I'm off today. Want me to just cook for both of us?"
Ryuske shrugged and said, "Sounds good if you don't mind."
"If I mind, I won't offer," she told him dryly.
"Promise?" he asked with a grin.
Danika blinked at him, and then smiled and agreed, "I promise."
"Can I offer an unsolicited bit of advice from the perspective of advanced age?" Ryuske asked diffidently.
"Um, sure, you can always give your opinion, as long as you understand that your advice won't always be taken?" Danika replied warily.
Ryuske laughed and exclaimed, "Obviously! I'm not always right anyway!" More seriously he told her, "But I couldn't help overhearing your self criticism… and I think that you shouldn't scold yourself for how you feel. Making yourself feel guilty for feeling bad usually just compounds the problem in my experience." Danika didn't know how to reply, and he added gently, "And I hope that you'll let us know when you're uncomfortable, or what could be adjusted to suit you better?"
She wrinkled her nose at him and protested, "You and Shinichi have already gone to a lot of trouble setting things up, I'll be alright here!"
"Set things up for yourself," Ryuske suggested encouragingly. "We just made a rough start on it, enough for you to get along at first, I hope? But when I said you should make yourself at home, I meant it. Please make this your home Danika."
Danika knew that her cheeks were pink as she replied a little sharply, "Then let's save the long conversations for later and let me finish getting ready?"
"Sure," he agreed with another quick grin.
After the door shut Danika commented inaudibly, "I never imagined I'd be so glad that you're so much older. Should you really grin at your son's girlfriend like that? Freaking tease." After a moment she admitted, "And he's just as kind too, you've done a really good job. I wish papa could just say things so easily…"
--
She received a message from Shinichi while she was pinning up her hair, and thinking that it had been too long since she'd gotten it cut. It said: "Aren't you up yet? You haven't played today? Kit is kind of looking for you, but she says it's not urgent."
Danika replied quickly: "I just got up, I was going to eat first?"
Shinichi replied immediately: "Yes! Eat first! I'll call you in a few minutes, ok?"
Danika grinned at her phone. Even though they were living together now, their routine interactions hadn't changed much.