“Just give me a moment to start things up,” Lee said. “Father.”

No matter how many times he heard it, the way Lee said “Father” when her dad was around made a chill run down Vell’s spine. The inhuman intonations she used to please Noel Burrows, combined with her barely-restrained disdain for her dad, made it a horrific experience to hear. Vell had been forced to endure it dozens of times during this presentation alone. At Noel’s request, Lee was showing off the latest version of her oceanic mana harvester.

“Harley’s installation of a series of adaptive meshes and an intelligent sorting algorithm ended up improving the efficiency more than Vell’s runic network to repel oceanic microorganisms,” Lee said. “We tried to make the two work in tandem, but the rune network just complicated things for Harley’s algorithm.”

Noel Burrows thoughtfully stroked his chin and nodded. Due to spending an unfortunate amount of time near Noel over the last few weeks, Vell had picked up on what the chin-stroke and nod combo meant: he was pretending to understand something he definitely did not understand. He did at least a dozen times every meeting.

“Now, when you say ‘improved efficiency’, by how much exactly?”

“It’s a significant improvement over our last iteration,” Lee said.

“XL-X8 C/P Burrows. We can’t take this into mass production until the filtering process kills less than one percent of ocean microorganisms.”

Noel walked away from the prototype device he’d been pretending to examine and put an unwelcome hand on his daughter’s shoulder. Every touch made her skin crawl, but Lee endured.

“Does this version kill less than one percent?”

“No,” Lee sighed. “Two point three. But our last version-”

“Is two point three less than one?”

“No, father.”

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“Then keep working on it until you get it right.”

“Hey, you’re the one who asked for this meeting,” Harley said. “Don’t get on her case for giving you the news you asked for.”

Noel took his hand off Lee’s shoulder (much to her relief) to glare at Harley.

“Why are you here, again?”

“I built half the thing you wanted to see,” Harley said.

“Oh right, you’re Harley,” Noel said. “I thought that was the one with the robot arm.”

“You saw me last week!”

“Maybe you should try to be interesting instead of frustrating.”

“I-”

Harley was an expert in being frustrating, but thanks to a pointed glare from Lee, she bottled up that expertise. The insatiable black hole of greed in Noel’s heart made him see Harley’s robotics expertise as a potential source of profit, but he was also an incredibly petty, vindictive, and already-very-wealthy man. If she frustrated him enough Noel might try to force Harley out of Lee’s life entirely, and as much as Lee secretly delighted in the occasional jab, she did not want to risk that happening.

“Sorry, Mr. Burrows,” Harley said. It physically hurt to say, but she said it. Noel nodded approvingly at Harley’s surrender and promptly lost interest in her entirely.

“Now, when you have some real progress to report, I’ll check in again,” Noel said. He was lying, even if he didn’t know it. He’d said the same thing a few times now and kept checking in of his own accord anyway. “But I’d better get going. There are some seniors with some actually profitable projects I need to check in on.”

Noel turned on his heels and left. His daughter took a deep breath and held it until the clicking of his overly expensive platform shoes had entirely faded away.

“Time to go to work,” Harley said, nodding towards Vell.

“Got it,” Vell said. He grabbed a summoning rune and conjured the first part of the de-stress plan they’d created. “Step one.”

A pillow appeared in his hands, and he handed it over to Lee. She immediately shoved her face in it and screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Step two,” Harley said. She grabbed a cold beer out of one of the lab storage units and handed it to Lee, who drained it instantly and tossed aside the can in a way that would’ve made a viking proud.

“And step three,” Vell said.

Lee fists unclenched and her shoulders dropped as Vell and Harley grabbed her from either side in a bear hug. Any surprise she felt at the sudden embrace passed instantly, and she melted into their arms with a contented sigh.

“Step three was supposed to be something fragile for me to break,” she mumbled.

“We know.”

“We figured you’d like this better,” Vell said.

Lee wormed her arms out of the hug, only for the sake of returning the gesture.

“You were right.”