God's Most Perfect Capstone Project

The Old Apartment, Night

Emily tapped the tip of her chopsticks against the table.

"The Valdieri family has deep mafia roots. There are plenty of stories online about their early business: harbor smuggling, casinos, private armed escorts... but no one has ever produced complete proof."

She lowered her voice, eyes bright as if telling an urban legend.

"Have you seen The Godfather? The Corleone family spent the whole movie chasing legitimacy. The Valdieri family actually pulled it off."

Rain's jaw dropped.

"So all of her businesses now - they were laundered out of a crime family?"

Emily nodded, typed a few keys, pulled up a chart, and turned the laptop toward Rain.

"It took the Valdieri three generations to gradually convert the capital they had accumulated in the old days into real estate, healthcare, law firms, media, and urban redevelopment. These days they can influence local policy through entirely legal channels."

As she spoke she pointed at the table of figures. Rain leaned in and saw the industries the Valdieri family had touched since coming to America, laid out clearly.

The more Rain read, the more her heart sank. The family's business covered nearly every corner of modern society. And where Emily's finger rested was the newest generation's territory - technology. By any estimate its value already dwarfed the peak of every industry that came before.

"With all that capital from the early days behind them, by Celestina's generation they had gotten their hands on the most terrifying part - technology. Valdieri Dynamics builds androids, Aureate Mesh lays down immersive networks, Morrow Civic AI runs city systems..."

Emily was talking faster and faster.

"The traffic lights you pass every day, the smart screening when you send out a resume, the games you play and the city services you use - there's a good chance you can't get around their investment or their tech."

Emily stopped, took in Rain's haunted expression, raised an eyebrow, and allowed herself a trace of pride, as if she were partly basking in the glory.

"So now you get why I said they're not just rich, right? 'Valdieri' has long since become part of modern life."

Rain turned to look at Emily, her voice unsteady.

"So you're saying Celestina's family can do almost anything in this city? Isn't that a bit much?"

Emily turned the laptop back around and looked at Rain seriously.

"I never said that. But think about it - an old black-family dynasty that can build AI, security systems, data analytics, and social immersive networks. If they really wanted to do something, would it be hard?"

Rain looked back at the screen. The Valdieri portfolio also included one of the most popular social apps of the moment.

She narrowed her eyes, suddenly remembering that night at the restaurant - Celestina glancing at her phone before asking that pointed question.

Rain swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable.

Seeing her face fall, Emily threw both hands up at once.

"I'm not saying she's definitely monitoring you."

Rain: "..."

"Okay, that came out even creepier." She realized it herself and hurriedly scooted over with the laptop, pressing up against Rain's side. "I just wanted to give you a crash course on this legendary mafia family. Now - want to look at some gossip?"

"What gossip? I thought nothing about their family could be found?"

Rain shifted sideways to make room, asking in confusion.

Emily's eyes lit up. She opened a browser and typed in a very long URL.

"The family can't be searched. But she can! You don't follow this stuff - a few years ago she was a regular in the headlines and the gossip columns."

That was enough to hook Rain's curiosity. She watched Emily slip into a website she had never seen before, then flick through several forums and image-search pages with practiced speed.

In among them Rain recognized hidden scandals about A-list celebrities and personal blogs of famous tech moguls. She understood: this was a database where the tech world and the high-society gossip world bled into each other.

"Master, what do you actually do for a living?"

Watching Emily glow redder and scroll faster, Rain couldn't help asking.

"Human-computer interaction and responsible AI."

Emily didn't even turn her head, eyes glued to the screen, fingers flying across the trackpad.

Rain gently pushed her friend's slipping glasses back up her nose.

"In short: you study computers."

"Information retrieval is also computer science."

Emily caught on that Rain was teasing her, laughed, and curled her mouth into a proud little arc.

"Besides, an elite-level programmer doing you a three-hundred-sixty-degree, no-blind-spots gossip search - you should be thanking your lucky stars."

Rain shrugged, turned, fished a tub of ice cream out of the fridge, and set it beside Emily.

"Here you go, Miss Elite Programmer. Please accept my reverent tribute of ice cream."

Emily dutifully opened her mouth and pointed at herself.

Rain gave her a helpless sideways look and peeled the lid off the tub. She had just scooped one spoonful when Emily suddenly got excited.

"Found it! Look at this!"

Rain rushed over, spoon in hand. Emily opened a photo album. The first picture made her freeze.

It was Celestina from a few years ago. A foreign beauty with blond hair and blue eyes stood on the red carpet of some charity gala in a long silver-white gown; under the crystal chandeliers the white of it poured like liquid silver. Clustered around her were politicians and tech giants Rain knew only from the news.

The Celestina in the photo was young, yet there was nothing green about her.

She was beautiful the way a blade is beautiful - a gemstone knife with a finished edge.

Rain stared at the screen as an indescribable strangeness, wrapped around an even deeper curiosity, rose in her chest.

The Celestina in the lens was not the gently courteous Celia she knew. In her eyes lay a careless arrogance, as if she had been born to be admired and watched by everyone.

Emily glanced at Rain, snatched the ice cream spoon from her hand, and flipped to the next picture before Rain could collect herself.

This one looked like a sneak shot, taken on the terrace of some private club.

Celestina lolled against a sofa, collar loosened, one hand resting naturally on the backrest. Beside her sat a strikingly beautiful young Omega who was practically pressed to her shoulder, looking up at her.

Celestina wasn't looking at that person at all. She was bent slightly toward someone on her other side, listening to him speak, a hint of a smile that was not quite a smile at the corner of her mouth.

For some reason this picture made Rain's heart skip. She stared at the Celestina on the screen, fingertips tightening around the tub. Emily bit the spoon and kept flipping.

Yachts in Monaco. Private races in London. A lavish private wedding in Florence. A closed-door dinner after a tech summit in Tokyo...

She had been practically everywhere in the world.

And in every picture, Celestina stood naturally at the center of the frame. Whatever company she kept, every gaze ended up on her.

The more Rain looked, the more stunned she was. The thin ice glazing the tub melted and ran between her pressed fingers; she let go with a start and got up to grab a towel.

"How is she... like this?"

Emily gave Rain a you-finally-get-it look.

"Heir to the Valdieri family. Top-tier Alpha. Absurdly beautiful. Terrifying academic record. Superhuman athleticism. A private life in constant motion and never one real scandal. She is literally God's most perfect capstone project."

Seeing Rain come back with the towel, Emily took the abandoned tub and opened another album.

A set of graduation photos.

On screen, Celestina stood in MIT robes with a group of classmates, diploma in hand. The caption read: Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence.

Emily swiped back a few more. A master's program in human-computer interaction and computing systems at Stanford. An Oxford record of further study in tech ethics, political economy, and governance.

Rain's eyes went slowly wider.

"She has more than one degree?"

Emily dug out a ferocious spoonful of ice cream and answered around it, slightly unintelligibly: "She went to MIT as a teenager, then Stanford. I hate to admit it, but she is so damn smart it's genuinely annoying."

Emily opened a video.

"This is the one I most wanted to show you. After the last batch of pages got scrubbed, this is the only clip that survived."

Rain sat up straight at that and fixed her eyes on the screen.

The footage shook badly - clearly filmed by someone hidden in a packed crowd. Under dim lighting, black barriers fenced off a small ring, surrounded by suppressed cheering and blurry figures.

Celestina stood at the center of the floor. She wore a plain sports tank top and shorts, blond hair tied up high, the lines of her shoulders, arms, and waist drawn taut under the lights.

Her opponent was a big, powerfully built male Alpha. The opening whistle sounded, and the Alpha moved first.

The camera lurched. Rain only saw Celestina tilt her head aside to dodge the incoming punch, pivot on one foot - as if she had calculated the distance long before - and slide in at the exact moment his weight tipped forward, dumping him flat on the ground with clean, economical force.

A chorus of suppressed gasps burst from the ringside.

Celestina didn't press the attack. She stood where she was, watching the Alpha push himself up off the floor, and said something with a smile that set off a roar of laughter from the crowd.

Watching the Celestina on the screen, Rain felt a chill creep up her spine for no reason she could name.

When the Celestina in the frame taunted the Alpha, the smile blooming on that beautiful face was wild, even faintly delighted in its violence. Her eyes glinted frighteningly bright, like someone who had finally met something that could excite her.

Sweat slid from her jaw to her collarbone; the light gleamed on her bare shoulders. In that moment she was a beast wearing human skin.

The male Alpha in the video had clearly taken the bait - provoked by whatever she had said, he charged forward before he had even found his footing.

At that instant the camera jolted violently, and the footage cut off dead before the next exchange.

"That... was her?"

Rain stared at the black screen, unable to come back to herself for a long while.

"Mm-hm." Emily turned to look at her. "An underground invitational. The more brutal parts got deleted, of course. But the internet remembers."

Rain turned her head, stiff.

"She competes in things like that?"

Emily smirked around the ice cream spoon. "The Valdieri family supposedly runs some kind of deranged heir-training regimen. Who knows if it's true. Either way, her body isn't ordinary high-grade Alpha - it's monster grade."

The image of Celestina's reckless smile floated up again before Rain's eyes, and she murmured:

"She's... that strong?"

"Of course!" Emily said at once. "Actually, I've been getting ready to apply to Valdieri Dynamics. If we're all working for capitalists anyway, might as well aim high - be the very best workhorse for the very best capitalist."

With that she pressed her palms together toward the laptop screen and closed her eyes devoutly.

"May Her Majesty the Queen grant me an offer. I'd happily write test scripts if that's what it takes."

Rain couldn't help laughing at her. She clicked the video open again - she couldn't help it. The Celestina on screen was simply too alien.

The Celestina she knew spoke so gently, helped take care of her cat, cared about her life, apologized to her with an almost patient sincerity.

But the one Rain had met on the screen today was like a different person entirely.

Someone truly born at the center of power, raised from childhood among flowers, desire, violence, and obedience.

The "dangerous lunatic" Andis had described.

The little vigilance that had slackened in Rain's chest got plucked lightly back to life. She stared at another set of photos and couldn't help asking: "She seems to have a lot of... friends?"

Emily leaned over, opened another album in the sidebar, and gave Rain a meaningful look.

"Friends. Lovers. Bed partners. Candidates for political marriage. Business partners. Hard to say."

Rain's face went hot, but she couldn't drag her eyes off the screen.

Emily opened a blurry thumbnail, worked a few seconds, and enlarged it.

In the photo Celestina stepped out of a black sports car in a couture gown. A glamorous red-haired woman followed at her side, a vaguely blurred man behind.

Celestina wasn't holding anyone's hand. She only tilted her head slightly, smiling, and both of them were looking at her.

It was hard to describe that kind of gaze. Like worship. Like addiction.

Emily clucked.

"Women like her never run short of playmates. Men, women, Alphas, Omegas, Betas - every kind you can imagine. You can't outplay her."

"Who said anything about playing with her?"

Rain shot back almost before Emily finished. Were these photographers professional shippers or what? she grumbled inwardly. A few old scandal photos, and every single one was framed to look ambiguous beyond reason.

"She judges herself pretty accurately," Rain said quietly. "She really can't be called naturally kind."

Emily whipped her head toward her.

"She said that herself?"

Startled by the reaction, Rain blinked.

"Mm."

"Wow."

"What do you mean, wow?"

Rain raised an eyebrow at the sighing Emily.

"Classy." Emily stroked her chin, eyes carrying pity laced with teasing.

"I'm not saying she's definitely scheming against you."

Rain pressed her lips together and gave Emily a smile that was more grimace than anything.

Emily was silent for two seconds.

"Fine. I'm also not saying she isn't."

Rain: "..."

Rain's eyes drifted back to the screen, and as if noticing something, she tapped the media headline at the top of the photo curiously.

"'The Grand Princess'?"

Emily jumped right in. "That's an old media nickname for her." She switched into an IT forum and dug up a screenshot of an old press conference video.

Celestina stood on the stage of a launch event, a giant demo screen for an immersive network rising behind her.

She wore a sharply tailored white suit, blond hair loose over her shoulders, expression cool.

The screenshot's headline read:

Valdieri Heiress Announces Orfeo-Aureate Integration: "The Next Social World Will Not Be Flat."

Emily suddenly got worked up.

"This is the one. A launch event three years ago - she merged Orfeo, Aureate, and Valdieri Dynamics into a single platform. Every hottest holographic game and immersive social app today runs on its underlying architecture."

Emily rapped the screen.

"The tech media said back then that she wasn't making a game. She was building the entrance to the future."

Rain stared at the Celestina on the stage.

She stood there with a vast screen of light and a model of a virtual city behind her, as if standing on the summit of a great peak.

"After that launch, a Silicon Valley column started calling her Princess of the Machine Court," Emily went on. "The princess of the machine court. Praising her as the heir between the old world's power and the new world's technology."

Rain said nothing for a while.

Outside the apartment window a car passed; she could hear the horn clearly. The apartment was small - compared with that Manhattan mansion she had visited, it was practically cramped. On the kitchen counter, next to the pots she had just washed, sat the morning's unwashed cups. A secondhand desk huddled anxiously against the window, as if it wished someone would saw an inch off its overlong body; the reference books piled on it clearly objected.

In a messy, crowded little apartment like this, the laptop screen showed a photo of a favored daughter of heaven standing at the center of the world.

The naked gulf between the two was enough to make Rain feel unmoored.

She stared blankly at the screen and said, very low:

"Then why on earth would she want to be friends with me..."