They agreed to continue talking about their romantic intentions a bit later on when they had more time on their hands. Jacob still didn’t have a shirt, but there were some spare work tees in the storage room. They were sized for Mr. Beau, so the one Jacob tried on was a bit tight, especially with the mass he had just packed on. It would do.
Mr. Beau had woken up, squirming weakly on the desk when Jacob and Becca came to check on him. His breathing was labored, as though even minuscule movements took all the energy he could muster, but he managed a tired smile.
“That was some showing, lad,” he said. “I was in and out, but I saw some of it. Not many humans can boast of killing an urgek.”
“Flattery is it?” Jacob replied, returning the smile. “My my, near-death has turned you soft.”
“You saved my life, so I reckon you’ve earned a bit of ass-kissing. If we make it through this…” He gritted his teeth in pain and curled up on the desk, hyperventilating. Becca held him steady. It took him a minute to settle, and he let out a long exhale, his muscles softening. “If we make it through this, I owe you one.”
“Give Becca a raise and I’ll consider us even.”
“Done!” He gave a strained laugh. “That’ll be the cheapest life debt I’ve ever paid.”
“Is accruing life debts something you do a lot?”
“Heh. You don’t know where I’ve been, lad.”
“Well, she wants a twenty percent bump.”
“Twenty!? Are you crazy? I was thinking five.”
Jacob clapped the old man on the shoulder and turned to Becca with a grin. “See? Can’t be that bad if he’s haggling.”
Jacob moved on into the taproom while Becca bent down to assure the bar owner that he really didn’t need to give her a raise and that that was something Jacob had thought up on his own.
Jacob scoffed at that.
He grabbed hold of the urgek corpse by the arm and tested his new strength against its weight. He was just about able to move it, dragging it across the floor in fits and starts, painfully slow.
He wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or disappointed with what three points in Vigor had done for him. It had clearly given him superhuman strength, but he wasn’t going to be lifting cars over his head or stopping trains anytime soon.
He dragged the corpse all the way into the storage room and closed the door so Becca wouldn’t have to look at it. Not that he thought that would make much of a difference—whatever trauma this situation had caused was already done. She was taking it remarkably well, though—she had already returned to her usual bubbly self.
Moving the corpse had left a big trail of blue blood along the floor, so he looked for things to cover it with. Mr. Beau’s office had an old, ugly rug—brown with abstract yellow patterns. The barkeep said it was a family heirloom once made by his late grandmother and asked him not to take it, but Jacob ignored him.
It covered the big pool of blood where the urgek had lain nicely. He still needed something for the streaks. He moved two upturned tables to cover some of it, which looked natural enough, but he couldn’t exactly stack a line of them all the way to the office. There were no other obvious items for him to use, so he settled on bringing something back from outside when he went corpse hunting.
The taproom wasn’t going to stand up to close scrutiny however he arranged it, but it had to at least be good enough to avoid rousing suspicion at a quick glance. If an urgek looked in and saw blood from one of his brethren, Jacob thought it likely that he would come in to investigate further.
When Jacob went back into the office, Mr. Beau had fallen unconscious again. He informed Becca he would be going out for a short while, but he would be back soon, and asked her to stay quiet and keep the door to the office closed. She didn’t argue or ask him to stay. He was glad of that.
He briefly considered bringing the urgek’s axe with him, but decided against it. He was certainly strong enough to carry it, but it was bulky and impractical. His goal wasn’t to fight, so there was no point in bringing a weapon that would compromise his evasion.
It was dark outside. A thin strip of the sky could be seen between the rooftops of the alley that adjoined the bar. He couldn’t tell for sure through all the smoke polluting the clouds, but he thought the sky was beginning to lighten.
It was the second day of the invasion.
He could still make out distant, echoing gunshots, but they were less frequent than before. He figured the initial massacre had ended, and the urgeks were now killing off any stragglers they came across or those they found in hideaways.
He tried to think why the urgeks were here, what their motivations were, but he didn’t know enough about them beyond the most basic school textbook facts. They loved war. Maybe that was all there was to it. Or maybe they were here to loot the city for valuables, or to take slaves, or because of their hatred for humanity. Or a combination of all four.
Jacob moved slowly and carefully through the alley to avoid knocking over any bags of trash or empty bottles that might make noise. It probably didn’t matter much with all the background noise, but it was best to play it as safe as possible, given how many risks were inherent with his plan to begin with.
At this point he felt the difference from putting points in Finesse keenly. Cheat the Hangman had slowed his body down, made his movements sluggish and imprecise, but now he was nimble and exact, his limbs moving just how he wanted down to the smallest digit in a way they never had even before he died. As a human, he had gotten used to there being some margin of error between what he instructed his body to do and how it played out in reality, but that was completely gone.
It was deeply satisfying. He already wasn’t sure how he’d ever been able to live another way.
For a moment he considered trying out his Dash to see how it worked, but there wasn’t much room to maneuver without upsetting some piece of trash or another, so he left that for later.
At the mouth of the alley he peeked out both ways into the street to make sure there were no aliens nearby. He only saw dead humans strewn about. Satisfied that all was clear, he stepped out to fetch a few of them.
Two should do it.
He bent down and flipped a man onto his back. He would’ve tapped his cheek to see if he was still alive, but the gaping hole through his chest made that fairly clear. Jacob threw him over one shoulder without too much effort and found a headless woman to make into his second prop, putting her on the other shoulder.
He brought them back to the bar without incident, posing the woman on a bar stool, her torso flopped forward onto the counter, and threw the man face-down on the rug.
Good enough.
There was one last thing that concerned him. The bar had plenty to drink, including non-alcoholic options, and a quick check confirmed that the sink behind the counter still worked, meaning they had good access to water. But food was another matter. The freezebox in the back was largely disused and didn’t hold anything of interest, and the only real edibles were small things for drinks, like limes and olives, as well as some nuts.
He wasn’t sure how long they’d be stuck there before the UEC or the Guild mustered a force large enough to chase the urgeks off, but it could be several days, or weeks.
Better get that situated sooner rather than later, then.
So he went for another trip. He wasn’t too sure of the layout around the bar, but he brought up a map on his System interface and had it point him to the nearest grocery store.
Becca had asked for potato chips, and had helpfully informed him that Mr. Beau liked croissants. Jacob chose to ignore those requests entirely. He would focus on shelf-stable, high-calorie foods that could be frozen if needed and didn’t require cooking to eat.
The grocery store was a block and a half down. Feeling a bit more confident, Jacob decided to test the limits of what he could do. Plunging his fingers into the nearest brick wall, he created his own handholds to be able to climb up. It was easier than he’d expected, and he found himself settling into a soothing rhythm as he went left hand, right foot, right hand, left foot, again and again, using his old handholds as holes to wedge his feet in.
He made it to the roof of the four-story building in about a minute. Inspecting his fingers for damage from the bricks, he found none. His shoes were a bit scuffed up, though.
The wide, flat roof had plenty of space for him to try out his Dash. If he could get it working, it might be possible to traverse the city by jumping from rooftop to rooftop. He walked from one edge to the other with even strides, marking roughly fifteen meters. He settled into a low crouch, ready to spring forward.
Unsure how to trigger the talent, he closed his eyes and reached inside himself, trying to find some anchor point that would allow him to bring the power he knew existed somewhere in there up to the surface.
He found no obvious signs of anything like that. Going by the same principle he had used to interact with the advanced interface, he simply pictured himself dashing forward, moving faster than his legs could possibly carry him, covering the distance of the whole roof.
He made one leaping bound forward. Nothing. He landed in a stumble, righted himself, pushed off again. Nothing. A third time.
The world blurred around him, and his gut flipped with sudden acceleration. He skidded to a stop about a meter and a half from the roof’s edge and fell forward, tucking into a roll. He got up and dusted himself off, looking back to see streaks of rubber on the concrete where his shoes had rubbed off.
Well, that was neat.
He had traveled roughly ten meters in about half a second. With practice, he could likely get the first number higher and the second one lower.
He practiced it a few more times, going back and forth across the roof until he felt confident he could activate it at will. He still wasn’t used to the gut-wrenching feeling the talent produced, and his landings were less-than-graceful, but he had a whole lifetime of practice ahead of him after this invasion was over.
He had to believe that he would survive. Him and Becca.
The System had been right about Dash causing ‘moderate physical strain’. He felt a dull ache in his legs and back after using the talent just a handful of times. Considering his deteriorated sense of pain, that probably meant it was a lot worse than it felt. He decided to leave it at that rather than injure himself and be forced to limp back through hostile territory. Jumping rooftops like a real superhero could wait until later.
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The next building over towered high above him, maybe eight stories tall. Looking at it gave him an idea. That high up, he’d be able to get a good view of at least a chunk of the city. It might give him a better picture of exactly how bad the situation had gotten.
Descending down to ground level via a fire escape, he crossed over to the other building at a quick run and shouldered through the front doors, landing in a crouch inside. He could probably have climbed the facade, but it was unnecessary to push himself that far. Zombie or not, there was no telling what an eight-story fall would do to him. Not to mention that it would make him very visible to any urgeks that happened to be around, and he’d make a prime target hanging off a wall like that with nowhere to go.
The power was out, so he took the stairs. Even with his legs worn out from all the Dashing, eight flights barely winded him. The door to the roof was locked, likely reserved for maintenance workers and the like, but he was able to twist the handle off with a moderate application of force.
The city was in ruins. He’d known that already, but seeing it like this, from a bird’s eye view, it really sank in. There were about as many crumbled buildings as intact ones, and there were fires everywhere. The fleet of black ships hung overhead, motionless, reminiscent of solemn gravestones. At least their cannons weren’t firing on the ground, and the pods had stopped falling.
He did know that urgeks favored ground forces in most engagements. It was part of their fucked-up honor system, to only kill those who could look you in the eye or some such. As though that made it a fair fight.
There, in the distance, one of the ships had landed. No… Crashed. It lay like a beached whale, partially submerged in the river. Parts of it lay scattered around the embankment.
One down. Ninety-nine-ish to go.
The urgeks had established something of a perimeter around the downed ship, with stone and concrete rubble piled into makeshift walls in a wide half-circle. He could make out urgeks moving around inside as little gray blobs. Lots of them.
And, just briefly, a silver flash.
Starman. Motherfucker’s still kicking. I guess that’s his handiwork, too. He’s… taking them all on by himself?
He was a brave bastard, that much was certain. But he couldn’t last much longer now. He must have been going non-stop since the start of the invasion. If he didn’t give out from injury, exhaustion would get him eventually.
Suppose he could be doing hit-and-run tactics. It would mesh well with his build. Let’s hope he has the brains for that.
But that was quite enough sidetracking. Jacob went down and let the System guide him towards the grocery store. Maybe going so long without incident had tricked him into feeling safe, because he almost walked right into the blubbery stomach of an urgek when he rounded a corner, jumping back with a start.
The alien looked just as surprised, little black eyes going round. This one had large, drooping breasts, which maybe meant it was female, but her chest was uncovered just like the men. She toted around a massive, three-barreled machine gun over one shoulder, which she lowered towards him as soon as the shock passed. Three more of her ilk crowded behind her, muttering about the hold-up.
Jacob bent low beneath the bundled gun barrels and threw himself forward to initiate a short Dash, sliding between the urgek’s legs. Coming up on the other side, he jumped high and sank two fingers into the eyes of another alien, ocular juices squirting out. The blinded fighter bent low with a yell of equal parts terror and agony. Jacob used his handhold to pull himself up onto the urgek’s shoulder. Several guns were turned hesitantly his way, but they were slow on the uptake. He kicked one out of alignment and jumped out of the path of the others, leaping above the whole group and landing in a sprint on the other side.
His knees clicked with a twinge of pain for every step he took, and his ankles were no better, signaling that his legs were just about done. They’d have to carry him a little further.
The street was littered with vehicles to use as cover. He zig-zagged between them, didn’t turn back as gunshots started ringing out. He took left down a side street, then right, then left again.
He stopped for a minute to catch his breath and check himself over. His shoes were wet with blood, and his legs shook when holding his full weight. It would have been better to start slow when learning to use Dash. During the course of his escape, he’d also gotten further away from his original goal, the grocery store.
Can’t be helped now.
On the upside, the map told him that he was close to the Union Street square, on the good side of the broken bridge. And the square had a small convenience store. Not perfect, but more realistic than backtracking given his current condition. It would have to do.
He walked the short distance to the square and entered the round open area ringed by shops, food places, and the Smile Boy that was now destroyed beyond recognition.
He stopped cold almost immediately.
There, in the road running through the middle of the square, stood a lone cleaner bot, sweeping some pebbles and bits of broken asphalt together with a broom. Seven dead urgeks surrounded it, their bodies twisted, bones protruding from the skin.
The cleaner bot spotted him, looked up, and waved.
“Hello, sir!” it said cheerily, regarding him with dead glass eyes, its face a steel mask.
“Uh…” Jacob wasn’t sure whether to turn and run. His morbid curiosity won over. Pointing to one of the alien bodies, he asked: “How’d that happen?”
The robot briefly stopped its sweeping to glance down. “Oh, these ruffians? They were making a mess, so I made them stop.”
“You did?”
The robot resumed its sweeping.
*****
Fifteen minutes earlier…
JDX-411 loved his job.
His job was to clean the public spaces and pedestrian walking lanes between Union Street 32 and Union Street 67. He took pride in his work. He did it well. His favorite part was when someone personally asked him to clean something—he was supposed to obey humans making simple cleaning requests as long as it didn’t prevent him from performing his regular duties on schedule. He liked fulfilling these requests because he got to see how happy people were when they saw the finished result. Sometimes they even praised him. Not often, but that was okay. It was his job, after all, and he didn’t do it for the praise. It was an important task, and someone had to do it.
But lately there had been a lot of messes to clean up. Big messes. He wasn’t sure why—his calendar function confirmed that there were no ongoing celebrations or holidays. But the streets were covered in all manner of detritus, some too large for him to either move or properly dispose of, and people were making a terrible racket.
He had just swept a pile of Category-D4 loose sidewalk material together and was bending over to collect it into his dustpan when someone’s foot plowed straight through it and scattered his hard work all over the ground.
JDX-411 looked up at the very tall person moving past him. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but I ask that you refrain from interrupting me in my duties. Thank you, have a good day.” He had been a little harsh, so he made sure to put a happy inflection on ‘good day’ so that the person knew he wasn’t angry. They probably had not meant to upset his pile of Category-D4 loose sidewalk material, after all.
The very tall person stopped and turned towards JDX-411, regarding him with a light frown. He said something over his shoulder to several other very tall people. His translator was not able to pick up the language, but the others laughed, so it was probably a joke. JDX-411 laughed at the joke, too, although he did not understand it. Appearing approachable to the public was a vital aspect of his job.
The very tall person shoved him. He landed on the ground, clutching his broom. Was this part of the joke? He was very confused.
The very tall person dropped a Category-X1 irregular metal implement they were holding and went over to a nearby Category D-15 public infrastructure, subcategory light post. After some guffawing and general prompting from the others, they pulled the great metal pole straight out of the ground, taking a chunk of asphalt with it. They came over and raised the light post above their head, as if to drive it into the ground right where JDX-411 was laying.
JDX-411 experienced a strange emotion at the sight of the vandalized light post. After some tabulating, he was able to file it away as shock. He was not aware of ever feeling that emotion before.
The very tall person had intentionally destroyed public infrastructure.
His shock transitioned into another unfamiliar emotion. He tabulated. It was… anger.
As a cleaner bot, JDX-411 did not have the authority to issue an official punishment to a citizen in any capacity, only report and move on.
But he didn’t want to report it and move on.
He wanted to punish.
“I see,” JDX-411 said. “You and your friends are ruffians who enjoy destroying Category-D15 public infrastructure. People like you should just go away.”
The ruffian thrust their light post down.
JDX-411 raised his broom.
In a fraction of a second, a series of messages flashed inside his processing unit.
[ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR]
[WARNING: UNKNOWN CANDIDATE]
[WARNING: CANDIDATE UNACCEPTABLE]
[ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR]
[CAN—]
[CANDIDATE—]
…
…
…
…
…
[PRIME CANDIDATE AUTHORIZED]
…
…
…
[INITIALIZING ADVANCED INTERFACE…]
…
[BLESSING UNLOCKED]
[CLEAN SWEEP]
All the very tall ruffians flew into the air—carried by a 4,1 Erden Scale bad weather event, subcategory storm, subcategory localized—while the light post drifted safely to the ground. The ruffians hung there for a moment, suspended between 8,2 meters and 8,9 meters into the air, before suddenly falling back down.
They made a terrible mess when they landed.
JDX-411 felt guilty. He had made a mess. He immediately got up and resumed his work so he could begin to rectify it. He would have to notify a local maintenance crew to replace the light post.
At least the ruffians had desisted in their efforts to destroy public infrastructure. That thought gave him a familiar feeling.
Satisfaction.
*****
When the robot refused to elaborate, Jacob reluctantly moved along, passing through the square and into the abandoned convenience store, which luckily had only sustained minor damage. He took some plastic bags from behind the counter, went to grab groceries, then promptly backed up to open the cash register and stuff all the bills into his pockets. There weren’t many—barely worth the time.
As he went around the store picking up various canned and vacuum-sealed foodstuffs, he was unable to stop thinking about the cleaner bot outside.
He killed seven urgeks on his own. At least, that’s what he seems to think.
That would be completely impossible, unless…
Can robots become Users?
I thought they weren’t supposed to be sentient. At least the street-level variety. Surely that would mean they can’t Snap. But how else would you explain it? He looked back through the glass doors into the square at the grouping of mangled bodies.
The damn tin can was playing coy, too. Something was definitely weird about it.
Jacob filled four bags and finished his impromptu shopping trip. He walked over to the robot, who pointedly ignored him, completely absorbed in its work. Jacob cleared his throat.
The robot looked up. “Yes, sir? Can I help you?”
“Do you do blood?”
The robot tilted its head slightly. “Pardon?”
“Do you clean up blood?”
“I have the necessary attachments to perform that function, yes.”
“Then I need you to clean up some blood for me.”
“Specify location.”
“Reardon Street.”
“That is outside my area of responsibility. I’m sorry sir, But I’m afraid I cannot comply with your request.”
“It’s an emergency. Life-and-death.”
“In that case, I suggest you contact emergency services or police as relevant to your situation.”
“Emergency services aren’t responding. I need you to clean up some blood.”
The robot remained completely stationary for maybe twenty seconds, broom frozen in its hands. Then, finally, it nodded once. “I see. Lead the way, sir.”
Jacob grinned.
Can’t believe that worked.