Jim’s PoV

It looked like he was missing his phone but at least his wallet was left on him. After getting a cab he took a ride back to his house. Looking sadly at his poor injured door he jury rigged the thing and went inside. A good breeze would probably knock it over, but it least it gave the semblance of looking right.

Jim grinned as he started looking through his inventory. Looking at the item “Helmet x 117” he narrowed his eyes and said “You sneaky little bastard. How dare you use my own terminology against me!”

Jim started making a pile and pulled out helmets one by one.

“Nope.”

“Miss again.”

“Damn, Gimme the good stuff!”

"Papa wants a brand new helmet!"

About ten epithets and helmets later he finally pulled out a real helmet. Inspecting it carefully it looked to be in decent shape, unlike the one the thug got a hand on. Putting it carefully to the side he started digging more and more.

The second treasure he found was actually connected to a computer and his little loading module! Score! He now had more stuff than what he originally stole from the office! It was interesting that they all came out when just pulling out one helmet. But it looked like if things were all connected it was considered as one item. Actually he should have known that already. Damned sticky fingers Milly.

Pulling out the third he gave it a caress and said “Whos daddy's favorite little cheat engine. You are! Yes you are!”

Charlotte’s PoV

It was nice working for a so called “rich” company. Or maybe it was the fact that all the doctors wanted to get their hands on what she was supplying. Still when she made a request to be told when Jim left the hospital, they complied and gave her a call.

Charlotte had the band of heroes in the back of her van and they all had their faces plastered to the windows. It was a good thing they were tinted.

Davis said “Wow! This is amazing! Did you see that? What are they called?”

Boredly Charlotte said “Airplanes.”

Davis said “The magic that must be consumed to make that move must be incredible.”

“There is no magic here. Also from now on the use of the word “magic” is now banned in public.”

Gwen asked “Why? Your magic here seems to be well ahead of what we have back at home.”

“It’s not magic. I'm not a teacher. I've exhausted my brain cells enough by keeping you all out of government dissection labs. Just give me some peace for a bit.”

Maria asked “What’s a dissection lab?”

Charlotte grabbed the volume on her stereo knob and cranked it up. It wasn’t great but it beat the endless questions. After a few more minutes they arrived at Jim’s house. Turning back to the four in her car she said “Can I get a few minutes with Jim? I want to ask him some questions.”

After getting a couple reluctant nods she exited the vehicle. Walking up to the front door she was confused. Was the door fixed already?

With a light pull the thing almost toppled over on her. Barely catching it she shifted it to the side. Feeling a bit malicious Charlotte didn’t say anything and entered the house in search of Jim.

After a minute she found the one she named “Oblivious” in her phone. Good enough as his namesake he didn't even notice her enter the room. Silently she watched as he started materializing metal skullcap helmets.

Pulling up her phone she started recording the incident. Then he said “Whos daddy's favorite little cheat engine. You are! Yes you are!”

Charlotte figured that’s what it was. But at least it confirmed it for her. She stopped recording and replayed that line of dialog as loud as her phone would go.

As the Jim on her phone started speaking the real Jim turned around and said “It’s not what it looks like!”

Then he saw the phone and watched what he just did a couple seconds ago. Raising an eyebrow she said “So, cheat engine huh? You want to do some explaining on why we have some characters from Final Fantastic 3 cheater boy?”

She watched Jim as he seemed like he was going to dramatically pass out again and she said “I will hold your head under water. I know it’s not a coma.”

Jim tried to change tact and said “You are very sleepy?”

“Nope. Next. What else you got.”

Fumbling Jim said “Oh! Oh! You’re asleep! This is only a dream! You will wake up any second now!”

Boredly Charlotte pinched her forearm and said in a monotone “This hurts Jim. Next.”

Jim finally looked defeated and said “You probably really don’t want to know Charlotte.”

“You can somehow cart stuff over from a game world. A game world I presume you made. Fill in the details.”

Sighing Jim said “Have you really thought through those two statements?”

Annoyed Charlotte said “What do you mean?”

“If someone can just program a world and then bring stuff over to here, how real does that make you or me?”

As she was thinking about it she felt lightheaded. You can’t create something from nothing. Mass cannot be created or destroyed. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. The only place you could do that kind of stuff was in a simulation…

Jim’s PoV

Jim watched Charlotte faint and did a fist pump! Maybe he can convince her it was a dream after all. And his luck was working overtime because her phone was still unlocked!

Grabbing it he quickly deleted the video. Then he looked down on her sleeping there and figured he should probably move her to the couch. After that he got a great idea! On the TV he pulled up a Twilight Zone marathon and hit play. Maybe that would confuse her. Genius at work!

Going back to his room he completed going through the rest of his helmet inventory. He grinned at the pile of working helmets. A couple were damaged but overall he had 10 in good working condition. Finally he would fix the annoying aspect of his cheating mode. Seeing with only one eye was annoying as hell.

But a thought crossed his mind. The helmets made a link between his brain and hardware possible. From there it was a quick hop and jump to fix his little problem. He could attach a camera to his right eye in his world. Then connect that and transfer the feed to his brain, which would connect it to other Jim. Other Jim would then have a screen covering his eye that would play that feed from his world.

In essence that meant two helmets, a camera and a display screen equaled two eyes that saw the same world! He could probably do the same effect with some programming, but making an accident there would really suck. If anything his experience working with the helmets made him realize accidents were very possible. He still had no idea how he died in warehouse world.

The only problem with his solution would be that if anything damaged the helmets or other equipment he would be back to one eyed Jim. As he was thinking of how to make this work four figures entered his house.

Looking over to Gwen he asked “So how many of those deaths by severed power lines were really just that?”

The wince on her face told him all he needed to know. Gwen said defensively “They were attacking us! We just protected ourselves.”

Sighing Jim said “Yea. True.”

Davis said “Sorry I”

Before he could say anything Jim cut him off and said “No need. My fault. Should have known karma is always playing tricks. All's well that ends well.”

After a moment he said “Got beer in the fridge. Also I can put in an order for pizza. How’s that sound?”

A round of agreements met him and he put in the order. Once the call was over he said “Someone just keep an eye out on the door in like half an hour. Don’t want the delivery man to drop the pizza because the door fell on him.”

Davis said “I'll grab a few beers and then keep an eye on it. Thanks Jim.”

Scarlet’s PoV

“And that concludes our class on basic levels of interrogation.”

As she said that she watched her lover sprint to the side of the ship and throw up. Poor guy. Just needed a little more work.

After that Forrest asked “Did you really need to keep going? The last half we didn’t even get any new information out of them.”

Scarlet shrugged and said “Good to be thorough. Besides, learning is fun right?”

She smirked as he went a little green. Then Forrest asked “You think we should try to wake up Jim?”

Looking around she didn’t see the little tattletail beasts so she said quietly with a seductive smile “Nah. Can always wait till the morning.”

As she watched him turn beat red she heard a commotion going on at the front of the ship. Not interested she started to make her way below deck, but then she heard a shriek. Instantly she had her daggers in hand and looked behind her to see Forrest drawing his bow.

In a crouch and flowing with the shadows she moved towards the screaming. It didn’t take long to figure out what the fuss was all about. Now in it’s shadow she watched in bewilderment as the massive tentacled beast kept growing in height. In seconds it was even larger than the ship they were on.

Whispering in awe behind her Forrest asked “What the hell is that?”

Thinking she said “Kraken maybe? Giant squid? Something like that.”

“How do we kill it?”

Scarlet shook her head and said “We don’t. We just need to poke it in its eyes enough to go away. Think you can do that?”

Reluctantly she took a deep breath and yelled “Princess! Fluffy! Help!”

She hated asking for help from those demons. They were killers of fun. Scarlet wanted to make an example of a couple of the crew that seemed a bit too resentful but the pair didn’t like the idea for some reason.

With the gang assembled she said “Ready guys?”

After a round of agreements they sped at full tilt towards the creature.

Officer Brady’s PoV

Once word got out that he was back on duty he got called to the office. Maybe his partner was right. He should have just hung out. When ordered to write a report about the event he felt conflicted.

On one hand if he wrote down what he really thought happened the consequences could be difficult. He had no doubt that the higher ups would think the stress got to him. After that he would be forced to take some time off and talk to a shrink.

He was in a life and death fight. But somehow it had the quality of feeling both real and not. Most people would get trauma because they would know that they had been one of the lucky ones. One of the people who walked through fire and still came out on the other side when others did not.

But Brady was dead. Should have been dead. Should have been one of those people that did not come out on the other side. The emotions of fear just wouldn’t attach because he had been through the worst and came out better than he had gone in.

Tired of thinking about it he just wrote the report of what Max had told him and submitted it. After doing that it was getting late and he left for home. Still wanting answers he put his plain clothes on and used his regular car and went to Jim’s house. Hopefully he could find answers there.

Brady parked and then was about to knock on the door when a man said “Where is the pizza?”

Was pizza code phrase for something? He asked “What pizza?”

“The kind you eat. Jim said the next person here would bring pizza.”

Oh. Right. Foreigners. Shaking his head he said “I just want to talk. My memory seems.. Weird. Can I come in and talk for a bit?”

As he asked the question another car pulled up. It had one of those pizza logo toppers on the car and a young man started to walk to the door with the goods. Trying to stay polite he shuffled to the side and let the guy approach the door. Then he was confused for a second when the whole door came off the frame and was moved outside.

Oh yeah. It got broken down didn’t it? After the transaction was done he again asked if he might come inside to talk for a bit.

Davis didn’t close the door fast and seemed to give an affirmative grunt so he quickly went inside the doorway. Then he saw Jim.

Jim said “What the? What are you doing here?”

Trying to use his command presence he said “Just wanted to ask some questions about what happened earlier today.”

There was a questioning look in his eye when Davis filled him in and said “This was one of the officers who saved our lives today.”

Jim looked to be in thought for a few seconds and then said “”Oh! Right! Saved your lives!”

Brady’s cop sense was tingling. But he was off duty. Trying to curb his instinct to start rattling off question after question he said “Is Gwen here? Can I talk to her?”

Jim started wiggling his eyebrows and said “Oh! Now I get it!”

Then Jim shouted “Hey Gwen! I got a cop here looking for a date! And the pizza is here! Come down!”

Brady covered his face in embarrassment. Seriously? He liked the guy a lot better when he kept his mouth shut in jail. After recomposing himself the Davis fellow seemed to get an even bigger scowl. Oh yeah, brother right?

When Gwen came down the stairs he blinked. She wasn’t in that ridiculous looking mage costume with the black staff. Gwen had on a nice conservative dress. It looked good.

While he was looking up Davis leaned over menacingly and whispered saying “She just got out of a bad marriage. Play with her and I break you.”

Damn why did everyone keep thinking he had those kinds of ideas? Emotions warring he finally said “Who the hell are you people. I remember. The lightning. The white glow from the little girl that made me feel better. The bullets that couldn’t pierce your armor. What’s going on?”

There was a long silence with knowing looks exchanged between everyone when Jim said cheerily “How about this! You go on a date with Gwen and no more questions! Deal?”

Gwen started to protest but Jim said in a sing song voice “Oh who in the world is going to protect King’s End?”

Then the glare was on him. What did Jim have on her? Maybe if he got her away from the group she could tell him if there was blackmail going on. Putting his arm out for Gwen to hold Brady said “How about this Gwen. Ever seen a movie before? We could get away from here for a bit.”

Confused she shook her head. Gathering his courage he said “Well, you will like it.”

Gwen sighed and said “Davis, can you look after Maria for a bit?”

Davis said to him with a grin “Get handsie and you might find yourself in for a shocking surprise.”

A lightning joke? Brady put it out of his mind. Wow. He actually got a date!