Chapter 87: Leaf Blower

“I don’t think,” Erin said, staring up at the vastness of the tree, “that’s going to be collectible.”

She padded forward, pine needles crunching almost silently beneath her careful steps. When she was level with Lena and I, she stopped.

“What do you think it is?” I asked.

“I think it must represent someone’s Realm,” she said.

That got everyone’s attention. Erin’s hands flexed as she tried not to squirm under it.

Lena was the one to ask, “How do you figure?”

“Not only have none of us seen a collectible object even close to this scale, none have ever been reported to the wiki. Unless someone added one today, I suppose. I haven’t checked since last night...” She frowned and tapped at her phone.

“If it hasn’t happened yet,” I said, “I doubt it started this morning.”

Unless the tree represented something new in Third Eye? So far, the only resource we’d seen refresh was Tickets, unless you counted our HP and MP. Impossible objects seemed to have been seeded when the beta began and remained static until someone collected them.

Erin shook her head. Kind of mixed messaging, since she said, “It looks like you’re right. I just wanted to be thorough.”

“How do you know no one has reported something this big?” Lena asked.

“Whenever someone fills in the type and amount of a resource that they got, it also outputs it to a database. I can sort it by the largest quantities.”

“What is the most anyone’s gotten in a single find? Just out of curiosity?”

“Sixty one Stone,” she said. “That was three weeks ago, and notable enough for me to check the entry. It was a statue, quite an impressive one, but still only sixteen meters tall.”

I wasn’t good at judging distances, or at metric conversions on the fly, but I guessed the tree before us had to be at least fifty meters tall. If someone told me I’d undersold it by ten, I’d believe them. Or by fifty. “We don’t actually know that this would give extra Wood just on account of its size, do we?”

Erin shook her head. “It’s not a one to one relationship, but it does seem to have at least some correlation. I’m sure if we were allowed to collect this, it would represent an extraordinary windfall.”

“If this is a Realm,” I said, “that opens up two more questions.”

Which shifted everyone’s attention to me. Once, I would’ve gotten uncomfortable with that, but some combination of doing the videos and revealing Third Eye’s nature to people had started to inure me to eyeballs.

“First,” I said, “whose Realm is this?”

“No one we know, I imagine.” Erin lowered her eyes. “Still, it doesn’t feel quite right to raid it, does it?”

“Nonetheless, that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Donica said.

“Well, some of us are,” Lena said. “Unless you got back in the game somehow?”

Donica rubbed the bridge of her nose. “You know what I mean.”

“Just sayin’, it’s on our heads if we steal somebody’s Third Eye shit.” Lena folded her arms over her chest and stared up at the tree. “Which we’re gonna. You’re right about that.”

I nodded. “I don’t like it, either, but it’s been months. Whoever they are, they’ve either dropped out of the beta or they have no idea how to scout for this. Hell. For all we know, every Reactant represents someone’s Realm.”

“I have considered that possibility,” Erin said, “but we found so many of them out in the open. I just don’t see how they could be associated with a specific person. Do you?”

“No,” I said. “Besides, Donica got her Earth from a place the devs insisted none of us were supposed to go. I can’t imagine they’d have put a Realm there, or allowed one to form, or however it works.”

“In other words,” Lena said, “we’re acknowledging that taking this might make us kinda assholes, but for the greater good and/or getting to do more awesome things, we’re prepared to accept that burden.”

Donica, Zhizhi, and I all laughed. Erin tried to smile.

“What’s the second question?” Zhizhi asked.

I looked up the tree, and up, and up. I couldn’t see the top because the natural trees canopy hid most of its branches, but I knew they soared far out of sight. “If this is a Realm, are we going to have to climb all the way up it to get anything?”

“Hard pass,” Donica said.

“It wouldn’t be safe for anyone without HP to try,” I said. “And I don’t think any of us could pull it off.”

Seemingly in contravention of what she’d said, Donica rose from her wheelchair, tested her ankle, then crunched her way across the pine needles to join us. She left Michelle staring behind her.

I thought Donica was going to line up next to us, but she kept walking right up to the trunk of the giant tree. She tracked it with her phone and reached out to touch the bark.

The whole thing didn’t flash, but then, she wasn’t in the beta anymore.

She lowered her phone. “God, this is so weird.”

She pushed her hand forward.

I peeked around my phone camera and saw her pressing against thin air. Either she’d concealed her past as an expert mime or she felt serious resistance. When she squared her shoulders and took another step, she grunted from the exertion.

And in or out of Third Eye, I saw her clothes stir in the wind.

“I don’t think we’re going to have to climb,” Erin said.

Lena and I nodded. We could feel the wind gathering. The Air.

Interesting that Donica’s approach would stir it, even though she couldn’t collect it. Would a non-player do so, or just an ex-player? I supposed it shouldn’t have surprised me, though. The same thing had happened to Miguel in the runoff tunnel with what eventually became my Water.

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Water was better at imparting force to a person than Air, courtesy of its higher density, but wind could be plenty dangerous. Did they get tornadoes out here? How much Air would one represent? How real, how aligned, would the manifestation be in the moments before one of us collected it?

Real enough to hurt.

“You should step back, Donica,” I said. “Miguel got hurt by Water before I could collect it, remember?”

She hesitated, but spun on her good heel and rejoined our line.

She and Erin exchanged a glance I didn’t know how to interpret. Donica stomped past and sank back into her wheelchair.

Erin lowered her voice. “Cameron, Lena, the three of us should wait here.”

“I told Cam he could have the next Reactant we found,” Lena said.

And I told myself that with however much Air we found here, I might be able to fly.

Nonetheless, I nodded. “Erin’s right.”

“I know,” Lena said, “but you keep giving up chances.”

“I’m not playing the martyr here.” I squeezed her hand. “Promise.”

All three of us turned to where Donica was seated. Zhizhi lounged against one of the smaller real trees, still filming.

Michelle stood behind the wheelchair, unmoving, unspeaking, eyes averted.

“Chelle,” Erin called. “You should claim this one.”

Michelle shuddered. “No.”

Donica glanced over her shoulder. “You’re sure?”

“No.” Michelle’s laugh sounded hysterical, and not the funny kind.

“I know you’re worried,” Erin said, “but –”

“It’s not that!” Michelle shook her head. “Not just that. It’s not... efficient. Me taking this.”

“How so?” Erin asked.

“If I get some Air or whatever, I’m starting from scratch with it. I have to learn everything that Cameron and Lena already know, plus any general principles that you understand, too. Even if I do, whatever I can accomplish, it’s all going to be low level stuff, no different from what we’ve already seen. If one of you takes this, added to what you already have, you can work wonders.”

“Oh.” Erin lowered her eyes. “I see.”

Lena nodded along with Michelle’s words. She tugged on my arm, trying to pull me toward the tree.

Zhizhi kept her expression neutral. Michelle’s? Driving again must have rubbed off on me, because I found myself equating how she looked to one of the controls on the Yukon. If Zhizhi was in neutral and Lena was in drive, Michelle was in reverse.

For some reason, I found myself looking to Donica, even though she was the one who should’ve had the least to do with this decision.

She was glancing over her shoulder, not enough to catch Michelle’s eye, but clearly observing her body language.

And she was scowling.

Unlike me, she knew Michelle pretty well. Unlike Erin, she wasn’t relentlessly positive.

From what they’d told me, Donica had once scouted Michelle for a possible career as a gymnast, but ultimately supported – encouraged? – her staying amateur.

What qualifies a person to go pro? In anything, really, but especially something crazy competitive, like a sport? Talent, obviously, and physical aptitude, and dedication. A bunch of statistical shit that Erin would know like the back of her hand and I wouldn’t have the first clue about, but would probably find super interesting if I had the time to delve into it.

Maybe Michelle had lacked something in one of those regards. Maybe she was too short, or, I supposed, for gymnastics, too tall. Maybe Donica had given up on her because Donica was too harsh, or because that was mostly what Erin’s dad asked her to do: let down prospects easily, but definitively.

In my head, though, based on about three days of knowing Michelle, it made sense that what Donica had seen was that Michelle was the kind of person who, when she got scared, chose flight rather than fight.

If I was wrong, there was a decent chance I was angling for a punch in the face. Also, that I would deserve it.

I said, “Nope.”

All eyes back on me. If I gulped, I was pretty sure I hid it well.

“Until we got a steady supply of Tickets, there was an argument either way.” I raised my phone and tabbed to the Refinements page of the Third Eye app, although we stood too far for me to get any use out of it as a prop. “Now, there really isn’t.”

Michelle balled her fists. “But you only get one set of Tickets a day, and it gets more and more expensive to increase your totals.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Cranking our numbers up is really hard, really inefficient. Worth it? Sure. There’s still ample reason for us to scout and find new Reactants. The single most important thing we can do, though, is to add new resources to the list of what we can buy. And when we add those new resources, they start out really cheap to increase to a level where they’ll be useful.”

“It would still help more for Erin to get Air, since she doesn’t have any yet,” Michelle said.

“Then,” I asked, “what are you going to spend your Tickets on?”

Michelle winced.

I wondered if I was pushing too hard. If I asked Erin I was sure she’d say yes, which is probably why I looked to Donica again. Who was maybe not the best judge of what represented pushing too hard, considering what I’d seen of her management style.

She gave me a tiny nod, or else her neck was tired.

Michelle’s shoulders slumped. She shuffled around the wheelchair, started to glance at Donica, then quickly looked away. She took a step forward. “You’re right.”

I didn’t say it because I thought I was wrong, I thought. Donica, I suspected, would’ve said it aloud, but I kept my mouth shut.

“So,” Michelle mumbled. “This is what I have to do.”

She took another step forward.

Again, I said, “Nope.”

She looked up sharply.

“You should only claim a Reactant,” I said, “if you really want to.”

“I have to! Otherwise, it would be like I’m abandoning Gerry and Matt.”

I shook my head. “That’s not saying you want to. It’s saying you feel like you have to.”

“Don’t I?”

“No. By the time we face Mask again, we’ll have all the backup we need.” I rested one hand on Lena’s shoulder. The other hovered over Erin’s; I wasn’t sure how she’d react, but she leaned into it.

Michelle looked at her.

I think Erin flicked a glance at me, but if I looked away to return it, I was sure I’d lose the confidence I was trying to project. She said, “We’ll manage, Chelle.”

“Even if we couldn’t,” I said, “that’s not the point. You said it yourself the other day, and I think you were right. You signed up to play a cool and fun game. You’re not a cop or firefighter or soldier. If you’re not enjoying this, you should stop.”

Michelle held her hands up and looked at her palms. “Yeah, but, could a cop or firefighter or soldier save my friends?”

“No,” I said, “but if we had to, Lena and I could do that on our own.”

“Um,” said Erin.

Michelle stared at me. “How can you be so cocky?”

I thought, because we have a plan. But there were details of it Lena and I hadn’t shared with Erin, much less Michelle, and I wasn’t about to. For one thing, I hoped we wouldn’t need to try everything we’d discussed. For another, I knew they’d try to talk us out of it.

Besides, that wasn’t the point.

I said, “Because we’re a team.”

Lena hugged my arm. “That line is cheesy as hell.”

Screw maintaining my confidence. I grinned down at Lena. “Where is the lie, though?”

In response, she sort of climbed up my arm to kiss me. I leaned into it. I felt her easy smile against my lips. I’d worried this would risk my confidence? Instead, I felt hers flowing into me.

When we finally came up for air, I found Erin and Zhizhi smiling at us, Donica with her arms folded, and Michelle standing where she’d been, eyes so downcast I couldn’t tell if they were closed or not.

I shifted on my feet. “I was kind of hoping that would cheer you up.”

“No offense,” Michelle said, “but you’re pretty bad at this.”

“Sorry.” Reluctantly, I pulled my arm from Lena’s grasp so I could clap. “Look, Michelle. If you want to play, we’d love to have you on the team. If you don’t, we’ll still save your friends. Either way, try to enjoy the trip. That’s the best I’ve got.”

She sighed.

For a moment, none of us moved.

Then Michelle swept past Lena and Erin and I, up to the tree, into the Air.