Marcos took a few seconds to recompose himself after learning they were in a world doom scenario. If he was really the only one who knew what was going on, he had to take responsibility. With that in mind he made a decision.

  “Ok, I will put you in contact with someone you can really talk to and is able to make any decisions. I can assure you that any information that will benefit humanity as a whole will not be locked. If you think we are not communicating it you will be free to talk it out. Are the rest of the terms agreeable?”

  “I want you to support my niece too, she is living with me at the moment,” Emilio added his last condition.

  Marcos felt so out of place that he just started laughing. “You are really a different kind of person, aren’t you. You are not negotiating your salary, but this might end up being more expensive than a higher salary. I need to know more about her, what are her Stats?”

  “She started with 3, 2, 2, 1 and earned 3 Stats in her Trial, with the extra 3 as Free points” Emilio answered.

  “Wow, your family is talented,” Marcos was surprised, he couldn’t reject that kind of talent. “I have no problem with supporting her, we can hire her and give her the support she needs.”

  “Well… That might be a problem, she is 13.”

  Marcos was stumped again and had to reevaluate his strategy.

  “Umm, can you get permission from her parents to train her?”

  “Sure, my sister will agree.”

  “I might be able to work something out. On paper you would hire us to train her, would that work?”

  “Smart idea, I like it. One more thing. I want to keep my current Manager.”

  Marcos almost facepalmed at the last condition, but he remembered that he was with the video turned on. He really needed some time to relax.

  “I get it, I really can’t predict you. You know that you will be promoted above her with this deal, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but I like her and I want to keep reporting to her.”

  “This would mean to promote her too!”

  “That is something for you to discuss with her. I want her as a manager. If you need some results to show, I called her yesterday to take days off to focus on the changes in my body. Instead of doing that, she managed to get you here to negotiate with me and we are talking about this deal.”

  “You do make a strong case. The fact that she didn’t let you go and that the information reached me is worth a promotion if what you say is true. I will talk to her.”

  Emilio succeeded in helping Milagros out, but he also realized he was about to throw a bomb at her without a heads up, so he came up with an idea.

  “I believe she went to do her Trial today. I insisted that she take it as soon as possible.”

  Marcos sighed as he changed his plans once again. It was really hard to keep ahead when he was talking with Emilio. “Well, I will meet with her as soon as possible then. Is it really that important to take the Trial sooner?”

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  “It is, you should take it too. If a week passes by, you will regret it.” Emilio confirmed.

  “Noted. I will find someone you can really talk to so you can get us up to date. You can also tell him what you need for your training. We are planning to unite all the people selected to be trained together in the HQ so we might arrange the trip.”

  “Don’t do that, you would screw anyone who has to travel. If you change Monoliths you have to wait a week without Trials before entering again. And I am surprised I could tell you this.” Emilo had been paying attention to the System all along to see if he was restricted, but he wasn’t.

  “Great, another headache. We will have to train people where they are. Every time I learn more about this situation, I hate it more.”

  “Oh, you don’t know half of it,” Emilio hinted ominously.

  “Understood. You can go do whatever you need. May we contact you on your phone when we need to talk with you? I don’t think you will be online, will you?”

  “I will not be online for sure. You call me, I’ll have my phone with me. It was nice meeting you.”

  “I hope I can say the same thing in the future,” Marcos said, “But I suspect it will give me more headaches than anything else.”

  “Then it is lucky you will not be the one managing me, right?”

  Marcos sighed and shook his head. “I’ll see what I can do with that. See you next time.”

  After closing the call Emilio finally realized he just had a huge promotion and pay raise. Even the clothes he bought the previous day might be covered by the company as training expenses.

  Best of all, he didn’t have to sell his soul for it because they had agreed to share the information as needed.

  But before focusing on that, he had something urgent to do. He immediately called Milagros on her cell phone.

  “Emi? Why are you calling me on the phone? Did you have an energy cut again?” She asked as soon as she picked up. During working hours, they always contacted each other on the computer, so having Emilio call her was something quite abnormal at that time.

  “I need this off the record. Log out now, I told Marcos you are in the Trial.”

  “What the… Why did you do that?”

  “Trust me, log out now!”

  “Ok, ok wait a minute.”

  After a few minutes Milagros came back to the phone.

  “What is going on?” She asked.

  “I might have gotten a promotion… And I might have asked for you to keep being my manager even though apparently I would have been higher in the company than you with the promotion.”

  “You did what??” Milagros was shocked “First congratulations… and thank you. But do you realize that what you asked for will make a mess?”

  “Not my problem, but you will have to do your negotiations yourself. I couldn’t throw that to you without a heads up. Just know it is a condition I gave them, and they really want me. As long as you are reasonable you have the promotion assured.”

  “Well thank you very much. Does that mean I will still be your boss?”

  “That’s the deal. There’s no one better, as proven not even one day ago. If not all of the other times over the years.”

  “Thank you Emi. I am really happy you think of me like that. I should log back in to have that meeting. I don’t want to keep Marcos waiting.”

  “Not really, you should actually take the Trial as that is what Marcos thinks you are doing. And if you do well you might have more to negotiate than without doing it.”

  “You are right,” Milagros admitted, “Can you tell the team I will be out?”

  “Sure, I will. Good luck on the Trial!”

  Emilio hung up the phone and messaged the other leads in the team about Milagros whereabouts. He also told them he might be leaving the team, but not the company.

  Afterwards, he sent his current work in progress to the team members that could actually finish it and sent a message to all the team telling them that he would be leaving the team to a new project that is confidential. He ended the message saying that he recommended everyone to take the Starting Trials as soon as possible, and no later than on Wednesday.

  With that message he officially ended a chapter on his life. Well he still had to see how Milagros did in her Trials and coordinate further with her, but she was still going to be his boss, so she was part of the new chapter.

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