Chapter 2: New in Town
The heat had killed what little appetite Dennis had, and most of the food ended up exactly where it always did when the two of them traveled together — in Mike's stomach.
Dennis watched the teenager polish off the last of the chips and shook his head. "Where does it all go? Seriously."
"Metabolism," Mike said simply, crumpling the bag.
Dennis started gathering the trash. "We should get back on the road. The sooner I get you settled, the sooner I can get home."
"Your office gave you over a week for this trip," Mike pointed out. "We don't have to race."
"I know, but Kelly's been alone since Tuesday and—"
"Okay, okay." Mike held up a hand. "I don't need the details. Go be with Aunt Kelly. I respect it." He paused. "It's just a little nauseating."
"You're fifteen."
"Which is exactly why it's nauseating."
Dennis threw a balled-up napkin at him.
Mike grabbed his duffel and jogged back toward the RV, leaving Dennis to haul the rest. Behind him, he could hear the older man muttering something about ingratitude, but there was no heat in it.
Dennis had been in Mike's life for four years — ever since the accident that took his parents. Technically a legal guardian. Practically the closest thing to a father figure Mike had left, though neither of them would ever say that out loud.
Before all the Jennifer business, Mike had been a quiet kid. Kept to himself. Dennis had braced for the worst after everything went sideways — figured Mike would retreat even further into himself, maybe stop talking altogether.
Instead, the kid had come out the other side looser. Sharper. Like something had burned off the parts of him that used to hesitate.
Dennis watched him disappear into the RV and felt the particular mix of pride and helplessness that had become his default setting around Mike.
My kid's going to be fine, he thought. Probably.
He picked up the trash bag and followed him in.
The old RV groaned back to life and found the highway again.
Mike stretched out across the back bench, his cap tilted over his face. To anyone watching, he looked asleep.
He wasn't.
Behind his closed eyes, he was pulling up the interface.
[ PICKUP SYSTEM — HOST PROFILE ]
Name: Mike Quinn Age: 15
Intelligence: 128+ (Scale: Average 90–110 | Sharp 110–120 | Exceptional 120–140 | Genius 140+)
Physique: 107+ (Baseline adult male: 100)
Skills:
Driving — Lvl 3 (67 / 10,000)
Shooting — Lvl 2 (233 / 1,000)
Cooking — Lvl 2 (191 / 1,000)
(Expand for full list — Skills ranked Levels 1 through 5)
Traits:
Demon Body
Immortality*
Eternal Youth
Accelerated Healing
*Note: "Immortality" does not mean unkillable. Catastrophic damage to the brain or heart remains fatal. This trait prevents death from ordinary injury, illness, and aging only. Note 2: Similar traits can be stacked and fused upon acquisition.
A month of careful testing had given Mike a solid understanding of how the system worked.
The basic mechanic was this: affect someone's emotional state, and the system rewarded him. Attribute points, skill experience, trait drops — all of it triggered by changing what people felt around him. Joy, surprise, admiration, fear. Didn't seem to matter much which direction, as long as the feeling was real.
Simple. A little brutal. Very useful.
He'd also worked out a working theory: people who were protagonists — the kind of individuals who bent stories around themselves — dropped better loot when their arcs ended.
The Demon Body was proof of that. Jennifer had carried it. When her story closed, it passed to him.
The system had adjusted it during integration. Jennifer's version had required a specific and horrifying fuel source to function. Mike's didn't. Normal food, normal sleep — the trait ran clean.
He was still thinking through the implications of that when —
SCREECH.
The RV lurched sideways. Mike's cap flew off his face as the vehicle scraped hard against something — a curb, from the sound of it — before Dennis yanked the wheel and brought them straight again.
Mike sat up. In the rearview mirror, he could see Dennis blinking like a man surfacing from deep water, his eyes glassy with exhaustion.
"Dennis."
"I'm fine, I'm fine—"
"You just sideswiped a curb at sixty miles an hour."
"It was a tap."
"Dennis." Mike leaned forward between the seats. "Pull over."
"I can't let you drive, you don't have a license—"
"You've been awake for over twenty hours and you had a beer at lunch," Mike said. "Pick which law you want to break."
Silence.
Their eyes met in the mirror.
Dennis pulled over.
Mike slid into the driver's seat, adjusted the mirrors, and eased the RV back onto the highway without ceremony.
Dennis settled into the passenger seat with the full intention of supervising. He lasted about four minutes before his chin dropped to his chest and the snoring started.
Mike glanced over at him, then back at the road.
His Level 3 driving handled the interstate easily — smooth lane changes, consistent speed, clean reads on the traffic patterns ahead. The system hadn't been subtle about the skill gap between him and most adult drivers. He'd clocked it.
Three hours and change later, following highway signs and one wrong turn through a feed store parking lot, Mike guided the RV into Deford, Texas.
The town was small. Maybe smaller than he'd pictured. But in the amber light of the setting sun, it had a kind of worn, comfortable quality — a main street that still had a diner on it, front porches with actual furniture on them, yards that ran into each other without fences.
He rolled slowly through the residential streets, stopped once to ask directions from a man watering his lawn, and eventually found the address: Meadowlark Lane, house 5502.
The house was quiet, curtains drawn, no sign of life.
The house across the street, however — 5501 — was a different story entirely.
Inside 5501, the Cooper household was operating at its usual controlled chaos.
George Sr. was parked on the couch with a baseball game on, doing the mental math on whether it was too early for a second beer, when he heard tires on the gravel outside.
"Missy," he called, not taking his eyes off the screen, "go check if our guests are here."
Missy, age nine, currently in possession of a plastic horse and very strong opinions about it, ran to the front window and pressed her nose against the glass.
"There's a camper out there," she announced, in the tone of someone reporting a UFO sighting. "A big old busted one."
From the kitchen: "Is it Mike? Is our boy here?"
That was Connie Tucker — neighbor, family friend, and the woman who'd agreed to take Mike in — leaning out past the kitchen doorframe with a dish towel in her hands and hope written all over her face.
Mary, George's wife, poked her head out from the hallway. "George, go get Sheldon out of his room."
"Sheldon!" George called toward the back of the house.
A beat.
"What?"
"Come out front. The new neighbor's here."
Another beat. "Why is that a household event?"
"Because Grandma Connie asked us to be welcoming, so we're being welcoming."
"I can be welcoming from my room."
"Sheldon."
The sound of a chair scraping. Then footsteps.
Sheldon Cooper appeared in the hallway looking precisely as enthused as a person who'd been pulled away from something important. He was twelve, wore a Green Lantern t-shirt, and had the bearing of someone who found most social rituals mildly offensive.
"I want it on the record," he said, "that this level of collective excitement over a stranger arriving is statistically unjustified."
"Noted," George Sr. said. "Shoes on."
They assembled on the front porch in a loose cluster — Connie, the Coopers, Missy still clutching her plastic horse — just as the RV door swung open and Mike stepped out.
He'd changed quickly in the back of the camper, pulled on a clean t-shirt and jeans, run a hand through his hair. Not that he'd needed to do much. He had the kind of face that looked put-together regardless.
Connie Tucker saw him first.
She went still for a moment — really still — and her expression did something complicated. She tilted her head, studying him the way people study old photographs.
Then she smiled. Wide and warm and a little watery.
"You must be Mike," she said. "Lord, those eyes. You've got your grandmother Elizabeth's eyes. Same exact color."
Mike had done his homework on Connie. He'd been ready for the greeting, ready for the emotion. Still, something about the way she said it — your grandmother Elizabeth — landed differently than he'd expected.
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Mike Quinn. You're Ms. Connie Tucker?"
"Grandma Connie," she corrected firmly. "Or just Connie, if the 'grandma' part feels strange. We'll figure it out."
She crossed the porch, stepped down onto the front walk, and hugged him — a real hug, both arms, the kind that doesn't apologize for itself.
She barely came up to his chin.
Mike, who had not been hugged like that in longer than he could easily calculate, stood there for a moment before carefully returning it.
"Welcome home, sweetheart," she said quietly.
Behind her, the Cooper family waited their turn with varying levels of patience.
Mary smiled at her husband. George gave Mike a friendly nod and an outstretched hand — good grip, that kid — and introduced himself.
Sheldon looked at Mike the way he looked at most things: analytically, slightly suspiciously, reserving judgment.
Missy looked at Mike the way a nine-year-old looks at a Disney prince who has materialized in her front yard.
She tugged on Mary's sleeve. "Mom," she whispered, at a volume that was not actually a whisper. "Can I marry him?"
Mary blinked. "What? No. You're in elementary school."
"What about middle school?"
"No."
"High school?"
Mary turned to her with the practiced firmness of a woman who had been having variations of this conversation her whole life. "Missy."
Missy huffed, clutched her plastic horse to her chest, and relocated approximately six inches closer to her father as a formal protest.
George Sr. looked down at her, then over at Mary, then back at the horse.
He decided this was not his battle.
Across the street, the RV's passenger door finally creaked open and Dennis stumbled out, squinting, hair flattened on one side from the seat cushion.
He looked at the assembled group on the porch, then at Mike.
"Did I miss the introductions?"
"All of them," Mike said.
Dennis straightened his shirt and sighed the sigh of a man who had accepted his lot in life.
"Dennis Smith," he said, extending a hand toward George. "Social services, Minnesota. Good to meet you all."
(End of Chapter 2)
[Power Stone Goal: 500 = +1 Chapter]
[Review Goal: 10 = +1 Chapter]
If you liked it, feel free to leave a review.
20+chapters ahead on P1treon Soulforger