Obviously, all of us discussed turning our respective homes into bases. Wren couldn’t remember hers (thanks, Makris), Gigi didn’t have one because xe was genuinely an alien, Tam wouldn’t tell us about hers, and Jye said they’d lived in a shoe-box of a studio apartment. I’d discounted Axel’s and mine as well for similar reasons; it was too small to host six people and it had nowhere to grow anything. Though it might be nice to stop by eventually to pick up some personal items. I suggested as much to Axel and Jye (and Tam, though she didn’t acknowledge the idea), and we added it onto the list of things we should do during recon.

After that, it'd been a free for all on suggestions. There were mentions of pre-established buildings, like prisons Walking Dead style or even schools, but since it wasn’t clear how the government, if it was still operating, would react to that, we’d crossed them off. Not to mention, the amount of electricity required to operate full complexes like those was out of our resource capability. It was a safe bet that most of the servos had been drained of fuel by now. We’d check when possible, but we wouldn’t go out of our way for it.

Wren, and or Makris, recommended just shacking up in a regular old house that fit our needs. I couldn’t argue with the idea. But that did bring up a whole new topic. What exactly were our prerequisites for a base? Most of us agreed it had to have enough separate rooms for us all, solar panels (because we refused to live in the Dark Ages), access to water (we’d sink to being next to a dirty river, if it came to it), and room for planting a garden (this was our no-compromise item). It was a short list of our bare minimums but quite specific. Part of me had been expecting to spend the rest of the day wandering about the nearby suburbs looking for something that matched our criteria and probably not even being able to find one. Though to my surprise…

“Oh, easy as. I know a place,” Jye had said.

Out of everyone in the party, the redheaded, anime-loving gym junkie wasn’t the one I’d been anticipating to contribute the best option to create our headquarters. Okay, so “best” might be an exaggeration, but based on how Jye’d explained it as we’d inquired further, if it was empty, I couldn’t imagine finding a better location. If being the key word.

“Lusi usually meets me at the door, but I’ve been inside once or twice. She’s chill like that,” Jye said with a casual shrug.

As we approached the rather excessive two storey house, I noted the solar panels on its slanted roof. Perfect. We could check that off. And it looked like there were enough of them that it probably would’ve fed back into the power grid when it’d been operational. That meant the potential for a Tesla battery too, if we were lucky. My dad had one installed in their house last winter and had bragged about it to me. Damn, it was hard not knowing how he and my mother were. I hadn’t had the clarity of mind to ask back at Tentworld, but I should’ve seen if I could’ve charged my phone to contact my parents. I’d do that here as soon as I could.

The solar panels weren’t wasn’t the only thing that caught my eye. There appeared to be the tops of two large water tanks poking out from behind the tall metal fences to the side of the building. A little unusual for a house in the city, but I knew some people hated tap water. I shouldn’t have been looking a gift horse in the mouth. So… water was checked off too.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it really was living up to Jye’s description. However, I did have one issue. How did Jye even know about this place? It wasn’t exactly in the most prominent location. It’d taken us the better part of the rest of the day traipsing to it, with the property fence that surrounded it starting much earlier than anything on the nearby land. The house was located toward the back of its plot, high in some hills, obscured by a treeline. Had Jye not led us to it, I wouldn’t have even known it existed. Hell, I didn’t even know Brisbane had this type of locale.

“Remind me again how you know the owner of this place?” I asked, trailing behind Jye up the stepping stones to the mahogany front door. Just to get here alone had taken five minutes down a dirt driveway. “You said she was a customer?”

The giant reached out and swung the ornate copper knocker once, twice, three times before we all waited.

“Oh, no, I'm her customer,” they said.

“What?”

“She’s my dealer. We met when I was finding myself.” They gave an affirmative nod. “Best prices, hands down. Think she grows the stuff herself, kinda as a hobby.”

All at once a fear blossomed in my chest. Holy shit. What the fuck was Jye thinking? I’d never done recreational drugs in my life, the extent being prescriptions I’d been given as a kid to help with losing Chrissie, but the industry behind the illegal trade never painted a pretty picture. Knees broken in with steel pipes, dodgy meetings in alleyways, the police at your back… I knew it was stupid to think all of this when we’d literally killed people, but a lifetime of being worried when a cop even so much as glances at you, and you’re convinced you’re breaking some sort of law accidentally, is hard to kick.

Thankfully no one came to the door.

Skimming down to one of the rocks in the gravel surrounding the stepping stones, Axel picked a large one up and flipped it on its back. A glimmer of satisfaction crossed his face. “Classic.” He plucked a key from the hollow of the fake stone.

“If you’ll do the honours,” he said, tossing it to me.

After fumbling to catch it, I stared at the key for a moment.

If the house was abandoned I didn’t see any problem taking advantage of it. At this point having any qualms with this would make a mockery of the lives we’d taken. I took a breath. This was necessary for survival. Breaking and entering laws be damned. Wasn’t this covered under squatters’ rights anyway?

I unlocked the door and pushed it open.

We were met with quite the lovely interior absent any people, luckily. Inside it was like those sales images when people are advertising an open house; pristine without any mess, almost like no one lived in it in the first place. Though there were some personal touches, like the two metre tall watercolour painting of some random person smiling. Was that Lusi?

“Uh, Jye. If drugs are her hobby, what’s her main job?” I asked, stepping in so the others could enter as well.

“Well, put it this way, my contact name for her is Doc.”

I stared. So like a GP?

With a grin, Jye said, “Because she’d fix you right up.”

If Lusi were actually a doctor, this kind of house didn’t seem beyond that occupation’s wallet. It was almost the perfect cover. Who would suspect the doctor you went to see to get a sick note when you had a cold was also running drugs on the side? Either way, if we were going to take up the place, we’d find out sooner or later who Lusi was.

Ignoring the admittedly fantastic pun, I pressed, “And you came here to buy?”

If this was where she lived, wouldn't it have been idiotic to invite clients to her home? But maybe Jye was understating their relationship. Perhaps they were closer to friends than purely business. They’d mentioned it was when they were finding themself. Maybe that went a lot deeper than it sounded.

“Yeah, fancy place, huh?”

I nodded in silence, taking in the huge entertainment room with a flat screen that stretched perhaps a hundred inches and the most comfortable looking black leather sofa I’d seen in my life; its sheen practically sparkling. This place was luxe. Really, who the fuck was Lusi? Or rather… who had she been? If she wasn’t here, I could only come to one conclusion.

As we took the tour of the house, switching on lights powered by the solar panels, I was even more gobsmacked. Whoever Lusi had been, this property was probably valued in the millions. The first floor consisted of the shared spaces, like the entertainment room, dining room, kitchen, and more, whilst the second story was dedicated to several bedrooms, each with their own en suite, including the master bedroom which boasted an ultra king mattress, sheets still mussed. Separate rooms… Check.

Some of them looked lived in and decorated, so Lusi probably had a family or renters, whilst others were conspicuously empty of character. Guest rooms, I imagined. I tried not to look at the family portraits on bedside tables, hoping that whoever they were, they hadn’t fallen victim to the CBD Dungeon. Though with them having been so close and unable to stop the itch, it didn’t seem likely. Wardrobes and drawers had been left open and askew, the clothes inside disturbed, as if someone had been searching within. At least the house’s prior occupants had been prepared for their evacuation. Maybe they would’ve survived the CBD Dungeon, like Wren.

As we left the last bedroom in the hall, I caught myself staring at what had to be a family picture in the hallway that included the same person in the watercolor painting in the foyer. The five of them wore warm smiles; three adults and two kids. Lusi, her partners, and her children? It was the kind of photo you get a passerby to take when you’re somewhere nice, with the framing slightly off with too much headroom and the smallest hint of the photographer’s finger on the lens.

I hoped they weren’t dead.

In fact, this was something that was beginning to concern me. We really hadn’t encountered a lot of people. We’d crossed paths with maybe two dozen during our travels. How many of us were there actually left now? It’d only been two weeks, but surely the majority of the Brisbane population, over a million people, hadn’t walked into a Dungeon and died… Right?

That wasn’t something I had considered before. That as more and more people died, the majority that would be needed to reach the average would continue to drop. If we wanted to get all the time we possibly could to level up, we would have to ensure the survival of others, at least until the culling. Part of me felt relief at that. That now I had a reason to not kill.

We finished the second story exploration, and the house appeared relatively normal, apart from the sheer excess of it all. But then I found a staircase on the first floor heading down further. A basement. Australian houses didn’t have basements nor did we really have attics. It was always a gripe of mine watching so much American media and being unable to replicate the same kind of bunkers that kids often made in those weird spare spaces their parents let them have. I think the closest we got down under was the stuffy enclosed downstairs areas when homeowners lifted the bases of their houses up on stilts; it was usually turned into storage and or the washing machine room.

I met the gaze of the rest of the party, and, without a word, we descended the stairs.

It shouldn’t have shocked me what was down there.

The basement stretched the same expanse as the breadth and width of the house.

And over half of it was filled with neatly organised rows of hydroponics supporting flourishing lush weed. Though I didn’t know the price they sold at, I couldn’t imagine there was anything less than thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars around us. Or there would’ve been, back when society had been different.

I guess… that checked off the area for planting.

Other than the weed, the rest of the room looked to be taken up by processing equipment, with some harvest still in the middle of drying, hung up upside down by their stems. In the corner, there also appeared to be a few monitors displaying camera feed from around the exterior of the house. The low hum of the fans and the growing lights filled the moist air as we continued to absorb the situation.

“It seems this may have been more than a hobby,” Gigi commented.

Axel let out an impressed whistle.

Tam said, “Fuck me sideways.”

I’d long since stopped trying to police cursing in the party, especially since Wren had a pottymouth who’d taken up residence in her head. It was no wonder she understood so many of our adult jokes.

As if to punctuate my thoughts, Wren remarked, “This is a lot of drugs.”

I stepped further in to examine the plants, pushing down the image of Lusi and her family and what they’d been running in here.

“Bagsed,” Jye announced, waving their hand over the entirety of the basement.

“Really?” I asked.

They nodded. “You have no idea how much I’ve been needing a chill sesh, man.”

“Well, take whatever you want. We’ll be converting this system to fruits and vegetables soon.”

Jye let out an anguished sound.

I explained, “Food is more important.”

“Says who?” inquired Jye.

This earned them a look from the rest of the party. Their shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Fine,” they huffed. After just a second, a look of resigned acceptance swept over their face. “I guess I don't really know anything about growing the stuff. Just using it.”

Giving them a consolational pat on the shoulder, I remarked, “Might be for the better.”

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A huge pout curled their lips down as they gazed at the plants.

Having seen what I’d needed to, I left the giant to their over dramatic antics and headed back upstairs to the main lounge and sunk into the luscious sofa, mulling things over. A moment later, the rest of them joined me, Jye still visibly salty.

The house had been empty. It had power. It had water. It had a hydroponics system. It had cameras we could monitor. It wasn't too far removed from the city but also hard to find. It had enough rooms and then some. I almost felt like we were cheating. It shouldn't have been this easy. But what was the catch? Maybe Lusi’s background would come to bite us on the ass in the future, but right now… This was perfect.

“I guess this is our base,” I announced.

This elicited excited comments from a few.

I pointed a finger up, gesturing to the floor above us. “All right. Room claims are open. If any of you want the master, we'll draw lots for it. Other than that, first in first served.”

There was a beat and then Wren, Jye (both giggling with delight) and Gigi all but made skid marks on the floor as they all bolted to dibs a room. Axel and Tam remained, watching the others in amusement and disdain, respectively.

I really wanted the master, a desire which surprised even me. I'd slept in a king single pretty much all my adult life because it was space economic, and without the thought of anyone ever having to share it, I had never bothered upsizing. But, just once, I wanted to be indulgent. If this was where we'd be going home to rest, I wanted somewhere I could completely spread out. I’d probably end up sleeping on my side, curled onto less than one third of it, but that was besides the point.

A quick glance for something on hand, I spied a vase on the coffee table with ornamental sticks poking out of it. Well, not like it really had any use sitting there like that. I never saw the appeal in decoration that served no practical purpose. Grabbing one stick, I snapped it into three lengths with one notably shorter.

“Close your eyes,” I said. Axel did as I'd instructed, his lashes brushing his cheeks. Eugh. It really wasn't fair.

“How can we trust you ain't scamming us?” Tam asked, eyes narrowed.

I stared.

She scowled, understanding my silence, and then closed her eyes. I followed suit, mixing the broken pieces on the table until I couldn't tell them apart, and then brought them into my hand, evening off how much poked out by tapping them against the table. Where they ended at the hollow of my palm, I had no clue which was the shortest. As I opened my eyes to check, the winning stick was as indistinct to me as the others.

“All right.”

Axel and Tam's eyes flashed open, and after an intense moment of speculation, the cutthroat plucked one. Axel did too. I held the remaining one out to compare against theirs. We all stared in quiet concentration.

Axel had gotten the shortest stick.

Ah, well. The other rooms had doubles or queens, so it wasn't that bad of a loss. Technically all of them would be an upgrade when compared to my bed back in our old apartment.

The brunette let out a frustrated growl before hurrying to claim one of the other rooms, given that there was only one left with a nice view of the hills. That she had played along was good news. Perhaps we were slowly wearing her down. Who knows, maybe she'd tell me her wife's name next! The impossibility of the idea made me laugh inwardly.

Smiling, Axel held out his stick to me. “For you.”

I blinked. “What?”

“I actually hate large empty beds. I get cold in them,” Axel said.

“You didn't want the master bedroom to begin with?”

“Nah. Take it.” He pressed the broken stick into my hands.

“Thanks,” I murmured back, unsure how to process this.

“Don't mention it. Though if I get cold in mine…” he trailed off and then shot me a grin with a raised eyebrow.

I couldn't help but chuckle. It was a very Axel tactic.

“Sure,” I replied.

His smile slipped off his face, replaced with absolute bafflement. “Wait, that worked?”

“It's the start of summer, and, to conserve power, we’re definitely not turning on aircons. Should you get cold in that weather, we can probably dig up some spare blankets for you, sure.”

Axel's expression wilted. “You’re evil.”

I knew he was playing it up a little bit, but I did feel slightly guilty since I was technically messing with his feelings for me. He should’ve been used to this by now. However, even though he had literally been trying to wiggle his way into my bed, I decided to give the guy a little leeway. I said, “But you’re welcome to drop in before bed, though. It might be nice to just chill.”

His eyes lit up. “I’ll be there.”

It was very odd that he genuinely wanted to spend time with me. Not that I didn’t want to, but he’d never shown such interest before. Or maybe I’d never noticed? I found myself looking forward to it. I really couldn’t remember the last time we’d simply sat and talked for the sheer sake of enjoying each other’s company.

“Great,” I said, attempting to mask my excitement.

“Great.”

A beat.

“Is it bedtime yet?” he asked.

With a grin, I glanced at the watch on my wrist. It was just past seven. “Not even close.”

“Damn.”

Scoffing, I said, “Let’s see what Lusi has for us for dinner tonight.”

“Dibs not cooking,” Axel replied almost instantly.

“I know, I know. I’ll see what I can whip up.”

The blond was notorious for ruining every recipe he tried, so much so that even when he hosted parties, no one would eat anything that looked homemade, even if Axel hadn’t prepared it himself. He’d once burned an egg to such a black crisp that the pan was unsalvageable afterward. As such, he’d subsisted on take away and eating the remnants of whatever I left in the fridge, which had only irritated me a little bit. Rather it saved me from feeling bad about wasting food. Now that I thought about it, had Axel been intentionally eating my cooking and not surviving on it out of desperation?

Well, the more you know…

We moved to the kitchen, and Axel took a seat behind the breakfast bar. He propped his chin up on a hand, and I felt his eyes on me as I checked the cupboards. Whoever Lusi had been, she’d kept everything fully stocked. I really did not want to think about how she was likely some sort of drug king and would be out for our lives if we stayed here. That was something I did not want to think about. I also didn’t like thinking about how we’d moved into a dead family’s home.

Instead, I focused on considering what was in her walk-in pantry. After a moment, I left with the foundation of any good dish. Onion and garlic. I placed them on the counter and returned to scrounge up enough other ingredients to put together a haphazard excuse for a pasta dish. It wasn’t a difficult recipe to freestyle, as most pasta was just cooking whatever you liked, adding a sauce that complemented it, and then not overcooking whatever pasta you’d chosen to accompany it.

Having found a chopping board and knife in the dishrack by the sink, I tasked Axel with cutting the onion and garlic, much to his complaint, while I got familiar with the rest of the kitchen. Some things followed standard conventions, with the top largest drawer housing eating cutlery, followed by cooking utensils, miscellaneous kitchen items, and then hand towels and wipes. All the stainless steel pots and pans hung down from hooks attached to the ceiling above the stovetop, and I pulled off two needed for the meal.

As he cut, Axel said, “I missed this.”

“You never cooked with me,” I replied, beginning to measure things out by eye.

He blanched almost imperceptibly then cleared his throat. “Yeah, I know. I was just… When you were in the kitchen back at the apartment– It was nice. Walking past and seeing you there. Hearing you when I watched TV.”

“You’re so weird, man,” I said back with a laugh.

I thought back to the times he would return from work and, without comment, would stroll past me cooking to switch on something mind-numbing to unwind to. My job was closer and had a hybrid work style, so more often than not I was home before him, or I’d never left. Usually, during those times, he’d really never acknowledged me unless on the occasion when he’d ask what I was making. It was bizarre to think he held those memories important.

Dourly, he responded, “I think I just took it all for granted, you know?”

“I know.” I was limiting the use of whatever I was including because I knew eventually we were likely to run out. It was very, very confrontational to cook without the surety of future grocery trips to restock common household ingredients. It made me all the more aware of what life had been like and what it was going to be like.

Axel pushed his finished task toward me, and I scraped the onion onto the frying pan. It sizzled on contact with the olive oil, some of the shreds dancing in the heat. Shortly after, I added the garlic. Their combined allium smell filled the kitchen, and I switched on the overhead fan. My stomach growled. The barbecue had been a pleasant meal, but nothing beat the perfect scent of onion and garlic beginning to golden. Truly a home cooked dish was something else.

Summoned by the enticing aroma, Wren peered down from the stairs.

“What are you making?”

“Pasta something,” I said back. “Wanna help?”

She nodded enthusiastically and came trotting to my side. I handed her the pot. “Fill this with water and a huge handful of salt, all right?”

With a serious murmur of agreement, she took it to the sink.

As I’d been hoping, the faucet fed out water easily though without much pressure. So, the tanks held potable water. Thankfully. But that wasn’t an unlimited resource. We’d have to be careful with how we used it. Considering the hydroponics too, I had to accept we unfortunately wouldn’t be taking showers too often, to my chagrin. At least with summer upon us, we were likely to get storms and thus more rain.

Carefully, I added the rest of the ingredients as per my assumed cooking times for them, and when I looked up again, I’d gained a further audience of Jye and Gigi. That figured. I didn’t think Jye liked cooking for themself, and I didn’t know if Gigi even really knew what counted as fully edible on Earth.

Wren handed a full pot of water cloudy with salt to me, and I added it to the stovetop on high.

“You guys really just gonna watch?”

“I did my part,” Axel said, holding up his hands.

“I’m helping!” Wren chimed in.

“Not gonna poison me, are you, babes?” came Tam’s voice as she descended the stairs, her nose held high, audibly sniffing.

I rolled my eyes. “Tell me why I’d kill the highest damage dealer in our party. Make it make sense to me.”

Her mouth opened to retort, but no words came out. It looked like for once I’d managed to silence her. Rather in fact, there appeared to be something of sheepishness in her mixed expression. Well, that was very different indeed. Memo to self: wrangle Tam with compliments.

Turning back to the stove, I gave the mix a stir, and Jye offered, “What you need?”

I considered for a moment, adding several handfuls of the rigatoni pasta to the boiling water, switching it to medium heat. “Didn’t Test Name have some cheese or something on them?”

They nodded, pulling a hunk of parmesan from their inventory. It had been one of the weirder finds from their party that all of us except Jye had been too suspicious to claim. How long had it been unrefrigerated for? The old archer had at least half a wedge on him, but in Jye’s hand, it looked even smaller now. Was that a bite mark?

“It still good?” I asked, dubious.

“And it’s the good stuff. Got those crunchy crystals.”

I instructed Jye to crumble up some and leave it to the side.

While they did that, I started pulling together the sauce. I decided to go traditional with a tomato base from canned tomatoes and some tomato paste, adding seasoning as necessary, and herbs and spices from the quite varied selection on Lusi’s shelves. It was a bit of a messy combination, but I was confident it would turn out fine. For a while during uni, I’d gone basically vegetarian out of pure necessity because the price of meat was absurd. You learn how to really bump up the umami of meals to compensate.

Suddenly, Tam was behind the breakfast bar with me, a spoon in her hand, tasting the sauce.

“This is… nice?” she said.

“It’s insulting you seem confused.”

She frowned and then added, “Pasta’s done, bee-tee-dubs.”

I gave her a pointed look, and, with a huff, she fetched a strainer before draining the water, putting some of the starchy liquid aside. She left the pasta dripping dry above the kitchen sink, resting on the edge. So Tam cooked as well, if she knew about taking advantage of the pasta water. Maybe I’d get her to do a meal tomorrow. Heaven knows, I wouldn’t be the only one cooking here. That wouldn’t be fair. We should be taking turns.

Jesus christ. I was turning into my mother. I was even thinking about making a chore chart. Speaking of, I made a mental note for after dinner to charge my phone. I’d dragged my charger with me through the full Dungeon for a reason after all.

I briefly heard Axel, Gigi, and Wren discussing something but wasn’t able to listen in, as I added the retained pasta water to thicken the tomato sauce, stirring absentmindedly.

In the corner of my eye, I spied the others beginning to set the dining table.

Oh. That was kind of sweet.

After one final taste test and another sprinkle of salt and pepper to correct, I added the slightly cooled pasta to the sauce, made sure it properly coated the ridges in the rigatoni, and then brought it to where the rest of the party had begun to gather, each of them sitting at the table. Setting the pan down carefully onto the pot holder someone had positioned in the centre, I took my own seat which apparently the others had decided should be at the head.

I gestured. “Bon appetit!”

It was Gigi who reached out to begin dishing out the food, standing on their tippy toes to reach, ladling not an insignificant amount onto each person’s plate. Far too much for Wren, too little for Jye, but probably about the right amount for Axel, Tam, xemself, and I. Separately, those brave enough grabbed a bit of the parmesan and crumbled it further on top of their dishes. I felt it was necessary to properly balance the flavours, so I added some to mine. Without much ado, everyone began to eat. The food earned a few murmured compliments, but otherwise it was mostly silent dining punctuated by utensils clinking on plates.

I had to admit, it was very odd, sitting there like that in a house we’d basically stolen, enjoying a meal. But it was nice. Weird, though. Very, very weird.

As everyone began finishing up, Tam started interrogating the others about their lack of cooking skills, laying into them without mercy. I wondered if she felt bad about having made me cook by myself. Perhaps not contributing to the party actually made her feel restless. Based on what I’d managed to infer about her, Tam was a woman who did not like to appear weak or useless and liked to hold her own. What her wife was like, I couldn’t even imagine.

Axel defended himself ardently against her accusations, but Jye’s expression seemed more sour than it should. What could be the cause behind that? Maybe I’d never know. Wren asked to help for the next meal we cooked, and both Tam and I agreed at the same time which earned a tense stare between us followed by half-accepting nods.

The atmosphere was warm and kind, and as I had my last bite, I took in the group. Had I not known any better, if I were an outsider, I might’ve thought we were friends at a dinner party. It was a silly idea, but I let myself soak in that moment for a little while. It would be something far and few between once we finished recon.

“All right!” I took a page from Phoenix's book. “Those who cooked least need to clean.”

A collective groan escaped everyone.

I grinned. I hated cleaning too.

Later that night, after changing its sheets, I collapsed onto the ultra king in the master bedroom. It’d been two weeks since I’d last slept on a bed. The bedrolls and sleeping bags that we’d been surviving off hadn’t been awful. They’d done their job. But this… it was like being held aloft by clouds.

Before parting for bed, everyone had agreed to a wake-up time tomorrow; ludicrously early by my standards, but we really needed all the daylight we could get. I didn’t want to waste electricity. We’d all said our goodnights and retired, even Axel who’d explained he just wanted some alone time. I wasn’t about to say I was disappointed.

I spread out my arms across the empty bed, letting out a content sigh, and closed my eyes.

The mattress was plush and soft, a level of extraordinary comfort I’d never had.

And yet I found it difficult to fall asleep.