by Wyatt Kane
Enhancer 3
By Wyatt Kane
Copyright © 2018 Wyatt Kane, All Rights Reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Also by Wyatt Kane
Time Master
Enhancer 1 and 2 (ebook)
Enhancer 1 and 2 (audiobook)
CONTENTS
Title Page
1: Same Shit, Different Outcome
2: Game Over
3: Showing Off
4: Knock, Knock
5: Tanking Hits
6: Pain
7: Restoring Health
8: Friend Request
9: Fruit Cupcakes
10: Unified Field Control
11: Bubbles and Drool
12: The Master’s Fury
13: Taking Control
14: Insecurity
15: Modding Gear
16: An Incoming Call
17: Slow Connection Speed
18: Episode Recap
19: What Could Go Wrong?
20: Speedy Exit
21: Lilith’s Skill
22: Plans
23: Déjà vu
24: Massive
25: Burn Ward
26: Gloating and Threats
27: Visitor
28: Skill Check
29: Unexpected Delight
30: Second Course
31: Dessert
32: Desperate Times
33: The Dotted Line
34: AZT-407
35: An Adverse Reaction
36: Payment
37: Buzz
38: Ty Supercharged
39: A Gamer’s Voice
40: A Plea For Help
41: Unexpected Interlude
42: Plant
43: Endgame
44: A Satisfying Conclusion
45: The Master’s Message
Author’s Note
1: Same Shit, Different Outcome
Ty Wilcox stood just inside the main room of the Concubine Club and waited for his eyes to adjust to the flickering gloom.
He didn’t want to be there. He hated every dark corner of the place with a passion he’d kept buried until recently. The thick stench of alcoholic vapor and sticky floors were like the setting for a nightmare tailored to him. Combined with the migraine-inducing strobe lights and incessant pounding of blended techno-punk music, it was enough to make him feel sick to his stomach.
It was as if Ty’s very bones rebelled at his setting foot in the place. He’d done his time there. Paid his dues in full, cleaning up spills, vomit, and very much worse, until the cloying stench and oppressive foulness of the place were as familiar as his own heartbeat.
Yet despite the familiarity, just at that moment, the Concubine Club felt surprisingly alien as well. It had been two full days and a lifetime ago since he’d last entered the building. Two days since Angie the Hutt had fired him for skipping out on his shift without saying a word.
Ty would have happily avoided the club for the rest of his life. But the realities of existence were forcing his hand. He had bills to pay and couldn’t see many options for paying them.
“Shit on a sandwich!” came a voice from behind him. “If it isn’t Ty Wilcox. You’ve got some nerve coming back here!”
It was a voice made for scorn and derision. Ty recognized it immediately. He closed his eyes and deflated a little. To him, it was a voice carved out of venom and spite. The exact, diametric opposite of anything nurturing or kind, it was as savage as a screech. Fingernails on a blackboard would have been easier to listen to.
Ty drew a deep breath. In the past few days, he had fought armed mercenaries and gone toe-to-toe with a monstrous villain who made the Rock in his prime look pathetic and weak. He was better prepared than ever to stand up to the speaker without blinking. Yet he still didn’t look forward to it.
With bile rising in his throat in anticipation, he turned to face his ongoing minor nemesis, Angie the Hutt.
If life was a game, she would be the annoying enemy Ty had to face to gain quick XP. She was an obese, slug-like woman who had modified her skin to a greenish color, and she couldn’t hide her glee that Ty was there. It was like she had been presented with a free chocolate cake and didn’t have to share.
“Did you not get the message I left you?” the foul woman said with an exuberant grin. She stepped in close and thrust her quivering chins into Ty’s personal space. “I thought it was clear, but you never struck me as particularly bright, so perhaps a reminder would help. I said you are fired! As in, you are no longer required. You need not come to work because you have no work to come to. You have no business being here at all, and your lingering presence is an unfunny joke I don’t have to suffer any more.”
The repulsive woman surged even closer to Ty. Her breath carried a hint of rot, a fitting metaphor for her cankerous soul. Angie grinned at him in utter delight and looked him up and down. Before Ty could muster a suitable response, the loathsome woman continued.
“I get it,” she said, as if in sudden understanding. “I know why you’re here. You did get my message after all. You know I fired you. You’re here to beg me to reconsider!”
The look she gave him was triumphant and gloating, and Ty despised her for it.
He thought back to every horrible thing the woman had done during his time at the club. Not just to him, but to the other workers as well. She was like an infectious cancer spreading her own brand of poison and vitriol around her with enthusiasm, paying no heed to the damage she did.
And Ty had had enough. He’d suffered her maliciousness for too long and saw no reason why he should continue to do so. Sure, he needed the money, and it had been his plan to ask her to reconsider. But right then, as he studied her smug and gleeful expression, he knew it would do him no good.
Angie the Hutt excelled at tormenting others. She lived for a perverse sort of adulation, and took obscene delight in exercising whatever power she had in the worst possible way.
She would never give Ty his job back. She would make him beg and jump through hoops like a trained puppy, but in the end, she would laugh in his face and tell him that her initial judgment stood. Or she would string him along, dangling a carrot in front of his nose. Maybe she would tell him to come back in a week and ask again, when he was truly desperate.
Angie didn’t know it, but Ty was already truly desperate. He had bills to pay, a student loan that wasn’t getting any smaller, and an unexpected repair bill to his apartment wall that he didn’t want to think about.
But he was not the same Ty of even a week ago. He had leveled up. He had gained self-respect.
This was real life. To gain quick XP, he had to do more than just show up. He needed to defeat the monster.
Ty decided he would find some other way to pay his bills. Instead of starting to babble or beg as Angie expected, Ty found himself grinning.
“What would be the point?” he began. Angie’s expression didn’t change. She was as yet unaware that she had mistaken a pit bull for a mouse, and had no clue what Ty was planning.
“It would just reinforce that you can treat people like shit and they’ll keep coming back for more. The funny thing is there’s even some truth in that. You know it, and in fact you live it. It’s what you enjoy most. But here’s the thing: treating
people like shit doesn’t make you better than them. It makes you worse. Life is hard enough already, and all you’re doing is adding to the misery.”
As Ty spoke, Angie’s gloating expression turned into one of shocked disbelief. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open.
Ty didn’t give her the chance to respond. He’d bottled up his distaste for her viciousness for too long, and there was no better time to unleash than right then.
“Your small-minded pettiness is unnecessary. It’s like stepping in a fresh pile of dog shit at the end of a cold, miserable day. It’s not even good for business. Do you understand how much more willing people would be to put in the effort if they liked you? If they trusted that you would treat them fairly?”
Angie’s mouth snapped shut. Her eyes were starting to bulge from their sockets. In the flickering gloom of the club, it wasn’t easy to make out the color of her skin, but Ty thought he could see blotches of red starting here and there within the green of her face.
She was starting to convert her shock into rage.
But Ty didn’t care. There were things that needed to be said, that Angie the Hutt needed to hear them. And if his words could lead to a change for the better, he was more than happy to speak.
“Here’s something you don’t seem to understand. People have limits. You can’t push them around forever. When you reach that limit, all the humiliation and hurt you’ve inflicted on them will come back to you as hate and anger. And you’ll deserve every last ounce of it.”
Ty took a moment to study the hideous woman. He could see that she was nearly apoplectic with fury. He figured that she was moments from starting to shriek, and wondered if his words would have any real impact at all.
Nevertheless, he had more to say. “I had planned to talk to you about getting my job back. But you know what? I can handle cleaning grease traps and toilets and puddles of vomit. But none of that compares to putting up with you! I’m not doing it any more. Clean your own shitty toilets. It’s not worth my while.”
Ty didn’t even give her the chance to respond. He just turned and walked away as soon as he stopped speaking.
It didn’t stop her. “Don’t you turn away from me! How dare you?” she spluttered behind him, but Ty wasn’t interested. He was done with her and done with this place.
Yet speaking with Angie wasn’t his only goal in coming to the club. There was another opportunity he wanted to track down. The club DJ, Martin, had mentioned a cousin who might be able to use someone with Ty’s skills.
It was a lead he would be foolish to ignore. The New Lincoln job market was far from robust, and Ty needed money. He knew better than most that without formal qualifications he would be hard pressed to find work no matter his skill. He knew there was value in what he could do, but hadn’t yet figured out how best to leverage it.
Unfortunately, Ty’s speech had done little to dampen Angie’s vindictiveness. Ty could hear her screeching and wailing over the beat of the music and the babble of the crowd. He understood the loathsome woman’s anger, but had underestimated her spitefulness and willingness to act upon it.
Embedded communications devices were more common than smartphones. Despite her deranged ranting, Angie retained enough self-control to use hers to call for help.
Before Ty made it half way to his goal, he found his way blocked by a large, tough-looking man with tribal facial tattoos. It was Badger, one of the club’s bouncers.
The big man gave Ty a friendly grin. “Hey man. How’s it hanging?”
Even though he knew Badger was there for him, Ty grinned in response. The man was his friend regardless of what Angie might have said to him.
“Same shit, different day,” Ty said with a laugh. “You know, Angie doing her best to make life miserable. Although she won’t be able to do that to me anymore.”
2: Game Over
Ty looked around the club one last time. From where he stood, he could see Martin doing his thing in his booth. He didn’t regret saying what he’d said to Angie, didn’t regret that his chances of ever working in the club again were minimal. But he would have liked to talk to Martin before Angie had found him.
“Game over, I guess,” he said.
Badger shook his head in mock surprise and disappointment. “What have you done?” he asked.
But Ty didn’t have to answer. Angie the Hutt had come up behind him and was continuing to spew bile and venom his way.
“You think you can talk that way to me and get away with it?” she demanded. “You disrespectful little shit! Ty Wilcox, you have always been next to worthless. I don’t know why I hired you in the first place. You’re lazy and slow, and I’ve seen blocks of wood display more initiative than you! If I had the chance to go back in time, there’s only one thing I’d change. I’d turn you away instead of giving you a chance. You are by far the worst mistake I’ve ever made!”
With Badger effectively blocking his way, Ty had no choice but to listen to the loathsome woman’s tirade. Before his life had changed, Ty might have cowered under her venom and spite. But now, her words were meaningless to him. He’d made his decision, and every word Angie uttered was further proof it was the right one.
As she drew breath to continue, Ty stepped in. “If I’m the worst mistake you’ve ever made, you must have led a charmed life,” he said. “Anyway, I don’t think I was that bad. I did everything you asked and then some. I didn’t complain, I didn’t take any unnecessary time off, and you’ve said yourself that the gaming machines were always working. But even more than that, I put up with your shit far longer than anyone in their right mind would have done.”
Ty took a moment to eye the repulsive woman up and down. “I sincerely hope that one day you get to experience the same type of boss that you’ve been to us. Maybe then you’ll figure out that you don’t need to be such a bitch.”
Angie didn’t seem to be able to handle the fact that Ty had spoken back. She spluttered for some moments before regaining control of herself. When she did, she drew herself up to her full height and glared at him in true anger.
“That is enough!” she said. “I’m done with you! Even if you got down on the floor and begged, I wouldn’t give you your job back! You are done here! Badger, do me a favor and escort this waste of space from the premises!”
Ty’s eyes were drawn to the way the thick flesh under her chin wobbled as she spoke. It was like the pouch of a pelican if it was filled with water. In the flickering light of the club, Ty could see flecks of spittle spray left and right.
Despite the woman’s anger, Ty couldn’t help but grin. He knew that if he wanted to, he could stand his ground and not even Badger would have been able to move him. Ty still wore his upgraded shield. If he chose to activate it, it would enclose him in a glowing blue nimbus of power that gave him the strength of a superhero.
Yet he wouldn’t do that. Badger was his friend. And he saw no reason to make his life any more difficult than it already was.
“I’m more than happy to leave,” Ty said. “And if I never see you again, it’ll be too soon. Good luck finding a replacement for me. I’m sure you’re right, and that there are probably a million guys in this city who could do what I did. But maybe you should know that I could also have upgraded everything in this club, from the heat and lighting through to the automated drink dispensers. I could have helped you save thousands, and all you needed to do was ask me nicely. And I doubt there’s anyone else in the city who could have done that.”
Ty shrugged. “Oh well. Too late now,” he said. With that, he turned to Badger. “Come along,” he said. “You’re my escort, apparently.”
The big man had watched the exchange between Ty and Angie with obvious interest. At Ty’s final words, he stifled a laugh and gave a short nod. But Angie hadn’t finished even then. As the two of them made their way through the club, she started to shout.
“How dare you? If it weren’t for me, you’d be living on the streets! You’d have to donate blood to survi
ve! It’s only because I gave you a chance that you had anything! Get out! Go! I never want to see your worthless face in these walls again!”
The loathsome woman’s voice turned into a shriek by the end. Ty ignored her and just kept on walking, while Badger tried not to laugh at his side.
<<<>>>
The pavement outside the Concubine Club was mostly empty, although Ty knew from experience it would become crowded as the late afternoon turned into night.
It was another of New Lincoln’s gray, dismal days, just a whisper away from starting to drizzle. Ty glanced at the sleek, black Ducati he’d arrived on, just checking that it was still where he’d parked it.
The bike belonged to Dinah. Ty had borrowed it even though he could have asked Tempest for a lift. The blonde superhero would have been happy to help, and Ty enjoyed flying with her over virtually anything else. But he had a stubborn, independent streak to his nature and preferred to make his own way where he could.
Sooner or later, he would give himself the ability to fly as well, and that would be even better. For now, though, he was limited to more normal modes of transport.
“So that’s it?” Badger asked.
The bouncer had been true to Angie’s demands and had walked Ty out of the club. Despite this, there was no threat toward Ty within him. They had left the club like friends rather than as if Ty was being thrown out.
Ty grinned. “I guess so,” he said. “I have to say, I thought I would be worried about not having a job. But I feel more relief than anything else.”
The bigger man returned Ty’s grin. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought of just not turning up. Sure, I need the money. Who doesn’t? But I can do without the … well, without everything else.”
It was as close as the big man had come to saying anything negative, and Ty was surprised to hear his words. Despite his appearance and undeniable capabilities, Badger was a marshmallow by nature. Paradoxically, Ty thought that made him a better bouncer. Badger had diffused as many volatile situations with a calming word as he had with his fists.