And yet.

  I got it, I did. The System’s mechanics were simple enough: Kill goblins, earn XP. Transform XP into levels. With levels, get strength, intelligence, magic. Points became power.

  Jack had laid out the System's rules like a teenager teaching his mom to use a smartphone—meticulous, patient, acutely aware that getting frustrated wouldn't help either of us. He'd spent the last two plus hours walking me through every detail, explaining concepts that were apparently second-nature to gamers.

  And yet.

  I still hated it.

  “Why would you let a—a construct—change who you are?” I asked him.

  He sighed.

  Guilt tugged at me. He was in pain. The healing potion had stopped its slow improvements at least an hour ago, leaving him stuck at “Stabilizing - moderate burns.”

  But he still hadn’t managed to convince me that I wanted to let the system take me over.

  It was such an obviously terrible idea.

  I felt like I was arguing against a weird kind of cultural blindness. Hadn’t he ever seen a horror movie?

  The helpful voice that wants to rewire your brain for your own good never, ever has your best interests in mind. That’s Horror 101.

  That’s Life 101.

  But Jack was Gen Z—raised on school shooter drills and climate change, social media and political hate. He’d grown up knowing that the world was fucked and that we were all doomed.

  To him, the System wasn't a terrifying unknown—it was the first new option he'd seen in his eighteen years.

  He was relieved that the System had arrived. It was shangri-la. A way to be his best self without even trying.

  To me, it was creepy Santa Claus, the gifts not worth the price of admission.

  “It’s not taking you over,” Jack said, for maybe the tenth time. He shifted against the tree, wincing. “It’s just... upgrades. Like getting a better graphics card.”

  I stared at him. “Did you just compare my brain to computer hardware?”

  He dropped his head back against the tree trunk. I could literally see him restraining his groan, before he sat forward again. “I mean... sort of? But in a good way?”

  “Jack.” I rubbed my temples. I’d come perilously close to telling him more of my story than I ever told anyone, but I wasn’t quite there yet. “When you hear voices in your head that other people can’t hear, you aren’t supposed to listen to them. You don’t do what they say. You ignore them. That’s…”

  Survival 101, I wanted to say. The first rule for managing to get by in a hostile world. But I let the words trail off, because Jack would ask questions, I knew that about him already, and I didn’t want to answer those questions.

  “Everybody heard that first message,” Jack insisted.

  I’d already admitted to him that I hadn’t listened to it and he’d told me what it said.

  The short version: earth had hit a point of environmental collapse where life would become unsustainable and the multiverse had stepped in, in order to save the dolphins. And the whales. And maybe a few other species, as well.

  They’d save humanity, too, if necessary, but not all of us. They’d ‘more actively intervene’ if our population dropped below a million or so.

  A million. From around eight billion people currently living on the planet.

  That was unfathomable, really. That meant 7,999,000,000 or so dead.

  Not a number that my brain could wrap itself around.

  Meanwhile, we’d get mana and rifts and monsters.

  And the System. A mana-based training tool designed to gamify our survival, offering quests, rewards, and special powers. It would help us by upgrading our bodies and rewiring our brains, one stat point and magical skill at a time.

  We’d be stronger, faster, smarter.

  Better.

  But would we even be human anymore?

  “You’re already in the System,” Jack said.

  The words hit me like ice water to the face in a visceral reaction triggered by the phrase.

  You’re in the system.

  It tasted like disinfectant and clipboards, echoing through memories of white rooms and long hallways and shouting voices, a cacophony of sensory overload.

  I drew in a shuddering breath.

  I’d been in plenty of systems before, that was true. I’d worked hard to stay clear of them these past few years, and I’d hoped to keep it that way.

  Was this one really so different?

  Jack didn’t notice my reaction. “Look at your dog. Look at your shovel,” he continued. “You’re not outside this thing. You’re just… refusing to engage with it.”

  He was right. Which only made it more irritating.

  Zelda saw my mood. She abandoned her bone and trotted over, settling against my leg with the warm weight of absolute certainty that this was where she belonged.

  I stroked her fur. It felt softer, silkier than it had that morning. I wished I could see under her skin, get a look at the mild arthritis the vet had mentioned. Was it still there?

  My hand stilled. How much had the System changed my girl? Level 4, Loyal Heart.

  Zelda nudged me, reminding me to keep petting. Her brown eyes, as steady as ever, sent the message, I’m here. You’re not alone. I’ve got you.

  Those eyes had never judged me. Not once. Not even during my worst days. Her fur might be softer, her arthritis eased, but she was still herself.

  A rustling in the undergrowth cut short my philosophical musings. I glanced at the countdown timer in the corner of my vision. Yep, right on schedule.

  Zelda's ears pricked forward.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Hour’s up,” Jack said, not even bothering to look toward the sound.

  Zelda lifted her head from my leg with what could only be called mild professional interest. Like a security guard listening to the alarm system’s daily test.

  The goblin that burst into our clearing looked exactly like the last two—green skin, too many teeth and a rusty knife that had seen better decades. It spotted us and shrieked.

  I didn’t even reach for my shovel this time.

  Zelda didn’t bark. Didn’t hesitate. She simply flowed forward with the kind of easy confidence that comes from experience.

  The goblin never had a chance.

  Zelda hit it low and hard, twenty pounds of decisive energy leaping upon it in a tangle of limbs and indignant screeching. A brief struggle followed, the equivalent of a cat with a mouse.

  A big tom cat. A baby mouse.

  Then silence.

  She shook the goblin’s body once—almost perfunctory by now—then dropped it. She looked over at me with an expression that clearly said, This? Pathetic.

  “She’s getting faster,” Jack observed. “That one had to be under fifteen seconds.”

  Zelda pawed at the body. It disappeared, leaving behind a blue and orange ChuckIt squeaky ball.

  “Oh, my gosh.” I couldn’t help it—I laughed as Z leaped on her prize, tail wagging joyously. She squeezed the ball between her jaws, the familiar squeak, squeak, squeak, squuuuueak echoing through the clearing.

  “A ball?” Jack said, dubious.

  “Not just any ball,” I told him. “That’s a squeaker. Z loves them, but Bear kills the squeaky part faster than she inhales her food, so we almost never have them in the house anymore.”

  All right.

  Fuck it.

  I didn’t trust the System. Suspicious wasn’t even the word. Suspicious times a thousand, maybe. Letting some bureaucratic magical mana math thing mess with my mind was probably as lousy a life choice as marrying my ex-husband.

  But I was going to do it anyway. It gave my dog her favorite toy. It couldn’t be all evil.

  Right?

  Right.

  I inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled again.

  “All right,” I said, resolute. “I’m gonna do it.”

  Jack let out a breath he’d probably been holding for an hour. He tried for teasing, but it came out tired and sincere. “About time. I was starting to think you were committed to dying stubborn.”

  Then he managed a real smile—wry, but warmer than I expected. “You won’t regret it. I can’t wait to see what class you get.”

  I didn’t answer. The little red dot had been blinking in the corner of my vision for so long it felt like part of the scenery.

  Open notifications. I didn’t say the words aloud, just thought them. What was the point in pretending the system wasn’t in my brain? It knew what I was thinking.

  The messages window I’d seen before opened up to the last message I’d been looking at, the one about the scenario. Mentally, I started scrolling down.

  “Hey, you should probably look at your status screen before you make any decisions, though,” Jack said abruptly.

  I blinked at him. “My what?”

  “Um, like a character creation screen. Your own personal character creation screen.”

  I stared at him. Since when was I a character? I was a real person. People are not characters.

  He must have recognized my indignation, because he shrugged a little sheepishly. “It might be helpful to see your starting places. Give you an idea of what direction to take, that kind of thing. Like, I knew I was gonna be a mage right away because I knew intelligence would be my core stat.”

  “Fine,” I said, sounding grumpier than I intended. “So how do I do that?”

  “Just say ’status.’ That should work.”

  “Status.”

  The imaginary messages window in my head expanded, adding a sidebar with a lineup of icons. The second one was unmistakeably me, cartoon-style: messy hair piled on top of my head, eyes made comically wide. I felt both seen and vaguely insulted.

  But I mentally selected the icon.

  Information appeared in the same format as the sunglasses’ expanded tooltip style.

  Name: Olivia Thorne

  Title: First Defender

  Species: Human

  Class: n/a

  Level: 0

  Condition: Stabilizing - injured, fatigue accumulating, hungry

  Status: Participant – Challenge Scenario #004328, Temperate Forest Biome, Difficulty Level 2

  Affiliations: Soul bonded - Zelda

  Attributes: [Expand to view] >

  Abilities: [Expand to view] >

  Skills: [Expand to view] >

  Traits: [Expand to view] >

  My condition wasn’t wrong: between my knee and random bruises, injured felt like a fair description. Plus I was feeling pretty tired, and I’d definitely like something to eat that wasn’t another protein bar. Call me selfish, but I hadn’t pulled out my gum drops yet. I didn’t want to share.

  Hey, I’d earned those gum drops.

  Affiliations gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. I didn’t know exactly what a soul bond was, but I’d already seen it on Z’s profile, and I was all in.

  Only with my dogs, though.

  The thought of being soul bonded to a complete stranger—or, honestly, even to another human being—made me shudder. The whole “fated mate” trope was nightmare fuel, in my opinion.

  But if I ever made it home, I hoped Riley and Bear would join that affiliations list, too. Riley might. Bear? Well, maybe someday.

  A bunch of the sections said, “[Expand to view],” with an obvious pointer next to them.

  Mentally, I opened the Attributes section. Attributes were organized into three sections: physical, mental, and x-factor. I snorted at the x-factor label. What was that supposed to mean?

  “What is it?” Jack asked.

  “X-Factor?”

  “Yeah, that’s a weird one. I got a 5 on serendipity, though,” Jack said, laughing.

  The way he said it made me think 5 was probably a good number, which was sort of a relief. Because honestly, my attributes did not look impressive. But hey, there was probably a reason the System had assigned me “marginal viability” to begin with.

  Physical

  Strength - 2

  Agility - 3

  Endurance - 2

  Mental

  Intelligence - 4

  Perception - 6

  Resilience - 6

  X-Factor

  Presence - 3

  Serendipity - 3

  Will - 5

  Most of the names seemed straightfoward enough, but I frowned at Presence for long enough that a tooltip popped up:

  Presence: Personal magnetism, ability to influence, charm, lead, or manipulate.

  I figured I could get the same info on all the other attributes if I wanted to. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that strength meant how hard I could hit and how much I could carry, and agility would have something to do with flexibility and speed. I was going to assume all of them meant exactly what they sounded like, unless some question came up.

  Like, maybe, my resilience being six.

  “Is six high?” I asked Jack.

  “At level zero? Yeah, I’d say so. I got a five in serendipity and a five in intelligence to start. And then, you know…” He flicked his fingers dismissively. The tips of his ears might possibly have gone a shade pinker. “All the other stuff a little less.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t going to ask. We could probably have commiserated about our respective likely twos in strength, but Jack was on the gangly side, maybe even a little scrawny, and I didn’t want to embarrass him if his strength was actually a one.

  I wondered how often people who lived with the System lied about their attributes. I bet it happened all the time.

  “Resilience,” I said, answering the question he’d refrained from asking. I kept the perception to myself.

  Jack nodded. “Good stat to have.”

  Abilities was next. I blinked at the “n/a” the pointer revealed, pursing my lips. Honestly, I felt a little offended.

  I’d had eight years of piano lessons. Eight years. Okay, I was still mediocre and hardly ever practiced, but shouldn’t I get an A for effort?

  “What is it?” Jack asked again.

  He was obviously watching me closely, which was fair. There wasn’t much else to look at in our little clearing. Reading about how the system defined me felt oddly personal, but I wasn’t going to turn my back on him or tell him to stare at the trees.

  “Abilities,” I said. “I have none.”

  “As soon as you choose your class, you’ll get your first.” His enthusiasm broke through his pain and exhaustion. If he’d been well enough, I swear he would have been bouncing.

  “That’s how I got fireball. You’ll get to pick one from a list. It’ll be cool, I swear.”

  I nodded and expanded the Skills section.

  “Holy cow.” I whistled under my breath.

  “Skills?” Jack chuckled. “I bet you got some good ones. I got skateboarding +8, which is kinda awesome.”

  Accounting, Acrobatics, Acting, Administration, Agriculture, Alchemy, Ambush, Amateur Radio, Allergen Identification, Algorithm Design, Altruism, Amphibian Identification, Analysis, Analysis (Forensics), Analysis (Literature), Analysis (Data), Anesthesiology…

  I had a +2 in acrobatics, which I guess was the System acknowledging that I knew how to turn a somersault, but mostly it was just zero after zero, in a list that went on and on.

  I scored in anger suppression (+5), anger management (+7), animal communication (+9), animal handling (+7), but then it was back to the zeros again as I scrolled through animation and appliance repair and art and a whole section of subsets of things that started with astro. Astrology, astronomy, astrophysics. Zeros in all of them.

  “This is going to take forever,” I muttered.

  “You can sort and filter,” Jack offered.

  I looked over at him and shook my head in disbelief. “How did you figure all this out?”

  He raised his hands, palms up to the sky. “Video game mastery, +11.”

  I closed the endless list without looking for the filter controls and without bothering to scroll further. The System was cataloging every skill I’d ever picked up, turning my entire life into a spreadsheet. But there wasn’t much it could tell me about being me that I didn’t already know.

  And we didn’t have time for this. Right now, survival mattered more than knowing what numeric value the System would assign to my flower-arranging ability. (For the record, definitely a zero.)