by Sarah Lin
"Dammit, these things cut my hoodie." Emily examined it in dissatisfaction. "I really figured its inbuilt defenses would hold, but their ability to use lucrim offensively is surprising."
"Yeah, but I think we had to have killed most of them." Rick was still panting for breath, so he took a while just to breathe deeply. Once he felt better, he began picking up all the corpses and dropping them into a garbage bag.
He felt slightly relieved that Emily needed to catch her breath too after that experience. After poking her fingers through the holes in her hoodie, she sighed and pulled it off to tie around her waist. Underneath she was wearing a t-shirt - it was a perfectly normal one, but with her chest rising and falling like that, Rick decided it was a good time to check the survey technique again.
"We're pretty close," he announced, looking back up into the hills. "Hopefully we'll find the anomaly before we run into any more of them."
"No need to rush into it." Emily reached into a pouch in her hoodie and came out with two thin cans. They looked like energy drinks, but the label said "EthCorp Bioenergetic Restorative" in plain font - not exactly a catchy slogan. "Drink one of these. Given your defensive core, it should help a lot."
"Thanks." Rick took it, his fingers brushing against hers, and hastily drank it. The liquid tasted more like gasoline than anything, but an instant later he felt it shoot through his body like fire. He rubbed his forehead. "Wow, that's quite a kick."
"Yeah. It will make you feel a lot better in the short term, but it will also help you recover faster." Emily had already finished her can and tucked it away in one pocket. She gave him a surprisingly broad smile, then gestured with her head into the hills. "Alright, you ready to finish this?"
They advanced forward in more cautious silence, after the previous ambush, but no attacks materialized. Rick decided that since Emily had normal combat covered, the best thing he could do was focus on the survey technique so they could finish sooner. The anomaly really had to be close, maybe tucked just around any one of these corners.
"I think it must be just ahead..." Rick looked up from time to time, then went back to frowning at the aura between his hands. "Hopefully soon."
"Rick..." Something in Emily's voice made him look up and he immediately froze.
A dragon wound its way from around a rock, this one larger and less pathetic than the previous beast, though still woefully under-grown overall. It had a few broken antlers sticking out of its hide, as if it had fought off local jackalopes.
All of that was less important than the foam around its jaws: the dragon had rabies.
Before they could react, it let out a keening cry and charged, shockingly fast. They'd both been frozen at the sight and had to force themselves to react. It was all Rick could do to dodge aside with a Bunyan's Step, knowing he couldn't contract a potentially lucrim-enhanced infection. Emily dodged and struck back, but her aura blade glanced off its scales, only landing a shallow blow.
There was almost no time to think - the dragon caught itself on an opposite mound, its body coiling as it prepared another rabid rush. Rick wasn't sure how to react, but in the moment they had, Emily called out.
"You block, I strike!"
Almost before his mind had consciously understood, Rick found himself moving in reaction. When the dragon rushed at them again, he threw himself out to meet it. The jaws came for his face with terrible speed, but Rick managed to hit it in the side of the head with one elbow.
His blow barely stunned the rabid dragon, which lunged out at him again. This time its teeth threatened his strike, so all he could do was grab it around the long neck. Yet the creature was surprisingly strong, twisting and trying to snap at him. Any moment, it would get the right angle and those teeth would sink into his-
The dragon's head spun through the air as Emily completed her swing.
For a while they just stared at the creature, then Rick let out a low laugh. The poor creature was tragic, yet it was a laugh of pure joy that they'd survived. Thankfully, Emily joined him, dissipating her aura blade and wiping her eyes as she laughed.
"I can't... I can't believe we killed it like that..." Rick had to suck in a deep breath.
"I know!" Emily partially doubled over, gripping his shoulder so as not to fall down, and he didn't even mind the slight pain. "Immediately after I started kicking myself, heh, because I kept thinking that what I'd yelled was stupid. Yet you figured it out."
"Guess we're in sync after slaughtering so many defenseless rabbits." It was a dumb joke, but it got a giggle from Emily. For a moment they were both bending over, getting their laughter under control, their faces nearly touching. Emily stared into his eyes with an expression he couldn't read, and when she spoke her voice was oddly breathy. "Rick..."
She didn't continue and he stared back, becoming increasingly awkward. Before he could think of anything to say, she pulled away.
"Let's finish the job first. There could be more of them."
So the moment had passed. Rick swallowed his disappointment, though he wasn't sure exactly why. They took care of the dragon's body as respectfully as they could, burying it instead of putting it in a garbage bag. After that, they advanced toward the anomaly.
It ended rather anticlimactically, with a few weak jackalope attacks and one more attempted ambush. But it was a much smaller number of the animals and their teamwork had improved, so the murderous creatures never had a chance.
Then, without anything else to defend it, they stumbled across the anomaly. Emily stood guard in case more jackalopes came to attack them, but nothing stopped Rick from getting out his sphere and reporting the anomaly. It was accepted almost immediately, and though he breathed a sigh of relief, he found himself a bit disappointed.
As they walked back out of the hilly area, collecting a few missed jackalope bodies along the way, Rick found himself wondering if he'd made a mistake. Going in alone would probably have been suicide, and he thought calling Emily had been the right choice, but something wasn't quite right. The conversation that had come much easier before now seemed suppressed as if by an aura.
When they got back into Emily's car, she gripped the wheel tightly and drove well over the speed limit as if rushing home. Rick risked a glance over at her and wondered what was wrong. She did seem to pull back when people got too close for her, so had that been the problem after the big fight?
They finally got back and he was starting to feel like he should just run away. Yet it wouldn't be right to just leave her after she'd done so much to help him. So as he got out of the car, he swallowed his uncomfortableness and spoke. "Thanks a lot for helping today, Emily. And if I screwed u-"
"Rick, do you want to get dinner sometime?" Without warning she was staring at him, her gaze intent but no longer so unfriendly. He froze in shock, staring back at her.
All at once he reinterpreted how tightly her fingers gripped the steering wheel. The way the words had tumbled out of her mouth, she was as nervous as he was. Rick found his emotions spinning rapidly because he didn't want to stand there like an idiot but he needed to make the right decision. Emily was a great friend and he wasn't about to deny the attraction he felt, yet she'd seemed to hold herself at such a distance...
She turned away. "Okay, forget it. I'll-"
"Wait. Yes." Rick took a deep breath as he made his decision and smiled at her. "Yes, I'd love to get dinner sometime. And I don't mean dinner to talk about lucrim techs at the place by your work. Though, uh, we can definitely do that if you want."
Emily's glare melted into a relieved smile. "Oh, thank fuck. It's hard for me to put myself out there and I was beginning to think I'd blown it."
"No, no, you're fine. Uh, if you were throwing hints earlier, I can be pretty bone-headed about this sort of thing. Sorry if I missed-"
She snorted. "I'm not going to go on about feminine intuition, Rick. I'm an engineer. I like things to be straightforward and simple."
"Well. Uh." The fact that they were technically sort of
dating hit him in a rush and he tried to work with it, keeping his face in a smile that wasn't too ridiculous. "If we're being straightforward, all that fighting left me with no idea what my schedule is. But I do really want to get dinner, so let's text and set a time."
"Right, good. And no bullshit about waiting three days or anything." As Emily smiled back at him, Rick realized that he didn't regret his decision in the slightest.
After that, he collected several garbage bags of animal carcasses out of the back of her car. This was significantly less romantic. But grinning like an idiot the way he was, Rick didn't really care.
Chapter 24: The Peakless Lodge
Between his injuries and his newly existent dating life, Rick didn't rush to return to the Peakless Wildlife Refuge. A night of rest certainly did him a lot of good... but the next morning, the smell of all the jackalope bodies reminded him that there was no way he could ignore them any longer. They completely filled his old fridge - for once it was a helpful thing that he and Melissa didn't have much food on hand.
Rick got up and stretched, only then realizing that he wasn't terribly injured. He had healing scars from all the antler cuts, but they'd closed remarkably well. Presumably that was what Emily had meant about the drink she'd given him working with his defensive core. Thoughts of that kept him positive even as he got ready for an unpleasant task.
He discovered that Melissa had already left for work and wondered about how many shifts she was taking. For now, the relevant part was that she'd left a note on the fridge, implying that he'd taken a job as an assassin and was storing bodies there. Rick smiled and got to work.
Thankfully double-bagging the bodies with the canvas had prevented them from ruining the fridge, so it was simply a task of lugging them out. After having spent so long biking everywhere, calling for a taxi felt like a ridiculous luxury. He almost missed the bike ride out, the chance to meditate and get his mind in order. Given the new change in his life and the texts he'd exchanged with Emily, he could have used time to think.
Instead, he focused on work and summoned a taxi. The driver stopped, then took a long, hard look at his giant suspicious bag of bags. "What do you have there, man?"
"I went hunting." Rick opened the door and shoved the bag in, giving a smile that he hoped didn't make him look like an axe murderer. "I need to take all of that to the Peakless Wildlife Refuge."
"Uh, north of Branton? I can take you to the edge of the place, but you're not supposed to just wander in."
"Don't worry, I have an appointment. I can guide you through the last part."
As they drove he held the bag awkwardly. For a while he tried to resist looking at the scoreboard, assuming it didn't yet include his anomaly from the day before. Eventually he gave in and was pleasantly surprised:
[1) Pan Zhou - 155 merits
2) [redacted] - 151 merits
3) Kate Durham - 140 merits
4) Elliot Rutherford III - 137 merits
5) Damian - 131 merits
6) Heidi Cunningham - 124 merits
7) Oswaln - 122 merits
8) Jack Ganess - 119 merits
9) Machk Bearan - 113 merits
10) Skinmaster0 - 105 merits
...
10) Skinmaster0 - 105 merits
11) Rick Hunter - 102 merits
12) Javiera Banks - 86 merits]
He was close enough to the top ten that the display was repetitive. Though the competitors in the lead were still far ahead, he could actually feel himself catching up to many of the others. But there was no more time to look at the list, because they were almost there.
In the end the taxi driver refused to go on the smaller roads. Rick winced when paying him, even though the amount wasn't actually that much compared to his paycheck. Plus, those "merits" would translate into actual money soon enough.
Rick lugged the bag the last part of the way to the office, feeling like a murderous Santa Claus. There was no Delsin waiting for him this time, so he'd actually get to go inside. He was curious about some of the displays, but decided to look at them more once he wasn't carrying so many animal corpses.
Indoors, he found a pleasant if rustic waiting area and a wooden desk with no one present. Further inside he saw a few offices with the lights on, but glancing in he found no one. Rick didn't want to intrude, so instead he moved the other way into a large side room.
His first thought was that it was a dog pound before he realized that was too mundane of a term. There were cages along the walls, yes, but they didn't contain mutts from the streets. The first was empty but the second contained a dragon similar to the ones he'd seen, though it looked in much better health. It hissed and coiled back into a corner when it saw him, though, so he moved on.
The next occupied cage contained what he first thought was a white fox, then he reconsidered. It looked up at him, eyes as luminous as the moon, and Rick's eyebrows rose. Not quite thinking about it, he knelt down next to the cage, maintaining eye contact.
Was that a kitsune? That didn't make any sense, because he didn't think they were even close to native to North America. Dragons might be natural everywhere, but kitsunes shouldn't be if he remembered his classes. It seemed a shame for it to be locked up... Rick realized what was happening a second later and shook himself. The pale fox was beautiful, but it needed to be kept where it was until the experts could take it somewhere it belonged.
"Oh, good." A young man's voice came from the side and Rick jumped as if he'd been caught doing something wrong. "I thought I might have to snap you out of it."
Standing and hefting his bag, Rick turned to find who had spoken. It was a young man who immediately struck him as family to Delsin, though he wore skinny jeans and a t-shirt with a character that looked vaguely familiar, maybe from a game Rick had never been able to afford. Realizing he was staring, Rick took a hand off the bag and offered it to shake. "Hi, I'm Rick. There wasn't anybody here when I came in."
"Yeah, we don't get many visitors." The man shook his hand and then glanced behind him. "Your, uh, delivery is leaking."
"Really?" Rick looked back and cursed under his breath when he saw that some of the blood that had yet to congeal was leaking out of the bottom point. Just recently, since it hadn't made too much of a mess of the floor, but not what he'd wanted. Was the jackalope blood acidic or something?
"If that's an animal you wanted us to take care of, I think it's a bit beyond help."
For a moment Rick stared at the unsmiling man, then he smiled despite himself. If this guy really was related to Delsin, a dry sense of humor wasn't a surprise. "I killed a lot of jackalopes. I didn't exactly have a scheduled appointment, but Delsin should have told you that I was coming."
"Oh, you're the one that Uncle Delsin mentioned?" The man looked him over, then gave an easy smile. "I'm Wemilat - please don't shorten that to anything. We actually do pay a small amount for exterminating lucrim-using pests, though not a lot. Here, come this way."
Wemilat headed out into the main room and when Rick followed, he was surprised to see a young woman emerging from the offices, wiping something dark blue off her hands on a rag - the family resemblance was again obvious. When she blinked at them curiously, Wemilat gestured between them. "Adsila, this is Rick, the one Uncle mentioned. Rick, this is my sister."
"Do the two of you run this place?" His question sounded stupid to him even a moment later, but Adsila gave him a friendly smile and replied.
"Our parents own it and handle all the business and permits and stuff, but they do leave a lot of the day to day work to us."
"Bring all your corpses over here." Wemilat moved to an empty corner and spread out a plastic tarp. As Rick began to unload the bodies, he shook his head. "Poor things. I tried to domesticate some jackalopes when I was young. Nearly lost a finger."
"Because you're a dumbass."
Wemilat scowled at his sister. "It wasn't absurd. Humanity has domesticated many of its greatest enemies."
"Those freak
s aren't animals." Adsila glanced at Rick and rolled her eyes at her brother. "Wemy here-"
"Don't call me that."
"Wemy has a huge bleeding heart for animals. I'm more interested in what can be done with these bodies, but that will come after."
"I'm so glad the Refuge isn't going to pass to you." Wemilat frowned at his sister while he tallied up all the bodies. Then the frown fell away and he smiled at Rick. "This is pretty impressive. We'll pay you 450 lucrim for exterminating the lot."
"Plus some of what we get out of it, because Uncle Delsin said we should treat you fairly."
After looking back and forth between them, trying to figure out if they actually disliked each other, Rick wasn't quite prepared to make a decision. The strange thing was, he didn't find the lucrim all that appealing. Once a bonus like that would have been a big deal, yet compared to his needs now, it didn't register that much. Now that he thought about it... "You can keep the money. Let Delsin owe me a favor."
"Oh, he's not going to like that." Adsila grinned and Wemilat scowled, but they seemed to accept his decision. "Okay, Wemy, help me move these things over for processing."
That turned out to mean getting a bin marked with a lucrim hazard sign and dumping all the bodies into it. As Rick helped, he looked over the siblings a bit more carefully. Wemilat had a generation rate of about 38,000 lucrim while Adsila's was about 32,000 lucrim, but her lucrima soul felt more polished. Maybe that had something to do with her work.
Physically, they were cut from very similar cloth as their uncle, though Adsila wore nice clothes underneath what appeared to be a lab coat. She was really pretty cute, but Rick found himself pushing that thought away. For the first time since adolescent dating in high school, he was actually in a relationship.
"Huh, this one is almost perfect..." Wemilat had found the separate bag that contained the jackalope that Emily had killed carefully and frowned at it. "Did you do this? That's very precise work."