Jessica hummed over the chart. "I honestly thought there would be more corruption than this."

Grace was busy organizing all this information, looking as weary as the rest of them. "John got lucky, the old man might have been going crazy and nearly died from uncontrolled rage… But he knew how to run a business. Or several, in this case."

Temptation was cackling to one side as she infiltrated another division's servers. "More like the old bastard just focused all his crazy towards his competition! I'm finding traces of his work through ALL these companies, and Wickles Industries doesn't even INTERACT with half of them! He was a bastard genius!"

True. "How close is John filling in his shoes, working with what memories were left in this Body?"

Grace checked some notes. "From what I can tell, his performance is a tad too hopeful and optimistic, not to mention his energy levels obviously spiked as we continue to repair his Body from preexisting damage… But the match isn't that far off honestly."

Jessica sent out another order form to John's work tablet, this one to have a small subdivision reviewed for violating policy and potentially stealing from their parent organization.

And John, despite not 'knowing' she existed, happily signed it and sent it on its way. "How is he doing that? The trusting us part, I mean. Or does this personality just trust anything that shows up on his work list?"

Grace chuckled. "No, he's had several orders altered or rejected over the last few days… Just nothing we are involved in."

Temptation held up a report. "He DID leave me a note to change some stuff I was going to have them put into effect, so he isn't just rubber stamping our suggestions either."

Really? "Let me see that." Hmm.

Heh. "He left little notes to you?"

The black beauty smirked. "Yes, but no? Like this one: 'To my darker half: We'd get more money if we WAIT to shaft these three for another week or so.' Or my favorite: 'No reason to be clever dear, just fire all the bastards!'"

Jessica blinked at that. "So wait, my brother DOES remember you? Even when acting like this?"

And that caused both women to shrug. ""Yes and no."" "He knows someone he DOESN'T know but trusts is making the suggestions." "He knows that we are very well informed and can directly access information we shouldn't be capable of reaching." "He considers our requests to be suggestions more than commands…" "...And he then immediately forgets he had anything to do with them until the next one comes in."

That sounded confusing. "Is this going to hurt him in some way?" Her brother was just a kid after all, no matter HOW old his Body currently was.

Grace shook her head. "Our Lord is almost supernaturally gifted when it comes to unconventional thinking processes. Branching opinions, recursive decisions, looping logic, hypothetical self-referential debates with impossible outcomes, they all come naturally to him."

Temptation nodded. "If anything, our Master seems to be treating all this as some sort of vacation slash relaxing bit of non-sexual roleplay. As he is 'powerless and old', he feels no pressure to just 'fix' everything and yet can trust us, people that he is completely assured are both trustworthy AND non-existant, to keep an eye on things that might be getting out of hand."

Jessica watched Grace show more data. "Plus this type of 'nudge nudge wink wink' security is really helpful when stress testing our defensive modules. As far as we can tell, nothing local has detected John's arrival or ongoing actions as being too 'out of context' to explain… Even if they ARE finding 'Jeremiah Wickles' to be one crazy dude."

Temptation grumbled. "Not that it matters. Somehow the Realm got prodded when John was inserting himself into this place and has been using our Master to nudge things towards what it considers to be the 'better directions'. My sis hasn't been able to detect HOW it's happening, but probability and chance have both been getting nudges to help John out since he got here."

Grace winced and looked grumpy. "Well, YOU try both hiding yourself from reality AND asking it for directions at the same time! We're lucky the stupid place didn't just punt John off into the middle of nowhere!"

Her sister laughed! "Punt master? Sis, this place LOVES our man! Have you even looked INTO the other options on that list John was going through when we got here?"

Jessica frowned. "Was there something wrong with it?"

Temptation just pulled it up, pointing at name after name. "Leader of a cult, the head of a secret assassination group, a mob boss, the council chairman for a hidden magical community, the CEO of a weapon manufacturing empire… ALL these 'Randomly selected options' were either wealthy or powerful or social gods, and only a percentage of them like Jeremiah Wickles were actually DYING at the time of selection."

She felt a chill down her spine. "So if he had chosen one of the others? The ones still alive?"

The room got a bit quiet as they stared at the video display of John Doe, aka Jeremiah Wickles, happily working wonders from his recovery bed.

Grace looked subdued. "I'll focus both on better concealing how John interacts with the next Realm and ensuring any future 'insert' options ONLY show those who have already passed on. Options like THAT shouldn't have shown up unless John was actively trying to Consume some target with heavy negative Karma and overwrite them."

Temptation sighed. "Yeah, while I love the idea of both taking out an asshole AND setting up our man to use their resources for a better cause, that sort of thing needs to be a well thought out and conscious decision, not just a luck based chance."

A beep marked her little (VERY OLD) brother having just completed another corporate memo… They needed to get back to work. "Well, getting all this mess under control to prevent unintentional or accidental incidents like this is the whole POINT of doing this Shakedown Transfer in the first place. Temptation? Please do more research into all those people on the list John picked from when we arrived, you've done great so far. Grace, keep up the good work."

She didn't glance at her sibling on screen. "Let's make sure to get as much information as we can NOW, and hopefully the NEXT test run of our security modules will allow us more interaction with my brother while we are 'hidden'. Sounds good?" "Yes Mistress." "Yes My Lady."

Right now it was time to focus. To make sure her brother could wrangle his mess of a company the way he clearly wanted to, and to prevent others from attempting to burn it all down in the process.

Sometimes literally, in more than a few cases. There were some REALLY angry people out there right now… Apparently 'Do not discriminate' was a controversial political opinion in this place. Which was horrifying.

~~~Pocket System~~~

More funding to some charities, another soup kitchen, send someone to investigate THAT homeless shelter because something felt off about it, set up more scholarships…

Sheesh this was a lot of work! "And more donations and more policy alterations and… I want to do something fun."

Charlotte was working on her own digital tablet but instantly focused when Jeremiah spoke. "Sir?"

He gestured at the pile. "All this stuff is good and helpful, and my tax rebates this year are going to be a doozie, but I've been feeling like all this is getting a bit repetitive. I want to spice stuff up."

What to do, what to… Hmm. "Let's get some poor people to fight!"

She tilted her head. "Sir?"

Yeah, this would be great! "I'm already messing with the rich assholes, let's get some poor people rumblin it up!"

Charlotte looked less than convinced. Not impressed either. "And the activity for 'rumblin it up' would be some sort of death match?"

Huh? "What? No! They'd just die or something, that isn't interesting at all. No, I'm thinking of a poor family cookoff!"

This would be great! "First we pick some sort of theme, like waffles or something. Then we go find some family owned restaurant that is heavily in debt or with massive medical bills or something, like eight families total right?"

He should send a team out to research some choices. "We pay off all their debt, both for their restaurant and their family members, then have them compete against the OTHER poor families for who can make the most delicious waffle or whatever! Maybe have a training camp in the middle, since not everyone has been formally taught how to work a modern kitchen."

Plus, not every failed kitchen is due to outside forces… They might NEED a good week of personal training to do well on the show. "All the competitors will get upgraded kitchens and stuff when it's over, but the WINNER will be crowned 'Underworld Chef' and get a big ole check or whatnot! It'll be great!"

Jeremiah grinned at the thought of being a judge. THEN he could pick steaks or ribs or whatever and get to eat all the meat he wanted without being judged for not sticking to this healthy crap! "It will directly support restaurants in likely poor neighborhoods, uplift a family that needs it, AND as an affiliated restaurant to Wickles Industries it will spread our policies out into the wild a bit!"

The TV show 'Iron Chef' was one of his favorites, although for some reason he wasn't actually sure if that program existed here? Somehow?

Whatever, this idea was gold! "Pretty sure this will spread the influence of our suppliers too, as we didn't really focus much effort into the lower income markets for our higher quality ingredients up till now. Just in case, we can source local supplies and buy out a farm or two, upgrade their setup and facility to better produce ingredients and whatnot after the show airs…"

It would be a bit of a targeted stimulus for the local economy too. Investment thoughts aside, just having some poor sob story family be able to show off some family recipes on television would likely produce a surge in customers and out of towners coming to visit…

Charlotte didn't roll her eyes, but he could feel her exasperation. "Shall I have our PR team workshop names for the project? I am unsure how popular the name 'world wide poor people food fight' would be received at this time."

Wha!? "How did you KNOW I was going to call it…"

She raised her eyebrow. "Sir has a tendency to follow certain habits, and your naming schemes have not always been well received. Such as the 'Fuck you Charlie Cornswater' scholarship fund that we had to rebrand."

Damn… Well, she wasn't wrong. "Still say Charlie was a fuckwad. People as old as us shouldn't be wasting time and money rigging funding to lower income neighborhoods to discriminate against people."

His second nodded, unmoved. "The scholarship itself was not the issue, sir. The name…"

What? "I already backed down from 'Charlie Cornswater is Fucking Braindead' and the others! I even avoided the insults you said were insensitive or inappropriate!"

In the end they'd been stuck with the 'Failed Under Charlie Cornswater Scholarship', which could at least be shortened down to 'F.U. Charlie Cornswater'. It was the best he could convince them to agree with, unfortunately.

Charlotte gave a soft smile. "As you say, sir." Then she was all business. "Shall I pass this to the media branch? We'll need a few days to arrange the new filming crew and shooting studios, assuming we have a list of potential contestants to work with."

Jeremiah Wickles carefully ignored his slowly growing inbox of documents to be reviewed. "I'll need for us to quickly find locations with failing restaurants, preferably ones family owned and with a good local reputation. If at all possible, I'd like to avoid supporting some nazi cult or demon worshiping circle or whatever, so make sure we do thorough background checks."

Because demons were real here, apparently. What a world. "Might as well start buying up any debt the potential cooking show contestants may have too while we are at it. We're likely to be better lenders anyway and it would keep any of them from going bankrupt before they even have a chance to compete on TV."

She was already sending out dozens of messages… Oh this was going to be so much fun! "After we get a producer to slap something together for us to approve, let me look over it. I got this whole plan about us finding some people with talent and a rough patch and setting up some sort of 'pay it forward' situation… Maybe the winner of the competition would get invited to some sort of grand championship competition at the end of each season? To earn the title of that year's Underworld Head Chef or something?"

Charlotte stopped his rambling by touching his shoulder. "Sir? I'll take care of things."

…Yeah, she probably would. "Let me know when it all starts coming together?"

"I will, Sir."

Good.

…Damn it, he was going to have to finish these other documents now, wasn't he?

Fine, whatever.

Let's spend more money on altruistic philanthropy, shall we?

If Jeremiah worked a little bit faster, maybe he could actually start spending enough pocket money to NOT gain a surplus in that account when the numbers stop bouncing and the interest rolls in.

Damn, sometimes being a tad wealthy could be stressful!