Chapter 72: Some Good

I don’t know if Lena and I convinced Sandy we were qualified to defeat an evil wizard. But between Bernie jumping around on the table and Ryu pulling faces on any device we let him near, we at least left her, Benji, and Mason with big grins. I was sure they had plenty to talk about, plenty to decide.

I was also sure they’d work it out, though.

On the bus ride home, Lena huddled against me. She rested her head on my shoulder. When I glanced down at her, her lips curled in a contented smile and her eyelids drooped.

I watched her doze for as long as I could, but the RTD route from Aurora back to Englewood asked more of us than just boarding a light rail car. All too soon, I had to nudge her awake so we could switch buses.

She stirred. I felt her wings brush against my back.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Never better,” she mumbled. “Tired.”

“Did Mason give you any trouble?”

“Yeah, for some reason, he wouldn’t let me do all the work on his Lego set. Shocking behavior.” She winked. “He’s great. I had a great time. It’s just been... a lot.”

I nodded. A lot of interacting with people outside our home, outside our usual social circle. A lot of turmoil. A lot of surprises.

I rubbed her arm. “You still down with the plan?”

“Gotta be.” She gave me a thumbs up.

“You don’t have to –”

“I do.” She gripped my arm, hard. For a moment I thought she was being serious. Then she added, “If I left everything to you, I’d have to watch you try to fumble your way through sending a Discord message while we rode back.”

I snorted. “There’s no way I’d get it done before we got home.”

An exaggeration. Unfortunately. It would’ve taken me the better part of the next leg of our journey to get word out to the other members of the wiki team, but we had another bus to change to after that.

Lena, on the other hand, was done tapping out her message before the next bus even pulled into the stop.

Another transfer and one final hop onto Englewood’s Art Moves You shuttle later, and we trudged up the steps to our apartment just as the sun began to set. I opened the door and held it while Lena continued tapping at her cracked phone screen.

“What’s everybody saying?” I asked.

“Hm?” She shook her head. “I’m not on Discord. I’m just playing with Ryu.”

I leaned in to look over her shoulder. “What’s the game?”

“Basically, hide and seek,” she said. “I figure out which of my apps he’s infiltrated and then go in and see what he’s done with it.”

“So he can manipulate the games on your phone the way he did the ones in the arcade?” I asked.

She bobbed her head. “Most of them, it’s like playing with wacky God-mode mods, but it’s still fun to see how he turns stuff into his little playgrounds.”

“Too bad you’re not getting Tickets for winning.” My eyebrows raised. “You aren’t, right?”

“Nope. Where would they print out?”

We hesitated in the doorway and exchanged glances.

“Now I kind of wish we owned a printer,” I said.

“Madness.” Lena chewed her lip. “Maybe we should hit up Miguel or Erin and see if they have ones we can try?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“It’s worth a shot,” I said. “We could even try an office supply store; they usually run printing services. Of course, the main thing we have to test is what our Tickets actually do. You haven’t tried yours yet, have you?”

She shook her head. “I wanted to square the whole thing with Ben and his family first. After that, I figured a little relaxation wouldn’t kill us.”

“At this point,” I said, “we might as well wait until we have the whole team assembled in case we need help figuring out the results.”

“Good call.” Lena stepped past me into the apartment.

I shut the door behind us.

I took out my own phone and examined Discord. Judging from who was listed as Online, we didn’t have to wait any longer.

The gang was as close to all here as they were likely to get. Not just Erin (NugsFan15), Miguel (GMiguel88), Zhizhi (CubSoda), and Donica (DeepingShadows), who I’d expected to respond. Both of Erin’s other local friends in the playerbase, DU_Goldie and OffGrid, had joined us. So had three of the members from out of town, ShakeProtocol – Joon Woo –, LikeItsNinetyNine, and Salamancer.

Even VisibleFromSpace was listed as Online. One of the devs and, we suspected, Albie’s older brother. Despite accepting Erin’s invite, he’d never posted a message on her server.

Indeed, as far as I knew, he’d only communicated with the playerbase three times. Once on the official Discord, to announce that the bottom one percent of players would be dropped from beta participation. A second time in a direct message, to agree to Erin’s invitation to the server but only on the condition that she didn’t extend the same offer to AlephLamba. And finally, in another DM, to tell Erin – too late – that under no circumstances should we enter the construction site.

I didn’t expect him to break his silence this evening. For better or worse, everything we had to discuss seemed well within the bounds of normal, intended Third Eye play.

A couple of the out-of-towners weren’t around, but they were some of the least active members of the group.

It felt weird to say, but the one username whose absence disappointed me was CannibalHalfling’s.

It didn’t come as a huge surprise. Matt lurked way more than he posted. Unless he was set to Invisible, though, he wasn’t even lurking this afternoon. A shame. We didn’t always get along with him – okay, if I’m being honest, we never did – but our plans hinged on our understanding of how Third Eye was meant to be played. Short of asking Albie directly, Matt was our best source.

“You did send an invite to Matt, didn’t you?” I asked Lena.

“I just did an @everyone,” she said. “I guess he counts. I mean, if he could beat me, he’s got to know a thing or two about this game.”

I chuckled.

“He didn’t show?” she asked. She started up her computer, then hurried over to the pet bed at the foot of the kitchen counter. She settled Bernie into it and lingered to scratch under his chin.

“Doesn’t look like it.” I fired up my own computer. It would be far easier for me to follow the conversation on Discord there, much less to respond. I’d just as soon have done it over voice, but Erin seemed to prefer to stick to text where possible. I supposed that even among friends, she only trusted her voice coaching as far as she had to.

“Bummer,” Lena said. “I wanted to let him know how I was going to blow past his power level.”

It took me a second to connect her statement to Matt’s absence. “If he really doesn’t pay attention, he’ll have a nasty surprise for your next rematch.”

“Hell yeah!” Lena gave Bernie a kiss and bounced to her feet.

While we waited for the PCs to boot, I took in the state of our living room. We’d packed up all of Benji’s shit and taken it home with him, but had left my bed out here. The smallest of compromises to the idea that Sandy might not have wanted him back.

Unnecessary, as it turned out.

I thought about hauling everything into its original configuration, but why rush? We’d need to unplug our computers to move them, and anyway, I kind of liked being able to glance over at Lena while we typed. I’d probably want the separate bed soon enough, but the thought of sharing one with Lena when we didn’t have company was a lot more appealing than when we did.

Besides, I found I liked the reminder of Benji’s time with us.

I started when I felt Lena’s hand on my cheek.

I blinked down at her. “What?”

“I know Matt can be annoying,” she said, “but is not having to talk to him really enough to put that smile on your face?”

“Heh.” I bent down and kissed her. “Is it enough to put that one on yours?”

“Honestly?” Her arms wrapped around my waist. “Kinda, yeah.”

We laughed against each other.

When we fell silent, Lena whispered, “We did some good today, didn’t we?”

“I think Benji and Sandy would’ve been just fine, regardless of what we got up to.” I nestled my chin in Lena’s curls. “But yeah. I think we did.”

Even if it was just by giving them something stranger and bigger-picture to dwell on, we’d helped smooth over some cracks in their relationship. Necessary? Probably not, but every little bit helped.

I had no way of knowing whether we could help with the financial as well as emotional aspects of their situation.

I didn’t doubt for a second that we would.

Win a tournament? Unravel a scam? Defeat an evil wizard? Hell. Convince the world that a phone game could give us magical powers?

Please.

We’d tried to help out with a family problem and made things better.

Compared to that, everything else sounded like easy mode.