Chapter 7: Super E-Ghost

It was a lazy weekend and Tynan didn't have to go to work. Initially, he intended to spend the day lazing in bed until noon but when he saw his new phone, he was quickly reminded of Lauren and swallowed thickly. The realisation of his feelings last night made him feel a little awkward around the e-ghost who was now very silent.

Getting out of bed, Tynan wondered what would be a good breakfast for the snoozing e-ghost. After a few days, Laura and Tynan discovered that while Laura didn't need sleep or food, she would sometimes go offline for a few hours. During that period, the phone would work like any other phone and Laura couldn't be contacted.

It was a scary thing but Laura explained it as a power outage of sorts where the system wouldn't allow her to view the outside world and she would feel a very strong feeling lulling her into a half-asleep state where she could not open her eyes yet could still hear faint stuff going on around her. Laura didn't know what she was listening to. Sometimes it would be the sound of birds chirping or the sound of water. Other times there would be people talking but she couldn't understand anything. It was all a noisy din that made her spiral endlessly in that darkness with confusion and frustration at not being able to move or open her eyes. Tynan called it a snooze mode when he heard about it and they decided that while Laura was in snooze mode, Tynan would leave her a message within view of her window if he were to leave the house.

The part-timer left a note for Laura before he got up to freshen up and start his weekend early. It was an unusual routine and seeing the gentle sun at nine in the morning on a weekend still felt odd for him. His stomach grumbled and Tynan wondered what would be good for breakfast. Seeing as he would have a long day ahead and would be too lazy to cook for lunch, Tynan decided to settle for a heavy breakfast in a skillet.

Laura didn't seem to dislike anything that he made and Tynan never really asked about what she liked. The e-ghost didn't appear to be a picky eater but that's probably because of how she was constantly eating unhealthy take-outs and instant food. While it didn't do a lot to help the e-ghost to eat healthy now that she was part of a mysterious program on his phone, Tynan still wanted to cook for her and let her experience what real food is like.

He went to his fridge and looked at the things he had. Ever since Laura came into his life about a week ago, Tynan's lifestyle had made a complete transformation. His apartment was now homey and clean. His fridge was now full of ingredients and he ate healthier. Tynan was used to skipping lunch at work because he was too lazy to cook for himself and too broke to buy instant meals or take-out. As a result, he was always lethargic and unmotivated to do anything else.

Now, even though his wallet was still struggling with his living expenses, Tynan felt happier. It wasn't too much of a concern now although he intended to do a little something about it this weekend.

Mulling over what he could do to stabilise his financial situation now that his lifestyle was improving, Tynan took out eggs, sausages, tomatoes, some mushrooms and a bundle of spinach. This was his special recipe that was invented during his university days when he was way too poor to afford anything else. The ingredients were cheap and it was easy to make it. He called it the "Brekkie Skillet" and it was highly praised by his roommates at that time. One full skillet could feed four hungry boys and he hoped Laura liked it too even if it has been a while since Tynan made it.

The girl liked fruits and vegetables more than meat so Tynan paid attention to add more spinach in for her. Still, he wondered if this was a little too bland. After considering for a little more, he went to grab the packet of frozen corn and poured a quarter of it out.

Eggs were cracked and beaten. The sausages, mushrooms and tomatoes were diced while the spinach was chopped. Tynan coated his skillet generously with cooking spray and warmed it up over the induction stove. With practised ease, Tynan poured half of the egg mixture into the skillet and rolled it around so that it covered the entire base. Then, he added the other ingredients into it and waited for the egg to bubble before covering them with the other half of his egg mixture. Without wasting time, Tynan grabbed the condiments and threw in some salt, black pepper, dill and parsley before throwing on the lid.

Tynan walked over to his desk and checked on the G-phone. Laura still wasn't up so he decided to make his bed and turn on his laptop. Today, he was going to continue working on the project that he had been trying to do for the last two months. Even though he was still working as a part-timer at a convenience store, Tynan still didn't give up. He was still a programmer and loved working with technology.

Tynan was just about done with breakfast preparations. He was washing the dishes when he spotted a cleaning rag magically helping him wipe down the stove area. Initially, this would have scared him out of his mind. Thankfully, Tynan was highly adaptable. In a week of living with Laura, he became unfazed by things around his house moving on their own.

"Good morning, Laura. What did you hear this time?"

The e-ghost yawned a little. "It wasn't too bad. I just heard someone crying and a lot of talking but it was mostly silent after that. How long was I snoozing for?"

Tynan picked his phone up and placed it on the small dining table. The dirt princess perked up at the sight of food. She didn't know what this was but she didn't really mind. Whatever Tynan made tasted good so Laura wasn't too picky.

"About four hours this time but I'm not too sure. Do you want me to make an app for you to record the snooze timing and patterns for you to access? Also, behold the Brekkie Skillet! It was highly praised in the past by my roommate back when I was still studying but I haven't cooked in so long so I don't know how this will turn out now."

Laura eyed the Brekkie Skillet and blinked. "It's quite a large portion for one person," she said and Tynan agreed.

"I'm too lazy to cook for lunch so this is going to be for breakfast and lunch. I don't usually start my weekends so early but I guess many things have changed ever since you came into my life. How do you normally spend weekends?"

The dirt princess tried to recall how she would normally spend it and frowned. "It depends. I don't usually do anything different. Sometimes I have work and events on weekends so it doesn't mean much for me. However, I like to hit the off-roads during my free time. Just wandering around to nowhere feels good. I can forget about everything else and be simply me."

Tynan didn't think it sounded bad. He might not like travelling but Laura gave off the vibe of a free-spirit. Being trapped in a phone must feel really horrible for her. He felt slightly apologetic for her but Laura shook her head.

"It's fine. I can't do much about me now and I don't even remember much about what happened before I became a ghost in your phone. Instead, why don't we do what you like doing? It's your weekend after all. Do you have any plans?"

Tynan nodded and offered a portion of the Brekkie Skillet that he cut out to Laura. The e-ghost hummed in pleasant surprise at how good it smelled. They dug into it quickly and Laura moaned.

"You should really become a cook. This is divine! I've never eaten anything so strange and delicious, you're a genius!"

Hearing that, Tynan blushed to the tip of his ears, making Laura pause mid-bite and howling in laughter at the increasingly red cheeks and neck. The girl was merciless and continued to tease Tynan until he took a post-it note to cover the phone's camera so that Laura could no longer see anything.

"Hey!" Laura yelled and pouted when Tynan told her to finish her food, refusing to remove the piece of paper blocking the camera. "You're not playing fair!"

Tynan smirked, now that she couldn't see him. At the same time, the programmer was sly and only covered the camera so that Laura couldn't see him but he was still able to see her pouting on his screen. Now that she wasn't looking at him, he could study her to his heart's content.

"I'll remove it once I'm done. As for your earlier question, I'll be working on something that I started two months ago. You can call it a hobby of sorts so it's nothing serious."

Curious, Laura asked in between bites. "What were you working on?"

Tynan looked at her attacking the tomatoes and chuckled. Laura was cute. "I'm working on a game. I did the coding myself and even drew the art for the characters. It's still being put together."

Laura burped and was surprised that she was capable of burping even as a ghost. Her startled expression made Tynan burst out in laughter and the e-ghost turned her back to him to hide her embarrassment. To make Laura feel less embarrassed about it, Tynan let out a loud belch of his own. This monster of a burp made Laura's earlier burp seem like a baby in comparison. They laughed over it and Laura offered to do dishes while Tynan started to work on his game.

While she did the dishes, Laura also took the liberty to change and wash the sheets. It happened to be a good day to do laundry because the sun was shining brightly and Laura felt like doing something instead of idling while Tynan worked.

True to his word, Tynan was focused on coding his game so Laura took the opportunity to make some coffee for him. Even though she wasn't talented in the kitchen, Laura found out that simple things such as boiling water and brewing a cup of coffee could help her level up the cooking skill. Hence, she helped herself to the kitchen.

The programmer was so deeply focussed that he didn't realise Laura brewed some coffee for him. Out of habit, he reached out to the cup and took a sip before tapping away on his keyboard. Laura didn't understand any coding but she could see how serious Tynan was when it came to making the game. From what she could make out, the game was some pixel art world that allowed the characters to do quests and level up. Tynan was currently working on coding the dungeon levels so Laura left him alone.

The mission gave Laura one new task this morning when she woke up and Laura didn't know where to start. So far, she was doing a good job with the happiness meter and the wellness meter. They were both above 70% today, the highest record so far. The system must have taken it as a sign that Laura wasn't struggling hard enough and decided to make her life more difficult. Apart from cooking and cleaning and talking to him, she was also now assigned the task of taking care of his financial status.

[Task: Improve Tynan's financial situation. Reward: 50 soul points.]

The e-ghost groaned. What did the system take her for? A super e-ghost?! Then again, the reward was rather tempting. Each upgrade for purchased skills cost 5 soul points to level up and the one skill Laura wanted to level up quickly was the Internet Consultant skill. This shared xp sharing thing was too slow!

Then again, Laura didn't quite know what to do to make the financial situation improve. Before she died, she was simply a professional dirt biker and stuntwoman. Money was something that just came with the number of competitions and shows she attended. She didn't know anything about how other people made their money. However, Laura did know where she wanted to start. Tynan's talents were definitely wasted with that convenience store. Hence, Laura borrowed the synced email to the phone to check on the man's past C.V. submitted to the job hunting agencies.

The C.V. was poorly written and very cluttered with information. Even if Laura wasn't working in the human resource department, she didn't think this was a good thing. Nobody would read it! Hence, the e-ghost took it upon herself to use the Internet Consultant to search for a sample C.V. and worked on the revised draft while Tynan coded.

They spent a few hours working on their individual projects in silence. Laura didn't hesitate to help wash the empty coffee mug and replace it with water to keep the man hydrated while he worked. She also heated up the remaining Brekkie Skillet so that Tynan wouldn't forget about lunch. It was interesting to see how the programmer ate and drank on autopilot as he worked without realising what was going on around him.

The e-ghost giggled. She was almost convinced that if she were to start painting his apartment pink, he wouldn't even notice it until he finished what he was doing. Seeing that Tynan was very committed to the task at hand, Laura took it upon herself to edit the C.V. and scout for jobs using the functions on his phone by downloading job search apps. She looked for jobs that paid better wages and had more or less the same kind of hours that Tynan was currently working. The programmer would need more time to work on his private game development project so she wouldn't be finding him a full-time job for now without his permission.

There were a few jobs that fit the criteria and Laura sent the application on behalf of Tynan before he could notice. If things didn't go well, there wouldn't be a reply and she would try again in a few days. This way, Tynan wouldn't get his hopes up. On the other hand, if it was successful and they called him for an interview, Laura's plan would have succeeded in the first step of pushing this man out of his comfort zone. The next step was to help him with the interviews so that he could secure those jobs and tender his resignation from the convenience store and be done with that meatball of a manager.

Cackling inwardly, Laura hit the send button and waited. For now, her job was done.