“Got to respawn,” Zack said as he walked back to his seat and began the process of getting his pod to respawn at the nearest station. “I thought we changed that bylaw.”

Phil drew a deep, long-suffering breath as he popped open his briefcase and retrieved a tablet and stylus. “You wanted to. I refused.”

“Oh, right. Why did we do that again?”

“Do you care? Are you even going to pay attention to the explanation?”

Zack shrugged, not taking his eyes off the screen. Phil huffed, and in the reflection from his monitors, Zack caught the old man’s eyes narrowing. He almost felt a little guilty. Almost—until Phil thrust the electronic tablet at him.

“Sign.”

“Why can’t we do this remotely?” Zack muttered. He grabbed the tablet and tossed it onto a nearby couch. A precariously perched, half-filled coffee mug nearly tipped over.

Phil caught the mug and looked around vainly for a safe place to discard it. He settled for a relatively clear place on the floor. “We. Tried.” Phil drew a deep breath as he struggled to stay calm. “Someone sent us to spam.”

“Oh, right.”

Zack vaguely remembered that. The trust had sent some bothersome email in the midst of a fleet battle for Veobos IV, and Zack had nearly been ganked because of it. Somehow, they’d used an override to ping his OptiGlasses, forcing him to deal with it to stop the notifications. That was when they got added to the spam folder.

They just didn’t know when to quit.

“So you’ll go away once I sign this?”

“Review what you sign first!” Phil said.

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Zack turned on autopilot as his ship launched from the station, then he took the stylus. He held it toward the tablet Phil offered, then pulled back his hand. “What about the foundation?”

“Zack, that’s the least of—”

“Did the board cut the budget? Is that why you’re telling me to review this?”

“Zack—”

Zack pulled the tablet from Phil’s grip and scrolled through until he found the paragraph outlining the budget for his charitable foundation. Sure enough, his bilge-sucking board had proposed a fifteen percent cut to the funding. Zack gritted his teeth.

“Double it.”

“Zack, is that—”

“Double the foundation budget, or I don’t sign.”

Phil sighed. “The proposed budget is more than enough to support the current hospitals and doctors. The board—”

“Then find another hospital to support and put another doctor on the committee.”

“You know I appreciate your dedication to the charity your parents started. They would appreciate it as well, but you should also take an interest in the business they founded. They wouldn’t want you left destitute.”

Zack laughed. “Destitute? I’m about as far from destitute as you can get.”

He gestured to the luxurious apartment. Phil looked around, once again grimacing as he took in the mess. His face said that Zack was a lot closer to destitute than he realized.

Zack’s ship blared a warning, and he turned his attention to the screen. Blast. An Armada patrol was moving in fast. They must have been hanging out just outside the station’s sensor range to catch respawns.

“Look, make the change so I can sign.”

“Zack—”

“It will annoy the board and help sick kids. I call that a win.”

“You really should review—”

“Just make it work.”

Zack turned off autopilot and executed a quick succession of offensive maneuvers, putting his newest laser cannon through its paces while Phil edited the document on his tablet. Zack no longer had time to pay attention to Phil. Three against one was no laughing matter, even if the ships were a class below his.

Anyway, Zack wanted to get a little more practice with the weapon before he decided on his final setup for the tournament round that afternoon. Using something so new in competition was risky, but it also would keep his opponents on their toes.

Phil punctuated his tapping on the tablet with long-suffering sighs that Zack ignored. He had ten years of practice learning to ignore Phil. The trustee was always complaining about something or other, but in the end, he managed to give Zack what he wanted with minimum effort on Zack’s part. It was why Zack kept him around in spite of Phil’s occasional meddling.

Zack had destroyed the entire patrol by the time Phil shoved the tablet at him again. That laser canon had been worth every coin. He took his eyes off the screen long enough to glance at Phil’s face and confirm that the trustee had done as Zack had asked. Phil look grim and resolved. That was about right.

“One more thing. Somebody on my gaming forum just lost his job. Send him something to help ends meet, all right?” Zack used his eyes to make a few swipes on his OptiGlasses and send the user’s contact information to Phil.

The trustee sighed but didn’t protest. “Anonymous as usual?”

Zack shrugged. “Say he won a raffle or something.”

“You know, it isn’t easy to—”

“Hey, it’s what I pay you for.”

“About that. You really should review the rest of this document before signing.”

“Nah, I’m good.” Zack pulled the tablet and stylus from Phil’s hands and began to sign the marked sections.

His speakers blared again as Armada drones spawned and blasted him with laser fire. Zack swore and dropped the tablet to maneuver away. His ship had taken minimal damage, but he couldn’t let something like that slide. Getting caught by patrol drones was a noob move. Their programming was so basic that any decent player paying attention could defeat them without any effort. Getting hit at all was insulting.

Zack set the autopilot to begin a counter maneuver and resumed his signing with renewed energy. Why was the document so long? He was sure there weren’t normally this many boxes to sign. His speakers chimed, letting Zack know that the drones had caused more damage.

Zack’s signature turned into a squiggled line as he blazed through the rest of the forms until he reached the end. The tablet sent a prompt to his OptiGlasses requesting biometric confirmation, and Zack looked straight ahead while the app scanned his retinas to make sure it was really him. It was a security measure Phil had insisted on implementing last year after Zack had tried to avoid the hassle of paperwork by hiring a body double to go to the office and sign for him.

That had been fun while it lasted.