by Tao Wong
After I’m done, we make our way to sell the meat, which makes up the majority of what everyone has to sell. While monster components do form when we Loot monster corpses, the vast majority of the time, at the lower Levels, it’s just meat. Unsurprisingly, the food section is made up of the food court and a portion of the shops around it. There’s almost no haggling at the food stalls. Large cardboard signs hung above each stall state both what they’re selling and buying with the respective prices.
“Mrs. Cho’s selling her burgers again!” Damian says excitedly, eyes glowing slightly. “I’ll line up. You guys sell my share.”
“Done!” Analyn answers excitedly, taking his bag while shooting me a look. “You don’t want to miss her burgers.”
“Ummm…” I glance at the long line then finally nod to Damian. “Get me a half dozen then.”
In short order, we’ve sold the last of our gains—or at least, what I’m declaring as my gains—and retreated from the stalls respectfully.
“This place is crowded,” Analyn says, glancing around pointedly. “We’ve got a place in one of the apartment complexes here. Let’s go eat at home.”
The invitation is obvious. So too is the potential trap, but after a moment, I nod. Realistically, even if they triple the number of individuals involved in the trap, there isn’t any concern for me. Between Ali’s ability to sense things and my Level, running away is simple.
Once I agreed, the three of us quickly left the building to head to their apartment complex. I definitely had no intention of visiting the Shop here—for one thing, anything I bought would likely get taxed and the Credits added to the Sect’s coffers. Why the heck would I do that?
The pair of condo buildings is interesting, surrounded by stern steel walls that are obviously not part of the original architectural plans. On top of those, a series of small orbs sit, ready to unleash magical hell. Once inside, the building itself doesn’t seem very different, keeping most of its original design and furnishings, including the cream tile floor.
“Are you guys just renting the place?” I ask.
“No, parceled ownership. We own the apartment but have to pay into the general security fund. Votes on changes to our maintenance fees and major upgrades are all handled via the System, though there are a few administrators,” Jonah answers, obviously enthused by this. “Much better than a damn condo board. Anyone can propose a change with votes monthly. Of course, the administrators can block the proposals, but only three times in a row. Keeps the silly requests from appearing mostly.”
“Ah,” I answer, my curiosity more than assuaged.
However, my non-committal answer does little to slow down Jonah’s enthusiasm, and I get a whole lecture about the way the System works in terms of managing a multi-property location, the various options available, and the pros and cons of it all. I keep a mostly attentive expression to stay polite, but I can’t help but sigh in relief when Damian returns, hands filled with bags of food.
Toward the end of the meal—which, I have to admit, is superb—Damian’s demeanor changes and he looks unexpectedly serious. He puts down his burger, motioning toward Jonah, who pulls out a small device and taps it before nodding to his team lead.
“Where are you from? Really?” Damian asks, his face stern.
I stare at the group and absently note that Analyn’s hand is on her gun, which is pointed in my general direction. Not directly at me yet, but close enough. Jonah’s backed off too, his fingers rolling a small metal disc over his fingers.
“Whitehorse originally,” I answer truthfully. I’m curious to see where this is going. “But more recently, Kamloops.”
“We’ve heard about Kamloops. Even heard that you managed to fight off one of their invasion groups when they came to take it back,” Damian says, shaking his head. “You need to work on your blending in. You’re way too confident and assured of yourself for a local. No one walks like you do out here.”
“Except the delvers,” Analyn points out.
“Oh yeah, but we know who they are,” Damian answers.
“Delvers?”
“Dungeon delvers. The high Level, independent combat Classers. They’re forced to pay a high daily tax rate, so they have to do the Dungeons again and again to keep up,” Damian answers easily. “None of those guys waste time walking. They’re all about the luxury vehicles.”
“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 l
ower 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 fell 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.
