“He’s a good kid,” Hung lightened up. “Wouldn’t hurt to have him.”
“The hell with Big Po!” Ed snapped. “Did you forget when the inwinova nearly killed us?”
“Well, nearly isn’t killed,” the big man shrugged.
“They didn’t kill us then! But I wouldn’t put it past that asshole now!”
“Hey, hey!” Malik shot up, standing between his friends and shouting. “Was it not enough losing Tissa? Don’t fight!”
His voice broke off and he blushed.
“I suggest we speak to Big Po together,” I said. “I think Hairo can make sure the meeting goes without a hitch. Well figure out what Wesley wants and make a decision. Alright?”
The suggestion found no enthusiasm, but the boys nodded. I thought Ed didn’t like the idea of Wesley potentially being involved in the clan’s business because his wounds from the pursuit in the sandbox hadn’t yet healed—he’d thought his life was over back then.
“Alright,” Malik grumbled. “And you two, make friends!”
Hung and Ed shook hands and each clapped Malik on the shoulder, making him jump. Then Hung walked over, threw an arm over my shoulder and said conspiratorially:
“Your folks are on the moon, the pad’s empty… You got a great chance to become a man here, Sheppard.”
“What makes you think…” I began, standing up and feeling my ears redden.
“Did you forget? Tissa and I have been friends far longer than you’ve been her boyfriend. And she’s a blabbermouth sometimes. She let slip that you and she never did the deed. So listen to your old friends—if a girl wants to date you already…”
“And she’s old enough!” Ed pointed out, raising a finger.
“…then you should date her,” Hung finished. “And if you’re worried about Tissa, then we’ll keep our mouths shut.”
“I don’t want to date anyone! We’re just on a break!”
Malik tapped the comm and brought up Tissa’s last photo, with she and Liam kissing.
“Sorry, buddy, but your break is a full split,” Hung sighed. “Call Karina and invite her over.”
“You need it, bro,” Ed added. “You’re going crazy over Dis.”
“Well see,” I muttered. Tissa’s photo didn’t quite take me out; subconsciously, I was ready for something like it. But it made me feel the worst I’d felt in a while. “Let’s go to Cali.”
Chapter 3: Unity
HAIRO AND HIS PARTNER Willy flew in Hairo’s personal flyer to Cali Bottom. For obvious reasons, he’d had to return the Shark to Excommunicado’s hangar. Still, they got there faster than we did, but they had a shorter journey.
It was cold and windy up at nine hundred feet, but the building’s roof had high protective barriers at its edges, and its surface was warm to the touch with the rising heat of the whole building. The residents of the massive highrise strolled around the edge on paths laid over artificial lawns.
Hairo sat on one of the benches where I first met Trixie’s grandfather. Next to him was a sinewy, dark-skinned man around thirty-five.
“Willy Brizuela,” he introduced himself after Hairo and I shook hands.
Gyula came over to us. I introduced him to the former Excommunicado security officers. A couple of minutes later, Manny Almeida joined us, fresh from a visit to the hospital with his brother Hank, who’d been put in an induced coma.
The builder hadn’t brought everyone to the first meeting; he invited us to his place as soon as we were all gathered, so as not to draw outside attention.
Gyula’s little bedsit differed from the one that Trixie and his grandpa lived in. Also one room, but twice the size. The builder explained that he’d rented two and combined them—the landlord had allowed it since the walls were practically cardboard anyway.
Gyula’s sister, Stephanie, and his wife Amanda warmly greeted us all, set the table and left us alone. It was crowded, and I could tell from Hairo’s eyes that listening ears weren’t welcome, even among family.
“Make yourselves at home,” the builder said, nodding to us. “Thanks to you boys, we eat more than UNBs now.”
Mismatched stools and chairs were placed around the table. At the center was a big tray with an unfamiliar dish on it—something from Hungarian cuisine, Gyula explained. It was surrounded by bowls of salad and bottles of soda and beer. The older men immediately opened the latter. The boys looked at them, took some bottles too. I poured myself some soda. I wanted my head clear.
“Do you trust everyone here?” Hairo whispered into my ear, examining Gyula and Manny.
He didn’t ask about the others—since I’d brought them with me, that meant they could be trusted. I gave a barely perceptible nod, raised my hand. Silence descended. Everyone looked at me.
“Thank you for your hospitality, Gyula. You all already know Hairo and Willy. They’re going to be responsible for the safety of the clan’s members in real life. We’ve gathered to make a decision about our base, the place we’re going to live. But first, I have a question for Hairo. What do the preventers know?”
“You were right not to pay us any more, Alex. Almost all the Alliance leaders already know that you’re the Threat,” Hairo said. “But if you think I cheated you out of a million, think again. The Excommunicado analysts put you at the head of their list of suspects only as of today.”
“How?”
“Back in Kinema, they paid attention to how you fight when you don’t use your nuke. Not counting your, let’s say, special abilities, they remembered your hand-to-hand combat style. They started to root out all the strong unarmed combat fighters. Completely by chance, they happened upon a video of a duel between you and another Threat, Crag, in the sandbox Arena. Then they found a recording from an amateur tournament in the Tristad tavern. You showed your skills in unarmed combat then too. They put two and two together and realized that Oyama’s appearance and your battles are links in the same chain.”
“Why aren’t they pursuing me in real life?”
“All the members of the Alliance have been instructed by Snowstorm. Kiran Jackson gathered all the preventer leaders and forbade them from influencing you through any non-game methods. I don’t know the details, but I heard that if a clan breaks the rules, its whole membership will be banned and its property frozen. And of course, nobody will get any rewards for eliminating you.”
“Then why should we hide?” Malik asked. “Why should we bother with a clan base and a security team at all?”
“There are plenty of lower-ranked preventer clans outside the Alliance,” Willy answered for his partner.
I recalled Yoruba and nodded. The top players might be forced to somehow maintain their reputation, but the rest…
“Worse, the Triads don’t limit themselves for anyone,” Hairo added. “They’d kidnap Alex if they knew where he was. Glyph from the Azure Dragons may be friendly with the Triad, but he won’t leak information about you. They’ll use their own methods to get intel if they take an interest in you.”
“There are other dangers to Alex too, but you can let us handle those now.” Hairo cracked his knuckles. “You don’t need to know about them. No point in worrying. Let’s get down to business…”
We shared our own ideas about the real-life clan base with the security officers. Manny and Gyula started to tell them about the spot they’d chosen, and Hairo suggested we inspect it.
We flew on Morales’s personal flyer to the new anthill highrise. It wasn’t inhabited yet, so it looked pristine. Long, spacious corridors with marble-effect plastic, bright panel lighting, fast lifts. And disgustingly tiny rooms.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Manny whispered. “Everything here is cheap. I wouldn’t be surprised if the decor is toxic.”
The complex manager showed us around. He was a spry fifty-year- old Latin American trying to look younger, with a robot guard escort.
“All the rooms are empty for the moment. The bottom five floors are all infrastructure,” he jabbered, const
antly gesticulating. “There’s a parking lot, laundrette, mall, a huge gym, a pool, a virtcapsule hire station, an internal park, a playground, a school…”
“Not bad!” Hung whistled. “I thought this district was supposed to be a dump.”
“We have all that in our complex too, it’s just premium,” Manny said. “Nobody uses it. Way too expensive. And it’s a ‘mall’ in name only. They sell whatever doesn’t sell in the citizen stores, stuff past the due date…”
“Ahem,” the manager servicing us coughed, drawing our attention, and quickly spoke: “I would like to note that demand begets supply. If the customer can afford it, the mall s AI can order higher-quality produce. But Im getting ahead of myself…”
None of us took part in the adults’ conversation. Especially since Hairo had insisted that only Ed and I come along. Rodriguez was introduced as Morales’s son, and I was Gyula’s. We’d disabled comm identification a long time ago, after the Arena final.
While Hairo was talking to the manager, Willy Brizuela carefully studied the surroundings. Rooms with windows cost more, but were worse for security, so the choice fell on windowless rooms. Gyula was discussing the extent of possible alterations—the clan had enough funds to give its members five times more space than the little rooms the noncitizens currently lived in.
Personally, I didn’t really care about the details. I had no plans to live there. Sure, w^e’d crash here until the citizenship tests, but then we’d move to a better district.
I was actually just wasting time. I didn’t understand wiiat they were talking about anyway, and Gyula, Manny and Hairo already knew what we needed: secure rooms with enough space for a premium capsule with plenty of bandwidth. The rest didn’t really matter to me. What mattered was that we’d begun to sort out the base, and by Gyula and Hairo’s reckoning, we could move in within a couple of weeks. As long as the money didn’t stop, but that was up to dad. He had the funds.
Hairo took Ed and me back, to the roof of block thirty-six. We picked up Hung and Malik and flew home from there.
Along the way, we decided to throw a little party at my place on Saturday and invite Rita and Karina over. Hung planned to call Alison Wu from T-Modus. After a moment’s thought, I added Piper Dandera to the list too.
All that would have been fine, only Saturday was tomorrow. That meant we had to use the day and night to the full.
We were above our district. Hung scratched the back of his head, spoke:
“I still don’t get it, Alex… A Threat can’t publicize his status. Otherwise Snowstorm gives you a whole bunch of penalties, right down to losing citizenship. How does that work with the interview you want to give to Ian Mitchell?”
“He won’t admit to anything,” Ed answered for me.
“How’s that?”
“Hairo guessed it himself, and so did we. But we’re Subthreats, we have to keep our mouths shut. The security officer doesn’t.”
“Why Hairo?”
“Just as an example,” Malik inteijected. “Alex’s dad guessed it himself too. One of them can leak the info online. Right, Alex?”
“Something like that. There was no time to think it all over properly, but publicity will give me protection. It’s too soon to discuss it now. I want to talk to Snowstorm and clarity a few things. In the contract, they threaten punishment for revealing your status because it means a Threat could collaborate with the preventers. I have no plans to do anything of the kind…”
* * *
The first person I saw in Dis was Trixie. The stumpy man seemed to be waiting for me.
“Hey, Alex!” he shouted in joy, jumping up from the bench outside the tavern.
“Hey. You alone?” I asked, meaning players. Counting NPCs, the place teemed with life: the cultists were performing some ritual on the other side of the fence, and kobold cubs chased each other down the streets. I heard Patrick causing a scandal in the tavern. “How’re things?” I asked.
“Good. Gyula is waiting for you at the temple,” Trixie answered. “Stephanie and Eniko are in the tavern. The rest are at the mine.”
“Infect, Crawler, Bomber?”
Trixie shook his head and took me by the hand.
“Come on, I show you something!”
“Where? What for?”
“I plant. Much. It grew!”
I followed him all around the fort’s perimeter. I had to admit, Trixie had worked hard! Just the garden of fruit trees and berry bushes behind the tavern must have taken a huge effort. In mere days, everything he’d planted around the fort had grown and shot up in level. Maybe thanks to the special fertilizer that the kobold shaman suggested.
All along the fort stretched bushes of Fiery Wasabi— tall grass with broad round leaves. They covered a five-yard area outside the fort like lilies on a pond.
“Very hot!” Trixie said. “No trampling!”
The Fiery Wciscibi’s base damage wasn’t impressive yet, but it gave me hope that as they leveled up, the bushes would deal more damage.
“Very hot,” Trixie repeated. “Stand too long, you die quick!”
“What’s that?” I pointed at some tall thick stalks with flowers reminiscent of windmills at their tips.
“Windblow Clover. Blows weak for now.”
Trixie had planted the Windblow Clover behind the strip of Fiery Wasabi, which was tactically useful. From what I understood, the clover would blow away low levels right into the wasabi, with vines curling behind it.
“What’s that?”
“Explosive Grapes,” the gardener answered, puffing out his chest. “Boom! They make big bang if you step on them. One kobold lost leg! Rvg’har was very angry!”
“At you?”
“No, at the kobold. Said he was dumb. Look there.” He pointed a short finger at a strange sunflower-like plant. They had sharp teeth where ordinary sunflowers had seeds. “Grasping Swiflower. They bite hard. They bit scary one. He wanted to pick them.”
“Scary one? Who do you mean?”
“Two heads, big. Said you brought him.”
I realized he must have been talking about one of the cultists of Morena. But wait, one of them had two heads…? An ogre, maybe?
“What happened to him?”
“Screamed loud. Two heads, both screamed. I heal him with Healing Aloe.”
“We have that too?”
“Yep. Miners bring it with them. Leaves heal. Invigorate.”
“Well done, Trixie!” I patted the little guy on his shaggy head. “Soon you’re going to have your own capsule…”
“I know!” A smile lit up his grubby face. “Uncle getting one too. He’ll sit in tavern. Won’t be bored at home!”
Trixie told me that he’d decided to take out a clan loan for a capsule for old man Furtado. I’d promised to equip him at no charge, and seeing his successes now, I had no regrets at all. I’d heard about high-level fortification lines made of defensive plants that could easily take down a raid of top players. It wouldn’t hurt to have that. And with divine fertilizer, too, thanks to the Montosaurus!
“Say, when we upgrade the fort and expand the borders, what happens to your plants?”
“I replant them,” Trixie answered. “Don’t worry, Alex. Is easy.”
Apparently he could ‘replant’ the same way Gyula could build…
Speak of the devil.
“Alex! Just who I’ve been looking for.”
The builder approached us. He was eating a mango just plucked from a tree. We hadn’t had the chance to talk about the temple in Cali Bottom—I didn’t want to tell Hairo what we were doing in-game just yet.
I’ve invented a design!” he said proudly. “When I started restoring the temple, I decided to try using that stone you gave me…”
“The Inert Reinforcement Stone?”
“Yep,” Gyula nodded happily.
The smile hadn’t left his face in real life either, when he and Manny and Hairo had been examining the new apartments. “Truly, God brought you to
Cali Bottom!” the builder whispered, wiping away a tear. More like Andrew Clayton, who controls the lich boss Dargo, I thought, but left the thought unsaid.
“Now we have a design for a Reinforced Temple,” Gyula continued. “Where could we get more of those stones?” I could try making an upgrade for both the desert temple and the fort.”
“They don’t grow on trees, I’m afraid…”
Gyula sighed sadly and took me to the restored temple. Because of the game mechanics, Behemoth couldn’t take up residence in it without a consecration. I decided to take care of that first.
Suddenly, we heard bloodcurdling howls and wails from the other end of the street.
“The kobolds,” Gyula shrugged. “I can never tell whether they’re celebrating or shouting at each other. By the way, the dark ones you brought to the island… Are they staying?”
“I don’t know. What about them?”
“We just need a few more people for an upgrade…”
While he spoke, I opened the fort tab. The kobolds weren’t wasting any time.
Welcome to the Kharinza fort control panel, Scyth!
Owner: clan Awoken.
Level: l.
Population: 78/100.
Structures: Headquarters, Vault, Tavern, Stables, Barracks, Houses, Cemetery, Merchant Stalls…
We could wait, of course, but if some of the dark cultists stay and live here, I could upgrade the fort to level two. We have all the building materials.”
“What do we need for level three?” I asked, remembering the conditions for Righteous Shield.
“Two hundred sentient residents in the fort. I have the design. We can buy any materials we don’t have. But most importantly, level three lets us build a castle!”
The usually tight-lipped builder turned talkative now that the subject was on his craft. He talked excitedly about the castle’s features; a stationary portal, fishing jetty, sawmill, workshops and a whole lot more that could be leveled up to strengthen the clan and all its members. Fort building was practically a separate game within the game. No wonder every decent clan had a person whose job it was just to manage the castle. Who among us would take on that role? Nobody but Crawler, but he already had enough on his plate…
Holy War Page 6