[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Michael Kapok]
[Level: 2]
Michael’s fingers danced across the chunky keys of the Console, his focus single-minded as he worked. Not to be too self-important, but this was all resting on him. The fate of his friend was resting on him.
Now if only he could crack this program and figure out how to mess with individual components and code.
Here was where Michael had a confession to make. He had no idea how he had gotten a Computer Affinity. He hadn’t even seen a laptop since the world ended. Sure, he read lots of books about computer coding, but that didn’t mean anything without actual experience. And even before the world went to shit, he hadn’t exactly been a tech prodigy. The smartest thing he’d ever done was figure out how to download a game console emulator to his parent’s computer. Because he really really wanted to play the original Monster Catch game.
Not exactly pro hacker material.
Still, he promised her that he would try. Because here, Michael was strong. He was versatile. He had magic and control over elements he didn’t even fully understand. He would have to figure this out.
Thankfully, the Console seemed to come built in for looking through these elements. Any mob, feature, or sub-routine he clicked on, and there would be an application pre-installed to run it. To let him look through it. To allow him to edit it to his heart’s content.
Not that he was going to do that. He was too scared that the wrong semicolon would destroy reality as he knew it. Even if he was still unsure about what effect the Console even had on reality. Or how it was even affecting reality at all. Pity that the thing didn’t seem to come with a guide telling him all the little basic details, really, because he could use a tutorial right about… one year ago.
What he had managed to stumble upon, however, he was pretty sure was part of the Harbinger programs. Call it a hunch, but the fact that all the text for it was red instead of the green-centric with blue, yellow, and white color codes to sort it out like the rest of the code, was a really big clue.
It didn’t make much sense to him. Even less sense than the rest of the code, really. In fact… it looked like a completely different style that the majority of the coding was done in. That had happened sometimes, he’d noticed. Pieces of data would be mismatched, or different from the style and preferred sub-routines of the maker. As if they had been copied off from somewhere else and fed into the machine.
He wondered if that was significant in any way.
Michael was about to go over and stick his head out of the exit to share this thought with the others, but the second he lifted his head up, he saw Feathertooth, sitting stiffly in its cage, wings half unfolded as it looked up. He didn’t know if birds had better hearing than a person’s but it certainly seemed that it was hearing something Michael couldn’t.
“What’s going on?” He asked, running through a list of possible catastrophic events.
“My flock.” It rumbled, “It appears that they have come for me, after all.”
Oh, shit.
Michael just about flew up the ladder, his hands clanking against the rungs noisily as he tried to shove the door open. Someone had shut it. Probably Ben, in anticipation of the fight that was coming. And when he tried to push against it, he found it jammed. Damn that woman and her overprotectiveness.
“Any chances this won’t go violent?” He begged Feathertooth over his shoulder, as he continued to fiddle with the latch of the door while dangling precariously from the topmost rung.
“Very small. Especially if the crow infantry is the one leading the charge here.” It replied, “Those ones are always desperate for a fight. As if the squids snatching them out of the air wasn’t quite enough.”
“But we don’t mean them any harm!” He pointed out frustratedly, “If we just had a moment to talk, I’m sure we could help. Tell them about their cancer-causing death rays, and how to improve the formula, and all the mistakes they’re making. We could help make things better.”
“After murdering several fleets? I don’t think many of us will be willing to overlook that.” Feathertooth pointed out, and Michael hated to admit that the bird had a point, “And there’s also the fact that your other goal is to help the cephalopod faction as well, and that is inexcusable to my brethren.”
“Your brethren.” Michael pointed out, wondering if the word choice had any significance, “And you don’t include yourself in that statement?”
There was silence for a moment, and even Michael ceased fruitlessly banging his hand against the door to twist around and gauge its reaction.
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“For what it’s worth.” Feathertooth murmured, “I believe that, while trigger happy and undisciplined, you really are trying to do the right thing. You wish to improve the world, and your solutions for those are viable. Helped, of course, by the miraculous Abilities that you wield. And I do mean you specifically, Michael Kapok. It’s just…” It broke off into a sigh. Or not an actual sigh, more of a replication of the sound. To make a point, Michael supposed.
“Just…?” Michael prompted, a little taken aback by how forthright Feathertooth was being. He was usually just snippy and irritable, except when the wellbeing of the corvids was called into question.
“I do not believe that that goodwill is suited for this world.” Feathertooth told him plainly, “The best plan of attack for you to fulfill your goals is to appeal to the ones you have better standing with. That was why I suggested that you hand me over to the squids as collateral. Even though recent revelations have thrown the legitimacy of my title into question, I was still a high-ranking Raven. They will be pleased to have me in their clutches.”
“Yeah, well, sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m not about that.” Michael shook his head, “What kind of person would that make me if I just… left you to die?”
“The person who will pass this Level.” The bird told him snidely. But no less compassionately. Michael rolled his eyes and looked past its cage, his eyes instead landing on the hole in the bottom of the cove. Right. He was in a cove. Where the only natural entrance was through the water.
Holy shit, he was a fucking idiot.
Michael nearly twisted his ankle in his hurry to get off the ladder, and half stumbled towards the underwater entrance, throwing himself in without so much as a goodbye to his surprisingly self-sacrificing raven companion.
By the time he managed to drag himself out from the depths, clawing up fistfuls of sand for a faint possibility of a foothold, he was already expecting the worst. One of them could be death. Both could be dead. Verity might have fallen back into Harbinger mode, killed all the birds and then run off. They could have another massacre that would put the corvids off from cooperating with them.
But what he saw once he was able to wipe the saltwater from his eyes was… Not any of those things.
There was a delegation of crows standing around them. And no one was fighting. It was almost eerily peaceful, considering how most of their other altercations with the crows went.
Ben was standing in the middle of it all, and she was having what appeared to be a civil conversation with the crow at the forefront, while all the rest milled about. If he had to guess, Michael would say that the others didn’t speak English, with the way they were being relayed everything by the caws of a separate bird.
It was such a bizarre sight that he didn’t know how to reconcile it with his previous knowledge about these birds. And then he caught sight of the particular gear they were wearing. Thin gold straps that wound around their bodies and around their wings, all coming together to be clasped at the sides of their necks with an emblem of a star. Michael knew special forces when he saw them, alright. That would explain why they weren’t attacking either. They must have different orders. To do what with, exactly?
He tried to catch Verity’s eye from across the islet, hoping that she would fill him in on some important context, since she wasn’t caught up in any important conversations, but she didn’t even seem to be aware that he was there.
She might have been the only one who hadn’t realized, honestly. Everyone else all rotated around keenly to face him the second Michael stepped onto the islet. He smiled nervously, reaching up to readjust his glasses, “I didn’t… interrupt anything too important, did I?”
“Yes. Yes, you did.” Ben told him, her voice tight.
“Oh, er, alright. So what too important thing did I interrupt?” He asked, hoping he still had enough youthful innocence or whatever to pull off the adorably inquisitive look.
The crows contemplated this turn of events for a moment, before taking it in stride. The one which had been talking to Ben hopped towards him, star badge glinting in the sunlight as it spoke, “We are the Avian Judicial Enforcement Force. And while your negotiator had made a deal to meet a few days from now, we have found that to be unsatisfactory in the case of the murder of our two and half fleets.”
“What they mean is that they want the perpetrator to stand trial.” Ben added, doing a remarkable impression of looking unaffected.
“Essentially, yes.” The crow agreed, twisting its head around to look at all three of them, “Now, which one of you has brown hair with mold growing on it? That was the description we were given of them.”
Brown hair. Mold. It obviously meant Terry with his rapidly fading green hair dye. But Terry wasn’t here. He was with Jared and Tench and Lucky and Asadullah, searching for humans.
The birds seemed to realize that too, taking another hard look at all of them, before breaking out into cawing. The one doing the translation spoke up, the only other bird to show itself capable of human speech, “Perhaps we should try with their other group?”
More caws and discussion. Fervent nodding seemed to have them in agreement though. Something flashed in Verity’s eyes, and she stepped forward, her hand raised, “It was me. I did those things. Hold me accountable, if you must. But I know I did the right thing.”
Silence fell over them. The crow in charge sputtered, “You do not have moldy hair. Or even brown hair.”
“Yeah, that was mud and moss and stuff. Humans can wash it off, you know?” She replied, with a finesse and confidence he had never thought her capable of. Not that he apparently knew what any of his friends were capable of. She angled a smile so sharp and vicious; he knew it was an exact replica of one Jared had done back in the old days, where he was trying to rebuild from the Apocalypse without the help of the System, “Or do you birds not take baths?”
Indignant chirps all around, and the translator replied, “Of course we do! Don’t insinuate otherwise, human. Corvids have incredible standards for hygiene.”
“And I have incredible standards for justice.” Verity replied, and Michael didn’t think she was lying when she put her hands up, “I’m a murderer. I’ve known for a very long time. Hold me accountable, will you?”
The crows cheered up at that, slipping rings of metal onto her wrists and clicking them shut.
Michael watched, dizzily, as she was carried away by the flock, not even trying to struggle.
[Player Log End!]