The conversation around the dinner table was mainly muted due to everyone stuffing as much sausage and ribs into their mouths as possible. Colton had three older sisters with Colton being the youngest by eight years. He was the surprise baby and spoiled to death until his next closest sister, Stephanie, moved out five years ago.
His parent had the parenting thing down by the time he hit high school and thus didn’t suffer under his parents' constant helicoptering like some of his friends suffered. Cotton's relationship with his parents was congenial and relaxed, mostly.
His father, John, ran the family household much as he did with his retail store. He never messed with the details or operation of the family unless something needed to be corrected. If Colton never rocked the boat and took care of his chores and schooling, his father never dove into the details of his life.
“When do you work again,” John asked after clearing his throat.
“Maria has me working tomorrow after lab.”
“You okay working again. It’s a lot to deal with,” Rae said.
“I’m okay, mom. Honestly, it doesn’t even feel real. It happened so fast and...,” Colton shrugged and turned his attention back to his meal.
Their conversation returned to the mundane topics and Colton felt relieved that they didn’t turn the conversation back to his feelings. He honestly had thought little about the incident at the store since his mind had become obsessed with the pop-up box this morning.
Between the dream and the pop-ups, Colton had almost completely forgotten about the guy in the store. He figured out how to force the pop-ups on-demand only moments before coming down to supper, but now that he thought about the store incident he knew he’d need to figure out if he was going crazy or if that guy gave him something.
“Dad, do you know if they found the guy?”
John shook his head. “Nah. I left a message with that hot cop this afternoon, but she hasn’t returned my call.”
“Was she really as hot as your Dad says she was?” Rae asked with a smirk and gave Colton a wink.
“Really? You both are out of control. A guy nearly died, or probably died in your store and all Dad just flirts with the detective. Now… you too, Mom?”
Rae’s eyes lit up, and she gave him a wide smile. “I’m teasing you, but if she’s as hot as your Dad says, maybe I’d like to meet this detective…”
“Lopez. You two are embarrassing.”
John chuckled. “No body no crime… but that detective… she’s got a nice body. You can’t deny that she’s something special.”
“God! I don’t even know where to start with listing all the things wrong with you both,” Colton said while rubbing his face in his palm. “I’m going to my room. Do you need me to clean up?”
“No, sweetie. I’ll give you a pass today. Go finish your homework. We’ll be fine.” Rae said.
Colton gave his mother a head nod before getting up and heading upstairs to his room. As he walked upstairs, he kept looking at items throughout the house, trying to identify them with pop-ups. The pop-ups throughout the house were grayed out unlike those he found in his bedroom.
He stopped in the hallway to look at a flower vase sitting on a small table in the hall.
Brand: Creative Motive
SKU: 29491618
Spec: …
Durability: 2/2
Quality: Junk
Status: Cracked
“Cracked?” Colton mumbled. He picked up the vase and twisted it around until he found a hairline crack on the backside of the vase. The price sticker was still stuck to the bottom of the vase and he smirked when he saw that his mother bought it on clearance. “Mom would buy it on clearance…”
Colton tried to focus on the specs tab, but nothing happened. He wondered if that had something to do with the grayed-out box or if it was something else entirely. He’d have to experiment more to figure out what the differences were.
Once in his room, he continued experimenting with the various items in his bedroom. As cool as this new ability was, he did not see the purpose. When Colton played video games, this ability would help him assess the value of objects and with alchemy, it would help him make potions which would heal injuries or such. However, as best as he could tell, the ability in his everyday life to see the attribute boxes hardly had any real-world application.
Colton wasted another hour trying to think of ways he could profit from having this ability and other than working in an acquisitions type job he did not see many uses in his everyday life. He sighed and turned his attention to his homework and lost himself in his studies.
He lifted his head when he heard a tap and the door opening. Camille came bounding into his room and bounced on his bed.
“You’ve been playing hard to get. Why haven't you been responding to my text messages?”
Colton looked around for his phone and found it buried under loose papers on his desk. He checked it and found his phone on silent. He had missed phone calls and eight messages from Camille. “Crap, sorry, babe. It’s still on silent. I totally forget about it after class.”
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Camille hopped off the edge of the bed and threw her arms about Colton’s neck from behind. “Well, you must make up for it.” She kissed his neck and started to work her way to his ear. “I’ve missed you. My sister takes all the energy out of me, but now that I’m with you…”
He squirmed under the tickling pressure of her lips and tried to escape her grasp before he let out squealing laughter. “Stop. Stop.” Camille didn’t relent and upped the tickling by adding a few jabs to his ribs with her free hand. “Damn it, Camille. You’ve asked for it now!”
Colton stood up from his desk chair, lifting Camille in the process as she didn’t stop her attack. With a lunge, he threw both of them onto the bed thus breaking her hold on his neck and giving the advantage to Colton and his strength and size. He quickly gained the upper hand and tickled Camille until she was laughing so hard she had tears streaming down her cheeks.
“UNCLE! UNCLE!” Camille screamed.
“You don’t get off that easy,” Colton laughed, “you will have to call me Master.”
Camille shook her head and so Colton grabbed her on her inner thighs, thus ratcheting up the screams. She only lasted a few minutes of this torture before Camille screamed out, “Master, stop! Please, Master!”
Colton stopped his attack and passionately kissed Camille until they were both out of breath. Colton reluctantly separated from Camille and flopped next to her side. “I missed you too. I’m glad you’re back.”
“I might go away more often if that’s how you kiss me when I come back. I think you bruised my lips.” Camille reached up and touched her lips with a finger before rolling on top of Colton. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Mister!”
“About the lips?” Colton received a slap on the chest for that question.
“No. For not telling me about the guy being shot in your store.”
“I don’t know if he was shot.”
“That’s not what the tribune says…” Camille scrunched up her face, “don’t deflect. You didn’t tell that it happened and you… didn’t… tell… me… you… were there!” She emphasized each word with a hard poke into Colton’s chest.
“It all happened so fast. I completely forgot about it.” Colton shrugged.
“You forgot about a man getting shot in your store?”
“He—” Colton sighed “he came in, I called 911 and he was gone before the call finished. The only evidence he was in the store, was the puddle of blood. I don’t know where he got injured or how.”
Camille shook her head slowly. “Are you addled? You don’t think you should have called your girlfriend of four years?”
“I—”
“You don’t think it would worry me sick when I found out about it?”
“I—”
“You don’t think I care about how you are?”
“Stop,” Colton grabbed her finger and stopped her incessant henpecking of his sternum. “I’m sorry. I’ve been dealing with some weird shit today and didn’t think about it.” He continued quickly as soon as Camille opened her mouth to interrupt him again, “and yesterday was a whirlwind of events and I forgot to text you. I’m so, so, so sorry, baby. Will you forgive me?”
Camille gave him a stern look for a few seconds before relaxing and smiling. “You owe me big time!”
“I do. I’m sorry. I should have thought about you first. It’s just been strange.”
“Strange?” Camille cocked her head to the side and raised her brow.
Colton closed his eyes and grimaced. He hadn’t wanted to tell anyone, so he wasn’t going to say anything. He worried that he’d sound crazy and…
“Strange? How so?”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “It’ll sound crazy.”
“You’re already crazy. Spit it out, Master or the henpecking continues.” Camille raised her hand high above her head dramatically and prepared herself for the peck.
“Okay. Okay,” he tried reaching her hand, but she moved it out of the way. “Enough with the pecking. I’ll have a bruise there tomorrow.”
“Then you better talk… or else,” Camille gave him a wicked smile.
“You are an evil woma—”
“TALK!”
Colton chuckled. “Okay. You win.” He paused trying to find the words. “The guy put something in my hand, but after the cops manhandled me, it wasn’t there.”
“The cops—”
“Let me finish. Yes, the first cops that came in were a tad aggressive. They forced me down and put me in cuffs, but that’s not what is weird. Whatever the guy gave me was gone. The cops kept asking me where it was, but I hadn’t a clue. I thought it was in my hand.”
“What do you think it was?”
“That’s the weird part. I don’t have a clue. However, that night I dreamt of me installing a UNIX package onto a computer.”
“UNIX as in—”
“System software that we use in class and as I use a server. Anyway, this morning in class something happened and I couldn’t get it out of my mind.”
Camille waited for him to continue, but when it became clear, he would not talk she struck quickly with a jab in the sternum. “Dang it! Stop. That hurts. You mean thing. I got a status pop-up when I was looking at my pen.”
Camille stared at him with no form of expression for a few seconds. “A pop-up? What do you mean?”
“You know… Like in video games? Dagger, quality poor, durability, level, etc.”
“Okay…” She didn’t know what to think and started to get a little worried.
“I see that look. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I’m not crazy. I came home from school and figured out how to recreate the pop-up and I can see them all the time now.”
“You see gamer boxes now?”
“No! I mean. I could if I want to know something. It’s not all the time, only when I question something in my mind.”
“… and you know what is wrong with your mind?”
Colton laughed. “Bae, I swear I’m not making this shit up. I can prove it.”
Camille raised an eyebrow and pressed her lips. “How?”
“I—Do you have something on you you can hold up?” Camille held up her hand. “Not the hand. Something like a—” he didn’t know what to ask her for.
“How about my pants?”
“Your pants?”
“Sure. I bet you didn’t even notice them.”
“I noticed you wearing pants, otherwise we’d be doing something more interesting right now.”
“You’re a pervert,” she playfully patted his cheek. “They’re new and you didn’t even notice them.”
“I—honestly, Bae? You can’t expect a guy to nice when a girl buys new clothes. You’re lucky we look at anything other than tits and ass.”
“Pig!”
“Whatever… at least we know what we want, but I’ll play this game. I assume you want me to tell you about your pants?”
“Without looking at the brand tag on the back. Yes. Can you do it?”
“Not sure. I’ll try.”
From Colton's position under Camille, he wasn’t able to get a good look at the pants but tried, anyway. After a few seconds of investigation, “Brill Boutique, KanCan, color is Kendra whatever that is, and with a three durability rating. Good enough?”
Camille’s jaw fell open as she looked at Colton in disbelief. “My top?” she asked just barely above a whisper.
“Abercrombie & Fitch short-sleeve crewneck bodysuit,” Colton said before adding, “olive green with the durability of five.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I was trying to figure out all day. At first, I thought I was crazy because it only happened in the morning, but when I got home…”
“You figured it out.”
“Right. However, I still have no clue why or how it happens.”
Camille climbed off of Colton and laid down on the bed next to him, neither of them speaking for a while. After about five minutes, Camille asked, “Can you change anything?”
“What?”
“I don’t know… I was just thinking it would be cool if you could change the quality. That’s my only complaint about Buckle…”
Colton turned his head towards Camille’s and stared at her for a few seconds. “You know… I wouldn’t even think about doing something like that. You have a strange way of thinking.”
Camille giggled. “You’re just a dumb boy who thinks logically, that’s your problem. I mean, why have a superpower if you can’t change the world for the better.”
“By changing the stats on your Buckle pants?”
“Hey, the world would be better if they didn’t sell just cool looking pieces of trash. I mean, these look great. Right?”
“You’d look great in anything… or nothing.”
“Stop it.”
“So, you want me to save the world by fixing your new jeans? I never thought about it, but why the hell not. Let’s see…”
Colton looked at the pants and concentrated on the durability stats on Camille’s jeans, but nothing happened or changed. He tried thinking of a brute force attack on the jeans when a box popped up taking over nearly all of his sight.
ACCESS DENIED: ITEM ASSIGNED TO SOLEARTH3641389F2A.