The elevator to the CEO's floor opened. Floor 364. It exited into a small lobby with blindingly gold walls and furniture. A theme very unlike Danae but befitting of him none-the-less.

Higgins remained in the elevator. “Gotta get back to work now! Have fun!” he said as the doors closed behind her.

There were a few doors along the walls but most noticeably the room opened into a hallway straight across from the elevator. Zade could vaguely make out double doors at the end. There were also couches stationed back to back along the middle of the room. Sat on one was a young woman, her eyes were closed and there appeared to be small plastic buds in her ears. Zade decided to leave her be.

Down the corridor were equally blinding gold statues of Danae's true form. Flaunting it off for all to see, whether they knew him as him or Dante. Between each was also a framed painting, Zade recognized each as different areas they had visited in their journey across Forever Valley, down to the detail. Danae must have painted these all himself for them to be so accurate.

The Earth Tribe. The Seaside Village. The Choice mountain range. The Warlock encampment. Everything.

Approaching the door Zade noticed a desk indented into the left wall of the corridor. A nice spacious area albeit no windows, cut off from the main corridor by a thin piece of wood.

Pop.

Behind the desk sat a young man wearing a pastel pink polo shirt that clashed with his obnoxiously orange-tinted skin. She realized she was staring, and he was staring back.

“I have never seen a human with quite your skin tone before,” she said, trying to divert her gaze, not that he could tell. “Do many of you come like that now?”

The man was chewing something. He pursed his lips and from between them a blue bubble inflated until it grew to the size of his head and then popped, flopping down as he just chewed it back into his mouth. The air now smelled strongly of fruit and mind. An unsettling combination.

“Tanning accident,” he replied.

“My apologies,” said Zade, without exactly understanding what he meant.

“Can I help you sir?”

“I'm not a sir.”

Pop.

“Ma'am.”

She didn't exactly know what to make of this situation.

“I was sent up here to see Danae?”

Pop.

“Who?”

Oh right.

“Dante?”

“Qualifications please,” he said, tapping away at the machine in front of him.

“Pardon?”

Pop.

He stared at her with exhausted eyes.

“Qualifications please.”

“What do you need qualifications for? What type of qualifications? Does one need qualifications now to-”

The doors to her right suddenly opened and Danae stepped through.

“Rio, I'll deal with this one, good work though,” he said, ushering her into the room.

Pop.

She quickly entered.

Danae closed the doors behind her. “Sorry about that, Rio is one of our interns, training the youth of tomorrow and all that.”

Inside was just as grandiose as the hallway, though with less statues and more self-portraits. The one behind his pulpit-shaped desk stood out most. A picture of a large metal door, stood in front of which Danae himself. To each side of the picture were tall windows overlooking the courtyard.

He sat down and gestured for Zade to do the same.

She didn't.

Behind the desks raised edge she could see some neatly-stacked papers.

“Well?” Danae asked.

“Well what?”

“Well what do you think of the place?”

Zade thought about it for a whole half-second.

“Compensatory,” she said under her breath.

“Pardon?” Danae raised an eyebrow. She'd have to get used to him having flesh and all that. Normally all his facial expressions were implied via magical energy.

“I said you have made quite a name for yourself have you not?”

“Oh, yes I suppose so,” he replied. Effortlessly writing something down on the pieces of paper as he talked. “So what would you say is your biggest fault?”

“What?”

“Not listening, got it,” he kept writing. “Do you have a criminal record in Eterna City or any other continent?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Okay, possibly, I'll have to look into it.”

“I would be surprised right now if it was anyone but you,” she sighed.

“Noted,” he stopped writing and locked eyes with her. “And what is your favourite colour?”

Zade said nothing.

“No seriously tell me, I need it for the records. Equal treatment and all that.”

“Danae you know that it is purple and yellow...”

“Light blue, gotcha.”

This was exasperating.

He held a piece of paper and a pen towards her.

“Sign this. Usual stuff, normal contract, regular founder words, just write down a fake name that you'll have to use to humans from now on.”

Zade wrote down her name and handed it back.

Danae went to stand up but hesitated.

“I said a fake name, you just wrote down Zade.”

“Well that is my name.”

“Fine fine.”

“Do you really want me to be a co-founder of your company?”

He looked very confused.

“Co-founder? What? Oh, oh gods no, you're my secretary.”

“Wait what?”

Without another word he stood up and pressed his finger against the painting behind him, directly on his nose. A whirring sound came from behind it as the painting slowly moved up just barely reaching the ceiling before uncovering what was beneath. A metal door, with a wheel on the front, identical to the one on the painting. He turned the wheel counter-clockwise six times, then clockwise six times, and then counter-clockwise another six times and the door swung outwards.

Inside was a white metal room, lit only by the offices lighting and a single piece of technology atop a small desk. Sat behind which was a person.

“Hi,” they said, not looking away from their screen. Their fingers danced around the bottom half of the L-shaped machine with astonishing speed.

“Hello?” Zade replied.

They stopped tapping and their head turned slightly towards her. They quickly swept the fringe of their blonde bob-cut hair behind their ear revealing their face, eyes shut. They resumed tapping away. The room was also filled with stacks of gold paper.

“Krish, this is Zade, my new secretary, Zade this is Krish, my vaultkeeper,” said Danae.

Zade bowed. “A pleasure.”

“I know.” Krish spoke with hard syllables in a flowing, almost melodic accent. “Stay out of my room, only come near if you're doing it for work, and Danae-”

He hummed an acknowledgement.

“I'm not your anything. I'm the vaultkeeper of Chaos Corp.”

Zade smirked.

“Wait,” she said. “Why are they in a small metal room behind your painting?”

Krish raised an eyebrow. “You got my pronouns right without me telling you?” they whispered, completely ignoring the actual question.

Now Danae smirked.

“Well of course,” said Zade. “After my experience with the Peace Village I started analyzing the subconscious of everyone I met in order to determine their pronouns without mistake.”

Krish seemed impressed, taking the paper Zade had signed from Danae. “On second thought, feel free to drop round for a chat some time.” They smiled.

Danae's eyes went wide.

The safe door closed again, all by itself, apparently their meeting was finished.

“You...” Danae stuttered. “You befriended Krish?”

“Yes? Is that a problem?”

“No far from it. You're just the first to ever succeed.”

“You failed to answer my question,” she reminded.

He walked to the window without answering.

Zade followed and noticed there was no room behind this one, nowhere the vault could possible be. And then she understood.

“Each of the paintings on this floor is actually a window to a pocked universe. Well except that one. That one leads to another room on this floor with no other entrance. Safe keeping and all.”

“I see. What exactly does a vaultkeeper do?”

“Keep the vault.”

She sighed yet again.

“They handle all of Chaos Corps finances, investments, and money laundering.”

“Money what?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “We have one more order of business.”

“Being?”

Danae stepped over to his desk in one big stride and pushed down a button on a wooden box. “Rio, send her in please.”

“Yes sir,” Rio said, his voice coming from within the box and also faintly from just outside the door.