Logan grabbed a large metal bucket and then went to town. Each time he picked a pod, it multiplied. Elated, he watched as the four green beans became eight, eight became sixteen, and sixteen became thirty-two. Soon, he was pulling off the beans in clumps, massive fistfuls of the things. Half the bucket was full, then a quarter, then…
He’d run out of space.
Logan took a step back, staring. Like a deflated balloon, his elation gradually turned into trepidation. The whole plant had exploded with pods. They’d stopped growing after he pulled the last one, but if it continued once he resumed harvesting, they’d have a real problem on their hands. Doing quick sums in his head, his eyes widened, and a pool of dread opened in his stomach.
When he was child, he remembered his grandfather telling him of the chessboard fairytale. In the story, a ruler of a kingdom owed a commoner a reward. Rather than accepting a simple payment, he challenged the ruler to a doubling wheat challenge, hoping to outsmart the king and obtain a massive fortune. He asked the ruler to place a grain of wheat onto a square on the board. On each board, double the wheat. The king eagerly took the challenge, laughing it off, not realizing that by the end of the challenge, the multiplying effect of the wheat grains had grown so large that it would have drained the whole kingdom’s treasury.
Exponential growth would engulf the whole greenhouse—even the shoreline—if it continued. It was just like the System to give out a life-saving reward that had a hidden, sinister clawback. And he’d only grown one of the green bean seeds; what happened when he planted the others? He needed to keep the rest in reserve for now. As far as the existing one, they could stop harvesting, but then they wouldn’t have any food.
Logan ran his fingers over his chin as he considered the problem. The pods multiplied each time he pulled on them, but what if he did something else? Was there a way to bypass the multiplication and stop it altogether?
Logan left the greenhouse, swinging his baseball bat over his shoulder as he went over to the shed. He rummaged amongst his grandfather’s supplies until he found an old, rusted pair of pruning shears and then returned to the greenhouse. This was the tricky part. He didn’t want to cut the whole plant; otherwise, what would be the point? He’d stop the growth, but he’d also remove their food source. No, he was hoping for something more specific here.
Logan eyed green bean plant. He’d grown it; he should know it like the back of his hand.
Still, he needed all his senses. Closing his eyes, Logan extended his perception, visualizing the green bean plant, from its roots—sucking up moisture and nutrients—to its large stem and its connected shoots. To…
There was something odd. He hadn’t grown that.
Where each bean pod had multiplied, there was a concentration of energy. It was like bright stars in a black night. Power, so much power, an endless pool.
Like a karma pool.
All that exponential, multiplying power was coming from those spots. It was like a knotted tree branch or endlessly knotted rope, with strands of power embedded in green fibres. Each bean pod was growing from these knots, connected to that power. The thing about it was, the bean pod was connected to the pool of regenerating power, but the plant stems connected to the rest of the plant weren’t. If he cut the plant right before the knotted power source, could he still harvest the beans without triggering the replication?
There was only one way to find out. Logan carefully positioned the garden shears over the stem underneath the knotted power source.
And cut.
With bated breath, he grabbed the detached bean and severed knot and watched the plant. Blinking, and blinking once again to make sure he wasn’t seeing things that weren’t there, he sighed in relief, his adrenaline dropping.
No new green bean. Cutting the stem behind the knot had stopped the regeneration. Logan ran a hand through his hair, a tension headache he hadn’t even been aware of gradually fading.
One thing was certain, he needed to be careful with his tree fridge purchases. Even if he bought the paperclip and it appeared to be a regular old paperclip, he couldn’t trust it. The System was up to something. Either fucking with him once again, or just being sadistic.
But for now, at least they had a viable food source that wouldn’t spread like a bean green disease, engulfing the lakeshore and everything around it.
Still, he hated to look a gift horse in the mouth, but they couldn’t live on green beans and tomatoes. They needed protein. Unless the tree fridge suddenly gave him a multiplying cow, they needed to come up with the solution themselves. That was hunting or fishing.
Logan headed back to Jack’s with an overflowing bucket full of green beans, enough to feed the whole group for days. Pushing the front door open, he set the bucket down in the kitchen before washing his hands.
Everyone was in front of the TV again, and he was about to announce that he had a solution to their food problem, but there was a palpable tension to the group. Tasha was running her thumb against her cleaver’s leather strap, her hip leaning against the arm of the couch. Jack was standing, his arms crossed, a mulish look on his face. The others were sitting down on the armchairs or the couch, hands nervously fiddling. Only Matt seemed animated. He was sitting down on the rug in front of the TV and staring at the screen with rapt eyes.
“What’s going on?” asked Logan.
“Shh,” Tasha hushed.
On the TV, a slender reporter with cropped blond hair huddled behind a parked car on the side of the road, his voice hushed as if he were trying to avoid attention. A streak of blood trailed down his forehead, his face soaked with sweat. It was dark around him, only the faint light from the streetlamp providing illumination. He peered around the car warily before ducking behind it and looking into the camera. “I repeat. Everyone is dead. It wasn’t mutated beings or rats. They were killed by people. People are killing other people.”
On the chyron, WARNING: PEOPLE KILLING OTHER PEOPLE FOR LEVELS scrolled by.
“I don’t know how long I have. I’m only level one, but they’re going after everyone. They have a skill. It locates everyone in the city. They can find you even behind locked doors. Hundreds are dead. If you don’t have a level, it doesn’t matter. The System is still giving them XP for every kill. Even the poor children and seniors.” His voice cracked. “Innocents! Don’t trust anyone. These were our—” The reporter’s eyes widened, and he glanced behind the car before the camera shook. A blood curdling screen came from far away and then the screen went dead.
The TV stated: PLEASE STAND BY.
Jack uncrossed his arms and glanced at Logan. “The System wants you to kill more than monsters. It gives you bonus XP for killing other people.”
Logan held back a groan. Just great, in addition to fearing the wildlife and mutated vegetables, he had to be wary of everyone else. Logan’s hands itched to text Lara to find out if they were safe. The broadcast had been from the US, nowhere close, but if it were happening in one city, it could be happening in another. “You know what this means, right? We can’t trust anyone who comes to the door or pulls up to the dock. If you don’t know them, don’t let them in.”
“This is fucked,” muttered Tasha.
Sam gave them a wild look. “Does that mean people will be hunting us?”
“Honey, no,” said Sammy next to her, but his expression was troubled, and he wouldn’t look her in the eye.
If Logan let this go on, they’d soon have a hysterical group, and then where would they be? “No one’s hunting anyone. That reporter is in a city. You know how isolated we are here. If people were hunting others, they’ll go to a populated area. We’re slim pickings.”
“Only if they don’t stop for a snack on their way to Hope’s End,” said Jack dryly.
Thanks a lot, Jack. Way to help out.
Matt wasn’t paying attention to them, still staring blankly at the TV screen.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Tasha jumped to her feet and glared at everyone on the couch. “Logan’s right, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be prepared. Everyone needs weapons. We need to be able to defend ourselves.”
The wealthy woman snorted. “That’s not my thing.”
“It’s going to have to be your thing if you want to stay alive.”
The woman fiddled with her gold bracelet and averted her gaze. “No one is going to go out of their way to kill an old woman like me.”
Logan frowned. “It just takes one monster to take your life.” His gaze drifted down the hallway to Eleanor’s room. “We thought we were safe here, but Jack’s mom, the nicest lady you could ever know, was killed. Here. In her bedroom. A squirrel that crept through the window. A squirrel. Listen to Tasha. Lady, if you want to survive, you need to be able to defend yourself.”
Her husband stilled her fiddling by gripping her hand. “They’re right, Madge. We can’t tune this out and wish everyone away. This is our reality now. We need to find a weapon and get strong.”
Madge’s lips trembled. “Really, Henry?”
He gave her a reassuring smile. “We can do it.”
Logan let them discuss the plan for tomorrow and pulled Tasha aside before he turned in for the night.
“What is it?” she asked.
Logan lowered his voice. “Keep an eye on Matt. Watch him around the others.”
She gave him a blank look before glancing into the TV room. Matt was still sitting in front of the blank TV with a small smile, his fingers running over his spear gun lovingly.
“You mean…?”
Logan grimaced. “Maybe it’s nothing. But I don’t think the kid is right in the head. I wouldn’t trust him around my sister, and I wouldn’t trust him around you, either.”
***
[Countdown: Day 4 of Day 365 before species culling. Only the worthy survive.]
[Current rank: Rank: 160,002 out of 7,399,917,218.]
[You are currently in the 1%.]
[Advance and grow.]
The system Ding! woke Logan from a disturbing, bizarre nightmare about an endless supply of self-replicating green beans that had exploded out of the greenhouse and smothered him under their sheer weight.
It took a second to brush it off and focus on the latest System message. He took it in groggily and then focused more closely, narrowing his eyes. His rank had dropped once again, this time by over 50,000. Logan had a voracious competition streak, and he didn’t like to see that drop, but he had a suspicion that the newscast last night had something to do with it. Desperate people did desperate things, and the murders might have spread. One thing was clear, he needed to escalate his plans to get to Lara. Although she’d told him via text message that she was fine last night, he didn’t trust it. Hope’s End had thousands of people. If just one of them decided the easiest way to level was by murdering others, he needed to get there, and stat.
That meant he needed to find a boat that was big enough for Logan, Lara, and the kids. He needed food for the trip, and a plan. The first part of that plan was taking the spear gun away from Matt so Logan would return to a house full of people rather than corpses. That wouldn’t stop Matt from grabbing a knife out of the kitchen drawer or even the hammer from the supply shop, but something about how he’d caressed the spear gun had given Logan the creeps.
Now that he had the spatial collar, he could also start stocking up for Lara and the kids. Whenever he visited, the kids were always fiddling with their hair and spending way too much time in the bathroom getting ready for the day. He may as well throw everything inside his adjoining bathroom into the collar—hair spray, a brand-new brush still in its cardboard package, expensive-looking containers of shampoo and conditioner. Even a makeup case. Eleanor must have stocked the room for every kind of guest. Either that, or she’d assigned the bathroom to Jack’s kids. Logan felt a little guilty for raiding it after that thought, but he still did it.
When Logan opened his bedroom door, Tasha had her hand raised to knock, her eyes lit with excitement. She’d changed out of her clothes from yesterday and into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt with a frilly collar. The shirt was large on her and screamed ‘senior.’ Tasha must have gone through Eleanor’s closet.
“What’s up?” asked Logan.
Tasha did what Logan could only describe as a bounce. “I got another skill! The System gave me an identification skill! And best of all, I can tell others what to do to get it too. Jack and Matt have it now, and so does Sammy.”
“Sammy, the tattoo guy? I thought he was convinced the government would nuke the System out of the sky.”
“The murders on the news must have knocked some sense into him. Jack took him out this morning and they got him to level one. Something about a snake.”
Logan gave her alarmed look. “A snake?” He hadn’t forgotten his title. Snakes were the bane of his existence.
“Forget the snake! Do you want the skill or not?”
Logan shifted awkwardly. “I already have an identification skill. Does yours tell you the level of something and give you information?”
Tasha nodded. “The level and name of the person. I haven’t tried it on an animal yet.”
Logan had leveled his [Idiot’s Inspect] skill to view more than just the level, so Tasha’s must still be level one. “I have it already.”
Tasha deflated and then shot him an accusatory glare. “If you already have the skill, why didn’t you share how to get it?”
“It didn’t occur to me that others could receive the same skill. The System message was personalized. I thought it was unique.”
Tasha snorted. “Shows what you know.”
“Either way, I’m sorry you had to put up with it too. The System can be nasty.”
“Nasty?” she said with a raised eyebrow. “It was pretty complimentary.”
Complimentary? The System had gone out of its way to insult him up and down; it had even named the skill [Idiot’s Inspect]. Logan narrowed his eyes. “What’s the name of the skill?”
“Identify! I got it after staring at Matt for five minutes straight. I wasn’t trying to get a skill or anything; just trying to figure out what made him tick. Don’t worry, he didn’t know I was doing it. But the System said it was rewarding me for being so persistent and that curious individuals should receive a reward. I think it was the same for the others.”
Okay, what the hell? Logan was starting to take the System’s insults personally. In what world would doing exactly what Tasha said make her persistent but Logan an idiot?
“Yeah, that’s what I received,” said Logan with a bright grin that he was sure was brittle on the edges.
“But you said it was personalized—”
“Time to start the day.”
***
The conversation with Tasha had made him wonder if the others could learn any of his other skills, but he’d received the [Deepwater Idiot] skill while drowning and the System had given him [Idiot’s Paradox] when he’d caused himself pain. He didn’t see it going over well if he told everyone to drown themselves or cut off a toe. To the System’s credit, he really had learned those skills while being an idiot.
As far as his missing finger, the wound had made progress overnight. It had already scabbed over, and the first hints of skin were showing. Soon, it would be just like his toe—still tender, still giving him phantom pains—but healed.
Logan showed everyone their new food source and shared the secret to harvesting the green beans before taking out his baseball bat from his spatial collar as he made his way outside. Before he left for Lara, there was something he had to do.
Underwater, Matt’s spear gun would come in handy for fishing and defending himself against small aquatic-life, but he’d be defenceless otherwise. Yeah, he had his bat, but it was wooden, and it would soon rot if repeatedly exposed to water. The tree fridge weapon menu had seemed laughable at first, but after what he experienced with the spatial collar and the bean seeds, it would be stupid to leave without testing whether the weapons were also more than what they appeared. He wasn’t holding up his hopes—a pen, a paperclip?—but maybe he’d get lucky. After all, his luck stat was already at 35.
Logan did the required exercises necessary to receive his daily strength, agility, and endurance boosts and then paused in front of a large pine tree. He had something he wanted to try before making his way to the tree fridge. The conversation with Tasha had made him curious. If others could learn a skill by replicating an action, why couldn’t he do the same?
Before he’d left Jack’s, Logan had grabbed a large chef’s knife from the kitchen and a piece of string he’d found inside his grandfather’s supply room. Tasha had gained the cleaver boomerang skill by throwing the cleaver a few times with a piece of leather looped onto the end. Logan could replicate it, just like the others had replicated [Identify].
This would be the tricky part. He was no knife expert, and he continued to keep in mind the horror stories he’d heard of people braving it in the wilderness who were done in by a simple accidental knife slip. Still, after losing a toe and cutting off a finger, what was one more injury in the scheme of things? Logan grimaced at the thought.
Holding the knife in a throwing position, he flicked his wrist and aimed for the tree trunk. The knife hit the trunk at an awkward angle with force, the handle making a cracking noise as it ricocheted off the bark. It went flying to the side.
Well, that was a bust.
Logan flicked his wrist, jerking on the string and reeling in the knife. He did it slowly, not wanting to accidently cut himself. The trick was to replicate what Tasha had done with her cleaver, so whether he hit the tree with the knife edge or handle might not be important. Regardless, Logan’s competition streak couldn’t help asserting himself. Not hitting the tree pissed him off.
Logan tried again, this time managing to hit the trunk with the knife edge, but still at an off angle. The knife went flying once again.
The next time was better. He hit the tree trunk dead center, the knife slicing into the bark and lodging into it like an ax.
After the twentieth time, he’d gotten so good he could hit the same spot repeatedly, a flick of his wrist sending the knife back for another throw. All well and good, but he still hadn’t received a System notification. He’d been at this for half an hour already. Somehow, he didn’t think Tasha had needed so many repetitive throws before she’d earned the skill.
He might be shit out of luck.
Logan threw one more time, aiming for the same spot—a token throw before admitting defeat. Something about Tasha and the cleaver had obviously been unique.
Ding!
[You have earned one Dexterity point! Dexterity daily limit capped for the next 24 hours.]
Logan gaped, pausing in the act of recalling the knife. He’d tried so many things to activate the dexterity daily cheat. Had it only been a simple matter of repetition? The answer had been in front of him the whole time.
With this breakthrough, he had a way to increase his strength, endurance, agility, and dexterity attributes each day. Perception was the only one he hadn’t figured out—a real head puzzler. He’d already tried to activate it with repetition—staring at an insect—but instead, the System had given him the [Idiot’s Inspect] skill.
Logan tabled that problem for another day, a spring in his step as he made his way towards the tree fridge. Each time Logan had a breakthrough, it gave him a boost, making him feel as if he could take on the world.
As the willow tree came into view, Logan came to a stop, staring.
What the hell?