Black Wolf

by Mitchell T. Jacobs

  Selene nodded. “My fireteam, let's go.”

  Zach's team took up defensive positions in the corridor.

  “So, what do you think is on the bottom floor?” Danny asked.

  “If I had to guess, it'll be a horde of chilus, which means you get out of a beer,” Zach said. He was going to file the previous room away for later.

  “I meant, what's going to be the reward if we somehow manage to survive this.”

  “You said this is looks like a mechanical research lab?” Zach asked Gavin.

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe some sort of schematic?”

  “How valuable is that schematic going to be, is the question,” Nora said.

  How valuable, indeed. Several players had discovered schematics for lost technology. The armor-piercing ammunition that Miko was using had been discovered by a small company that had been exploring an abandoned factory to the west of Old Chicago. They had sold it to one of the NPC manufacturers in the city for a tidy profit, and armor-piercing ammunition was now available to purchase in shops across the city.

  There hadn't been many discoveries, at least. The armor-piercing ammunition had been one. An ATV that ran off fusion batteries had also been discovered, though the price for one of them was too high for almost anyone to afford. A third company had found the plans for a light artillery piece, though again, no one had the specialization to use it yet. Even so, the schematics were worth a significant amount of credits if sold to the corporations back in the city.

  “Nothing in here,” Selene said over the radio.

  Black Wolf advanced to the final stairwell and headed down.

  “So... what's at the bottom?” Javy asked as they descended.

  “Probably a bunch of chilus. Don't hold back. We're going to have to use everything we have at our disposal,” Selene said.

  “Ready?” Zach asked as they reached the bottom. Everyone nodded. “Go!”

  Black Wolf Company burst through the door. In contrast to the corridors above, the room before them was well lit. And it was huge. A maze of metal walkways, storage tanks and other industrial equipment lay before them. Zach guessed that the chamber was at least the size of a football field.

  “Well, guess I was wrong,” Gavin said. “This looks like a chemistry lab of sorts.”

  “What for, I wonder?” Xavier said.

  “Keep an eye out for chilus,” Selene said. “I'll sweep the left side. Your squad can sweep right.”

  The fireteams split up. Zach's team started to advance down the right side of the lab. He heard nothing; no hissing, no scratching sounds of moving chilus, not even the sounds of any machinery, just the rustle of their kits and the clank of boots against the walkway.

  But then there was a noise up in front of them. A scratching, like a chilus, along with a hiss, but it sounded too low pitched.

  “You hear that?” Selene asked him through the radio. “I think we may have company.”

  Just as she finished saying that, a shape rose in front of them.

  “Oh crap,” Danny said. “This is probably the worst way to lose that bet.”

  It was a chilus, but it was much bigger than the ones they had encountered before. It was at least twenty feet long, and was covered in battle-scarred carapace.

  “I'm going to try and get close enough to broil it,” Zach said over the radio. “Give me cover.”

  Both fireteams opened up on the monster chilus. To their horror, the thing didn't even seem to notice the hail of bullets impacting its carapace. It hissed menacingly. Then a loud crack rang out from Selene's section, and the monster let out a shriek. For a minute, as the chilus reared back, Zach thought Miko had managed to kill it with a well-placed bullet, but he was wrong. Dead wrong. The chilus suddenly lurched forward and let out a jet of a vile looking liquid. Zach heard a scream.

  “What was that?” he demanded.

  “Miko just got hit. Wait, DUCK!”

  The chilus reared back and shot off another jet of liquid.

  “We just lost Miko,” Selene said over the radio. “I don't think we have any way to hurt it now.”

  Miko would respawn back at their stronghold, but they could ill afford to lose their sniper at a time like this. Zach was going to have to be careful, because if he bought it then the rest of Black Wolf had no way to kill the giant chilus.

  “I don't think it's paying attention to us,” Zach said. “Can you guys keep it busy for me to get close?”

  “We can try, but it's going to be tough,” Selene responded. Zach heard the chatter of gunfire start up again from the left.

  “What's the plan?” Danny asked.

  “I think that being hit by fire weakens the effectiveness of a chilus's armor,” Zach said. “I'm going to try to get close enough to hit it. Once I do that, hit it with everything you've got.”

  “You need someone to cover you,” Nora said.

  “Gavin, with me. You two, don't open fire until I hit it first. I don't want you guys to draw its attention.”

  Zach scurried forward across the walkways, followed by Gavin. Selene's squad was putting out a barrage of fire. It was certainly keeping the chilus's attention, though beyond that it wasn't doing much. Zach saw it rear back again and spit.

  “Xavier's down. He's down,” Selene said. Her voice was beginning to get desperate.

  Zach tried to hurry as fast as he could. He climbed over a chemical storage tank, stumbling as he did so. The flamethrower was bulky and heavy. Gavin climbed up beside him and helped pull him over.

  “That doesn't look good,” he heard Danny say through the open channel as the chilus spat again.

  “Guys, I'm alone over here,” Javy said. “That thing just took out Selene.”

  “Just hold out for five more seconds,” Zach said.

  He leaped over one last obstacle and then he was there, close enough to the chilus to use his flamethrower. Zach brought the weapon to bear and pulled the trigger. A gout of flames spewed onto the chilus. It shrieked.

  “NOW! Aim for the fire!”

  Gavin opened fire from beside him. So did Nora and Danny from their positions in the rear. The chilus writhed, clearly being hurt by the combination of flames and bullets. Zach continued to hold down the trigger, bathing the monster in flames. It was working.

  But then the chilus suddenly reared back and spat a gout of venom.

  “Danny's hit!” Nora said over the radio. Then the chilus spat again. “Danny's dead.”

  “Crap,” Zach said. Danny had probably been dealing the highest amount of damage, and the monster had target him first. That meant he was next.

  Beside him, Gavin started to throw frag grenades out of desperation. It looked like they didn't do much damage to the chilus, but then one of the ruptured a tank it was standing next to. A stream of liquid spurted out at it. The chilus recoiled, trying to get away. Zach quickly shifted the aim of his flamethrower to where the liquid was hitting. It suddenly caught fire. The chilus lit up in flames. The creature thrashed about as it was immolated by the combination of chemicals and fire.

  “Oh crap,” Gavin said. He pulled Zach up. “Run.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it! Back to the stairwell!”

  Zach and Gavin took off at a dead run through the walkways. Behind them one of the tanks shattered as it was hit by the chilus. The shrieks from the creature were getting louder and louder. They almost bowled over Javy as he ran in from the other direction.

  “Come on!” Gavin shouted. Together, they ran back to the stairwell. Nora was waiting for them. As soon as they were all inside the four of them slammed the door.

  “Half the company,” Zach said with a shake of his head.

  “It was pretty close to all of the company,” Nora said.

  The door rattled as a series of explosions went off. Zach could still hear the faint sounds of shrieking on the other side.

  “You know what would suck? If we went through all that, and we managed to blow up our rewa
rd,” Gavin said.

  The shrieking suddenly stopped. After a minute, the explosions stopped as well. Zach put his hand on the door, wanting to open it but not quite daring to.

  “Think I should risk it?” he asked.

  “I think we should be safe by now,” Nora said.

  Zach opened the door. The chemical lab was in shambles. Most of the walkways had been blown to pieces, along with all of the storage tanks. Some parts of the lab were still burning. But there was a clear path in front of them.

  “Holy crap,” Gavin said as they passed part of the chilus. The monster was in pieces all over the remains of the lab. “We sure did a number on that.”

  “Quick thinking, by the way,” Nora said.

  “Well, it was partially by accident, but I was hoping that those tanks could be used to help damage it. Though I wasn't expecting something on this scale.”

  “So where do we go next?” Javy asked.

  “Along this pathway, I'm guessing. It has to lead somewhere,” Zach said.

  It did. At the far end of the lab there was a door, battered by the explosions but still intact. Gavin and Nora stormed into the room as Zach yanked the door open. It was about all he was good for at this point. His tanks were all out of fuel, and his pistol was rather lacking.

  “Clear,” Gavin said. “Looks like the control room for the lab.”

  Zach walked through the door. Gavin was right about that. Unlike all the other labs, the computers in this room were still in place. Sheets of chemical equations and formulas lay scattered about the desks.

  “I think this is it,” Nora said from a desk at the far end of the room. She walked back to them with a notebook in hand and laid it on a nearby desk. “This came off of what looks like the main control desk,” she said as she scanned it.

  Zach brought it up on his display. It was a bunch of letters and numbers, some sort of chemical formula that he had no idea how to read. “This is it?”

  “Maybe it's valuable enough to be sold, at least?” Gavin said.

  “Huh? Can you guys not read it?” Javy said.

  “It's just a chemical formula,” Gavin said.

  Something clicked in Zach's head. “Unless it can only be interpreted if you have a certain skill level. What are you reading it as?”

  “It's a recipe for some sort of stimulant,” Javy said. “Overdrive. It boosts reflexes and strength for five minutes.”

  “Wait, you can read all that?” Gavin said.

  “One of your medic skills must help you do that,” Zach said.

  “Yeah. Apparently you can find all the ingredients to make it in the woods around here,” Javy said. “That might also explain how that chilus got so huge.”

  “That's got to be worth a lot,” Gavin said.

  “Before we think about selling it in Old Chicago, I have an idea,” Nora said. “It's going to have to wait until we're all on next time, though.”

  Zach nodded. “OK, let's get out of here.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Supply and Demand

  “So you mix arrowleaf, calcite and vikus petals. One unit of each is enough to make five doses of overdrive,” Javy explained as they all sat around in the lounge of their base.

  Selene was looking over the codex entry. “Boosts strength and reflexes for five minutes. That could be very useful. Those boosts are three times more powerful than anything else you can get on the market right now, and last five times longer. The trade-off is that the experience you gain using overdrive is cut down to a third of what you would normally gain. ”

  Right now the best stimulants sold on the market lasted for a minute and would only give a small boost to one area. They provided a minimal edge, but it was an edge that may of the players were willing to take, and they would pay well for it. Amp and rush would sell for a hundred credits a dose.

  “That would have probably saved us from getting killed,” Xavier said.

  “So you want to use it as our trump card, then?” Selene asked Nora. “Keep the secret of making this away from anyone else instead of selling the information?”

  “How much would we have gotten?” Danny asked.

  “Last I checked? This formula is worth $50,000,” Gavin said. “But you're suggesting we use it to get an advantage over the other companies instead.”

  Nora shook her head. “Not in the way you're thinking. What if we held onto the overdrive formula and produced it ourselves? That way we could completely control the market.”

  “Not a terrible idea,” Zach said.

  “It's three times as powerful, so we should be able to get three times the price, right?” Danny said.

  “I think it's worth a lot more than that,” Nora said.

  “Just how much?”

  “Five hundred.”

  Danny clicked his tongue. “That might be a little steep.”

  “I can see the logic in it, though,” Xavier said. “The price for something should rise exponentially to how powerful it is. Plus, the combat oriented companies will try to get any edge they can. We can definitely exploit that.”

  “Well, that's the second part of my idea,” Nora said. “Once they get their hands on it, they're going to want more. If we want to keep a steady supply of it going, we're going to have to spend most of our time gathering resources, or paying someone to do it. And that's going to lead to people guessing what's in the formula.”

  “Can't they already do that?” Miko asked.

  “They could, but they need to have a high level in the necessary skill if they don't have a blueprint or formula, along with a high scanning level,” Selene said. “By the time anyone figures that out we'll be sitting on a mountain of credits.”

  “So what's the second part of the plan?” Zach asked.

  “What if, after the initial batch, we put it on the market sporadically, and used the auction system?”

  “Oh, that's rather devious,” Selene said. “I like that idea.”

  The player markets worked in two ways. First, players could list items on the market at a fixed price. That was how they had sold their bullets. The other way they could sell was through auction. The seller would place a minimum bid that they would be willing to sell their item for, and a time limit to sell the item within. Players interested in buying the item could place bids anywhere in the world through their wrist menu. It was riskier than simply selling through a shop, but it was a good way to earn a lot of money for rare items.

  “I think it's a good idea,” Danny said.

  “So do I,” Xavier said.

  “Maybe we'll be able to afford one of those ATVs,” Zach said. “How many more doses can you make?”

  “I have another four units of everything,” Javy said.

  “That's twenty more doses,” Zach mused. “Put it on sale at five hundred...”

  “That's what we'd earn in a week making bullets,” Nora said.

  “Which leaves us more time for raiding,” Gavin said happily.

  “Speaking of raiding. You said that there might be more bunkers in the forest,” Danny said to him. “Do we want to focus in that area?”

  “Maybe there's more schematics there?”

  “The thing is, we have to find the other bunkers first,” Zach said.

  “Well, why don't we send a scouting party to look around the area?” Danny suggested. “Then we can have a go at any bunkers we find later.”

  “We should have one fireteam scout the area, and one team go take the overdrive to Old Chicago,” Selene said.

  “Is it really necessary to have four people go?” Gavin asked. “I mean, the stuff has to weigh less than carrying bullets.”

  “The last thing we want is to have someone kill you on the outskirts and get their hands on the stuff,” Selene said. “Whoever is carrying it needs to have an escort.”

  “Who stays and who goes?” Danny asked.

  “I want to have a look around in the markets, so I'll lead the fireteam going,” Selene said. “I think Xavier and Mik
o should be in the scouting patrol, since they died. They could use the extra experience. And so could Javy.”

  Danny leaned back in his chair. “Mmm. That puts me as an escort. Doesn't sound like a ton of fun, but it will be nice to go back to the markets and grab stuff.”

  “I'll take Nora and Gavin, as well,” Selene said. “If you're alright with it, I'd like to take the time to look for base upgrades.”

  “Do what you need to,” Zach shrugged. “Just make sure we have enough to pay for our guard force.”

  Selene nodded. “Alright. My team will leave as soon as Javy can finish the last batches of overdrive. Make sure you're equipped for battle in the outskirts.”

  “I'll try to get them ready as soon as possible, Javy said.

  “No rush.”

  Zach stood up. “My team, let's figure out exactly where we're going. Javy, meet us in the briefing room when you're done.”

  He, Miko and Xavier made their way to the briefing room and took a look over the map that was laying on the center of the table. It showed topographical features of the surrounding area, but nothing else.

  “We really should invest in one of those holographic map tables,” Xavier said. “That will make planning so much easier.”

  “Well, we might be able to afford one now,” Zach said.

  “So we have a soldier, an engineer, a sniper and a medic,” Xavier said. “That's not exactly the best team for combat.”

  “Not for a straight assault, but it should be good enough for a scouting force,” Zach said.

  Xavier would provide the muscle of the team. He had the strongest defense, and could project fairly good attack power as well. Miko would be their damage dealer, sniping foes at range. Zach himself would keep them aware of any traps and obstacles in their path, and could set some of their own if they were forced to fall back. Javy would round out the team, healing anyone that got into trouble. They had nothing close to the sheer power of an attack-oriented fireteam, but it looked like a solid build nonetheless.

  “Are we also going to collect resources while we're down there?” Xavier asked.

  “That was part of the plan, yes.”