One of the two men who had been up on the roof with him, the one who had puked, called out. “Trust me, you don’t want that. Damn that was nasty.” His buddy elbowed him in the gut, gently.
Cursing under his breath, Kyle started toward the door. As he passed a crate with several looted guns sitting on it, he reached down to take one. Allistor cast Restraint on him, and he froze with his hand just inches from a rifle.
“Those are our guns. I didn’t say you could take one. Did you just try to steal from me?” He turned to Fuzzy, who was already looking up at him with a cubby grin on his furry face. “Fuzzy, escort this man out of here, please.” He watched as his grizzly cub walked up and thoroughly sniffed the still frozen man, then growled.
“Kyle, Fuzzy will not hurt you as long as you keep walking.” Allistor warned.
A few seconds later when the stun wore off, instead of walking away, Kyle made a grab for the weapon. He took hold of the rifle and thrust it at Fuzzy, clubbing him in the head with the rifle butt. The cub’s health bar dropped a small amount. Fuzzy yelped in pain, then roared. He lunged forward even as Kyle was turning the weapon to aim it at him. Clamping his jaws down on one wrist, he shook his head back and forth. Even as a juvenile, a grizzly has impressive neck musculature. The action snapped the man’s wrist, causing him to scream. He dropped the rifle and began to try and run, pulling at his injured arm with his other hand, attempting to get free. “Stop! Stop! I’ll go! Call him off!”
Fuzzy pulled back, and blood began to spray from the man’s wounds. When Kyle uttered a wordless scream and tugged even harder, Fuzzy let go. The man stumbled backward, falling on his butt and crying as he tried to stop the bleeding by clamping his hand over the wound. Fuzzy stepped forward and placed a paw on his chest, turning to look at Allistor.
Before giving the bear permission to eat Kyle’s face, Allistor turned to the crowd. “You all witnessed what happened here. I can let Fuzzy finish him, or heal him and send him away. I’ll let all of you decide.” He paused as Kyle shouted something angry and unintelligible.
“Raise your hand if you think I should let him go.” Allistor looked around, and a good number of hands went up. He thought it was probably a majority.
“Looks like it’s your lucky day, asshole.” Allistor turned back to the prone and crying man. He cast Restore on the man, and watched his bleeding slow as Fuzzy stepped back.
When the wound had healed, and the man stopped weeping, Allistor said, “Get on your feet.”
Kyle sullenly stood, glaring at Allistor with open hatred now. But for once he kept his mouth shut. Allistor pointed to the door again. “Not only are you a complete dick, but you attacked my bear when you had the option to just walk away in peace. For that, I declare you an enemy.” There were murmurs among his people as a red dot appeared on their interfaces. From the zoned-out gaze, he guessed that Kyle was suddenly seeing a few hundred red dots in front of him as well. “You will leave here right now. You will walk as far away as you can. Or run. Ride a bike. I don’t care. If I or any of my people come across you again, you will be shot on sight, and if you survive the gunshot you will be fed to Fuzzy. In gamer terms, you are now KoS to my people. That includes all of my people, everywhere. So I wouldn’t head toward Cheyenne if I were you. Or Denver, because I’m headed there next. In fact, any Stronghold you see within a couple hundred miles of here is likely to be mine, so you should avoid them all. Go find a cave to hide in, and think about how you got yourself in this position. Or, not.”
Allistor turned his back on the man, and Fuzzy growled menacingly. There was the sound of rapid footsteps, then the word, “Asshole!” drifted in from somewhere outside, nearly drowned out by the applause inside.
Moira stepped up and said, “That guy was a total ass-hat from day one. Good riddance.”
Allistor shook his head, still angry but also sad. “I hate doing that. But that asshole practically demanded it. I tried to give him a chance, more than once. Waste of a human life.” He suspected Kyle would ignore his warnings and try to get into one of his properties at some point. If he survived that long. But Allistor couldn’t have that kind of toxicity among his people.
The rest of the day was spent rounding up as many vehicles as possible to transport everyone back to the Stadium. While folks went out foraging for vehicles and supplies, Allistor took a little time to beef up the Outpost. At first, he considered abandoning it, since it had served its purpose. But with all the useful materials and supplies gathered there, he couldn’t resist keeping it. So he put a wall around both warehouses, added in water, electricity, and the remote gate access.
As he was taking an informal inventory of all the materials, Bob approached him. “Got a minute?”
“Of course. What’s up?”
“I’m looking at all this building material, and I can’t help but think of things we could build with it. I have the Carpentry skill, and Builder as well. I did some puttering around when this all started, finished building a shed I’d started in the back yard. I’ve always loved building things, especially out of wood.”
Allistor opened his interface and gave Bob full access to the Outpost, then designated him as one of his Advisors, giving him access to all the facilities. Bob smiled as he saw the notifications pop up on his interface.
“You are officially my Superintendent of Building Stuff.” Allistor patted the man on the shoulder. “We’ll come up with a fancy title later.”
Bob chuckled. “I like that one. Superintendent of Building Stuff. Virginia will be so proud.” He looked around. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to spend the night here. Maybe leave me a few volunteers to secure the place? That way I can go through everything and make an inventory-”
He paused as Nigel’s voice came to them from out of nowhere. “Pardon me, Lord Allistor, Superintendent Bob. But I have compiled a complete inventory of every item in this facility, as well as all the others. I can provide a verbal accounting, or display a list directly to your interfaces. If you create a Pedestal at this facility, I can also offer a three-dimensional holo-display of the grounds and the inventory items in their current location.”
“Ha! I like this Nigel fella!” Bob grinned at Allistor. “That would have taken me days to accomplish. Just the list, I mean. A map would take a week.”
Allistor quickly led Bob to one of the offices in a corner of the building. He used his interface to raise a pedestal, then showed Bob how it worked, asking Nigel to display both the inventory list and the 3D map. Bob played with it for few minutes, shaking his head. “Maybe this new world’s not all bad. Can I access this same display back home?”
Allistor smiled at his use of the word, ‘home’. Having this man that he already trusted claiming the Stadium as his home gave Allistor a surge of hope. “I’ll raise a pedestal in the conference room so you can access it. There will be one at every facility.”
“Then I don’t need to stay here tonight.” He clapped his hands together. “Wait till I tell Virginia about all this!” He paused, then added, “It might still be a good idea to leave some guards here. Like, all the time. So this stuff doesn’t get stolen.”
Allistor agreed. An hour later when nearly everyone was gathered together near a whole fleet of vehicles outside, he asked for volunteers. Surprisingly, several dozen of the prisoners offered to stay. As did some of the fighters he’d brought with him.
Jeremy’s mother, whose name Allistor had forgotten to ask, approached him shyly. “Thank you, for sparing me and for finding Jeremy.” She stepped forward and gave him a brief and awkward hug. “We’d like to stay here for a little while, if it’s safe.” She looked out through the nearby loading dock door at the new wall outside. “It is safe, right? Even outside the building?” She looked at Allistor, her eyes questioning. “Like, even the trailers?”
Allistor was intrigued by the odd question. “Nothing will spawn inside the walls, if that’s what you’re asking… I’m sorry, I forgot to ask your name before.” Sever
al of the semi trailers were now within that perimeter.
She nodded, her face relaxing considerably. “I’m Cindy. It’s just that… you know they had most of us sleeping in the trailers?” She waited for him to nod. “Well the other day one of those octopoid things spawned inside a trailer. There were a dozen people asleep in there. The screaming…” She gulped visibly. “By the time the guards unlocked the doors and let them out, there were only four still alive.”
Allistor reached out and set a hand on her shoulder. “You sure you wouldn’t feel safer at the Stadium?”
She shook her head. “When Barden first captured us, it was Jeremy, my husband, and me. We had actually been camped here with a few others when he decided he wanted this place. My husband was killed in the fight. We… we buried him in a small yard not too far from here. I’d like to stay close to him a little longer, if that’s okay. Visit him once in a while.”
“Of course. You’re welcome to stay here as long as this place remains. I can’t guarantee that’ll be forever.”
She nodded. “That’s fine. Thank you.” She hugged him again, more warmly this time, then took hold of Jeremy and walked away.”
They worked out who would be staying, made sure to leave enough food and other supplies to last at least a week, as well as a healthy supply of weapons and ammunition, then rounded up everyone and everything and hit the road.
The return trip was much faster, as they could drive the whole distance and not worry about stealth. Someone had found a working Mack semi truck and they’d been able to hook up one of the trailers and fill it with both supplies and people. Still, darkness was falling as the Stadium gates opened to receive them. As before, everyone inside showed up to help welcome the newcomers and get them situated. Meg and Sam had supervised the cooking of a delicious meal with plenty for everyone. The rest of the evening was spent in quiet enjoyment of the food, the company, and the security of the safe zone.
Chapter 6
Steak Does A Body Good
Over the next week, Allistor focused on organizing and strengthening his people. More ambassadors were sent out from the Stadium and from the Citadel in search of survivors to bring into the fold. The former prisoners were interviewed, and everyone began receiving assignments based on their skills or preferences. Allistor purchased a few more scrolls to help, but the majority of the training boosts they gave people came from Ramon and his fellow scribes. They were working around the clock creating copies of spells and skill scrolls to pass out.
Through the week, several more groups in Laramie joined up, and by the tenth day after Allistor shot Barden, he had just over fifteen hundred citizens. The population at the Warren was now close to three hundred, there were five hundred plus at the Citadel, fifty at the Silo, a hundred more at the Warehouse Outpost, and five hundred at the Stadium.
Allistor had decided against placing a teleport pad at the Stadium. There were enough residents there to defend the place, and his people were clearing the road between Cheyenne and Laramie. Hunting parties of five or six were working their way along the route and gaining both experience and meat by hunting the various monsters living nearby.
Bob had convinced Allistor not to waste system points or klax on construction within the walls, and had recruited a group of twenty-five men and women to become his crew. He had carpenters, plumbers, and electricians, as well as three stone masons who were newly trained in Masonry via scrolls that Allistor purchased on the market.
After making use of Nigel’s ability to inventory everything in all the facilities, some interesting discoveries were made. Sam and Meg took a truck and drove back to the Warren, stopping at the Gun Shop Outpost on the way. Allistor authorized Sam to access the warehouse area in the back, where he picked up two more of the uber-expensive Barrett .50s as well as some shoulder rocket launchers, grenade launchers, three belt-fed 5.56 LMG’s, crates of grenades of multiple kinds, and even some Claymores.
But the thing he’d been sent for, the thing that had made them sit up and take notice when they saw Nigel’s inventory, was a pair of belt-fed, tripod mounted HMGs. Specifically, the Grandfather, the Centurion, Ma Deuce, the ever-reliable Browning M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun. Sam and Allistor were calling it the BFG.
The gold standard since WWI, the simple, durable, reliable design of the weapon made it unnecessary to alter it in any significant way. Thus, the ones Sam found in the back room of the Gun Shop were very nearly identical to the first one manufactured more than a century before. The only real change being that it had modified replaceable barrels, which Sam found a dozen of in a crate nearby. The barrel replacements were necessary because the rate of fire heated the barrels after a period of continual usage. There were also ten thousand rounds of various types, including armor piercing, incendiary, and tracer rounds.
These guns could be mounted atop a wall and used to take down monsters like the giant tortoise, the void titan, or attacking dragons. Unlike the one-shot sniper rifles, the belt-fed M2’s could lay down a maximum of five hundred rounds per minute with an experienced two-man crew. In normal use though, one would fire in short bursts and no more than fifty to a hundred rounds per minute. Because the rounds were meant to penetrate. And what they hit, died. These were guns that were used against trucks, planes, armored vehicles, and buildings.
Sam actually did a little dance when he located the two guns. Meg shook her head as he hugged one of them, and spoke to it. “Hello there darlin’. Daddy’s ‘bout to take you home. He’s gonna oil you up and take real good care of you.”
“You old pervert.” Meg chuckled, prompting him to turn toward her with his most innocent face. “Don’t stand there trying to seduce it. We’ve got places to be. Load them on the truck and let’s go.”
They weren’t the only ones traveling the roads. George and Nancy returned to Cheyenne, then teleported to the Warren. From there they loaded up one of the RVs and a panel truck with supplies and took a group of twenty up to Luther’s Stronghold near Denver. They found it still locked, though there was evidence someone had been inside and searched the place.
They unloaded and got comfortable for a day, with George claiming the Stronghold in Allistor’s name since Luther had been killed, then making some minor modifications using the system. He added a large greenhouse, an underground level, and the sensor system. The following day they returned to the RV lot and brought back five of them. One for selling on the market, and the other four for traveling between Strongholds. They also took the panel truck and a couple of the Humvees up to the train wreck where they did a more thorough search of the box cars. George agreed with Sam about not risking the unstable pile of Howitzer rounds, but they discovered crates of fully automatic assault rifles, forty in total. There were six more of the belt-fed LMGs along with crates of both 5.56 and .50 cal ammunition, and oil-filled barrels with spare parts. They found uniforms of all sizes, more than a hundred of them. Crates of MREs, pallets of empty canteens, two dozen heavy canvas tents large enough to sleep six each, and an entire car filled with pre-packed parachutes. George grabbed a couple dozen of those just for kicks, thinking they’d make nice hammocks, or the silk-like material and cords could be used for something. But, by far, George’s favorite find was a straw-packed crate filled with bottles of brandy.
As they approached the gates with their loot, they met up with a second wave of folks coming from the Warren. A total of a hundred people took up residence in the Stronghold, which they named Luther’s Landing. Allistor had asked that they reopen the Stronghold, and planned to put a teleport pad there, at least temporarily, as it was a two-day trip from the Warren, a full day from Cheyenne, and a good staging area for their venture into Denver. George opted to remain there for a while, with most of the original inhabitants and a few new faces. He wanted to get the greenhouse set up, and spend some time with the folks there.
After spending another day assisting George with the setup of the greenhouse, Nancy returned to the Warren with the convoy
of RVs. She’d been away from Chloe for most of a week, and was anxious to get back to her rambunctious little girl. They stopped at Cheyenne on the way to drop off three of the RVs, taking the last one the rest of the way to the Warren.
The folks with the Animal Husbandry skill, along with the cowboys and sheep herders from Laramie were sent to the Citadel where Dean took over supervision of the group. They used the few horses that Dean’s group already had to locate and capture more, until they had a mount and a replacement for each of them. Then they proceeded out to round up cattle.
Allistor had expected a few hundred head, which they could use for both breeding and for a food supply to supplement their hunting and farming. When the cowboys came back with over five hundred head of cattle, some milk cows, goats, a dozen pigs, and sixty sheep, there was no way they could stay inside the walls of the Citadel. So Allistor had to improvise.
Returning to Cheyenne with Helen and Fuzzy, he rode the elevator up to the top and climbed to the roof of the tower. Surveying the grounds around the Citadel, he saw what George had mentioned – there was not a lot of space on the plateau outside the walls. Such a large herd of livestock needed significant grazing land, as well as shelter from storms and the cold in the winter.
He’d created a large barn inside the walls at the Stadium before he left, and Bob and his crew were building a corral. The space would be large enough for fifty or so cattle and other critters. An emergency food supply in case of siege.
That wasn’t going to work at the Citadel. And Allistor couldn’t think of a structure large enough to hold that many beasts. His solution came as he was thinking about where to construct a barn at the Warren. He remembered the large underground area they’d started with, and he had his answer!
The Citadel sat upon a raised plateau that the system had created when he’d upgraded the shopping mall. The front of the plateau, the part facing the main gate, featured a switchback road that sloped from the level of the rest of the city up to the gates. Allistor turned toward the back wall and the land beyond to the north.
Shadow Sun Expansion Page 11