by Pal, J
The rest of the journey back was in relative silence. We were taking a significant risk with the new lot. I wanted to believe it wasn’t just tinfoil that made people resistant to the mind hack. These were good people. Woofcano—Jay—had started off with a C-rank power, but he’d dedicated his existence to saving animals in the apocalypse. The other two I wasn’t so sure about. David’s voice was still relatively high and would crack at times. I couldn’t tell whether he had matured enough to show sexual interest in either gender yet. Caitlin was just as big of a wildcard.
After everything with Pallav and Rajesh, I chose to take a more gentle approach with the new lot. I’d ease them into what I knew and everything that was going on in the world. Their powers would prove invaluable in our purpose.
Jay told us about how things had been since they’d joined up. Together they had taken on several rat nests and used the McGuffins to upgrade Caitlin’s and David’s powers to B-rank. Then after sufficiently upgrading the multitool using McGuffins, he’d given them two options. Join the Metalsmith and live a life of reasonable security, or follow him to the new sector. They had come to our sector looking for animals not affected by the System or not perverted by the nests. Looking for us had been a secondary goal. After entering the new sector, they had assumed we were dead.
Most of what they said went in one ear and out the other. My latest loss made focusing near impossible. I ran my fingers over the stump, and the skin felt unnaturally soft and smooth. How the hell was I supposed to get used to this?
The new trio fell silent when we arrived at the Hub. We’d put the base on lockdown before leaving, so it looked like a cube with two concrete walls and two made of steel. Following my mental commands, the vertical metal plates swung open, making Maya jump backwards in fright. Jay and his friends had a good laugh. Unfortunately, Kitty and I weren’t in a laughing mood, and Liam rarely projected his emotions.
When a pair of wingless platyhawks came climbing down, the newbies went on the defensive. I had to stop Caitlin from firing at them physically and explain what the Hub was and its features.
“You mean this is territory you have a hundred percent control over?” Caitlin asked, looking at her brother and Jay warily. “So we’d be under your control. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“It’s fine, Caity,” David told her, grinning. “It’s a high-tech base with monster guards! That’s pretty cool.”
“Yes, but we’d be living under someone else’s control.”
“I haven’t met Liam before, but Matt and Kitty are good people,” Jay said, hopping off Maya and helping Caitlin down from the trailer. He put an arm around her and looked deeply into her eyes. “When I first met them, they were rescuing pups from a mantis. Then they taught me how to class-up my power, and you know what they asked for in exchange?”
Caitlin nodded. She sighed, looking at me. “I’m sorry. Leah was my best friend. After she robbed and abandoned us—”
“It’s alright,” I told her, smiling. “We understand.”
“How about we go inside?” Maya nudged Jay with her snout as he spoke and made the strange talking sounds huskies often made. “I sense it too.” He looked at me. “You’ve got a telepathic field here, don’t you?”
“It’s an anti-telepathy field, actually. Will that be a problem? It’s an extra security measure.”
Jay’s lips spread into a wide smile. “I think we’ve got a lot to talk about.”
Chapter Fifteen
The Tour
After getting in, Kitty and David whipped up a meal for everyone. Caitlin didn’t particularly enjoy the kitchen, but her little brother loved everything food-related. It had been a week since the team had eaten anything that wasn’t crisps or straight out of a can, so the pair fried frozen hash browns, grilled sausages, and mushrooms. David announced to everyone that he needed more fiber in his diet—much to his sister’s annoyance—and got to work making a salad of pickled vegetables as well.
The official tour would have to wait. Jay absorbed Maya into his chest before we took him and Caitlin up in the elevator. I wasn’t surprised when they picked out a room to share. They were both desperate for a shower, so we made plans to unite on the ground floor for food in twenty minutes and parted ways. Then Liam and I went up to his workspace.
“What can I do to help, Matt?” Liam asked as soon as we were alone. He didn’t toe around the matter but scuttled over and prodded the stump using one of his spider legs. The newcomers had all stolen nervous glances but avoided mention of it in conversation. “The Medi Gun did a good job of fixing it up. Any tenderness?”
“That’s one of the issues, mate,” I told him. “I don’t feel anything at all. The pain only lasted for a few seconds before it got fixed up. If it were still around, perhaps I’d have an easier time accepting that it’s gone, but now—”
“You’ve gone straight to phantom limb syndrome without the time to process the missing limb?”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry, mate.” Liam scuttled over to the space he had cleared for the 3D printer and started bringing all the materials together. “If I had been more careful, I wouldn’t have been out of the fight. This was completely avoidable.”
“Please! Can you and Kitty stop playing this game? I already feel shit about losing an arm, and you two moping about it doesn’t help in the slightest.” The words came out louder than I intended. My heartbeat’s tempo had increased as well, and I had to spend a minute of focused, deep breathing to slow it down. “Let’s think about what we can do next instead of what we could’ve done differently. It’s not productive or helps us in any way. For the record, if anyone is to blame, it’s me. I was enjoying the fight a bit too much and took an unnecessary risk. No one pushed me to make such a maneuver. We could’ve played safe, worn her down, blinded her or poisoned her. Instead, I tried to do something cool and flashy and paid for it.”
Liam didn’t say anything. Instead, he got everything ready for the new device and gave me the final design. The biggest cost involved in the creation were two biometal glands and two McGuffins. However, considering the value the 3D Printer would have in the long run, I considered it a worthwhile investment. The Creation drained a third of my energy bar, but it grew by ten percent as well.
13 McGuffin-fueled Creations or Upgrades until the next power upgrade.
“Would you like me to do the Recon Drone now as well?” I asked. “We can add thermal imaging, sonar, and camouflaging abilities to it while I’m at it.”
“No,” Liam answered. “Focus on yourself for a while. I don’t know how good you are at drawing with your left hand, but see if you can come up with an idea for a decent prosthesis. You’ve already used two McGuffins today for my sake. Hold onto the rest and see what you need to help with your stub. As soon as you have something, I’ll get to work on the chassis or whatever parts you need.”
Before the apocalypse had come and everything had changed, I’d often find myself annoyed by how Liam spoke. It mostly had to do with his phrasing or lack of tact. Now, I appreciated his directness. I didn’t want him to sugarcoat his words or walk on eggshells when it came to the subject of my missing limb.
“I appreciate that, Liam. I really do. Would you like to join us for lunch?”
“I’m good.” One of his spider legs pointed at the crate of sports drinks stacked in a corner. “As soon as the printer is ready, there are quite a few projects I need to start on. I’m going to start preparing the designs and everything else.”
“Fair enough.”
When I got back to the ground floor, Jay and Caitlin were done washing up. David had just finished laying the table, and Kitty was bringing out the food. We sat all together and dug in. Kitty and I were famished after the fight. The other three were desperate for hot food, so we didn’t talk for the first half of the meal. Everyone stuffed their faces until their plates were half-empty before slowing down.
The first topic that came up was the base. We could
n’t get into the matter without explaining my power, so I told them what I could do. It was still too early to trust them implicitly, so I fibbed and told them I was a B-ranked Technopath. My power involved creating and upgrading devices. We couldn’t very well explain how we’d come upon the Hub Core and glossed over the subject. Jay and Caitlin probably sensed my reluctance about discussing the matter. Fortunately, they didn’t push it.
To help change the topic, Kitty explained how her power worked, and it turned into a discussion of everyone’s abilities. Jay started off, even though we had discussed it during our last meeting. Now at B-rank, his power gave him the ability to create up to five habitats in his chest. Each habitat could house a single type of animal. While inside, they’d enjoy regenerative healing and grow bigger and stronger. However, they’d rapidly lose these bonuses after if they lost skin-to-skin contact with Jay after leaving the habitat.
The Packmaster ability also gave him the power to feed an individual specimen McGuffins and empower them permanently. Maya’s size, strength, and healing factor were now permanent. He had also given her an ice-breath ability. It wore her out significantly, so they used it sparingly.
David’s power had changed from Artifact Technician to Artificer. His multitool worked similarly to Kitty’s golem cores and my device’s upgrades—it grew the more he used it in battle and defeated foes. Once the artifact reached a power threshold, he could use a McGuffin to give it a new ability or empower it. The multi-tool could function as a club, drill, blade, or even a cannon. Lately, he had been investing in defense and, when in use, the multitool coated parts of him in armor. At B-rank, he could create two more artifacts, but unwilling to split McGuffins between multiple objects, he hadn’t created anything new yet.
We asked whether he could make artifacts for other people, and he replied in the affirmative. Unfortunately, they’d still rely on him for upgrading them, and they wouldn’t have the intuitive control over them that he did.
Finally, we turned to Caitlin. At first, she appeared a lot more guarded about her secrets than her friends. It wasn’t until Jay egging her on that she truly opened up to us. Caitlin called her power Multi-Power Plug. Initially, she’d only had the one socket on her belly button. Now she had two more on either side of it. Anything she plugged into the socket used her body as a power source, and she hadn’t suffered depletion yet despite extended usage.
Caitlin’s power also enabled her to upgrade the devices plugged into her body, granting them a multitude of abilities related to their base function. The more she used a particular type of device, the more proficient she got with it and the more abilities she could grant them. Her current go-to for offense was a hairdryer. She could use it to fire compressed and superheated air projectiles for long-range or turn it into a flamethrower.
Listening to how Multi-Power Plug functioned got me excited and helped me ignore my injury for a short while. Caitlin’s face lit up when I told her my plans of making devices for her to use in conjunction with her power. Most of the devices I created relied on McGuffins as the power source first and the super abilities second. Anything I created for Caitlin wouldn’t need a power source and would therefore be especially powerful.
After we had finished eating, I gave our friends a tour of the building. They got to see the basement and the generator that was now the Hub’s Core, but I told them the level was off-limits unless I was present. Only David expressed any displeasure at that, but I didn’t hold it against him. He had not long entered his teens.
The first floor was technically my workspace, but so far, I only used it for stashing materials I liked. Before Jay and company joined us, we had discussed what to do with the floor. My power didn’t require an entire floor. We’d planned on figuring out a more efficient use of the space but had drawn a blank. Now that we had more people, I told them they could have input on what we did on the floor as a gesture of goodwill. The offer was on the terms that they joined us for good, of course. I kept the secondary requirements to myself. None of us was sure how the Telepathic Null Zone worked and how it would affect our new friends. We’d have to wait a while before finding out.
Caitlin warmed up to us more when she found out what we intended to do with the second floor. She and David had grown up in Greater London, and their parents had loved gardening. They grew herbs and all manners of vegetables. Much to my pleasure, it had become a bonding point for her and Kitty. Both of them wanted to get stuck in with farming.
“What do you need to get it up and running?” she asked me.
“The materials for a D-rank Farm are easily available,” I answered. “It’ll take one McGuffin and a couple of things we’ll have to scavenge for.”
“D-rank? Isn’t that low? What’s the difference between D and C?”
“The residential floor has a field that enhances healing and growth. Plants in here will grow like they were in a C-rank form. Besides that, the System will provide more drones to run a C-rank, so it’ll be equipped for better quality and higher yield. It costs three McGuffins though. Right now we can’t afford to make such a big investment.”
“It’s a price worth paying for good food though. Didn’t you say the base requires biomatter to fuel itself, grow, and repair damage? Well, all waste and byproduct from the Farm is biomatter!”
“That may be true, but we can’t afford it yet,” I said. “The difference in power between the creatures of this sector and the last are ridiculous. We came here equipped to the teeth but are barely getting by. It cost me my arm today, and I’m not letting that happen to anybody else. Whatever McGuffins we have need to go towards strengthening ourselves and reinforcing this base’s security. Only then we can afford to upgrade the Farm.”
Caitlin went silent, and we continued with our tour. Jay’s face lit up on seeing the Menagerie. He couldn’t believe his eyes. When a juvenile platyhawk crawled over to investigate the newcomers, David and Caitlin took a step back. On the other hand, Jay approached them excitedly. I introduced him to Fin, and the two got talking about how the floor functioned and its purpose. Watching the two talk, I knew Jay would want to stay with us. He didn’t join us to see the other floors and said he’d see for himself later.
There wasn’t a lot to see on the fifth floor. The newcomers had a short chat with Liam, and he welcomed them to the Hub before we moved on. Caitlin took her time enjoying the view on the roof, but David left us to watch the giant glowing cuboid that was the 3D printer. It wasn’t complete yet, but I guessed the concept got him excited. Caitlin and Kitty continued their conversation while I sat on the ledge, petting a wingless platyhawk that had wandered over. I petted it while listening to the chatting pair. The day had cost me greatly, but the prospect of new friends gave me hope for our future and goals.
Chapter Sixteen
Big Adjustments
Sleep eluded me throughout the night. I’d doze off for a while, then I’d see the queen platyhawk severing my arm. The memory of the following pain would jolt me awake, and some part of me would wait for the countless severed nerve endings to start screaming all at once, but they wouldn’t. Then when trying to fall asleep, an itch would develop on my nose or the urge to hold Kitty would awaken. Out of habit, I’d go for it with my dominant arm. When I recalled it no longer existed, my mind would go into high alert and take forever to calm down.
It was around dawn that I gave up on sleep altogether and went down to the first floor. The room Kitty and I shared had a desk and chair, but I didn’t want to disturb her sleep by switching the lights on. Her body was like clockwork—it wanted to go to bed and wake up at regular set times. I, on the other hand, slept whenever I felt like it and slept as long as my body or life allowed.
Life wouldn’t be the same ever again. The sooner I got a new arm, the sooner I’d regain any form of normalcy—or so I hoped. I sat down at my workstation to design a new arm. It came as no surprise when I failed miserably. My left hand could barely write, let alone draw. After several minutes of f
rustrated scribbles, there were broken pencils and shredded scraps of paper littered all around me.
“What’s wrong?”
I almost jumped out of my skin. David had appeared next to me almost out of nowhere. He didn’t look like the stealthy type. He and his power had a “look at me” vibe about them. In my frustration, I had blocked out the world. David must have approached me then. That made more sense.
“I can’t draw with my left hand,” I said. Listening to how small and pathetic I sounded, anger boiled out inside of me, but I had nowhere to direct it. “Drawing and writing were my two favorite things to do before...all of this happened.”
David picked up all the bits of paper I had thrown on the ground, but they had already started sinking into the floor. The System probably countered biodegradable materials as biomatter. I didn’t have a wastebasket so made a neat pile by my desk, and they disappeared not long after.
“Paper is a limited resource now. If you’re really into drawing, you shouldn’t waste it.” David’s direct tone pulled me out of my self-wallowing. “What are you trying to draw?”
“A prosthetic arm,” I explained. “If I’m going to make a new one, I need to sketch out a few ideas for the blueprint.”
“That sounds cool. What are you thinking? Fullmetal Alchemist or Fury Road?”
“I don’t want something big and monstrous,” I said, surprised by David’s pop culture knowledge. I didn’t think people his age would be interested in either. “Most of those are unreasonably big and heavy. I’m thinking more Star Wars with hidden weapons?”
“Reckon your power can pull off something so complicated? You’d need to connect it to your nervous system.”
“In all honesty, I don’t know where to start. Probably best to start simple and then upgrade it with time.”
“Get up.” David picked up a pencil and poked me out of my chair. “You tell me what you want, and I’ll draw it.”
