System Architect

The next morning, I woke up to Dad knocking on my door. I groaned. The interruption to my sleep the night before kept me up for over an hour before I’d been able to fall back asleep. As much of a waste as Notifications II was to my experience, consistent rest was really important so that I’d be able to complete quests the system gave me.

“Yeah?” I called through the door to let Dad know I was, in fact, awake.

“Time to get up,” he said. “There’s a basket for you by your door.”

“A basket?”

“It’s Easter.”

“Right,” I said, smacking my forehead.

I’d been off during the last week, which meant spring break… and spring break meant Easter.

“We can do an egg hunt if you want. We colored some eggs last weekend, but, well…”

“Sure. That’d be fun. It’s not like I’ve done that for a long time and it’s a good memory.”

“Sounds good. I’ll go hide them while you go through your basket. See you in a bit.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

I opened my bedroom door just as Dad started thumping down the stairs. To my left, next to the railing, was a wicker basket filled with shreds of green paper. On top of the paper were many jelly beans, chocolate eggs, and a small package of marshmallow bunnies. On top of all of that was a chocolate bunny wrapped in gold foil and a red bow.

I smiled as I brought it into my room. A sugar breakfast was absolutely an improvement over the usual beach-with-milk that I’d probably be eating otherwise. Still, I was a child and there were only so many jelly beans and chocolate I could eat before I was full. Deciding that I didn’t want to overeat, I put the rest back for later and went downstairs.

On the way to the kitchen, I spotted a couple of the eggs Dad had ‘hidden’ around. Knowing all of the tricks, I knew where to look. I didn’t pick them up, however. That wouldn’t have been sporting as the hunt hadn’t started.

When I got into the kitchen, Dad was busy frying up some bacon. A couple bagels sat next to him—already sliced in half—along with a tub of cream cheese and a carton of eggs. I was instantly glad I had made the decision to hold back a little on the Easter candy.

“Ready to go on your egg hunt?” Dad asked as soon as he noticed my presence.

“Yup!”

“There’s a basket on the table to put the eggs in. You’re looking for ten of them.”

“Alright. Food smells great!”

“I’ll finish up while you go look. Have fun!”

I nodded and grabbed the pastel-green plastic basket from the table in the hallway. I immediately went back to grab the two I’d seen coming down the stairs. The first was nestled on top of a pillow on a chair by the front door, and the second was sitting in one of my shoes.

As I went from room to room—collecting eggs as I went—I wondered if the System would have made a quest out of the egg hunt. Based on what I had seen from using System Help on Quests II, I thought it was likely, but I couldn’t be sure until I unlocked it. It made me sad to know that I had to wait even longer since turning off the notification chimes was an even more pressing issue.

By the time I’d finished finding the eggs, Dad was seated at the table waiting for me. I put the basket down and sat across from him. He smiled and I smiled back. The breakfast he’d made—a bagel with cream cheese, bacon, and an egg over easy—was absolutely delicious and not something he made all the time. In fact, it was typically just a one-a-month kind of treat.

“Got them all?” he asked.

“Of course. They weren’t particularly well hidden.”

“Them’s the rules. Can’t hide ‘em anywhere but in plain sight.”

“True. That was always the way you did it. Makes it kinda easy when you’ve done it that way every time. I’ve learned all those tricks.”

Dad laughed.

“So what’s the plan today?” I asked.

“We’re going over to my parents’ place for dinner. Your uncle’ll be there too.”

“I see,” I nodded. “I wonder what quests I have today.”

“Quests?”

“Yeah. I mentioned them last night—I think—but basically, I have certain tasks I need to do in order to get experience. Today’s tasks look mostly doable given the time constraints. There’s one for walking, running, jumping, and climbing that I’ll have to do soon if I want to get it done today—and I do. The two others I can do pretty easily. All-in-all, I’m looking at 80 experience between them.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Yup. I’m sitting at 31 experience right now. I bought the Daily Experience one yesterday, shortly before we talked.”

“I see. How much do you need for the next one?”

“Well, it was going to be Quests II—that’s 500—but I need to get Notifications II first. Thankfully, it’s only 50, but it’s annoying that I have to do it,” I complained.

“Why’s that?”

“Don’t really want to be woken up at midnight every night.”

“It’s that annoying?”

“Can’t ignore an alarm going off in my head,” I chuckled.

“True dat,” he replied.

“So yeah, Notifications II then Quests II. I should hopefully get one today and the other by the end of next week. Please call Mom today. I need to get the ball rolling on that.”

Dad nodded.

We ate and chatted before I helped him clean up. When we were done, I went to the back yard to work on my daily quests. The only quest I couldn’t do was one that involved puzzles. I still hadn’t found an efficient way to get that requirement done in around an hour so any quests with that were just impossible. I hoped to find a solution to that, but I didn’t expect to.

When my exhausted head hit my pillow that night, I had bought Notifications II, leaving me with 61 experience. Dad had finally talked to Mom—after I’d bugged him several more times throughout the day—and I was set to have dinner with her Wednesday evening.

I awoke early the next morning. When I pulled up my System screens and saw that I’d gained 10 overnight as my daily reward. That I’d enjoyed uninterrupted sleep was downright lovely.

I dressed and headed down for breakfast while checking over my daily quests. They didn’t look too bad, but they’d take some time. Three of them were physical—covering almost everything—while the final one was just reading. A rather juicy haul of 90 experience just waiting for me to grab.

“Good, you’re ready,” Dad said as soon as he sat down for breakfast with me. “We need to leave in about twenty minutes.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, confused.

“School.”

“Oh.”

My face dropped. Right. School. I’d forgotten all about that since I’d returned during spring break. I knew in my head that I’d be going to school during the week, but it hadn’t quite sunk in until Dad brought it to my attention.

“Yeah,” he commiserated, “I know it’ll be tough going to school again. I can’t even imagine.”

“I’ll figure it out,” I stated. “I’m not sure how sustainable it’ll be long-term, but I’ve got no choice for now, right?”

“Right.”

“I did graduate from college, so I could probably pass a GED without studying,” I said, thinking aloud. “Something to look into for sure.”

“Might make you stick out,” Dad suggested.

“It might,” I agreed. “But on the other hand, people will move on to another news story quickly. The town’s big enough that even the local news would probably lead with some robbery or murder or something like that.”

“Could be. Too much speculation for a concrete plan. Let’s keep thinking about it for now. The soonest you’d be able to do something would be at the end of the school year in a month-and-a-half.”

I nodded.

I ate my beach-textured cereal before throwing on a light jacket and my sneakers. For whatever reason, my parents had elected not to have a bus come and get me, so we had to drive instead. I thought that maybe Dad had planned to walk me to school at one point, but then their separation got in the way of those plans.

The school was close by—a mile-and-a-half—so I was dropped off at the entrance around five minutes later. The school was fairly large. It was shaped like a large letter ‘T’ with a brick facade. It wasn’t a new building, but it had been updated in the last decade or so to keep up with technology and the amount of children the local community had.

I hadn’t been in that particular school in a long time, but I remembered the hallways well enough to find where I was going. The kindergarten classroom I went into had enough room for twenty to comfortably play and learn, but it was stuffed with closer to thirty. The teacher—bless her soul and patience—somehow managed to keep everything working on her own.

I hung up my backpack and jacket before nervously finding my seat. I looked around the room. Most of the other children were seated and ready, but several still walked around, talking to each other. The teacher stood by the door, ushering in the last stragglers.

I didn’t recognize anyone. It had been years, but I’d grown up with most of them. I remembered—vaguely—what they looked like the last time I’d seen them, and that was several years in the future. I didn’t think it would be easy connecting with them as they were considerably younger than I was—mentally at least. What if they found out I wasn’t me?

My heart began to race as ever more unlikely scenarios played in my head. It took too long—barely a minute—but I was able to clamp down on the intrusive thoughts before they gave me a panic attack. I resolved to find a way to stay under the radar while also achieving whatever goals I’d need to in order to ‘save the world’ or whatever bullshit catch phrase was en vogue currently.

I took the remaining time before the day started to go over my quests. There were a couple that were doable, like the one with walking and running. However, most of them I wouldn’t be able to do at school—or at all—because of the requirements for things like puzzles or pull-ups. I’d still be able to get some done—maybe 40 experience worth—throughout the day, but that was a poor substitute for what I was able to do on my own time. I had appearances to keep up with in order to keep hiding in plain sight while I figured out a better way. It was going to be a long day.