Street Cultivation 2

by Sarah Lin

  Grabbing two bottles out of the fridge, Delsin wandered to the central area and dropped down onto one couch. "Alright, have a seat. Let's talk about this seriously."

  Rick accepted one of the bottles carefully. He hadn't been given a bottle opener and didn't know any special tricks, but he decided that this was probably another test. So he just applied his cores to tear off the metal cap and then took a drink. Honestly, he didn't know enough about microbrews to be sure of if it was worth anything, so he just sat down and took another sip.

  Delsin took a long drink, then focused on him. "Okay, brass tacks: I'm not going to let you claim any lucrim anomalies in Peakless Wildlife Refuge. I suspect there are two, though we haven't been able to pin them down. But I can't let the CSLA come in here - my niece would kill me."

  "Would they do something bad?" Rick shifted to get more comfortable, relaxing now that Delsin no longer seemed to be testing him. "They said they had an efficient extraction process, but I was worried they actually meant a scorched earth policy or something."

  "Nah, it's not like that. But my niece puts a lot of work into creating a slightly more natural lucrim environment here, and what they do would wreck it." Delsin sat forward and watched him seriously. "It seems like more of you are just going to keep showing up, so I have a counter-offer: you use their special technique to help me find them, but you don't take credit. In return, we'll show you an anomaly outside the Refuge that you can claim."

  Not the offer he'd expected, but Rick considered it seriously. "You have some way of neutralizing the anomaly yourself?"

  "That's right. Not me personally, but my niece can dispel it into the environment. And if they have to hire a bunch of stooges like you - no offense - they don't have a comprehensive map of them, which means they don't know we have any. They might be suspicious, but our problem would be solved for now."

  "I think that sounds reasonable, but I need to find some way to keep my job. What about a one for one trade? For each anomaly I let you neutralize, you show me one elsewhere. I'll start with the first one as a show of good faith, but after that we can trade."

  "Fair enough." Delsin sat back and took a long drink from his bottle, apparently satisfied. "If you'd tried to strike a nastier bargain, I'd have just thrown you out and tried to copy the technique myself, since I watched for a bit before interrupting you. But honestly, I have better things to do with my time, and you seem like a decent kid, so we might as well work together."

  Rick smiled back at him. "Thanks. I'm glad we can come to an agreement, but what about my original question? Is there any way the dragon could be moved here?"

  "Oh, you were serious about that?"

  "That's why I came."

  "Heh, I figured you just threw that out to play to stereotypes." Delsin swung his bottle by the top idly for a bit, thinking. "I'm not the expert, but I think if it had mange and looked so starved that you could tell, the poor thing wasn't going to last. But if you find lucrim-using creatures that are in better shape, my family would probably be happy to take them. The local populations are almost always too low."

  "That's good to hear. I'll bow to whatever the experts say, of course, but I'm hoping my work doesn't do more harm than good."

  "Reasonable enough, kid. So do we have a deal?"

  Delsin extended his hand, completely serious this time. Rick stared at it for a bit, reflecting on just how large a turn this trip had taken, but in the end reached out and grasped the other man's hand. "Deal."

  Chapter 20: Aura Bear

  After hiking for several hours, Rick was convinced that he didn't like hiking. Oh, there was a certain degree of beauty in the forests and he could imagine how the world might look from atop a mountain, but after so long in the Peakless Wildlife Refuge, he mainly wanted to go home. Long bike commutes or getting beaten up at the gym were better than this.

  He had Delsin tagging along with him, though, so he needed to stay professional. At regular intervals he knelt down to check the surveying technique again. Pinpointing lucrim anomalies in the Refuge was difficult due to the ambient lucrim, plus the fact that there seemed to be more than one messed with his readings. Still, he was quite confident that they were getting closer.

  "You know," he said as he stood up, "it's strange that there would be more than one anomaly in the Refuge. It's a big area, sure, but the others seem to be quite spread out for miles around Branton."

  "Must be a funny coincidence. A hilarious coincidence, even." From the way Delsin glanced at him, he didn't believe that at all.

  They hiked onward in the direction the technique had indicated for a while, Rick thinking about that. He didn't have a solution, but he could rule out a few things. "I really doubt the Refuge could be altering lucrim flow on a global scale. And as far as I know there's never anything special about one bit of land over another. So it has to be something else."

  "It does have to be something other than bad answers, yup." Delsin gave him a bit of smirk before having mercy. "I figure that these 'anomalies' - though they're just the way lucrim would normally flow - aren't just dropped from above. They start out as a trickle and either develop into problems or evaporate early on."

  "Oh... I guess that makes sense. Sometimes there'd be uneven lucrim flow, but it would just fade away without causing an issue. The anomalies must need certain conditions to persist, and I suppose the Refuge is a better environment for that to happen?"

  "That's my guess. So you'll be doing us a favor, getting rid of them."

  Rick nodded and continued hiking. Though he reflected for a moment on what Delsin said about the lucrim points being natural and the rest of the world being the anomaly, he wasn't sure it mattered. The GLA had been harvesting lucrim for generations and that wasn't likely to change. Humans had altered the natural world in countless ways and this was just another one.

  He was about to bring up something else when he heard a growl. On instinct he turned, then froze as he realized he was staring at a bear.

  Not just any bear, but a massive beast the size of a van. Worse than that, there was a patch of fur on its chest that was deep red. Though the bear didn't seem angry at that moment, Rick remembered about aura bears from biology class. They were one of the few animals that could not just hold lucrim like all living creatures did, but actually generate aura. If it was angered, it would turn dangerous - maybe even to him if it was old enough.

  "Hey there, Blue." Delsin walked straight up to the bear and clapped it on the neck.

  The bear let out a growl and reared up, towering over them. It brought down paws the size of manhole covers onto Delsin's head... and then just sort of pawed at him. When Delsin began to rub its stomach and the bear rumbled louder, Rick realized that it wasn't attacking at all.

  "Uh..." He still wanted to back away, but found himself just staring at the massive creature. "Is it tame?"

  "Nope. I found old Blue here as a cub and helped raise him, but a wild animal is never tame. If you're not capable of dealing with it, doing this with a wild animal is just stupid."

  "Then, uh..."

  "Oh, by the way, you might want to stop talking."

  Though Rick closed his mouth as soon as the warning came, it was too late. The bear - Blue, apparently - turned toward him. It advanced a few steps on its hind legs, paws held in an odd tucked position that would have been cute if it wasn't a massive carnivorous predator.

  "Delsin? Is Blue going to attack me?"

  "No, but that doesn't mean..." Delsin cut off as the bear advanced again, moving up alongside the animal and patting it on the side. "Calm down, Blue. It's just a guest, no need to get riled up."

  Blue let out a roar and brought a paw down. It wasn't fast enough that Rick couldn't have dodged it, yet his instincts clashed - part of him thought he should use a Bunyan's Step, part of him hesitated due to warnings of running making predators chase you. That made him delay too long and he only had time to brace his arms over his head when the paw slammed down.

  H
e managed to lean in and avoid the claws, but the raw force still vibrated through his body. Rick had braced his defensive core and was still shocked at how heavy the blow felt. More than that, it felt completely and utterly different from any attack he'd received from a human being.

  The bear let out a puzzled grunt and pulled its paw back. It dropped down onto all fours, head still over Rick, and stared at him as if curious. Since curiosity was better than murderous rage, Rick stayed where he was and tried to act nonthreatening.

  Unfortunately, the bear sated its curiosity by reaching forward and swiping up at Rick.

  The blow sent him flying into the air and he smashed into a tree trunk some distance away. He managed to shake off his shock and grabbed a branch so he wouldn't fall back down. Only afterward did he realize how high up he was, and after that he realized that his shirt had been torn. There were scrapes underneath, but they were barely bleeding.

  Not sure how to proceed, Rick just stayed on the branch and looked below. Delsin walked up to the bear again, patting it roughly on the chest. Blue put its paws on his head again and gnawed playfully on his shoulder for a while, then eventually trundled off into the woods.

  Rick just stayed on the branch and tracked the bear for as long as he could.

  "You okay up there?" Delsin turned and called to him. After checking the injury, Rick nodded.

  "I'm okay. Can I come down now?"

  "Yeah, it should be safe now."

  Taking a deep breath, Rick pushed himself a bit off the tree and dropped to the ground. The impact jarred his legs a bit, but less than the bear's first blow had. Delsin had already approached with unnatural speed and looked him over.

  "Huh, you held up under that surprisingly well. And here I thought my carelessness had gotten some poor kid maimed."

  "What..." Rick had to take a deep breath to calm himself and keep speaking. "What made it attack me all of a sudden?"

  "Oh, that wasn't an attack. When they attack they pin their prey down and bite. I think Blue likes you... but yeah, that's why you don't just adopt an aura bear as a pet. Or at least you shouldn't. There are always a few idiots with more money than sense."

  "Well, I guess no real harm done beyond my shirt." Rick touched one of the painful lines of red and winced. Yet he found himself staring after the bear, curious about the way it had used aura...

  "I don't like that look." Despite his words, Delsin glanced at him with a smile. "What are you thinking?"

  "Nothing. Let's just go find the anomaly, hopefully without running into any more apex predators."

  He set himself to working again and repeated the technique, advancing toward the anomaly. Unfortunately, Delsin wasn't put off, following him with an amused expression. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that you were thinking about going after old Blue again."

  "Well..." Rick decided that there was no point being dishonest with the old man. "I was just thinking that a bit of 'playing' with an animal like that would be potentially good training."

  "Heh, you're crazy. Not for fighting a bear - that actually would be good training - but in your rush for new lucrim experiences. Ah, youth..." Abruptly Delsin turned serious. "If you do come back and fight the animals in our refuge, I will shoot you. This isn't a petting zoo."

  "Alright, message received. This would be a terrible petting zoo, anyway."

  Delsin chuckled and just followed him as they hiked onward. Though Rick was thrown off by the encounter with the bear, he kept himself focused and homed in on the anomaly. They didn't talk much and there were no more distractions, so eventually he located a point where the aura between his hands went wild.

  It didn't seem like much, just a small clearing with a few rotting logs. Rick stood up and glanced at Delsin. "Alright, this is it. What happens now?"

  "Stay here a spell while I report the exact location to the people who can do something about it. Don't punch any bears while I'm gone." With that, Delsin stepped back into the woods and just... melted away. Rick knew that it must be a lucrim technique, but he had no idea how it had been done or even exactly what it had done.

  Left alone, he wandered around the clearing without disturbing anything. He peered at some mushrooms atop the log, wondering if they were some sort of special lucrim-using mushroom, but he didn't think so. This might simply be a normal anomaly without anything unusual going on around it.

  For just a moment he did consider getting out the wooden sphere and contacting the CSLA about the location. What guarantee did he have that Delsin would actually keep to his agreement, after all? Or maybe he could find some way to get credit for reporting the anomaly while still letting Delsin dissolve it the way he wanted.

  But no, he'd made a promise. Rick found himself considering whether or not the wooden sphere might be tracking local information even without his input - its inner workings were dense enough that he couldn't be sure what all it did. Recording people without their knowledge might be illegal, but he doubted that the CSLA really cared.

  "Okay, it's done." Delsin melted out of the forest without warning. "And you didn't break our agreement to go tell your bosses."

  "I promised that I wouldn't."

  "Oaths don't mean very much these days." Delsin came up beside him and put a heavy hand on his shoulder, a bit of sentiment in his eyes. "I'm glad I was right to trust you, Rick. In an age of greed where everyone is too wrapped up in themselves to care, you've given this old man a reason to hope again."

  Rick stared at him for a long moment. "Bullshit."

  Delsin barked out a laugh and turned away for him to follow. "Okay, looks like I played the angle too hard with you. But let's go. You made good on your promise, so I want to fulfill my end. I know one anomaly that should be easy for you."

  "Where is it?" Rick moved after him as they hiked back into the woods. "It's actually getting later, so just telling me the location might be better."

  "Oh, don't worry about that. Just keep your lucrima soul limp."

  A moment later, the world blurred around them. Though Rick could have tried to resist, he trusted Delsin enough that he just braced himself internally instead of fighting it. His senses rebelled against what he was seeing, but he thought that space was being folded around them somehow.

  Then suddenly they were standing at the edge of a forest. The world spun for a moment and Rick tasted acid in the back of his throat, but otherwise there was no harm done. He swallowed to clear his mouth and looked around. Though he wanted to try the surveying technique to see if they were close to an anomaly, he looked to Delsin first.

  "That was the Sacred Forest Step technique," the old man said. "For those of the ancient blood, it allows us to pass instantly through friendly forests."

  "Yeah, I can do the same thing in trailer parks."

  Delsin barked another laugh and gestured to one side. "That's east and it will take you to the highway. But there's a point just north of here that I'm pretty sure is your lucrim anomaly, though I wasn't able to pinpoint it exactly."

  "You already know it?" Rick bent down and began setting up the technique again, but he glanced curiously at Delsin as he did so.

  "Yeah, one of my nephews noticed that we had invasive species entering this side of the refuge with more lucrim than we'd expect. I figured that it was probably what you call an anomaly, but all we could do was take measures to prevent any problems. Getting rid of it will actually be doing us another favor."

  "Well, I've got it." Rick stood up and quickly located the correct point, which was actually within sight. He started to reach for the sphere in his pocket, then stopped and glanced at his guide. "Thanks for this, Delsin. I'm going to report it soon, but I wasn't sure if you wanted to leave first. I'm not sure what kinds of readings they'll take."

  "Probably a good precaution." Delsin folded his arms and smiled at Rick. "You're alright, kid. Can we count on you to help out again?"

  "Yeah, I'd do this deal again if you want. Maybe next time I can show up at the actual office and y
ou can find a path with fewer aura bears?"

  "Heh, maybe. But full disclosure: this is the only easy anomaly that I know about. I do have another one I know about, maybe two, but I only noticed because I got called in for a problem. They won't all be this easy."

  Though Rick considered that for a moment, he decided that it didn't matter. The biggest problem had always been finding the lucrim anomalies across so much area, so any method of locating them was invaluable. Plus, he thought it might be good to establish a working relationship with Delsin. "Thanks for telling me, but I'm willing to take my chances. I'm a wild youth, after all."

  "Good. Next time call the office and they'll get things sorted." With that, Delsin melted away with his technique again and Rick was alone in the countryside.

  After taking a moment to double check that the anomaly was stable, Rick called in the report. He got an immediate confirmation check via text on his phone. If it was anything like the first one, they'd take a bit to calculate the value of the anomaly, then add it to the scoreboard. Despite the setbacks getting to this point, he was ahead of the quotas.

  Since he wasn't needed for anything else at the location, Rick began to walk east to find the highway. If they'd been transported north, then he would have quite a long bike ride back. That would be a good chance to try to train to exhaustion again, but he wouldn't mind the extra time.

  He needed to figure out the best way to tell Melissa that he'd been attacked by a bear, because there was no way she'd believe it. Rick chuckled and began to jog back.

  Chapter 21: Jackalopes

  Though the injury on Rick's chest took little time to heal, he decided to take a day off to deal with other issues so he could recover fully. Those issues weren't trivial, either. He had a paycheck coming in and apparently the CSLA didn't want to give him a check like usual, they wanted to make a bank transfer. That meant actually getting a proper bank account.

  In the end, he went to the bank that had never called him back about the job offer. Though Rick felt like that would be awkward or uncomfortable, in fact the bank was a huge organization that didn't even remember him. He just had to fill out some forms, then he got the information he needed to give at work. Now he could safely store his 7000 extra lucrim.