Chapter 29

Kinsley stared at my family, filled with sudden stage fright. Still, even after only a few hours out of the storehouse, she looked significantly less exhausted. A long shocked silence hung over the office room in the Community Center. She glanced at the whiteboard, still empty except for OPEN FORUM scrawled at the top. 

“You’re really using a whiteboard, huh?” Kinsley asked. 

“That’s what I said,” Ellison responded immediately. 

“What just happened?” Mom asked, shaking her head slightly. She hadn’t recovered as quickly as my siblings at the  sudden appearance of a strange girl with a black eye by way of a magical blue door.

Iris waved at Kinsley, an impressed look on her face, and Kinsley waved back. 

“We’ll talk about that.” I couldn’t afford to give them all time to process what was happening. We had work to do. “I know weird shit has been happening, but this isn’t really any different than when Ellison broke his arm.”

My mom’s bewilderment hadn’t waned. “You guys have done this before?”

“Yeah, Mom.” I rubbed the back of my neck in annoyance. “How do you think we came up with money for the bill?” Her face flushed, a clear internal judgment on her failure as a mother going through her mind. She didn’t ask anymore questions, just nodded gently. We’d done this many times, but this was her first time seeing it. Survival required planning, and it was something our family was good at.

I gave introductions as quickly as I could, taking a moment to point out to Kinsley that Iris was deaf, to make sure to speak in her direction and annunciate if she wanted Iris to understand. 

“As you all probably know by now, we’re locked in. However, that’s not all. Distribution, shipments, everything else, is locked out. That’s why the shelves are bare. People are hungry and desperate, and it’s only going to get worse.” 

“I’m guessing this is when we finally get the explanation for your miracle haul?” Ellison asked, still watching Kinsley. 

“I’m getting to that.” I drew out the words USER and CIVILIAN on the whiteboard. “Iris, pull up your screen for a moment. Can you tell me what you see?” Iris fiddled with the screen for a minute.

“Quests, Inventory, and several blank spots.” Iris signed as she scrolled through.

I listed them under the Civilian category. 

“Kinsley,” I asked, “can you list what you see?”

 Kinsley gave me a subtle nod. I’d had a short conversation with her before we left Estrada’s, and she assured me she wouldn’t say anything to give me away. 

“Quests, Inventory, Character, Store.” Kinsley recited. 

Ellison immediately perked up at the mention of a store. “So she’s a …merchant? If we’re going by game terms.”

“Yes, you’re smart. Stop skipping ahead,” I rolled my eyes, “The more important differentiation is the Character screen. Kinsley can upgrade. Gain abilities.”

Iris signed something to me, wide eyed. I repeated it aloud, so everyone could hear it. “Yes, like the door she came in with. Every User, from what I understand, has a class, personal statistics, and abilities they can gain through an in-game system.” Mom still looked a bit bewildered as she watched my seemingly unphased siblings take it all in.

“How do you become a User?” Ellison asked. 

“No clue,” I answered. “From what Kinsley’s told me, it started happening randomly to a decent chunk of the population after the meteor hit, and the dome appeared.” 

Wasn’t Ellison under the weather that day?

I cocked my head, at first annoyed at the interference from <Born Nihilist> until I realized it wasn’t wrong. Iris had told me about it. But it wasn’t exactly a normal day for anyone, and it was possible his reaction had simply been stress. Still. I peered at Ellison, then glanced at Iris and my mother. “Just to be clear, no one has a Character screen except for Kinsley, correct?” 

There was a chorus of affirmatives. No weird behavior. Ellison was a better liar than Kinsley, but he was young and still had a tell. A leg bounce that only manifested when he was profoundly uncomfortable. I watched him carefully, and he didn’t look ill-at-ease in the slightest. 

In fact, he looked a little angry. “So what you’re saying is, there’s a group of people who are basically going to become gods, or superheroes, and they’re not us. We get the shit end of the stick. Per usual.” 

Out of my extended peripheral, I saw my mother wilt a bit. 

“No,” I smiled. “For perhaps the first time ever, we’re in the majority. Now, granted, we don’t know how many Users are actually out there. But there’s more of us than there are of them. And we have a serious advantage.”

“Your friend?” Iris signed. She was antsy, and looked like all she wanted to do was chat with a girl her age. 

“Enter Kinsley,” I pointed to her. “I met Kinsley a few days ago, and helped her out of the goodness of my heart—”

Kinsley bit off a laugh. Ellison snorted. My mother was looking pointedly away, with her hand to her mouth. 

Iris signed, ”She bribed you with food.”

I put a hand to my forehead. “Can’t even make a joke—Yes, she bribed me with food. Anyway, Kinsley was in something of a tough spot. Basically, the Users didn’t like the fact that they couldn’t pick their currency for her store.”

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“That’s where Selve factors in,” Ellison realized. 

“Yes. But considering the current situation—the supply line issue, everything cut off by the dome—merchants are a new natural resource. Which brings me to my next point. The vacuum.” I drew a dollar sign with a down arrow, and a selve symbol with an up arrow. “Traditional stores are cleaned out. Employers can’t pay their employees. If things continue as they are, you won’t be able to buy anything with dollars. Users are going to realize that soon, if they haven’t already. A new economy will form, centered around merchants. Does anyone see the issue?” 

Eventually, my mother spoke. “Access. Fuck.” 

Iris missed it, but Ellison stared at her, startled. 

Mom continued. “That’s why you’re so focused on the idea of an online market anyone can access. Any organized group of Users is going to monopolize access to merchants. You don’t get access to their merchant unless you work for them, probably for pennies on the dollar—or Selve, rather. But what sort of work would they even be paying them to do?”

Every so often, I forgot how smart she was when she wasn’t drunk out of her mind.. 

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Probably something particularly unsafe. Osha’s likely going out the window. Modern-day company towns. The only problem is, there’s more of us than there are of them. And no one is complacent with how things are. People will eventually get angry.”

“Okay,” Ellison rubbed his face, stretching out his skin. “I get the concept in theory. We get an online market set up, we prevent price fixing and price gouging, possibly avert an uprising. But what, exactly, is in this for us?” He pointed over to Kinsley. “She’s the one who stands to benefit the most.”

Kinsley, to my surprise, showed some backbone. She stepped in front of me. “You’ll all be high-level employees, getting in on the ground floor. As long as it’s not an attempt at arbitrage, I can award Selve through quests and legitimate contracts. Preferable discounts and percentages at the store.” 

“And more ice cream?” Iris signed. 

“Iris wants to work ice cream into her contract,” I deadpanned.

“No,” Mom said. 

“We’ll talk later,” Kinsley smiled at Iris.

“Before I go into the plan, is everyone onboard?” I asked. 

Everyone nodded. 

I turned back to the board. “Okay. The open forum. It’s happening outside of City Hall in two days. Outside, I assume because they’re expecting a considerable turnout. Everyone’s scared, everyone has questions.” 

“If I was the leader of a group of Users, that’s where I’d be. Recruiting, advertising merchant access, maybe even showing it off.” Ellison tapped his fingers on the table.

I nodded, and wrote the words Factions, Recruitment, Merchant Access, and Message. “We want to know as much of this as we can, for as many of the groups as we can. If there are any groups it might be possible to work with in the future, we want to know that. Ellison, your... uh, your overly long acronym thing.”

“L-B-W-L-A-A-Q-H-N-I-I-H-T-A-T-O-O-B,” Ellison rattled off. 

Ellison had a few different personas he could slip into, depending on the task at hand, but I was pretty sure that one would fit best. “Yeah, that would be perfect for this.” 

“What the heck is that?” Kinsley asked, looking between us dubiously.

“Lost boy who lingers and asks questions he’s not interested in hearing the answers to out of boredom,” Ellison rattled off smugly. 

“Be careful. Generally, we shouldn’t discuss anything related to what we’re doing while we’re at the event. Anyone with an elevated Perception will have excellent hearing. On that topic,” I glanced at Iris, “We want to get an idea of how the Users are talking to each other when they think no one’s listening.” 

”Lipreading duty?”

“Bring your sunglasses. And if we’re lucky, recon will only be a small part of this. Mom,” I looked over at her, and she leaned forward. “Coordinate with Kinsley. I know it’s a lot to ask, considering, but is there any chance you can get the site up and running by the day after tomorrow?” 

“Assuming I don’t hit any snags.” Mom said, a bit too quickly.

“Then we should be golden.” 

“And what will you be doing?” Ellison asked me. 

“In the immediate future?” I rubbed the back of my neck again. My body was still sore everywhere from the day’s excursion. “Crashing. I’m exhausted. Got something most of tomorrow.” 

Specifically, the fourth floor of the dungeon. Maybe the fifth as well, if the fourth wasn’t astronomically difficult. I’d upgraded significantly, with the crossbow. There was really no reason not to go back. Especially when I considered we still didn’t know why this was happening, and there were likely people who had done nothing but gain XP and level, there was really no excuse when I had my own private staging ground. 

It was an adaptive dungeon, and I’d handled myself well. The fourth floor was likely to be difficult, but not beyond me. 

I hoped. 

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