Homegrown System

A massive crash echoed through the air, and chunks of rubble flung down around them. Alice turned around again to see the T-Rex had run headfirst into the overpass. It stumbled backwards, dizzy, and shaking its head.

"Luckily, they're not that smart," Titus said as he pushed the car even faster, aiming for an off-ramp just ahead of them.

Alice bowed her head and mumbled a prayer, thanking God that the ramp was clear and that they had gotten off the freeway and into downtown. The hour had been early enough that the streets weren't too crowded, but it was still slower going than she'd have liked.

They still needed to make it through most of the city and out to the other side to get on campus. Hopefully, that would be safer than trying to go through the woods or on one of the longer drives packed with commuters.

As Titus wove through the obstacles at a pace barely faster than a jog through the city, Alice asked, "Where did you learn to drive like that?"

Titus chuckled. "I've been practicing for a long time. Driving has been one of my favorite hobbies for a little bit now. I've taken my car to the track several times recently."

She looked at his odd phrasing. "What, you want to be a race car driver?"

Titus shook his head. "No. It's more of a... something I picked up for fun. But it is pretty fucking cool, though, isn't it?" he said, shooting her a surprisingly innocent grin.

She just couldn't figure him out. One minute, he had a knife to her throat; the next, he was laughing and joking about being a race car driver. Was he just unhinged or really just calm and unbothered? She wasn't sure, but she needed to figure it out soon. If she kept him talking, maybe she could learn more about him. And more information was always better, right?

"So, anyway. That's my story," Titus said, wrapping up his tale from before their latest encounter. "Well, most of it, at least."

Alice shook her head emphatically. "You're just going to skim over the part where you killed the Proceratosaurus? Really?"

Titus chuckled. "Well, if you really want to hear about it…"

He proceeded to summarize the fight. Evidently, he'd liberated his collection of gardening tools from Mrs. Johnson's shed before getting found by the dinosaur. She held her breath as he told her about how he had flung the shovel into its throat, and it bounced off its uvula, making it choke and retch. He used the distraction to get in close, hack at its ankle with the axe till it fell over, and then plunged an 18-inch spike through its eye into its brain until he couldn't get it out anymore.

Alice held her breath. Titus was a natural storyteller. It wasn't so much in the words he used but the pauses and the little bit of anticipation he let build up. Between that and the actual events, the fight sounded fantastical and gruesome, maybe like he was just bragging, but she wasn't sure. It would explain how he was level five—well, six, now. He had gained one level on their trek through the forest.

"...After that, I found a car and headed out of town," Titus finished. "You know the worst part about that was? The System errored out again, told me that the monster's level wasn't set, and I got only the base experience from it. It gave me one point."

Alice blinked. "Huh. Yeah, I can see that happening. The monster levels would not be finalized until everything spawned for the first time. That's when the System would try to balance everything."

Titus grumbled about being scammed, then cursed in another language a couple of times before continuing. "Anyway. The notification told me I was in a level 21 to 30 zone and I didn't want to stay there. So I broke into a house and grabbed this phone, which helped me set up a route to the state park, where I felt it would be a little bit safer in the trees. Luckily, the zone around there was much lower level, and getting to the cabin got me a bit more experience, along with a few scares along the way."

Alice nodded, but her mind was elsewhere. "You know, you weren't the only one with the teleportation issue," she said. "The reason I knew there were other people around was because of the errors in the logs I had mentioned earlier. Eighteen other than you, I think."

"Only 18?" Titus asked with a strange intensity in his voice. "You're sure?"

Alice nodded. At the confirmation, Titus hung his head. "Fuck!"

A few more curses she didn't know tumbled out of his mouth before he got control of himself. His head came back up to focus on her again. "Do you know who they were? Names? Anything?"

Alice was taken aback by the ferocity in his voice and shook her head, raising her hands defensively between them. "No, no, I didn't even know who you were. I just checked the positions with my GPS to see if they were moving. I could locate the rest of them, I suppose. But do you know them?"

Titus didn't respond. His knuckles were white as his grip flexed on the steering wheel. His jaw muscles jumped as he muttered something she couldn't understand, his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him.

"No," he said. "No, I don't know."

"Titus," Alice said in a questioning voice. "What are you not telling me?"

Titus looked at her, but she didn't see anything soft in his gaze. There was only the same steel she'd seen before, back in the cabin.

"Nothing you want to know," he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Still, she couldn't help but push a little farther. "Should I track them down? I can try to locate anyone who might have a GPS signal on them. As long as it's available."

Titus frowned, his gaze relaxing a fraction. "It might be good to know where they are, but you should definitely not try to find out who they are."

"Titus, you're kind of freaking me out here," Alice spoke softly.

"Okay. You really, really don't want to know," he said. "It won't help. It'll only put a target on your back."

Alice gestured around to the empty city. "Even now, even with all this stuff going on?"

Titus looked around and then nodded. "Yes. Even more so now, I think."

Alice stared at him as if he was some sort of monster. But the System was saying he was human. She had really no choice but to trust him.

Eventually, Titus sighed and seemed to return to himself. "Well, that's enough about me. How about you? If you really did have a hand in making this whole thing happen, then I'm sure you've got some insight that'll help us out."

Hesitantly, she nodded. "Maybe. Like I said, it's already changed so much from what I originally envisioned…"

Titus shrugged as he gunned it through a pack of lizards coming around the bend. They thumped noisily beneath the car's wheels as the survivors ran screaming. "Fair enough. Still, it's better than going into this blind, right?"

With a shrug of agreement, Alice began to explain what she remembered. There was only so much time until they reached the city, so she focused on prioritizing the most important things. Levels, skills, what each stat did, and so on. Some of it Titus had already figured out for himself via trial and error. However, there was plenty for her to clarify and expand upon, especially when it came to things they would likely encounter in the future.

After what felt like too little time, the streets ahead of them began to crowd with increasing numbers of abandoned cars and crashes, slowing their progress. As they were forced to go up on the sidewalk yet again to avoid a pileup, Alice had an idea.

"Would it be better if we grabbed some bikes? It might be easier to get through the city," she said, gesturing to a pair of electric bikes parked in a stand.

Titus looked at them and grumbled. "Maybe. Maybe not. We can try."She watched him relax slightly from his previous outburst. Every move he made she scrutinized because something was definitely wrong. But eventually, he took a deep breath. "Yes, I suppose we should. It'll also help us to get your level up. Something tells me that level three is not going to be very useful."

Alice grimaced. Titus saw her reaction and seemed to misjudge it slightly. "The car is safer," he said. "And you're right about the bikes being more maneuverable. But we won't have the same defenses or the easy solution we just had," he said, putting his thumb over his shoulder back towards where the small lizards were squished flat several blocks behind them.

Alice frowned thoughtfully.

"No, we should take the bikes," she said, and was surprised when Titus followed her decision without protest, pulling off to the side and up to one of the places where the electric bikes were docked. She attempted to tap her credit card but realized, along with her phone, her wallet was missing. And anyway, the receptacle had no signal to process the payment anyway. That was a bad sign for the infrastructure surviving the continuing changes.

"Ugh," she grumbled and pulled out a knife, trying to use it as a screwdriver to undo one of the panels, but immediately cut her thumb.

Titus looked at her with mild amusement. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, just a small cut."

"I can see that. Why are you holding the knife like that?" He asked, bemused.

"Yeah, well, there's a reason I don’t really cook," she said, thinking of all the disasters she'd been the cause of.

Titus interrupted her thoughts by taking the knife from her hands. He closed her cut with a brief activation of his skill and a swipe of his thumb. "Let me do it," he said. "Just tell me where to go."

She pointed out the screws she needed to be undone. Once he had the panel off, she had him strip a few wires and touch them together until the thing sparked and the locks disengaged.

He looked up at her. "I was pretty sure that was something that only happened in movies."

She shrugged. "Yeah, well, these things aren't built that intelligently." She didn't tell him that this wasn't the first time she'd stolen a bike from the city. Product of a wayward youth, her social worker called it.

"You know, you can fix that clumsiness now," Titus said. "Just put a few more points in control."

Alice grimaced. "Yeah, I put the first four in speed, but the last two in control."

He raised his eyebrows. "You're already putting points in control, and you're still having trouble?"

Alice turned away, blushing. "Shut up."