[Xander – 12 years]

"Xander," Mr. Trey sits beside me. "I want to start off by saying you aren't in trouble, okay?"

What did I do this time? I'm just lying in the living room while I wait for breakfast time.

"Okay…"

"You're dressed instead of in your pajamas?" He asks.

Oh, no. I'm not supposed to be properly dressed instead of in pajamas until after breakfast, am I?

"Yes."

Mr. Trey coughs into a fist. Is he getting sick?

"Xander," he says. "Why did you get dressed? And you're not in trouble, I'm just a little surprised. You normally wait until after breakfast to get dressed."

That's all it is?

"Oh," I say. "Um… at the sleepover Tuesday night, I learned that S.G. and the others don't sleep in pajamas, both when at sleepovers and when not. And it sounded more comfortable, so I wanted to give it a proper try. It was a lot more comfortable, not having the arms and legs and body of my pajamas twisting around me or rubbing my skin while I was slept."

Though I was still nervous when I tried it, because what if Mr. Trey or someone came into my room? Thankfully, no one did, not even when I had bad dreams. They didn't get too bad last night and while I did wake up, I was able to hum myself back to sleep.

"Um… is that okay?" I ask. "You bought my pajamas and you wear pajamas-"

"I slip the pajamas on before leaving my room," Mr. Trey tells me. "You're about to turn thirteen, so the choice is yours on what you wear to sleep in your room. If it's just pants, or shorts, or underwear, or shorts and a tee, or underwear and a tee, or pants and a tee, or nothing, or something else, that's up to you. The only rule is you're at least wearing shorts or pants when you leave your room. And if you're not comfortable letting me see you in whatever you're wearing – even if it's shorts and a t-shirt – then leave a change of clothes that you're comfortable with me being around you in near your bed so I can give them to you. That way, you can change into them under the blanket before coming out, if we play cards or something after you wake up from a nightmare. Okay?"

He's not mad at me. That makes me happy because I was a lot more comfortable not wearing pajamas last night. He doesn't even care what my new sleepwear is and is willing to give me something else to put on when I wake up from the nightmares if I'd prefer.

Which I would. Even wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt around him during the day makes me a little uncomfortable so I'd definitely feel that way waking up from a nightmare when I'm not wearing a shirt. It's a lot different than going shirtless for swimming.

"Okay."

"Speaking of the sleepover," he says. "How did it go? We only talked about the yard work yesterday."

"Um…" I'm not sure how to respond to that.

"You're not going to be in trouble if you guys got up to a little bit of mischief," he says.

Oh, he thinks I was scared of getting into trouble. At least, I think that's what he means by "mischief". I don't really know that word.

"I was trying to figure out if you just wanted to know how it went," I say. "Or what we did. Um. Can I ask that?"

"Either one works," he tells me. "You can say as much or as little about it as you want."

Really? I'm not sure if he knows that it's easy for me to look in his eyes when he sits by me when I'm lying down like this, so I could tell he was honest about that. He's really okay with me leaving out information even though that would make me bad.

"Um…" I think. "They were wrestling around when I got there, already changed into shorts for bed even though that was hours away. I changed into pajamas, but in the bathroom so they wouldn't see me. After that, we ate and played Truth or Dare, and-"

"Truth or Dare?" He interrupts me. "Mind telling me what that involved?"

"Well, it was more like challenge than dare," I tell him. "Because a lot of it was just seeing if we could do it rather than braving it. I guess braving it was involved for some stuff, but it was braving the challenge rather than braving getting into trouble."

"Xander," Mr. Trey clears his throat. "I mean, did anything… sexual happen during it?"

"What?" I sit up and turn to face him. "Why would it? It's just a game where you ask questions and do challenges, not anything sexual."

"Some people take it a little bit further than that," he says. "And I still don't know those boys that well. It's your first time at a sleepover, and your first time at one with them. You never know what might happen."

"Oh," I say. "It was mostly things like 'stuff your mouth with as many grapes as possible' or 'stand on one foot until your next turn' or 'drink a mixture of root beer, milk, and hot sauce'. No one asked, challenged, or dared anything sexual for it and the game was completely without anything sexual."

"Alright," he says. "If anyone ever tries to get you to do something like that, even during a game, you're more than okay saying 'no'. If someone ever tries to pressure you into it, it's okay to leave as well."

"I know," I say. "And I don't think they'd do that. They're goofy, not jerks."

I've gotten to know them well enough to know that, and Tuesday night proved it.

"Plus," I say. "I now know how to breathe fire, so if someone tried to make me do something, I could just-"

"We'll talk about that another time," Mr. Trey interrupts me. "Let's go back to the sleepover. Is there anything else you'd like to share about it?"

"Yeah," I nod. "So after Truth or Dare – or really, Truth or Challenge – we played cards for a little bit. A little bit later, they started playing a video game. It was mostly S.G. playing it, he was shooting zombies in the ruins of a town in the game. Not in real life. I think he called it an apocalyptic zombie game? The first time I fell asleep was during that. They were all a bit noisy while playing it, like shouting when a zombie showed up out of nowhere or urging S.G. to do something in the game."

"Would you ever want to play a game like that?"

"Am I allowed to?"

"What's the rule for the theater room?" Mr. Trey asks. "For what you're allowed to use it for?"

"Watching movies, shows, documentaries and stuff," I tell him. "And for playing video games like Zevatris."

"You can play other types of games," Mr. Trey tell me. "Would that zombie shooter game fit into any of those things you're allowed to use the theater room for?"

"Yes."

"So then that means…"

"Oh. I can play normal video games?"

"Yes," he laughs. "You can play normal video games, Xander! Did you want to give something like that a try? I can buy you a game."

"I don't know," I turn a bit, then lie back down and spread my arms and legs out. "But I want to try laser tag. At the same time, I don't want to try laser tag. It's gonna be way too noisy."

"Today's Thursday, right?" Mr. Trey asks.

What kind of test is that?

"Yeah."

"I looked up the laser tag place they use after Paul gave me its name," Mr. Trey tells me. "Wanted to see if it was safe. They do sensory-friendly hours on Thursday."

"Sensory-friendly hours?" I ask. "What does that mean?"

"It means they make some small changes," he says. "To be friendlier to people who have more sensitive senses or who have sensory processing disorders or other issues. One of the changes is they change the lights so they aren't as harsh. They also add in a mild white noise generator through their intercom system. That helps prevent other noises from being so loud."

"How does that work?"

"I don't really understand it," he says. "But at a guess, it might be that it helps reduce how much you notice of other sounds, even subconsciously. I could be wrong on that, but it seems to work."

"Oh."

"They also reduce the actual laser tag games," he tells me. "Normally, there can be ten to twenty players on a team at a maximum depending on the day and hour, and up to four teams playing. During the sensory-friendly games, it's a maximum of five players per team and only two teams. This way, not as many people are running around."

There aren't as many people who'll be there and it'll be quieter. That's what I'm understanding.

"Does that sound like something you want to try?" Mr. Trey asks.

"Yeah," I nod.

"Would you like to go today?"

"Um… oh… um…"

"It's in the mornings," he tells me. "We can go after breakfast, if you're okay with not having the classes today."

"I was going to ask that…" I start breathing heavily as tears well up in my eyes. No. Don't cry! Don't cry! Just say it! "It's, um… it's why I was down here already, um, so I could, um, so I could ask."

"You wanted to cancel the classes for today?" He asks, and I nod. "How come?"

"'Cause-'cause-with yesterday-and-"

"Deep breaths," Mr. Trey says. "In… out… in… out… in… out… there we go. Don't try to force the words out and take your time if you need to, okay?"

"Okay," I nod. "Um… yesterday… was… a very… busy… um… maybe that's not the right word. But I feel… feel… um…"

"Overwhelmed?"

"Not quite? But that's the best I can think of, I think… I'm sorry!"

"So you wanted a rest day?" He asks.

"If that's okay…"

Why am I so pathetic?

"You can have a rest day if you want," he says. "And we can try laser tag another day. Do you want to go to Greyson's workshop to tinker around with stuff? You mentioned feeling calm there."

That's something I wanted to do but was way too afraid to ask about. For Mr. Trey to mention it, I think that means it's really okay. I still need to ask first, just to make sure.

"Is that okay?"

"It is," he answers.

"Okay," I say. "Can I go right after I brush my teeth after breakfast?"

"You can."

"Okay."

"Let's go to the table," he says. "It should be about ready now."

We get up and go to the table, reaching it just as Ms. Katie's putting food down. She asked me what I wanted to eat when I came down this morning and confirmed that it was okay for me to pick. Because of that, we're doing pancakes. Mr. Trey gets chocolate-chip pancakes, and bacon and eggs on the side. I get blueberry-banana-sprinkles-gummy bear pancakes with sausage links and hash brown patties on the side. We're both getting a bowl of berries.

One day, I might be brave enough to tell Ms. Katie that I hadn't meant all four of those in one pancake.

After breakfast, I go up to the bedroom I'm staying in and wait until it's time to brush my teeth, then do that, grab my backpack, and return downstairs. Mr. Trey and Ms. Katie are talking in the kitchen, and they're standing pretty close.

Why do they try to act like they aren't in love with each other when they are? They should just start dating already.

"I prepared something for you to eat for lunch," Ms. Katie tells me. "It's peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, with some fruit, potato chips, and baby carrots. That's what's in the lunch box here."

"Is it creamy peanut-butter?" I ask as I start putting today's snacks restock into my backpack.

"Crunchy," she says. "Mixed with a little bit of honey. And I used strawberry jelly."

I like those over plain creamy peanut butter and grape jelly.

"Okay," I say. "Thanks, Ms. Katie. And thank you, Mr. Trey."

"You're welcome!" Ms. Katie says.

"No worries," Mr. Trey says. "If you ever want a day off from classes, just let me know. It's to help you prepare for the start of school, but it's ultimately your choice."

"Okay," I say. "Thank you. Um. Can I leave now, or is there other stuff I have to do first?"

"You can leave," Mr. Trey says. "Before you go, though, here."

He pulls something out of a pocket and hands it to me. It's $60 in twenties.

"Sir?"

"In case you want something else for lunch," he tells me. "Or stay until dinner and want to get yourself something to eat for that."

"But I have money."

"And I'm giving you lunch or dinner money," he says. "Be back by eight, alright?"

This is confusing, but I don't want to argue or he might ground me and not let me leave.

"Okay," I say. "Goodbye, Mr. Trey. Goodbye, Ms. Katie. I'll see you later… I think."

"Bye," they both chuckle a little.

I go to the front doors… where my shoes aren't. Where did I put them?

After I find my shoes (they're at the back door), I put them on and leave the house, then teleport to the workshop. After climbing the fence, I enter the workshop and look around. Greyson isn't here, which is probably a good thing because I want some quiet for now while I work.

He was definitely here at some point, though, since the giant mana battery is out of view. When I use my magesight, I can see that he's installed it into the mega-computer. There's no way he would've left it in there if he didn't already test it to see if it works good enough for what he needs, and that makes me happy.

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I was able to help him with his project!

I enter my work area and pull off my backpack, then pull Trenton out of it and set him in his usual spot, then start working on trying to make a remote-controlled car.

As I work on this, my mind wanders a bit. Zombie shooter games are just virtual versions of laser tag, right? Not exactly like that, but they're similar enough. I bet if there was a way to put imaginary zombies in the real world without danger to the players, people would play that game. S.G. and the rest of them would probably love that sort of thing.

That seems like it might be more fun than just playing laser tag. At least, to me. Now I want to actually do that. Is there a way to?

I want to stop working on this to do some research, but at the same time, I don't want to stop working. Anxiety over this is making me bounce and a whine builds in the back of my throat.

"Nhaaaaaaa!" I cry out, then move the project back to its storage box and get up to look through Greyson's records.

It takes me almost half an hour because I don't know the right terms, but I manage to find something. Augmented reality goggles are a thing people have, where it overlays images into a person's vision on the goggles themselves. They're still seeing the real world, but it adds to it. Or rather, augments the visuals the person has.

That… sounds kind of fun. Okay. What kind of augmented reality stuff exists right now? How does it even work? It looks like it has to identify real-world objects so it needs to know what they are or be able to figure it out. Then, it can give information on the objects such as its dimensions, color, manufacturer, and more. At least, to a limited degree.

That's not zombies.

If I take some of this and some of this, oh, and maybe this, and this one likes making light, and these are useful for scanning things… oh, and I might need these as well. Wait, it's sort of like glasses, right? So I'd need to figure out how to deal with the lenses, so this book might help me. I should also make sure the magitech programming laptop Greyson put in my zone still works, too.

Once I have everything I think I need, I return to my work station and get to work doing more research while testing some stuff out. Eventually, I have a pair of goggles on my worktable… but they're not complete. Before moving on to the next stage, I should probably test them.

I pull off my glasses and activate my good-vision spell, with the modified version I came up with to completely overwrite my physical eyes. I haven't told Mr. Trey I figured out how to do that while studying the mind packet book yet. Mostly for two reasons: that I don't want him quite knowing I'm actually properly learning mind magics, and also because overwriting my real vision for too long makes me dizzy.

Also because I only just figured it out this morning, before I went downstairs.

As long as I only use the spell while I'm wearing the goggles, and put my glasses back on after, I should be okay.

I pull on the goggles and turn them on. It just looks like the world through a lens right now, but if I make a double-tap motion on Trenton… it pops up a window above his head that calls him a stuffed bear. When I tap on that, it glitches up, so I take off the goggles and adjust its magic a little, then try again. This time, it gives me the dimensions it can read for Trenton.

They're a little bit off. Did I mess up its measuring abilities?

"Argh!"

After ten minutes of working on that, the goggles are able to accurately read dimensions and come to conclusions about them based on what it can see. I add in colors next, and that takes me about fifteen minutes to get right.

By one-thirty, I've finished adding in various databases so that it can register the real world, as well as testing its functions. I've even set up an earpiece for it so that it can manage sounds as well. Figuring out how to get it to read and let the wearer get information on those was a little difficult, but only took me half an hour in the end.

Now that all of that's ready, it's time for the next phase!

[Xander]: Do you have information on fake zombies I can add to something?

Autocorrect really changes my messages so that they're more clear. Instead of getting frustrated at my bad spelling and at others struggling to understand my texts sometimes, I just get frustrated at how many times it has to correct me.

Greyson responds after a minute.

[Greyson]: Add to what? And are you wanting just images, or do you want them to do stuff?

[Xander]: Like for a video game.

[Greyson]: Yeah!

[Greyson]: Check out the database that contains information on monsters, in the virtual section. There's a complete database there for them and you can use it to make videos, games, whatever.

[Greyson]: Now my curiosity is piqued, but I'm at the dentists' with Papa. It is that time of year again already, unfortunately. Fortunately, my teeth are in pristine condition so I have no need to worry. Henry's seeing the dentist right now, and it's almost my time to go in. Cal and Travis are both technically done, and they're hanging out in the same room until given clearance to leave.

I locate the database he's referring to and add zombies to the goggles. It takes me a little bit to figure out how to adjust the magitech program to make them display properly and to move around, but I think I've got it now so I try it on.

Swipe up with my right index finger in front of me, and that pulls up the menu. Tap, tap, tap. Okay, now I can set up the zombie game, and… there we go!

"Aaaah!" I exclaim as a walking, rotting corpse pops out from behind the mega computer and starts walking toward me. "No! No! Go away! Go! Aaaaah! Stop coming at me!"

I yank off the goggles and throw them onto the worktable, my heart racing and breathing quick. That was… that was-that-I-no. No, no, no! Too much!

It takes me a few minutes and about thirty blueberries and ten strawberries and an entire slice of strawberry cheesecake with a blueberry cream cheese drizzle, but I manage to calm down. That was terrifying and it wouldn't stop coming at me.

The zombie's probably eating the flesh of the user right now… so I do a hard reboot on the goggles without putting them on. Then realize I broke them a little and it's messed up the magitech, so I fix that before adding in some additional features to make the zombie… not so scary.

Well, part of that was also because I forgot I could turn off the game. It's not a proper game yet, so I start adjusting the magitech program. That's so easy to do, too. Why does Greyson act like it's a big deal?

Maybe because he just wants everything to have an explosion aspect and figuring out how to get a magitech program to do that is probably really hard.

Making the goggles and earpiece was really easy compared to a remote-controlled car. Greyson's obsession with remote-controlled stuff must be for the challenge, then.

Either that, or I just suck at making remote-controlled things.

The zombies still scare me a bit when I try out the goggles again, even more so now that I can hear them groaning. I force myself to calm down a little rather than scream in fear and as I try to check to make sure everything is right, I realize I forgot one very important thing for zombie shooters.

Making the gun only takes me an hour, and linking its magitech to the goggles takes me about ten minutes. Fixing the aim problem takes me, uh… maybe I should have someone else test the aim. I'm probably not that good which is probably the reason I keep missing.

At least the magic bullets are only virtual and aren't hitting the mega computer for real. I hope. At least, in theory, the magic bullets are contained fully within the program of the goggles.

Just in case, I text Greyson and let him know I might have accidentally shot his mega computer with bullets. It'll be better to do the testing where shooting tech won't be possible, just to be safe.

I take the goggles, gun, earpiece, and some other necessary items and teleport back to the house, then enter it and look for someone suitable.

"Welcome back, Xander," Mr. Trey says from where he's talking with Ms. Katie.

He's dressed in a suit now, so I'm assuming he went to work and hasn't just been talking with her in the kitchen all day. Oh. She's making dinner right now. It's already nearing that time?

"Hello, Mr. Trey," I say. "Is Roderick still here? Or Mr. Quinn or Franklin?"

"Frank's still here," Mr. Trey tells me. "And Quinn's in his usual spot. Roderick's left for the day. Why?"

"Is it okay if I borrow one of them for testing?" I ask. "I know they're your guards, but-"

"Xander," Mr. Trey says. "They work for me, but they also work for you to some degree. You can ask them to do some stuff and if it's allowed, they'll do it. Testing what? What do you have there?"

"I'm making a game," I tell him. "It's a zombie shooter game, but I'm not good with a gun so I don't know how the aim is and wanted to ask someone who's got good aim with a gun."

"Frank's in his office right now," Mr. Trey tells me. "You can ask him if you want, or any of the others."

"Okay," I start walking toward Frank's office.

"You made a zombie shooter game?" Mr. Trey asks.

"Greyson had the stuff so it wasn't too hard."

"Oh, okay."

I go to Franklin's office and knock on the door.

"Come in," he calls, and I enter. "Oh, hello, Xander. How're you?"

"I'm okay right now," I tell him. "Would you be willing to test something for me?"

"What is it?" He asks.

"Augmented reality goggles, earpiece, and gun," I tell him. "Not a real gun, but I made it myself at Greyson's workshop. I'm trying to make a zombie shooter game, but I'm not a good shot with a gun so I can't really test how good the aim is. All I know is that I keep missing, but I'm not sure how far off my aim is on its own, which means I can't make the necessary adjustments."

"You want some help testing the gun's aim?"

"Yeah."

"Sure, I can help you," he says. "Let's head out back."

Franklin and I go to the back yard and as we pass by the kitchen, Mr. Trey stops me.

"Are you going to eat dinner with us?" Mr. Trey asks. "It should be ready in about an hour."

"Um…" I'm probably expected to since I came back to the house. "Yes."

"Alright," he says. "Good luck with your testing."

"Thanks."

Franklin and I exit the house and walk toward the small peach orchard, then he pulls on the earpiece and goggles and I hand him the gun for it.

"You pull up the menu by swiping upward with your right index finger," I tell him. "You can get information about items in your view by 'tapping' on them with it. Not literally tapping, but the kind where it's just in your vision. The gun design is based on the sorts for the laser tag I've heard about. It's magitech signals so not actual bullets or lasers or whatever."

"Okay," Franklin swipes up with his right index finger, then taps on something in his vision. "Hey, Xander?"

"Yes?"

"Is there supposed to be a training or testing mode?"

"For the zombie shooter game?"

"So I can test the gun," he says. "It would be easier to tell if things are working right if I can use it to shoot real things and if I have projected targets to shoot at as well."

"Oh, uh…" I'm really stupid. "Didn't think about something like that."

I pull the magitech programming laptop out of my backpack and sit down in the grass and start working on adjusting the magitech program for the goggles.

"Do you need these back?" Franklin asks.

"No," I tell him. "It should only take me a few minutes to add the program. I just add in this runic formula like this, and make this one do this…"

"When it comes to the virtual targets," he says. "The testing and training portion should be able to determine how far from the center of the target was struck. If you can, go with a simple ring-based target system as well, and make it so that it can tell which rings were struck."

"Okay," I say. "Rings… rings… rings… oh, here's information on that type of target. Okay, so use this rune system… wait, no, that's bad. If I use that ring, then it'll fuck up this other setup. Okay, there we go."

"Make sure you're able to get feedback on it as well," he tells me. "That will help you know better the accuracy beyond just me telling you."

"Okay."

I continue designing the program and once I think it's ready, I realize something.

"Oh… um… Franklin?"

"Yes?"

"I was wrong," I tell him. "I do need it back so I can add the program to them."

He gives me the set and I link them to the laptop, then add the testing program before giving them back to him.

Now that the program's installed, Franklin does something with the goggles' menu, then uses the gun to start shooting. There's no noise caused by this for me apart from the clicks of the gun's trigger, but Franklin should be having something in his ear from the earpiece. I can watch on the laptop to see the results and even what he's seeing through the goggles.

There should be sound… oh, there's the spot. Okay, now I can hear soft "pwps" each time he shoots and a small impact noise each time something is struck. Those sounds will need to change so they can be more realistic or it's going to bother me. It'll probably bother S.G. and them when they play, too.

It seems the targeting isn't too bad so I start making some adjustments to the program. It takes Franklin and me about half an hour to get it so the targeting is good, and we test using a few of the other security guards as well so that it's not all input from one person. Sometimes, I have to adjust the magitech of the gun itself, though, as there are a few accuracy issues that need fixing.

They don't take long to correct, however.

"That's pretty neat," Franklin tells me once we conclude this part of the testing phase. "I did have some questions, though."

"Yes?"

"You said it's for a zombie shooter game?"

"Yeah," I nod.

"How close to completing it are you?" He asks.

"I dunno," I answer. "I still have to optimize the goggles and stuff. Greyson and Luke both say they do that so I'll have to try. And I need to properly design the game. Right now, it just has zombies walk around and you shoot them and they get purged. I think. At least, in theory. I haven't tested that bit yet since I don't really know guns. But… you get points for shooting them. I did add in that bit."

"We got points for shooting the rings in the targets, too," he says.

"Yeah," I nod. "Oh. I forgot to mention that, didn't I? That was supposed to be to test to make sure it was working. It did work, I could see on the laptop that you guys were getting the points assigned to the rings."

"Want me to test to make sure the ring borders are right?"

What does that mean?

"When it comes to programs," Franklin says. "Sometimes, the actual boundaries of an object aren't exactly on the visual for it. So you might have a ring where the border for registering the points is slightly bigger or smaller than the ring itself is, or where it's shifted to the side a little."

"Oh," I say. "Um… are you okay with testing that?"

"Sure," he says. "Just let me know when you're ready."

Franklin puts the stuff back on and once I let him know I have the monitoring program back up, he starts shooting. This time, he aims at and around the edges of the rings of the targets, hitting right at the edges. I don't think I could ever be that accurate with a gun, even if it's a magitech augmented reality one.

"The boundaries all looked like they were right," Franklin tells me he asks once he's done. "What about on your end?"

"Same," I answer. "Thanks for the help with testing!"

"No problem," he says. "Do you want me to test the zombie shooter stuff you've got set up?"

"Do you want to?" I ask.

"I can if you'd like," he says.

That doesn't really answer my question, but pointing that out to an adult is bad.

"Um… okay."

Franklin changes some stuff, then jumps a little.

"Xander, these are pretty realistic."

"Have you seen real zombies before?"

"Yes," he answers as he starts shooting. "But I wouldn't have needed to to know they're realistic. They look like walking, rotting corpses."

"Oh, right," my face heats up at my stupidity. "Greyson had them in his database. I don't know why he has magivirtual zombies, but it's Greyson so there are a lot of potential reasons. Most of which I can't think of."

Franklin chuckles as he continues shooting the magivirtual zombies in his vision. That aspect seems to work fine, so we conclude that phase of testing as well. All that's left is to optimize the hardware of the magitech and properly design the game, I think.

From what I remember from the sleepover, they could gain levels that improved their health and stats, and they could put points into improving their other stats. They also got money for killing the zombies that they could use to upgrade their weapons, achievements that awarded boosts or unlocked more shops within the game, and even take on quests to kill special zombies, which earns them more experience for their levels, more money, and even sometimes gave them new gear. Oh! They could also buy gear in the game to increase their resistance to the attacks.

All of that seems like stuff I should put in the game, so I've got a lot of work ahead of me. For now, it's nearly time for dinner so I pack it all into my backpack and go inside, making sure to take off my shoes as I enter.

"Thanks for the help," I tell Franklin.

"No problem," he says. "You have a good one, Xander."

"Have a good rest of your day," I tell him. "Wait. Oh. Um. It's proper to pay for testing stuff, right? Sort of like with consulting or specialists? Uh… Mr. Trey?"

I look over at Mr. Trey, who's on the dining room side of the counter between it and the kitchen.

"It wasn't just Franklin," I tell him. "There were ten other security guards who helped me test the shooting function of the set. It wasn't very long for the help, so it wouldn't be much pay, but how much would that be? It's not really specialist stuff but they still had skills I don't, and it wasn't in their normal duties, and-"

"Xander," Mr. Trey says. "If you want to pay them for a few minutes of help, you can. For that little help, I'd say $15-$25 per person, just to also account for them having to take time from other stuff for it. If you need the cash, I can spot that and you can pay me back another time."

"Spot that?"

"Give it to you," he says.

"Oh, okay," I say. "And Franklin would need a bigger pay, right? Because he was there and helping for a lot longer. So, um… $60? And then $20 for the others."

Mr. Trey confirms, then tells me that Franklin can make sure the money goes to everyone who helped me. He leaves to get the cash and once he has it, he gives it to me, then I give it to Franklin. This seems like a lot less money than I was expecting. My helping Luke earned me way more for not much more time helping, but I guess it's two different fields of help.

"Can you tell all of them 'thanks' for me?" I ask Franklin.

"Will do," he says. "Have a good one."

"Have a good rest of your day," I tell him.

Franklin goes off to do whatever he's doing next, and I sit at the table with my backpack beside the seat.

"Do you feel better than this morning?" Mr. Trey sits in his spot at the table.

"A lot," I nod, then start feeling tears in my eyes as I try to ask him something I want to ask. "But, um… is okay to ask if I can not do tomorrow's classes, too? I'm still feeling a bit much and overwhelmed and-and-and-I'm sorry!"

"Hey," Mr. Trey says. "No need to be sorry, Xander. It's okay. You're not in trouble."

"But I'm so stupid and a failure and-"

"Strike those thoughts from your head," Mr. Trey interrupts. "It's okay to cancel things, or even quit them if you want or no longer feel like it. There are things you can't quit, of course, like school, but this is just something optional we're doing to help you. You can always take a break if you want."

"Okay…"

"With your great-grandfather coming tomorrow," he says. "It might not be a bad idea to take the day off so you're not overstimulated from that."

"I was gonna mention that," I sniffle. "I don't think I'd be able to focus too well when Grandpa Adrian's here if I go through classes first. And I feel like there's something else that I'm forgetting but it's gonna happen tomorrow and I'm really sorry for being forgetful even with my brain all fixed up and-"

"Xander," Mr. Trey interrupts me. "Very few people have a perfect memory. It's okay to forget things as long as it's not important and doesn't cause trouble for yourself or others. And no, we don't have any other plans for tomorrow."

"Oh…"

"Now," he says. "It's time for dinner. Want to tell me about your project while we eat?"

Is that him asking or demanding?

"Your choice, Xander," he says.

"Oh," I say. "Um… I can tell you a little. But it's probably not going to be on the quality of a professionally-made game. It's just something I'm doing because it's fun and it's even easier than making a remote-controlled car."

"It is?" He seems surprised by that.

"Yeah," I nod. "I got the idea while working on that and had to put that to the side because I wanted to do both but I really wanted to do this more because it sounds more fun. And then I went to Greyson's stuff and started seeing what augmented reality is and then got the materials I needed and start working on making it."

"Wait, hold on," Mr. Trey says. "You made it? Not took a set Greyson already had?"

"Yeah," I nod. "He had a little bit of information on how to make augmented reality stuff, but I don't know if he has his own goggles or not. So anyway, I looked through the instructions and made adaptations, but I had to start by designing some of the core magitech pieces such as the enchantment matrices for the lenses and the mana batteries so that I could actually power it to make sure things were working right. To make the lenses, I…"