Saturday, April 6th, 2069

My father left me at my mother’s desk, with instructions to drive home with her. He said he’d be a while handling paperwork, but I knew the real reason as soon as I saw her. She needed some more venting of the anxiety this incident had caused.

There was a simple solution to it, of course. I learned this method growing up. Whenever I saw a tear forming in her eye—I’d simply wrap her into a hug. When I had been smaller than her, it might have overwhelmed her with cuteness, but now I wanted to believe that it made her feel safe. Still, once we started driving that tactic went out the window.

My mother’s car was a two-seater since we had one and a half parking spaces at our rent-controlled townhouse. If the Ford Escort was a beater, then this was a rusty lawnmower by comparison. I wasn’t even sure what year this thing was made. Still, despite it not having any of its logos remaining, I knew it was a Toyota Yaris.

“You can’t go back in there! I can’t lose you both,” my mother said, her tone containing the bubbling, simmering anxiety she’d likely been dealing with since she’d first heard of the accident.

“Mom, we’re both fine. Look, see, I’m right here,” I said, waiting to get her attention. She managed a glance from the road, as she coasted to a stop at a light.

She studied me with glassy eyes once she came to a full stop. “Brodie, you might think you’re fine now, but what happens when the shock wears off. When you get older, and this causes psychological issues? When you squander your intelligence and opportunity in school because Mining makes you money now?”

I couldn’t help the chuff of air that escaped my nose. That last bit was clearly a reach. I didn’t have any current plans to stop attending school. Sure, if I got a Skill that could make me a Hunter, I might switch to a Hunter’s track—but I didn’t plan on stopping. Despite my clear humor at the situation, Smegma was studying me, and my mother, with intense scrutiny. And a frown.

Hurriedly, I responded to my mother before Smegma could get a word in. “Mom, stop it! I’m only out of school right now because Ms. Stovall suggested it. I’ve got my first session in Therapy in two days, too. So, if there is a problem won’t whoever does that session find it?”

“Sweetie,” my mom started her voice, seeming to be pleading, which didn’t make sense until I saw the open tears on her cheeks. She was looking away now as she accelerated with traffic. “Why can’t you just take some time off, and then go back to school next semester? Or if you have to work—maybe join a fast-food restaurant chain or like—a Portal Material Distribution Center for experience? You could be a temp or a student on co-op, I’m sure!”

“Mom!” I let my complaint envelop that one word. “Those jobs might seem safer, but do you remember when the company Triple Threat accidentally brought back a monster that was still alive? It killed all the workers in the warehouse and office building. Or how about Trip to Taco which was serving ground King Cow, and a rampant bacteria turned them and practically the whole town into zombies?”

“There’s protocols in place for stuff like that now!” she countered, and I sighed.

“There are protocols in place for Mining too,” I grumbled.

She pulled the car into a parking lot with a somewhat quick jerk of her wheel which caused the car to complain with loud groans and squeals. Once sufficiently out of traffic she slammed the brakes and mashed the four-way’s button before spinning to stare at me. I absently noted that the four-ways weren’t working.

The tears that had been running down her cheek seemed to have evaporated in the heat of the flush that her anger brought on. She opened her mouth in what I assumed was going to be a shout, appeared to think better of it, and clicked her teeth together in a rush to clamp down whatever she had been about to say.

After a few deep inhalations and very loud exhalations she said, “Brodie, I only want what’s best for you. Surely, we can come up with a job or something you can do that’s safe, right?”

My stomach twisted sideways in my abdomen. I wanted nothing more than to agree with her, but I couldn’t. Not if I wanted to live my dream. Instead, I asked, “Mom, where do you think I would have been if I had become a Mana Bank?”

“Come on, Brodie, even if that happened, there is a higher chance of you being on some rich family’s daughter's arm at parties than in Portals!”

“Even if that happened?” I questioned, feeling a surge of gut-wrenching nausea threatening to either cause me to vomit or scream incoherently. Thankfully Mental Fortitude seemed to curb that desire and allowed me to get out the question I managed.

“Brodie, you know I support you in anything you want to do,” my mom answered the somewhat rhetorical question. “I’m not saying that I didn’t believe—I was trying to say that being a Mana Bank doesn’t mean you’ll work with active Hunters. There’s other people like Healers who need Banks.”

Her words did calm down whatever had been trying to claw its way out of my chest and stomach, but only served to morph the emotion I felt into sadness. “But that’s what I wanted Mom. I told you and Dad that. I want to be out there making a difference. Stopping things like what happened today!”

“Brodie!” my mom said clearly ready to continue arguing.

“MOM!” Acidic bile gathered at the base of my throat as I shouted. “Don’t you get it? Do you think these Portals are going to get less dangerous over time? It’s common knowledge that they get stronger the longer they’re open.” The words spilled out of me.

Words and truth that had been burning away inside of me after meeting Smegma and learning of the fate of integrated worlds that failed to Evolve. There was a grinding, torrential fear churning inside of me that couldn’t be fully mitigated by even Mental Fortitude.

“If we the ‘Normie’s’don’t try to help, then Hunters are going to get overwhelmed. Just look at what happened today. We lost one of the Strongest Hunter’s in our area, Mom! He’s the person that has provided us with the protection we’ve lived under. What happens if we keep losing more like him?”

I chose to exit stage left, or in this case rusty-passenger-door-right. It was the only thing I could think to do that would stop more words that I couldn’t take back from spilling out of me. More theories and fears that were based on Smegma’s words, with no grounding in current reality.

And if I was honest, this argument didn’t feel like something I could win, or even come out of feeling good about.

“Get back in the car, Brodie,” my mom said even as she rushed to take off her seat belt. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop,” she continued. I began walking around the side, then back of the car. Just as she got out of the driver’s door I closed the distance and wrapped her in a hug.

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Squeezing her tightly I whispered, “Mom, I understand you just want to keep me safe. Still, I’m the one who just went through these things. I’m the one who needs to decide if that means I need to stop. You want to protect me, and I want to protect you too. But I think the best way to do that is helping the Hunters.

“I’m going to take the bus and think about that. Okay?”

She gently pushed on my biceps, and I ceded to it, allowing her to get me at arm’s length. She looked up at me as tears resumed flowing from her cheeks. After a moment she nodded and stopped the light pressure that was ‘holding’ me at arm’s length. I wrapped her in another hug.

“Okay,” she whispered into my chest. “I’ll think about it too.” She coughed or sobbed before changing the subject. “I’ll start dinner. Are you going to come straight home?”

A small smile fought the corner of my mouth. I loved my mother. Even at times like this, where emotions could overwhelm her. Her slight shaking made me realize how much of a fight she was putting up against herself to say those words. To allow me the space to think. It meant a lot.

“Yeah, I may skip a bus or two, but I’ll be home by five. Promise.”

She pushed me away gently again and wiped a sweater sleeve across her face to collect the tears. “Okay, get out of here before I try to lecture you some more.”

Smiling broadly now, I turned and walked away—moving to the sheltered bus stop that had prodigious enough graffiti that I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to see out of the plexiglass panels. Still, it had a bench, and no one around, other than the people in cars as they drove by. Why did I feel like I desperately needed that space?

“You weak humans are so husking emotional!” Smegma said, reminding me that he was present for that entire conversation. I wasn’t sure whether I should be embarrassed or angry with him and instead settled on treating this like a conversation with Dave.

“Smegma, do Demon parents not care about their children?” I asked, wondering how a living creature seemed to be unable to understand a mothering instinct.

“Parents?” Smegma guffawed. “Sure, we have them, but we’re born in clutches of thousands. Only the strong survive—otherwise, you’re useless to the Family. Parents?” he repeated his earlier sarcastic question again this time not sounding amused. “I’ve never even been in the same room as the people whose genes I carry.”

“That sounds awful,” I whispered as I collapsed onto the bench. I glanced back to the parking lot and saw my mom’s Yaris still sitting there with only one of the back two four-ways blinking. I wanted to go back to her and try to console her, but knew that would just devolve back into the argument we were having before.

Smegma distracted me again when he shouted, “Don’t you pity me!”

I spun with a raised eyebrow and looked at him. He seemed to realize that I hadn’t been meaning my words to come across in any derogatory way by the look on my face. He shut his mouth and after a tap of talon to teeth said, “It isn’t awful, though. It’s our way of life?”

“Fair,” I said hurriedly, hearing the question Smegma seemed to be asking. “Just like how Demons seem to live by killing their siblings and being strong. Humans, with the capacity to only birth an offspring at a time—”

“Come on, I’ve seen trailers for a show where a woman had eight kids all at once!” Smegma interrupted.

“That’s a show because of how insanely rare that is,” I said while laughing. “Sure, some anomalies do happen. Like octuplets. But that particular ‘miracle’ was the result of artificial medical intervention. For the most part, Humans have one child—one time a year or so. We have to protect those kids and help them grow up as best we can. Each couple usually tries to ensure that their child can live its dreams.”

There was a long pause before Smegma countered, “Then why is she trying to stop you from living yours.”

“Because she would rather me be alive than live my dream for a day and dead,” I answered with a glance back to the parking lot. The Yaris was thankfully gone, which meant my mom was on her way home to her kitchen. I assumed I would arrive to a plethora of baked goods and an overly extravagant dinner—just another of her coping mechanisms.

“So, your race is more like the Elves then?” Smegma asked, and I spun back to him so quickly I felt my neck protest.

“What? Elves?” I said stupidly.

“Yeah, they’re the race that lives on—” Smegma started before cutting himself off. “Lived on?” he repeated, sounding to be questioning not only the tense of the wording he used but also himself. “Uhhh, well Elves are one of the races like Demons. They failed the System integration too—I think?”

The fact that one of his taloned claws was grabbing a horn and pulling seemed a lot like the idiom of pulling out one’s hair in frustration. So, I smartly decided to let that topic die—for now at least. “So, we’re like them because we care for offspring?”

“Well, they’re more of the opposite extreme than you are—at least in comparison to us demons. They rarely seem to procreate and when they do, it takes almost a decade of gestation.”

“We call it pregnancy here on Earth,” I informed the demon. Then added, “So, like each of their offspring is practically sacred?”

“I think so?” he said, and I chose to change the subject as he brought his other hand up to his second small horn to start tugging.

“Ahh, I see,” I began. “Regardless, my mother would react that way to any situation that put me in danger. It’s just what parents do. My dad probably only was so calm because he was there, but even then—I’m pretty sure that soon, if not already, he’s going to realize that I was there. Did you see how pale he was? I bet that my safety and how close that was today, was one of the first thoughts he had after the shock wore off.”

“So, what are you going to do?” Smegma asked, as he released his horns and focused his black eyes to regard me.

“First, I’m going to figure out what options I have,” I said meaninglessly. Then, because it was Smegma, I admitted, “I have no husking idea.”

“You were trying to sound cool there weren’t you?” he asked.

“Yep, did it work?”

“A little bit, till you ruined it.”

“Well, husk you very much, then.”

* * *

That night was exactly as I predicted. My mother had practically made a feast—even having stopped on her way home for more ingredients. The time by herself, and likely in large part to my father getting home before me, had helped her calm down. While I still caught worrying looks from her and my father in turn—they both seemed to have an unspoken agreement to let me decide on my own.

Unless it wasn’t the right decision…

Smegma and I were up in my room now, and I was silently going over the gains from the day. Not only did I have over ten thousand mC—my Pickaxe and the other two I’d recently acquired were looking far better than they would have if we had used them on some Ore veins. In fact, the first one I purchased seemed to be humming in my hands.

I brought up that feeling to Smegma.

“Oh, it’s probably ready to extract a Crystal from then,” he said offhandedly as he ‘lounged’ on the bed. Could he even really interact with furniture?

Still, his words made me rush to my desk to grab the Key Stone. Unfortunately, all three looked the same—and I wasn’t willing to make the trip back and forth a bunch of times. So, I turned around and grabbed the pickaxe from where I’d leaned it against my lounge chair, before rushing back. The second one I tried began to glow pink as I brought it up to the base of the handle.

I had a brief thought to stop and label each one but was too excited, and instead touched the Key Stone to the handle base. The pink glow grew brighter until suddenly my entire vision went white. I blinked, and nothing changed—then I tried closing my eyes for a longer period and opening them again. The change from strobing reddish-white lights to black-tinged red was the only thing that told me I hadn’t just gone blind.

“What the husk, Smeg?” I said. “A warning would have been nice.”

No response came, and my breathing grew heavier as my vision slowly returned. “Smegma?”

Nothing.

The first thing I saw as the world seemed to come back into focus was a familiar red box.

ERROR!

…