The Laptop - Ch.60 - In the Thick of It (Patreon)

Even at a run it still took us almost a half hour to get across the island, thanks to the dense jungle and hilly terrain. Gwen kept the invisibility spell going the whole time, then finally dropped it once we reached the familiar territory around our lagoon.

Colours returned to the world and my girlfriends both became solid again next to me. Chelsea's ears were folded back and her tail all puffed up behind her, while Gwyneth was breathing hard as she leaned on her staff. That's when I noticed something was missing.

"Gwen?" I asked in a worried tone. "What happened to the little fox carving on your staff? It's missing."

She nodded, "I had Vix hop off about half a kilometre back, to act as a look-out. She'll warn us if anyone's following us or heading this way."

"How could they follow us? We were invisible," Chels said while her tail twitched back and forth. Then she sighed, "They could search the island though, and if this is one of their regular stops then they probably know their way around it a lot better than we do."

I pointed out, "We weren't exactly careful running back here, we left a pretty obvious trail. So they won't have much trouble tracking us. And we know they saw us, then they saw us vanish."

Gwen grimaced, "You said they have witch doctors here, that know magic. So they might assume that's what we are, witch doctors from some other tribe."

"Unless they think we're demons instead. They don't have catgirls or elves or pink hair on this world," I reminded them both.

The catgirl's tail puffed out again, "So either way we can assume they're going to be searching for us."

I nodded, "Probably."

That's when I realized both of my girlfriends were looking at me like they were waiting for me to make a decision or tell them what we should do. It took me another dozen seconds, but I finally made up my mind.

"We need to get off this island," I stated. "We could try and hop to another island around here, where we're not going to run into anybody else. Right now though, the main thing is to not let the locals catch us. Not so much for our safety since they can't actually harm us, but for their own good. Like it might mess them up to learn about us. So let's start packing."

Fortunately we didn't actually have that much to pack. The three of us hurried into our tent, where Chelsea strapped on her belts with all her knives and I grabbed my bow and quiver. The rest of our clothes and belongings were already tucked away in our backpacks. That just left all the new things I'd summoned, like the tent and air-mattress and chairs and things like that. Plus the big cooler box full of drinks. And the beach towels we'd left by the lagoon. And the other towels we'd left by the beach.

I ended up frowning as I looked around the interior of our tent while I tried to decide if we should try and gather all that stuff up and take it with us, or if it'd be better to just purge everything then replace it later. Before I could make up my mind all three of us were distracted by the return of our elf girl's familiar.

"Kon! Kon!" the little shadow fox called as she came racing into our camp. Vix dashed through the open tent flap then scrambled up Gwen's body and wrapped herself around the top of the mage's staff, where she returned to her carved-ebony form.

Meanwhile the elf girl grimaced, "They're on their way. It sounds like a hunting party? Or a war band. There's a dozen of them, armed with spears and blow-darts, and they'll be here in under a minute!"

"Crap," I swore as I reached out and swiped my hand to open up the laptop interface. I tapped the expeditions icon as I muttered, "That's barely enough time to open a portal."

There were only three entries on my favourites list, Daearen, Earth, and Enðedd, but that definitely beat having to type in lengthy IDs or wait for it to search up locations. I jabbed at the last name on the list since I knew it was safe, even if it was boring. And we only needed to be there long enough to pick another destination. When the info screen came up I swiped past without looking and hit the portal button.

My girlfriends and I waited impatiently as the swirling vortex formed in front of our tent's door flap, then once it was stable I told them both, "Ok let's go!"

"There's the demons! Get them!" a man shouted from several meters off to our left, and we knew we'd run out of time.

Gwen and Chels and I all quickly grabbed each other's hands then the three of us stepped through together.

Like usual my vision was completely obscured with the swirling light, then it cleared a moment later. But instead of the stale air and grey scenery of a dead world, we found ourselves somewhere dark. The air was still a little musty, but nothing like I was expecting. Then the next thing I noticed was thick carpet underfoot, and as my eyes adjusted I started to recognize the familiar walls and furnishings of my bedroom in the basement of our home.

For a moment I frowned in confusion, then my eyes widened as I realized what happened. I must have fat-fingered the destination, I hit Earth instead of Enðedd. My heart was still pounding from our rushed escape from Honnui, but now my blood went cold and my gut lurched too.

I quickly blinked on 'safe mode' for all three of us, then pulled up the info screen on my interface. My eyes searched for the security protocol message Annie and I talked about, but I couldn't find it.

"Lisa?" Chelsea asked nervously. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but what are we doing here?"

"Are you sure it's safe for us to be back on Earth again already?" Gwen added warily.

"Gimme a sec," I mumbled as I double and triple checked the laptop.

I couldn't find that warning anywhere in the expeditions app, so I switched to the realm editor and checked there instead. The security protocol thing was nowhere to be found. I probably spent a solid minute looking everywhere I could think of, then looking again. As near as I could tell though, that message simply didn't exist anymore.

I finally let out a long deep sigh of relief, "I think it's safe. It looks like the security protocols are all finished. We're ok."

"We're home," I added quietly as it started to sink in. "We're actually home. After all this time."

My girlfriends were probably feeling it as much as I was, since neither of them responded right away. In fact none of us even moved from the spot where we'd appeared, a couple paces away from the door to my ensuite bathroom.

I knew it was night here from how dark it was in my room. I had no idea what day it was though, I could only guess that we'd been gone for over a month, maybe a month and a half. The house was quiet, and the bedroom looked exactly like I remembered it, right down to the school books and the mundane laptop I'd left in a messy pile on my desk when we were racing to get away.

Eventually Chelsea broke the silence with a nervous laugh, "I don't even know what to do, or think. Or how to feel about any of this."

"Yeah same," Gwen added quietly.

After another couple seconds I finally took the initiative. I shrugged my backpack off my shoulders then set it down on the floor next to my desk, and left my bow and quiver of arrows ontop of the desk. Then I moved to my bed and found the remote for the TV and entertainment system. I sat at the foot of the bed and turned on the TV, then scrolled to the Guide channel.

"It's Monday August fourth," I announced as soon as the date came up on the screen. "Half past three in the morning."

Chelsea's ears folded back and her tail flicked, "What day did we leave? I think it was June tenth maybe? Or eleventh?"

"Isn't today a holiday?" Gwen asked as she put her pack on the floor next to mine. Then she leaned her staff against the wall and joined me at the foot of the bed before adding, "We missed Canada Day though."

Chels left her backpack with the others then climbed onto the bed next to me and sighed, "We missed more than that. You two missed exams, you both probably flunked your first year of college. And I missed my exams, and graduation."

Hearing that made me cringe, "I need to talk to you both about that and a few other details, but let's leave that conversation for later ok? I'm going to send Annie a message and let her know we're back on Earth again, then maybe we should take care of some practical stuff?"

Gwyneth frowned, "What do you mean, what practical stuff?"

I shrugged, "The mailbox is probably stuffed. And anything we left in the fridge will be close to achieving sentience by now, so that needs to be cleaned out. I can use the laptop to restock the fridge and pantry, or we could order something in later and go grocery shopping tomorrow."

"And in the meantime," I gestured towards my ensuite, "We finally have access to indoor plumbing and hot running water again. So showers are a thing. Unless you've gotten used to washing up in cold spring water."

The elf girl's eyes widened as she stared at the washroom, then a wide smile settled on her face. She almost looked like she'd just found religion as she gasped, "Oh my gods I almost forgot about hot showers! I can't even wait!"

Chelsea and I both smiled as Gwen wandered into the washroom as if she was in a trance, leaving a trail of discarded clothes behind her. Neither of us moved to join her though. Instead we let her enjoy the experience while we took care of the other stuff. Starting with my message to Annie.

"Hi Annie. FYI my girlfriends and I are back on Earth-742 now. It seems like the security routines have finished their thing. We might need a day or so to get ourselves sorted out, then I suppose we should meet up to discuss the plan? Either way, you know where to find me."

I sent that off through the connections app, then the little catgirl and I went upstairs to check on the rest of the house, which was just as dark and quiet as my bedroom.

It seemed like nothing had changed at all in our absence. There was a bunch of junk mail waiting for us, but that was it. And rather than having to deal with anything nasty in the fridge I used the laptop to just purge everything in there, along with all the stale food in the pantry too. Then Chels used her own shower upstairs, while I took over my ensuite once Gwyneth was finally finished.

By the time we'd all thoroughly cleaned ourselves up and got dried off and put on some clean modern clothes it was around six in the morning and the sun was up. Instead of gathering at the kitchen table though we all got comfy on my big bed down in the basement, while I used the laptop to conjure us up a trio of take-out breakfast meals.

Then we put the twenty-four hour news station on the TV while we quietly sipped our lattes and munched on our sausage and egg croissants and seasoned hashbrown bites. By the time we'd all had enough to eat we'd also had more than enough of the news.

"Is it just me or has everything gotten worse while we were gone?" Chelsea asked quietly. Her ears were drooping and she had her tail wrapped around to rest on her lap.

Gwyneth shook her head, "I never paid that much attention to the news before, but I'm pretty sure it's not just you."

I nodded slowly in agreement, "It's definitely worse. I'm positive these are the sorts of red flags Annie was talking about, right? It feels like things are gaining momentum, like the world's heading for some sort of tipping point."

"Are we sure it hasn't already crossed that point?" Chels asked. Then she started to list all the awful stuff we'd seen on TV in the last half hour, "The war in eastern Europe is getting worse, and there's been fighting in the middle east again. And now there's a global trade war going on?"

"Bigotry and hatred are getting worse too," Gwen added sadly. "Trans rights are being clawed back all over, it's only a matter of time before they start going after gays and lesbians again."

The catgirl sighed, "Even the weather's fucked. They're forecasting 'Smoke' for the next three days?! It's like the whole world caught fire while we were gone. Everything's going to hell as fast as it can."

I shook my head, "We're not going to let it happen. I've already messaged Annie that we're here, and we're ready to get to work. We're going to fix this, all of it. We're going to make this world a better, fairer, happier place."

Chelsea's ears perked up as she smiled, "Yeah. You're right Lisa. We can't fail, not with the three of us handling admin and moderation on the inside while Annie's backing us up from the dev side."

"Right on," Gwyneth agreed. "We've spent the last two months preparing for this. We've learned how the system works, travelled to different realms, and Lisa's been trained on how to do her part. Now it's time to take our world back, from the billionaires, the bigots, and the bullies."

I couldn't help smiling at my girlfriends' pep talks. They both sounded so positive, like they were hyping us up before a PvP gaming session or a sports match or something.

"Alright you two," I finally said. "I'm glad you're both feeling so positive about our chances. Just remember, this is going to be more like a marathon rather than a sprint. And so far all we've done is cleared the tutorial level. From here on out, things are probably going to get a lot more serious."

Then I added, "We can't start until we've heard back from Annie, so for now let's all try and relax. We're home, let's see if we can enjoy a little peace and quiet. Ok?"

"Ok Lisa," Gwen nodded as she cuddled closer against my left side.

Chels snuggled up next to me on the right and purred, "Agreed."

I wrapped my arms around them both then sighed quietly to myself, "I have a feeling we'll be in the thick of it soon enough."

~ End of Book Two ~

** note: Lisa, Gwen, & Chelsea will be back in another installment of The Laptop sometime soon! in the meantime we've got another book lined up for you beginning next Monday. stay tuned though, we have a few more goodies in store for you all this week! **