by Tao Wong
I blinked, trying to figure out Harry’s angle here. Their angle. I knew he had meant to go speak with them, but now he sounds a little like a fan.
“Oh, they also wanted to say they were quite impressed. Fast thinking on your part, running into the building,” Harry says. “But they wanted you to know that if you don’t make yourself available to be assassinated soon, they’re going to have to take steps.”
“A threat. How novel,” I drawl.
“Just completing my part of the deal.” Harry sits up properly, looking at me seriously. “They’re not going to stop. They didn’t mention it directly, but their last job went badly. Tried too hard and well…” Harry shrugs. “Let’s just say they need a win.”
“Isn’t that a little too far?” I say, touching the table. I don’t know how he edges around his non-Combat status or what his various rules are, but what he said seems a little too pointed.
“It’s a little close,” Harry acknowledges. “About as much help as I can give. I will say that you should watch part one when I’m done.”
“Only part one?”
“Well, part two will depend on what happens. With you,” Harry says, pushing back from the table.
I chuckle but take his point. I’m sure something in his exposé will be of use. Though I’m still amused that an assassination group was willing, even happy, to do an interview. Cloak-and-dagger kind of loses its meaning if you shine a light on it. Then again, if you’re an assassin, once you’re down that road, it might be hard to find a new job. Not without some major time repairing your reputation.
I watch the reporter go and sigh, half-closing my eyes as a sudden wave of weariness washes over me. Another threat. Another fight. More loss. More death. More blood. And all I wanted to do was read. Just find an answer…
“John?” Ali’s voice cuts in, jarring me from my spiraling pity party. “Time to go. Or else you’re going to be late.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
I shake off the darkness in my mind, push it aside, and compartmentalize the feeling. Easy. So easy after so many years. Even if doing so always leave a smudge of it behind, a trace. It’s not necessarily healthy, but sometimes, all you can do is keep moving. Because the other option is stasis. And stasis is not death. Death is decay, destruction, dispersal. No, stasis is worse than death. It’s the end of everything useful or good. Just a pause without hope of rebirth or renewal. Not without breaking it, not without momentum.
A hand rises.
A Portal opens.
And the day starts.
The Portal opens back into our apartment, and Mikito walks through first. I follow, nodding goodbye to Hondo, after Ali finishes a quick check of our apartment. No lurking Master Classers, so I shut the Portal, leaving the Weaponmaster to his evening.
Three steps later, as I’m headed to grab some grub from the fridge, I get a notification. I blink, surprised to see the name, and find myself hesitating. A com-call isn’t unusual, but the caller… I push my doubts aside and take the call, smiling slightly at the redheaded beauty on the other end.
“Lana. Good timing. Just got out of the dungeon here,” I say.
“I know. I tried earlier and got a no connection signal,” Lana says. “You’re pretty busy.”
“I am. Got a bunch of newbies to Level up. There a reason for the call?”
“That hurts!” Lana says, touching her chest. “So much for staying friends…” The redhead pulls a face and long-buried emotions twinge. But only a little, because I can tell she’s teasing me. “There’re a few things I need to talk to you about for the investment business.”
“Go for it.” I know that the cost of such a long-distance call through the System’s comm networks is high. Instantaneous communication should be impossible, but so should a million other things. Though… I note that as another area to look into in the Questors’ library.
Lana quickly outlines the issues—mostly director-level stuff that I either need to grunt and assent to or rubber stamp decisions on. A good thirty minutes later, we’re done.
“See. It wasn’t so bad,” Lana says, flicking her fingers to dismiss notifications. “How have you been otherwise?”
“Not bad. Better before all this quest rubbish but…” I sigh. “But not bad.”
“Only you could say being targeted by three Master Classers is a ‘not bad’ situation,” Lana says with a roll of her eyes. “How’s Mikito?”
“Good. Do you want to talk to her?” I say, seeing an out.
“No. We’ll chat later. So…” Lana seems suddenly uncomfortable. Ever since our breakup, things have been a little more strained. Hard to find a balance, especially now that work talk is over. “Roxley asked about you. Mentioned he talked to you a few weeks ago.”
“Yeah. We caught up in the Shop. Had some loot to sell.” Silence falls between us, and I consider breaking the connection. But she’s a friend, someone I cared about. Care about. And if I don’t try, I’m not sure if we’ll ever have a relationship outside of what we were. “How’s your boy?”
“My boy?” Lana’s eyes sparkle, but she doesn’t offer a name. She knows me well enough to know that I’d promptly forget it. “He’s good. He actually moved up here. I have him running our land reclamation efforts.”
As mundane as that sounds, I know the truth behind the prosaic-sounding name. The lands we’re trying to reclaim, like infrastructure and the surroundings that connect our settlements, are areas often overrun by monsters. Dungeons have taken over important areas, like the dams in northern BC. The job is as much about fighting as it is infrastructure reconstruction.
“Good for him. And you.” Obviously things are going well. Once again, things get awkward. “So. Everyone doing well? Jason and Rachel? Their kid?”
“Kids,” Lana reminds me. Right. There’s an unborn one in there too. “They’re good. Amelia and her wife ended up adopting their third. This one’s a baby actually. Found abandoned.”
I smile, listening to the gossip. I’m grateful to hear about the mundane and dangerous lives of our friends. It’s strange to think that five years after the apocalypse, the world has begun to stabilize. A strange, violent, and different world. But more stable.
Time moves on. Two days later, I wake up to a new notification from Ali. He’s floating next to me, a bowl of popcorn in hand, watching something. Rather than answer my question, he maximizes the entire notification until it takes over my vision.
Harry’s report. It finally dropped.
The first portion of the report is background information. Harry builds the tension, discussing unsolved cases, assassinations. Occasionally there are voice-overs, the Wolves mentioning a detail or two about the case. It builds the story, informing without revealing. It’s a masterful work of directing, and I find myself drawn in.
The next portion is about the attacks, successful and not. Again and again, voices overlay footage of the battles. Sometimes its footage from after the assassination. Other times, it’s clear footage of the attack itself taken from security cameras and other nearby recording devices. In a few surprising instances, the footage comes directly from the Wolves, often from the mecha’s point of view. Or the view of the sniper scope. The Wolves speak of the attacks in a detached manner, talking of business, of their successes and their occasional failures. I soak in the details, chocolate sliding down my throat as I watch.
An Advanced Adventuring Team that broke away from their guild over a dispute over spoils. Tracked down when they left for a Dungeon World, attacked after exiting a particularly hard lair, and bodies disposed of without trace—till now. Their disappearance had been taken as a matter of course.
In Irvina, an apartment building at night in the second ring. Home to the vice president of Jimee Artifacts. Security bypassed by the Machine Lord. Space Locked by the Space Lord. The Titan Spawn enters with another, and they kill everyone in the building, splashing the walls with blood and covering the floor with viscera. Long before the Skills fail, befo
re security can react, the Wolves are gone in their gunship. Only a single son lives, the eldest, who was on a school trip with friends to a pleasure planet. Cut off-screen to an interview with a security consultant who discusses some of the ensuing security upgrades in both the second and third rings.
The Weez Guild, an up-and-coming Artisan guild. Built like a cooperative, with an extremely low overhead. Set up in the seventh ring. This time, no Space Lock is required to seal the guild headquarters. Instead, the low-slung building is engulfed in a firestorm, a Space Prison, and Dimensional Shards. The destruction is complete, and the guild disperses the next day.
Successes. More successes than failures. And then, their last mission before mine.
An attack on Kalidia, the Heroic Wendigo of the Beast Plans. The initial attack goes well. Space Locks keep out trouble. A Dimensional Lock stops Kalidia from fleeing. A plasma cannon fires upon the Hero, peeling away a quarter of her life. Immediately, her health regenerates at a visible level, but the Titan Scion and two other Wolves appear, moving to suppress her regeneration as the mage pelts her. Magical restraints, web grenades, and abyssal chains are all used to slow down Kalidia. It works. Until it doesn’t.
The video shorts out then, the view growing blurry. The entire view pulls back, clearing up some of the graininess. In the video, things boil out from the ground, from the sky, cracking open space itself. Inky, two-dimensional figures crawl and squirm into the air, pulling down the Wolves. The fire mage goes down first, its slug-like body torn to shreds as one of the creatures crawls into its body from its mouth. The Wendigo pulls another fighter close, using their mouth to tear open their chest as it feasts. The Wolves fall back, forming up around the Space Mage. She dismisses her Space Lock and recreates it, forming a protective barrier. Long enough for them to disappear, but not before leaving another of theirs behind.
Leaving only the three Master Classers. And an abject failure on their record.
The documentary moves on to a wider perspective. Of the effects and uses of such teams in the Galaxy, interviews with past victims and the individuals who have left, escaping the dangers of Galactic Society and the threat of such groups. I soak in the information and let my mind turn over the documentary.
Days later, the Portal opens back into our apartment and Mikito walks through first. I follow and, surprisingly, so does Hondo. It’s unusual for the man to follow us after a dungeon run. I tilt my head, letting the Portal disappear even as a ping arrives from Katherine. At her request, I open a new Portal, one that allows in her stream of bodyguards before the Ambassador walks in herself.
Immediately, it’s clear that something is wrong. Katherine looks haggard, her normally perfectly coiffed hair disturbed, stray locks escaping a tightly wound bun. There’s a frown on her face, and her eyes are red-rimmed and grief-laden.
“Beer. Now.”
Ali flies off to the fridge and grabs cases of Apocalypse Ale while Katherine sits down.
“What is it?” I ask softly.
“They hit Earth.”
My chest clenches, squeezing air out of my lungs, and Mikito lets out a little gasp. Too shocked to speak, I wait for Katherine to continue.
“A half dozen cities. Ten towns. And we’re still trying to get the numbers on the villages. All attacked. Civilians. Adventurers. Combat Classers. Everyone was a target. They went after our people too, with numerous assassination attempts.”
“Lana? Roxley?” I ask. “The others?”
“Roxley is fine. They didn’t touch him or the Duchess’s holdings,” Katherine says. “Lana was injured, but she’s fine now. Shadow saved her while Roland and Howard finished her attackers. Rachel…” She coughed, her face freezing. “They hurt her. And the child. She miscarried.”
I freeze, pain for my friend, for their loss, engulfing me. It cuts deep, opening old wounds. So many losses. And I realize this time, it’s my fault. If I hadn’t pushed for this, if I had just done the job without adding my stupid little flare to it. Without deciding to poke Galactic Society and its stupid notions in the nose. If I had just stopped when they told me to.
“Who else?” I ask softly.
“Aiden’s fighting for his life. He was hit with a parasite that’s fighting to take over his body. Last we heard, he’s comatose. They can’t extract it, not easily. They intend to move him into the Shop, but there are complications,” Katherine says softly. “They killed Rae. Rob nearly died. They took out half of his security group. If the Champions hadn’t teleported in…” Katherine shuddered, shaking her head.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my eyes closing. Damn it. I knew our security was less than adequate. Especially compared to many of these older, more secure states. I knew we needed time to get built up. But I never thought they’d attack us on Earth. Here, sure. But Earth… “Has Rob changed his mind?”
“I don’t know,” Katherine answers, her arms crossing. “He’s dealing with Earth and the representatives. Dealing with the attacks.”
Mikito grabs a bottle of beer and pops off the cap. She shoves the alcohol toward Katherine then opens another for herself. Ali stares at the bottles before he opens one for himself and me. I watch as he floats the bottle over before I snatch it from the air and down the bottle. Eyeing the two cases on the table, I twist my lips slightly. I glance toward Ali and the Spirit bobs his head, eyes unfocusing as he puts in an order for delivery. We’re going to need a heck of a lot more alcohol.
This. This could change everything. But I’m too tired, too hurt to think about it. So I sit, and for tonight at least, I drink with my friends for the memory of what we lost. Around us, Hondo and the guards watch.
Night turns to day. Katherine doesn’t leave our apartment as the day drags on. She stays for safety, for comfort, for convenience. We get information in dribs and drabs, news arriving via Galactic news services and, later on, Harry.
The attack was shocking, it was painful, but it was, thankfully, a single-day affair. There are no follow-up attacks, no expenditure of even more lives. Katherine believes it is because they want us to reconsider, for those who lost something in the attack to pressure Rob and Katherine to stop. Representative Oria calls, speaks a little with Katherine, then leaves, promising help and security. For a price.
When the news explodes across the city, things truly heat up on the political front. I end up porting Katherine back to her office, where her staff are already hard at work. Harried staffers shift video calls around, doing their best to appease those on the line. The calls are varied in tone and message. Peter watches over the entire dance, making note of each missive.
Some are the usual messages of condolences. Those are noted and marked into the friendly column.
Others are condolences with threats. Those Peter sends to a few well-fortified and cold staffers who handle them with simple efficiency.
Offers of help for a price are sorted to another group, the harried staffers making quick notes and adding to the growing column of potential resources we can draw upon.
The buzz builds and builds, and I watch silently from my corner as the ambassador is swamped, doing her best to stay ahead of the questions. She handles those few groups willing to offer help without price first, and after that, the ones offering help at a price. Because we need them.
I watch in silence, pain and loss turning slowly to rage.
At myself for putting my friends, and others, in a position where they could be attacked. It’s unfair to them and to myself. But feelings are not fair.
And my anger is not just internal. It soon turns toward the corporations and sects who felt the need to push things to this extent. At our allies who are willing to stand aside, allowing us to get hammered while they pick up the benefits. And at the vultures, the many, many vultures, who just want a piece of the fallout.
Anger wraps me in a comforting blanket, allowing me to stew in its comforting burn rather than feel the grief that threatens to eat me alive. But anger without action is the senseless bragging
of a fallen monkey god. In time, I push from the wall, turning to leave.
Katherine doesn’t see, but Hondo, who has been standing by, does. He follows me out of the room and through the Portal home. Mikito’s sitting on a couch in our living room, legs crossed, clad in full battle armor. She looks up when I come through, her eyes flat, cold, and deadly as the arctic winds.
“Are we going?” Mikito asks.
“You knew?” Knew what I was going to do. Knew my reaction.
“Of course.”
“What exactly are you planning?” Hondo says.
“I’m taking the Wolves up on their challenge. And then after that, I’m going to take the bounties on their heads and use it to find who, exactly, assigned the hits. Then I’m going to see how they like having assassins sent after them,” I say heatedly.
“This is a bad idea.”
“You don’t have to come,” I say to Hondo while turning to look at Mikito. “Suggestions?”
Rather than answer me directly, Mikito sends over a map. It’s a location well outside the rings of Irvina, in the middle of nowhere. A location outside of the jurisdiction of anyone who could stop this fight. Or who would want to. Rolling hills. Forests.
In other words, perfect.
“It’ll do.”
Mikito hops up, swinging her naginata onto her shoulder. Harry comes running out of his room, a trio of floating camera droids joining him. I raise an eyebrow and he puts his hands together as if begging. But there is no humor in his eyes, no matter his actions.
“Make the call.”
Harry’s face twitches, but he nods, his eyes glazing over. Ali does the same, lips compressed as he gets things ready. Hondo lets out a loud huff, but he doesn’t gainsay our actions. Perhaps he’s tired of waiting too.