What the—
What was Altan doing here?!
Before I could yell anything back—Altan was still quite far away—we heard more voices approaching.
Shit.
[System Notification: Relocation in 3… 2…]
"Wait, wait! I want to talk to Altan, don't just reloc—"
[…1…]
Too late apparently.
Llewellyn grabbed my arm.
A few moments later Llewellyn, Altan, and I were all standing in— Wait.
"I think we're inside the horse," I said, looking around, baffled.
Well! Even though this was weird, it was very good to see Altan.
After a moment of disorientation, I grinned and patted his shoulder, pulling him into half a hug, before we all collapsed on the benches trying to collect ourselves.
Penguin, who'd been hiding in my pocket, poked his head out a bit while Altan was distracted.
Ah, damn it.
I trusted Altan, but… better not risk it.
While Altan was still looking out of the window, I quickly activated a concealment artifact for Penguin, then slipped my hand into my pocket and gestured at him to turn into a wristwatch. Penguin understood and tapped my fingers with his beak, before wrapping himself around my wrist.
I was going to buy him a huge portion of sashimi later.
The space we were in was cozy and from the window just enough light came in to make it feel safe rather than creepy.
"Last time we talked, your flat had been bombed," Altan said, turning his attention to me. "It's been on the news all day. They seem to have found out it was yours."
Ah, fuck. I supposed the police knew, so it was going to leak.
"Yeah," I said with a sigh. "I'm okay, though."
"Man," Altan said. "They really don't stop."
It was weird that this was how we met for the first time and we were having exactly the kind of conversation we normally had online or via text.
Llewellyn was eyeing Altan.
Oh, right.
"He's a colleague," I explained, introducing them. "He also works on your account."
They shook hands.
As they did so, something came to me.
Altan was wearing a three-piece suit, had groomed his hair and trimmed his beard, which must mean—
"Wait." I turned to him. With all that happened, I completely forgot— "You were going to ask for your girlfriend's hand in marriage somewhere around here, right?!"
He'd said he was going on a short road trip because of it. That's how I knew about Troy National Park, too.
"Yes, her family lives about thirty minutes from here," Altan said. He rubbed his face. "I imagine this might sound weird to you," he added in Llewellyn's direction. "It's not actually asking permission to marry her—this is a traditional thing we do with both families present. My girlfriend and I actually live together."
"You don't need to explain," Llewellyn said.
"Well, how did it go?" I asked.
Altan groaned and leaned forward, dropping his face in his hands.
What?
"It was going smooth," Altan said, "Ayşe didn't even put salt in my coffee, which reminded me why I love her and want to marry her. But never mind that. We were all sitting in her parents' living room, she made coffee, and then suddenly Ayşe and I get a System notification with a three-second countdown and get teleported out of the house straight into my car parked outside—leaving our parents there by themselves! As we're trying to figure out what just happened, we get bombarded with Emergency Alerts from the System telling us to drive off, so… we drove off."
He dropped his face in his hands again.
Well, that was—
Next to me, Llewellyn was trying very hard not to laugh.
"Our families watched us vanish from the couch right in front of their eyes," Altan went on, getting more animated, "and a moment later they look out of the window and see our car riding off into the moonlight!"
Llewellyn was really having trouble now.
I wasn't doing much better, to be fair.
"So I'm driving," Altan continued, "and they start calling us non-stop. Ayşe answered one call and tried to explain. She's a doctor so she made up something about the System needing her for an emergency. But they weren't buying it. It actually made things worse, and they started asking if this sort of thing happened a lot and if she got pulled into danger often... So we hung up and kept driving. That's how we ended up here. We saw there was a Distorted Realm and I figured you two were likely here somewhere and might need backup. I thought that maybe that was why the System did this, so I hurried over. I'm glad to see you're both alright."
"We're fine," Llewellyn said, almost bursting out laughing, then going, "I'm sorry."
I elbowed him lightly.
"I know it's hilarious," Altan said, groaning. "My girlfriend—fiancé now, I hope—kept bursting out laughing all the way here."
I was also still trying not to laugh.
"Is she fine?" I asked. "Was she affected by the Distorted Realm?"
"She's okay," Altan said. "I parked outside the Distorted Realm's radius and asked her to wait in the car. I didn't want her to get killed the day I asked her to marry me! Wait, let me call her."
He took out his phone and we watched him have a short phone call we didn't understand.
"She's fine," Altan said. "I just told her we're inside the horse. Since you're alright, did the System just want us to meet?"
Honestly? No idea.
"I didn't know you were System awakened," I said.
Altan scratched his head. "I only got a notification once before, when I applied for the job at the agency."
Wait, him too?
"I didn't think that counted as System awakened. I also have no idea why the System got us into our car, rather than teleporting us here directly. Maybe because we'd never teleported before?"
That didn't seem right. The first time it happened to me, I got teleported to England.
"I don't know, man," Altan rubbed his face. "It's been a day. Ayşe and I should be able to drive back quickly, but I don't know what to tell them."
There was a noise outside and suddenly the door opened.
"Here you are," a female voice said. A moment later a woman came into view. She was just as elegantly dressed as Altan, her hair was styled, and she was wearing a long floral dress and high heels. "Hi, I'm Ayşe. Are you all okay? Is anyone hurt?"
"We're good," I said, getting up to shake her hand. "Hi, I'm Ryo."
"Llewellyn," Llewellyn said, shaking her hand too.
"I know who you both are," Ayşe said with a grin, reaching for Altan. Her accent was more noticeable than Altan's, but her English was still flawless. Her demeanor was very sweet. She beamed at Altan before looking at us again. "Nice to meet you. There's police outside. I managed to sneak in when I saw the flashing lights approaching from a distance, but if we stay here they're going to discover us."
...What?!
Damn it.
I didn't have hiding from the Turkish police inside the Trojan Horse on my bingo card at all!