It’d been roughly three hours by the time Jack reached the fork in the canyon path. He knows this because an hour and a half ago, he’d felt an itching sensation in his eyes, and several icons and gauges had appeared in his vision. One of them happened to be a clock. The clock read 13:23, which part of the Shunted’s mind registered as ‘military time’ for some strange reason. The symbols also included his Wounds, Stamina, and Nano’s as bars, while a dog-eared piece of paper opened up his Character Sheet. They disappeared when Jack wasn’t paying attention and popped up when he focused on them. HUD part of Jack’s brain spoke up. He wasn’t quite sure what that meant other than being an acronym, but he went along with it.

  The fork in the path itself looked exactly the same as the rest of the canyon, being made of greyish stone and with white sand on the bottom. There was no sign or direction on which way to go, so Jack took a leap of faith and again went with his dominant hand, heading left. The canyon continued, slowly widening as Jack walked, giving him hope. Maybe it’s a way out, Jack thought. Or even a camp with people. Excitedly, Jack pressed on, hoping to find an exit out of the canyons.

  Instead, he found a dead-end crevasse.

  The area also served as a nest for those two-headed lizards, as evident from the eggshells and shed skin scattered about. Refuse blanketed the ground, ranging from bones to minor objects, and the odor was utterly repulsive. Jack recoiled from the nest, gagging when he suddenly heard a crackling noise in his ear, followed by a distorted male voice speaking to him.

  “What?” Jack asked, scratching his ear at the sound. “Who is this?”

  Looking around, Jack spotted a corpse lying in the corner of the clearing, something square and metal in its grasp. Trying not to breathe through his nose, Jack gingerly walked over to the body. It was rotten and half-eaten, and a small, rusted lockbox was still clutched in its bony grasp. Shivering, Jack pried the metal container out of its withered arms and inspected it. The box had a padlock on it, but the lock was corroded to the core, and a swift tug broke it open.

  Inside the box was a padded tube with what looked like a small tablet connected to the top. Cables with headphone jack-like wires trailed out of it, and a few buttons were situated on the side. “What is this…” Jack muttered to himself, as a blue box appeared.

  How do I use this? Jack wondered, looking at the jack-pointed wires. Do these… insert into something?

  Recalling the discomfort of creating his Nano-Spike, Jack trepidatiously pressed ‘Yes,’ and the circuit-veins immediately pulsed once more, surrounding his right bicep and forming what looked almost like three color-coded headphone jacks in three spots. As the discomfort ended, Jack looked over at the three plugins in the PCW. Gingerly, he slipped the PCW onto his arm before inserting the jacks into the same-colored holes. As he inserted each one, Jack felt a slight electrical shock and a tingling feeling around the inserts. The PCW had a large, recessed switch marked POWER, which Jack trepidatiously flicked on. Immediately, the screen went blue, and a loading bar started scrolling across it.

  After a few minutes, the screen changed to a simple HUD listed as MAP, LOG, COMMUNICATIONS, and ASSISTANT. There was even a simple wallpaper of a light blue swooping line superimposed on a darker blue background. Intrigued, Jack started toying with the buttons. The map was mostly blacked out, revealing only the cave and about a half mile of the canyon he’d gone through. The Communications button simply gave an empty contacts list, while the log was similarly blank.

  Trepidatiously, Jack pressed the button, which led to another loading screen. After about a minute and a half, a flat line appeared, which quickly evolved into multiple squiggles as a rough male voice sounded in Jack’s ear. It was the same voice Jack had heard earlier, but much more confident and with no static.

  “Looks like I’ve got a new master, huh? Let’s hope you live longer than the first one.”

  “I… I’m guessing you were the one talking in my ear?” Jack asked.

  “Correct. I detected your Director signal, and sent out a message. I’m rather glad you found me. I’ve been stuck in that box for roughly six years and in access standby for most of it.”

  “What exactly is your purpose?” Jack asked the PCW.

  “As an AI assistant to you, it is my directive to aid you in any way I can. Is there any other way I can assist you currently?”

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  Jack was about to say “No” when a thought came to his head. “Do you know where Salt Flats is and how I can get to it?” he asked. There was a pause, and then the AI continued. “I have a basic map and even more basic knowledge of that settlement, but it may be a little outdated. According to my internal clock, I’ve been on access standby for roughly six years. A lot can change in the Scorch in that time.”

  “The Scorch?” Jack asked. “Is… is that what this place is called?”

  “It’s an informal name,” the PCW responded. “The official name is Thenasia, though I don’t know much about the name or the history behind it. Most of my historical and pre-Fall societal data was wiped during the collapse of society.”

  “So, you’re saying this world is… post-apocalyptic?” Jack asked.

  “I suppose you could say that. It’s been roughly two hundred years since, and Users have begun to rebuild. As far as I knew before my deactivation, it unfortunately appeared to be slow going. Most groups have a Class III understanding of theology – complex machinery, basic electronics, and operational knowledge, if not a full understanding of Relics.”

  So this place has been rebuilding, but it’s been tough going, Jack determined. “Anything else I should be careful about or avoid?”

  “The Rot is one. Common slang for anything with mutagenic properties. It’s all mixed together enough that it’s all essentially one thing at this point. Get enough Rot in you, and you’ll Change. Sometimes, you become better and stronger and gain strange abilities. But usually you get worse. Also, get too much Rot in you, and you either die or turn into an Abomination. An Abominations, something that’s been Rotted enough to be nothing other than a violent, inhuman monster. Generally, the best thing you can do for an Abomination is put them to rest.”

  “How do I avoid the… Rot?” Jack asked, now feeling anxious.

  “I’ve got a chemsniffer in my chassis. I’ll let you know if it’s getting to lethal levels. Otherwise, stay away from unknown substances or materials that look strange.”

  The Shunted breathed a sigh of relief. Then, one last question popped into his head. “Uh, what… what exactly is a Shunted? My character sheet says I’m one, but… I don’t know what that is.”

  “I see. There’s very little information I can access on Shunted, but I do have some basic details. You are essentially an extradimensional being or ‘soul’ possessing a corpse. Your body is alive, make no doubt about it, but due to interference between the energy that your true body is and the matter of the host body, there are some… mutations. They’re all generally cosmetic, but as you Evolve your body, more radical effects might take place.”

  “So… I’m a… ghost?” Jack asked. That’s a little… creepy, he thought.

  “Crudely, yes,” the AI stated. “It’s currently unknown why this happens, and it appears that all documented Shunted suffer from selective amnesia regarding their past or specific details about where they came from. Your kind is rather rare, and there’s a lot of superstition about Shunted, such as them being magical spirits or demons. I’d suggest you keep in mind that while there’s still a proliferation of technology here, there are also large swaths of knowledge that are now lost or virtually useless. That leaves a lot of space for people to come up with their own beliefs or ideas for how things work. Including magic, spirits, and demons. Just be careful for people who might fear or seek to use you.”

  “Got it,” Jack said, feeling nervous. How am I going to talk to people if they think I’m some sort of spirit? Hell, I don’t even know what I fucking look like.

  “I’m afraid I can’t help with that,” the PCW stated. “You’ll have to find a mirror of some sort or hook a camera up to me.”

  A thought then popped up in Jack’s brain. “Do you have a name?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid I only have a serial number as of currently, but my Identification number is HEX-2364E. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but I can be given a nickname by my user – currently you.”

  Jack took the obvious road. “How about Hex?” he asked.

  “I’m not programmed to argue with my User – at least not intentionally – but I will say it’s an easy-to-remember name. I will now respond to the nickname ‘Hex.’”

  Jack grinned. “Good. Now, how about we get out of this… nest and get on track to Salt Flats, eh Hex.”

  “As I stated before, I have a basic route we can take towards the settlement. We should likely get going before any hunting parties of this nest return.”

  Jack immediately got up and started for the exit. The bite on his shoulder still stung, and the way he’d brutalized the Rot-Lizard was still fresh on his mind. As he got to the exit, the Shunted suddenly heard a squeak and a cracking sound to his left. Confused, he turned to see something pawing its way through the refuse covering the floor of the clearing. Fingering his shotgun, Jack watched as a pair of heads poked out of the filth, each inner eye blind and body covered in brownish-tan scales. A Rot-Lizard the size of a small dog climbed out of the garbage, turning toward the Shunted. Its heads cocked, and Jack gulped slowly pulling his shotgun out in case the lizard decided to attack. The lizard skittered forward, stopping at his feet. It looked up at him and squeaked again.

  “Uh… what’s it doing?” Jack asked nervously.

  “I believe it’s imprinted on you,” Hex stated. “It’s likely asking for food.”

  “What exactly does it eat?” Jack asked as the lizard squeaked again, almost pleading.

  “Rot-Lizards are omnivores by nature and are both hunters and scavengers. It’ll eat anything from plants to insects to animals. Give it a bit of your rations, and it’ll eat them. It may not look like much right now, but these reptiles can grow to be five feet long and weigh a hundred and fifty pounds. It’ll make a fantastic guard animal and hunting companion in a year or two at most.”

  Nervously, Jack pulled off his backpack and rummaged around in his backpack as the lizard squeaked again. Pulling out a small bit of some sort of jerky, Jack held it out nervously to the mutant reptile, which cocked its heads at it before lunging forward and snatching the jerky out of the Shunted’s hands. The two heads both snapped and bit at the food, tearing chunks out of it with their fangs. As the right head gulped down at the last bit, it looked up at Jack, skittered up to him… and then double-bit him on the arm. “Fucking shit!” Jack yelped as the lizard immediately let go and looked up at him expectantly. “What the hell was that for?”

  “what the fuck…” Jack muttered as Hex spoke up again. “It’s trying to create what it knows as a parental bond with you. In other words, it’s trying to join your party.”

  Oh. Well, I guess it’s already imprinted on me, so I might as well gain some sort of way to communicate better with it. Jack selected yes, and a blue box popped up.

  “Good… now let’s get out of here,” Jack muttered. “I’ll think up a name for you along the way.” With that, he started walking out of the clearing, the lizard squeaking before skittering after Jack and away from the horrible smell.

  ====--------====

  Sometime later, as the sun drifted under the horizon, there were multiple squeaks like the one Jack had heard. Dozens of [Newborn Rot-Lizards] burrowed out of the refuse covering the cavern floor as they hatched. They looked around, squeaking as a trio of [Adult Rot-Lizards] and six [Juvenile Rot-Lizards] returned, dragging the mangled bodies of several [Dire Roaches]. The newborns all squeaked in glee and rushed towards the feast as the adults and juveniles pulled two of their own away. The colony feasted as the three moons watched both them and the newcomer to this battered world who was busy pursuing tasks of his own.