JoshuaCole374

Chapter 54: Facing Facts

“That’s not fair, Lena,” I said.

“Lots of things aren’t.” But she stopped mid-stalk and sort of sagged on the sidewalk.

“I did a shit job keeping my promise.” I caught her up, touched her arm, and when she didn’t brush me off, turned her gently to face Erin and I. “If you’re pissed at me, fine. But all Erin did was try to get us past this.”

Lena bit her lip. She hesitated, then leaned around me and raised her voice. “Sorry, Erin. That was shit of me...

Chapter 53: Troubled Waters

The Iron between Lena and I flowed and dripped and twisted and curved until, after a moment, it came to rest as a sphere of shimmering metal.

“So cool,” Lena murmured.

I smirked. “I thought I was going to demonstrate the boring stuff.”

“Me too,” she said, “but then you finally did something that looks like it could be done with Fire.”

I laughed. It almost made me drop the sphere, which would, I suspected, really suck. When I shattered my Glass ...

Chapter 52: Waterworks

The basketball hit the grass with a dull whump, far short of the tree I was aiming for.

Lena said, “Nice shot?”

Normally, I would have expected her to have meant it sarcastically, but with her sports knowledge, or lack thereof, I couldn’t be sure.

I’m not saying I was going to drain a clutch three if left to my own devices. Or a clutch free throw. Or literally any action requiring accuracy with a ball of any kind. I hadn’t so much as tried to play since high school...

Chapter 51: Albie Watching

Lena and I sat on comfortable metal chairs, picking at ham and chicken sandwiches that we could, technically, afford.

Erin had suggested we meet at the Lil Coffea Shop on Downing, a couple blocks between the park and her dorm. When I searched it to make sure she hadn’t typoed, a glance at the prices made me wince. An hour ago I would’ve found some excuse to delay. The payment for my web work had been deposited in my PayPal in the morning, but I wouldn’t have chosen to spend it try...

Chapter 50: Ripples

NugsFan15: I can’t be certain yet, but from the number of reports we’re seeing, I suspect the percentage of players dropped each day is based on the initial backer totals, not the current players, or even the number who signed in when the beta started.

ShakeProtocol: So if the beta lasts for one hundred days, we’re all out.

NugsFan15: It’s just a guess. The numbers wouldn’t be that different so far, and it isn’t as tho...

Chapter 49: Costs

If the impossible objects on Sycamore meant anything, none of the three of us figured out what. We took our pictures and mourned our inability to get to the house’s fake second floor. I grabbed the flagpole – one Iron for the pole, one Plastic for the flag –, we rock-paper-scissored for the wall – Lena won, ten Stone –, and we walked to the light rail station.

On the ride to Englewood Downtown, Lena and I shared our images of Albie and Marroll. I let Lena explain why we wanted...

Chapter 48: A Little Knowledge

I watched Erin’s hands, because I trusted them more than her face or voice, but she didn’t give anything away.

Maybe I was wrong. Believe it or not, it happens. Erin’s reaction might have just been delayed because she wasn’t used to how Miguel liked to end his proclamations with a leading question.

I didn’t think so.

Erin had at least two Reactants. If I stood there and said Third Eye felt real to me in the moments I got Air and Water, if we were in a position wher...

Chapter 47: Video Review

My words hung in the air.

You couldn’t get in a Third Eye fight in the middle of a commercial district. I mean, you could, but you’d look like a lunatic. If you got too into it, you might even get booked for disturbing the peace.

On a side street, though? On this block of Sycamore, at this moment, we were the only people on the sidewalk. If we wanted to throw down in an AR game, no one would be around to object. They’d all be at work or school or the store or in their rooms,...

Chapter 46: Signs and Posts

I didn’t shout when I saw the Discord message; kinda rude to distract a driver. But I wanted to.

I went to nudge Lena’s arm. When I saw her grinning at her phone, I knew she’d seen the same thing I had.

Our video was ready!

LikeItsNinetyNine had done a final pass on the editing and posted the .mp4 file.

LikeItsNinetyNine: Voila!

Salamancer: Blatant cultural appropriation. For shame.

LikeItsNinetyNine:...

Chapter 45: Check Out

Donica headed off to whatever part-time job took up her hours between disapproving of us; something to do with Erin’s dad, apparently. She left us with a shake of her head and eye-laser glares at Lena and Miguel. I’m not sure why I didn’t earn an optic blast. Apparently our online interactions had gotten me labeled “mostly harmless.”

As soon as she left, Lena perked up. “I almost forgot.”

I knew what she meant immediately, and so did Miguel. He groaned.

Lena pu...

Chapter 44: Visiting Hours

All four of us stared at Erin, even the woman who’d brought her. Her chauffeur? Only for the day, she’d said.

Can you blame us? There was something so incongruous about this gawky college student in her oversized glasses and black jeans and DU hoodie offering up formal apologies with a bow that would make a samurai jealous.

Miguel recovered first, which was pretty bad when you consider that he was the only one of us nursing a concussion. “I’m sure that such a charming youn...

Chapter 43: Delirium

I’ve always hated hospitals.

Maybe it was because I’d never gotten sick enough to need one long term, so my clearest impression of them came from visiting grandparents in the weeks and months before they died.

Or maybe it was because if I ever did need to sample the hospitality of Swedish Medical Center, I’d have to declare bankruptcy afterwards. Every time I saw a doctor or nurse go by with a piece of paper that looked like it could be a bill, it made me flinch.

Nobod...

Chapter 42: Making A Splash

The roar of water built and built. I fumbled with my phone, trying to mute it, but in the darkness I couldn’t find the button. The concrete shook around us. How was it so loud?

Three phone lights cut lines of visibility into the darkness, but I couldn’t see any water in the drainage ditch.

And then –

I did.

In the ditch and surging out of it and splashing across the floor of the tunnel, ankle-high, knee-high, waist-high, chest-high, and rising, foaming w...

Chapter 41: Sewer Level

“If I didn’t see it every time we walked past here,” I said, “I’d think this bank was a Third Eye thing.”

It looked like a white nautilus shell tipped on its side, entirely out of place in a sea of normal box-shaped buildings. The bank itself lived in the glassed-in area beneath the shell. During the day it was a cool, if kind of run-down, landmark. At night, with the cold, thin air fighting my parka for dominance and the streetlights creating pools of visibility, it loomed ...

Chapter 40: We Need To Go Deeper

I don’t know about you, but I loved Inception when it came out. Brain teaser story, stylish direction, great cast.

But after a decade it had boiled down to just this meme for me. One to three panels, vertically aligned. DiCaprio, tan background, seated opposite Murphy, blue background. And that line. Did they ever actually say that specific line in the movie?

Lena and I had sure as hell said it to each other, and to other people, as part of ever more tortured puns and shaggy-dog...

Chapter 39: Altered Reality

Trees, as far as the satellite camera’s eye could see.

If you tried to return an amulet here, first of all, Canada Post wouldn’t deliver it, and second, if they did it would be littering. Even when Miguel panned the screen up and down, we didn’t see anything but more trees and outlines that might have been hills beneath them.

“Zoom out some,” I said.

He spread his fingers and a new feature appeared on the northwest end of the map, a horseshoe-shaped body of water.<...

Chapter 38: Wizardry

I pointed to the device connected to Lena’s phone. With all the weird equipment strewn across it, our kitchen counter looked like something out of a heist movie. “What’s the app doing while the phone filter’s on?”

Miguel’s hand drifted toward the phone. I knew the feeling, but seriously, man. After all that business and pleasure shit? I held the phone down until Lena took it from him.

“I’ll put it in selfie mode,” she said, “since you guys can’t keep your eye...

Chapter 37: Security Check

Miguel popped his trunk. He reached in and handed me an object. “Help me with this, yeah?”

I turned the thing over. It looked a little like a router or an old radio. “What is it?”

“Equipment.” He grabbed two more pieces, handed me one, tucked the other under his arm, and grabbed his laptop.

He started to maneuver his elbow to shut his trunk, using the arm that held his laptop. The sight of the trunk lid’s edge so close to an expensive computer made me shudder, ...

Chapter 36: Rideshare

With yet another worry added to the pile, I itched to catch the next bus back to the apartment.

Instead, the three of us caught a whiff from the garage, exchanged glances, and piled back in for dinner.

Yvonne and Big Charlie had made tacos. Little wedges of heaven. Cheesy, a little greasy, only as spicy as Lena and I liked them. It almost brought tears to my eyes. We’d fucked up game night and our friends made mild tacos to cheer us up.

Of course, we couldn’t bail on the...

Chapter 35: Games We Play

I thrust my hand forward. Air and Water curled together and rippled before me, moving, changing – cutting. It didn’t matter how big the monster was, how tough its hide. An attack like that was how industrial diamonds were shaped.

It wasn’t sufficient to say that I’d already won; the only question had ever been my willingness to use such power against another living thing.

“You already used Maelstrom Cut,” Miguel said.

I blinked at my cards. I had, in fact, turned...

Chapter 34: Run It Back

Lena leaned forward. “You back in the land of the living?”

I think I laughed and I think it sounded a little hysterical, because she scrunched her face up in response. “Never felt better.”

I wanted to tell Lena what the Potion had done, but not here in front of Albie. We couldn’t exactly speculate about her situation without being rude. We could ask, but the prospect of grilling an actual child for info made my skin crawl.

Lena cocked her head, then shrugg...

Chapter 33: Your Strongest Potion

Albie held up a Potion.

I didn’t know that was what it was, but I knew that’s what it was. You know?

Third Eye’s cash shop really was a blessing. Until it opened, anyway, and destroyed whatever excuse for balance the game had. I’d have to go through it and really study all the things we didn’t have access to yet. Maps? Would those help us find Materials? Grimoires? Those were books of spells in most games; could they change how we used our Reactants?

But that was t...

Chapter 32: A Completely Different Level

I know what you’re thinking: “He’s beginning to believe.”

No?

I know it’s before our time, people, but this isn’t exactly an obscure reference. Lena definitely would’ve thought it. Or if she didn’t, it would be because it was too obvious.

I mean, if she wasn’t thinking I was an idiot who’d just decided to humiliate himself even worse than he already had by losing a game of catch with a little girl.

There was a tiny chance that wasn’t what I was do...

Chapter 31: Child’s Play

At first, I didn’t understand what Albie had said. I mean, I got it, the words fit together, but they made no sense in the context of this little girl.

Slowly, I raised my phone and looked through the camera.

Through Third Eye’s filter, Albie’s sweats became poofy burgundy pants, a burgundy cloak with its hood pulled back, a teal tunic piped in red. Her gloves and boots were red-brown leather.

Oddly, Albie herself looked unchanged. Her wraparound glasses vanished, so I...

Chapter 30: Walk In The Park

In fact, Lena pulled her punch so early, no amount of shaky-cam could have hidden it from a disgusted stunt coordinator.

I still flinched away.

You know. For the sake of the video.

Lena danced back. “Don’t worry, folks. I wouldn’t really damage the face of my lovely assistant. Even if he did take seven whole HP from me.”

I took a moment to compose my voice. An editor could cut it. Should they? “Ashbird and I are teammates. We know we aren’t going to hurt ea...

Chapter 29: Demonstration

“As you wish.” I bowed to Lena, my arms out to my sides. I swept my free hand around and almost into a fist, keeping the Wood “selected” by Third Eye.

I wanted this to create a little cyclone, spin the Wood around me, but it didn’t quite nail the effect. It swept to my left, spinning hard, but stayed over there instead of whipping around to my other side. When I straightened up, I had to cup and curl my hand to pull the Wood back into the camera frame.

Lena clapped for m...

Chapter 28: Public Service Announcement

“Heya, Third Eye community! It’s ya girl, Ashbird, and today me and my lovely assistant are gonna give you a demonstration of the Reactions window.” Lena struck a pose with a victory or peace sign.

She held it until I started laughing.

She flopped onto a park bench and fanned herself with her phone. “My genius goes unappreciated in my lifetime.”

The trio of bobbleheads she’d positioned on the bench gave sad nods.

“No, it’s great,” I said. “You’ll ...

Chapter 27: Part of the Solution

I rolled my chair back and flexed my fingers.

Did I deserve that line from DeepingShadows? Probably.

It didn’t promise a very fun conversation, though.

Maybe if I hadn’t been reminded of her this morning, I wouldn’t have recognized the words she chose, and why. It’s not like she used the quote function to dredge up my comment.

Lena sucked in a breath and said, “Ohh, shit.”

So maybe I would’ve remembered, too.

OldCampaigner: Lo...

Chapter 26: Administrative Issues

I looked up at Lena. Her eyes were tight at the corners, her lips were pursed, and she clenched her phone in a death grip. I knew exactly how she felt.

She tilted her phone toward me. She smiled and then her smile thinned.

She was looking at me through Third Eye.

I didn’t dare look at her that way, not if I wanted to drag myself back to our Discord conversation.

Cancellation!

Third Eye Productions seemed to have unlimited resources. But this was 2023. “Unlimi...

Chapter 25: A Care In The World

I opened the apartment door. I’d gone into such a deep sulk I almost forgot to pick a very specific tone in which to call out, “I’m home.”

“Welcome home.” Lena grinned as we completed the exchange we’d picked up from dozens of anime translations.

I wanted to return her smile. We didn’t get to do that back and forth often. Before Third Eye we’d rarely gone out, and since, we’d gone out as a team.

Were we still? A team?

After our exchange of texts, I�...