We had a quiet evening at home. Someone came by to let us know that George was napping next door after doing a thorough Cleanse on two of the people with gut wounds. Tamara and Dane had set up a table in the street out front, under a pop-up awning someone had found. It looked like we were getting a steady stream of signees for our fledgling “Fort Autumn," even if the idea seemed to be making some people angry.

Cheers outside drew me to the window once more, and I saw that some of the neighborhood engineers had managed to MacGuyver an old-fashioned pump together with a hose, allowing us to remove the water that had filled the quarry with a method faster than buckets and more sustainable than abilities.

There were some other noteworthy events that evening, including two transport specialists showing up who weren’t local. One was from the hospital, and made a few trips to bring Living Legonnaires and supplies home. The other was from a neighborhood to the south.

The driver, a woman named Gabby Jackson, had come with two others: her sisters, it turned out. After they’d visited the Shop, they wanted to speak with me.

“This fort thing… You swear you’re not going to stop selling food to people who don’t join?”

“There’s no limit on the amount of food the Shop sells. That would be dumb. As long as you’re not attacking us or other humans, it’s in my own best interest to let you buy as much food as possible.”

“Because of the taxes.” Gabby looked disgusted.

I raised my hands defensively. “Hey, they’re literally as low as I can make them right now.”

“You gonna raise them later?”

“Only if I can find a good way to sell food and water at the current rate. The Shop system doesn’t seem to want to let me, and I’m committing to keeping those cheap.”

Gabby narrowed her eyes at me distrustfully, then nodded. “Alright, then. You break your word, you’re gonna have every single Jackson come down hard on your ass, lady.”

I almost snapped back at her. Really, threats? Against me, here? Was she an idiot?

Eh, probably. World was full of them, after all.

I took a deep breath to calm down. I couldn't completely keep irritation from lacing my reply. “Why the interrogation, anyway?”

Gabby jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the truck she’d driven. “We’re gonna take a load of food back. Everyone is getting hungry and thirsty, but if I can get more tomorrow, we might do some re-selling.”

A few more questions clarified the situation in their area. Her whole extended family lived in the same neighborhood: her parents, their eight children, spouses, and a slew of grandchildren. Although not all had been at home when the aliens struck, many were. Several had gained points early, trying to get around the neighborhood to check on family members. When the Point Siphon popped up, they had a relatively strong group of people who knew and trusted each other, so monopolizing it had been fairly doable.

It wasn’t exactly the community-minded approach we had taken here, but they could still loosely be counted as allies. They were selfish, maybe, but if they were worrying about having enough food, they almost certainly weren’t robbing others.

More concerning was what they had to share about the new monsters.

We’d gotten reports from solo fighters that they’d been attacked by trios or quartets of the emu things who had wandered in from outside our territory, but only when the monsters outnumbered them significantly. Dealing with so many at the same time was difficult but doable for our stronger fighters.

All well and good... if that was the biggest that packs could get.

While we were keeping them suppressed, as was the hospital, it wasn’t the case in most places. Gabby had seen a pack at least fifteen strong on their trip over. Fifteen, after the monsters had only been active for six or seven hours. They’d left her truck alone, just as they’d been ignoring buildings, but that was the sole saving grace of the situation. The monsters were clearly ranging long distances and being very choosy with who they decided to attack. It worried me.

“If this keeps up, I feel like we could see a pack of hundreds,” I told Dane.

The colonel’s mouth thinned to a hard line. He didn’t argue. “We need to get this fort up. Build those observation posts. These monsters may not be attacking homes, but if they keep people shut inside, we’re not going to have the Points to manage future threats. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

I bought 50 Small Light Sources from the Shop and left 49 in a stack for others to attach to defunct streetlights, then headed back inside with the last. Maybe it was an abuse of privilege, leaving others to pump out the quarry and build the walls and organize the streetlights… but I was tired. I knew I was far from the only one who’d had a difficult time lately, so I couldn’t really justify deserving a break, but I needed one, and no one could stop me. I was taking it.

The Light Source made the upstairs startlingly bright. It had been a while since I’d seen my own house in anything other than dimness. It was a harsh white, not a comforting sun-yellow, but I still relaxed.

I was a modern human; harsh artificial light spoke to me of fast food and big-box stores and public schools and gas stations. The light called up memories of nametags and advertisements and things on sale for something-or-another-.99. I could almost smell the industrial cleaner. They weren’t nostalgic memories, not by a long stretch, but they were memories of a safer, saner time.

George woke up from his nap next door and joined us at home, regaling the kids with details of his rescue mission and hearing about their own nighttime adventure through the neighborhood. I lounged against the wall nearby, half-listening.

Pointy was still sitting on a table, and a touch revealed that while she was much drier, she hadn’t quite dried out.

“How’s the translation work going?” I asked her. “I’ve been meaning to check in, but things have been so busy…”

“Fairly well. There are a great many challenges, but I have slightly expanded my dictionary of terms I am certain of and vastly expanded the list of words for which I have a general idea of the meaning. I have a lot more information about the structure of the Maffiyir and the Commonwealth, although I am not sure how actionable any of it is.”

I shrugged. “No one’s trying to kill us at the moment. Lay it on me.”

Pointy actually smiled at me. I guess she had been working on this stuff pretty non-stop for what would probably amount to subjective years of human time. Having me express interest was probably validating. I should check in with her more often.

“Well,” the turtle said, “The first item of interest is how the Maffiyir is broadcast. From what I can gather, there are three phases. The first phase takes place while the competition is ongoing. Commonwealth citizens may essentially view live feeds of individual competitors. It seems difficult for them to record these feeds, but they can essentially share links with one another to individual competitors, and I believe these link shares or invitations to watch are what influence Novelty.”

“So… if no one is looking at you to begin with, doing something interesting wouldn’t earn you any Novelty?”

“I believe so. The number of Commonwealth citizens is vastly higher than the number of humans, and the broadcasts would have me believe that the Maffiyir is extremely popular entertainment… but it seems likely that some interesting occurrences slip through the cracks, or that some individuals get disproportionate Novelty after being highlighted by prominent citizens.”

“Hm… so, if we want to get Novelty, it might be viable to try to appeal to a specific species or faction or something that doesn’t value death and so forth?”

Pointy frowned. “I imagine so. Unfortunately, the Maffiyir is primarily hosted by what appears to be a very powerful race known as the Soundless. The Soundless seem particularly interested in violence and death.”

“Wait - the Maffiyir isn’t held by the Commonwealth as a whole?” The revelation surprised me. With the offer of citizenship as one of the prizes, I had assumed it was a government-run contest. Maybe that had been simplistic of me, though. Even on Earth, it was common for countries to court Olympic athletes by offering them citizenship.

Pointy shook her head. “Not as far as I can tell.”

Interesting. I wasn’t sure that the information was useful, but it was interesting. “So… if the first phase is these individual streams or feeds, what are the other two?”

“The second is a curated set of broadcasts by… the analogy is imperfect, but let’s call it the Maffiyir company. These are the ones that had the countdown statistics at the top, and they’re carefully selected and framed to present a narrative. From what I can see, this re-broadcast happens over an identical timespan as the Maffiyir itself, and then it’s followed by a bulk footage release from the Maffiyir company to other organizations, which sift the footage for things like their ‘most pathetic deaths’ show as part of what I’m terming the ‘third broadcast.’”

“An identical timespan?”

“Yes. So if the competition took three years to run, the Maffiyir company would do livestreams during that time, and then faux-realtime curated broadcasts over the subsequent three years.”

“They’re really milking our destruction for everything it’s worth, huh?” I muttered. “I guess it can’t be cheap to run something like this.”

“No. It’s really not. The prize of keeping your earnings… it is a real prize. The Commonwealth apparently has quite strict laws about nanotechnology, and nanites are strictly disallowed from self-reproduction, so all nanites are created by complex macroscale machinery and shipped where they’re needed. I’ve identified a few former contestants they’ve had on as commentators, and the show hosts always make a point of calling out the competitors’ nanite-density, frequently with verbal expressions of envy.”

“Hm… and you’d assume that the broadcast hosts are at least somewhat well-off.”

“Indeed. Actually…” Pointy hesitated. “I wanted to speak with you. I know we had agreed on some abilities for Cassie that would increase her survivability, but I’d like to reconsider. If we can get abilities that synergize better with me directly, increasing my processing power, I think that will greatly help her in life after the Maffiyir. While hosts do speak with envy of former competitors’ wealth in terms of personal nanites, few powersets seem as though they would be useful when life no longer consists of life-and-death battles. Processing power, on the other hand, could help us survive now and give her true wealth later.”

Barely a week before, Pointy had been so glum. So fatalistic. So… depressed, maybe? She’d seemed to feel that there were slim odds of Cassie surviving, and that even Cassie’s survival wasn’t much to hope for, since her human life would eventually end, dooming Pointy herself. Hearing her plan for the future like this… I couldn’t help but smile as I responded. “Life after the Maffiyir? You think we’re making it out of here now?”

Pointy drew her head up as high as a tiny plushie could. When she spoke, her voice was defensive. “Well, there is a minimum number of survivors, and to my knowledge your family is among the best-situated humans even before considering the advantage of the Shop.”

“Our family. Cassie’s basically your Mommy, remember?” I gave the turtle a mischievous grin. She responded with an indignant little “Hmpf!” but didn’t argue, perhaps because Cassie was in earshot.

I had teased the turtle, but my light words had covered my discomfort at her response. I didn’t like hearing her fixate on the minimum number of survivors. She was, by most measures, smarter than me. She definitely had access to much better information. I was a little scared to ask, but I had to know what she thought. “Are you saying you think the Dragons were right? That this is going to end with the vast majority of humanity dead?”

Pointy hesitated. “I am not yet certain how many will die. However, regardless of the eventual death total, I do not agree with the Dragons’ approach. The Maffiyir ability system is flexible, but still encourages specialization. The community we are forming will give us access to a far wider variety of strong skills. Killing those near you - or letting them die - will have a negligible impact on the global scale and the overall difficulty of the competition. Sharing strengths, however, will have a positive impact on survival odds for both parties.” She walked to the edge of the table and bumped her head against my side. “For a wet pile of meat and bacteria, you do have surprisingly good insights sometimes.”

“Aw, that's the sweetest thing a collection of dryer lint has ever told me!”

Pointy looked offended, then confused. I took pity on her. Cultural data pack or no, social interactions - familial interactions - weren't something she had a lot of experience with.

"Just teasing, same as you were teasing me." I smiled at her. "I know how much more there is to you than what I can see."

"Yes, but you are - roughly speaking, allowing for some omissions - a wet pile of meat. I am not... dryer lint. There is no lint within me. Your teasing was inaccurate."

"Unprocessed dryer lint, then. Proto-dryer lint. The Source of All Lint."

Pointy's eyes went wide. I thought she was going to be offended again, but after a moment, she let out a squeaking noise I belatedly recognized as a laugh. "Humans! So ridiculous."

I poked her. "Aw, come on. You know you love us."

Still giggling, she dropped her head in a tiny, embarrassed, nod.