Then

Cal cursed himself. The giant frogs should’ve been a glaring red flag. For if there were mutant animals on the river bank then one could, should, logically assume that maybe the animals in the water were similarly affected. It’d only make sense after all. Why would whatever magic or super technology that dropped gremlins into a person’s home while he was trying to enjoy light reading and a glass of tasty scotch, make tiny frogs into enormous nightmares, and possibly be making changes to his very body, leave the fish alone.

“Keep moving!” Cal swung his ax one handed into the churning water around his knees. He had a brief thought that the two-handed ax was feeling really light. In light of his rapidly healing cuts and bite, somehow he suspected that he couldn’t simply attribute the burst of strength to adrenaline.

He kept the knife in a reverse grip with his left hand near his face. One over-sized trout had already made a flying go at his face and had speared itself right on the blade.

He could feel the fish tearing at his jeans. Luckily they weren’t having any luck at getting to his precious skin underneath.

“They’re biting my legs!”

“Don’t stop until you get to the spire!” Cal grimaced as he fought to keep up with Nila and use his ax in an attempt to ward of the fish around her legs.

“But there’s no door!”

“Just run for it!”

The two made a desperate rush for the spire. Luck was with them as the spire was closer to the bank than the middle of the wide river. The water wouldn’t rise much further past their knees. Had it been any further toward the river’s deeper middle then they would’ve been in real trouble. As it was they covered the twenty or so yards to the spire in seconds. Of course with the fish frenzy around their legs it felt much longer.

Nila reached the spire first. She held out a hand to brace herself from slamming into it since she had been running as fast as she could. She needn’t have bothered. Right before Cal’s eyes, she ran right into the spire and disappeared as if there was nothing there.

Cal had time to bark out a short curse before he closed his eyes, grit his teeth and ran in right after her.

“Welcome to the Multiversal Access Point.”

A voice suddenly spoke from everywhere and nowhere in the hazy void that Cal found himself standing in.

“Um… what?”

“You may view your Personal Account Page, make purchases using Universal Points, and engage in commerce.”

Cal slowly took a step, which was harder than it sounded since there was nothing beneath his feet but a hazy mist that flowed all around him in maddeningly different, contrary directions. When he didn’t fall to his doom he took another step, then another. He spent a minute or maybe an hour walking around. No matter which way he turned and went nothing changed. He finally realized that the strange voice had fallen silent.

“I have questions?”

“Proceed.”

“What is my personal account page?”

“The cost is 5 Universal Points. Do you authorize the debit from your account?”

Cal bit back his immediate reply. According to the initial welcome message he earned points from killing the gremlins and it wasn’t a leap to assume he’d gotten more from the mutant frogs and fish. The problem was he didn’t know how many points he had and he didn’t want to waste any.

“How many Universal points do I have?”

“Visualize.”

Cal did just that. He thought of Universal Points, how many he had. Sure enough he could picture it in his imagination, 83 Universal Points. “Not bad,” he muttered. A thought struck suddenly. He pictured his personal account and after a few moments he could picture it his mind’s eye. “Ha! You’re not going to be able to nickle and dime me!”

To call it a page was a bit of misnomer. It was hard to explain, but Cal wouldn’t quite go as far as to say he was imagining a literal page of paper with his information written on it. Back against the wall, he’d say that it was more that he simply knew what was on there and what he saw made him angry.

“Hey! Uh… voice? What kind of bullshit is this?”

“Clarify.”

“This uh… personal account page… most of it is blanked out with numbers on the obscured areas.”

“The numbers indicate the cost in Universal Points to unlock the information.”

“So I have to spend points to see my, uh… attributes, skills, and powers?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck you, voice!” Cal snapped. To get this far only to find that this magic super technology was locking basic information about himself behind a paywall was beyond aggravating. The only thing that he could see was his name, his race, and a class. “Damn it, this is like the worst game ever.”

The voice remained silent while Cal thought about whether to bite the bullet and spend some points. “Voice, why does my race say Human Hybrid?”

“That is what you are.”

“Yeah, but what the hell does that even mean? What am I a hybrid off?”

The voice didn’t respond and Cal was left to stew further. He noticed that when he focused on the words Human Hybrid, it appeared to be highlighted like a link. With a shrug he thought about pressing the link, only to be taken to another distorted section with a Universal Points cost. He thought back with frustration and noticed that his class was different. The words Telepathic/Telekinetic were done in a much fancier script, gold in color, unlike the rest of the information on his page.

“Why is my class different from the rest?”

The voice didn’t answer.

“You know, you’re not being helpful for a guide,” Cal said. “You’re supposed to be a guide right? Like a tutorial.”

“Which tutorial do you wish to purchase?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. How many tutorials are there available?”

“There are currently 13581 available.”

“Of course there are,” Cal sighed. “How much is the most comprehensive tutorial?”

“200000 Universal Points.”

“One on the Telepathic/Telekinetic class?”

“15000 Universal Points.”

“The fuck!” Cal rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Fine, what’s the cheapest, most basic tutorial that a newcomer to this… thing, would find the most useful?”

“500 Universal Points.”

“Figures. Okay, you said I could buy stuff. How do I go about doing that?”

“Marketplace access is restricted at this time.”

Cal let out a roar of pure frustration. He took a few deep breaths before continuing. “When will this restriction be lifted?” He managed to get out through grit teeth.

“The cost is 5 Universal Points. Do you authorize the debit from your account?”

“No I do not,” Cal said stiffly. “I’m done here.”

With jarring abruptness he found himself once again in knee-deep water, right at the same place he entered the spire.

“Get your ass over here, Cal!” Nila waved at him from the river bank. She was pointing urgently downriver.

Cal turned his head and saw what had agitated her so much. “Oh shit!” A large, dark shape was cutting just beneath the water’s surface, like a torpedo headed right for him.

He ran for the river bank. The biting fish around his legs forgotten. He covered the twenty yards to dry land much quicker this time. The two of them ran all the way back to the freeway without looking back.

“So… what’d you see in there?”

“Nothing, just a stupid voice trying to charge me for every little thing,” Nila said. “Was it all foggy and empty for you too?”

“Sounds about right.”

The pair walked down the middle of an eerily empty freeway. Their eyes darted all around them on the lookout for any potential threats. They didn’t realize it at the time, but their phones had died again at some point right before or after reaching the spire. It was just a little after nine in the morning the last time they checked, but the experience inside the spire had completely disoriented them so much that they had no idea what time it was. The perpetual dusk-like gloom did them no favors either.

“Did you buy anything?”

“No, I only had 43 of those Universal Points,” Nila huffed.

“Makes sense, confirms that I got most if not all the points from the gremlins last night,” Cal said. “Uh, Nila, what did your race say?”

Nila hesitated a moment. “Human Hybrid.”

“Did you try mentally clicking on it?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to use half my points just to see what it said. I’m also not sure I even want to know,” Nila said in a small voice.

“What about your class?”

“Enhanced Physiology.”

“Well… that’s different,” Cal said. “Might explain how quickly you’re healing and recovering. Tell me how tired do you feel right now.”

“I feel pretty fresh actually, good, if I ignore the fact the world just ended,” Nila said glumly.

“Yeah, me too. We’ve been walking for hours and we fought a bunch of mutant animals, but I feel strong, energized, like I could go for a personal best in the weight room,” Cal brightened, “which gives me an idea! We can test this out when he get back to the apartment.”

“Right after we get bikes from Big 5,” Nila sighed.

“It’s on the way back and it’s the fastest way to get around until we can figure out how to charge a car battery or find one that isn’t drained.”

Cal could tell that Nila was mad at him through the quality of the silence she was sending his direction for the entirety of the half hour walk to the shopping plaza where the Big 5 was located. The parking lot was empty and the various store interiors that they passed where dark, although he could’ve sworn he caught movement on the periphery of his vision.

“Let’s be ready for anything in there,” Cal said as they reached the Big 5’s front entrance.

“I’m always assuming I’m about to be attacked by something horrible,” Nila snapped.

“Right… good idea.” Cal took his small candle lantern from where it was clipped to his belt and lit it, careful to avoid burning his fingers when he pulled the glass windbreak back up. While Nila did the same with her lantern, Cal removed a mini crowbar from his go bag.

“I don’t even know why you have that thing.”

“What? I like to be prepared.”

“You were planning on having to break into places?”

“One never knows,” Cal shrugged

He approached the front doors warily. He peered into the darkened interior through the glass, through the metal grate behind, looking for any hints of movement. Finding nothing he wedged the mini crowbar into the slight space in between the two doors, right near the locking mechanism. “Let’s see how much stronger I’ve gotten,” Cal said. He took a deep breath and threw his weight into prying the doors open.

The metal groaned, loud in the silence of the empty plaza. Nila looked around in alarm, her bat clutched tightly in her hands. Suddenly their was a shriek of metal bending, breaking, as the lock was torn out of the thin metal. Cal stumbled back as there was nothing resisting his weight.

“I seem to be a lot stronger.”

Cal took a moment to compose himself before doing the same to the chain locking the sliding grate in place. That took broke before his newly found strength.

The two entered the darkened store interior, lanterns and weapons at the ready.

Now

“Designation: Honor, you stray from the parameters laid out at the beginning of this session,” Interrogator Ebbing Tides 2337 said.

“I thought you wanted to know what we got from the spire?”

“Simply state what it unlocked for you and every other human you have knowledge off.” It was slight, but Cal had picked up enough to notice the distaste in Interrogator Ethereal Loaming 5623’s words.

“Um… sorry… I thought that’s what I was doing, but fine,” Cal said. “I’ll get to that right away. Now, where was I? Ah yes, so there were indeed monsters in the store, gremlins, and there were a lot more than the first night. Fortunately, the light kept them back, hurt them, and we were a lot stronger and ready this time. They didn’t stand a chance. So it wasn’t too hard to smash them all and grab the bikes, along with a few other supplies. Even got a couple of shotguns, but as I found out later I probably shouldn’t have bothered until after the shroud had lifted.”

“Designation: Honor,” Interrogator Ebbing Tides 2337 frowned ever so slightly, “the abilities you and your mate received from the spire.”

Again the distaste in the alien’s words was detectable. Cal didn’t need to peak into their thoughts for insight on how their conversation was going. Tides was already annoyed and the session had just started. Good.

“Enhanced Physiology is what we both got.” Cal kept his breathing and heartbeat steady through the lie. He used a technique he had picked up to trick himself into believing the falsehood. “We were stronger and tougher than we used to be, but it wasn’t exactly overwhelming. It was more that we had instantly achieved the peak of what was possible for our human bodies,” he lied some more.

“Very well,” Interrogator Ebbing Tides 1337 said.

“You spoke of the other units from your nursery creche. What did you call them… family?” Interrogator Ethereal Loaming 5623 said the word hesitantly, obviously unfamiliar on their tongue. “What did they received?”

“Oh right, well that’s a long story, but essentially we all got the same thing, just some slight variations.” Again an easy lie. The fact that the aliens weren’t calling him on it was promising.

“Explain.”

Cal tried to shrug at Tides’ command. “Nothing major. One was slightly stronger, while another was slightly faster, that sort of thing. Probably had to do with relative differences in size. Makes sense that someone with greater mass, like me compared to Nila, would be stronger.”

Cal regarded the two aliens with an appraising eye. Their skin was shades of gray. Tides was significantly darker than Loaming. It was smooth, free from any sort of blemish or hair. Their large round eyes were set into thin, delicate faces, under nearly non-existent brows. They lacked a nasal protrusion, just a pair of small openings that slanted down toward the center line of their face. This was right above a tiny, practically lip-less mouth.

“So, did you guys get the same thing from the spires?” Cal figured he already knew the answer to the question, but he needed to get them thinking, while he prepared to slip into their thoughts for a brief peak.

He wasn’t able to judge their bodies since they were completed encased in bulky power armor. However, going by the small size of their heads and their wrist-thin necks he doubted whatever they got from the spires enhanced their physical bodies.

Naturally the aliens didn’t answer, but the glimpse into their thoughts gave Cal what he was looking for. It seemed that what the aliens got from the spires centered around the varied armors that every Threnosh he had seen was wearing.

“Continue,” Interrogator Ebbing Tides 1337 said.

“Did your entire species gain the same enhancement?”

“Not exactly, Loaming,” Cal said. “I was just about to get to that. I’m sure you guys were wondering where all the other people were and why we hadn’t run into anyone else that first day outside. It was a combination of two things. First, a lot of people didn’t make it through that first gremlin attack, which we’d discover much later. The second reason was that when internet and phone service came back, even if it was intermittent, the authorities, or at least what survived sent out a warning for everyone to stay indoors.” He shook his head ruefully, it was the only movement he could make while seated in his sarcophagus-like restraining device. “At that time the vast majority of people still trusted that the government was going to take care of things.”