Most people don’t pay us any mind as we make our way to the police station. A few do stop us to ask if we’ve seen someone or another, but they quickly move along after we say that we didn’t.
Still, each one gives me yet another quest. I get so many of them that, after a while, they start grouping up into a new category called Search and Rescue. All of them follow a similar pattern: talk to X, they’ll tell you Y’s last known location. Get there and investigate to find Y.
Out of habit, I want to dismiss them as fetch quests or maybe escort quests. Common — and often annoying — activities that devs used to pad out their games when they couldn’t think of anything more interesting to add. But I can’t do that, my heart won’t let me. These are real quests to look for real people. Real god damned people.
I sigh and put a pin in that. Something to look into later.
Besides those people, I also get the occasional hello and thank you. I recognize some of those as the people I helped last night, but I don’t linger for small talk. Jessica does, and I have to pull her along on more than one occasion. Emily just sticks behind me, silent as ever. She grabs a handful of my shirt at some point, using it to not lose me when we pass through more crowded areas.
People shoot us weird glares for that, so she lowers her head, staring a hole through her shoes. I frown back at them and shake my head, which gets them to mind their own damn business.
It takes us altogether too long to reach the police station, and we find it surrounded by yet more people. A few officers are by the doors, answering questions by the dozens. They’re Pops’s coworkers, so I recognize them. The one by the base of the stairs, keeping people from entering the station, is Roger. The one going around answering questions is the chief himself, a black man about Pops’s age named William. He’s just as goofy as Pops, which made them partners in crime pretty much since Pops joined.
The last one is a rookie, also named William. The other guys started calling them big Willy and little Willy, and only one of them rolled with the punches. Little Willy has a notepad and a pen, scribbling madly as he tries to keep up with the influx of reports.
I square up, ready to elbow my way through the crowd. But Jessica casually steps in front of me, and she bellows “make some god damned room!”
It’s not a skill, I don’t think. She’s only level 3, so she only has a couple of those as of yet. One she already told me about, the Hivemind skill. The other is likely some form of monster taming skill. But skill or not, her outburst is no less effective. People jump pack, and the crowd parts to make room for us.
“Nice job, Moses,” I take a jab at her.
She chuckles and gestures at the now clear path. “After you, boss.”
I shake my head, but I get going. The crowd stares at us, which only makes Emily shrink further. I don’t particularly care, and Jessica has the opposite reaction, seeming to revel in the attention even though it’s negative. She preens like a peacock and walks around like she owns the place.
I want to say something, but I abstain.
“Yo, Jack!” Someone calls out.
I look over to the pair of arms swinging in the air and see Brent.
“Yo! Good seeing you here!”
“Thanks for the help last night!”
A few more hands go up, and others also say their thanks. The rest just look around in confusion. I even spot Karen and her son, James. The boy hides behind her, much like Emily is trying — and failing — to hide behind me. Karen herself stands with her arms crossed, wearing a pair of wide sunglasses that hide her eyes. She nods at me and I nod back.
I still haven’t done anything to find her husband, so I put a pin in that as well. But now that she’s here, maybe she’ll find him. Maybe she already has.
Chief William — I can’t bring myself to call the man big Willy — walks up to us and leads us into the station. The other two cops shoot him pleading looks as he closes the door, but he just leaves them with a “you boys can handle it.”
We exchange some quick pleasantries, but apparently, no introductions are needed. Pretty much everyone knows William, just like they know me and Pops. William also knows Jessica, and to my surprise, Emily as well. Just like Pops had done earlier, he regards her with worry for a moment. Unlike Pops, however, when he looks back at me, I can see a warning in his eyes.
One I can’t quite figure out, so I dismiss it for now. Emily has been nothing but helpful so far.
“Pops said we can crash here for a few hours,” I say.
“Of course. We have some beds in the cells, feel free to use them.”
“Cells?!” Jessica explodes.
The small woman makes the much bigger man wilt away as excuses start pouring out of him. I let her go on for a bit just to watch William squirm for my own amusement, then I put a hand on her shoulder. She stops ranting, but she looks at me with indignation.
“They’re for me and Emily,” I say. “I’m not your boss, so after you help me talk to my brother, you can scram if you don’t like it.”
“Hey now, let’s not be hasty,” she says, putting her hands up. She turns to William, who hasn’t yet straightened himself. “I need some sleep, too. Sorry and thanks for the offer, I’ll take you up on it.”
William laughs to hide how tense he still is, then he starts leading us towards the cells. The police station is small, so they only have three cells, each with a bunk bed, a toilet, and a sink. We see other officers and even some civilians as we pass by other rooms. Some are sleeping on desks and in chairs, others are cleaning weapons and counting bullets.
I was expecting to see some being treated for injuries, but then my tired brain catches up and reminds me just how fast we’re all healing now.
“I hear you’ve been keeping busy,” William tries his hand at small talk.
“Oh?”
“Groups came in all night long, telling us you sent them here. Tom wanted to go off looking for you and Mike, but he calmed down when he heard that. Problem is that he then spent the rest of the night boasting about how his sons are out there, kicking monster ass.”
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We arrive at the cells as William tells us about their night. It’s pretty much what I expected, though there are some surprises. After the system came on, a lot of the officers came down at the station with their families. Plenty of civilians followed them as well, and it was utter chaos when the first monsters appeared.
They repelled the attack, then Pops and William kicked into gear. Pops picked his class and he talked the others into doing the same. Apparently, he paid more attention to the games that Mike and I used to play than he’d let on. He’s not an expert, but he knew enough to help organize the survivors.
Seeing the law enforcement picking classes convinced a lot of civilians to do the same, and things went much more smoothly after that. They spent the rest of the night fortifying the position and dealing with the monsters as they came.
“The ones you sent didn’t hurt either,” William says. “A lot of them already had classes and levels, and they knew how to work together in units.”
“I’m glad to hear, I was worried I might be throwing too many people at you guys.”
All three cells are occupied, but William quickly takes care of that. He barks “rise and shine, you pansies!” and the sleeping officers all bolt. They grumble, but they get dressed and go back out there.
“Take your pick,” William says. “Oh, also, the showers and toilets still work—”
Jessica perks up hearing that, and even Emily looks pleasantly surprised. She lets go of my shirt, finally, and she rushes in front of me.
“—but,” William continues, ruining the excitement as fast as it came, “we have to conserve the water pressure. You can take sponge baths, there are buckets in there. Also, if you want to use the toilets, remember the yellow-mellow rule.”
“Literally no one calls it that,” I say.
“Maybe, but now you’ll remember it.”
William takes off after that, leaving us to our own devices.
“I’ll take him up on that sponge bath,” Jessica says, already on the move. “You two coming?”
I exchange a look with Emily and say, “go right ahead.”
She doesn’t seem convinced, but she goes. Jessica talks her ear off all the way to the women’s showers, complaining about not having spare clothes. A cream colored tracksuit appears in Emily’s hands, pulled out of her inventory. Jessica leaps on it.
“I swear, I could kiss you right now.”
Emily shrinks away from her. I smile and go into the first cell, settling in the uncomfortable bed. Sleep takes me right away.
----------------------------------------
I’m awakened some time later, so groggy that I don’t even remember where I am. It doesn’t feel like I got all that much sleep, maybe half an hour at most. Someone’s pulling on my shirt, and I open my eyes to find Emily and Jessica.
Emily is the one doing the shirt pulling, and Jessica just stands there, looking pissed. Despite the material being somewhat elastic, Emily’s tracksuit barely fits her.
“...what?” I ask groggily.
“I don’t know either,” Jessica says. “She didn’t want to sleep in the other cells and she won’t tell me why.”
I grumble and roll out of the bed, taking the sheets and pillow with me. The fall to the cold floor jolts me, but I’m so tired that I don’t care.
“There, now let me sleep.”
Emily crawls into the bed I vacated, pulling a backpack out of her inventory to use as a pillow.
“For real?” Jessica complains. “Whatever…”
She goes to climb into the upper bunk, but then she stops. I try to pretend I’ve already fallen back asleep, but she kicks me lightly in the ribs.
“Ow!”
“Polly reached your brother.”
“Fucking…” I yell as I scramble to sit up. “You should’ve led with that!”
“Hold your horses, cowboy,” she says. “They’re fighting off a big group of monsters right now, and I’m not sending Polly into that mess. She’ll get killed.”
“Fuck! We have to go help them!” I explode, trying to climb to my feet.
Unfortunately, my coordination leaves a lot to be desired. I’m just too tired. I make it half-way up off the ground, using the bunk for support, but Jessica gives my chest a light push and sends me crashing back down.
“You’re in no condition to go anywhere,” she says, sounding surprisingly stern. “And anyway, they have things under control. They’ll probably be done by the time we get there.”
“I can’t just sit on my ass, God damn it,” I complain. “It’s my little brother.”
Jessica flicks a finger in my direction, causing a new notification to appear in my interface.
Jessica Harper - Level 3 Broodmother has targeted you with Hivemind.
Do you wish to accept?
Warning: This is a psychic skill that will create a direct mental connection between you and one of Jessica’s pets. Jessica is not a member of your party. Only accept the request if you know and trust the skill caster.
“There,” she says. “Take a look for yourself and calm down.”
The warning makes me think that the skill might be dangerous somehow, but I don’t linger on it for long. I accept, and outside mana rushes in to fill my body. It’s a different sensation from leveling up or assigning attribute points, more…aggressive. It’s unpleasant, like being dunked into ice cold water and soaking it up.
The vision in my left eye blurs and my left ear starts to ring. Except no, that’s not what’s happening. I cover my left eye with a hand, and the blurry image doesn’t go dark. Half of the right image does.
“What the shit?”
“Right, it’s a bit confusing,” Jessica says. “You still keep your senses, but you also gain those of the pet you’re linked with. Think of it like a split screen thing.”
“A warning would’ve been nice.”
“Get over it. Emily handled it much better than this.”
I take a deep breath and wait. Ever so slowly, it feels like my body splits down the middle into two new ones. The sensation is incredibly disturbing, and controlling both bodies at once, taking in two feeds of information from a range of senses, is straining my mind.
“It’ll get easier,” Jessica says as she climbs up into her own bed.
It doesn’t. It really, really doesn’t. The new image sharpens until I can see through Polly’s eyes, and the bird’s hearing gets clearer. I can feel every last feather on her body being ruffled by wind.
Polly is up on a branch somewhere, overlooking a familiar cluster of houses. Dianne’s neighborhood. Tall earth walls and trenches surround the place, assaulted by about a hundred monsters. A bunch of people fight back against the attack, shooting guns and throwing skills into the horde.
I don’t see Mike anywhere, but those walls are his doing. They’re similar to the ones I found around his house, except sturdier as he’s likely gained more levels and upgraded his skills.
It also looks like Jessica told the truth. Despite the number of monsters, the defenders keep up just fine. They’ll be done in fifteen minutes, twenty tops. It’s fine, they’ll be fine. Mike will be okay.
“Cut the connection,” I say in a strained tone.
Jessica does, and my mind reels at the sudden loss.
“Sleep tight,” she says, turning to face the wall.
The experience leaves me shaking, and I wonder how she can do it. I’m left tossing and turning on the floor, unable to get the discomfort out of my mind, but she’s snoring away in less than a minute.
“Deep breaths.”
I settle on my back, staring at the featureless ceiling. Something grabs my hand, a set of cold fingers curling into my own. I look to the side to see Emily on her stomach, her face buried in her backpack. Pretending she’s asleep. She gives my hand a reassuring squeeze, so I close my eyes and squeeze back.
Her hand is like an anchor, helping my mind settle. I take another deep breath and fall asleep like that, my fingers warming hers.