Max's mouth was dry. A while back he’d held an impromptu martial arts class for his students, one more piece of the puzzle that might take them to the next level. They’d asked if they could ever have power like him, and Max had needed to explain Paths to them. It’s been necessary to explain how they had no hope of being a Blade Sorcerer–it was several orders of magnitude more complex than the Path they were on.

Now he felt like he had been talking nonstop for ages about the Quartet, what to expect with the apocalypse, and what sort of Paths existed. The Path information was important so everyone had a heads up about what kind of power Returners might demonstrate once they were back on Earth. Chad, in particular, seemed fascinated by the sheer variety of Paths. Max truly enjoyed talking to his friends.

He received a mild shock when he checked the countdown timer on his screen. It was good to be back on Earth, but he wasn't okay with just hanging around. His time could be spent more wisely.

At this point, everybody had already taken a nap or was still sleeping. It was more or less morning, so almost everybody awake and not on guard was eating their breakfast. Max took the opportunity to slip away, thinking about what he could do in his last few hours on earth–what he should prioritize.

As he sat on a plastic chair in the parking lot and pondered, Blake found him. The other man was eating a plate full of scrambled eggs. Max had been amused earlier to discover that not one, but two of his students actually raised chickens right outside of city limits. As a result, the group had a regular supply of eggs and went in teams to take care of the chickens and recover more food every couple days.

There was safety in numbers, so currently everybody was calling the dojo compound home while treating the houses with chickens as satellite farms.

Blake pulled up another cheap plastic chair without a word and sat facing Max. He munched on his eggs for a while before asking, "Running out of time, right? Are you going to go see any of your family?"

Max shook his head. "I don't think so. On top of the danger, I'd have to basically only choose one of them because there wouldn't be time to see the others. My mom is probably closest, but she'd also freak out the most and be the hardest to get away from. And she’d probably be the most upset if I was still there when I disappeared. I doubt that she is going to be flexible enough to understand things like magic and teleportation yet."

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"Good point," said Blake. He'd actually met Max's mom before. "Too bad phones are down, right?" Then he amended, "Well, they're usually down, but it's kind of not worth the effort to try unless you have a landline. And almost none of us have that."

Max shrugged. "I don't know. At least I was able to send emails. Infrastructure should be back in a few months I would imagine, maybe a few weeks but by then it would be too late for me. But honestly, I also kind of don't want to spend the next few hours just repeating myself over and over to family when I've already explained what's going on to them in emails. I mean, yeah, it would be nice to give them a hug. My mom would definitely like to hear my voice in person, but it's enough for me to know she's still alive. Just knowing they’re not dead took a huge weight off my shoulders. And I got you all to promise–"

Blake cut Max off. "--Of course, we're going to look out for your family and probably even bring them here once we get a chance."

Max nodded. Blake said, "It’s good your problems are sort of solved, but ours are still looming.”

“What problems?”

“Resource problems. These eggs have been really helpful over the last week since some of the other survivors out there lost their damn minds, either bought everything out in grocery stores or started breaking in and stealing stuff they didn't need. It's crazy out there. At least so many of us have superpowers. I know for a fact that at least Ethan is bulletproof.”

“Had some problems with humans, huh?"

"Yeah," said Blake. His face fell. "None of us really like to talk about it."

"I can imagine," said Max. He gestured around the perimeter of the compound. "So I take it that the fence and the show of force isn't only for the benefit of protecting everybody from monsters."

"That's right," said Blake. "But like I said, we have other problems too. Resources. I mean, right now, around the world, a lot of people are kind of just taking what they need. Some steal, but we’re trying to be ethical. We always make notes of what we take to settle up with the store later because that's the right thing to do. But like you said, infrastructure is going to return. And even though the world will never be the same again–and who the hell knows, maybe the world will end–I have a hard time believing that businesses will just disappear in the long run. And when the day comes that everybody has to pay for things again, we're going to need money. Lots of money. There are a lot of mouths to feed."

Max nodded slowly and his eyes suddenly lit up. Something had just clicked and he realized what the most valuable use for his remaining time on Earth would be. "Hey buddy, can you do me a favor and get everybody together? I have something I want to say and we all need to get to work."

“That’s sudden. You serious?”

“Yeah.”

Blake smiled. "I recognize that expression. Alright." He stood up and retrieved his empty paper plate. "Let me go round everybody up."

"Thanks man," said Max. After Blake was gone, he grinned. He had a goal now and a direction. No specifics yet, but he believed that with his friends’ help, before he left, he could help ensure that both his family, and his comrades would be taken care of.