Chapter Nineteen: Keeping Spirits High

  Walking through the devastated landscape of the rift was simultaneously horrifying and kind of amazing.

  Despite living in Florida, aka Natural Disaster Central, I’d never seen the aftermath of a major disaster up close and personal. Our rare earthquakes were trivial; our wildfires—hundreds of them every year—usually stayed in the wild; and our even more frequent tornadoes were generally weaker than those in the midwest. Hurricanes did the most damage, but by the time they reached Ocala, they’d mostly slowed way down. Sure, we’d lose a few trees in the forest and a roof or two might take some damage, but we didn’t get slammed the way coastal communities did.

  Nothing got flattened. Nothing got wiped out. Nothing looked like this.

  It wasn’t just a few fallen trees. The entire swamp had become piles of ground-level branches and debris on dry, cracked earth. Less swamp, more clear-cutting logging debacle. The rift had been surreal anyway, with its purple and blue shades, its puffy leaves topping gray tree trunks, but now it was like strolling through a B-movie set. Some terrible sci-fi flick from the 1950s, maybe.

  I stopped admiring my destruction when I realized I had no idea where we were going.

  I also stopped walking. Zelda, of course, paused with me. Bear, also of course, kept going. Riley slowed to investigate a smell, and JJ walked past before pausing and looking over his shoulder.

  “Whatcha waiting for?” he asked.

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Uh…” He scanned the surroundings, then chuckled. “The exit, I guess? Pretty sure if my mama was in here, we’d see her.”

  “There should be two breaches. One that would lead to the land of the purple methheads, and the other one that goes back to your starting point. But I don’t know how we’re gonna tell which is which. And we should probably find the rift core first. It’s got the reward for harvesting the rift.”

  It might also have useful information for me, the kind of details I could put in a rift rating report. Little did I think that the end of the world would mean paperwork, but I wasn’t going to pass up the chance for easy experience points.

  “What does it look like?” JJ asked the obvious.

  “I’ve only seen two of them. One looked like your stereotypical, ostentatiously magical, clearly Super Special glowing crystal, and the other was more like a shiny paperweight. A hidden, floating, shiny paperweight. I’m guessing this one ought to be more like that one.”

  “Um…” JJ turned in a full circle, taking his time about it, then spread his hands. “Needle, haystack?”

  “Be nice if we had a magnet, I guess.” I glanced down at Zelda. Did a rift core have a smell? Maybe the dogs could find it.

  “Does it matter if we skip it? I’ve been trying not to freak out, ‘cause there wasn’t much I could do while stuck in that goop, but I’m awful worried about how my mama’s holding up. She’s never played a video game in her life. This—” He waved a hand at the surroundings. “She doesn’t even watch movies like this. She likes those Hallmark specials, Christmas in a small town kinda thing.”

  I hesitated, a little uncertain. I wasn’t much of a game player myself, but the best reward I’d gotten from the rift in my backyard had been the collar clips for the dogs that boosted their Toughness attribute. We’d gotten them after our first complete harvest. Every reward after that had just been credits, and not a lot of them. Enough to buy two health potions, no more.

  Was that coincidence or design? I didn’t want to skip out on what might be the best reward we’d get from this rift.

  That said, I was seriously over-leveled for a Tier One rift. It contained monsters up to Level 10 and I was already at Level 17, with my next level available any time I wanted it. Would the loot from this one crystal really mean much?

  “We should at least make the attempt,” I said slowly. Was it rude to use [Analyze] on a fellow human being? Would JJ know if I tried? Would it be more polite to pretend that I couldn’t?

  And was I really worried about my manners during the apocalypse?

  I tapped [Analyze] and JJ’s tool tip popped into being above his head, just as if he were a swamp creature. [Human Bard - Level 3].

  “Bard?” I blurted out. “You’re a freaking Bard?”

  Good job on minding my manners, right?

  JJ chuckled. “Uh, yeah.”

  “How did you wind up with that as a class?” I asked. Not that I wanted to be a Bard myself, but the classes I remembered from the scenario were Warrior, Ranger, Mage, Cleric, and Rogue. Was a Bard a type of Rogue? Jack hadn’t mentioned it as an option.

  JJ shrugged, looking sheepish. “Indecision, I guess. And a whole lotta musical theater. I punched that guy who shot me, right in the face, and the thing in my head started sayin’ I could be a Brawler, a Fighter, or a Warrior. Which, just, nah. No thanks, you know?” He made a small, helpless gesture. “I carry spiders outta the house. I stop for turtles in the road. First punch I’ve thrown in twenty damn years. Maybe more.”

  “So I run in here, I fall in that pit, I get stuck. Try to get out, yell for help. Try again, yell some more. The whole time I’ve got this thing in my head.” He twirled a finger near his eyes. “But I still don’t wanna be a fighter. So I start singing. Lotta hopeful songs in the theater.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Singing? You were singing show tunes?”

  He opened his mouth and belted out the chorus from Annie’s Tomorrow — you know the one, about the sun coming out later — and my jaw dropped before I laughed. His voice was amazing. Deep, resonant, and perfectly on tune.

  “I got a thing for it,” he said when the chorus was over. His eyes got that glazed look people had when they were looking at their interface, and he read, “Congratulations! You’re not rearranging the deck chairs — you're keeping spirits high. Well, your spirits anyway. Award: The Show Must Go On achievement. Reward: +1 Presence, +1 Resilience, new class option available.”

  “And the new class was Bard?”

  “Yep. I hope it doesn’t come back to bite me, but it felt a lot more real. Plus it’s an uncommon class, so I get more of a boost with those stat numbers.”

  I nodded. “I held off on my class choice, too, and had sorta the same thing happen.”

  “Oh, yeah? What did you get?”

  “It’s a defensive class, I think? Thorn’s Edge Guardian.”

  “Huh, not sure that’s in any D&D rulebook I’ve ever seen. Is that how you got the—” He waved at the scenery. “—Destroy the World skill?”

  I bit my lip. “Yeah, it’s not actually meant to do that. It just got a little overcharged, I guess. It’s really called [Wild Sanctuary]. It creates a safe space. I usually have to do more work for it, though.”

  “I’m not complaining,” he said. “I got 150 points for ducking at the right moment. Took me right through the rest of Level 2 and into 3.”

  My eyes widened. “You got XP for surviving my sanctuary?”

  If the System had given him XP for making it through the blast, that meant he might not have.

  “Is that what that was? Not surviving, though, ducking,” he replied. “That’s what it said.”

  He read from his interface again. “‘Congratulations! You ducked at just the right moment. Award: 150 XP.’ Not bad, huh? I’m cool with points for moving. Better than having to kill shit, any day of the week.”

  I swallowed, throat feeling tight. I could have killed him. I could have woken up to discover he’d been crushed by falling trees or impaled on passing bougainvillea or maybe decapitated by [Wild Sanctuary]’s explosive growth.

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  I took a deep breath to stop my imagination from spiraling darker and darker, and exhaled slowly. “I’m glad you ducked, then.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” His smile widened, warmed. “And if I hadn’t, ‘least it woulda been fast. Before you showed, I was wondering if drinking that goo would kill me or just make me real, real unhappy.”

  I grimaced. The rift didn’t smell quite as revolting as it had before I’d drained all the mana and recycled it into [Wild Sanctuary], but the funk was still nasty. “You’d have to be seriously desperate to drink that.”

  He licked his lips. “Thirsty people make stupid choices.”

  “Oh!” I held out my hand and thought, water bottle, and my magical pink water bottle popped into existence from the quick-access slot of the companion pouch where I’d stored it. I held it out to him. “Would you like a drink? I’ve only got water, but it’s great water.”

  JJ looked momentarily startled, and then reached for it warily. “Where did you — how did you — well, hell, yeah. I don’t even care where it came from. I’ve been thirsty since—”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, tipping his head back and drinking, swallowing again and again. Finally lowering the bottle, he stared at it. “That’s really just water? Best water I’ve ever tasted. Although I was awful thirsty.”

  I smiled, reminded of Jack’s reaction when he tasted the water for the first time. I really needed to figure out how to find Jack and Emma. We hadn’t exchanged contact info. Not that we could have: I hadn’t had my phone on me in the scenario, and none of our loot had included pen or paper.

  If we’d been thinking about it, we might have gone old school and tried memorizing one another’s phone numbers, but given how much of our time together had been spent fighting for our lives… well, it hadn’t been high on the priority list.

  Of course, for all I knew, their numbers might be useless. They might be dead by now, killed by mana-crazed beasts the moment they exited the scenario or lost to the chaos in the time since.

  Emma had been hiking. If she’d been returned to the same place, she was in a real forest, filled with real monsters, and no second chances.

  Jack had been at school, fighting slimes. Had he made it home despite the panic or was he trapped there with a bunch of students playing with their brand-new powers? It’s not like American schools were particularly safe environments at the best of times. Both the bullies and the potential mass shooters now had deadly weapons at their fingertips.

  “You okay?” JJ was holding the water bottle out to me.

  I shook my head, apologizing wordlessly for my distraction, and took the bottle, disappearing it back into Zelda’s treat bag. Yeah, Emma and Jack might be dead, but I had no real reason to think so. It was just my depression downswing, automatically fixating on worst-case scenarios.

  Jack should be okay. He’d be tougher than the rest of them. And Emma had taken that Survivor class. She had maps, danger sense, a shield, speed, and plenty of levels. She might have been the worst of us at killing goblins, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t survive the mana-crazed beasts long enough to get to safety.

  “Just worrying about friends.”

  “Understandable.” JJ glanced toward the horizon. “Sooner we get outta here, sooner you can find ‘em.”

  “Yeah, but…” I tapped the pouch. “My water bottle and my bag are the rewards I got for finishing the challenge scenario. The rift core has loot. And what I started to say before was, you’re only level 3. If you’d run into the monsters in here before hitting the mud, you would have been in serious trouble. We took out a swamp creature that was level 6. If you’d found it first…”

  I let the words trail off. I didn’t need to spell out how that probably would have ended. He could manage the basic math on his own.

  “That water bottle belonged to a monster?”

  I laughed. “Strange new world, right? I don’t think goblins do yoga, if that’s any comfort. Sometimes the monster loot is related to the monsters — I’ve gotten tons of bug exoskeleton that’s called a crafting material. But the good stuff is created by mana somehow, and what you get is related, at least a little, to what you need.”

  I gestured toward the dogs. “They’re wearing clips on their collars that boost their Toughness stat from our first rift.”

  “So you think I might get something good?”

  I shrugged, making a face. All the math was never gonna be my favorite thing. But I was pretty sure if he’d gotten credit for harvesting the rift, he’d be Level 4 or 5. A thousand points went a long way during the early levels.

  “No idea. But the first harvest had the best loot on the rift I started with. None of the others really compared. I mean, money. I guess it counts. But the credits don’t go far. That System store is expensive.”

  “System store?”

  “Um, yeah. Most people probably get access through the enclaves,” I replied.

  “The enclaves? Is there one near us? Are you in one? Do you know how to—”

  “Sorry, no, no, and no.” I put a hand up to stop the stream of questions.

  His face fell. “Yeah, probably for the best. I don’t know how I could…” He trailed off, looking away.

  I waited. “How you could what?” I finally asked.

  His answer was roundabout. “They’ve been on the news. Mostly in big cities. Folks uploading videos from inside and out. Safe places, they’re saying. Only safe from the monsters, though.”

  He grimaced. “The Secret Service tried to take over the one in DC. They shot the guy who said he was in charge when he wouldn’t let the president in.” He snapped his fingers. “Whole thing poofed away, like it was made of dust. Just gone. Nothing left but a bunch of people with guns doing a hell of a lot of yelling. Then all that noise attracted monsters, of course. Big bug things, like praying mantises on steroids.”

  I shivered. That must not have happened yet during my own television binge, but I couldn’t say I was surprised.

  JJ shook his head. “There’s a Groucho Marx line I kept thinking about. The one about not wanting to belong to any club that’d have me. If you’re on the inside and the monsters are on the outside, but there are kids and old folks and desperate families on the outside, too… I don’t know. Might be hard to tell who the monsters really are, you know?”

  He thumped a closed fist against his chest, a little like a pledge, a little like his heart hurt, and added, voice dry, “And all that said, if you knew where there was an enclave where my mama and my sister and her kids would be safe, yeah, I’d be trying to get them there.”

  He managed a small smile when he looked back at me and said, “Probably just as well you don’t, right?”

  I tried for a smile of my own. I was 100% not going to tell JJ that I could have had an enclave. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. It would be my secret.

  And then I opened my mouth and said, “I could have had an enclave, but I thought they sounded like a nightmare.”

  He blinked. “You coulda—what?!”

  I covered my face with my hands and mumbled, “I know. It was… but… yeah.”

  Uncovering my face, I added with a sigh. “It was the reward for completing — well, winning— that challenge scenario I told you about.”

  “The tutorial thing?”

  I tried to remember exactly what I’d said to him about it. Had I called it a tutorial? That wasn’t exactly right, but it was close enough. “Yeah, more or less.”

  He stared at me.

  I shrugged, feeling defensive and annoyed with myself. Why exactly had I told him? Gesturing at our surroundings, I said. “I wound up with a rift instead, which is why you’re getting rescued from this place, so, you know, it’s not all bad.”

  He grinned. “I won’t complain then. But you chose this, over safety? It’s an interesting decision.”

  “I chose this over having to decide who else gets to be safe,” I muttered, scowling, turning my gaze away from him and letting it fall on Riley. He was sniffing a nearby pile of debris. While I watched, he declared it his territory in the way of boy dogs everywhere.

  Maybe it had been a stupid decision. Maybe the dogs would have been better off if I’d chosen an enclave. But I would have had to live with myself.

  JJ chuckled. “It’s the classic trolley problem, right? You’re supposed to pull the lever. Or not. Instead, you jumped in front of the trolley.” He stepped closer and gave me a gentle bump, fist to my upper arm. “Thanks for throwin’ yourself in front of a trolley for me.”

  I opened my mouth, sarcastic deflection at the ready, heat rising in my cheeks. The only thing that could have killed me in this rift was, well, me. Okay, I almost had, but still, if this rift was a trolley, it was made of marshmallow.

  Before I could say something stupid, though, Bear barked, interrupting the moment. I turned toward the sound.

  She barked again, and I frowned. I could almost hear the words in it. It wasn’t the “I’m gonna kill it” bark or her “I found something cool” bark. She sounded almost satisfied, with no sense of urgency in her tone. But she was definitely asking us to come join her.

  JJ didn’t hesitate. He immediately started scrambling over the piles of dead trees in Bear’s direction. I paused for a second, blinking after him, then looked down at Zelda.

  Zelda stood, stretched leisurely in a perfect up dog pose, then trotted after JJ. I rolled my eyes and followed, with a quick whistle to Riley who was still nosing the debris pile he’d marked.

  “Hey,” I called after JJ. “She’s not in trouble. She’s just telling us she’s found something.”

  He slowed and looked back at me. “You sure? That’s a pretty steady bark.”

  “One hundred percent,” I told him as I caught up. “You know dogs?”

  “Had a few.” He looked sheepish. “But I’ve got cats now.”

  I flung a hand to my throat in melodramatic dismay. “Cats? Cats?” And then I dropped it, and admitted, “One just moved into my house. I’m not quite sure what to do with him. Or why he invited himself to stay.”

  For the next couple of minutes, JJ and I hiked through the devastated purple and blue landscape while chatting about our respective pets. It was surreal. It was bizarre.

  But it felt normal.

  And it was nice.

  When we finally arrived at Bear’s location, both Zelda and Riley had beaten us there. All three dogs were clumped together, tails wagging like metronomes.

  I responded with the automatic suspicion of any dog mom who sees her pack crowded around something hidden from view.

  “Leave it,” I snapped, jumping off the last tree trunk. “Zelda, Riley, Bear — leave it!”

  It was gonna be a dead thing, I just knew it, and if any of them rolled in it, they were not going to like the consequences. Hell, how was I going to give the dogs baths if there was no running water? That cleaning spray I’d picked up earlier was a better reward than I’d realized. But if this was anything like that swamp creature…

  “Oh.” I stopped moving.

  Bear had found the rift core.