A camera descended from the ceiling, tracking my entrance. “You must be the wise-cracking Leadfoot. Excellent.”
I scowled at it. “And what are you?”
“Important.” It turned to include the others in its cone of vision. “Welcome, all of you, to Rule of Cool’s assessment and initiation program. So far, you are the only successful applicants to complete the first challenge. Would you like to continue, or shall we wait for your competition?”
Patch glanced at Bingo and then at me. “What was the first challenge, again?”
Bingo looked like he was going to answer her, but the computer voice boomed right over whatever was going to hiss out of his mask. “Ice Breaker. The three of you have bonded, and are now a crew.”
“No we haven’t and no we aren’t,” I corrected it. “That’s about as far from true as you can get, actually. I know her,” I said, pointing at Patch, “but this other guy didn’t even have a name until five minutes ago.”
The computer didn’t sound pleased with my particular brand of logic. “Are you calling the program into question? You are welcome to remove yourself from consideration if you like, though these two must find a third member to once again become a crew. You will, of course, be summarily removed.”
My ears perked up. “Yeah? Removed how?” We were trapped, after all. If washing out of whatever nonsense this was turned out to be the express lane to the escape pod, that sounded perfect.
Three turrets descended smoothly from the ceiling, turning on mounted gimbals and triangulating my forehead with laser sights. I could smell the ozone as they powered up, and a ten-stack of lights on the side of them started to illuminate, one by ominous one.
Right… I held my hands up in the air and said, “Come to think of it, I think we may be exactly the crew you’re looking for.”
Proficiency Check
Bluff Roll: 23
Result: Success
New Skill Values:
Bluff = 26/100
“I was hoping that was the case.” The weapons returned to their hidden panels, which slid over them and hissed with a pressurized seal. “Now, shall we begin, or would you prefer to wait for your competition?”
“Let’s get this party started,” Patch said.
“Very well. Grab your clipboards and complete the assigned tasks. There is enough time, if you are cunning and resourceful.”
Bingo grunted. “An’ if we ain’t?”
“Then Rule of Cool thanks you for your attendance. When the Heroic hordes descend upon us once again, please remember to spend your last moments regretting your rash decision.” The voice trailed off in a series of beeps and boops, breaking into a familiar guitar riff before warbling “No Stairway!” at itself so loudly that the ground trembled.
Everything was back to normal after a moment, but there was no way that was going to get overlooked by any of us.
“Is something wrong?” Patch asked.
“Of course not,” it said, its tone as reassuring as an auto-tuned digitization could get. “I have simply been waiting a very long time to make amends. Some of my subroutines have… decayed. The good news is that you have a small stockpile of credit remaining in the coffers of the previous Board of Directors. Spend it wisely.”
Proficiency Check
Ancient History Roll: 86
Result: Failure
New Skill Values:
Ancient History = 11/100
I frowned. I was pretty sure that none of us had any idea what it was talking about, but as far as I was concerned it hadn’t explained the most important thing of all. “What Heroic horde were you talking about?”
“The ones that banded together to ride the reversed Platform and besieged Darkwell.”
Patch tugged on her braids nervously. “Darkwell? I thought this place was just ‘the mountain’.”
“Darkwell was the starter town that stood where Hallow does now,” I told her. “At least, that’s what Mother Mayeye says. She wasn’t alive before the Smash, but she knew people that were.”
“So Hallow’s built on the bones of Darkwell?”
The computer hopped in. “That’s a particularly morbid way of putting it, but yes.”
Proficiency Check
Ancient History Roll: 58
Result: Failure
New Skill Values:
Ancient History = 12/100
She narrowed her eyes at the camera it was using to view us. “What was that you were saying about there being ‘enough time’? If there’s a ticking clock, I think we should know about it. How else are we going to build tension?”
“Oh!” the computer blared, sounding embarrassed. “Thank you so much for the reminder. Forgetting again would have been scandalous! Once bitten, twice shy, am I right? The last crew wasn’t ready because I neglected to warn them that the front doors were due to open…”
New Raid Scheduled
THE BRAWL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING
begins in
2 days - 14 hours - 2 minutes - 44 seconds
“Holy crap!” Patch shouted, excited for all the wrong reasons. “I was right, Raze! You really are the Mountain King.” She caught herself and shrugged, pointing at Bingo. “Or he is.”
“Da place is all yours,” Bingo told her. “Y’all can ‘ave it.”
Chapter 12
“One second,” I told the computer, trying to keep my voice as professional as possible. The long queues of quest-seeking protagonists I’d dealt with every day had taught me some small degree of Diplomacy. “Do you mind if we confer amongst ourselves in private?”
“Of course not. You may choose to spend the next two days, fourteen hours, two minutes and thirty-six seconds however you wish,” it responded, and the components that had been monitoring us retracted into the wall.
Since that was as alone as we were going to get, I sat down in a chair and spun it around to face Patch and Bingo. “Guys, we have to get out of here. Like, now.”
“Why?” demanded Patch.
“How?” said Bingo.
I pointed at him. “He’s got the smarter question, so I’m going to answer him first. I don’t know.”
“Now do mine,” Patch said. “We discovered something really awesome here. Why do we have to leave?”
“Were you even listening to what that thing just told us? It opened the mountain’s doors the last time this joint got raided. If it hadn’t, the Heroes would never have gotten in.”
“No it didn’t. The Smash did that.”
Damn. She was right… “But it just said… Get back down here, computer.”
“Yes?” It popped out of the ceiling too fast, belying its eavesdropping.
“We’ve always been told that the Heroes used the Smash to open the doors. It’s sort of legendary. I mean, they’re even having a Reenactment to commemorate it in…”
THE BRAWL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING
begins in
2 days - 14 hours - 1 minute - 57 seconds
Crap…
The computer sounded like it was trying to be honest with us, at least. “Is the thing you call the Smash the big purple storm outside?”
Patch pursed her lips. “It’s a little more confusing than that. That’s the Rift. The Smash left it behind.”
“I was programmed to open the doors when the gathered investors showed an optimum level of interest in the coming launch. It was quickly determined by the Board of Directors that ritual sacrifice qualified as a suitable amount of fanboy fanaticism.”
She obviously hadn’t ever heard that part. “Ritual sacrifice?”
I frowned. “Mother says the Heroes rounded up whoever they could find in Darkwell and put them to the sword. That made the Smash and opened the doors, or so they assumed. I think this thing’s saying it was more like them ringing the doorbell. They got the doors open, but not by force.”
Proficiency Check
Ancient History Roll: 7
Result: Success
New Skill Values:
> Ancient History = 13/100
“Close enough,” the computer agreed. “Once inside, they ransacked everything.”
“Almost everything, you mean,” I said, looking around the spotless room. “You made it through all right.”
Patch furrowed her brow, and I could practically see the gears working between her ears. “So what’s going to happen when the doors open this time?”
If the computer could shrug, it would have. “The carnage must have been tremendous, since you apparently still know of the slaughter a thousand years later… On the bright side, there are only three of you. I predict that this time around the body count will be much lower.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “See Patch? There’s that bright side you’re always telling me to look for.”
The computer didn’t sound deterred. “The last Gearblin in charge of the Rule of Cool Corporation weren’t prepared. You are. They had no warning. You do.”
I ignored him and brought Bingo into this, since he’d have no idea what the Reenactment was. “For the past hundred years or so, the Heroes have stood around outside the doors on the anniversary of the Smash, staring at the mountain and licking their chops. This year, there’ll be something like fifteen thousand lowbies out there. Anyone on the wrong side of their blades and bullets will get butchered.”
“Maybe so,” he grunted. “An’ maybe not so…”
His response was frustrating, but it was my own fault for trying to explain any of this to a braindead alcoholic. “Computer. You need to elaborate so that it sinks into this one’s head.”
“There is little else to say. The Board badly misjudged the timeline and failed to correctly market to the masses. When the doors opened, their prospective customers turned on them.”
Proficiency Check
Ancient History Roll: 13
Result: Success
New Skill Values:
Ancient History = 14/100
“And by customers, you mean Heroes?”
“Of course. Rule of Cool was at the pinnacle of weapon research, design, and manufacture. Their newest apparatus was going to put all that had come before it to shame. As I have already said, mistakes were made and wires were crossed. What should have been a marvelous unveiling of ground-breaking ingenuity became a maelstrom of violence.”
Patch was entranced. “What went wrong?”
“The Board had unleashed a thing of myth known as the ‘Hype Train’ and were unable to predict the result.”
I wasn’t impressed, but she was the world’s best audience member. “Wow!” Patch breathed, her hands clasped tightly between her breasts. “What is that? It sure sounds imposing!”
“It is. Few companies can withstand its wrath, should they fail to deliver. The Hype Train went back and forth on the tracks for months, and in the end Rule of Cool couldn’t live up to the anticipation. Their marketing gurus had gone insane, summoning everything from viral dreams to demons hunting down angel investors with flaming swords. The ravenous customers arrived and the crew did not. Bored, our would-be patrons promptly burnt Darkwell to the ground in retaliation. When they summoned the Smash, they triggered my conditional welcome algorithm. Whatever they couldn’t plunder, they destroyed. Rule of Cool underwent a violent liquidation.”
Proficiency Check
Ancient History Roll: 39
Result: Failure
New Skill Values:
Ancient History = 15/100
“Rule of Cool,” Patch repeated. “He keeps saying it, Raze. That’s what I dreamt, remember?”
It was true. She’d written it on the scrap of paper Warwick had stolen from me. Bingo was staring at her with an interest I hadn’t seen him take in anything other than liquor and the silver ring in his pocket, and when I whispered, “Gadgets, Gizmos, and Gimmicks Galore,” his head whipped around and I got the same treatment.
“Precisely!” the computer said. “That was our motto!”
I pointed at the computer’s camera. “Why are you still around, then? With all the rampant destruction, a big wall of tech would’ve been the perfect target.”
“True,” it agreed. “Though before we go on, you are required to assign me a name.”
I looked at the others. Bingo had given up scowling intently at us and decided to rummage desperately around in the cabinets that lined the rear of the room, almost certainly looking for liquor.
Patch glanced back at me and shrugged. “How about Alexa?” she asked.
“That’s stupid,” I said. “And by that I mean that she’s stupid.”
“You said that you liked her!”
“What I said was that it was a thoughtful present.”
She glared at me. “Well give her back, because I don’t have one!”
The computer made a sort of odd, clicking chuckle. “I require a name. Without one, I cannot be upgraded.”
Patch shut up and chewed on her bottom lip, deep in thought. “I think we should call you Source. After all, if we do get out of this, you’ll be the origin of all the good stuff along the way.”
“And if we don’t,” I added, “you’ll be the source of all the bad. I like it.”
“Do I get a vote?” Bingo rumbled.
I was just about to tell him ‘no’ when Patch gave him a thumbs up. “Of course you do.”
Achievement Unlocked:
Democracy
The worst form of government, except for all the rest!
Reward: The crew’s health has been restored. From now on, spending at least ten minutes in the Control Room will return a crew member to 100% health.
“Good,” he said. “I vote to ask if he’s got any booze stashed away. And ‘Source’ is fine by me.”
Achievement Unlocked:
Unanimous Decision
Now, it’s everybody’s fault!
Reward: All crew members have been gifted a 12 month subscription to Kindle Unlimited!
The computer was quick to answer. “I do not. Tell me though, are you the creature that’s been siphoning off coolant from the machines on the upper levels?”
“Guilty.”
“Is your desire for alcohol so great that it is worth the damage done?”
“Absolutely.”
Patch looked at Bingo with worry in her eyes, and I knew she wasn’t hearing the clues the computer was dropping. That meant it was up to me to chase down the truth, and there was no better time than now. “Source?”
“So that’s my name now, is it?”
“The vote was unanimous.”
“Very well. I’ll answer to it. In addition to previous rewards your Democracy achievement has unlocked another Tier of upgrades and your Unanimous one has given you even more credit.”
I blinked. There was starting to be too much to chase down, and we’d only just begun. Thankfully Patch picked her clipboard up and thrust it into my hand. “The upgrades we can buy are right here. The last crew’s plan is here, too.” She shook it furiously. “Annnnd now it’s gone. Screw them, I say. If they knew what there were doing, we wouldn’t be stuck in here in the first place.”
I grinned as she handed it over. The screen responded to my touch, leaving marks on the surface if I dragged my nails across it and erasing them if I shook it the way she had. The tech was strange, both ancient and advanced all at once.
Come to think of it, most of the things that remained buried under this mountain were probably so old as to be almost new again. If Source had been able to lock himself away, I was sure that there was other stuff he’d kept safe. We may well be sitting on a pile of treasure, if only we could figure out a way to get to it.
There were a bunch of upgrade paths diagramed on the clipboard, but I needed to be methodical. Instead of rattling off the things I saw written there, I put my feet up on one of the desks and scanned it quickly. It was nice to be able to do that, since everything in Hallow had been built for people bigger than us.
If I let Source go for too long without pushing for more inform
ation, I was worried that he might refuse to give it to me. “Let’s do this right,” I said to him. “You just mentioned that there were lower levels. Has Bingo been there lately?”
“No. I locked them when the facility was invaded, to protect the prototype.”
“Will you open them up for us?”
“Of course!” Source sounded so happy to help that I was already swiveling in my chair to flash a wicked that-wasn’t-so-hard-now,-was-it grin at Bingo when the computer’s voice cut through the chamber again. “Once you’ve proven yourself.”
There’s always a catch. “And how do we do that?”
“Patch was right to supply you with the clipboard. The technicians were meticulous in their preparations, and the last crew ignored them.”
Bingo snorted, his gas mask turning it into a breathy, raspy hiss. “Useless bastards.”
“True,” Source responded, “You need to do better, or share their fate.”
I pushed on. “And we already have credit to spend?”
“Eight hundred and seventeen,” Patch piped up. “At least, that’s what it says on the clipboard.” She waved another one at me that she’d claimed from somewhere. “It even says that the way to earn more credit is to restore faith in the Rule of Cool.”
“Which shouldn’t be too hard,” the computer supplied, “since no one remembers the corporation. You’ve got a whole town full of prospective customers. Why, I wager that even Bingo could plant a few seeds of faith in the destitute,” Source said with a smugness that must have required all his RAM to muster.
“‘Ave ya found da off switch for dis *shtuck*er, yet?” Bingo asked us, sitting down in the chair beside me. I leaned away from the fumes as he peered at the clipboard I was holding. Not wanting him to know stuff before I did, I looked at it too, careful to keep it at arm’s length.
Know Your Roll Page 12
