“Oh, I dunno.” She finally allowed herself to relax. “That might take a bit more grinding.”
Eric glided closer and rested his hands on her hips. “I think I can swing that.” He stood there for a few minutes, drinking in her presence. “You are damn near perfect, my epic loot drop.”
She leaned in so their foreheads touched. “Near perfect? What’s stopping me from being a legendary?”
He slid his hands around to squeeze her butt. “Booty’s a touch small.”
Dakota grinned. “Small? Contrary to your opinion, I actually do have an ass.”
“You have an ass in theory, being that all humans do, but it’s in stealth.” He pulled her close, still squeezing her backside. “Ain’t like you can help it though. It’s a white girl problem like that whole pumpkin spice thing.”
“Ugh. I can’t stand that stuff. It’s not a ‘white girl’ thing, it’s a basic girl thing.” She let out a long, quiet sigh of relief. “Thanks for being here.”
“You know it, babe. Any time.”
“So, about that couch…” Dakota grinned. “I’m too scared to sleep alone tonight.”
Outside the Lines
18
A detective showed up at the Amazon Café the next day. She’d already copied down the driver’s license info and social security number for one Jonathan Miles Parker, age twenty-nine. Though the wallet contained two credit cards, she didn’t bother with them.
When Detective Smalley, a fortyish guy in a white shirt with brown hair, asked her to go over the events of the previous night again, she handed over the wallet―and showed off some faint bruises on her arms below the shoulders, where the guy had grabbed and shaken her.
The detective used his cell phone to snap some pictures of the bruises.
“I took it in case the creep got away, but I’d been so scared out of my wits, I forgot to give it to the officers in the 7-11.”
Detective Smalley looked it over. “All right. One moment, Miss Marx. Since our conversation will be the longest, let me make the rounds first.”
Dakota nodded.
He spoke to Blake and Hal, confirming that Jonathan had indeed been staring at her for about an hour before being kicked out of the café, then walked back over to her. “The suspect hasn’t been able to make a statement yet. That stuff you hit him with got down his throat. They had to jam a plastic hose in there so he could breathe.”
She cringed. “Oh, shit. I didn’t even think about that… I was scared shitless at the time, just sprayed.”
“Given the circumstances, I doubt there’ll be any criminal liability, though there’s always the chance the guy will try to go after you in civil court.”
“Ugh.” She hung her head.
He patted her shoulder. “The guy has no prior record. Neighbors say he more or less never goes outside. Probably spends all day on the computer. I wouldn’t consider it likely that he’ll bother you again, but… if he does, please let us know.”
“Yeah, I will. What happens now?”
“Well… sounds like a case of simple assault. Once he’s regained the ability to speak, I’ll have a better answer for you.”
She nodded. “I really thought he was about to break my jaw or something. He got really angry when I wouldn’t tell him how we got past the first part of that mission.”
Detective Smalley shook his head, chuckling. “Over a video game.”
“Ten million dollar prize more like.” She gestured at the samovar. “Want a coffee?”
“Heh. Sure. And yeah, people do crazy things for big money.”
She shuddered internally at the memory of wading stomach-deep through a river of alien shit. “Yeah, they sure do.”
Despite her shift ending that day at 3:30 p.m., Hal walked her home. She gave him a thank you hug and headed inside. After a feast of Hot Pockets, she changed into sweats and flopped on the bed to log into the game.
Grumbling at Jonathan ruining her prior night’s plans, she hopped in a random ‘group finder’ queue for the instance she’d wanted to run. Alas, being a rogue, she had a bit of a wait. Tanks and healers always got in fastest, but eventually, the notification popped.
The system teleported her to a dingy alley peopled with homeless humans and one vagrant Kazalor with an eyepatch. Four other players faded in around her, a Draath tank with a literal shield in his left hand and a sword taller than her character in his other. His body resembled one of Michelangelo’s statues―if he’d carved one of a ridiculously over-muscled bodybuilder―rendered in amethyst crystal brought to life, with glowing red eyes. Everything about him embodied the concept of ‘I do not take damage.’
They drew a human medic, a tall woman with dark skin and blonde dreadlocks, as well as a Zhavir gunslinger. The Zhavir, a relatively rare race, were frail of build and about the size of humans. They had four all-black eyes, backward knees like the rear legs of cats, tiny horns, needle-like teeth, and hooked bone spurs at their elbows. The race had big bonuses to agility and dexterity, and often wound up as rogues or gunslingers. While theoretically possible, she’d never seen a Zhavir soldier going the tank route, since they had such a big penalty to constitution.
The fifth member of the random party turned out to be a Cika rogue. She had to fight her instinct to pick him up and squeeze him. The Cika only stood about waist-high to an adult human. Big eyes and round faces made them highly cute, as well as either cat or rabbit-style ears and long fluffy tails. This particular Cika had the rabbit ears, and the buckteeth to match. He wore a dark armored suit and carried an array of knives―another rogue, but he’d gone heavy melee spec.
“Hi,” chirped the Cika.
“I’m sorry,” said Fawkes, right before scooping him up and squeezing him. “You’re too damn cute.”
“Hey, stop that! Put me down!” chirped the Cika, his tail puffed up like a terrified cat.
She set him back on his feet, laughing.
“All right,” said the tank, in the slow, deep voice common to the Draath.
The mission involved running an instance, a self-contained map full of enemies and mini-bosses.
“Dibs on the Black Edge,” said the Cika.
Fawkes looked down at him. “Sure. Dibs on the Warhawk.”
“Oh, wow.” The Cika’s ears drooped back as his eyes widened in surprise. “You’re a ranged build?”
“Yeah.”
He peered up at her. “Sounds like it would be annoying always having to hide to attack.”
“It’s work, yeah. But the giant hits are worth it. Be even better when I unlock Master of Shadows. And I don’t have to deal with ‘screw the melee’ boss mechanics.”
Melee rogues didn’t hide, at least not in boss fights. They just got behind something and stabbed as fast as they could move. Instead of abilities to enhance hiding or teleport around, they got evasive bonuses and up-front damage boosts. Some melee rogues could even tank bosses for short periods while their cooldowns made them impossible to hit. Of course, unlike a real tank, all it took was one shot landing and down they went.
Fawkes ran the instance with the random group, often breaking out into laughter as the Cika hurled himself at the creatures like a psychotic furry wood-chipper. The high-pitched “Yaaaaaagh!” that accompanied him flinging his little furry body across the hallway got her giggling every time, despite blood flying from NPC thugs. His character name, Monty, made sense once she remembered an old-ass movie with a murderous rabbit.
This medic, unfortunately, reinforced the awesomeness of Angel813. Fortunately, the Draath tank was over-geared for the instance and didn’t need much attention from the healer. When the final crime lord boss went down and dropped a crappy set of light armor pants, both Fawkes and the Cika growled.
“Hey not bad,” said Monty. “You’re right on my heels on the meter.”
“Meter?” asked Fawkes.
He opened a display screen with bar graphs. “Damage meter. Tracks who does damage during a run so we can find slack
ers.”
She’d wound up in second place, a few thousand damage points behind him with the gunslinger a more distant third, lagging her by 12,000 or so.
“If you didn’t have to keep bouncing around that cyborg with the rotary cannon, you’d have been way ahead of me,” said Fawkes.
He shrugged. “Still not bad. Damn, that knife didn’t drop.”
“Again?” asked Fawkes.
“I’m out.” The healer nabbed the pants and disappeared.
“Sure,” said the tank.
The gunslinger nodded so fast his head blurred. The bizarre feline-insectoid quality of the Zhavir unsettled her, but the guy seemed friendly enough. She didn’t even try to pronounce his character name, Xrrystln.
On the second run, the randomizer gave them a Niath auramancer for healing. A third of the way through, she complained of being bored, which got a, “You’re welcome” from the tank. The space angel threw damaging spells between heals, and made the second run feel like they had a cheat code active. No one ever appeared to take damage.
Holy crap. Maybe I should level my angel up some more. This is so damn easy.
When the end boss dropped the second time, a wicked black knife with a thin, stark silver edge appeared.
“Woo hoo!” shouted the Cika, doing a little dance.
The Niath healer won the loot roll and took the knife.
He stared at her, ears drooped.
She tucked her wings in, walked over, and handed it to Monty. “I only rolled on it to make sure it went to the knife spec. She’s ranged.”
Ooh, bitch. Fawkes narrowed her eyes.
“It’s okay,” said Monty. We already worked it out. She’s after the Warhawk.”
“Oh.” The Niath woman gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry. I’m just used to rogues being greedy. Nice to meet some decent people finally.”
Monty pointed over his shoulder at Fawkes. “Wanna run it some more so she can get her gun?”
“Sure.” The Niath smiled.
“I got one more in me,” said the tank.
They reset and ran the same instance a third time. Repetition allowed Fawkes to anticipate spawns and enemy movement. She weaned herself of target fixation and started attacking whatever had its back to her when she couldn’t get into stealth. Back shots boosted damage, but not as much as an actual ambush.
The third time the end boss went down, the Warhawk pistol dropped.
“Awesome!” shouted Fawkes, while hitting the ‘need’ button for the loot roll.
The Zhavir gunslinger beat her by two points. “Cool. Peace.”
He disappeared before she could scream.
“Argh!” Fawkes fumed. “Asshole. He only heard us talking about that gun for the past three runs!”
Monty’s two-foot-tall rabbit ears folded out sideways. “Prick. If you’re up for another run, I’ll go.”
“Wow. What a… I hate people like that.” The Niath folded her arms. “Yeah, I can go again.”
“Oh, okay…” The tank rolled his head around, cracking his neck with a crunch like rocks grinding together.
The randomizer gave them a human aethermancer for the missing damage dealer, which made Dakota sigh with relief. No competition for the gun… if it dropped again. She spent the whole run muttering ‘pleasepleaseplease’ to nothing in particular.
Four mini-bosses and an end-boss fight later, she stared at the white loot box and shivered with anticipation.
When the Draath tank touched it, and the Warhawk pistol appeared again, she shrieked with glee.
“Holy crap!” Fawkes bounced and mashed the ‘need’ button.
“Hey, shoot me a message in a couple days huh?” asked Monty. “Let me know how the bullets compare to that CL32.”
She cradled the big handgun to her chest like a teddy bear once it appeared in her possession. “Yeah, I can do that. Thank you everyone!”
The others bowed. Murmurs of “Thanks for the group” and “Take it easy” went around as everyone dropped out, their portraits disappearing one by one from the edge of her view.
Fawkes stood alone next to the dead body of the former crime boss, holding a gun that looked a hair ridiculous in size for her. “Well, might as well test this sucker out.”
After buying some ammo, she equipped the Warhawk and ran a couple missions. Initially, going back to fighting normal creatures as opposed to the amped up ones inside an instance intended to face groups made her feel like a goddess. Once she realized the stuff she’d spent hours killing inside the instance had six times the health as normal NPCs, she deflated.
Still, the Warhawk hit damn hard. She couldn’t help but hear a cash register sound every time she fired, knowing she’d have to re-purchase ammo. The modest uptick in damage over the CL32 wasn’t worth the expense, so she’d save it for fights against things where resistance or vulnerability made a big difference. Also, its deafening boom when fired would knock her out of hiding even when not dealing with a boss battle.
Around 7:00 p.m., the crew reconvened in the main room of the Stormbringer. The ship had attracted a small crowd of curious onlookers, which blossomed into an influx of other players swarming the planet.
“Damn, look at them all,” said Rallek, glancing over a list showing all player characters on the planet. “There’s over 8,000 people here.”
“They’re probably trying to figure out what we’re doing.” Kavan spun a small metal orb on the table. “Stupid of them to post a leaderboard.”
“On purpose. They want other players to mess with the front runner.” Angel813 fussed with her hair. “Anything to make winning that money harder. I guarantee if we get closer, we’re going to have people shooting at us. We have to be ready for that.”
Fawkes shivered. “Oh, it’s starting.” She shared the story of Jonathan attacking her for real.
Nighthawk stared at her, wide-eyed. “Umm… wow. That’s not cool at all.” He glanced at Kavan, seeming afraid.
“How’d he find you?” asked Kavan.
She sighed, teasing a spoon around her orange sherbet. “I’m still working on figuring that out.”
“Probably clicked the roster for our ship. The leaderboard links to our crew profile page, and you put something there about slinging coffee in Manhattan under hobbies. That guy probably went to every Amazon Café in Manhattan until he found you.” Kavan turned the floating panel to show her something she’d typed in while half-awake two-ish years ago. “Might want to change that.”
“Shit,” muttered Fawkes, opening a window to do just that. “Gotta vague that up a lot more.”
“Okay, so tonight, we go for the shield mod. Everyone’s got the mission now, right?” asked Rallek.
Nods went around the table.
“Cool. I probably don’t have to say this, but prepare for a shitty night. This is going to suck.” Rallek folded his arms.
Nighthawk grinned.
“Guys, mind the swearing?” asked Kavan.
“Why? You sound like my boss.” Fawkes chuckled.
“I have my reasons.” Kavan pulled a huge star map display open over the table. “So, as Rallek was saying. The mission objective is to obtain a set of plans from the primary computer system inside a pirate space station. It’s a mixed mission involving both space combat and doing stuff on foot.”
“We’ve done those before,” said Angel813. “What makes this one so annoying?”
“This quest is designed to be done by a group of two or three crews.” Rallek gestured at the map. “The pirate station is protected by cloaked corvettes. One of them is an even match for us without being invisible. We could easily wind up having two or three on us at once. Kavan’s a pretty good pilot, but the odds of us getting through that aren’t great.”
“So we find a group?” asked Fawkes.
“If we want to risk the entire Axillon99 community knowing someone on the leaderboard is interested in this mission.” Rallek tapped his fingers on the table. “It’s a catch twenty-two.
If we try to find help, we’re basically giving away the advantage of us knowing this anti-venom thing is important.”
“The Venom Shroud,” said Nighthawk. “It’s a purple mod, named.”
“Right. What he said.” Kavan gestured at him.
“There’s more than one way to work a quest.” Nighthawk stood, wagging a chicken nugget at everyone while he walked in a circle around the table. “We’ve got an advantage over everyone else.”
The ship hung in rapt silence as he ate the nugget.
“Out with it, man,” said Rallek.
“Easy.” Nighthawk held his arms out to the sides, smiling. “You guys have the best fighter pilot in Axillon99 on your crew, and Fawkes is really damn sneaky.”
“And so humble.” Rallek rolled his eyes.
“Stealth?” asked Fawkes.
“Well sorta. Hear me out.” Nighthawk went back to his chair and munched on another nugget. “NPC ships have an aggro radius. The bigger the ship, the bigger we have to be to trigger it. A single fighter can slip past their defensive fleet… with a little help from our technomancer.”
“Don’t forget I’m a techie, too.” Fawkes patted her electronics pack. “The fighter’s got two slots for buffs… I’m just not usually on board.”
“Right.” Nighthawk pointed at her. “But you’re important for something else.”
“You can make your own sandwiches, Nighthawk,” said Angel813.
Kavan and Rallek stifled snickers.
He froze, shifted to look at her with a mask of complete confusion on his features. “What? Sandwiches? We have a food printer. Why would she make sandwiches?”
“Forget it. Geez. You grow up in a bubble?” asked Angel813.
“Umm. Whatever.” Nighthawk looked at Fawkes. “You, me, and Rallek pile into the Gremlin. I fly us past the screen. Get close. You sneak into the space station. Instead of us fighting our way to the control room, you stealth it. We don’t have to kill anything… just get the plans. It’s not an instance, so if you get killed, we don’t get locked out.”
Kavan’s eyebrows went up. “That’s so damn crazy it might just work.”
Nighthawk leaned both hands on the table. “I know I can pull it off.”
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