After another week of Amber, Declan, and Jessica using the system, Thomas decided it was time to begin spreading it for real. First, he set it so that when he transferred the system, it wouldn't activate until the next morning, so people wouldn't be able to tell where they got it from. He included this as an option that could be turned on and off in the system as well.

The only difficulty he had after that was finding random excuses to touch people. Handshakes were the ideal scenario, but people only really shook hands when they met someone for the first time. Other than that, the opportunity rarely came up. Thomas had to keep finding excuses to bump into people, or tap them on the shoulder.

"So, how many users are we at?" Jessica asked one Monday morning, sitting next to him.

Thomas checked the system. "We just went over three hundred."

"Woo!" Jessica exclaimed. "I guess that means we can stop working on spreading it, huh?"

"Yeah, it'll probably spread on its own now." Thomas nodded in satisfaction.

"Anyways, do you have any plans for fall break?" Jessica asked.

Thomas frowned. "Fall break?"

"You know, the long weekend? In like two days? There's going to be parties and dances and all that?" Jessica explained.

"Huh. I didn't realize people actually did thing's for that… I thought we just got a few days off." Thomas responded with a shrug.

"So I guess that means you don't have any plans then, right?" Jessica continued.

"Not unless you count sitting in my room and reading. I was thinking of reading up on artificial intelligence. See if I can figure out something for the system." Thomas responded.

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Well, if you don't want to do something completely boring, me and a few friends are going to check out some of the events people are throwing. It should be fun!"

Thomas thought about it. "Eh, sure, why not. It isn't like I'm horribly pressed for time or anything."

"Has anyone ever told you you have the absolute worst way of agreeing to things?" Jessica commented, shaking her head at him.

"You remember Mark, and this is Stacy, Luke, George, and Casey." Jessica introduced Thomas to her friends as they met up. "Guys, this is Thomas."

"So you're the Thomas she keeps abandoning us to hang out with." Stacy approached, giving him an evaluating look. She then looked at Jessica, raising an eyebrow. "Does he…?" She trailed off, tapping her temple.

"Yes, Thomas has the system." Jessica told them, rolling her eyes. "And I told you guys, it isn't some big secret or anything. In fact, you're encouraged to spread it."

"Kinda defeats the purpose of making it if you don't." Thomas added with a nod.

"How would you know what the person who made it was thinking?" Mark immediately jumped in with a condescending tone. "Could you even begin to comprehend the thoughts of a being capable of making such a miraculous tool?"

Thomas raised an eyebrow at him, trying to suppress a smirk. "Well, first, there's literally a button for sharing the system. Kinda seems like a dumb addition if they didn't want it to be shared. Secondly, well, I'm the one who made it, so… I'm pretty sure I know what I was thinking when I did it."

"You made the system?!?" George immediately exclaimed, looking at him in disbelief. Similar expressions were painted on the faces of the other members of the group, though Mark's looked more on the skeptical side.

Jessica nodded. "He did, and I helped too. Though, I thought we were keeping that a secret, right?"

"Well, from the general public, yeah. I don't need to be the focus of the entire population of Earth. I don't mind if your friends know though." Thomas responded with a shrug.

"Wait, hold on." Mark interrupted. "How is it even possible for you to make something like this? It's… it literally breaks the laws of reality!"

Thomas paused. "Well, to start, I didn't make all of it. One day I figured out I could make tasks and be rewarded for completing them. I don't know where the points come from, and I don't control how rewarding any particular task is. All I did was design a system for actually using the points and rules for how tasks are made, which really wasn't that complicated."

"But why though?" Casey asked.

"Don't ask him that." Jessica immediately interjected. "The answer is very unsatisfying."

"I just thought it'd be neat." Thomas answered immediately after with a grin, causing Jessica to sigh in exasperation.

"That is kind of a weak reason." Luke commented with a nod.

"Though arguably better than many mythological reasons. Like turning someone into a spider because they weave better than you do. Kinda shitty considering you're immortal and they'll be dead in a couple decades." George added.

"I'm not sure I appreciate being compared to the Greek gods…" Thomas muttered.

"Enough geekery!" Stacy announced. "We came to party! Let's go!" She ushered them all along, towards the campus event center which already had loud, pounding music echoing from it.

Thomas followed the group into the building and immediately felt uncomfortable. There were people everywhere, bumping into each other, jumping around, waving their hands, drinking whatever happened to be available. A good portion of the crowd was already obviously drunk or high, and the event had just started. Thomas immediately wanted to bail, but then a task popped up.

[Spend two hours at the party. (0%) - 10 pts.]

With a sigh, Thomas grudgingly entered the crowd, sticking close to Jessica. They wove through the crowd until they reached a spot along the edge of the wall with a few tables and chairs. There were a few refreshments available here as well, but most people appeared to have brought in their own, so they were largely ignored.

As they found a place to set up, out of the press of the crowd, Jessica turned back to look at Thomas and suddenly let out a laugh, though it was mostly drowned out by the music. "You look pissed!" She exclaimed, leaning in close to him.

"I'm not exactly a 'party person'." Thomas explained. He looked out over the crowd of people obviously enjoying themselves just jumping and bumping into each other and shook his head. "I just don't get it." He muttered, low enough that no one could hear it over the cacophony.

"Come on!" Jessica grinned and grabbed his wrist, leading him into the crowd. She led him deeper and deeper, until they were practically in the middle of the crowd, before she stopped and started moving with the crowd, hopping and swaying, still keeping a hold of Thomas's wrist. She turned to look at Thomas and laughed again. "You can't just stand there!" She exclaimed. "Move a little!"

Thomas tried to move a bit, but the jumping felt weird, and swaying didn't make much sense to him. He kept getting out of sync with the crowd and bumping into people. Jessica shook her head. "Follow me!" She said, moving in front of him and pressing her back into his chest, starting to sway with the crowd. She also used her grip on his wrist to hold his hand up and wave it around. From that point on, Jessica became his party guru. She helped him figure out the movement, led him in and out of the crowd, introduced him to various people who she vaguely knew or even just met because they looked interesting, and overall included him in this environment he still had little to no idea how to navigate.

He still didn't think any of it looked particularly enjoyable, but seeing the way Jessica got swept up in it all, he started to get an idea. In order to enjoy all this, you had to just let go and move with the flow. It wasn't particularly about anything that was happening, but the energy that everyone was giving off. It was like the very fact that people were out here enjoying it, made people enjoy it. Unfortunately, Thomas just didn't have that ability, but he did enjoy being with Jessica, so it wasn't so bad.

A few hours later, the party wound down as people headed out to other gatherings that were happening. One of the people Jessica had been talking to invited them to a house party he knew about, so they headed there next. They'd lost the rest of Jessica's friend group over the course of the night, and they didn't see them before they left, so they just went by themselves. The house party was just as crowded as the previous one, but instead of music, people formed clumps to mix and mingle with each other. There was also a lot more alcohol available, though both Thomas and Jessica avoided it.

Again, Thomas had to rely on Jessica, though he navigated the conversations better than the dancing. Without her, he probably would have spent his time hanging out on the fringes, having no idea how to insert himself into these bubbles of conversation that formed. Jessica was just good at talking to people. People Thomas could only exchange a few words with would become animated the moment Jessica began to talk. She even found ways to keep Thomas involved in the conversation, acting almost like a buffer or translator, keeping everyone in the conversation. Thomas had no idea how she did it, but because she did, for the first time, he actually enjoyed himself at a party.

"Hey, everyone, there's some dude out here picking up cars!" Someone ran into the house shouting, before everyone rushed out after them. Thomas and Jessica shared a knowing glance before following everyone out. In the front yard of the house were a couple guys standing around with their shirts off, taking turns picking up the rear end of a truck and laughing.

"Are they?" Jessica asked Thomas, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes they are." Thomas confirmed, pulling up the guys status pages. "I'm guessing they're some of Amber's derivatives."

"Ah, yes, the gym rat crowd." Jessica nodded knowingly.

"Hey, watch this." Thomas suddenly said with a grin as the latest dude bro picked up the truck. He went to the option for hair color and tried to change the color to bright pink. However, the moment he went to spend the points, there was a sort of… resistance. The dude bro suddenly froze, dropping the truck as he began to look around, confused. "Huh…" Thomas grunted, cocking his head, considering what just happened. When he'd tried to spend the points, they'd resisted him, like… like he didn't have complete control over them. He sensed he could have tried to force it, to make the points be spent, but he didn't actually care, so they didn't. Was it because it was the dude bro who earned the points? Did that give him some sort of ownership over them, so Thomas couldn't just mess with them?

Jessica looked at him, confused. "What'd you do?"

"I tried to turn his hair pink." Thomas coughed, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. "Turns out I can't just spend other people's points. Which, I suppose, is a good thing. The power to turn anyone into a girl would probably be a bit too much."

"Wait, what?" Jessica asked, widening her eyes. "How would you turn someone into a girl?"

"Did you not see that option?" Thomas asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's a little expensive, but yeah, the system does gender changes. Well, it says it does… I haven't exactly tried it."

"I thought that was just informative! I didn't realize it was a changeable option!" Jessica exclaimed.

"Yeah, you have to click on it to pull that option up… I thought things might get weird if it was too obvious." Thomas explained.

"Seriously, what can't the system do?" Jessica asked, shaking her head.

"I honestly don't know." Thomas sighed. "I feel like I'm severely underutilizing this thing sometimes."

"I mean, you've only had it for like what, a month? I'm sure you'll get better at it." Jessica assured him.

"Yeah… I'm hoping the AI will help a lot, once I can figure it out. Once the system can understand other people the way it understands me, development can really take off." Thomas replied.

"Why can't it understand other people? I mean, it can study our morals and desires, but it can't respond to our commands? How does that make sense?" Jessica added.

"I honestly have no idea where the disconnect is." Thomas sighed, shaking his head. "It's like, unless I prescribe a method of interaction, it can't handle it. For the tasks, it just looks for the presence of something, then makes something out of it. It's just an if this, then that function. For commands… I just don't know. Also, for the tasks, a lot of the generated tasks are thrown out after going through the rules. You can't really do that for commands, and if the system started responding to idle thoughts, it'd be chaotic."

"That's fair I suppose." Jessica nodded.

The dude bro's had recovered by this point and were back to messing with the truck. Two of them had picked up one end each and were swinging it back and forth. "See, now that can't be good for it." Thomas pointed out.

"You know… You could go show them some real strength." Jessica suggested, bumping into him slightly.

"Is that what you're into? Big strong men holding trucks over their heads?" Thomas asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"No, it's just… they're getting all this attention for simply picking it up a little bit." Jessica muttered sheepishly. "You could blow them out of the water, and everyone just ignores you."

"It's just the system." Thomas shrugged. "It doesn't really mean anything. If they keep up with their tasks, they'll be able to do it too."

"I know." Jessica sighed. "It's just… I don't like how people just seem to dismiss you, just cause you're a little strange. If you did something like that, maybe they'd give you a chance."

Thomas frowned. "People dismiss me?"

"Yes! All the time!" Jessica exclaimed. "You're standing literally right next to them, and they just… gloss over you, like you're not even a person to them. If I didn't force them to pay attention to you, they'd never even acknowledge you!"

"So what?" Thomas commented with a shrug. "I came to the conclusion that a large majority of the population is not compatible with me a long time ago. It isn't necessarily their fault or mine, it's just the way it is. We're like oil and water. I mean, I look around this party, and I don't understand why anyone would want to be involved with this. It's too crowded, people are being drunk and obnoxious, and no one is even really doing anything. The conversations are shallow at best, there's no games, and the biggest entertainment is two dudes swinging around a truck. It's nonsensical, and everyone seems to love it. It's going to be hard for me to connect with these people, because I don't even understand why they want to be here."

Jessica sighed. "I know you may not be their best friend, and they may not even like you, but they should at least acknowledge your existence. It's just… there's so many amazing things about you, and no one even takes the time to figure out they're there."

"Yes, but people who don't take the time to actually understand a person aren't worth hanging out with." Thomas countered. "Lifting a truck over my head isn't going to change that."

Jessica frowned, before shaking her head. "You want to get out of here?"

"Eh, sure." Thomas agreed, and they headed out.

"I'm sorry you didn't have fun tonight." Jessica apologized once they were a good distance away from the party.

"Whoa, hey, I never said I didn't have fun. I mean, I didn't get any of that, but… I get you, so it wasn't so bad." Thomas replied with a shrug.

"Really?" Jessica asked.

"Well yeah. I mean, well, honestly, I don't think I could ever be bored when you're paying that much attention to me. Plus… well, I still couldn't quite get it, but seeing you enjoy yourself kinda made me enjoy myself. Like a contact high or something." Thomas explained.

"Well, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself then." Jessica replied with a grin, knocking into him slightly. "How about we do something you enjoy tomorrow, to even things out?"

"I mean, unless you want to sit in my room watching dumb tv shows while playing video games, I don't really do much." Thomas answered with an awkward shrug.

"It's a date then!" Jessica immediately replied. "I'll buy us a pizza. How about around 7?"

"That should be fine… are you sure though? Aren't there other parties going on?" Thomas responded.

"Eh, I'm a little partied out after tonight." Jessica answered. "It just didn't seem as fun as it used to."

"To be fair, you were essentially babysitting me the entire time. I mean, I appreciate it, but it probably wasn't the most fun thing you could have been doing." Thomas sighed.

"Thomas, trust me, you were not the problem tonight." Jessica stated, grabbing his hand and giving it a squeeze.

Thomas shot her a quick grin, squeezing her hand back. The road they were walking down had a lot of college houses, so they were still passing a few parties. As they passed one in particular, they started to hear screaming coming from the back yard, and people began rushing out, looking panicked.

[Stop the two system users from harming civilians. (0/1) - 10 pts.]

Thomas glanced at the new mission that just popped up, before rushing towards the back yard. To avoid the crowd, he leapt up and flipped onto the roof, running across it to reach the backyard. The moment he reached the backyard, he found a disaster area. An above ground pool had a hole in it, flooding the yard, turning the ground into a swampy mess. There were people everywhere, slipping in the mud, hiding behind tables or in the vegetation, and above all trying to escape. A crowd was rushing out, but there was only a small gate to leave through, and a couple dozen were trapped in the now empty pool, as the hole was right where the ladder used to be. So far, it didn't look like anyone had been seriously injured yet, just a few minor injuries and some panic attacks as the two idiots tossed each other around, breaking tables and chairs, anything that got in the way of their brawl.

Thomas jumped into the yard, approaching the two bozos who were now rolling around in the mud like children. Just as one pinned the other, preparing to land a heavy punch on his face, Thomas grabbed him by the back of his neck, and slammed him into the ground. The other began to climb to his feet, looking at Thomas thankfully, before Thomas fixed him with a withering glare. "Sit!" Thomas commanded, and the guy immediately stopped trying to stand, looking at his opponent who was now groaning in pain.

"What the fuck do you two idiots think you're doing!" Thomas immediately began to yell at them. "I don't care if you want to fight, hell, you can kill each other for all I care, but you do not fight in the middle of a giant crowd of civilians! You do not wreck other people's homes over your own bullshit!" Thomas glared at the both of them. He opened up their systems, and turned everything off, making it so they couldn't spend points or receive tasks, setting it to turn back on in a week. The points may be theirs, but the interface was his. "If I catch either of you doing something like this again, I'll take your system away permanently!" He growled, making the two look at him in absolute horror.

[Stop the two system users from harming civilians. (1/1)]

The system announced his completion of the task, but when he felt the point reward appear, it felt much larger than normal. Thomas frowned and opened his status page, only to notice that he'd not only gotten the ten point reward, but also an extra eleven! Thomas checked his tasks to see if he'd somehow missed a task that he'd somehow completed at the same time, but he couldn't find anything. He pondered this problem for a second, before telling the system to pull up all completed tasks, along with their point rewards. The entry at the bottom of the list confirmed his suspicion.

[Stop the two system users from harming civilians. 21.39 pts.]

*Now why would it be that high?* Thomas pondered in confusion, scratching his head.

By this point, Jessica had reached the backyard as well, approaching him from behind. "Are you alright?" She asked, placing a hand on his back.

"Hm? Oh! Yeah, I'm fine." Thomas answered. "These guys were pushovers. Actually, do you think you could watch them while I get the people out of the pool? Maybe call the cops as well?"

"Sure." Jessica nodded, turning to look at the two offenders with a serious expression as she pulled out her phone.

Thomas left her to it and walked towards the pool, casually leaping to the top of the six foot high rim. The crowd of people pressed away from him, looking up in fear, giving him a nice empty area to jump into, which he immediately regretted, as there was still a good six inches of water left in the pool. He grimaced at his now soaked shoes, before sighing and turning to the frightened crowd. "Alright, who wants to get out of this pool? Don't worry, the two who caused all this have been taken care of, so it's perfectly safe out there." The crowd looked at him blankly, no one stepping forward. "Uh, guys?" Thomas gave them a little wave. "Come on, do you guys really want to be stuck in here until the cops show up?"

At the mention of the cops, several in the crowd began to look nervous, and eventually, one girl hesitantly moved forward. "H-how will you get us out?" She asked nervously.

Thomas shrugged. "I was just going to carry you out. Like so." Thomas picked up the girl, before jumping to the edge and down again, placing the girl back on the ground. "See? Easy."

"T-thank you!" The girl exclaimed, before rushing off to grab her things.

Thomas then leapt back into the pool. "Alright, who's next?" Slowly Thomas carried everyone out of the pool, though some of the guys got awkward about how he was carrying them. What was wrong with carrying them in his arms? Thomas would never understand some people. The most awkward however, were the few girls who seemed to have decided to lose their tops while they swam. He got that it was a party, but really? One of them practically jumped into his arms, looking at him suggestively as she wiggled herself against him. She ended up taking a mud bath when he dropped her because she just would not get out of his arms. She shot him a shocked look, but Thomas just rolled his eyes and went back for more people. By the time he finished, the cops had arrived, and were currently talking with Jessica as they cuffed the two ruffians.

"You got some good legs on ya, doncha boy?" One of the cops complimented him as he approached, clapping him on the shoulder. Thomas frowned, looking down at his legs. He didn't really see anything good about them. Plus, he was wearing pants, so how could the cop even tell if they looked good.

"He means you can jump." Jessica explained, rolling her eyes.

"Ooh, okay, yeah…" Thomas nodded in realization.

"Right… Anyways, thank you for all your help." The cop continued, reaching out to shake Thomas's hand. "It's good to see young people doing what they can to help."

Thomas returned the cops handshake, transferring the system to him. "Share that with the other officers. You'll be needing it."

The cop looked slightly stunned as the system appeared in his vision. "What?"

"Well, there's probably going to be other incidents like this, and I am not going to be able to take care of it myself, so you guys need to be able to handle these things." Thomas explained with a shrug.

"What!?!" The cop reiterated incredulously.

Thomas frowned at him. "People are using the system to get stronger. If you don't keep up, you won't be able to maintain peace and order for much longer. So complete tasks, get points, and increase your stats. I can't explain it any simpler than that."

The cop looked at him with a blank expression, thinking the boy in front of him was absolutely insane, but the symbols in the corner of his vision weren't going away. "I-I just need a quick statement from you and you can go." The cop muttered eventually, deciding to ignore it all for now. Thomas spent the next few minutes answering the officers questions while Jessica waited. "Alright, that's all we should need. We'll call you if we need anything else." The cop finished, walking off.

"Well, that was exciting." Jessica commented as they headed out.

"Eh, I guess." Thomas replied with a shrug. "You know, I knew people would be able to misuse the system, but I still have no idea what to do about it."

"Couldn't you add in the system rules that if they misuse their ability, it shuts down?" Jessica asked.

"Based on whose morality? Like, things I believe are wrong, aren't necessarily universal, and if we do subjective morality again, it doesn't really do anything. We could try hard and fast rules, like don't hurt civilians, but what if you come across some dude forcing himself on a girl? You're going to have to act, and you don't deserve to lose the system for defending someone. Plus, define 'hurt'. Would you lose the system if you hurl a particularly vicious insult at someone? How about after a breakup? There's so many variables to consider, that any judgment would require an individual determination. The only solution I see is an AI for the system, which… Well, I'm working on it." Thomas explained with a sigh.

"That is a tricky problem." Jessica muttered in agreement, looking thoughtful. "Maybe I could help? I am a computer science major as well."

"I would love that." Thomas agreed immediately. "I'm currently working on machine learning, but if you wanted to work on a better UI, one that would allow for more diverse inputs, I think that'd help a lot. The problem with learning algorithms is that it only optimizes the use of the available options, so the more diverse the inputs, the better it can learn. Of course, that still doesn't really count as an AI, but… well, it's a start. Also, remember, it doesn't need to be code, it just needs to be a detailed list of steps, more like a flow chart."

"I could do that." Jessica nodded thoughtfully. "Kinda like working from both ends and trying to meet in the middle. You work on helping the system understand people, while I work on helping people understand the system."

"Exactly! I was going to try it myself but… well, things I consider intuitive don't seem to be as intuitive to others." Thomas explained. "Also, I know the system can allow people to modify their physical appearance, but how to design it so that people have enough options to let them get it exactly how they want it, I have no idea. The best I could do is maybe on the level of character creation in a video game, but… that probably wouldn't work for most people."

"I'll keep that in mind." Jessica said with a nod. "Any other features you want?"

"Not off the top of my head, but feel free to experiment. I'm honestly not sure what the limitations of the system are, so just assume it can do anything, and if we end up being wrong, well, it isn't that big a deal."

Jessica shook her head. "Statements like that make my head hurt." She grumbled. "How can you be so cavalier about all this? I mean, I've been using the system for weeks now, and I still wake up some mornings thinking it was all a dream."

Thomas considered it for a second. "I honestly don't know. I mean, I've never really been one to struggle with existentialism. I don't really question reality. It either is or it isn't. Since the system obviously is, then all I need to do is figure out how to work with it. The rest is inconsequential. Even if all of this does turn out to be a dream, what's the harm in just going with it? In any situation you find yourself in, all you can do is what you believe is best, dream or not, so why worry about it?"

Jessica sighed. "I wish I had your brain sometimes. It seems so peaceful in there."

"It really is." Thomas agreed. "I honestly can't complain. Well, except for sometimes getting a little bored, but… well, everyone deals with that, right?"