Homegrown System

Not caring about safety laws, Alice sprawled out in the long back seat of the SUV, doing her best to doze off with her extra hoodie rolled up as a pillow against the door handle. It was easier than it probably should have been. Every once in a while, the car stopped, and Titus got out to fight something, but it never took very long, and they moved again quickly. The constant changing of directions as he navigated through a jam of streets was a little jarring, but the driving was smooth enough that it didn't bother her. Besides, they had only been going through suburbs before. Now, they were in a more isolated forest.

At one point, though, she completely drifted off, falling asleep for the first time since the world had ended. Dreams plagued her. Dreams of a barely remembered family, of fire, of being chased, of standing in a large crowd with everyone yelling at her. Alice was sometimes aware that she was dreaming and sometimes she wasn't, but it seemed like her mind wanted to give her every stereotypical bad dream she could think of—ones where she was frozen, moving as if in jello, trying to either to save something or being chased by something, or all of the above. She dreamt of falling from great heights and fighting monsters.

Then, repeatedly strobing lights hit her face, waking her up. Still, in the haze of dreams, she realized it was morning. Titus had kept his word and driven through the entire night. He looked relatively fresh in the front seat.

Their eyes met through the rearview mirror. Wordlessly, he pulled the water bottle out of the holder and held it back to her. She took it and sipped gratefully as she watched the sunlight pour through the openings of the pine forest surrounding them.

They were cruising at a steady 45 miles an hour on a slightly winding road that was thankfully bereft of cars. In the few minutes she'd been awake, she hadn't seen a single one. The way Titus was driving made her think that they weren't all that common here. Besides, the trees weren't as densely packed as on that first road they were on, nor were there guardrails. If anyone had disappeared from their car, it likely had careened into the forest and down some ravine, as the terrain was rather mountainous. Luckily, this gave them a relatively clear path.

Alice sat up and stretched as she handed Titus back the water bottle. "Morning," she said.

"Morning. You look like you needed that rest."

She rubbed her eyes and felt the sleep and dried tears break away from her face. She really wished she had a chance to go shower and brush her hair, but she settled for running her fingers through it a few times, trying to get used to the feeling of its much shorter length.

"Yeah," she said. "Do you know where we are?"

Titus shook his head. "I think you're right about the land shuffling. It seems like we're somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. We also apparently spent a decent amount of time driving through some parts of Australia. Surprised the sun didn't wake you up."

Alice shrugged. The phone she had set up to point him towards their destination was still clipped to the dashboard, plugged into the charger. It showed that they had made nearly a third of the way there overnight.

"We're making pretty good progress," Titus said. "Luckily, I was able to do some off-roading with this, and whenever the road didn't quite follow along, I've been using my other phone." He pulled out the pink one that he had borrowed to look up the road signs and see where the road was generally taking them. "It's been a bit frustrating, and I've had to backtrack a few times, but generally, we're keeping in the right direction."

Alice nodded, understanding. "Odd," she murmured.

She clambered up over the console and buckled herself into the front seat. As she looked back up, suddenly, the trees were gone. The road connected to an entirely different road. The surroundings were a scrub desert-like nature, and well-weathered rocks formed tall mountains all around them as they wound their way up a hill.

"Where are we now?" Alice asked.

"Hmm. This looks like the Iberian Peninsula," Titus said as he studied the hills. "In fact, I think I know where we are. We're in Spain. Or what used to be Spain, at least." He pointed at a roadside sign that read BP-1121. "We're by Montserrat. I think the monastery is actually not that far away from here."

He typed some stuff into his phone while driving, keeping one eye on the road. "I don't think this is going to be a very efficient trip. Unfortunately."

They continued up the hill, and he nodded, passing her the phone. She looked at the map. He was looking at some static site that was just a plain image where he had zoomed in on a particular road.

"This is a bit of a dead end. It leads right up to the monastery, but we have to backtrack a decent way to go around. Or we could abandon the car and hike for about a mile or so down to the freeway. Likely, there are some cars along there we could take, and it would save us about an hour."

Alice shrugged. "I'm not much of a hiker, but I'm willing to give it a shot if you think it's best."

Titus hummed thoughtfully, "I don't think we have anything that I can't carry, and we are starting to run low on gas as it is. I had to stop and siphon from a few tanks a few times when you were sleeping, but we can make it another 70 miles without stopping again."

"I'm surprised we got this good mileage. I figured we would have to stop more," Alice said. "I didn't think this would be the most gas-efficient car."

"It's really not. But the tank is large and, well, so far, finding gas hasn't been a problem," Titus said, pointing to a hose-like contraption by her feet that Alice belatedly realized was the siphon. "I think it's worth stopping and hiking over more efficiently. And also, it's a pretty cool place," he said as if he were a tour guide hyping up the destination.

Alice had no problem with that, and as they were on their way up the access road, she got her first glimpse of the impressive stone monastery built into the side of a hill. "How did they get the rocks all the way up here? This was built a long time ago, right?"

Titus nodded. "It was a long time ago. But moving rocks is no mystery. A lot of people and a lot of donkeys."

Eventually, they could not go further, so they pulled over. Titus slung a massive backpack over his shoulders, packed with all their stuff, and gave her the day bag she had packed when she had left. They had plenty of water and some food he'd scrounged up. Then they started walking. Alice was surprised that after nearly 20 minutes of a constant uphill climb at a quick walking pace, she was barely out of breath.

Perhaps those points have been doing something for me, she thought.

"Surprised there are no monsters around. I haven't seen any for a while."

Titus nodded. "It seemed like they were mostly concentrated in the city, but the ones I have found out here are quite a bit more dangerous. At least, the ones in the forest are compared to the ones in the city."

"For their level?" Alice asked.

Titus nodded in confirmation. "From what I have seen so far, yeah, I would say so. I think there's some significance to where things have come from according to the System. Or maybe it's just that things away from the city had to fight it out amongst themselves. I don't know. I can imagine that once people come back, things will change a lot," Titus said. "But for now, it feels like the System is still experimenting."

"I don't know," Alice said. "Maybe it's just randomly seeded things."

As they approached the monastery, Alice couldn't help but stop and stare. They made their way onto the flat plaza, which gave a gorgeous view of medieval architecture and the untouched mountains behind it.

"We need to go over there?" Alice asked, pointing. "It looks like it's going to be more of a climb than a hike."

"It'll be fine. It's shorter than it looks." He stopped and read a plaque at the base of a statue.

"Um, Titus," Alice called. "You might want to back away."

"What?" he said, looking up.

"That statue just moved its arm."