It didn’t take much time at all for me to figure out which of those choices I liked better.

“Well you know me Madeline, I vote we get into some trouble.”

It would have been nice to pretend for a little while longer that I could not be that sort of person, but I just wasn’t. I was always going to want to leave this apartment at some point, and I’d been thinking up excuses to do so the whole time.

Though I had been keeping them to myself out of consideration for Madeline’s mental health.

Madeline looked away from me again and gave the most dramatic sigh I’d heard out of her all week.

“I figured,” she spat sullenly, “You just can’t seem to help yourself.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” I said. I was, too. I didn’t really enjoy causing problems for others at the best of times, and these were hardly that. But it was just how I was built. I can’t ever seem to sit still for long.

“And you do know it’s very likely that one of us is going to die if we keep doing things the way we have, right?” She asked, barely giving me the side eye from her spot on the recliner.

“About that actually, I think I might actually have a solution.”

“Go on.” She prompted.

“This guy!” I gestured to the mech I was in the process of building. He was unusually blocky in terms of his structure, seemingly assembled from a number of smaller cubes, throughout which ran glowing purple lines of circuitry.

The circuits themselves all sprouted from several luminescent hemispherical protrusions, set at the shoulders, knees, chest, and head.

“I mean the fact that he glows is kind of cool,” she admitted, “but how is he supposed to actually help?”

“Supposedly he’s psychic.” I replied.

“Psychic?” She asked.

“Psychic.” I repeated.

“Huh.” Madeline said, not seeming to know what to make of that.

Nor did I, really. The various supernatural aspects were pretty poorly explained in the lore. Mostly the psychic stuff in the show he was from functioned as deus ex machina or as a metaphor for the human spirit. Which was fine, on a narrative level, but not great if you needed to rely on those powers to save your own skin.

I’d chosen this mech in particular because it was capable of channeling all that science-fantasy gobbly-gook to do some more practical stuff. Namely making energy shields and doing some basic telekinesis.

Also reading minds and maybe seeing the future?

I was mostly interested in the energy shields. I explained as much to Madeline and she expressed cautious approval at the prospect of having an actual defensive option, though she was skeptical that it would actually work.

I was quick to point out that a psychic robot was no sillier than anything else we were doing these days, and she grunted her assent.

“But first, I need to actually finish building him.” I said.

The LED based illumination gimmick had so far extended the build time by a good amount, but building the weapons and accessories shouldn’t take much time at all. I’d already finished his rifle, in fact.

As I sat back down to finish my task, Madeline seemed to remember something.

“Hey Leo?”

“Yes?”

“Can I have my gun back?” She asked. I’d completely forgotten that I still had it, actually. I handed it over readily, as it hadn’t been mine to begin with.

“You going to reload it?” I queried

“I actually need to clean it first, but yeah.” She replied, looking down at the revolver. I noticed then that there was a sooty residue on my fingers, probably from the gun.

“This thing fouls pretty fast, and it’s gotten more use than I would normally give it between cleanings. Scootch over so I can get access to the sink.” I did so, and she moved past me, grabbing a stained tea towel from beside the oven.

She removed her tackle box of gun supplies from her inventory, pulling out a couple of different brushes and tools, and I watched her use a hammer and small shim of some sort to tap a flat piece of metal out of the side of the firearm.

After that she pulled the whole thing apart in a few practiced motions. It was in three pieces now, the barrel, the revolving cylinder, and the grip with the trigger and hammer assembly.

She then started scrubbing each part with hot soapy water and her brushes. She would occasionally break one piece or another into smaller parts, cleaning each nook and cranny.

After the parts were cleaned she placed them delicately upon the tea towel she’d grabbed earlier, presumably to dry.

I’d been building my kit the whole time, and had just finished the last part when madeline turned to me.

“So I’m assuming we’re putting off doing anything until tomorrow, right?” She asked.

“Yep,” I confirmed, “It’s already like five o’clock in the evening. We will need to start relatively early tomorrow, though.”

***

With that settled we decided it was time to figure out dinner. We were both pretty tempted by the Idea of using a ration, but held off. They were just too spendy to use casually.

Instead, I revealed the results of my tests with the biscuits and gravy, and after Madeline helped me finish off the rest of that test plate as an appetizer we both agreed that it was probably safe to start using the inventory for food storage.

Sure, some types of food poisoning took longer than 24 hours to kick in, but not botulism.

So with all that in mind I decided to make something with plenty of leftovers. In this case, veggie and tofu stir fry with rice.

I got the rice going first, it’d finish cooking around the time I was done with everything else.

I opened the tofu and started pressing it to get the water out next. I actually had a dedicated tofu press for that purpose, but you can just as easily use a couple plates, some paper towels, and something heavy to get the job done yourself.

After that I grabbed a small pot to start the sauce in. I was going to go with a simple spicy teriyaki sauce.

You start a basic teriyaki by sauteing some crushed or minced garlic along with the whites of a couple green onions in the pot before adding equal parts sake, mirin, and soy sauce. Simmer that for a bit and that’s some decent teriyaki all on its own, but I usually just use that as a base to add a bunch of other things.

For my favorite spicy teriyaki, I add sriracha, brown sugar, and a whole load of sesame seeds. I also cook the sauce down by a fair bit so that the sugars develop a more caramelized flavor and the fruity flavors of the sriracha mellow out a bit.

While that was going I chopped my veggies. Use whatever you have for veggies, the stir fry won’t care. I had carrots, cabbage, canned water chestnuts, and onions.

The tofu was done draining, so I chopped that up and into my favorite large pan it went. I’d been meaning to buy a carbon steel wok for a while, but I hadn’t gotten to it yet. Plenty of oil and high heat to sear the sides, and then onto a paper towel lined tray to drain.

Veggies next. Firm, slow cooking veggies first, and quicker cooking ones next after.

Were I using a wok and I felt like showing off, I’d have this all going over max heat and be tossing it with vigor, but I was using a stainless steel pan and cooking at medium, stirring only occasionally.

Once the veggies were done I dumped in the sauce and the tofu. Stir for a bit, and serve over the freshly cooked rice. This dinner is easier with a premade sauce and a chopped veggie mix, obviously, but I think the extra effort is worth it.

It was good. Spicy, savory, and just sweet enough to balance everything out. The tofu was nice and firm, the pan sear it got giving it a satisfying chew.

I set aside some extra portions in the inventory along with some silverware so we could eat it later on a field trip. I wasn’t planning on traveling far from home base, but better safe than sorry.

We discussed our plans for the next day as we ate.

“So I’m thinking we should set a specific goal for ourselves.” I said.

“What, like a number of kills?” Madeline asked.

“More like an errand to go on. I just figure whatever we end up doing will end up with us having to fight some assholes regardless, so we might as well aim to do something productive. ”

“Oh. Well what sort of errands did you have in mind?” She asked, moments before stuffing her face with another large scoop of rice and veggies.

“Well, we only did stuff I wanted to do last time, so I figure this time you should pick.”

“I can hardly say our last excursion was done entirely at your behest, but sure.” Madeline stirred her rice and sauce together, taking another bite before she continued. “I want to see if we can get access to my car.”

“You want to leave the building? That’s bold.” I said, genuinely surprised.

“We were gonna have to at some point, and starting with a short excursion seems safest. We could go to the parking lot, grab what I need, and get back to the building in only a minute or two.” Madeline explained.

She wasn’t wrong per say, but I doubted it would go that smoothly. I didn’t say as much out loud though, doubtless she knew already. We finished our meal shortly thereafter.

We also called it an early evening after Madeline reassembled and oiled her gun, and I finished my kit. We wanted to be well rested for tomorrow.

I took some extra melatonin before bed and had a thankfully dreamless slumber.

***

The next day we had ourselves a quick breakfast of fried eggs and cheesy polenta. Madeline apparently hadn’t ever had the stuff, but It was a staple breakfast for me. In general I feel porridge has been unfairly maligned in American culture, and I was able to prove that to one more soul that morning.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

For those looking to try it at home, I recommend using a five to one ratio of liquid to cornmeal. Make sure to use a flavorful liquid, like stock or milk. Once it's done, mix in butter, cheddar cheese, and drizzle a bit of cream or a flavored oil on top. Garnish with green onions, fried shallots, whatever makes you happy. We had fried eggs, over easy, with some sauteed mushrooms.

Preparations for the day’s field trip mostly involved allocating the points we hadn’t used yesterday. We’d left our ATP Intentionally unspent in order to reset the time it refreshed to earlier in the day. It left us vulnerable for the night, technically, but we had yet to be attacked in our sleep so far. The barriers appeared to be working.

We didn’t buy any items, having stocked up over the previous days. Madeline and I wanted to be at full combat potential, though that was perhaps overselling it a bit. First step towards that was animating my new friend.

He cost five whole points just to get going. I only hoped it would be worth it. Bringing him to life was the same as with any other, if I had to say the only thing that was different was the intensity of the light show. That probably came down to his size; he was about twice the height of any of the others I’d Animated.

Post animation, the first thing I noticed was that the purple glow that came from his various circuits was much brighter. The second thing was an odd sensation in the back of my skull, like a buzz. It cleared after a moment only to be replaced by something much stranger.

I could feel a strange sense of oneness with the little robot. His limbs felt as natural to move as my own, and I twitched my fingers experimentally only to see it do the same, my motions mirrored.

Moreover, I could see a slight shimmering in the air, and it condensed around myself, Madeline, and the bot. It formed silhouettes that felt both off putting and familiar.

“Well that’s fucking bizarre.” I said.

“What?” Madeline asked.

“Well-” I turned towards Madeline to try and explain what I was feeling, and noticed out of the corner of my eye that my mech was doing the same, only for her to interrupt me.

“Leo, man, your eyes!”

“What about my eyes?” I asked, dumbly.

“They’re purple! And Glowy!”

“What? Do you have a mirror?” I suppose in retrospect I could have just used my phone, but that hadn’t occurred to me at the time.

“One sec!” Madeline dashed off towards her purse, resting on an end table. She opened it, rifled around in there for a moment, and then tossed me something. I caught it with unusual ease, and it took me a moment to realize that I hadn’t actually caught it with my hand.

It was levitating above my palm.

***

I ended up dropping the mirror, startled, but thankfully it didn’t break. After picking it up the old fashioned way, with my actual hand instead of surprise telekinesis, I examined my eyes.

Sure enough, they were purple. And glowy. Just as advertised.

Looking closely I could see what looked like metallic flecks glittering in my irises. They swam about in there, reflecting violet colored light from seemingly deeper within.

Which was weird. And hopefully not permanent. I remembered that eyes changing color was fairly common in the anime, but it was a bit different when it happened to you.

Also, I could move stuff with my mind now. I experimentally floated an orange before me. It hovered silently at just below eye level. A simple thought caused it to start spinning. I stopped it by touching it lightly with my left index finger.

Madeline was actually taking to all this significantly less well than I was. “Leonardo, I feel like I say this a lot these days, but what the fuck man!?”

“I dunno.” I shrugged. I had no reasonable explanation for any of it. I mean I’d gathered that technically my newest pal was the actual cause of the phenomena, but that was about it. Though honestly the distinction between the mecha and me was pretty vague.

“How is this not freaking you out!?” She exclaimed.

“Hate to repeat myself here Madeline, but. . . I dunno.” I repeated.

“Fuckin’ A man. . .” She gave yet another exasperated sigh. ‘Sigh’ really did appear to be her favorite verb lately. In fairness, there’d been a lot to sigh about.

“What the hell.”

“Anyway,” I said, figuring further discussion of the current topic would be fruitless, “What should I spend my other three points on?”

“I don’t know, another robot?”

“I was actually thinking about getting you a gun, or something.” I said.

“Oh, yeah I forgot that was an option. Could I get another sword or something similar actually? I don’t want to have to worry about running out of ammo.”

“Yeah, you got a couple options. . .” I went through what sword-like objects I could get to a usable Scale with the three points I had. It took one point to Animate a weapon, so effectively she had access to two points worth of scaling for the armament itself.

Ultimately she went for a no frills, single-edged blade. I hadn’t Repaired the guy who it belonged to yet, but that didn’t matter in this instance. The sword also didn’t have any enhanced cutting abilities, which was fine. The fact that it was so basic is precisely what made it so cheap.

It doubled as being one of the few melee weapons in my entire collection that came with a dedicated scabbard, meaning Madeline could strap it to the back of her chair like she had with her other one. She practiced drawing it until she was satisfied, nodding once. She then spent her points for the day and went about the laborious process of reloading her colt.

While Madeline did that, I practiced juggling various sized objects without using my hands. Which really meant that I levitated some fruit and junkmail around in a circle. Still, I got a grasp of how it worked to some extent. It was easier to make something move if I linked the desired movement with some physical exertion on my part. Waving an arm around made it easier to control, in other words.

I had Madeline try pushing against a barrier I’d conjured, and that got us some interesting results. I found that the amount of force I could exert or withstand was essentially the same as what I could do with my own muscles. As in any force that was applied to a conjuring of mine came with pushback on my own body. If I made a barrier by gesturing with my open palm, and Madeline pushed on it, my hand would be forced back.

I also discovered that the barrier didn’t really have any solidity of its own. It wasn’t a firm, invisible wall, but a generalized field of pushiness, like the attraction or repulsion of a magnet.

All this meant that I couldn’t use a series of barriers to create complicated constructs or solid platforms. No making a telekinetic crossbow, or an invisible fire piston to mimic pyrokinesis. I couldn’t evacuate the air from an area to suffocate my enemies either.

I could just lift, push, and pull on stuff. Including myself, to a certain degree. An attempt to make myself hover failed pretty much immediately, but I found I could jump a little higher than normal.

Still, what I had was good enough. I could boost my own movements with telekinesis to a minor extent, and hurl and retrieve kitchen knives with manageable precision. The floating knives in particular were going to be eminently useful, I suspected. That and the whole being able to divert a hit from my or Madeline’s person were going to be huge.

Madeline ended up shoving her revolver onto me again.

I argued that she should have it, but apparently I “Was a better shot with it”. Her words.

I didn’t believe it, but I hadn’t actually managed to miss anything with it yet, so whatever. I’d just have to work hard to make sure neither of us regretted the decision.

We prepped our eye protection in advance. No telling when I’d need my mechanical companion to fire a laser at something.

Speaking of the newest edition to my collection, I didn’t need to have him ride with Madeline. He apparently preferred to just hover eerily next to me at all times. “Preferred” was possibly overselling it, though. More just like he defaulted to it. Honestly he was almost astoundingly apathetic in every way, expressing almost nothing to me despite the telepathic link we shared.

Still, he could think and act for himself, if nudged into it, and he seemed fairly reliable despite his laziness, so with the addition of a couple of kitchen knives set to hover around me by my glowing companion, I was set.

Madeline Finished had finished her preparations as well.

With no more reasons to procrastinate, we left.

***

The trip down the stairs was uneventful, at least. Madeline audibly groaned once she remembered she couldn’t take the elevator, but she struggled less on the steps thanks to her increased strength so we made it down just fine.

In the lobby, we found that our makeshift barricades were not only still standing, but had apparently been reinforced with miscellaneous pieces of furniture, indicating that we weren’t totally alone after all.

That was a huge relief. Though we’d left it unsaid, I knew both of us had worried that everyone else but a few had disappeared off the face of the earth during this shitshow.

Madeline sniffed audibly, and I pretended not to see her wiping something from her eyes.

We moved on.

There was a separate exit to the parking lot behind the building, and we used that instead of attempting to dismantle the barricade to the front. There was also another exit that functioned as the fire escape, but that was strictly one way and we both hoped to be coming back from this little adventure.

Miss Madeline put a barrier from the item-shop up right at the door. The soundproofing effect would reach a good way into the parking lot, hopefully enabling us to move incognito for the first chunk of distance.

One last time we went over the basic plan together. After I opened the door, Madeline would take lead as we both hustled through the parking lot to get to the car. The car in question was a red hatchback. Madeline would open it up, grab what she needed, and then we’d make our egress. If we got separated we were to meet back in the lobby, and if that failed then in front of Madeline’s apartment.

I was on door duty, as I could push it open from a distance. I’d shut it at the first sign of anything nasty waiting on the other side.

We would go on three.

I counted down with one hand, mouthing the numbers silently in a fashion that was a tad overdramatic in retrospect, but had felt appropriate at the time.

Finally, I pushed outwards with my right hand, and even five feet away from me, the door opened.

Nothing immediately went awry. From a distance we couldn’t see too much of the outside world, but what we did see looked promising. There appeared an entirely blessed lack of monsters in the parking lot.

Madeline led the way as planned.

I kept the door propped open behind us with a doorstop that hung out next to it on a permanent basis. The back exit also functioned as a loading bay for shipments, so the need to keep it open while delivery people did their thing had always existed.

We’d debated closing the door behind us so that nothing could creep in, but had ultimately decided that having an open route for a rapid escape was more important. Unlocking the door again after it shut with one of our access cards took a couple of seconds after all. I was just going to have to keep an eye on it.

Madeline and I both scanned around us as we proceeded across the asphalt. There was a lizard perched on the edge of a nearby rooftop, but it hadn’t noticed us yet. Something was flying overhead silently. Though it could’ve been actually making a whole load of noise and we just wouldn’t have known.

We’d both gotten used to the complete artificial silence imposed by the barriers to a certain extent, but outdoors it was a new kind of surreal. Even when a pooka scampered past us and ran head first into a car door, we only saw it impact painfully as opposed to hearing what was probably quite the thud.

That same pooka should have seen us by all rights, but it seemed as If we were kind of invisible to the monsters. Thank god. Looking around I could see evidence of a few more baddies. A blobtopus was clinging to the side of a brick building just to our left, for instance.

They’d probably see us as soon as we got out of the barriers range. I whispered at Madeline to stop for a second.

“What?” She whispered back, clearly hoping to just get this over with.

The whispering was pointless, but we were both nervous.

“Should we try and take out any of these guys before we leave the barrier?” I asked, intentionally raising my voice to a normal speaking volume.

In response, Madeline looked at me like I was insane. I thought my suggestion was perfectly reasonable, but clearly we disagreed.

I figured they were going to notice us one way or another so we may as well get the drop on ‘em. Miss Madeline on the other hand seemed to want to put off an encounter for as long as possible. Ultimately I opted for letting Madeline have her way. No reason to try and force her to do anything she didn’t want to.

So we continued on.

It happened once we got about twenty feet from Madeline’s hatchback. Sound suddenly came back to the world, and the reptilian banshee mounted on the roof adjacent to us locked on to our presence almost immediately.

Fuck!

Madeline decided to dash for it. She used Accelerate to clear the distance to her car in one go. Rather than run after her, I took the second I had while the murder lizard’s neck inflated to try out an Idea that I’d gotten.

I didn’t think I could hit the lizard with a telekinetically lobbed knife. It was just too far. That left using Madeline’s gun.

I’d worry about the gunshot attracting the attention of everything nearby, but by stepping a couple paces back into the barrier’s silencing effect I hoped to cancel that out.

I took aim and saw a shimmering line form in the air between me and the creature I was aimed at. The line seemed to indicate that my shot was going to miss while violet lights formed around the lizard itself and vibrated unpleasantly.

I corrected my aim by shifting my sights up ever so slightly. The line solidified, and the buzzing lights settled. I fired.

The lizard dissolved.

Apparently I had an aim-assist now. Neat.

The isolated sound-bubble I was in disappeared after that shot. Which meant I wasn’t going to be able to repeat that trick a second time.

A shame, considering that the pooka from earlier had noticed me and was currently approaching at speed.

Unfortunately for him, he was in range of my floating kitchen knives. Which meant my next course of action was obvious.

A chef's blade hurtled forward with speed and precision entirely uncharacteristic for me, lodging itself in the pooka’s side. That didn’t prove sufficient to stop it so I hit it with another, and then another after that for good measure. It stumbled, fell, and was naught but some pretty lights before it even hit the ground.

I did another scan of the surroundings, saw no additional threats, and turned to check on Madeline.

She’d apparently been watching the whole thing.

She gave me two thumbs up with the goofiest grin I’d ever seen on her face.