by Tao Wong
“Again.”
Hours later, I’m in my living room in the dark, staring at glowing System screens of the battle. Thanks to the drones and Ali, I’ve got multiple recordings of the entire delve. I’ve been watching the recordings from start to finish, again and again, analyzing each moment, each interaction, looking for something, anything that can give us an advantage.
Sixty-seven Frakin stare at me from the screen, silent and eerie as when we first encountered them. They don’t move, don’t twitch, and yet, staring at the recording, I can see the marks of the spore infection on all of them.
“Pause.”
The screen pauses and I reach out, swinging footage from my desperate fight with the Frakin in the tunnels. I watch as I duck and weave, jumping and twisting between the Frakin. I watch as I trigger Blink Step, flicking out of sight and reappearing in front of the horde that streamed pass me, plasma bolts flaring all around.
“Again.”
I watch the fight, watch the dance of pain that I lay about me and the bolts of plasma that miss me by inches.
“Again.”
I watch as I Blink, then I see it, what my subconscious mind picked up and what has been nagging me. I raise my hands, backing both screens up to where I want them to start, then I twitch my hands again, pulling up my minimap. I set up a pair of maps, then I set the timelines to play at the right time.
“Start.”
It’s there. Just a brief flicker of movement, so small I can barely see it, but it’s there. A hesitation, a skip in the beat of attacks. When the Frakin are told to attack, the ripple happens at the back and flows outward to the front, the passage of the command so fast it’s barely noticeable even with my enhanced attributes. At the same time, I spot a stutter in the movements on the map. It happens when I Blink, when I shift positions in an instant. That stutter happens when the Frakin are attempting to reacquire me.
“Weird,” Ali says, and I nod slowly.
I stare at the screens in silence. I can see it—but I’m not even sure what I’m seeing.
“John?” Lana calls as she stomps down the stairs, sounding angry.
I look up from the windows, wondering what I did wrong. “Lana…?”
“Did you hear what Bill is doing?” she snaps, stalking in and throwing herself into a seat next to me.
“Uhh…”
“He’s started a strip club!” she snarls, gesturing with her hands. “The old motel he took over, he turned it into a strip club. And he’s selling drugs from it!”
“Oh.” I absently pull out a chocolate bar.
Before I can eat it, she snatches it out of my hands. I stare at my empty hands for a moment before pulling out another.
“Oh! Is that all you can say?” Lana snaps, eyes cold in the dim light. “He’s exploiting women! And selling drugs to everyone who goes in. We’ve been trying to keep that contained and he, he’s just selling them!”
“Have you talked to him?”
“Of course I have. We have. He’s saying he’s doing nothing wrong! Since Roxley is the owner of the city, it’s his laws that Bill’s abiding by and there aren’t any Galactic Laws against it. He says he’s providing ‘gainful employment’ for women and that we should be happy he’s contributing,” she growls, snatching my half-eaten bar again from my hand and chewing on it. “He’s… grumphff… such an… mmmm… ass. Is this nougat?”
“Yes.”
“I hate nougat.” She hands me back my mostly consumed bar and waits for me to deposit another in her outstretched hand.
“Well, it was mine,” I point out, and she just shoots me a look that makes me smile.
“It’s not funny,” she snaps, though with less heat.
“No, but he is right. The City Council, well, it really isn’t a real ruling body. Not in the System sense. And unless you guys are willing to physically force him to stop, there’s not much you can do.”
She nods, arms crossed. “I know. It’s just… I hate strip clubs. They’re so… so… demeaning!”
“And you don’t mind the drugs?”
Lana grimaces, looking at her hands. “It’s… not great. But it’s been getting worse anyway. Amelia and Vir had to shut down a drug-making operation in one of the residences because they nearly blew up the block. At least Bill’s is less… lethal. And he keeps rooms and places for them to use. We… I can’t stop them. This world, it’s just… it’s just hard.”
Hard. That’s one way of putting it. She chews on her chocolate bar in silence after that. I don’t break the silence, instead shooting a glance at the screens I was watching. Ali keeps silent, knowing better than to say anything.
“You know, the Council’s reforming itself.”
“Oh, really?”I don’t even bother to hide my disinterest.
“Yeah. After Fred’s… the incident, well, we’re thinking we’ll try, we will, involve the Yerick a little more. Maybe get them a seat or something.”
“Uh huh.”
“You want in?”
“In… what?” I sit up, staring at her.
“In the Council. I’m sure I could get you one.” Lana says, rubbing her nose. “God knows, Jim will back me. And probably Miranda.”
“No. Gods, no. I’d rather listen to Ali sing La Bamba, with his swings for a whole day than do that.”
“Oh God, you love me. You really love me,” Ali croons and I glare at him.
“Sorry. Sorry. I know, it isn’t what you want,” Lana says, slumping in the chair. She catches my glances to the side where my screens float unseen and frowns. “What are you doing?”
“Analyzing the delve.” I gesture her over. “Come here, look at this.”
She scoots over to my couch and sits next to me, leg pressed against mine.
For a moment, I just enjoy the closeness before I refocus on the task at hand. “Ali, share and show.”
“I should never have told you I could do this. I’m not a damn AI. you know,” Ali grumbles but he does as I ask.
“Oh, those things are disgusting,” Lana says.
“Yeah. Again, Ali.”
“Yes, master.”
“Again.”
“Again,” Lana replies almost immediately after it stops this time. “Wait…” Lana falls back, staring at the ceiling, biting her lower lip. After a moment, she looks at Ali, who dutifully runs it again. When it’s over, she nods firmly and looks at me. “There’s a stutter, isn’t there?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. So…?” She tilts her head, obviously expecting me to say something brilliant.
“So. Yeah, a stutter.” I shake my head and just talk because well, something might come from it. “The Spores are a hive mind, but they’ve got a single controlling host. It looks like that means they can’t focus on more than a few things a time. The Frakin, they can act autonomously, but if they get out of… of… script, well, they need redirection. When they need to start a new program, they….”
“They…?”
I blink, looking at Lana, and grin. “They’re a program. The Spores can’t control all of the Frakin individually, and the Frakin don’t really have conscious thoughts anymore. So they set up programs, certain behaviors. Break out of the program and the Frakin need to be reset.”
Lana nods, trying to see what has me so excited.
“Don’t you get it? It’s a program! And what do you when you want to break a program?”
“Pull the power cord?”
Ali snorts while I continue to grin. “Introduce a virus.”
It’s only a couple of hours later that I find myself speaking with a thin, bespectacled man. Leonard worked in the hospital’s analysis department before the System came, and he gained a rather weird Class called Bio-Technician. It’s similar to Sally’s Alchemist Class, except he specializes in the organic side of things. Like most people in the Yukon, when the System came into play, he had the choice of taking the System-generated “best” option or taking the hour to sort through and find something h
e could use. No big surprise that like most people, he went with the option offered to him. Few people had the time, ability, or desire to sort through the millions of options available. Mikito’s husband and Jason were the only two that I knew of for sure, though I’m sure some of the Raven’s Circle probably did too.
Sally was my first choice for this request, but it seems that small biological creatures are outside of her purview. Leonard was actually my third choice. My second—the Shop—turned out to be rather expensive. It seems I’m not the only one who has considered biological warfare, and the System Shop helpfully discourages that by pricing everything extremely high.
“Can you do it?” I ask Leonard as he peruses the biological information I’ve provided him on the Frakin.
“No,” Leonard says, ignoring me and continuing to talk to Lana. He’s been doing that the entire time we’ve been here. “I don’t have the Skills to kill off the Spores. I don’t even have the equipment to even start making something that could kill them.”
I snarl then force myself to calm down. Shit. The Shop it would be except… well, let’s just say Sabre cost less than the solution. By a few orders of magnitude.
“Isn’t there something we can do?” Lana smiles at Leonard and, I swear, bats her eyelashes.
“Well… ahem… maybe. I could maybe give them a bit of a cold,” Leonard replies, and I roll my eyes. He obviously picks it up, pointing at me. “A really bad flu. Something that would disorient, maybe even kill a few of them.”
“That’d be helpful,” Lana interjects, grabbing Leonard’s hand and drawing his attention again. He smiles as she continues. “How long would it take?”
“Well, this isn’t, you know, like hitting things. It’s complicated. You’ve got to create a basic model then make multiple versions of each and run them all through a simulator. It’d be better if I had an actual creature to experiment on…”
“How long, four eyes?” Ali says.
Of course Leonard doesn’t wear glasses anymore, but I have to agree he probably did wear them before the System.
“Two, maybe three weeks,” Leonard snaps at Ali.
Lana nods, squeezing his hand again. “Thank you. I’ll make sure to check in with you every few days.” She smiles at Leonard, who bobs his head excitedly.
I watch Lana flirt with him a little more before we finally leave, Leonard promising to get us the first sample as soon as possible.
Outside, I thank Lana, who just shakes her head. “Don’t. I’m just doing what I can to make sure you and my brother come back.” I nod and she adds, “It’s not enough, you know.”
“I know.” I exhale, staring at the setting sun. Disrupting them, making the Spores less effective will help, but there were still too many damn Frakin. We need something else, another edge. “I know.”
Chapter 18
When the snow comes to stay, it does so without warning. Overnight, the clouds dumped over three feet of snow on the ground. No big surprise, no one has taken the time to fix up the snowplows or the salting trucks. On the other hand, who needs snowplows when you’ve got muscle-bound warriors and mages?
I stand outside on one of our watchtowers we’ve set up around the house, watching as the Hunter teams work together to clear the roads. Most of them are just walking around with appropriated bulldozer plows, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, and tossing the snow onto unused lawns. On other streets, mages work by channeling low-grade fire spells to just melt the snow off the roads, letting the water run into the sewers while they stand comfortably on dry porches. Occasionally, the lack of co-ordination between the two groups ends up with one group being buried in a house or a flood of lukewarm water running onto cleared streets while people are still working.
A smaller group of citizens run from unoccupied residence to residence, ensuring that the water mains are turned off and water tanks emptied. I’m guessing they’re being managed by the newly-recreated General Council. Now, both the Yerick and Sally have seats at the table which should help matters. They’ve even finally added Lana to the table, though she’s a lot unhappier about Bill being included too. Either way, the new General Council finally seems to include everyone. I hear Roxley’s even given it his blessing by assigning Vir to mediate issues.
The more I see of Vir, the less inclined I am to believe that he’s just a promising lieutenant under Roxley’s service. I know, firsthand, how strong the First Fist is, and the fact that Vir managed to stop him was impressive. That Roxley is willing to give him free rein to chair the Council is another indicator that the Truinnar is more than he seems. I definitely need to keep a closer eye on the Lieutenant in the future.
Mayor-troublemaker Fred hasn’t been seen in Whitehorse since the blowout. Amelia has no idea what happened to him, and all Vir will say that he has been “dealt with appropriately.” When Richard heard that, he recommended we go look in the river. Myself, I think Roxley has better sense than to completely waste a resource. After all, I’m sure Fred could be sold for something in the Shop, even if it was just cheap parts. No surprise, there’s some grumbling about the high-handed way Fred was dealt with, but it’s been muted for the most part. Overall, while the Council hasn’t fixed things between the races, at least it’s a start.
In the distance, clear spaces in the schools have been turned into winter playgrounds with groups of children working to make the largest snowmen. Funny thing about System-enabled children—some of them are pretty damn strong and agile. Some of those snowmen have begun to top the buildings. Those never last long though, as children throw themselves off the roofs to knock the snowmen down amid screams of laughter and cries for more. I watch a kid, probably no older than five, pick up a snowball twice his size and toss it at another kid. The subsequent explosion and peals of laughter aren’t enough to stop a minder from running over to chasten the kid. I barely need the magnification in my helmet to see the grin on the kid’s face.
Overall, it’s a tranquil-looking state of affairs a few weeks after we had our asses kicked so hard. Tranquil, yet I can’t stop the worm of doubt in my gut.
Have you ever found something you’re passionate about, then realized no one else gives a shit? Yeah, that’s been my life for the last week. Outside of Ali and Lana, everyone else has given up on the dungeon.
When I brought up re-raiding the dungeon, Capstan said, “There are many more dungeons to clear. Sometimes, one must accept the limits of one’s current level and move on. The Yerick do not fight unwinnable battles.”
I’ll admit, I was almost tempted to bring Tahar up right then and there. Almost. I do have a little bit of a sense of self preservation. I was still disappointed, especially when he also added that they’d be spending a few weeks breaking in a new party member.
Richard and Mikito both nodded agreeably when I brought up the matter, but beyond that, neither seemed particularly interested in my explanations and theories. I’m not sure if they just figure I’ll do all the planning or that, like Capstan, they’ve already moved on. After the latest round of agreeable but non-productive discussions, I stopped talking with them about it.
Amelia has her work cut out keeping the peace, especially since Vir seems to be stuck in meetings half the time. The few times she and I have met up, she only complains about breaking in a new partner and mutters about “Rules of Force.” I’ve started avoiding her myself since she shoots me a dirty glare whenever she gets onto that topic.
Aiden flatly told me to get out when I brought up going out again, and Rachel, well, Rachel’s not much better. She’s been hanging out with Aiden more and more, teaching and training others, but has pretty much stopped going out on even simple hunting missions. Even I’m not dumb enough to push her—losing another party member right after losing most of her group was probably not the best return to hunting. The only time we get her to come with us on our excursions is when we head in to Carcross.
Everyone’s taken their eye off the dungeon, and I don’t blame them. Not really.
We tried it twice and we got our asses kicked both times. Yet something tells me that waiting will just make it worse.
“Boy-o?” Ali floats next to me as I finish my cup of coffee. “We doing this?”
“Just finishing my coffee.” Sometimes, I hate being me.
Downstairs, I hold my hand and call her forth from my Altered Space. I can’t keep her in my inventory or she wouldn’t fix herself, so for the last little while, Sabre’s been sitting in my Altered Space except when I’m busy hunting.
Omnitron III Class II Personal Assault Vehicle (Sabre)
Structural Integrity: 82%
System Integrity: 94%
Damn but that last fight kicked her ass. The good news is that the adaptive armor has added a twenty percent resistance to plasma and high heat effects. The bad news is that it’ll take at least a few more weeks, assuming she doesn’t get damaged further of course, before she’s fully repaired. Thankfully, the only thing the repairs cost me this time was a whole bunch of materials, which I do have. Using Elementally-charged gold as a major component for replacements has added streaks of dark yellow to the armor plates. Thankfully, Elementally-altered gold isn’t as soft as the real stuff or else the bike would really come apart in my next fight.
I stand there stroking my bike, and I know all I’m doing is procrastinating. Thinking of stupid shit because I know what I’m about to do is dumb. Everyone else has let this go—why can’t I? I exhale, shaking my head, and glance at the bike one last time.
Hunii Dragonfly Drone (Scouting Type IV -Modified)
This dragonfly drone comes equipped with multiple visual and audio recording options and can update 3-D landscaping maps. Has been modified to carry additional storage items.
Operating time: 2 Hours
Storage: Bio-dispersal container