The titles were far from my favorite thing, but I had to start somewhere. I pulled up the title menu—the way everything was spaced gave the impression there was space for dozens of titles, though I still only had two. Jaded Eye was currently set as primary. That’s right. I’d mouthed off to the system and accidentally equipped the title before everything hit the fan.

I read the description again:

It still felt like such an obvious swipe at me. “Trite yet tragic,” was a hell of a way to describe someone’s personal apocalypse. But the resulting effects were what I was interested in. Adept at identifying traps and avoiding ambushes.

Okay, in for a penny, in for a pound. If there was anything to this, there were two events where the title could have potentially helped me. When I nearly opened the door and realized they would have men posted outside, it was like my mind had done a backflip to get me to stop. Considering the level of panic I was experiencing, having just indirectly witnessed a killing, I’m not sure I would have stopped without something influencing the decision.

But the cameras were far more compelling. As far as I knew, I had no idea how CCTV surveillance worked. Never read an article, never had any reason to research it. But somehow I was able to discern, clear as day, the direction the cameras were most likely facing. Would that fall under the “identifying traps,” category, maybe? Come to think of it, I’d felt the same psychological force holding me back when I’d made the decision to stake out the apartment first.

I focused on the original title. Born Nihilist. A prompt appeared, warning me I’d be locked into the title for six hours. Jaded eye had theoretically saved me several times. But if I was going to figure any of this out, I needed to experiment.

Strange that this title didn’t mention any drawbacks. Maybe it was because the benefit wasn’t as good as Jaded Eye? Other than a general lack of panic, I couldn’t remember much of a difference in perception at the hospital before that original switch.

I confirmed. And then, everything shifted.

When I was little, my father took me kayaking in the open ocean. We only ever went the one time, partially because—after I tipped it—we lost the kayak, but mainly because of everything that happened after. We spent over an hour treading water in the grasp of an unannounced undertow, watching the shore grow farther and farther away. At some point I got tired and slipped off my father’s back, and was pulled under into the ocean. I held my breath until my lungs were at the point of bursting, spasming, heaving in desperation.

Then someone pulled me up. My father. He’d managed to get the attention of a nearby boat and I was lifted into it, in shock and shivering. But the moment I realized we were in the boat, a feeling of relief so complete and raw washed over me, and I fell straight to sleep.

That was what it was like, when the title switched. The terrifying, spiraling panic attack worse than any I’d experienced vanished with a steady ebb, slowly fading away. The critical part of my mind wondered if it was just the meds kicking in, but I knew it wasn’t that. The relief had never come this quickly, this easily.

There was something to this.

In for a penny, right? I opened the notifications and scrolled. No new titles were unlocked, but there were plenty of messages.

Why? I hadn’t accomplished much. I’d used my only ability once and the most exciting thing I’d done was run away. The question was answered by the next notification.

Primary objective complete — Escape the hospital.

Secondary Objective Complete—Escape without resorting to direct violence or receiving further injury.

Tertiary Objective Failed — Escape without being spotted.

Wait. How did that even work? I shifted into an old theory-crafting mindset, one left long forgotten from back when I had time for games. I remembered a new notification popping right as the bullet pierced the wall. Were quests organic, forming to serve my current needs? Or was I being directed?

If it was the second possibility, I wasn’t sure I liked it.

From one use? There was likely an exponential ramp, but if it was that easy to level, I could power it up with minimal effort. It was one advantage of the ability’s low profile I hadn’t realized until just now. Again, I focused on the ability, and again, I got no further explanation than the original flavor text.

I opened the skill point screen.

Strength: 3

Toughness: 4

Agility: 5

Intelligence: 8

Perception: 5

Will: 6

Companionship: 1

<>

There was a confirmation prompt at the bottom, so any changes I made were temporary until I locked them in. I increased intelligence, just to make sure it wasn’t capped at 10. The number rose to 13 before I dialed it back down to 8. I was tempted to leave it at thirteen, dumping all available points into it. My intellect had always been my best trait. The annoying thing was, the existing stats were more or less accurate. Working out at the school gym had fallen by the wayside in recent years. I was still fast on my feet, but not that fast. There were no tool tips or expanded information for any of the stats.

Which rankled. It wasn’t like I could pull up a wiki. Not to mention, I still had no idea what I was building towards. Was the system meant to just integrate into my daily life, or was there a larger goal?

I knew, subconsciously, how deep I was in. I was embracing the system because it served as a distraction from the real worries—worries that had dulled since the title change, but still rattled around in my head.

I pulled up the feat screen and was immediately floored. Dozens of options, if not hundreds. Most were yellow, which I took to mean common traits. They scaled everything from the classics, like Fire Resistance I, to more obscure entries, like Collector I and Archivist I. An even larger number were grayed out, and there the names got more questionable and cryptic: Vampire. Explosive Tendencies. Synecdoche. I couldn’t focus on anything that was grayed out for an explanation of what they did. Further annoying me, there was no description of the unlock condition for most of them either. I scrolled down to the bottom and found a dozen blue tinted perks that were class specific for the Ordinator.

And my stomach dropped.

The first Ordinator feat in the list was Assassin I.

As I scrolled through the perks, my suspicions were confirmed. I think, up to that point I’d assumed the system was serving a greater purpose. That users would be up against a greater threat. That there was a point in all this, delusion or not.

But no. I knew what it was. The Ordinator was clearly a PVP class. And nearly all of the class specific abilities had something to do with screwing over other users. Siphoning experience party members received. Sneak attacks. Manipulation. That was unsettling to say the least. There were a half-dozen perks at the bottom that were gray and blue, class specific but completely locked.

I read through the available ones again, until I found the perk that was absolutely the right choice. The only choice. Double-blind.

My door opened, startling me out of the single-minded focus.

I smelled her before I saw her. The scent of gin clung to her like cheap perfume. She staggered over. I could only see half of her, a pleated blue skirt that reached her ankles and bare feet.

“You didn’t come to tell me you’re back,” she said. Her voice was distant, vaguely sing-song. “It’s not like I’ve been worried sick this whole time. Grieving.”

“Did you even look for me?”

“Yes,” Mom said. She didn’t sound sure about anything. “The first day. Hospitals wouldn’t tell us anything. No one by that name admitted, blah blah. You hurt?”

“No.”

“Good... that’s good.” There was a grunt and mattress squeaked as she lowered herself down to sit on the floor, back to me. Her legs were folded up under her and she was leaning slightly to the side.

Ellison had been too kind in his estimation. This wasn’t dark orange on the warning scale. This was early red at the very least.

“I almost died,” I said finally.

“We’re all dying, Matthias. Just a matter of time.”

No, I mean someone almost shot me.

But before I could get the words out, she spoke. “I need... to tell you something.”

This was irregular. Mom didn’t confide in me, wasn’t the type. And she was oddly lucid, for how far gone she sounded.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“It's nothing like that. We need to talk about the trial.”

Great. Here came the rant. The ever evolving story of how badly her bosses at the hedge fund had screwed her. How they’d pulled the classic scumbag move and scapegoated the secretary.

The executive assholes at Quad Sigma had been double dipping in both legitimate and illegitimate markets and hung her out to dry when they got caught. She’d been indicted with money laundering, insider trading, embezzlement, conspiracy to traffic narcotics, and human trafficking.

She cut a deal with the DA to turn on her bosses and most of the charges went away. After she testified, everything was wiped off her record except for the insider trading and money laundering, two charges that, while smaller, guaranteed she’d never work in finance again.

And then came the civil suits.

“We really don’t have to talk about it,” I said, trying to prevent the downward spiral towards a meltdown this would inevitably trigger. “I know the story.”

“No. You know what I’ve told you.”

A sinking feeling gripped me.

She continued, “When you hung up—“

“I didn’t hang up—“

“Fine. When we got ‘disconnected.’” She raised her arms. I couldn’t see it but knew from experience she was making air quotes. “I almost lost it completely. Only Ellison and Iris kept me from it. The brink. And it wasn’t just the thought of losing you. It was the guilt.”

“What guilt?”

“You do so much for this family, Matthias. Make sure the bills get paid. Cover the rent when I’m short. Look after the children when I’m too sick. I hate that I’m so useless.”

”You’re not useless.” The words reached the tip of my tongue. But I didn’t say them. I’d said those very words enough times to know how little they mattered.

“It came to me, right before the meteor hit. That I had this beautiful, hardworking boy, trying to make up for my failures. And I hadn’t even had the decency to tell him the truth.” Mom twitched. A silent sob. Her voice grew heavier. “That I lied to him. And everything he did for me, for his family, was based on a lie.”

The serenity of Born Nihilist was shattered as I realized where this was going. “Stop. I don’t want to hear this.”

“I have to tell you, I have to tell someone.” Her voice cracked.

“Please don’t.” I tried one final time. The many theories and doubts about her story I’d entertained over the years began to compound, and the last thing I wanted was confirmation. But I was trapped in the confessional and as per usual, what I wanted didn’t matter.

Her voice was a whisper. “I did it. Everything they said I did.”

Even expecting something along those lines, it still floored me.

I heard her blow her nose. “It was my way in. I talked to my manager, Erin, asked to pick up more hours. Said I was willing to do anything, even if it was maintenance work. Iris was having trouble at school and I wanted to take her out, get her enrolled somewhere that would better meet her needs. The next day I was meeting with someone on the top floor. They knew about my background in web design, said they needed a prototype for alternative market purposes.”

“And you just didn’t ask questions?”

“No, I did. They were very vague at first. Had me work on things in segments. I didn’t figure it out for almost a year.”

“But you did figure it out eventually.”

“Yes.”

“And you kept going.”

“We needed the money.”

“No we didn’t.” I growled. The bedframe squeaked as I squeezed the rails in my grip. “We had Dad’s pension and the money you made legitimately. It was enough.”

“To live on. To eat. But not to thrive.”

“Oh. So that’s why we’re thriving now.” My voice was cold, hard.

Mom shivered. “I know I fucked up.”

“Jesus Christ. And the human trafficking? The little girl they found? How did you even justify that? Collateral? The cost of doing business?”

“No!” The sudden increase of volume echoed. “I would never—I... didn’t know about that. Any of it. They were running a shell game. Used key names for it, rotated the names.”

I slid out from underneath the bed. Her hair was frizzed, her dark eyes sunken into her head. For some reason she’d applied makeup, which was running down her face, making her look like a bad caricature of a grieving woman.

Other than an initial pang, I felt no sympathy looking at her. “Well. You did it. You told me. Now I know and your conscience is clear.”

“That’s not—“

“Then what was the point? What was the point of destabilizing this...” I waved my hand towards the wall, “... this house of cards we live in?”

“Because now we can start fresh.” Her eyes were wide, filled with a manic mix of hope and desperation. “We can start over, be a real family again. It’s not working because I lied. And now the lie is gone.”

My eyes went to the ankle monitor on her leg. Some lies are important. Some keep us grounded, others shield us from truths that are too terrible to face. The thought that my mother had been wrongly convicted, and that while the alcoholism was entirely her fault, she was not entirely to blame for our downfall? That was a necessary lie. And I could already feel the foundation crumbling. But I didn’t say any of that. I couldn’t even look at her.

The words were torn from my mouth, full of spite. My fists tightened at my sides. “Instead of changing anything, let’s just keep doing exactly what we’ve been doing. Which means letting me, and Ellison, and Iris handle the real problems and crawling right back into the bottle you came from.”

Mom reeled like she’d been slapped. I’d gone too far. I knew it. But in the moment I didn’t care. She gave me one final look of disappointment.

“Oh Matthias. You work so hard. But here’s the thing they don’t tell you. That trash they peddle? The nose to the grindstone, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps nonsense? That’s all bullshit. They don't let people like us rise. So we have to steal it from them. We have to cheat. Maybe someday you'll understand.”

With those parting words my mother left, shutting the door behind her.

I couldn't think about her confession. About any of it. So instead, I sat on my bed and pulled up the system screen. It was left open on the perk I’d been considering earlier.

I’d had my doubts. Not being able to identify threats was a serious downside. Plus, the deceit would do me no favors if I ever revealed myself to anyone. But I’d come to face the fact that I could not treat this like a game. I couldn’t play a character that was out in the spotlight. The discovery that there was PVP cinched that. PVP always degenerated in execution. If it exists, someone will find a way to use it to rat-fuck someone else. In Eve, it works because there are restrictions and governing forces. But reality is closer to Rust: no rules, no laws, and the closest thing to a natural order is one caveman braining another caveman with a rock.

My mother was looking for reconciliation, but all she’d managed to do was reinforce the same lesson I’d learned over and over. People could not be trusted.

I hit the confirmation button.

/////

Hours later, I’d confirmed I still had my job at Dunkin’s, but my watch had ended at the laundromat. They hadn’t explicitly stated I was fired, but the owner had said he’d let me know when he had hours, which for a part-timer might as well be the reading of last rites. I was looking over Nick’s contact list, trying to decide where to start when the notification popped. It didn’t wait for me to look at it before it expanded out, covering the contact sheet.

Bounty at 1403 Vinewood Drive, due north.

Threat Level: Low

Time Limit: Until a condition is met.

Conditions: Neutralize or Terminate.

Reward: EXP (S), $10,000