I yawn into my porridge-like oatmeal.
The Driger kept us all up until the badge completely lost energy. The furball learned to go for my lips. A messed-up phrase won’t dismiss the summon. They had to pry him off me before I could dismiss him. After recharging my Rayment, Lee convinced me to try once more with the door closed.
The Driger went through the window. Then we learned Tara hadn’t implemented dismissing Terrors if they can’t ‘hear’ the command phrase. Nobody could catch the little Terror. At least Tara got data out of the fiasco. A Terror can manifest for several hours running around a hotel at night as long as it doesn’t shoot fireballs. I spent a lot of time poring over Driger’s status screen last night searching for a weakness. I learned what I already knew.
Driger is a level 1 male, Child maturity, zero essence points banked, and has a Rebellious personality. After the flood of advanced specs like air resistance shoved into my HUD, I found a way to simplify the stats down to Driger’s Health, Energy, Brawn, Speed, and Mind. No surprise Driger is designed for swift combat. High speed, lower brawn, and an obviously teeny mind. Driger has a signature skill Elemental Cloak I noticed it ignores, preferring to launch its Char Blast skill at any target it sees. I can tell because it ranked Char Blast up to rank 2.
I guess Driger ignores Elemental Cloak since it doesn’t care to power up its Neutral Skills. Generic attacks are less fun than shooting fireballs. Sadly, I get it.
Looking at the other tables, I see many other tired young faces. One poor boy slips face first into the porridge. It soothes my soul to know I can blame my little brother and Juan for the morning’s misery. Today, Tara immediately fixed the dismissal code after unanimous feedback. Even Alfred was sick of my cat’s antics. At least we weren’t banned from the hotel. We were put in the cage for a half hour with a warning we’d be booted out of the hotel for another incident. Lee was determined to be on his best behavior.
I expect that to last for maybe twenty minutes. Tops.
I hear a beep from my cracked tablet.
I hadn’t wasted my time in the cage. I contacted the foraging teams about Tara’s test using her network. Somehow we have wireless texting on our tablets now. I don’t know how and I don’t care. It’s refreshing to know the salvage teams can contact us quickly in case of trouble. Or in case of directions. I’d kept turning the tablet on and off this morning just in case the foraging teams needed to communicate with me to find the hotel. Its minimal solar battery quickly loses energy when shaded, a nice safety feature to prevent Holos chasing down its charge. Not so great when you’re trying to keep the stupid thing on all day. I had to find a broken patch of roof letting sunlight down into the cage. After breakfast I’ll need to stay outside to keep it charged. But with Tara taking care of Holos, I’m not too worried about leaving it on. I look down at my tablet screen and realize Susie sent the message.
Great.
Juan pulls up a chair next to me and sits down. He glances at the tablet in my hand. He grunts a question at me while tiredly shoveling some food into his mouth.
“Yeah, it’s a message from other Sojourners. They’re planning to join us at the hotel.” I skim the message doing my best to ignore the hearts and smiley faces.
Juan swallows the bland breakfast and points at the message, “It’s my first time seeing stuff like this. We don’t have much tech where I live, but it seems girly. Is this a message from your girlfriend?”
I blush. “What makes you say that? Anybody could have sent me something like this.”
“All those images seem a little bit girly to me. I don’t think most guys would work that hard to write to another guy with a… whatever that red shovel-blade thing is.”
“It… stands for a heart.”
“Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t use that unless I was bleeding out or talking to a girl.”
“Sometimes my mom will send me a message like this.”
Juan’s puffy eyes light up in amusement, “And she’s a girl. So, got any tips for me, Romeo?”
“Participate in a genetic lottery and be forced into a relationship you didn’t ask for. One you don’t know the girl even wants.”
Juan just stares at me for a second, porridge dripping off his spoon. “I have no idea what you just said. But the way you say it makes me think that’s bad.”
I sigh and stab my porridge. “With the human race near extinction, the Council decided to ‘encourage’ marriage. First they check our genetics to keep the gene pool from shrinking, and talk with our families to see if they get along. This process starts when we’re babies. It’s like they’re trying to take our choice away. I don’t believe love can be forced.” I swirl my porridge in thought, “Still, it’s effective. Only a few single people left in Sojourn. Most of them are widows or widowers. Marriage is generally the safest and most effective way to produce large families. There’s a reason it’s been an institution for all of recorded human history. In Sojourn, there’s also the obvious downside if you don’t marry somebody at eighteen, you’ll be forced to work the most dangerous jobs. Get tagged as an organ donor sort of stuff. Or shipped to the mines.”
“At least you get a choice. Ain’t no girl at our Caverna interested in me,” Juan grumbles. “Besides, you haven’t told me about your girlfriend yet.”
“She’s not my girlfriend! Susie, just…ran with the lottery results. I think she might see it as inescapable. We spend some scheduled time together, but we barely know each other. Usually we work at completely different jobs or times. When we do talk we only talk about the day to day stuff! Like it’s a done deal. Future plans never come up. Or maybe our future doesn’t require any input from me. That’s the worst part.” I angrily chew the cooling porridge.
“Have you talked with her about it? The future. Like for real, amigo? Not just going through the motions.”
I chew on the thought. And my porridge.
“Were you morons responsible for keeping us all awake last night?” The petite blond teen from last night angrily walks over to our table. She’s sporting some kind of an old, oversized baseball cap which could generously be called black beneath the sweat stains.
“I blame him.” I point at Juan.
“I didn’t think that cat would have so much energy left! Lee helped design the thing and he assured us it would be fine,” Juan says to defend himself.
She huffs, “What the kid? How old is he, like seven?”
“He’s nine. Right now, the rascal is chatting with Tara. They’re trying to put the finishing touches on the testing today.” I reply.
A familiar squeal sounds from the doorway, and I’m suddenly being squeezed from behind by someone with a faint floral scent. “Hi, Susie,” I manage to wheeze out, “glad you could make it.”
“This place is amazing, Matt! Thanks for inviting everyone. I’ve got the kids settling into the auditorium for the orientation.” Susie smiles with generous lips she inherited from her Kenyan father, her dark wavy hair like a curtain around a white face and mild acne her mother gave her. She spends more time indoors taking care of kids and learning medicine after all. Susie’s height draws every eye in the room.
“Did I miss Tara’s orientation again?!” I drop my spoon fully into the porridge. Susie proceeds to lean over and give everyone at the table a hug. Juan stammers a bit and blushes. Susie walks over to the blond girl who tries to back away with her hands out. Susie’s long arms snake around her defenses and pull the smaller girl into a hug.
“Quit it! I don’t want a hug.” The smaller teen protests and squirms.
“Sorry, I just…it looked like you might need one. You seemed very grumpy and hugs always make me feel better. What’s your name?”
“I’m Jessica, and I don’t like pretty bimbos.” Jessica scowls.
“Then it must be hard to look in the mirror every day. Because I think you’re beautiful,” Susie earnestly gazes into Jessica’s bewildered blue eyes.
“What the—”
“Jessica, we should talk! Or maybe you’d like a makeover! I bet we can find you a better hat. I’ll see you later, Matt!” Susie drags a stunned Jessica behind her.
The look on Juan’s face is priceless. “Now you’ve met Susie. I’ve seen monsoons with less energy.” I chuckle.
Juan glares at me.
“What?”
Juan grabs my shoulder and pulls me in close to whisper, “Mateo, You. Are. An. Idiota! Why are you not ecstatic about marrying that woman!?”
Thankfully, a small chime sounds and Tara interrupts whatever tirade Juan is about to go on.
“All testers please proceed to the field. All testers please proceed to the field. We will be starting day one challenges in 5 minutes.”
“Oh look, we gotta go, Juan. Bye.” I quickly grab my bowl of porridge and try to swallow as much as I can without ingesting my spoon before putting it in the dirty dishes bin. Juan sputters and follows.
“Fine! I’ll do my best to help you, idiota!”
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