The case of Daddy Newman

The rest of the way home was only filled with trying to contact Astrid and Brunhilde to no success and checking the items. Now the scraps and the essences were pretty self-explanatory, and the only things that weren't that obvious were the Nexus... and the Giant Fucking Dick. Looking at the thumbnails in the inventory gave some hints... and no hints at all.

The thumbnail of the GFD (Giant Fucking Dick) was indeed a dick, but it was dark and erect. It made John feel quite uncomfortable until he read the description:

Giant Fucking Dick
Unique
Consumable
Eat a big chunk of this 10-inch chocolate dick (roughly 1/4 of the dick) to restore 15 HP and gain +3 HP/s for 30 minutes.
This should teach you to not fuck with my system.
The dick will restore itself by midnight to 100% of its length.

So, Gaia was actually telling him to eat a dick... very funny. But, at least it was an okay healing item that he could regularly reuse. For that, he would survive the visual joke.

Now, the image of the Nexus certainly didn't tell him anything. Shown as the thumbnail was a black keycard with a golden stripe where normally a black magnetic strip was. The description was just as cryptic...

Nexus
Legendary
Keycard that gives access to an Abyssal Nexus. Insert it into any slot or any narrow gap to use. Will stay open until closed.
Destination: ??? (will be revealed after the first entering)

So... it was a keycard like one would use in a hotel? And he would have to insert it into any slot? He would have to try that after this talk he still was going to have with his mother... Hopefully, he still had time and was still in the mood after that...

The rest of the ride home was pretty boring. John had no luck reaching Brun or Astrid, neither through the Transreceptive Eye nor with any text messages. He could look through their eyes to see what they were doing, but that still didn't feel correct without their consent.

Exiting the bus and walking along the street to his house, John thought about what his mother would talk to him about. It had to be something really serious because he had never seen her in a similar state as he did yesterday; that was a thing that really concerned him. Was it something that had to do with him? Was it something regarding his dad? He couldn't know for sure until that conversation had started...

On the porch of their house, his mother was already waiting, fresh out of the shower by the state of her hair and with a nervous look on her face. As John approached their house, she extinguished her cigarette and waited for John to sit down next to her. He could see in her eyes how she failed to find the right words right now to actually start this talk, so he decided to start it by small-talk, "Hey mom, so how was your little trip today?"

The relief of not instantly bursting into the heavy subjects was clearly written on her face, "Well it was really good, I simply forgot how much I like to go out into the woods and just take a long walk. I should get you and your dad to do that more; it would do both of you good." John had to chuckle at that, if his mom knew how much distance he covered in the last two hours she would be surprised.

Sighing, her face became serious, "Speaking of your father, I guess there is something you should know. I would've liked to go most, if not all, of my life without telling you, but circumstances made it necessary that you need to be told. Since you're 18, I think you're fully capable of forming your own opinion... I have no idea how to say it lightly in any way, so I'm just going to say it:

"Your dad is not your biological father."

It took John a minute to properly register what his mother just had said, "Wh-What? Not my biological father? But... How? Why? And why now?"

Brenda's face made it quite apparent how uncomfortable she was with those questions, "W-Well... I think I should tell you the whole story, so you know what happened. During college your dad and I were best friends, and I guess today you would say that I 'friendzoned' him because I was madly in love with your father, Alan Smith, he just was that special kind of 'cool' that made the girls flock to him. At some party we both attended, it just clicked, and suddenly we were in a relationship. To say it was weird would be an understatement. I think in every sense of the word you could call it an abusive and toxic relationship, but somehow I was always naive or loving enough to give him 'one last chance', well until the last time.

"Your father was a scientist in the genetics field that was just starting to bloom. He was obsessed with his work, and with his genes, so he pretty much went ballistic when he found out that I forgot to take my birth control for a while and got pregnant. He went completely psycho and tried to kill me at some point. I obviously broke up with him and tried to get away from him. At that point, your dad, Benjamin Newman, pretty much rescued me, not only from your biological father, but also from myself, and I guess he rescued you. I thought about aborting you because I didn't want to bear a child of a man that treated me like he did. Benjamin and I then got together like it was some love story, and I was actually happy. There was one thing though that was a problem to the wish of a family: Benny was sterile, he couldn't get any kids. So, we decided at that point to turn my misery into our happiness, and so Benny became your father as you know him now. It's not my happiest memory, but it is a memory that is important to me because it shows how something beautiful can bloom from the darkest moments in your life." At some point during that story, tears started to roll down Brenda's cheeks, at which John instinctively embraced her.

"Mom... I don't know what to say... I mean... it doesn't really matter who my biological father is if he's that much of a scumbag, but why tell me now? Why tell me at all if he's that bad? And what does it have to do with you breaking down like that yesterday?" John wasn't sure how he should react to all of this... His dad was and probably always will be his father, but simply the knowledge that they didn't share any genes stirred something in his chest... It was a break of trust, it was something he should have known... It was something that was his right to know even if his biological father was such an abusive man.

His mother looked at John with wet eyes, trying to find the right words, "I was in that state yesterday because he called. I don't know how he got our number, how he learned where to look, but he found us, or rather me, and he knows that you exist... He called yesterday because he wants to meet you, he wants to get to know you. I was like that yesterday because I was afraid, I still sometimes wake up to nightmares about him... The only reason I don't see him in you is that I know that no other human being can be as twisted as him and that you learned from Benny how to be a proper gentleman... So I called the police and filed a restraining order against him due to his previous actions against me. I don't know if I can or want to press charges, but I know that I don't want him near you. I'm sorry that I took this choice out of your hands, but you don't know what kind of man he is... and hopefully, you never will."

This...this was a lot to take in... His biological father wanted to meet him, out of the blue, just after his 18th birthday? That didn't seem fully right... He had to stalk his mother for quite some time to not only find out her phone number, probably where they live, and that she had a son and what his birthday was... that seemed like a lot of research for something that could potentially turn out to be nothing... the more he heard about his biological father, the more he certainly didn't want to meet him... but there was one issue with all of this...

"Would you have told me any of this at any point if he hadn't had called?"

That was the million dollar question. The question to which his mother openly told him, "Honestly, no. It's a chapter in my life I don't want to think about; it's nothing that I would've seen as any kind of relevance to your life or your future. I probably should have told you at some point, but I want to be honest with you. Benny kept telling me that I should tell you, but I was simply too afraid of him, of Alan, like if I ever said his name, he would simply appear..."

John rose from his seat at that point and tightly hugged his mom, "Then thank you for telling me, even if you never intended to. This is a lot to take in, and I'm not sure how I'll deal with it, but I think I will need some time to come to terms with all of this. I'll be in my room, collecting my thoughts."

His mother nodded into his shoulder and returned the hug, "Take all the time you need. You know we will always be here for you."

And with that, both of them went into the house, John upstairs into his room, and Brenda into the kitchen, doing stuff that normal moms do at a point like this.

There was a lot on John's plate right now, and a lot of stuff he didn't want to bother with right now; he didn't want to think about the stuff that happened with Brun, he didn't want to imagine what had happened to Astrid and Titania, he didn't want to think about the issue with his own family and how they lied to him, albeit for his own protection. All of it was getting just a bit too much...

But there was one thing that would hopefully take his mind off all of that stuff:

The Nexus