While Leo waited for Marcus to wrap up his affairs in Austin, he threw himself into two things: supervising the office renovation and building out the rest of the team.
The renovation itself was relatively straightforward.
The previous tenant’s layout was close enough to what Leo needed that only cosmetic work was required: fresh paint, cleaned air ducts, and sleek new lighting throughout the main open-concept work area.
He had hired a crew called Slate Interiors, the same contractors he had met with during his earlier on-site walkthrough.
He really liked their initial design proposal, so he spent most of his mornings on site, checking their daily progress and trying his best to resist the urge to micromanage electricians who clearly knew far more about wiring than he did.
Hiring, on the other hand, was turning out to be much harder.
Leo already knew from his previous searches that the talent pipeline in this world’s gaming industry was brutally top-heavy.
The best people were locked up, and the rest were mostly underwhelming.
That was until a fresh notification pinged on his recruitment dashboard.
One new applicant.
Seventeen years old.
No college degree.
Zero formal studio training.
Leo opened the attached portfolio expecting to see amateurish student art.
What he found instead made him pause.
He zoomed in and out on a complex character model three separate times just to verify it hadn’t been bought from a commercial asset library.
It wasn’t.
Every single 3D model, custom texture, and smooth animation frame had been built completely from scratch by a teenager named Ava Mercer.
She had dropped out of high school at fifteen for reasons her application left unsaid, spending the last two years teaching herself 3D character modeling, digital illustration, and UI design through YouTube tutorials, forum threads, and pure, obsessive repetition.
Her portfolio was extraordinary.
It wasn’t just impressive for a self-taught teenager.
It was genuinely, professionally top-tier, the kind of work that could hold its ground against ten-year industry veterans.
Every model possessed distinct silhouettes, expressive facial rigs, and clean, animation-ready topology.
Her color theory was completely instinctive.
One piece in particular made Leo smile.
It was a zombie character with six distinct facial expressions mapped directly to six different damage states, all of them instantly readable at a tiny thumbnail size.
It reminded him of the precise, hyper-efficient art adjustments the System’s optimization engine had performed on Plants vs.
Zombies.
Except Ava had accomplished it entirely by hand.
Leo flagged her for an in-person interview.
He then sat back and contemplated the uncomfortable reality of what hiring a seventeen-year-old actually entailed: labor law compliance, legal liability, and the genuine risk that a teenager might walk away after a single stressful week, taking months of studio training with her.
Still, talent like this didn’t knock on your door twice.
He decided he would figure out the legal logistics later.
Meanwhile, Leo’s new favorite pastime was going exceptionally well.
The crowdfunded bounty for the Search for The Nameless Rogue had just crossed “$70,000” and was trending across every major social platform.
Gaming forums, news agencies, and amateur internet sleuths were fiercely competing to unmask the most mysterious developer in the industry.
Nobody had come close.
Leo found the entire spectacle hilarious.
That evening, driven by a combination of boredom, petty amusement, and the specific brand of reckless confidence that comes from holding a secret identity no one can crack, he registered a fresh alt account across three major social media platforms.
He posted the exact same thing on all three: a high-resolution screenshot of his PlayForge developer dashboard showcasing all four of his published titles, captioned with five simple words.
I am The Nameless Rogue.
Then he added three more: Come find me.
The internet responded precisely the way the internet always responds to direct provocation: by losing its collective mind.
Within two short hours, the posts racked up millions of impressions.
Comment sections shattered into three distinct camps: people who believed the screenshot was real, people who assumed it was an attention-seeking troll, and people who didn’t care either way but simply wanted to scream into the void.
Dedicated gaming forums launched deep forensic breakdowns of the image, comparing the dashboard interface to existing PlayForge UI elements and debating pixel lighting like detectives analyzing a ransom note.
Leo’s notification inbox filled so fast his phone literally began lagging.
He had to clear his app cache twice just to keep his screen from freezing up.
The incoming messages ranged from furious threats (predictable) and demands for reimbursement over broken keyboards (expected), to lucrative contract offers (flattering).
There was even a surprisingly eloquent essay from a philosophy student arguing that The Nameless Rogue’s titles represented the first genuine artistic confrontation between designer and player in the modern digital era (Leo saved that one).
He switched back to his main account and watched the chaos unfold like a man enjoying a bonfire he’d started on purpose.
The best part came when a fan account for some pop singer — whose heavily promoted concert had been completely overshadowed by the trending Nameless Rogue posts — sent him a furious string of messages accusing him of “stealing their idol’s moment” and demanding he take the posts down immediately.
Leo considered his options for about half a second.
Then he replied with one word: “Hehe.” He screenshotted their increasingly unhinged response.
Posted it.
Added nothing except the same word again: “Hehe.” It was the pettiest possible move, executed with surgical precision, and it worked exactly as intended.
The fan community erupted.
Other communities piled on.
Within hours, “Hehe” had escaped its original context and become universal shorthand for dismissive mockery across every platform.
Fans used it against other fans.
Trolls used it against everyone.
Comment sections that had nothing to do with gaming were suddenly peppered with two syllables that now meant: I see you.
I don’t care.
And I’m enjoying your frustration.
The word’s original meaning — mild, friendly amusement — was dead.
Leo Sinclair had killed it and replaced it with something sharper.
He was unreasonably proud of this.
By the time the trend peaked, “Hehe” had generated more social media engagement than any of his actual game launches.
The gaming press ran think pieces about whether The Nameless Rogue was a genius marketer or a sociopath.
Leo read both takes and felt that the truth was probably somewhere in between.
He set his phone down, cracked his neck, and went back to the task that actually mattered: building a team.
The interview list was growing.
Most applicants were still underwhelming, but two names had risen to the top of Leo’s shortlist.
The first was Ava Mercer.
Seventeen years old.
No degree.
No formal training.
Dropped out of school at fifteen for reasons her application didn’t specify, and had spent the two years since teaching herself 3D character modeling, digital illustration, and UI design through online tutorials, forum posts, and sheer obsessive repetition.
Her portfolio was extraordinary.
Not “good for a self-taught teenager” extraordinary.
Genuinely, professionally, would-hold-up-against-studio-veterans extraordinary.
Every character model she’d built had distinct silhouettes, expressive faces, and animation-ready topology.
Her texture work was clean.
Her color theory was instinctive.
One piece in particular caught Leo’s eye: a zombie character with six different facial expressions mapped to six different damage states, each one readable at thumbnail size.
It reminded him of the kind of work the System’s optimization engine had done on Plants vs.
Zombies.
Except Ava had done it by hand.
Leo flagged her for an in-person interview.
Then he sat with the uncomfortable reality of what hiring a seventeen-year-old actually meant: liability questions, labor law compliance, the very real risk that a teenager might quit over a bad week and take months of training investment with her.
But talent like this didn’t walk through the door twice.
He’d figure out the logistics.
The second name on his shortlist was a different kind of problem entirely.
A programmer named Kyle Whitfield whose résumé was impressive but whose interview was going to be a challenge for reasons that had nothing to do with his skills.
That conversation was tomorrow.
Tonight, Leo had trolling to monitor and a renovation crew to pay.
He checked his phone one last time.
“Hehe” was still trending.
He smiled, turned off the screen, and went to bed.
A/N: Quick author check-in, because we are officially entering the next big phase of the story and I am so hyped!🔥 If you’ve enjoyed the ride so far, just wait until you see what’s coming next.
We’ve got fresh faces joining the cast, major shifts on the horizon, and Leo taking things into his own hands in ways you won’t expect!
Thank you all so much for reading and supporting this journey.
What are you most excited to see next?
Let me know!