“Meet her?” asked Priya. “We see Pointy Turtle almost every time we see Cassie. What…?”

Priya trailed off as I turned, having extracted Pointy from the wagon. The turtle looked the same as ever in many ways. She had the same furry plush exterior. The same unremovable gray mystery stain on her back leg. But now, she was moving on her own. Her features were animated, and she was supporting herself on legs that had previously been ridiculously floppy, only good for snuggling.

“Cassie assigned her starting ability before I could stop her. From what she told us, she wanted to be able to talk with Pointy, and I guess the game interpreted that as turning her stuffy into an AI.”

“Technically speaking, the name of the ability that created me was ‘Information Assistant,’” Pointy offered.

Darryl actually burst out laughing at the squeaky voice. “Get out… your little girl turned her plushie real? Childhood dreams right there.”

George had finally made it to the bottom of the stairs. “You said Information Assistant? Do you actually have some answers about all this, then?”

I waggled my hand. “Kind of. Less than you’d hope, but way more than we’d have had otherwise.”

It took a little time to give them the rundown on everything, since we also had to explain how Pointy knew what she knew, and why she couldn’t tell us more just yet. Eventually, however, we’d shared what we knew: the fact that houses wouldn’t be safe for much longer, the probable upcoming trial, and the points needed to reach the first experience threshold.

Darryl had known about the first threshold. He’d accumulated over 300 points, but hadn’t reached a second threshold yet. Disappointing - with the first threshold at 144 points, I was hoping that 288 might be the next one. Darryl seemed worried when he heard homes wouldn’t stay safe, and the news about the upcoming trial really upset him. He grilled Pointy, asking question after question, as if hoping to catch her in a lie. When he started repeating himself, Pointy called him out on it.

“I have already provided that data. I will no longer respond to your repeat queries.”

Pointy’s rude, pretentious tone didn’t even seem to register with Darryl. He just stared at her, fingers worrying at each other.

“What if… no. So… is it..?”

Darryl cut himself off, seemingly out of new things to ask. He thumped a fist into the floor. “Damn it!”

He seemed to notice us staring and slumped, pushing a hand through his dreadlocks. “I really screwed things up for my grandma.”

He looked so heartsick that I immediately wanted to argue with him, to tell him I was sure he hadn’t. But I’d never been a fan of empty platitudes. “What happened?”

“I got an internship this summer with a company in town. Got offered a couple, actually, but my dad asked me to take this one so I could stay with Nana Helen. My grandpa passed a few years ago, and Nana retired from her job at City Planning last year, so she’s been spending a lot of time alone. My dad and my aunts have been worried about her, but she doesn’t want people fussing over her and yells at them if they check in too much. Dad said she’d let me stay since she’d be doing me a favor too, letting me save housing money and all.

“Past couple of days have been crazy, but…” he paused, taking in the now-useless game systems piled under the Turners’ TV. “Y’all play games, too, right? Maybe you’ll know what I mean. I just felt like, maybe this was some kinda destiny or something. Like I’d been fated to be here to save my grandma, be her hero or something. So I told her she should take the healing ability. I figured I’d go out and fight monsters and get points and stuff, and then if I got hurt, I’d come back and she’d heal me. I thought that way, I could get real strong and protect both of us. But now… now you’re saying it can’t work that way.”

Darryl’s voice rose with those last words, getting thin and strained.

“She trusted me, and I stole her ability to make myself stronger. She could have helped herself, but now all she can do is make herself tired to fix me up! And she will, too, if I get hurt. She already slept 16 hours straight last night after fixing up my leg. I could try telling her ‘Nana, don’t heal me,’ but she’s not gonna listen!”

I put a hand on his back. I thought about telling him that she probably wouldn’t see it that way, that she might have made the same choice even if they’d both known all the information. But kids don’t want to hear that their parents, or grandparents, would die for them. They want us to live for them.

“Hey, hey… You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known. That was a good plan. You just didn’t have all the info. That’s not your fault. And it might still work! Pointy did say she saw multiple people in the trials together.”

“But she doesn’t know how to make that happen. There’s no guarantee,” Darryl said.

“Correct,” said Pointy. Her voice was smug, almost patronizing. I wondered if all the AIs the system provided were sort of assholes, or if we’d just gotten lucky.

Darryl stood up. “Look, thanks for all the info, but I gotta get home. Nana Helen’s probably worrying about me. I didn’t stay out this long last time.”

“Okay, but don’t rush. Better to get there late and safe than early and hurt, yeah? Be careful.”

“Yeah.”

I pulled the rest of my stack of notes out of my pocket and pressed them on him. “If you can find ways to get these to people, it might save lives. We have to find a better way to share information. I’m sure other people know things we don’t, too.”

Darryl frowned at them. “No promises, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I’ll see you out,” said Priya. “It was good to meet you. If there is anything we can do to help you or your grandmother, let us know.”

Her voice faded as she led him toward the front door and I turned to frown at George, who was still sitting on the floor. “Alright, you were slow down the stairs, and you didn’t even get up to say goodbye. That’s not like you. What gives?”

He lifted the edge of his shirt to reveal a nasty scab twisting along his stomach. “Trying not to tear this open.”

“That’s like six inches long!”

“It’s looking a lot better, actually.”

“What happened?”

“He was a hero, that’s what happened!” Priya had returned.

“It wasn’t like that…”

When the announcement went out, their oldest, Anju, had been out in the yard, reading in the top of the Turners’ tree fort. When a leafenrat attacked, she’d been able to slam the door and hold it shut, but she’d been trapped. Priya had kept the younger two inside, while George grabbed a fireplace iron and had run out to rescue his daughter. When he’d gotten close, he’d been surprised by how far and fast the leafenrats could leap, and he’d taken a massive slash to his gut. He’d been able to finish off the monster afterward, but the injury hadn’t been easy to deal with.

“It ended up taking both of our ability choices from us,” George said. “Priya didn’t dare just heal the wound. She said it looked like a mess, and we were worried my intestine had been opened. I didn’t know how to clean it right, so I ended up taking an ability called Cleanse.”

“And then,” Priya cut in, “He did his best to clean it out and ended up losing consciousness. I couldn’t wake him up and I couldn’t wait, so I had to try to heal it! By the time it stopped bleeding, I was dead tired. So, I locked the doors, told the kids to stay in the house, and took a nap on the floor. A nap! Can you believe it? Monsters in the garden, my husband maybe dying, and I go to sleep!”

“I can believe it,” I said. “I had Gavin take a healing ability, and the first time he used it he collapsed in my arms. Scared the hell out of me. These abilities are… amazing. But they’re not effortless. Have your kids picked theirs?”

Priya snorted. “Yes. Well, Anju and Samar did. They saw their dad get hurt and decided they were going to be superheroes.” She pointed at a burn mark on their drywall. “When we woke up we found out that Samar had taken Fire Bolt.”

I stared at the foot-wide charred circle.

“You’re lucky the house was still standing.”

“I know!”

“And Anju?”

“Flight. Supposedly.”

“I saw Flight in the system when I got to choose my second ability,” I said, cautiously. “It was marked as ‘Not Recommended.’ Something about not having support?”

George nodded thoughtfully, calmer than Priya about this. “That would explain a lot. Currently, it’s more of a big jump. We had her actually try to fly last night. She landed after about three seconds, then fell right to sleep.”

“And Arvan?”

They both laughed, a bit hysterically. “Who knows?” said Priya. “He’s two-and-a-half. The first time I asked him, he told me ‘It soft.’ I asked him again later and I got a ‘Maybe... farts!’ out of him. I don’t think he knew what I was asking.”

“I asked If he’d taken an ability, too,” said George. “He told me no, for whatever it’s worth, but then he just made fish faces.”

“If you’re willing, and we can convince him to agree to it, he can probably share his interface with Pointy. We did that, and she can look at our points and money and stuff. I’d bet she can look at his ability too, if he has one.”

“I can.”

“That would be great,” said Priya.

I looked around. Their living room looked much as it did last time I’d seen it, except that all the lights were off. “How are you guys doing, aside from the crazy stuff? Do you have enough food? Water?”

George and Priya looked at each other, then glanced up in near-unison toward the playroom, where we could hear the kids laughing. Seeing no one on the stairs, George sighed and responded in a low voice. “We’re not in an emergency yet, but it’s not great. By the time we woke up, the water pressure was already really weak. We turned on every tap in the house, but it just wasn’t flowing that quickly. We’ve got an 80-gallon hot water heater, and that tank is full, but other than that, we’ve got maybe… twenty more gallons?” He turned to Priya, uncertain.

“About that much,” she confirmed. “A bit more because of the sports drinks and soda in the garage.”

“So, enough for a few weeks,” I said. “And food?”

Priya shook her head. “We’re not doing as well there. The stuff in the fridge is mostly bad already, and the stuff in the freezer is thawing. After we finish that I figure… maybe ten days of food? And that’s mostly rice. How are you doing?”

“I’ve got lots and lots of water. We filled about eight storage bins and our bathtubs too. I have plenty for us and plenty to share, so don’t worry about that for now. Food…” I sighed. “Our chest freezer is full of food, but I’m not sure how long it will stay frozen. Other than that, I’m probably in the same situation as you.”

“Oh!” said Priya. “That reminds me, we should cook dinner.”

I shifted, uncomfortable. “You don’t have to feed us. I brought a box of granola bars. I came to share information, not take your food.”

“I’ll start the fire, Priya,” said George. “And Meghan, didn’t you just hear us saying the stuff in the freezer won’t last? For now, we’ve got plenty of food, and we’d never let you and your kids go hungry, anyway.”

The Turners were lucky enough to have one of the few real fireplaces I’d seen in the south. George even had a somewhat-working lighter, so we didn’t have to interrupt Micah or Samar’s play. The lighter didn’t seem to be catching correctly, but it did throw sparks. Probably whatever had been done to affect “combustible materials” had affected lighter fluid as well. We caught a spark on a piece of paper, and from there we were able to nurse the logs alight without too much trouble.

The Turners had a camp cooker, one of those little cast-iron-clamshell-on-sticks things used to make grilled cheese over a fire. Priya cut some half-thawed frozen chicken into strips, seasoned it, and put it inside with strips of onion.

It wasn’t the best cooking method ever. The metal clamshell meant we had to take it out and check it periodically to see if it was done. Since we didn’t want to risk undercooking it, a lot came out dry and overdone, or even burnt.

The smell was wonderful, though, and soon drew the kids downstairs. We had to cook small amounts at a time. That could have been an irritant, but it ended up making it a fun process as the kids goofed off and anticipated each serving of finished food. Micah’s help with the fire wasn’t really needed, but he did use his Conjure Flame ability in the downtime, making the fire shape itself into faces that smiled and waved.

Samar was jealous. “I’m not allowed to do my fire ability in the house.”

“No, because you scorched the wall!”

“I won’t do that again…”

Minor arguments and issues aside, dinner was wonderful. It felt so good to relax for a couple hours in safety, among friends.