Never in my life would I have thought of Apotheosis bestowing actual power upon a person or ideal being deified. I won’t call it a recent development, it took about ten years to really manifest, but I can hear people’s prayers and curses to me as though they were whispering in my ear. I have since asked a parallel mind that prioritizes my communications and background sensory information to send the vast majority to a text feed and into a database that I can query. If hearing people’s thoughts about me weren’t odd enough, each prayer or call to curse sends me a bit of energy.

  Another part of the Apotheosis process I didn’t know was affecting me is the mixing of reality and the Mandella effect that the Matrix reinforces. My current wings are a testament to that, as my original transformation to ‘Royal Pixie’ didn’t come with wings. As the years have passed and the public image of the people’s Pixie Empress solidified, I’ve actually gained some minor magics associated with the Fey and Pixies themselves. The major bennies including elemental affinities on the ‘Title’ level, air and shadow-based glamours, and my personal favorite: will-based luck magic. Apparently, my people agree with Andromeda that ‘Calamity’ suits me.

  The elemental affinity I use all the time. It’s great for engraving and my void/antimatter manipulation. Glamours are fine, I don’t use them often, but it’s convenient. The only drawback to luck magic is that it only applies to people. Animals and machines don’t have bad luck, only people that use them do. I mean good luck too, I have put minor enchantments of good luck for the captain of each ship that I’ve commissioned since, but it’s certainly not a major source of change. None of this little side conversation with myself is that important, but I commonly have a little tantrum when my science brain is confronted by the strength that Andromeda has assigned to religion.

  My currently problem is my daughter’s new girlfriend and my current business partner: Kimber Novarro. I have no issue with Zia liking Kimber, I had hoped they’d be friends to keep the lonely mind at bay, but she’s brought some liveliness back to my daughter’s day-to-day, so I can’t complain about their budding relationship. What I do have a problem with is that Kimber swears my title up and down, but sneak a praise in there also? Matrix thinks you’re a believer. I think the little shit subconsciously thinks I am some sort of demigod.

  Kimber’s on the short list of people I take direct messages from, which also means that I don’t have her ‘prayers’ filtered in case she’s trying to reach me that way. Color me not surprised when I hear Kimber’s voice in my head again, but she’s being nice this time. I shrug, my train of thought already derailed, and teleport myself to her condo.

  I see a very tidy lab space, no experiments apparent, and a much beefier Kimber dancing around in excitement. Why is the . . . yeah, look away Penny, the bouncing is distracting. Oh! That’s a really nice replicator. I don’t tend to use the summoning fabricators as they use entirely too may resources. How can she afford to . . .

  Body change, new fabricator, and my daughter increasingly excited about her visit? She must have tiered up. She confirms it in a stammering sentence later in which she says she picked up a ‘Justicar’ track, which just so happens to be a position in my future judicial branch of my government. I tease her about working for me, and then she says a word that I’d spent a long time trying to bargain with Andromeda over: ‘Ordinal Being’. I quiet her as best as I can and tell her we should talk somewhere more private before teleporting us both back to my pool deck at the Garden Castle.

  She promptly stumbles to a nearby trashcan and vomits into it, asking why I would do that to her. My teleports don’t usually disorient people like that. I shrug and suggest that we take this opportunity to have our meeting and discuss it while lounging in my river. She looks confused for a few moments until I bring up food and then she’s all in, practically forgetting her upset stomach. She doesn’t forget about ordinal beings though.

  I explain most of what I know, which isn’t much, while I eat fish and try not to stare at her muscly stomach and thick legs. I fail miserably, of course, but I catch her peaking at my pixiness, so I figure it’s a wash of ‘if you’re gonna, I’m gonna’. I really did want to talk business, though, I swear.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  My excitable business associate is a bit too eager and agrees to me buying a quarter of NovaChem for a factory and some cash. If it were anyone else, I would likely just build them and industry standard factory, but I have some plans that might include installing an Orem-based workforce that I need to test out. I wire her enough money to build a town and she almost chokes on her lunch when the transfer goes through.

  My gun business is wildly successful and my mana battery systems are on the verge of being labeled a critical resource in the Milky Way. Of course, I spend like half the money I make on improving my Empire and funding research for better ships, distributed intelligence systems, and the power system I’m working on. I’ve spent about a billion credits on that damned thing, but the Mark 48 I just finished just passed its pre-antimatter tests. I should be over the moon about it, but I’m currently worrying about the dirty drugs my ex-wife’s mafia are peddling.

  Once lunch is done, I prank the poor girl into wandering to Zia’s room knowing that my daughter has no idea her crush is here. I don’t get to enjoy many parent moments with Zizi, but putting your kids in awkward situations is a time-tested duty.

  ***

  I haven’t gotten the hang of being a parent yet, but I’ve got the wiggles in my giblets making me think of having another kid.

  “Penny, No. Not that we don’t love Zia, Izzi and the twins, but we don’t want to raise another kid!” Francesca says, waggling a pipette in my direction.

  I came over to voice my concerns and share some rotgut with my oldest friend. “It won’t be like that this time! I’ll have a justice system in place, I think I’ve got a working model of my powerplant, and Mikaela and I have been chatting again.”

  “You’ve said that the last two times, Kimber, but there’s always something that comes up and we have to look after a toddler for three to six months. Jenna and I are looking to find a new venture off world, somewhere that people don’t know our faces and our ties to the temperamental Pixie of their nightmares.” Frannie reaches over to swig from a plastic bottle full of amber liquid. “Side note, proud of you for that powerplant. I know you’re going to do something stupid with it, but the second and third one might go toward powering colony ships or a shipping portal to Andromeda core worlds.”

  “Yeah, not sure I want that kind of heat on the system quite yet. I do want Astoria to be a hub, but I don’t think we have the infrastructure for it. That said, I’m not sure that I’m going to take ownership of that project when the time comes.”

  The farmer and doctor sets down the implements in her hand and turns to fully face me. “Did I just hear that you don’t plan to head a galaxy-spanning project?” She stands and searches in my eyes for some sort of deception. “Holyshit, you’re serious.”

  I nod at that. “Once this project is finished, I’ll have basically done everything I had thought of when I started this Empire, for magic of course—I still don’t have a fully functional government. I never thought it would be harder to miniaturize an anti-matter reactor than to propel compressed space through FTL transits, but they’re both basically finished.”

  “You solved the pocket space issue?! Since fucking when?”

  I shrug “few years ago. It’s really expensive the way I did it though, so it’s not super viable for commercial purposes.”

  “Penny!” my friend steps forward, close enough to kiss me or bite my nose off. “Could I or could I not bring my experimental warehouse to another planet in one trip?”

  “Uh,” some quick mental math later, “sure. You’d have to start with something the size of a frigate to move the combined weight, but sure, we could do it.”

  “I would gladly be godparent to another of your kids if you can make that happen for me. I’ll buy the ship. It needs to make it to Applejack, and I get to keep it.” She is way too eager for this, holycow. She really was serious about moving.

  “That’s like three million in enchanting though.”

  “Done. Any other imaginary roadblocks?” Bitch is smirking, knowing that she’s got me. Stupid smart friends and their stupid stupidness.

  “I’ll need . . . about a year? To make enough engraving ink and to engrave it all. If I have to buy the ink the cost goes up tenfold.”

  She reaches up with both hands to grasp my face and holds it still while she kisses my forehead. “A year is fine. I’m very excited about this opportunity.” She calls up Jenna and tells her the news. I hear cheering on the other side of the holo-chat and I suddenly feel as though I’ve been duped.