My Scumbag System-Chapter 370: Life Water for the Worthy

He frowned at his datapad. "That’s... not possible. But according to these readings, yes. It’s about a quarter mile farther than when we started."

"A mirage?" Raphael suggested.

"Or a trap," I muttered. "Monica, can you ask the plants anything about this?"

Monica knelt and pressed her hand to the frozen sand beneath our feet. After a moment, she looked up, her face troubled. "There aren’t any plants out here to ask. The trees back in the forest are too far away now. But..." She hesitated. "Copernicus is acting strange."

She held up the potted plant she’d brought from the Arboretum. Its copper leaves were trembling, and its glow had dimmed significantly.

"What’s wrong with it?" I asked.

"He’s thirsty. Really thirsty. Like the air itself is pulling moisture from him." Monica cradled the pot protectively. "I think this desert is more dangerous than it looks."

As if to emphasize her point, I suddenly realized how dry my mouth felt. My lips had chapped, and my throat felt scratchy despite the water I’d consumed after the fight. Looking around at the others, I saw similar signs of dehydration setting in. Raphael’s lips were cracked. Juan’s eyes looked sunken. Even Jaime had stopped his usual boisterous movements, conserving energy.

"This place is sucking the water right out of us," I realized aloud. "That’s why the oasis keeps moving away. It’s part of the trap."

"So what do we do?" Monica asked, her voice small.

I looked back the way we’d come. The silver forest was still visible, but the ice bridges Celeste had created were already melting at an unnatural rate.

"We can’t go back," I said. "And we can’t stay here. We push forward, but we ration water even more strictly."

After Celeste’s brief rest, we continued our careful march across the desert. Each ice bridge took more out of her, the paths becoming shorter and less stable. By the time we’d covered another mile, she could barely stand.

"We need to stop," Noah insisted, supporting Celeste’s weight.

"We can’t," I argued, but I knew she was right. Celeste was at her limit, and the rest of us weren’t faring much better. The dehydration was hitting us harder than it should have for only a few hours in dry conditions.

"How much water do we have left?" I asked.

Juan checked our supplies. "Less than a day’s worth at our current rationing level. And that’s assuming we don’t keep losing moisture at this accelerated rate."

Jaime, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, suddenly perked up. "What about those?" He pointed toward the silver forest we’d left behind. The luminescent fruits still glowed on the branches, visible even from this distance.

"The Harvester corpses melted when those fruits hit them," I reminded him. "You want to put that in your mouth?"

"The trees told me the fruit is only poisonous to the Harvesters," Monica interjected. "They said it was... I don’t know how to translate it exactly. Something like ’life water for the worthy, death acid for the parasites.’"

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. "So our options are potential poison fruit or definite dehydration."

"I vote fruit," Raphael said bluntly. "Rather die fighting hallucinations than crawling through sand."

A solid point from our resident hothead. I nodded slowly. "Monica, can you call any of those fruits to us? Without us having to go all the way back?"

Monica bit her lip, then set Copernicus down on the frozen sand. She placed both hands on the pot, closed her eyes, and focused. The copper leaves began to glow brighter, pulsing with energy.

Nothing happened for several long minutes. I was about to call it off when a flicker of movement caught my eye. From the distant treeline, a single glowing fruit detached from its branch and... floated toward us. It moved slowly at first, then picked up speed, zipping across the desert like a luminescent baseball.

It stopped directly in front of Monica, hovering at eye level.

"Holy shit," Juan whispered. "You’ve got telekinesis now?"

Monica shook her head, looking as surprised as the rest of us. "Not me. The plants are helping each other. The trees sent this for Copernicus... and for us."

I eyed the floating fruit suspiciously. It was about the size of a large apple, its skin translucent and filled with glowing blue-white pulp.

"Who’s brave enough to try it first?" I asked.

To my surprise, Celeste reached out with a trembling hand. "I will. My Aspect can freeze the poison if it tries to spread through my system."

Before I could protest, she plucked the fruit from the air and took a small bite.

We all watched her intently, ready for convulsions or foaming at the mouth. Instead, her eyes widened in surprise.

"It’s... incredible," she said after swallowing. "Like watermelon, but sweeter. And I can feel the moisture returning to my body already."

She took another bite, then passed the fruit to Noah, who inspected it thoroughly before trying it herself. One by one, we each took a small portion. When it reached me, I hesitated only briefly before tasting it.

Celeste’s description didn’t do it justice. The fruit was cool and impossibly juicy, instantly soothing my parched throat. It tasted like the best watermelon I’d ever had, mixed with something almost like coconut water, but better. I could literally feel the hydration spreading through my body from the moment it hit my tongue.

"Monica," I said after swallowing my piece, "tell the trees we need more. As many as they can send."

She nodded eagerly and communicated through Copernicus again. Within minutes, a dozen more fruits were zooming toward us from the forest, hovering in formation until we plucked them from the air.

As we ate, I noticed the exhaustion lifting from everyone’s faces. Celeste’s color returned, and she stood without Noah’s support. Even Raphael seemed less grumpy, which was saying something.

"We need to take some with us," I decided, feeling revitalized. "These fruits are better than water for crossing the desert."

"The trees say we can have as many as we need," Monica said, smiling for the first time since we’d entered the Gate. "They want to help us defeat the Arborist."

"Why?" I asked, suddenly suspicious again. "What do plants have against their gardener?"

Monica’s smile faded. "They say he’s not a gardener. He’s a collector. This whole place is his museum of living specimens, taken from countless worlds. The trees have been prisoners here for millennia."

"So they want us to kill their jailer," I mused. "Convenient timing."

"Does it matter?" Raphael asked. "We need to kill this Arborist guy to get out of here anyway. If the plants want to help, let them."

He had a point. I nodded. "Alright. Let’s stock up on fruit, then continue toward the real water source. Monica, can you ask the trees where that actually is? Not the mirage we’ve been chasing."

After another communing session with Copernicus, Monica pointed in a different direction, about forty degrees east of our current path. "The real water is that way, about three more miles. The trees say it’s an underground spring that the Arborist uses to water his ’collection.’"

"Then that’s our destination," I said.