I headed out of Doug’s apartment…

The other me, anyways. The real one, clearly. The fake body double was embroiled in some turf war over in Heso Market, throwing himself headlong into bullets and spells and whatnot to earn make himself the Big Damn Hero that the city didn’t deserve, but needed nonetheless.

The real me wasn’t dumb enough to take on three rival gangs at once. Obviously the real me was smart enough to go collect items for mini quests, and rescue cats from trees and such. If I was going to take on Boss in his weakened state, I needed some extra levels. Quests were the obvious road there, not some fool’s errand trying to make Hina like me.

“Pfft,” I told the hallway. “Dummy.”

I then realized I was bashing myself, and frowned. Time travel and magic were just too complicated for my taste.

On the other hand, I was honestly amazed at the abilities casters had. I didn’t know how to get access to magic, and frankly I was a little scared to go that route, if it meant turning to constant drugs and meditation. The portals and orgies seemed like nice perks, but the beer gut did not. Neither, for that matter, did his tendency to be constantly obtuse about everything.

Besides, I had a mini lightning bolt, had gotten it from day one. Furthermore, I didn’t have to bother unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos in nude astral form to get it or use it.

Another me was out there, definitely engaged in something dangerous, because while I took the elevator down to ground level, I watched on my character sheet as the XP piled up and up.

“Nice,” I muttered. There was one problem, though.

I didn’t have any of my stuff. It was a strange realization to make, standing there in a pair of non-descript sweats, no weapons at my hip.

Made me realize what an absolute mess of a process all of this temporal crap was.

A quick trip to the armory later, I was still wearing the sweats, but was equipped with some hidden armor protection instead. A rare armor set Nolan had crafted called a ballistic skin suit.

Ballistic Skin Suit

Damage reduction: 200 physical, 200 energy

Does not stack with other armor types

Must be worn under clothing

Grant one-time armor regeneration daily

‘The best defense is tricking them into thinking you’re harmless.’

Besides the skin suit I also grabbed up another street samurai mask, similar to the one I’d used sneaking up on the CCC. This one was in neon green and splashes of purple. And for a weapon, I holstered a MVS Plasma Blaster, honestly surprised that the team had managed to figure out how to make one. They weren’t the best, but they’d served me well so far in all sorts of pinches.

I also had a quick look-see over the melee weapons, and found vibro-knives and monofilament wire, which was terrifying. The monofilament wire advertisement was something else.

‘It slices. It dices. It kills in an instant! Introducing Gary’s Monofilament Garrote, the garrote wire that’s a single molecule thick! This eco-friendly, durable, compact wire is guaranteed to cut through literally anything. Simply apply leverage and watch in joy as it slices the target neatly in two.’

**Warning: Gary’s Monofilament Garrote is not liable for self-injury that might occur from improper use. See owner’s manual for details and training videos before amputation occurs.**

The damage listed was the little infinity symbol, but it had to be used like a garotte. Nice. It also came with a Luck check every round it was in use to avoid accidental self-slicing.

Not so nice.

I went with a vibro-sword instead, since it ran less of a risk of murdering me if I wasn’t looking. The whole blade vibrated really quickly.

Vibro-sword

DMG 6-14 slashing

Delivers triple damage while vibration is active, and reduces damage reduction against slashing by half.

Battery life: 5 minutes

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

‘Cuts through robots, ninjas, gaejin, and radioactive lizards in the space of a minute. Kill them fast and kill them hard— with Vibro-sword!’

“Yes please,” I said.

Among the generic weapons, I saw some grenades, snot-cannons, and thunder-muzzles, and decided they might come in handy as well. It wasn’t like my inventory was full, or even close to it.

Now to give the old character sheet a more thorough investigation, then set out.

A quick check told me that, yes, I had all the same cards slotted as other me. But I couldn’t remove them. And I didn’t have any of my loose cards in my inventory.

Was a shame. I could think of a million different ways to cheat the system and duplicate cards if that weren’t the case.

I thought about how the other me had everything, and how that meant I was the clone, and shrugged it off. Someone had to be, and better me than him. It’d be nice to do some easier quests for a changed, and the constant action had kept me from overseeing my people in as personable a way as they deserved. We’d had a couple of losses lately, and they needed to see my face.

I opened up my command console, now that I was armed and ready for anything, and wandered the apartments scanning my people.

Mitsui here was a level 8 Security Personnel. An NPC, given that I could see his entire stat array. He’d been involved in several training missions and combats with rival gangs. Most recently against the Brass Crosses, where he’d gotten three confirmed infantry toughs and disabled one of the mecha suits (the final 23% of the damage necessary to take it out).

This gave him several award icons hanging at the top of his character sheet screen. By far my favorite was the Cross with the arrow through his head, wreathed in gold. This made him part of the top five NPC combatants, the screen informed me.

“Keep up the good work, Mitsui,” I said, and clapped him a good one on the shoulder.

He straightened and snapped a salute with visible pride. “Sir!”

“I’ll have you refer to me by my proper title, soldier,” I said.

His confusion was as complete as it was adorable. “Sir?”

“I require that everyone call me ‘Great and Venerable Grand Poombah, First of His Name, Defender of the Realm and All Around Good Guy.’ Got all that?” I could barely contain my laughter. It made me feel alive, felt so much like the old goofy hazing we used to inflict on the noobs out of OSUT.

Was good to be in the rear.

“Yes, sir, uh, Great and Vendor Grand Poombah, First of his Name, Defender–“

Eric had caught sight of me down in the lobby area, which was now still a hive of activity. Oh, it was still in defensive formation, a bunker in a half circle made of reinforced concrete. Nolan’s people were in the midst of topping the defensive walls with field generators of some kind. The whole deal hummed with power, and threw up hexagonal shielding out another twenty feet or so. The pop ups began to inform me all about their defensive capabilities when Eric spoke up.

“Don’t mess with my troops, Boss,” Eric said, and gave me a pointed look. He turned to Mitsui. “Don’t let him mess with you, kiddo. To you, just sir is fine. Or Poombah.”

“And what about you, Eric Joel?” I asked, cocked smile at the ready.

“You? I call you whatever I want, right Boss?”

I laughed. “Yeah, Eric, you earned that right. Call me Boss til Hell freezes over if you want to. Just keep smashing enemies and saving people, and we’ll call it even.”

The soldier was caught between our banter, and his eyes and rigid body showed that it was not at all where he wanted to be. I spun on my heel and faced him dead on.

“So, you got all that?” I asked. My face was a practiced and mean stern, my insides laughing hard and threatening to pull it all apart.

“Sir, Poombah… sir!”

“As you were, soldier,” I told him, and he relaxed. Deflated really.

Eric nodded at the man, then led me aside through the opening in the wall. “Boss?” he asked, confusion etched on his furry brow. “You got something to tell me? Why are you here but also in the lobby?” His hand was drifting to a holster.

“Come, walk with me,” I said. I couldn’t have him trying to murder me thinking I was a shapeshifter or an imposter with a spell on.

“Doug did it. There’s some magic to this,” I said. “I don’t understand it much, but it doesn’t matter. I have about an hour and a half, and I’m going to go use it up. Anything I need to know?”

He shook his head. “Lots of fighting going on, jockeying for position, people taking advantage of the chaos. Flicker Blue and Hirataka are on assignment in Cross territory.”

The Brass Crosses had already talked about squandering their opportunity to take out the The Godfather’s two main enforcers, and it was coming back to bite them, hard.

“Let’s push some patrols down into Cross territory and see if we can’t find a couple stragglers, or wrestle some turf off them. They’ve got some decent upscale buildings under their control.”

He nodded pensively.

“Unless you have something to say I ought to know about?” I asked.

“Nah, Poombah. Morale is good. Jack’s good for that.”

Jack was good for morale. So happy and full of energy. It made me think of our conversation in my apartment, and I shivered.

“We hardly took any losses off the Brass Crosses or Chuck…”

“You can’t just trail off,” I growled, my chipper attitude soured a notch and then some.

“Boss is weak, Boss.”

That greasy-haired loser from last night at the summit, the guy who used to own this building, now with his territory butting up against mine. The guy who sent a fire elemental to burn my people alive. The supposed right hand man of The Godfather.

“You want to strike now while the iron’s hot?” I asked.

He stared into the middle distance and chewed over this for a few long moments. I knew better than to interrupt a man who was cogitating; that had earned me some stripes off my dad’s belt once upon a time.

Plus, it was good manners to hear people out.

“His people have more training and experience than ours, that I can say for sure. We’d take heavy losses if we went in with guns blazing.”

I growled. “How else can we take him out? You’ve obviously got something on your mind. Just spit it out!”

“Buy him out. His main enforcers are gone, his gang is falling apart. Boss, they made too many enemies, and while they’ll seriously rough up whoever comes after them next, they won’t survive a second wave.

I balked. “A Buyout? I don’t even know what that means!”

But I did. And it disgusted me. We’d bought people out all the time overseas. This mayor and that chieftain, purses full of cash, pill to make them hard again, the latest in smart phone technology.

Eric was right. It made me see flames, the fact that I was going to be buying Boss a nice piece of exile. But the game system would surely consider it a defeat. And, hell, probably they’d pixel him out of existence right after he boarded a plane and got out of sight.

Eric began to explain, but I cut him short. “Yeah,” I muttered. “I’ll get the money. Million of credits isn’t something we have, but its something I can get, I’m sure. Definitely something to think about and look into. I’ve gotta head out right now, Eric, but keep everyon training. And hold down the fort.”

Head full of thoughts, I left Gojira-X. It was time to do some quests, and Mrs. Buttonwith’s cat wasn’t far.