“Sam, you are such a paranoid old-man prepper,” Jen said, as they were removing a trap door, to access all his hidden weapons and gear. Jen thought it was hilarious that the trap door was under a gun cabinet that contained a couple of Walmart shotguns. Jen knew that Sam was not gun-crazy like that security contractor Chang. Chang would talk your ear off about weapons day and night. However, Sam was paranoid, so even though he didn’t talk about them all the time, he felt the need to have them, and lots of them.

“My God you have a shit-load of weapons here,” Jen said, as she walked down wooden steps into a small basement area.

Sam started pulling some of the weapons out of their racks and said, “I’m going to create a gun bag for each of us with similar caliber weapons, so we can …..”

Jen listened half-heartedly as Sam discussed the packing lists and ammo, and then she realized the major problem with Sam’s bug-out cabin supplies, and she said, “Sam, that’s not everything.”

He looked offended and replied sarcastically, “Of course it’s not everything; I have several caches buried in the surrounding forest and extra gear in my other cabin, but we wouldn’t be able to use all of them even if someone from the government or a mega-corporation found us.”

Jen was both shocked and confused by his response, and said, “Wait, let’s back up for just a second. You have more weapons buried in the forest and a second bug-out cabin? Or are you just fucking with me?”

Sam sadly shook his head at her and said, “You damn Millennials don’t know what it means to be prepared. You’re just all kind of sad, really.”

Jen was dumbfounded. This seemed a little crazy even for Sam. Jen replied sarcastically, “Okay Boomer, you just keep telling yourself that I’m the weirdo. Anyways, back on topic, the real issue is, you don’t have any tech. We need tech gear for me to train with, and all you have is zombie apocalypse gear.”

By the end of the day, Jen had created a plan that had them exercising to build up their strength, speed, or stamina every minute, or training their skills on the tens of thousands of dollars of tech gear they were going to purchase. It wasn’t like either of them were worried about their credit card balances.

Sam insisted that Jen go through several gun drills and make sure her weapons were sighted in. Jen carried a weapon most of the time, had extensive training with weapons, and qualified with them 2 or 3 times a year, but relatively speaking, she rarely fired a gun. Sam had always told her that, “If an intel gatherer ends up in a gunfight, they screwed up somewhere.”

Jen was using her psych skill to interact with the wireless signals to power up three drones and fly them overhead as they were starting their morning run through the forest, and said, “It’s pretty definite, I can use my mana to interact with wireless signals, but if I try to tap directly into either the tech, the batteries, or the electrical components, it all just turns to slag.”

“Well, that’s still some pretty powerful shit, and it amazes me that you’re able to see the cameras from all the drones in your mental onboard.” Sam said, as they continued running up the mountain.

Jen thought about the system message they both received right after arriving at the cabin.

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System Message

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Congratulations! Full implementation complete. Attributes and skills will now increase 12 times faster until your departure.

===

Just the few days since receiving the message, their training had them running at almost Olympic speeds and duration. Initially, Jen felt that a growth rate multiplier of 12 would simply give them the benefit of 12 months of training in one month. However, the multiplier not only applied to their growth rate, but their recovery rate, too. Sleeping one hour was like sleeping 12 hours. Catching your breath after a run for two minutes, was like resting for 24 minutes. Resting after a set of dumbbell curls for 2 seconds was like resting for 24 seconds.

Jen joked while they raced, and said, “I can’t wait; I’m going to build me a giant mech suit like Ironman that I can control with my mind and take over the world!”

Sam laughed with her, but mainly he was relieved that she was able to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing, sort of.

They both knew that they were probably going to simply die in some sort of glowing rainbow transfer, or they were going to be some kind of alien abduction torture subjects. The odds clearly gave them a 95% chance of death. Sam didn’t care, he was focused on savoring every remaining moment with Jen, and the training and joking was a great way to distract them from their potential death.

Later, Sam was sitting at the kitchen table with an AM/FM radio. He had an idea to try and power-up the radio with just his mana, but only after taking out the batteries, killing any stored memory, and then draining every ounce of electricity out of the device. “Any ideas before I charge it with mana?”

Jen looked up from the drone she was working on, shrugged, and said, “maybe think about trying to direct the mana up through the electrical cord, the way electricity would work. I don’t know.”

“Here we go.” Sam pushed his mana into the radio and almost immediately yanked his hand back like he had been bitten by a snake and grunted, “Shit that hurt! Another device turned to slag, but the damn metal sliced pretty deep through the side of my palm.”

He was about to go get a bandage when Jen waved him down and said, “Wait, wait! Stay right there, I want to try something first.” She came back into the kitchen with a washcloth and wiped his hand clean, ignored his grunt of pain from the alcohol she poured all over the cut, and then she pushed her mana with the intent of healing his hand.

They both stared dumbfounded as they watched the cut in his hand visibly heal. Jen then received a system message:

==

Jen

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Minor Mend Level 1

==

After they high-fived each other with excitement about her minor mend spell, Jen looked suspiciously over at Sam. He was holding up a small knife with a wicked grin as reached for the alcohol and said, “OK Jen, I’m sure you want me to practice, too.”

==

Sam

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Minor Mend Level 1

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