When Joshua arrived at school the next morning, Rebecca and Olivia were both sitting outside on one of the benches, chatting quietly together as his bus finally pulled up. “Wow,” Josh exclaimed. “I wasn’t expecting to see either of you out here this early this morning; much less both of you here together!”

“Let’s say, for just an instant,” Rebecca frowned slightly, “that I might – just a little bit – be willing to indulge you in the crazy idea which you told me about yesterday. What happens now,” she asked, obviously extremely nervous.

“Now, we all go to the laundry room where we can talk privately,” Olivia giggled. Leaning over, she whispered conspiratorially to Rebecca, “I’ve got one of the only keys for it, you know.”

“Or”, Joshua suggested, “rather than doing anything which stands out and might seem suspicious if someone were to see us, we can all simply go into one of the private study areas in the library. They’re pretty much deserted this time of morning, as Rebecca can tell you.”

“That’s true,” Rebecca said, as she eased up from the bench and started to slowly walk into the building. Swaying slightly from side to side, she staggered almost as if she was drunk on her feet this morning.

“Are you okay?” Hurrying to catch up beside her, Joshua quickly wrapped an arm around her waist to help steady her steps.

“I’m fine,” Rebecca assured him. “It just takes a while for my blood to get pumping properly in this cold. Once I warm up inside, I’ll be right as rain again.”

“I’ve got the doors,” Olivia assured them, as she rushed ahead and opened the entrance wide.

“I’m not helpless,” Rebecca snorted, obviously annoyed.

“No, “Joshua agreed. “You’re just cold. We’ll help get you into the library where you can warm up in peace while we talk.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Grumbling under her breath, Rebecca let herself be led inside and down the hall to the still empty library. By the time Olivia had the door to the middle private study area open and a chair pulled out for her, it was all Rebecca could do to flop down into it and rest her head on the table.

“Just take a moment to catch your breath,” Joshua told her, as he pulled out a chair to sit down opposite her. “Now, if things are the same this time as they were last time with Olivia,” Joshua smiled slightly as Olivia quietly shut the door between them and the rest of the library and then sat down in the chair to his left, “you have my permission to access the World Reclamation Project anytime.”

“Oh!” Olivia grinned widely as she flashed a brilliant smile into the room. “That must’ve been what was needed. I just got an update on the status window for a new companion and ten points.”

“Spend them all on Rebecca,” Joshua told her. “She had a huge disadvantage when I looked earlier – Catastrophic Illness (Cardiovascular). Level five took all ten of my points to pay off earlier.”

“Level four is eight points,” Olivia frowned. “I’ve bought it off for starters.”

Looking a little bewildered, Rebecca was starting blankly into space, trying to read all the messages that had suddenly popped up and were blocking her vision.

“Think about the boxes closing,” Joshua told her, helpfully. “They’ll go away, if you just want them to.”

“Close boxes,” Rebecca whispered, blinking unbelievably several times.

“You really don’t have to say it,” Olivia giggled. “Just think it, and you can interact with the system. It helps keep you from looking like a madwoman talking to yourself, if other people notice you,” she advised, warmly.

“I think I just bought off a level three and a level two illness,” Rebecca said, uncertain. “The red warning in front of me has now turned yellow and isn’t blinking any longer. It’s warning me I have a Catastrophic Illness (Cardiovascular), level one….

“…Or maybe not? It just disappeared.” Frowning heavily, Rebecca didn’t seem as if she was certain of anything at this point.

“It cost two points,” Olivia giggled, “and that’s what I had left, so I went ahead and paid it off for you.”

“Which means you’re cured,” Joshua beamed brightly. “You’re not the dying girl anymore. You’re now just my girl.”

“I… I can live with that,” Rebecca whispered softly, as several large tears slowly leaked down the side of her cheeks. “If you’re telling me the truth, I can definitely live with that,” she reaffirmed, as a smile twitched several times, before finally forming and staying on her face.

“You sure will,” Olivia giggled lightly, “but you’re going to have to live without any underwear!”

“Not yet,” Joshua admonished, leaning over to flick Olivia gently on the nose. “We’re all out of companion points – unless you have some stockpiled up that you haven’t spent yet – and I’m not going to give her a disadvantage like that until we can at least afford to buy a few ranks in cold resistance. You saw how the cold affected her earlier, and we’re still in the middle of winter!”

“Not quite,” Olivia corrected. “There’s only about a month left in winter – it’s already February. But” she sighed and then nodded slightly, “I get your point.”

“You guys are going to have to fill me in and tell me everything,” Rebecca pleaded. Reaching up and wiping the tears from her eyes smeared the heavy purple mascara across her face, looking terrible.

“We will,” Joshua assured Rebecca, as Olivia dug around in her pocketbook to pass a few clean napkins across the table. “It’ll take a while to tell you all we know though,” he warned, “and to be honest, we can’t really be certain of anything. It’s not like this stupid system came with some sort of instruction manual or help file.”

“Unfortunately,” he sighed, as the morning bell rang for the first time that morning, “there’s no time right now. How about we all meet for lunch?”

“Sounds great,” Olivia giggled. “And you haven’t told me if your family is going to let you come over this weekend, or not, yet.”

“They are,” Joshua grinned, happily. “I don’t know what your mother, or Maria said to them when they spoke on the phone last night, but apparently it was good enough. Father had signed me a note granting me permission to ride the bus and get off at a friend’s house this evening.”

“Do you think there’s any chance you can join us, Rebecca?” Turning her attention back across the table, Olivia was grinning brightly over towards the other girl.

“Probably,” Rebecca shrugged slightly. “My parents really don’t refuse me anything anymore. They’re convinced I’m going to die at any time and they don’t want their last memory of me to be them denying me something which might’ve brought me even a moment’s happiness.”

“Great!” Laughing happily, Joshua slid his chair out from the table and got up to head to the door. “Then we’ll have all weekend to sort things out together.”

“Wait!” Rebecca called out and stopped him before he could open the door. “Was I really going to die in ten hours and twenty-two minutes?” She asked in a quiet voice, barely whispering the words.

“Was that what the notification said?” Joshua asked, shocked. All the color slowly drained out of his face, as he suddenly had the thought, ‘If they’d been just a few moments longer!’

“It was,” Rebecca confirmed, as a few tears slowly trickled down her cheeks again.

“Well, forget about it!” Snorting slightly, Olivia eased up and around the table to wrap her arms tightly around Rebecca’s trembling form. “It’s gone now, and if it comes back again, we’ll just all work together to but it off a second time. You don’t have to worry about that any longer.”

Rebecca nodded slightly, sniffled twice, and then slowly stood up to wrap her arms around Olivia and bawl uncontrollably.

“Shoo. Shoo.” Seeing Joshua turn back towards them, Olivia waved her hand gently and motioned for him to get away. “This is girl time,” she told him, while rocking Rebecca gently. “No woman wants her man to see her in such an emotional state, so get on out of here and leave her to me. I’ll take care of this.”

“Are you certain?” Joshua asked, feeling relieved. What did he know about comforting and calming a young woman who’d just cheated the cold grasp of death by less than a half a day?

“It’s my duty as first lady of the harem, and worth two points,” Olivia assured him, waving her hands to dismiss him once again. “Now go.”

“Fine,” Joshua sighed. “Just be certain to call me if either of you actually need me. Heck. Call me if you just want me to come be with you guys. I’ll keep my phone on.”

“We will,” Olivia promised, shooing him one last time while Rebecca cried uncontrollably in her arms.

Heading out, Joshua didn’t think he had even been quite so happy to escape from a room before in his life, as he was at this moment.

Joshua was sitting in Coach Beale’s class, barely paying attention to the lecture anymore. Apparently, the points that he’d spent in Increased Intelligence were really paying off. Where before he had to struggle to try and follow along with the lessons, now he was finding himself picking up and learning new concepts with the minimal of effort.

‘I think,’ he told himself, ‘that intelligence isn’t how much a person knows — that’s knowledge. Intelligence is the ability to pick up and acquire new knowledge!’ Even if someone had a genius level intellect, that doesn’t mean they’d instantly be a rocket scientist! They’d still have to put in the effort to study and learn in their chosen field of knowledge. If all they did was sit and potato chips while watching television all day, every day, they’d never learn anything about rockets — but they might become the world’s greatest TV and movie buff!

‘Which means,’ Joshua smiled slightly to himself, ‘that I have to quit slacking off and being a loser. If I’m going to keep spending points to improve my learning speed and capability, then I can’t waste my time with video games anymore.’ But what should he start to focus on learning? What might be useful in the new world which might be coming in less than a year?

Sighing slightly to himself, Joshua slid down low into his seat so as to not be noticed while he struggled with the question. In some ways, the idea of learning modern knowledge almost seemed worthless to him. Was there any real point in becoming a Master of Technology? A computer programmer or hacker? Was there any point in studying the stock market? What was the chances that life would stay normal enough to keep the power on and the banks from all collapsing once WRP went public?

While pondering gloomily on the future, Joshua turned his attention to Rebecca’s information in his interface. Now that she’d slept, been upgraded, and had her own interface unlocked for her, her information had finally appeared in his main menu. At first glance, her information in his interface seemed almost exactly like Olivia’s — that is, until he got down to the lowest detail levels.

“What the hell?” Whispering softly to himself, Joshua pondered for several moments on why the fine details for Rebecca were so much difference. For example, when he opened up all the way to the appearance tab, there was the same long list of embarrassing personal information — height, weight, length, circumference of various body parts, and all that overly detailed and analyzed stuff. The difference between Rebecca’s and Olivia’s, however, was the addition of a series of plus and minus icons beside each figure.

Reminding himself that he’d learned his lesson already in the past with the underwear mishap, Joshua absolutely refused to mess with anything until he used Inspect over everything first! Inspect each figure. Inspect each plus. Inspect each minus. Even after the first six all ending up giving him the exact same information, Joshua was too paranoid to take anything for granted.

‘Apparently, for whatever reason,’ Joshua finally concluded, ‘Rebecca is a lot more customizable of a companion than Olivia is. Honestly,’ he mused to himself, ‘I don’t think there’s a part of her which I can’t modify! Is it because she’s my Second Lady?’

Try as he might, however, Joshua couldn’t come up with a definitive reason why he had so much more control over her interface — at least not until he finally got down to viewing her titles. Where Olivia was registered as an Eternal Knight, Rebecca was registered as an Eternal Whatever.

‘It has to be from her boastful bargain yesterday morning,’ Joshua groaned to himself. “IF any of the things you’ve said ends up happening tomorrow, and you’re not completely and utterly insane, then I’ll happily become your… whatever. Cure me,” she promised, “and I’ll be your friend, lover, sex slave, girl-toy, or whatever the heck it is you want me to be.

“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! Why’d I let her agree to such a thing?” Sighing deeply, Joshua didn’t even notice when a piece of chalk wizzed past his head and shattered on the far wall of the classroom.

“Mister Campbell! You’re not the one muttering over there are you, and disrupting my class?!” Joshua was so wrapped up in his own inner thoughts, he simply shook his head negatively softly, without answering. “Good man,” Coach Beale praised, turning his attention back to teaching, apparently satisfied with Joshua’s quiet acquiescence.

‘I’m going to need to talk with the girls, before I do anything with this,’ Joshua thought to himself, just moments before a rapid series of pings sounded in his ear.

Congratulations! Your companion has purchased Skill – Inspect (Advanced) I for you.

Congratulations! Your companion has purchased Enhancement – Physical Stamina II for you.

Congratulations! Your companion has purchased Enhancement — Physical Stamina III for you.

‘Well…. Isn’t that nice of them to wait and talk things over with me first.’ Sighing slightly, Joshua wasn’t exactly upset over the choices; he was just slightly annoyed that he didn’t have any say at all in choosing his own enhancements. ‘And inspect is the skill I’m wanting to work up the most, for the short term,’ he tried to console himself. ‘And that extra stamina is just going to come back to bite them in the woo-wah, come sexy time.’

Chuckling slightly to himself, Joshua barely noticed when the bell rang for the end of class.

Things were going as normal as possible in Mr. Babs’ class, when Joshua was shocked by another series of notifications.

Notification: Susan McDaniel has been chosen and accepted as your First Concubine. You have been awarded 1 UP and 1CP.

Notification: Bailee Smithton has been chosen and accepted as your Second Concubine. You have been awarded 1 UP and 1CP.

“WHAT THE?!!” The second notification was so shocking, Joshua almost fell out of his seat hopping up in surprise, while half choking as he tried to swallow down his voice. “KOUGH! KOUGH!”

“Are you okay, Josh? Do you need to step out and get a drink of water?” Sounding concerned, Mr. Babs completely stopped class at the interruption, and all eyes turned towards Joshua.

“Kough… Kough…” Nodding slightly, Joshua grabbed up his bookbag and headed to the door.

“Kevin,” Mr. Babs directed, “walk with him and make certain Josh makes it down to the office. He might need to go home early today.”

“Sure.” The nerdy looking boy sitting closest to the door, got up, and opened it as Joshua stumbled outside while still have in a daze. Heading down to the nearby water fountain, Joshua didn’t even notice when he shut the door behind them.

After taking a moment to splash some water from the fountain onto his face, Joshua finally looked back and gave a weak smile towards Kevin. “I’m okay now,” he assured him. “You can go back if you want. I’m just going to stand out here and catch my breath for a moment, and then I’ll go back in as well. I just had a damn dust bunny fly out of that ancient radiator and float up my nose,” he lied, smoothly.

“You sure?” Kevin asked, not looking like he was really concerned or not, one way or another.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” Joshua assured him once again. “I’m right behind you.”

Shrugging uncaringly, Keven turned and head back into the classroom, pulling the door shut behind him.

Waiting a moment to make certain that no one else was going to come back out and check on him, Joshua slowly sat down and eased his back against the wall in the hallway. “What the hell is Olivia doing?” Glancing back over the last messages – he hadn’t closed them yet – Joshua still couldn’t believe what he was reading. Susan McDaniel and Bailee Smithton had both been added to his list of concubines!

Both were people that Joshua already knew, so he didn’t have to struggle with uncertainty about who they were this time, like he had with Natasha and Maria. Susan was one of the slightly chubby little goth girls, with severe self-esteem issues. She was one of those self-cutters who had dozens of knife marks up and down her arms, and who always claimed she was going to commit suicide because life was so sucky and harsh. She definitely wasn’t a girl he would’ve ever chosen for himself, but he could almost understand why Olivia had chosen her – just like Rebecca and Natasha, she was one of the “broken” people.

Bailee Smithton, on the other hand, was the name that made Joshua hold his breath and question the reality of it. When he’d first taken the phone from Mr. Bab’s desk, and was registering for the first time, she was his first choice for an eternal companion. Well, second, if you consider Wonder Woman to be an actual choice and not just a stupid attempt to bypass the registration without having to choose a companion.

Bailee Smithton – a name the whole world probably knew. Teen fashion model. Actress. Singer. Dancer. Musician. She’d played in her first movie at the age of six, and by the time she’d started to develop her first real curves as a young lady, she was already supporting her family and earning millions of dollars a year. Every time she was in the news, on the internet, or in front of the camera, she always came across as being a perfect young lady – beautiful, graceful, charming, witty, and compassionate.

How much of that was real; and how much was her just putting on a front, Joshua didn’t know. Like most young boys his age, he really didn’t care. He was more than willing to believe the lie – if it was a lie – just for the illusion which she created in his mind of being the “perfect woman”. She’d been his very first choice to add as his eternal companion – but the system had told him, “the distance is too great to establish companionship”.

Had she traveled closer somehow? Was there a different distance allowable between companions and concubines? Was it even the same person? ‘It’s not inconceivable that two people share the same name,’ Joshua reminded himself. ‘How can I even be certain that she’s the same person?’

Surely that was it! There wasn’t any way in heck that he’d have a superstar ultra-model as a concubine! Joshua remembered telling Olivia that she wasn’t exactly his first choice – that he’d tried both Wonder Woman and Bailee before choosing her. With her and Rebecca down in the library alone together all this time, skipping class, they’d had time to get on the internet and do some research and found someone nearby that had the same name, just to try and give him a heart attack!

“Damn girls,” Joshua muttered softly under his breath. Pulling out his phone, he glanced up and down the hallway to make certain no one was coming and then he logged onto the internet and did a quick Moogle search for “Bailee Smithton”. Almost at once, a dozen irrelevant searches popped up on his phone – all referencing the supermodel and teen actress.

“Bailee Smithton near me,” Joshua tried, feeling slightly frustrated. Again, half a dozen links popped up referencing the teen model – her charity concert in a nearby city in a month. A movie premiere and award show attendance. There were a couple more instances where she had either appeared “close” – if one considered two hundred miles to be “close” – to where he lived in the past, or else she was scheduled to appear “close” nearby in the immediate future.

Trying his best to ignore all those unwanted pieces of information, Joshua scrolled down and then over to the second page of search results. After several moments of searching on his phone, buried in the wave of links were two entries which he thought held some possibilities. Clinking on the first, it led to an obituary for an old lady by the name of “Bailee Smithton” who’d passed away a few months ago. She was only one county over, and even though the old lady was dead, that didn’t mean one of her sons hadn’t named a daughter, or granddaughter, after her. There was a definite possibility that the “Bailee Smithton” who Olivia had chosen for him was related to the dead woman, rather than being the supermodel that came immediately to his mind.

Clicking the back button on his phone, Joshua followed the second link to check it out as well. This Bailee Smithton was a graduation notice for a young high school student from last year. Uncertain exactly where Gainsbourg was located in relation to his end-of-nowhere home, Joshua did a quick search on Moogle maps for it. “One hundred and twenty-nine miles, if you take the interstate,” he mused. “That’s not really so far, and she might’ve chosen some place a little closer to go to college, as well.”

Both were viable choices and yet he had no way to actually confirm either of them. Sighing deeply, all Joshua could do is wait for lunch to come around to confront the girls and learn the truth about the matter then. Oh, his emotional mind was yelling at him to confront them now, if he could, but his rational mind was telling him how impossible that task would actually be.

Were they still in the library study room? Probably. But, if they were, just how was he supposed to get past the old librarian to join them? This late in class, she’d never believe a teacher had sent him down to do any research on anything – especially without any sort of note. He might could catch them in the few minutes between class, but how much could they actually tell him in all of sixty seconds which he’d have to confront them?

Sighing deeply, Joshua slowly got back up and went into Mr. Babs classroom for the last few moments of class. All he could do is wait until lunch to try and get down to the truth of the matter – and to spank the girls for not being polite enough to at least wait and ask his opinion on the subject first!