They walked through several blocks before Kev picked a skyscraper and entered it. The group reseted on the third layer of the floor as Kev cleared out the morankai in the building. Eventually he led them all to the thirtieth floor.

“Does anyone need to eat? Need a drink? I imagine none of you have any points?” Kev said. He took a few moments to pull food from the Shop for everyone. They were hesitant at first, but Kev convinced them that he wasn’t worried about the points.

A regular meal was only a couple points. A fancier, more complicated meal, more points. Kev handed each person a low-tier healing pill and a recovery pill with their meal. “It will help.” He’d say with each set he passed out.

After everyone had their food Kev looked at the group and said, “Finish up and grab rooms everyone, the sun isn’t all the way up yet, but I’m leaving this cluster in a few hours, if you want to go with me, you’ll need to be ready to go by noon. Ma’, I’ll be back in a little bit.”

The tall man stood up, Kev thought he might have been trying to look intimidating, which he thought was adorable. “Look, I’m grateful you got us out of that death trap but if you think I’m going to just follow you around … “ the tall guy started.

“No.” Kev interrupted. “You misunderstand. I don’t care what you do.” Kev said, not turning or facing the man at all. “I brought you along because she asked me to,’ Kev gestured at his mother. “You can stay here if you want, or you can go with me to the main city cluster if you want.” At last Kev turned and faced the tall man, “You can jump off the building if you want. I kind of hope you don’t come because you’ll just slow me down, but if you stay here you might die, which will make her sad,” Kev said pointing at Alicia again. “Either way, I’m not leaving right this second so find a room and rest” Kev brooked no argument and the tall man stepped down a little.

“Look, you want to talk amongst yourselves, go ahead. Alicia can answer most of your questions I’m sure, but I’ll be knocking by noon and it's a long journey, so figure it out.” Kev said.

Kev went to leave, but his mom called out to him. She lead him by the elbow around a corner away from the people who just might have been calming down after their early morning ordeal

“They were bad men Kev.” She said.

“I know ma’” Kev said. His mother immediately realizing why he was tense. “You know it was a year here before the second wave showed up?”

Alicia nodded. Kev could see her flagging from the after effects of the ginseng pill,. She needed rest.

“My first day here, I just got out of the shop. I was looking out over my cluster. Trying to find anyone. The whole place was empty, just me. All of a sudden I saw this flash. Another person. I was relieved, you know? Still scared, still uncertain. But at least I wasn’t alone? I don’t know.” Kev paused for a moment in his recounting.

“I don’t know what his name was. I don’t know where he was from. I don’t know anything about him. In my head, I call him ‘The Shooter’ because as soon as he noticed me he shot at me. I heard the bullet fly by my ear.” Kev absent mindedly reached a hand up to his left ear as he stared into the past.

“At first I just ran. He shot at me more. Then I decided I wasn’t running anymore. I found him. I killed him. I hadn’t been on the First Layer for an hour. The first points I earned were killing him.” Kev tapped his ring and pulled out the gun. “ I got this gun from him, as well as this hat and some other useful things. “

“He didn’t have to die, but I killed him anyway. To get to your room, I had to kill a man. But we could have left without killing anyone else.” Kev stopped. “Those people out there, someone should have helped, someone should have saved them.” Kev stopped. A long pause making the air pregnant with his tension.

Alicia waited. Letting him release the energy in a way only a great mother can.

Kev continued. “They shouldn’t have needed saving ma’. This place is to make us band together, not fall apart. Not fracture into irrelevant and invented biased groups.”

“I know honey,” Alicia said after a while. “It doesn’t look like this new world is going to be any more fair than the old one.”

“No. But I wish it would be. I don't want to be anyone's hero.”

The tension bled out of the room and Kev began to calm. After a time Kev stood up and hugged his mom again. “Get some rest I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Where are you going” She asked.

“I have got to go pick something up that you’ll need.” Kev said.

“What?” Alicia said.

“You need points.” Kev said.

Alicia looked confused but didn’t argue more as Kev walked out of the room. He noticed that the common area was empty. Kev activated Soul Tracker and found the nearest golden morankai. He went hunting.

A little while later Kev returned to the skyscraper his mother was staying at. It was a good thing Soul Tracker worked so well, because he honestly got lost almost immediately and without Soul Tracker would probably never have been able to find that skyscraper again. The thought made Kev chuckle as he dragged his burden along. There was the soft clink of chain as his bundle shifted. He had emptied his storage backpack of the bodies he’d picked up in the rescue attempt. He found a nice looking necklace, probably the artifact that protected the fire guy from the bullets, a couple low-tier storage rings full of some goodies, some other gear too. Kev had left the bodies in the same way he left The Shooter all those months ago. On a balcony, wrapped in a white sheet. Even with the backpack empty, he couldn’t put his bundle in it, living things couldn’t enter storage.

Kev climbed up through the the skyscraper. It had taken him a lot longer to get back than he would have liked, but he had to take the streets, which meant a bunch of little fights. He couldn’t take the roofs because it would have been a little obvious. He still had a couple hours until noon, so it wasn’t a huge delay.

Kev put his load down a few floors below where his mother was staying and climbed up to get her. Kev knocked on her door and after some shuffling the door opened.

“Come on.” Kev whispered.

Alicia nodded and followed him down the hall and then down the stairs. Kev kept an ear out and didn’t hear anyone following them so he continued to the floor he’d left his luggage.

Lying on the floor in the middle of an open office environment was a morankai shaped bundle. Alicia gasped.

“Kevin Moses what did you do?”

“I brought you points ma’”

“It took you that long to go capture one zombie?” She asked.

“Yes. It’s special.” Kev said, pulling at the blanket he had wrapped around the bulbous head of the morankai. He hadn’t even finished unwrapping it before a soft golden glow started emanating from under the blanket. “I call it a golden morankai for obvious reasons,” Kev said as he exposed the creature. It’s a lot more valuable than a regular morankai. Normal mornakai are obviously worth about 10 points, sometimes 15 or more but not often. Abnormal morankai are like morankai with super powers. They are worth a couple hundred at most usually, except for sometimes there’s really tough bastards that are worth almost a thousand points,” Kev continued. “This one here. It’s weak, a little pathetic honestly. It doesn’t do much of anything at all. Kev looked down at the struggling creature. But, it's worth more than ten thousand points.”

Alicia gasped a little.

“Exactly.” Kev said. “But you only get the points if you put it down.” Kev pulled two things from his storage ring. His .45 caliber handgun, and a dagger.

“Kevin!” Alicia cried, “You cant make me kill this thing.”

“You’ll have to kill it ma’ I know you aren’t really interested in that, but we need to get you an ability before we can even try to cross the bridge and it will be the best one you have by far. Besides, I don’t think it's really even a living thing.” Kev kicked it a little.

“These things spawn from nowhere. They just show up fully grown already existing. Maybe they are being teleported here like human’s but I don’t think so. If you kill a human here, their body stays here. If you kill a morankai, it will disappear after a while. None of the other ones take it, it just vanishes. Even the living ones vanish after a while. I think these things are supposed to be farmed for points because we are supposed to use them to grow.” Kev finished.

Alicia looked speculative but still unconvinced. A sour look on her face. “I thought these things were bullet proof?” She said, clearly unhappy about this situation.

“They basically are, this one too. Unless you shoot it right here.” Kev pointed.

He took the blanket and covered it back up. “Look ma’ I’ll help. He got a distant look on his face as he looked in the shop for something in the mundane section. A moment later Kev pulled out a pair of over-ear hearing protection. “Take these.” She put them on. He handed Alicia the gun and raised her arm for her. “Close your eyes.” Alicia hesitated for a moment, then let her eyes close. “Pull the trigger.” After a long moment of silence, a single gunshot rang out. The only sound, the soft whirring of the air conditioning units as they spun back up.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Kev took the gun back, storing it. He took the hearing protection off and stored it too. He led Alicia away, all the way back to her room. He had her sit down before he asked.

“How many points did you get ma’?”

She looked a little shell shocked before she answered. “It felt nice.”

Kev was a little confused before he realized what she meant. The feeling of points made you feel warm on the inside, like drinking a hot chocolate on a cold snowy day.

“Yeah.” Kev said.

“You get points from killing people. Right?” She asked.

“Yeah.” He said. His voice cracked a little bit.

They sat in silence for a moment, Alicia realizing that the horror of killing a human person would have a pleasant feeling in the soul as their points were given. After a moment she shrugged off her melancholy with a deep breath. “I got almost fourteen thousand points.

Kev took another moment of silence, staring off into space before the mood broke for him too. “OK, not bad at all. Now, go to the shop, abilities and find ‘Ki Cultivator Mortal Tier.’ It is 5,000 points. You’ll probably want to go shower after so I might recommend doing this in the bathroom.”

Alicia ignored the advice but got the telltale far off look people got when they opened The Shop and after a minute or two of searching she said “Yes.” A slight glow emanated from her body as Ki Cultivator was added to her ability list. Dirty brown sweat started pouring out of Alicia’s pores, she got a cough and started trying to hack something up. Finally she decided to take Kev’s advice and she went into the bathroom.

A while later, Kev heard the shower turn on. When Kevin, or anyone else who got Ki Cultivator, purchased the ability from the Shop before coming to the First Layer, they didn’t have to go through the process of purifying and preparing the body as it took place in The Shop.

The people who got Ki Cultivator after getting to the First Layer, like Alicia, did have to go through the purification process. Kev had watched it many times with his group back in his cluster. Many of those people hadn’t purchased Ki Cultivator, it was one of the first abilities that Cameron and the rest encouraged them to get.

Their bodies would expel impurities through their sweat glands, often a dark brown substance. Some people would need to urgently use the restroom to relieve themselves, most would have some sort of a cough. The showers on the first layer were good enough to wash away the gunk and the people would come out looking fresh and clean and normally better than ever.

After kind of a long shower, where Kev imaged that she continued to process her emotions, Kev’s mom came out of the bathroom.

Kev’s mom was almost seventy, but you wouldn’t know that based on her appearance now. She had lost a bit of the extra weight the Moses family tended to keep around the middle, and her arms were more toned. Instead of looking like a relatively sedentary grandma, she looked like a grandma who had her kids when she was young and her grandkids when she was younger, who was more active than her lazy children.

“Well Look at you.” Kev said. “How do you feel?”

Alicia looked down at herself. After a moment she took a deep breath and sighed in a feeling of utter contentment. She replied very simply, with a gentle smile on her face. “I feel great.”

“Good. Now you should be able to get over that bridge a little easier. What are your stats?

“Oh, they are still pretty low.” She said. “Strength did go up from a two to a nine that's a lot. Endurance is an 8 now, it was a 2, my recovery was a 12 it’s a 24 now does that mean what I think it means?”

“That you heal twice as fast as before, wait did you say it was a 12 before?” Kev said, a little shocked.

“Yeah I guess it went up a little with my healing ability.” She said.

“Oh that makes sense, those are all huge increases, a '10’ is the human - for some reason human male - average. So most women here probably start with a strength stat of 6, maybe 7? Yours being 2 or 3 wasn’t surprising really, but its a huge increase to go up that high.”

“So I’m almost as strong as the average man?” Alicia asked. “And the 8 is a little low for average.”

“Yes.” Kev said. “And are almost as fit and tough as the average man too. You are probably stronger than that tall guy out there right now honestly.” Kev said. “What is your soul stat?”

“Well before it was a 15, it is a 16 now that's nice.”

“A 16? Did you get a boost from your healing power on that?”

“Nope.” Alicia answered.

“Damn ma’, that's a solid stat.”

“Oh yeah? What are your stats?” Alicia asked.

Kev got a little hesitant. “Well that’s a little complicated.”

Alicia got a look on her face.

Kev got nervous. “Um. I’ll just come right out and say it. One of the abilities in the Shop is called ‘Divine Doppelgãnger’,” Kev said. “It’s an ability that lets you create a copy of yourself. The copy is a little weaker than the original you might say. I’m the copy ma’.” Kev got a sad look on his face, concerned that his mother wouldn’t really consider him, Him. To him he was Him but would someone else think that?

Alicia sat there for a moment. “OK?” She seemed totally unphased. “So you are Kevin and there is another Kevin running around somewhere?”

Kev stopped. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. “Yes?”

“What's the difference between you and the other you?” Alicia asked.

“Uh, besides my stats being a little lower, and I don’t have access to two abilities, nothing as far as I can tell?”

“So you have the same memories, you think the same?” She asked.

“Yeah, actually one of my abilities lets me remember everything even better so yeah definitely.” Kev said.

“OK. So what are your stats?” Alicia asked again

“Um. Well, strength is 135…” Kev started.

“WHaT!” Alicia almost shouted. “135 that means you're as strong as ten men?!”

“Yup. Endurance is a 118, it actually went up a point.” Kev continued “And recovery is a 79.”

“Recovery is how fast you recover right, so does that mean that it would take you a day to recover from something that would take a regular person a week to recover from?” Alicia asked.

“Yes, and finally Soul stat is for a few different things. The main one is related to how you draw on your abilities. So for you, it would be how good you are at healing with the ability you currently have. It can get better a little without changing or increasing your soul stat, but if you really want to make some magic happen, then you need a higher soul stat. It also helps with other things too. Mental resilience for things like mind readers or whatever, helps you recover from trauma too I think. It also helps with perception but how it is related to that is weird and I’m not exactly sure yet. Anyway, you can think of ‘endurance’ as being how tough you are on the outside, and ‘soul’ as how tough you are on the inside with a few other benefits.” Kev finished.

“Oh. So what is your soul stat?” Alicia asked again.

“Oh, it's a 30 now. Kevin’s is even higher.” With the confused look on Alicia’s face, Kev added, “Oh we call me Kev by the way.”

“Well I’ll call you Kevin.” Alicia said.

The sentiment was heartwarming to Kev. He went over and hugged his mom again. “Thank you, but that will get confusing if we are ever together again,or we even talk about the other Kevin.” he said.

“So what is the Other Kevin doing anyway?” Alicia said, hugging Kev back.

“Well, Katie is here too.”

“What Oh my god is she OK? Where is she?” Alicia cried again.

“I don’t know. I … wait … Kevin … we?” Kev shook his head, “we got to the main cluster and had enough points to buy ‘Divine Doppelgãnger’. We split up, he’s stronger, faster and went to get Katie. I don’t think he has quite got her yet I can’t tell.”

“You can feel him?” Alicia asked.

“Yeah, it’s different from the way I found you or feel Katie. I felt a huge spike of danger from Kevin a few hours after we split up, I haven’t felt any huge sensation of relief or anything. I don’t know. That’s why we need to get out of here though. The bridge is still there, I don’t know how long it will be up for but we need to get to that bridge and get back to the main cluster.”

“Yeah I guess that is pretty urgent.”

“Yes.” Kev said. “Next. Spoils. Here. This necklace is some sort of defensive artifact. It didn’t help the main bad guy when I got in close, but you saw it stopped him from getting shot. You wear it. Then take this, It’s a storage ring, Low Tier but it can hold all kinds of stuff making life a lot easier for you. Then take this, I know you don’t want to have a gun or whatever, but in the least it will make you look more intimidating, you can store it in, yup just like that and now it’s in your ring. I’ll show you how to use the gun a little later. Take this too, it's just a knife but it is better than nothing.”

“What? No shield? I’m strong enough to hold one now.” Alicia said, Kev could hear the teasing sound in her voice.

“Actually …” Kev thought for a moment. “Did you know that holding a shield can be an ability?”

“Really. How?” Alicia asked.

“Well Ma, as it turns out, magic is real. So if you hold a shield and you are really good at it, then you can make your shield extra shieldy. That might be a good power for a woman who doesn’t want to kill stuff but wants to heal stuff. You could be like that guy during World War 2 who just ran around saving folks. The shield would make that a little easier.”

Kev watches as his mom’s eyes lit up a little as she considered the idea a little more. “That. That might actually be kind of nice.”

“OK. Well we can try and teach you the ability, open it organically, or we can buy it, but it is kind of a lot of points - 10,000 of them.” Kev continued.

“Mmm, Let’s try and open it organically first. How do you do it?” She asked.

“I can probably teach you, but it is about feeling the item as you feel yourself. Using the shield like it is a part of you, an extension.” Kev brought out his buckler shield. I hold this and it is not the wall - I am the wall. It does not stop the bullets or the blows. I stop them. It is part of me. It’s a tricky headspace to get into but once you get the basics then you can put extra energy into the shield and stop things that really shouldn’t be stopped.”

“OK, we can try that while we travel?” Alicia said the statement but inflected it like it was a question.

“Sure Ma’, I bet you're a natural.”

“Can you have your analyst friend check this please?” Kev said. He pulled a necklace out of his pocket that probably had some defensive capabilities. “Take these too, then get changed.” He handed her black military style fatigues and a bullet proof vest.”

“Sure. When are we leaving?” She asked.

Kev checked the window and said, “Now.”