Chapter 18: Outside Perspective

Lena stayed behind to clear a space in our shared closet, which meant I got unfiltered exposure to the cold air. The walkway didn’t wreck me because the apartment building’s mass blocked the wind, but as soon as I stepped onto the comparatively unshielded stairs, a shiver ran down my back.

“Buck up,” Benji said. “It’s not even that cold today.”

I opened my mouth to argue. Trouble was, I’d lose.

It amazed me how dependent I’d become on going everywhere with Lena, bathed in the warmth of her wings. Of course, only some of that came from the Third Eye-granted heat she radiated. Plenty was just enjoying her nearness.

Another reason not to argue.

I didn’t have to imagine what it felt like to storm out of the apartment after an argument with Lena. When it had happened a few weeks ago, even though I had yet to realize Third Eye had physical effects, it had felt damn cold. And damn lonely. That, even when I’d at least started out warmed by righteous indignation because I’d convinced myself – rightly or wrongly – I’d been in the right.

How would I have felt if I’d slunk out knowing I’d screwed things up? On a scale I frankly struggled to conceptualize?

Like shit, I suspected.

I’m not saying somebody shouldn’t feel shitty if they ruined the finances of their entire extended family. I’m just saying that I didn’t have it in me to pile on.

Instead, I asked, “How much did you bring with you?”

“Just the basics,” Benji said. “Suitcase, laptop, travel bag, and a garment bag for my sports coat.”

In other words, he’d brought with him about as much as Lena or I owned, if you swapped our desktops for laptops and didn’t count the transient knickknacks we kept in a holding pattern between sell-off cycles.

“We can get that in one trip,” I said. “I’ll take the suitcase and the travel bag. Then you don’t have to trust me with anything valuable.”

“You sure? I packed the suitcase pretty heavy.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Oh, I think you’ll find I can handle it.”

“Just don’t drop it, Cameron. It’s a nice case, I don’t want it getting all muddy.”

As much as Benji’s assumption I couldn’t carry a suitcase annoyed me, I had to admit that a month ago, he’d have had a point. It would have exhausted me to lug a packed case up three flights of stairs. Now, it wouldn’t induce enough fatigue to count as an instance of damage in Third Eye’s opinion.

I wasn’t sure how much of that came down to my HP blocking fatigue, and how much to the game’s play loop getting Lena and I up and out of the house.

Either way, when Benji took out his key fob and popped the trunk of the unfamiliar Hyundai Sonata parked at the far end of the perennially iced-over lot, I had more trouble keeping my footing as I walked to it than I did hefting the Samsonite I found within.

His eyebrow rose as he watched me transfer it to one hand. “You been working out, little bro?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Since the last time we talked, Lena and I both turned into total gym rats.”

He snorted. “You don’t look the part, but until you said Lena was doing the same thing, I almost started to believe you.”

I thought about telling him she could heft the bag as easily as me, but first, I didn’t know that for sure, and second, if I said so, I’d have to explain how. I kept my mouth shut.

Benji scooped his laptop case out of the trunk and slung it over his shoulder, then held his travel bag out to me.

I started to reach for it.

Hesitated.

Someone moved at the edge of my vision, right at the corner of the apartment building. I didn’t get a good look at them, just a sense of flickering motion. I only registered it as a person because it seemed too tall to be anything else. A human figure capped by some kind of pointed hat, or maybe a hood.

At least, that’s what I wanted to tell myself.

“Be right back,” I said.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Benji shook the travel bag. “What? Why?”

I ignored him and sprinted to the corner of the building. I hesitated. I dragged in a breath.

I’d just seen a person. Had to have.

Because the alternative – that I’d caught a glimpse of the creature from the construction site, here, now – made no sense.

Not because I believed Albie had killed it. I didn’t know if it was the only one of its kind, or if the tornado of flame she’d ended the battle with had been enough to destroy it, or even if I wanted it to be. The prospect of that little girl having to live her life as a killer, even of monsters, twisted my stomach almost as bad as the thought of the creature prowling near my home.

No, I had to believe I’d seen a person because the creature would’ve had no reason to skulk. Nothing I, or Lena, or certainly Benji did could even meaningfully slow it down.

I forced my legs to move and rounded the corner.

I’d hesitated too long.

Whoever I’d seen skulking there was long gone, either ducked into the neighborhood or merged into the pedestrian traffic along Hampden. Assuming they’d ever skulked at all, and not just been passing by in the instant I glanced their way.

Assuming they’d been there to begin with, and I hadn’t imagined it.

Just to be certain, I raised my phone and swept its camera over the street.

No impossible objects I could grab as Materials. Anything this close, Lena and I had picked off long ago.

No one wearing the distinctive attire of a Third Eye avatar. No wide floppy wizard hats, no tunics, no quilted leggings, no plate armor, and certainly nothing as spectacular as Lena or Erin’s custom personifications.

No cloaks with pointed hoods, either.

And no monsters.

I’d had my fill of dismissing things I’d “imagined.” The person I’d seen had been real enough to at least mention to Lena. I cast about for something else I could do, but nothing leapt to mind –

Benji’s voice came from right over my shoulder. “What the hell was that?”

I jumped. I spun. I started to snap and settled for mumbling, “Sorry.”

He frowned down at me. “You see a ghost or something?”

“Or something,” I said. “Sorry. Again. I’ve been... jumping at shadows lately.”

“No kidding.” He grinned. “If you’re on the run from the mob, you better tell me before I move in.”

“Nah, I’m in the opposite situation from you. I don’t think even a gangster would give me a loan.”

He chuckled like I’d made a joke. “What are you worried about, then?”

How much to tell? At least as much as was on the wiki. While I didn’t much rate Benji’s curiosity, I couldn’t rule out the possibility he would do the bare minimum of a Google search on the game Lena and I spent most of our time playing.

“Third Eye,” I said.

“The game you’re playing?”

I nodded. “It’s got a PVP component, which Lena likes and I don’t. That’s part of what she’s practicing for, a tournament coming up. Anyway, you’ve played Dark Souls, right?”

“I used to, some.” He shrugged. “Probably would’ve liked it better if I had enough spare time to ‘git gud.’ You two are super into it, I bet.”

Not like we had anything better to do, right? At least he’d settled for implying it.

I tried to ignore the dig. “Lena likes the series more than me, but it’s pretty cool. Anyway, you know how invasions work?”

“I tried them,” he said. “Seemed like everybody was always rolling with a bunch of friends, so I never got anywhere.”

I pursed my lips. I reminded myself I couldn’t very well blame Benji for preferring to invade if I tolerated it from Lena. Which I did, mostly. “Third Eye has invasion PVP, too,” I said. “It’s pretty jarring in an AR game.”

“AR,” Benji said.

“Augmented reality,” I said.

“I’m not Amish, Cam, I know what AR is.” He took out his phone. He must have flicked on Pokemon Go or some other mainstream AR game, because he panned the camera around and shrugged. “Let me get this straight. You and Lena are gonna run a YouTube channel based on a mobile game.”

I shifted on my feet. “It’s... pretty unusual for a mobile game.”

“What with the whole invasion thing?” he asked. “How does that even work? You’re just walking around with the app open and somebody ambushes you?”

“It’s happened before.” Hell, it had happened the first time I met a Third Eye player other than Lena.

“That,” Benji said, “sounds fucking obnoxious.”

“For once, we completely agree,” I said. “It’s a huge rift in the player base. People who are okay with how invasion works and people who aren’t. Part of what we started our videos for was to try to convince people to land on the ‘not okay’ side.”

He frowned again. “I hope you’re not pinning too many hopes on this game, Cam. It sounds crazy enough it could get shut down.”

“Again, familiar ground,” I said. “Freaking out about it getting shut down was half of what got the wiki team together in the first place. We work with the team that maintains the game’s wiki, by the way. Did we explain that already?”

“I don’t think it came up.” He glanced at the phone in his hand. “It’s not going to do some cyberpunk shit to my phone just because I stand near you, is it?”

Somehow, I managed not to hesitate. “Your phone will be fine.”

Would Benji be? As a nonplayer, he had no HP, no buffer against harm. If the creature did track us down –

Which, I reminded myself, I had no reason to believe it either could, or was in any condition to, or had any interest in.

If another player, maybe Matt, invaded me, the worst that would happen to Benji was the tiny fraction of Third Eye effects that passed through to the real world. A sting like getting hit by a pebble. A zap like too much static electricity.

Nothing unsafe.

Right?

I plastered on a smile. “Look, it’s nothing you need to worry about. Let’s get your shit and get out of this cold.”

Benji kept frowning, so I guess I’d hesitated longer than I thought.

But he tucked his phone away, rubbed his arms, and said, “I’m with that.”