“Ah! Um…” Jonathan’s face scrunches up a bit as he looks over his pending purchases.‘Can we at least turn off tasks while my hands are full? I really don’t want to drop everything and have it get broken or stolen by the time I get back to it… It will be annoying enough having to run back and forth a bunch.’[Requesting temporary task suppression… Permission granted; disregarding minor tasks for one hour at no penalty, effective immediately.]Jonathan barely represses his urge to sigh with relief.Before Ji Soo works up the nerve to express concern over Jonathan’s vacant stare at the wall behind the service bot, Jonathan’s attention returns to reality and redirects to said bot.“Um, c-could you hold some of it for a few minutes once I’m done paying? I-I won’t take long… Like, five minutes?” Before fidgety Jonathan even finishes asking his question, the bot is already nodding.“Certainly. Do you wish to use a private scanning kiosk to complete your order?”‘I’m surprised it’s even an
Thankfully, there are no further interruptions during the rest of this round of deliveries. Or even during the next one, either.Once Jonathan finally has the fourth and final load of freight, he makes a detour to a delicatessen. More specifically, the one where he previously purchased yesterday’s breakfast.After equally uneventfully acquiring milk, third breakfast for himself, and first breakfast for Lucas—since he’d totally only eat sugary baked goods if real food wasn’t conveniently available—he makes his way home.With his back to the recently re-locked front door, Jonathan reclaims the last armload of supplies as he looks at Lucas’s still-shut bedroom door.‘…Our food will still be too hot to eat for a little while; I’ll make some coffee first.’Jonathan may or may not be making up excuses to keep putting off waking up Lucas in the hopes that he’ll do so on his own, knowing full well that he probably won’t.While taking longer than necessary to decide which appliance to christen
For a few peaceful minutes, Lucas delights in demolishing the delicious delicatessen delivery. As Jonathan reaches for his coffee cup to gauge if it’s cool enough for a sane person to drink, he ends up cutting himself off with a yawn, earning a side-eye from Lucas.“Hey, ya barely got any sleep, yeah? Instead of havin’ caffeine, shouldn’t ya go take a nap?” Upon Lucas’s question, Jonathan pauses, looking at the contents of his mug with an obvious longing. “I’ll make ya a fresh one in like half an hour; I’m sure 427 can figure out howta use whatever newfangled machine ya got,” Lucas continues, his eyes also fixed on the beverage.[…I suppose I appreciate your vote of confidence.]Jonathan’s gaze lingers on the coveted coffee for a moment before he sets it back on the table. As soon as he lets go of it, Lucas lays his claim upon it.“Um, o-okay, yeah. I just, um, sh-should take a shower first,” Jonathan stammers as he stands.Lucas hums an agreement around a mouthful of coffee.[Did y
Once the allotted thirty minutes have passed—precisely down to the second—427 tentatively undeafens Lucas. At first, all he can hear is a booklet’s pages being flipped through, followed by Lucas grumbling.Hesitantly removing the remaining sensory suppressions one at a time, 427 nearly sighs with relief upon discovering that Lucas is standing in the kitchenette by the new automatic drip coffee maker—thankfully dressed—in the midst of poorly attempting to demystify its instruction manual.‘How the hell is this so complicated?’[Ah, making good on your promise to Jonathan?]‘Oh, thank fuck; yer back. Took ya long enough.’[…Hello, again, to you, too.]‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Welcome back. So, anywho, can ya scan through this or somethin’ and tell me how to use it?’[…I already looked up the instructions from everything’s model numbers earlier. First, measure out—]427 guides Lucas through measuring and grinding a serving’s worth of coffee beans and setting it up in the machine with such in-d
Lucas and Jonathan—dressed decently but nowhere near as fancy as yesterday—are most of the way to Cat’s Paw Cafe, pointedly not utilizing the stinky subway station to get there.‘Ya know, it’s been surprisingly peaceful, yeah? Though, not havin’ people gawk as much as yesterday is kinda nice. All that attention was gettin’ old fast.’[Ahem, well, fortunately, Boss System approved my long-term task priority filtering proposal.]‘Oh? Whassat?’[Compared to before, now it requires an opt-in before being bombarded with every single task in range. Before receiving alerts—and therefore penalties for ignoring them—we’ll run the calculations of the tasks’ estimated impact vs. potential unwanted attention. This effectively weeds out a majority of minor tasks—plus some moderate ones—by accounting for how suspicious it would be for you to know the event was taking place, let alone be believably compelled to interfere. I knew there was no need to ask if you were interested in activating it immedi
Let's get the exposition dump out of the way to avoid the hundreds of chapters it would take to smoothly 'show' it all before the real story even begins.It is roughly a decade after the final confrontation between superheroes and supervillains, which the villains had won in an undisputed victory. While only a small percentage of the population have superpowers, even a normal human can cause sufficient trouble, so one can imagine what disasters these powered individuals caused in the wake of the war.Over this past decade, the overall population and economy have finally reached a point of hero-free stability. Estimates place the world population somewhere between one-fourth and one-third of the pre-war population, not that anyone would dare attempt a census when you're mor
A gentle late-spring breeze blows past, stirring up a few dead leaves, and bringing along a tattered plastic shopping bag to dance in the wind. Its graceful performance is interrupted when it slams into the face of a casually dressed young man, who was observing an old woman in the nearby crosswalk.Slender lightly tanned hands reach up to remove the offending trash, exposing his clean-shaven face. His disgusted expression is punctuated by his brown eyes being narrowed into near slits. Tossing the trash back over his shoulder, the breeze changes direction and brings the filthy bag back to molest the back of his head in an aggressive assault upon his short brown hair. He stiffens briefly before defending himself, eventually managing to successfully swat his assailant away.
After a brief moment of disorientation, Lucas reflexively clutches his stomach and starts leaning forward, gasping for a deep breath. When his eyes snap open mid-motion, his face is enthusiastically greeted by a vaguely familiar tattered and soiled plastic bag. Freezing in this position for a few seconds before realizing he's not in any pain, he slowly reaches up to grab and hold the repeat offender bag. Lowering his gaze, he stares at the familiar hand holding the happily billowing scrap of plastic. Waiting a few moments more the direction of the wind shifts and he gently releases the bag, watching it float away in front of him with a blank expression.'This... Well then. I guess that's better than barely holding on while bleedin’ out. Hmm... knock knock super system, or whatever the hell you said you're called, ya still t