The god paused in front of the doormat, which read “KIDS WILL BE FED. ALL OTHERS WILL BE SHOT.”

There was a heart on it.

The morning air was crisp and invigorating. The birds sang happily, leaves whistled in the wind, and the night’s mist had all but dissipated into sparkling dew on the grass. The distant hunting roar of a wyvern probably went unheard by the elderly women inside the cabin. The god contemplated these things while biding his time.

For he was Olorus, God of Dramatic Timing, and the moment had not yet arrived.

“We’re out of eggs!” one of the women called. “We’ll have to run to the store before the grandnuggets get here.”

“Are you saying I don’t get my scramble?” the other woman asked.

“Why do you think we’re out of eggs, honey?”

There was a warm chuckle, then a quick kiss.

“Anyway,” the first woman said, “you think you’ll have time to handle that? I’m meeting Edward for coffee at ten.”

“Never liked Edward. Now he’s making me get eggs. Why are those drapes closed? Are we vampires now? Hold on a sec, honey.”

Olorus smiled expectantly.

There was a gasp.

“NAT!”

“Angie?”

“Nat! The backyard, it’s—the backyard’s gone, Nat!”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“I don’t—get over here and look!”

“I have eggs on the stove—”

“Natalie!”

“Coming! Goodness, what’s got you—”

There was a second gasp.

Olorus admired the clouds and the lovely blue sky. It was his cousin Pallum’s turn on the weather today, and without exception that meant a perfect summer day. Even in the middle of winter. Olorus always appreciated these days, but doubtless these extraplanar visitors would find it disconcerting when summer came back every eleven days. If things lasted that long, of course.

“I’m going outside,” Angie declared.

“This has to be a prank,” Nat said. “Right?”

“That’s why I’m going outside!”

Nat’s voice was strained with worry. “With your gun?”

As two sets of footsteps approached, Olorus straightened his blindingly white coat and adjusted his matching wide-brimmed hat. He brushed a handful of stray dust molecules off his right glove, wiggled his fingers, and curled them into a fist, which he raised. Three… two… one…

He knocked exactly three times, with millisecond precision.

The footsteps stopped. An eyeball appeared at the peephole, which he graced with a brilliant and welcoming smile.

“Who’re you?” asked Angie.

“I’m here about the backyard,” he said pleasantly.

“You a streamer or somethin’?”

“I have no idea what that is,” he said, smile not diminishing even a hair.

“Hm.”

“Oh, let me look, Angie,” Nat said. “Budge over.”

“Look, something strange is going on, and I ain’t getting us both scammed because—”

“I said budge over, Angie! Thank you.”

A different eyeball appeared at the door, this one brown and much less suspicious.

“Oh, he looks nice,” Nat said. “Let’s talk to him.”

“Course he looks nice! Can’t scam anyone if you look suspicious, can you?”

“Oh, you old firebrand, you. Let’s talk to him. If he tries anything fishy, you can just shoot him.”

This time, Olorus’s smile did lose a couple millimeters.

“Oh, fine. You and your silver tongue.”

There was the sound of a deadbolt sliding open.

Then another. And another. Then two chains, then some kind of clamp—which required the repeated action of a lever and squeaked with each pull, squeak squeak squeak squeak—then a beeping noise (“Disarmed,” said a female voice), another deadbolt, and finally the tortured spandex complaint of a door-length strip of duct tape leaving a reinforced metal frame.

The door cracked open. A sliver of an old woman’s face peeked out.

“Well?” asked Angie. “Who are you?”

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Olorus clapped his hands together.

“I’m the welcoming party!” he proclaimed. “Welcome to Elidum, ladies! I’m here to tell you that your backyard is right where you left it. You, however, are in another world. Bit of a cosmic mix-up, I’m afraid. We’re working to put things to rights, but in the meantime, I thought I should pop by and explain how things work around here!”

Angie didn’t open the door. “So, you’re from the government? I don’t trust government men.”

“No, ma’am,” he assured her. “I’m a god.”

“Oh, Angie, let him in already,” Nat said. “He looks like such a nice young man.”

“I am four thousand, two hundred and eighty three years old,” he informed her.

“That’s nice,” Nat said. The door opened, Angie grumbling and eyeing Olorus like he was going to explode at any moment.

Olorus’s smile dropped another millimeter.

“Well,” he said. “No use standing outside all day, is there?”

Right on cue, the teapot began to whistle.

*

The god and the grandmothers sat around the kitchen table, Olorus carefully brushing his coattails down as he did so. Angie hadn’t touched her scrambled eggs. Nat’s plate had two pieces of whole grain toast doused in butter and sandblasted with cinnamon sugar. Olorus had declined the offer of food, but accepted a steaming cup of green tea. The tea was Nat’s favorite blend; Angie only drank coffee.

He inhaled the steam with satisfaction, enjoying the novel combinations of alien amino acids, then set the cup down.

“Well,” he said. “I suppose we should get down to business.”

“We ain’t giving you any money,” said Angie.

Angie was wearing a pink woolen sweater that didn’t at all match her severe cheekbones and dark, intimidating eyebrows. Her curly gray hair had been gathered into a messy poof behind her head. Pale green eyes watched Olorus carefully. She’d set her revolver next to her plate; the barrel wasn’t quite pointing at him, but it wasn’t not pointing at him either.

“Money? What do you take me for?” he asked her. “I’m a god, not a banker.”

“Hmph,” she said.

“When do we get our backyard back?” Nat asked.

In contrast to her partner, Natalie had leaned into old age. Her hair was long and straight, and she’d dyed it silver. She wore a mahogany cardigan over a ruffled beach-colored blouse, and there were deep laugh lines on her face. Her expression evinced some worry, but her overall demeanor was friendly.

“As I said earlier,” Olorus said with a patience that would outlast stars, “you haven’t lost your backyard. Your backyard has lost you. Your house is in Elidum now, and Earth has received a little chunk of meadow in return. We’re working to get everything fixed, but it might be awhile.”

“Oh no!” Nat said. “The grandkids were coming over today!”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Olorus said with a reassuring smile. “I’m sure one of Earth’s gods will be there to explain it to them. It’s really just a technical mishap; happens all the time in the planetary maintenance business.”

Angie and Nat exchanged a look.

“We don’t have gods on Earth,” Angie said. “Not real ones.”

Olorus raised an eyebrow. “What, you’ve never met them? Pag? Norman? Lady Shalt? Elvis? Ubert? Warren Thimidleast?”

“Elvis!?” Nat burst out.

“Now I know you’re pulling our legs,” Angie said.

“Hm,” Olorus said, shaking his head. “Well, that’s a disappointment. They’re personable enough, but they never struck me as lazy.”

“There’s a crazy man in our house, Nat,” Angie said.

“Be nice, Angie,” Nat admonished her. “The backyard is missing. I can’t think of a natural reason for that to happen.”

“It could be one of those prank shows,” Angie argued. “Like the grandnuggets watch. Maybe they put a computer screen in front of our window.”

“You’re welcome to check outside if you want,” Olorus said. “But before you do, I thought it best to equip you for the world outside. Elidum is not like Earth, ladies. It is altogether a wilder place, and more people are prepared to give and receive violence. So there are certain rules that apply.”

“You look here,” Angie said. “I’m a citizen of the United States of America. I know my rights. If it’s on my property, castle doctrine says I got the right to shoot it dead.”

“...I see,” said Olorus, eyes flicking to the gun on the table. “Well, don’t let me stop you. The rules I’m talking about are of a somewhat more, let’s say, abstract nature. You see, we run everything through a central database, so that means we need to track certain statistics about your combat capabilities. That helps us balance combat, which I think will be especially useful in your case. So, here’s two tickets to the System.”

He reached into his suit coat and withdrew two golden tickets. He glanced over the information encoded in each one—specially engraved on the gold atoms, hidden from all but the eyes of a god—and made as if to hand them out.

His eyes fell on the gun on the table. He paused and double-checked the tickets. After three nanoseconds of deliberation, he smoothly swapped which ticket he gave to which grandmother.

“I don’t want to fight,” Nat said, picking up her ticket. “Oh!”

As she touched the golden slip, it dispersed into a swirling mist, which surrounded her and settled on her skin before vanishing. The words [Gunslinger, Level 78] appeared above her head.

“Oh my!” she said. “I feel thirty years younger!”

“Your safety is our priority,” Olorus said reassuringly. “We’re hoping we can keep you unharmed until we can get you back to your planet. You aren’t required to fight, but we thought it best to keep you capable until this whole accident is resolved. Your classes should be leveled to your age, and there’s a host of stat bonuses that come with it.”

“I ain’t signing up for no System,” Angie said, looking at the ticket dubiously.

“It is, of course, your decision,” Olorus said. “Let’s see here… Natalie Chekov, I see you in my database. You should have a nice set of bonuses. Increased flexibility, increased stamina, immunity to arthritis, immunity to intestinal distress, immunity to illness—”

There was a golden flash. Angie stared defiantly at both of them as golden mist settled on her skin.

“—and some combat skills I’m sure you don’t want to use,” Olorus continued as though nothing had happened. “[Regenerate Ammo] means you’ll never run out of bullets. I can see you’ve never used a gun before, so we included [Sure Shot] to make sure you always hit whatever you aim at. And, of course, there’s [Kill Shot].”

“I don’t like killing things,” Nat said.

“Few people do,” Olorus told her seriously. “[Kill Shot] is the most powerful skill in the world, Natalie Chekov. Whatever you shoot will die. Just like that. Trees, animals, people—even gods. Wield it well. We are committed to making sure you make it back to Earth in one piece.”

“That ain’t right,” Angie snapped, now with the words [Hearthkeeper, Level 81] floating above her head. “I’m the one who goes to the shootin’ range every Sunday. Why’s she get Gunslinger and I get a class with all the cooking skills?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything to do with skill assignment,” Olorus lied. “Your skills are just as important, Angela Wint. We don’t expect you to learn how to forage in the surrounding region—trust me, there’s some complicating factors we don’t have time to get into—so your [Cornucopia] skill will ensure your pantry is always stocked with whatever you need.”

“Hmph,” Angie said, staring suspiciously at him.

“Think of it as a nice vacation,” Olorus said with a friendly smile. He stood up. “Well, I’m afraid that’s all the time I have today. If you ever need something, here’s my card.”

A glowing business card appeared between two fingers. He flicked it through the air, where it slapped against the wall above the sink and stuck there.

When they turned back, he was gone.

“Well,” said Nat. “What do we do now?”

Angie’s eyes narrowed.

“Remember how you said my prepper basement was silly?”

Nat nodded.

“The time,” declared the eighty-year-old grandmother, “is now.”