Homegrown System

Chapter 29:

Titus looked up into Alice's face and struggled to read her emotions. There was predominantly confusion, but under that, there was a certain amount of anger and betrayal, a hurt look in her eyes as if he had wronged her. Titus supposed maybe he had. But beneath it all, in the set of her shoulders, in the way she hunched, he could tell that above everything, she was afraid.

She had done an astounding job at hiding it for the last couple of days. But this seemed to have been a tipping point. A point where it was pretty much impossible to deny that their situation was not just insane but terrifying.

It was one thing to be going through it together. If someone had your back, you had a reason to believe, a reason to put on a good face. But when you felt as if you're now alone in the wide world... Well, Titus knew that feeling.

Now, how could he answer her? Did he just tell her everything? That had never really been an option before. There were only a few people who knew the whole story, and they knew it before he had met them. Just not his version of the story. And when the secret he had been keeping for so long came out... Well, he wasn't even sure if he knew how to explain it.

Titus realized he was taking too long to answer, and the suspicion in her eyes was growing. "I'm just a man," he said.

"You're not some trickster god?" Alice asked.

Titus shook his head. "No. I was a man before the System, and now I think I'm still just a man."

"Were you really there before the System? How do you know those memories are real?" Alice asked in a tone that didn't seem stable.

Titus shook his head. "How do you know your memories of before the System are real?"

"I was there. I lived them. I wasn't lying."

"So did I. But I don't know that," Titus countered, though he realized the direction he was going was not where he wanted to be. This was just an argument, and it was an argument he couldn't win. He couldn't lose it either, but he couldn't win and convince her. "Listen, I didn't offer you a contract. I don't even really know what that means. The System gave me less of a choice about this than you did."

Alice sat back at that. "I suppose. I suppose it did. This is not... probably not your fault."

She still doesn't trust me, Titus thought as Alice continued. "But still, that doesn't explain how you even qualified to be a pact bond. Technically, you are my Bondholder. You can choose to take away my power."

Titus looked at her. "Well, only if you betray me, according to that contract," he said.

"Still," Alice said, throwing her hands up, "This is an unhealthy power dynamic."

"I didn't choose this, remember? Besides, if you betray me, I think it's only fair that I take away your power. If someone betrays me, I do everything I can to pay them back. Just don't do it, and we'll be fine."

"Yeah, but what even counts as betrayal? If you want to go to McDonald's and I want to go to Taco Bell, and I drive us to Taco Bell, is that kind of betrayal?" Alice grumbled.

Titus could tell that wasn't a serious complaint, but still, it was the essence of the problem.

"I can also give you extra rewards. I think I just have to figure out how to do that. And you can have all of my magic. I'm not really using it anyway," he said, trying to lighten the mood, but it didn't work.

"That's another thing. It's more leverage you have over me," Alice said grumpily.

"Look, I'm really sorry, but I have no control over this. I didn't choose it. You did." Titus said in as gentle a voice as he could manage. "I didn't even offer it. I don't want you in my head as much as you probably don't want me in yours."

"I'm in your head?" Alice asked.

"I assume you're getting the same feelings, the sense of emotion and distance," Titus said, realizing that that was probably why he could tell her emotions so thoroughly. It was because of the bond rather than just his expert body language reading skills. I wish.

"I didn't know you could feel me, too," she said. This was the first thing that really pushed her out of her emotional track. It moved her off of the suspicion and frustration, and she squinted, glaring at him. But she could tell—he could tell—she wasn't exactly angry. More intense. Focused.

"Say that again."

"Say what again?" Titus asked.

"Tell me that you didn't have any control over it."

"I didn't have any control. I didn't have any choice, I swear," Titus said slowly, sitting up and raising his hands but leaving his leg stretched out so he didn't look aggressive. He just looked her in the eye.

Alice nodded. "You're not some sort of god?"

"I am not. I'm just a man," Titus repeated, catching on to what she was doing. "I'm just a normal man."

She pointed a finger at him. "That was a lie."

Titus blinked. "Well, um, I guess I'm not normal. No one's normal. Just average."

"Titus," Alice said warningly.

"Okay, okay. Yeah. There are some things you don't know about me, but I promise I was just a man trying to live his life before the system. There were a few things that made me slightly not normal, but I was just a human. Just a man."

Alice leaned back. "Well. That's complicated. Lie to me, say the sky is green."

"The sky is green," Titus said, and Alice nodded.

"How old am I?" Titus asked.

"Twenty-five," Alice said, and he couldn't tell that was a lie because she believed it to be true. Perhaps if one got good enough at lying to themselves, they could also lie to each other. But Alice didn't have that skill. Did Titus, though?

"I'm older than I look," Titus said. Then, he tried out his new idea, "I came to America to take a break."

Alice frowned. "That is both a lie and not a lie."

Titus frowned. Hmm. Apparently, he wasn't good enough at lying to himself yet. Or maybe that's just not how it worked. He breathed out, still unwilling to move and make Alice more nervous, but he was feeling the need to pace to figure this out.

Alice looked at him cautiously. "Titus, did you know about magic before the system?"

"No," Titus responded instantly. "I have never seen any sort of witchcraft or sorcery be real." But then he paused. Wait. Magic. Maybe it was magic?

"You told the truth," Alice stated, but then a confused note welled up from her. "But now you think you maybe were lying?"

"I'm not sure," Titus said. "I was pretty sure anything weird I had ever seen was just a quirk of biology, and I'd never seen any real proof of magic, but... with what I know now, maybe it was magic. I know at one point, I believed it was magic. But as I grew up..."

"It wasn't as you grew up." Alice corrected with a smile. That wasn't good. She was getting too skilled at picking apart his words.

"Poor choice of words. As I got older, as we discovered more things, as I learned... I thought it wasn't magic."

"Titus, things aren't lining up. Why was growing up a lie but not getting older? I'm going to need a more thorough explanation."

"I'm sorry. I can try. But it's difficult for me."

"You better try hard, Titus," Alice said warningly. "I want to trust you, but you're making it pretty difficult."

"Well. I'm... older than I look."

Alice didn't seem to fully understand, and Titus had a strange block about saying more, something that he hadn't said for so long. Not to someone who didn't already know that it was difficult for him to get the words out. "I am much older than I look."

Alice blinked. A slight inkling of understanding trickled through the bond. "Um," she said. "A lot older. Like..."

Titus knew that she was flashing through their conversations in her head and picking up the little hints and clues that he was not careful enough to avoid dropping. Alice was smart, terrifyingly smart, one of the smartest people he'd met in the last hundred years. She would figure it out soon, and it'd be best if he didn't let her come to the wrong conclusions. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again as a strange noise in the distance cut him off.

"You hear that?" he said.

Alice cocked her head. "Yes. That sounds..."

She stood up and looked around and pointed off into the distance. Quickly growing closer was a plume of dust, and moments later, Titus could make out a motorcycle speeding along at ridiculous speeds, a rider with the helmet crouched low.

As the bike approached, Titus retrieved his spear from [Inventory] and launched himself to his feet. His shovel was now his backup, and the pilus was good enough for close combat, even if it was really made for throwing. In his other hand, he held his ax and moved to stand in front of Alice.

Alice backed up and off to the side slightly, and Titus followed.

"Careful. Just because they're on that side doesn't mean they can't go around me. The bike is fast," he warned her.

Alice muttered a curse to herself. They'd gotten so used to fighting monsters that weren't nearly as mobile that she'd evidently misjudged things. She'd positioned herself optimally for that, but didn't have the experience to take in the mobility of the bike. He was treating her more like he would an archer or a hunter in his group, but they would have to change eventually. She was more capable than that in many ways.

The motorcyclist skidded to a halt twenty feet away from them and dismounted. Titus could see that she was a woman, shorter in stature, even shorter than Alice, but not by much. She was slightly full-figured and wore biker leathers and a white helmet with a darkened visor.

When the mysterious rider pulled off the helmet, Titus froze. Familiar eyes peeked out from behind a scarf, telling him exactly who this was. She reached up and unwound the scarf that was keeping the salt and dust from her face, but it didn't take more than seeing her eyes to recognize her. When she draped the scarf and folded it over the bike helmet, she turned and gave him a brilliant smile.

Like him, her ethnicity was very muddled. It was impossible to tell where exactly she came from, as whatever she was likely didn't exist anymore. She had a face similar to that of many Greeks but with slightly darker skin than Titus. Maybe she was from somewhere in Africa or farther east than he was. Titus summoned a small, faint smile that belied the turbulence rolling in his heart. What was she doing here?

"Titus!" she said with a smile and ran forward, arms outstretched. Titus held out his spear vertically so she wouldn't impale herself on it as she launched herself and embraced him in a tight hug, her head driving into his sternum. But he didn't take a step back.

"Eliyanah. Long time no see."