"Thank you, Rose," Debbie said.

"It's no trouble at all," I said. "Alright, Mark, let's see what you've got."

He dumped the entire contents of his backpack onto the table, and I nodded sagely.

"Yep, that sure is a fuckload of homework," I said. "God, I don't miss high school one fucking bit. Alright, well, let's dig in. First thing I see is Statistics, so let's start with that."

Tutoring a high school student was a novel experience, and one I hadn't really expected to enjoy. Now, teaching a teenager, that wasn't new- I'd taught Rex and Eve both how to use a soldering iron, and a few "basic principles" of electronics, but it hadn't been anything to do with school.

But, as it turned out? Tutoring a high school student...

...was exactly as boring as I expected it to be, but at least the Natural Teacher Perk meant I didn't have to spend very long doing it.

Sure, I still spent three hours of my life doing it, but seeing as I am no longer a human with a finite number of hours to live, I'm sure I'll get over it. I've spent longer periods of time doing less enjoyable and less important things than helping Mark avoid failing his final year of high school.

Plus, once we were finally done with that, and Mark had passed a comprehensive practice test with flying colors, I could inflict upon him the same treatment I'd given Rex and Eve.

And it was by coaching him through the construction of a mechanical keyboard from scratch that I learned just how hopelessly un-technical Mark was, as he was fundamentally unsuited to doing maker shit. I mean, he still did it, he didn't have much room to screw it up, but it was clear he wasn't that interested, and didn't really care that much about the finished product.

Disappointing, but oh well. I'll live.

----------------------------------------

"I'm bored," I said.

"Hi bored," Karasuba said, reading a book. "You should get a hobby."

"That's the thing, though," I said. "I have fucking run out of interesting things to do in this universe that are, y'know, engaging with this universe. I mean, yeah, I'm continuing the stuff where I build infrastructure and a brighter future in the global south, but like..." I sighed. "Honestly, that stuff just isn't actually all that interesting to me. It's important work that needs to be done, yeah, but that doesn't make it terribly interesting to me. I'm at a point where I'm tempted to just invent a fucking time machine and skip past the next eight months."

"The feeling will pass," Karasuba said. "You do have other shit to do that isn't related to Jumpchain bullshit, after all. Like playing with your 3D printer, or writing more self-insert fanfiction about shows you don't actually like."

"How dare you know me so intimately and accurately."

"You can also spend time with your adopted daughter."

"Ehhhh... Yes and also no," I said. "Eve's pretty independent, and I'd feel awkward if I was the one who came to her and said I was bored and wanted attention. She's pretty accustomed to parental figures whose attention was quite unwanted."

"Yes, but," Karasuba said, lowering her book. "You aren't a huge shithead, and Eve actually likes you. Also, she's an abused child who's probably at least a little worried that the new adoptive parent she has doesn't actually like her and is just looking after her out of obligation. Also also, shouldn't you be hovering over her at all times, considering the death threats she's gotten from the Saudis over her role in building electrified train networks in Africa?"

"Eh, they're a paper tiger," I said. "I've been getting five of those a day ever since I built that fusion plant in Addis Ababa. Something about how oil is the only thing keeping their economy afloat, which sounds like their problem. Not like other petrostates haven't managed to build up an economy around other stuff."

"You're significantly harder to kill than Eve is, what with being undead and omnipresent."

"Also, speaking of said omnipresence, one of the Docbots is with Eve right now," I said. "We've agreed to maintain at least an illusion of separation between myself and the Docbots, for Eve's comfort, so that's why I'm bored even though she just told a hilarious joke about train bathrooms."

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"Fair enough," Karasuba said. "Well... find something to do. Get back into game development, if you feel like you have too much free time."

"That's unfair, but not untrue. I guess I'll see you on the other side of a months-long amphetamine binge with my minimum viable product."

----------------------------------------

"So, what else do you have on your radar?" Cecil asked. "Any other threats I should know about?"

"Uhhh... hrm... y'know what, fuck it, I don't value your mental health."

"Promising."

I pulled out a stack of three beefy-ass trade paperbacks.

"This is the entire two decade run of the superhero comic this world is based on," I explained. "I've entirely defanged the Viltrumite Empire, but it's very much not the case that there are no aliens left to pose a threat to humanity. Also, there's threats from Earth itself that you'll need to contend with- if memory serves, Robot, also known as Rudolph Connors, is one of those threats, if he ever gets it into his head that his world-class skill as an engineer means he'd also make for the world's first benevolent dictator."

"Great, one of those types," Cecil muttered. "We'll deal with him."

"Also, there was that one ecoterrorist dinosaur?" I hazarded. "Look, Cecil, you have functioning eyes, I reckon, so just... someone has to read these goddamn things."

"I guess you just weren't that interested in the parts that weren't about the Viltrumites?" Cecil asked.

"It seemed to me like the central antagonist force, yes," I said, nodding. "The comics had Mark as the protagonist, and he was doomed from the cradle to be hip-deep in Viltrumite bullshit. Which, also, was of galactic importance, and therefore kind of overshadowed everything else going on with Mark's life, which mainly only affected a single planet. A planet that's important to all of us who live on it, but there are a lot of life-bearing planets out there."

Cecil just grunted.

"Good luck, this isn't my problem anymore."

----------------------------------------

"So, if I come with you," Eve began, carefully, "where are we going to go next?"

"That's your choice, in point of fact," I said. "The way I try to run things, each Companion- the term for someone who joins the Jumpchain from inside one of the Jumps- gets to pick one Jump. We've got seven Jumps left before the end, and I only really have solid intentions for, like... two of them. And those are Generic Jumps, so if there's a setting you wanna visit, we can combine them. So! What kind of nerd media do you want to Jump to?"

"There's this really long book I read recently, about teenage superheroes. It's called Worm, have you heard of it?"

I inhaled sharply through my teeth.

"You... have heard of it?" Eve asked, frowning.

"Have you considered wanting something else?"

"It's not any more dangerous than the universe we live in," Eve protested.

"Eve, I'm an undead psychic of godlike power who can multithread her consciousness through countless clone bodies," I said. "I'm not exactly worried about danger. I want to avoid Worm because I have a long personal history with the story that I would really, really like to avoid reliving."

"Alright, uh... Ender's Game?"

"No."

"Harry Potter?"

"...So you wanted to go to Worm, huh?"

"Wow, you really hate Harry Potter, huh?" Eve asked.

"Quite aside from the first three books being the only ones that knew the guiding touch of an editor's red pen, and the four afterwards being bloated messes, they also sucked in other ways that betrayed an ugly underlying reality of a woman who thinks anyone attempting to change anything is axiomatically evil, and later on she turned into one of the most aggressively transphobic people in the fucking world. As much as Wildbow and Orson Scott Card may suck as people- admittedly, while I'm comfortable saying Wildbow sucks I don't think he really belongs on the same level as OSC- neither of them are major figureheads in the culture war against transgender people." I hummed quietly. "Also, the world created by the books and/or movies isn't one I look forward to living in for any length of time. I hated school, and nobody has any real idea what the adults are doing in that universe besides bureaucracy, working retail at one of a handful of small shops in the one shopping district they have, and fighting wars."

"I... wasn't aware of Rowling's stance on trans people," Eve said, visibly uncomfortable.

"Anyway," I continued. "Worm... we've got options, there. We can use the Generic CYOA Jump to do one of the many Worm CYOAs, the Mk1 version of which offers some delightfully busted powers. We can also just use the Worm jump doc, or we can use one of the multiple Generic Worm Fanfiction jump docs... or, if you're okay with really contorting the story out of shape, we could use it with the Generic Supers Academy Jump."

"Let's... maybe go with the one that's just... straightforwardly designed for the story as it was written," Eve said.

"Welcome to my life," Karasuba said, dryly. "Where Rose is very invested in a medium that objectively sucks. She's going to make you read all these documents."

"Actually, you don't need to read this one," I said. "It's... I don't want to say it sucks, it's fairly competently made, it's just that very few of the things it offers are really worth taking, from my perspective. Iunno."

"Well, it'd hardly be the first required reading I've done..."