I came out of the interrogation frustrated, more because Delmer was a street tough who didn’t know much than the other help he was going to provide. It was almost time to get him up in front of somebody important, and have him spill his guts. Almost.

Before that though, I brought up my map, which sizzled with new information. I had the names and territories of a dozen sub-gangs all operating under the Ringo-Dango umbrella. The Boss was a middle-of-the-road operator, tucked in between some heavies and some nobodies. Where the map had been all shadowy and fogged out before, now I had a colorful political chart, along with the names of leaders (at least as far as Delmer knew), number of crew members, and typical method of making money. It wasn’t much, given that this was only the lower section of Pacman’s face, less than a third of him overall. But it wasn’t nothing.

Along with the Boss’s territory rubbing up against E. Gojira X, Delmer said I had another crew on me to the south. The Brass Crosses..

The countdown timer above the quest read two days twelve hours.

With my five combat weenies, my people numbered 32, with another 20 or so young, old, infirm, or conscientious objectors and like a hundred more NPCs. The Brass Crosses gang numbered 257, while the Boss gang was apparently up to around 275.

I wasn’t too surprised that the Boss gang was the biggest. Was surprised that the Brass Crosses were nearly the same number though.

South of them on the map, I’d also have to worry about The Syndicate, as well as its neighbor gang The Fallen Angels. I didn’t know whether that made them strong allies or one of them a splinter faction that carved off part of its territory from the other in a bloody struggle for power. Both of these gangs were apparently card dealers, but Delmer wasn’t clear on what sort of cards.

The kind that would mean my people and I were going to get completely wiped off the map for attacking them, or the sort you played five card draw with?

Further afield, Delmer knew of a couple of other gangs The Boss did business with, but they weren’t near my fledgling territory. I earmarked a few items of information from my sidebar,, and went to look for Eric.

Delmer was a start, but I needed some verified info from a trusted source. Consolidating my power seemed like the ideal move to start with, but now it seemed short-sighted.

Eric also looked refreshed when I found him a couple minutes later.

“I prefer you not smeared in crap,” I said.

He chuckled. “Yeah. Me too, boss.”

“We need to secure some intel. You know any info brokers, or have any friends in the Boss gang?”

He rubbed his furry chin. “I might know a guy… not sure if he’ll still give me any info after I defected, but I can try him.”

I nodded. “If it’s a risk you’re confident won’t end with you getting killed, take it.”

He nodded and headed out.

After that I settled in. It was another night in Gojira-X Prefecture. Another night of people crafting, guarding, taking a break, resting. I was up on my floor in the common room watching the vid screen. And things weren’t pretty.

The nanowaves were battling across Europe, a desperate fight that flashed from location to location.

In Prague, soldiers were firing shoulder-mounted rockets, screaming obscenities while flame gouted out the back and that blessed white light of metallic destruction rocked the globs before them.

Across Germany large pockets of resistance had been surrounded by the goo, but fought on. Behind their tanks, infantry, and attack choppers I saw the burning light of their reactors, all of them intentionally exploded in a nuclear reaction, all of them blanketing the vicinity with electronics killing waves too powerful for the nano-assault.

I shook my head, tipping back a cold bottle of Asani-Light beer to my lips.

It sucked to surrender, but that seemed like a step too far.

I flipped the channel and saw that London had become some sort of intense futuristic racing game. Aliens, assumedly humans who’d taken the chance to make character and race, were swerving through and slamming about on courses laid throughout the city, the buildings themselves cratered and pocked by some unknown apocalypse.

The city was littered with clusters of homeless tribes, battling and blazing about the sidelines, and it all looked like a chaotic mess. A mash-up of different genres gone horribly wrong.

Maybe the Germans had it right and we’d just gotten off light.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

My thoughts on the matter were interrupted by a flashing message in my console, accompanied by an emergency beep. I hadn’t had one of those and it really shot through me. I was up and off of the sofa before I’d even checked to see what was the matter. My heart beat hard, my fists clenched.

I was sure it was clobbering time.

I brought up the emergency message and opened it, letting the words fall in order across my sight. It felt less sudden than just having all the words pop up together and completed in front of me.

There’s something strange going on here sir. One of the NPC groups you ordered onto the guard rotation for tonight is, well, he’s refusing to obey your orders sir.

I stared at it for a moment. An NPC that the system had basically told me would be an easy-to-order about peon was standing up to my commands? I was amused. This felt like something good. I had to go there and see what was up.

What are you thinking? Is this some sort of glitch? These NPCs are basically robots after all.

I waited, but not long. I got the sense the real person I was chatting with was just as curious as I was.

I don’t know if this is a glitch or if it is by design, sir. It could be just some random roll of the personality dice that, well, I don’t know how to explain it really. Just this has gotta be the weirdest human I’ve ever met. I think you’ll just have to come and see this yourself.

Yeah I could do that. I headed over to the elevator and made my way down to the lobby. When the doors dinged open, I walked out, spotted the group of them over near the entry doors, and double-timed on over..

“What seems to be the problem here?” I asked.

It was a group of five. Roamers, I liked to think of them as. Basically zombies forced to pull fire guard, that nighttime shift that was the enemy of soldiers everywhere. Four of the roamers were looking quite martial. They’d donned some makeshift camo, had a basic weapons complement from the crafters, and had that gung-ho movie look to them. AI guys rearing for their red badge of courage.

The last one, though, he was dressed in a red suit and bowtie, a black vest underneath. His eyes were wide and wild, his hair a gray-platinum poof like rose majestic like the top of a mushroom cloud. A goatee of the same color framed the rest of his face. And somehow, despite his obvious ire, his overall demeanor gave off the aura of insane happiness.

Next to them stood the real human guy. I knew it was him because, despite his own camo and weapons, he was trying hard not to laugh.

The man in the red suit stepped forward. “Finally! A man with education! The problem, good sir, is that such duties are beneath one of my particular stature!”

I nodded at the guy, made a show of scanning over the others. “You all get to duty. I’ll deal with this man myself.”

They moved off, showing signs of relief. One of the NPC workers even sighed. Good. Now that I knew that even my so-called peons were basically people, I was happy to see them fear my wrath. Well, except for the real human who finally cracked, laughing heartily at the whole ordeal.

I grunted and coughed, covering up the fact that I had almost joined him. Turning my eyes back to the red-suit dude, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Dude was tall, but barely-muscled and in no way a threat. Yet he looked me slowly up and down, that sort of size-up you do before a prize match in the ring.

“You like what you see, buddy?” I asked.

He nodded, a curt bob, then put both of his hands out in front, palms facing my face. “I am a man of mystery!”

I barked a laugh. This was awesome. “Yeah? What you got for me, mystery man?”

To my surprise he turned sideways, slapped his hands together, and a green stalk arose from the crevice of their joining. The stalk spiraled, then budded, finally blooming into a magnificent purple rose.

I wasn’t laughing now. Instead I nodded to show interest. “What else can you do?” I asked.

“Doug,” he replied. I stared. “My name is Doug, and I can do this!” His hands tore apart, the rose exploded into a dozen thorns, each whizzing outward at deadly speed. Just as quickly he dropped to the marble floor, the bottoms of his fists slapping on their well-polished sheen. The thorns clattered down, neutralized.

Well, that was something. He wasn’t normal, sure, but sometimes the most useful people weren’t. Or robots or whatever.

“Can you do other stuff like that?” I asked. He didn’t flinch, I noticed, as my eyes grilled his own. Doug rolled a hand around into a circle, leaving a line of brief flame that flashed out of existence just a moment later.

“I can’t yet.” He paused, regarding his hands with a cocked head as if mystified by them himself. “But I feel strongly that I will be able to if I’m not trapped in menial work with my lessers! The powers of the Cosmos are at my fingertips, begging to be unleashed. I SHALL RULE THE UNIVERSE!”

That seemed a bit evil-villainy, but according to my display he was a level three. I wasn’t too worried about the statement and this was the first time that I’d seen any manifestation of real magical powers. Like stuff that wasn’t obviously straight from a card. I ran through my display, selected him, and noticed that he had an asterisk next to his name.

Strange.

I opened up his stats and saw why. Dude had a stat I’d never seen before. Mana! The words were out of my mouth before I could even really think it over.

“How’d you like to be a magic-user for our team? A lab for spells, practice, and whatever else you need to get those powers up and on my side?”

Doug stared, briefly, then took a bow. “I accept,” he stated. Then he turned and walked away.

“Where you going?” I shouted after him.

“To fulfill my destiny. Also, snack time,” he answered.

I waved him off, not even sure if he was still looking, and walked back over to the elevator. Riding it up, I thought about my current situation. I needed some hard intel. The scroungers and crafter crew weren’t up to the job of searching out or providing the answers I needed. They were busy making me money, which I enjoyed, but not as much as I would’ve enjoyed some intel. As of now, I had crates and crates of cheap medpacks, cheap guns, and now some random odds and ends.

Nor could the security sweeps help out. Their job was to keep rival gangs away, not get close to them and find out which one hated which.

I had my combat crew as well, but I didn’t see them as a reliable tool to get the information I needed. Not yet anyways. I needed to get my intel in a way that wouldn’t tell my enemies that I was getting it.

The elevator dinged and I walked out past a vid screen full of carnage and mayhem. Didn’t know where that was and at this point I was well-ready to sleep. Whoever they were, I wished them luck. Especially against the gigantic armored scorpions that seemed to be the big bads of the displayed fight.

I had a bed to lay in. And, when I got up in the morning, I had a magic-user to task. Whatever it cost, we’d magic the intel out of this precinct.