John was enjoying 'taking it easy', despite his various responsibilities. After all, in the end it was Jessica's displacement that was the main issue, wasn't it? If she wanted to wait before leaving to gather supplies (Or even just enjoy mexican muffins), that was fine by him!

Not like he felt specifically attached to any of the worlds so far anyway. Anything was fine, as long as it wasn't the before.

So the days passed with oddities and adventures, spending time with children that built miniature golf courses and teleported to other planets to find the most tasty alien cheeses and so on and so forth.

Though really, while he didn't mind the company of most of the children… He ended up spending most of his time with Candace and her Mom. The older girl apparently felt better verifying he hadn't 'gone poof' yet while the overwhelmed mother had many questions that he was perfectly happy to answer, even if the actual responses sometimes caused even more questions and confusion.

It helped that his System could now review and analyze information around Jessica too now, considering her current employment and the high level clearance it provided… But more than that, his System was sort of connected to the current Realm on a high Conceptual level somehow, and while not recovered it had no issue answering basic questions as long as he didn't act up too much.

Slight side note: Insisting on doing dangerous stuff or being uncaring about personal injuries counted as 'acting up', so uh… Yeah, he was trying to adjust such previous behavior.

Sure, he could technically just rebuild a body or two if something went wrong… But apparently this was not a healthy mindset and his System did not approve of such. So: Act slightly less suicidal, and attempt to care more about potential risks in the future.

John was pretty sure this was just his System being frustrated about the 'harvesting organs and stuff to retrieve sunglasses' thing and other stuff like that, but as long as his ability to ask random trivia was on the line he would play ball.

For example? How many onions go in a pot of onion soup?

[[Varies based on recipe and personal tastes. On average, 1kg of onion equates to 6 average sized onions in the current world. Number required can be calculated when recipe is designated.]]

…Huh.

Well, uh… What about 'how long is the Great Wall of China measured in hot dogs'?

[[The Great Wall of China, local variant, is 13,171 miles in length. The average hotdog, local variant, is 4.8 inches in length. Assuming ideal conditions, the Great Wall of China is 173,857,200 hot dogs in length.]]

Neat!

That was useful stuff that would be annoying to find out! Especially since the internet on this world is WEIRD with all the time travel and arbitrary memory alterations and all that.

So maybe he'd have to be lame and sleep more often and not skip meals and stuff, but the payoff was WAY worth it! Like, what was the volume of a hamster?

[[The average Syrian Hamster weighs 115 grams and possesses a blood volume of 8.4 milliliter, assuming destructive measurement methods are not implemented.]]

Uh… Gross. Alright, it was MOSTLY worth it!

His lazy Saturday was interrupted when his big sister slumped in. "Hey! How was work?"

Jessica grumbled. "The free ride might be over, and we may have to move on now."

Huh? "What do you mean?"

She waved at the table and it was COVERED in decorative baskets. Big, small, painted, made of rare metals, woven from what seemed to be hair, all sorts of crazy stuff. Each one filled to bursting with all sorts of bright and colorful things and paper and plastic and bows and ribbons.

Jessica stabbed at the table with a finger. "I did something and now ALL that crazy locked away stuff I've been harvesting for you has been replaced with baskets of candy and stuff. It was surprising at first, flattering for a little bit… But now I'm getting weird looks from coworkers, my boss is snickering all the time…"

She went a bit unfocused. "Which I must point out, looks VERY ODD on a snail by the way…"

And she was back. "And the payoff is just not worth my time now. A thousand or more of these baskets are not nearly as valuable as a single vault, like that one that had chemically tainted train cars from last week for example. My paycheck can't keep up with our old rate of 'unlimited and free death materials' resource collection…"

John hummed. "So time to move on?"

She nodded. "Soon. Sorry for pulling you away from your new friends."

Meh, not an issue. "Candace knows I'll be traveling soon anyway, I warned her last week when I healed enough for our trip before we decided to delay a bit. She even got her brothers to help me set up a mail box so we can keep in contact."

Basically it was a set of quantum connected boxes, which his System was able to analyze after shoving one of them into his Pocket.

Sure, the original half of the pair was destroyed… But NOW his System was directly in control of John's side of the whole mess.

That meant that letters would be delivered in relative time rather than absolute… After all, if John went back in time or skipped forward a few centuries relative to THIS reality, it could be confusing to read about things that haven't happened in the future about the past that occurred twice.

THIS way, no matter what happens here or on his trip… Candace would receive and send her correspondence as usual and John's Pocket System would take care of the messy stuff.

It DID require that he not look in his variant of the box though. Already it was filled with letters not written or never written that would eventually (or never) need to go in both directions… But it was 'Not His Issue™' anymore. It works, don't ask John how, send any complaints or compliments to his Pocket, thank you and goodbye.

Still. "I think Candace and her family might want to throw us a going away party though." He mentally remembered the multi-state wide concert last week. "And uh… Just a heads up, it might get a bit out of hand. And crowded."

Jessica chuckled. "Yeah, it's strange seeing how people interact with the unusual here. There's a group of people that just go from state to state to Tri-State Area just to attend the crazy events that happen every week."

Huh. "I did wonder how so many people were ready to go skiing in July. Or how it has been July for so many weeks now."

She shrugged. "The few people who notice AND have a technical background at work just call it 'temporal modulated stress adjustment effects' and then wander away." She picked up a purple banana from the nearest basket. "So yeah, I've put in my two weeks notice and it's time to start getting ready to move on."

John gave her TWO thumbs up! "Will do!"

As he went to put his shoes on and visit the neighbors, he couldn't help wondering…

How much did a soaked cat weigh?

[[Depending on the length of hair and the density of the fibers, the weight of any furred animal can vary up to around an additional pound due to retained moisture for any animal of average domestic cat size. Thus an average soaked cat would weight 8.8-11 pounds, plus up to an additional pound due to liquid exposure.]]

How fascinating!

~~~Pocket Space~~~

Jessica sighed as she watched the massive, four story tall cake continue to be slowly parsed out and passed around. "Things like that still feel ridiculous."

The nice neighbor hosting this farewell party, Linda, gave a wry laugh. "You're telling me! I'm still shocked by how many of these contractors and businesses know my children on a personal level. Half the coupons and discounts I find when shopping were actually due to the amazing things they get up to!"

Hmm. "I suppose I am lucky in that regard… Before I met my brother, I was already aware of how impossible he was. Then again, my life itself was fairly unusual for years prior to that as well."

Many years. She may look young, but that was due to good living, alien medical science, and one or two accidents with temporal chaos zones during dangerous missions.

Also a good moisturizing routine. Never underestimate having access to personal care products, you end up missing them very soon after being yeeted outside of reality while being shoved into a little eldritch child's Pocket.

Linda sighed. "Does it ever get easier? Dealing with this sort of thing I mean." She waved over at the milkshake fountain, one large enough to be in a central park. "I didn't even know my boys knew how to construct plumbing to that degree, much less handle the finances and orders and all the planning and…"

She wilted slightly. "I feel like I missed so much of their lives without noticing."

Jessica held back a wince and gently gave her a side hug. "Nah, that's normal! Kids always grow up too fast, guaranteed! But you love them and they love you, and do THEY seem to feel like you haven't been giving them what they need?"

The woman glanced over at the laughing children… And sighed with a small smile. "No… I suppose not. And… Even if I DO feel like I haven't done enough in the past… I just got to keep giving it a good try, right?"

That's better. "Yeah! Plus you could probably adjust their chores a bit to take advantage of raising two geniuses too."

The mother's expression turned towards exasperation. "By THIS point, I'm probably just going to have the boy do our taxes and finances. I've been through college and I still feel like an amature compared to my children with them easily filling out all those forms and documents… Did you know there is a form SPECIFICALLY designed to request approval for the construction of physics altering and reality bending bakery goods? I know that I certainly didn't!"

Jessica snorted. "Imagine how I felt when I found out that my little brother could pass out superpowers or make reality his plaything and just doesn't bother to do so because he is happy with that stupid pinecone."

Linda blinked. "I'm sorry?"

Sigh… No, just let it go. "Nothing, just… Sometimes the way that boys like your children or entities like John think? It just doesn't line up with how we work."

She chuckled. "That sounds about right."

Forget thinking outside the box, half the time John has the box thinking outside of YOU.

Feeling a mental nudge from a tasking alert she had assigned her Pocket Memory earlier, she blinked. Oh, right. "By the way Linda, how do you feel about snacks and candy and stuff from undefined timelines and sources?"

Linda blinked. "I… Don't really have much of an opinion on it?"

She opened her hand, one of the wrapped bars of 'Looks Like A Candy Bar but Tastes Like Chocolate Glazed Donuts Somehow' and waved it. "I've got literal tons of unknown candy, all marked as safe to eat for human consumption. Some of it is made of strange stuff that prevents you from having health issues when eating it, other types keep altering their temperature to always be warm or cold, one seems to regenerate when we try to eat it…"

Another wrapped orb replaced the bar. "This thing looks and acts like a jawbreaker, but tastes like a rare steak. Got a few thousand of these, if not more."

The other woman's stunned look shifted slightly. "Huh… Mind if I try one?"

Here ya go. "Just a warning, if you swallow it by accident then it will show up nearby rewrapped within an hour or so. No idea how, not sure why, but it scared the HELL out of me when I was in the shower."

The woman froze, the candy unwrapped and halfway to her mouth… Before she found her confidence and decided to give it a shot. "Well, compared to the giant floating baby head everyone keeps ignoring, that doesn't sound too disturbing."

In went the jawbreaker… And three… Two… One…

Jessica grinned when Lynda's eyes lit up! "Oh mah gawd tha' ish amashin."

She laughed! "I know, right? If I didn't have SO MUCH of this stuff, I wouldn't be handing it out to everyone who will take a few crates. I'd feel bad just disposing of it all, but it CAN'T be healthy to eat nothing but candy for a few years."

Well, for her anyway. John regularly ate paint chips and stuff, so he could care less about dietary needs and whatever.