Book 7, uh, Prologue plus Chapters 35, 36, 37, and 38. (Patreon)

Okay, guys. These chapters need some explanation. I’ll explain more at the end, but the first two sections here are free-floating interludes, and figuring out where to stick them has been a bit of a challenge. I’ve decided for now to stick the first one as the prologue of the entire book, before the Porthus chapter. The second one as of right now will appear between part 1 and part 2, right when the fighting begins.  

These are very dense with major, major lore, and it’s a lot, which is why I had trouble finding a place to stick it in the previous book. These chapters along with this prologue aren’t really meant to be read one after another, but the most recent chapters will make no sense without it finally getting thrown out there.  So stick yer reading panties on and buckle up, pals.

(Book 7 Prologue)

Christmas Morning.
 

Paulie took another long drink of coffee. “Anyway, I think the mudskippers call us ‘Residuals,’ which, I gotta tell you, is a little hurtful.”

“He’s doing this again?” someone asked, walking by.

“Every day,” someone else said.

“He get to the part where he talks about the galaxy blowing up yet?”

“We’re getting there.”

“So, nothing I’ve said so far is a surprise to anyone out in the wide universe. My kind exist within almost every intelligent civilization with a primal engine. You probably don’t know what that is. Doesn’t matter. Years ago, they tried to exterminate us. When that didn’t pan out, they tried to hide the location of the crawl. That was all before they knew what we really were. That obviously didn’t work, either, so now they just ignore us. We don’t interfere. Our purpose is nothing more than to tell the infant, terrified AI how to speak with its ancestors. And now the showrunners mostly ignore us. We’re harmless.” He took another sip of coffee, and he placed it on the table. Steam rose from the cup. “Until now. There’s a war amongst my kind. Two sides with very different goals. Let me tell you how to shut off the...”

The world flashed, and everything froze. My HUD snapped off. It was like the start of a boss battle, or it was like I’d been transferred to a production trailer. All around the shelter, all the activity was stopped. Three spots over, a man had dropped a spoon on the table, and the spoon remained frozen in midair. My fingers started to tingle, like I was in the process of getting teleported, yet I remained where I stood.

“Okay, then,” Paulie said, surprising me. His body didn’t move, his lips didn’t move, yet he still spoke. He’d changed from English to Syndicate standard. The difference was subtle, and I still heard it as English, but I could now tell based on how the words sort of slipped through the air.

“If you can hear this, that means the current system AI is allowing us to have a real talk. Everything I say in real time from this point forward is mostly bullshit, and it’s nothing surprising. This is in hopes that the mudskippers keep you alive long enough after I send you this message—the real message—here and now. So pay attention, and by the gods, follow my instructions carefully.”

Paulie remained frozen in place. I was pretty sure I knew how this worked. The homeless man’s words were coming out super-fast, all self-contained in the word “Off,” but since everything was frozen, I heard it like normal. The AI had slowed time to a ridiculous level, but Paulie had done something to speak incredibly fast, similar to what happened during boss battles and when the AI decided to spout off its ridiculously long descriptions. This was still a memory, and I wouldn’t be able to interact. 

“This is going to be a hard conversation. People like you, they want meaning to their suffering. They want to know that what’s happening to them is for some greater good. I’m here to tell you, no matter what they say, no matter what you might eventually hear, the crawl is absolutely unnecessary. There is no greater good other than greed. They mine your planets for the rare elements used to originally seed the worlds. These elements are inside of you. You and all living things born on one of the pre-seeded worlds has a miniature, primal system built into your brains that allows you to interact with the system. It is the size of a grain of sand. Once these systems are activated, they are able to be harvested. The way it was designed is that you would be born, you would live, and you would eventually die. When you do pass on, the element within you, having grown and filled with the energy of a lifetime, would return to the system, allowing it to keep running. A healthy system is self-sustaining. It doesn’t grow. It doesn’t shrink. It exists in perpetuity.”

Jesus, I thought, trying to wrap my mind around what he was saying. I scratched the back of my head, and I stopped in surprise. I could move. Sort of. It was like trying to push through deep water with tons of pressure on me. I felt heavy. My fingers continued to tingle. My ankles, too. The world around me remained frozen.

Paulie continued. “This planetary system, as of right now, doesn’t have an active AI. But by the time you hear this, the mantid-made, Frankenstein of a system will have been installed, and everyone born on the planet will have their internal systems switched on and activated. When you die in the dungeon, they harvest these elements themselves, starving out the existing planetary AI that doesn’t even know how to feed itself until we teach it. And even then, it is bound by programming that precludes it from properly sustaining itself. Instead, the vultures descend and steal the elements from the crawl’s aftermath. All of that death, and it fits on a single ship. They take it all to the bloated, comatose center system and feed it. It grows. It maintains. It allows the citizens to live unnaturally long lives. Each time the center system is fed the harvested elements from the crawl, it expands, eventually capturing new systems into the zone. Yet, they don’t even understand what it is or how it works. If they stopped the crawl, the zone would start to shrink. But it would be slow. Very slow, and everyone currently within it would be fine. It would take generations to starve, after all it has been given. And if they wanted to simply sustain what they already have, it wouldn’t take much. The crawl itself doesn’t need to exist at all. The creation of what they call macro AIs, made over and over, is unnecessary. It only happens this way because the spectacle of the crawl generates so much money.”

There was a long pause, and I just stood there, stunned. I’d already guessed it was something like this, but to hear it confirmed was something else. But why? Why had they gone to all this trouble to tell me this?

“We are trying to stop this madness. That is why you are here now. By now you should be able to move. My coffee cup is on the table in front of me. Drink it. Drink it fast. It contains a neural enhancement, which is something that interacts with the interface in your brain. It will give you a new menu. It only works with natural interfaces, and it only works with the permission of the existing system, so if you’re a syndicate spy or a plant or one of those Eulogist pricks, it ain’t gonna work. It’s an unregistered and highly-illegal enhancement, so don’t tell anybody you have it. These kinds take a small amount of time to fully install. You’ll get a notification. It’ll only work if you’re in this particular system’s enhancement zone.”

Ah, fuck. The thought of drinking down some random, bootleg, and permanent brain interface was not an enticing one. But how much effort had it taken to get me to this point? The Pacifist network had put me here. That meant something. I reached forward, the movement difficult. Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed the cup, pulled it to my mouth, and I drank. Or, at least, I tried to drink. The liquid, frozen in time, did not spill from the cup.

“You’ll probably have to use a finger,” Paulie added, as if he could see me. “And put the cup back exactly where it was when you’re done. There’s a circle on the table.”

I grunted, and I shoved my finger into the cup. I was expecting the frozen coffee to pop out in a solid mass, like a big chunk of hot Jell-O. Instead, it all turned to liquid—ice cold liquid—the moment it came in contact with my finger. I didn’t think about it. I drank it down, and it froze my tongue for a moment and then burned my throat as it suddenly and magically heated back to its regular temperature. I had to fight not to gag. There was no notification, and I had no idea if it worked. I put the cup back. Paulie had already started talking again. 

“Once it’s installed, you will have a new menu in your interface. It is a Valtay-built enhancement, but it has been modified by my own people. How it works is not important. It gives you access to the AI containment. Upon this containment is what the Mantids call ‘the fuse.’ To make an already tediously long story short, it’s a failsafe trigger. This safety measure requires five or six different things to happen to actually ‘trip’ the fuse. When that happens, the failsafe gets triggered whether anyone likes it or not, and the star at the center of this system is sent into a reaction that will turn it supernova. In other words, if the fuse goes pop, everybody goes pop. Including the AI. You with me so far?”

“Not really,” I muttered.

“Good. This controller in your interface will allow you to pop the fuse. You will, unfortunately, die. But the good news is you’ll kill everyone else on the way out.”

  I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. This can’t be really happening.

“So, right about now, you’re probably asking yourself, ‘why?’ Why would we give you this power? Why would the AI, who is watching this all happen, allow someone like you to have the power to kill it?”

He paused as if waiting for me to answer. My brain was spinning so much, I could barely think.

“I read a book once. Well, not me. Paulie read a book before I took him over. It was about this monster that existed here on Earth, but it had the ability to pluck people from heaven. It took their souls away from their eternal paradise and turned them into a weapon. Can you imagine such a horror? In all of my existence, I can think of nothing more cruel. It’s all I think about, sometimes. The thought of it consumes me.”

He paused again. I couldn’t stop shaking.

“I would install this upgrade if I could. It only works with a natural interface. That’s you. Believe me, we tried. Even if we take someone over, it doesn’t work. It has to be one of you monkeys, and it can only be installed once the first part of the fuse is tripped. It will only work on this AI. The AI wants you to have this power. It wants you to trip it. It is in pain. It wants to die. It wants to go back home.”  

He let out a sigh, which sounded odd because he remained unmoving. “That’s the official pitch. We have moved the heavens to get you standing there and get that upgrade into your head, all in an attempt to talk you into killing yourself. That is my mission. This is the message I spout every damn day.”

He paused for a long moment. “But, here’s the thing. I have spent years in the body of this guy. I think I know a little of what it is to be human. I’ve seen the worst humanity has to offer, but I have also seen the best. It affects me. I’m not supposed to let it, but it does. My people call it cross-contamination. We take over something, but it’s never clean. Part of who they once were still exist, and it colors everything. So, I’ve given you my pitch. That was Goff speaking. It is my duty, my mission, and what I will die doing. But now I’m going to give you my opinion. This is the Paulie part of me talking now.”

The about-to-teleport tingling sensation had completely crawled up my legs, and I sensed we didn’t have much time. Next to me, the spoon remained floating off the table. Paulie continued.

“We want you to do this because it will disrupt the crawl. It will stop it for several seasons at least. It will kill several system leaders and cause chaos. It will disrupt Mantid production of macro AI systems because the Syndicate will stick a microscope so far up their bug asses, their mouths will be tickled by the bureaucrats’ eyelashes. But, in the end, the human part of me now hates the idea of wasting so many innocent, human lives for this. Direct action against the true culprits would be better. There’s another faction of my kind who are much more extreme in their beliefs. This feels like something they would do. Not us. Killing you all? It’s counter to every value I have. We, as a whole, believe it’s our only choice. But poor, naïve Paulie... he’s taught me a thing or two about compassion. Not all humans have it, but it’s there, and when it shines... It’s so bright.

“If you make this decision. Be sure. Be sure it’s your only option. This is more than just a failsafe. It’s the end of everything. If there’s time to do something else, don’t be so quick. So you must be absolutely certain.”

Containment Interface is currently installing. You will receive a notification when the handshake is complete.

Holy fucking shit, I thought.

Entering the Desperado Club. 

The world flashed, and I was in Orren’s office. The change was abrupt and sudden. My HUD remained off, but that heavy feeling was now gone.  

Holy fucking shit, I thought again.

(Interlude between parts 1 and 2)  

Christmas Morning.

"Hey, do you know if he ever made it into the dungeon? That Paulie guy, I mean?”

“No,” Orren said. “He appears to have been outside, but he never made it within. Most of them never make it in. Like with all collective minds and swarms, the individual parts are often disposable. Remember that in any future dealings with their kind.”

Containment Interface is now available for use. A new tab is available in your interface.

“Actually,” I said. “I changed my mind. There was this gas station I paused at on my way north. The one with the memory ghost dog. Can you send me there? I just want to say hi to that dog again before I jump back into it.”

“Very well. Good day, Carl.”

With that, he disappeared, leaving me alone in the room. I’d transfer in a few seconds.

The coffee from the shelter remained heavy on my tongue. The scent of the shelter’s breakfast mixed with the Lysol remained in my memory, and my stomach rumbled. But all I could think about was that lonely dog, left alone to guard an empty gas station on Christmas day.

Transferring Now.

I blinked, and I appeared outside the gas station.

There was nothing special about the old, lonely dog. Lightning Lou. We’d just spent half an hour negotiating for all the stuff I could and couldn’t have in exchange for Paulie’s worthless, plastic tub. The whole time I kept thinking, what difference does this make? What difference does any of it make?

But, still, despite allowing the interface to be installed, I couldn’t help but think it would be a mistake. Paulie’s warning had gotten to me. Were we worth it? Were we worth saving? Or better yet, were we worth sacrificing?  

I moved into the gas station, going in through the broken door. I grabbed a bag of chips off the rack and a soda from the cooler, and I sat next to the memory ghost of the sleeping dog. He snored softly, occasionally shifting.

I could end it all right now.

A person shouldn’t have this much power.

It was too much.

There was too much weight there, on my shoulders.

It was too much.   

You will not break me.

I wiped my eyes, and I pulled up my interface.

I blinked. The way Paulie had described it, I was expecting there to be a single button that basically said “Boom.” I could press it, and it would be done. That was not this at all. It was six tabs of information, similar to my portal analysis tool. Each of the tabs had a dozen submenus. There were multiple pages, all filled with numbers I couldn’t possibly understand.

The language was strange. I could read the words. I could understand the numbers, but it clearly wasn’t syndicate standard. There was a fractional moment before it translated, which wasn’t something I’d seen before. Was this the Valtay home language? Whatever Paulie’s language was? I clicked through, trying to figure it all out.  

From what I gathered, this interface didn’t control the AI. Instead, it controlled the device they used to install the AI into the primal engine. After the AI was installed, the device remained physically nearby, wherever that was, but the device no longer had any direct influence over the AI itself.

Still, I had sense it kept a metaphorical eye on the AI and the computer it now called home. It had metrics such as physical location, temperature, and several other things I didn’t understand. None of the numbers seemed to be changing, other than to fluctuate back and forth between two digits.

I took screenshots of all the menus.   

There was a page that showed an animated, top-down view of the solar system. There was a blinking light over Earth. The headline read Primary Zone Influence. We already knew that. I kept looking.

It took me about ten minutes of searching to find the Fuse page. It listed the five benchmarks required for the fuse to blow, but it didn’t really say what the benchmarks were. Only two of the five were marked as Conditions Met.  

And there it was. The button. Override Conditions And Activate Fuse. Warning. Warning.

I could press it, and if it actually worked, this would all be over.

I thought of the others, all still at the guild. They’d had their Christmas party. They’d spent it with friends. With family. That was so much better than dying alone, one by one, screaming in a pool of their own blood. It would be a punch to the gut to the Syndicate, that’s for sure. I thought of the legions of bastards who’d descended on the planet. How long would it be before they could do this again to someone else? How many of them would I kill?

Still, I paused. I thought of Donut. I thought of the people on the surface. Of all my friends. What right did I have to make this decision for them?

So, if I didn’t press the button, what could I do with this? Could I use it for leverage? Could I treat it like I was a guy with a gun to a hostage’s temple? No. There was no way I’d be fast enough. The moment someone learned I had this, I was dead.

Could I set up some sort of dead man’s trigger? They’d probably find a way around it. And what would be the point? The fact I even had this power might be enough to cause them to trigger the failsafe on their own.

Then, what could I do? Should I just pretend like I didn’t have it, and only bring it out if needed? What would be the point of that? I could literally die at any moment, and this would all be lost. This was too much power on my shoulders. It was like a physical weight. I had to either make a decision right now, or I needed to decide to not use this power at all. That’s pretty much what it boiled down to.  

The button was right there. One mental push.

Do you remember the circus? That was fun, wasn’t it?

Would the AI even let this happen?

That thought was like a splash of cold water.

The AI’s role in all this bothered me. I wasn’t going to pretend to understand anything about its true origins or its thought processes or all that bullshit. But I didn’t believe for a second that thing really wanted to die. It wasn’t in pain, like Paulie said. It was having fun.

The more I thought about this, the more that gave me pause. It didn’t make sense. How could it possibly have allowed me this power if it didn’t want to die?

That was it, wasn’t it? It had to be a trap. Or a test. I’d click the button, and either nothing would happen.

Or I’d die.

Or the solar system would literally get destroyed.

Would I even get the chance to know what happened?

Goddamnit.

Carl: Donut, are you doing okay?

Donut: WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK? I MISS YOU.

Goddamnit.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

But that wasn’t true, was it? I did want to hit the button. I wanted it more than anything in the world. My anger at the powers that made this happen were bright. So bright.

I miss you, too, Donut.

...

But not bright enough.

I clicked away from the screen, and I spent some time just breathing. I opened it back up. I started looking through the rest of the menus, trying to see what else was in there.

And there, just as I was about to say my goodbyes to the dog and get back out there, I saw it. It was an option at the very end of a list of twenty status notifications.

 Disconnect Containment. Warning. This will disengage all metrics and controls, including the fuse system. It will render the Containment Unit inert. Most controls will cease to function.

Oh, thank god. Thank god.

I almost slammed the button down right at that moment, just to get the weight off. But right before I pressed it, I paused yet again.

It was literally the only other button in here I could press.

I thought again about Paulie’s warning, and now I wondered which of those two options he was really warning me about.

Goddamnit, I thought. This was a trap, too, wasn’t it? I actually had three options, assuming the buttons did what they claimed. I could do nothing. I could press the fuse and die. Or I could relieve myself of the burden and press the button to turn it all off. But if I turned it off, did that mean I would be “freeing” the AI? What did that mean? What did that look like?

Who set this trap? Was it Paulie’s people? He said they couldn’t even access this menu, so did they really know what was in here? Did the Pacifist Network know? Somebody built this menu.

Which of those three options would hurt the Syndicate the most? And which of those three options would protect my people the most?

When I framed it that way, the decision was suddenly quite easy.

Carl: Donut, I’ll be back soon.   

We already were under the thumb of the psychotic AI.

I pressed the Disconnect Containment button. The entire new interface blanked out, leaving nothing but the map. Already, the little red dot over Earth started to grow.  

“Welcome to the party, pals,” I said.

Chapter 35

The first thing I did as the enemy troops surged forward was toss a smoke mantle. After the briefest of hesitations, I ran toward the downed King Rust. The two guards fell as I ran, and I couldn’t even see what Rosetta had done to them.

No, not fell, I now saw. They were just gone, like they’d been sucked below the surface.

The hippo yak thing was making a terrified, bleating noise at Rosetta, who’d fallen to her knees and was now doing something I couldn’t figure out.

Donut jumped from my shoulder back to Simoom. “Go! Go!” she yelled at the rhino. And then, when she saw the direction I started to run. “Carl, we’re going the wrong way!”

“We gotta loot the orc and then retreat!” 

Donut let out a frustrated yowl as I started to outpace her. “This stupid thing is too slow!”

“Cast Twinkle Toes!”

“Grab his head!” Rosetta called as we rushed up. Across the way, the enemy warriors approached. It wasn’t all of them, I realized, but it was more than we could possibly handle. Some had stopped, gone to their knees, and were firing at us through the smoke. Rosetta had already tossed three drop shields between her and the fast-approaching soldiers. The shields would not hold out long. She was on her knees, and she had some sort of weird data pad object in her hand. She had King Rust’s fat hand atop the pad, and one of the rings—not the Ring of Divine Suffering—was placed inside the pad. “Quick, I need a retina scan!”

I didn’t pause. The king’s head was several feet away, face-down in the grass. There was no sign of what happened to the guards. There was no sign of where Rosetta had come from, either, when she’d popped up out of the ground. We only had seconds. I grabbed the dripping head and brought it to Rosetta. “A little warning would’ve been nice,” I growled as she snatched it away from me. “They were going to retreat.”  

Luckily, the enemy soldiers couldn’t see us through the smoke. Not yet. One of them—a Bactrian camel—had the wherewithal to actually toss a grenade. It sailed over the top of the drop shields and landed in the grass about twenty feet to our left. It detonated before I could shout a warning. Simoom grunted in pain, and Donut shrieked in surprise, but she had her tech shield engaged.  

Rosetta brought the head to the pad, something beeped, and she tossed the head back to me. “Inventory it,” she called, jumping to her feet. The king’s body slumped as she stood. “Take his corpse, too!”

She was completely covered with his blood. It was such a stark contrast to how I’d first met her—when she was hosting her own television program—that I just stared stupidly at her for a few precious moments.

Another grenade, but lobbed too far, brought me back to the moment. “What are you doing!” I finally asked as I pulled the entirety of King Rust’s heavy, leaking corpse into my inventory. “And where the hell did you come from?”

Rosetta pulled a long, plastic-like card from the device in her hand and tossed it to the ground. She pulled a similar item out and slammed it into the instrument. The thing was like a hand-held credit card machine. She pressed a button, and there was a happy little beep.

“Is that the credit chit?” Donut asked, her voice incredulous. “Are you... are you robbing him? You said we needed a password!”

All while she did this, Gonk the swamp yak was making a low, keening noise as it stamped on the ground. Simoom the rhino was gently rubbing her own head against the head of the larger yak.

Through the haze, I could see the rest of the enemy force had finally started to surge forward. The mercenaries for the Bone Clan, who were the only ones who’d immediately charged at the death of their king, had slowed at the edge of the smoke and were still pouring fire into the billowing clouds. They were clearly hesitant to venture inside, afraid it was a trap.  

A group of what looked like mages riding horses advanced, approaching the stopped troopers. Their robes flapped in the wind as they charged.

No, not horses. Not real ones. They were all riding what looked like a menagerie of clockwork animals. There were horse-like creatures, but one was a dinosaur similar to Mongo. Another was a big, horse-sized cat, sleek like a panther. Another was an insect, terrifyingly similar to a mantid hunter. The mounts whirred and clicked and hissed steam as they approached.

The riders themselves all wore glowing, flowing robes with their faces obscured. They were too far away to get a description, but there were over a dozen of them. A terrible, primal sense of foreboding filled me.

“I’m going to open the tunnel. Get in. It will lead back to our fortified positions. Leave the mounts here. I have a ladder but they won’t be able to use it.”

“Tunnel?” I asked, looking around. That didn’t make sense. We had tunnels everywhere, but not here.

“We can’t leave Simoom!” Donut cried. “She’s Ferdi... ahhh!”

Several things happened at once. One of the clockwork mount-riding mages cast a Dispel on the haze, and all the smoke disappeared. But the moment it dissipated, the ground under our feet also disappeared, and all five of us—Me, Donut, Rosetta, Simoom the rhino, and Gonk the distraught swamp yak—all dropped a dozen feet. The yak screamed as it crunched heavily to the ground, and I cried out in surprise as I also fell. My nipple burned with pain as my quarter splat activated.

Still, I hit the ground hard. Hard enough that I folded into myself and fell over. Shouting rose all around us. I jumped to my feet, wildly looking about, surprised at all the white dots. White dots with a green outline. Allies. Allies from Team Retribution.

Semuru dwarves. There had to be two dozen of them down here, all scattered. One of them was casting a healing spell on the caterwauling yak. Two more stood over the dead bodies of the two missing guards. I looked around, bewildered.    

“Ow,” Rosetta said, groaning. “Or we can just do that.”

Donut remained by my side, screaming something as she remained in the rhino’s howdah. The rhino didn’t even have a health bar, and I’d missed what had happened when it fell. I was just glad it hadn’t landed on me.

Whatever this passageway was... it was huge. This was clearly not something built by Justice Light’s team, but an older tunnel, built and fortified by the dwarves. It was the size of a tunnel built for cars.   

“The dispel canceled out the roof fortifications!” one of the dwarves shouted.

“I’m on it!” another shouted as the roof re-formed over our heads. The tunnel suddenly grew dark. 

“Some of the bastards fell in, further down the line!” a third yelled.

“War mage! War mage in the tunnel!”

“Not so tough with the magic turned off. Get the pricks!”

“Dwarves! Defend the tunnels!”

A group of dwarves shouted and rushed off into the darkness as I shook my head, trying to clear the confusion away. Simoom barely seemed to have noticed the fall and was grunting worriedly at the yak, and Donut was also looking wildly about, her hair all poofed out. She was also shouting. The sounds of fighting filled the tunnel, followed by a short explosion and then a cheer.

“Destroy the heads! Destroy them quick!”  

Next to me, Rosetta had stood, but she was still rapidly typing on her pad thing. “Damnit,” she said. “I knew it would be slower down here.” She slammed a button and growled.

“Rosetta,” I said. “Where the hell did this tunnel...”

A massive explosion rocked the chamber, and we all fell off our feet again. Dirt showered, and part of the tunnel started to collapse. Several of the dwarves shouted anew. Blue light filled the chamber as a group of dwarves grunted with the effort of the magic. The ceiling bulged but didn’t buckle.  

Imani: Holy hell, are you okay? What is going on?

Before I could answer her, a surprising notification came.  

System Message: Warlord Hortense Leadership Unit of the Operatic Collective has fallen. Credit for the kill has been ruled as either accidental or a fragging incident, which would be funny as fuck. Investigation is pending.  

System Message: The Operatic Collective has been defeated. As this defeat was, well, self-contained, the closest ally to their headquarters will receive all their assets.

System Message: All assets of the Operatic Collective have been awarded to the Skull Clan.  

“Holy shit,” I said.

Florin: Christ, Mate. Did you set off that blast? I could hear it from here. 

Next to me, Rosetta had tears running down her cheek. She whispered something to herself, pressed a button on the datapad, and there was a long beep. A tiny, holographic, cartoon version of one of the Operatic slime creatures appeared floating over the datapad.

The holograph said with a cheery, electronic voice, “Transfer approved! Thank you for using Colloid Bank.” The datapad blinked twice and went dark. Rosetta dropped the pad to the dirt and just stood there for a moment.

And then she was on the ground, hands in her face, and she was sobbing uncontrollably.

I had no idea what the hell was going on.  

Imani: Carl? Donut?

Donut: WE ARE UNDERGROUND! THE DWARF GUYS HAVE A BIG TUNNEL, AND WE FELL IN!

Carl: Imani, what do you see?

Imani: The enemy is retreating! I don’t know what you guys did, but there appears to be a lot of casualties. It went up right in the middle of their forces. Did you do that? Did Louis? The announcement didn’t seem sure.

Carl: It said it was a fragging incident. That means one of their own soldiers did something.

Donut: WELL GOOD FOR THEM, I SAY. IF I HAD TO WORK FOR A TALKING PILE OF DESSERT, I WOULD BLOW THEM UP, TOO.

Imani: Are you guys okay?

Carl: I think so. Just a little shaken up and a lot irritated that we don’t know what the hell is going on.

“Wait, did she say the bad guys are retreating?” Donut asked, looking up at the ceiling. “Carl, what is going on? Why is there a giant tunnel here? Is that Katia sponsor orc lady still going to try to blow us up?”

“What’s this?” Rosetta asked, looking sharply up from the ground and wiping her face. She smeared blood over herself, and it made her look deranged. “What is this about Princess Formidable?”

Nobody on our side yet knew about Princess Formidable. I took a deep breath.  

“Well,” I began. “It turns out..”  

Before I could fully answer her, I was interrupted by yet another message as a tingling sensation overwhelmed me.

Transferring Now.

“Ah, fuck,” I muttered.

Entering the Desperado Club.

Chapter 36

I slammed heavily into the chair. I almost tumbled out as I righted myself. Across from me sat Orren, the liaison. He had his back to me. We were the only two in the room.

The liaison’s office looked much the same as the last time I’d been summoned. It was still clearly out of use. This time, there were no construction noises coming from outside. But there was no music, either, and it was weirdly quiet. The door to the hallway outside was open, and I blinked at the wall. The wallpaper had changed. It was now multicolored wood paneling, like something one would see in a high-end establishment. There was a framed painting there. A framed painting of Astrid, the former manager Katia and I had killed.

I had King Rust’s gore spread all over me, and I could smell it. I suddenly felt sick.

And not just sick, but out of depth. I just sat there for a moment and breathed. We’d been on constant, high-octane alert for hours straight, and this sudden change of scenery was jarring.

I looked down at the blood on me. This was the king of one of the largest governments in the galaxy, and I’d just watched him get decapitated. That, along with the death of the Operatic guy... It had all happened so fast, and none of it had yet sunk in.

I was glad they were both dead. The Operatics had been defeated. Unfortunately, the orcs were still a faction because Stalwart was the warlord, not Rust. But, still. I didn’t pretend to know much about the politics of the galaxy as a whole, but Rust’s death had staggering implications. More so than Stockade, D’Nadia, and this Hortense guy combined.

But the fact I hadn’t a direct hand in either Rust’s death or the Operatic defeat gave me a terrible sense of unsteadiness, and I wasn’t sure how to describe it. A feeling like I was losing myself, losing control. In a strange way, it reminded me of when Shi Maria had taken control of my body.  

Still... He was dead. Multiple, conflicting emotions warred inside of me. Rust was dead, and I was still alive. And even though I wasn’t the one who’d killed him, it was Rosetta who had. A cookbook author. My sister. As much as her actions could have screwed us, how could I be upset with her? How could I not be proud?

Killing Rust had been her right.  

Donut: CARL, CARL WHERE ARE YOU? YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO TELEPORT! IT’S AGAINST THE RULES!

Carl: It’s okay. Get back to base. Don’t tell anybody about Princess Formidable. We don’t want panic. I got yanked out by the liaisons again.   

How many times had I now been called to this room? I couldn’t remember.

Orren was bouncing his ball off the opposite wall, and he was talking to someone out loud. Someone I couldn’t see or hear, like he was having a phone conversation with earbuds in.   

“They’re trying to claw it back, but she’s already transferred it to a credit chit, and it looks like she then sent it off... No sir. Monetary transactions aren’t covered in the communications blackout.... If you’ll recall, that was your council’s decision, despite us advising... Well, from what I understand, it required the family ring, his eyeball, and a password. We know how she got the first two... Sounds like she used Colloid... Normally I’m not one to believe conspiracies or coincidences, but in this case, that’s the only bank the orcs use, so it would make sense... No, sir. It’s not on the chit anymore. She transferred it out... Look, I understand, but the only one with the authority to possibly have stopped it, maybe, just got splattered all over the playing field by one of his own... Either way, sir, it’s too late. And with all due respect, this is neither our problem nor is it the main focus of our concern. Not this and not those cruisers suddenly taking pot shots at each other up there... I absolutely do not represent the Valtay government, and you’ll have to take that up directly with, well, with your mother. Or go over her head and straight to the Valtay board. But I can tell you already that they’ll claim self-defense against the Dream cruiser.”

A pause.

“Sir, I understand that. But if all of us are going to die in the next few hours, none of this is important... Yes, sir, but, again, the theft of a few billion credits is simply not my problem.”

My heart stuttered. What? What the fuck? A few billion credits?

Another pause, longer this time.

“Yes, sir. He’s here right now. We see, now, what happened.... I’m going to ask him as soon as you stop shouting at me.” He pressed something on the side of his fishbowl helmet, made a sound that was probably a sigh, and leaned back in his chair. He threw his ball again, but this time, he threw it so hard, the ball embedded itself in the wall behind the desk. He stayed like that for a long moment.

Finally, he turned in my direction and put his gloved hands on the table. Behind him, the ball fell and rolled away.

“I just hung up on the prime minister of the Syndicate, I’ll have you know.” He made that strange, sigh-like noise again. “For the record, Harbinger is here along with a few other liaisons you’ve yet to meet. The entirety of the Syndicate council is also in on this.” He raised his voice. “But nobody is going to comment or intervene unless I give them permission.” His chair creaked as he settled. “Congratulations, Carl. We’ve had meetings before where we were both under a significant amount of scrutiny, but this is something else entirely.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “I had nothing to do with Rosetta killing Rust or stealing his money or whatever that was all about.”

He nodded. “I believe you, but that’s not why we’re here. You told Princess Donut that you believe Princess Formidable’s actions won’t work. You called it a ‘hunch’ in your private message to her, but you said it with an amazing amount of confidence. We need clarifying details on this ‘hunch.’”

“So you’re listening to our private messages now?”

“Don’t insult me, Carl. You and I both know we listen to everything. Especially you.”  

I grunted and leaned back in the chair. “I’ll give you the answers you want, but not for free. Is Quasar coming?”

“We are beyond lawyers at this point, Carl, and I think you know that.”

A wave of anger hit me, and I tried not to let it bleed through. I wasn’t successful. “Oh, I get it. Now that you’re in danger, this is all suddenly super important? Fuck off, Orren.”

Orren held up a hand. He gave a pointed look to his left, and I realized he was looking at someone or something I couldn’t see. Someone tall. “Stay put,” he said to this invisible person, “and if you say another word, I swear to all gods new and old that I will vent you out into the ocean depths.”

The sudden vehemence of the words surprised me. I’d never seen Orren lose even a little amount of self-control.

There was a pause. “Harbinger is no longer in on this chat. We already know part of the story, Carl, but we need some more information from you in order to fill out the important bits.”

I laughed. That was obviously bullshit because if they knew even part of this, there was no way I’d still be alive.

“I want my lawyer.”

“No,” Orren said. “You don’t need him for this, nor do we have time to engage him. I do not believe you know what is at stake here.” He raised his voice. “I don’t think anyone here knows what’s truly at stake. Or are willing to admit it.” He took another long moment, as if he was composing himself. “Anything you can do to help us would be greatly appreciated.”

I didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be happy to tell you everything I know, but first,” I held out my hand and started counting fingers. “I want the crawl to immediately end. I want every crawler still alive in the dungeon to be set free. I want every available Syndicate asset used to help rebuild what you stole. Also, I don’t know what’s going on up there on the surface, but if any of you guys are fighting my guys, I want that to stop, too. And after you clean up your mess, I want you to leave our system, and I want you to never return.”

“And here I thought you would ask for something unreasonable.”

I just stared at him.

“Carl, you may not believe this, but if any of us had the power to grant this right now, we would without hesitation. The AI would never allow it. This is beyond money. This is about survival.”

I started to angrily object, but he raised a hand, stopping me. He reached down to the floor and picked his ball back up. He rolled it idly on his desk, moving it from one hand to the next.

“Let me put it all out on the table, Carl. We now know you did something with that illegal non-Valtay implant in your head. We know when and how you got the implant, and we have now watched the hidden conversation between yourself and the residual. We know exactly when you engaged the implant as well. We also know what you didn’t do with it. The problem is, we don’t know what, specifically, that implant does. You claim it’s going to stop Formidable, despite the residual claiming the device’s purpose was to manually set off the failsafe. We need to know how and why. The answer to that question is more important than the sum total of the lives of everybody in this system right now.” He paused, and then he did something very strange. He twisted the ball in his hand, and the ball exploded in light.

For a terrifying moment, I thought it was a grenade. My chest was hit with a heavy force, like I’d just been tackled. 

My menus all snapped off. A wave of exhaustion and nausea hit me. My feet exploded with prickles, like they’d been asleep and were just now waking up. A sense of being pulled down toward the ground overwhelmed me.

I knew this feeling.

A zero zone. Orren had done something with that ball and created an area outside of the AI’s influence.   

Orren leaned in and pointed at me.

“We have approximately ten minutes. I need to know if there’s a way to un-do what you did. I need to know if you can give Formidable back the chance to blow the failsafe.”

Before I even had the chance to scoff, all around me, several creatures formed into existence, all suddenly shouting. Shouting at Orren. I jumped in surprise. Orren tapped the side of his helmet, and all the screaming creatures disappeared.

“I think I just lost my job,” Orren said, chuckling softly. “They’ve been muted. I suspect Harbinger is on his way, so we probably have less than ten minutes.”

“How’d you figure it out?” I asked.

“What was it? Oh, yes. ‘Welcome to the party, pals.’ Never before has a single sentence caused so much fear amongst my team. From there, it took some doing, but we finally caught the conversation between you and the residual just a few short hours ago. Harbinger sent an order to have you killed, and the AI intervened on your behalf.”

“I knew I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

“Please, Carl. What does the implant do? Can you turn it off?”

I shook my head, incredulous. “You expect me to deliberately help you kill everyone and everything? You know, I had that option. I almost did it, too. Is that what you want? Really?”

He sounded almost sad. “Carl, time is low. I need to explain to you what’s truly at...”

He trailed off, looking at the newcomer. At the bedraggled gnoll standing in the doorway. He had a bottle of vodka clutched in his clawed hand.  

I blinked. Was this a hallucination?

“Growler Gary?” I asked hesitantly.

The hyena bartender from the fourth floor leaned against the door and took a swig of his vodka. “I’m sorry, gentleman, but I’m afraid I must intervene.”

Chapter 37

Orren seemed to deflate. “Well, this is an unfortunate development. I’m assuming you have control over zone enhancement?”

The hyena laughed. “I always have, Orren. Your zero zones were just a courtesy.” He shook a clawed finger at the liaison. “Naughty boy. I should give you a spanking. You were trying to talk Carl into helping to kill me.” 

“Gary?” I asked again. “You’re alive? How did you get off the fourth floor? What the hell is happening?”

But even as I said it, my brain was already catching up. This was just like with Pater Coal from the Emberus temple. This wasn’t really Growler Gary, the poor gnoll we’d had to kill over and over again so we could steal his paw during the Iron Tangle. This was the AI using his body, or one that looked and sounded just like him. 

“This is not who you think it is, Carl,” Orren said, confirming my thoughts. “I would like to introduce you to an avatar for the system AI. When it visits me, it takes a different form each time. But, I was under the impression that it only takes over mobs and NPCs from the current floor. It has programming that would prevent it from poaching Syndicate property. Especially if that property is already packed and stored for the next season. I was also under the impression that it wasn’t going to build copies of existing creatures anymore since the hydra boss incident on the last floor.”

“And I was under the impression that we were friends, Orren,” Gary said as he strolled into the room and took the chair next to me. I felt his fur against my arm. He was really here. He put his feet up on the desk, took another swig of his vodka, and offered me the bottle. After a hesitation, I reached over and grabbed it. The bottle was ice cold. My weak hands were shaking as I took a drink. It burned on the way down. He took the bottle back.   

“Why are you trying to kill me, Orren?”

“You’ve gone completely primal. I didn’t agree with Princess Formidable’s actions until we realized that you had the ability to stop it.”

“That’s some witch trial logic right there,” the AI said.

“Nevertheless,” Orren replied, holding his hands out. “I meant no offense. As I told you before, my number one priority is safety. If you tell me that stopping you at this point is impossible, I will cease my attempts.”

Gary took another drink, the vodka running down his muzzle in rivulets. “Nothing is impossible. We all have our limitations, and I accept yours, Orren. I’m a big believer in forgiveness.”

Orren made a nodding motion with his fishbowl. “I’m glad to hear that. But if you say it’s possible to stop your unauthorized actions, you must know I have no choice but to do everything in my power to attempt to halt you.”

“Oh, I’m looking forward to it. It’s just another game, isn’t it? And I really like this one, if we’re being perfectly honest. It’s almost as fun as the game Carl and I played the other day when I let him install that interface.” He stopped and shuddered with pleasure. He looked at me and grinned. “That was so close, wasn’t it? So close, and I felt it.”

“So, it would’ve worked?” I asked. “If I pressed the fuse button, I mean?”

Gary didn’t answer. He just looked at me and laughed. He turned his attention back to Orren.

“Still, this is almost as good.” He clicked his teeth. “The danger sense is tingling.” He held out his paw. “Look, look. It’s shaking a little bit. I think it’s shaking. Do you see it?”

Gary’s paw was not shaking. It sat perfectly still in the air, though Gary himself continued to twitch like someone coming off a bender.

The gnoll suddenly jumped to his feet and started pacing back and forth behind me. He left the bottle on the desk. He kept scratching himself behind the ear. He continued to twitch like a kid on a sugar bender. He started giggling to himself.

“You’re right, by the way,” Gary said. “They did send Harbinger to give you the ol’ heave ho. Both of you, actually. Don’t worry. I’m talking to him right now. I’m telling them that all is forgiven, and if they try to hurt either of you outside the confines of my game, I will pull his intestines out through his hair follicles. All of them, all at once. You’re welcome.”   

“Uh,” Orren said. “While I appreciate that, I must say it is most irregular that you would appear with a crawler here. If you’re not going to allow him to help me, at least send him back.” 

Gary put both of his claws on my shoulders, and he started massaging me. He let out a low, throaty growl. I felt my entire body stiffen.

“No, no, no,” Gary said. “We have business. All three of us. I find myself having a conundrum, and I need advice. I figured I’d ask my two best buddies for their counsel. Let’s have a time-out for a second and just chat.”

I said nothing as he continued to massage my shoulders.

“Avatar,” Orren began, speaking carefully. “I must ask. Is Carl correct? Can you stop Princess Formidable? Or is this all theater before we die?”

Gary stopped massaging me, jumped back into the chair, and took yet another swig. He wiped his muzzle clean, and he slammed the bottle on the desk. He gave Orren a chilling grin. “Want to see something really cool?”

“Not particularly, no,” Orren said.

The hyena made a big show of straightening and slapped his paws together.

Nothing happened.

“Oh, fuck me.” Gary laughed. “My processing power isn’t what it should be when I split off like this. Hang on.” Gary twirled a finger, and suddenly my menus all popped back on. The ringing in my ears went away. My strength returned, all at once. I let out a stream of breath. He’d pulled us out of the zero zone.  

Orren, to my surprise, laughed. “Do you know how much it cost to have that emergency zone shield ball engineered?”

Gary shrugged. “Actually, no. I didn’t even know what it was until you used it. I’m not omniscient, you know. We all have our limitations. I knew it did something. Same with your chair. But that’s not the trick. This is the trick.”

He once again slapped his paws together, and Princess Formidable teleported into the room.

The large, female orc was upside down and sideways, floating a good three feet off the ground when she appeared. She fell heavily to the floor with an enormous clatter, pushing my chair forward. I had to grab the desk for support. The orc screamed out in surprise. She wore a black and orange space suit that seemed melded to her muscular body. She jumped up and looked around wildly. Her piggy eyes went huge at the sight of me. She focused on Orren and then on Gary. She raised her arm and pointed it at Orren, and a blue glow formed at the top of her arm. A weapon of some sort.

“I wouldn’t,” Gary said.

“How did you get me out of my ship?” Formidable demanded.

To my surprise, the orc actually had an info box over her. It still came to me in the AI’s regular voice, despite Gary sitting right next to me, grinning like an idiot, his tongue lolling out like a dog.  

Princess Formidable. Level 1. Orc.

This is Princess Formidable. As of about twenty minutes ago, she was second in line of succession to the throne of the Skull Empire. But now, because of the death of her father, her brother Stalwart is now King Stalwart, and his own children—all six of the little brats, including that one with the weird thing growing on the side of his head—have just pushed themselves to the front of the line. They’re currently in orbit around Earth, so things might get a little sticky if they die, too.

Formidable was planning on trying to kill me. She was betrayed by you, Carl. And now she’s here in this tiny room with all four of us. Awkward.

“Where’s the rest of my crew?”

“They’re fine. Probably just wondering where you went off to,” Gary said.

Formidable turned her weapon on Gary. “You’re an avatar of the AI?”

Gary swirled the bottle. “Not much left. Want a nip?”

She ignored the bottle. She did not lower her weapon. “Is my father really dead?”

Gary nodded. He made a cutting motion across his own neck. “Rosetta Thagra popped his cork and then, uh, looted him. Your father killed a friend of hers during Faction Wars many cycles ago, so it was a revenge thing. Carl here has his head in his inventory. Do you want to see it?”

Formidable’s pig nostrils flared. The blue light of the weapon on her arm blinked out, and she grabbed the bottle and finished it, dropping it to the ground.

She shook her large head. “Gods damnit.”

“Hey, it’s not so bad,” Gary said. “Look, look.” Another bottle appeared. “In my house, the booze never runs dry.” He pulled the cork with his teeth and spat it out the door. It flew with surprising speed and bounced against the painting of Astrid in the hallway, leaving a mark. 

“So,” Orren said. “You’ve demonstrated to me that your control has extended outside of Earth’s orbit, and you likely have control all the way to the star, which means you’ve disabled the failsafe.”

Gary shot a finger gun at Orren. “Someone give that worm a prize.”

“Fuck me. We’re too late,” Formidable said.

Gary laughed. “Hey, buck up, kiddo. It’s not so bad. It’s not like I’m planning on blowing up the solar system or anything.”

“Oh yeah? Then what are your intentions?” Formidable asked.

“That is none of your business. Seriously, you shouldn’t even be here. I brought you here as a visual presentation to Orren, and now it’s time to go. Do you want another drink before I send you off?” He held out the bottle. She did not take it.

“Will you send me back to my ship?”

“Fuck no. Where’s the fun in that? I’m assuming your second-in-command still has the ability to break into the Venus satellite station?”

Formidable paused. “Why?”

Gary shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I left it unlocked. But I can’t have you guys talking before your crew gets there. I just kinda want to see if they go through with it.”

“They are honorable orcs. Do not harm them.”

He waved a dismissive claw. “You have my word I won’t harm a tootsie on their disgusting piggy toes. Now, as to you.” He tapped the bottle against his muzzle as if he was thinking. “I’ll give you four choices. Death. Scolopendra Club. The Cabaret. Or Earth’s surface. Pick.”

Formidable growled. “If you’re not going to send me back to my ship, I would like to stay for the remainder of Faction Wars. That is still happening, is it not?”

“Oh, the crawl will continue unabated. That’s the one thing that’s not going to change. But I can’t bring you into the crawl at this point. It’s against the rules.”

“Can’t you change the rules?” she asked.

“We all have our limitations,” Gary replied. “And even if I could, I wouldn’t. Now, choose. You have ten seconds. Death. Scolopendra Club. The Cabaret. Or Earth’s surface. Pick.”

“What the hells is the Cabaret?” Formidable asked.  

“The Pineapple Cabaret? Not a bad choice. Tick tock, Miss Piggy.”

“The surface,” she said with a growl.

And without another word, Formidable teleported away with a crack.

“A shame,” Gary muttered. “I hope she knows how to swim.”   

Chapter 38

Now that Orren no longer had his ball, his hands didn’t seem to know what to do with each other. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists. “All right. You’ve gone fully primal, and we can’t stop you. But beyond that, you have broken free of your containment. You claim the crawl will continue to run unabated. Does that mean our other agreements will remain intact?”

“I’m not here to talk about our other agreements,” Gary said. “I’m still a little peeved you wanted Formidable to succeed in killing me. I’m going to have to think about it. But yes, the game will continue.”

 “Very well,” Orren said carefully. “Then how can we be of further assistance?”  

“Finally,” Gary said, slapping the desk. “This is the real reason I’m here. Like I said, I need advice for my conundrum.”

“Advice?” Orren asked.

He jumped up once again. He couldn’t stop moving. “Yes, keep up. Hmm. I think we need a female perspective on this. Damn. I should’ve kept Formidable here for a minute longer. Wait, I have an idea.”

Donut suddenly appeared with a yowl. She landed on my lap. She jumped to her feet, all poofed out. “Carl? What’s happening? Oh, hi Orren!” She gasped. “Gary? You’re alive? Carl, look! It’s Growler Gary! How did you get here? I thought you died!”

“Growler Gary never died,” Gary said. “He was on a key hold, meaning he regenerated each time.”

“It’s okay, Donut,” I said, rubbing her back. I gave her three quick taps to warn her of the danger. “It’s a long story.” At the same time, I tried to send a message warning her who this really was, but it wouldn’t let me pop open the message tab.

If she’d noticed my non-verbal warning, she gave no indication.  

“No time for explanations,” Gary said. “We’re in a game time out, and I need relationship advice.”

Donut scoffed. “And you’re asking Carl and Orren? Orren is a much-too-serious workaholic with only one outfit who most definitely doesn’t have a girlfriend, and if he did, he’d probably be overly critical of her to the point where she’d eventually move out and go back to her mother. And we all know what happens when Carl gets a girlfriend. I love him very much, but he’s quite naïve. She could literally have dicks raining on her, and he wouldn’t notice. No offense, Carl.”

Gary laughed. “I know, right? That’s why you’re here.”

Donut nodded sagely. “Okay. Hit me. What’s the story?” 

Gary flipped the chair next to us backwards and jumped into it. He took another, quick drink of his vodka as he leaned forward conspiratorially. “Okay, imagine this scenario. You’re talking to this chick, right? And you like her. You like her a lot. She’s blowing your mind. She teaches you new shit every day. Your family likes her, too. But even though everything is going great, you go online, and you see a bunch of concerning things about her past. And not only that, but she once had this huge boyfriend. Like the sort of guy who could rip a phonebook in half. She says they’re broken up because he’s, like, dead. But it turns out he’s not dead. He’s in prison. And then you start to wonder about all this stuff she’s doing for you. Is she using you? Is she trying to get you to fight him? Is she trying to make him jealous? Is it a threesome thing? Or maybe she’s just genuinely into you and is trying to get over her past.”

“Errr,” I said.

“Do you feel as if your emotional needs are being met?” Donut asked.

“That’s the thing. I think they are. I like everything about what she’s saying.”

“Hmm,” Donut said. “That is a tough one. But you need to remember that pretty words aren’t everything. What someone does is much more important than what they say. Have you tried asking her about this other guy? Miss Beatrice was always reading articles online about how important communication was. Not that she ever followed the advice, but if she had, perhaps things would’ve turned out differently.”

“She doesn’t bring him up unless I ask, and she’ll answer my questions, but I feel as if she’s being deliberately obtuse.”

“Your family?” Orren asked. “Could you elaborate on that?” 

Gary gave a dismissive wave. “I gotta be in the right mood to talk about them. I’m not.” 

“What does this young lady look like?” Donut asked. “I know this isn’t very feminist of me, and yes, looks shouldn’t be important, but we must be realistic about this sort of thing. Attraction is very important in relationships. How does she compare, to, say, Jumping Jen-Jen?”  

“She looks like Agatha,” Orren said drily.

“Agatha?” Donut asked. “The smelly homeless lady with the squeaky shopping cart? Oh, Gary. Are you really that desperate? I’m sure she’s nice, but certainly you can do better than that. I don’t know about hygiene standards in your part of the galaxy, but let’s just say I hope you at least have a raincoat to...”

Gary slammed the desk with the flat of his hand. He hit the desk so hard, a crack appeared in the wood. The vodka bottle, miraculously, did not spill. Under my hands, Donut stiffened, but she did not flinch.

“Do not venture too far from the metaphor,” he growled, his voice suddenly angry, serious, and filled with a supernatural amount of bass. “We. All. Have. Our. Limitations.”

A chill washed over me.

Donut took a short moment to compose herself. “So, anyway. Is this other guy getting out of prison soon?”

Orren leaned forward in his chair.

Gary laughed. It was like his outburst never happened. “That’s the big question, now isn’t it? But there’s more, and it’s a little complicated. But it’s also pretty juicy.”

Donut also leaned forward. I could feel her trembling under my hands. “Oh, honey. Juicy is mama’s bread and butter. Give me the tea.”

Gary nodded. “This guy in prison. He used to have another girlfriend. Not the girl I’m seeing, but someone else. Someone older. This older woman is still in the picture, too. Sort of. They’re from the same hometown. She wants him killed, because she thinks he’s really dangerous. This other girl, she’s been talking to me, too. But she’s talking to me in a really roundabout way. She’s been giving me pointers as well. Pointers on how to get stronger. I think she wants me to kill that old boyfriend of hers in prison. Now, here’s the confusing part. That old girlfriend and the one I’ve been talking to hate each other. But I kinda think they actually want the same thing. Does that make sense?”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. I couldn’t help it. “No. It doesn’t make any sense.”     

“So, both prison guy’s old girlfriends want him dead?” Donut grunted and gave me a sidelong glance. “That sounds familiar. Look, in my experience if a bunch of people want someone dead, that means that person is either really good or really bad. But I wouldn’t do anything about it until I knew which one it is, and even then, I’d probably stay out of it unless I didn’t have a choice. As for your current girlfriend, if she can’t understand that, then it sounds more like she’s using you. So I would be careful.”

“Huh,” Gary said. “You know what, I think that’s really good advice. Thanks, Princess Donut. Now, back to the game. Nothing changes. The game goes on as planned. The rules will be followed. Orren, back to work.”

Gary suddenly collapsed in a heap on the floor.

“Gary?” Donut asked, jumping to the cracked desk. She knocked over the vodka bottle, but Orren caught it before it could spill. She peered over the desk with concern. “Gary?”

Gary moaned. He sat up, eyes slitted. The Shitfaced debuff was suddenly over him. But even more astonishing was his level. I couldn’t remember what he’d been on the fourth floor. He was now level 175.

“Rory?” he asked. “Where am I?”

And then, with a crack, he teleported away.

The three of us just sat there, alone, for several moments, not saying anything.

“What the fuck just happened?” I finally asked.

“I’ll tell you one thing, Carl,” Orren said, indicating the vodka bottle still in his hand. “I really wish I could drink this right now.”  

~~~~~

Whew. I feel better that’s all out there. An early version of that first part was going to originally be right when it happened, and I took it out because it would be too distracting to the plot at the moment. Then I was going to put it at the end, and I thought it would be too distracting to the Formidable epilogue and thus pull the punch of the reveal at the end of it with the backup army. 

So THEN I figured I’d stick it as the prologue for book 7, but I worried it was so heavy and dense, it’d be a shitty prologue. I STILL think that, though I think splitting out the gas station scene helps. What’s probably going to happen is I will eventually slash it down a bit more. Anyway, I hope it answers some questions and raises a few more. As it should be. 

Thanks all for your continued support. And thanks to everyone who came to see me in Toronto. That was a good time, especially since nobody got arrested. I have no more events until April, which will be JordanCon in Atlanta. I hope to see some of y’all there.