by Tao Wong
Leonard came through with the virus. Now the question is, will this work? There’s really only one way to tell, and that way requires me to head back into the dungeon. Let’s just hope they aren’t waiting for me.
“Boy-o,” Ali sends to me, flicking to me a video of what he’s seeing.
I slow down then come to a stop, crouching behind an insufficiently large tree while I review the footage. It’s a cat mutation of some form, a former housecat turned into a six-foot creature of spikes, scales, and fangs. I nod slightly as I stare at the monster just sitting there, watching the trail. Creepy but not surprising—cats are known to be ambush creatures after all.
“See it. Doesn’t look too hard.”
“Not that. That.” Ali manipulates the System and the video floats higher as he does so, giving me a clearer view as he highlights the spots he sees. Right behind the head, a small yellowish-greenish bump that I’d missed.
“Is that…?” I gulp.
“Onlivik Spores, yes,” Ali replies. “It’s spreading outside the dungeon.”
“How?”
“Don’t know. My guess—either the Spores were never part of the dungeon initially, or they just escaped the System’s controls because we’re not fully integrated yet,” Ali replies.
I find myself grunting. “How fast?”
“What am I? A silicone dummkopf? Fast. We’re about two miles out from the dungeon and it’s got scouts watching for problems,” Ali says.
I sigh. Shit. “All right, can we get a message back to the city? Package the video and send via one of the drones. We still need to get this virus into the dungeon.” If I die, the city needs to know.
“Do this, Ali. Do that, Ali,” Ali mutters as he focuses, sending the appropriate commands to one of our last drones. “Done.”
“Yeah, but it’s more fun to listen to you whine.”
I shut up after that, focusing on skimming around the cat. Better to find a way in that doesn’t attract any attention if I can. I’ll be making enough noise when I do get in.
Two weeks, and other than the snow, the area around the dungeon hadn’t changed a bit. Snow-covered slopes, heavily laden trees, and the occasional set of tracks from a snowshoe hare or some weirder, unidentified creature is all that marks the terrain. As always, the Yukon is gorgeous and scenic, but this time round, I’m more concerned about leaving easy-to-follow tracks than how pretty everything is.
Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about the fact that each of my armor-clad steps is leaving a set of tracks a blind man could follow. The only thing that can fix that is a strong wind or another big snowfall, and the clear skies and dead air tell me I’m not in luck today. It makes my path into the dungeon a circuitous and slow route, but luckily, the Onlivik Spores seem more interested in setting up fixed guard positions rather than roving guards.
Interestingly enough, there aren’t any guards at the actual dungeon entrance itself. I’m not sure if the Spores are just that confident or just that dumb, but I’ll take it. Not that I expect my presence to be hidden very soon.
In the first chamber, I find nothing. It’s rare to find monsters hanging out in the first chamber of most dungeons. At most, you get a trap. For a moment, I wonder why that is before I refocus. Right. Horde of mind-controlled Frakin ready to burn me to pieces.
Finding a place to hide is a tense, stomach-clenching affair even if I’m not heading much farther than the first cavern. I know I can run with the QSM, but its five-minute charge makes it a trump card I can only play with care. That means good old Stealth skills are more important in everyday use, and luckily, all that time hunting solo has leveled mine up significantly.
Once I’m hidden, I launch my last two drones. I wish I had all three, but getting word back to the city was more important. Curled up in a small rock outcropping halfway up the cavern, I remotely guide the drones in while letting Ali watch out for potential bad guys. I keep the drones high and quiet, edging in deeper and deeper along the paths I can see. I need to hit as many of these Frakin as I can, but there’s only so far that I can guide them before the signal breaks down completely. After that, they’ll have to run on their own on-board programming.
That’s one of the reasons the Yerick don’t use drones much. Not only do you have to have someone watching the drones consistently to get the data you need, it’s often not as good as the information you could get from Skills. Add the fact that if you push them too far, they have a tendency to break down or get smashed by monsters and you can see why the Yerick just don’t see them as a good use of their money. Overall, I can see their points but then you get a situation like this.
I grin as the first drone comes across the first group of Frakin. There’s only a half dozen of them, most of them half-grown, which tells me they haven’t recovered completely from our last encounter. That’s pretty good news. I drop a quarter of one drone’s payload and keep flying, passing my last stand before the signal finally shorts out.
I swear softly, hoping it’s enough. Theoretically, all I need to do is ensure that the virus itself is spread around sufficiently, then it should propagate without a problem. According to Leonard, the virus is both airborne and System-borne—that is, the System helps the infection process. I’m not entirely sure what that means or why he gets grumpy when I call it a virus, but considering I never took biology and he insists on explaining everything in as many four-syllable words as he can, I’m okay with that. So long as it works, I’ll even forgive him for asking Lana out.
Not that I have a right to get angry that he did. It’s not as if Lana and I have done anything more than, well, talk. Irrational jealousy is irrational. So long as I realize it’s irrational, I can keep it in check. However, I do wonder if I should be asking her out…
I grunt, shaking my head, and refocus on the feeds. I need to stop thinking about this. Sitting in the middle of a dungeon, waiting for my drones to either get caught or do their job, is not the right time or place to think about dating. Anyway, I don’t have much to offer the lady—I’m a suicidal, hot-tempered mess of a man. She deserves better.
Thankfully, before I get even more morose and idiotic, the feed from one of my drones comes back. It’s the one I sent on one of the side paths that the Frakin used to flank us before. The moment it connects, the map updates and I let out a low whistle. Jesus—the pathway leads down to a chamber beneath me, which seems to store a huge number of the Frakin. They’re still doing that creepy, completely still thing, not even moving when the drone dumps its cargo.
I don’t have time to watch further though because Ali hisses at me, making my minimap bloom. Looks like the Frakin around me are scuttling now, searching. I guess the other drone got caught. A quick command sends the drone I have in control into hiding and hibernation mode in the vague hope that I can retrieve it later before I drop to the ground and run. Time to go.
Running out of this dungeon with Ali floating beside me is beginning to get very old. A few of the infected monsters charge in, blips on my screen that flow toward me, but I ignore them. I’ve got too much of a head start on all but the cat I’m running toward. Really, it’s stupid of the Spores to charge me—the cat doesn’t stand a chance as I behead it. Then again, we’ve established that the Spores aren’t that smart.
Yet.
Chapter 19
“A bigger, better man would take this opportunity to say I told you so pass him by,” I say into the stunned silence of the gathered great and powerful of Whitehorse after Ali finished his presentation. I let the silence linger for a few more moments. “I told you so.”
“John…” Lana says, her tone cool.
I flash her a smile, but I quiet down. Some are still pushing on their data screens, trying to make the information we presented say something, anything other than what it does. Others, having read it, turn to me or their respective leaders, waiting for an answer. No one provides one though, because there really isn’t an easy answer.
“Very well, Redee
mer. You were correct. I expect you have a solution?” Nelia finally breaks the silence, staring at me.
I smile grimly and shake my head. “No, I don’t have a solution. I do have some suggestions. First, we send a team to wipe out the current scouts and guards the Spores have set up. That should slow the spread a bit since it takes a critical mass of the Spores to begin infection. Right, Leonard?”
Leonard twitches, obviously not used to being in this kind of company, before he jerkily nods.
“We’ll still need to deal with the Spores eventually, but taking out the scouts will buy us time. Second, we need an answer from the System, and we need it sooner rather than later. Are the Spores part of the dungeon or are they an invader? The first means we’ll constantly be dealing with their production, constantly having to destroy them as the System recreates the Spores. That means we’ll need a much more permanent solution to their spread.
“The second, well, the second is simpler. We just kill everything that has the Spore and burn it all down.”
“If you knew to ask that question, why didn’t you get the answer?” Bill asks, hands steepled.
I flash him a grin. “Because the answer to that question is about fifty thousand Credits.”
I see more than a few people suck in their breath at the price. No shit, it’s expensive.
It’s Jason, on the video-conference line, who asks the obvious question. “Why do we need to know? If we kill them all and keep them contained in the dungeon, won’t that be enough, even if the dungeon is creating the Spores?”
Vir leans forward in his chair. “No. Infected dungeons are unusual, but they are not unique. An Infected dungeon cannot be contained by just killing the creatures within—eventually, the infection will spread. There are Galactic procedures to contain such dungeons, but they are expensive and require significant time investment. John is correct—understanding what we face is important.”
I nod to Vir before looking at the group to see if there are any further questions. When there aren’t, I add, “Lastly, we’re going to have to clear that dungeon one way or the other. Like any dungeon, if we don’t clear it regularly, it’ll overpopulate and spill out. With an Overmind, that might happen sooner than we’d like, since there’s no in-fighting. We’ve got a week before the Spores feel the effects of the virus, and it’ll take a couple of days before it really gets going. Ten days, right, Leonard?” On confirmation, I continue. “Ten days, then we go in.”
I watch as people grimly accept the deadline, slowly running the numbers through their mind.
Jim frowns, staring into space before he looks back at me, his voice husky from too many cigarettes. “I’ll get a few hunting groups to the dungeon. We can’t contribute much to the attack, not and keep the city safe, but my group and another could help man the area.”
“That’ll be great, Jim,” Lana says, nodding for him to head out.
He gets up, offering a brief nod to everyone before he leaves to brief his people. I almost say something before I decide against it—Jim understands probably better than any of us how strong his hunting group really is. In the assault, they just won’t be that much help.
“We’re in, of course,” Richard says. “We’ve got a couple of Credits saved up we can add to the pot.”
Vir raises a hand, cutting Richard off. “The purchase will be handled by Lord Roxley.”
I nod, grateful for that help. I don’t know how deep his pockets are, though I’ve gotten the feeling they’re not as deep as he’d like us to believe. Still, I’ll take Vir’s word for it. “Thanks.”
Vir nods before looking at the ceiling. “While Lord Roxley is unable to arrive in time for the attack, I believe his guard may contribute a few additional men to the attack. I shall lead them myself.”
Capstan speaks next, his voice a low rumble. “The Yerick can send three Adventuring parties.”
“I’ll speak with Xev to see what it can contribute, but I can outfit a lot of people with potions,” Sally pipes up, her normally cheerful demeanor extremely serious now.
I watch this play out, and a part of me wilts at how mundane it all seems. A part of me expected orchestral music, grand speeches, and declarations of bravery. Instead, we get a boardroom with the clink of ice water and dry allocations of resources and studied consideration. On the other hand, as I look around, I have the feeling that this is a group I want to go to battle with. All but one…
“So, hillbilly, your crew coming?” Ali floats over to Bill, hands on his knees as he sits cross-legged.
Luthien snarls and I get more than a few looks that say the same thing—“control your Spirit.” I ignore them.
“We have warned you before, Spirit,” Bill says, raising a hand toward Ali, and a part of me wonders what he thinks he’s going to do. My curiosity almost lets me watch Bill hurt Ali, but that won’t get the answer I want.
“Ali, enough. Be quiet now.” Ali shoots me the most horrified, betrayed look ever until I add, “Because Bill is about to answer your question.”
Luthien turns to look at Bill, her lips parting slightly as she waits to see what he has to say.
Bill opens his mouth then glances around the suddenly quiet room before shutting it again. “We will not.”
“Thought so.” Ali smirks, floating back to me.
I sigh, sending him a thought. “Enough, let the others handle it. You got the ball rolling.”
“Yeah, yeah. Knew he was trying to get out of it.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Lana’s voice comes out frosty as she leans forward. “Did the part that the Spores are a threat to all of us not get through that thick skull of yours?”
“Yes. I also note that there’s more than sufficient numbers of you to deal with it.” Bill shrugs. “I see no reason to risk myself or my people in addition.”
“Except if we fail, we all die,” Amelia adds.
“So you risk everything on a single throw of the dice,” Bill says.
“Die,” Ali mutters so softly only I hear him.
“You have a better suggestion?” Richard says.
“For myself? No. There is nothing to be gained by joining you or staying if you fail. My duty is to my people,” Bill says.
Others begin to argue with him, all to be shut down by a light rap on the table by Vir. “Adventurer Cross,” Vir says.
Bill’s jaw clenches slightly, the muscles flexing as he readies himself for another attack.
“You own land in Lord Roxley’s domain,” Vir says. “You might not know this, but that ownership comes with certain obligations. One of which I will invoke now. You will join us in the attack, or you shall be declared Mujinae. I believe the closest human term is Outcast.”
Bill leans forward. “You can’t do that. This is a free country. There is no draft here.”
“I believe you have, repeatedly, informed the Council that you are not breaking any Galactic Law, that we are under Galactic Law here in the city. As such, Canadian or the City’s very own laws do not apply to you. Was that not what you said?” Vir’s voice grows colder and colder with each word. “Now, do you refuse the call to arms?”
Bill jerks his head as if he’s trying to get rid of a nasty crick in his neck but finally accedes to Vir’s request. Lana’s openly gloating, and even most of the human Council members seem quite happy. Of course, nothing compares to the smirk Amelia shoots Bill, obviously glad to see him finally dealt with. The non-humans ignore the entire interaction with aplomb though, obviously not wanting to get involved. Well, outside of Ali, who is grinning from ear to ear.
I stay silent—as does Bill, who sulks in his seat—as the others plan what we need. Names are thrown out—some familiar, some less so—as additional help for the fight is debated. All the while, I remember the hundreds of Frakin that wait for us.
“We don’t have enough, do we, boy-o?” Ali sends to me as he spots my face.
“No, not yet.” Not yet.
“It is unusual for a spy to request to
speak with me directly,” Labashi says as we sit down at my fort, the grounds nicely clear.
One good thing about the System—it certainly keeps its side of the bargain. I paid for clear fields of fire and an upgraded, well-kept yard, and even through the snowfalls and monster wanderings, it’s done that.
“I’m an unusual spy.” I pour him more tea before sitting back.
It’s been a few days since the big meeting, and in the city, everyone is scrambling. Whether it’s hunting to get more Credits, training to get ready, or planning the attack, the city is buzzing. I guess certain doom is a good way to get everyone’s ass into gear.
Labashi sips on his newly filled cup. “This blackberry tea is quite good, as have been your reports thus far.”
“Glad you like it. And the reports. I’m enjoying the Credits too.” I smile at him, doing my best “innocent” look. Not that I even know if he can tell the difference, but you do what you can. “How’d you like to get information on the fighting groups—all the fighting groups—firsthand?”
“And how would you do that?” Labashi says, an eyebrow rising.
“Well, that’s a funny story.” I lean forward and fill him in on the last month or so. I drop all of it on him and end with our planned attack. “So we’re going in. All of us. Except it won’t be enough, I don’t think.”
“I know of this First Fist of yours, and Vir,” Labashi says, finger tapping the edge of the cup. “I believe you might be surprised.”
“Perhaps.” I stare at my hands and shake my head. “But there’s likely going to be more blood lost than I’d like. So I’m here. Asking to hire you.”
“And what do you have to offer, Mr. Lee? Our services are expensive,” Labashi adds.
I nod. “Yes. I figured as much. So let’s talk.”
I lean forward, meeting his gaze. This is a bad deal, a bad negotiation. I have no leverage, no way of making this come out good for me. On the other hand, if I’m dead, it won’t really matter.
