Byron was over the moon at the news, and everyone was pleased… but they all agreed that the reward for my success was being tasked with lugging the heavy semi truck battery inside.

“Relax!” Twinkles said, patting my shoulder as he took the staff from my hands. “Let us do the fighting. We need to catch up on points!”

“I’m pretty sure I saw two of you working together to lift this out of the semi truck,” I said. “Heavy labor isn’t my idea of relaxation.”

“Should have thought of that before you stole those kills!” Twinkles’ voice was singsong, utterly unrepentant.

I shook my head, then squatted to pick up the battery. It was much bigger and heavier than the one in my own car, but manageable with effort. We didn’t have far to travel to get back inside. My allies managed the few re-spawned monsters with aplomb.

The instant the door closed behind us, Byron turned to me. “How many points do you have?”

“441.”

“Yes!” He cheered as we started to walk toward the center of the warehouse. “So the third ability must come at 432. Oh, this is great. I can start making real predictions. I want to get a whole chart worked up to post on the wall here for people. What ability are you taking?

“Not sure. I rushed my choices earlier.”

“Yeah, that Sprinter thing is doing a number on you.”

“What? No.” I couldn’t keep the confusion and scorn out of my voice. “What are you talking about? I love the Sprinter augment. I’ve never moved so fast or well in my life. It’s just that it has terrible synergy with Powerful Blow. If anything, that’s what I wish I hadn’t taken.”

Byron stared at me. “Dude, are you serious?”

“About what?”

He rolled his eyes. “What have you eaten today?”

I shrugged. “A couple of those frozen croissant breakfast sandwiches and some French toast sticks. Some spanakopita. A burrito.”

“Six!” Davi said. “You had six of the sandwiches, and a whole plate of the French Toast sticks.”

“It wasn’t that many,” I laughed. “Why were you counting, anyway?”

“I asked her to,” Byron said. “And you had like 12 of the spanakopita and two burritos. Anytime you can, man, you’re putting food in your face. Past day or so, you’ve been like a damn garbage disposal. I thought at first that you were just going a little overboard because food was so scarce at the airport, but you haven’t once complained about a stomachache, and you haven’t slowed down at all.”

“I…” Byron’s words made me stop and think, going over everything I’d eaten. Had it really been that much? Like he said, I’d never felt like I was overeating. But we’d only been at ValuCo for around 24 hours, and I had to admit I’d eaten far more than a day’s worth of food. “Shit. You’re right. You think it’s the ability?”

He shrugged. “What else could it be? Something called a biological augment actually changing your biology makes sense. If we were anywhere else - absolutely anywhere else - it would be a huge problem.”

“Hrm,” I grunted. It was hard to argue with that. I doubted there was a single thing to eat left in the airport this morning. “That’s a shame. I’d been thinking of taking more Biological Augments.”

“They don’t all have bad side effects,” Davi said. “Rapid Regeneration hasn’t.”

“It hasn’t had much of any kind of effect,” I said.

Davi winced. “Damn, Vince. You were the one who suggested I take it.”

“I did not.”

“You said you loved your biological augment!”

“Yeah, but I also said I thought you should get something combat-oriented.”

Kurt, ever the peacemaker, cut in. “Well, we’ll make sure we get much better information before we make any new choices.”

“I’m just happy you got a choice to make,” John said. “I still need 20 more points for my second, and I think I’m going to need to take something to help clean out the pipes.”

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“Don’t you dare,” I said. “You’re earning points at a snail’s pace.”

“Well, if I don’t, we’re gonna have to take that engine and fuel line apart piece by piece and clean it out, then put it all back together. Lotta room for mistakes, and that’s a big project! How long you want to be here?”

I frowned. The idea of taking non-combat abilities didn’t sit well with me, but neither did stalling.

“We’ll talk it over,” Kurt said. “Do what’s best for the group. Just because someone needs to take the ability doesn’t mean it has to be you, John. I agree with Vince: throwing craft supplies at monsters isn’t a great long-term strategy. You need something better.”

We reached the area at the center and I set down the battery with a sigh, then raised a hand to massage my aching shoulders. It made a thump as it hit the ground, drawing the attention of a stocky man nearby.

“That a truck battery? Does it work?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Kurt said.

“But… the trucks don’t work.”

“Not yet. We’re trying to fix one,” he said.

The man narrowed his eyes. “Hmmm.”

“That was weird,” Davi said as he walked away. “Everyone’s been so friendly here… do you think he drives one of the trucks?”

“Maybe,” Byron said. The tall man was standing on tip-toe, face drawn as he scanned the crowd. “Wait here a minute?”

Kurt nodded, opening his notebook to show TAF the information he’d gathered so far. John simply bent to inspect the battery I’d set down.

The smells coming from the grills tempted me, but my hands were filthy. Wiping them on my stolen T-shirt didn’t make them much cleaner. Davi laughed at my forlorn expression, taking pity on me as I gazed grillward.

“I’ll get you some food, Vince. Something you can eat with a fork or a spoon.”

“You’re an angel.”

She laughed, returning a minute later with two bowls of nearly-transparent noodles mixed with vegetables. Mine was empty by the time Byron returned, though Davi still had most of hers left. I felt like I could eat two more bowls that size.

I really did have a problem.

“What’s up, Byron?” Kurt asked.

“I think we’re gonna need to move on from here sooner rather than later,” Byron said. “I don’t think we can afford to take the time to take apart the semi truck engine by hand. I was counting the people in the crowd here, and I estimate there’s close to 2,000 now, with more people arriving by the minute.”

“There’s plenty of food,” said Davi.

“There is,” Byron allowed. “Even if we get 10,000 people, I think this warehouse would feed us for at least a month. It’s not the food that worries me.”

“It’s the water,” Davi said.

Byron nodded. “There’s just not as much of it. The stacks of bottled water are about three-quarters gone. There’s more - flavored water, soda, juices - but seeing how much water we’ve gone through in the past day… well, it’s not gonna last a month, that’s for damn sure.”

“Language,” said John weakly. His heart wasn’t in it. “Lord Jesus save us.”

“It’s not an emergency yet,” Byron said. “But there are people standing near the water supplies now. Not guards, exactly, I don’t think… But people have noticed that the drinks won’t last forever, and they’re getting worried.”

Kurt clapped his hands. “Alright then, we have our work cut out for us. We need to get the truck running, ASAP. That means we need some kind of magic help to get the fuel lines cleaned out, and probably to get the wiring fixed… assuming the battery works. If not, we’ll need to be able to spark the engine ourselves directly.

“That sounds like a Byron thing. You… want me to take something to clean out the engine?” I asked reluctantly.

“Absolutely not.” Kurt said. “That should be me, probably. I’ve got my Missile, to earn more points, and I’m gonna be staying on the backlines anyway. Taking another non-combat ability won’t hurt me too much but… I don’t think anyone will argue when I say that you’re our best fighter.”

He glanced around, but no one argued.

JoeyT gave a rueful shrug. “I dunno what we’re offering here, really. You guys have the know-how to fix our wheels and the best fighter. I guess one of us could take something to fix the wires, if you can figure out what that would be?”

“Step one is definitely information,” Byron said. “Test the battery, get information on abilities… run a few more tests on those. Y’all mind helping with Kurt’s polls?”

“We can help with that, absolutely,” Twinkles said. “Kurtis was showing me how he’s been doing it, and he told me where he found the notebooks and pens. I’ll get Avalanche and Zephyr to help. You guys gonna stay here? We can keep checking back in with you when we fill up a page with information. Maybe we’ll head back out after dinner, try to farm some more XP before dark?”

“I’m going to go check on the newcomers, help the ones that need healing,” John said.

“Don’t wear yourself out,” I told him. “You still need to earn your points.”

“I know,” John said.

“Alright, sounds like a plan. We’ll prepare today and start trying to implement our fix tomorrow morning.” Kurt considered this. “Yeah, I think that’s good. I don’t want to waste time, but rushing now could leave us in a bad place in the long run. We have a lot of information at our fingertips here.”

As JoeyT, Twinkles, and Bolero walked away, I saw Davi smirking at Byron. “Science time?”

“Hell yes,” Byron said. “It’s science time!”