I had no choice but to test the new feature. While I could have chosen Mom or Grandpa Joe, I ended up picking Dad. He was the closest. Before I went to him, I thought about a small contract to test things. I needed conditions that were visible when enforced but also not an inconvenience.

  I settled on paying Dad ten dollars for a pen. The conditions were that if he gave me something other than a pen, he would have to give me twenty dollars in addition to the promised pen. If it worked, it wouldn’t be onerous. And if it failed, I was only out the fifty experience it took to make the contract a binding one.

  If the contracts worked, I had other things I wanted to test with them. Things I would need to confirm or deny before adding the feature to the system. I had to know if tricking someone into the contract or forcing them to sign without reading would also work. If those were possible, I would need to pick up the features to prevent them from happening.

  I proffered the contract to Dad. He looked up at me with a modicum of confusion.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Testing system stuff,” I said. “It’s a contract. Says you gotta give me a pen for ten bucks. If you give me anything else, you give me twenty and a pen. I’ll give it back after testing.”

  “Alright?” he questioned.

  Dad shook his head and signed the paper. In an instant, fifty experience disappeared from my stash. I handed him a ten-dollar bill.

  “You want the pen?” he wondered.

  “I’d prefer if you gave me something else. I want to see if the contract forces you to do the other bits or not.”

  He nodded and handed me the pillow next to him. As soon as I took it, I saw a wisp of magic rise from the contract. Dad’s eyes went blank. His body relaxed. He stood up and rifled through his wallet. I took the twenty dollars and the pen he held out for me. When they were in my possession, another puff of magic came from the contract, releasing Dad from his stupor.

  “The hell?!” he exclaimed.

  “Well, now I know it works,” I said with an awkward chuckle. “What happened to you?”

  “I felt like I was in a daze. Just had to give you the money and the pen, no matter what. Horrible feeling to not be in control like that!”

  “Sorry, Dad,” I apologized. “I’d say that was all I needed to test, but I’ve got one more to do. This one will be similar, but I won’t tell you the details.”

  “I don’t really think that’s a good idea,” he said.

  “Please, Dad? I’ve gotta figure out the limits to this before I add it to the system.”

  “Ugh. Fine. Give it to me.”

  I handed him another piece of paper, along with the pen and the money he’d given me before. I watched as he signed the paper. Experience was sucked up by the contract—more than the last one had taken. I wasn’t sure why, exactly. Maybe the clauses of the contract made a difference. Or maybe it was because it was done blindly—the simple act of knowing the details might make the contract cheaper rather than something making it more expensive. I could only speculate.

  When the contract was signed, I put my hand out.

  “The pen, please,” I said.

  As soon as he gave it to me, the same puff of magic came from the contract. His whole body relaxed, and he stood up. Like a puppet, he walked into the kitchen. He returned a few minutes later with a sandwich. When he placed it on the table, the spell broke and he stared at me.

  “Thanks, Dad!” I laughed.

  “That wasn’t funny,” he smiled. “I hope that was the last one.”

  “Yeah, that’s enough. I was getting a little peckish. Might as well have lunch.”

  Dad rolled his eyes before returning to his chair in the living room.

  I enjoyed my overpriced sandwich with a smile on my face. I was glad I had tested farther. That these system contracts could be abused so easily was a problem. Now that I knew about it, I could fix the issue. Well, future me could. I wasn’t planning on picking up the feature permanently anytime soon.

  The system contract idea for the current life was a good one. I would need it to force the people I hired to keep my secrets. I felt dirty using the word force, but that was an apt description of what I was doing. Though not nice or friendly, it was absolutely necessary to avoid issues with people like Grandma Rose.

  The first person I wanted to hire was a lawyer. I knew I wouldn’t get their full time, but I needed someone on my side to draft the documents I’d use for the system contracts. I would have to reveal more to them, but as long as I had an effective contract with them to buy their silence, they’d have my back. Or so I hoped.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  A query to the local bar association yielded results. There were a handful of firms that could do what I wanted. I researched each of them and submitted emails asking for rates from the ones that I liked, along with a rough explanation of what I was interested in. After receiving answers from all but one, I made my decision and made an appointment for the following week.

  Mom took me. I needed her there to act as my agent to sign anything I couldn’t. I wasn’t super happy at having to do that every time, but it was what I needed to do. There were few things more dangerous to play with than the law!

  The office for this firm was nicer than the one I’d been to for founding the company. It was simple, but gave a feeling of strength and dependability. The glass doors at the front said Michaelson and Franks. I pushed them open and entered the building with Mom. After letting the receptionist know we were there, we sat on a couch and waited. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait long.

  A man around Mom’s age came to greet us. He was dressed in a dark blue suit. He shook her hand and then mine.

  “Al Michaelson,” he said. “It’s good to meet you both. If you’ll follow me?”

  I followed the man into a conference room. What was it with all these people having conference rooms, anyway? I picked a chair and sat in it. Mom sat next to me. The attorney sat across from us.

  “From your emails, it sounded like you need someone for contracts and general legal work, right?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “I can do that for you,” he continued. “I have several documents that you’ll need to sign. This firm needs a contract in place before any work can begin. Before you sign anything, please read it over and ask any questions—or ask to change anything that isn’t quite right. This is a negotiation, not a mandate.”

  He pushed several documents across the table to Mom and me. Mom opened hers and began to read. Before I opened my copy, I took a folded paper from my pocket and slid it across the table to him.

  “Before I sign anything, there’s something I’ll need from you,” I said. “I know about the whole attorney-client privilege thing. However, there are some things I won’t be able to say without the added protection of a contract.”

  Al looked at the paper. Then at me. And back to the paper. He raised an eyebrow as he read. It was something I’d thrown together with the knowledge I’d gained from pranking Dad.

  “I don’t think this would be enforcible,” he said. “Preventing me from talking? How would that even work? Fifteen years? At least it’s got an end date. For a contract to be valid, it needs to have consideration. What that means is, each party—or person—needs to give something as part of the contract.”

  I thought for a moment.

  “I will hire you, no questions asked, if you sign this,” I said. “I need a good lawyer—and all the reviews I’ve seen have indicated that you are. But equally as important, I need someone who won’t spill my secrets to anyone without my say. There are things I can’t talk about over the phone or via email. I can only do that in person, and I need to be able to trust the people I am working with. That’s why I gave you the contract. We can make some changes, but the basics need to be what they are. If that makes sense.”

  “It doesn’t, really,” he said. “I mean, attorney-client privilege means I can’t disclose anything we talk about with anyone else—”

  “Unless there’s something illegal, right?”

  “Right. This isn’t anything illegal, is it?”

  “Not at all. Mom’s here to sign everything on my behalf. Well, everything except this one, that is.”

  Al wrote several lines into the contract and passed it back to me. I read it over and saw that he’d added the consideration portion but otherwise had left the other parts alone. If I wasn’t wrong, he thought what I’d written was nonsense, and he was humoring me. That was fine in my book. I signed my half and passed it back to him. He did the same.

  Unlike with Dad, this contract took a lot of experience. I wasn’t sure of the exact numbers before, but I’d spent almost ten thousand! Before I thought anymore, I opened the packet and began to sign my portion. I had said I would hire him with no questions asked. I would much rather sign it myself than have the contract force me to.

  “Just like that?” he asked while I signed.

  “Yup.”

  When I was finished, I passed my copy back to him.

  “Why’d you do that?” Mom asked. “Shouldn’t you review the contract first?”

  “I can explain—now that the both contracts are signed by me,” I said. “The first one I gave you, Al, was a system contract. Now, I don’t expect you to know what that is. That’s ok. That’s the big secret, basically. Mom knows, of course. Please try telling that to Mom—but I don’t give you permission to tell her.”

  Al nodded and opened his mouth. The wisps of magic came out of the contract and his eyes glazed over. His mouth shut, and he stared into space for a couple of seconds before he came to again.

  “You can talk about it with me and Mom,” I said. “I give you permission.”

  “That was weird,” he said. “So that’s enforcible… somehow?”

  “The system enforces it,” I said. “So this system…”

  I explained the system I was building and the general plan for what I had aimed to accomplish. I also explained why fifteen years and what that actually meant.

  “I can understand why you’d want another layer of security,” he said. “You didn’t need to, but I understand. You don’t get a good reputation as a lawyer without knowing how to keep your mouth shut. That said, thank you for hiring me. What’s next?”

  “For now? I’m looking for someone to handle my taxes. This year will be crazy—I did a lot of securities trading. Made a fortune doing it. Knowing the future really helps with that!”

  I laughed.

  “This person needs to be trustworthy. They can’t ask too many questions—I don’t really want the world knowing what I’m doing, you know? If you know anyone like that, I’m all ears. Then, after I hire the tax person and maybe an assistant, I’m going to purchase land using the company. There’ll be plenty of work to do with the hiring contracts and the real estate stuff. And in the future, I’m sure there will be other things.”

  “Alright,” he said with a nod. “That sounds good to me. If that is all, it was a pleasure meeting the both of you.”

  He stood up and shook both of our hands before ushering us out. I followed Mom back to the car.

  “What made you get the system contract?” she asked. “From what I can see, those seem really dangerous.”

  “Security,” I answered. “I can see how exploitable they are, and that’s on my list of things to fix when I get the full version. This is just the baseline. There are features I can add to it—but only with the full version—that would make it fair. This is not fair, but it’s the best option I have to protect myself.”

  “Did anything happen last time to make you want to do this?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’d rather be safe than sorry. Last time, I had fifty thousand dollars to last me fifteen years. Even with working some, I didn’t really have the resources to do anything. This time, I have millions and I need to be reasonably sure no one’s going to hurt me, you, or Dad because of it. Saving the world depends on not fucking up.”

  Mom shook her head but said nothing more.