chapter 4. my system task

I woke up determined to be terrible at parenting and excellent at villainy.

The sandwich plate was still on the floor. I stared at it like it had personally betrayed me. A fourteen-year-old I was supposed to be breaking had fed me tuna in the middle of the night, and I had eaten every bite like a grateful stray. The system was never going to let me live this down.

[Good morning, Host.]

[Corruption value remains 17 %.]

[Yesterday’s performance has been logged as “emotionally compromised.” Would you like a list of corrective actions?]

“No,” I told the ceiling.

[List generating anyway.]

I threw a pillow at the glowing panel. It passed straight through and hit the wardrobe with a sad little flop. Even the furniture was judging me.

Downstairs, Damian was already in the kitchen, fully dressed for school, hair still damp. He looked up when I entered and did that small, careful pause he always did, as if checking whether I was in a slapping mood.

I decided to start strong.

“About last night,” I said, aiming for cold and authoritative. “The sandwich. Don’t do that again. Rules apply to both of us or they mean nothing.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“And stop saying okay. It’s suspicious.”

A tiny crease appeared between his eyebrows. “What should I say instead?”

“I don’t know. ‘Yes, stepmother.’ Or ‘I understand, Mrs. Kane.’ Something with distance.”

He considered this with the seriousness of someone being asked to choose a career path. “Yes, stepmother.”

The words sounded so wrong coming out of his mouth that I almost apologized. Instead I poured coffee like it had offended me.

“There’s money for lunch,” I said. “No fighting. If I get another call from the school I’m taking your books away for a week.”

He looked faintly alarmed for the first time. “All of them?”

“All of them.”

That landed harder than the slap. I filed the information away under Things That Actually Work and pretended I had planned it.

He left for school with one last glance over his shoulder, as if making sure I hadn’t vanished. The second the door closed I slumped against the counter.

“I am so bad at this,” I whispered.

[Agreed.]

[Suggestion: Try public humiliation. Source material indicates high efficiency.]

“I’m not humiliating a child in public.”

[Then private humiliation. Or hunger. Or cold showers. The source text is flexible.]

I turned the coffee machine on again just for the noise. “You know what the source text also has? A version of me who dies. Forgive me if I’m not in a rush to follow every stage direction.”

The system went quiet, which I chose to interpret as a sulk.

The morning passed in a blur of trying to look busy. I rearranged books in the study. I opened and closed the late CEO’s desk drawers. I practiced cold expressions in the mirror above the fireplace and only succeeded in looking like I had a mild stomachache. By noon I had almost convinced myself that today would be the day I finally committed to the role.

Then the house phone rang.

The housekeeper answered, listened, and went pale. She held the receiver out to me with the expression of someone delivering a live grenade.

“The school,” she whispered. “Again.”

I took the phone.

The principal’s voice was tightly polite. Damian had been in another altercation. This time he had not thrown the first punch, but he had thrown the last. A boy had repeated the word “jinx” one too many times in the hallway. Damian had responded by introducing the boy’s face to a locker door. Nothing broken, but the other parents were upset. Could someone please come collect him and discuss the matter of repeated behavioral issues?

I closed my eyes. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

The drive to the private school felt longer than it should have. The system kept offering commentary.

[Excellent opportunity for public discipline.]

[Consider raising your voice in the hallway.]

[Or confiscating personal items in front of peers.]

“I will turn this car around and drive into a lake,” I told it.

[Noted. Still inefficient.]

Damian was waiting on a bench outside the main office, bag at his feet, a fresh bruise darkening along his jaw. When he saw me he stood up immediately, shoulders straight, as if reporting for duty.

The principal launched into a careful speech about expectations and the Kane family reputation and how many more chances a boy could reasonably expect. I nodded at the right moments and made appropriate concerned noises while privately wondering how the original Phyna had managed to do this without wanting to sink through the floor.

When we finally walked out to the car, Damian opened the passenger door for me before getting in the back seat like a proper little gentleman. The contrast between the bruise on his face and the manners nearly broke me.

I drove in silence for five minutes before I couldn’t take it anymore.

“You were supposed to not fight,” I said.

“I know.”

“You promised.”

“I said I would try.”

“Trying usually involves fewer lockers.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then, very softly: “He said you killed my father on purpose so you could take the money. He said it loud enough for the whole corridor to hear.”

My hands tightened on the wheel. The system, for once, stayed silent.

I pulled into the mansion driveway and turned off the engine. Neither of us moved.

“Upstairs,” I said finally. “My study. Now.”

He followed without a word.

Once the door was closed I pointed at the chair in front of the desk. He sat. I paced behind the desk like a lawyer in a bad television drama, trying to gather the proper level of fury.

“This has to stop,” I said. “I mean it. I don’t care what they say about me. I don’t care if they call me a curse or a gold-digger or a walking bad omen. You do not get to turn yourself into a weapon every time someone opens their mouth. Do you understand?”

He looked up at me. The bruise on his jaw was going to be spectacular by tomorrow.

“You’re angry,” he observed.

“Yes.”

“But not at me.”

I stopped pacing. “What?”

“You’re angry at them. For saying it. You’re only pretending to be angry at me.”

The accuracy of the statement was so unfair that I briefly considered firing the system and requesting a different novel.

“That is not—” I began, then gave up. “Just… stay in your room for the rest of the day. No books. No dinner. And tomorrow you’re writing an apology letter to the boy with the locker injury, even if he deserved it.”

Damian stood up. He hesitated at the door.

“Are you going to eat dinner?” he asked.

“That is not your concern.”

“You skipped breakfast.”

“Damian.”

He nodded once, the picture of obedience, and left. I waited until his footsteps faded before I dropped into the desk chair and put my face in my hands.

[Corruption value: 19 %]

[Slight improvement. Host is encouraged to maintain momentum.]

“I hate you,” I told the panel.

[Mutual.]

That night I ordered the housekeeper to leave a tray outside Damian’s door and then take it away after twenty minutes untouched. It felt petty and stupid and exactly like something the original Phyna would have done. I sat in the study with a book I wasn’t reading and tried not to listen for movement upstairs.

Around nine the soft sound of footsteps stopped outside the study door. A pause. Then something small was slid underneath.

I waited until the footsteps retreated before I crossed the room.

It was a folded piece of notebook paper. Inside, in careful handwriting:

*I finished the apology letter early. It’s on my desk if you want to check it.

Also, there are still sandwiches in the fridge. The housekeeper hid them behind the juice.

— D*

I stared at the note for a long time.

Then I started laughing again, the same cracked, helpless sound from the night before. I laughed until my eyes watered and the system flashed concerned warnings about emotional spikes. I laughed until the ridiculousness of the entire situation sat on my chest like a second heart.

I was supposed to be breaking this boy.

Instead he was leaving me notes about hidden sandwiches and finishing his punishments early.

I folded the paper carefully and put it in the top drawer of the desk, next to a row of fountain pens that had never belonged to anyone real.

Tomorrow, I promised the empty room. Tomorrow I would be colder. Sharper. Better at the job I had been given.

But tonight I walked down to the kitchen, reached behind the juice bottles, and pulled out two sandwiches.

I ate both of them standing at the counter in the dark, and if the system had anything to say about it, it wisely kept the comments to itself.