New System, Who Dis?

Sunday, April 14th, 2069

“Pass the ‘potatoes’,” Jarred said from his spot at the foot of the table. The man had aged since I’d last seen him. That might have been unfair. It was just that my memory of Jarred and the slightly pudgy balding man in front of me didn’t match up. It was like someone had taken my uncle and treated him to an all-indulgent trip to a top-end resort, where he didn’t even have to stand up from his chair.

“Did I tell you about the article I was reading?” My mom said as she lifted the mashed Portal Potatoes, using the cork insulator it sat on to avoid burning her hands on the ceramic. She continued, clearly not expecting an answer. “They said Portal vegetables and meats are much better for you than Earth equivalents.”

Jarred moved to run his hand over his head but changed midway to scratch at his own ear. Sheepishly he said, “Sounds like they’re trying to drive up prices, Clara.”

“There were a whole bunch of doctors and Trainers that signed off on it,” Clara said, looking to my father for support.

My father in response smiled sheepishly as well. “The doctors might have some codes of ethics, I’m not sure, but you know gifted people will sponsor anything if they give them enough money.”

“Well, I guess I’m just being optimistic then,” my mom said with a pout. I chuckled, which earned me a glare. “You too?” my mom asked, like she was truly saying, ‘et tu, Brutus?’

That drew a laugh from my uncle and Father. Still, she wasn’t wrong, not really, so I added what I knew on the subject. “It isn’t so much that it’s ‘better’ for us, or not. The one definitive is that there are ‘alien’ nutrients that may or may not be part of what empowers Skills or contributes to Awakenings. They also may be what causes people to come down with unique illnesses. Last I heard, there isn’t an accepted study that proves the validity of either hypothesis.”

“I haven’t seen the kid in a few years and suddenly he’s a genius,” Uncle Jarred said, clearly not intending to be condescending but failing. He wore a broad smile under his unkempt beard, and because of that I managed to not misinterpret the words. He also followed it up quickly, telling me he also understood the way that his words could be misconstrued. “You must be coming close to finishing your third semester, right? Your co-op is after the fourth, right?”

My father had already mentioned me taking time off in the car, hadn’t he? I guessed Jarred probably just forgot. Still, my smile morphed into a wince. I had been planning to join either Portals, Portal’s, Portalz, or Uncle Jarred’s company to do my co-op. Although… Now that I thought about it, I just might be creating my own… business? Team? I didn’t think there were any rules against doing something like that as a co-op. In fact, if I had to guess, an entrepreneurial spirit would likely be encouraged. The world ran on small businesses after all. I shook myself out of my thoughts as I thought back to Uncle Jarred’s comment. I squirmed uncomfortably.

My mother’s mouth curled as well, but it was my father who jumped to my rescue. “That’s a loooonnggg story, Jer. Right now, Brodie is taking a semester off. Remember I told you about the Mana Pull…”

“Oh shoot, I totally blanked, Brodie. You just look so good and unperturbed about the whole thing. Then it's just so easy to connect a young bloke like you to schoolin’ that I sort of put my foot in it, didn’t I?” Jarred offered as an explanation. I shrugged and decided to finally get this meal on track.

“It’s hard to be upset when the situation Awakened a second Skill,” I said leadingly, and was damn pleased when I saw Jarred lean forward in his seat.

“A what now?!” he exclaimed, even as his eyes glittered with excitement on my behalf. “Anything good? Am I going to be an uncle to a drafted Hunter?”

And just like that my mood soured again. Smegma’s laugh rang in my ears, as my mouth curled into a sneer again. My father took up the explanation though. “Nothing that fancy, Jer, but it is very valuable with the right people around him.”

“What does that mean?” Jarred asked skeptically. “Sounds like a sales pitch.”

“Well, it kinda is one,” my dad answered. “With his Repair Mark, Willa, Brodie, and myself all became Specialists. Sustainable Specialists…” My father let that statement hang in the air.

I smiled when Jarred’s mouth opened and closed multiple times without voicing a response. My dad continued his tone amused as well, “I actually called you to see if you want to join—”

“Gary!” Jarred said, his voice filled with exasperation. “You know Ella won’t allow that.” Ella hadn’t made it to dinner tonight with the kids as originally planned. “She wants me in a safe office.” Silence descended on the table at this pronouncement. For my part, I was nodding in understanding, but I could tell that wasn’t the case for my mother and father.

Dad didn’t say a word. He simply hefted the Pick that he’d had resting at his side and laid it on the table in front of Jarred. The one he put there first was clearly my Pick, because it was in far better condition than Willa’s and my dad’s. Why?

Well, I was assuming a lot but my Mining Skill, and its helpful guidance seemed to allow the Pick to take less damage.

Next, my father hefted his or Willa’s up and set it next to the first. This one was in rough shape. Because of that I assumed it was Willa’s. She’d tried to mine two veins today, and by all accounts succeeded. Except for the state of her Pick. Her Pick was now in almost as poor a shape as it had been when my father used my first pick to Mine.

“The first one looked worse than the second one here when we first got it, Jar. That’s the God’s-honest truth.” Dad’s voice was low, steady, and filled with conviction. “This is what I’m offering.”

Jarred’s voice seemed to have gotten caught in his throat as he reached out and traced the lines and curves of both Pickaxes, his eyes wide. I watched his Adam's apple as he swallowed hard. He looked dazed. After a long moment he shook himself. Blinking, he cleared his throat and gently pushed the Picks a couple of inches away from himself as if in a symbolic effort to distance himself from them.

“You know I can’t do this. God has a plan for us, Gary. Once the kids grow up and Ella can get back to work, we’ll earn it off,” Jarred said with a significant look in my direction as his cheeks went red. “Can you not bring this kind of stuff up in front of the kid, Gary!”

“Your kids are already in school,” my mother said. “And I’ve gotten Ella numerous interviews as an office administrator. I even know that a few places offered her the—”

“Clara, you don’t understand. She wants to work but she just hasn’t been able to make that transition with everything she does around the house and the volunteering at Church. You two only had the one kid, so you won’t understand.” Jarred sounded like he was almost reading from a script.

“You had twins, Jarred. They are the same age—go to the same school, and can probably even attend the after school program that Brodie went to.”

“That costs more money, though!” Jarred shouted another interruption. “Ella staying home saves us about two thousand a month right there, plus she can cook, and clean. Take care of the dogs. Don’t even get me started on her Church duties. You know how much she does!”

“Are these things really important?” Smegma asked as he hovered down in front of Uncle Jarred, studying his red face.

[Honestly, yes and no but I think there is a lot of underlying stuff that isn’t being said. My parents wouldn’t push this point if there wasn’t. Plus, I’ve been to Jarred’s house—it’s never clean….]

My parents and Jarred had continued the ‘discussion’ as I responded to Smegma. “—extra two-thousand a month isn’t much if you come back to work as a Specialist. That’s all I’m saying,” my father stated.

“We're not trying to attack you, Jer,” my mom added. “Or Ella. She can still be a stay at home mom, as long as you're making more money. Or, if you’re both working and you rejoin Gary as a Specialist—you’ll be out of debt in no time.”

“The only reason I’m still sitting here is because you’ve helped us out so many times!” Jarred answered, his voice threatening. I swallowed a lump in my throat. I had changed the mood of this dinner to this subject and felt a bit of responsibility for where this conversation had gone. Still, I could tell that there were a lot of things being left unsaid.

“So, ask about it?” Smegma said; once again reading my thoughts.

Was a demon-imp a reliable touchstone in human society? Someone to take advice from?

“Certainly,” Smegma answered my ‘unspoken’ questions again. “If you don’t ask, they’re going to keep skirting around it.”

With a deep inhalation and audible exhalation, I drew the attention of the adults at the table. “Can you guys stop beating around the bush and explain what’s really going on?”

Gary and Clara looked to Jarred. Jarred’s face morphed multiple times, going red from indignant anger, then white and stricken from meeting my parent’s gazes. Eventually I heard him whisper, “Come on guys, it’s his Aunt Ella. He doesn’t need to know…”

“He’s an adult now, Jarred. Plus, he’s the one with the Skill that can get you back to Mining as a Specialist. Maybe even with bonuses get enough money to get her some help,” my mother said.

Jarred stood up and slammed both hands onto the table. “I’m not going to sit here for this. Husk you both!”

Jarred stormed out of the dining room and made quite a bit of unnecessary angry noise as he put his shoes on. My parents didn’t bother getting up, and instead looked at each other sadly. The door slammed and a car stuttered its engine multiple times. After the ninth or tenth stuttered attempt at starting, I heard a car door slam and some rather prolific swearing.

At this point my dad got up and went to go help Uncle Jarred, leaving me and my mother at the table.

“What’s going on?” I asked, trying not to listen to Smegma prompting me to ask that exact question.

“I’m not sure if I should be the one to tell you this. Your father and I don’t even know the whole story.”

“Mom!” I retorted.

“Okay, Brodie, but please don’t judge Ella or Jarred. Okay?” I nodded and she took a deep breath before starting. “When the twins were born Ella took her maternity leave. She was working at Rummage Portal’s in the same position Jarred currently is working.”

My eyes narrowed slightly at the way this story was starting. A knot started to form in my stomach, as I predicted the next line my mother said. “As the year of leave was coming to an end, she wasn’t ready to go back to work—or maybe she wasn’t ready to put the twins in daycare. Or both, I suppose.

“So, she extended the leave to eighteen months. That meant that she wasn’t drawing a paycheck anymore, though—since she had already received her maximum allowance of salary from the Canadian Government. Still, with Jarred working as a Miner they were able to make ends meet. Or so Jarred thought.”

The way my mother said the last line made my already knotted stomach attempt to backflip as well. “Every day that Jarred came home, there started to be Rainforest Boxes on his porch. At first, what Ella was buying was necessities for the kids. Things like diapers, and new clothes. However, that didn’t last as she started buying outfits that would only be worn once before they were never used again.”

“Oh no,” I mumbled, feeling physically ill now.

“We held an intervention. Your father, myself and Jarred. We even thought it worked, as we convinced her to start buying second hand clothes from thrift stores, salvation armies and checking the stuff at the Catholic Church. But all we really did was make her hide the addiction.

“She got her own credit card, and started hiding her purchases in the basement. It was right around then that your Uncle Jarred inhaled Shilver Dust by accident. He ended up in the hospital for an extended stay fighting for his life. You’ll probably remember some of that…”

“Yeah, he was really sick…” I answered, recalling those visits to the hospital and seeing Uncle Jarred hooked up to tubes, machines and constantly visited by a Gifted Healer. “Is that what caused the debt?”

“No,” my mother answered sadly, while someone else mirrored those words from the doorway behind me. I spun in the chair to see Jarred there looking strung out, pale, angry and defeated. He continued his eyes meeting mine. “That was covered by the Miner Union insurance, thankfully. It was my loss of income and Ella’s continued spending that put us behind the eight ball.”

“The what?” I asked.

“It’s a saying from a sport that many people used to play in bars,” my father said as he came into the room behind Jarred. With a hand on my Uncle’s back my father guided him back to his chair.

“It just means that we are now fighting an uphill battle to get ourselves out of debt. It didn’t help that I didn’t even know about the second credit card. Plus Ella was beyond distraught at the thought of losing me in some freak accident. As you said, I had been fighting for my life.” Clearly Jarred had been in the doorway for a bit.

I recalled my mother looking over my shoulder sadly once or twice as she recollected the story. Maybe she hadn’t been ‘looking’ at the front door, but at Jarred.

“She insisted I take a safer job and even managed to talk her boss into letting me take over for her. She argued that spending a couple thousand on daycare or even more for nannies wasn’t worth it, and that she’d stay home. It seemed reasonable…” Jarred said the last bit while looking pleadingly at my mother and father.

“It was, Jarred,” my mother said consolingly. “Her hiding her purchases and debt weren't.”

Jarred shoulders raised, and a flush swept over his pale face, as he clearly fought with anger. By the cant of his head, and his unfocused eyes, which were directed down at the table, I could tell he was angry at himself, and not my mother.

My mother picked up the story as she saw my uncle grow tongue tied. “It was about a year later that the creditors started hounding her, and by association—Jarred. By then the Credit Card debt had reached over eighty thousand dollars.”

Jarred nodded along and picked up the story again. “Yeah, we agreed to garnish my wages to ensure we didn’t have to declare bankruptcy and end up on the street.”

“It’s been almost fifteen years since then, Jer. Do you mind if we ask what the debt is down to now?” My father asked.

Jarred swallowed hard and shook his head sadly. I could tell that what he was going to say wasn’t going to be good. Drops of water hit the scratched and stained wood under his hung head, and he stuttered in a breath. My father got up and put a hand on each of Jarred’s shoulders.

The physical touch seemed to allow Jarred to mumble, “Two-hundred thousand.”

“I thought if you paid your credit card debts, they were supposed to go down?” Smegma asked, clearly confused.

[They should. But one of the most evil inventions of my people is something called compound interest. It basically means that if you borrow money, then you owe back that much, plus a little more. If you borrowed a lot, that ‘little more’ might not be so little, and tough to pay. It gets added to the original amount–which increases both how much you owe in total and the interest both. My guess is that without Ella working, and the continued expenses of the kids—their debt has only grown.]

“Husk… That’s a plot worthy of Beelzebub himself.” Smegma breathed, seemingly awe-struck.

I choked, spraying water across the table. A coughing fit took me then, my eyes watering as I fought to get myself under control. [Husking Beelzebub is real? What the actual fu—]

A heavy hand slapped my back. “Woah there, son. It’s not that surprising. You’re embarrassing the man. Get yourself under control,” he scolded. “And you wonder why we don’t include you in the ‘adult talk’. Well, show us you can handle it.”

I was so grateful for the excuse of spitting out my water that I didn’t even mind my dad getting on to me like that. However, I still glared out of the corner of my eye at Smegma. [We are definitely going to talk about this later.]

The imp just shrugged and nodded, seeming confused. I turned my attention back to the table.

“Yessir,” I nodded emphatically. “Sorry uncle Jarred, I was just surprised that’s all. I’ve never even seen that much money. Sorry”

Jarred waved it off, chuckling. “Don’t sweat it kid. I spit out my beer when my wife told me about the eighty thousand, so don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“And that’s with the fifty thousand in loans you’ve taken from us, to pay back the government for Ella not returning to work?” My dad asked, trying, and failing to keep his voice from sounding shocked.

“No. Luckily it’s not as bad as all that. The two-hundred thousand is including the money I’ve borrowed from you and Willa. The credit card is still sitting at eighty thousand…”

“Surely, that means he’ll join the crew, right?” Smegma asked and I could only shrug.

This was a situation far deeper and more turbulent than I could dive into. All I knew was that Uncle Jarred needed help—and a lot of it.

“Maybe Aunt Ella even more so,” Smegma stated, clearly skimming my surface thoughts.

I could only nod.