Kev stood up and opened the door. Alicia started knocking on doors while Kev, slowly people started walking out of rooms with various levels of trepidation. They all did a double take as they looked at Alicia.
“Hi everyone, Let’s try some of this again. I have some plates of food over here, come grab them as we talk for a moment.” Kev waited for people to get the buffet style food options he had lined up. “I’m Kevin, please call me Kev. I am Alicia’s son and I was brought here to the First Layer in the first wave. From your perspective, I was here for a month before you showed up, so a bit more than two months total. From my perspective, I was here a whole year before you showed up, more than 13 months total.”
“As you all know, you have ability slots. Some of you have abilities that are useful, probably healing abilities or maybe knowledge based abilities, I don’t know the specifics. I have most of my abilities unlocked. One of them lets me share some of my points with people if I have a close enough connection with them. You might see that my mother, Alicia, looks quite a lot healthier. She is. I shared enough points with her to open up Ki Cultivator. I Strongly recommend that you all pick up this ability as soon as possible.”
Kev was starting to channel his inner Military Training Instructor as he continued. “Ki Cultivator does a lot of things, you can see by looking at her that she looks younger, she looks healthier and stronger. All of those things are immediately true. It also corrected her Heart condition, though she might not have even known that yet. Ki Cultivator is, in my opinion, the single strongest ability in all of the First Layer. It allows you to overcome your limitations and move into the realm of comic book hero.”
“The second ability that I would recommend immediately is a “Mastery” of some type. That is a weapon mastery like sword,” Kev made an axe appear from nowhere by tapping into his ring, “axe, spear whatever. You can do shield mastery too, but that obviously lacks a certain bite. With a Basic Mastery, you can kill a monster quite a lot easier, this becomes doubly true if you have Ki Cultivator. The two pack a one-two punch that is reliable, efficient and effective.”
“Before I continue does anyone have any questions?”
The tall guy answered. “Uh OK. Can you share points with any of us?”
Kev answered, “Well, …” He made a pause and waited for the tall guy to answer.
“Derek,” The tall guy answered
“Well Derek, no. The ability only works if I have a deep connection previously.” Kev lied, “Points are stored in the Soul. You’ve all seen your soul stat, the soul is a real thing totally separate and yet part of the body. Think of the soul like your heart or your lungs or your bones. It’s there, you can’t see it or really even feel it but it's definitely there and it has its own strength and that strength matters.” Kev continued to talk out his ass, “Giving points is a very personal and vulnerable thing. I can’t do it with just anyone. Even if I could, I ran mostly out of them getting her Ki Cultivator.” Kev gestured again at his mom.
“What I can do, for those of you who go with me, I can probably teach you Axe or Shield Mastery. It will probably take a few days at least, but the ability can be unlocked without spending the points. I’ve seen it done before, I’ve helped unlock it before. So I can’t give you points, but I can help you unlock an ability.”
“Anyone else for questions?” Kev asked. “OK. Well I’m leaving this cluster. Its a cluster fuck of stupid people being stupid and I don’t have the time or inclination to fix it, so instead I’m going to the center of this stupid Layer and meeting up with my own cluster.” Kev paused for a moment.
“If you want to come with me, we are going to travel down that weird ass ship bridge that you might have seen. There are morankai on the bridge. I killed a whole bunch coming here, and a good sized team from here already killed a bunch too so it's probably somewhat safe to travel right now. However, it is also being watched and we are definitely going to have to kill some people to leave. If you don’t want to kill anyone to leave, then stay here. If you don’t want to walk down a 500 mile long bridge made of nothing but boat after fucking boat, then stay here. If you don’t want to find out what the center of this Hell Hole is, then stay here. You have the amount of time it takes me to finish this large plate of food, and then I’m leaving.”
Kev heard the small group start to talk as he sat back and started to eat a large chicken taco salad, a bowl of exotic fruits and a small yogurt with a glass of OJ. He was surprised the Shop had No pulp OJ but wasn’t going to complain.
Kev took his time, finished eating. He stood up, grabbed a last piece of bacon before stretching out. He looked around for a moment. Everyone was ready to go. All 8 people he had rescued were coming.
“OK. Good. Let’s get ready to go. Everyone come here. We are all going to wear these fatigues and body armor. make us less likely to be harassed by any other groups who see us during the day. ”
They all lined up. “What’s your name? And what is your main ability” He said to the first woman who showed up. She was one of the college aged girls. She was short but fit, hispanic, with long dark hair she currently had in a ponytail. Her pretty, dark eyes looked scared but ready. “Anna” she said. “And I have a healing ability.”
“Anna,” Kev said. “My daughter’s middle name is Anna. OK Anna Anything else?” Kev asked.
“No.” She said.
“That’s OK. Do you want to try for a mastery?” He asked.
“Sure.” She said.
“OK.” Kev said. “Shield or Axe, or I might be able to get you through with Sword too but I haven’t tried it yet. I did have to deny Sword Mastery myself once upon a time but that isn’t a guarantee.”
“Um. I think I’d be better with a Shield honestly.” OK. Kev said. Kev opened The Shop and purchased an OK shield, as well as a cheap sword and a cheap handgun, a set of black military style fatigues and a bullet proof vest. The whole thing cost slightly more than 1,500 points. Kev was glad he had killed the two extra golden morankai in the area before bringing his mom the third. “Put these on, add the sword and gun to your belt and the shield on your back. Next.”
The next was the other college age girl. She was a perky brunette with, admittedly, beautiful green eyes. She looked like she was an athlete of some variety. “Cris.” She said. “And I also have a healing ability. Mine takes longer than Anna’s but it works better.”
“Good to know Cris. What about Masteries, do you want to work on one?” Kev said.
“Yeah. Sword I think? Do they have gun mastery?” She said.
“Not that I have ever seen, though there are abilities that make you handier with a gun, I just don’t have any and can’t teach them.” Kev went into The Shop and purchased a cheap shield, the same cheap handgun and an OK sword, also totaling about 1,500 points. “Put these on, add the sword and gun to your belt and the shield on your back. Next.”
The doctor was next. He still had the handgun and went to hand it to Kev. Kev made no motion to take the gun instead he looked into the doctor with Asian features. “Name and Abilities?”
“I’m Justin Wong,” he said. “I have a healing power that upgraded itself. I also have a “Enhanced Recovery” power. I think I’d like shield too” He said, but he looked at the handgun.
“Hi Doctor Justin. I’m going to be relying on you to help keep us set out there. In this place where pills can heal a bunch of injuries, there are things for doctors to do too. Here.” Kev handed him an OK shield and a cheap sword as well as the fatigues and vest.” Keep the gun, here’s the holster.”
Then there was a young black boy. Kev asked him what he had asked the other. The boy from probably from somewhere in Africa based on the language Kev was glad he didn’t need to recognize. That didn’t really matter now though.
“You can call me Bob. I have a learning ability that helps me see patterns better, as well as a healing ability that lets me heal minor wounds. I can't do anything for big wounds.”
“Do you have a mastery you want, Bob?” Kev said.
“Can you do spear? To my people the spear is very important.” Bob said.
“Hm..” Kev thought. “I can tell you a step or two but you may have to figure out the specifics yourself.” Kev went into The Shop and handed Bob an OK spear that had a javelin tip on one end and a leaf tip on the other. Then he handed him the cheap shield and cheap gun. “Put these on, add the gun to your belt and the shield on your back.” Kev said.
Bob nodded in a bow and walked away.
The next two were older women. One was an early forties white woman with a perfect Karen haircut. She had two abilities, one giving her increased strength, and a self healing. She had no interest in any mastery so Kev sent her on her way with a cheap shield and and cheap sword. He didn’t give her the gun right away. He pulled the gun out, checked it, and spent a moment showing her how to look down the sights and pull the trigger.
When asked why he answered “Not to be mean, but you look like you would be more likely to accidentally hurt one of us than one of them.” She scoffed but with no points of her own she couldn’t do anything. “Put these on, add the sword and gun to your belt and the shield on your back.”
The other woman was an Asian woman. She wouldn’t respond to Kev as he asked her questions. She only shrugged. He didn’t know what to do with that. He went to the shop and pulled out a notebook and pencil. Kev handed them to her. She started writing. Kev left her to it and went to the last guy. The tall guy.
“Derek. What about you.”
“I uh, I have an analyst ability that let’s me see what things are and understand applications a little better.”
“That’s Good.” Kev said. “I think that would be a fun ability. Have you had much time to use it?” Kev said.
“No not really.” Derek shrugged.
“What about mastery?” Kev asked.
“I used to do a lot of chopping wood. So maybe that?” Derek said looking at the axe Kev had pulled out earlier.
Kev nodded and pulled out a cheap shield, an OK axe and a cheap handgun. He ignored the look the Karen gave him and went back to the Asian woman. “ Put these on, add the axe and gun to your belt and the shield on your back.”
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It turned out. She was deaf. She arrived in the second wave with enhanced recovery and a fairy eyes ability that lets her see what people’s powers are and understand certain other things about the world around her. She tried communicating but it turns out The Shop doesn’t recognize sign language and wouldn’t translate for her. She tried just yelling at people trying to make up words but that didn’t work either. She eventually gave up. Having never had any points and not knowing how to tell people she needed something to write down on, she just gave up. She was very thankful to Kev for giving her a notebook. Kev wrote “Keep it” in the book and handed it back to her.
She wrote her name down in Chinese probably, and to Kev it translated it as “Shari” so that was good enough for him. Kev then asked if she understood enough of what he said before and she said “Yes I read lips OK.” She wanted sword mastery, but asked for two blades instead of a shield. Kev obliged her with two OK swords, the Karen rolled her eyes so hard Kev thought he might have felt it but he ignored her. He handed her the fatigues also.
Finally. They were ready to go.
Kev, his newly empowered mom and a group of second wave refugees started moving through the city. With the group as it was, Kev couldn’t risk too much street time, so they climbed to the roof. Kev had his armor and mask on with his pickaxe at the ready. Most of the journey was pretty calm. Unlike the people in Kev’s cluster, these refugees didn’t train, even if they had wanted to, they were prisoners and that made training hard. That meant their trek through the cluster was less of a run and more of a walk. The good news was, no one was looking for them really. Having only a couple hundred people in your organization didn’t extend your reach much outside your own controlled skyscrapers. Besides, anyone looking would be looking for refugees, not a coordinated group of nine led by an obvious elite with a giant rock hammer.
The sun was still high as they approached the great ship bridge. Kev had taken a roundabout way, skirting the edge of the White Folk territory. He made no effort to hide in particular, but being several hundred yards from the skyscrapers truly controlled by the white gang made the small group somewhat easy to ignore. A few skyscrapers from the edge of the cluster, Kev found what he was looking for. A building with many balconies. Most of the skyscrapers had at least one balcony, some had a few, some had a lot. Kev found one such building and led his group to it.
Once on top of the building, they entered the shed with the stairs inside and descended into the building. There weren’t too many mornakai in the building at all, let alone in their way, but Kev took them out anyway as they came across them. Finally, around the 12 floor, he found the lounge with a balcony that overlooked another skyscraper with a lounge and balcony.
“OK gang. Now we have a choice to make.” Kev said, looking at the group. He waited for their attention on him before he continued. “We can go to the ground floor, like we did before, and we can move from one skyscraper lobby to another. Fighting the morankai in the streets along the way. It is worth noting that we made it through by this method last time because we were quiet and it was dark as hell. It isn’t dark as hell anymore.” Kev said pointing up, the sun shining brightly overhead.
“Or. We can make our own rope bridge from this balcony to that one.” Kev said, pointing to the adjacent balcony on the adjacent skyscraper.
Everyone’s eyes went back and forth for a moment. Derek responded first, “How are we going to make our own bridge?” He asked like he couldn’t imagine there even was an answer to the question.
Kev responded, as if the answer was plainly obvious. “Well I’m going to make one. Obviously.”
“How?!” Derek said sounding frustrated.
Kev waited. Several people walked to the edge of the balcony and looked down at the streets, crawling with morankai. Everyone looked pretty uncertain.
Instead of answering, Kev acted. He pulled a rope from his inventory and cut it into several pieces. He handed them around and showed everyone how to create a quick rope harness, each having a few feet of spare rope. Then, As he had done many times before, Kev fashioned himself a rope bridge with a kettlebell and a light rope tossed over the distance. His strength as it was, it was getting trivial to make the toss. This time Kev did something a bit different though. Instead of tying the light rope to the railing of the balcony, Kev tied the light rope to three heavier duty ropes. The heavy duty ropes each got tied off to the balcony they stood on, two to the door handle and one to the handrail.
Then Kev did another thing he had never done before. He had everyone stand back from the edge, he stood by the building, got a huge running start, dashing as fast as his considerable strength combined with his mastery over Light Heavy would allow. He picked up speed rapidly, then vaulted off the handrail of his balcony, leaping towards the other balcony with Light Heavy to make the leap as efficient and powerful as possible.
Kev’s strength wasn’t quite enough that he could leap the whole thing in one go, a six lane highway, plus two wide sidewalks makes for a really big distance. Kevin might have been able to make it, even without Cloud Step shoes. Kev was going to be just a little shy. That’s why, at the peak of his jump, he pulled out his trusty umbrella. With Light Heavy active and Kev’s momentum already securely sending him in the right direction, it was a trivial matter to float gently down to the adjacent balcony one hundred feet away.
He turned and saw his group all looking at him with mouths agape. Kev smirked and then started pulling the small rope to his side. Once he had the thicker ropes in hand, he tied one to the handrail of the balcony, one to the door of the balcony, and the third he tied to his pickaxe. He activated light heavy to make his pickaxe weight a huge amount and balanced it against the edge of the balcony. This created a three rope bridge, one for the feet and two for handrails. Kev was a little worried about his mother on such a rickety thing, but had asked her about it earlier in the day. She, with her newly restored body, and admittedly another Boiling Dragon Ginseng Booster pill, had looked excited to try.
Doctor Justin caught on right away. He tied the bit of extra rope to the handrope that was connected to the door handles. Securely tied off, Doctor Justin climbed up onto the rope bridge and began crossing. It was slow going compared to Kev, but in less than a minute Justin was across. Bob went next, following the doctors lead, then Anna and Cris, then Shari. Karen hesitated but with encouragement from Alicia she went across.
Kev wasn’t 100% sure what Alicia said to Derek, who looked by far to be the least comfortable with the notion, but he guessed it was probably something like “Go or die.” Derek took twice as long as everyone else took but he too made it over the rope bridge. Last over was Alicia, she touched down on the new balcony with a little smile on her face, probably enjoying the fact that she wasn’t nearly as tired as she would have been even a couple hours earlier. Kev smiled back, untied the rope from his pickaxe and they went inside the new building.
They moved like this for several more buildings, sneaking from one skyscraper to the next. The progress was considerably slower than Kev would have liked, but even Derek was getting the hang of it by the end, more than halving his time across the bridge.
“OK. Great work so far everyone. We have one more. This last bridge and we are at the right skyscraper.” The group exited the skyscraper and walked out onto the balcony. “ You can see it from here. The ship bridge there.” Kev pointed and waited for every to gawk. “That building is definitely handily in the White Folk territory, and definitely handily going to be guarded. I’m really surprised there isn’t anyone on that balcony there,” Kev said, pointing a few floors down to the balcony they were going to.
“Wait. How are we going to rope bridge this one?” Bob said.
Kev was a little impressed that Derek hadn’t asked, as he seemed to be the most skittish, but Bob didn’t look worried, only curious.
“Well,” Kev said, “this one is going to be less of a bridge than a zipline. On the other side, I’ll tie off onto the door the same as we have been and you’ll tie yourself onto this rope,” Kev said as he finished fixing the single thick rope to the handrail. “Then you’ll just hold on while it brings you right to me. I promise I’ll catch you.” Kev said, giving Bob a friendly wink. Bob nodded back looking kind of excited actually. Derek and even Alicia looked decidedly less so.
Unlike on previous bridges, the Karen, Kev could not remember her name to save his life, opted to go first once Kev had tied the rope off on the door. Kev smirked again as she tied herself to the rope and with minimal hesitation levered herself off the handrail and ziplined down the rope to Kev. Kev caught her as promised and slowed her down before she crashed into the building. He untied her personal rope from the zipline rope and looked up, waiting for Doctor Justin who had already tied himself to the zipline.
That is when Kev felt Karen put a gun to his head and pull the trigger.
*Click*
Lightning fast, Kev turned and slapped his hand over her mouth, pushing her up against the building to make sure she couldn’t make a sound.
He whispered quietly in her ear, “Ah ah ah, now now, that wasn’t very nice.” He drew his gun and put it between her eyes. The look of horror on her face was something Kev wasn’t entirely happy to put there but couldn’t quite regret. She struggled to move Kev’s hand off her, but she was as weak as a baby compared to Kev, she was absolutely not at all strong enough to resist him. “stop your struggling before I toss you from this balcony and let the zombies have you.” Karen stopped struggling just as Doctor Justing brought himself to a stop on the balcony.
“Whats going on?! Justin said, a sentiment mirrored in the faces of the people on the other side of the zipline.
Only a second later, so fast that Bob must have tied himself up and started down the zipline before Justin even landed, Bob answered. “She tried to shoot Kevin.”
“Yep.” said Kev said..
They waited for a moment as the rest of the group ziplined down, Kev still holding Karen’s mouth shut but having Bob help him tie her up a bit.
“She was a prisoner of war, not a prisoner of convenience.” Alicia said. I warned Kevin before we met up this morning. She is one of the higher ups women.”
“Yup. That's why I went through the motions of checking her gun. I made a show of putting a bullet in the chamber, only to sleight of hand it out of there. Then I kept an eye on her as we moved to make sure she never got a round in the weapon. Anyway, Now, she’ll be our ticket out of here if we get discovered. “ Everyone, Shields up, weapons out, ready to shoot but you don’t even have to aim, we just want to look like we are ready to fight.
Kev went to the balcony doors and entered the skyscraper. They began climbing up the stairs, until they made it to the floor with the balcony that touched the ship bridge. Unfortunately, this was as far as they could make it without dealing with the sentries.
Kev gestured to the group to line up behind him. Shields up, guns drawn and pointing at the men. The two sentries were in the lounge area connected to the balcony, unlike when Kev had arrived. By the time they noticed Kev and the group, they were less than thirty feet from the sentries, they jumped at the sudden presence of enemies. Kev had his hand around the Karen’s throat, her mouth covered with the sheet but her face on full display. The two men froze at the sight of her.
“Brandy!” One said. “What the Hell” said the other.
“Hello gentleman. I freed all the prisoners from the Freedom Faction. While I was doing that, I found her. I guess she’s going steady with one of your leaders?” Kev said, putting a mocking inflection to his voice.
The men looked at each other and back up to Kev. “We don’t want any trouble, we just want to leave. So this goes one of two ways.” Kev said.
“One, I kill her, then we kill you.” The woman’s eyes must have bugged out because the men’s eyes did too.
“Or, two, you two just scoot down over there a little bit, we walk outside and jump on that there bridge and walk off into the sunset. You get to come up with whatever story you want about how you found this one,” he said, indicating ‘Brandy’ evidently. “Then everyone is happy.” Kev finished.
The two men looked at eachother again. They didn’t speak a word as they walked down the hall backwards away from Kev.
“Go.” He said to the group as they pivoted around Kev and the woman.
“Thank you,” Kev said as he backed toward the balcony door. “You made it possible for us to leave here without killing anyone else.”
He backed out on to the balcony amidst some choice language Brandy was trying to spit at him, the cloth in her mouth making that impossible. The two men appeared in the lounge area again, weapons up. “Ma’ get moving, I’ll catch up.”
“Kevin we can ..”
“No,” Kev said, “They are gonna open those doors and shoot us down. Get into cover and start down the bridge. The nearest morankai is farther away, you will be fine. Go.” He waited a couple minutes in silence, watching the two men.
Kev pulled two things out of his storage ring, something he had used to great effect in the past. He put two door stops he took from the other skyscraper into the balcony door that opened Out. He tossed Brandy like she was a sack of potatoes, she hit her head but Kev was pretty sure she was only out cold and not dead. He felt bad so he flicked a low-tier healing pill towards her, Kev let out a chuckle as it bounced off her forehead.
The men tried to force the door. When that didn’t work, they raised their guns and shot at Kev. The only problem being that the glass windows of the skyscrapers were as unbreakable as everything else on the layer. Bullets ricocheted off the windows, one maybe even hitting one of the guards’ vest. Kev only smiled and waved as he gave them each the bird, jumped lightly onto the bridge and chased after the rest of the group.