Save State Hero -CH22- (Patreon)

“— is about it,” Edmund finished with a shrug of his shoulders. He picked up his cinnamon roll and paused. “That leads me to here and now. As soon as we finish all the introductory stuff I’m going to put down another save-state. It’s been a little since I put the previous one down so I shouldn’t get too tired or anything.”

Felix was slowly nodding his head now. His fingers were steepled in front of himself and he was watching Edmund over the tops of their tips.

“That’s rather exciting,” Gaia said with a laugh, then turning to look at Felix. “We’re husband and wife in the future! What a wonder!

“Oh… I wonder if he’s already gotten me pregnant. I can’t imagine we wouldn’t be actively trying if we’re married by human custom. I hope we don’t get pregnant immediately so we can practice for a while.

“It’d be almost too sad if he got me pregnant on the first run. I’ll have to see about making sure it doesn’t happen immediately and make him try a bunch before it happens.

“Then I—”

“Gaia, you’re verbalizing your thoughts,” Faith murmured quietly.

Gaia’s mouth snapped shut and she merely presented everyone with a beautiful smile. Her inner-monologue coming out externally once again had clearly embarrassed her once again.

It’s never sex that makes her blush, it’s talking out loud that does it.

Felix sighed and closed his eyes. They were closed rather tightly and he was slowly nodding his head.

Then his eyes opened and he looked to Edmund.

“I have no idea if she’s pregnant. I can ask if you really care enough,” Edmund responded with a shrug of his shoulders.

“That… I… wasn’t going to ask,” Felix murmured with with a slow shake of his head. “Let’s-let’s just summarize this up. If you don’t mind that is.

“I think we’re all well aware of what the power is and what it can do. I’d really like to just quickly go over the draw-backs, concerns, and considerations.

“Then you can do the save-state thing and we’ll just… go from there. Rather strange to think that I won’t really exist in the future but another version of me will.

“Anyways, I’m getting sidetracked. The downside aspects of your power.”

Edmund was nodding as Felix spoke, quickly finishing off his cinnamon roll. It’d been much more filling than a donut and had been exactly what he needed.

“First and foremost, you get weary if you overuse it. A type of stamina drain,” Felix stated, holding up a single finger.

Once more, Edmund nodded his head to that.

“That’s right,” he added when he remembered Felix preferred a verbal confirmation.

“Two, loading a save-state repeatedly has the distinct possibility of causing a ‘loss of information’ which really just means… things vanish. People, planets, or things, they vanish.”

“Right,” Edmund confirmed again.

“Third,” Felix said, holding up a third finger. “This so called ‘save-state degradation’ isn’t likely just tied up in information loss. It sounds like the save-state itself could fracture and become unusable.”

Edmund paused at that and considered the statement. He’d briefly considered that they could wear out as well.

“Yeah, they can just become unusable,” he said, remembering the save-state that’d been made when the world fractured. “I think that’s more rare than we think, though.”

“Fourth, you only have so many… spaces… for your save-states.”

“Yeah, four of them. Two of them are-that is… I can’t use two of them,” Edmund stated. “So I only have two. Right now it’s the one we’re in at this moment, and the one after the registration mission. Where Andrea died.”

Felix grunted at that and then let out a short breath.

“Alright. That covers the downsides I suppose. I don’t have any questions as everything was answered while you explained,” Felix murmured then looked to him. “What now?”

“Now? Now I put down a save-state and we progress beyond the mission. It’s only been like… an hour since we made it back to HQ. I have no idea what we’re doing next at all.”

Felix looked thoughtful, then shook his head.

“I don’t have any plans that I know of that are outside of the ordinary for Legion,” he said. “Shouldn’t be anything outside of the ordinary for a while. Though… I can’t imagine I’ll be a talkative person.

“I mean… I’m barely hanging on right now. I’m really trying not to think about the fact that Andie’s gone. At all.

“I’m honestly clinging to the fact that you’re saying you can fix this. That’s my port in this storm and the only thing keeping me moving.”

Edmund mentally shied away quickly from the fact that he was the only possibility of getting Andrea back. Doubly so when he heard Oz’s voice in the back of his head telling him that Andrea’s soul was irrecoverable.

He didn’t quite believe that, but it didn’t change the fact that Oz believed that.

Edmund was fairly certain that he could find Andrea. Find her soul, to be more specific.

It’d just take him time

Thankfully, he had a lot of that.

Snapping down the save-state, Edmund then loaded the one back into the armory. He’d have to move forward to be able to figure out where he was going.

“Hey Oz,” Edmund said as he found himself back in the armory.

“I’m noting an obvious usage of your power. I take it you’ve completed the task?” asked Oz.

“Yeah. The others died and their souls were occupied. Not irrecoverable, just occupied. Sounds like something weird was going on,” Edmund said. “And yeah, Andie is dead everywhere. In every save-state.

“I’d love to know how her soul being irrecoverable in one save-state affects the other, but I don’t think you’ll explain that to me. Will you?”

“No.”

“Can you?”

“No.”

“Then it isn’t a question of won’t, but can’t. You can’t tell me because you don’t know?”

“No.”

“You can’t tell me, because you’re not allowed to.”

“Yes.”

“Would any type of double negative logic work to let you give me an answer?”

“No.”

Edmund clicked his tongue.

“So no door guard trickery. That’s a pity.”

“Edmund’s hours of watching that particular movie will be of no use.”

Thinking about that rather pleasant to look at leading actress, Edmund remembered he was going to be meeting up with Romina later. That realistically, he needed to be preparing for this evening.

If he stuck to his own morals and rules, and not wanting to risk innocents, he really didn’t want to reload the evening. Unless something extraordinary happened, he’d try to play out the night as a one-and-done.

“Because hardcore mode is the only way to play,” muttered Edmund, somewhat terrified of what was coming.

“Ohhh nooo,” his phone offered as a prelude to doom.

Grunting, Edmund reached down to his pocket and pull it out. Looking to the front screen he saw it was Dorothy calling him.

Tapping it with a smirk he held it up to his ear.

“Hey hey. I’m alive. All is well,” he answered. “Clearly you’re not dead either.”

“I am most certainly not dead. Though it’s good news that you’re alive as well. You’d be surprised how reversible death can be sometimes, but it still your best bet to never really let it get that far,” Dorothy teased with a laugh. “So, good times then. Celebratory dinner? I’m in town for the evening. Then I’ll be gone as of tomorrow morning. For a while.

“A long while, in fact. Longer than I can even speak to, as I don’t have any idea of when we’ll be done with the assignment. It’s THE assignment. Capital T-Ech-E.

“And now that I’m saying it though… well… there’s the distinct possibility we won’t be back at all. Ever. Things just rapidly progressed in a way that there’s not really a ‘coming back from it’ moment.

“Might not come back in a number of different ways, that is. I’m rambling, I’m sorry. So… what do you think?”

Sitting there, feeling very lost, Edmund wasn’t sure how to answer that. He had a weird moment of extreme dejavu as well.

So much so that it left him practically feeling breathless.

“I’m sorry, I already made plans with Romina,” he finally said a bit lamely. The answer sounded ridiculous to him, but that was the only answer he could give her.

It was the truth.

“Oh, err… okay. Sorry for putting you in a weird spot. I just wanted to at least ask. Put it out there to make sure I tried,” Dorothy said in a bit of a rush. It was obvious she was embarrassed and flustered now. “You go and enjoy your evening. I hope it goes really well. Have a goodnight.”

Before he could even respond to any of that, she hung up. Even before he’d finished getting out the first sound of “wait” she’d disconnected.

Closing his eyes, Edmund put one hand to his face and sat there.

Thinking about what’d just happened and how it could have gone differently.

“Interesting. Before Dorothy asked Edmund out, a save-state was created free of Edmund’s ownership. I think it might be Dorothy’s, but I’m unsure,” Oz said. “How curious. A good footnote to add and worth investigating later.”

Leaning his head back, Edmund put the back of his head to the wall and inspected the inside of his eyelids.

“Dating is hard,” he muttered.

“To note, Edmund’s situation is exactly why Ryker has more than one wife,” Oz offered. “Ryker couldn’t say no to anyone.”

“I’ll say it now then. No. As in, no thanks. Only want one person I’m willing to spend my time with. I’m a selfish dickhead. Romina will let me have my free time when I want it. If I had more than one person to spend my time with, that’s less time for me.

“And… I really am just that selfish. I want me time. Not more time to give to someone else.”

“Note made, Edmund is a selfish dickhead.”

Edmund frowned and nodded his head at that.

“Good note. High accuracy. Perfect precision,” absolutely approve.

“Appended with footnote from Edmund,” inserted Oz.

***

Edmund’s head hurt.

Actually, thinking about that, hurt was an understatement.

Hurt was when you slammed a pinky-toe into a door-frame. That was most definitely hurt.

A hurt that would stay with you for a while and make you rethink about the position of that door frame. Even if it meant tearing a wall down and putting up a new one, if only to move the whole damned thing.

Right now, Edmund’s head was better defined as closer to being in agony. That he was experiencing a wretched state of life that couldn’t be described as anything else.

Agony with a great deal of extra suffering as he felt sick, too.

Rolling over in bed he ended on top of a naked Romina.

Which was most certainly not the source of his agony but left him with a stranger fluttering happiness.

Romina then groaned, rolled onto her side, and promptly shoved her back and rear end up into his chest and lap respectively. Which really didn’t help him with the sick feeling, despite the feeling of her warm and nude self against him being quite nice.

Memories of drinking with Romina, then having her start tearing his clothes off, capped with them having at one another in the bed for a while, came back to him. They were somewhat disjointed and fuzzy given how much they’d drank.

He did remember that they’d finished up, drank more, and went at it again later on. Only to drink more and then even the screwed up memory fragments ended there.

Letting out a soft moan, Edmund rolled away from Romina and got out of bed. Getting moving he headed straight for the medicine cabinet.

His goal was very simple.

As much pain medication as he could medically take, followed by as much water as he could chug. Only after that would he consider anything else at all.

Halfway to his goal he spotted Dog lounging on his side in the center of the coffee table. Amongst a graveyard of empty bottles and food, the cat looked to be perfectly fine in the middle of it all.

“Fuck,” muttered Edmund, noticing a great many more bottles than he could honestly remember. He was honestly surprised he’d managed to perform in the bed at all with how much they drank

Reaching the medicine cabinet he began pulling out what he wanted, got them all piled up, and swept them off the counter into a open palm. Knocking them back he then went over to the sink, bent over, turned the faucet on, and began drinking.

And kept drinking.

He drank until it seemed as if that were his goal in life. Endlessly drinking water from the faucet.

When it felt like his stomach was actually full, he stood up and stared up at the ceiling above him. Edmund didn’t want to move, look at anything, or really breathe at the moment.

He just wanted the medicine to do it’s thing.

“Ohhh nooo,” his phone declared, breaking right through Edmund’s thoughts. The sound of it was also quite loud which didn’t help him at all.

Grunting, Edmund looked around and waited for the next call of his phone.

“Marco,” he mumbled.

“Ohhh nooo,” replied his phone.

Feeling rather hilarious at himself, Edmund walked over to where he was fairly certain his phone had ended up. When he got there, the third “oh no” cleared up any question he had.

Reaching down he moved Romina’s underwear to the side and found his phone sitting beneath. He didn’t recognize the number and instead flicked it to the decline button.

They’d leave a message if it was important.

Then he unlocked his phone and looked at it.

It was in the gallery section.

“I was right?” mumbled Edmund as he looked at the surprise that was waiting for him.

He and Romina had apparently gotten far too drunk than he realized.

There was a great number of naked photos of Romina in which her super power had clearly activated. A number of photos mid-sex act were present as he began to scroll through the huge number of new media files.

There were also several that looked a lot like recordings give that they had play buttons next to them.

Ha… rising star.

Gonna have to transfer those to a USB and then delete them. Make sure they don’t stay on the phone. Phone’s get hacked.

Though… uh… if we recorded on mine, chances are we recorded on hers, too. I’ll have to her know. People are way more likely to go for her phone in an attack than mine.

“Another time,” Edmund said with a shake of his head, then closing the gallery. He was curious, but his feelings of nausea and pain were over-riding everything.

Even morbid curiosity of what they recorded.

“Ohhh nooo,” his phone blared at him. Leaving him feeling like his head was shattering apart as it swapped to the incoming call screen.

It was the same number as earlier.

Tapping the accept button this time, Edmund held it up to his ear.

“Uh, yeah?” he said.

“Good morning,” said a voice on the other end of the line. “Is this Edmund Wilhelm?”

“Sorry, this is his phone but not him. He’s asleep,” answered Edmund suddenly feeling cagey. He even went so far as to pitch his voice up in tone just to try and make it sound far different than his actual voice. “I’ll let him know you called though. What’s the message? What do you want me to tell him?”

“Uh… just please ask him to call me back at the number I’m calling from. Or to please check his email. I’ve sent him an email as well,” said the man on the other end of the phone.

“Okay, but… what’s the name? Or company? I can’t really tell him to just call the number back. No one does that. That or you google the number,” Edmund replied with a shake of his head. He didn’t like how this call sounded so far and it was leaving him with more questions than answers.

“My names Ronald Kine, calling on behalf of Kine family law,” said the voice. “Thank you for letting Edmund know that we called. It’s best he call us back as soon as he can.”

The phone disconnected after that.

Sniffling, then rubbing his wrist at his nose, Edmund let out a slow breath.

Just because he and Romina were seeing each other, didn’t mean the world would magically be correct. Things wouldn’t just move out of his way as if he’d somehow unlocked the secrets to the universe.

Whatever this was, it was big enough that they had apparently tracked down his email address. Which was surprising since the only public one he’d ever had was something he’d gotten if only to get a library card.

There’d been no point in having an email or using it since he didn’t own a computer. He’d only owned a computer and a cell phone for the first time because of Felix.

Letting out a slow breath he stared at his phone. He’d have to start doing some searches to find out who Kine family law was, what they dealt with, and where they operated.

In the back of his head, Edmund suspected he had an idea what this was about long before he’d even considered looking up the lawfirm, though. The only family law he’d likely be called about was his misbegotten parents.

Which meant it was about him or his sister.

With any luck, it was him.

If not, it meant something had happened, or was happening, to his sister.

“Eddy? Can you help me?” called Romina from his bedroom.

“What’s up?” he asked, moving back to Romina.

“Water and something for a headache,” groaned the naked woman in his bed. “Then come back to bed. I’m cold.”

Looking at the naked and beautiful woman, Edmund realized her request was something he would very much rather investigate.

Far more so than Kine family law, at least.