Blix listened to Alf’s half of the conversation, more and more convinced that he wasn’t crazy.

Which was crazy, right?

She studied his face, watching his expression alternate between cocky, sly, and totally freaked out.

“That’s not enough time!” His eyes locked suddenly with hers. “She wants me to prove myself in 76 minutes. How am I supposed to do that?”

“That’s not enough time.” Blix pulled him toward her, speaking into his face like his head was a microphone. “Hello, Jane? This is Blix. Seventy-six minutes isn’t enough time. That’s like giving you five seconds to explain how you’re able to talk inside Alf’s head. You obviously have no concept of how RPGs work.”

Alf’s eyes flicked to a point somewhere over her right shoulder before refocusing on her. “She said induced folded-space quantum entanglement.” He rolled his eyes. “As if that’s an explanation.”

“Tell her it will take the two of us forty-eight hours.”

“Blix says—” Surprise flashed briefly across his face before darkening to a frown. “She says two hundred and twenty-nine minutes.” Doe eyes fastened on her like a lifeline.

So stupid adorable. He’d known her less than a day, and he was already willing to put his faith in her. This alien bitch was going down. “Okay…” She stared right though him. “You know so much. Tell me how you’re going to measure our progress?”

Alf grinned and nodded his head. “If you two want to go in another room and hash this out, I’m happy to step aside.” He took her hand and gave it a couple of quick squeezes, which she chose to translate as: Thank you, you brilliant, sexy beast. I will worship at your feet forever.

If only she had feet.

“She says she can’t afford you,” Alf said. “You’re character has been classified as an exotic.”

“You better believe she can’t afford me. And she has no idea how to measure our progress so she’s going to give us forty-eight hours.”

“She says she’ll go as high as twenty-four hours,” Alf announced. “And then we’ll have to convince her.”

“Deal.” Blix couldn’t help grinning. After the accident she’d had a lot of time on her hands. And a lot of pain to escape. She’d thrown herself heart, soul, and super brain into the virtual world and proved to be a pretty decent strategist. This might actually be fun. “Okay…” She squeezed Alf’s hand hard to give extra weight to her next words. “The show is on.” She tweaked an eyebrow and received an immediate nod.

“What’s the strategy?” Alf raised his eyebrows significantly. “Want to try Strategy one forty-one V fourteen N zero zero B?”

Blix caught the N00B part of his message right away. It took her a few seconds to realize that 141 V 14 was little kid code for I AM A... She nodded to show that she got his message and could cover for his lack of experience. “This is going to be fun. Shall we?” She shoulder rolled to get behind him and then climbed boldly onto his back.

Alf crawled out from under the tree and struggled onto his feet.

“You seriously have a minimap in your head?” She waited for his nod. “Then plot a course parallel to the road. We want to avoid other players until we’ve leveled up a few times.”

“Jane says the road would be safer. She’s seen reports of predators in the woods.”

“Good,” she said. “Hopefully her people are as clueless as she is.”

They pushed their way through the trees in silence. No birds, no insects, no distant voices. It was impossible to know whether that was normal or not, but something felt off. Like they were walking down the throat of a giant space slug.

“Over there.” She pointed to an uprooted tree about two inches in diameter at the base. “Break off the top of that tree and strip its bark to craft it into a staff. Whatever size you’re most comfortable with.”

He lowered Blix gently to the ground and went to work on the tree while she scooted to an outcropping of rocks and started gathering them into the skirt of her tunic thingy.

“Holy crap!” Alf dropped the tree like it was a snake.

“What’s wrong?” She searched the clearing but didn’t see anything.

“Dust sort of just swirled around the stick and sanded it smooth. And then there was this dialog box right below my stats tab. It said I learned the skill called Woodcrafting One. The effective level is 1.9, the basis is DX plus IQ, and it says I can construct new items with a 5.7% skill boost.”

“You have a stats tab?” She turned on him, drawing back the rock in her hand even as she fought to keep from throwing it at him. “Why didn’t you tell me? What are they? This is important.”

“Sorry.” He stood there staring off into space, a deep blush creeping over his face. “It took me a while to figure out how to open it. And I just… I didn’t know if you had stats or not.”

“So?” She forced a little patience into her voice. “What are they?”

“ST is ten, DX ten, CN… What’s CN?”

“Probably constitution.”

“Right. So it’s ten as well. And IQ is…” His face darkened even more. “Um… twenty-eight, and what’s CH?”

“That would be charisma.” She grinned, happy she wasn’t the one being quantified and objectified.

“Right. So, um… charisma is sixteen?”

“Not bad. What about health? It might show up as HP, HT or hit points.”

“There’s a green bar at the top showing 100 out of a 100. And there’s a stamina bar with 68 out of 100. And a mana bar with 784 out of 784—which seems like a lot, right?”

“That’s twenty-eight squared—which means it’s based only on IQ,” Blix spoke tentatively. “They seem to be using a classical 3d6-based system where ten is human average and costs go up exponentially from there—very similar to the IQ scale. Your hit points are probably based on your constitution, and your stamina is probably based on strength or a combination of strength and constitution—it’s impossible to tell right now since both stats are at ten.” She couldn’t help a sigh. “At least they aren’t below average. IQ is definitely your dominant stat— which would normally mean building you out as some kind of mage.”

“Is that bad?”

“Too early to tell,” Blix hedged. Mages, as a general rule, didn’t solo well—especially if they had to carry their partners around on their backs. She would have preferred a tank/healer combo or an assassin-type with super high stealth. But if she could keep him alive long enough, he could develop into something really formidable. “What else have you been hiding?” She hit him with a 4d6 glare.

“Um… I have an items tab with a rather revealing image of me standing in a Da-Vinci-esque spread eagle.”

“Any item slots?”

“Slots?”

“Any boxes or a grid of squares that looks like pigeonholes?”

“I have a skills area with where my crafting skill is listed. And a settings gear with a thousand dialogs that don’t make any sense.”

“Try picking up your short staff,” she instructed. “Or your eighth staff or your club or whatever that’s supposed to be.”

“It’s a walking stick,” he said sheepishly and then started swinging it around like a baseball bat.

“Boys.” She rolled her eyes and started searching the area for another tree he could use to craft a decent quarter staff.

He went suddenly still and stared wide-eyed into space. “The picture shows me holding it now,” he said softly.

“Imagine yourself putting it into your pocket or storing it in the items interface or something.”

She gave him a few seconds, but he just dropped his stick and picked it up, over and over until she wanted to scream. Unfortunately, dimensional pockets weren't going to be thing. “Too bad,” she said under her breath. “But game-assisted skill leveling is huge. That 5.7% boost makes it sound like the nanites are going to give you a little help. If we can level your skill up, they’ll probably give you even more help. You said the skill was based on dex and IQ? Presumably, if we level your dex, your woodcrafting boost will go even higher. But first we need to figure out how to level your strength and constitution and maybe acquire a few combat skills.”

She guided him through a series of bojutsu drills, but he seemed more interested in striking dramatic poses and spinning his stick around like a majorette at a high school football game. Every attack had to include a few extra spins and flourishes. It was like working with a six-year-old. He’d never level up this way. They were just wasting time.

“Just stop, okay?” She didn’t bother to keep the frustration out of her voice. “What’s your stamina now? Have you completely worn yourself out?”

“Fifty-one out of a hundred?” He looked at her hopefully, his eyes practically sitting up and begging.

“Fine,” she looked away to hide her disappointment. “Take a five minute break, and then we’ll do some exploring.”

Alf collapsed onto the weed-choked ground in a limp heap of sprawling arms and legs.

Blix was about to ask about the settings dialog he had mentioned earlier, but a faint rustle pulled her attention to the trees across the clearing. A terrier-sized blur was streaking toward them. It looked like a cross between a rat and a Rottweiler.