Ch.140Giving My All! (4)

#140

Himena’s face looked troubled as she skimmed through the materials brought from Orbis Corporation.

“Find anything?”

Dexter, who knew almost nothing about games, was scrolling down through the documents displayed on the monitor.

“I’m not exactly an expert on the gaming industry, but… this is truly vicious. It’s the first time I’ve seen a private company combining brainwashing and hypnosis with games. There’s even this insane idea about delivering electric shocks to the brain if someone tries to use a competitor’s game…”

Himena frowned deeply as she continued scrolling, finding increasingly disturbing content.

“What do they think customers are?”

While Himena sighed and summarized the materials, Dexter pointed at the monitor.

“The term ‘BM’ appears frequently. What is that?”

“It’s short for Business Model. In this case, it probably refers to methods to make users more effectively purchase in-game items or convenience services with real money.”

“So it’s a general business idea applied to games?”

“That’s right. Which section is that?”

“‘BM Structures of Other Companies’? There’s talk about American companies, and Asian ones too… Korea and Japan.”

While not directly related to addiction, it was an important element responsible for gaming companies’ finances.

“Well, money is important after all…”

Himena nodded and was about to move on to the next document when she discovered a peculiar password-protected file.

“What’s this?”

The document was titled <Pending Project_123114>.

‘Pending Project… are those numbers a date? December 31, 2014?’

The numbers in the filename matched the last modified date of the file.

‘There must be something more hidden here…’

Himena tried to crack the password but decided to leave it alone for now.

‘I shouldn’t mess with it carelessly and risk causing problems… Maybe I should leave this to Subtron?’

With a Qubit CPU installed, Subtron would be able to decode the password much faster than any supercomputer on Earth.

After pondering deeply, Himena decided to ask Subtron when it arrived and focused on organizing the remaining documents.

* * *

That evening.

Dexter came home with Himena, both carrying loads of work.

As soon as they entered, he was puzzled to see Id-Ya sprawled on the sofa without her outer camouflage, and Jessie lying next to her, hugging her tentacles.

“What are you two doing?”

“Ahhh… welcome hooome…”

“Dinner is… ready…”

Himena, who followed behind, was equally dumbfounded.

“Seriously! What if someone had walked in while you had your outer camouflage off?”

“Agent Himena, I’m sorry… It’s just because of Miss Aisha…”

“Gabi?”

While Himena was giving Id-Ya a strange look.

“Big brotherrrrr!”

“Oh, Aisha.”

Aisha burst out of her room and ran straight to Dexter, who lifted her up in the air.

“Have you been having fun?”

“No. Jessie and Id-Ya are boring.”

“What do you mean boring! I’ve been playing with her since the moment I got off work!”

Jessie, who had been listening quietly, raised her voice in protest.

“Why are you shouting?”

“Sure, I got off work early, but how am I supposed to play with her when I’m exhausted? Besides, it’s not easy to make dinner while entertaining a child.”

“You’re right, you worked hard too, Jessie.”

Dexter patted Jessie’s head, then spun Aisha around in the air as he asked:

“What did you do during the day?”

“I went to the Strip? with Id-Ya. But men kept coming up to Id-Ya and saying weird things.”

“What… never mind, forget it.”

It was obvious what kind of things those flirtatious men would have said.

Not wanting Aisha to repeat those words, Dexter looked at Id-Ya instead.

No matter how unfamiliar she was with Earth, she could surely understand someone’s intentions just from their tone and overly familiar behavior.

“…Earth men don’t seem to look at what’s inside.”

“I’m not speaking for all Earth men, but men from planet Yog-Sothoth would probably be the same.”

Dexter passed by the still sprawled Id-Ya and headed to the kitchen.

Seeing the food still warm on the table, Dexter approached Jessie, gently kissed the top of her head, and said:

“Thank you. Himena and I will take care of the rest.”

When Dexter kissed her head, Jessie rubbed her crown and said:

“Geez, I haven’t even washed up, how embarrassing… But how did work go today? Did you find anything useful in those materials?”

Himena, who had placed her laptop on the table, looked at Jessie and replied:

“Yes. There was one locked document. Subtron said we shouldn’t try to unlock it carelessly and that it needs to be opened in a special way.”

“A special way?”

“He said if we enter the wrong password too many times, the document might be deleted or corrupted, so we need to make a copy and try passwords on that. It’ll take about a day.”

“A whole day?”

When Jessie questioned this with confusion, Himena shook her head and explained:

“That’s incredibly fast. The National Weather Service’s supercomputer would take over a month.”

“Wait, that clunky robot-looking thing is better than the supercomputer used by the National Weather Service?”

“Subtron may look outdated on the outside, but inside, it’s incomparable to any robot in America.”

Having worked with Subtron earlier that day, Jessie couldn’t deny this.

“I guess it is impressive. It understands everything you say right away. I heard Alexa still talks nonsense sometimes.”

When Jessie mentioned the AI assistant released by Amazon late last year, Himena giggled.

“How can you even compare them?”

While Himena and Jessie chatted, Dexter was tossing Aisha into the air, saying:

“Don’t you ever get tired of this?”

“It’s fun!”

Throwing Aisha almost high enough to touch the ceiling, Dexter casually asked:

“You had fun with Judy last time, right?”

“Yes! Judy is fun!”

Which implied, conversely, that playing with Jessie and Id-Ya wasn’t fun—a harsh assessment.

The two who had spent the entire day playing with her and were now exhausted felt wronged.

“What, are you saying we’re not fun? After all that playing?”

“How heartless.”

Dexter gave them a sympathetic look.

“Oh, should we go to the amusement park with that sister?”

“Amusement park?”

Id-Ya, still sprawled on the sofa, perked up at the mention of an amusement park.

“You mean the indoor amusement park in front of the hotel?”

“Yeah. Don’t tell me you’ve already taken Aisha there?”

“No, I was saving it for around the last day…”

“That’s perfect then. Let’s go the day before. I’ll tell Judy about it too, and you should come along.”

“Me? Why me…?”

“It’s your first time on Earth, you should at least see some sights before you leave.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if just the three of you went…?”

As Id-Ya tried to politely decline, Dexter looked at Aisha and said:

“Id-Ya doesn’t want to go?”

“No! Come with us!”

“What? No, using Aisha like that is…”

“She’s asking you to come, so of course you should come?”

When Id-Ya looked at Jessie with an incredulous expression, Jessie shrugged and said:

“You might as well go along. Dexter can be pretty stubborn.”

“I see…”

Having heard plenty about Dexter from her senior security team members, Id-Ya had no intention of resisting him and just sighed deeply.

“I’ll go…”

Id-Ya, who secretly didn’t want to go, wiggled her tentacles as she spoke.

“Id-Ya, are you really a security agent?”

Himena asked while sipping gazpacho (Spanish tomato soup) and looking through the documents, making Dexter chuckle.

“Adults are predictable in their movements. Kids aren’t. That’s why it’s more exhausting.”

“Oh, so security agents normally move to protect their subjects, but since Aisha moves around unpredictably, you have to keep following her unexpected movements, which makes it more tiring?”

“Exactly.”

“Oh, poor thing.”

Aisha, still being tossed in the air, looked at Dexter with a pouty expression.

“I want to get down.”

“Why?”

“You said mean things about me!”

“When did I say anything mean about you?”

“You said I move around as I please!”

“So, are you saying you don’t move around as you please? Was it reasonable for Aisha to come all the way to Earth, light-years away? Does that make sense?”

Aisha was about to say something but hesitated, then burst out again.

“That’s… you did it first!”

“I did what?”

“You ran away without telling Aisha anything!”

Everyone around winced at Aisha’s shrill voice.

“Whoa, my eardrums are about to burst. So, you don’t want to go to the amusement park?”

“I do!”

“Then shush.”

Dexter tucked Aisha under his arm and spun around in place.

“Sheesh. She still thinks I’m a kid.”

“She is a kid. How old is she now? Nine?”

“That’s right.”

“Nine years old is a baby!”

“I’m not a baby!!”

When Aisha shouted again, Himena approached Dexter and smacked his back.

“Stop making her shout! Are you a child yourself?”

“Alright, alright.”

After that, Dexter played with Aisha until she was tired enough to fall asleep, waiting for things to calm down.

No matter how endless a child’s energy might seem, bedtime is inevitable.

When Aisha’s eyes began to blink slowly, he immediately handed her over to Id-Ya for a shower.

While Id-Ya took Aisha away, Dexter hugged Jessie, who was lying on the sofa, stroking her hair as he said:

“After a shower, her body will be warm and she’ll get sleepy… If we put her in bed then, she’ll fall asleep right away and things will quiet down.”

“…You really did take care of Aisha before, didn’t you?”

Jessie, nuzzling her face against Dexter’s broad chest, asked sincerely, and Dexter nodded.

“Kids are cute. I’ve always wanted a little sister since I was young.”

“I don’t dislike kids, but… they’re exhausting.”

“Everyone feels that way.”

While Himena was absorbed in her laptop, Dexter whispered in Jessie’s ear:

“How about it, when we’re more settled?”

Startled by Dexter’s sudden whisper, Jessie frowned at his cryptic words.

“What?”

Despite Jessie’s question, Dexter just wiggled his eyebrows with a mischievous smile, and she immediately understood what he meant.

“Wait, pregnancy?”

“Yeah. What do you think?”

“No way! Don’t even think about parking your sperm in my uterus.”

“…Oh, okay.”

When Dexter said nothing more, Jessie, feeling she might have been too harsh, carefully added:

“…I’ll do it after my mid-twenties at the earliest.”

“Hehehe.”

At that, Dexter kissed the top of Jessie’s head again.

Seeing Dexter’s face return to its usual cheerful expression so easily, Jessie looked at him suspiciously and said:

“Dex, you deliberately said nothing, didn’t you? Just to see my reaction.”

“Hmm, busted?”

“You’re such a pervert.”

Jessie punched Dexter’s side lightly as she spoke.