“I’m bored,” Smartass said for the one hundred and thirty-second time.

“Flying through the upper atmosphere at supersonic speeds is boring you?” Jeb asked, glancing over at his fairy companion, who was lying face-down on the invisible plane of force that kept their cabin pressurized, tapping her toes against the Myst bubble while she watched the land roll by far beneath them.

“Yes.”

Jeb tore his gaze away and glanced at Borg. Borg had curled himself into a ball, his expression blank, eyes staring soullessly into the distance.

He truly was in power-saving mode.

Jeb wasn’t entirely sure what bothered him about Borg. If he had to try and define it, it was the feeling of watching your pop-up ads evolve every time you made an online purchase, mindlessly trying to suck more money out of you without bothering to wonder why, or if they should.

There was no emotion behind any of his actions, only cold calculation, no matter how bombastic a personality he tried to adopt.

And that just weirded Jeb out.

Pretty freakin’ big for a satellite phone, too.

This generation of the Borg robot that had tried to kill him last summer had some obvious upgrades compared to the previous one. The tubes of Myst he’d seen piped through the creature’s chest had just been the beginning.

The gun in Borg’s arm now seemed to have some kind of Prism array along the side of it to…produce bullets? Or enhance them? Jeb wasn’t sure. Eddie’s projects had drifted away from things that Jeb could easily understand without taking some time out of his busy day to get to the bottom of it.

Jeb was learning spellwork, but this was technology, which was a completely different beast.

He just had to hope that the old man had enough sense not to doom them all.

Fat chance of that.

Still, the inventor was too valuable to muzzle, especially when Jeb and his people needed better tech than the aliens.

Jeb glanced down at the distant ground sliding away beneath them, spotting a tiny road miles below, which abutted what looked like a roof of some kind.

“Yeah, we might as well refresh our oxygen and stretch our legs a bit,” Jeb said, directing his bubble of telekinetic Myst to gradually descend.

Below them, the thatched roof continued to grow, revealing that it was attached to a sizable building, and the strip of land that had looked like a dirt path from several miles away had actually been a massive cobblestone road that would make the ancient Romans jealous.

Still not as good as human asphalt, but hey, the magic aliens can’t have all the cards.

As they approached ground level, Jeb opened up holes in the massive bubble he was carrying them in, letting in the first fresh air they’d had in hours. Borg didn’t breathe, Smartass was tiny, and Jeb’s Body was respectably high. They could go quite a while on just a bit of air.

Still, the fresh air was nice, and with the fresh air, he caught the smell of woodsmoke and…

Jeb took another breath.

Smoked fish? Hell yeah.

You don’t realize how good that shit is until you’re forced to eat nothing but potatoes and oilwurm chowder for a good three months. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of Ron for becoming a land baron and feeding all of L.A. on the backs of undead labor, but…goddamn, do I need some variety.

Jeb set the Jeep down beside the stable. Smartass had long since squirmed her way through one of the air-holes, gliding down to the ground and running around like crazy.

When Borg touched down, the zombot blinked, then unfolded to his full height, just a bit taller than Jeb.

“My internal clock and the position of the sun suggest we haven’t yet arrived at our destination,” Borg said. “Another bathroom break? Do you perhaps need to have your prostate checked?”

“Food,” Jeb said, pointing at what was obviously an inn, parked beside a major thoroughfare of the Kitri Empire. “Air.” He pointed up. “Entertainment.” He pointed at Smartass, who was throwing bits of dried manure in the air with a joyful expression as the chips rained down on her.

“Ah. Well then, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go work on my people algorithm.” Borg turned and walked straight for the door.

Goddamn, I hope he doesn’t get us kicked out before we have the chance to get some food, Jeb thought, jaw clenched. He picked Smartass up out of the pile of chips she was playing in.

“You know that’s dried animal shit, right?” he said, brushing off her hair.

Smartass’s eyes slowly widened, her mouth hanging open in a silent scream like the ghost in a Japanese horror movie.

“Chill out. It’s probably not gonna hurt you.” He brushed her tiny woven jacket off, shook manure bits out the bottom, and then set her on his shoulder, heading for the entrance.

If Borg’s appearance didn’t get them tossed out, then a fairy should be fine, especially a really big one that was able to contain her hyperactivity for short bursts.

Jeb pushed the saloon-type door open, wincing as he saw Borg surrounded by aliens from all three major races, watching him intently.

“Science Experiment?” one of the aliens asked. “That’s a real Class?”

“Yep,” Borg said. “Believe it or not, I was a paraplegic dying of cancer before this, so this—” he motioned to himself “—is an improvement.”

“But you look dead.”

“Ah, but do I sound dead?” Borg asked, wiggling his undead eyebrows bombastically.

“I…guess not.”

“Exactly. I know I look…rough, but it’s been a godsend to finally walk again. To feel anything again. Seriously, thank the gods for you guys and the Stitching, because without it, I would be chained to a bed for another twenty years until my body finally gave out on me. I know you probably catch a lot of shit for the Stitching from other humans even though it wasn’t your fault… How about I get the first round?”

Borg produced a silver imperial mark from his pocket and slapped it on the table.

Suddenly Borg was everyone’s friend.

Son of a bitch. If you couldn’t see his looks, the undead robot was able to carry on a conversation in conversational English instead of stiff robot-speak. Which one was real?

I suppose it works better on non-humans, who might be a little more inclined to believe in a magical hand-wavy explanation for why Borg looks the way he does.

All Jeb saw when he looked at him was a half-finished T-800.

Finally, Jeb decided to shove all that pointless pondering way down where it belonged, and focus on what was really important: smoked fish.

“I smelled smoked fish,” Jeb said as he entered the inn. “Please tell me you’ve got some.” All eyes turned toward him for a moment, and he could feel their collective stares take in his relatively clean clothes, his wooden foot, and his passenger before they returned to their own business, slowly unclustering themselves from around Borg and returning to their seats.

Jeb simply wasn’t as exceptional as a part-robot human.

An overweight melas with broad shoulders and an apron peered behind Jeb, where his Jeep was barely visible outside the saloon-style doors.

“Didn’t hear you drive up,” he said, squinting at the weather-beaten Jeep.

Jeb grunted noncommittally. He had no reason to mislead, and he didn’t want to admit he’d carried the two-ton vehicle several hundred miles for no reason other than its presence was comforting to him.

So he let the matter drop.

“What’ll it be?” the owner asked, a huge melas man with a potbelly, making his presence known beside Jeb’s table. Jeb assumed he was th eowner because he hadn’t seen anyone else above the age of ‘part time nephew’.

“Whatever you got that’s smoked, and some beer. Nothing hard; I’m responsible for these two.” He pointed at Smartass and Borg.

“Ooh, ooh, beer for me too!”

“Beer for her, too.”

“Yay!”

“And an extra glass of juice for me. Anything sweet, really,” Jeb added.

The melas innkeeper turned away, and Jeb had a moment of realization and managed to stop the man before he disappeared into the kitchen.

“Human beer, please,” Jeb corrected.

“Might as well be drinking water,” the orange-skinned hulk of a man said, rolling his eyes as he ducked into the kitchen.

A moment later, Borg came to sit down in front of him, nursing a mug of oil-slicked beer.

“So, how much of that smooth talk is true and how much of it is a lie?” Jeb asked.

“It’s all true, just as much as it’s all a lie. A personality is simply a story that one tells about themselves to make sense of their past behavior. They know what they need to know. After all, I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for the Stitching.”

“Must be nice, to be able to switch personalities at will.”

“It is,” Borg said, sipping on his beer, which made Jeb wonder whether or not the undead creature could actually digest anything. “You should try it sometime.”

“No thanks, I’m more comfortable remaining a jaded curmudgeon.”

Borg shrugged as he scanned the room. “Your choice. I’m gonna go hit on that melas woman over there.”

“Why?”

“I’m harmlessly indulging the part of me that wants to hunt people. Who knows, maybe she’ll let me bite her butt.”

Borg picked up his drink and went over to an orange-skinned melas woman dressed like your typical adventurer—armed to the teeth and kitted out with good protection over her vitals—and started making a pass at her.

Jeb stopped listening as the conversation turned to ‘oscillations per minute’, and the innkeeper arrived with his food.

It was smoked…something, all right.

Jeb didn’t really care. It was meat, and he hadn’t had non-worm meat in far too long. The smoking was just a bonus at this point.

Jeb eschewed the fork and grabbed the meat with his hands, biting off the delicious mystery meat and praying it wasn’t soylent green while washing it down with ‘human beer,’ which was about as good an approximation as aliens could be expected to produce only a year into their introduction.

“Muahaha!” Smartass chuckled evilly, picking up her little glass of beer and tipping it up to her face. She reacted violently, like every time before, backing away and sputtering, her face covered in foam.

“Who would ever want to drink that? It’s atrocious!”

“I would,” Jeb said. “Wanna trade your beer for my juice?” he asked, wiggling his extra cup of what he assumed was apple juice.

“Hah! That trade is totally in my favor. What a sucker!” She shoved the glass of beer towards him and greedily grabbed ‘his’ juice and began gulping it down.

With an experienced hand, Jeb poured the fairy’s unfinished beer into his own glass and continued eating. There was a lot less angst when he just let her rediscover her distaste for alcohol every time she tried to copy him, rather than trying to deny her the option.

“Well, she’s not interested in getting her butt nibbled on,” Borg said as he returned to the seat.

“That’s not too surprising,” Jeb said. Borg was disgusting after all.

“Instead, she wanted to have sex with me.” Borg shuddered. “I had to turn her down. Such primal exchanges of fluid are low on my list of desires. Just butt-biting for me.”

Jeb cocked a brow. “I hope you realize that butt-biting is considered foreplay in most cultures.”

“It’s not in any of the movies on my hard drive,” Borg said.

Jeb scoffed. “Yeah, I wouldn’t think it would be. Trust me when I tell you: If you’re asking a woman if you can bite her butt, you’re asking for more than that.”

“Interesting,” Borg said, thumbing his chin. “Do you think—”

Their conversation stilled for a moment as the front door swung open again.

A kitri walked through with their peculiar head-bobbing bird-lope. What set this particular kitri apart from the dusty adventurers dotting the inn, was these particular Kitri looked wealthy.

Their bodies were draped in finery and they wore big old hats that bore beaded tassels that clinked against each other with every wobbly step they took.

Goddamnit. Jeb wanted to get the hell out of there before Borg or Smartass did something that got them on the wrong end of a pissed off noble. Kitri were among the more socially powerful creatures on the planet.

The entire inn went quiet at their entrance, and Jeb started knocking back his beer at full speed, desperate to leave fast and avoid a storybook standoff between the rich jerks and the noble heroes.

Wait, which one am I? Ostensibly, I’m fairly rich and powerful, given my orphanage, the gold in my pocket, the ability to smite people, and the treasure waiting for me in the capital. Am I the rich jerk?

Jeb frowned between gulps as he thought, inhaled beer down the wrong tube and spat a mouthful of beer across the table, onto the spats of the rich kitri passing by.

Aw shit.

“Hey! You—”

Jeb flooded the room with his orange Myst. In the blink of an eye, every single thing in the room except him, Borg, and Smartass was held in place by the sheer pressure. If he so much as sneezed, he would implode every single person in the main room, and blow the roof off the building.

When conflict is unavoidable, it’s best to put on a show of unstoppable force before the opposing party commits to a course of action they couldn’t possibly act upon. Stopping people from writing checks their body can’t cash is an important part of diplomacy.

“My bad,” Jeb said, his tone saying ‘don’t even think about it’ as he made direct eye contact with the Big Bird look-alike. Only one of them had a Myst core, and the kitri struggled mightily against Jeb’s magical chokehold, accomplishing nothing.

“Those look expensive.” Jeb reached into his satchel and took out a gold coin, dropping one on the table beside the frozen kitri, and throwing the innkeeper a silver for the food.

“We’re leaving,” Jeb said, standing. Borg followed suit, quick on the uptake. Smartass, on the other hand, was trying to down the rest of her juice, forcing Jeb to grab her by the ear and drag her away.

They hopped into the Jeep and Jeb nearly put the vehicle in gear out of habit before he rolled his eyes and put a Myst platform directly underneath, shooting them straight up into the atmosphere.

***Pikweya, level 24 Aristocrafter***

Pikweya stumbled out into the open air, desperate to get another look at the human.

He caught a glimpse of the human carriage before it shot straight up into the sky, disappearing into the blue like it had never existed.

His younger brother ran out after him, a little slower and a little more hesitant. The boy hadn’t reached level twenty yet, after all, so he was understandably hesitant to put himself in harm’s way.

“What was that?” Ri’peku asked.

“I think…that was Jeb’e’diah Trap’per,” Pikweya said, the foreign name uncomfortable on his tongue. He strained his neck to find the tiny dot in the sky.

“Really?” Ri’peku asked, his eyes widening, neck shaking with excitement before he glanced down at the beer-soaked spats. “I’m never taking these off!”

The young men didn’t notice the subtle ripples in the still pond beside the inn at the mention of the human celebrity’s name.

Beneath the surface, a water sprite named Neeka shot through the water, aiming for the triangle of stacked rocks that led to Elsewyr. She had news to deliver.

Jebediah Trapper was on the move! Her boss’s boss’s boss had given all of them an open-ended task to report to someone higher up if they should see—Ooh a shiny FISH!

Fairy surveillance is more a matter of quantity over quality.

***Jebediah Trapper***

God, I hope that doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass, Jeb thought as they flew across the continent, shaking his head. How many times have I hoped things don’t bite me in the ass? Too many.

No, he’d handled it about as well as could be expected. No violence, no blood debts, nothing of that nature. They could have some time to cool off before he ever saw them again, and if they did see him again, they would know he wasn’t to be fucked with.

Jeb rubbed his temples.

At least he dodged the typical young master routine.

In the meantime…

The capital was still roughly six hours away. Six boring hours of staring down at the ruined landscape.

Even rocketing through the thin upper atmosphere had its limits, especially when the continent was at least twice as big as it was before the Stitching.

From the stratosphere, Jeb had plenty of reason to think about the Stitching. He could see it, plain as day. It really did look like a quilt sewn together with whatever rags were lying around.

A year wasn’t nearly enough for the land to adjust to the new weather patterns, so deserts stood next to dead jungles, and jungles stood next to deserts which were beginning to pack on more life.

They were blending together, but the differences between them were still stark, and probably would be for at least a decade before they really started fuzzing together into a unified whole.

Jeb could even spot a few places where previous Stitching had happened. There were a few mountains and canyons that ended abruptly, but the biome was seamless.

How and why? Jeb thought, eyes narrowed as he recalled the beginning of everything.

Earthlings! The gods of Pharos have touched your plane of existence and found it wanting. Your planet will be merged with their own, but you must be found worthy to join.

Hmm… No word of why. The implication that they were trying to help earthlings through a little ‘tough love’ was utter bullshit.

So why? More power? That’s usually the answer. How do they get power? The System, right? Vex’s offhand comments about the gods imply that they are powered by The System. What juices up The System? More people? More mass on the planet?

This was where Jeb’s understanding of physics got a little hazy. He was much smarter now than he had been when he joined the army, but he hadn’t taken the time to truly dive into the more advanced concepts.

The fate dimension was, roughly speaking, the measure of change something could achieve, and obeyed arbitrary rules that seemed to stem from sapient thought.

Now, Jeb knew it was a dimension, and it was where The System did most of its work.

He also vaguely knew that space and time are warped by mass.

Was adding extra mass to the planet a way of turbocharging The System by compressing the fifth dimension using the warping effect of mass?

Why was the gravity of a planet ostensibly at least double Earth’s size still 1G?

That last one could be explained by a lower density core, except…there hadn’t been a burst of associated skin cancer, implying they had a magnetosphere keeping off harmful solar radiation.

Or, The System is compensating by giving us higher resistance to skin cancer.

Or, The System is making us just a bit stronger, to the point where it feels like 1G, but it isn’t.

Actual scientists must be having a field day, if Jeb could think of all those questions that needed answering off the top of his head, just from staring down at the stitched together landscape.

The only things that Jeb knew for sure were these: The gods were assholes, and he’d be damned if he played their game.

***Six hours later***

“I spy…something white,” Smartass said.

“Is it Mestikos?” Jeb asked, spotting the white smudge on the landscape slowly getting closer.

“Aww, man!”

Jeb was about to spy something orange when a myst-amplified voice rattled his bubble.

Attention unregistered flier, you are entering controlled airspace. Lower your altitude to…um…breathable heights, then follow the guide to the designated landing zone. Failure to comply will result in lethal force.

Ah.

Bureaucracy.