Chapter 127: Chapter 127

Chapter One Hundred and Twelve - A Day Off

Just... kind of sat around, then when I started to feel this anxious ball in my gut, constricting and churning, I went out for a walk. I took Mister Couchtop with me, hugging him close. It was... not something I'd ever done before. He was a housecat, and I didn't want to get him used to being outdoors. Fortress ENE wasn't a good place for pets.

Still, I had to walk. Had to move. Had to get out of the house and stop brooding. And I couldn't do it alone.

The truth was that I had moved to Fortress ENE and had purposefully cut ties with a lot of people.

There were good reasons for it.

There were some real stupid reasons for it.

It was a bit of a mix, at the end of the day. One part of me knew that my family wasn't the healthiest. My aunt who lived in Fortress ENE... god, it had been a long time since I'd seen her, loops and all. Anyway, she was a bit of a mean woman, an overachiever, but she wasn't all bad.

The rest of my family... eh. There was this weird split. My mother's side had moved to the US from Europe not so long ago. They came here looking for the American dream or whatever. Settled in, got to work. They wanted a lot. My mom and her siblings were raised with that kind of work ethic.

Work hard, every day, all day, aim for the heavens. Nothing was more important than achieving greatness and passing it on.

My dad's side was a lot more laid back. Six generations living in the same small city along the east coast. The family was well off, but it was all generational wealth. A farmhouse here, a bit of land there, a hunting cabin and a chalet and a few places in the city. Like... things that had once not cost a massive amount, that one generation could buy and give to the next.

In terms of actual money, they weren't that well off, but they made due. It had been a big family, but the newer generations didn't have as many kids and so the wealth concentrated a bit.

My mom married my dad for that wealth and wasn't happy that he was okay with never being... big and important.

I think she poisoned my mind, a little. I grew up being told to be the best. To marry well, or whatever.

I had eyes on all the pretty girls at my school, not the sons of lawyers and doctors or whatever, and that created a rift.

Then I went all punk.

Real punk. Not... not the aesthetic I enjoyed now, but the actual rebellion against authority and all that shit. I drank, went to parties, skipped school, messed around. I never fucked around, but I put on airs, and that pissed off my dad and his side of the family.

Really, no winning there.

Eventually I wised up, a little. Not much, I don't think, but enough to get out of dodge and come here. To come and live in some shitty apartment, where I could make use of the convenient fact that I was a moderately fit E-ranker.

I hugged Mister Couchtop. He couldn't seem to decide between looking around and trying to free himself from my grip. "Mow!"

I was moping. Probably normal after seeing someone I cared--at least a little--about get her head ripped apart.

The raptor that got her had come in from the side. It gripped her around the neck and collar, and when she didn't stop it, the other had grabbed her arm and pulled.

The result was messy. Fran's head wasn't ripped off cleanly, but her neck was torn apart. Her eyes had been open.

I shuddered, and Mister Couchtop spun in my grip and looked up to me. "Meow?"

I licked my lips, then found a seat. I sat, immediately stood up, and continued to walk. I just... needed a bit of time.

I was not a smart woman. Damn, was I ever not a smart woman.

I could have done better. I should have pulled out as soon as I knew that it wasn't going to work. We had no ammo, she was injured, I was injured. Even now, I could feel the absence of pain in my gut.

Infinite tries and yet I was still impatient.

To some degree it made sense, right? I didn't want to spend ten years over the course of the next eight and a bit months. There was a real danger, I think, in becoming too casual with the looping. And I knew myself. Once the Breach was stopped, then it was very possible that I'd find some other crusade to work on, some other reason to fuck around and get stronger and do cool shit.

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I... needed progress. Like, real progress, in time, in reality. It was probably stupid or something, but it was keeping me sane.

I just had to do better, right? Or... some other trip bullshit like that.

Damn, maybe I did need therapy. But how would that even work when I couldn't expect to be able to talk to the same person twice unless I purposefully messed with my own looping?

I'd come to Fortress ENE, abandoning a lot of friends--most of whom I could do without, I realized--and making few to replace them. A few of the E-rankers at Luna Corp had been acquaintances, but I never hung out much after work.

Surprisingly, I was better off now, and worse off, because the people I'd met weren't people that I could properly share things with.

The entire time, with Fran, I'd avoided small talk. What was the point when I'd remember half the conversation and she wouldn't?

I somehow ended up by the waterfront. It was a good, long walk from home. Sitting down on the side of a long concrete pier, I let Mister Couchtop go, and he immediately darted off. "Don't get killed," I muttered after him, but he didn't go too far.

I watched some ships pull into the bay, pushed along by little remote-operated tugs.

It was nice, just watching the world spin by. Eventually I decided that enough was enough. Mister Couchtop returned to sit on my lap, and I was idly rubbing a hand along his back. It was soothing. "At least I've got you, yeah?" I asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah."

One of the first things I did was find a burner phone and punch in a familiar number. I... was going to bring Fran again. It wasn't fair to exclude her, and I needed the help. She'd been surprisingly competent in there too.

The line picked up, and a groggy-sounding Jane replied. "Who this?" she asked.

"Jane, it's... ah, Beanstalk." I was pretty sure she'd forgotten my actual name. "Hey, I need to put in an order for clothes. Just don't freak out about how specific it is."

"Alright?" she said, sounding a bit more awake. "What kind of order?"

"A big one. I need..." I paused for a moment, trying to recall everything, then I launched into it.

Jane made me stop three items in, then I could tell that she was cradling her phone against her shoulder because her voice came out a little muffled. "Go on."

I did, slowing down to the speed of Jane's scribble as she took notes. "And I think that's it for clothes," I said. Follow current novels on 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵✦𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✦𝙣𝙚𝙩

"Okay. So, how weird is it that you seem to know my inventory this well?"

"Very, but don't let it bother you," I said. "I need more stuff. Do you have grenades?"

"Christ, Beanstalk. Not over an unsecure line I don't."

That was a clear maybe.

"Fine. I'll need... a backpack as well. Something small for ammo. Actually, I'll need some ammo, and a decent gun. What would you suggest for something like jungle warfare?"

"Jungle? Like, concrete jungle?"

"No. More literal," I said.

Jane was quiet for a while. "I've got some little PDWs. Like a P69?"

"No, I need something with some real kick. I'll be fighting velociraptors. Magic velociraptors."

"Beanstalk, what the fuck?"

"Yeah, I know," I said.

"Fuckin'... I've got some older assault rifles sitting in the back. 7.62. Bit chunky, but it might do? I have some special ammo too, if you need to punch above even that."

"No, that'll do just fine with some normal rounds," I said. It would punch a lot harder than the pea-shooter rounds that Fran had, and a proper rifle would lend us a bit more accuracy.

It'd be clunky to carry around the city, but I didn't care overly much.

The next time Fran and I went into that portal, we'd be there to cull the local dino population in a big way.