The town of A Gudiña was a wash. If any occupants had survived, they only stayed long enough to raid the local grocer and pilfer the canned foods. A few dogs and cats remained, thoroughly feral from their weeks of feasting on the corpses of those who never quite assimilated.

Pilot and Lucia bunked in the bottom floor of a smoke-grey townhouse, just off the main drag. Pilot treated himself to his first night on a mattress since Before. A pull-out, to be fair, but a mattress nonetheless. Lucia and Benson lay claim to the queen bed in the master bedroom.

They scored a few meals from their long-gone host’s pantry. This consisted of canned tomatoes, peaches, sardines, and anchovies that made Annie’s nose twitch and tail wag.

Lucia wanted to hole up there for a few days at least, subsisting on the same reasonably-varied diet that was keeping them going so far. But Pilot was obstinate. The longer they spent in a humdrum town like this, the worse. This was a checkpoint, meant only for restocking and a day or so of letting their blisters heal.

“Remind me why we aren’t going through Montesinho Park?” Lucia asked. “Wouldn’t it be the perfect place to train our Powers? I could rip a million trees out of the ground, and you could take control of all the furry miscreants that I root up.”

Pilot packed supplies into a duffel bag he’d found. He took out a Minions drink bottle and a folded set of gym clothes before nestling a week’s worth of anchovies in their place. It was heavy, and a hiking pack would’ve been better, but he figured beggars can’t be choosers.

“Well, I’ve never set foot in Portugal in my entire life, so I’m not really looking to explore a new country without a map or internet access. Also, the mountains there get up to nearly one and half K’s in elevation, so unless you’re looking to carry the food part of the way…”

Lucia suddenly became very interested in preparing Benson for the trip.

After eating and drinking everything they couldn’t carry, the pair set out east toward Puebla de Sanabria. This specific location was the third reason they were avoiding Montesinho Park, but Pilot didn’t want to tell Lucia about it in case she got her hopes up.

Pilot was interested in Sanabria Castle.

The 15th century castle was a monolith of granite and opportunity. It gave the surviving citizens of Puebla de Sanabria a good reason to stay in their hometown rather than run off into the wilderness, which meant Pilot and Lucia could expect some level of infrastructure. At the same time, by having a population similar to that of A Gudiña, the place wouldn’t be a hotspot for Conflagrators.

Hopefully.

Either way, Pilot thought it would be worth checking out. If the place was overrun with arsonist scum, they would just move on. That was the end goal, anyway.

Pilot estimated they could complete the hike in two days. They followed the highways when possible, dropping off onto lesser roads when the going got tough. One such location was a hundred-car pile-up resulting from the worst traffic jam in rural Spanish history. At first, Pilot thought these people stupid to have tried out-driving an asteroid, then he realised that his attempt wasn’t so different. The plane might’ve been faster, and there was less traffic in the air, but he’d known the end result from the get-go.

Even worse was that he’d felt the tell-tale signs of an oncoming seizure even before he got in the plane. Unlike most cases, his seizures built up over the course of hours, reaching their climax at a predictable time. But he flew anyway.

If anything, these people are better than me. They only took their families with them into this hell. Not four hundred other passengers.

As the afternoon sun faded to a motley shade of orange and pink, they called it quits. There was enough daylight left for Pilot to dedicate some time to his Power, and he planned to take full advantage of it. The next time the Cons came knocking, he would give them a face full of rabies-infested rodents.

Stalking off a couple dozen metres from the campfire, Pilot lay in crinkling bushes on his belly. The forest replicated his stillness. Great sweeping boughs drifted overhead like beach umbrellas, dousing him in the occasional warm ray of dimming sunlight. In only an hour or so, that light would fade to become a cold blue moon.

A water vole crossed his sightline. Its sleek body dripped miniscule droplets of water onto the fallen leaves. In the silence, Pilot could hear its feet making tiny disturbances on the ground matter.

He reached out, not with his hand like Lucia did, but with his mind. The mystical limb of his Power stretched through the terrain and latched onto the vole. It stood still; one foot raised like an English Pointer detecting the scent of a wood duck.

Pilot closed his eyes and tried the new trick he’d been working on, all the way from Ourense. He pushed his consciousness into the body of the rodent, forcing himself to take on a second soul. From the vole’s perspective, the leaves were nearly as long as its entire body. The trees stretched high like ethereal strands leading to an unseen realm. The forest canopy was a myth — it lay as far above the vole’s consideration as the stratosphere does for a human. All that mattered was the various tubers and grasses that could be found on the forest floor and the banks of nearby streams and rivers.

And the predators. They mattered more than anything else. Pilot could feel the residual terror in the vole from the moments before he took control. It must’ve only just noticed him.

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He took a tentative step forward. Then another. This was not the same as controlling the rodent from his own body; he was the vole, much like the System insisted it was a part of him. He walked out the vole’s two front legs until it was stretched out amongst the leaves like a cat in the sun. He brought up the back legs in an awkward hop. It was time consuming and frustrating, but with a full belly and no desire to eat this tiny bundle of fur, he could dedicate himself to learning his craft.

Soon he was scampering around the forest in tight circles, wide figure eights, jagged hooks and any other shape he felt was worth trying. When the System spoke to him for the first time in days, he was in the middle of attempting a belly slide. His concentration snapped and the vole scuttled off like a furry rocket.

“<>”

Pilot celebrated with a whispered whoop and pulled up his System menu. One of the tabs, previously greyed out, was pulsing with gold. The question mark disappeared, replaced by a small symbol depicting a column graph.

He opened the new tab.

Power Control Options

Available Credits: (2)

Expansion: 0

Dimensionalism: 0

Fluency: 0

Infiltration: 0

Autonomy: 0

Pilot looked over the options and nearly exited the screen immediately. He’d walked almost thirty kilometres that day. The last thing he wanted to do was delve into words like dimensionalism.

“<>”

“Oh. I forgot you know what I’m thinking. If you could dumb it down, that’d be great. Thanks.”

Having a computer in his head was handy. He wondered if the System could help locate Myra. Gem-to-Gem connection.

“<>”

Pilot didn’t feel like reading too much, so he just selected the first option. Expansion.

Information filled his vision as though he’d opened multiple Wikipedia articles at once. Significant blocks of text were unreadable. At their closest, the symbols resembled the Tibetan alphabet, but it was still a far cry.

Only one sentence was written in English.

Expansion: Determines the area in which the User can demonstrate their Power. Current: Ten metres.

With his curiosity piqued, Pilot went through the rest of the categories.

Dimensionalism: Determines the number of specimens which can be controlled. Current: 2.

Fluency: Determines the extent to which the User can control fine motor movement of specimens. Current: {Dependent on size and complexity of specimen}.

Infiltration: Determines the User’s capability to grasp control of complex specimens. Current: {Small rodents}.

Autonomy: Determines the User’s capability to imprint their intention on a specimen, and have the specimen carry out these intentions without User oversight.

“Jesus fucking Christ. What have I gotten myself into? Is there a mnemonic for this shit?”

“<>”

Of course not. ‘Cause then something might make sense for once.

Lucia’s voice bounced through the dense forest. “I assume you’ve just discovered the Power Control screen? You should see mine — I have a category that helps measure the length, density and water content of a piece of wood just by looking at it. What about you?”

Pilot picked out the category that interested him the most and called back. “I’ve got one called Autonomy. I think if I get it high enough, I could get a bear to wash our dishes. Or wear dark sunglasses and be our bodyguard.”

Although, I’d need enough Infiltration to capture the bear in the first place. Fluency would be important, too. And if I want an army of bears…

He was nervous about spending his two Credits. The only thing he could confidently rule out for the time being was Dimensionalism. In this forest, he could barely see ten metres, let alone need to control something past that range.

Oh, but maybe that could help…Shit.

The slightest pinch of a headache knocked around the back of his head. A burst of adrenaline punched through his veins, his body rushing to emergency stations in his brief panic. Lucia called out again, hearing him rustle through the bushes then suddenly halt.

“Pilot? You alright?”

Pilot clenched his teeth. “Yep. All good. Just stood up too fast.” He stumbled back to their clearing, righting himself with a deep breath before he entered.

Lucia had the fire roaring. After the relative comfort of their lodgings in A Gudiña, neither were eager to spend another night cold to the bone. There were blankets piled on the duffel, but they’d get tatty rather fast in the wilderness.

Two cans of tomatoes and a can of beans came out of the duffel. Pilot peeled the cap off each tin and placed them on a bed of coals. They watched in silence as the paper cover on each coiled and burnt away, leaving their dinner as three glistening hot, silver tins. Pilot would’ve killed for a slab of crusty bread to have alongside.

Lucia pinched her nose while she downed a cautionary spoonful of beans.

“How is it?” Pilot asked.

“Ho.”

“Hot?”

“Ung-huh. Funking beings, dood. Hate ‘em.”

Lucia forced down the beans then washed them away with a scoop of tomato juice. Annie licked her chops and whimpered.

“Will Benson like them? Little man went crazy for the peaches, I can grab him one of them if you think he’d prefer that?”

Lucia swiped her hand across her body in a no motion. “Lemme just mash some of this stuff together. He’ll be fine. Can’t afford to be picky.” She grabbed their only fork and transferred some beans into one of the tomato cans. “Grab this — watch it, it’s hot.”

Pilot took the tin and fork and started mashing. Lucia got Benson into her lap and whispered to him in a high voice. It sounded like a nursery rhyme; one to be sung at mealtimes.

“Alright, chef. Serve it up.” Lucia beckoned with both hands, encouraging Pilot to hurry. Eager to get the hot tin out of his singed fingers, Pilot jumped up from his seat and took a long stride to Lucia. That was when he slipped. A rock jutted forward under his foot, sliding along the dirt. The tin and its contents flew into the air. Pilot went down with a whoof and caught himself with his elbow.

“All good, all good!” he called. “Sorry! Did I kick dust in your face?”

Sure enough, he did. A mixture of grey ash and forest soil covered the left side of Lucia’s face like a spray tan gone wrong. But she didn’t care. She wasn’t even paying attention. Instead she watched the small child in her lap, who was pointing at the tin can and their contents as they hovered in space above the fire.

“Holy shit, Pilot. Benson’s a fucking Jedi.”