Apocalypse: Fairy System

by Macronomicon

  I wonder if I can get some new rings. I wonder if they would work. Jeb’s stat rings had simply stopped working after the powwow with the gods themselves. They’d been little more than paperweights by the time he’d gotten back to the real world.

  They had funded his first couple weeks in an inn before The Spike started nagging at him again.

  Jeb wasn’t sure if the rings didn’t work because he was no longer connected to The System, or if it was because they’d been burnt out, but the guy he’d sold them to had said they were nonmagical and paid him a handful of silver for the two rings.

  Jeb had to assume the guy wasn’t lying, because as far as the salesman knew, everyone could use The System to identify objects, and lying would be ousted in a matter of seconds.

  So, assuming I didn’t get shafted, I could probably buy some new ones.

  Still, what about contact with the gods had caused his rings to lose their juice?

  Speaking of Attributes, Jeb thought, glancing over at Eddie.

  “Eddie, what’s your Class?”

  “What Class?”

  “Your level?”

  “Zero,” the scientist said, holding up a circled finger. “I went through the Easy Tutorial and listened to a bunch of safety talks and whapped a straw man with a wooden sword a couple times until they let me go. When I got back to Earth, I immediately put myself out of harm's way.”

  “Why?” Jeb asked.

  “Because on average, every actual fight I saw, twelve percent of the people involved got murdered,” Eddie said with a shrug.

  “It takes about ninety life-threatening fights to achieve level twenty and get a Class. Extrapolating from that information by using point eight eight survival rate raised to the power of ninety to illustrate the total number of fights reveals I would have a one in one hundred thousand chance of surviving until the end.”

  “You realize the twelve percent goes down as people figure out what they’re doing, right? That number doesn’t account for experience,” Jeb mused.

  “That number also doesn’t account for the fact that I’m goddamn sixty years old, with weak muscles and slow reflexes. I can barely lift fifty pounds. I’m not a young man full of piss and vinegar. Whaddya say we call the math even?” Eddie said, setting the box down against the wall and rubbing his back.

  True, he’s not exactly adventurer material. But…

  “Eddie, if you want to figure out how to combine human and Myst tech together, we’re going to need to get you a Class.”

  The skinny old man puffed up his chest and heaved out a sigh. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  A thought occurred to Jeb. “You think you could modify a bomb-disposal robot?”

  “Does a bear shit in the woods?”

  “Excellent. Add ‘bomb-disposal robot’ to your list. I’m sure they’re not in high demand right now. In the meantime, we need to pawn some of this stuff.”

  I need to go on a shopping spree.

  Chapter 12: Run Forrest

  “You’re serious?” Jeb asked.

  “No humans allowed,” the hulking melas said, holding up an orange palm in front of his face. “Surely you can read the sign.” He motioned to a big white sign with scribbles on it.

  “This is usually the part where the bribe works,” Jeb muttered to himself, glancing greedily through the window, where dozens of minor magic items were sitting on glittering glass stands. Magic clips, magic pens, magic floaty paperweights.

  Farther back, resting inside the glass counter under the watchful eye of the clerk, were dozens of wands, each one hand-crafted with magnificent decorative motifs that hinted at their function.

  Behind the counter, there were rich, oiled boxes with silver and gold rings, protected by an iron grate covered with glowing runes. It was enough to make him drool.

  “I’ve got money. You can see I’ve got money, can’t you?” Jeb asked, motioning to the case of gold under his arm.

  Selling tubs of people’s jewelry had netted him a whopping…sixty bulbs. Turns out a fair amount of the stuff was gold-plated. Add that to some steep price gouging, and he’d walked away with only a bit of cash.

  Jeb hadn’t expected to get retail price for the jewelry, obviously, but he knew the seller had to be making money hand over fist reselling those chains, watches and jewels.

  Since when is sixty grand only a bit of cash, anyway? Answer: When you’re pretending to be rich.

  “I can see you’ve got money,” the guard drawled. “I’m sorry to tell you that your money’s no good here. Non-human Citizens only, I’m afraid. The establishment doesn’t believe you fat monkeys can be trusted with magical equipment just yet.”

  Jeb’s jaw dropped. Did I just get discriminated against? But I’m rich! Rich people don’t get discriminated against!

  No, wait, I’m thinking of rich and famous people.

  Jeb took one last, longing look at the candyland that lay beyond the glass window, watched a richly dressed keegan enter the shop, then turned away. He might be able to find a way to get what he needed out of that shop at a later date.

  It wouldn’t do him any good to make a scene right here.

  Hmm… Where to now? Jeb thought, stepping into the center of the mall and glancing around.

  Just like humans had hermit-crabbed into tons of abandoned buildings, aliens loved the mall.

  The previous bazaar of Solmnath had gravitated into a mall south of the ruins of Dodger Stadium, clearing out the wares of the previous occupants and setting up shop.

  Even the fancy shops like the one he’d just been refused entry had made their way inside the massive building, taking up residence on the upper floors, while the fish hawkers, farmers, blacksmiths and general nonmagical wares settled to the bottom of the four-story mall.

  Jeb had forty bulbs on his person because he’d been expecting to buy some magical equipment, and now he found that the rest of his day he’d planned on spending shopping had become rather…open.

  Well, that can’t be the only shop in town that sells magical junk.

  Jeb fixed his head on straight and started looking in earnest.

  In total, Jeb found four places that sold magical equipment to the ruling class. Three of them simply turned their noses up and the last one laughed in his face.

  I can’t waste my entire day on something that’s pretty obviously a lost cause, here, Jeb thought, heading down the unmoving escalator and aiming for the door leading out into the glaring light of day.

  “Psst.”

  Jeb glanced up.

  “Hey buddy.” A whisper from the Barnes & Noble across the hall caught Jeb’s attention.

  The bookstore itself was poorly lit, with all the lights off, shadows flickering from shelf to shelf, and nine-tenths of the windows covered in some kind of awful graffiti, leaving only a narrow band of the interior visible.

  “Nope,” Jeb said, turning away.

  “You’re looking for a place to spend some of that cash, right?” the whisper called after him. “We got the answers…for a price.”

  Jeb glanced back at the defiled Barnes & Noble, brow cocked. He looked over the graffiti more carefully this time.

  Plastered among the poor drawings were the words, boldly written: ‘Surch Enjin’ in big capital letters across the front window.

  What the hell is this? Did some feral species of goblin move into the Barnes & Noble? Jeb didn’t know if goblins were a thing in this new reality, but he wouldn’t put it past them.

  Then a kid stepped out into the light of the hallway. He was maybe twelve, with a Cobra Kai headband and a suit that was six sizes too big for him.

  Oh, kids. I guess I was close enough with feral goblins.

  “Welcome traveler, to a suppository of all human knowledge. Do you need information on how to farm, build a boat, make mortar? Brew? Fish? The Search Engine has the information you need to get by. How are you gonna survive the apocalypse if you don’t know how you’re gonna survive the apocalypse?”<
br />
  Come to think of it, there’s probably millions of white-collar workers who don’t know a damn thing about how to get by and need to find a new niche before they’re forced out of the city. And without the internet, you need books…. Hey, these kids are pretty clever. Or, at least, whoever’s leading them.

  Of course, you can’t let a child know you think they’re clever or they’ll walk all over you.

  “Suppositories go in the butt. You mean repository. And you spelled both ‘search’ and ‘engine’ wrong.”

  “I know that,” the kid said, bristling. “Nancy didn’t know how to spell them and she didn’t bother to ask when she was putting up the sign.”

  “And now you told a stranger Nancy’s name. Great. Good job,” another kid said, slapping the first one on the back. This one was dressed more like a typical teen, with a T-shirt and jeans, but wearing a ridiculous amount of gold chains.

  I guess I couldn’t have been the only one looting.

  “My name’s Jebediah Trapper. I bought the Linnorn mansion up on the northeast side of the city. I’m a former sergeant in the Army, and I know a thing or two about magic tricks. There, now we ain’t strangers no more.”

  “Nice one, Forrest Gump,” the preteen chortled.

  Jeb clenched his teeth. Perhaps in his effort to relate to children, he’d pulled dusty lines out of his lexicon that seemed to match the occasion and accidentally opened himself to ridicule.

  Let’s move past that.

  “You said you knew where to spend my cash?” Jeb asked.

  “Yeah, we’ll show you on a map. Come on inside.” The preteen boy motioned inside the darkened building.

  “Nuh-uh,” Jeb said, shaking his head. “Looks like a trap.”

  “I told you,” the freckled kid in the suit whispered to his buddy before the other one pinched him.

  The one in the gold chains sighed. “Okay look, there’s a human dude who sells the kind of stuff you’re looking for.”

  “And how do you know what I’m looking for?”

  “Because we’ve been watching you since you tried to bribe that bouncer!” the one in the suit blurted.

  “Makes sense.” Jeb nodded. “You guys trying to rob me?”

  “What? No!” the kid in chains protested.

  Jeb looked him in the eye.

  Ever-so-slowly, his gaze slid away from Jeb’s face.

  Cha-chick. Jeb heard the sound of a gun cock from the empty stall across the hall, and he almost sighed in disappointment.

  “Hands above your head!”

  Kids between the age of seven and twelve came out of the woodwork, every single one of them pointing a gun at him that didn’t belong in their pre-pubescent hands. They were wearing all kinds of clothes, from mad-max to notice-me. A few of the girls were slathered in amateurish amounts of makeup, while even some of the guys were too, although in more war-paint style.

  Reluctantly, Jeb put his hands up.

  “Hey, I’ll be the first one to congratulate you guys on a well-executed ambush…but you’ve got a bit of a problem with your fields of fire.”

  “Oh?” the tallest kid, wearing a Rufio-looking mohawk, asked.

  “In a circular ambush like this one, you all would want to be higher than me so that your bullets have no chance to hit each other. If you miss, there’s a chance you hit your friends here.”

  Jeb motioned with his thumb to the two kids standing in front of the Barnes & Noble. “When we’re all at the same height, it gets really dangerous.”

  Rufio held out a palm and motioned for the kids to get down. They knelt and aimed up at Jeb's face. Suddenly their bullets no longer stood much chance of hitting friendlies.

  Clever kid.

  “Give us the gold, old man.”

  “I’m thirty-seven.”

  “What?”

  “I’m thirty-seven. I’m not old.”

  “Just put the case down and walk away. We don’t wanna shoot you.”

  “Then don’t shoot me.” Jeb glanced around. “You realize there are more people right around the corner, right? I don’t know what’ll happen if you start popping off rounds in here, but it won’t be good for you.”

  Rufio stepped forward and pressed the gun to Jeb’s chest.

  “Last chance.”

  Hmm. Jeb wasn’t inherently immune to bullets, his Body still being within human limitations, and they weren’t the kind of people he could go murderhobo on, given their age.

  He could try to flip the safety of their guns on, but there were nearly a dozen of the little bastards, he could only do two at a time, and if they caught on before he was done, there was a good chance he would get shot.

  Or worse, a child could get shot.

  Lesson one, defuse the situation.

  “Okay, you got me,” Jeb said, sliding the bulb strap off his shoulder and lowering them slowly onto the ground, keeping his other hand raised as he did so. “Can you at least tell me where the human selling magic stuff is…you know, assuming you didn’t make him up?”

  “Northwest side of the city, up against the coast. He’s got a shop and temp agency called Working Stiffs. You can’t miss it.”

  Rufio flicked toward the door with his gun. “Now get lost, pops.”

  “You know you guys would get a terrible Yelp review for this,” Jeb said, hands up as he backed away, out of the circle, armed children streaming around him, clustering around the bag of cash.

  “We welcome repeat business. Come back if you’ve got cash to burn,” Rufio said with a grin before dismissing him entirely.

  “I might take you up on that,” Jeb said, picturing his sweet kidnapping revenge.

  Jeb backed away slowly as Rufio picked up the case, surrounded by the grasping hands of his henchmen. The farther away Jeb got, the less chance they would hit him or each other.

  “Calm down, calm down!” he said, holding the case up and out of the reach of the smaller children. “We’ve gotta get this out of sight before somebody—”

  Yoink. Jeb infused the case of gold with a strand of Myst and yanked it straight up, out of the boy’s palm.

  The children watched, dumbfounded as the case sailed straight up, hovering ten feet above them in the high ceilings of the semi-abandoned shopping mall.

  Rufio, though. Rufio’s gaze followed the strand of orange-gold Myst back to Jeb, his eyes widening.

  Jeb whooped as he drew the satchel zipping through the air towards himself, catching it like a football before diving around the corner.

  For being totally armed children, there was a hell of a lot less gunfire than Jeb had expected. None, actually. It’s possible that Rufio was aware giving children loaded guns in a crowded mall was a stupid idea, Jeb thought as he clomped full speed toward the exit.

  Still, Jeb would rather not test it.

  The click of his wooden leg echoed through the halls for a moment before the sound of screaming children and squeaking sneakers against polished concrete echoed from behind him.

  Rufio was the first one around the corner, and Jeb whipped out a strand of telekinetic force, aiming to pull back the slide on the kid’s…

  Where’s his gun?

  Rufio thrust his hands forward and Jeb spotted a bit of green Myst condensing around the kid’s palms before a blast of slime squirted out at fire-hydrant pressure, covering every inch of the hall Jeb was standing in, including Jeb himself.

  Whoa, shit! Jeb’s foot and peg flew out from under him as every surface in the mall’s hallway suddenly became slippery as hell.

  Jeb’s pegleg, held onto his stump by tension, slipped free and went spinning off into the distance while Jeb barely managed to hold onto the gold, the leather case trying to squirt out of Jeb’s grasp at every opportunity.

  These kids are trying to make me work for it.

  Jeb was spinning at stomach-churning speeds, sailing down the hall. In a matter of seconds, he would pass by the door leading to the parking lot.

  ...And there it goes.
>
  “Oof!” Jeb rammed into a drinking fountain, the wind knocked out of him by his own mass. He unclenched his eyes and spotted the kid bum-rushing him, heedless of the omnipresent film of slime.

  Rufio lunged for the case on the way past, a narrow band of slime disappearing in front of the kid’s grasping hand.

  Nope.

  Jeb wasn’t strong enough to lift himself telekinetically, but the non-friction of the surroundings made that a non-issue.

  He yanked himself to the side, snatching the cash out of range and sliding toward the exit like a luge rider.

  One of the kids near the other side of the hall tried to jump for him, but slipped and face-planted on the ultra-slippery floor.

  Jeb squirted out the big double doors into the light of day, yelping when the sliminess cut out suddenly and he began road-hauling himself across the pavement.

  Several alien patrons of the bazaar paused upon seeing a man hurtle out into the open air of the parking lot, scream, then hop around on one foot, but they shrugged and went about their business, cruising from one open-air stall to another, where the lower-quality goods were on display for the common man.

  Hopping in place and rubbing the road rash on his ass, Jeb eyed the dim double doorway, watching the children shy away from public spectacle. With a few sullen glances toward him, they faded from view, retreating back to their bookstore refuge.

  Goddamnit. Jeb was tempted to gloat, but he was the adult, and they did tell him where to find the guy he was looking for. He didn’t wanna owe these punks anything, either.

  Let’s see, buying food for twelve kids… Gotta be expensive.

  Jeb slipped a bulb out of his case and threw it through the doorway. The gold coin clattered into the mall’s dim entrance, and a moment later a tiny white hand snatched it off the ground before disappearing.

  There. That’s my good deed for the day, Jeb thought, turning around and hopping away, stabilizing himself with his own Myst. A minute later, he traded a few of his spending silver for a decent cane and clomped away.