JoshuaCole374
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Chapter 34: Run It Back
🕑 Added 2023-10-03 19:00:02 +0000 UTCLena 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 shrugged. To Albie, she said, “Thanks for bailing us out.”
“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely. I’m starting to think I didn’t realize just how much you wanted to help.”
“Mm.” Albie concentrated on scratching Marroll. “That’s the Potion I had.”
“The next time I see you,” I said, “you better have an even better one.”
She hugged her dog. Which, understandable, but considering her energy seemed to have dropped to around minus five, it made me think I’d whiffed my attempt at a joke.
I could tell Lena picked up on it, too, because she clapped once. Albie and Marroll looked at her. So did I.
“A’ight,” she said. “If Cam’s in working order again, he’s gotta get back to work. Lovely assistants can’t get by just on looking good, yeah?”
Albie covered her mouth, but a giggle escaped anyway. Energy levels still low, but back in the positives. “You’re gonna finish your video?”
“Honestly,” I said, “I think we should reshoot the whole thing.”
Her eyes widened. She gave Marroll a little shake. Energy continuing to rise.
“You got your MP back, too?” Lena asked.
“Yeah. And after everything I learned with Albie –” I remembered Lena saying “with” instead of “from,” and that getting a pop. It drew another big smile now, from both of them. “– it’s going to be so much cooler.”
Lena rubbed her hands. “Heck yeah. You ready to watch a masterpiece in the making, kiddo?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Let me get this Glass scooped up first.” I flicked to Reactions and manifested Iron.
Down to 9,998 MP. So I didn’t have to pay a percentage. Good. Absurd, but good. Either option would have been absurd, really. Either the costs would be proportional and having more MP wouldn’t mean much. Nope. Or, drinking Albie’s potion would leave me with enough to use up my entire stockpile of Materials a hundred times over. Yup.
Safe to say I would not be counting MP for a while.
Actually, I would. At least for a day. In most games, overhealing meant you used up your new total and couldn’t recover any until it fell below your normal maximum. Third Eye’s game design was all over the map, though. If there was even the slimmest chance I could recover 10 MP a day up to 9,999, I’d try to stay within that limit.
Which would, I realized, be the same as having ten.
The thought made me chuckle.
“It’s a good thing Albie didn’t drink that,” Lena said.
I looked up from the broken Glass and my internal monologue. “Hm?”
“The Potion must’ve been spiked.” She tapped me on the chest. “You’re a happy drunk.”
Albie asked, “Is spiked bad?”
Lena waved her hand, flat in the air. She’d have kept a Third Eye object selected for sure. “Depends on what you’re after. Bad for kids, anyway.”
I snorted. “I’m not drunk, Lena. I just thought of something funny.”
I did feel a buzz, but it reminded me more of coffee than beer. Well. Maybe a bit of both. It had to be a placebo effect; I’d convinced myself a Potion should feel like this.
Lena arched her eyebrows. “Uh-huh.”
“I’ll prove it,” I said.
“You’ll walk in a straight line?”
“Something like that.” I glanced at my phone, then focused on my sheet of Iron.
Lena understood and raised her phone as well. She almost missed the show.
It took me only two finger-flicks to scoop the remaining Glass onto the Plastic sheet. My motion generated so little wind it didn’t disturb the edge of the Plastic.
“Dang,” Lena said.
I tried to create an updraft by cupping my hand, but it lifted my Iron too far off the ground. What I wanted to do required both hands. “Can you lift the Plastic for me real quick?”
“Sure.” She knelt and got one corner. Unprompted, Albie lifted the other.
Lena said, “You can just watch, kiddo.”
Albie shook her head. “I wanna help clean up.”
“Yeesh,” Lena said. “You’re too good for this world.”
Albie lowered her eyes.
With them holding the Plastic, I slid my Iron underneath and scooped.
“Here.” Albie tapped the air, operating her Third Eye app, and conjured Iron of her own. She must’ve used Earth with it, because a few passes of her fingers shaped it into a sort of bowl. I dumped the Glass in; Albie reshaped her object into a sphere, then compacted it to bowling-ball size.
“Thanks,” I said. So easy! I knew my improvement with Air helped. So did Albie’s expertise. I had no doubt she could’ve cleaned up my mess on her own.
Not as fast as we had together, though. Two Third Eye players working in concert felt more like multiplication than addition.
I’d have loved to get Albie’s help for the video and I figured she’d love to participate. That ran up against actual child labor questions, though, and we probably wouldn’t see her again for the next shoot.
What I really wanted was to find Lena a Reactant.
For the moment, I gave two thumbs up. “Great work, everybody. Now where were we?”
“Video!” Albie said.
“Ah, that’s right. Somebody wanted to be the live studio audience for the coolest video ever.”
“Philosophically,” Lena said, “can it still be?”
Albie and I both looked at her.
She smiled at Albie. “It’s definitely a sponsored video now.”
Albie gave a frantic shake of her head.
“It’s more like Albie’s a patron of the channel,” I said. “All the best have those.”
“Our number one fan.” I watched the instant it went from a joke to the truth in Lena’s mind. Pure joy.
“Yeah!” Albie clapped. “Marroll, up. Heel.”
She backed up to the bench. Marroll trailed behind until she told him to lay down at her feet. His back came up so high she barely had to lean forward to stroke him. Of course, she perched on the lip of the bench anyway.
“Ready?” I asked Lena.
She shook her reverie away and nodded.
She launched into her intro again. Honestly, I suspected we’d end up using the previous take. Lena seemed too subdued now to pull off her streamer persona. Too content.
We repeated the demonstration of Wood. I tucked my phone into the pocket of my hoodie in between shots from my perspective, allowing me to pull off two-handed moves. I couldn’t see how it looked, but from the grins on Lena and Albie’s faces, I didn’t have to.
The interruption came right after I called for Albie and Marroll to vacate the bench so we could do the bobblehead skit again.
The joggers I’d seen in the distance had made a circuit of the park. They slowed as they came up on our set. One frowned at us, the other kept looking at her phone.
I lowered my Wood and called out, “Morning.”
“Hi,” the first said. “What are you guys doing?”
“Shooting a video. Don’t worry. We’ll let you get past.”
The word “video” made the second jogger flick a glance up. “Oh, are you influencers or something?”
“You don’t follow us?” Lena cupped her chin. “Huh.”
I chuckled. “We’re not. This is just a YouTube tutorial for a game we play.”
“Oh.” The jogger returned her attention to her phone, which I considered a win.
“That’s cool,” her friend said. “You were playing it with your daughter?”
“I’m not old enough to be Albie’s mom!” Lena snapped. “Oh God. Am I?”
Albie tugged on her hand. “Nuh-uh.”
The first jogger’s frown deepened. “She’s not yours?”
I forced myself to keep smiling and hoped the effort didn’t show. “We’re just watching her for a while.”
I almost went with “babysitting,” but I thought there was at least a twenty percent chance Albie would object to being called a baby. I didn’t want to give her any reason to appear to argue with us in front of the joggers.
It wasn’t like I’d blame them if they worried. A couple of twentysomethings hanging out with an unrelated kid? Weird vibe. Weird vibe.
How to make it seem less so?
My smile widened.
“Actually,” I said, “if you’ve got a minute, could you help us out?”
She looked at Albie, then back to me. “I guess?”
“While Lena and I are filming, can you send me a quick clip of me playing the game? Without the AR filter, I probably look ridiculous, but hey, not gonna be the first time, is it? We could cut the video to show the contrast with and without the filter.” I held my phone out. “It’s probably not worth anything, but we’ll credit you for the footage.”
I couldn’t imagine a kidnapper would ask a random person to film him.
Apparently, the jogger couldn’t, either. She thought about it for a second, then the tension left her shoulders. “Sure. I’ll send you my deets. I’m Zhizhi.”
“Cam.” We swapped numbers. “Awesome.”
“What’s the game?” she asked. “My sister’s always trying to get her kid to play outside.”
“Third Eye. It’s in closed beta, though. I don’t think you can get in if you weren’t a backer.”
“Bummer. Well, I’ll keep an ‘eye’ out for it.” She laughed.
Vibes officially normalized. I gave her a thumbs up. “You good to go, Lena?”
Lena did not look it, unless it was to go throttle someone. Me? Why?
She took a deep breath, glanced at Albie, sucked in another breath, and found a smile before she said, “Sure.”
By the end of the Stone demonstration, she seemed to have gotten over whatever had pissed her off. Or at least suppressed it to spring on me later. Albie watched, rapt. Even Zhizhi seemed to enjoy the sight of me making a fool of myself. I assume her friend enjoyed whatever she was playing or browsing, since she didn’t look up once.
The joggers stuck around through Iron and Glass. Probably taking any excuse to stop jogging. I certainly would’ve. Finally, the friend elbowed Zhizhi’s arm and pointed to her phone’s clock. They said something to Albie and rose. Zhizhi thanked us for the show and promised to send her footage. I hope I thanked her back before she left; I was too focused on conjuring Plastic.
I finished the demonstration and checked through my phone, first so I could carefully drape my Plastic atop the pile of objects, then to film Lena for the outro.
“And that’s Air,” she declared. “It’s pretty cool, I guess. I mean, it’s no Fire.”
“Ashbird might be right,” I said. “So you’d better subscribe, hit that Like button, and ring that bell so you don’t miss our next Third Eye demonstration.”
“Don’t forget to tell us in the comments what your favorite Material was. Maybe we’ll focus a little more on that one next time!” She flashed her V pose again. Her wings spread to mirror it.
Whatever had bothered her before, she’d clearly put it out of her mind. The video shoot left her flushed and grinning.
I ran over. She grabbed my hand.
“We’ve got to get more Reactants,” I said. “We’ve got to get you Reactants.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “That was a blast.”
“Next time you can demonstrate. That makes you the lovely assistant.”
She shook her head. “Nope. Consistent branding.”
“I can’t argue with consistent branding.” I smiled down at her; she, up at me.
When was the last time we’d collaborated like this? Not just played the same game on the same side, but really worked together, really clicked? Long enough ago I couldn’t remember offhand. Too long.
Albie whispered, “Thank you.”
We blinked. We looked down at her.
She and Marroll had joined us on the grass. Cute little girl, cute big dog. In the background, Zhizhi and her friend had reached the edge of the park and were about to jog into the neighborhood. Right. Public park.
Lena scratched her neck. “You’re welcome, kiddo.”
“And thank you, Albie.” I held my hand out and Albie rested her head against it. I tousled her hair. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”
She beamed, and I even forgave her for the interruption.
Doubly so when she lowered her eyes and her energy. She mumbled, “Gotta go now.”
“Oh,” Lena said. “We didn’t keep you too late, did we?”
Albie shook her head.
“Good.” Lena crouched to meet Albie’s eyes. “You take care of yourself, yeah?”
“Mmhm.”
“And,” Lena added, “don’t forget to comment. You know we’ll reply to our number one fan!”
“Mmhm!” A smile exploded back onto Albie’s face. She hooked my arm in the crook of hers and dragged Lena and I both into a hug. I felt Marroll press against my side and scratched his back.
A car horn spoiled the moment.
Albie dragged herself away. “Marroll, come.”
She ran down the hill, waving back at us, her dog at her heels, and skidded to a stop beside a black Escalade with a Lyft logo on its window. Who did rideshare in an SUV that cost more than most condos? Albie’s driver, apparently.
The door opened automatically. I couldn’t hear what Albie and the driver said to each other, but Marroll hopped inside and she climbed in after him.
“Bye, Albie!” Lena shouted. She waved and I joined her.
Albie looked back at us. She raised her hand to wave. I met her eyes. I hoped she’d look happy. I worried she’d look sad.
She was too far away, the Escalade’s door slid shut too fast, and its windows were too tinted. I couldn’t be sure.
But for just a second, I’d have sworn Albie looked scared.
