The apartment was dark when Karl got home, and quiet in the way it only got when his mother had actually managed to fall asleep.
He eased the door shut, checked the notebook on the fridge out of habit, and found her handwriting under his from that morning. She’d taken the evening dose on time.
Small win. He’d take it.
In his room, he dropped onto the edge of the bed and pulled out his phone. The crack across the screen split the banking app clean in half, but the number underneath it was whole.
7,014 dollars.
He stared at it for a long moment.
’Seven grand...’
A week ago his biggest financial decision had been whether the bus was worth it or whether his legs were free. Now he was lying back against his pillow doing math he’d never had the luxury of doing before.
Four months of rent.
And all of it had come out of a box.
’If one lucky box was worth seventeen grand,’ he thought, ’then the money isn’t even the real question anymore. The real question is how deep this thing goes.’
His phone buzzed against his chest.
{Elsa- Registration opens Saturday. 9am sharp. If you oversleep I’m naming us Team Elsa.}
{You- We are not being Team Elsa.}
{Elsa- Team Elsa and Some Guy.}
{You- I’ll be awake.}
{Elsa- You better lol. Also we need a third. And a fourth and fifth, but the third I can handle. I have someone in mind.}
{You- Should I be worried?}
{Elsa- Extremely. Goodnight, masked man.}
Karl typed goodnight, then stopped, thumb hovering over the send button. He deleted it and tried again.
{You- Hey. Thanks. For the tournament, the team, all of it. You didn’t have to do any of this.}
The reply bubble appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Then, after almost a full minute:
{Elsa- Weirdo. Go to sleep.}
He huffed something that was almost a laugh and let the phone drop onto the mattress.
[Notice: The Administrator is reminded of one incomplete quest.]
’I know. I was getting to it.’
The panel unfolded in the dark, throwing pale light across the water stain on his ceiling.
[Quest: Find a new tournament. Earn money.]
[Status: In progress. Tournament located. Funds acquired: insufficient.]
’Insufficient. Rude, but accurate.’ He folded one arm behind his head. ’The team quest with Elsa paid out the second she said yes. This one’s been sitting open since the night the Snakes came. So there are two kinds, aren’t there. The ones you spring on me for a quick reward, and the ones that just stay there. Watching me.’
[Correct. Instant quests resolve upon completion of a defined action. Standing quests remain active until their condition is met in full. This unit is pleased the Administrator has begun paying attention.]
’Next thing. The bond. You keep counting it at me. Forty-four percent of what, exactly?’
[Response permitted at current progress. The bond deepens through shared combat. The more matches the Administrator completes with a bonded hero, the further the bond progresses.]
’And when it hits a hundred?’
There was a pause. With the Administrator, a pause always meant something.
[At full synchronization, the Administrator will be able to dive into the hero’s world.]
Karl blinked at the ceiling.
’Their world. Charlotte has a world.’
[That information is restricted.]
’You just told me half of--’ He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. ’You know what? Sure. The assassin from the hero select screen has a home address. Why not.’
It should have sounded insane. Lately, insane was just the weather. ’Anything else?’
[Affirmative. EXP balance approaching conversion threshold. Upon conversion, the Administrator may establish bonds with heroes other than Charlotte.]
The next line arrived slightly faster than the others, like it had been waiting in the queue.
[Charlotte has requested this unit convey the following: that will not be necessary.]
’Is she--’
[Charlotte states she is not jealous. Charlotte states this preemptively, and with unusual force.]
’Right.’ Karl smiled at nothing in the dark, his ribs pulling faintly where the bruises were still fading. ’Tell her she was my first pick for six years. One more slot on the roster doesn’t change who starts.’
[Charlotte has gone quiet. This unit’s diagnostic suggests she is pleased.]
[Bond interaction progress: 46%.]
’Wait. It went up from that?’
[That information is restricted.]
He laughed once, quietly, so he wouldn’t wake his mother, and let the panels fade out of the air. The room went dark again, and the number came back to him the way it always did before sleep. Thirty-one grand.
Except for the first time since that night on the street, it didn’t look like a wall. It looked like a boss health bar. And health bars dropped, as long as you kept hitting them.
’Then we keep hitting.’
...
Across the district, on the third floor of a much nicer building, Elsa was lying on her stomach on her bed in an old oversized sleep shirt, ankles crossed in the air behind her, holding her phone above her face like it owed her an explanation.
She had scrolled back up the chat for the fourth time.
{You- Hey. Thanks. For the tournament, the team, all of it. You didn’t have to do any of this.}
She read it again. Then she made a sound she would have denied under oath, somewhere between a squeak and a hiccup, and buried her face in the pillow.
"It’s a thank you," she informed the pillow. "People say thank you. Delivery guys say thank you."
Delivery guys did not make her chest do this.
She rolled onto her back and stared at the string of little lights sagging across her ceiling.
She had typed nine different replies before settling on weirdo, go to sleep, and every single discarded one had been worse, and she didn’t understand any of it.
He said things like somewhat and then got flustered when she laughed. She had met better-looking guys, smoother guys, guys who actually finished their sentences.
None of them had ever once made her want to know what happened next.
Her feet kicked twice against the mattress, entirely without permission. She caught them, embarrassed at herself in an empty room, and sat up.
"Okay. Focus. Roster."
She scrolled to the S section of her contacts and hovered over the name for a second before pressing call. It rang long enough that she almost gave up.
"...Elsa. It’s midnight."
"It’s eleven-forty. Hypothetical question."
"No."
"You haven’t heard it yet."
"You only call this late when you want something, and the last three times it was come back and play. So. No."
Elsa pulled her knees up under her chin. "One tournament, Sana. Regional. Real bracket and a prize pool."
The silence on the other end changed shape.
"You know why I stopped." Sana’s voice came out quieter. "Exhibition night was already pushing it, and that was one match at our own school. A real bracket, with casters, and a crowd. I can’t. Find someone else."
"Okay." Elsa examined her nails. "That’s fair. I’ll let you sleep. It’s just, you’re going to hear it eventually anyway, so you should hear it from me. I left the team. Started a new one." She let it hang for exactly one heartbeat. "With Kazu."
The line went very quiet.
"...The masked guy."
"The masked guy who is also, and I say this with complete confidence, that Kazu. Rank one Kazu. He’s my duo now. Anyway, sleep well--"
"Wait."
Elsa bit her lip hard to keep the grin out of her voice.
"...When’s registration?"
"Saturday," she said sweetly. "Nine sharp. Bring your hands. They’ll be fine."
She hung up, flopped backward onto the bed, and hugged the phone to her chest, staring up at the little lights. Then she opened the chat one more time, typed something, looked at it, deleted it, and plugged the phone in facedown on the nightstand.
"Saturday," she told the ceiling. "Be normal by Saturday."
...
[A/N: Do not forget to send powerstones, if you like this book so far.]