“Good morning, Ed.”

“Morning Buddie.”

After getting out of bed, Ed went about his usual routine, having a quick breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way. She’s not really listening to a word I have to say. I don’t think I’ll be able to convince her with how things are currently going. Is there something I can do if I look at things from her perspective?

With his breakfast finished, Ed had a refreshing shower before stepping through the door. Zara should be with Phoebe right now. Hopefully she has calmed down enough so that she won’t do anything too harsh.

Zara appeared through the door with a couple minutes to spare. Hopping onto her seat with a satisfied smile.

“Morning Ed.” She said happily.

“You seem happy, how did you end up handling the situation with Phoebe?” Ed asked.

“I thought about what you said, and you were kind of right. I may have overreacted a little bit. Killing her would have robbed me of a lot of potential fun.” She said.

That’s good. As long as she didn’t do anything too serious, everything will be fine. “So, what did you decide to do?”

“Well, since she did still disobey me, I decided that I won’t give her any food or water for a while.” Zara said.

“And how long is ‘a while’?” Ed asked. This might not be as good as I thought.

“Eh, I don’t know. Whenever I get around to it, I suppose.”

“Just make sure to give her some water in a couple days, otherwise she will die.” I might need to remind her later. Just as he finished speaking, the file popped up on screen. Guess I should get started.

Name: Rahul Ahmed

Age: 57

Occupation: factory owner

Biography: born to parents Mahinder and Sarala, Rahul was born into wealth, as his father owned several factories. Thanks to this he went to a prestigious private school, where he received a high level of education, and he was given a managerial position at one of his father’s factories upon graduating... After decades, his father passed away and he was granted control over all of the factories... He refused to improve working conditions, and would cut costs on protective equipment to save money... One day a motor malfunctioned and spun out of control, resulting in the death of a nine-year-old factory worker. He gave the family a small amount of compensation in exchange for their silence on the matter...

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

-End of document-

Child labour, poor working conditions. Yeah, I think I can work with this. Ed opened the app, and quickly got to work by recreating the factory where the accident took place. An open aired factory was created, with glowing patches of light coming from the numerous furnaces dotted around the place. Across the entire factory, children were working together to create glass bangles, with not a single piece of protective equipment or clothing in sight. Staring at the children going back and forth, Ed was furious. This is disgusting. How can a place like this even stay in business? Rahul deserves what’s coming to him.

“Buddie, show me the accident that happened.” Ed asked, after having prepared himself mentally.

The view of the factory narrowed down. It started with a group of children who were sifting through shards of broken glass, separating out larger shards of glass that is then transferred to another pile. Another child shovels out the glass from said pile into a wheelbarrow until it was filled, then dumping it out into a pile in front of the furnace.

From there, the glass was shovelled into the furnace where it was melted down until it could flow through a small gap in the bottom of the furnace, where someone used a metal pipe to guide the molten glass down into a trough, ending in the glass being curled around a rapidly spinning rod. It was then that the process went awry.

The rod spun faster than usual, and the molten glass was flung through the air at high speeds, right towards the child’s face.

“Thank you, Buddie. You can stop it there.” Ed said as he turned away, not wanting to see the child’s face getting cut right through. “Put Rahul in place of this child and recreate the accident.” The child was replaced by a slightly overweight middle-aged man. What can I do here to give him a chance. I really need to thread the line here. If I allow him to move freely, it will be too easy for him to escape, and Buddie certainly won’t let that happen. But on the other hand, if I force him to stay there, he will be guaranteed to die. Hmmm... I think I’ve got it.

“Buddie, I want someone from management to be watching at all times, who will make sure that Rahul doesn’t leave. In order for him to escape, he will have to convince the person that the equipment is faulty and dangerous, and to shut down their work until the equipment can be fixed.” That should be a good level of difficulty.

After making sure everything was in place, Ed submitted the project.

~

On the other end of the table, Zara was hard at work on her project. The sinner she got had helped a murderer get away with the crime, hiding the murder weapon and helping to get rid of the body. What can I do with this? It says here that it was someone else who committed the murder, and this guy was just an accessory to the crime...Well, if someone has already murdered someone else, they probably wouldn’t mind killing another person to hide what happened. With this thought in mind, she went about recreating everything that happened, from the initial murder to the cover up, but this time ending it with the death of the accomplice.

“This is a test to see whether they feel guilty about what they’ve done, and whether or not he will decide to help them again. So give him a few opportunities where he can back out and turn the murderer in.” Since he was just an accessory to the crime, Ed would probably want me to be a bit more lenient.

After double checking everything, Zara submitted her project.

~

“Thank you for submitting your plans. I will let you know when they are ready.” Buddie said.

Getting up with a stretch, Zara turned to Ed. “Come on, let’s go back to your apartment.” She dragged him to the door.