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When you were a young girl, you dreamed of working for Steele Arcanotech.

This was before Maxine Steele took over her father's company, of course. In the Bad Old Days of Terminus City, a city still reeling from the aftermath of the Resource Wars, decades of environmental catastrophe, and honest-to-goodness monsters rising up to attack the city from beneath the ocean.

Even then, Steele Arcanotech – Steele Tech as it used to be called before Maxine – was one of the better companies to work for in Terminus City. Sure, the company used to do nothing but churn out weapons to sell to war-torn hellholes in Europe and Africa, but it was also one of the few companies that'd pay you a living wage on time. It was one of the few companies that didn't explicitly, maliciously exploit its workers.

So, you remember poring over adverts for jobs at Steele Tech's corporate headquarters. You saved newspaper clippings, you saved job ads. You tried to network with what resources you had. You stared at yourself in the mirror, practicing your interviewing skills, going over each and every part of your resume.

Sheesh, in the Bad Old Days, you were really a nervous nelly! You shouldn't have been so nervous about a job interview of all things. It's not like it'd have mattered if you even got that job. Steele Tech didn't explicitly exploit their workers back then, but they sure as heck abused them! You just didn't know any better. You were comparing bad to worse!

How innocent you were. How naive.

How stupid. What even was the point of it all...

Well. Even still, standing in front of Steele Tower like this is something of a childhood dream come true. It's still the definite landmark attraction in Terminus City, newly refurbished by Maxine Steele. The entire area received a facelift after she moved her headquarters here, and it shows.

In the middle of industrial smog and neon decay, there sits an oasis at the center of Terminus City. A gleaming silver tower on an island in the middle of a lovingly curated, idyllic plaza. The very model of sustainable engineering in the 22nd century. Steele's plaza, housing Steele's tower. A hundred floors of shining metal built on top of twenty sublevels housing Steele's R facilities, nanofabrication factories…

You sniff at the air. The clean, relatively pure air. Hmm. Not bad. Even though you're smack-dab in the middle of the city, you're not picking up much smog at all! This actually reminds you… Of one of your first dates with Kaina! The garden you visited, when you gave your love a lap-pillow. Gosh, that's some pretty great engineering on Steele's part. You knew from watching her presentations that she was working on geoengineering and terraforming, and you've seen still images of Steele Tower before, but this is something else.

Wait, did Steele design the garden too?

Hmm~! She has excellent taste if she did. You entirely approve. 10/10. Would ask your love to design more gardens. Ooh, maybe you can get her to design a pleasure palace for the two of you to live in. A lovenest just for you, your loves, and your cute pets and toys where you can get up to all kinds of revelry...

Behind you, your maids happily chatter away. Just a small handful, not your entire entourage. Still enough cute girls for you to bask in their adorable rambling, letting their silly conversations wash over your ears...

"Ooh, I've always wanted to come here~! Isn't this great Helene?"

"It totally is, Sophia! Ooh, look, there's fish in the lake!

"Is it a lake? It looks a little too small…"

Ah, so cute. So peppy and energetic. It's almost a shame you have to curtail their adorable chatter.

"Girls, girls, that's enough," you say, brushing a bit of dust off of your skirt. Yes, you decided to wear a skirt today. And a blouse that doesn't show off too much of your cleavage. Indeed, you've chosen to wear something that's more appropriate for a Serious CEO who does Serious Things.

Nothing too special, just a nice white blouse matched with a charcoal-grey pencil skirt and leggings that hug your plump thighs. A plain pink necktie, a jacket, and your handbag finish up the outfit nicely. Can't forget the hat too~!

You're meeting the third of your loves, today, after all. As much as you'd honestly prefer to meet her wearing nothing at all… Well, you have appearances to keep. Your love invited you to her domicile for professional reasons, you can't imagine she'll appreciate it if you get too clingy and horny for her.

… Even if you want to just – pin her down and pick her genius brain for all of the ideas in the world while whispering sweet nothings into her ear, gosh, you're actually meeting Maxine Steele of all people today you used to fangirl so hard over her engineering lectures, especially when she did that one thing about bio-engineered organisms at Terminus U.

"It's time to get our serious faces on. Remember, we're supposed to be here for business and not fun, yes? As irritating as it is, we do have to act the part," you finish.

"Okay~!" Your maids chorus.

Right. Nominally professional to start things off, unless things progress to the point where getting unprofessional might be warranted. Goodness knows you observed more than a few meetings that went that way when you were still working as a corporate drone.

At least this time you're attending the meetings, and not stuck in a windowless cubicle scheduling those meetings.

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Much to your surprise, Maxine Steele herself greets you upon entering her building.

"Yo," Terminus City's luminary inventor raises her hand and waves in your general direction.

Which… Kind of floors you, because objectively speaking, the CEO of Steele Arcanotech, shouldn't be meeting you in-person like this. It's actually difficult to overstate just how influential Maxine Steele really is. Corporations have been poking around with practical applications of magic in everyday life since the Awakening, with little to no success.

Steele Arcanotech's one of the only companies that's seen consistent, applied success in this field since Maxine Steele took over and shifted the company's focus. Because she is, in fact, a Magical Girl. With the innate understanding and ability to apply magic. Extra-light, compact fusion reactors? Steele Arcanotech developed those using new magically-created meta-materials, and Maxine Steele makes a mint manufacturing those and selling the manufacturing rights off. Duracrete, living concrete that's capable of self-repair and more environmentally friendly than the same concrete humans have been using to build things since the dawn of antiquity? The formula was developed by Maxine Steele, and the only reason it's not more widely used is because nobody's really sure how it works. Because it's part magic.

Better, faster mind-machine interfaces, nano-molecular assemblers, quantum computing processors, and then there's all the stuff Steele Arcanotech apparently gets up to in space…!

Steele's company has a near-monopoly on magitech and technology derived from magical applications. This kinda matters. It's made her ridiculously rich, even after her stock prices crashed when she pulled out of the weapons business-

Yeah, you did a lot of research when you noticed Maxine Steele for the first time. When you truly fell in love with her. You… Might have over-studied, actually, she probably doesn't want to hear you yammer on about how much cool stuff she's designed…

… Wait, Steele's waiting for you to respond. She's – She's giving you an expectant look. Uh-oh. Were you wrapped up in your own head again? Oh, gosh, you're being so silly…

But you can't help it! It's Maxine Steele! Gosh, she's so smart and cool, and you remember staring at her swimsuit photoshoots when she was still modeling, you have such great memories of her abs and her breasts, and you just want to kind of motorboat her abs and nip a little at her dusky skin and-

"Hey, hey~!" You cheer, flashing your love a quick V-for-victory sign. "Alice Takanashi, CEO of Kintsugi Biotech. But, uh… You already know who I am, right?"

Come on. Keep it cool, Alice. Keep it cool. No pressure. You're only just meeting the third of your loves in an official capacity, without the distance a disguise would create. You're only just trying to get her to see you favorably. Maybe take you out to dinner one night, and take you to bed afterwards so you can rock her world and get her to see stars-

You shiver, resisting the urge to rub your thighs together. Yeah, no, you're trying to get on Maxine's good side here! What would she even think of you if you just… Jumped her, and started trying to molest her. She'd freak! And sure that'd still be kind of fun, but you don't want your love to look at you with eyes of… Of disgust! Just the idea of this cute girl frowning at you and telling you she doesn't like you…!

"Yep. Had SILEA scan you and your entourage when you walked into my lobby. Nice maids, by the way," Maxine says, eyeing your maids appraisingly. "Very cute. Cat-ears – those a genetic splice, cybernetic ears, biosculpted…? They look pretty freakin' natural so I want to say they're gene-mods, but chrome these days can look pretty realistic too..."

You perk up. Ooh, ooh! This is something you actually like talking about! Ah, you love being able to engage with your love on an intellectual level~! "Biosculpted. But!" You jab a finger into the air. "The modifications can be passed down to any kids they might have. So it's a little of column A, and a little of column B."

Maxine looks impressed. Which is good! "You've tested that?"

You blush. Er… "Well not yet, but…"

"Mistress Alice is in the process of testing that," you hear one of your cute maids interject.

"Yeah! She's working on this thing that'll let us have children with each other. So girls can have babies with other girls!"

"… Huh. And, just checking – The mods, the girls having babies with other girls thing – You roll all of that stuff out to all of your maids?" Maxine asks, continuing to eye your maids, scanning their bodies from head-to-toe. Something that's actually making you a little suspicious. Especially when you realize what she's focusing on. She's not checking your maids out. Well, she is a little, but her eyes quickly flick away from their cleavage.

No, your love's fixated on the physical changes you've made to your maids. Their cute, twitching ears. Their fuzzy kitty tails…

"Yes, I do. Well, not the same mods, my head maid's a wolf-girl, and I've been kind of wanting to do other splices for different animals, but something as basic as girls being able to have babies with other girls? Well, why shouldn't I spend some time trying to figure out how to make that happen if the cute girls who work for me ask for it..." You trail off, biting your lip. Ugh, is this too much? Gosh, it's so hard to tell. You've steeped yourself in lewdness, these days, so what's normal for you does actually tend to be too much for some other people. And this wouldn't normally matter if you were intent on raping some cutie into submission, but this is Maxine Steele you're talking about here!

Her brain's too sexy to break.

Maybe she'll be okay with just this? She used to be a wild party girl, after all. Some of the drunken benders she went on were legendary. She can't expect you to be a prude, right? It'd be ridiculous if she expected you to be a prude! You have a healthy sex drive, there's nothing wrong with that…!

"… Nice," Max shoots you a quick thumbs-up, then extends her hand. "Maxine Steele. CEO of Steele Arcanotech. Great to officially meet you."

Ah~!

Aaaaah! You're – You're actually getting to shake your idol's hand! Well she's not just your idol, she's your darling love you've spent a lot of time obsessing over, holy crap you've read all of her research papers and you attended a lot of her talks and you seriously hope she doesn't somehow remember you from that one time she caught Libromancer molesting you in her tower…

"N – Nice to meet you too, Ms. Maxine!" Your smile's sunny. Brilliant, warm. Not at all strained, as you eagerly grab Max's hand and pump it up and down in an enthusiastic handshake. Ah, her hand's so small, warm and cute…

"You can just call me Max. All my friends call me Max. C'mon, we can talk shop in my lab. Just, er… Is it alright if you leave the minions down here?" Your love asks, staring directly into your eyes expectantly.

She called you her friend!

Aaah-

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