"Even after being enhanced, I still can't handle you.... What the hell did they inject you with?" Rina asked as she crawled away from Aron, still feeling the aftereffects of their last battle. She still couldn't believe the stamina of that man.
"Mine was made specifically for me, not for general use. So it was specifically tuned for my body," he answered as Rina moved to his side and laid her head on his chest.
"I need to talk to you about something," she said after catching her breath. A certain calm washed over her as Aron ran his hand up and down her spine; she quite enjoyed it.
"Is it about returning home?" he asked, as he knew it was bound to come.
"Yes. I need to finish dealing with my brother now that enough time has passed. He should be fully assured that I'm still looking for evidence of the attacker, so now's a good time for me to surprise him and end this farce once and for all. Then I'll take my place as the family head in waiting, which should allow me to be of more help to you. After all, it seems like you've unintentionally started a fight with the Morgans... and they'll never take it lying down. They'll try their hardest to return the favor many times over, and I need to at least try and help you with that," she said as she idly fingerpainted his chest using shadows as paint.
"So, when do you plan to return?" he asked, as he knew that he would only be able to occasionally see her in real life, unless she decided to permanently move to Eden. He knew he could ask her to stay, and she most likely would, but he also knew that she wasn't suited to be a trophy wife. She had spent her entire life in a bid to overtake her brother, and asking her to remain for him would leave a shadow in her heart and cost her many things in life.
"Next week. There's an upcoming board meeting that I can use to surprise them with my evidence so he won't have time to come up with excuses. Although I could solve them, it'd take some effort, effort that I don't wish to expend." Rina had already thought up a rough plan.
"No problem, you can take my plane back. Also, you don't have to worry about him pulling any more bullshit, as Alex should be enough to handle them now," Aron said. He wouldn't ask her to stay for himself. He was only a luxury private jet flight away, if they missed each other, and the moment she became the heir she could just move to Eden with him. Plus, they could always meet in VR while they were separated.
With that out of the way, they continued enjoying each other's company and touring places on the island they hadn't yet seen over the past month.
He had already introduced her to his parents—this time as his girlfriend—but they didn't seem surprised at all and just jokingly revealed that he was as dense as lead to have taken so long to realize her hints. His younger brother had just laughed and asked her to play some games with him; he had taken quite a liking to the beautiful lady.
When they asked if they had mistaken something about her, as they remembered her being shorter, Aron explained that she'd always been this tall. Maybe they were just experiencing a Mandela effect. His parents grudgingly agreed, as they couldn't find any evidence to disprove that she wasn't tall before other than their memory.
......
"Have you already submitted the bid?" Aron asked Felix during their monthly meeting.
"Yes, and it's passed the first round so we won't need to submit a corrected one," Felix replied at the same time as he forwarded a copy of the bid.
"Who else is submitting bids?"
"Nearly everyone in the oil industry from around the entire world tried using their experience in the field to gain an advantage over the others. Some are even using their countries to pressure Alexander and the committee into choosing them. Russia and China hinted that they're in the final phase of their evaluation and would be making their decision on whether to allow Eden into the UN soon," Felix sneered. Alexander was in quite a dilemma.
"You don't have to worry about that, as we're guaranteed to win the bid. We're basically the only option for him, since by picking our company, he'll be supporting the domestic industry. Plus, he won't be siding with any specific country. That neutral stance will prevent any of them from trying to use the situation to retaliate, since doing that would only show their pettiness and result in other countries coming to our defense," Aron said in a single breath. He had long planned for that exact outcome before they'd even announced the discovery to the public.
"Makes sense," Felix responded. He wondered how his friend had gotten so good at politicking and scheming, which would be considered abnormal behavior from the person he'd known for so long.
"Sarah, how many users are we at?"
"We've got 1.5 billion active accounts, but the growth has started stagnating. Nearly half of everyone on the internet has already created an account," she answered.
"You can stop focusing on attracting new users and move to figuring out how to keep the ones we have active. As for drawing in new accounts, there's no need to worry about that. Soon, Pangea will be integrated into every product we make, meaning they'll require an account in order to use anything of ours," Aron said, shifting the company's approach toward making Pangea the most addictive app they could. It was a necessary move, since in order to control the public narrative outside of the tiny country of Eden, he needed all eyes on Pangea, not any other social media app.
Following those instructions, the three discussed different things regarding the development of the company and what their next product would be. Aron only said it would be a physical product, not just software, but to get it into production, Eden's industrial foundation needed to be built first. Otherwise, it would just be a big fat nothing burger.n0velusB.c0m
...
Later that day, after the meeting.
"Where's Rina?" Sarah teasingly asked, as she and Felix had also been introduced to her as Aron's girlfriend. It was their second simultaneous shock—first, Aron had a girlfriend? Since when? How did she manage to drill through the bedrock his skull was built out of?
The second shock was her new appearance. They had both seen, and worked, with her before her enhancement, so since Aron couldn't gaslight that away as they had knowledge of the serum and he had already offered it to them before but they had postponed it due to working on the projects, so when he told them it was the result of the serum they wasted no time and had asked to use it and undergo an abbreviated enhancement procedure.
"She's already headed home, as she needs to finish something," Aron answered.
"That's too bad. I wanted to talk with her for a bit, as she's quite knowledgeable in business and has given me quite a few insights."
"You can always see her in VR—you know that, right?" Aron replied, knowing that Sarah was just teasing him about his girlfriend having left.
