Chapter 31: Safety First

Even though I hardly felt the cold when I was pressed close to Lena, the change in atmosphere after Zhizhi closed the door sent a chill down my spine.

It wasn’t that dark; there were more streetlights on this block than near where we lived in Englewood, and fewer tall trees to block their light. So why did they just seem to hide the stars poking through the clouds, to stretch the shadows unnaturally long?

I sucked in a breath and held it.

We started walking, because it would have been ridiculous to run.

We passed the house with the dogs, but they stayed quiet. Had they been taken inside for the night? Had they gotten used to the smell of Lena and I?

Were they absent, because we’d slipped into some kind of parallel neighborhood?

Nope. We reached the intersection at the same time as a pair of joggers who were being dragged forward by their paired terriers. The dogs gave us, or maybe Bernie, familiar yaps. Bernie grumbled back. One of the joggers cocked her head, but, not seeing a source for the sound, waved at us and ran past.

Belatedly, lamely, I called, “Evening.” But as was the way of most joggers, they didn’t respond.

I looked both ways – not just for cars – but the moment had passed. I’m not saying that the shadows looked shorter, or that the stars came out, or that the streetlights shone brighter. Or that I wasn’t scared. I’m just saying I felt silly about it in a way I hadn’t a moment ago.

Halfway down the next block, I stopped.

Lena took an extra step, then twirled around to look at me. “Sup?”

“This is stupid,” I said.

“What is?”

“The way we’re acting.” I waved at the neighborhood around us. Utterly mundane, stripped of even the impossible objects Third Eye had once seeded it with. “Do we believe Albie, Lena?”

Her eyes flashed. “Of course!”

“Then,” I asked, taking her hands in my patchy gloves, “what are we worried about?”

“Who’s worried?” She tossed off the line and tossed her hair, but I could feel her hands shaking through her gloves.

“Albie told us the creature isn’t coming after us,” I said. “So what are we jumping at shadows over?”

“Albie sure didn’t say anything about PVP,” Lena said. “Maybe what we’re seeing is somebody trying to spook us, set us up for an invasion.”

“Then they’re making a pretty crappy decision.” I let go of her hands so I could wave mine around to emphasize my point. “You’ve got the highest max HP of anyone we’ve encountered. I think there were, what, two people who’ve reported a higher total on the wiki? And I’ve got even more than that right now, even if it won’t come back. On top of that, we’ve fought alongside Albie and against the creature. Another player ain’t shit compared to that.”

Bernie murmured what I took to be agreement.

Slowly, Lena mirrored my smile. “We’d have to be pretty pathetic to lose two on one to somebody who’s not even plugged in to the wiki team.”

She held out her fist and I bumped it.

We strode the rest of the way to the light rail station, ready to take on the world together. Maybe the world knew it; those joggers and their dogs were the last people we saw on the way. Anyone who was taking night classes at the community college was in class, and the actual suburbanites were home doing whatever people did in suburbia.

The northbound train that pulled into the station wasn’t completely empty, just almost. A trio of college students or older high schoolers had spread themselves out across an entire pair of benches. They looked jockish, but if they were in college I doubted they’d made their school’s team; not quite tall enough, not quite strong enough, the types to play a lot of Madden, even though they’d long ago given up any dreams of appearing in the game.

One of them proved he had better taste than manners by whistling at Lena as we walked past. I felt more than saw the microsecond of tension run down her hand. Then she snorted and flipped him off without breaking stride. I heard the other two laughing.

Lena and I ended up settling at the next stairwell, holding onto the railings.

I noticed her frowning. I lowered my voice. “You okay? You’re not worried about that, are you?”

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“As if.” She snorted again. Then she looked away. “Not worried. Weirded.”

“There’s no way that’s the first time somebody checked you out,” I said. “I know you’ll give me an ‘I’m biased,’ but you’re adorable.”

“No, it’s not that.” She rubbed her arm. “I mean, maybe it’s been a while or whatever. It’s the fight or flight thing.”

I cocked my head.

“When I was growing up, if a guy like that came onto me, I’d go aggro,” she said. “Get them saying, leave that chick alone, she’s psycho. But in a way, that was safe. You know?”

“I really, really don’t,” I said.

Lena looked down at her hands. “It doesn’t matter if you choose fight over flight if you can’t actually hurt anybody.”

She’d tried to explain to me what it was like to grow up as the tiniest person in her age group, and how that had shaped her behavior. I couldn’t pretend to know how she felt; my growth spurt had come earlier and gone further. Only a lack of inclination and coordination had kept me from getting sucked into the school sports track myself.

I did sort of understand what she meant now, though. “If you picked a fight with someone now,” I said, “you’re a tap on your phone away from exploding them into a tree.”

“Technically,” she said, “I’d have to tap three times.”

We both chuckled.

Still, I hadn’t really thought of our situation in those terms. When I’d talked about all our advantages, I meant over other players. But those were, if anything, even greater compared to someone who didn’t play Third Eye.

If I’d been equal parts stupid and insecure and gotten in that dude’s face for whistling at my girlfriend? A month ago, the best I could’ve hoped for was a black eye. Compared to the blows I’d absorbed from the creature, though, a punch from a beefy kid would barely even register. He might literally break his hand before I ran out of HP.

How far did it go? The creature’s attacks had knocked Lena and I into huge metal shelves with enough force to topple them. That was as much force as we’d suffer if we got hit by a car going the in-town speed limit. So would we be able to tank that, too? I wondered how much HP we’d lose from the impact.

What about something way worse? Let’s say I got hit by the light rail. With all due respect to the creature – and believe me, I suspected it was due a lot –, the physical effects of its attacks hadn’t been nearly as extreme as a light rail accident. I had to assume being hit by the train would chew through all of my HP. Would it actually injure me, though?

I suspected I knew the answer, but sure as hell wasn’t going to test it. Here’s what I thought would happen:

First, the train hitting me would strip away all of my HP.

Second, Third Eye would let me know how badly I’d fucked up by letting me feel what would’ve happened to my body if I’d lacked HP.

Third, I’d hit the ground and, with my protection stripped away, the force of the impact would turn me into hamburger.

Of course, all of that speculation was based on the idea that our HP protected us from physical harm. I was almost sure it did, because both the creature’s weirdness and Albie’s assurances meant I didn’t think it was itself a Third Eye phenomena. We’d never actually tested it, though. Even my belief that my allergies were being counteracted was just that – a belief. Maybe Lena and I had just kept house better this year.

Okay, that last was way too implausible of an explanation.

I cut off my speculation when I felt the shift in momentum as the light rail slowed. Lena and I hung on to the bar and each other.

I realized we were coming up on Oxford station. Where I’d last seen the shape that reminded me of the creature. My first instinct was to let go of the bar, retreat from the stairwell. I fought it down.

Lena cocked her head, so I must’ve given some sign of my reaction.

The doors opened and, as usual, nobody got on or off. No ominous figures haunted the ineffective shelter. Indeed, no one was present at all. The only living thing I saw was a scraggly evergreen tree, not quite near the bench but offset behind it.

Lena followed my gaze. “You think you thought that tree was the creature?”

I tried to picture the geometry of where we’d been sitting. If I’d thought of it in advance, I would’ve suggested we try taking a similar seat for the trip back. Too late now. “Maybe.”

“Probably,” she said. “And if not? We’ll just have to kick the ass of whoever tried to spook us.”

We didn’t do it at Oxford. At an empty station, the light rail doors only stayed open long enough to keep from squishing somebody who took their sweet time getting out of their seat.

A minute later, we were zipping back to our home turf.

Englewood Downtown was a lot busier. A whole clog of people were waiting for the train, so we hurried down the steps to get out of their way. More passengers disembarked, too. The jockish students stayed on, but five other people got off with us.

They all made for the car park, though, so when Lena and I descended the external stairs, we once again found ourselves alone in, if not darkness, the limited illumination from buildings and streetlights.

So what? We were the safest people in town.

Not that it mattered. There was no looming figure outside the library, which was probably a good idea on said hypothetical figure’s part, considering that the same building housed the police station.

Nothing accosted us as we passed the rest of the familiar downtown sites. No invaders at the fancier apartment we sometimes cast longing glances at. No monsters in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

Hell. We even passed within arms length of a hospital, yet no one tried to bill us for it.

We made it all the way back to our apartment building. All the way up the stairs.

Did I feel safe the whole way? The safest man in the metro area? Or at least in Englewood?

Like hell.

I felt like I’d dared the universe, and every step I took, I expected it to make me pay for it.

It didn’t happen.

We reached our front door. While I got my keys out and unlocked it, Lena knocked and called out, “We’re home!”

Home. Safe. We’d come all the way back and I hadn’t suffered any cosmic clap back for expressing optimism. I allowed myself a smile.

Then I swung the door open and saw Benji, his knuckles white around his phone, his eyes red, snapping, “Enough, already. I can’t do this right now. My brother’s home.”