I nearly blacked out, but I clung to consciousness because part of me loved being held by Billie. She gripped me hard, her fingers digging into my skin. Actually, focusing on her—her perfectly beautiful face, her smell, the worry in her eyes—kept me from going completely insane.


    She had caught me before I fell off the ridge. Holly stood over us, in the shadow of the Marusian cypress tree.


    “What can we do?” Holly asked.


    “I don’t know,” Billie shot back.


    Holly crouched and took my hand. “Please, Sid. Talk to us. Is Opal saying anything?”


    I couldn’t respond, but Opal wasn’t saying shit to me. Then I felt the shift on my side, where I’d kept the multitool as a hammer hanging off my side. If Opal really could craft me a chainsaw, I didn’t want it accidentally cutting off my leg.


    Grabbing it, holding it by the handle, I watched as the thing went from a hammer to a kind of sword chainsaw. Twelve inches of handle and twelve inches of saw with about two inches of housing, so the whole thing was a little over two feet long. On the handle was the trigger. There was no safety on the thing.


    The pain was receding as static appeared in my eyes.


    <<<>>>


    Paraxen Multitool Name: Betsy


    Tool configurations:


    <ul>


    <li>Roofing Hammer</li>


    <li>Ax</li>


    <li>Javelin</li>


    <li>Yuskavarna Chainsaw Stick (power source = HOST optimized to 53% based on unknown energy source)</li>


    <li>Add tool pending.</li>


    </ul>


    <<<>>>


    The pain had been worth it. My body was optimized to 53%.


    “Who are the Yuskavarna?” I asked.


    The Yuskavarna are a race of industrious marsupials with similar features to humans known for crafting houses of unusual features. From the word “yuska” meaning blond. Social structure has strong family groups with head male and multiple wives.


    Suddenly Billie was screaming in my ear. “What the fuck, Sid! Are you okay!? Tell me you’re fucking okay!?” Then she burst into tears.


    I slowly stood up.


    Holly was holding Billie, while I tried out my new toy. “I buzzed up the chainsaw, and there wasn’t the satisfying roar, no, but that chain was chugging along on its track.


    Opal had more thoughts on the subject.


    Lubricant for chain needed. Warning. HOSTNAME: Sid Marshall might super permanent damage if tool is used for prolonged amounts of time.


    I explained to the girls what Opal had been telling me. Lubricant wouldn’t be a problem, since we could melt the fat from the elk. The more interesting thing was that the tool was going to use my optimized cells. Basically, I had a magical chainsaw that was connected to me on a cellular level. I couldn’t’ help but think that it was similar to the mending enchantment in Minecraft, but instead of XPs going to mend my chainsaw, I would be powering it with my own body.


    I was going to take Opal’s warning to heart. Prolonged use might cause permanent damage. Suddenly, I was keenly aware of my thirst. Crafting magical chainsaws was thirsty work.


    I had my multitool configured, and yet, there were so many more things I needed. Having a smaller blade to cut would be nice, as would a drill, but when I didn’t want to use my last remaining tool slot. It seemed like I should be able to re-configure the multitool to allow more options, but Opal said that she was in an error state due to fluctuating power levels and so she could only do so much.


    I had to take my victory where I could get it.


    As it turned out, that waterfall near the ridge was clean water, filtered through rock, and while it had come from the Dinosaur Swamps, it tasted fine. I asked Opal twice about how safe it was, and she assured me it was fine.


    She also gave me a list of the worlds we had encountered, which I relayed to the girls.


    <<<>>>


    Sector 2.873.B (The Scarlet Hassra Wastes)


    Sector 1.303.A (Earth, Colorado National Monument)


    Sector 3.990.C (Nahall, Unknown Naming Convention for Rainforest Ecology Sector)The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    Sector 3.303.B (Earth, Section of Highway 1, California, pavement)


    Sector 2.303.D (Earth, Jurassic Period)


    Sector 3.654.C (Marusia, Greater Marusian Sea, beach, and corresponding cliffs of the Oralongo Subcontinent)


    <<<>>>


    I found it cool that our Earth was in the first universe and in the alpha timestream. Better yet? Our World ID was 303, like the old Denver area code. For Coloradoans, that was a big deal.


    It seemed Earth was a popular destination for the Ravana Storm, and I had to wonder if that meant anything. I liked that I had one thing confirmed. The pavement I’d found had come from California, Highway 1, but not our Earth and not from our timestream.


    The rest of the information was just as interesting. Some sectors were going to have more information than others, and in the end, it might not matter, but it might. It all depended on how much Opal knew about them, and while she could do quantum scans, she had to be relatively close to them. For example, to test the water, we’d had to walk closer to it, so she could see if it was safe to drink.


    If she could do nothing else, I would’ve gladly had her bond to my finger bone again simply for that. That meant we could test meat, and if we did get an infection, she could tell us the nature of the disease. Not that we had any medicine.


    Maybe there would be more medicine and more supplies at the Foiros Waystation in Sector X. I couldn’t think like that, though. I couldn’t think that Sector X would solve all of our problems. For one thing, it might be a thousand miles away, across too many sectors to consider. No. I had to focus on the problem we already faced and keep it simple.


    The Dinosaur Swamps did have dinosaurs there, but there hadn’t been people back during the Jurassic, at least not in our fossil record. So where did those walkways come from? Or the Fodoron Obelisk? Most likely, someone had come to colonize the place. I asked Opal how many universes and timestreams there were, and she said it was an impossible question to answer. She blamed her error state and lack of data and said it was all theoretical anyway.


    After drinking our fill of water, we didn’t backtrack through the swamps. Instead, we walked along the cliff edges, which stretched into the distance. Heading south, we managed to find a game trail that led us to the right of the tall redwoods. Mapping out the place in my mind, Rainforest World ran alongside Beachcliff World.


    Beachcliff World had big seagull type birds, though they were about three times the size of Earth’s gulls. They didn’t care about us at all, and mostly seemed to eat stuff on the beach or go fishing in the rolling waves of the ocean. The buildings we’d seen weren’t the only things out there, and I thought I saw an island farther out.


    Holly said she could build us a canoe, so we could go explore San Submerged, or that was what we started calling it.


    We found a trail that cut to the left, and we walked through the familiar giant trees until we saw the crags of Privacy Rock in the distance between the giant trees.


    By that time, we were hungry and tired. After the pain of being optimized again, I could barely keep my eyes open.


    The last of our meat was hanging there, covered in flies, but my Uncle Morty always said that the meat was still fresh if the flies still liked it. I thought Billie was going to puke. She changed her tune, though, when Opal said it was still safe to eat.


    We started a fire, ate, and saw some more of the huge, tusked deer coming down the trail, though when they saw us, they turned tail. Like I thought, they’d come to get a drink but weren’t going to risk facing off with us.


    I hurled my javelin at one big cow but missed her, and the Paraxen multitool went sliding into the dense undergrowth. At first, I was worried if I would be able to find it, but Opal did a bit of scanning and led me right to it. Throwing it was risky, but if Opal could find it, then I wouldn’t lose it. Breaking it, Opal assured me, was unlikely. But like in Minecraft, if I dropped it in a deep ocean and threw it into lava, it would be gone, so I had to be a little careful.


    While cooking an early dinner, I found a hunk of fat, melted it on a flat rock, and then I was able to adjust the rock to pour the oil into a little reservoir in the housing. The chainsaw greedily drank it up. I had my chain oiled.


    But I was too tired to work much that day. Being optimized tuckered me out, and we had so much to consider now that we had more information.


    Holly and Billie talked constantly, throwing out theories, getting excited about any number of things. Again, we talked like Sector X was our ticket out of here. I wasn’t so sure. Maybe with power crystals, Opal could tell us more.


    I was going to concentrate on improving our current situation. Once we had water, food, shelter, and safety, we could consider our next moves. I wasn’t too worried about Jack and Reggie. We still had our plasma guns, and it wasn’t like the T. rexes could sneak up on us. Besides, they had plenty of food, hunting in both the Dinosaur Swamps and Rainforest World.


    No, what really worried me were those walkways, and the drums we’d heard.


    Two other mysteries? The Fodoron Obelisk and the huntress.


    Where had she come from? Was she alone? Opal knew that I hadn’t been exposed to dinosaur syphilis, but that was all we really know. Maybe if Opal got closer, she would be able to scan her, so we could get more information.


    We did have some good news. We could get to the lone cypress without going through the Dinosaur Swamps.


    As I ate, I looked around at the trees. There was no way I could cut through the adult redwoods, but I found some smaller pines which would be perfect for what I had planned. However, I kept thinking about nails. How could I hammer wood together without nails?


    Holly the anthropology professor was there with one possible solution. She said that we could create interlocking joints, though that took a lot of skill I wasn’t sure I had. I’d hammered shit together, sawed shit, and did any number of shit jobs, including cleaning up job sites, but fitting wood together—like with lock-rabbet joints—was going to take some practice.


    First, though, we had to survive the night.


    We’d finished dinner, when it started to rain. To get out of the element, we climbed up to our perch and took shelter under the branches. We were drier, yes, but it was still a miserable experience. And it got worse when Billie closed her eyes, sighed, and then basically yelled, “Okay. I need to pee, and I can’t do it from up here. Can you guys come down with me? Please?”


    I was tired, but I couldn’t say no. I was her protector. Holly came along because she didn’t want to be up in our tree alone.


    We climbed down the mushroom tree and down to the ground. Billie went around to the other side of the big redwood.


    Which left me alone with the professor.


    Holly came close. “Sid, there is an issue that I need to discuss with you.”


    I was exhausted, but I was also curious. What did the professor want to talk about?