The Daily Grind - Chapter 380 (Patreon)

"You know what's your problem? You think that because someone is the underdog, they're the good guy." -Bull, The Expanse-

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Under cover of darkness, Arrush and Riho approached the economical kaiju that had stripped the town of variety and potentially valuable stockpiles well before the current magically generated disaster had started.

Arrush had learned the word ‘kaiju’ recently along with Keeka, the two of them actually going to a real and normal theater on a date, and having an excellent time once they got used to how loud things were.  And as with every new word he learned, he loved to roll it around in his thoughts and apply it everywhere he could.  James said he had a metaphor addiction, but that couldn’t be true, because he could stop whenever he wanted.  Mostly Arrush just thought the name ‘Wal Mart’ sounded very stupid and hated the language feel of it, so he was looking for an excuse to call it anything else

The building’s parking lot was large enough that it could have snugly fit half of Townton in its lines, it felt like.  But that parking lot was only in the front of the building.  But the back of the building was far less out in the open. The loading dock was separated from the line of a back road by a drainage ditch and a few hundred trees, as well as two layers of chain link fence on either side that seemed to be there just to keep people from touching the trees, which seemed insane.  Arrush didn’t actually understand a lot of the decisions that went into the design of human cities, but sometimes he’d ask, and James would explain that they were specifically there to hurt people, and Arrush would feel that constant lingering sense that he’d gotten so preposterously lucky with the people who’d found him.

The outer layer of fences, he and Riho tackled with smooth movements.  He knew the human as an ally more than a person, but they’d sketched out a plan of approach before they started moving, and both of them were good at this kind of moving.

Riho’s rapid approach to the first fence ended with her kneeling in the pile of wet decaying leaves, her gloved hands cupped.  Arrush’s night vision was good enough to track her by the light of the tiny navigator growing out of her head, and his own quick approach behind the human didn’t make her flinch as he planted one of his paws in the basket of her hands and got boosted upward.

The big ratroach cleared the fence without having to slow too much, paws grabbing the top bar and pulling himself over without rattling the metal.  He landed heavily with leaves and sticks crunching under his armored form, and waited for a moment before Riho’s form impacted the ground next to him, the girl having simply made the jump on her own purple-assisted power.

The next fence was just as easy.  The trees themselves, towering shadows in the pitch black early winter night, could have hid any number of nightmares.  But they didn’t; just a lone squirrel that had survived this long and was stealth enough that even Arrush only barely spotted it.  The duo stepped softly and infrequently, not speaking, just sometimes tapping each other to correct direction.  Keeping their steps uneven meant that the noise of dead vegetation crunching wouldn’t be as easily tracked to intruders approaching, but as they neared the first fence on the store’s side of the small line of forest, it started to look like they didn’t need to bother.

Arrush knelt in the mast next to Riho, fog of his hot breath contained by the custom potion mask he was wearing, eyes scanning the pothole-riddled pavement, chipped paint, and dirty concrete of the loading dock.  There was one truck parked here that had probably been in the bay this whole time, but all the metal shutters were closed.  No lights, because the electricity had gone out a long time ago, but there were fires on the roof, and in their light, Arrush could see an absence of silhouettes.  No one was watching this side of the building.

And why would they?  The only way through looked pretty blocked off, and anyone who had been in here for a few months would have been hungrier and slower than Arrush and Riho.  Watching the front of the building would let them see anyone trying to slip around either side of the massive rectangular building anyway.  And anyone who did approach from this side would still have to cross multiple obstacles and then get through doors that were presumably locked anyway.

”Looks like they left it open for us.”  Riho sent through their skulljacks.

Arrush was still getting used to the skulljack.  It had felt… out of place, at first.  Unpleasant.  Bad.  But after he’d realized that he was treating it like something the Sewer had inflicted on him, and not like a very convenient tool that wasn’t Sewer-related at all.  And once he’d started thinking of it as a spell and not an infection, he’d felt much better about it.  But he was still learning how to send messages quite as quickly as the others.

”I hear people on the roof.”  Arrush sent as they sat perfectly still in the underbrush, watching for any signs of movement.  “Two.  No, three.”

”Walking?”

”Talking.”

Riho nodded unseen next to him, one hand coming up to a button on her own mask’s potion mechanism.  Arrush mimicked the gesture, counting down the row of small nubs to the proper one and holding his breath slightly in anticipation of the vapor.  “Left or right, big guy?”

”I will go left.”  Arrush’s various eyes landed on the rear access door, which would leave Riho to take the oddly aligned entrance on the boxy protrusion of walls, just up a concrete staircase.  “Ready?”

”Ready.”  Text wiped away the normal lilt to her words, but Riho’s thumbs up made a gentle rustle in the darkness and Arrush returned the motion, their gloved knuckles bumping together before they moved.

The plan was simple, because simple plans were best.

Tap the proper buttons to flood their masks with aerosolized ghost juice, take deep breaths to kick start the potion’s effect, and then begin moving.  Two sets of two styles of feet made far less noise when they only lightly pushed against the organic matter of the fallen leaves and frozen weeds.  And the dead metal of the chain link fences didn’t even rustle as they phased through like they weren’t there.  Some people said it was terrifying or unsettling, but Arrush loved the sensation of keeping his eyes open as he phased through material; the brief moment of painless black as his optic nerves were covered a reminder of the power over his body the potion gave him.

Cross the intervening space, trusting in the vectors to their picked goals to not have them slamming into each other.  They did have to navigate around piles of heavy black garbage bags full of waste, and also Arrush felt something puff underfoot as he ran too that had been dumped into the back lot, but it didn’t slow him down.  Riho’s navigator was concealed and dark now, it wouldn’t do to have a spark of orange glowing in the pitch black loading dock.  And Arrush’s mouth was covered by the mask, an added benefit of the thing that meant he didn’t light up like the firefly James had nicknamed him after recently.

Trigger the invisibility on their earrings just before hitting the door.  A check of the numbers showed that no hostile effects had tried to spot them and been denied on the run across the small patch of terribly maintained asphalt, so they knew they were both in the clear.  But once they went through the doors, they didn’t want to be surprised by someone staring straight at them as they phased through solid metal.

Set a timer, so they would both be getting out at the same time.  Because sometimes you just needed to be able to rely on someone else to get you out of a place.

And then, step through the building.

Arrush actually had experience with Wal Mart.  He’d been in one during the Underburbs attack in Springfield, and it had been too bright, with annoying music playing even as the world seemed to end around them, and it smelled sad.  This Wal Mart, the instant he stepped inside, he knew was worse.

He’d emerged into an employee area and warehouse, which he’d seen briefly in the other copy of this place somewhere else when he needed to use a bathroom.  But judging by the smell that approached the level of the Akashic Sewer, the bathroom here had been unusable for a long time.  The smoothed concrete floor wasn’t lit by electric lights, but instead by four or five burning metal barrels, acrid smoke from them filling the air and choking out the space.  Whatever had been stored here was long gone.  There was just stacks of emptied out cardboard boxes being used as fuel for the fire, broken wood from furniture, and people.

So many people.

Arrush froze as he nearly slammed into the legs of a human leaning up against an interior door right next to the exterior door he’d just run through.  They had a heavy blanket wrapped around themself and their legs tugged up to their chest, but were still sitting on the floor and staring with hollow eyes at the smooth concrete floor.  And on the other side of the narrow hall that led past a trash compactor and a side office, there was someone else.  And then three more people huddled under another blanket barely a few feet past them.  And then… more.

The fires that lit up the interior space showed that it was sectioned off with a couple walls, but basically everything that could be removed had been, leaving only cavernous rooms that had a large number of humans crammed into them.  Arrush was still trying to improve his skill with numbers, so he was a little concerned when a rough estimate gave him a count of four hundred humans.  That couldn’t be right, so he did a more careful check, stepping as carefully and silently as he could to get a better angle, tallying up clusters of faces in the flickering orange light and thin smoke.

And yeah, it was wrong.  It was closer to five hundred.   Five hundred people, jammed into the back warehouse of a Wal Mart.  Arrush heard more than saw some of them chewing; a rough crunch that was accompanied by looks on some faces that he recognized far too well, even on this other species.  It was the look of someone who was eating something they had no other choice to, who had gotten used to it, and replaced disgust with silent despair.

He also recognized dog kibble when he saw it.  Though, the ratroach would admit, this entire place still felt less vile than the Sewer did.  These people, who must be trapped in here, still weren’t killing each other over scraps.

Sometimes he hated the humans he met outside the Order, for having so much and wasting it.  But sometimes, he understood why James had hope for his species.  That his people could endure, and not be made monsters for it, was…

Well, Arrush understood.

The back office on the ground floor also had people in it, so he didn’t want to be there when his invisibility dropped.  There was some kind of catwalk overhead that led to what looked like a viewing room, or maybe an executive office, but the claustrophobic stairs that led up there had been blocked off with stacked furniture wrapped in barbed wire, and Arrush could definitely see humans with guns on the catwalk.  They weren’t walking, and weren’t crowded, but it was obvious who was the prisoner and who wasn’t here, so upstairs was out.  

His potion dose was still in effect, but he stepped over people on the floor anyway.  It took effort to wade through organic matter, like people were thicker than cold metal and dead wood.  But Arrush, knowing he was on a time limit, steadily crept through the carpet of barely active human forms, until he found what he was looking for.

A back corner.

There were still people in it, of course.  But it was where some kind of conveyor belt that was attached to the wall had been curled up and stashed; too much trouble to remove and throw outside with the rest of the trash Arrush and Riho had passed by.  So the only people were a pair of smaller humans, younger children, curled up in a pile of throw pillows clearly confiscated from somewhere in the home decor department.

Arrush pushed away the ability to phase through objects, so he didn’t accidentally run out of potion while he was inside a folded plastic roller. Kneeling down, he tried to speak in the quietest voice he could, something that wouldn’t be easily overheard by anyone else nearby over the crackle of flame and the few muttered conversations or endlessly ongoing crying from some of the humans.  “Hello.”  He still felt so strange having a working voice.  “Can you hear me?”

”Go ‘way.”  The young boy among the pair said weakly, trying to stealthily cover his sister with one of the blankets before blinking in Arrush’s direction.  “Who’s there?”

”I’m from outside.”  Arrush said, quickening his words.  “I’m invisible right now, but I need somewhere to hide before that ends.  May I come in?”

”Inv… Oh.”  The boy pulled his hand out from the blanket that he was hiding a knife in, the outline of it fading into the contours of the comforter.  His sister stirred next to him, saying something.  “Don’t worry.  I’m just… hungry.”  He said to her. And then to himself, “And hearing things.”

”I’m actually here.”  Arrush leaned forward to tap his arm, the child - not exceptionally young, maybe ten? He was bad at guessing - jerking back as he was touched.  “I didn’t want to scare anybody.  Or be seen.”

”Are you here to rescue us?”  The boy’s thin voice still instantly went to a bit of hope.

”I… am part of that.”  Arrush answered.  “My cloak will be gone soon-“

“Can you fit in here?”  The kid scooted back.  “Mill, move!”  He muttered at the even younger girl, making room for Arrush, who took the offer to crawl through the metal support legs of the conveyor belt they were camped under.  They’d hung up a blanket on one side, so they weren’t really visible from that many people, and no one was looking anyway.

Also, this spot wasn’t in line of sight for any of the guards upstairs or presumably by the interior doors.

Arrush crawled forward, contorting easily to fit himself at the children’s feet, similarly out of sight.  “Don’t be afraid.”  He said, suddenly realizing something a moment before he appeared.

”Why-“ the boy said before the ratroach flicked into view and he flinched.  “Oh.”

”Your head is weird.”  The little girl told him.

”Thank you.”  Arrush said, forcing calm into his voice.  At least he had a mask on so he wasn’t too intimidating.  “Granola?”  He asked, one paw proffering some kind of cranberry and oat bar from his armor’s pockets, deploying his most powerful tactic of offering young people food in order to buy their allegiance.  The boy still looked like he wasn’t sure if Arrush was even real but he still took it.  And then opened it, very carefully, underneath several thick blankets so the sound wouldn’t carry, and Arrush felt for just a moment like he understood how James had once seen him.  “Can you tell me what’s going on?”  He asked them quietly as the boy hissed a warning at his sister to not make noise and eat silently.

He waited patiently while they chewed weakly, both kids having wasted neither time nor crumbs.  Eventually the boy swallowed, looking disappointed that was all there was, and turned to look at Arrush.  “No one can leave.  Don’t you know?”

He said it with the tone that meant what he was actually saying was ‘are you an idiot?’, but Arrush didn’t mind.  “Here.”  He motioned with one of his smaller paws, seeing the girl staring at his extra limb.  “Why are they keeping you?”

”Oh.”  The kid deflated.  “Sometimes people get glowing tubes.  And if you give them to the guards they’ll give you food.  They’re collecting them or something.”

Scrolls.  Arrush understood that much, but not why.  He’d ask when he was out.  “How long have you been here?”  He asked softly.

”Forever.”  The girl said, and Arrush heard some people nearby turn at the sharpness of her voice before the other one hushed her again.

”Since dad died.”  The boy answered with a kind of enforced cold apathy that confused Arrush.

He decided not to press.  Not just because he didn’t have time.  “Do you ever leave this room?”

”Yeah, they let people out in groups all day to… to pee.  And sometimes they make us do chores.”  The kid told him, the look he’d had of some spark of hope starting to fade.

Arrush realized that, and decided to be blunt.  “I can’t stay.”  He told them. “I have to sneak more.  But we plan to rescue you.”

”Like a ninja!”  The little girl made a weak punching motion in the air over he pile of blankets before the boy - probably her brother - grabbed her wrist.

”You…” the kid stared at Arrush.  “You aren’t coming back.”  He said, defeated, oozing despair but no tears, all of those having long since been used up.

Arrush was leaving, but he didn’t want that to be the last thing these humans heard from him.  “We won’t leave you here.”  He told them, shifting his armored form gently so as not to topple their hiding spot.  “The paladins would never leave you behind.”  Arrush tipped his head back to look at the girl that was staring at his tails, the little human looking like she overflowed with questions that she wasn’t allowed to ask.  “They didn’t leave me, either.”

If James asked, he would tell his partner that he left because it was dramatic.  But the reality was that Arrush felt deeply silly and didn’t want to answer any more questions.  Also he had a time limit before he met up with Riho, and he had more investigating to do.

So he vanished again, burning another valuable charge of the earring as he tapped his mask once more and inhaled.  Rising up through the metal and plastic rollers of the unloading belt, and taking quick intangible steps through the press of human forms as he ran in a straight line through the nearest wall; angling so that he would emerge out into the store itself.

Darkness wrapped around him as he hit concrete and insulation, wiring and the occasional tug of a bug in the walls pulling against his wraith body.  But Arrush could run fast when he wanted to, and the intangibility worked on rules that only made sense if you didn’t think too hard about them; rules that included letting him make use of his speed.  So he burst out into the barren remains of the produce section only seconds later.

There were people here too.  Actually the area wasn’t just barren, it was like a pen.  The empty display shelves that had once held fruit had been shoved into awkward walls, barricades holding in this patch of people too.  They also had a few fires going, but while Arrush didn’t have time to stop to look for other differences, he could see that everyone here was old.  Old, starving, and often wounded; he smelled a lot of blood, and some infection too.

He made a loop of the store.  There were fewer guards out here, and more shadows for him to stand in and refresh his invisibility when he needed.  As expected, there seemed to be no food left; what there was was stored in the section that had beds on display that the people who ‘owned’ this place had occupied as their own little fortress.  Their stockpile of the remaining food and all of the ammunition from the guns section was very convenient for Arrush, though, because it showed him something important.

They didn’t actually have very much ammo.  Not down here anyway.  Arrush saw a lot of boxes stacked up in piles, but they were thin cardboard and not packed with bullets; and they were too obvious.  They were faking their strength.

He’d been counting how many of the guards he’d seen.  The men - all men, no women so far - with guns who were holding the hundreds and hundreds of others prisoner.  There were maybe thirty of them he’d counted, and probably more upstairs.  Even if their captives were starving, they would be overwhelmed if there was a rebellion.

So they didn’t push too far.  They fed them, even if only sparingly.  They gave them time outside.  They didn’t torture.  And they showed off how many bullets they had.

Arrush was familiar with how someone could keep going for a long time, if they felt like things might get worse otherwise.

He was also running out of charges of Optical Invisibility, and needed to get out of here.  It didn’t seem like he was going to find any new clues, and the timer was almost out.  Arrush stuck to the plan, left the way he’d come in, and got through the second fence just before his potion wore off in truth.

He didn’t even feel Riho stop next to him.  Just got the sudden notice through the skulljack.  “At the meet point.  Don’t yell.”

”I wouldn’t yell.”  Arrush sent back to her as he started creeping through the dark strip of forest next to the human before getting back to the original overlapping layers of chain link.  “I would panic normally.”

”Yelling is panicking normally!”  Riho said out loud as they hit the frozen pitted asphalt of the empty street they had approached from.

”What?”  Arrush gave her what he hoped was a puzzled look, for effect.  “No!  Normal panic is when you… you feel like you have to scream but can’t so you just stare at someone until they run away.”

Riho, to her credit, realized what he was doing rapidly, and gave a snort of a laugh.  “Yer hanging out with too many camracondas.”  She said.

”Just enough camracondas.”  Arrush corrected, voice picking up as they got more distance from the target.  “Did you find anything?”

Her voice hardened.  “Bodies.”  She said.  “Freezer’s full of bodies.  They aren’t eating them though, I think… nah, I dunno what it is.  Their little HQ has a locked room with a lot of those scrolls in it.  Oh, and one single guy tied to a chair.  They’re not having a good time, either, man.  The assholes, not the chair guy, but he’s probably not either.  It’s not like they banter or some shit, they’re all just clammed up.  Think they hate each other, but they’re working together like it’s all they got, you know?”

”I know how that feels.”  Arrush sighed out through his alchemy mask.  “There are I think maybe six hundred people they’re keeping.”

”Jeeeez that’s a lot.  That’s half the people left!”

”Mmh.  And they can’t do it.”  Arrush added as the duo traced their way back to the house the group was using as a base.  “They’re running out of bullets.”

Riho paused at the unhappy tone Arrush had.  She barely knew the big ratroach, but she knew what it sounded like when someone wasn’t thrilled about something.  “Kay?”

”James is going to think it’s even easier to talk to them now.”  Arrush explained.

”Ah.”  Riho said.  “Fewer bullets ain’t no bullets.”

”Yes.”

”Maybe we can get Ty and Alanna to do it.  They’re basically impossible to kill, yeah?”

Arrush’s chitter of laughter followed them through the almost pitch black streets.  “I am… it is funny you say them, and not the paladins.”  He told the human.

”Spire’d get hurt trying to talk people down.  Wouldn’t yours?”

He didn’t really have to think about that.  He’d watched it happen at least once.  So the two of them spent the last few blocks of slowly creeping through the dark, following Riho’s little navigator light, planning a way to make Alanna the one that stood out in front of the Wal Mart tomorrow to yell at the shooters on the roof.

_____

“I’m going ahead.”  Kiki said into the cold air.

The open field, a few hundred feet off the side of the severed road on the opposite side of the clipped train tracks, was currently rather nice to be standing in.  Some kind of soft lichen was flourishing on the crumbling stones, the wind wasn’t quite reaching the Research group that was getting measurements for the hole that an entire town had fallen into, and the oil fields were  enough miles away that there wasn’t any acrid pollution to interfere with the loamy smell of this mostly undeveloped part of the planet.

They had floodlights up, painting the landscape with white light.  And past that, pitons with neon yellow rope strung between them, marking off the closest part of the edge of the anomaly.  The Research team had been working on and off as a few people had to return to the Lair to sleep and a few other people were brought in to pick up for them.  The only reason they weren’t rushing was the simple fact that the people inside would all be asleep anyway for another few hours at least, and so they had plenty of time to get their numbers and totem placement exactly correct.  No sense breaking physics in the middle of the most frozen part of the Dakotas when no one would be around to run through the tunnel you opened.

It helped that Kiki was there.  Reed was pretty sure she was the reason that everything pleasant was just sort of falling into place.

And now Kiki wanted to leave.  “You sure?”  She asked in the voice she was still getting used to the pitch of.  “We’ll be done setting up soon, you won’t have to wait for long.”

”You kids’ll be fine.”  Kiki said with the weight of prophecy behind her words.  Possibly.  Maybe Reed was just being overly critical of everything the godlike entity shaped like her grandma said.  “And those girls need something to do, so you can send them to find your friends when you’re ready.  You don’t need me here, and I feel like stretching my legs.”

Reed lapsed into uncomfortable silence.  You feel like it?  She wanted to ask.  Or you’re made to feel like it?  The distinction between the icon she’d turned into and the person she was was less dangerous for Kiki, since she could always fall back on Clutter Ascent as a kind of hyperspecific therapist, but it wasn’t like that solved every problem.  But Reed didn’t know how to talk to people.  And she especially didn’t know how to treat people older than her like they were peers.  So she kept her muzzle closed, fretting about the situation as she tried to work up the courage to tell Kiki she didn’t need to do this.

Of course, the problem was that Kiki was one of those things that heard a lot more than was said.  “You’re a good kid.”  She told Reed with a warming smile.  “Way too much fear for your age.  Here, let me juuuust….”

Her hand moved through the air between them, gathering the trepidation Reed felt like threads of spider silk.  Reed didn’t even realize what was happening until the woman tugged, pulled away all her anxiety toward Kiki, and spun it around her fingers in steadily solidifying layers.  And then, a second later, she was offering Reed a knife curled like a claw with a polished boxy wood handle.

”Hey!  You can’t just forge people’s emotions into weapons without asking!  We talked about this!”  Reed snapped, her smaller paw snatching the knife away from Kiki and holding it off to the side.  Momentum building, she pointed one of her own claws back at the woman.  “And you shouldn’t just run off either, especially if you feel like you ‘have to’!  Go back to Clutter!  Stop hurting yourself just because you think no one likes you!”  She glared at Kiki, the woman’s face giving her a devastatingly smug grin that somehow made Reed actually feel calmer.  “Yeah, I know this is useful.  I can read people’s minds too.  Apparently.”  She added with a mutter.

”Like I said.”  Kiki told her.  “A good kid.  Now, I’m gonna go on a walk, and you don’t need to worry about me.  I’ve got plenty left to live for, after all.”  Kiki waved over her shoulder as she headed toward the boundary line.  “Arrivederci!”

Reed shoved the knife she’d been handed into a pocket of her coat, tugging that coat tighter as the air’s chill made itself more known with Kiki’s departure.  “At least walk slowly you jerk!”  She yelled after Kiki.  “Mars!  Get the laser tracker on her!  Everyone doing readings, now’s your chance!”

Researchers looked up from folding tables and assembly sites, a few of them scrambling with cameras or measuring tools to track Kiki’s progress under the danger zone ropes and toward the empty dirt nothing that had once been somewhere.  They’d tested the field with inanimate objects, and slightly animate drones, but not a person yet.  Though whether or not Kiki counted - in a magical sense, not in a moral sense - was up in the air.

The readings ended up being incredibly useful.  Especially since Kiki, in making the area around herself more comfortable, showed up in a very strange way on thermal imaging.  It was possible for the Research team to get a much more exact look at how the overlap ‘ate’ objects.

”It’s like a revolving door.”  Reed muttered, watching over Paper-And-Words’… shoulder?… as the camraconda looped its footage.  The impression was pretty clear; once someone was in the overlap area, the bubble kind of… swept sideways and pulled them the rest of the way in.  “It’s be nice to know if it’s always moving, or if it’s only when there’s something to eat.”

”Well.”  Paper-And-Words replied.  “We are aware the team inside is alive.  That implies air.”

”It’s a huge open area, they probably would have enough air for a while.”  Reed rubbed her chin chitin, toying with the edge of where it met flesh.  “No, the math doesn’t work there, does it?”

”Three months?  No.  You are comfortably wrong.”  Paper-And-Words told her.

”There’s no dome.”  Cam said, overhearing them and speaking up.  When Reed looked back at her curiously, she elaborated.  “They said night fell earlier, because the walls block the sun.  That means there’s no dome overhead to block the sun. It’s open from the air.”

”Wait.  Hold the fuck up.”  Reed lashed her tails as she started pacing.  “We could solve this with helicopters!”

”Do you own a helicopter?”  Cam asked her.

Reed pointed a claw back at the dragon impersonator.  “Not yet!”  She said.

”Also that would not work either.”  Paper-And-Words expressed in a deliberately very neutral voice.  “The walls appear to extend well beyond what a helicopter could pass.”

Reed dropped her paw, a frown twisting her muzzle.  “Ionosphere, right?”  She asked quietly.

”Apparently.”  The camraconda said.

”Kay.  Original plan then.”  Reed gave a squeaking sigh that she hoped no one heard.  “Is the revolving door nature of this thing going to break our totems?”

”No.” Eight Researchers said with different varieties of confidence.

Reed didn’t really believe any of them.  But they’d double check everything anyway before bringing people through.  “Kay.  Get it all ready to go.  Anyone who needs coffee or anything, take a break.  It’ll be dawn soon, and once we’re ready we can send Cam in to tell them.  Cam, you’re okay with that?”

”Yes.  I’m not here to carry boxes for you.”  Cam said, crossing her arms, apparently unbothered by the freezing air as she was wearing a short sleeved shirt in the middle of winter.

”Well I appreciate the box moving anyway.”  Reed told her, wondering why the other girl gave her a weird look for the words.  “Come on nerds!”  She yelled at everyone else.  “Back to work!”  And then, muttering to herself, “Before whatever Kiki went to find explodes or something.”

_____

It was shortly after dawn that TQ watched the human he inexplicably liked do something incredibly stupid.  

Though to be fair, James’ habit for doing stupid things for the right reason was almost entirely why TQ was drawn to him in the first place.  The human burned brightly to the camraconda’s lens.  Not literally, though TQ could probably find a way to fabricate one of his favorite kind of jokes around that deliberate misinterpretation sometime.  No, James was just very bluntly alive in a way that TQ couldn’t help but be caught by.  The human didn’t even realize it, he’d noticed a while back; he thought he was normal.  He didn’t see how every day he did things that pulled others toward something better and brighter, he only ever saw how he failed.

TQ was, he’d admit, infatuated with James.  They’d had exactly sixty percent of a date so far, and that was broken up over several temporal pieces.  So it wasn’t like they were dating, as the humans would say.  But he wasn’t going to leave, and he wasn’t going to be upset, because every time something did interrupt them, it was something like this.  Bits and pieces of a bigger moment where James got to shine the way he loved.

He was, however, going to be slightly judgemental of how stupid James’ shining moments happened to be.  Even if the human seemed inexorably drawn toward strange little coincidences, TQ still figured the vast majority of the bad decisions were James’ own fault.

Like earlier, for example, before they’d set out to make demands of the group of bandits, TQ had made a small twist where he had been sitting next to the couch James was napping on.  And for just a moment, he had known - known - that there was a dream occurring.  Not just intellectually, because James had consumed a potion for that exact purpose, but actually.  A sense of both the position and existence of that dream in real space.

Which was a fun way to learn what his domain was.  And also, a very amusing coincidence!  They did overlap James on a regular basis, and TQ was fairly certain the human had done something deliberate to make that happen.

In contrast, watching James walk with smug comfort toward a Wal Mart, hands in his pockets like he was out for a stroll, most of his armor covered by a zipped up coat that made him look a bit puffed up, was something that was entirely James’ fault.

”Roof guys spotted you.”  Alanna’s voice informed her paladin over their group link.

TQ watched the figures that were looking over the edge of the massive grocery store.  They stood out easily, the ‘dawn’ light bathing their motions in sharp contrast as one of them spotted James, and instantly called over their companions to look too.  Idiots.  TQ was no strategist, but he had participated in the preliminary delver training course, and the Response program, and as he planned to follow James to the end of the world he was learning more about tactics constantly as well to keep up.  So he knew that the performance of the kidnapper guards could be rated at a solid two out of ten, generously.

If you spotted something, you reported it.  You didn’t drag every other sentry to your position, expose yourselves, and make a lot of noise.  TQ actually didn’t think he would have needed a single training course to tell him that.

”Are they brain damaged?”  Karl asked from next to TQ, the two of them hidden under the same truck, waiting to provide support if needed.

“It is embarrassing, yes.”  TQ admitted, hissing a laugh.  “Now let me focus.”  He told the human.

TQ could easily imagine the grin on James’ face as the paladin kept walking.  Which made sense, because James was grinning as he moved through the half-empty parking lot.  Passing by cars that had been abandoned here for one reason or another; many of them likely belonging to people who were still in the store that they’d parked at looking for supplies.  An uncomfortable number parked in the handicapped spaces, bearing the little blue tags hanging from their rearview mirrors; people who were still obeying the rules of a society even as things crumbled like eroding sandcastles around them.

One of the guys on the roof started aiming at James.  At least one, actually; the tie he had on as a wrapped cloth bracelet only let him know someone was aiming his direction.  But since no one was shooting, he just kept walking at a leisurely pace through the morning, definitely not enjoying the below-freezing temperature, but getting an amount of amusement out of the reactions he was provoking.  Also, he didn’t really need the tie at all; it was painfully obvious they were pointing rifles his way.  Painful because they made basically no effort to take advantage of their elevation or the cover of the building’s roof, instead practically leaning out so they could sight on someone that was out in the middle of the open.

James raised a hand and waved at them, before wedging the gloved appendage back into his coat pocket.  It was too cold.  He hated being cold.  The Climb wasn’t this cold; at least, not below the 2k mark.  “Someone better shoot me soon, or I’m gonna freeze to death.”

”You think you’re cold?”  Zhu’s voice from inside his clothes was marvelously indignant.  “I’m dying here, and I didn’t think that was possible!”

”Well we already know navigator manifestations can take persistent damage.”  James mused, breath puffing out in steaming clouds.  “I’m not surprised you can die from exposure.  But also don’t do that, I’d miss you.”

The navigator went quiet for a second, and James could almost hear Zhu’s thoughts angling toward a joke of some kind.  He smiled as he waited for the navigator to figure out what kind of humor he was in the mood for.  “Say that again in a few years when we’re sick of each other.”

”Won’t happen.”  James said confidently.

”Because we’ll both be frozen to death here?”

”Because I’m too lazy to get sick of people I like.”  James replied.  “Now, are these idiots going to come negotiate, or just point guns at me all day? I’m starting to think we aren’t dealing with professionals.”  A rapid motion against the weird light of the sky caught his eye, and James’ bit down on a chuckle as he saw a vaguely human shaped figure drop out of the air somewhere on the side of the building.  Apparently the lack of professionalism extended to the cluster of armed men on the roof not noticing Kiki falling from orbit into the rear entrance of their hideout, so that was… something.  “What do you think the odds are that they just shoot me?”

Zhu’s feathers roiled against James’ skin as the navigator maneuvered inside the armor.  “Well you haven’t started talking to them yet, so still low.”

”Ouch!”

”No you say that after they start shooting.”

”I’m so glad I brought you along.”

Alanna’s voice cut into the skulljack link James had going, and he tried to make sure the thought was in the right ‘place’ to let Zhu listen in.  “If you two get shot while you’re bantering, I’m never quipping with you again in a life or death situation.”

”Oh that’s not true and you know-!”  James cut himself off as one of the front doors to the all-in-one store was shoved open.  Without electricity, it took a little effort, but the people inside quickly removed their own barricades and pulled the sliding door open, almost a dozen men fanning out from the entrance as James stopped in the middle of the road that cut across the Wal Mart’s front, one foot up on the eroded paint of the speed bump meant to keep people from just straight up murdering pedestrians.  “Gentlemen!”  James started with, voice cheerful.

”Christ he’s gonna get shot again.”  Alanna’s voice said in the background.

James tuned her out though, looking at the small crowd that was in the process of surrounding him.  A few hung back with guns, but the two guys that were closest just had baseball bats.  And the guys with guns didn’t really look like they had a lot of faith in their own weapons.  An old skill rank brushed against James’ thoughts, making him think that these people looked an awful lot like actors.

They also looked on edge.  Slightly better fed than the people James had met on the way in, but just as frayed around the edges.  It wasn’t like they were wearing tattered rags or anything; clothing lasted longer than three months and they had a whole Wal Mart besides.  Half of them had even kept mostly shaved, which made sense for the group with access to the strategic reserve of shaving cream.  But there was something about how a human stared that told you how close they were to finding the current situation unlivable, and these guys were right up against it.

“Alright smartass.”  The guy in the middle, who was leaning on a hockey stick, pointed at James with a bare arm.  “Coat off, hands up.  Larry, search him and toss him in the deli.”

”Now see, a more paranoid person would think that meant you were planning to do some cannibalism.”  James gave a winning smile as he tried to get a look at the dude’s tattoos.  The guy who’d shot at him when he’d walked in here yesterday had insinuated something about the person whose gang owned the Wal Mart being fascist, and while James didn’t trust that guy to understand political ideology if it ripped his dick off, he was still going to check.  Not only that, but James had become aware, through Simon’s horrifying report, that there was a potential connection between some kind of Vitruvian Man tattoo and open violence against either delvers or nonhumans.  “Fortunately for everyone here, I…” he trailed off as he got a good look at the tattoo on the man’s forearm.

The guy who was in charge ignored him and just prodded his men forward.  One of the guys - presumably Larry - flanked by the two goons with bats.  “I said hands up, asshole!”

“Is that the fucking Warcraft horde emblem?”  James couldn’t help himself from asking.

The leader with the hockey stick had a moment of realization that James was looking at him, and then almost sheepishly tugged the red and black flannel sleeve of his coat down over his arm.  “Alright, break his knees.”  He said abruptly, to a spattering of laughter from the gang around him.

”So.”  James said casually, his tone stopping the men from advancing as he actually caught them in the net of thinking that this was a conversation and not a beating.  “Kane’s hobbies aside,” the man’s eyes widened as James almost offhandedly used his name, “I’m here with good news that doesn’t involve adding me to your prison camp.”

”Yeah?  What’s that?”  Larry said before anyone could stop him.

James spread his hands.  “I have a way out of here for you.”

They deflated.  An angry kind of despair seeping into their eyes as a dozen men tightened grips on weapons, and the one with a baseball bat closest to James stepped closer and jabbed at his side with it.  It didn’t connect, James moved just enough to not be hit but also not look like he was dodging.

”Fuck you!”  One of them yelled, and the others picked up shouts of derision and anger, until Kane stepped forward and pointed that hockey stick he was carrying at James like it was a lance.  “The last cunt that said that got two of my guys killed.  You with him?  The Coalition?”

He said the word like a man who was used to using fantasy style proper nouns for organizations, James thought.  He almost smiled, but Zhu’s determined stabbing inside his armor stopped that.  “My name is James Lyle.”  He said.  “Of the Order of Endless Rooms.”  He had to raise his voice, because the yelling hadn’t stopped.  “I am not here to make a deal with you, I am here to tell you that in two to three hours, we are ripping a hole in the wall around this place, and you are going to help me unfuck what you’ve been doing to these people by being the most polite chauffeurs in history.”

”You fucking kidding?  We’ve got our tickets out of here.  We’re not falling for your shit again!”  One of them yelled.  James almost raised an eyebrow at the words.  They had an exit?  He didn’t really believe that, for some reason.

”Larry?  Gord?”  Kane’s voice cut above the others, the air in the parking lot going quiet again.  “Kick this cunt’s ass.”

”You need a hand?”  Alanna asked.

”Or a lens?”  TQ’s voice added.

James eyed the man with the baseball bat that had wound up to take a swing at his head.  The kind of strike that a lot of people probably understood was bad, without realizing that it could be instantly lethal if something went wrong.  “No,” he sent in a split second, “I’m kinda pissed and want to show off.  Also I drank all that coffee for a reason!”  He heard Zhu cackling as the navigator picked up the impulse of the thought.

The baseball bat deflected away from James’ head with the rasp of metal on metal.  James’ casual perched stance barely shifting as his left hand, extended outward, flicked upward with streamers of grey mist trailing across his fingers as the sword he’d called into existence emerged from nowhere.  It was harder to disarm a weapon with no hilt, if you didn’t want to more literally disarm someone, but James caught the shocked man’s baseball bat with the flat of the blade and twisted his weapon in a loop, deftly removing it from stunned fingers.

Crossing his arm across himself, he blocked the other baseball bat with a much less stable grip, while twisting to step away from where Larry and his disarmed buddy were trying to just rush James and tackle him, as even malnourished their builds should have let them just flatten him with weight.  A light kick to the back of Larry’s knee sent the guy face first into the speed bump, while James barely had to work to get the other attacker to stumble over the now prone figure in the lightly icy parking lot.

”Dammit.”  James swore out loud with a playful tone as he shifted and slapped another absurdly hefty swing of the aluminum baseball bat into the ground.  “I’m actually not left handed, give me a second here!”  He said, flicking a Pave at the man’s wrist and catching the baseball bat as it spun out of his grip, looking at the improvised weapon for a second before throwing it backward over his shoulder to make that satisfying noise only baseball bats ever did as it clattered across the asphalt.  “Are we done being children yet?”  He raised his voice as he tossed the Breaking Forge sword to his proper hand.

In response, someone on the roof shot him.

It didn’t work.  The shield bracer flared in golden light, mingling with the dull semi-dawn of the morning, and the bullet just stopped.  The light ting of it sliding off and hitting the pavement as the shield dispersed was audible even over the echo of the gunshot itself.  No further shots followed, though one voice did come across the link.

”Apologies.”  Spire-Cast-Behind said.  “I was slightly slower than expected.  All snipers now detained.”  There was a slight pause.  “Also I believe Kiki is in the building, which is likely a problem for the future.”

”Are we,” James shouted louder now, “done being children?”

In response, Kane rushed the gap between them, ignoring the stunned gaping stares of the other men that were with him, and tried to punch James in the head.

James was actually impressed with the man’s form.  He was a big guy, and he moved with a nimble precision that was clearly wavering due to factors like hunger, not because he was bad at fighting.  Maybe he was a boxer, normally.

James dodged that punch, then the next one, holding his blade out in a downward grip so he wasn’t threatening to cleave some random guy’s leg off, and then realized that neither punch had been going to hit him.

”Well isn’t that interesting.”  Zhu said with curiosity.  “Pathing.  Look.”

Orange lines lit up James’ vision, and none of them were for dodging.  They were, instead, a slightly winding path that would take him around behind someone’s parked pickup truck that was slightly larger than most historical monuments.  He could feel steps he was supposed to take as he backpeadeled, and saw the lines of Kane’s movement too.

He was being herded.  But not attacked, not pressed, even though he was almost certain this guy would have been capable of actually giving him a fight, if James had fought without magic.  Which was bizarre, but he played along, smiling at the man who was shadowboxing the space around James’ head as he stepped over the curb and past the pile of trash that had been dumped into the old barkdust here, before eventually ending up in the shadow of the truck.

The men by the front door, even the ones James had knocked back, were cheering for their boss, as well as moving to surround the fight, so they only had a brief window.  “Talk fast.”  James said, tilting his head away from a swing that could have actually hit him.

The attacks stopped instantly.  “Man I can’t fucking keep this going.”  Kane said with a pained tension to his rough voice.  He clearly wasn’t talking about faking trying to murder James.  “Half these fuckers think it’s Mad Max in here, and no one is gonna trust you Coalition fucks at this point.  You guys really fucked up.”

”Still not with a coalition.”  James pointed out, not even breathing heavily, but keeping his guard up for the moment.  “Why do you think you have a way out?”

”The scrolls, man.”  Kane told him while taking rapid short breaths to refresh himself.  “Okay, you’re different, sure.  But the actual Coalition bastard knew exactly what they were for.  Everyone thinks we’re just farming the things until we have enough, but…”

James put a few pieces together, taking a leap in logic as he started to understand why this guy specifically had wanted to talk to him rapidly with a little isolation.  “Holy shit.”  He said, taking a swing with his blade that didn’t do anything except shift where they were back a few steps, moving the fight farther from the people that were rushing to surround them anyway.  “Whoever gets a scroll is random, and you think when there’s more people holding them than people alive, everyone gets out?”

”Yeah man.  So I’m fuckin’ trying to hide how many we got, so the psychos here don’t just burn the building down with everyone inside!”

Clearly James had misunderstood something important.  Which was that Kane, whatever he looked like, however he seemed from the outside, was desperately trying to keep things from getting worse.

The logic chain cascaded together quickly.  If they thought that the scrolls were the way out, and every day, one random person in here spawned a scroll, then it explained why this gang had turned a Wal Mart into a prison camp.  Why they were attacking other survivor camps, and taking those people into their own place.  But if the trigger condition was having more tickets out than people left alive, the only reason they still had all those prisoners was either that they didn’t have enough scrolls for the twenty or thirty bandits, or…

Or if the gang itself had a fracture in it.

If, for example, the guy that was supposedly in charge, who had showed up with his buddies and ‘taken over’ early on, had been lying to the other bandits in some way.  Because keeping four to six hundred people alive, even on the slimmest of rations, would be an insane task, especially if you could better your own odds of getting a scroll to spawn by just killing them.  Which meant, the man who was currently trying to tell James all this, was trying to help.

”What’s it going to take?”  James asked bluntly.  “To get them to listen to me.”

”Too late, man.  Best we can probably do is get you out of here before they shoot you.”

James snorted.  “Wouldn’t work.”  He told Kane, stopping in the middle of an open patch of the asphalt painted with worn lines.  His foot shifted against the cold ground, scraping as he put himself in position, and stopped pretending to be fighting.  “Which ones are yours?”

Kane, keeping his fists up, not realizing James was done ‘dueling’ him, flicked his eyes at the crowd that was gathering around them in a chanting jeering circle.  More of the people from inside had joined them, and James was kind of curious if there was anyone left in there to actually guard their prisoners.  Or if they were counting on starvation and exhaustion to do the trick.  “Gord, and Ian.  Everyone else I knew is…” he choked off the sentence.

James nodded and flicked the sword around in an arc, planting its tip on the ground with a ting.  “Point out Ian for me.”  He said.  Kane hesitated, and James rolled his eyes before the crowd decided this was less a duel and more a beating.  “Zhu, highlighter please.”  He asked his navigator.

”Ugh, I fucking knew you’d find a way to put me out in the cold.”  Zhu complained as he blossomed out of James armor in a splash of orange light.  “Got ‘em both painted.  Anything else?”  He asked, his eyes swiveling to gaze at the people that had flinched away and stopped looking quite so enthusiastic about James being beaten to death.

”That’s fine, thanks.  Alanna?  Arrush?”  James said, deftly stepping back as one of the guys charged him, a light maneuver tripping the man with his sword and a boot sending him rolling away.  “Cleanup please.”

”The fuck are you-“ Kane started to ask.

And then the two members of James coterie-and-or-polycule hit the crowd like a politely discerning tidal wave.  Ice limbs and asphalt clamps mixed in with mundane grapples, throws, and baton strikes to the elbows.  Backed up by TQ freezing the shooters in the moments before they pulled the triggers, it took under a minute for a dozen men to be beaten down to the parking lot’s surface, or in one case, into a car hood that thankfully didn’t set off an alarm.  It took more time for them to zip-tie wrists behind backs than it did to deal with the ‘threat’.

James tried really hard not to be too cocky or arrogant.  But now?  They were heavily augmented, at the top of their game, and the biggest problem he had to deal with was having some mild back pain from sleeping on a horrible couch.  The men facing them had numbers, but they also had no magic, no backup from the people with most of their bullets, and most of them had probably eaten half a can of beans in the last couple days.   Starvation hurt.  More than he’d ever really had to deal with in a combat situation.  But he knew how much just missing a couple meals could slow someone down, and it fucking showed here as his partners ripped through the crowd, leaving only three of them standing.

”What the fuck is that?!”  One of those men squealed as Arrush deftly handcuffed a fallen figure.

”Ian shut the fuck up you dumb motherfucker.”  Kane ordered his friend, the man barely daring to twitch as he stood with wide eyes, having barely had time to process what was happening.  “Just… just shut the fuck up.”

”Hello.”  Arrush said through his heavy alchemy mask with humor only James and Alanna detected.  “I am here to help.”  The man underneath him tried to whip his arm away and fumbled for a knife, which Arrush snagged with one of his small arms without even pausing in restraining the struggling figure and finishing the process of tying his wrists together.  “Help some of you.”  He added with a disapproving series of clicks from his chest.

James looked up at the quiet morning sky as Zhu burrowed back underneath his armor.  Taking a long breath, the paladin closed his eyes and just took a moment to let his blood cool off.  Then he looked back down at Kane, who was watching all of them like they were dangerous animals that might be set off by the slightest motion.  “The other paladin cleared your guys on the roof.  How many more are inside?”

Kane’s answer had a lot of confused and frightened filler words, until he pulled himself together, hands slapping at his cheeks like he was trying to wake himself up.  “Shit.  Uh… six more I think?  Maybe eight?  Someone’s gotta keep an eye on the Coalition cunt.”

It didn’t actually surprise James that much that the guy who was supposedly running this bandit camp didn’t know how many bandits there were.  But then, hunger impaired mental processes too, and Kane did look like a guy who’d been skipping a few meals.  Silently sending over the link, he informed the other paladin. “Spire, count six minimum more hostiles inside.  One specific prisoner that sounds like someone like us, but… I’ll give you more info in a second.”

”Understood.  Moving in.”  She replied crisply.

”We’ll meet you on the ground floor.”  James said, looking at where Alanna was hauling people up to sitting positions so they weren’t face down on the freezing asphalt.  He tilted his head as TQ and Karl came hustling up to the group, giving the resplendent camraconda a smile.  “Hey.  Ready for more nonsense?”  He asked.

TQ hissed at him.  “For you, always.”  He said smoothly, and James almost diverted into a tangent about how fucking proficiently TQ flirted, before snapping back to keep on track.

”Right.  Kane.”  He addressed the man, who saluted him.  Awkwardly, stiffly, but he still did it.  “Do not do that.”  James said with an exasperated half-laugh-half-sigh.  “You said something about a Coalition.  Explain, and do it fast.”

The big guy nodded, his face shifting to anger, though not directed at James.  “He showed up a month ago.  We already figured out the scrolls kept showing up, and I’d… maybe…” he lowered his voice, leaning in to James.  “Maybe implied that I knew a bit more than I really did.  You know.”

”I follow, mostly.”  James said.  “The guy?”

”Right.  Grey cloak, looked like he’d been eating, you know?  Like you.  Talked a lot about how this was a ‘standard expression’ of this kinda bullshit, and he knew the way out.  People listened.  Then one day he vanished, and a week later we’re in a war with Doc’s group, and no one knew how it happened.  Watcher - he calls himself Watcher, no the - he kept showing up around town, but I didn’t know he was talking to my boys too until it was too late.  He got a half dozen of them to walk into the wall and fucking splattered them, plus all the people who died while we were shooting each other instead of fucking working together.  So I… I kept lying.  Told everyone he was a pod person that I was interrogating, kept him tied up in the back office.  He’s too fucking smug.  Keeps talking about how he could kill us all but he doesn’t want to be inconvenient.”

”Magic?”  James asked.  “Or superpowers, or whatever.”

”He had some fancy watch that he was always looking at too much.  I’ve got it in a drawer inside.”

”If his name is Watcher because of a watch I’m going to scream.”  James grumbled.  “Okay.  Be straight with me.  What was your plan?”

”I…” Kane faltered, and looked away, his shoulders slumping.  It was kind of interesting; he was a big guy, still strong despite the circumstances, but in that moment, he looked so small that James almost felt like he was talking to a different person.  “I didn’t have a plan, man.”  He said in a voice almost like a whine.  “I… look, maybe it is them or us.  Maybe only a hundred people or whatever get out of here.  I… we… yeah, I thought I’d be one of them.  Thought I’d outlive everyone and this was all stupid and I was wasting time and hurting the actual survivors, whatever.  I know I fucked up.”  He looked back at James, but this time with a kind of iron anger in his eyes.  “But I wasn’t gonna just kill a bunch of people.  So my ‘plan’ was to keep everyone alive as long as I could.  Even these shitheads.  No matter what I had to do.  And that was it.”  He sighed, before stiffening his spine like he expected to be punished on the spot.

“Welp.”  Alanna said as she finished her detainment task and elbowed James in his armored flank.  “You found the loot drop for this mess.”

”You cannot refer to people as loot drops.” James told her, trying not to laugh.

”I’m just saying!  Every time!  Every time, buddy!  You always find someone!”

James exhaled.  “Can we please go finish cleanup and then figure out how we’re gonna move everyone?”

But Alanna didn’t let up, even as they started heading toward the front doors as a group, leaving the prisoners behind for now.  ”It even happened with the mannequin faucet!  You’d think it was the vitality boost, but no, it was the professional sushi chef you accidentally rescued from the heroin addiction and cancer!”  She threw an arms up, happily cheering.  “Every time!”

”She is of course correct.”  TQ added amused.  “I was one of those times, after all.”

Kane looked between the three of them as they spoke back and forth.  “Are you… no, I don’t fucking know what’s happening.  What’s happening?”

”Don’t worry.  The process is relatively painless.”

”What?!”

James opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by a quick message coming through his skulljack.  Not from the other team, though, or from anyone in their immediate group.

Instead, Cam’s synthetic voice added to the link, with her obviously having crossed into the zone.  “Message for all Order in the AO.  Rescue team will be testing exterior breach in one hour at the following coordinates.  Current understanding is that we will not be able to collapse the entire zone, so civilians should be mustered as soon as possible.  Be advised that Kiki is in the AO.  Please advise best course of action for myself and one ancillary.”

”She can’t just be casual about it, huh?”  Alanna asked happily.

”Well, she’s not dating any of us.”  James pointed out.  “Okay.  Let’s wrap up this place, and get everyone moving.  And then… sort out the rest as we go.”  He sent back a quick message to Cam; a simple instruction to send ancillary - her sister, James rolled his eyes - to inform the camp in the shiny new office structure that was going to need some serious cleaning after this, and for her to join them to help with the Wal Mart situation.

They’d need some work to make this happen, but one day in and it looked like they were going to crack this problem so much easier than James had worried.

Now he just needed to go talk to some kind of Coalition, and figure out what their next problem looked like.