Bill was clearly not all right. And from the looks of it, he hadn't been alright long before today. If Bill had been not alright because of today, Frank would not worry overmuch. He'd spent a good decade trying and sometimes failing to deal with that kind of thing. If anything, Bill seemed pretty together compared to the state he expected to find other people who made it through the tutorial in. He was nervous, the fast-talking and the way he stopped at the edge of the road, how he glanced around as he spoke. But traumatized or terrified? No.

"I didn't have my phone when I ended up in the hall."

"Damn, that fucking sucks. You said it was ten miles to the nearest town? Hope a car comes by."

"All I've seen are wrecks. I've been walking down the road for a few miles now. No one driving. Plenty of cars in ditches, with no one in them." Frank decided to keep it to things that Bill could verify himself for now. He needed someone to keep watch if he wanted to sleep safely. Didn't want to scare him off with information he couldn't prove.

"Really? What the actual fuck is going on." Bill cursed. Frank noted drily to himself that Bill really liked the word "fuck".

"Don't know, but I was planning on making Redstone this evening. You thirsty?" Frank asked him, pulling a bottle of water out of his pack.

Bill looked at the water as if he was just realizing that yes, he was thirsty. "Thanks, uh, Frank." He said, walking closer. Frank tossed him the bottle.

"No problem."

Bill seemed to calm down now that his attention had been drawn to his own state. He caught the bottle, and then sat down a couple of feet away, sighing with relief as he took the weight off his feet. It was early afternoon, the sun just starting to descend from its apex directly above. Bill twisted off the lid and chugged the whole bottle at once. He looked at Frank more carefully.

"So what's up with the ugly ass coat and the stick?"

"Got them as rewards for doing well in the 'tutorial.' Frank deliberately emphasized tutorial."

"Tutorial?"

"That's what the messages called the death matches."

"Damn, I didn't read any of that shit. When the little green men came at me I knew something was up."

"I did. It called them goblins."

"So the brain beams are lying then. 100% those things were aliens. You see their heads? The longass fingers? Gotta be ET."

"Maybe Goblin is just a working name. They didn't seem too smart." Frank avoided contradicting him directly.

"So did you do what the brain beams told you?"

"Yea. Told me to level up, and so I did." Frank decided to see how Bill reacted to that. At some point, Bill would either need to level or he'd die. Maybe not today, but within a month or two things were going to start going very poorly.

Bill, for his part, looked at Frank not with revulsion or fear, but pity. "Aw, that sucks man. They mighta tricked me too if I hadn't met Brad a few years back. Didn't really buy what he was saying at first. Hard thing to come to terms with that the world isn't what you thought it was. You get brainwashed, going to school and watching TV and shit. But I figured out he was telling the truth. Fucking good thing I did too. They probably legally own you now or something."

Frank looked at Bill. "I didn't really have much of a choice. That Orc could have killed me." That had not been the reaction Frank had been fishing for.

"Oh shit, you mean the boss alien? Yea he was mean. Punched him right in the throat. Apparently, they still need to breathe." Bill looked at Frank. "I guess if you haven't trained yourself you wouldn't have an easy time with that shit. Me though, I've been learning how to fight for years. Gotta be ready for the end. The world government's been playing with fire for years man. Like fuck, they experimented on aliens and all that in Nevada. They think the aliens won't retaliate? Carter wasn't on board with it, that's why he got replaced after one term. Same with Bush Sr. It's only a matter of time before they come back and fuck everything up in revenge." He looked at the stick in Frank's hands. "They give you that stick to defend yourself after you signed on with them?"

"Yea. After I levelled up they also let me increase my stats." Frank replied, considering how to deal with this. Bill was bonkers, and the tutorial had merely reinforced his delusions. The robot he mentioned, was probably the husk at the end. He'd just filled in the part he didn't understand with something explicable. That was bad for Bill because it would eventually lead to his death. It was also bad for Frank, who had no idea when he'd see another person. Solo travel was dangerous, mainly because you couldn't sleep safely. The risk of an attack by something was too high.

"Stats?" Bill asked.

"The system let me check my stats and improve them when I level up."

"What's the system?"

"What I've been calling the messages." Frank indulged his curiosity, waiting for an opportunity to steer the conversation without making Bill feel like he was trying to. Bill seemed like the kind of guy who liked feeling like he was in control.

"Stats?" Bill repeated.

"Strength, and Intelligence and so on. I got to increase them when I levelled."

"What do you mean by that?" Bill asked quizzically.

"You know what, let me just demonstrate."

Frank got up and turned to the totalled car he had been sitting in front of, staff in hand. He walked over a few feet to one corner of it, and placed the staff down beside him, before bending over and grabbing onto the tire nearest him and lifting. It wasn't exactly easy, but with the strength of a professional athlete, he managed to get that corner of the car several inches off the ground, albeit it left him red-faced and breathing heavily. "I upgraded my strength three times." He said after he got his breathing under control.

Bill stared at him, shock evident. If Frank had been a burly bodybuilder, that would have merely been very impressive. But a cursory once over of Frank revealed a man who was fat and out of shape. "The hell man. There's no fucking way."

"That's what levelling up got me," Frank replied, shrugging.

Bill abruptly looked down, one hand on his forehead, pondering this new information. Frank simply waited. He wasn't a psychiatrist. Either Bill figured it out, or he didn't. With the limp he had when walking over, worst came to worst, Frank could just grab his pack and leave. He didn't expect any danger though. People weren't bad at first last time. It had only been after a few weeks things started turning sour when everyone realized that help would not be coming, and no one was going to fix the problem. Then, the wolves came out. Bill was not a wolf. Frank could tell that much. The thing Frank didn't know, was whether Bill was rabid. Finally, Bill seemed to come to a decision, looking back up at Frank.

"Fucking nano-machines. All this goddamn time, the government's had nano-machines. Coulda fucking cured cancer and ageing and all that shit. Probably did. So why me, why you?" Bill asked, but continued immediately, building a new narrative as his mind spun into gear. "Latent fucking potential. Obviously they knew I saw through them, my mind is superior. And then you, it's gotta be your physical gifts. You were too lazy to unleash them. But the nanomachines. They do that shit for you, maximize your potential. As long as you follow their instructions. And that's why I couldn't find the bump of a microchip. It's the nanomachines receiving the signal from space instead. Makes too much sense. Government needs agents to deal with the aliens. The aliens are already here. Shit. I need to phone Jim." Bill got up suddenly, but immediately regretted it. "Ah fuck. my feet," he groaned. He was wearing cheap dress shoes to go with his outfit Frank now noticed. The kind you got at a department store that have your feet in agony after fifteen minutes.

Bill's momentum burst as quickly as it had come. He sat back down, and then pulled his shoes off to look. One sock was covered in blood on the heel, where the poorly made shoes had rubbed his skin raw. "Shit. This fucking sucks. If the government wanted me to fight off aliens they coulda given me some better shoes along with the fucking nanobots." He looked over at Frank. "I don't suppose you have an extra pair of shoes, do you?" Once again, focusing on his bodily condition seemed to have moored Bill in reality.

Frank asked Bill. "You a size eleven?" Even if he parted ways with him, he'd feel bad if the guy didn't even have shoes he could wear.

"Close enough. I wear a ten. Can't be any worse than these." Bill pointed at his own shoes.

Frank went back to his pack, and rummaged through it, pulling out the sneakers he'd worn before he was gifted his boots. He walked over and handed them to Bill.

"Thanks, uh..." Bill paused for a second, then looked past Frank. "Shit!" He swore. "Aliens on us already. I'm gonna see if these nanomachines can help me out."

Frank followed his gaze. Sure enough, a trio of goblins had started to make their way out of the woods and to the edge of the ditch before being spotted by Bill. They stopped upon realizing they'd been seen, before just making a run at Frank, stumbling down the side of the ditch and rapidly climbing up. Bill meanwhile just sat there, presumably staring at his system messages now that he'd convinced himself it was the result of nanomachines designed to unleash his latent potential.