"So Marie looks deep into my eyes, as pure and innocent as a fawn, and says straight to my face with no trace of guile, 'I am sorry, Laci, but that is a hardware problem.'"

Laci raised both hands in mock affront, but his lips curled upward at the memory. While the bottle in front of him had long since been replaced, his well of stories never seemed to run dry. Even with Swift Regeneration assisting me I was more than feeling the effects of the alcohol, but Laci was barely showing any at all. His cheeks were a little flushed, and maybe he'd grown a little louder as the evening progressed. But he was still as articulate and loquacious as ever, regaling me with stories from his days in the early days of the video game industry.

Despite myself, I found my face smiling easily at his antics. The roiling emotions, the Anger and Depression were still there, raging behind a fog of Pálinka and the conviviality of Laci's company. But I was drinking with Denial right now. I'd deal with them later. Meanwhile, Laci was more than holding up the conversation on his own.

The evening's festivities had well and truly begun at the Gimlet. The room was filled with pairs and trios of twenty-somethings standing at the well worn bar, or small groups of slightly older professionals talking boisterously at the tables. The music had been loud before, but now it was practically inaudible under the overlapping conversations and laughter of the evening's revelry. But our nook still afforded us enough of a harbor to speak without yelling.

"Ah, Mai," Laci sighed at last with a big heaving of his shoulders, and reached for the half-empty bottle in front of him. "I am sorry for this occasion, but I am glad to talk at last like this." He refilled my glass first, then his own. Then he held the bottle close to his face. Laci pressed his fingers against the letters of the bottle's label, as if tracing them. He sat there for a while in silent regard, so I lifted my glass and raised it to take a swallow, letting him be. Then suddenly he blurted out "What is this thing, this company, to you anyway?"

He caught me mid-drink, and I tried to suppress a cough as the liquid threatened to go down the wrong pipe. The act of keeping it in only made it worse, and I barely was able to swallow in time before turning and hacking painfully at the ground. I tapped my chest once or twice, then managed to squeak out, "What?"

Laci peered at me, apologetic, but spoke in a clear voice above the din. "A company is a new thing you are bringing into the world. It can be many things, for many reasons. What is yours?"

Pressing a hand against the base of my throat and swallowing against the burning, I reached for a cocktail napkin to wipe my eyes and mouth. "I don't think I've gotten that far, to be honest," I replied after a moment. "It was just a thing I was doing, to keep busy after being let go," I paused, frowning. "And Bushra was excited," I mumbled sheepishly, trailing off. It didn't sound like the inspirational story of a visionary founder. I wondered again what I was doing, if I was only stringing Bushra, and now Kris, along. Maybe this was the time to stop. Is this the Acceptance part, I wondered?

Laci took a mouthful from his drink and rolled it around in his mouth before swallowing. "I've seen two kinds of companies people build," He responded after a moment. "One begins with the product – this is what we will make, this is what we will sell. These are the transactions of things." He held out a thumb to the side, counting. "The other begins with the people," His index finger rose. "This is who we are, this is who we will become. This is for achieving the shared purpose." His hand spread wide then in indifference. "Both kinds can have their own kind of success, so long as you understand which you are making." He waved his hand around at the room. "Like Kim. Why do you think this business of hers exists?"

I shook my head, unable to guess. I didn't know Kim at all, but I don't think that mattered to Laci.

"It is a place to sell drinks, make food to sell, yes? For people to meet." He gestured in a wide circle, then wagged his finger in a negating notion. "Our Miss Kim wishes to remain young, and so she fills her vision with youth." Laci smirked and tapped the side of his nose. "The staff knows this, and trades their youth to her for money and a place to belong, to be young together. A fair exchange." He nods at his own explanation. "A transaction. An experience for an experience. The money that changes hands is to fuel this shared purpose."

He then put his hand out to me, as if offering me a gift. "So. What kind of success do you want, Mai?"

I shook my head, bewildered. "I don't know? I mean, product is what I know. Features, price points, value props. Things, I guess. But..." I hesitated. It didn't feel right. "I want to build… is it wrong not to care what it is?"

"Hmm. Wrong or right, I cannot judge." Laci's shoulders rose and fell, before he peered at me directly. "But some day it will get hard. Harder than it ever was. You will be tired, dispirited, bitter. Even more than now. Why do you continue? Why not simply walk away from this pain? That answer, that is why your company exists. If you do not have it..." Laci trailed off, shrugging with his hands palm up.

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I frowned, unsure where this was coming from, or where it was going.

"And when you find what you want," he continued, "make sure the others want it to, or close. You cannot build two different companies. You must bring them together into one, or you must cut them apart. As the leader, you must do this." He pointed at me, a firm look in his eyes.

"The leader?" I pushed back, shaking my head. "They're doing all the work so far. I'm maybe contributing some money, but don't know what I bring." I felt a weight settle on my heart, familiar and cold.

"If you trust the team you've brought together, then trust them to build the company with you." Laci smiled warmly at me, making me feel even more of a fraud. Then he frowned. "If you don't trust them, well. Why are they still here?"

"What, like a committee?" I frowned, remembering fruitless meetings and product discussions.

"It is not a committee, it is delegation," he asserted. "There is a difference in accountability and authority." He took his glass, and knocked the rest of his drink back in a single swallow. Then he pointed with the glass still in hand. "You are the one who must take a stand. When you stand up, your people will stand up for you." Then I saw his focus turn inward. "Sometimes, you are the only one who can."

I felt uncomfortable in the silence that followed, and tried to shift the topic. 'Yeah, but how do I find what I want? I don't know where I want to go myself, much less lead anyone there."

Laci looked at me with his lips pursed. Then he put his elbow on the table and rested his chin in the palm of his hand, staring at me with half-lidded eyes. "My store offers many things to many people, but two stand out: Some come looking to escape, to hold the cold outside at bay. Living within the simpler rules they know and can understand, away from the complexities of their world. Or they are seeking acceptance, seeing in others a mirror to their dreams. Their passion reflected back in a self-perpetuating feedback loop." He tilted his head, lifting a finger from his other hand and wagging it at me. "You were trying to escape." He paused, as if waiting for me to deny it. I waited, wondering where he was going. "Only then, you had to then escape from the others." He took his fingers and emulated a figure running away. "But you come back," he smiled bemusedly, his fingers returned. "Like a moth, drawn to a flame to burn yourself again and again. Why?"

I blinked, mouth agape, unable to respond. But he continued, as if my silence was expected.

"Until," he said, "you come this week." Still supporting his head as if it were a great weight, he drummed his other fingers on the table. "You are no longer running. This company, this project you are developing. It turns the flames to sunlight, so you can spread your wings and fly." His hand made fluttering motions as he lifted it into the air. "Or is it that you turn into fire yourself? That is your 'why'. Look there." He smiled a sloppy grin at me, and I had a sudden urge to know what he saw when he looked my way, to see it too. But it was like catching smoke.

"Bah," Laci closed his eyes and waved a hand in front of his nose, batting away my thoughts. "Listen to me, a foolish old man talking of fairy tales. Too fond of my own voice. Too much strong drink." He opened his eyes and smiled softly again across the table. "Your turn, now. I'll order us some food to fill our bellies, and you tell me what all this is about, hmm? What you have been through."

"Uh, all right," I answered, off-balance.

After flagging down a server and ordering some items from memory, Laci began gently drawing out bits and pieces of my recent history as we waited. I gave him the sanitized version, similar to what I'd given the police, with no mention of gods. While I was talking, I was surprised by the intensity of the bitterness that rose up in my throat as I talked about my departure from Complyze. The impotence as I relayed Jon's death. And the echoes of adrenaline and rage as I told him of the aborted kidnapping and its aftermath. Laci seemed to take it all in, to hold it precious like a fragile lattice of ice and crystal, accepting.

As I finished, I felt a light-headedness wash over me. Or maybe it was the relief from a burden. I suppose it could have been the Pálinka. But the weight I'd had pressing down on my heart and mind since Laci told me of the newest problem was lifted away. There were still plenty of other worries to weigh me down. I didn't know what I'd do next. But now I felt the strength to overcome it somehow.

A notification appeared:

New Quest.

A Heart's Desire

Accept? Y/N

While I was pondering this prompt and its provenance, Laci was nodding sleepily across the table over our empty plates and bottles. The food that had arrived during my recounting had disappeared, mostly into the belly across from me. But this was fair trade for the Pálinka. A transaction? No. I'll call it a shared experience.

"You are very much like my Marie, Mai. And not just your names." His voice was barely audible above the din, but his expression had rekindled into its normal brilliance at the mention of his wife. "She, too, will worry and fret, all the while moving forward. When she ran into some error that vexed her, she would curse the gods, curse the schedule, bemoan her fate, and fix the code anyway." He laid his head down on the table, his eyes drooping as he stared at the bottle. "Ooh, but my sweet little Marie will be so upset with me again," he muttered into the table. Then he turned his head up at me. "Why are you still awake?" he asked peevishly. "You are supposed to drink until you are too sleepy to worry, and then I take you home," he grumbled, giving me a sidelong glare from the crook in his arm. "But you are awake and I am drunk." He sighed again, and closed his eyes. "So instead, you must take a weary, old drunkard home," he smiled wanly, head lolling. "And maybe also to calm down my beautiful, wrathful Marie?"