[32 million pollution contributors: watertight engine-powered vessels, have been purged from planet Earth. Do not attempt to assemble additional watertight vessels unless they are retrofitted into non-carbon emitting devices.]

[In addition, 634,503 human instigators who retrofitted the pollution contributors: automobiles and aircraft, have been purged from planet Earth. You were warned, humans.]

[Good news, human! Due to the elimination of the human instigators and the pollution contributor: watertight vessels, your ranking has increased.]

[5,752,492 humans have been eliminated—]

[Recalculating…]

[8,232,532 humans—]

[Recalculating…]

[10,745,224 humans have been eliminated.]

[Current rank: 98,893 out of 7,429,259,522]

[You are currently in the 1%.]

[Advance and grow.]

“Well, at least that’s less mouths to feed,” said Jack with a blank face.

Way to be sympathetic, Jack. A few tourists were crying, others had collapsed to the dock in a sprawl. “One minute sooner and we’d all be dead,” someone mumbled at Logan’s feet.

Logan tried to put on a brave face for the others, but inside, he was screaming. Everything they’d gone through at the resort might as well be meaningless. The deaths, the minions, his missing finger—without a boat, Lara was lost. Even if he’d been unsuccessful, Lara could have still scavenged a boat from Hope’s End. She was resourceful as hell. There was a reason she was known as the dependable sibling.

Where Logan failed, Lara succeeded. He’d always had a certain degree of bitterness about that in the past. It was Lara who his parents raved about when she’d passed the LSAT, Lara who had gotten into law school, Lara this, Lara that. Logan was the afterthought.

That’s why he felt so ashamed when he’d failed at keeping the cabin. The one thing his family had put him in charge of, and he’d screwed it up like everything else.

Throughout this whole shitty ordeal, Lara’s reliability had given him a smidgen of comfort. If Logan failed, if he couldn’t find the gas, or the boat broke down, Lara would come through instead. Now, cars were down, helicopters were out, and their last workable option, boats, had been sucked through a black hole. Lara was a genius, but even geniuses needed something to work with to find solutions.

Tasha sniffled next to him, and Logan glanced over, ashamed. He wasn’t the only one who had been relying on that gas. “I’m sorry.”

Tasha looked at him with tear-filled eyes. “What are you sorry about?”

“You needed to get to Hope’s End.”

She wiped her eyes. “Yeah, I did. I have a brother there, or at least I did. Haven’t heard from him in a day, so who knows. But you know what, he couldn’t be assed to give a shit about me before this happened, so why should I care now?” Her smile was more of a grimace. “Maybe it was meant to be. That still doesn’t explain why you’re saying sorry to me. You’re the only reason I’m standing here. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Logan gazed at the anchor on the dock. All that remained of the boat was a severed length of rope. “You’re right. There’s only one person, one entity to blame for this shit show.”

And it would pay.

***

Saying that the System needed to pay was all well and good, but right now, Logan was about as powerful as an ant. It would be like that same ant shaking its mandibles in rage and avowing revenge against an elephant who stamped on its colony. The ant had as much chance of success as Logan did against a System who could read minds, grant powers, and vaporize machines as well as people. For all he knew, even thinking about challenging the System may be putting a target on his back. Most people were subject to a rule of law. If the System was the law, then there would be nothing keeping it in check other than power.

For Logan to have a chance, he first needed to learn more about what he was up against, and he also needed power to challenge it. We were talking shit ending powers here. That meant a heck of a lot of leveling, leveling to the extreme. At the same time, he couldn’t abandon Lara and the kids. There had to be a happy medium.

The tourists had stifled their tears as they followed Jack up the dock to the cabin.

Tasha gave him a questioning look. “You coming?”

Logan swung his baseball bat over his shoulder and followed.

Tasha fell in step with him. “You know, I feel kind of bad for saying this, but I’m glad Brad is gone. I’m not glad he’s dead! But just glad he’s not joining us. He gave me a vibe. An angry vibe. I don’t think he liked you all that much.”

Logan grunted in response.

She tapped the flat end of the cleaver against her leg. “I leveled up again back there. Level three. But after that last one, I didn’t assign the points. Got any more recommendations, oh wise Yoda?”

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Yoda, really? “How am I Yoda?”

She jabbed him with her elbow. “You’re full of wisdom, obviously!”

Logan raised an eyebrow. For someone who had treated him as if she had ice in her veins when they first met, she sure had softened. Logan guessed a few life-threatening fights may have had something to do with it. He told her to change her set up auto level options and shared the daily cheat method.

That reminded him that he had five points to burn. Once everyone settled down, he needed to make his way over to the tree fridge. Logan could throw all five points into one of his more fight specific attributes, but he suspected that upgrading his capacity to make money may be the smarter choice. It all depended upon what he could buy.

“As far as your extra points, I think it should come down to making sure you shore up any weaknesses. Upgrade what you think will save your life. That last fight won’t be your last. The System wants us to struggle. That means every squirrel and deer could be a threat.”

Not to mention the snakes.

Two of the tourists had dropped back to listen. Sam, the lady from the boat with curly hair, gave him a worried frown. “I don’t have any of that. Levels, points.”

“You need to kill something with a level first.”

Tasha gave her a gentle smile. “I’ll help you! We’ll get you leveled up in no time.”

Sam tucked a stand of hair behind her ear and seemed to shrink an inch. “I’m not sure I want to do that. I’m not a fighter.”

Logan shifted his bat to a more comfortable position on his shoulder. “The System, invader, alien, whatever you want to call it, doesn’t care you’re not a fighter. It wants to kill us. Kill all of humanity. If you don’t advance and grow, you could be one of the people on the chopping block.”

He hated telling her this, but he would tell Lara the same. Sometimes the truth had to hurt.

Sam peered up at him through her bangs. “What level are you?”

He didn’t see a reason not to tell them. “Level ten.”

Both Sam and Tasha seemed shocked, Tasha whistling softly. “Woah, dude.”

Logan scratched the back of his neck, an awkwardness overcoming him. He hadn’t thought it that impressive. And it wasn’t. Logan needed to get a heck of a lot more powerful.

Sam seemed to have shrunk even further. “I don’t know how I’ll do it. Kill things.”

The man with the tattoos sidled up and tucked her into his side. “Don’t worry, they’ll nuke these aliens out of the sky. The whole world has a common enemy now. World War I, World War II? We were fighting ourselves. Once we all come together for a common purpose, that thing will regret threatening us. You’ll see.”

Tasha side-eyed Logan but she didn’t argue. Even Sam looked dubious. He knew they were all thinking the same thing. If the System could simultaneously blow up all the airplanes, cars, and boats in one day, what was stopping it from sucking all the nuclear weapons through a black hole? Hell, it had even granted magic. If it was just giving that shit out left and right, what that meant for its capabilities was colossal. After seeing what it could do, Logan had no confidence they’d be able to fight through conventional means.

Matt had wandered his way through the line of people going up to the cabin and back over to them, swinging his spear gun, whistling. “Golly, I guess you have all the answers there, Mr. Believe in the Government. In case you missed it, the PM was in a car when all the cars exploded.”

The man opened his mouth.

“Uh uh uh. If you say that the US, Russia, and China will bail us out, we’re not going to get along.”

The man squinted at Matt. “Dude, are you high?”

“…aaaaand we’re here,” Logan announced as they reached the front door of the cabin. And not too soon. Everyone was entitled to their own quirks and whether Matt had smoked a joint or not wasn’t their business. But if this devolved into an argument, he was tired as shit after all those fights and would just as soon avoid conflict for the next hour—at least.

Was that too much to ask?

***

As the rest of the tourists grabbed rooms, Logan plugged in his phone and headed for a shower. His hand ached—that dull ache you’d get after stubbing a toe, but this time, constant, never stopping. It was like a stubbed toe on acid.

Trying to hold his hand out of the water worked at first, but then the bandage soaked, and the pain got even worse. Gritting his teeth, he ended up abandoning the rest of his shower to wrap his injury in new bandages. He didn’t even want to look at the wound—so he didn’t. The chances of it getting infected had to be low with his constitution attribute. It would be hell for days, but eventually, it’d be serviceable just like his missing toe.

When he returned to the room, Jack must have entered and left a pile of clothes on the bed. Thank Christ. His clothes had gotten rank and there was only so much reek that deodorant could mask.

He’d left….

A new white dress shirt.

Another pair of kitten-printed swim trunks.

And white socks.

What the hell? The man was either not thinking in his grief or had a streak of dark humor. What was worse? For someone grieving, you never wanted to question them on shit like this or risk coming across as insensitive. Logan sighed and changed into the new outfit.

His phone beeped and Logan dived for it, heart in his throat. It was his only lifeline to Lara and if something had happened to her while he was unreachable, he would never forgive himself.

Notification after notification came through, text messages pouring in, one after the other. Then the voicemail notifications came. Five in total.

Logan called her right away.

The call connected.

“Logan! Oh Jesus, thank God you’re alive. Why didn’t you answer me last night, Jerk?! Not even a text? I was worried you were dead.”

“Yeah… long story. I’m okay, but I didn’t have access to a charger last night and my phone died. I’d have texted otherwise.”

She released a breath. “I’m so mad at you! I tried to hide how worried I was last night, but the girls knew something was up. And then this morning! The System message came, and I was so worried you were driving a boat to us! It would have been all my fault. Don’t do that again.”

Logan sat down on the bed, slumping. She had to know it went both ways. “Are they okay?”

“They’re okay. I’m okay. But it’s getting worse here, and we need to get out of the city. Since you’re calling, I guess you never made it over to the resort?”

“No… I made it. We picked up a few supplies, some food. And people, too. It’s a long story, but that route to you is out.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about this, little brother, and I think I know a way for you to stay safe. Not safe from the monsters, but at least a safe way to get transportation. Take a canoe.”

Logan blinked. “What?”

“Or a boat without a motor! Something that doesn’t have a gas-powered engine. They should be easy to find—they’re the only ones the System didn’t blow up.”

Logan swallowed. That could work, but the logistics would be a nightmare. “Do you know how long it would take to paddle to the city?”

“Yeah, I know. But at least you’d be safe. I’m not saying go jump in one now, but it’s workable. That could be a way out for us.”

“Lara,” he said, his voice dropping in worry. “I’ve been thinking too. You have baseboard heaters, right? What about the water tank? Is it natural gas?”

She was silent for a minute. “We have time. Each day this thing gets rid of more pollution contributors, and our gas water tank is one, but it’ll go after worst carbon emitters first.”

Lara was neglecting to mention that the System could blow up everything that used natural gas, not just water tanks.

“But I agree,” she said, voice tense. “It’s a definite consideration. Which is why the boat option might be something I need you to seriously consider. And we need to do it before other things happen, like us losing power entirely. We won’t be able to talk then.”

Logan ran his hand through his hair, anxiety tightening his throat. “I’ll work on it.”

“I want you to text me each night with updates. Call if you need to.”

“I will.”