Jen and Sam watched and researched everything they could find out about the Lottos. Jen was discussing the disabled man that walked with a severe limp, and how he took his service dog with him, when Sam’s head perked up and he immediately grabbed the laptop and pulled up the video and then watched several more videos, and he said, “I’ve got an idea. Let’s go!” He waved for Jen to follow him out to their truck.

Jen said, “What’s going on, where are we going?”

Sam smiled and said, “It’s a surprise, you’ll see.”

From the phone calls Sam made while they were driving out of the mountains, Jen found out that they were going to purchase a cattle trailer, fencing, cattle feed, and three cows.

When they finally returned to the cabin, it was late, but with their reduced need for rest and their greatly improved physical skills, they started building a small fence coral for the cows. Sam refused to tell Jen what the cows were for, and she finally settled on her theory that he planned to possibly use them for food, or barter, or who knows depending on where they actually transferred to.

Just before morning as she was nailing the fencing to another post with only the horrible flood light to see with, Jen remembered one of the powers she read about in the agency files. She concentrated, focusing her mana on the darkness around her for a few minutes, then said with some excitement, “It worked! I don’t know why I didn’t remember this earlier.”

Sam looked over at Jen with curiosity, “What did you figure out?”

Jen turned off all the flashlights and floodlights they were using to light the work area. It was so dark in the wooded mountains that Sam couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face.

Sam said, “What are you up to?” As he strained to see or hear where Jen was, but he could only barely get a sense of her walking around.

She finally laughed as she snuck up right behind him and whispered, “It’s night vision! Do your best to try and see what’s around you while willing your mana to help you see, and poof, you can see in the dark!”

A few minutes later Jen saw Sam move his head around in surprise as he started focusing on seeing everything. They both received a system message telling them that they received the skill “Night Vision.”

They finally got everything settled with the cattle just before morning. Then they took a 40 minute “nap” which translated to a full eight hours of rest and started training again.

With Jen’s psych skill she could sense the emotions of the cows, and she could send her intentions to the cows making it possible for them to almost understand what she wanted. Jen was happy that the cows quickly bonded with her as she fed and groomed them.

Sam started getting the cattle trailer ready, and said, “With only a week left before we are scheduled to be teleported, transferred, or whatever to the Seven Decks, I think they’ve bonded with you enough, and we don’t really have additional time anyways.”

Jen shrugged in agreement. “Let’s go then.”

They headed down the mountain and drove several hours away into a forest with no one nearby. They had driven late into the night and during the last half hour they drove without their lights on before Sam finally stopped.

Jen accessed the system and selected the three cows to join her team and help her beat the odds.

Sam sighed and said, “We’re going to have to leave any of the cows that don’t accept. We can’t have them accepting later when we get back to the cabin and setting off the rainbow and fireworks. Go for it!”

Jen then used her psych skill to encourage them to “accept” her request.

To Sam’s great relief, almost immediately the cows accepted the request. Three rainbows and fireworks went off as the system responded.

Sam and Jen quickly loaded the cows into the trailer, jumped in the truck, and they all got the hell out of there before someone came looking for the new Lottos to collect the bounties.