Homegrown System

Alice didn't end up leading the way, but she did point out directions from the passenger seat of the little golf cart they used. She indicated the turns they needed to take on the path. As they rode in silence, the weak headlights illuminated the way ahead. They stopped once in a while for Titus to absolutely flatten any enemy that got in their way.

It was perhaps inefficient for him to take care of them, but Alice was just so done. The emotional turmoil, long day, repeated head trauma, and general exertion had finally worn her down, and it was all she could do to keep her eyes open. Titus insisted that he was fine after evolving to the next grade; he felt like he had a good night's sleep. He even talked about finding the proper car and driving through the night to make better time.

Alice didn't particularly care as long as she could sleep soon. She had kind of hoped that she would be able to sleep in the quiet comfort and refuge that her dorm room had been for the past several years. But whether it was there or the back seat of a car, she didn't particularly care. Titus would probably have to sleep on the couch or something, maybe even break into one of her roommate's rooms.

Eventually, they reached the corner of campus where the graduate housing was. She let herself in after climbing up a few flights of stairs. The rooms were broken into pods, a shared living room, and a half kitchen shared between four single rooms.

Her living room was a bit of a mess. There were half a dozen empty pizza boxes scattered over the couch, counter, and table, along with at least three cases worth of beer and a few empty vodka bottles. She kicked the familiar trash out of the way as she made her way to her room, but Titus stood in the doorway and looked quite surprised.

"What?" she said over her shoulder.

"I'm surprised. You seemed more organized than this," Titus replied.

Alice shrugged. "I don't spend much time here. This is mostly Caitlin and her friends," she said, indicating the three other doors. "They like to party. I do my best to spend as little time here as I can unless I'm sleeping. Most of the time, I'm in the library or supercomputer center or something, or I'm prepping for a lecture or attending some sort of discussion."

"Do you not have the option to live elsewhere? Do they make you live on campus or something?" Titus asked, his brow furrowed in honest confusion.

Alice shook her head. "No. But if I stay here, it's free. Part of the tuition remission I get from being a teaching assistant or research assistant comes with free housing. In some places, they'll pay you a stipend that will include housing, and you have to use that. But here, you get free housing on top of the stipend."

***

Titus frowned, not enjoying the smell of moldy pizza and stale beer staining the carpet as he followed Alice to her room. This was a surprise, but her explanation made sense. When he stared in from the doorway as she rooted through her closet, things made less sense and more at the same time.

Her room was not large, no more than six feet across and ten feet deep. There were three and a half pieces of furniture: a wardrobe that Alice pulled several pairs of clothes out of, with a single stuffed teddy bear on top of it. A desk in one corner that was barely big enough for a laptop and a notebook at the same time was currently empty. Then there was a chair pushed in that looked to be uncomfortable, hard plastic that clearly came with the room. Lastly, in the far corner was a mattress on the floor with a sheet and a single blanket and pillow on it, folded neatly and stacked off to the side. Leaning against the wall at the foot of the mattress was a bed frame. It was like living in a shoebox, but somehow, the room still felt empty.

Titus stood speechless in the doorway as Alice pulled out a backpack and started stuffing clothes into it, folding them up and rolling them into a neat ball.

"Are you okay?" Titus asked.

"Yeah?" Alice said, her head still in her wardrobe, not understanding or seeing his face.

"What's with the bed? The frame's right there."

Alice pulled her head out and glared at the bed frame. "The thing's broken. I got it set up when I moved in, and it squeaked constantly for a day or two before it collapsed with me on it. I'm not risking that again."

"You didn't get campus maintenance to come fix it?" Titus asked, assuming that was a possibility.

She shrugged. "It's fine. I don't mind being on the floor."

Titus blinked. "Uhh. I don't mean to pry, but how are you okay? This seems disturbing. How do you live like this? I understand it is necessary and temporary, but it seems like you've been here for a while."

Alice, her head still in her closet, replied, "Yeah, for years now. Best place I've ever stayed."

Titus looked at her. "Are you... what? How?"

"Well, the lock on the door is pretty good. Despite some noise and general mess my roommates make, they leave me alone, and I have my privacy."

"What does your family think?"

"Oh, don't have any," Alice said, and Titus blinked. It didn't make sense. Not once had she ever expressed concern for any family member stranded in the tutorial or anything like that, but even then, that was a bit extreme.

"Okay," Titus said out loud. He had seen worse before, but not in a very long time. "Again, I don't want to pry, but how did this happen?"

Alice looked at him and sighed. "The short story is that I emancipated myself from the foster care System when I was 14. Scholarships took me through all of undergrad. When I was 16, I got into a PhD program where the stipend from teaching and the tuition remission covers all my expenses. I'm even able to put away a little bit each year. Now, I teach when I can and do research whenever it's available. I work with a professor and should be graduating in a couple of years, so I could look for a postdoc position. This has been amazing," she said, giving him a challenging look that dared him to question her situation more.

Titus raised his hands in surrender. "I mean, no judgment. I'm honestly impressed. But you don't want a poster or anything?"

The only personal item she seemed to have besides clothes, a laptop, and a few tech gadgets under the desk was the teddy bear.

Alice shook her head. "I never got used to having personal effects. There wasn't much privacy growing up."

Silence reigned for a few more minutes as she finished putting together her clothes bag and tossed in a toiletry bag as well before going over and picking through the electronics. "What about you?" Alice asked. "You haven't told me about your family."

Titus waved his hands dismissively. "All long dead. No siblings. But I have friends around the world that I visit sometimes," he said, the easy-to-tell story coming out with practice. Still, he was grateful that he didn't have to go through the usual rigmarole of sympathy that most people expressed. Alice just nodded in acceptance.

"What do you do for a living? You clearly have a few sets of skills."

Titus smiled. "I work in investing and the rare artifact trade."

She gave him a look. "What? You're like Indiana Jones? Is that where you get all your survival skills from, running around abandoned temples?"

"Most of the temples I'm used to weren't abandoned," Titus said with a knowing smile. "But yeah, I've had some experience through life. You ready to go?"

Alice nodded, pressing a button. "Power brick seems to be charged. If you're sure you don't want to sleep here, we can head out as soon as we find a suitable car. Luckily, our primary target is on this side of the city, so we don't have to go back through that mess."

Titus nodded. "Good. I saw a decent Escalade parked in the parking lot. If it has enough gas, we can siphon some from other cars and maybe see if we can get a couple of tanks to fill up along the way. But it should have enough space and off-roading potential to be comfortable."

"Escalade, Esclade..." Alice muttered. "The big, blocky car?"

Titus nodded. "Yeah. Do you not know cars?"

She shook her head. "It's not that. I think that's Jocelyn's. Her room's at the end of the hall. She always keeps her keys on her desk if she doesn't take them with her."

"Oh, lucky," Titus said. "I'll be right back."