Downtime and Death (Apocalypse Gates Author's Cut Book 5)

by Daniel Schinhofen

  Sighing, Amie looked down at the table. “Oh.”

  “Food,” Terry said, coming out of the kitchen with a basket in her hands, while Frank pushed a cart behind her. “A plate of lasagna for everyone, and fresh garlic bread to go with it.”

  The two old folks quickly served everyone, then waited. Alvin was the first to cut a piece. Chewing happily, he gave Terry a smile and nod.

  “If you need anything, let us know. Alvin, I need to know more about that wine later.”

  Alvin swallowed so he could tell her, “It’s called Night’s Kiss, comes from Svargax. I need to say this is the best lasagna I’ve ever had, Gran.”

  “Thank you,” Terry smiled broadly. “Now, less talking and more eating. Mangia, mangia.”

  James chuckled, “We’re eating, we’re eating.”

  The momentary awkwardness between Megumin and Amie arguing over Justin was forgotten as everyone savored their lunch. The wine did not pair quite as perfectly with the lasagna as it had with the meal Kuro made for them, but it still went nicely with it.

  Eventually, their plates were cleaned and everyone was sated. Alvin wondered if he would have gotten a buff from the meal, though the one he still had from breakfast would have been hard to beat.

  “Excellent, as always,” James said as he got to his feet, giving Terry a hug and kiss on the cheek. “I need to go tell Susan about the upgrades. I’ll see you all later.”

  “I need to get back to my work, too,” Bill said. “Al, we need to test out what can hurt that fish-demon. Tomorrow?”

  “Sure. I’ll sleep in the bed here tonight to account for my time,” Alvin told him.

  “Boo,” Becky muttered. “We’ll both stay here, too, if you are.”

  “Indeed,” Kuro nodded.

  “Why don’t we go take a walk? Amie, want to see my base?” Alvin offered, wanting to give Justin and Megumin a moment alone. “I’ll show you the auto shop. I’m thinking you might find it interesting.”

  Amie glanced at Megumin and Justin, “I guess.”

  “We’ll show her, Hero,” Becky said. “We can get in some girl talk that way.”

  Alvin gave Becky a hug and, pressing his lips to her ear, whispered, “Don’t even think about it.”

  “I’m not,” Becky whispered back. “I just want to let her know that Justin is taken and that she should look for someone else.”

  “Have fun,” Alvin said at normal volume. Grabbing Kuro, he gave her a squeeze and kiss. “Make sure Gothy plays nice,” he barely whispered, trusting Kuro’s keen ears to pick up his words.

  “Yes, Hero.”

  Becky rolled her eyes, “Come on, Amie. Let’s talk and I’ll show you some fun things.”

  Alvin handed a key to Amie, “Make sure to give that back to Gothy when you’re done.”

  “Okay,” Amie said, taking the key and looking at the three lovers oddly.

  Alvin watched them go before giving Justin a grin. “Have fun, you two.”

  “Huh?” Justin wondered, clearly lost.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Alvin went back to the base after another hour, he found Becky and Kuro lounging in the living room. “Just relaxing?”

  “We sent Amie home a few minutes ago,” Becky said. “We’ve been waiting for you. Jarvis mentioned that you spoke to Sammi earlier today.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Alvin chuckled. “I’m over a mil right now.”

  Becky whistled softly, “Damn. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m not sure. The Queen went on a spending spree, and she’s not done yet— the agreements for stuff between settlements still costs XP, so I’ll be getting a piece of that, too.”

  “The Queen has purchased supplies for the war?”

  “Yeah, a lot of stuff. I’m fairly certain she sold off the old rare metals that aren’t useful anymore to get that kind of XP,” Alvin said. “All those coins and bars in the vault probably got liquidated.”

  “Smart,” Becky said. “She spent about nine mil? I don’t think she got rid of all of it, but probably a good chunk.”

  “Pads, please,” Alvin said and base pads appeared for each of them. Taking a seat between the two women, Alvin kissed both of them. “I want all of us to pick out about seven hundred fifty thousand XP worth of upgrades. Once we’re all done, we’ll compare and see where we agree.”

  “Smart,” Becky said. “Anything we all agree on should be good. The stuff we don’t agree on, we can discuss?”

  “Pretty much,” Alvin said. “I’m the one with the XP, sure, but I shouldn’t ignore the wisdom of the two women I love.”

  “Hero,” Becky purred, leaning over to kiss him again, “keep that up and you’ll be treated especially well tonight.”

  “We should treat him that way, anyway,” Kuro reminded her. “Hero was kind enough to allow us to help Megumin.”

  “Fair enough,” Becky giggled. “She was so cute, too. If Justin doesn’t take her, I’m thinking we should pick her up and give her a job here in the base.”

  “I’d like to keep the base down to as few permanent people as possible,” Alvin said. “Not everything is going to work out like it has with Mousie.”

  Becky sighed, “I know that, and I know I should be perfectly happy with what we have. But at the same time... I think of what other races might be out there and… well…”

  “You want to sample them all,” Alvin finished for her.

  “Is that wrong, Hero?”

  “Sharing is caring, Gothy,” Alvin said, kissing the tip of her nose. “As long as all three of us agree, then we can see.”

  “I will always agree,” Kuro said. “I’m yours and Gothy’s, Hero. I will never tell either of you no, as I know you always consider my wellbeing.”

  “I’ll always share with you, Hero,” Becky added. “I do agree that we’d both have to agree to anyone else joining us, even if I’m the one who’s always asking.”

  “Nutjob,” Alvin chuckled, kissing Becky softly. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Until then, I’m not offering anyone a spot here unless there is a damned compelling reason for it. I do have one caveat for the other races bit, though: they have to be humanoid and have the right parts.”

  Becky giggled, “Fine, no spider women for you.”

  Alvin shuddered, “I hadn’t thought about that, and now I want it out of my head.”

  “We’ll help drive it out later,” Becky giggled, leaning against him and looking over the pad.

  They took their time, looking through every room and upgrade they could find. Alvin smirked when something he had been wanting appeared when he added a room to his cart. Reading over the new upgrade, he put it in the cart, then checked to see if it could be upgraded further.

  Alvin was the first to set his pad down, followed by Kuro, and finally, Becky. “Since we’re all done, who wants to go first?”

  “You,” Becky said, snuggling closer.

  “Okay,” Alvin said, picking his pad up. “Jarvis, is it possible to hook the pad up to the big screen?”

  “I believe so, sir,” Jarvis said, coming out of the kiosk room. He fiddled with the TV for a moment and it showed Alvin’s screen. “There you go, sir. I’ll fix you something to drink, I’m sure you’ll need it.”

  “Thanks,” Alvin said and looked down at the pad on his lap. “Okay, so the first upgrade I looked at was for the garage. We can up it to add more slots or to get a better percentage of repair. It’d be fine, but it’s not groundbreaking, especially with our vehicles in good repair already. That does remind me... I need to talk to Bill about his truck. He wanted some work done.”

  “That’s not even on my list,” Becky said.

  “Nor mine, Hero.”

  “Okay,” Alvin said. “I didn’t add either of them yet. I also picked a tailor, because my shirt needs one to repair it. There isn’t much need for a tailor anymore because clothes aren’t armor, but it turns out that it still opens up a whole new room: the composite armory.”

/>   “Oh, you found that, too? Good,” Becky said.

  “I found it, but not through the tailor,” Kuro added, making Becky and Alvin wonder how she had gotten to it.

  “If we take composite armory, it combines the leatherworking room and tailoring room into one. The system is changed some, too. It’s a hundred points per day, divided between up to ten items. I checked and that room starts with cloth and leather. A small upgrade lets it repair our gloves and vests, too.”

  “Yeah, I did that, too,” Becky nodded.

  “If you take the armorer room, you could have gotten there, as well,” Kuro said. “That’s the way I found it.”

  “None of these rooms will make anything new, will they?” Becky asked.

  “Not that I’ve seen so far, but maybe they will if upgraded far enough? Actually... I doubt they will. I bet that was one of the tradeoffs for automated rooms,” Alvin said.

  “If we took all the upgrades to make sure we can fix all of our armor, including my hat and your headband, we could still afford the kiosk upgrade that lets us send and receive packages from settlements.”

  “Why?” Becky asked.

  “Before the devs, we asked about people teleporting between settlements, remember?”

  “And Jarvis couldn’t answer it, but didn’t say no,” Becky nodded.

  “Right. Now take today’s Apocalypse Gates— we’re moving toward a more gamey system,” Alvin said. “What do you see in a ton of games…? Fast travel.”

  “You think they’ll gate it behind the kiosk transfers?”

  “Yeah. Fast travel only works to set locations normally, like settlements. There’s probably going to be something else that we’ll need, but I think it’s a damned good stepping stone.”

  “Hmm, I can see that... but what’s the other piece to the puzzle?”

  “Another race?” Alvin suggested. “Something we haven’t met yet... or anyone, for that matter, or it should have opened up already. Glyphs are now becoming commonplace because of us going through the Gate, after all.”

  “Okay, but do we need that right now?” Becky asked.

  “Maybe not, but that’s my suggestion,” Alvin said. “Now, if we can get your pad up on the screen, you can walk me through what you found.”

  “One moment, please,” Jarvis said, handing cups of coffee to each of them. Once the beverages were handed out, Jarvis went back to the TV and a moment later, Becky’s pad was being displayed on the screen. “There you go, miss.”

  “Thank you, Jarvis.”

  “My pleasure, miss,” Jarvis said as he headed back to the kitchen.

  “I got the same thing for the composite armory,” Becky said, “with the upgrades, which I agree we should get. For the rest of it, I increased the repair amount for that and the gunnery. Those are the things we use most besides the vehicles.”

  “I guess maybe we didn’t need the TV, after all,” Alvin chuckled, sipping at his coffee.

  “I’ll be there to make sure—” Jarvis began.

  “It’s okay, Jarvis,” Kuro said. “Mine is not much different.”

  “As you wish,” Jarvis said.

  “I found the composite armory through the armorer room instead of the tailor, but still chose all the upgrades available. I remember your comments about the special armor you both have.”

  “Thank you, Mousie,” Alvin said, kissing her cheek.

  “I’ll reward you later,” Becky added, reaching around Alvin to pat the Elf approvingly. “What else did you find?”

  “It’s not so much for the base, but for me,” Kuro admitted. “There’s a package that will give someone racial knowledge. If I had that, and maybe an upgrade to it, I’d be able to catch more of your banter and you wouldn’t need to explain as much to me. That also goes the other way, as well— I found the one for Svargax and made sure that two sets of that is included.”

  Alvin frowned, “We looked into that before and there was nothing like it in the store.”

  “I believe it was added at some point during the last few days, sir,” Jarvis said from the kitchen. “The price is high... well, high for most people, which is why it’s not likely to be popular. However, the trader, for instance, would probably find it invaluable.”

  “Huh.”

  “Hero, we should get her that last one,” Becky said, pressing into his side, her breath tickling his neck.

  “I’m in agreement,” Alvin said. “Okay, let’s buy the composite armory and get Mousie the knowledge upgrade. We’ll see what we have to work with after that.”

  Kuro fainted from the inrush of knowledge, and Becky carried her to the bedroom to recover. Alvin went to the newly purchased and upgraded room to get repairs started on his armor. Altogether, the purchases had cost him six hundred and thirty-five thousand XP.

  Glancing at his UI, he found that he still needed another two hours in the game to meet his minimum time. I can just head out at nine. That will get me my time for today, and as long as I sleep in, I’ll make my eight for tomorrow before waking, too. Leaving the composite armory, Alvin headed to the bedroom to check on Kuro.

  ~*~*~

  Two hours later, the three of them came back to the living room. Jarvis was seated in one of the chairs with a cup of tea in hand. “You still have a couple of hours before you need to go back into the world, sir.”

  “Figured. We’re about to stat up,” Alvin said. “Going to spend the rest to bump up all of our Hardiness to eights.”

  “A solid idea, sir. The higher your Hardiness, the more damage you can take.” Jarvis nodded. “Mousie would need a moment to deal with you at eighty health, even unarmored.”

  “You still statless?” Alvin asked.

  “Indeed, sir. I will remain so until such time as the devs see fit to allow me to leave the base,” Jarvis replied. “I’ve accepted and embraced that limitation. I can at least do small things, like list items for sale in the kiosk. I discovered a bug that is now being investigated.”

  “What bug?” Alvin asked, pausing by the kiosk door.

  “I was able to list items under your name,” Jarvis said. “I believe it was left over from before, when my code was tied to yours.”

  “Huh,” Alvin muttered. “That should clean up easily. See you in a moment.”

  Using the kiosk, Alvin transferred XP onto tokens for Kuro and Becky, then purchased the stat upgrade for himself. He shuddered as he felt his entire body being changed by the system. A few seconds later, it was done and an inane thought flitted through his mind. In a wuxia-style system, I’d be puking, shitting, and peeing black sludge as my body became cleaner and healthier than before.

  Looking over at Kuro and Becky, who were also completing the stat increase, Alvin grinned, “Feel better?”

  “I have to adjust my damned corset again,” Becky muttered. “Devs, here’s an idea: have clothes auto adjust if the world is supposed to be game-like.”

  “That would be most useful,” Kuro said. “Spending XP to adjust my armor because of a stat change is idiotic. Ha, now that I know about your culture, I better understand all the references to this being a game. Jarvis isn’t an elemental... he’s an AI, yes?”

  “Correct,” Becky said, pulling Kuro into her arms. “I’m glad to see you catching up on everything.”

  “Our relationship is a polyamorous one, but some of your society would argue about that because the only male we’ll have is Hero,” Kuro said.

  “Damned right,” Becky kissed her.

  “It’s hard to believe your race survived for so long,” Kuro said. “So many wars, several that engulfed the entire world.” Shaking her head, she squeezed Becky back. “I’m just happy that I have you and Hero.”

  “We’re happy to have you, too,” Becky murmured.

  “That taps me out of that massive influx of XP,” Alvin said. “We should bug Jarvis for dinner, then go to the inn room for the rest of the night.”

  “We haven’t used a bed other than ours in such a long time,” Becky
murmured, going to Alvin with Kuro in tow. “I wonder how soundproof those rooms are?”

  “I’m sure we’ll be finding out,” Alvin laughed as he kissed her and then Kuro. “First dinner, then dessert.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning, Alvin felt a little bad for whoever cleaned the rooms— the three of them had fucked on damned near every piece of furniture that the room had just because they could. Neither of the women were there, and after a quick look into the bathroom, Alvin guessed they had gone back to the base to shower. After taking a shower in the room, Alvin did not blame them, and suddenly realized how spoiled he had gotten with his base.