For the first time in as long as she could remember, Jill was running out of swears. She’d spent the last hour poking, prodding, and tweaking parts of Bertha’s engine and nothing she did got the big motor running again. Not only that, but she couldn’t even figure out what was wrong in the first place; despite the multiple monster impacts the engine’s internals seemed fine. Every attempted fix and diagnosis proven wrong elicited a new shouted obscenity, and if it weren’t for the rapid healing granted by the system she would have shouted herself hoarse. Whatever power was healing her throat did nothing for her mental energy or mood though.

“Motherbescumber?” she tried, but it didn’t have any conviction in it.

“Wow. What does that one mean? Where did you even hear it?” Babu asked with wonder in his voice. He and Ras had finished moving everything they thought worth saving from their dead U-Haul to Bertha after about ten minutes. While Ras had climbed onto the trailer’s roof to act as a lookout, Babu was acting as Jill’s assistant, handing her tools and trying to keep up with her language. He had also conjured a small ball of white sparkly light which hovered above the engine to provide visibility. Ordinarily Jill might have been more curious about such blatant magic, but she was too wrung out to care.

“My dad got me one of those word-a-day calendars, only for weird swears and shit. It's…” she said, then shook her head. “You know what, you don’t want to know.” She sighed and wiped her hand, now covered with grease instead of blood, on her pants. “I can’t tell what's wrong with Bertha, but she’s not going anywhere.”

“Sorry. I know you and she were… close,” Babu said, giving his eyebrows a waggle.

Jill blinked. “What?”

“I’m just saying, you’ve been slipping in and out of her every day for years now right?”

“... are you making a joke? Because you’re just pissing me off.”

“The feel of Bertha’s hard gear shift in the morning, the growl of turning her on…”

“Shut your - you - fuck!” Jill spluttered, glaring at the grinning man. “Go get your brother, assface!” She did feel a bit better, not that she’d admit it.

Babu stuck two fingers in his mouth and blew a piercing whistle, then leaned closer to speak to Jill softly. “He absolutely hates when I do that, because he can’t.”

Ras appeared on the edge of the trailer, looking down at Babu with a scowl on his face. “Are you trying to call every monster in ten miles with that? What is it?”

“Told you,” Babu muttered to Jill.

“Bertha won’t start,” Jill said, ignoring Babu. “I can’t offer you two that ride after all.”

Ras hopped lightly down and Jill couldn’t help but stare. The top of her truck was 13 feet off the ground, way too high to jump casually down from without some major padding to land on. At least not for ordinary humans. From the flash of satisfaction on Ras’ face it seemed like the swordsman had the same thought.

“It’s a long way to the nearest town,” Ras said. “And a lot of monsters in the way too.” He idly gripped his sword and turned to his brother. “You’ve got magic now, can you get a spell to fix things?”

“Let me check,” Babu said. His expression grew distant and his eyes flicked back and forth as he read through the system screens visible to him alone. “No,” he said after a tense minute, “at least not for a long time. It looks like the enchanter’s spells are mostly evocation, illusion, and mental based, nothing for objects.”

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“Sugar,” Ras said, real feeling behind the word.

Jill refrained from mocking him for his grandma curse. “I can’t even figure out whats wrong with her,” she said. “When did you say your ride broke? Right after the system started? It must be magic that’s breaking shit. Everything’s fucked since those blue boxes started popping up.”

“Our cell phones died then,” Ras said.

“And my laptop’s not working, though I only just checked so I can’t say when that happened,” Babu said. He narrowed his eyes. “Lots of stories have magic disrupting technology. Maybe there’s some truth to them.”

“How come Bertha lasted so long then?” Jill asked.

Babu shrugged. “I’m not sure, but well… she’s old right? Not too many computers in her?”

“Some. It has expensive things I need to replace every few years that probably are. They’re all ancient and hard to source.”

“Fascinating that they lasted so long. I wonder if the larger feature size of decades old transistors hardens them against magic?” Babu said, his speech gaining in both volume and speed as he theorized.

“That doesn’t help us fix her though, does it?” Jill asked. Babu deflated and shook his head.

Jill leaned her forehead against Bertha but didn’t say anything. The idea of leaving the truck, her safe, powerful, faithful big rig, behind tore at her and tears welled in her eyes.

“I’ve got a thought,” Ras said, grasping the hilt of his sword and staring at it thoughtfully. “You’ve been driving your truck for a long time, yeah? You have a deep emotional connection?”

“Yeah,” Jill said. “She’s been, well, home more than home is for almost half my life. Backbone of my company. Pulled me out of a lot of scrapes and storms. Definitely saved my life a few times not even counting this fucked up night.” She knew Bertha was really a thing, not a she, but it was hard to feel that in her heart.

Ras nodded. “If the system is what's making everything break, maybe the system can fix it. Make it better? I made my kirpan into a soulbound weapon and now it's part of my class.”

Babu turned an annoyed glare at Ras. “You couldn’t have mentioned that earlier and saved us all this time? And that,” Babu said, shoving a finger in the direction of the sword, “is your kirpan?! I thought the system just gave you a sword. The old one was like two inches long! And what do you mean,” his voice turned mocking, “‘Deep Emotional Connection’?” He shook his head. “You’re full of it, dont’cha know?”

“I’m more connected than you are. You couldn’t even find yours,” Ras said, shaking his head. “I still wear mine every day.”

“And what about the rest huh? Grandad thinks you’re just as bad as me, don’t act all high and mighty!”

“Grandad doesn’t know what you do or he’d-”

“Or he’d what?” Babu snarled. “Are you going to tell him, huh!?”

Ras looked away. “No.”

Babu nodded. “Good. Fine.” There was a pause as both brothers seemed to deflate, refusing to look at each other.

Jill was completely lost. “What the fuck’s a kirpan?”

Babu huffed out a laugh and the anger drained out of him. “It's a tiny religious dagger that makes the TSA stick their little latex covered fingers up our asses. Don’t worry about it.”

Ras grimaced, but didn’t disagree. He held out his sword, which now that Jill examined it more closely she saw was slender and single edged, with a pronounced curve. As she watched, it shrunk until only a few inches long. “This is what it used to look like. One Class Power lets it change between the two forms, and just by being soulbound it will repair itself no matter what happens to it. Maybe the same thing can let you fix Bertha? But it costs more for big things and well...” He gestured between the tiny dagger and the imposing big rig.

“It’s worth a shot,” she said. “Hey system! Show me about soulbinding Bertha!”

System information inquiry detected.

Tutorial duration remaining: 6 days, 20 hours, 32 minutes.

A soulbound object is tied to the Mana that composes your soul. It will grow as you do. Soulbound objects self-repair if they have sufficient mana, and can be re-summoned if destroyed.

Binding an object consumes perk points. Cost increased by object size. Cost decreased by soul compatibility.

Compatibility with object “Bertha”: Extreme.

Perk Point cost: 1

“You know you don’t need to talk to it right?” Babu said. “Just think at it.”

Jill shrugged. “It gets the job done, doesn’t it?” But she thought rather than said, ‘system, bind Bertha to me’.

Soulbinding initiated! You have lost a perk point.

Object class assigned: Modular Vehicle

Stand by for mana integration.