Chapter 72: First Test

Lena and I still couldn’t afford to eat out on the regular, much less at sit-down restaurants.

So naturally, the next morning saw us sitting side-by-side in a booth at IHOP, cutting wedges out of our pancakes and feeding them to each other like a couple of total dorks.

Two points in our defense:

One, when we first dated, we did it online. Not only that, but once we started going out IRL, Lena was too tense in public to indulge in this kind of giddy crap.

Two, I’d hurt her, almost lost her, because I’d let myself forget to show how much I wanted her. That was not going to happen again. Ever.

Oh, and three, we’d gone out this morning for a good reason.

In addition to our usual staples, the Walmart bag tucked under our table contained a pet bed for Bernie, a thermometer, a weathervane, a postal scale, a can of dog food, and a can of cat food.

We couldn’t afford all of that, either. Lena had put it on her credit card, so I covered the meal.

We really needed that video to keep doing numbers. We really needed to finish filming a second one. Arguably, we needed to do our normal work instead of banking on it.

We needed to fill the wiki team in on what had happened to us at Lena’s old apartment. Erin would get the full story and we’d decide from there how much to share, and where.

We needed to find Albie. For her sake and ours.

Oh, and we needed to actually play Earth Defense Force 5. Somehow, we’d gotten distracted before I did more than install it. A mystery for the ages.

But before we did any of that, we had tests to run.

“You got syrup on your lip,” Lena said.

“Oh.” I reached for my napkin.

She kissed me.

I laughed and leaned into it.

“You’re going to get bored of doing that,” I murmured.

“You better appreciate it while it lasts, then.”

“I do.”

I knew we were being ridiculous, but just in case there had been any ambiguity, I saw our waiter out of the corner of my eye. He tried not to smirk at us as he put the check on our table.

“Can I get you anything else?” he asked.

“I think we’re good.” I laid my credit card on his tray.

“You sure?” he asked. “Some of the desserts are real messy.”

“Ooh,” Lena said.

I rolled my eyes. “I think we can make our own messes.”

He waited to see if Lena would order something in spite of what I’d said, or maybe – and to someone who didn’t have the sense of humor Lena and I did, this might’ve made sense – to spite me for saying it. When she didn’t, he gave a little shrug and took the check.

I normally tracked waiters when they disappeared with my card, but this morning, I looked right back to Lena. “When we get home, what do you want to do first?”

“That’s a dangerous question,” she said.

I grinned. “About the tests.”

“Bernie.” She nodded to herself. “Definitely Bernie.”

“Agreed,” I said.

I was dying to know how everything we’d figured out how to test would turn out. But, Bernie was by far the most spectacular Third Eye phenomena we’d encountered. Through the app, he was the only one who appeared to be a living thing. Outside the app, he was the only one physically manifest.

Unless you counted the amulets.

Lena was wearing hers again this morning. I reached out and rested my finger on it.

She glanced down at my hand over her chest and raised an eyebrow. She hooked one of her fingers around mine.

“We’re assuming that however Bernie... manifested, your amulet probably works the same way, right?” I asked.

“It makes sense,” she said. “The thing I can’t figure out is whether they’re actually manufacturing these somewhere and teleporting them, or whether they’re just conjuring them out of thin air.”

“The thing I can’t figure out,” I said, “is what they’re for.”

“That too.” She shrugged. “Well, Bernie transforms in Third Eye. Or is different through it. Maybe the amulet will work the same way once we know how to use it.”

“How’s that going to work with my digital one?”

“Probably won’t,” she said. “You’re going to feel real silly.”

I tapped her on the nose. Her eyes crossed trying to focus on my finger. “And if the digital version works just as well, you’re the one stuck wearing heavy jewelry around. Who’s going to feel silly then?”

She reached up to parry my finger again. “We’re both going to feel silly, because we’re both acting that way.”

“Want to stop?”

“Nope. It’s the best.”

We might have gotten even sillier and forgotten about all of the Third Eye shit we had on our plate for the day, but the waiter’s tray clattered on the table just loud enough for me to think it was intentional. When we looked his way, he said, “Have a nice day, you two.”

Lena glared at him.

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I tapped her wrist to remind her to behave and said, “Thanks, you too.”

I took my card back, we grabbed our bags from under the table, and we shrugged our way into our winter gear. Outside IHOP, an Englewood shuttle decorated with Cubist paintings was just pulling in. We pushed through snow drifts to catch it. We offered thumbs up to the driver, settled into empty seats right near the door, and Art did in fact Move Us.

I pulled the weathervane out of my bag and examined it.

“Want to give it a try here?” Lena asked.

“Nah. Don’t want to distract the driver.”

He glanced back at us, but whatever distracting things he thought we might do with a weathervane, he kept his questions to himself.

Lena put her head on my shoulder and reached over to spin the little metal cup thing on the weathervane. We stayed like that while the shuttle finished its circuit of downtown and dropped us off on Hampden.

Even though we only had about a block to walk back to the apartment, it represented an intimidating trek. The snow that had started yesterday afternoon hadn’t stopped and didn’t show any signs of doing so soon. It wasn’t brutally cold, but just below freezing temperatures hadn’t prevented the snow from accumulating. The drifts came up past Lena’s knees.

“Since we’re officially dating again,” she said, punctuating each word with a high, trudging step, “I think you should have to carry me home.”

“It’s amazing,” I said, “that someone as smart as you can be so wrong.”

She stuck her tongue out and caught a snowflake on it. “Yum.”

“Hey, you don’t have Third Eye open, right?”

She shook her head. “I’m not taking my glove off to turn it on, either.”

“Fair. I’d love to know if the snow would melt faster if you did, though.”

She stroked her chin. “Tempting. But the gloves stay on. I could give the phone to you and you could –”

I shivered. “I’m not that curious.”

Once we reached the parking lot, the apartment itself provided some cover. Somebody had salted the walkways. It was that fake chemical salt that was supposed to be more or less pet safe; still, I wondered if it would be okay for Bernie to step on. He had those sticky, grippy toes. Would we have to worry about things like that? Just how organic was his living form, and how real?

Regardless, we gripped the railing the whole way up and only slipped twice.

Inside, we disentangled ourselves from our snowy clothes and hung them up to dry, then deposited our Walmart haul on the counter.

“You want to sit down for a few minutes, or start testing?” I asked.

“Start testing!” Lena clapped. “I’m gonna grab Bernie.”

“I’ll put the refrigerated stuff away.” Instead of doing what I’d said, what I should’ve done, I watched her scamper into the bedroom.

I shook my head and put away the milk and a frozen pizza.

Lena reemerged, Bernie clutched in her arms. The plushie version of Bernie, Patchy, abstract, adorable, and apparently lifeless.

“Did you find him where we left him?” I asked.

She shook her head. “He was on the floor.”

I frowned. In a way, this had been our first test. We’d perched Bernie on Lena’s pillow to see if he would stay in the exact same place while we left the apartment.

“Close enough he could’ve just rolled off when we closed the door?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “Although I let you close it to make sure it didn’t get slammed.”

Test inconclusive.

“And you’ve had Third Eye off the whole time?”

She nodded. “Which, by the way, you almost screwed up.”

“Shit, you’re right. Good thing your hands are too delicate for the cold.”

Lena looked down at them and flexed her fingers. “I like that a lot better than skinny.”

I smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She gave Bernie a squeeze. “Test time.”

“You sound way too enthusiastic about that.”

“Spoken like somebody who didn’t test out of every class he could,” Lena said. She lowered her eyes. “Which, in retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have.”

I rounded the counter and hugged her and Bernie both.

She leaned against me. “Too easy.”

“I don’t come with difficulty settings,” I said. “Let’s get these tests rolling.”

“Yeah!”

I set the pet bed on the floor and Lena propped Bernie in it. Although he was large for a plushie, the bed we’d bought accommodated dogs of up to St. Bernard size. Marroll would almost have fit. Bernie’s plushie form practically disappeared in it.

It was, however, max adorbs, yo.

I made for the window and leaned against the blinds, trying to ignore the cold clawing at my back. Lena went to her computer desk on the opposite side of the room. She scooped up her smart glasses and perched them on her nose.

“Third Eye’s closed?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Mine, too,” I said.

“Bernie,” Lena called. “Come.”

The plushie remained inert.

I opened Third Eye and trained my camera on Bernie.

Like this, he justified the bed we’d gotten and then some. His body curled against the outer lip and his tail flopped over the side. He cracked one bulging eye and opened his mouth, but didn’t make a sound.

“I can still see him,” I said.

Lena called again.

Bernie’s eyes swiveled to her, he yawned, but he didn’t move. He tucked his head down into the bed and shifted.

“Maybe he just doesn’t know commands?” Lena said.

“Could be,” I said. “You didn’t take all your stuffed toys to pet training classes? So irresponsible.”

She snorted. “Next test.”

I knew the moment she opened Third Eye. I still felt the cold at my back, but a wave of warmth rolled over my face and chest. Now that I knew to pay attention to it, I felt like an idiot for missing it before.

Or were the effects stronger now? Because she had Fire as well as the flames of her Custom Personification?

Unfortunately, we’d missed the chance to test that. Somehow, I didn’t think she’d go for the suggestion that she spend her last unit of Fire as a Material so we could experiment with the difference. I sure wouldn’t.

I took a moment to drink in the sight of her through Third Eye. No armor this morning, nor even the scaled tunic and trousers it had been reforged into yesterday. Her flaming dress reminded me of the one that had awed me the first time we freaked out about the graphics.

She swung her hand toward me, looked me up and down, and grinned. “I think you’re looking the wrong way, Cam.”

“Nope.” But I wrenched my camera back to Bernie.

His eyes poked over the edge of the bed, swiveled toward Lena. Not that I could blame him.

Once again, she called, “Bernie, come!”

He slithered out of the bed and bounded over to her. I tracked him as he moved and watched as he wrapped himself into her arms.

I lowered my phone. Lena was holding Bernie the plushie.

“Wow,” I whispered.

She looked down at him. “Yeah.”

That was... the same thing that happened in her old apartment. But her old apartment had been a weird space, already unnerving before Bernie ever emerged. I wasn’t sure how much of it had been a real place at all, rather than a Third Eye construct.

This was our apartment. Our home.

Unless Third Eye was completely screwing with our heads, to the point we couldn’t trust our senses at all, we’d just seen a phenomena native to the game move a physical object under its own power.

Lena knelt and extricated herself from Bernie. What did that translate into, physically? Setting the plushie down? I’d have to ask her later what it felt like she was doing. “Bear with me just a little longer, little guy. We got one more test we want to run.”

Something that sounded an awful lot like a sigh rumbled in Bernie’s throat, but he splayed out on the floor next to her desk.

Lena stood up and strode across the room. Bernie watched her go, and so did I until I remembered I was supposed to close Third Eye and observe the plushie.

It lay on the floor.

Lena knelt by the pet bed. “Last test, little guy, I promise. Then you can get some rest in your nice new bed.”

I leaned forward, staring at the plushie. What would it look like if it moved? What would it mean, if it didn’t?

“Bernie,” Lena called, “come!”