“We have updates.” Dandelion’s stoic voice almost distracted from his fried afro of golden pedals as he adjusted his set of notes. Alexander nodded along as he raised his phone. Currently Michael was calling in from Easter. While he couldn’t see anything, he could at least ask question in real time and have Alexander repeat the answers.

“First off, Leona managed to get a response from a few other teams. From the accounts, there is a total of 10 developers that the Agency has lost contact during the same time as you. None have managed to reestablished contact though. Congratulations, you are the outlier.” The false praise made Alexander roll his eyes as Dandelion continued. “Dahlia found out that a messenger had been dispatched to Senior Advisor Thoth, however he seems to be in a similar situation as Big Boss. Out of the office and unavailable. We tried to get in contact with Thoth’s four assistants, but none picked up.”

“Shocking.”

Dandelion’s green eyes glared a hole into Alexander, but he didn’t flinch as the system administrator reluctantly continued. “Leona also went to the Stabilization Department to ask about solutions. However, the doors were barred and not even her frightening leg strength could get in. My sisters and I have theorized that they are all dead.” A long sigh filled the air while Dandelion looked at something off screen before he refocused on Alexander. “So, the Agency is on fire.”

“How about Boss?” Michael chimed in.

“Dahlia called him. The Goat said he is on his way, but Dahlia thinks it will probably be a bit of time before he arrives.”

“What season is it in the Overworld?” Alexander asked, as he adjusted his phone.

“Spring-“ Sudden realization over took the plant man’s features as his hair petal immediately drooped then puffed up. “No.”

“Yes.” Alexander smirked.

“If that old goat really took time off to rut around with his wife during this crisis, I’m going to cut off his head myself.” Dandelion growled.

“Well the crisis was pretty unexpected.” As much fun as it could be to roast Boss, Michael couldn’t help but point out this small fact as Alexander playfully scowled.

“Why should he be able to have fun while I can’t even hold my baby.”

“Please resist flirting until I finish with updates.” Dandelion’s voice dulled as he rubbed his eyes. “With the Stabilization Department out of reach, I’m not sure about how we can rescue you.”

The Stabilization Department really did fit its name. It was the group responsible for keeping the travel between fragmented worlds functional and safe for the Agency’s staff. However even though the name had stable in it, the department was far from it. So, there was nothing shocking about this development.

Dandelion continued. “I however have found a few examples that are similar to the current situation.” He pulled up an old leather-bound book that looked long neglected and forgotten. Alexander didn’t even recognize it as Dandelion opened it. “In the World Development handbook, there are three examples of troubleshooting a lost developer incident.”

He quickly laid out the examples. Two were pointless as they required everything else to be stable which it clearly wasn’t. That only left the last example.

“It’s not practical at all.” Dandelion sighed. “You could use the World Root to transfer back to the Mother Tree. However, with both of your statuses, you would have to destroy all your progress as developers in order to crawl through the connection. Even then I don’t believe it would work for Michael.” He paused and shook his head. “We’re investigating other solutions.”

What can’t be done, can’t be done. Alexander leaned back on the tree trunk as he fiddled with his phone. With that question temporarily answered Michael spoke up.

“Did you find anything about the story?” He asked.

“Yes. We can report that this fragment does have a story line. But it’s not of any use to you.” A subsequent script of text appeared before Alexander. Any initial excitement quickly disappeared as he found a total of 4 lines.

“You’re kidding me?” The man couldn’t believe what he read. They had gotten short scripts before, but this was ridiculous.

“Not at all.” Dandelion sighed and straightened his back. “Congratulation. You’ve completed all the plot points.”

‘Ellen investigates an unregistered domain, Ellen fights alongside Giselle, Ellen fails to protect a fellow hunter and Ellen has an argument with Richard, her boyfriend.’ Those were the four lines of plot that the System Administrator managed to pull from this warped plane of a realm. Again, Dandelion had said it belong properly in the trash. It was a place that would have quietly disintegrated if not for the two husbands crash landing there.

“What about character descriptions?” Michael added.

“Thanks to you, they aren’t accurate anymore. From what we could claw out, any baseline descriptions are all outdated. On top of that the character depot is still functioning so it’s been filling the world with new individuals which have in turn heavily influenced the few original characters.” Dandelion shook his head. “You both really are fantastic World Developers.” It was a bit difficult to tell if this was sarcasm or genuine praise as Dandelion’s expression stayed frozen.

Silence overtook them as each of them contemplated the situation. It was finally Alexander who broke it.

“Well, nothing to be done right now. What about Exceptions?” So, they were momentarily stuck in the world. Oh, well. Alexander was still stuck unable to visit Michael, so he needed to get that issue sorted out as soon as possible.

“Ah yes. Dahlia has come up with a solution.” At the mention of her name, the plant woman’s bright face slid on to screen as she crowded out her brother. Her petal like hair had been pulled back into a ponytail as a pair of ornate silver glasses half hung off her flat nose bridge in an official manner.

“Hey boys.” She waved before pulling up another screen. “So, when it comes to Exceptions, I have managed to painstakingly translate this garbage pile of code into something a bit comprehensible. While not perfect, I can get you a grand total of two,” she held up two fingers, “Exceptions.”

A request quickly rose in Alexander’s throat only to be cut off by Dahlia’s next words.

“They have to be low tier though.” She pushed up her glasses. “Unfortunately, while the World Root is stable, between it, the world and the pseudo-link, we can’t send you anything higher.”

“That’s fine.” A sigh escaped Alexander’s lips as he rubbed his temples and tried to remember the lower level Exceptions. There were way too many to tell the truth.

While he thought, Michael spoke up. “This world has two World Roots. The other one is weaker, but it has a spirit attached.”

In the background the sound of crashing could be heard as Dandelion briefly flashed onto screen “Of course, it does!” His sleeves fluttered around him as he threw up his arms in defeat but was cut off by his sister who simply nodded.

“I noticed. It’s damaged and partially withered, but while I was looking to establish a link, it had begun to show gradual signs of recovery. Still it’s nowhere near powerful enough to provide any benefits.” To tell the truth, she had hoped that using some combination of the two World Roots would have helped her hook an actual world link. However, it had been met with more errors.

“It’s recovering though?”

“Yes, I would say in a couple hundred years, it’ll be powerful enough to ascend. She’s a hardy girl.” Dahlia nodded.

“That’s good.” Michael sighed. He felt a little tension lessen as he leaned back in his chair.

In the meantime, Alexander managed to figure out what Exception he wanted. “The Absence Exception should be available right?” This was a basic exception that was great for avoiding attention. As long as no one looked directly at him, they would completely forget about Alexander until the Exception ended.

It took Dahlia a second as she pulled up her list and then nodded. “Yes. I can do that for you. It’ll last one in-world week. But I should note it won’t work on the character Trisha.”

“Why not?”

“She’s too attuned to your character setting. At the level I can send it, it’s not enough to blind her to your disappearance.”

“Fine, I can deal with her.” Alexander waved it off. Luckily, Trisha was an easy mark. “When can you deliver the Exception?”

“As soon as our conversation is done. Speaking of which, there’s a few more things we need to say. We’ve managed to calculate it will take you 6-14 months to fully stabilize the world if you move quickly and 2-3 years if you decide to be lazy. Luckily for the both of you, this realm has taken quite well to stabilizing.”

“Once it’s stabilized it will be a full-fledged lower world?”

“We can only assume so.”

“Then why can’t we leave to the Overworld then?”

“Because it will be a fringe lower world. We don’t have access to enough power to drag you back. But you should be able to move to another fragment. My running theory, which Dandelion neglected to mention.” She glared at her brother. “Is that you should be able to hop fragment to fragment until you get close enough to the Overworld for us to pick you up. There’s even a chance that if you gather enough energy independent of the Agency, you might be able to do something not even we can think of.”

Was this good news or bad news? Michael wasn’t sure. “I just wanted to retire.”

“Sorry, it’s the best we can do.” The apology was quite robotic as Dandelion pushed Dahlia away from the monitor. “If there isn’t any else, we should hang up. If we use the connection too much it might affect the World Root.”

“The random energy signature?” Alexander remembered their last conversation on it had been minimal at best.

“Still working on it. Unfortunately, we are handling other issues at the current moment.”

“No need to be an asshole.” Alexander rolled his eyes.

“I’m closing off the connection.” Dahlia cut in from the back. “Good luck and don’t get into too much trouble, boys.” She waved again as Dandelion made an agitated sound but then nodded.

“Remember, we don’t know what will happen if you die. Don’t do anything stupid.” He added. “Bye.”

The connection closed off and Alexander felt a sudden surge of weightlessness as the Exception activated.

“Well that went better than expected.” He chuckled. “I’ll see you soon baby.”

“I can’t wait. Though I must warn you, prepare yourself. Everyone is dying to meet you.” Michael put his feet up on his desk as he leaned back in his desk chair.

“Why do I need to prepare? I already know they are going to love me.”

“Cheat.” Michael rolled his eyes as he shook his head. “Hurry and get over here before I die of old age.” He teased as they wrapped up their conversation with a few more sweet words.

Putting down his phone, Michael let out the breath he had been holding in.

In the quiet, Michael rubbed his face before he stood up to walk around his room. Hunter’s room wasn’t big, but it was far from claustrophobic. The man did not like to collect a lot of things. Besides from his desk and chair that went back to middle school, there was a twin bed pushed underneath the room’s only window. Messily made a thick well patched blanket half spilled onto the floor with a few pillows following it. An ancient dresser sat at the end of his bed, picked up from some garage sale when he was a kid. Two tall bookshelves took up space next to the desk and end of the bed as a variety of knickknacks and thrift store books filled them. The funniest item was the little skeet shooting trophy that Hunter had won back in high school. Just more of the world trying to excuse his unusual set of skills.

When he had first arrived, the room had an unbearable muskiness from years of abandonment, but luckily it had been easy to air out as the AC rattled in the background. To tell the truth even though the room was far from luxurious, Michael had no issues falling sleep in it as he began to prepare for bed.

It was early, but he had plenty of sleep to catch up on. Too many early mornings and late nights had made him cling to any chance of extra sleep. Also, his chest had begun to ache again as he refused to increase how much of his meds he took. Instead he just sucked it up, took a shower, changed his bandages, and fell into bed.

 

Ecstatic, Alexander quickly made his way back to Trisha’s house. He only had one last obstacle to deal with.

Rusty’s truck was missing as he spent another late night out doing work for Richard. Perfect for Alexander’s plan as he slid in through the side door.

After wrangling her kids to bed, Trisha sat partially sprawled out on the couch as the TV hummed low in the background. A cookie cake laid out on the coffee table with the frosted ‘happy birthday’ mostly destroyed by sloppy cuts and a few fingerprints. Not that Trisha cared as she lazily nibbled on a large slice.

She didn’t even look over at him as she focused on TV and whatever trash entertainment news show was on. This was her breaktime, nothing was going to disturb her.

“Trisha…” Alexander leaned over the back of the couch and rested his chin on her shoulder.

“I’m in the middle of something.” She raised her cookie slice. It was best to avoid his pleading eyes for her own sanity.

“Trishaaaa…” He drew out her name as he rolled over the side of couch and landed next to her. With large yellows eyes he looked pathetically up at her even as she tried to keep him in her peripheral. “I need your help.”

“No.” The answer was preemptive as she quickly looked down at him but snapped back to the TV not to fall for it. “Whatever it is, no.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask for.” He huffed.

“Considering you’ve been acting like a lone wolf for the last few days. For you to willingly talk to me, it must have to do with you sneaking out. So, my answer is no.”

 “It’s not.”

“Huh.” She gave a bland nod and turned up the volume on the TV. “There’s cookie cake if you want it then.”

“I just need you cover me for a week.”

“What did I say?” Her gaze was sharp as she looked down at him. “No.”

“It’s only a week.” Alexander sat up and leaned against her. “I promise Richard won’t even notice.”

“Have you lost the last few braincells you had left? Or are you drunk? Please tell me you’re drunk.” How did her cousin become such a troublemaker? From what she remembered he had been a quiet obedient boy, now he wants to sneak out after being punished by the pack Alpha.

“I’m not.”

“I wish you were.” She sighed and put down her cookie slice. “If you were, you would at least have an excuse to talk like an idiot.”

“Please, Trisha.” If the cute approach didn’t work, Alexander would just have to go for the heart strings as he straightened up. Quickly he fiddled with his fingers before letting out a sigh and rubbing the back of his head. “He wants to introduce me to his family.”

The words hang there for a few seconds as the silence was filled by the mindless chatter of the TV.  

“Fuck.” It was a hissed response as Trisha held her forehead. “Stop. Just stop.”

“It’s true.”

“I know what you’re doing. You’re not going to guilt me.” She sat up and poked at him with a stern expression.

“I’m not trying to guilt you. I’m just telling you why I would be willing to break the rules.” His voice wavered slightly as he sighed. “I really want this to work out-“

“No, I’m not doing it.” Standing up, she nearly knocked over the coffee table in her rush. Without looking back, she headed out onto the back porch as Alexander followed.

“Trish come on.” He grabbed her shoulder as they stood on the concrete patio. She didn’t pull away but kept her back to him.

“I thought you were on the outs.”

“We made up.” Emotion colored his voice as tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. As much as she tried, Trisha could feel her heart waver. But she toughed up the best she could as she clenched her fist and gritted her jaw.

“I can’t. Those murderers are still out there.”

“They won’t find me. Hunter is a great guy, his family is all human. I’ll be careful.” He moved around to face her as he rested a hand on both of her shoulders and ducked a little bit to catch her gaze. “I need your help. This is my chance.” To say Alexander didn’t know what he was doing would be a lie as he pulled at those memories. Trisha never could get the family to accept her marriage, to accept her kids. But now Neil had the chance to be accepted by his future in-laws. However, it was impossible for her to ignore her responsibilities. So, instead she chose silence.

 “Please say something.” If he needed to, he could go without her blessing, but it would be so much easier if Trisha just went along.

“Neil.” Trisha sighed and rubbed her eye lids. “Don’t do this to me.” The more time passed the weaker her resolve got as Alexander kept needling.

“I need your help, please.” He begged as a few tears rolled down his face.

“Argh!” The roar vibrated in her chest as she crouched and covered her face. “I can’t believe it. I-I should just kick your ass.”

“If it means that you will let me leave, I’ll happily let you do it.” Alexander said it shamelessly as he crouched next to his cousin. “Just help me.”

Trisha returned to her silence as she attempted to weight the situation. But finally, she just let out one more groan and looked up flatly at Alexander. “Fine.”

He immediately perked up which just made Trisha more frustrated as she jumped at him and pushed him off the patio onto the grass. She sat on top of him. “There are rules though. If you don’t follow them, I will immediately show up and drag you back to the Packlands myself.”

“Whatever you want.” He didn’t even struggle as he was pinned down. His excitement was too much. Less than a day separated him from Michael.

“First, I want constant updates, once every 2 hours. Either text or photos, or both. Proof of life all the same.”

Alexander nodded.

“Next, if there is even a hint of trouble, you leave. No hanging around or ignoring it. You leave and come back immediately.”

Alexander wasn’t as worried about that as he nodded along.

“And lastly, I want to talk to Hunter at least once on the phone and next time he comes over here.”

Easy, if Alexander was successful, he would have Michael moving in with him by the end of the month. “Of course! I agree.”

Trisha watched him a little longer before she shook her head and sighed as she got up. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”

Alexander didn’t give her a chance to go back on her decision as he hopped up and hugged her tight. “Thank you, Sis.”

Her heart melted as he used that old affectionate term. Quickly she returned the hug. “I’ll work on getting approval for him to enter the community. Just, please, don’t get into any trouble.” Even as she agreed, it didn’t clear the worry from her chest.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be on my absolute best behavior. Thank you so much. You don’t understand how much this means.”

“Kid, I do. I really do.” she sighed and just rested her chin on his shoulder.