The arrow struck the wall directly in front of Hiro.
“I mean it,” the woman said, who had him dead to rights. “Drop your sword, or my next bolt goes in the back of your head.”
It went against Hiro’s basic instincts to lower his weapon, but he could see how strong the woman’s bolts were by the way they effortlessly sank into the wall. Not only that, they had nearly broken through a solid metal door. Like him, she probably had some natural proficiency with the weapon granted to her by the Doom System. And like him, her natural powers were amplified.
“This is your last warning.”
“I don’t want to fight you,” Hiro told her. “I’m not the main character.”
“Prove it. Put your weapon down. I’m not the main character, either. I could have killed you already if I had wanted. Think about that.”
“Do you have a Companion, a phone?” he asked.
“I do.”
“And they told you about finding Survivors?”
“They did. Put your weapon down, now.”
He lowered his katana to the ground and placed both hands in the air.
“Turn around, slowly.”
Hiro did as instructed to find a black woman in a dark gray sweater holding a crossbow with both hands. Her hair was woven into two tight French braids and she had numerous pockets sewn into the legs of her jeans. “You’re the one who changed into a wolf, right? I saw you.”
“How much did you see?”
“Just the end.”
“Can you change as well?”
She gestured with her crossbow. “Keep your hands up.”
“I don’t have any weapons on me aside from my katana.”
“I’m not trusting shit. I saw what you could do.”
“I can’t—” He almost told her the limitations of his Roulette Skill, but stopped himself. It was best to be strategic about this. “I’m not going to transform right now. You have my word.”
“Fuck your word. I’ll stay over here, and you’ll stay over there. And you will keep your hands up. How’s that?”
“Whatever works best for you. What’s your name?”
She hesitated, but finally answered. “Valeria. Yours?”
“Hiro.”
A beat as she considered this. “You are Japanese?”
This wasn’t the first time Hiro had been asked this, especially when someone heard his name and saw his dark hair. “My dad is American, mom is Japanese. Were. My dad liked it because it sounded like ‘hero’. My mom liked it because it was her father’s name. They’re probably dead now. Or if they’re out there, I have no way of reaching them.”
“Did you ever visit Japan?”
“I lived in Japan but I never got citizenship there.”
“And you speak Japanese?”
“I do.”
“I’ve never been to Japan and I’ll never go. Not now.” Valeria gestured slightly with her crossbow. “Is this where you’re staying? The parking garage?”
“Sort of.”
“Why didn’t you take a superpower earlier this year when the gates first opened?”
“I didn’t take them because I didn’t trust them. I was right. But maybe I was wrong. Getting sniped by a red sky laser might be a better fate than whatever bullshit the Doom System is about to put us through.”
“True.”
“What about you?” he asked. “Why didn’t you take the powers?”
“Fuck that. Magical gates appear and give people powers promising a better way of life? Nah, that’s bait. But like you said, now that we’re faced with this, maybe a better fate than this. That remains to be seen. What were you before? Your job, I mean.”
“My jobs. I had several. During the day, I worked for a delivery service in their warehouse.”
“Brutal.”
“It sucked.”
“Pee bottles?”
“Sometimes. At night, I did ride shares. Food delivery. That sort of thing.”
“Dang, how many hours were you working a week?” she asked.
“Sixty to eighty. Sometimes more during holidays or, you know, events in the city. Surge pricing pays until you realize it doesn’t. Ever since…” Hiro was about to tell Valeria the path he had taken to end up working two jobs, but stopped short. Instead, he went with a question. “You? What were you doing?”
Valeria kept her crossbow trained on Hiro, but seemed to relax some. “I was a student.”
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“Studying what?”
“Computer Science, undergrad. I was planning to do a master’s in Neural Networks and would have started this fall, a few months ago. At least I don’t have student loan debt anymore.”
“None of us have debt anymore. Did you see what killed him?” Hiro carefully nodded toward the man’s arm on the ground. “I heard a scream. That’s why again.”
“A fucking monster with wings. I had it my line of sight, too. I just didn’t know if my power levels were enough to one-shot the fucker. I shouldn’t have hesitated.”
“It had wings?”
“It had wings and four fucking arms. Big, too. Some Souls shit, if that means anything to you.”
“The video game series.”
“Bingo. I’ll hunt it next. One less flying demon.”
“You’ve seen others?”
“Have you not been paying attention?” she asked.
“I have been distracted.”
Valeria took a step back. “They’re out there.”
“My Companion told me Hunters will be released soon.”
“Same. Have you tried doing something to your phone?”
“What do you mean?”
“The Companions are administered by the Doom System.”
“You think they’re related?”
“How could they not be?” Valeria asked. “I tried breaking my phone, and it returned to the state it started in. I tossed it off a roof, and it reappeared in my hand. Try it some time.”
“Really?” Hiro wondered how he could use this to his advantage.
“Something worth knowing,” she said. “Try it sometime. Look, I’m going to leave now to prepare for tomorrow. I feel like I need some rest. But I also want to hunt.”
“This has been a lot. Maybe I will rest as well,” he said, Hiro instantly snapped his mouth shut as if he had revealed too much.
Valeria didn’t seem to think anything of it. “In three days, meet me at the gate nearest to this parking garage, the one in the Financial District.”
“We will need two more people.”
“In that case, we will meet around here in two days and see who we have found. Try to stay alive until then.” With those words, Valeria vanished. It was as if she had faded away. Hiro had seen her standing there mere seconds ago, and now, she was gone.
No trace.
“Like a ghost,” he whispered as something dawned on him. The Doom System had given people different powers and Roulette Skills, and her disappearing act, plus the new {Beacon} skill Hiro had picked up from the Soul Essence, confirmed it.
This wasn’t a good thing.
It created a natural environment for Player Killers, even if he had been warned that there would be repercussions…
****
Both doors of the fallout shelter bolted, Hiro got comfortable on a sleeping bag that smelled of wet dog. He placed his phone in front of him and noticed the glow of the countdown timer.
02:21:49:11
02:21:49:10
02:21:49:09
He turned the phone over and brought his knees to his chest as he looked over at his family altar, to his scattering of maps beyond that it piecemealed and taped to the wall.
For nearly a year, Hiro had survived by doing anything he could to stay away from the gates. Now, he had been forced into a game he hardly understood. But at least he had met someone who seemed bold enough to fight back with him, even if he never left her crosshairs.
Start with questions, he thought, remembering something his dad would say, who was obsessed with police procedural books and TV shows. Ask the right questions.
The right questions weren’t where the system had come from.
Not now, anyway.
The Doom System was there to stay.
The right questions weren’t about how his phone worked, how any of this worked, or why he seemed to be assisted at random times. The right questions weren’t even about his Companion, who was somehow affiliated with the Doom System. Hiro was certain it couldn’t fully be trusted.
This brought Hiro to followers.
According to what he’d been told, if he could trust it, more followers would increase his chances. Chances of what? Survival?
He checked his follower count and saw that he had gained some. Whatever. Part of him knew the truth—none of this was real, including the followers—yet he also knew it was futile to think this way.
Instead, how do I gain more followers?
This thought reminded Hiro of the world before January 1st, the dominance of social media.
People gain followers through a number of means. Most were related to their career choices, which gave them amplified voices. Even if they were dumbasses. Fifteen minutes of fame lived forever on the Internet. The algorithms handled it from there, creating new forms of celebrity and broken political discourse.
My situation isn’t like that. My followers seem to increase when something crazy happens or I have an encounter.
He had seen the boost after hopping rooftop to rooftop and dealing with the horned tiger. He suspected some of the first followers probably came from his battles with the bronze girl statue and the crazed man and his katana.
Hiro decided to ask his Companion. “How important are followers?”
The text appeared on his phone screen:
“A key to my power. Huh.”
A potential right question came to him:
So I have to do crazy shit? Doing so will make me stronger as I gain more Soul Essence by killing monsters, which will lead to more followers. There could be other loot as well, although I’ll need to be careful with Stolen Valor…
He remembered the system’s first message to him:
[My aim is to please, to give you exactly what you need. It’s up to you from that point forward. Above all, Survivor, remember this: you are the main character, just like you always wanted to be.]
The Doom System is trying to help and hinder me. It’s playing both sides. How do I play both sides?
Another right question.
The only current solution Hiro came up with was to survive, hunt monsters, and gain more followers until it made more sense. If he made it through this Interim and was able to complete whatever challenge awaited him once the gates reopened, Hiro would have a better understanding of the game he was playing.
That will give me more options, more powers, and most importantly, more answers… But how does one fight an enemy that can modify the very nature of reality? One that has gone mad? How does one defeat a system that is trying to harm me at the same time trying to help ?
The wrong questions, for now…
Hiro drifted off thinking about what these options could be. He awoke hours later to a new message:
[The first wave of Hunters have been released into the city. You will now find merchants as well. Good luck, Survivor.]
“Great.” Hiro glanced at his phone to see how long he had been out.
02:16:34:01
02:16:34:00
02:16:33:59
He swallowed any guilt he felt for resting. After what he had already endured, he deserved it.
Hiro stuffed Survivor Tender in his mouth, noted its lack of flavor, grabbed his katana, and headed up the stairs. “The hunted will become the hunter,” he said to psyche himself up. “You’ve got this.”