“Long time no… see,” I wavered.

The Nick I’d known had been relatively muscular. But this was something beyond simple post-athletic build. He was absolutely loaded with muscle, though the physique combined with his own natural looks created something of a Hollywood aesthetic. I stared at Nick in disbelief, even as <Cruel Lens> jabbered in my ear.

Riding high even with all the surrounding chaos. The system fixed his leg, like it did my ribs and shoulder. He wants something from me.

“Go get Iris,” I told Ellison. 

“Bring her back?” Ellison was still staring at Nick’s leg.

“No. Call mom for a ride and get out of here. With the timer, things are liable to get weird soon.”

“You guys…” Nick paused, twisting to watch as Ellison passed him wordlessly. He turned back to me. “You see the countdown as well?”

“I think everyone can,” I observed, somewhat annoyed with the way the timing had worked out. I looked around. Since the advent of the timer, the kid-in-a-candy shop moment had devolved into panic buying. Word of mouth on Kinsley’s store would still spread like wildfire. But the morale was muted compared to just moments before.

Nick crushed me in a hug. “I’m so happy you made it, man.”

I instinctively fought it for a moment before surrendering to the well-meaning Neanderthal, patting him on the back. “Just, don’t start crying again.”

“No, I’m good, I’m good.” Nick waved me off. “Trust me, I’m not that person anymore.” He was bursting at the seams to tell me more, but I saw his head shift slightly, and his eyes glaze over. I imagined he looked the same way I did when I used <Awareness> to study something out of the corner of my eye. 

Unless I missed my guess, he was eying the long line of tables, and actually being careful. 

Different person indeed. 

He thinks I missed the boat. Is looking to help, somehow. Probably better to ditch him early, he’s stupid altruistic and will only drag me down— 

I shook my head. God. <Cruel Lens> was such an asshole.

“You okay?” Nick asked. 

I nodded. 

“Because you don’t seem very surprised about…” he waved a hand over himself. 

“You have somewhere to talk?” I asked, ignoring the question. 

“Yeah, there’s a little Turkish place down the road that still has coffee for cash only. I came to get you, actually. You’ll want to meet the others.” 

“Wait, what?” I attempted to ask. But Nick was already dragging me away. 

/////

The restaurant was similar to a lot of dine-in establishments in the metroplex. Relatively unremarkable on the outside, completely over-decorated on the inside. It was lined with colorful, ornate rugs and a collection of various squat humanoid miniatures that lined the shelves. 

The strong, rich, and bitter aroma of Turkish coffee permeated everything. And understandably so. Either people just came here for the coffee, or the kitchen was out of everything else. 

And then I walked by Buzzcut, sitting on his own, with his back to the corner. I’d only seen the man briefly, in the alley with Daphne, when he was attempting to talk me into showing myself, but his smarmy visage and near-identical dark business wear was unmistakable. 

How the fuck did he find me? 

I nearly tripped on a rug on the way to our table. 

He didn’t find me. No way of knowing I’d come here. Back to the wall, book he’s not reading, he’s watching someone. But who?

My question was answered almost immediately, when Nick directed me to a table directly in Buzzcut’s sightline. There were—perhaps unsurprisingly, this was Nick after all—two girls sitting, waiting for us. They were sipping at their coffee served in tiny porcelain cups, chatting softly amongst themselves. 

It surprised me to realize that I knew both of them. Sae, the Korean student I ran into right before the meteor hit. Her stylish appearance had taken a bit of a beating over the last few days, and from her sleeveless shirt it was clear she had gained some definitive muscle. 

And the second was Jinny Stiles. She looked happy. Which was good, I guess, though I couldn’t imagine why. The emptiness was gone from her expression.

“You lived!” Sae said, her eyes widening when she saw me. 

“Uh, you lived,” I stammered, feeling entirely out of my element. Both of them—all three of them actually, considering how Nick had apparently returned, triumphant from his fall from grace—were so far out of my social strata it wasn’t even funny. 

“Ladies,” Nick said, with a charismatic flourish. “Meet Matthias. Our fourth.” 

“Fourth what?” I asked. A bead of sweat dripped down the back of my neck. Buzzcut could likely hear everything we were saying from where I sat. 

“How do you two know each other?” Sae asked, her voice carefully free of intonation.

What she really means is, why the fuck is he our fourth.

“They’re friends.” Jinny gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, we’ve never met, but Nick talks about you all the time.” 

“‘It’s… okay,” I murmured, my words unintentionally cut off. Part of me realized how ridiculous it was. I had gone in on Tyler’s group, manipulating the dynamic to prevent a killing that might create revolutionaries and start a war. Why was it so much harder with people my age?

Because you’re afraid they’ll see you for what you really are.

“What would he be bringing to the table?” Sae asked again, her body angled towards Nick and Jinny. I could almost feel Buzzcut’s eyes burning through the back of my head. As unpleasant as the snub was, she was giving me an out, and I should probably take it. 

“It’s okay,” I said, probably a bit too quickly, “Whatever it is, it seems like you all have an established thing and I prefer not to get in the way.” 

Jinny and Nick looked at each other, then at Sae. “Uh Sae, Matt is…”

Matt is what? 

“You remember Helpline?” Jinny asked. 

I slowly raised a palm to my forehead. 

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Nick, I’m actually going to kill you.

Sae cocked her head. “Which help—Oh.” Her face changed in recognition. “You’re talking about the fixer?” 

It was such a stupid series of events, I still find it embarrassing. Nick once had the bright idea to wrangle up flyers for the testing business. Even though he’d hidden the idea from me, he’d been smart enough to keep it vague. Only he’d been a little too vague. 

Within a day, I was getting a high number of calls, and practically none of them had anything to do with testing. Most were pranks, and I dealt with them accordingly. I nearly threw the burner away. The one that stopped me, the one I should have just ignored entirely, was some student, royally pissed off about someone stealing his Pace 500. 

If you don’t know what that is—I didn’t either, before a cursory Google search—it’s a bike. But it’s not just a bike. It’s fucking expensive. Anyway, the bike was expensive, the owner was clearly loaded, and instead of telling him to fuck off—like I really, really should have—I kept asking him questions. Because I also had a bike that I sometimes parked out front, and while it wasn’t so expensive that I thought anyone would steal it, I didn’t really want to have one more potential loss to worry about. 

When three more people called, reporting the same thing, I called Mr. My-Bike-Costs-More-Than-Most-People’s-Rent back, and secured a payment through bitcoin. Half up-front, half after the fact. Probably a third of what he’d paid for the bike. 

It wasn’t really hard to track down the perpetrator. The thefts all took place during school hours and, while there were other possibilities, Occam’s Razor said it was most likely a student. 

And most teachers took detailed attendance sheets and filed them in unlocked drawers or boxes. 

It was as easy as cross-checking absences with the dates of the thefts. 

In the end it turned out to be some middle-of-the-pack idiot with an angle-grinder. The idiot in question timed cutting through the locks with construction happening nearby. Then, he would ride away on the stolen bike to a nearby storage unit. The weirdest part was, he wasn’t even selling them. Probably didn’t know where to start. 

I cut through the lock with a bolt cutter, retrieved the Bike-That-Costs-More-Than-God, discreetly called it in, and chained the stolen bike I’d been hired for back up front at the school. 

All of which would have been fine, a nice change of pace and one-off. Only the student turned out to be well-connected, and happily ran his mouth to the entire god-damn high-school about how great “Helpline,” was. 

Nick grinned at Sae, pointing a finger at me.

I could feel red creeping into my cheeks. “Okay, well, I’m going to go.”

“Wait. Helpline was you?” Sae’s eyes bugged out of her head. 

“Allegedly,” I said, glaring daggers at Nick. 

I fought the urge to pull away as Sae grabbed my arm, still grinning. “My friend, Choon, you helped her with her bullying problem.” 

“And he got those pictures of Danielle taken down,” Jinny nodded. 

“That’s insane.” Sae leaned forward, putting a bit too much weight on the table, and it creaked loudly. 

“Those were just jobs,” I refuted, overwhelmed. “They were paying.” 

Nick nodded smugly. “Point is, Matt’s someone you want on your side, and we need a good tactician going into this.” 

I placed both hands on the table, a bit too firmly. “Okay, stop. You haven’t even told me what this is.” 

“You’re not a User, right?” Nick asked. 

“No, but I have a general grasp on what’s happening.” I wanted to avoid an overwrought explanation. 

Nick leaned towards me with the same, shit-eating grin he always had when he’d found something particularly good. “This was going to be a harder sell before what happened today, but not anymore. That market, that just came online? It’s exclusively for Selve. And I have a way to make a lot of it.” 

Fuck. That was why Buzzcut was here. Either he was following Nick because of something Nick knew, or something he had. Both were bad. I needed to end this conversation now. 

But how, without drawing suspicion to myself? 

“Look,” I leaned back, attempting to look disinterested, “before you spill your entire manifesto in a public place,” I put just enough emphasis on the words that I hoped that Nick would catch my drift, “I’m not a User. I’ve only put together a little of all this, but from what I know, Users have abilities and survivability that I couldn’t even dream of. If I go off and…” I made a vague gesture, “Do User things with you, it seems inevitable that without any of those protections I’ll end up a splattered on the pavement somewhere.” 

It was a legitimate excuse. If anyone was listening, I would sound overly cautious at most. 

I realized my error when Nick didn’t look disappointed. Rather, his eyes gleamed. “Man, you’ve kept me sane these last few months. You’ve been a great friend, and I’m just happy I can do something for you in return.” 

“Stop proposing.” I rolled my eyes. “Or whatever you’re doing.”

“Are they… you know?” I heard Sae whisper. 

“Definitely not.” Jinny whispered back, then hesitated. “Nick isn’t for sure.” 

I found myself slightly surprised by Jinny’s follow-up comment, but it wasn’t mean-spirited, she just wasn’t making assumptions. I could tell if someone was objectively attractive, but I’d never felt that attraction myself, let alone had the time to date. Maybe I would, some day, if we ever got out of this. 

Nick continued, undeterred by the cross-chatter. “Look, I know you’re cautious. This isn’t permanent, and according to the description, I can take it back if it doesn’t work out. But it’s a new world, my friend. Join us.”

It was so melodramatic, I could barely comprehend what he meant. Then a flurry of system prompts passed through my vision.

<System Notification: Another User has used a rare ability to offer you a class.>

<System Error: User already has a class, query denied> 

<System Notification: Due to the confluence of Double-Blind and Ordinator’s Emulation, the previous message was scrubbed. A new identity can now be accessed.>

<Feat Option: Select Identity>

1. User: ???, Class: ???, LVL: ???
2. User: Matt, Class: NPC, LVL: N/A
3. User: Matt, Class: Page, LVL: 3.

I kept a bewildered smile on my face, tilting my head slightly to see if Buzzcut was still watching. 

He was. 

All I could think was that Nick had just made this entire situation a lot more complicated. 

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