Chapter Seven - Numbers Go Up

"I don't know if I want to get out of bed," Sharp said.

I looked up to her. She was laying on her side, one arm over the edge where she was holding out a long piece of string. There was a piece of folded-up tape on the end of that string, and every so often she'd give it a quick tug.

She yanked the string to the side, and I leapt forwards, landing with both forepaws on the bit of tape. I was keeping my claws sheathed for now, but it would be easy to have them come out.

Sharp, the deceptive little pain in the butt, flicked her wrist and sent the tape flying out from under me. I spun, trying to catch it, and landed on my side. So I rolled around then ran after the tape.

This was, of course, not a game. It was serious training.

"If you don't get out of bed," I said. "Then you'll be late for your job."

"I have a job already," Sharp said. "I don't mind waitressing, it's not so bad."

"Oh? Well, if that's what you want for yourself, then I won't stop you. It's a longshot from being the edgerunner you said you wanted to be. You're not aiming very high, but that's acceptable too."

"Urgh, I do wanna be an edgerunner. I wanna be famous and rich and all the rest," Sharp said. "But do I have to get out of bed for it?"

I sniffed as I caught the tape again, only for it to slip out of my grasp. "Don't be lazy."

"You slept most of the day yesterday," Sharp pointed out.

"And yet here I am, doing physical work to improve myself," I pointed out. "If you're looking for a good example of someone lazy, then I'm not the one you should be looking at. I worked myself to an early grave."

"Yeah, yeah," Sharp said. "Okay, fine. I'll go shower."

I was just about to nod when Sharp went crazy with the string, flicking it this way and that faster than I could react. I almost went dizzy as I tried to follow it with my gaze... then I pounced, catching it in mid-air with a perfect swipe.

Reflex Has Levelled Up!

Reflex 0 > 1

I grinned and told Sharp about the level up. She was happy for me. It had taken a couple of days of work, but I'd proven that training was capable of levelling up a stat! While she handled her morning ablutions, I took some time running the length of the room. My body was still clumsy, but maybe it was a little less so?

Was that Reflex levelling up, or was that me growing more used to this new form? It was hard to tell. In any case, running was good Body training.

Sharp came back with a small plate covered in recently-microwaved food. She sat cross legged on her bed, and I leapt up to join her, claws digging into the side of the mattress until she scooped me up.

We had a breakfast of leftovers. Sausage and rice and a few bits of pseudo-chicken. It was good enough. The Bloody Bat had a pretty good cook and even microwaved the next morning, it tasted fine.

"So this job," Sharp started. "This will make me a mercenary? Or an edgerunner?"

"Oh, nowhere near that," I said as I ate. A surprising side-benefit of telepathy. "This is barely dipping a toe into the well that is that particular world. But it will help."

"How's that?" she asked.

"First, by making contacts. The two young women you met twice so far, for one. We'll see if we can't meet people on the route as well. You'd be surprised how much of the mercenary world revolves around knowing the right people."

"I guess I can kind of get that," she said. "You know Miss Paris, and that got me this job. There's no way I'd have gotten all of this without that one contact." She gestured to our tiny room. It was smaller than some solitary prison cells, with no windows and barely any furniture, but I supposed that to Sharp this was a lot.

"Indeed. Contacts, and money. I definitely want to get a phone sooner rather than later. For a multitude of reasons, but chief amongst them is to start your Magic and Tech training."

"Magic?" Sharp asked.

"Don't get excited just yet," I warned.

Breakfast over with, Sharp returned the plate to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later to get changed into her normal clothes. She looked like she was one step away from being a bum again, but that was fine. If anything, it would serve as good camouflage.

With me riding on her shoulder--the food and exercise really knocked me out--we headed into the main area of the bar. It was quiet, being closed and all, but there was a familiar face there to meet us all the same.

The gremlin. Or Jenny. I preferred my nickname in the privacy of my own mind.

She was leaning against the central bar, awkwardly handling a glass filled with something carbonated while Paris cleaned nearby and very clearly kept an eye on her. She stood out here. Her bright yellow jacket made sure of that, but beneath she was in shorts with fur-lining and a plain black tank-top. The guns hidden by her ribs were obvious.

"Oh, you're here," Jenny said. "'Bout time."

"Hello," Sharp replied.

Jenny glanced at Paris, then back at Sharp. "You're dressed like a hobo."

"I'm not far from one," Sharp admitted.

"Heh. Well, at least you're quick," the gremlin said with a mean grin. She kicked a bag next to her. "Stuff's in here. Each package has the address on it. You got a phone? Augs?"

"Nope, nothing like that," Sharp said.

Jenny's eyes flashed and she shook her head before reaching into her offensively yellow coat. She fished around it for a moment before removing a small brick of a phone. Her eyes lit up again, and the phone's screen flashed before she handed it over. "Burner. You know how you use this?"

"I can coach you."

"I can handle it," Sharp said.

"Good," Jenny replied with a nod. "Aly and I will be meeting up back here tonight. You can come to us for your pay then, yeah?"

"Okay, that sounds reasonable," Sharp said. She grabbed the bag from the ground. It was a simple duffle, the kind of thing that someone going to a gym may have with them. Not as inconspicuous as I would have liked, but not too bad either.

"Sure. Don't fuck up," Jenny said. She nodded towards Paris, shoved her hands in her coat pockets, then headed out.

Sharp shifted the duffle around. It had a strap that she slipped over her head. I had to move a bit to give it room. The bag was clearly filled with something unshapely and soft. Sharp opened it, revealing a number of brown packages covered in tape.

"Will you be back in time for your shift?" Paris asked.

"I should be, yeah!" Sharp said. She grinned. "See you soon! Promise!"

"I'll keep you to that," Paris said.

Sharp didn't waste any time before heading out as well. She fiddled with the phone as she walked, so I gave her instructions on unlocking it. There was a prepaid plan, internet by the minute. We had three hours of access paid for and there was some preloaded map software with the addresses entered already.

"Do you know how to read a map?" I asked.

"Yup, that's one of the things we learned at the orphanage."

"Seems like a strange skill to teach," I said.

She shrugged. "There were... classes about a bunch of things. It was mostly training so that you could leave and join a corp right away. If you had really good grades, you'd get recruited right there. You still get your wages garnished until the orphanage repays itself, but it's not so bad. I, uh, was never the top of any class, but I wasn't the bottom either."

"That can't have been an ideal place to grow up in," I said.

"It's what I knew," she said with a smile. "Once I got my system thing, I kinda, ah, ran away? If you score too low, you kind of disappear? I saw it happen a few times, and I decided not to chance it."

"I... see," I said. That would bear some investigating. But we could hardly afford to do that now. First this one, simple mission, then we'd see about improving our lot in life.

Sharp knew South Boston relatively well, and she was able to tell where most of the packages needed to be delivered to. A few were in mega buildings, but most were in the more common apartments scattered around the city.

We'd have to walk all the way over, and then all the way back, and I was worried that even with our early departure, we wouldn't be making it back in time for Sharp's shift, but maybe we'd be lucky and things would work out?

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I didn't expect it to, however.

***

The first delivery went well. I was a little concerned about time, as it had taken us nearly an hour to reach South Boston, but once there it was easy to find the first location for the delivery.

In hindsight, we maybe should have ridden over to this part of the city with the gremlin. It would have saved us some walking. But we didn't know her very well, and she might have asked questions, such as 'why are you taking your cat with you?'

Besides, the walk was good. Whenever we were in a safe enough area, I'd ask Sharp to set me down and I'd run along with her and encourage her to jog a little. I didn't want her tired out, but keeping her cardio up would help in the long run.

That proved true after our third delivery. It was in a mega building, one of the oldest in Boston Two according to a decrepit plaque by the front entrance. Being so old apparently meant that the elevators were down, and the location for that delivery was on the ninth floor.

Sharp seemed certain that she was going to die before reaching the top, but I kept encouraging her, sometimes by running and jumping ahead to wait for her, other times by giving her an earful while riding her shoulders.

The moment she stepped foot on the ninth floor, Sharp gasped and straightened up a little. "My Body went up," she said.

"Congratulations!" I replied while eyeing her up and down. There was no obvious or immediate changes that I could tell, though she did seem to have a sudden boost in energy. "What's the stat's level now?"

"Two!" she said with a crooked smile.

That... wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either. Her Anima stat had flown ahead of the rest, so I felt like it was safe to call it an outlier. The rest... well, she'd had her powers for two weeks. A single point per week wasn't all that bad, all things considered. And that was a whole week without me around pushing her forwards, so it was likely that she was now gaining experience a little faster than before.

"That's good progress," I said with a nod. Ideally the level five perk thing would happen for every stat, and the ones for her other skills would improve her situation a little.

I just had to find a way to get her to progress with her other stats. I thought about it as I rode her shoulder down the same nine floors. By the midway point I jumped off because her legs were getting dangerously wobbly. "Think of the numbers, Sharp. Think about how they're going up!"

Motivating people was so easy sometimes.

Now, training Sharp's--and my own--Body and Reflex seemed like the easiest stats to improve. Combat and Tech were the next two. As soon as we started to make enough, I wanted to find a local gym to train at. That might be relatively simple in Fenway, since the district was filled with sports-loving jocks.

I could coach her through a few kata, some self-defence techniques, and then maybe we could find someone to do some light sparring. It wouldn't be much, but it would work on Combat as well as her other stats.

Tech... well, we had a burner now. Getting it fully jail-broken would take some effort, and that was good. Then it would be a question of getting her used to simple hacks and maybe teaching her some tricks with regards to locks.

Magic and Anima I had no clue about. I wasn't even sure how she'd managed to raise Anima up so quickly thus far, though she hadn't mentioned any other level ups so maybe it was slowing down?

As for Cool...

I glanced to the side where Sharp was currently enraptured by a massive neon advertisement of a woman dancing and promoting... condiments? I wasn't sure, but what I did know was that this slack-jawed dork wasn't going to level that stat up any time soon.

"Come on, there's seven more deliveries to go," I said.

The next few went well enough, though I really was starting to worry about time. We were six deliveries down by the time noon rolled around and we paused for a break in one of the more pedestrian-accessible open spaces. A couple of hot dogs from a cart ate up all of Sharp's tip money from the night before, but needs must, and we were going to make it back once this job was complete.

"Okay, the next few are all in two mega buildings. Well, three are in one, and then there's another at a second," Sharp said.

I leaned forwards to eye the map she had up on the phone. "Should we tackle that lone one first, then?" I asked.

"Hmm, I don't think so? It's closer to the way back, so we'd be walking more to get to it, and it's kind of in the worse end of South," she said before taking another bite. A bit of ketchup fell down her front, adding another stain to her coat. "I don't like that area."

"Best to only go there with one delivery left, then. If we have to cut and run, the losses will be much smaller."

Sharp nodded. "That's the idea," she said before stuffing the rest of her hot dog down her gullet. "Let's go?" she asked past a mouthful.

"Don't speak with your mouth open," I chastised. "But yes, we should head out."

The next three were a little hairy. The mega building we approached was a relatively newer housing unit, and there was security around. It took some circling before we found an entrance that was guarded by Riveters instead of corporate security guards. They eyed Sharp but didn't stop her from going in. I supposed she looked local enough.

Once inside, the deliveries were easy. The place even had functional elevators.

We dropped off what we had to, then ran back out. There was an awkward moment where one of the addresses had a guy sitting out front on a milkcrate smoking a joint, but the package was for him. He offered a pull of his joint to Sharp, who declined with a stutter before running off.

And then we were off to the last delivery.

I wasn't a superstitious sort of woman. I knew that it was fairly normal for people in my line of work to expect things to go poorly if certain rituals weren't carried out, but I tended to chalk bad things up to coincidence just as much as the good. It kept the world as unfair as it ought to be for all involved. Still, I was feeling an itch as we walked into a rougher part of South Boston.

There was music booming out in the street from a homeless man slumped next to a boombox. And that was about the only lively thing around. The people here were walking fast and keeping their heads low. Cameras hung everywhere, but there wasn't a single sign that this place had seen a cop in ages.

The building we headed towards was old, and looked older from the lack of maintenance.

From the moment we entered, I felt my fur standing on end. I couldn't point to any one thing, not the homeless crowded by the entrance, or the walls covered in graffiti, but something felt wrong in here.

"I don't like this place," Sharp said.

"Likewise," I agreed.

As we made it to the elevator, I realized that someone had suborned its PA system, not to blast ghetto beats, but instead it was playing something that sounded almost like an old school radio broadcast. "He is Him. It's about time that the people of this city realise it. He was dead, but the grave was too shallow. The sinner thought it would hold him, but he pulled it away like a rotten tooth!"

I started to notice that a lot of the paint on the walls were symbols. Strange runes that caught the light in odd ways. Were they glowing?

The elevator stopped on the right floor. More graffiti, and now I was sure that some of the runes on the walls were glowing. Worse, the people here were just... standing there, listening to the PA drone on.

"Breathe. Go ahead. Fill your lungs with this old air, the dust of civilization. You think you're safe? You are in His embrace. The night doesn't end! The sun is a lie! He IS the night, and you're just wandering through it."

Sharp jogged up to the last door, dropped the package, then bolted back to the elevator.

We were out of the building in a sprint, and no one even so much as glanced at us.

I shivered, feeling a cold wash pass over me as we stepped back into the sunlight.

Anima Has Levelled Up!

Anima 0 > 1

***