After dinner, she went back to installing more software. She almost decided to look through the forums, but she decided not to, not knowing she would lose access soon. The thought brought sudden tears to her eyes, those same tears she’d previously refused to let flow over the last day.

Erin went to the guest bedroom, closed the door behind her, and held her head up with one hand while she hyperventilated a little, hot tears down her face. This was worse than the time the same forum - along with a few others - had asked her to stop webhosting for them. The forums were right to ban her, she was not backdrop anymore. She was whatever people were between Pawns and people. ‘At-Risk’ was the common verbiage, probably the most kindly one. Maybe that was less terrible because she’d neck deep in worrying about Rex Magnum. Maybe she was just now realizing how fucked up it was that the Plot needed to burn down her apartment to get her to move. 

She needed to move out tomorrow, before her mom got dragged into this nightmare. Two weeks leeway to still be on the servers was incredibly generous, all told. She was a threat to everyone around her.

Erin grabbed her laptop and moved to play on the computer for the evening from her room. “Don’t stay up too late on the computer, Erin. I know you, missy, and you haven’t changed a bit from high school,” her mom joked.

“I’ve changed a little more than you think, Mom. I’ll probably go to sleep early tonight. I’m tired.”

“I’ll believe it when I see that. I’ll be in the living room watching TV.”

Erin moved into the apartment that next day, taking everything she owned and everything she’d purchased the day previous in one car trip.

Erin signed the paperwork after glancing through the lease agreement, claiming that her apartment was six hundred square feet, and made her deposit through a cashier’s check. She’d bought a small cot and placed it in what could be charitably called the bedroom, also floored with concrete. She set up the kitchen counter with her computer. She checked that the locks on the door worked properly.

She got a call from Janey just as she was about to head out to dinner.

“Hey, Erin, everything okay?”

“Yeah, Janey.” Erin paused, considering the answer. “Well, not really.”

“Not really? I noticed you hadn’t come in today and yesterday…you not feeling well?”

“I’m fine. My apartment is a little under the weather.” Erin knew that understatement wouldn’t fly. “I came home and it was on fire. I’m fine, so was everyone else at the apartment. I found a new place to live today, so no biggie.”

“A new- hell, Erin, how bad was that fire? You had to find a new place?”

“Bad enough that I couldn’t really live there. They didn’t have any other vacancies. I live further into town, at least.”

“Where did you end up?”

“Slate Apartments, down off Harrelson and Parkway.”

“Jeez, Erin, that’s not a great area… You didn’t lose too much in the fire, did you?”

Erin considered this. “I mean, I’m okay. I didn’t lose anything important. I’d be more upset if something happened to my bike, all things considered.”

“Oh, Erin… does that mean you really did lose everything? Why didn’t you tell me? You could have crashed at my place.”

“I stayed with mom. I didn’t say anything because you had work and there wasn’t much to be done, really. I appreciate it though. How’s work?”

Janey gave a small dismissive noise, as if she didn’t buy Erin’s attempt to change the topic. For a moment, Erin swore she could hear the old Janette in that small noise. “Work. Work was fine. We lost another programmer today. Half the reason I called was to ask if you’d be in on Monday. I know you don’t like government work, but I was told today that you got cleared to work on this dying project. You’d be under a different manager, but we could use the help all the same.” 

Erin didn’t respond. She was suddenly nostalgic from when the world wasn’t trying to eat her will to keep going.

“Erin?”

“Hm? Oh sorry. Thanks. I appreciate it. After this weekend, I’ll be glad to get back to work. Shopping for stuff is exhausting.”

“I’m sure. You get all moved in okay?”

 “Oh yeah. I’m good. Still gotta get some chairs though. Do you know if those mail shipped mattresses are any good?”

“Erin!” Janey sounded as serious as she ever got. “You don’t even have chairs!?”

Janey extracted a promise out of Erin to go shopping together tomorrow, which was convenient, because Janey had an SUV. It was inconvenient in that Erin didn’t really want to hang out with anyone else, let alone more Plot related people. Erin really did keep a bad crowd. At least she fit her new neighborhood.

---

“I really don’t need a couch,” Erin explained again, wishing she’d just ordered the mattress online.

Tyson shook his head. “I can’t even imagine that being true. I love my couch. How do you watch T.V.?” He was admiring a very comfortable looking leather love seat that would be a struggle to fit through Erin’s door and through Erin’s shrinking budget.

In spite of herself, Erin smiled at Tyson’s completely honest tone. “I don’t watch TV. I watch the news on my computer. I really need a computer desk, honestly.”

Tyson’s bemusement deepened, asking, “Didn’t you say that you only had a two room apartment, practically? Where would you put it?”

“In the living room?”

“Erin, you are a total computer nerd. You can’t just replace your living room with a computer room.”

“Tyson, if I had the option, I’d turn the living room into a garage for my bike and make my bedroom a computer room with a fold out bed, but they don’t approve of motorcycles down the hallways.”

“Hey,” Janey said over Tyson’s utterance of ‘madness’, “they have some solid looking desks over here. Also,” Janey smiled lovingly up at her beau, “Tyson, don’t call Erin crazy. I know about your obsession with blacksmithing. You looked to see what your apartment lease restricted to see what you could get away.” Tyson’s embarrassment was more or less hidden by his dark skin but Janey finished, “Did you ever make time to look up how complicated it was to add a roommate, like we talked about?”

Tyson opened and closed his mouth, looking almost as awkward as Erin felt, not really wanting to be here for this. The tone and the looks shared between the two told Erin more than enough that this was more than she wanted to handle.

Janey was obviously a little annoyed, saying, “You’d brought it up, I just wondered if you were serious. Come on, let's look at desks.”

Erin followed. “Didn’t you call me crazy for not having chairs for my apartment?” Erin asked Janey, lightly. Erin wanted nothing to do with that conversation between Janey and Tyson.

“I didn’t say you were crazy. I just implied you were crazy for moving in without chairs. I hadn’t realized how much was really lost in the fire.”

Erin would have preferred to go shopping without the couple, but Tyson had a truck, which was hard to turn down. One incredible advantage that Erin would have never considered - but that she was grateful for - is that no one would dare approach Erin in the furniture store when Tyson and Janey were with her. The normally vulturous sales folk would rather eat their own shoes than approach Tyson. Erin saw a few of them skulking just out of sight where they could. As long as the Plot didn’t feel Tyson needed to be interrupted, Erin was safe to shop in freedom.

Eventually she did get a desk that she’d have to assemble, one nice enough not to have sharp edges where she’d rest her arms at the edge of the table. She also got a desk chair and a small three-chair table with matching seats. She was pretty sure she could put it in the corner of the computer/living room, in case she had visitors.

She was mostly sure it would be covered with mail and discards from the day’s pockets by the end of the week.

“Since we got you the bare minimum, regarding your actual living room, and you have a mattress and frame already, you up for dinner?” Janey asked, looking at her phone as Tyson helped Erin lever the desk box into the back of the truck.

She was pretty certain that Tyson could have done it alone given the advantages his suit gave him, even unsummoned, which meant Erin more or less helped guide the box while Tyson bore most of the weight.

“Uh…sure. What did you guys have in mind?” The awkwardness between Janey and Tyson seemed to have faded since the short exchange earlier. Else, Erin would have definitely said no.

“Well, Nathan’s not too far away. He’s recommending a BBQ place just a ways south of here.”

Erin wasn’t sure she was all that interested in being gawked at further as a victim, but Nathan didn’t come off as much of a gawker. If it had been Misty, no doubt there’d be lawyer talk and Erin just wanted to let the fire insurance people have time to process the claim. If the Plot wanted there to be drama in Erin’s claim, then it wouldn’t help to invite Misty before the Plot was ready.

----

Hadassah

Hey, so it turns out, we are about 10 or so weeks out from the end of this novel (depending on how I chop up the next chapters). I promise there are more answers before the end, of course, but after the book is over, all I really have is about 1/3rd of the next novel finished. I am, in fact, about 1/3rd of the way through about four novels, and I wanted to gauge people's interest in what else I have, so I know what to work on when swapping off the sequel here.

I put the sequel up as something to vote for too, as people may be tired of superheroes and existentialism, so feel free to pick what else is interesting to you! If I don't have much interest one way or another either, no worries. Its all drafty and might do better with more time editting.

Hope everyone is doing well and you have a good week!