On my first day as a hunter, I wake up early. I stay in bed until Gerard wakes up.

  We get ready and send the kids off to school.

  Gerard hugs me as I leave. “Good luck today. Come home safe.”

  “I will.” I say. I know I shouldn’t promise that.

  I drive Gerard’s sedan to the office Albert sent me to for my first day of work. I’ll need to buy him a new car, this one can’t even fit everyone.

  I show up to the building, and walk up to the front desk person.

  “Hi, I’m a new Bug Hunter. I think I was supposed to come here?” I say.

  She pulls out a small packet from underneath her desk. “If you fill this out, you’ll be all registered and then I can walk you through the next steps.”

  I nod and take the packet. I find a chair and start filling out the forms– standard sorts of stuff, name, address, social security number. Then I get to the page about death benefits. I know why it’s there, and it is very relevant to the job, but for me it’s just more annoying paperwork to do.

  At some point, a women in a really nice blazer and skirt starts standing around the office, she talks to the person at the front desk, then just stands there waiting for something.

  I finish filling out the packet and hand it in to the person at the front desk.

  “Alright, so if you’ll now pull up the app, if you can get to the registry page.”

  “App? Which app? I haven’t bothered to get a new phone yet,” I say.

  “You haven’t registered in the app yet? I keep saying they need to stop assuming this is common knowledge. Once you get your app and get registered in that, come back here and I can finish your registration.”

  I take a quick breath. “I’m pretty sure me not having a phone right now wasn’t supposed to be an obstacle today. Albert knows I don’t have a phone and still told me to come here.”

  The women who was just standing around speedwalks over.

  “Are you Jessica Olmhoft?”

  How does she know my name?

  I nod. “Yes, I am.”

  “I’m so sorry for the confusion. I’m Callie Henderson, I’m going to be your partner.”

  From there, Callie helps me get my employment paperwork actually filled out, and introduces me to what I’ll be doing for the job.

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  After a quick tour around the space Callie looks at her phone for the time. I look at my watch, it’s 3:15.

  “How much longer are you free for today?” she asks.

  “I was planning on getting back home around five, why?”

  “It was a long shot, anyway. I was hoping we might be able to get a start on the traveling part of the bug hunting, but we can fight one just in this city today and fly to a different city for tomorrow.”

  She pulls up her phone. “There’s one just half an hour away we can go kill, you up for it?”

  I nod. “I guess so.”

  While riding in the car towards the bug, Callie started asking me questions.

  “So, from what I’ve heard, you’ve got a crazy amount of skills. This bug will probably be below your pay grade– it’s a ladybug, I could probably handle it myself, but it’ll be nice to have something to base off of.”

  “I’d rather start with an easier one as well, I don’t have the best combos set up or anything. And it feels like I haven’t played Bug Hunter in a year.”

  “Well, lucky for you, I specialize in strategizing and such. I studied Albert Thomas’s strategy guide so many times when he first came out with it. I used to want to work on improving it and such, but I’ve realized those people don’t actually spend any time fighting bugs practically. But this job should be good. I can help you with setting up combos and such.”

  I nodded, then looked out the window. There seems to be more traffic than I remember going into downtown. We take an off ramp that I don’t remember being there, and go around the city.

  We quickly come to a blockade, Callie shows something on her phone to an officer, and we get let through.

  “It’s good that this bug is weaker, I guess, because it falls under my license. Do you have one?” Callie asks.

  I shake my head.

  “We’ll have to get that worked out soon. But having bugs on your record will help, even if it’s just the ones my license covers.”

  She parks on the road, and points to the median, where the ladybug is situated. It’s about as tall as a tree. And I hadn’t noticed the bug until Callie pointed it out.

  Callie walks with purpose towards the bug, and so I follow suit. At some point , we get in range and the fight starts.

  [Health: 500/500] suddenly appears in the corner of my vision, I’m startled and jump back.

  “You okay?” Callie asks.

  “Yeah. Just startled,” I say.

  “You want to attack first?”

  “Sure.” I choose one of my attacks. Poke. It immediately kills the ladybug. I didn’t realize it was that leveled up.

  “Huh.” Callie says. “I didn’t expect it to be that fast.”

  “Neither did I,” I say. “I haven’t used Poke much. Just scrolled and hit it.”

  “I need to get a list of your abilities and levels. I guess that can be a task for tomorrow. If we fly somewhere we could do it on the plane.”

  “I can’t believe I’ve got a job where I’m flying for like, a day trip.”

  “Yeah. It feels so wasteful, but logically it makes sense. But also you’ll fly less once you have more places you can teleport to.”

  We get back in the car, when we reach the blockade Callie rolls down the window.

  “It’s all clear,” she says.

  “Already?” the officer asks.

  Callie nods. “Yup. ‘Twas a quick fight.”

  When we get back to the headquarters, Callie gives me a packet with a bunch of information; our itinerary for tomorrow, general goals, her contact information.