Daniel startled awake with someone shaking him.

“What?” he mumbled, confused for a moment. What on Earth was that stink? Then memories hit him: bugs, zombies, magic!

He sat bolt upright, almost knocking Ivey off her feet where she was crouched next to him.

“Sorry,” he said automatically to Ivey as his throat caught.

Why had she woken him? What else had gone wrong?

Scared, his eyes flicked around the room, searching for the new threat. “What?”

The place had altered significantly. The bugs had been cleaned up and looked like they had been dumped into a makeshift sack made of one of his bed sheets. His club had been moved, and there were bug splatters over the top of the zombie blood on its shaft.

His throat was parched; it was clear he had been unconscious for a fair while.

“How long?” he finally asked.

“About forty minutes,” Ivey told.

“Oh god,” he groaned, his head pounding.

“Eat,” Ivey ordered, handing him a packet of nuts, a Mars bar, and a bottle of water. “It will help.”

She smiled encouragingly at him. While he was hesitant, his stomach was not and growled loudly. With a wry smile, his hesitation vanished, and he scarfed the food down.

Ivey got up abruptly, grabbed the club, and brought it down hard on a bug that was crawling down the wall.

Zap!

She winced a little as the energy hit her, and then just shook her hand before coming back over to him, and sat down cross-legged in front of him.

“I think we should have a chat.”

Daniel’s mind went over everything, bugs, zombies, magic, fur. Oh god, the fur. He tried to look and realised immediately how ridiculous it was to be looking over his shoulder like that. Then he patted under his T-shirt and thought he could feel something.

“Wait,” Ivey ordered before standing up and walking over to the bathroom and returned with a piece of glass held gingerly with a towel. “It fell while you were unconscious. It scared the crap out of me.”

He pulled up the clothing and with his head craned and Ivey holding the mirror shard so he could see the fur.

He felt sick. It was only a dinner-plate-sized patch, but it was clearly not natural hair.

“Am I a werewolf or something?”

She put the piece of mirror down. “No, you are not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am certain,” she interrupted him and then once more sat down cross-legged in front of him. “I have spent the last twenty minutes trying to work out how to say this. Let me assure you it is easier when you are unconscious.”

“What am I?”

“You almost became a feral,” she told him simply. “A zombie,” she clarified at his confused expression.

He waited patiently while she paused, and she was clearly surprised that he did not jump in and say anything.

“The basics of it is that scientists destroyed the world. It is a trap that virtually all intelligent species fall into.” Her eyes were unfocused as she talked like she was reading off a screen. “A couple of civilisations that survived their world’s destruction billions of years ago created a system to help future victims. The intervention they created has been continually improved and adjusted to aid future impacted sapient species survive.” Her eyes suddenly snapped into focus, and she looked him straight in the eyes. “Are you following?”

“Yes, but it’s gobbledygook.”

“Yes,” Ivey agreed immediately. “I don’t follow it, but whatever it is sends through things called an interface. Everyone is supposed to get an interface, but if there are too many people and not enough interfaces . . .”

She paused for a moment.

“Like in the middle of multi-story building?”

“Yes, exactly. If there are too few interfaces, then not everyone gets one.”

“So—”

“I am getting to that,” she complained, but was smiling for maybe the first time since he had woken up. “If you don’t get an interface, then the stress of the transition sends you mad and does unexpected things to your bodies. It turns you into a monster.” She nodded toward the door where the zombie’s head was still impaled. “Makes you a feral.”

“Well, it’s good we both got an interface, then.”

Ivey looked at him.

“What?”

“Open your status screen?”

“My what?”

“Just think status,” she answered, “and it opens?”

He mentally said the word, and nothing happened. Daniel thought even harder, not about the status screens, but about the events leading up to it. That nightmare of the world being turned apart, the kiss and then waking with yellow fur, and finally the conversation that they were having.

The zombie-like things were created when there were not enough interfaces. When they got converted, their skin got tougher, either directly or with fur growing to protect them. Turned animalistic.

There was fur on his back.

That kiss and the pain followed.

The wild energy that he had been trying and failing to corral.

Ivey hiding under the bed.

That nothing happened when he tried to focus on status, but that might just be a trick.

Finally, there was the plant magic, which aligned with what he was focusing on when that dream occurred. An experience during which he had felt like his sanity was unravelling.

That kiss had been forceful, something in her mouth.

Daniel looked back up at Ivey. She was still waiting for him to process what she had said. He stared down at his foot, covered with dried blood. Now that his life was not being threatened, he could feel her presence as if they were connected.

“I almost became a zombie,” he said, expressing out loud the conclusion that he had drawn.

She nodded, then continued to wait patiently.

He could feel her!

The answer was just there on the tip of her tongue. Why could he sense where she was?

There were sounds of a bug falling. Ivey smiled apologetically, got up, and hit the insect with a surprising amount of force.

Zap!

“Oww,” she complained but then, like himself, she had practiced the motions extensively. She knelt down, plucked the corpse with her left hand, and used his utility knife to pry it open. She pulled out a small pebble that was smaller than a pea and then tossed the carcass in the sheet and the object into the suitcase. Then she sat cross-legged next to him once more.

Her dress showed too much leg, and she saw his glance and giggled. “Daniel, we are way past the point of you getting embarrassed about a flash of underwear.” Then she shook her head, her face going serious, but he noticed she tucked the dress in a little more carefully. “Where were we?”

“I almost became a zombie.”

“And you did not because?”

“You saved me?”

She nodded with a relieved look. “I gave you some of my interface. Only enough to stop you going feral.”

“Is that why I can feel where you are?”

A blush ran over her face, strong enough to be seen despite her skin tone. “Yes, we are permanently joined. It was the only way to save you.”

“What does it mean?”

“I have been reading up.” She tapped her head to show how. “And there is not a lot of information. Situations where interfaces split are few.”

“But they’ve occurred?”

“Yes. Sometimes, the system has been going for billions of years. Occasionally the split”—she waved her hand—“is because of the violence of the event. Other times deliberately, like here. The result is a weakening on both sides. I have a damaged interface and you have a broken one.”

“What does ‘broken’ mean?”

“It can run the gauntlet from a negative impact to being almost fully functional. However, a person with a broken interface needs help to diagnose what is happening.” She held out her hands. Confused, he reached out to hold them like they were doing a spiritual communion. “In the right circumstances, another person’s functioning interface can diagnose what state a broken interface is in. Think about your status.”

Daniel did what was ordered.

A wavy screen with green text came up, but it was like the screen was mostly broken or a virus had corrupted the information. It took him long moments to work out what was happening.

“What do you see?”

“I have a screen, but it’s garbled.”

“Tell me what you can see.”

He hesitated, trying to get his head around what he was seeing. “There’s a heading and then a table. The top word is confusing. It might say best or maybe something else. The letters are sort of blending together. The word best or something like that followed by W-H-P-R. I think there’s more letters, but it’s hard to tell.”

“That’s great. It means the interface has given you a class,” Ivey said soothingly. “That is a good sign, but I am not sure what it is yet. But let’s work down the page and we will get some more clues.”

“Next are what looks like three columns and eight and maybe nine rows.”

“Can you read any words?”

“Yes, the second word is agility. First might be strength.”

“That is great. They are attributes. Are the numbers clear?”

This got harder. Sometimes a row was completely obscured, but there was enough to piece out a scattering of information. Apparently, he was level fourteen. Ivey did not seem at all surprised at that. He read or explained where was necessary what he was seeing.

Level - 14

Strength - 19 - ?

Agility - ? - 5

Vitality - 13 - 2

Magic - ? - 3

“Lots of unknowns, hey,” Ivey interrupted.

“Yeah, and then perception, learning and magic skill are all question marks.”

Daniel looked up at Ivey once he had finished articulating the table.

“What does it all mean?”

Ivey appeared uncertain. “I can only guess.”

“How about your interface?” he suggested.

“As I said, the information is sparse. Those seven categories you listed are standard attributes that were usually quantified. As for the rest, you have to understand that those sections of the interface you have are like a tiny fraction of a computer program. It could show anything.”

“Is that good?”

“You are alive,” she observed, arching an eyebrow. “You are yourself.” She pointed at the zombie head still skewered by the spike that he had created. “Beyond that, we will have to see. But”—she held up a hand to forestall his objection—“overall, I think this is good. The interface thinks you are level fourteen. That probably means your experience gathering is working as it supposed to. The vitality line was complete, wasn’t it? What did it say?”

“Thirteen followed by a two,” he read off obediently.

“My interpretation of that line is that you have thirteen attribute points currently and have had two assigned automatically to the category.”

“Can’t you compare to your one?”

“My one is in a different format.”

“What?”

“I have different categories to yours.”

“That doesn’t make any sense?”

“One alien designed yours, a different created mine.” She shrugged helplessly.

It was too complicated. He needed to focus on the important thing.

“But what does thirteen mean?” he asked with frustration. It felt like she was leaving out a lot of pertinent information. “I mean, how do I interpret it?”

Her eyes went unfocused.

“The standard interface score of ten is calibrated to the average of the population pre-Alpha event, then five free points are assigned at the start and one per level.” She stopped reading and looked at him. “Best case is that you have received nineteen extra attribute points.”

Daniel’s mind rushed to understand what it all meant. The nineteen she was referring to was five free plus one per level. “So the thirteen means that my vitality is thirty percent better than average pre-event.”

Ivey nodded.

“And I am almost twice as strong as the average.” Daniel was itching to find something to test his strength on, but nothing presented itself, but it might have partially explained him shattering the mirror.

Daniel ran his eyes over the results once more. That data was incomplete, but it looked like across the four categories that he could see that he had seventeen points assigned. Potentially more. Was it arrogant to assume that he started with a strength of at least twelve? Two points across the three categories was that reasonable? Maybe his starting strength was fourteen instead of twelve, and then there would be four points across the last three categories. It was possible.

“I think they’ve all been assigned or at least the majority.”

“I agree,” Ivey said.

“Through I suspect if they were not assigned there was nothing we could have done?” He phrased the statement as a question.

“Also correct, but I am sure it is nice to know that you are twice as strong as the average human and probably significantly more agile as well.” She battered her eyelids, playing up the stereotype of a girl admiring buff guys. He smiled despite himself and mocked flexing his guns.

“Seriously, what do we think?”

“I think you are very lucky.”

“But I don’t get to assign them.”

“At least you get them, and they are not all going to the same attribute.”

“That can happen?”

“Yeah, one case I read was that everything he earned went into vitality. It got to where you could barely hurt him, but he could not fight at all because he was too slow and weak to affect the higher-level monsters. Unfortunately, that mix of attributes does not help us understand what class you have been assigned, but hopefully once we see your skills it will be clearer.”

He thought about skills, guessing it was the next thing that she was going to ask him to investigate. He could feel information flowing from him to her via and vice versa via their clasped hands.

The screen opened up, and there were only three skills listed in perfectly legible font.

“Entangled Animal Bonding, Animal Sense, and Animal Communion,” he told her.

Ivey’s eyes went unfocused. “Your class is beast whisperer,” Ivey informed him. “It is a class that can form strong bonds with a couple of animals or wider, lesser bonds with herds. You are specialising in the former. Single target.” She kept reading for a moment. “Entangled Animal Bonding is an upgraded skill that can go down multiple paths. At its basic level, it is a standard druid bond, but at higher levels gives increased control, sharing attributes and the ability to learn from each other. Animal Communion fosters a deeper bond to allow sharing of information, magical abilities, and even attributes.”

“What?” he asked, wondering what all that meant.

“It is potentially powerful; ideally you want to get an animal that is as strong or stronger than you and then bind it and see what else you can do.”

“How do I bind it?” The instant the question was asked, the information appeared in his brain. It was not a taming process, but was better described as forming a partnership. A pact between the two of them that went both ways. Getting something stronger, while intuitively a path to power, could backfire if it resulted in the final agreement being too lopsided against him.

“Using a spell is sort of like flexing a third hand,” Ivey started.

“It’s okay,” he interrupted, raising his hand. “I know how to use the spell now.”

He had magic, and he was going to get an animal companion. Despite the stink, he smiled, imagining a fearsome dog fighting for him, distracting his enemies while he killed him.

She smiled at him, and it lit up her face.

Animal Communion, he thought, and details of the new ability appeared. There were two flavours. The first and primary use was when he was already entangled, and then the ability would speed up the exchange of skills between them. In theory, he could learn their magic and vice versa. The second benefit was to feel an animal’s strengths and weaknesses prior to entanglement. It was something he could utilise to work out if it was worthwhile forming a pact with. The communion would help him understand intuitively if it was too strong or too weak for him.

Animal Sense, he thought next, already suspecting what it was going to be. Sure enough, it let him sense animals around him, including a feeling of their strength and mood. Though it was far less detailed than when he used Communion in the same way.

“Thank you. What’s next?”

Ivey hesitated, her eyes going unfocused. “There is one other thing that is worth checking. It is a screen called innate skills. Just wait a moment,” she instructed.

Daniel shrugged after the first two screens had come up. He was willing to be more trusting. “What is it?” he asked.

“Given your plant magic, you probably have a functioning core. The innate skills instructions prompt your broken interface to run a routine to qualify and sometimes quantify what your core can do. Just be warned it can be uncomfortable.”

“What do I do?”

Ivey smiled at him, but it was a happy, nursing smile they gave before plunging a needle into you.

“I’m not going to like this?”

“Think about innate skills,” she said encouragingly.