by Tao Wong
“Doesn’t sound practical to me,” I say, shaking my head.
“Who’s talking practical? It’s not as if it’s expensive to get them fixed up,” Damian points out and shrugs. “It’s all about indulging in past fantasies. Who doesn’t want to drive a Jaguar?”
“Thanks for the information,” I finally say, considering what Damian said. Since I can’t alter my Status any further, sneaking in might be an even bigger task than I thought.
“Ask them why there are so few high-Level combat Classers that he thinks he’d know them all,” Ali sends urgently.
After a moment, I realize the Spirit’s point and pass the question on.
“Ah… that’s the other thing we need to talk to you about. Are you here to cause trouble for the Sect?” Damian says.
“I asked you first.”
“Are you a child?” Damian mutters, rolling his eyes. When I refuse to answer, Damian sighs. “We lost a lot of people a few months ago when the Sect put down the rebellion. Grabbed everyone involved, after they beat them, and shipped them all off-world.”
“What?” I say, my voice rising as I lean forward. I note Analyn shifting slightly at my sudden movement before she calms down.
“That’s why I’m asking your intentions. We can’t—we won’t—start a new fight with the Sect. We’ve learned our lesson—numbers don’t matter when they’ve got enough Advanced Class people to kick our asses. And every time someone gets close to reaching an Advanced Class, they disappear,” Damian says with a grimace.
“Technically not legal to kidnap people, if that’s what you’re thinking. But laws without people to enforce them are just bits in the electronic stream.”
“I do intend to do something about the Sect,” I say. I’m curious to see what they do. If they intended to sell the information about me, they could have done so already. And if this makes them decide to do it now, well, so be it. I could kill them, but they’ve treated me fairly well so far. “They’ve been attacking Kamloops non-stop for the last few weeks. If we continue to let them do that, they’ll eventually win.”
“What do you intend to do?” Damian asks, his eyes glinting.
I sigh. “Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure. I planned on sneaking in and figuring out what is going on before I acted. It’ll probably end up in blood and tears though. It always does.”
“Did you not hear the part about their Advanced Classers? They’ve got seven of them in this city,” Damian says sternly.
“How do you know that?” I say. Obviously, from the way they’ve been speaking, these guys can’t tell my Level.
“They told us. A friend of mine who’s an Auditor confirmed it. Seven Advanced Classes, six of which are combat Classes with Levels ranging from 14 to 39, and one non-combat Advanced Class Level 38 Administrator,” Damian says. “You can forget about stirring up trouble in Vancouver. The moment you do, they’ll kill you and then make it more difficult for the rest of us.”
“I’m not that easy to kill,” I say, both as a warning to them and a statement of confidence. I get a few eye rolls. They’ve obviously run into overconfident people before. “But thank you for the information.”
“You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”
“Not one bit,” I say, smiling slightly. Even if I look relaxed, internally, I tense up as I wait to see what they’re going to do next.
“No new figures around us. If they’ve called for help, it hasn’t arrived yet,” Ali reassures me.
“I assumed that.” Damian exhales, slumping. He rubs his face, fatigue and grief showing on it as he speaks. “They left those of us with lower Levels alone after the revolt. Just left us, even though they must know who we are. There might be hundreds of us, but we’re all in the twenties. That’s how useless we are.
“Anyone with a higher Level, they’re being kept at the Olympic Village at False Creek. Easy enough to control them. And even then, there’s only, like, fifty of them. They keep a couple of the Advanced Class combatants around them all the time, including a Summoner with his demonic dogs and a Warden.”
“Not a lot of you guys left,” I say neutrally.
“Not a lot. After the revolt, that’s when we found out how different things were. The entire downtown is theirs, remade into their world. They’ve got security cameras everywhere, and anyone who wants to go in has to wear a bracelet marking their identity. Their Serfs are all incentivized to tattle on anyone not authorized to enter the downtown, so we couldn’t sneak most of our people in. Even when we did, they’d upgraded the main library to have its own shield to keep the City Core safe.”
I open my mouth then close it, frowning slightly at what Damian says. And how he says it. I tilt my head, looking at Analyn, whose face is blank, and Jonah, whose face holds a trace of anger and resentment.
“For a guy who is complaining a lot, he’s giving me a lot of useful information,” I send to Ali.
“General deniability. If they know who he is, this way, he can still say he’s learned his lesson,” Ali says, looking at Damian and the group with a tinge of respect.
“That sounds tough,” I say, rubbing my chin.
“Har! Tough. Tough were the damn Advanced Classers. They had an invasion team during the revolt, including that Blood Warrior, though he’s out of town right now. His clones really messed with our groups. Then there’s the Psychic. Not much for area effect, but its spells one-shotted everyone it hit. Brain-blasted them till they all felt unconscious,” Jonah snaps, shaking his head.
“At least you didn’t have to fight that Bone Monster. It didn’t matter what we shot it with, we couldn’t punch through its armor. I’d upgraded my Penetrating Strike Skill four times by then and it still didn’t hurt it!” Analyn says, shaking her head. “And that Sect Enforcer was nothing to sneeze at. He switched between his rifles and other Skills easily, filling in the gaps whenever they needed him.”
“If they hadn’t been holding back to keep our people alive, we’d have had a lot more losses,” Damian says quietly, his eyes fixed on me. “You should give up and go back. Don’t bring more trouble for us.”
I sigh and nod, looking at the group for a moment more. “Thank you. For the food. But since we aren’t coming to an agreement on this, I’m going to take my leave.”
“You won’t last a day out there,” Damian says, his tone foreboding. “Just get out of the city.”
Rather than answer Damian, I smile and shake my head, walking out. None of the three move to block me, leaving me with my thoughts.
“Figure they’re going to sell me out?” I ask Ali while waiting for the elevator.
“They’ll probably give you a little head start, but I’m sure they will. You sure you don’t want to head back? We’ve picked up a bunch of information. And out of town, we’ve got a lot more advantages,” Ali says quietly, concern in his voice.
“We’re not done yet. I still want to take a look at the downtown. If they give me even an hour, I can get in.”
“And then what? They said it already—they’ve got surveillance everywhere.”
“Then we dance,” I say with a savage grin.
Chapter 16
No matter what people say, I’m not entirely insane. Foolhardy, short-tempered, and overly confident sometimes, sure. But not entirely insane. I don’t say completely sane, since well, I doubt any of us are entirely sane compared to pre-System standards. Though that does raise the question of if the standard of sanity has changed, with the “norm” shifting as we fight and kill for our survival.
Having been, quite literally, warned to leave, I was of course going to stay. I’d come to Vancouver for a few reasons, and I wasn’t satisfied with getting a partial complete on a couple of them. Firstly, scouting out the city was important. Sure, I could have bought the information, but there’s something to be said about actually seeing the changes. Never mind the fact that to buy the information, I’d have to know what kind of questions to ask and then pay for it. Cheaper and
easier to visit and see it with my own eyes. Thus far, I’d only managed to make it to Burnaby which, at best, is a suburb. No, I need to visit Vancouver itself.
Secondly, splitting their forces is important. If they start fearing an attack in Vancouver, it means they’ll have fewer forces to devote to Kamloops. Us staying purely on the defensive would just allow them to concentrate whatever leftover forces they had. While my fight in Merritt had helped reduce and alert them, it wasn’t enough. I needed to make sure they stayed on the defensive.
Right now, I was very much like a chess queen let loose behind the lines. While I wouldn’t say I could knock out any single other piece without fail, given the right conditions, I was definitely a danger. That meant they could either let me roam and knock down their pieces or take active steps to go after me. But that only worked so long as I wasn’t cornered. Which meant I had to be unpredictable—and that meant going right into the lion’s den.
Thirdly, I needed to kill more to get my next Level. While hunting monsters was doable, at the level I was, I needed tens of thousands of experience points to advance. Bullying monsters wasn’t going to get me there any time soon and finding a higher Level zone, while possible, meant that I wasn’t being a threat to the Sect. Whether it was right or not, the Sect members were giant bags of experience and Credits.
Lastly, taking over Vancouver was necessary to ending this. To do that, we needed to understand how tough these guys were going to be and see if we could get some help from the residents. That meant poking at the forces they’d left behind to safeguard the city and opening channels of communication. The Sect might have beaten the initial resistance, but they’d left enough people around that, if they believed we could win, would be of great use to us. No matter what the kids thought, numbers do have an important quality—even if it’s not as much as pre-System.
Of course, talk is cheap. The fact that we’re putting up a fight in Kamloops might be heartening, but it isn’t convincing enough in and of itself to get them to risk their lives or their freedom. And it shouldn’t be. We’ve all struggled so hard to survive, throwing it away at the smallest hope is a bad idea.
Which means I need to prove that we can do more than hurt the Sect. We can beat them. And the best way to do that is to prove it right here, right now. In the middle of their stronghold. Of course, I’m gambling with my life. But as I trot down Kingsway at a speed that a cheetah would find fast, I’m grinning beneath my helmet.
Because this? This is the kind of shit I live for these days.
I hit Broadway in twenty minutes at a pace that is slow only because I had to skim around a couple of Sect groups while traveling down Kingsway. From here, it’d be simple enough to cross over to the downtown from the Cambie St. Bridge or swing around and go through the downtown eastside. Either would get me into downtown Vancouver. Problem is, even if I can’t see the bridge itself from here, I can see the numerous dots clustered in a line at regular intervals on my minimap that indicate people are lining up to get in. Trying to get in might kick things off immediately.
Which is why I move out of the way of the flow of people all around me while I consider my next steps. There’s no way for me to get downtown without making a fuss, which means it’s got to be at the bottom of my list of things to do. From here, it’d be a simple matter to visit the former Olympic Village and check out the buildings and the delvers who live there. Of course, there’s no guarantee anyone’s home and I’m not entirely sure what I’d say to them either. But…
A solid projectile impacts my stomach, bending me slightly. A second later, beams of energy cook my flesh, tearing my clothing into pieces and throwing me through the café windows, its internal walls, and out the other side even as magical arrows chase my body.
“Stupid.” The word reaches me after the attacks fall, the group smart enough to hold back on taunting me until after they struck.
By the time I hit the ground and start rolling, I’ve got my Soul Shield in place to catch the next wave of attacks. All around me, the bleed-off from the attacks flares up, reducing my vision significantly. Which is weird, but probably a purposeful side effect.
“You really dared to come into our city,” the same voice taunts. “When we bought your location from the System, we couldn’t believe you were here.”
I kick backward, hopping out of the immediate attacks, and then again, finally able to see who I’m fighting. For a second. A rolling green cloud covers the area, paint and plastic peeling and melting on contact with the cloud. I see my Soul Shield weakening under the effects of the corrosive poisonous cloud, even as the screams of innocent passersby reach my ears.
“Assholes,” I snarl, borrowing Ali’s eyes as he hovers overhead to Blink Step out of the area of effect.
I appear directly above one of my attackers, allowing me to drop straight down and slice the son of a bitch open, twisting the blade while its inside his body. I’m not even sure who I’m killing, the attack too sudden and unexpected for Ali to populate System information for me.
Kicking off the Sect member’s body, I bounce backward before more shots arrive, and I blink in surprise as the body pulls itself together, what I thought was a soon-to-be corpse healing before my eyes. The pale-skinned creature turns toward me, a mouthful of fangs and too-big eyes facing me as blood flows backward into its body.
“Yuck! Genetrolls. They’re genetically modified creatures who have troll regeneration added to them. They stopped being produced a few hundred years ago after repeated failures. About ninety percent of their test subjects just went insane. The survivors creep around the edges of society,” Ali sends to me, his fingers flying as he populates data all around me.
“Not. Now,” I snap, a fireball flying outward to impact next to the genetroll as Ali speaks, my focus on surviving the next few minutes.
Flames explode, coating the creature, which screams in pain and catches some of his friends in the blast as well. Within seconds, I’m sprinting away, trying to put some distance between my attackers and me. Smoke grenades are pulled and tossed from my inventory as I focus on running and dodging. My Soul Shield falls, another shot ripping it apart, and the laser beam splashes on my skin, burning it away and leaving muscle and tendon exposed. I jerk reflexively, moving away from the path of the beam before I Blink Step away, furious at myself.
I should have known they’d buy my location from the System. Once they realized there was only me out here, the first step would be to figure out where I am. Not track me, just buy my information. Even if it was expensive, they could do it once or twice to narrow down my location, then send their teams at me. The only good thing is they shot their bolt too early. Rather than consolidating their forces and hammering me all at once, they sent their closest groups to attack me.
Ahead of me, blocking my way to the river, is a group of nine Sect members. Half of them are human, the other half aliens. A couple of reptile folk, a wolf-like creature, and a Hakarta open fire the moment they see me. My hands twitch, and I pull the remains of a Level 38 hard-shelled beetle the size of a car from my Altered Space. Holding it in front of me, I let the corpse soak up the damage as Ali darts ahead.
Seconds to cover the ground, to give me the distance I need. I Blink Step again into the sky above the group and release a Blade Strike downward, the wave of blue and red light cutting my attackers below me. I could have added more blades, more Blade Strikes, but I need to conserve my Mana. A part of me regrets the deaths of the humans, wishing they’d stayed away. But we all make choices, and theirs was to attempt to kill me. Idiots weren’t even Level 30.
“Above us!”
The scream cuts off abruptly as I land directly on the gnoll’s body, my knee and shin crushing its collarbone a microsecond after my blade enters its body. I rip sideways, tearing the head off the creature, then dance among my attackers, blood flying. Basic Sect members, all in the mid 20s to low 30s. Nothing exceptional, some having as little as a few hundred health points, none above fi
ve hundred. Seconds to cut and injure, to kill. Soulbound, my sword does nearly a hundred points of damage without enhancement and targeting. With their pitiful armor and defenses, my attackers fall all around us, their screams of despair resounding. Experience flows into me as more Sect members die. Each second, I inch toward my next Level.
A giant bone hand swings, catching in my hastily brought up guard. A hand reinforces my blade, the force of the blow sending me skipping through numerous buildings as physics and a Skill knock me away. My arm cracks under the force of the blow, nearly a quarter of my hit points disappearing under that single attack. As I struggle to my feet in the rubble of a building, the Bone Monster is rushing toward me.
I plunge a needle into the exposed flesh of my thigh, the healing potion injected directly into my body. Flesh knits and my arm pops back into place with enough force that I drop my sword. Staring into the glowing freight train of a monster, I grin and Blink Step away.
“Gotcha,” I chortle as I get away from the Advanced Class.
I’m between my initial pursuers now, the group having spread out a bit as their running speeds pull them apart. Next to me is a Mage or support Classer of some form. Truthfully, I don’t have time to tell, only noticing that his health pool is tiny.
I spin, sword recalled into my hand, to lop off his foot above the knee then plunge the blade into his body. As another Sect member raises a gun, I grab the Mage by his face, pulling him in front of the attack to take it before I cast Mana Dart, forming the spell right on my hand. As I shove the Mage at his teammate, I release the spell, the Mana Darts ending the Mage’s life and giving me time to cover the distance to his friend. Something slams into my side, breaking a pair of ribs and dragging out a whimper.
“Mana,” Ali sends to me as I cut apart my latest target, grinning savagely in pain.
More dots, ever more dots converge on us and I take off running again, each step shooting pain through my body. A hand flickers, stabbing a Mana Regeneration potion into my body as I run and form another Soul Shield.
