THE MOMENT
"You're kidding...," the tall, spindly demon narrowed his eyes at Minerva. The tall, tan, brown-haired woman sat in front of his obsidian desk and shook her head. "...all of them?" he asked.
"Every last one," Minerva confirmed. The demon shook his head.
"I need to check with Melody; I can't just take your word for it."
"Melody is no longer your employer," Minerva replied. She held up a milky-white translucent node to show him. A red scissor logo marked the side that she showed him. "Chroma Corp. now owns what remained of Sharp Development, including the Afterlife division. You can consider this an order from Chroma herself," Minerva added. It was stretching the truth a bit; but, Ruby asked her to get it done before Chroma woke up if possible. And for the next few hours, until Chroma was awake, Ruby was the head of the company.
"Look, I don't care who's giving the orders. I'm worried about my workers here. What are they supposed to do? Do you know how many people use Sharp nodes? I'm not even sure I have the manpower to call all the contracts in at once." `Minerva tilted her head to a slight angle.
"I think we may have had a misunderstanding," she said.
"I hope so," the demon nodded. "You're asking me to finalize all the contracts we still have pending? Users that aren't exactly dead yet..." Minerva shook her head.
"I said it's time to end all contracts. Maybe 'release' would have been a better word. The Afterlife division is being dissolved; Chroma Corp. will not trade in souls."
"What?" the demon asked. "You want to just let all those souls go?" Minerva nodded.
"We'll be pushing User Agreement updates to all nodes to remove the soul contract. You are to release any souls held in Sharp Hell."
"What about my workers? What about me?" he asked. Minerva smiled at him; she was glad Ruby already made plans. It didn't happen as they expected, but Ruby had been planning this for a while.
"Chroma Corp. has made arrangements for you," Minerva said. "You and your workers are welcome to go back to Hell."