“How can I help?”

  None of them responded. Nor did they stop their frantic pace of work. Then I felt a charged field of energy spring up around me. The hair on my arms was once again standing on end. Crembori crew member #1 said, “There, I think I’ve contained the strange resonance.”

  Crew member #2 said, “But for how long?”

  Dan’Or simply said, “We’ve got our orders. The concentration within him isn’t too much for us to handle and may even help us adapt better once these readings can be reviewed with the full crew.”

  They all seemed to calm down, but I sure as heck wanted to know what was going on. Before I even asked though, Dan’Or said, “We apologize for the rough treatment. It was necessary. We underestimated the impact this new energy type would have on our systems. The concentration within your system seemed quite manageable but once you were completely inside our vessel, an odd resonance started up where the energy bounced all around the inside of the ship.”

  I sucked in my breath. “Are you okay?”

  He looked back at his panel and said, “Yes, the damage is minimal and microbots are already repairing everything. Just try to sit still. This trip won’t take but a short time. Hold on, even with inertia dampeners the sensation of rapid acceleration can be difficult to adapt to. Human inner ears are not designed for this.”

  I felt the acceleration even within the ship and inside the charged field. It didn’t hurt, but my Perception made me aware of it. It likely would have made me dizzy and nauseous before the induction, but now… well now, I was made of sterner stuff.

  We covered the entire 4200 miles in under 10 minutes and suddenly, I found myself in Paris. The rapid transition was, in many ways, more shocking than a portal. There was no mystical, crossing the universe type of feeling to it. No sense of being turned inside out and upside down. This was just a super rapid movement. They must have used some type of inertia dampeners, or we surely would have felt the g-forces.

  Their ships were probably capable of flying even faster if I had to guess, but I supposed that might have done damage to the atmosphere or something. I scratched my cheek. I didn’t really know what I was thinking right then, but I looked forward to finding out more. That was the moment that I realized I was going to accept the occupation I’d been offered.

  First, though, I had a meeting to get to. For as big as the Eiffel Tower was, I had half expected to be able to see it from anywhere in Paris. Now I was going to have to ask for directions.

  Chapter 3- A Stroll and a Chat

  Rather than directions, I decided to get a snack. Sure, I’d eaten only a short time ago, but dealing with aliens was stressful. I was definitely detecting fresh baked bread in my near future. The French were famous for food, right? I mean, I’d never actually expected to end up in France, but here I was.

  So, I made a beeline for the corner café. The sun was still up but nearing the western horizon on its downward decline. It dawned on me then that with the time difference it would be the middle of the night when we had our meeting. I sighed. Just another little detail that I was overlooking. If I wanted to figure out what my fellow Forerunners were up to, then I was going to have to investigate. And what was that saying? Oh yeah. ‘In an investigation, details matter.” I’d always liked that character. He was intimidating, although I chuckled at the thought that I could definitely kick his ass now.

  I sat outside the café and was soon brought a menu. I started to say that I didn’t speak French, but the waitress gave me the strangest expression and then spoke in perfect English to me. Except it wasn’t English. It was just like when I spoke to Dori or any of the other aliens. She was speaking French but auto-translate was doing its thing.

  I grinned. This was definitely a welcome benefit. “What I meant to say is that I’m an American and so I apologize if my French is not very good.”

  She leaned forward and stared into my eyes for a second. “You barely have an accent. Your French is excellent. Is this your first time in Paris?”

  That was the moment that I realized two things. First my waitress, while undoubtedly several years older than me was kinda cute and second, I had not turned off Adorably Cute. From what I’d experienced before, my higher Charisma stat alone was enough to turn heads, and that was when it was less than half of what it was now. I immediately turned the ability off, but that didn’t change the way she looked at me.

  For a second, a part of me wondered if this was just a cultural difference because it was hard not to be flattered when something like this happened. It wasn’t her words; it was the way she was looking at me. I pushed that thought aside, though.

  “Thank you. So, can you tell me what’s good to eat?”

  She flirted some more, and I did my best not to be offensive while at the same time not leading her on. This was still definitely new territory for me, but I was learning the ropes. I was going to have to if my stats kept increasing. Once Earth was inducted, I supposed it would become easier, but now I stood out. I might even have to start thinking about disguises.

  As before, I noticed that Charisma didn’t just cause her to be attracted to me, but it also gave me insights into her emotionally. It seemed to be a vague sort of empathic ability. She’d been having a bad day and seeing me was just something out of the ordinary. She felt uncomfortable with how much she was flirting with me, but something about me seemed both adorable and harmless.

  If I hadn’t been feeling guilty before, I definitely was now. Figuring out how to handle the impact of Charisma was definitely going to be moved to near the top of my list. For now, I simply broke eye contact and tried to seem as occupied as possible. At one point—when she walked by me to another table—I got a general sense of annoyance from her, but figured that was better than taking advantage, or further confusing her.

  The steak and frites were good as was the bread, even if it wasn’t like what I’d expected. I was a bit shocked that a Coke was more expensive than a glass of wine, but figured it was just another one of many things I was going to have to learn. It hit me how little I knew about my own world and here I was, traveling to other worlds. To say the least, it was humbling.

  Maybe the thing I liked the most was that they didn’t complain or subtly hint that I should get moving even after two hours of casually eating and drinking. I took in the streets and buildings around me. There was so much to learn and I found myself getting excited by that.

  After paying, I asked directions to the Eiffel Tower and then headed out. A few people stared at me, but the darker it got the less that I seemed to get noticed. I missed having a normal life. Although normal was subjective. It’s true with how that saying goes: ‘You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Truth is, you knew what you had. You just never thought you would lose it.’ There was no going back to normalcy now. A few days ago, I’d been excited by the idea of being special, but this was going to become a serious problem if my Charisma got any higher.

  Enough musings, I was in Paris. My first overseas trip. I wanted to absorb the history and culture all around me. Another reminder of why I needed to save Earth. Becoming a dungeon world would destroy much of this. Of that I had no doubt. So, I determined to do everything possible to catch up, even pass Bar’jek and Morvarg, their single Forerunner… I found that odd too. Why hadn’t the system replaced their Forerunners? I shrugged; it didn’t matter. With only one of them, surely, we’d have an advantage, right? A part of me suspected that it wouldn’t be that easy.

  After lazily wandering the streets of Paris, I reached a large green space in front of the tower. I think the waitress had said it was called Champs de Mars. It was empty in that I didn’t see any people out. I supposed it was logical that a site such as the tower would close down at night. That was likely the point.

  Above, I saw a flash of light streak across the sky. I didn’t have to guess, that had to be Jiang. I wondered if the system would block out his display or if the people of Paris would be talking about an unidentified flying object tomorrow. I made my way forward slowly. I really wanted to wait until all three of the others were there. Since I wouldn’t be able to see when Anika arrived and it would be difficult to see Nuri’s sand form at night, I just waited until the designated time. Then I waited another minute.

  After that, it was simple to hop a couple of fences, and then I was scaling the tower. Superhuman Strength and Agility truly was fun. When I reached the observation deck at the summit of the tower, I found the others waiting for me.

  Jiang stared but didn’t say anything. Nuri said, “About time.”

  Anika smiled. “Oh, let up. You know he’s been waiting here since before we arrived.”

  “He still made us wait for him,” Nuri replied.

  “I thought maybe you’d lighten up a bit after the race, but whatever. If you can’t see why I might not want to be here alone with one of you, then that’s your problem. Jiang invited me to this meeting, so maybe he wants to tell me why we’re here.”

  Nuri’s eyes narrowed as she stared at me, but then Jiang burst out laughing. “Seems like he’s gonna work just fine as long as he can be a team player. This is about more than any of us, but I like a man who can stand up for himself. Not that this is my meeting. We have these little gatherings every couple of months. Anika is the one who got to decide where we’d meet this time, so it’s her meeting.”

  The Indian woman sighed as she straightened her sari. “Is it too much to want to enjoy some of the perks of the benefits we gain as a Forerunner?”

  Nuri and Jiang just stared at her without responding and when she glanced at me, I could only shrug. She continued, “We put our lives on the line for Earth all the time. I just wanted to have a few hours to shop and get a good meal. I like finding out about different parts of the world. Before this, I’d never gotten to leave India and rarely left Bangalore.”

  Now I was nodding. “I can agree with that.”

  Jiang snorted, “Typical American.” Nuri didn’t say anything, but she definitely seemed to agree. I didn’t want to give them any satisfaction, so I just tried to ignore them.

  “Let’s not go there. We may have different ways of seeing things, but are you accusing anyone here of not doing their best for Earth? Even our newest Forerunner has already shown his commitment.”

  Nuri stepped closer to Anika. “I’ll agree on that. He’s certainly brought in more points than any other Forerunner did in their first week.” Then she narrowed her eyes and looked at the slender man who was casually leaning his back against the railing. “Even you, Jiang.”

  “Okay, okay. So we’ve got more points than we had. We still aren’t out of the woods. Everyone needs to be grinding as many missions as possible. All five of us.” Jiang’s tone conveyed just how serious he was about the last part.

  Anika nodded. “Agreed. But does that mean we break him out?”

  I coughed. “I assume you’re talking about Emil?”

  She continued, “Yes, Jiang has been bugging us to break him out since he was arrested three months ago. No one has been allowed to speak to him and we don’t know exactly what’s going on.”

  “Have any of you tried to visit as a friend or something? I thought even people in prison got to have guests,” I said.

  Jiang hit the railing with his hand. The metal shook, and I felt the vibrations as they spread out, but it didn’t bend. I put that observation away for later use. Either Jiang wasn’t a Strength based build, stats didn’t ramp up very much with a rare class, or he was much more controlled than he was letting on. Which, in my opinion, seemed worth taking note all the same.

  Anika sighed and said, “Nuri and I both tried, but they wouldn’t let us see him because we weren’t family.”

  “This is why we just need to attack the prison. If we hit them fast enough, no one needs to be seriously injured,” Jiang said. The dismissive note in his voice said that he wasn’t really worried about whether the guards got hurt—if he could free a Forerunner.”

  “Uh, couldn’t he just return to his portal any time he wanted to? It isn’t like bars are going to keep him from teleporting.” I asked.

  Nuri said, “That’s what we’ve been telling Jiang. Even without any mana, he could use the connection to his portal. He also has an absurdly high Strength stat so I doubt they could hold him if he didn’t want to be held. He might not be completely bullet proof, but he’s so strong and fast they couldn’t stop him.”

  Anika said, “That’s why we’re hoping your ability will let you get past the guards to speak to him and find out what he’s doing.”

  I started to protest, but then understood. High Charisma might just let me talk my way past the guards or deceive them at least. I wasn’t keen on the idea of walking into a prison for some guy I didn’t know, but I figured if it got us another Forerunner, then that would be all the better, or at least we’d know what Emil was doing.”

  After I agreed, Anika said that she’d reach out to me in a few days once they had a better plan. She didn’t exactly encourage me to put more points into Charisma, but she sorta hinted at it. I didn’t respond to that, but now, I knew that life wasn’t going to be simple for me on either side of the portal.

  Chapter 4- Offers

  Earth Countdown: 387 days, 11 hours, 9 minutes.

  The meeting gave me a lot to think about. That wasn’t anything new, though. Ever since I first got that note from my uncle’s lawyer, life had been a constant set of surprises and awareness altering experiences. Triggering my connection to my portal was much easier this time, and when I arrived, I got another notification.

  Your portal is currently set to open status. Keep open status?

  I was curious why I was only now getting this message, but it seemed like a no-brainer. If we had a password for our Wi-Fi, then why wouldn’t I have some sort of security for my dimensional portal?

  When I mentally focused on the question, I understood why it was only now an option. This was the first time I had triggered the portal’s recall function after forming my common class core.

  Common level security options are now available.

  -Security Code: access to your portal will be restricted to those who supply the code. Code may be up to 100 alpha-numeric characters. Cost: 1 Forerunner point.

  -Portal cloaking: your portal may be cloaked from the senses of anyone below Rare Core. Rare Cores will need a Perception of at least 200 to be able to sense your portal. Cost: 10 Forerunner points. (Note this level of protection is in effect automatically as part of your world’s pre-induction stage. This purchase will only take effect after your world’s induction has begun.)

  -Common level defense package: this will provide an assortment of common level defenses capable of resisting attacks from most beings at the common level. Cost: 25 Forerunner points.

  -Common level offensive package: this option will provide an assortment of automated common level offensive attacks capable of destroying most beings at common level. Cost: 35 Forerunner points. (If both defensive and offensive options are purchased the cost is reduced by 10%)

  Structures, higher level cloaking, defensive or offensive options, portal relocation, and single use escape packages will become available as your class progresses.

  I decided to set the code even if it might not keep out the other Forerunners. At least they would have to come here physically. The fact that they were all at Rare grade classes meant that the other options wouldn’t affect them at all, so they’d be a waste of points. Better than that though was the fact that as I leveled, I might gain access to the option to take mom and Cece off world before the induction was finalized. That took some of the pressure off, although the only world I’d consider taking them to was Galen and it was far from as secure as I’d like it to be. I needed to see more of the multiverse.

  For a code, I realized it had to be something that would come to mind quickly. I didn’t want to be fumbling to access my own portal while a monster was trying to eat my face. The first thing that came to mind was something my dad used to say. I knew it was a common enough phrase, but it meant something to me and would be easy for me to recall. Now more than ever as I was fighting for Earth’s future, this phrase become so much more real for me. It made me feel connected with my dad. He would likely have felt the same way back when he was in Iraq.

  Set code as Semper Fi?

  I immediately accepted. I’d think on it more and change it later, but for now that was the least that I could do.

  One Forerunner Point spent. All Earth Forerunners will know you spent one point but will not know what it was spent on.

  I groaned internally. It wouldn’t be a problem that I’d spent that point. In fact, I surmised they would all figure out what I spent it on as they had already passed this stage. The bigger issue was that I now realized that I’d be in competition with Anika, Nuri, Jiang and maybe Emil for how to spend those Forerunner points. That put a new spin on things, one which I was uneasy about.

  Maybe it didn’t make me any more secure, but at least I knew they wouldn’t be able to teleport directly through my portal. Next, I checked the mission board to see if anything was posted yet. I was pleased to see that it actually lit up and there were a few options posted.

  The first category was listed under today’s date:

  1) Continue building connections on Galen.

  -Explore a new dungeon (500 world points)

  -Political enemies: weaken the hold Transhek has on Galen (1000 world points)

  -Team building: participate in a monster hunt with your team (150 world points)

  2) Aftermath of Proximus

  -Hunt down Ceorgi refugees (300 or more world points)

  -Further develop your mana affinities (250 world points)