Jinn watched Mars and Kay as they scoured the diner for useful items, and focused on the older man first.

Her earlier assessment was holding up; he was taller than her, weighed more than her, and had a body built like a dwarf or weightlifter, depending on which reality a person wanted to see him through. Tough to deal damage to and easy to take damage from. Which was honestly one reason she enjoyed being part of a dwarven race whenever she tested fantasy realms.

Currently, Mars was looking through the chef knives that had been left behind, examining them one by one and sorting them into two piles. Possibly searching for rust, maybe even serrated blades.

She really didn’t remember meeting him, other than in that earlier game, and try as she might, she couldn’t remember anything said about him by others. He might play his character to a theme; the always helpful, eternally optimistic, does-kind-things when given the opportunity type. Or, he might play as himself; enough testers did that, too. If he stuck to his character image, or this was how he was all the time, then he’d be a good person to team up with. However, there was still a chance all of his actions were a front, and the moment she lowered her guard, his true motivations would come to light. Mars would need continued watching.

Jinn switched her view to Kay.

To be fair, she didn’t know Kay much better than Mars. Sure, they’d had those previous customer service/tester interactions. A whole what...? One face-to-face meeting and everything else via messages? Not to mention that jobs such as this one were well known for forcing people to have multiple masks, one to handle each type of troublesome customer they received. But, if a person genuinely liked their job, then tended toward being themselves during work hours, especially when talking with people seen less as a customer and more as a co-worker.

She was going to have to monitor both of them, wasn’t she? Jinn let out a quiet sigh. She needed to observe them, watch out for environmental threats, be ready to guard against... her thought fizzled away. Shit. It had been on the tip of her mind...

“Jinn?” Kay’s voice snagged her flagging concentration, and with another mental grumble at forgetting something she felt was important, Jinn turned to the kid.

“What?”

“I think we got everything?” They turned to the countertop and gestured to the items they’d lined up. Mars dumped about three more knives at the end part of the semi-circle, then reached for his backpack. “So, we’ll carry this equally?”

Jinn quickly scanned the room; Kay was right. They’d taken everything not nailed down. For a moment, she wished VICA was online so she could see a list of all the items they were picking up, but then she shook the thought from her head. Better to wish the game would log them out safely.

Mars and Kay had done well. Jinn picked up a sheaf of napkins in front of her and added them to the pile. The remains of the past lay before them: the pitiful remains of the diner’s first aid kit, a heap of silverware, several mugs, a few plates, some notebooks, pens, a bottle of cooking oil, never-opened spice packets, sauces that were most likely going to be staying here, aprons with deep pockets, knives, and a pair of shoes that had hardened tops.

“A good haul.” Jinn reached for her own backpack and opened it up, adding her flashlight to the pile. The maps would stay with their owner since they’d updated themselves to be identical in information. “Next up, add whatever it is you’re already carrying. We’ll divvy out after that.”

“How do we want to divide it?” asked Kay. “Equally?”

Jinn made a disagreeing noise. “How much do you think you can carry?”

“More than them, in that teen’s body,” interjected Mars. His eyes looked her over. “Possibly more than you.”

“Possibly,” agreed Jinn. “Which is why you’re going to be carrying all the heavier items. I’ll take collective small things since that weighs more than people think, and Kay can take light and bulky.”

Mars was already nodding, setting the items from his pack next to what the counter held.

“That’s not fair though,” Kay protested, their head bouncing between Mars and Jinn. “He shouldn’t have to carry all the heavy stuff.”

“It’s completely fair.” Jinn folded her arms over her chest. “You, looking at the physique you have in OMR, cannot carry much right now.” She thought about it a little more. “Actually, I’m surprised you can play as a kid. That option wasn’t available to me.”

Not that she would have chosen it. Being a teen in a post-apocalypse world was an unwanted hard mode.

“It wasn’t an option for most people, but we had at least five testers running that scenario. And there were supposed to be ten people in total testing that, which is why I could enter the game.”

Interesting. A thought flickered about the possibility of those no-shows being part of the company takeover. She shoved it to the side almost as soon as it developed. There was no way to check that from here, so that was a future Jinn problem.

“Okay, maybe I should have read the manual, but does OMR have stable aging? I can’t, or honestly don’t, want to imagine being trapped in a teenager’s body forever.” Most games had started with aging—the simulations had gone from late teen to adult to elderly—and then game developers had figured out that while a few people were happy to live out old age again and again and again... Others had decided that living it once was enough. Demand dropped, and since there was no money to be made from adding it as an option, games kept tending towards unaging. A person entered, and no matter how much time they spent in the game, they stayed the same.

“The company thought Our Mutual Ruins would appeal to a teen demographic, so they wanted to have some stable aging, from teen to adult.”

That made sense. And whoever in marketing with that idea was correct, OMR would do well with that age range.

“So you’re going to age up then. Another reason I don’t want to split our weight equally.” Jinn held her hand up to stop Kay. “Out of the three of us, you’re the only one who won’t be able to see how their attributes progress. Mars and I know what we can handle; you don’t. If I give you something to carry and it’s lightweight, then you’ll be able to tell us when it becomes as light as a cloud and you barely register it. If I gave you a heavy weight from the start, then it’ll remain heavy even when your attribute levels up.”

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“Oh.”

“Also, there’s the law of repacking. It’s better to have one person packed to bursting, another person with bulky items, and the last person with all the small things that add up. If there are three to begin with.”

Mars let out a laugh and nodded.

“I remember reading up on the law of repacking. It might seem strange, but it really works. It lets a group quickly remember who is carrying which types of items, decides where a new item should go, and gives weight to the people who can best carry it. Divvying up items like that allows the group to find what they need quickly. The only time it’s a hindrance is when someone is injured, or you have to ditch a bag, and usually that means there was something else in that time that’s become more important. Like an enemy shooting at you.”

Kay blinked.

“I... huh. Game testing actually takes brains, doesn’t it?” They flushed, their skin mottling in patches of green and darker green, as Jinn and Mars both laughed card enough to cry. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! That came out sounding really bad!”

“Yeah, being a game tester isn’t for everyone, and it’s not just ‘my job lets me play games.’ If you’re a good tester, it means you see things others miss.”

“It’s also why a game company invests in having more than a handful of dependable testers.” Mars finished packing the heavy items and wiped the sweat from their brow, the liquid darkening their shoulder. “I think that’s everything.”

Jinn nodded. She hadn’t been joking when she’d said they were going to loot everything. She started sweeping the smaller, heavier-when-collected items into her backpack. Kay, after a moment’s hesitation, sorted the remaining light-weight and bulky items into her pack.

It was past time to go. The higher the sun had risen, the hotter it’d gotten inside the room, especially with the three of them stirring up more dust. That meant it was going to be hot as balls outside.

“And we’re going to need to think about your training,” she told Kay, frowning. It would be difficult to build attributes evenly without VICA telling them which one to work on next. “Especially with everything offline right now. As you know, I make my character even with all of them. Well, as close as I could. Mars, what were you doing this run through?”

He was leaning against the countertop, looking up at the ceiling before she addressed him.

“Wanted to know how well I’d stand up to the environmental enemies in here. So I have high Perception, Strength, and Endurance. Opportunities was my dump stat since I figured Charisma would net me friendlier NPCs.”

Made sense. And the idea of Opportunities, as presented by OMR, hadn’t given an easy and clear cut advantage.

“I think Kay needs to be attribute heavy.”

“Like, as in upping my endurance?”

“Nothing to do with weight,” Mars explained.

“We have no idea about the system anymore,” Jinn explained. “We can’t see our attributes or xp, so we’re going to have to all go by feeling. That’ll be easiest to tell with you, Kay, since you’re at the lowest level, and possibly for Mars since there are some attributes that are lower than others, but for myself, who knows? I kept mine at almost the same level since that’s how I play. The good news, or bad, I guess, would be seeing no improvement. Then we’ll at least know another potential problem with the system.”

Kay’s mouth dropped open.

“Shit. That would be terrible, us being trapped in here but not able to level up or get stronger. I didn’t even think of that.”

“Unfortunately,” agreed Mars, frowning at the thought, “There’s sound logic to that assumption—though hell I want that to happen here.”

“While we head to the new base, there are three things we need to do.” Jinn slid her arms through the straps of her pack and tested the weight. This would be fine for her. “First, take notes on ways we’ve tested the system, or found the system to be breached. If they put their own person in here with us, then they probably want to take them out again. That means they’ll have to open it at some point.”

“Maybe,” Mars’ voice was low. “Though, there have been cases before when the people stuck in the game were martyred for the cause.”

He put on his pack, then looked at Jinn and Kay’s faces. “What?”

“Way to be cheerful.” Kay was the last of them to take her items. “What are the other two things?”

“We need to go over your game notes again, see if there are any loopholes we can take advantage of. Figure out where they would have put a system that allows in-game users to talk to customer service directly. Third, as long as nothing else is wrong, is that we’re going to be checking every building on the way to the new base.”

“What happens if things go wrong?”

“If it’s only medium wrong, then identify anything of value and snatch that. And if the shit’s hit the fan, we’ll all be running like hell so it won’t fucking matter.” Jinn grinned wide enough to show teeth. “Kay, I left a pen and notebook out for you. Let’s get started. We can go over notes along the way, stop for some scavenging, and make the new base in the next few days.”

“That seems like a long time.”

“Think of it like this. It’s better to take the time now and bring stuff to the base than it is to get to the base and keep leaving on scavenging missions.” Jinn grabbed Kay’s notes about the game. “While you take notes, we’re also going to go over what you’ve written.”

Kay snorted.

“We could have done that before getting ready to leave.”

“It’ll take less time to go over notes as we walk. Mars, you’re lead. Kay, you’re mid. I’ll take up the rear.” She paused. “He’s got the most endurance in case—”

“In case we’re attacked,” cut off Kay. “I understand the ideas behind video games, even if I don’t play them myself. Kinda comes with the customer service position.”

“Well, congrats. You can say you play them now,” said Jinn, ushering them out the door after Mars. She squinted into the sun. Trees would have been nice, but they were going to be walking in the sun before they could enjoy the coolness of tree shade. A good incentive to scavenge, telling everyone it was to keep them from experiencing heat stroke. Jinn shook her head. How many fucking years had she been a gamer and nothing had happened? Fuck, if she was going to be trapped in a game, why the hell did it have to be post-apocalyptic?

“Why?”

“Huh? Why what?”

Kay nodded, and Jinn looked in the direction. “Why did I close the door? If someone’s been through here, then they know the door’s been shut the entire time. If it’s not shut, they’ll figure out pretty quickly that we were here.”

As soon as they settled into a steady pace, Jinn began leafing through the notes in her hand.

There’s no mutation limit.

That was an interesting thought. Games usually capped things for a reason, but if it was true, that there was no limit on the amount of mutations a person could have… Places like the hole in the cavern were a bit more dangerous than she’d realized. Was there a point where a body couldn’t take all the changes? Were there mutations that negated the effects from previous mutations? There had to be, by the law of averages. Maybe not for some of them—she couldn’t see how her horns would pop out of existence—but was there a counter to her Elemental Sensitivity?

The map in her hands shifted as they climbed their way to a crest and revealed that on the path before them was a building named Baseball Fanatics HQ. She grinned as she imagined swinging a baseball bat as a melee weapon. Perfect.