"How did you find me?" Jack asked, as he disentangled himself from Alex's hug.
Normally, he would be absolutely fine with an extended hug from a handsome, brilliant man, but Alex was sort of a kid brother, and also, completely straight.
"Dude, you know that the bracers have cellular functionality, right? If you can have an app track down your kid's location via their cellphone, you don't think that I can't get your location down to what aisle you're in?" Alex shook his head.
"That's fair," Jack agreed. Truthfully, he hadn't really thought about it. The bracers were amazing, but much like a cell phone, it was easy to forget everything that was behind them and just use them.
"So, what are you up to? Besides shopping, obviously, I can see that, I mean, why else would you be at Costco? Although you could be running an experiment. One time, Casey and I were having an argument about mayonnaise, and it some how came around to us wondering who in the hell needs like a dozen massive jars of mayonnaise, and if there were just like, regular people buying them, or if it was all restaurants and stuff, so we came to Costco and we stuck some tiny little GPS transmitters that we snuck out of the lab on all off the twelve packs of gallon jugs of mayonnaise, and then we monitored where they ended up at."
Jack could see the look of confusion on Helena's face as it shifted from confusion, to shock.
"It turns out that it's almost always small restaurants or food trucks, which threw us a bit because a lot of those folks operate out of their houses, you know? So the mayo went to a residential home and sat there, but then a few days later, it started moving around the city, so we used a couple of minutes of satellite time from one of the keyhole satellites that were passing overhead anyway and figured out they were food trucks, but there were two of them, the twelve packs I mean, that ended up at houses and stayed there, which we thought was definitely suspicious, so we checked them out, and one of them was an older couple who do foster care, with like, twelve kids, so I guess there's a lot of chicken and egg salad sandwiches, but the other was a single guy, forty-two years old, a used car salesman, or he was back then anyways. Casey was curious, so he checked into him, and it turns out that the guy would buy a twelve pack of one gallon jars of mayonnaise every four weeks or so, and he'd been doing it for over four years, which was when he moved in there." Alex shook his head. "We snuck his name onto a couple of watch lists. I don't know what he was doing, but there's clearly something wrong with that guy."
Helena's expression had changed to one that combined both outrage and horror.
"Definitely," Jack agreed lightly. "So, why did you track me down? You could have just called, and we could have met up someplace where they serve food that isn't already precut into bite size morsels, no offense to the lovely Helena here," Jack continued, flashing Helena smile number fourteen, which was a combination of flirty and comforting.
Helena blushed.
"Well, see, the thing is, I'm sort of super bored? Like, I kinda got fired from DARPA, but also really wanted to quit, so it's more like they actually let me? But it turns out that not having anything to do is worse that not having something to do that I'm not interested in, and believe it or not, there is actually an end to the internet, or at least to the places that I want to go, so I was sitting there, nursing my aching fingers," Alex raised his hands to show his fingers, which did look a bit tender, "because I'm learning how to play the guitar, and of course I was trying to figure out what to do next when I saw my land before time figurines on the shelf, and I remembered that you guys had found the dinosaur people, and I thought to myself, hey I should see what the gang is up to, so I activated the trackers in your bracers, and I saw you in Costco, so I rushed over to find you."
Jack opened his mouth, but the Alex train kept going.
"Also, what's up with the tier six thing? I know you're like tier eight, so I know you have return to the beginning, so why tier six instead of tier five? Is it some sort of flex or something? Is there a trend?" Alex shook his head, and his body shifted slightly as he assumed his tier six form as well.
Jack blinked. He and his friends had been using the Return to the Beginning blessing for years, but the only person who did so without going into another room to change was Bob, and that was because he could instantly equip clothing from his inventory, something that the rest of them envied him for. Alex's clothing had somehow grown with him.
"How did you get your clothes to change size with you?" Jack asked.
"It's an enchantment, well, a couple of them," Alex explained happily. "Spatial expansion, Spatial reinforcement, and Transmute. Basically, you take the biggest size you want and enchant it to act as its own container for itself while using transmute to act as a variable what size it is." He shook his head. "We tried it with just transmute, but the fabrics feel sort of wrong because they've been stretched to increase the size."
"That's amazing," Jack smiled as he slung an arm around Alex's shoulder, turning him towards the exit, and shooting a glance at Helena with a quickly mouthed 'sorry.' "Let's go get lunch, and we'll catchup."
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"Man, I forgot about Italian food," Alex mumbled around a mouthful of lasagna.
Jack shook his head. "How do you forget about the finest cuisine in the world?"
"Well, you know I have trouble cooking, so it used to be eating out or getting delivery, and then with the whole integration thing I basically lived at DARPA, and I ate at the cafeteria, but since I left, it's been sort of slim pickings, you know? I've got one place that delivers, and they do chicken, fries, and salads. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's really, really good, and they agreed to use my stasis box so it's always hot and fresh, but it's gotten sort of old," Alex said.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Jack nodded. Unspoken was the fact that Alex wasn't really allowed to go out alone.
When they'd first met and become friends, Jack had quickly realized that when left to his own devices and without anyone to talk to, Alex would get both lonely and bored, which when combined with his incredible curiosity, lack of filter, and the void where his ability to interpret societal norms was supposed to be, led to a number of incidents.
As an example, Alex had been trespassed from Chilli's. Not just the one near campus either. Every Chilli's. In the entire country.
Alex was brilliant. He just tended to get overly enthusiastic and a bit carried away. But he was still brilliant. Which meant that he had sacrificed the act of going out to restaurants alone in favor of being able to visit those restaurants with others in the future.
"So, what are you guys up to?" Alex asked. "Any chance you might need a healer? I know you're big bad tier eights, and I'm a lowly tier seven, but heals are heals right?"
Jack slowly chewed his eggplant parmesan.
"Actually," he began, "Bob is off with Jessica, Mike, Dave, and Amanda doing some sort of System assigned quest, so we are down a healer. We were planning to head to Url for a bit, help them keep their Dungeons cleared, and grind up some levels. Obviously, I'll need to check with the group, but we might be able to take you along."
Alex's eyes went wide. "That would be awesome! I've been wanting to meet the dinosaur people! Has anyone checked their bone structure yet? It would be fascinating to see how they evolved in comparison to the dinosaurs we had on Earth. I mean, it seems pretty clear to me that there are parallel evolutionary paths in play on some of these worlds, as evidenced by the people on Thayland, so I'd bet this is one where the dinosaurs made it! You guys have a healer, and I didn't notice any medical equipment on the Freedom when I was up there upgrading your systems, so I bet you didn't get any samples or anything." Alex shook his head. "I know Bob was all in on physics, but it's still a little weird that he didn't bring us back a couple of them to study. Still, I can fit most of what I'd need in my inventory," his smile was trending a little more toward manic than Jack was comfortable with. "Did you guys see any other dinosaurs? I mean, you saved their whole planet, so you had to have seen all the people, but were there any dinosaurs that didn't make the jump to sapience? Oh, man, I can't wait to get a look!"
"Hold up," Jack shook his head and raised his fork. "First, we still have to convince the group. Second, there will be no experimentation on the Urlinad. They don't have the necessary education to provide informed consent, and they also consider us to be gods, so there is an element of coercion there that none of us are going to be comfortable with, even if it is self-inflicted."
Alex's face fell. Jack was reminded of nothing as much as a child who had just been told that the brand new toy their parent had just put in the shopping cart wasn't for them but was going to be donated to Toys for Tots instead.
"I guess, I'll have to make do with skeletons," Alex sighed.
"It hurts me to have to say this," Jack sighed, "but no grave robbing!"
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"I like him," Eddi said immediately.
"Of course you do," Mike grunted. "He's you, but permanently caffeinated."
Wayna pulled Eddi into a hug as she faux whispered to him, "We all love you, sweetie; Grandpa Mike is just grumpy because some of his kids took off without him."
Mike glowered in response.
"Alex does come with quite a few side benefits, namely that he put together most of the ships computer systems, and can certainly maintain and repair them, which might become an issue without Dave around," Jack continued. "Also, he's a tier seven level forty healer."
"The healing thing might not actually be needed," Mike interjected. "Something I wanted to bring up with everyone was the possibility of Annisa joining us," he smiled weakly. "She's been a little disappointed that we haven't been able to spend much, if any, time together, and now that we've caught up to her..." He trailed off.
"What is her specialty?" Harv asked.
"Animancy and Invocation," Erick replied when Mike shrugged. "She was a lecturer at the Cathedral during my novitiate, specifically on Invocation. I'm assuming she hasn't switched, although with the loss of the seven gods of light, she may have."
"What does she do with invocation?" Jack asked.
"She burns people with sunfire," Erick said.
"Like, lasers?" Eddi asked brightly. "From Star Wars?"
Erick paused, his expression thoughtful. "Yes," he nodded slowly, "they do sort of look like that. More burning and less explosions when they hit things, though."
"Could use her as damage and backup heals, with Alex as primary heals," Bailli suggested. "While Dave wasn't putting out quite as much damage as I do, losing him definitely hurts."
"We have the space, and we need the people," Bailli continued. "Even when we all get back together, having extra healing is never a bad thing. Erick does have other spells, you know."
"Why don't we all have dinner together?" Wayna suggested. "I'm sure they have questions for us too, and we can get everything out in the open."
"Alex doesn't have any questions," Jack sighed. "Well, I'm sure he'll have more questions than you'll want to answer, but none of them will have anything to do with his desire to join us. Also, you'll need these."
Jack handed out bright yellow cards with glowing red lettering that said "INAPPROPRIATE TOPIC."
"You'll find that you'll need to hold these up occasionally," he explained. "None of you spent enough time with him for the conversations to get too off track, but believe me, his mind can take some odd tangents, and his manners aren't as fast as his brain, so sometimes he needs a reminder. Don't worry about offending him or anything, he actually prefers to have the people he talks to use cards to get his attention when he says or does something he shouldn't have."
"That's actually a little concerning," Erick said.
"It's the rub," Mike shrugged.
Seeing blank faces, he explained. "He's a genius. Not just genius IQ, although he's got that, but legitimate, change the entire damn world genius. If you made a list of the most brilliant minds on Earth, he'd be in the top hundred, if not in the top ten. The thing is, like most people that brilliant, there's always a tradeoff. Einstein was terrible with his personal relationships, as in his children wouldn't speak to him. Tesla suffered from what were likely dissociative breaks. He thought his pigeons were talking to him. Alex talks without considering what he's saying, because he has so much to say and can't get it all out. Likewise, he tends to act without thinking, although in all fairness, it's normally meant to be helpful."
Mike shook his head. "Having him around is going to be a pain in the ass, but honestly, keeping that kid alive and getting him tiered up might just be biggest contribution to humanity we could ever make, and yes, I'm counting our Saviour achievement. Sure, we saved the world and billions of people. But Alex might just be the guy who discovers something so revolutionary that it improves or saves lives for the next twenty millennia."
Jack nodded. "DARPA let him go, but I'm sure if we read over the paper work, they've reserved the right to bring him back in, and I'm absolutely certain that they're keeping an eye on him. They'll pull him back in when they have something that they need him for. In the meantime, we'd be doing him a favor by helping him tier up to the point where he can legitimately tell the government 'no.' Because right now, he can't."