“Okay man, I think it’s time we talk about the elephant in the room.”

  “Huh?”.

  Swansong and I had prepared for the 8 AM token to go live, but from our vantage points, neither of us managed to get pings on our handhelds. We each flew off in different directions, hoping to get something and coming up empty. Only fifteen minutes after the hour, Freakenstein shot me a message, gloating that he had scooped up the next of the tokens.

  We tried again at 10, changing our starting locations and hoping for a different result. I was floating just a bit to the east of the Astoria Power Plant. Watching it carefully for any signs of the missing Clockwork Falcons when the clock ticked over. When I hit the button, my screen lit up with a bright arrow and within a minute I found the token had spawned right along one of the currently abandoned runways at LaGuardia Airport.

  Jon had found it curious that the token had appeared in a location relatively close to the first one of the day and had decided to start tackling the riddle Freakenstein had presented to us in the form of the apparent spawning pattern. With over an hour and forty minutes until the next token would spawn, Swansong had decided to take the time to check in on her family. Not wanting to just sit around twiddling my thumbs, I opted to get myself back into the gym for the third of my four available uses for the week to add an extra point to my Strength score.

  Pinky hadn’t been so lucky with her first token of the day, though she also made a point of complaining about just how spread out their overall region was. The second token did manage to give her the briefest of a signal and she had since been off trying to chase it down before someone else could grab it. It was really the most she even felt like she could do given just how quiet the miscreants in control of The Colony had been ever since the end of the initial siege in their region.

  Even without her getting any of the tokens so far, before everyone had split up for the morning, we added three more tokens to our Ascension Upgrader, the two Swansong and I had managed to collect this morning plus the one that BrainCraft no longer needed for his testing. This brought us closer to each collectively leveling up, something that would unlock both Pinky and BrainCraft’s Hidden Powers and seemed to be the group’s focus as a whole for the day.

  BrainCraft was sitting at the center of the lounge, a tablet in one hand and his other on the keyboard for a strange looking computer with several cables coming out of it that were plugged into the base of the hologram’s projector. The hologram was spinning, a loading symbol moving in a slow, continuous motion before shaking every so often. His hand briefly came off the keyboard, raising in a lazy greeting toward me as I entered the room.

  “What elephant?” I asked, wiping the sweat from my forehead. The gym only had a small set of equipment, mostly weightlifting gear, and in order to get the gain, I actually had to do the exercises for the entire hour in order to gain the stat point. Even with my increased strength and dexterity stats, doing the workout made me sweat far more than the actual fights that had become the norm for me.

  “You’ve ignored the book spawns from your Tome for a while now and the level 6 that spawned is about to expire, if you don’t use it, you might as well wait till it lets you upgrade one of the others cause it's just gonna be going back to level 3s after this one till the upgrade option hits,” Jon said. This did seem to get BrainCraft’s attention.

  “Tome?”

  “It’s a trophy I got a few days back, it spawns knowledge books that I can opt to use… I uh… it’s been a busy couple days,” I said. Truthfully, I had simply not been checking since the siege had begun and after missing it a few times, it had just… slipped my mind.

  “And you can get Level 6 knowledge books? That seems rather powerful,” BrainCraft said, having fully captured his attention from whatever his project had been.

  “Well he has to ignore the books for a bit over two days before a level 6 spawns and they are only around for a few hours before they despawn, then he has to wait until the next one spawns. The few books I saw that were level 3s ranged from folding techniques to basic helicopter maintenance, so it’s been a bit of a scattershot on what would actually be useful for him with his ability set,” Jon explained as I pulled my B.E.L.T. open, finding the new book in it as I descended into the pit.

  “And you think Vibes Don’t Lie: Weaponized Feng Shui is something I should consider. I mean, how do- oh...” I said, trailing off as I eyed the book’s description. Had I just been going based on the name of the book, I would have instantly written it off. Because had I just been going off of that, I would have been expecting to gain some sort of advanced Interior Decorating knowledge not Spatial Resonance Theory. “Yeah… I’m gonna just go ahead and use that.”

  I activated the book, letting the sudden influx of knowledge wash over me in a process that was starting to become pleasantly familiar. I had to be paying attention when it happened, but it was as if I had spent hours pouring over videos and books learning everything I could in a matter of seconds. It should have been weird, but frankly speaking, the cool factor really pulled a lot of the weight in making me not think about it too hard.

  A new wave of possibilities washed over me as the knowledge seemed to almost resonate with my base powerset and with barely any prompting, two new abilities were generated.

  “New Ability! Area Sense: Vibe Zone. You know, there was a part of you that probably thought the concept of Feng Shui was bullshit at some point in your life, right? Like, how could one layout for your room be psychologically better than another? Then, one weekend you decided to rearrange a few things, add in a fake plant, and suddenly you didn’t feel so suffocated and you realized, damn maybe there is something to all this. Well now you know the actual resonance that makes that happen! While using your Area Sense, you can now feel localized areas that have particular positive or negative resonances. These Vibe Zones when your ability identifies them, “Activate” for as long as they stay within your Local Area, causing the following effects for all people who stay stationary within them, depending on the variety of resonance you identify modified by the strength of the vibe. Positive/Negative Zone: Grants an increase or decrease to luck stat equal to 50% the total percentage of the positive or negative vibe energy. All abilities cost a percentage equal to 25% of the positive or negative vibe energy. Example: If you identify a 100% Positive Zone, anyone utilizing it gains a 50% increase to their Luck and a 25% decrease to their ability costs. This is a Passive Ability.”

  “New Ability! Vibe Anchor. Now what’s the use of being able to see the Vibe Zones if you can’t use them however you want? That wouldn’t be all that much fun now would it? You now have access to 3 Vibe Anchors. After identifying a zone, activating this ability will anchor the zone in place, making it locatable by yourself and your allies. When anchored, enemies will no longer gain benefits from Positive Zones and Allies will no longer be negatively affected by Negative Zones. Additionally, once anchored, these zones may exist outside of your Local Area continuing their effectiveness for a time equal to 30 seconds times the total percentage of the zone or until you manually release them. This ability costs 2.5% Stamina to place an anchor. Anchors regenerate 1 minute after they have been released.”

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  “Well those are some… wordy abilities…” Jon said as he read through their descriptors and I couldn’t help but agree.

  They seemed overall just a bit on the complex side and I wasn’t exactly sure if I liked the idea that I couldn’t choose whether or not to “Activate” a zone the moment I discovered it. Then again, it really seemed to depend on just how many of those zones would actually appear, something the ability didn’t really give any good indicator for.

  I decided to place it onto my passive bar, discovering that the system didn’t actually seem to care that I also had Area Sense: Mechanical Specialty already on my bar, something I was almost expecting to happen. Given that none of the droids had been trying to fire guns at me, I put the new skill in place of my Misfire passive and then added Vibe Anchor in place of Bypass. While I could have switched over to one of my other revolver slots, I was starting to see a lot of potential with Misfortune Abound and while the Vibe Zones didn’t directly reference it, I was positive there was going to be some sort of cohesion. Luckily, Jon seemed to be on the same page.

  “I wonder if those zones are similar to the one mapper Augmentation you could have added to your Misfortune ability.”

  “Yeah I was just wondering the same thing. Even if they aren’t related, just being able to further boost their bad luck could be a big factor if Misfortune’s Domino effect procs more than one,” I said. BrainCraft hadn’t returned his attention to his tech and unlike Pinky, he did seem curious about my powerset. Though that had been true since we had first talked about the very basics.

  As I sat there, my Area Sense spreading around me, I discovered that our Squad Base actually did have a Vibe Zone that lit up with a light blue aura the moment I looked over toward it. The far corner of the room, with its two plush bean bag chairs and a few random throw blankets was marked as a 60% Positive Zone.

  “Huh… well I guess we are gonna want to start opening up loot boxes over at the bean bags,” I said, both BrainCraft and Jon’s attention turning to follow my gaze toward the corner. “Do you guys see the shimmer in the air or is that just a me thing?”

  “I probably could if your personal POV was available inside of the base here, but otherwise nah, looks like it’s just a you thing unless drop one of your anchors on it,” he said and without needing prompting, I activated the anchor.

  “There it is,” BrainCraft said appreciatively though Jon let out an annoyed grunt.

  “Well that’s weird that it doesn’t let me see it still.”

  “Maybe Angie can put in a request to update your gear,” I suggested and he seemed to light up as he turned his attention inward.

  “I can put in a patch request but I’ll only get an accepted or denied message. Before Loophole’s Acceptance Matrix was disabled he would elaborate the reasoning for me but now I only get confirmations or denials,” Angie offered without waiting for Jon to repeat the request.

  “Go ahead and do it, the worst thing Axio can do is say no, right?” Jon said, though I wasn’t so sure.

  “Well I got the book and I’ve used the gym… I’d go and transcribe the book but that would take longer than we have until the next token spawns. Kinda just feels weird to be sitting around killing time, though I probably should reset my Well Fed buff,” I said, considering my options briefly as I leaned back into the plush couch. I looked over toward the Positive Zone in the corner and let my mind drift as I tried to figure out exactly what created the zone. Assuming that it wasn't just randomized, the zone should be there as long as we didn't change anything, though in theory that meant we could also increase the zone upward from its current 60% status.

  “You know, when Codex mentioned needing to discuss the elephant in the room, books weren’t quite where I thought the conversation was going to go. That said, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the sheer variety of books you’re able to access is almost a bit unfair,” BrainCraft said, setting his tablet down and reaching for a glass of water. “Even for us tech builders, we can only utilize books that we could theoretically use to create more tech. Like, I was able to use that Level 3 Quantum Mechanics book you transcribed and left in the Team Book Nook, but I tested having Pinky transcribe her Suidae knowledge into a book and I received an error saying it wasn’t applicable to me.”

  “Suidae?” I asked curiously.

  “It’s the Family classification that Boars are listed within. Apparently an extensive knowledge of their habitats and biology came with Pinky’s powerset,” BrainCraft explained.

  “Huh… I wonder if I’d get anything out of that…”

  “You were able to absorb a book filled with random knowledge on Snake Venom that you’ve never actually created abilities with, I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to learn about boars just for the hell of it,” Jon offered and I nodded in agreement.

  “Maybe I’ll check with Pinky then first. She’d probably think it’s cheating if I had more knowledge about her powers before we fought again, even if it’s just as basic as “this is how boars act and live”,” I said and BrainCraft let out a laugh.

  “I think you’re probably right,” he said, setting his water down and turning his attention back to his tablet.

  “Wait… where did you think the conversation was going to go earlier if it wasn’t about the books?” Jon asked just as BrainCraft started to work. The shorter man’s hand froze against the tablet and I could have sworn I saw a bit of redness flush his face, passing after he cleared his throat.

  “Er… I believe I may have been spending a bit too much time with Pinky unfortunately, it’s coloring my expectations for what people choose to talk about regularly when it's not about the game or Augmentation,” BrainCraft admitted sheepishly. When neither Jon nor I stopped staring at him, he squirmed again as he looked toward me. “Well uh… I thought Codex was going to bring up the fact that you’ve been more or less ignoring the rather large crush that Swansong has on you.”

  “What?” I said, looking from him and over to Jon. He gave me a funny look before he let out a laugh of his own.

  “Wait, you can’t be serious… you have noticed… right? I’m not misreading the situation, am I?” BrainCraft asked and Jon laughed even harder, taking a good few seconds before he was able to compose himself.

  “Loophole is uh… not what anyone would call socially adept when it comes to signals, though yeah, the ones Swansong’s been throwing out are basically fireworks. I just figured you had been like just that distracted by everything going on,” Jon admitted, reaching up to wipe his eyes.

  “I uh... Er um… I mean… this isn’t exactly the time to be worrying about stuff like that… right?” I admitted, my mind racing as I tried to think of any signals I might have missed. “Wait… is that why she was blushing when Freakenstein said she was my… oh my god… I’m an idiot… aren’t I?”

  Jon started to cackle like an idiot, smacking his desk in a way that almost felt like a bit much and I felt my own face start to burn.

  “Truth be told, as I mentioned before, I partially thought you played for the other team when you were mostly immune to Pinky’s antics. Hell, I almost thought she had a thing for you but she’s just kind of like that with everyone I’ve been noticing. Although admittedly she is obviously a bit obsessed with you given you’ve beaten her in multiple fights,” BrainCraft explained and I found myself getting further flustered.

  “I uh… she er… umm...”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up…” BrainCraft said as I stumbled over my words and Jon let out another laugh as he worked to settle himself down. He shook his head, finding his own water that he sipped at between laughs.

  “No, actually it’s probably a good thing,” Jon said, reaching up and pinching at the bridge of his nose. “I mean, I saw the signals too but just figured Loophole would figure it out eventually, hell I figured Freakenstein just throwing it out there would have done it but he just went skipping right on past it too. Did the prom incident really scar you that badly?”

  “Prom incident?” BrainCraft perked up just slightly, his tablet once again forgotten as my cheeks burned further.

  “Oh it was hil-”

  “Nope!” I objected, cutting Jon off before he could explain just what had happened when I thought the girl, Rebecca from my Homeroom, had been interested in me. “I’m bad with signals, can we just leave it at that?”

  “Signals? What signals are we talking about?” A new voice said and I looked over as Pinky walked into the room, an Ascension Token gripped in her hand and a curious look on her face.

  “Nothing!” I objected before either BrainCraft or Jon could say anything, immediately prompting another round of laughs from the two of them.

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