Wormhole Cultivation [Book 2] - Chapter 20: Troubleshooting (Patreon)

In theory, medics and security should already have been rushing to the scene.

I glanced once more at Jonson, bleeding out on the floor, and left the office.

But what if the bastard had tampered with the security settings for this zone?

I didn't know how to do that myself, but that didn't mean nobody did.

I didn't stop to figure it out or wait for someone to find Jonson sprawled on his own office floor, I stuck my head into the one next door.

The technician at the desk looked up.

"Jonson needs medical help. If he bleeds out, that's on you."

"What?" he clearly didn't believe me.

"Jonson told me to fetch you," I lied, and went off to find my toothies.

After beating the boss senseless, I still had to stop his plan, or the whole thing would be pointless anyway.

I was already going to get an earful for this as it was.

In theory, the toothies should have been in their usual lab, near the director's office. The same one where they ate steaks. I could catch both of them there, and calls usually only went out to one at a time, but I dialled Napo anyway, just to check: "Where are you two right now?"

"Own lab!" Napo shouted, as if in pain.

"Those bastards didn't listen?"

"No!" he rasped.

"On my way," I promised, switching contacts. Next I called Bao.

"Listening," he said, not very energetically.

"Listen carefully!" I barked. "Jonson set up another provocation against my praxi and tried to physically restrain me…"

"Is he still alive?" Bao joked.

"He was," I answered, bursting into the toothies' lab.

Napo and Daubo were on their knees, arms covering their heads, while four armoured technicians laid into them with kicks and maces.

For a moment, all of them froze, distracted by my arrival.

Before throwing myself into the fight, I checked them over through the interface, to gauge their strength.

I actually froze at what I saw. All four were Stage Two.

Napo and Daubo were third stage. If they'd had their armour on, they'd have scattered that lot like kittens, but I'd forbidden them from wearing it.

And they'd followed the order.

Armour was the great equaliser. It had once saved my life too, helping me hold my ground against several third-stage cultivators at once, back when I was only second stage myself.

Armour, and a fifth-stage shield amulet, courtesy of Novak.

I doubted Jonson had handed these lads amulets that powerful, which meant that even armoured, they'd have been no match for me.

"Jake?" Bao asked.

"Four second-stagers in armour, beating up my toothies," I told him.

"What kind of damage can second-stagers do to third-stagers?" Bao asked, sceptical.

"Purely physical," I answered.

"Scratching up the armour?" Bao asked.

"They're not wearing any," I said.

"What the hell?"

I didn't answer. That one was on me, my own bad call.

"What I'd like to know is why the security system didn't trigger…"

My toothies and my not-toothies had all frozen, as if waiting on my decision. And I still couldn't quite piece together Jonson's plan. It was obvious he'd sent the second-stagers to make it look like the toothies had attacked weaker opponents, but there had to be more to it than that…

Their maces were plastic — training gear. I'd once knocked some teeth out of a bully with one just like it.

"They haven't used any techniques," I said, addressing my battered praxi. "None of them used a single technique, just physical contact, right?"

The toothies exchanged glances, and the second-stagers shifted nervously from foot to foot.

"We don't need trouble," one said. "This was Mr Jonson's order."

"They," I pointed at the toothies, "told you what I'd do to you if you touched them?"

"We told them!" Napo said quickly, and Daubo nodded.

"Jake, keep it together," Bao asked me. "I'll handle this," and hung up.

"Like you said," the leader of the second-stagers spread his hands, apparently, "we didn't use any techniques."

"Then neither will I!" I smiled, stepping closer.

The second-stagers backed away.

I closed in on one almost point-blank, and he swung his mace at me in a panic. I caught the weapon halfway, twisted it out of his armoured hands easier than taking a toy from a child, and cracked it across his helmet with it.

The strike carried no charge, not a drop of qi, so the defensive formation didn't trigger. The metal rang out, and he staggered back, more startled than actually hurt.

I hit him again, on the shoulder, only shoving the cadet with a loud clang of solid tin. The defensive formation stayed silent, seeing no threat in a strike with no trace of energy behind it. I didn't seem to be doing any real damage either.

The second-stagers caught on faster than I expected. The one I'd just hit on the shoulder suddenly swung a fist back at me, aiming for my head.

Given the gap in our speeds, I dodged easily, but if they all came at me together…

The second one worked up his nerve and joined in, swinging his mace. Another second and the last pair would be piling in too.

I ripped the mace out of the second one's hands, kicked him into the pair who hadn't yet joined the fight. The combined trio went down like skittles. I flung both training sticks against the wall and turned to deal with the first cadet.

I caught his fist. Even boosted by the armour's servomotors, it was no match for my new strength. I swept his leg. He fell onto his armoured backside, but I needed him on his stomach! I yanked and pulled his arm until he was lying the way I needed, then planted a foot on his back and, using his extended arm as a lever, started folding it so his right elbow could reach his left shoulder behind his back.

The metal whined with restraints and straining servomotors. The cadet screamed, the metal cracked, the shoulder joint popped audibly, and the elbow reached the opposite shoulder, behind his back.

The cadet went ultrasonic. I hadn't heard a shriek that piercing even on the arena.

The trio of skittles was already back on its feet, but the scream stopped them. Instead of charging in, they bolted past me for the door.

I swept the two closest, and lunged after the last one, catching him right in the doorway, grabbed him by the neck and hurled him back into the room.

"Lads," I said to the toothies, "hold the door… And put your armour on, I'd say."

Both toothies nodded cheerfully, which in that species looked like stretching their necks while baring rows of sharp teeth at the same time.

They pulled their armour on in perfect sync, and just as in sync locked shoulders in the doorway.

The three remaining cadets now looked like cornered animals. One was clearly jabbing away at his interface. The leader, from the looks of it.

"Calling Jonson?" I asked him. "He can't take calls right now. Jaw trouble."

"We were just following orders," the cadet said.

"That's a very convenient excuse, and it doesn't get you off the hook. I said I'd beat you arse — I'm going to beat you arse."

"Can we negotiate?" the leader tried, still keeping a cool head.

I sort of liked him for it.

"Take your armour off, pick up your maces, and beat each other's faces in," I said.

"Fuck this," one of his subordinates swore, and pulled a sword out of his spatial pocket.

"No!" the leader barked, but the idiot was already flying at me with a dash technique, blade extended ahead of him.

I shifted left with the Monkey and caught his sword hand at the wrist with my left. With my right, I pulled a disc out of my spatial pocket and slashed.

The thin, sharp alloy passed clean through armour and bone in a single motion. His hand, sword and all, stayed in my grip. The cultivator went tumbling into the wall.

That same instant, my interface exploded with red warning flashes. I could only hope the system had clearly logged who'd used a technique first.

"Finally!" I muttered, and dropped the severed hand to the floor.

The sword slipped free of it as it fell.

The second-period who'd hit the wall pushed himself back up, uselessly trying to squeeze his forearm's armour tighter to stop the fountain of blood.

"Fuck-fuck-fuck!"

"Calm down!" I said. "The armour will stop the bleeding on its own."

Then I turned my gaze back to the toothies.

"Armour off. Clear the doorway and play nice, even if they start beating on you again."

The toothies obeyed without protest.

The twos' leader jumped too, clumsily stripped his armour back into his spatial pocket, and nodded at his one remaining subordinate.

"Go on," he said, raising the mace.

"Seriously?" the subordinate asked.

The last subordinate lacked the sense to realise security would be here any moment, and a few extra scrapes on his own face would only work in his favour.

"No need to bother now," I said. "We just wait."

Since the system had logged a full-blown violation, a pair of armoured security showed up through the door barely half a minute later, ordering everyone to stay still, only realising afterwards that nobody had actually been moving to begin with.

No sooner had security arrived than medics rushed in and went straight to work on the one-armed cadet.

Security looked around, dug through the logs the system had dumped to them, exchanged a few words with someone through their interfaces, and stared at me.

"You tore off the boss's jaw?" one asked me.

"It got knocked off by a detonation," I said, miming a hook. "He attacked me with vines when I got a call from my toothies that some small fry were causing trouble here. Probably meant to hold me down. And he'd almost certainly prepared for this exact scenario, given the alarm didn't trigger either when he bound me, or when I broke free and took his jaw off.

"My guess is he, or someone acting on his orders, worked over the zone's security system pretty thoroughly."

"That's well above our paygrade," the guard shook his head.

And, as if on cue, Bao appeared in the doorway, followed by two more in grey jumpsuits.

Not a single black one? Weak turnout. I actually got a bit worried.

"No Johansson today?"

"The Master's busy," Bao said.

"Do you at least have security-system confirmation of who used a technique first?" I asked the officers.

"Yeah," the paygrade one snorted, and pointed towards the door through which they'd carried the one-handed cadet. "But if someone's been messing with the system, that data's not worth much."

Well, damn. Looked like I'd overdone it here too.

"We have specialists for that," Bao said, resting a hand on the shoulder of one of his companions. "Get to work, lads."

"Already running diagnostics," one said, tracing a finger through the air.

I opened my mouth to comment and shut it again, because Novak's call came through.

I hesitated for a second, but ignoring my master felt like a far worse idea than taking the scolding.

"Jake…" Novak's voice came out unusually level, almost dangerously level. "I've just had calls from the Hall of Order and the Hall of Technology, back to back. You tore off a manager's jaw and cut off a technician's hand?

"Is this what trying to stay out of trouble looks like?"

"With all due respect, sir, they attacked first. All within self-defence."

"The technician attacked you first?" he asked, sceptical.

"He was an idiot," I shrugged, right at the moment a new figure walked into the hall — the Head of the Hall of Technology, A. D. Kurosawa.

He was fourth stage, same as me, but he'd been sitting on that stage for something like two hundred years, and it showed on his face. Kurosawa looked almost like the late Chen — plus a beard, minus the military bearing.

His cold gaze landed on me.

"I was supposed to be in a meeting with Jonson right now, but he seems to be indisposed," Kurosawa said, as though demanding an explanation from me.

"His timing's excellent," I said. "His planning's not bad either. His read on the opposition — total garbage."