Chapter Twelve

The room I found myself in a few seconds later was clearly a construct program, walls of polished wood with screens dotted around them here and there, showing details of the guild.

The floor was covered in a thick carpet, and when I appeared I stood with four other figures, two of which were phasing into existence as I blinked.

Julius stood across from me, waiting patiently with a circular table between us all, the four of us arrayed around the outside. I glanced from him to the table, seeing a large scale multi-level map that looked to be in a vaguely familiar shape for some reason, but that’s all I had time to notice, before the other figure spoke.

“I demand an apology!”

I glanced at him, curious, only to find the fucker staring at me, and I froze, totally confused, before the credit chip dropped.

This was that elf wanker from the rescue op this morning. He was clearly expecting me to break down and beg for forgiveness for calling his mouth a cock-holster this morning.

“No,” I said, then I looked back at the map, before glancing up at Julius. “What’s up?” I asked as the other two finished appearing to my left and right.

They were, in no particular order, a tall half goblin and a short as fuck human. The half goblin with his long ears, pointed nose and a generally shifty expression made me want to check my credit balance, but that was instinctual.

I felt the same whenever I was aware I was near a lawyer.

The short human was broad enough he could have some dwarvish blood, but the clean shaven chin and shaggy mop of hair suggested otherwise. The pair of them kept silent as dickhead spoke over Julius.

“Thanks for—”

“You’ll damn well apologize or I’ll have you striped of your rank!” the elf snapped.

“Fuck’s sake, Trees!” Julius snapped, turning to him. “No, you fucking won’t, alright? If Kabutt breaks the rules, then yes, you can request a review of his status, and yeah, if he’s done something wrong, you can request I take action, that’s it though! You think that investing a loan of credits in my guild gives you power? Believe me, you keep this up and I’ll damn well pay it back early, and boot you! Learn to goddamn behave!”

I grinned at the outraged expression on the elf’s face, only to have Julius round on me next. “And you, Kabutt, you fucking idiot, you need to damn well learn to shut your mouth and keep your head down!”

“I didn’t say anything,” I pointed out entirely reasonably.

“You know what you did,” he snapped, shaking his head. “The pair of you leave it, alright? We’ve got a confirmed Specter nest, and it’s building to outbreak levels. I need to contain it, then cleanse the building and—”

“I refuse,” Trees snapped. “I will not work with this creature, nor his half-breed pets. Remove him or my team and I are out.”

“Trees…” Julius growled warningly.

“I mean it, guildmaster .” Trees drew the title out with a sneer. “If they are in, we, are out.”

“Fine,” Julius said, straightening, and smiling, though it clearly pained him. “You sure about that?”

“Very.” Trees smiled, turning to me and looking down his nose as if I was a bug that was crawling on his picnic.

“Fine, well, consider this your notice. Here’s your money back, along with the interest agreed, and you’re back to being a regular member of the guild, you’re also missing out on the bonuses for this mission.”

“Wait, what! No, I don’t accept…” Trees said before he dissolved in a pixelated blur and vanished.

“Now that’s sorted out, The mission is down to your three teams, I think you can still do it without any losses, but still, you’ll need to be damn careful, as you’re all I have to hand, and I’d rather have had that happen at the end of the mission than before it,” Julius said with a pained expression. “Kabutt, stay back at the end of the briefing alright?”

“Yes, Guildmaster,” I said formally, with none of the mockery that Trees had injected the title with earlier.

“Thank you.” He nodded. “Okay, so this nest was reported by the Owlson Corporation, and for those that have noticed the layout of the floors? Yes, its inside one of the old fusion cooling towers.”

The map switched to a live view, showing a section of the eastern wall of the city, and the great cooling towers that used to be used in the old fusion power plants over there.

They’d been converted from the massive towers that had each covered a city block, into businesses, production facilities, and more long ago.

Most had then failed, their location and shapes making them unsuitable for heavy manufacturing, and the spaces too large for anything else, with some insane zoning law preventing them being knocked down, or repurposed into badly needed accommodation.

They’d been moved into by gangs and bums, one had—for a short while—been used as a semi-official fight club, the top floor of the tower, circular as it was, being surrounded on all sides by cameras and massive cages.

The center had been converted into a maze of sorts, and the fight club had run once a week, releasing various monsters into the maze from the cages, along with those desperate enough to take the risk and the money to try and reach the center.

Only one had even managed it, as I remembered, and she’d died a few minutes after, a leg ripped off before the victory auto-cannons could take the beasts down.

Once people had realized finally that nobody really ‘won’? That was the end of the show, and the various bastards that supported it drifted away to other blood sports.

Now, it’d become a nest of specters somehow, and we were being tasked to sort it out.

“I’d recommend you take some newbies to form the outer perimeter, and I’ll set one of the less experienced teams to watch over them, keep the tower from being reinforced from below once you start to climb, but be warned!” Julius said. “I can’t send less experienced teams into something like this, they’d be chewed up and spit out. You’ll need a fuck load of ammo, and you’ll need to secure floor by floor. The newbies will be able to hold a line, but you’ll need to clear the area first, then we can seal the entrances from below while they do that. Once they’re sealed?

“Take it damn slow, climb a level at a time, clear it, seal it, take the next one. Do not, under any circumstances, let yourselves get pushed into a corner where they can get at you. Remember these are specters, yes, but they’re forming a nest and they’re almost at outbreak level.

“For you, Kabutt—Liolet and Timur have been with me a while and already know—that means that there’s at least one Ghoul, probably several, and if there’s nowhere for them to flee to, we might get a chance at a higher level specter as well, a banshee or something else.

“That they’re here means that you’ll be facing the worst possible mixture, specters that know no fear nor pain, and are controlled and more or less experienced. This is where it’s easiest to lose people, and that cannot happen. I’d rather we failed the mission and I lost my bid, than I lost your teams, alright?” He looked from one of us to the others, and I shrugged.

“Bid?” I asked.

“Damn, that’s your question?” the half goblin asked, shaking his head. “The guilds bid for contracts, like a formal bribe, whoever makes the best offer gets the mission, as the government department that arranges these things are greedy fucks.”

“Basically,” Julius agreed. “It’s a closed system though, so you might bid too low or too high and you never know it, so you literally gamble every day. If nobody else bid and we put up a single credit? We’d get it, if ten other guilds all bid in the thousands? We’d be marked as timewasters by the government and blacklisted from future missions of this size. They’ve got it stitched up tight.”

“The newbies I can understand,” said the human gruffly. “And as much as he had a decent kill ratio, Trees was an asshole, but I’ve never met this one before. Can we trust him to stand firm?” He looked at me, and I bristled slightly, before Julius gestured to one of the screens on the wall and spoke briefly.

“Watch the second screen, that’s his recording from this morning, the third screen is showing an AI generated overview of his actions seen from above, along with a direct kill count.”

I glanced over, watching as I raced back and forth, the flare of the plasma blade lighting the darkness, seeing it reflected in the dead eyes and optical pickups of the specters that were trying to mob me.

It went on and on, until Julius gestured again, and the feed sped up to a blur of flashing fire, teeth and glinting metal.

“Four hundred and eleven confirmed personal kills over an hour and seventeen minutes,” Julius said eventually into the silence, the same figures flashing over and over on the third screen, watching as I pulled the rifle out and tossed both an EMP and started firing at the ambushers. “He’s why myself AND Trees, not to mention the rest of the teams this morning actually survived, so yeah. I’d say he earned a promotion to the more serious teams.”

“I stand corrected.” The human grunted, then grinned. “So, what did you say to the prick then?”

“Now, now, no need for that,” Julius said sternly, while gesturing unsubtly to the second screen, as the sound started to play as Trees refused to help with the cleanup and walked away.

“…You, ya pointy eared cock-holster, get your arse back here and help clear the site, the jobs…” My voice echoed around the room for a brief minute before Julius waved again. “Whoops, apologies everyone, no idea how that happened. Anyway … any other questions?”

“EMPs?” the half goblin asked.

“Nope, the owner of the site is utterly adamant, any use of EMP and we forfeit the entire payment, including the bid.”

“Fuck.”

“Quite,” Julius agreed. “Beyond that, minimal collateral site damage is requested, but obviously that’s down to interpretation. I’d stress that you’re climbing the stairs there to the higher levels, so damaging the stairs and structure you then need to climb? Not a good idea.”

“Fair enough. Any restrictions on caliber?” the human asked and Julius shook his head.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“No, use whatever you feel is needed, again within reason. If you try to use a directional demolition charge, there damn well better be a reason for it.”

“I like big explosions?”

“That’s NOT a good enough reason,” Julius said with a faint smile. “Remember, minimum collateral damage.”

“You said there was a bonus when you kicked the pointy eared prick out?” I asked.

“I was lying.” He shrugged. “Sorry, but it was a cheap shot. If you can beat your kill record though? Yeah, I’m sure we can come up with a reward, a little gold cup for your shelf or something that says ‘I’m the best’,” Julius said that last bit in a high pitched joking voice and I shot him the finger, as the other two laughed.

“Seriously though. Be careful out there, mission starts in an hour, that’s the soonest the client could clear their people out, and they want us on site ready to go.”

“I’ve got Gessh down for an op right now,” I groaned. “Seriously, she’s not going to be ready.”

“Fuck!” Julius snapped. “Seriously, Kabutt, now of all times you tell me that?”

“Her foot was utterly fucked this morning, so she needed it replacing, her decision was to upgrade to new legs.” I shrugged not overly concerned. “If we’re late to the party, well, Reign and I can hold the line and we just don’t go in until they can join us.”

“They?”

“You think Luna is going to leave her sister unconscious in a carvers?”

“Fine. I’ll tell the client two hours, but seriously, Kabutt, if its more than that, we’ll lose the mission.”

“Do we have to clear it in a set time?” I asked.

“No, but we have to start it in a minimum time period, and seal the outbreak before it can get worse.”

“Every minute it’s open and operating as a nest, specters will flock to it, nobody knows exactly why, but as soon as one passes a certain level? It’s like someone sets a giant magnet there, all the local specters are dragged in, and the effect only grows the longer its active,” the goblin groused. “Seriously you’re a killer, great, but I hate dealing with newbies.”

“You both got team tac-nets?” I asked and they nodded. “Can you open a code to me?” They both nodded, seemingly reassured a little at that suggestion.

“Okay, you can exchange numbers and promise to plait each other’s hair when you get there,” Julius said with a quirk of the lips. “For now though, any last questions before I call the client and confirm times?”

“No.”

“Not from me.”

“No?” I said last, and he nodded, waving the others away.

As they dissolved he turned to me, and we stared at each other for a long few seconds.

“So, you gonna kiss me or kill me?” I joked, getting a shake of his head.

“Fuck’s sake, Kabutt,” he groused. “Okay look, just so we’re clear on this, the plan hadn’t been to get rid of Trees, not yet, and certainly not in favor of you, you’re efficient but fuck you’re a pain in the ass. I wanted to make it clear that you don’t hold any special power over things because I chose to keep you and boot him, the fucker was pushing too hard. If I didn’t slap him down now? I’d never have gotten his boot off my neck.”

“I understand. So what’s the problem?”

“Two things.” He sighed. “First of all, we’re fucked for disposable cash, you fail this mission? The guild goes belly up. I cleaned out everything to get that fucker paid off.”

“Shit!” I growled. “What the hell is the second thing then?”

“Even if we survive?” he said after a few seconds. “We need an edge to clear the field, we need to be able to clear places like this much faster. You know any of your old APS buddies that retired with their suits and that might be open for a few missions? I know of four upcoming nests that we could hit. I’d split the entire fee for them with them.”

“The fee?”

“The guild takes a cut, and we make money on every specter killed,” he clarified. “I’d split that, and if we could clear out all four nests? Or better yet, let them reach outbreak level, THEN clear them? We’d get serious credits, AND we’d have essentially depleted the surrounding areas of all specters. We could go back to culling the herds and making a decent wedge doing it, but without the desperation we’re currently under, and we’d be able to get the guild back on its feet as well.”

“Honestly?” I asked, and he nodded. “No.”

“What...?”

“I don’t know any other operators that got out with their suits. We were in six man teams, and most of mine died on the last mission…” I paused, wondering if I could trust him.

“But?” he asked. “Come on, Kabutt, there’s something there, I can smell the burning hair as you concentrate.”

“There MIGHT be a way to get a single small team. One that might even hang around a few weeks to months.”

“How?” he asked quickly, desperation clear on his face.

“It’d not be cheap.”

“Kabutt, a nest can run from three hundred to several thousand specters, each is worth a hundred and fifty credits to the guild, the city pays the hundred, the local business or corp pays the fifty. You get your share, the hundred, we get fifty more per kill, that sounds like a lot, but honestly, take the bids off and the operating costs of the guild house and more? I make less than you I bet.”

“So let’s say four nests, a few thousand in each, maybe a bit less…” I mused. “Let’s say four thousand total, four thousand specters, me and my team… let’s say ten of us. We make ten credits each per kill, plus half of that fifty, so say twelve credits, for ease of working here.”

“Uh-huh,” he agreed, nodding.

“That’s only forty-eight thousand credits each,” I pointed out. “Seriously, that’s not gonna cut it.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” he agreed, before grinning. “And that’s where your friend comes in. How much do you think your share of four thousand specters worth of mods would run to?”

“Between ten of us? Four hundred mods?” I shrugged. “A lot.”

“A hell of a lot,” he agreed. “I make the recovery team hand in EVERYTHING.”

“Everything?” I asked, a definite plan raising its ugly head at that. “You make them hand it all in, all guns, mods, loot, everything?”

“If that’s what it takes, then hell yes. Look, I know the recover team make a killing on their loot, I turned a blind eye when I thought it was from smelting the mods down, and frankly, I don’t need the shit that would come if I forced them to do this all the time, as I’m betting the majority of the mods they strip need a shitload of work doing to them to get them even clean enough to identify or weigh in as scrap. For this though? For a one off? Yeah. I’d do that, and you’d damn well make a killing, out of four hundred mods if you get even two hundred and fifty credits per mod—and I’m betting you get a lot more than that, you’re looking at a hundred grand.”

“Sure, but a corpo bodyguard makes that in what? A few weeks?” I pointed out. “They get none of the stress, none of the crawling through the fucking sewers, none of the ammo expenditure…”

“No, but you’d need to deal with corpos all day,” he pointed out. “Here you’d have a home, as well as a guild around you should you get into trouble, and you’d be free to take or refuse jobs.”

“So…” I paused, considering how best to say it. “…let’s say that maybe, maybe … there’s a way to get three APS in motion, there’d be some costs, you understand.”

“What kind of costs?” he asked.

“I’ve got my armor,” I said with a little smile.

“You’ve… you’ve got it NOW?” he asked, a desperate smile lighting his face.

“Yes and no.” I held up a hand. “It’s repaired but it wasn’t finished, it was harvested for parts by an asshole in the APS Corps. I’m buying and fitting replacement parts now. The sooner I have those parts? The sooner I’m up and running.”

“How much?” he asked, rubbing his chin.

“About a million.”

“A MILLION?”

“I’ve got the skeleton,” I said. “It’s not even powered. At this stage its ready for slotting the parts, but…”

“Fuck’s sake, Kabutt!” Julius snarled, “I swear you’re like my ex-wife! Everything you promise is a fucking lie!”

“No.” I resisted the urge to smile. “It’s just not what you want to hear. Seriously, I can get my suit up and running, I’m not looking for you to help, and I’m sure as shit not being beholden to you for it. What I need? When the time comes, I need you to charter a guild official mission out of the city, and you’ll need to accept some new members, as if they’d always been in the guild, without asking any questions. Alright?”

“Are they black ops?” he asked, and I glared at him.

“Which part of ‘don’t ask any questions’ suggested ‘hey ask any questions you want’?”

“Kabutt, I’m willing to skirt close to the fucking edge alright? To help keep my guild running, sure I might even turn a blind eye here and there, but if you’re asking me to betray Artem…”

“Betray?” I asked confused. “Fuck no, they’re APS, they’re just unlicensed. Suits that I can recover, and operators that can use them you idiot. They’re good people.”

“So not operators from other cities?”

“Julius, if I could get another cities suits intact, I’d sell them in a heartbeat, just like if they could get our suits they’d not be working on specter clearance for a shitty guild alright? Sorry mate but it’s true. We’re in need of more or less honest work that’s all, establish a history, then if this isn’t working out, we’ll fuck off and go corpo bodyguard. If it is? Well, we’ll see then.”

“So you just need a sanctioned flight out to collect and then no questions asked?”

“I’ll sort the rest,” I agreed, and after a long minute, he sighed and nodded, offering a fist to bump.

“Then it’s a deal, and if this mission goes well? Maybe we can do something with the mods.”

“Deal.” I grinned, then disconnecting from the virtual as Reign shook me by the shoulder.

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