The next morning, I woke up a bit sore. My body was covered with various bruises and cuts to the point I debated if I should waste a RegenX. Remembering other times I had wasted them, I decided not to use them liberally. It wasn’t just that Jeri could only make them so quickly, but that the ingredients were also limited.

We only had so many ingredients, and once they were all gone, then there would be no more medical supplies. Of course, we could buy more, but that was expensive and the business still wasn’t there yet. In truth, until I found a way to get replacements in my world, I was going to treat such things as a limited resource. Perhaps, I should look at growing them in my world. Would a seed transfer from one world to another without dying? If I could hold a seed in a digitizer, shouldn’t it work?

Raven was nowhere in sight, but she had been kind enough to cut the ropes after leaving. I brought down my wrists, rubbing them awkwardly. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I wasn’t sure how I felt about last night at all. Raven wasn’t very cute at all. She had taken estrogen suppressors so that she looked more like a boy. She had no chest, and her body was tall and lanky. She did drugs, although not as many as some of her friends. She was fun to talk to sometimes, and chill. I could have called her a friend, but that was more like a dude friend.

An image struck my mind, her sweaty body on top of me, bouncing up and down. My face went red. She was not a dude! I thoroughly checked, and she was a woman, and what we did, well, she needed to be a woman! It was pretty fun too. Compared to Katarina, she moved a lot more. It was more intense, and I bet in the future, she’d let me… I slapped my face, snapping out of it. She wanted her payment, or whatever, so she got her payment. That was it! There wasn’t going to be the next time. I was with Katarina.

I painfully sat up and started to get dressed. Once I took a sip of a bottle of water to clean out my mouth, I asked Cecelia to tell me anything important I’d need to know that was observed over the night.

“It was pretty much quiet all night.” She responded flippantly.

“Oh? Because I’m pretty sure you didn’t notify anyone that I was in trouble when I was being attacked by Raven!” I snapped.

“Eh? I’m not going to be involved in your sex games.”

“S-s-sex… you…” I made a fist, glaring down at my Perco, even though she couldn’t see it. “I was assaulted in the middle of the night. I gave you several signs and you didn’t alert anyone.”

“First off, how was I supposed to know those were signs? Secondly, how was I supposed to notify someone? The only person with a Perco other than you is Kiera, and she’s in another world outside of my range.”

“Y-you could have programmed one of the security droids!” I quickly defended.

“Security droids? Did you want me to come up here and shoot her?”

“No! You could have… I don’t know… warned someone!”

“If you want me to give a specific response to some kind of alert phrase, then you need to set those parameters with me ahead of time.” She responded defiantly.

“A warning alert…” I spoke quietly to myself and then nodded. “Alright, we can do that. The word will be ‘shark bait’.”

“Sharkbait?”

“It’s just a word I wouldn’t say be an accident, okay? When I say shark bait, it means I’m in danger and you should do whatever in your power to protect me. That’s an order, okay?”

“Hmph… as you wish.”

“Okay, now, what’s the status on the caravan?”

“They’re all waiting on you. Have been for some time.”

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“What?” I jumped off the bed. “Why didn’t you… ahhh never mind!”

I cursed and grabbed the last pieces of clothing, putting them on as I raced out of the room. I ran as quickly as I could over to the museum, nearly falling off the board in the process. I should have just stayed in my world at this point. I wouldn’t have lost so much sleep the night before, I wouldn’t be sore, and I could have used an alarm to wake myself. I ran out into the lobby to see no one there. It wasn’t until I walked out into the stairway that I finally saw the caravan getting ready to set off.

“Good mornin’, Master!” A chipped security droid declared as I started walking down the steps.

“Ah! You’ve arrived. I was just starting to think that you changed your mind.” Tom raised a hand.

Although he said that, Raven and the Fire Ravens were also standing nearby, as was Katarina. The Fire Ravens all looked tired, but they were present despite how early in the morning it was. The only one who looked somewhat refreshed was Raven, who distinctly avoided looking in my direction.

“Daniel, you should be more responsible if you’re going to set agreements,” Katarina spoke in a lecturing tone.

“Sorry, my alarm didn’t wake me.” I shot a quick angry look at the Perco, once again remembering that she wouldn’t see anything.

“Perhaps, you should go to bet earlier in the future,” Katarina responded flatly.

Raven remained looking away, but her cheeks grew red. I decided to ignore it.

“I have something for you.” I declared.

Those words caused Raven to look up, and for Katarina to give me a suspicious look. I reached out with my hand. Katarina looked at it for a moment, but finally, put her hand on mine. I brought the Perco to her wrist. This was the one I had bought from Gunner’s slave auction, the one that had been attached to Hazel. With the master code, I could reregister them as much as I wanted, so it was simple to wipe Hazel’s blueprint and slap it on Katarina.

I had also removed traces of the magic spells from the device too. It wasn’t like I cared about monopolizing the information. It wasn’t particularly interesting unless you were a high-level sorcerer. It was still probably best that no one accidentally started using it without knowing what they were doing. At the very least, I had Cecelia which kept me from using it out of control like Hazel. Normally, such spell codex required practice to learn how to use them properly. Katarina didn’t need to be casting any spells.

The only reason I had decided to take the Perco and put it on her was because of what Cecelia had said about not having anyone to contact in an emergency. She was staying here, so it made sense that I have some means of contacting her. Well, we’d be out of range from each other after fifteen minutes, but it still made me feel a little better knowing someone at the home base had a Perco on. Plus, it would protect her by increasing her value, should something bad happen.

Just before I put it on her, Katarina reached out and stopped me. “Daniel, this…”

“You need to have it.” I declared. “You’re the person I trust most in this world.”

That wasn’t a lie. Other than my family who was in another world, I didn’t trust anyone else more than her. In some ways, I trusted her more than my family. After all, she knew about both worlds, while my mother and sister didn’t.

Of course, there was one other reason I chose her. She needed a Perco if I was ever going to take her back to my world. Of course, for that, she would also need the sorcerer’s skill. I still didn’t know if she had it. I couldn’t just read the information like you could with a slave collar. I’d need to connect my Perco to hers for Cecelia to scrap the information. Even Katarina wouldn’t know, as Cecelia flushed it with a nonmilitary firmware, so she could only see her 5 stats with the Perco in its current form.

“I… can’t accept it.” Katarina finally pulled it away, a complex expression on her face.

“Wh-why?” I asked, feeling a bit confused.

“Percos are… extremely valuable.” She responded.

“So are you!” I responded.

Her cheeks turned red, but her hand grew firmer as she pushed it back to me. “Thank you.”

I wanted to say more, but Katarina turned away. Still, her mood seemed to have improved drastically and she had a small smile on her face as she turned away. She left without another word. I knew that it was hard for her to express her feelings. It was probably the reason she came to me in that nightie, and also why she fled so quickly with relief when she found Raven nearby. Giving me her body was the only way she could express how she felt. Could that be the same with Raven? Was last night her telling me how she felt about me?

As I was contemplating that, I noticed Raven eyeing the Perco in my hand. “What?”

“Can I have it?” She asked.

“No.” I responded, making it disappear into my digitizer.

“What?” She cried out. “Why not? I’m trustworthy… enough.”

I reached out and patted her head. “I trust you. I just don’t trust other people.”

That said, I realized I’d need to find someone else to take the Perco eventually.

“Eh? What does that mean? Are you just making an excuse?”

“Shall we go?” I turned to Tom, who was nearby trying to pretend he wasn’t watching.

He coughed slightly as Raven grabbed my wrist and tried to use my Perco to summon the other unsuccessfully. “Let’s go.”

I removed the lingering thoughts from my head. There was a better time and place to dwell on those things. We were going into the wasteland. All of my focus had to be on survival.