by Tao Wong
“Up late?” I step into the kitchen, drawn like a moth to a flame. Closer, I see slight bags under her eyes and a tension in her shoulders that I’ve never seen before.
“Just work.” Her eyes flick over my form too in silent assessment. “What’s wrong?”
“Isn’t that my line?”
“Har! I’m not the one who runs into trouble all the time. I’m just a paper pusher,” she says, shaking her head. “Seriously, John, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing much.” I keep my hands on the table, mostly to make sure I know where they are as I sit down across her. I have to admit, it bothers me a little that she can read me so well—even my father never seemed to be able to do that. Not that he ever paid that much attention to me… I push the old bitter thoughts aside.
“John…” Lana’s voice changes, growing stern.
“I just had some visitors. The Hakarta.” I shrug, and at her puzzled expression, I add, “The Space Orcs.”
“Oh.” Her lips tighten, then she shakes her head, drawing her own conclusions. Probably violent ones.
“So what papers are you pushing?”
“The usual. Business proposals. Loan extension requests. Reports and cashflow projections.” She shakes her head before rubbing her temples.
Lana runs the biggest investment fund in Whitehorse, initially funded through my killings, but these days it’s pretty self-sufficient. From what I recall, she basically has a hand in every significant private enterprise since the System came into play. Not that I’ve seen a Credit in return—every single Credit of profit has been plowed right back into the City and the fund. Still, it’s nice to know I’ve got a nest egg growing somewhere.
“Get an AI, toots,” Ali says, appearing on the table next to her and flashing her a grin.
“Ali.”
The smile Lana gives the Spirit sends a spike of anger through me, and I quell it. Just because the two have gotten closer since they saved my ass a month ago is no reason for me to get jealous. None at all.
“Aren’t those expensive?” she asks.
“Only if you get them as a Companion. If you get an off-the-rack one, they’ll be pretty cheap. A basic one shouldn’t cost you much at all. Just make sure to get the heavy security models. Definitely don’t get a Spirit. No self-respecting Spirit wants to be a glorified personal assistant.”
Lana nods, rubbing her chin. “I don’t know, I don’t have a lot of Credits left…”
“Use the Fund,” I chime in. “It’s a business expense.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Lana says, frowning at me.
“Says who?” I smirk then wave. “Not as if the CRA are coming after you for taxes. So long as you buy it through the Shop, Roxley gets his cut. Way I see it, you’re all good.”
“I guess…” She rubs her temples again before her voice drops lower. “John, we should talk…”
“Yes.” I blink, tilting my head. I quell the urge to flee, sensible as it may be.
“Mikito says you won’t be with us tomorrow,” Lana says.
My brain jerks to a stop as thoughts rearrange. Oh, we’re not having The Talk. Just a talk. Right, I can deal with that. “Yeah, I wasn’t… wait. Us?” I lean forward, my voice tight.
“I’m going too. The Bosses, they need to be killed.”
“Of course they do. Why are you going?”
“Because it needs to be done,” she replies, frowning.
“Sure, sure. But you’re…” I open my mouth then clamp it shut as Ali shakes his head at me. Oh crap.
“I’m what, John?” Her voice rising, Lana glares at me. “A paper pusher? A girl?”
“No, not that. You just, you know, haven’t really been…”
She snorts. “If you’ve forgotten, I walked here with Mikito and Richard. I still go out with them once in a while.” Lana gets to her feet. “I saved your ungrateful ass a month ago. I can take care of myself.”
I open my mouth, wanting to point out that, if I knew her at all, she was just about to ask me to keep her higher-Leveled brother safe, but I snap it shut at Ali’s screamed, mental, “NO.”
Right, right. Not the way to win an argument. While I’m working that all out, Lana stomps right out and I watch her back, grimacing.
“Well done, boy-o.” Ali golf-claps from his seat on the table.
“Bite me.”
Late at night, I stare at the ceiling, trying to figure out what went wrong. I spent weeks away from them all, trying to come to terms with who and what I am. With the anger that sits in me, the world that we live in. And within hours of coming back, I’m fighting with Lana and confused once again.
I don’t know what they want from me, not really, and the gods know I definitely don’t know what I want. To survive, sure. To get through another day, get a little stronger, get a little better. To fight, because I can? Saying it, thinking it out loud, it seems so stupid.
I slowly exhale, focusing on just breathing for a few moments. I don’t know what I want for myself or for Lana. I just know that I don’t want her to die. I don’t want anyone else I could save to die. Truth be told, as much as I said otherwise to Mikito, I probably would have gone and kept an eye on the group anyway. Now that Lana’s going, I’m definitely going. I don’t need another ghost haunting my conscience—I have enough already.
Chapter 4
“What did you do?” Richard mutters as he grabs my arm, dragging me aside the next morning.
The hunting groups had gathered around the sternwheeler near Rotary Park. When I drove in, late, Richard immediately spotted me and stalked over.
“My sister’s been on the warpath all morning!” Richard growls, gripping my arm tightly. “She’s insisting on being part of the main teams instead of the reserve.”
“What makes you think I did anything?” I ask innocently, giving him big eyes behind my helmet.
“Because she only ever gets that angry when it comes to you!” Richard lets go of my arm, glaring at me. “If she gets hurt…”
“You’ll get your puppies to tear me limb for limb. Got it,” I reply wryly and shake my head. Those two…
As Richard opens his mouth to say something else, he’s cut off by a short, angry man in a suit. A suit in this day and age. And in Whitehorse too, where formal attire is your best plaid shirt and a pair of clean jeans.
His voice rising as he speaks, shorty says, “What is he doing here?”
I grin at Eric Roth, aka Minion. “Just ambling along. How you doing?”
“You! Get out of here. This is official Whitehorse City Council business and you are not invited,” Minion snarls, stepping forward and vibrating.
I’m reminded of a tiny yappy dog. I feel one side of my lips tug up at the thought, and he stops and steps back.
“Trust me, I’m not here for you,” I drawl then raise a hand. Minion flinches slightly, probably remembering my hand wrapped around his throat, and I flick it, shooing him away. “Go do your thing.”
Minion glares at me, opening his mouth to say something else before he’s cut off by a low rumble.
“Are we to begin, Councilor Roth? I am being paid by the hour.” The speaker is a nine-foot-tall bull-man hybrid, a full-on Minotaur from legends, in sci-fi battle armor. The Minotaur even has an axe, though the barrel shape in the center lends credence to the idea that it’s more than just a melee weapon.
The Yerick—the real name for the Minotaurs—is the only group of immigrants to Whitehorse thus far. They haven’t had the best of receptions and there’s a large degree of animosity toward them. Led by Capstan Ulrik, their First Fist—whatever that means—the Yerick are a tribe of career Adventurers. When the Yerick are invited and I’m not, that shows you how low I am on the totem pole of popularity.
Minion’s face twists again in a sneer before he hurries over to the group leaders, where Lana and Mikito stand. Lana shoots me a glare that could freeze water solid.
Richard mutters next to me, “You have got to stop anta
gonizing that man.”
“Better to twit him than kill him,” I reply, flexing my hand by my side.
“Sometimes I’m not entirely sure if you’re joking,” Richard says.
I don’t let him know that I’m not sure either. Minion almost literally admitted to burning down the Yerick’s buildings, but here he is, walking around free and clear and organizing everyone, and I’m persona non grata. Okay, fine, choking him out in broad daylight might have been a bit of an overreaction to losing face in front of Roxley and Capstan, but even now, I feel my blood boil at the betrayal. I exhale, forcing myself to let it go. The past is past, after all. Time to stop bitching about it. What is, is.
I shake my head slightly, realizing that Richard left while I was caught up in my thoughts. As much as I believe Minion was the mastermind behind the fire, there’s no evidence. He never directly admitted to anything, and the actual culprits have been caught and tried. They’re working off their debts in the compound that the Yerick built on their burnt-out plots of land, and as far as the city is concerned, the case is closed. Tensions between the races are high still, but between the increased surveillance drones and a few very public and nasty beatdowns by the Yerick, direct attacks have stopped.
As I stand by myself and idly watch Minion speak to the groups, I read lips and pick out where he’s sending everyone. Ali helps by hacking his System window and displaying it for me, adding annotations as each group is directed to a different Boss. I wonder where Fred, our erstwhile mayor, is before I remember he prefers to let his minions do the actual work.
If I have to say one good thing about Minion, it’s that he’s highly organized. Ten minutes later, the groups are disappearing and that’s even after time to answer any questions. My gaze wanders over each group once more, watching as Capstan splits a few of his men off to join different groups. It’s not a horrible setup, other than the fact that Minion only intends to keep a single reserve team—the Chaos Hands. I check their levels again, see that nothing is over 25, and wince. We’re all still under-leveled for this area.
My gaze sweeps over the group again and I realize that gathered here are the careful, the lucky, and the crazy. The brave, the rational, and the unlucky are dead, murdered in the first few days of the System for the most part. First responders, the RCMP, the burgeoning heroes all died in the opening scenes of the Apocalypse, fighting creatures that out-leveled them. It’s only through the mercy of the gods and Lord Roxley’s presence that we’ve survived as long as we have.
“So, boy-o, we following the girl?” Ali sends to me mentally, and I nod. “You know she’s going to be pissed, right?”
“Better pissed than dead. We’ll hang back a bit though.”
Ever since Mana flooded the world and the System came, monsters have been appearing all over Earth. There are two kinds: the ones that have evolved from Earth and the ones that have been ‘imported’ into the world via the System. Occasionally those monsters are particularly nasty—a System-designated Boss. Or maybe they’re already Bosses and the System just tags them. Either way, they’re strong and tough and their presence means that particular monster group will populate faster than normal. Leave them alone long enough and you get monster swarms and they become a mainstay in a region, flooding outward. If you’re really unlucky, they find a location with a high Mana density and stay there, eventually creating a dungeon.
Since the entire world has been designated a Dungeon World and we’re getting the overflow of Mana from every other System-controlled world, it’s pretty much a given we’re going to get a ton of Dungeons and Bosses. The goal today is simple though—just like we used to manage the wildlife, we’re going to manage the monster population. Just like you kill the bulls to reduce the herd, we kill the Bosses. Of course, along the way we’ll be killing a ton of normal monsters too, but that’s the way it works.
Loping along far behind Lana’s group, I have a lot of time to think. The occasional monsters they miss and the ones that try to sneak up on them aren’t even a challenge. I have Ali patched into their communications channel as he floats alongside me, listening in just in case something important comes up. Mostly though, the two of us are along for the ride. If we’re real lucky, I won’t even need to get involved.
An hour later, I come to a stop as Lana’s group hits the boundary of their target’s area. I pull up my minimap, focusing on the green dots.
Knight Beetle (Level 29)
HP: 180/180
Ali pulls up some information for me, flicking over the System window. As I read the monster information, I relax. Each beetle is purple and gray, about two and a half feet in length and a foot tall, with armored carapaces that give them their name. Tough and they have a tendency to swarm. However, Lana’s group of five humans is augmented by her three oversized huskies and a mutated fox. While Lana might not go out as often, she certainly knows how to control her animals and the way the red dots of the low level enemies she fights keep disappearing on my minimap tell me they’re doing well.
I rub my neck, fingers hitting armor as I do so and I grimace. Armor is all nice and good but try giving yourself a massage while wearing it. I sigh, giving up on trying to get rid of the tension that way, and just pull out some chocolate to chew on while I wait. Ali’s head is tilted as he obviously listens to something before he grunts.
“John… how much do you like Jim?”
“What’s wrong?” I look for where Jim should be and realize he’s only a few kilometers away.
“Nothing yet, but I don’t think his group can deal with what he’s going to be fighting,” Ali says. “So we going?”
I hesitate, looking back at where Lana fights. She hasn’t hit the Boss yet and those things can change the flow of a battle. On the other hand… I bite my lip, twisting to where Jim’s Boss marker is and take off running. I hope I’m doing the right thing.
“What’s so bad Jim can’t handle?” I ask as I pound through the dirt, the powered armor covering the ground at a good pace. I shatter rock and the occasional fallen tree, knowing that I don’t have a lot of time. His Boss wasn’t that much farther out than Lana’s. Still, Jim’s a big boy—he’s the most senior of the City’s Hunters and a tough old coot.
“Lightning Squirrels.” Ali floats alongside me with ease as I activate Thousand Steps, a skill that lets me move faster. “They’re mutations of your ground squirrels. Individually, they’re really low level. However, they swarm. Each of them feeds off the other and there’s a lot more of them than Minion knows about.”
Even as we talk, my map updates with little gray dots. Low level indeed. I watch as the dots disappear in front of the friendly blue dots of Jim’s group. No surprise that they’re taking them out at range—his entire group is composed of rifle users. Unfortunately, what they can’t see is the swarm of gray dots that have begun to converge on them.
As the swarm closes in, I spot a blue dot flicker and disappear. I grit my teeth as the blue dots pull back in a somewhat orderly fashion, but they can’t keep ahead. I can see flashes of electricity with my eyes now. The never-ending arcs have lit the undergrowth on fire. Beam weaponry stabs out from the embattled group, along with the crack of projectile fire, each shot killing individual Squirrels. There’s even the occasional explosion, but that doesn’t really seem to change my map.
I’ve opened fire myself, keeping to normal projectiles as I unload on the Squirrels. Each shot disintegrates a small creature, turning it into red mist, and I even occasionally manage to get more than one with a shot.
“This isn’t working!” I yell, bouncing forward.
The occasional lightning arc at this distance feels like a static electricity discharge through the armor, but we’re going right into the center of the swarm and I know it’s going to get worse. I draw a deep breath, letting the shooting and running go on autopilot as I reach into myself for my own link to the Elemental Affinity and push it out of me, letting it envelop me. When the next lightning strike hits, I use th
e Gift to reroute the arc around me and Sabre rather than through us. Once that’s established, it takes me a moment to cast my next spell. Greater Regeneration increases my natural healing rate so that I can deal with the bleed-through. A thought lets me review the damage I’m receiving from each blast.
-13 HP (78% resisted)
“I’ve got a plan,” Ali shouts as I keep firing. “Just follow the bouncing ball!”
I snarl, running ahead and following the bouncing ball that appears in my display as I keep shooting. Occasionally my path intersects an unlucky squirrel and I either stab or stomp it. Electricity keeps building around me and we’re almost constantly wreathed in lightning now. Ali isn’t speaking, his face set in grim concentration as he floats alongside me. My jaw hurts from clenching it so tight as the lightning shudders through me even as it slowly drives my health down. A slow ticking down in the corner of my vision tells me Sabre’s not doing great either.
“Okay, boy-o. Grab me when you reach me and lend me your Mana and strength!” Ali says as he darts ahead, right to where the bouncing ball lands. He appears for a second, his hands raised as the lightning flows through him.
I extend my sense, my Affinity, and I see what Ali’s doing. Everything that hits him, he attaches a thread to, sliding it into the bodies of the squirrels. I place a hand on Ali’s and make the connection, feeling the lightning rip through me and pull Mana alongside the flow.
Pain fills my world, consuming me, and all I can do is go along for the ride. Muscles clench and spasm, my heart beats erratically, and I’m pretty sure I void my bowels at some point, but I keep holding on to Ali, refusing to let go. Pain, anger, and stubbornness—linchpins of my life.
A part of me watches as Ali threads all of it together, faster and faster until everything around is attached to him. Ali snarls, twisting with his hands, and I feel the change as the threads of Mana he has connected via the lightning tug on the Squirrels. It’s just a little, a small alteration in their atoms, but at the speed of well, light, the change happens. Electrons slip free, loosened from their moorings. A small change to each atom multiplied thousands, millions of times.