To establish a link to another location, you must enable the port system in your home base settings, then access the port system by thinking or saying “Port System.” Then choose the option Establish Port Link and follow the directions given by the System.
I put the guidebook down and pull up my home base settings. I scroll through the blue screen that pops up until I find the option for the port system. I enable it and close the window. Then I call out, “Port System” and another blue window appears in midair.
Welcome to the Port System.
Establish Port Link
Travel to established link location
I tap the option to establish a link and the text in the blue screen changes.
Please enter the spatial and temporal coordinates of the location you wish to link to.
A virtual keyboard appears beneath the blue window. I’m not sure what to do since I don’t know the spatial or temporal coordinates for Lillian’s home base. Then I remember she said to use the business card she gave me and pull it out of my pocket. Looking for the card, I don’t see anything except the phone number I used to call her. However, the System seems to know what to do. When the card comes into contact with the virtual keyboard, a light envelops the card, and new text appears in the blue window.
Coordinates detected, scanning…
Coordinates found. Establishing link. Link requires permission from User. Requesting permission…
Permission granted. Link established. 100 credits have been removed from your inventory.
Would you like to travel to location: Monsters Squashers Inc.?
Well, that’s a unique name to call your home base. Then again, I used to game under the handle CoolDude2020 when I was a kid, so I don’t have room to talk.
I shrug and tell the System that I’d like to travel to that location. My bedroom door starts to glow, and I walk over to it.
Turning the knob, I open the door and peek through to see that I’ve opened the door to Lillian’s office. The room looks different from the last time I was here, and I see her sitting on a couch facing the wall of windows that look out at the New York City skyline. Lillian turns her head at the sound of the door opening. When she sees me, she smiles and gives me a friendly wave. “Hey, Anthony. Come on in.”
I walk through the door and notice the other changes in the room. The big intimidating desk is gone, replaced with more casual furnishings. In the center of the room are four overstuffed chairs, each with a small end table next to them. There are three long wooden tables along the right wall with piles of papers on two of them. On the one closest to me are mugs, bagels, fruit, doughnuts, a pot of strong-smelling coffee, and various condiments.
My stomach grumbles and I remember that I haven’t had lunch yet.
I turn towards the windows when I hear a small snort and see Lillian laughing into her hand, “If you’re that hungry, please help yourself to the food that’s there.”
I’m slightly embarrassed that my stomach is growling, but I’m not one to turn down free food. I saunter over to the table of food, and while I’m piling fruits, doughnuts, and other treats onto a plate, I casually glanced over at the piles of papers. They’re mostly forms filled with numbers, expenses, sale receipts, and billing slips. There’s a few that have something to do with a national competition, but I can’t make out more than that.
When I turn around, I almost run into Lillian who has snuck up closer than I’d thought she could. I see that she’s wearing tight faded blue jeans with a hole in the knee, a black shirt, and a light brown cardigan. Her blond hair is tied back, and she looks up at me with a bit of mischief in her eyes, “Notice anything interesting?”
I’m taken aback by how quietly she’s approached, but I guess that’s what you get when you can afford thick carpeting like this. “Uh, you have a nice spread.”
She raises an eyebrow at me. I realize how the wording might sound and correct myself, “I mean, the food looks nice and you look tasty.”
Her eyebrows shoot upwards, and she presses her lips together.
Oh no I didn’t mean it that way either, “I mean the food looks tasty. You look nice.”
Lillian breaks into a full grin seeing how uncomfortable I’ve become and she’s kind enough not to tease me anymore. She leans in and playfully punches me in the shoulder. “That’s fine Anthony. I get what you're trying to say.” She gestures to the comfortable looking chairs in the center of the room, “Why don’t we sit here, and you can tell me about how things are going for you?”
I nod, happy to move past my awkwardness. I don’t know why Lillian makes me this way. I swear I’m much smoother with the ladies usually. Heck, they call me Tony the Tantalizer. Ok, well only one girl I dated called me that, and I’m pretty sure she meant tenderizer since I was holding a mallet at the time tenderizing the steaks I was making. Still, she said it and it counts.
I sit in one of the overstuffed chairs and put the plate of food on the table next to it. I nibble on some strawberries as Lillian takes one of the other chairs and lifts it straight up into the air and places it across from me. The sight of this five-foot five-inch woman casually tossing around furniture makes me smile. I can only guess that she’s put some stat points into strength or maybe she has a furniture moving skill or something.
She sits down in the chair, crosses her legs, and leans against an armrest. “So, you mentioned on the phone that you found a dungeon? I’d hoped you would have hooked up with me before you started that kind of stuff. It’s dangerous to do alone, especially if it’s your first time.” She shrugs once before continuing, “Oh, well. What’s done is done. It apparently didn’t kill you. Tell me all about it.”
I lean back in the comfortable chair and take another bite of the food on the plate. Then I launch into storytelling mode and tell Lillian about the last few weeks. It’s an interesting thing trying to summarize all that time I spent in the dungeons. I tell her about all the times I died and what I learned from each experience and how each made me a more capable fighter. She tilts her head as she listens to me describe the types of monsters there were at the beginning and the ones that have shown up recently. I also try to casually mention the stack of weapons I can’t sell and that I need to figure out how to convert credits to dollars for my long-term plans to work out.
Lillian listens attentively as I talk and when I finish, she asks, “You mentioned your long-term plans. What are those?”
“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. I mean I have aspirations and vague ideas of what I want to do with my life. I know I want to do something I like. Something that pays enough to take care of my family. I figured I’d try to be a teacher, engineer, doctor, or maybe start my own business. I don’t know. My big goal in high school was just to get accepted to college. At least that was the plan before I became involved in all of this.” I gesture around her home base to indicate I mean the System stuff. “Now, I see an opportunity that no one else I know has, there’s so much potential with this System stuff it’s almost scary. I mean, I’m already doing better in college than I thought I would, thanks to the academic skills I purchased. I’ve looked through the list of skills I can buy with the forty skill points I’ve saved, and some of them sound like they could make me quite powerful. Then there’s the dungeon. A veritable gold mine for credits and experience points. It was when I started to put more stat points into my intelligence and wisdom that I realized exactly how much power the System gives users.”