Hope did not tell her aunt about the warning.
At least, not yet.
By the time she reached the house, she had already gone through half a dozen explanations for what had happened beside the river, and none of them made any sense.
The most obvious possibility was that she had experienced some kind of hallucination, although she couldn’t remember ever hallucinating before.
She wasn’t taking medication, hadn’t been drinking, hadn’t used anything that might cause one, and she’d slept nearly eight hours the night before.
She had also eaten breakfast before her run, which meant she couldn’t blame the experience on low blood sugar.
That left the possibility that something had actually appeared in front of her.
Hope wasn’t particularly fond of that possibility.
She unlocked the front door and stepped inside.
The house was quiet.
Her aunt and uncle’s absence made it feel larger than usual, despite Hope having lived there for years.
She kicked off her running shoes near the entrance, walked into the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator.
She stared inside without really seeing anything.
Thirty days.
She closed the refrigerator.
“No.” The word came out quietly.
Hope shook her head.
She wasn’t going to sit around staring at a countdown and panic.
Whatever had happened, she needed information before making decisions that could affect the rest of her life.
She grabbed a glass of water, drank it, and carried her phone upstairs.
Her bedroom was exactly as she’d left it.
The bed was unmade, a pair of training shoes sat beside the closet, and several books were stacked on her desk.
A framed photograph rested beside her computer.
It showed Hope at twelve years old, standing between her aunt and uncle at a summer picnic.
Hope looked at the photograph for several seconds.
Then she looked away.
Her parents had been gone for so long that the memories she had of them were fragments.
A voice.
A smile.
Her mother’s hands fixing her hair.
Her father’s laugh.
None of it was enough to form a complete picture anymore.
Her aunt and uncle had become the constants in her life.
And now they were hundreds of miles away on vacation.
Hope sat at her desk thinking.
“Okay.” She opened her laptop.
The first thing she did was search for recent disease outbreaks.
There were plenty.
Seasonal influenza.
Several regional outbreaks of respiratory illness.
A few strange reports about neurological symptoms associated with an unidentified virus in another country.
Nothing immediately stood out.
Hope opened another browser window and searched for unusual medical reports.
Again, nothing.
She spent almost an hour searching.
Eventually she leaned back.
Maybe the System was wrong.
That thought should have comforted her.
Instead, it bothered her.
Hope closed the laptop.
“Show me.” Nothing happened.
She waited.
“System?” Still nothing.
She felt ridiculous.
She stood up and began pacing.
“Okay.
If you’re real, come back.” A translucent window appeared directly in front of her.
Hope stopped so abruptly that she nearly lost her balance.
[System active.]
She stared at it.
“You’re real.”
[Affirmative.]
“Good.” She swallowed.
“Or terrible.
I’m still deciding.” The window remained perfectly still.
Hope approached it cautiously.
“What are you?”
[System interface.]
“That’s not what I asked.”
[Clarification unavailable.]
Hope sighed.
“Of course.” She folded her arms.
“Can you tell me what happens in thirty days?”
[Global Event.]
“I know that.
What is the event?”
[Information unavailable.]
“Can I stop it?” There was a brief pause.
[Probability of preventing Global Event: 0.003%.]
Hope stared at the number.
“That’s encouraging.”
[Probability increases with successful preparation.]
That got her attention.
“How much?”
[Insufficient data.]
“So you don’t know.”
[Correct.]
Hope rubbed her forehead.
“Fine.
Let’s start with what you can tell me.” The interface changed.
A series of panels appeared.
[Host Status]
Name: Hope
Age: 18
Physical Condition: Excellent
Awakening Status: Dormant
Compatibility: Exceptional
Available Functions: Inventory / Status / System Store / Information
Hope’s eyes narrowed.
“Awakening status?” No response.
“What does that mean?”
[Future development dependent upon conditions.]
She made a mental note of it.
“System Store?” A new window opened.
Hope’s eyebrows rose.
There were hundreds of entries.
Most were ordinary things.
Water.
Food.
Clothing.
Tools.
Medical supplies.
Camping equipment.
Seeds.
Batteries.
Then she saw the prices.
1 System Credit.
She frowned.
“What are System Credits?”
[System currency.]
“How do I get them?”
[Available methods vary according to host progression.]
Hope stared at the interface.
“You aren’t going to make this easy, are you?”
[Correct.]
She laughed despite herself.
“Fine.” She selected the Inventory option.
The screen changed again.
[Inventory Capacity: 100 Slots]
Hope stared at it.
“One hundred?”
[Confirmed.]
“What can I put in it?”
[Non-living objects compatible with inventory parameters.]
“How much?”
[Stack limitations vary by item.]
“Weight?”
[No effect on host while stored.]
Hope blinked.
That was potentially enormous.
She walked over to her desk and picked up a water bottle.
“Can I put this in?” The bottle disappeared from her hand.
Hope froze.
A moment later, a small symbol appeared in the inventory window.
Water — 1
She stared at her empty hand.
“No way.” She selected the item.
The bottle appeared in her hand.
Hope nearly dropped it.
She put it back into inventory.
Then she grabbed a second bottle.
“Water.” It disappeared.
The inventory changed.
Water — 2
Hope looked at the two bottles listed under a single slot.
“Stacking.”
[Correct.]
“How high?”
[Current stack limit: 1,000 units.]
Hope slowly smiled.
She walked into her bathroom, grabbed a roll of toilet paper, and stored it.
Then another.
Then another.
The inventory showed:
Toilet Paper — 3
One slot.
Hope stood there for a moment.
Her mind began moving faster.
Food.
Medicine.
Batteries.
Fuel.
Tools.
Clothing.
Everything that could be stacked could potentially be stored in enormous quantities.
She went back downstairs.
Her thoughts were no longer centered entirely on the warning.
They were becoming practical.
If the System was real, then she had an advantage nobody else appeared to have.
She just needed to figure out how much of an advantage.
Hope grabbed a notebook from the kitchen counter.
She wrote three words across the first page.
THIRTY DAYS.
PREPARE.
Underneath that she wrote:
Food.
Water.
Medicine.
Shelter.
She stopped.
Then added:
Information.
That might be the most important one.
Hope sat at the kitchen table and began making a list.
She knew enough about emergency preparedness to understand the basics.
Food and water came first.
Then shelter, medical supplies, sanitation, power, communication, transportation, tools, and security.
But she couldn’t simply start buying everything.
Money was a limitation.
Space was a limitation or at least she thought it was.
This inventory may change that.
Time was a limitation.
The inventory solved one of those problems if she understood it properly.
She needed to solve the others.
Her phone buzzed.
Hope looked at the screen.
It was another message from her aunt.
Hope, we’re going out for dinner.
Everything okay at home?
Hope stared at the message.
Her first instinct was to tell her.
She typed:
Something strange happened today.
She stopped.
Deleted it.
Typed again.
Everything’s fine.
Hope you’re both having fun.
She sent it.
A reply came almost immediately.
Good.
Love you.
Don’t stay up too late.
Hope smiled.
“Love you too.” She put the phone down.
Then she looked toward the invisible system.
“I need to know something.” The interface appeared.
[Awaiting query.]
“Can I buy things through you?”
[System Store purchases are restricted to available System Credits.]
“No.
I mean normal things.
Can I use my own money?”
[Affirmative.]
“Can I store what I buy?”
[Affirmative.]
Hope sat back.
For the first time since the warning appeared, she felt something resembling excitement.
Not happiness.
Certainly not yet, but possibility.
Her parents had left her something when they died.
A financial trust established for her future.
She had never thought of it as particularly important.
It was money for university, perhaps a house someday, maybe a business if she decided to start one.
Her aunt had always told her it was there when she needed it, but that she shouldn’t waste it simply because she had access to it.
Hope opened the financial account on her phone.
The balance was substantial.
She stared at it, then at the notebook.
Thirty days.
She began calculating.
If the System’s warning was genuine, money might soon become worthless.
If it wasn’t genuine, she would have made the biggest mistake of her life.
Hope closed her eyes.
“What would Mom tell me to do?” She didn’t have an answer but she remembered something her father had once told her.
When you don’t know what to do, start with what you can control.
Hope opened her eyes.
She could control this, she could control what she bought.
Where she went and what she learned.
She could control how she trained and where she lived.
And, if the System was telling the truth, perhaps how many people survived what was coming.
Hope opened a new page in her notebook.
At the top she wrote:
THINGS I NEED BEFORE DAY 30
Then she began writing.
Food.
Water purification.
Medical equipment.
Generators.
Solar panels.
Batteries.
Tools.
Vehicles.
Fuel.
Seeds.
Construction materials.
Communication equipment.
Weapons.
She stopped at the last word.
Weapons.
Hope had never owned a firearm.
She knew how to use one from a few supervised range visits with her uncle, but that was different from actually owning one.
She added:
Learn.
Not just firearms, everything.
First aid.
Navigation.
Gardening.
Vehicle maintenance.
Construction.
Preservation.
Radio communication.
She needed to become more capable.
And if the System was real, she had another advantage.
Hope stood.
“Status.” The interface appeared.
[Host Status]
Physical Condition: Excellent
Strength: 12
Agility: 13
Endurance: 14
Recovery: 11
Perception: 10
Intelligence: 12
Awakening: Dormant
Hope stared at the numbers.
“What do these mean?”
[Host-relative attributes.]
“Can they increase?”
[Affirmative.]
“How?”
[Training.
Experience.
Adaptation.
Evolution.]
Hope looked down at herself.
She had spent years training because she liked being strong and healthy.
Now the System was telling her that all of it mattered.
She clenched her fist.
“Can I see my potential?”
The interface flickered.
For the first time, Hope noticed something different.
The words appeared slowly.
[Potential assessment incomplete.]
Then:
[Warning.]
Hope’s smile disappeared.
[Host potential exceeds current measurement parameters.]
She stared at the message.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” No answer came this time.
Then the interface disappeared.
Hope stood alone in the kitchen.
Outside, Riverton continued exactly as it had that morning.
Cars moved along the street.
The neighbors walked their dogs.
Lights came on in the houses.
Somewhere, people were making dinner.
Nobody knew what she had just learned.
Maybe the System was wrong.
Maybe thirty days from now nothing would happen.
Maybe she was preparing for a disaster that existed only inside her head.
Hope looked down at her notebook.
She had no way to prove the warning was real.
But she had one thing the rest of the world apparently didn’t have.
Time.
She had thirty days.
Hope picked up her phone.
The first thing she was going to do was find out exactly how much of her inheritance she could access.
The second was to find somewhere along the Blackwater she could live.
Someplace she would be safe from a biological event.
And the third – She looked toward the window.
The third was going to be learning everything she possibly could about the virus.
Because if the System was right, the world she knew had thirty days left.
And Hope intended to be ready when it ended.