Chương 75: 73: Find Jack. Or Not.

Or Not. I woke up with my plan fully formed: find Jack. Was it a good plan? I had no idea. That was why I wanted to find him. Sure, I outleveled him, but Jack understood what was going on. He knew how the System worked. He'd read the books and played the games. He'd have ideas about what we should do, whether it was find a way into an enclave or hole up in some defensible structure somewhere. I might be putting a little too much faith in him, but what else was I going to do?

Keep cleaning Pen's brothers off my bougainvillea? I rolled out of bed with some major internal grumbling. I was hungry, I wanted a shower, and the clothes I'd dropped in a messy pile on my floor reeked. Sweat, blood, dead things—how did dogs survive having a sense of smell this good? [Senses Beyond Sight] sucked as a so-called improvement. Although I guess the System had never promised that the stuff it did to our bodies would be improvements; just that they would enhance survivability.

I stumbled my way downstairs, straight to the French doors, and let the dogs out. Then I headed to the kitchen, specifically the coffee maker. I pressed the On button. Nothing happened. Right. Because I couldn't hear the obnoxious roar of the generator, because obviously sometime between when I'd plugged it in—back before I killed Ezra Barrow, before I'd gone to San Celeste, before I'd failed to find Jules—it had run out of gas.

I'd meant to stop by the gas station in the rift and fill up my can, but I hadn't gotten around to it.

"Good morning," Pen said from the kitchen doorway. I yelped and jumped and then dropped my head, feeling like an idiot.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—" I lifted a hand.

"No, no, it's fine. I… didn't forget you were here exactly. I'm just not really awake yet." I gazed at the coffee machine mournfully, then turned away from it. I'd had an entire night to think about how I was going to tell Pen about her brother, and I'd spent all of it asleep. Now I had to pay the price. What was I going to say? How should I phrase it?

"Um, uh… did you sleep okay?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am, thank you." Ma'am. I was still a ma'am. I rubbed my forehead and tried to focus. I needed to do it like ripping off a band-aid. Just, 'by the way, your brother'… no, not like that. Instead I asked, "Are you hungry?" Half my brain was strategizing breakfast, the other half was trying out different ways of telling her that one of her brothers had been killed by my plants, and a solid percentage was still sound asleep. Yes, I know that doesn't add up. That's the point.

"Oh, I'm fine, thank you." What? The question had been just a polite reflex. She ought to be hungry, though. She'd run away from home something like 36 hours ago, and she hadn't eaten a real meal since. She held up a half-empty bag of the weird fake Doritos from the Dollar General, looking sheepish.

"I've been up for a while. I never had these before but they're pretty good." I winced. Corrupting a minor, indeed. Did chips for breakfast rank higher or lower than giving her forbidden books?

"Okay. Well, uh…" Fuck it. I wasn't telling her until after I'd had coffee. Baseline compassionate communication had to be easier with caffeine, right? I gave my coffee maker one last longing look and headed toward the sunroom. An hour or so later, I'd fed the dogs and the General, taken an unpleasantly cold shower, gotten dressed, and eaten some breakfast of my own. I'd also emptied my companion pouch. I'd resisted temptation with Jules' scrapbooks.

I would have liked to linger over them for hours, re-visiting memories of better times. But I piled them up on my nightstand for later, then dumped out all the other random crap I'd been picking up. I kept the most important stuff, of course: Warden's Edge, my pink water bottle, the All-Clean Cleansing Spray, the Void-Touched dagger, the healing potions, the ability stones, and the Prodigious Pup Cup Pie. Along the way, I thought about how to tell Pen about her brother at least a hundred times.

The words just never came.

"So…" I finally started. Pen forced a smile.

"Back to the bugs?" I didn't need [Uncanny Insight] to see how little enthusiasm she had for the idea. And honestly, I couldn't blame her. Between waiting for her family to arrive and my trip to California, she'd spent hours in the Dollar General and the gas station. I'd meant my "so" to be the start of telling her about her brother, but I took the coward's way out without hesitation.

"I was thinking about looking for my friend Jack today. He's in North Carolina. Do you want to come with?" She nodded eagerly.

"I've never been to North Carolina. Is it nice?"

"The mountains are beautiful and the Outer Banks are wonderful, but he's in Durham, which I think might be kind of, well, boring. Although I guess if there are monsters, it might not be as boring as it used to be." But if there were monsters, was it a bad idea to let Pen come? Fuck it, I couldn't save the girl from everything.

I'd be careful—we'd be careful—but the kindest thing I could do for her would be to help her get to Level 5 as soon as possible, give her a universal language stone, and hope that it would get her to Level 8, like Danny. And maybe also find my way clear to giving her some advice good enough to get her that other achievement, too. The one that somehow felt deeply embarrassing. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it I sighed and rubbed my face.

"Let's go." Inside my RMI, I told Pen and the animals to get comfortable. I needed to find the right rift, which meant talking to Chelsea. And if that also meant enjoying a delicious caffeinated beverage, no harm done, right?

"If Pen can't see you or hear you," I said to Chelsea, "can you still make her a coffee?"

"Can I make her a caramel macchiato?" Chelsea asked.

"I've never had coffee before," Pen said at the same time.

"In that case, you can definitely make her a caramel macchiato. And a latte for me, please." Chelsea looked delighted, Pen looked doubtful, and Zelda gave a little harrumph. Coffee me? Tastes terrible, Riley told her with a curl of his lip. Ask for milk instead. Milk? The General arched his back. Cream is better. Is cream available? Good lord, I'd created a monster. Monsters. Bear's tail started going so hard her entire back half was moving. Pup cup! Pup cup! Yes, pup cup pie! Best loot ever! I heaved a sigh.

All right, we would all start our mornings with ridiculous treats. I slipped my hand into my pouch, thought Prodigious Pup Cup Pie, and pulled out the tin pie plate full of whipped cream that had been our loot from the first harvest of JJ's swamp rift. It had been empty when I stuck it into the pouch, but the whipped cream had regenerated overnight. I swiped a finger through the top and tasted it.

It didn't taste artificially sweetened, so hopefully the rift core that had decided on this loot knew enough not to poison my dogs. And yeah, obviously letting the dogs have a full plate of whipped cream for a breakfast treat was not the best idea in the world, but they'd work off the calories today, and I wasn't going to worry about pancreatitis during the first week of the apocalypse. Well, I wasn't going to worry much.

Bear was practically dancing with delight as I set the pie plate on the ground for the dogs to share, but the notifications icon was blinking in the corner of my eye. I focused on it to open it. Prodigious Pup Cup Pie temporary attribute boost: +1 Endurance. Nice. I'd completely forgotten about that feature of the whipped cream, but I'd take the boost. I leaned on the counter to talk to Chelsea while she made our coffee.

"We're going to visit Jack today, see how he's doing. I know he said he was at school when everything started, but I'm hoping he made it back to his house. I don't suppose you have any way of knowing whether he did or not?" Chelsea was tamping down the coffee with enthusiasm.

"Unfortunately, no. Earth's Directory has barely begun forming and Jack's not in it."

"Earth's Directory?" Chelsea paused for a moment, blinking.

"You want the full name? Earth's Multiversal Entity Information and Contact Identification Directory. But that's quite a mouthful."

"But what is it?"

"Just what it sounds like. The System doesn't share personal information, but anyone who accesses a core is included in the Directory by default. You can opt out if you'd rather not be found, though." I had questions. Lots of them.

"The core? Like a rift core?" Chelsea had pulled the whipped cream out and was concentrating on topping Pen's coffee.

"Like an enclave core," she said.

"You know. I told you about it when we first met. Enclaves are anchored by cores, just like rifts. In an enclave, the core grants access to the System shop, and has tools for managing the enclave, multiversal communications, all that sort of thing." I vaguely remembered her mentioning something of the sort. Emphasis on vaguely. I think at the time I might have been too busy freaking out about the whole enclave idea.

"So it's gonna be, like, a list of survivors? Eventually?"

"That's a rather grim way to look at it." Chelsea pushed Pen's fancy drink across the counter and then poured some creamer into a saucer for the General.

"Eventually, when an enclave reaches Tier 5, you can use the Directory to find anyone in the Multiverse. More or less. It doesn't mean they'll answer their phone. Screening calls stays a thing."

"So if Jack was in an enclave, he'd be in the Directory and you'd know where he was?" I picked up the caramel macchiato and handed it to Pen, whose eyes went wide.

"That—did you—it was a drawing. And then you made it real?"

"Um…something like that, I guess." I tried to imagine what the RMI looked like to Pen and failed. Was it all two-dimensional except for me and the animals? Was it like standing in an empty box with drawings on the walls? It must be so strange. At least she could have her drink.

"Give it a try. If you don't like it, you don't have to drink it." I grabbed the General's saucer and put it on the floor for him.

"It looks so pretty," Pen said.

"I don't want to ruin it."

"Oh, I like this girl," Chelsea said.

"She appreciates my hard work."

"The whipped cream will start melting and it'll be an ooey-gooey mess if you don't drink it," I told Pen, before giving Chelsea a flat look. Every living being in the RMI was busy consuming a treat except for me, and I hadn't had any coffee this morning. It was not a good time to complain about my behavior.

"On the way," Chelsea said promptly.

"Thirty more seconds, I swear. And as to your question, yes, if Jack was in an enclave and had used its core, his name would be in the Directory." Chelsea handed me my latte and waited, looking expectant.

"Thank you," I said. It was hot, but I gulped anyway. When I lowered the cup, Chelsea still had an expectant look on her face. What, did she want a tip? Did she have a tip jar? She rolled her eyes at me. I gestured at her with my latte.

"The real Chelsea would never do that."

"Not to your face, maybe." Fair point. But what was she waiting for? Speaking slowly, with the patience a mother gives an oblivious toddler, she said, "If Jack was in an enclave and had used its core, his name would be in the Directory. Anyone in an enclave who has used its core has their name in the Directory."

"Oh!" I nearly dropped my coffee, I was so excited.

"Is Jules—""No," Chelsea interrupted me before I could get the words out.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean… but Jack isn't the only person who was in the challenge scenario with you." The disappointment hit hard. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. Did I need to do some square breathing? No, I was okay. It was great news, really, even if not the news I desperately wanted. I was glad Emma had made it to some semblance of safety.

"How's Emma doing?"

"Her enclave is located in Harfield, New Jersey. She's named it Team Fellow Survivors."

"Her enclave?" I asked.

"Yes, she's the registered owner."

"Why does Emma have an enclave and not Jack?" I asked, surprised. I suppose technically Emma survived the challenge scenario about ninety seconds longer than Jack did, and she probably was higher level than him, because he'd regressed his level to take advantage of the class change. Maybe the System decided she was in third place. That seemed unfair to me, though, given the bigger picture. Emma wouldn't have made it as far as she did without Jack, and Jack had died trying to save her.

"That information isn't included in the Directory, I'm afraid. I can tell you that she's currently Level 13, making her the highest-level resident of Enclave Team Fellow Survivors. Her enclave…hmm."

"What hmm?"

"Sorry, I'm just running some queries. The numbers don't line up. That suggests her enclave is disproportionately young, which is a risk. Enclave growth depends on sustainability. Children… well, they are the future. But they don't produce much." I stared at System Chelsea. The System was penalizing Emma for rescuing children. That was infinitely depressing. Maybe I should go back to hating it.

"Not penalizing her," Chelsea responded.

"That's the wrong way to look at it. Enclaves are mana domains. The more mana a domain accumulates, the more it grows."

"Like a rift?" I gestured at the chalkboard, which listed the Thorn's Edge Tier 1 Progress at 2%. It was going back up after I'd cleared it, but slowly.

"Exactly. But enclaves aren't connected to mana-rich worlds. They grow from the mana captured and produced by their residents rather than simple mana flow."

"So an enclave with a lot of children…" I started slowly.

"Children aren't gaining levels. They aren't earning credits that can contribute to the enclave's infrastructure. It's not just about fighting, though. A crafter who can turn bug chitin into mana-reinforced armor is actively growing the domain, too."

"Does Emma know that?"

"If she's asked the right questions, she does. But I don't know what her PIC has shared with her. Their interactions aren't public data." I took another long drink of my coffee. I wanted to find Jack, but Emma needed to know her enclave wouldn't grow without mana sources. What should I do?