Chương 108: Chapter 105: Mosquitoes

I'd never had to tell someone their brother was dead before. The closest I'd come was calling people after my dad died to let them know. I didn't enjoy it, but no one was surprised. We'd had plenty of warning and his closest friends had already said goodbye. This was different. And I had no idea what I was supposed to do now. Comfort her? So not me. Reminisce with her? About a Murder Hobo? Hard pass. Distract her? It's not like we could talk about the weather here in the enclave.

I should probably offer to take her home. But she might hear that as me suggesting she ought to go home, which I didn't want to even hint at. Luke might be okay, but those other brothers were bad news. And the mother who'd only notice her absence if there was work to do didn't deserve her free labor. Instead we sat in silence. Zelda nudged my leg. Girl need kisses? I rubbed her ears.

"Maybe. Pen, do you want Zelda to use her Emotional Support for the Win ability on you? It gives you a Resilience boost, which is pretty nice when you're feeling overwhelmed."

"What?" Megan burst out.

"The dog does what?"

"Kisses?" Pen said, smiling.

"Is that what she said? I wasn't sure I understood." I patted Zelda's side, letting her know she was up.

"Both girls, go for it, Z." Tail wagging furiously, Zelda hopped up, padded over to Megan, and sat down next to her. She looked at her, head adorably cocked to one side, and waited.

"What does she want me to do?" Megan asked, not quite drawing away. Both of her hands were occupied with Riley, who was lying along her legs on her other side.

"Bare skin, so hand or face, whichever you like," I replied. Megan held a hand out to Z, palm up. Zelda sniffed, then gave it a long lick before standing, stretching, and turning to Pen and the General. Megan closed her fingers around her damp palm.

"Oh, wow. Your dog gets people high. Is that even legal?" Pen chuckled. She took a hand off the General and held it out to Zelda. Zelda stretched again, then dabbed at her nose with a paw. No scratching, Cat. No chasing, no scratching. Yes? The General narrowed his eyes. Agreed. He turned away from the sight of his person holding her hand out to a dog. Zelda sauntered closer and gave Pen's hand a lick before returning to me.

"Oh." Pen sighed.

"Yes, I see. I do feel better."

"So how come you need the high?" Megan asked.

"Just general principles? I'm not arguing with that. I'm sure you've got more going on than…" She shot a glance at Pen and let the words trail off. Telling people about their dead relatives, I silently filled in the blank for her. Yeah, good time to change the subject.

"I've been searching for my best friend. I nearly found her this morning, but she was already gone."

"The one in California?" Pen asked.

"I found out she was in Texas. In an enclave, but the enclave fell last night."

"The enclave—" Megan swiveled to stare straight up at the blank blue sky overhead. Not that it was really sky. The blue, slightly brighter than it should be, was the enclave's dome.

"Not literally," I told them.

"It just disappears. All the people inside get booted to the outside and any of the stuff that's made from mana—" I waved at the trees "—disappears, too. No one gets hurt." Megan nodded.

"Right, I remember now. The Secret Service tried to take over one in DC for the President. It went poof." She gave a wry chuckle.

"Sort of satisfying, to be honest. It felt like most people had no chance of getting into one anyway."

"Yeah. Welcome to the 1%." My tone was equally wry. I'd already been one of the planet's lucky few, a winner in the genetic lottery. Not so much because my genes were great (read: aforementioned heritability of bipolar disorder), but my dad had been a successful architect. He didn't die broke. Now, though, I was clearly the big winner in the "rich get richer" game.

"Is that how many there are?" Megan focused on the data.

"Enough for 1% of the population?"

"No, I don't think so. Chelsea?" Chelsea, full-size, popped into existence next to me, and promptly sat down on the ground next to us.

"Distribution of enclaves in the initial stage of an integration corresponds to the planetary mana saturation. Earth started at 4. 28% mana saturation, so the initial maximum was 42, 800 enclaves, each capped at 1, 000 people. Total potential capacity: 42. 8 million. But enclaves began failing almost immediately, of course." Did I want to ask how many were left? Maybe not. Megan looked puzzled.

"Are you talking to someone?"

"Her imaginary friend," Pen responded for me.

"She makes the most interesting fancy drinks. With whipped cream and caramel. Mosquitoes, they're called." Chelsea slapped a hand over her face.

"Mosquitoes!" Her voice was muffled. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Macchiatos," I corrected Pen, suppressing my smile.

"Your imaginary friend makes coffee drinks?" Megan wasn't sure whether to take us seriously or not.

"She's not imaginary, exactly. She's more like the System's version of a virtual assistant. Everyone who got the First Defender title gets access to one." I looked at Chelsea.

"That is right, isn't it? That title is the trigger for a pixie?"

"Yep," Chelsea agreed.

"As long as the recipient also chose to go through the scenario. Or, of course, didn't read their messages and therefore got stuck in a scenario, like it or not."

"Was that a hint that I should read more of my messages?" I asked.

"You're up to 9, 420 of them," Chelsea said.

"Any from Jules?"

"No. I would have told you that right away."

"Is Jules the friend?" Megan asked. I nodded. And then, because they seemed interested, I told them the story of my morning's search for Jules and Toby. Somewhere along the way, Chelsea faded away.

"An e-bike," Megan mused.

"If you know the approximate time she left, the direction she was headed, and how fast the e-bike could go, it should be possible to calculate a search radius for her."

"It's a needle in a haystack," I said, sounding as gloomy as I felt.

"Not really. If she were somewhere with a higher population density and a lot more roads, sure, she'd be a needle. But in Texas? If she's heading west, she's going to want to pick up I-10 and stick to it."

"You think she'd bike on the highway?" I asked. Megan shrugged.

"It's not like she's touring to appreciate the scenery. If she's trying to get to California, then yeah, the most straightforward route makes the most sense. She's probably not worrying about the cops, but even if she was, it's legal to bike on I-10 in Texas." She shifted, pulled out her cell phone from her back pocket, opened the case, and then stopped moving. With a sigh, she closed the case again.

"Right, no GPS. We need a map. Mom keeps a road atlas in the car. I don't suppose you grabbed it along with all the other stuff?" I shook my head.

"I didn't see it or I would have."

"It lives under the front passenger seat," Megan replied.

"But look, say she's been on the road for a day at most. She can't have ridden steadily. She's going to have to take breaks, find food and water, charge the battery, probably sleep. On a tandem bike with a kid, even an e-bike, she's not making top speed. She can't have made it more than 100 miles. So you use your rift thing, go out to the spot on I-10 that's 100 miles away from her starting point and you work your way back. You'll run into her." That sounded surprisingly reasonable.

Sure, it was resting on one huge assumption—that Jules would take I-10—but if she was crazy enough to try to make her way across Texas on an e-bike during the apocalypse, I-10 probably was her best option.

"We can't walk it," I said, thinking out loud. The dogs could still move faster than I could, even with all my new and improved attributes, but they couldn't run for miles. Or at least I didn't think they could. More to the point, even in October, they'd get hot and thirsty running across West Texas. I'd have to leave them behind. Or maybe I could carry Zelda?

"You need a bike, too," Megan said.

"You should go back to our house and grab one of ours. Or wait. Maybe you don't need to walk it, or even ride it. I know what you need. Checkpoints. Spotters." She glanced at Pen.

"Hey, want to go to Texas?"

"Yes, please," Pen said. She'd been quiet throughout our conversation, and I hadn't been sure whether she'd been listening or grieving for her brother.

"What?" I said, taken aback.

"You want to go to Texas?"

"I want to go everywhere," Pen replied.

"California would be better, but Texas will do." She lifted Gus off her lap and set him on the ground, then stood, dusting off her clothes.

"Now? We ought to leave soon if we're gonna find your friend." Megan stood, too, but I put a hand up to stop them.

"I think your parents would have something to say about it if I took you to Texas to stand on a highway. Something not good." I wouldn't blame them either. Two young blonde women standing on the side of the road? People would stop to help them. Chances were, 9 out of 10—no, 99 out of 100—times, those people would be well-meaning. The 100th, though, might make the mana-crazed monsters seem charming. Meanwhile, they'd be causing traffic jams. Given Pen, maybe an accident or two, too.

"We'd want someplace with good visibility, not too close to the road, but with a clear view for a long way. Close enough to get back to the road before she passes us," Megan said.

"Binoculars might be good. Maybe teams. Oh, that's a good idea. We get Jack and the bikes, maybe my parents. One team waits, the other team rides. The riding team starts from where she left, trying to catch up with her, and the waiting team sits on I-10 at the absolute limit of the search radius." I hesitated. That actually sounded as if it might work. And Megan's enthusiasm was feeling like it might be contagious.

"No cell phones." Megan frowned.

"You might need to handle communications, Olivia. You could meet up with the riders at the rifts closest to the highway. You know where they are, right?"

"I can find out." Maybe Chelsea could make a map for me of all the rifts closest to I-10. That felt like a Personal Interface Construct sort of job. Assistance and information, all in one.

"We need a few more people. We should have teams of at least three. Four might be better." All Megan needed was a clipboard and a whistle. Before I knew it, she'd be talking about grid patterns and staging areas.

"Nat might come," Pen volunteered. Shaking my head, I stood, too.

"Emma needs Nat here, I think. They're working with the city to try to organize first responders to help people in trouble. I can't just pull her away to look for my friend." Megan and Pen exchanged glances.

"Finding your friend is important to you, isn't it?" Pen said.

"Yes, of course. But—" Megan waved at the orchard. The trees were all young, saplings, really, but with flowers sprouting amongst healthy leaves.

"Everything they have here, they have because of you. I'm pretty sure that means you're allowed to ask for help." Ugh. That was so uncomfortable. I hadn't done anything for the enclave residents. It was just pure chance that my existence had changed their experience. Although the same could not be said for Pen. Or, for that matter, for Jack and his family.

"You two, Jack, and your parents if they want to come. Nobody else," I said. I looked down at the dogs and Gus. The animals would come, too, of course. I wasn't sure how Riley would feel about splitting up the pack, but the waiting team site could be home base for them. We'd need gear. The bikes and the map, yeah, but also supplies. Plenty of water, some food, maybe a cooler. Maybe even some basic camping gear: a shelter to keep the waiting team out of the sun, camp chairs to let them get comfortable.

"A few more people would be good," Megan said.

"You can't be everywhere at once, and, you know…" She shrugged, spreading her hands.

"There are monsters out there. If the teams run into trouble, three or four is better than two." And three or four would be a lot better than a mom and her eight-year-old. They were alone out there. Megan sounded pragmatic when she talked about gigantic monsters, but what if Jules ran into something like those spiders? At the thought of Toby in one of those cocooned body bags, I wanted to vomit. I could feel it in my throat, but I pushed the image away. Okay, Megan was right. More people would be better.

But Emma and Nat had responsibilities here.

"Hey, Olivia," Jack called from the garden gate.

"Emma wants to know if you can screen people who want to join the enclave."

"She can't," Megan called back to him. She started walking toward him, and we all fell in behind her.

"She's going to Texas to look for her friend. We all are, actually. You're coming." Jack scowled at her, and I bit back my laugh. Megan was a bulldozer. Not in a bad way, but I bet she'd been ordering Jack around his entire life.

"Emma needs help," Jack said.

"Olivia is the only person we know of who has an Identify ability." I opened my mouth to correct him. My ability was [Analyze], not [Identify]. And then I stopped, mouth still open. The Sarathi had ability stones for common abilities like Identify. The Sarathi were in San Celeste. Joey was also in San Celeste, and if anyone owed me something, it was him. The Mercers… well, I wasn't sure I could ask the kids to come to Texas. But the parents might be willing to spend a few hours there.

This was going to get complicated. Could I really ask all of these people to do this for me? But I looked at the expectant faces of Megan, Pen, and Jack, and I knew the answer was yes. They could help, they would help, and I wanted their help. Jules and Toby were out there somewhere, and I had to at least try to find them.

"About that," I finally answered Jack.

"Maybe we should start by getting a few more people the Identify ability?"