Chapter 23

Since I had nothing going other than phase one logistics I mentally took inventory.

I could grow: mini mushrooms, regular mushrooms, and huge mushrooms. Each can be grown as a chem mushroom and each can release toxic spores. In total I had two projects going on, well more like just the one. Project bde was paying dividends in researching ways I could defend myself while project first contact was on hiatus it too was a worthwhile endeavor: I obtained a second food source.

I had a pet plant in buttons which while on the surface wouldn’t sound like much of a boon, being alone for what might be decades, maybe even centuries with no one to care for sounded like a horrible nightmare that might drive me into catatonia. It sounds fucking silly but when I was a human even though crowds and people drained my social batteries like no ones business, I still needed companionship.

My dog, back when I was human, was that for me.

‘Was’ because he grew old and was in constant pain so I had to put him down.

I got him from a shelter while I was still with my folks and I took him when I moved out. He was everything to me. And I say this with little to no exaggeration, he was sometimes the only reason I got out of bed some days.

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You remember where I was walking back from when the car hit me right?

Yeah well let’s just say I didn’t take well to being alone and without him.

So Buttons.

My little buddy may not be an animal or sentient but taking care of it will let me avoid peering the abyss that is time...

Well aren’t we all morose and shit!?

I was taking inventory in order to see if I could come up with anything else I could do with the resources I had at hand. All I ended up doing was going down memory lane and getting sideswiped by loss.

Hmph.

I focused on phase 1. The huge chem mushrooms were growing steadily. Actually they were all a bit bigger than when I initially attempted to grow my bde monument. Besides the mushroom at site two of course. That one was still roughly at the size of a regular mushroom.

Which now that I think of it the predator that ate the mushroom there hasn’t come back. I wonder if it just didn’t find the flavor of the mushroom unsatisfactory and wasn’t interested in coming back for more? Is it dead?

Ugh.

My sensory network didn’t detect any creatures lying down.

Oh that’s something I forgot to mention when I was listing my resources: my sensory network. Perhaps one of my most vital resources in my endeavor to survive, information about the surface world.

Hell some of my networks at the different sites have now even been connected.

I wonder if I should expand it to the size of the whole forest.

Maybe even beyond?