The Gamer Chapter 431 - Hunting sharks (Patreon)

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was the Enclave improved to liveable levels in 24-hours’ time. As a matter of fact, they didn’t even get that bathhouse John had suggested going. Not a real surprise, they were a bunch of people John just randomly elevated out of poverty yesterday. Most of them, without a doubt, were still half-stuck within depression. Thankfully, there was a minority that was taking this opportunity for what it was, motivating everyone else to at least try by proxy.

Despite the somewhat slow progress, the Enclave was doing quite well for itself. It currently had to rely on outside resources a lot, such as food, clothes and similar things, but that was just how the cookie crumbled.

The point was that John’s non-interventionist strategy seemed to pay off for the moment. Not that it had anything to say in the long run; the interesting part of the building effort would come once they were done building up and found themselves out of John’s money and in need to maintain themselves. Then again, there were some former business owners amongst the ranks of the Cornered Enclave.

“What’s that?” John asked when he next visited the barrier on Tuesday. The question came due to a metal frame put up around the tree he himself had put in place. Back then he had cut it down to use as firewood, but fresh branches were growing out of the crippled tree. They were still green and fairly weak, but they were there.

“I have this idea about using that tree to grow fruits to feed the community with,” he got a response from a woman, one of the people around Seth. “I am a very weak druid, so I will need a greenhouse to protect it from the cold.”

“I see, keep going then,” John approved and was then approached by Seth.

“Mr. Ne- John, I got a question,” the older man asked. “You told me to encourage people to buy stuff with the money you gave me, right?”

“Well, that’s what it boils down to, yes,” John answered.

“Wouldn’t that attract unwanted attention? I did tell you that most of us had debts in some way…”

“Yes, that’s exactly the point.”

That answer left Seth in a confused silence for a moment, then he just asked, “Could you please elaborate?”

“The idea is: I could either spend weeks searching for all of your individual creditors or I could put some blood in the water and wait for the sharks to come to us,” John told him, which caused Seth to go pale. “Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine, I am overpowered,” he joked.

The reason why he was so sure that it was going to be fine was that nobody had even attempted to remove Tilgun so far. In a city full of people out for a profit, he would be shocked if nobody who was capable of doing so was going to pass the opportunity to slay an illusive higher dragon and harvest his body for extremely valuable and unique materials.

With that in mind, it seemed to be the case that there was no person of John’s level, which was really the minimum to challenge something like the maw of souls, or, if there was, that that person did not partake in the whole money craze and thus was highly unlikely to be inside the loaning profession.

He could still be wrong, but he would be genuinely surprised if that were the case.

As if fate had just waited for this conversation to occur, a newcomer entered the barrier with the extremely pretentious sound of a, “WELL, WELL, WE-Aaaaah!” The suited man was suddenly ripped off his feet by a stone bench appearing from the ground beneath him and his two bodyguards, placing them firmly on their asses as John casually strolled over while Gnome added a table and a second bench to the set.

“You have no idea how much I prepared for this scene,” the Gamer said as he sat down with a smile. Aclysia pulled a porcelain pot from her inventory. “Tea? It is quite cold outside.”

The man in front of John looked beyond unsure what to do. His name was Glenn and, going by his description, he was quite the scumbag, but also the kind that had worked hard to get into his position of wealth. Being a mobster was not an easy job, then again, neither was being a farmer, and one of those two was infinitely more valuable for human society. Of course he was also not the leader of the organization he was representing, going out to press money out of debtors was a henchman’s job.

“Tea?” John asked a second time as he was presented with his own cup. Aclysia had stored it away at the perfect drinking temperature, so he began drinking straight away.

“Uhm, no thanks, I think we are in the wrong place after all,” Glenn knew when to fold; he was the kiss up and kick down kind of guy. Not the dumbest position to assume and John had to say that there was something deeply satisfying about being in the category of people that got kissed up to. Glenn raised his hand with another apology and tried to leave the barrier, failing to do so.

“I am not quite sure on that,” John, who was the current owner (read: strongest non-Fateweaver mage inside) of the barrier and thus controlled who was allowed to move in or out, hummed. “Even if you are not, I have something to say to people like you.”

“I am just a small f-“

“Can we skip to the part where I intimidate you, Glenn?” John asked finishing his cup of tea. At the mention of his name the loan shark fell silent. “Great. For a start everyone in this barrier that still owes you money is now officially filing for bankruptcy. In other words, please delay charging them further until they actually have the means to pay you back. No more keeping your monopoly chokehold on the local market by contractually bullying people out of the area. We don’t do that in my world.”

Glenn blinked in confusion. “Are you saying I am still getting my money back?”

“Yes, they still took the loans, so it’s their obligation to pay them back,” John leaned back with a new cup of tea in his hands. “I am not stupid enough to think you actually need that money, your business seems to be one of dominating some local business through loans and violence and then extract the hell out of them. Personally, I recommend you fix that up to do something good for your community instead. Then you might still be around when I get to whatever district you inhabit. Tell as much to your friends and enemies, times are changing.” He rose from the table. “You can go now.” 

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“Ya now, I really don’t get any of this,” Rave said as she added a yellow circle to the map hanging from the conference wall. She then took a red pin out of a box sitting on a table within distance, circling her hand inside that previously marked area, not quite sure where exactly to put it.

The map was an information gathering effort that had kept Rave busy. While exploring the Big Apple, she marked areas where she found high Abyssal activity or such. Basically, she was the scout for this current endeavour. “So, explain it to me, John.”

“What part of it don’t you get?” John asked, sitting in his favourite swivel chair with Sylph in his lap, brushing her extremely long hair. They had found this was a way to shut her up while also making her remarkably happy, her legs swaying up and down as she sat there gleaming with delight.

The map was necessarily large and covered most of NYC. Wherever there was a yellow circle, there was a cluster of small barriers under some individuals’ control; red circles were for barriers from Thorne; green for their main competitor, the Bearings; pins of the corresponding colour were then were each of those three categories put up a single shop.

“The idea is that Thorne controls most of this, right?” Rave asked, gesturing at the map. “How does that make sense then?” It was dominated by yellow circles, so it was easy to get the impression that nobody really controlled the land.

“In a world where most people control only 1% of the resources, whoever controls 20% on his own is the ruler,” John put it rather simply. “All of those yellow circles don’t necessarily align themselves with each other. Also, see how many of them have a Thorne shop inside them?” the question came at the same moment as Rave finally put the pin she had been holding into the map.

Indeed, while the independent areas were the most numerous, Thorne shops came right behind them. “Lemme try to get that, ya saying that the small fries are too disorganized to resist Thorne so those guys can do whatever they want?”

“That and that many of the ones we currently have marked down as independent might as well be vassals or tributaries or something,” John told her. “The point is, this map has helped me understand something pretty clearly.”

“And what would that be?”

“I have no idea what Thorne wants,” he threw his hands in the air as if he was about to flip over the table. He quickly lowered them again, before the Sylph machine started running its mouth again, causing this whole conversation to run off the rails. “I made theories over theories, but I can’t get confirmation about anything! They’re structured like a mafia, behave like an international corporation, have an army but don’t monopolize force. At the same time they elevate hundreds out of poverty by having them join their corporation, they topple dozens of small businesses with absolute ruthlessness. All they seem to be interested in is to keep selling robotics all over New York.”

“Maybe the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing?” Rave suggested. “If their main product is robots, it’s just that all these shops popping up all over the place is a whole bunch of people doing a whole bunch of work.”

“I thought about that, but no, that map,” he pointed at it, no two shops further than 2 kilometres apart, spreading out from the Thorne headquarters like a spiderweb, “seems like someone is pulling central planning effort and at a scale I find mind-boggling. There is just no way all of this growth is uncoordinated opportunism by different cells within one organization, it has too much structure for that.” He shook his head, “No, Thorne seems to be led by someone who is working more on his or her guild each day than Lydia.”

“THAT is scary,” his girlfriend admitted. “Thinking that someone is coordinating someone at a greater scale than our queen workaholic… what life is that?”

“How is that possible should be the better question,” John told her. “There is just a limit to how much paperwork someone can do without becoming the paper… wait a second…” His eyes widened and his hands stopped.

The former owners of the Thorne were well-known. The current cell structure had begun to take shape ten years ago. That was the info he gathered rather easily. Six years ago, after the death of Johana Thorne, the company began to change and heavily invest in biomechanics and robotics, three years ago, after the death of Ebenezer Thorne, it then rapidly expanded. Nobody knew who was leading the company now.

Thorne robotics were part of basically every business in the city at this point, as they had aggressively pushed every single competitor from the market.

Thorne did not want its leadership revealed.

“Whoever is leading them is a strong administrator but a weak fighter,” John mumbled a new theory. “One that doesn’t want his or her powers to be known, lest they reveal their weakness, and thus stays in the shadows. Someone who can work and communicate incredibly quickly, someone who would profit immensely from the spreading of their own robotics and who is building shops and spreading their influence in a tight network… a network…” He still didn’t knew what Thorne wanted, but he now was very aware about what power the person sitting at the top had. “…Jane, you entered one of those shops, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Where is your phone?”

Confused, she pulled it out of her pocket. She shouted in surprise, dropping the phone in the progress, when it began vibrating exactly at that time. “Spooky!” she complained, looking down at the upwards lying object on the carpet. “Uhm, John, my phone is unlocking itself.“ He had expected that and therefore just waited for the inevitable.

“I have to commend you,” a distorted voice rang out of the speakers. “Going by the rumours, I thought you were more kin to think with your dick than your brains.”

“John, what is happening?” Rave wanted to know.

“That’s the head of Thorne, a Technomancer, most likely an absurdly powerful one – within the profession.” John explained. “Someone who is growing their business as the second priority on their list while trying to create an information sphere with them at the centre and someone who can survey us 24 hours, seven days a week now that this phone entered the yacht.”

“Quite a disadvantage you find yourself in, isn’t it?” the distorted voice sounded incredibly amused. “Gotta say, you tickle my fancy, you and all of the ladies you are with. Fucking hot bodies, I am jealous.”

“I really hope for you that you are a woman,” John warned; he was already in a bad mood because he hated being spied on. “I like other men sounding jealous, but I don’t like them flirting with me nor being creepy.”

“Find out for yourself. I will leave a message in your phone with a time, date and place of a meeting between you and me.” With that the phone shut itself off. A moment later it was John’s that vibrated, giving him a notification spelling out all the things that were just mentioned.

“Like she,” John assumed the gender because he really wanted it to be true, “is going to show up herself.”

“I don’t get it, this phone is supposed to be technomancy proof,” Rave picked hers up and looked at it with distrust. “Aside from the ones that are allowed access, of course.”

“Any firewall can be torn down if you are good enough at what you are doing,” John responded; there wasn’t even any sense in trying to hide what they were saying. The whole ship was infected, there was no place where they could be sure to have privacy unless they shut down all electricity and locked all their mobile devices in a box somewhere. He sighed heavily, “Well, seems like we have a date on Friday, Jane. Tomorrow Magoi arrives, so at least there will be stuff to do.”

“Should you say that out loud?” Rave asked. “Considering?”

“If she can send me messages without displaying a number and activate my phone from who knows where, she can read my chat logs. Literally nothing I can hide from her at this point… including our nudes, I guess.”

Rave groaned, “Those were private!”