The Dunphy household was, as usual, a theater of the absurd. I walked in with Manny trailing behind me, carrying a vintage leather briefcase that I suspect contained nothing but a single fountain pen and a backup croissant.
"Mason! Manny!" Phil greeted us at the door, wearing a pair of "gravity boots" that made him look like he was preparing for a moon landing. "Welcome to the Dunphy Dojo. I was just practicing my 'Upside-Down Thinking.' It increases blood flow to the creative cortex. Did you know the inventor of the Slinky came up with the idea while hanging from a jungle gym? Or I might have dreamed that. The blood is rushing to my head."
"We're here for the study session, Phil," I said, catching him as he wobbled.
"Right! Brain-gains! Haley is in the dining room, looking like she's about to face a firing squad. Alex is in her room, probably splitting atoms. And Claire... Claire is 'organizing'."
[INTERVIEW - CLAIRE]Claire is standing in the kitchen, aggressively labeling a spice jar that is already clearly labeled 'Oregano'.Claire: "Something is wrong. I can feel it. It's a mother's sixth sense, like how birds know when a storm is coming or how I know when Phil has hidden a new gadget in the garage. Haley is actually sitting at a table with a book, and Alex keeps looking at her phone and smiling. Alex doesn't smile at phones; she scowls at them for not being powerful enough. And now Mason is here. He's the calm at the center of the hurricane, but I'm starting to think he's the one who built the hurricane."
I found Haley slumped over a practice SAT booklet. She looked up as I sat down, her usual mask of boredom slipping for a moment.
"I'm never going to get this, Mason," she groaned. "The math section looks like a different language. Why do I need to know the volume of a sphere? If I have a sphere, I'm going to wear it as a necklace or kick it, not calculate its feelings."
"Don't look at it as math, Haley," I said, sliding the book toward me. I leaned in, and I noticed her breath hitch slightly. The Peak Athlete Physique didn't just make me strong; it gave me a presence that was hard to ignore. "Look at it as a puzzle. You're good at reading people, right? Treat the variables like people at a party. 'X' is the guy who showed up uninvited, and 'Y' is the host trying to get him to leave."
Haley chuckled, a genuine sound that didn't have her usual edge of sarcasm. "Okay. So 'X' is wearing cargo shorts?"
"Exactly," I smiled. For the next hour, we worked in a rhythm that was surprisingly easy. There was a connection forming—a mutual understanding that we were both playing roles in this family. She was the "pretty one," and I was the "perfect one," but in the quiet of the dining room, those labels felt thin.
[INTERVIEW - HALEY]Haley is twirling a lock of hair around her finger, looking uncharacteristically thoughtful.Haley: "He's... different. Most guys his age just talk about themselves or try to show off. But Mason actually listens. And he smells like cedar and... I don't know, victory? It's distracting. I almost forgot I was supposed to be hating the SATs. Also, he said my fashion blog was a 'visionary digital asset.' Nobody's ever called my shoes an asset before."
Meanwhile, Manny had wandered into the kitchen to "consult" with Claire on her spice organization, leaving me a clear path to slip upstairs to Alex's room.
I knocked twice—the code. She opened the door immediately, her face flushed with excitement.
"We did it," she whispered, pulling me inside and locking the door. She pointed at the screen. "Veridat's legal team blinked. They didn't just agree to the equity; they offered an accelerated vesting schedule if we can provide 'consultation' on their server migration next month."
"The milestone," I said, looking at the digital contract.
"Our first official stake in a major tech firm," Alex said, her voice trembling slightly. "Mason, according to my projections, if Google buys them out at the price you predicted... we aren't just looking at college tuition. We'm looking at a retirement fund before I can legally vote."
[INTERVIEW - MASON]Mason is standing by the window, watching the sunset.Mason: "The first milestone is always the hardest. It's the transition from 'speculation' to 'ownership.' Alex is the engine, and I'm the GPS. We just took our first step toward true independence. But the more we win, the harder it is to hide the scoreboard."
As I walked back downstairs, I found Claire standing at the bottom of the steps, her arms crossed, her eyes narrowed like a hawk's.
"You're very busy today, Mason," Claire said, her voice deceptively sweet. "Helping Haley with her math, 'checking in' on Alex... you're like a little guardian angel."
"Just trying to be helpful, Claire," I said, my voice steady.
"Is that what it is?" she asked, stepping closer. "Because I just saw Alex hide her laptop when I walked by, and Haley hasn't checked her reflection in a mirror for forty-five minutes. That's a medical miracle in this house. What's going on, Mason? Are you running a cult? Should I be worried about purple robes and a compound?"
"I think they're just growing up, Claire," I said, offering a disarming smile. "Sometimes people just need the right motivation."
Claire didn't smile back. She watched me walk over to Manny, her "Full Claire" instincts vibrating at a frequency that could shatter glass. She didn't have proof, but she knew the script of her life had changed, and she didn't like being the only one who hadn't read the new pages.
"Come on, Manny," I said. "Jay's waiting for that report on the 'Andean' wine."
As we left, I glanced back at the house. Haley was watching from the window, and Alex was back at her screen. The Syndicate was secure, the connection was made, and Claire Dunphy was officially on the warpath.
The game was getting interesting.
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