“This is literally the worst idea anyone has ever had!” I know, I know, not stealthy. But I was hurtling down a very steep hill in a very rickety wheelchair that was definitely going faster than the recommended operating speed. The only reason it hadn’t completely toppled over and started flipping, was because Christopher had a death grip on my shoulders. But he was also shouting and whooping and hollering, either out of panic or exhilaration or just testosterone-infused hype, and honestly, I’m pretty sure he was pushing the wheelchair faster.
What I was mostly thinking was ‘if I had seen how steep this hill was, I wouldn’t have agreed to this plan.’ Which honestly was a very cohesive and coherent thought, given my brain was rattling around a skull that was rattling around the head of someone going 45 in a wheelchair.
Finally, the hill leveled out a bit, which was good, but it also leveled out while heading into a forest, which was not good.
“Brake brake brake brake!” I shouted as the wheels began slamming and bumping over rocks and roots.
Either the wheelchair or the universe must have interpreted my whimpers as ‘break’ because as we did a jump over a particularly large branch, the wheelchair finally came down too hard and splintered. One wheel rolled left, one rolled right. I wasn’t sure where the other two wheels went because I’d been pitched forward and landed hard in a bush.
“Ow.”
For a few seconds, I just lay in the bush, letting the last hour wash over me. Boy had I fucked that up. Police officers firing warning shots to get drugs? Hospital in lockdown? A stolen wheelchair? What kind of monster had I become?
“All right, Sammi, get your ass out of there.” For once, Joni’s dry scold was refreshing. As were her ghostly hands that gripped my shoulder and thrust me on the forest floor. “Don’t just sit around feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Someone’s gotta be sorry for me.” My voice was quiet, still more of a whimper than a logical point, but at least I wasn’t in a bush. In the distance, I could hear sirens blaring and someone was talking over a loudspeaker. The words were unintelligible. Probably some muffled version of ‘come out with your hands up, we have you surrounded.’ I wasn’t having the worst day of anyone by far, but I still craved some kind of sympathy.
“Not gonna be us!” Blair crossed her arms. “We’re dead, we gotta be sorry for us.’
“Dude.” Christopher rubbed the side of his head. “That was totally epic. Why is anyone feeling sorry? We totally crushed that hill.”
Joni groaned. “And if this was Olympic wheelchair theft, we’d have gotten gold.”
Christopher gave a short chuckle. “Heh. True.”
Gold was an interestingly topical word here, because as my brain settled in my skull, I was able to make out that the faint light indicating The Source was glowing gold instead of silver. I flicked open the screen to see I had some new notifications.
~~~
SCHEME INITIATED:
Type: Theft
Bounty: Drugs and feces
Difficulty Level: Blue
Participants: Officer Harold Boxer, Officer Oscar Borris
Status: Failed
Details: Officers were apprehended at the scene of the crime. When reminded of their true identities, Verity Tongue ended. They now await trial for reckless endangerment and attempted theft.
Reward: Partial level
Scheme Initiated:
Type: Escape
Location: Hospital
Difficulty Level: Blue
Participants: Sammanth Knox (AKA: self)*
Status: Success
Reward: Partial level
*Schemes involving yourself count for 10% of a scheme involving mortals
~~~
I checked my level bar, and I was looking pretty close to a level up. It was kinda a bummer that I didn’t really get to level 2 off of this, but honestly, given that wasn’t really the goal, and given the level up only would have really happened if the officers had succeeded in stealing anything, I’d take the partial level up.
“Not bad,” I finally said, as I dismissed the screen.
“Bro, that was so much more than ‘not bad,’” Christopher said. “That was straight fire.”
I shook my head. “No, I mean the rewards.” I gave the three of them a brief rundown of what I’d read, and then I gave them a more extensive rundown, as Joni demanded to know what exactly the screen had said.
“Okay,” she said, “so you get more shit by doing schemes. S’pose that makes sense if…” she let out a testy sigh. “If we’re going with this video game metaphor.”
Christopher fist-pumped but graciously didn’t add anything else.
“So I guess my question is, what are the extents of your powers?” Joni wrinkled her nose in thought. “Like, how far can this go?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Yeah and, like, what are the limits?” Christopher asked. “Cause according to the notes, once someone who’s been affected by Verity Tongue hears the real truth, the spell is broken. Which is kinda a bum deal.”
“I dunno, I think it’s a good deal,” Blair called down from the tree she had settled in. She swung down, hanging by her knees so that her ghostly hair swayed a foot above my head. “I mean, for schemes it kinda sucks, but think of those poor men if it had lasted forever!” She put her fingers in front of her mouth, as if reeling in shock at the idea. “They’d forever think they were criminals! What if they had families! Kids! Teammates or schools or plans and parties and events and dinners and bars to go to, and now all that’s gone because of you, Sammi! You could have destroyed their lives!”
Blair had a point about how the limits to my abilities probably saved the officers some degree of trouble. She wasn’t entirely right, since they were probably going to jail forever because of how far they did get, but at least they were back in their own heads.
It didn’t make me feel better, though, because I hadn’t even considered the long-term implications of the intricate lie I’d weaved. It made me feel worse because now I felt like a terrible person.
“Do you suppose I should try to get them off the hook now?” I asked. “I mean. This is my fault.”
Christopher waved a hand. “Naw. There are all kinds of legal checks and balances to make sure they’ll be okay. Besides, you’re the God of Schemes, Sammi. Some bad stuff is probably gonna happen. That’s, like, the whole point, you know? And the only real way to avoid bad stuff is to learn everything–like literally everything–so you can make sure nothing ever has a bad outcome.”
“Especially once you get to big leagues.” Blair propped her chin on her hands.
“Politics and war and all that stuff? Girl, you’re gonna go crazy trying to make sure no one gets hurt.”
“Guess that’s part of being a God,” Joni said, picking something probably imaginary out of her nails. “Face repercussions or learn everything in the actual entire fucking world. Your pick, though I’m gonna guess your ultimate decision’s gonna be a bit out of your control.”
“Uh.” She was right. I’d graduated with a 1.8 GPA, and they knew it. The idea of learning everything there was to learn about global politics, so I didn’t prank the president into getting the world nuked? Naw. “Let’s maybe stick to smaller scale stuff. I know the old God said she did politics and military, but honestly, I’m kinda cool with sticking to hospital heists. Or, you know, not exclusively that, but stuff in that vein. At least for now. I’m immortal, right?”
“Yeah, like, never aging immortal,” Christopher said. “Just look both ways before crossing the street.”
I let out a long breath, one I thought would be a laugh, but came out more of an exhausted sigh. The sun was moseying on up in the sky right now, so it was probably mid-morning, 9 AM or something.
“So what’s the first thing I gotta do?” I asked. I planted my hands on the ground, gingerly pushing myself to my feet. I hadn’t come out of the wheelchair escape unscathed, but it didn’t sting too too much, and my limbs would mend if Regeneration (tier 1) had anything to say. “Breakfast?”
“Oooh, let’s get bagels.” Blair turned a loop-de-doop in the air, energy renewed at the idea of some good, old-fashioned boiled dough. “With so much cream cheese that you can’t eat it without getting yummy bagel splooge all over your hands.”
Joni, who had very briefly looked enticed at the idea of bagels, wrinkled her nose immediately. “Gross, Blair. Could’ve done without that mental image.”
“Well, mental images are kinda all we’re gonna get, right?” Christopher said. He sounded unusually deflated. “We can’t really eat anything, can we?”
~~~
This depressing prediction of Christopher’s would turn out to be half true. It didn’t take long for me to bat my eyes (unnecessarily, according to my friends) at the tired, morning shift teen and sweet talk my way into three free bagels. Blair threw herself down on my cream cheese-slathered cinnamon raisin bagel, gaping her mouth over it as if trying to fit the entire thing in her distended maw.
I tried not to feel too guilty as I started munching on my everything bagel, ignoring the longing and accusatory gazes of my friends. It crunched far too loudly as seeds fell from my mouth, accumulating on the napkin protecting the coffee-stained table, and I could see Christopher’s and Joni’s eyes follow the refuse.
“Why’s the cinnamon taste like sesame and butter!” Blair suddenly lamented, loud enough to make me squawk and choke on my breakfast.
I coughed and sputtered, chugging some way too hot coffee to ease the lump of subpar bagel dough down my throat. “What?” I asked, eyes still watering.
“Sammi, no talking in public,” Joni said, her snap coming so reflexively I could tell she’d entirely missed what Blair had said.
Christopher, however, had not missed what Blair said, as he was busy running his tongue over his teeth. It had always been a kinda gross habit of his back alive, but now that I could kinda see through him, it looked all the worse. But I didn’t say anything cause we were actually thinking the same thing right now.
“I tasted that too,” Christopher said.
Blair sat up, her intense, disheveled hair sticking out. “This is the worst cinnamon raisin ever. I can’t even taste the cream cheese.”
I was still coughing a bit as I grabbed the bagel Blair had just been deep-throating. “Try this,” I said before taking a big bite.
Her eyes narrowed, looking a little pissed, like maybe I was rubbing it in that I could eat, and she couldn’t. But then her whole face lit up. Her eyes even rolled back a bit as she closed them, tilted her head back, and floated up towards the ceiling, enraptured in bagely goodness.
Joni had finally figured it out by now, but in classic Joni style, instead of being all happy that she could still experience the unique human joy that was food, she found something to be upset about.
“You mean we have to taste everything you taste?” she asked, complaint already locked and loaded on her tongue. “Can you turn that off? Cause I’m not exactly looking forward to your peanut butter salsa dip or rare medium hamburgers with sour cream and ketchup.”
I could have felt bad for Joni, but I was getting a little tired of her attitude, and I was also a lotta tired of her attacking my food combos since she’d been doing so since practically middle school.
“Just for that, I know what we’re getting for lunch.” I leveled her with a steely glare that probably didn’t look too intimidating given the cream cheese on my face, but I exhaled sharply out of my nose to give myself a bit more oomph. “If you tried anything more adventurous than the frozen goods aisle of Aldi’s, you might be more appreciative of a good, creative meal.”
“Meals aren’t supposed to be creative,” Joni said, voice seething.
Just for this, I took a bite out of my third bagel. It was a combo of all the things I loved, garlic cream cheese, lox, egg, avocado, and sausage, all on a strawberry bagel. I’d been planning on saving it for lunch, but I needed to spite Joni right here.
“Hey hang on, that’s actually solid.” Blair floated down, eyes in full inspection mode, as she squinted at my bagel. “I didn’t know you could put food on bagels like that.”
Joni looked a hair away from gagging. “That’s not real food.”
“Bro, you’re getting looks,” Christopher said. “Dude at the counter’s looking at us–you–a bit shifty-eyed.”
In a maybe ill-advised move, I looked over at the counter dude and gave him a thumbs up. “It’s really good,” I said through a mouthful of food.
He wrinkled his nose.
“We need to get you a pair of AirPods or something,” Christopher said, stroking his chin. “That way, if you do get any glares, you can just pretend to be on the phone.”
“Ooooh.” Blair whizzed overhead. “That’s actually so smart, Christopher. No wonder you’re the only one who got into college.”
Joni, who seemed to be recovering from the sausage bagel concoction, wheeled on Christopher. “You got into college?”
This was also news to me, but I didn’t want to continue talking to myself, so instead, I returned to my bagel. Once I finished breakfast, it would be time for some shopping, and a tech store sounded as good a place for a scheme as any.
Let’s see if I couldn’t get myself leveled up a little bit.