“Tall freak,” Yuma pouted.
“She’s like if you sat on your shoulders.”
“My math has her 170% of Yuma’s size. By volume."
Jack couldn’t stop the chuckle from briefly breaking through. He could tell she wasn’t ignoring them as well as she pretended to as Yuma kept her eyes roving around the place, a growing group of people were surrounding them. Their each wore uniforms. Dark gray trousers and blood red tunics. It really did look like blood, was that how they got them that color?
“Yes, the red dye comes from blood.” The Sentinel stepped up in a deep crouch, having to avoid the floor-ceiling. The old man next to her was slightly taller than Yuma but still fit comfortably in the hallway.
Jonah clanked the ribbed metal panel onto the floor. Jack turned from the conversation and plugged in Yuma’s portable. The softly green glowing disk was hidden under it. The power surged and died.
A screeched and crashing boomed through the space, some distant ceiling grates fell down into the space, oddly muted.
Jack ripped out the plug before the cables could snake back upstream. It was uncomfortably loud each time.
“Clan Head, we’re not detecting any electricity running through the cables.”
“Good.”
“Clan Head?”
Jack went from finding the layers of complexity and reverence funny turn to sympathetic as he saw the look on the older man’s face as they kept repeating 'Clan Head' to tell him each little thing. It was a rare win for Jack's EQ. The Clan Head was using a metal rod as a cane.
“Out with it.”
“We are picking up an irregular signature. Caught it on vibrational radar.”
The Clan Head knew, “Crabs.”
“Yes sir.”
The tall woman drew some attachment from the guy’s portable and brought it into the middle the pipe.
“Coming from in there.”
“Sentinel round everyone up, we’re going to the next power cable.”
Jack, Yuma, and Jonah stopped as a hurricane of movement swirled around them.
The Clan Head walked past them and called back, “We are heading to the next power-cable, come if you want.”
‘The Sentinel’ was behind them now, looming over Yuma, “Please follow the Clan Head.” Her eyes were hard.
Yuma reached out softly and zapped the shit out of the Sentinel, spilling her onto her back.
“Don’t try to intimidate me big freak.”
Scattered rifles, guns, spears, and a few other things he was curious about the origins of, appeared. Shields moved in, incorporating the pylons surrounding them to lock around the group.
Jack shrugged and prepped electricity in his shield hand.
“Pointless.” Each of the three companions said something, each of them sharing the same sentiment. This was a waste of time.
He was a little annoyed at Yuma. Yeah he would probably have done something similar but still, it was a waste of time, they would have followed no matter what anyone had said.
“Weapons down.” A beat. “I said put your weapons down. We are going to be working with these Outsiders.” Leanne cut a glare at Yuma so fast that few caught it. Jack didn’t catch it. Jonah didn’t. Yuma did.
Jack did see Leanne's smile towards Yuma. He thought it looked friendly, Jonah wasn't sure, Yuma did not see the charm in it.
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Jack and the Clan Head walked next to each other.
“How will your people know how to get to the next one?”
“How indeed. How were you going to get to the next one?”
Jack eyes the old man walking next to him. Jack felt a flash of annoyance, he didn’t like questions to his questions; but still, he got the point. No secrets for free. That was easy enough, as he thought about it he found that he even agreed with it.
“You are from the South… Clan Head? Is that your name or a title?”
“My Role in the Kintu Clan.”
“Do you not have a name?”
The Clan Head’s brow furrowed for a second, he studied Jack form the side of his eye.
“Clan Head Lee.”
“Lee, nice to meet you, my name is Jack.”
“You don’t look like a Jack.”
This again.
“I don’t know any other Jacks, I might as well be the only Jack in existence.”
“We heard your broadcast. Was opening the doors absolutely necessary?”
“I didn’t know it would happen.” He shrugged. He knew it was a lame response but he also knew that this old-timer was sizing him up. He also didn’t want to say much to someone he just met. He didn't have a lot of experience with 'Natives' as they referred to themselves but people seemed far from 'normal' around these parts. He idly wished he had a baseline for 'normal'. Maybe this was 'normal'?
He needed to pay more attention. He took notice of the older man. He had a bald spot that ran down the middle of his scalp and two blooms of hair on either side of his head. They were on the saltier side of salt and pepper. He had a strange beard, it flowed from above his lip into long trailing wisps of hair ending near the middle of his chest. His eyes were different, slanted, narrow. Some eyelid mutation, he couldn't recall how he knew but this struck him that it was not abnormal.
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He looked around quickly for Yuma, he didn’t see her. She had a bit of that too he put together now that he was paying attention.
A gawky looking… person in a knee length robe came up to Lee’s other side.
“How do you manage to cut the electricity running through the power-cables? We hadn’t been able to figure it out.” He posed the question to Jack.
How did this guy get there? Where was Yuma?
He started to turn then felt a zapp. Ok she was there. There was a line, a ring of shields, surrounding them. This time they were pointed outwards. He felt a small swell of, maybe pride, in seeing all of these Humans using shields. He liked shields too.
“Wait, are we being attacked?”
Lee pulled a slight gently-smug smile, “Yes, we have been…” He looked to the young robed man next to him.
He robed man replied, “For precisely four-point-five minutes.”
Jonah would like this guy. Jack looked to find Jonah and found him already starting up a conversation.
“You guys are pretty impressive beyond the uniforms, which are also nice I guess.”
“True words are appreciated.” Clan Head Lee didn’t seem that talkative.
Thankfully they arrived at the next cable.
“Will your…” he waved around. The Clan Head proffered, “Clan Members.”
“Here is good. Will your Clan Members be able to hold them back?”
The Clan Head kept his face serene, “Of course, do what you need to do.”
Jack side-eyed him briefly but before he could tell Jonah that ‘he was up’ the Clan Head placed the metal rod he was using as a cane against the cables and traced a square across the metal.
“Would this be fine?”
“Yeah that’s fine.”
Lee stabbed his cane into the center of his traced pattern, easily punching through the ribbed metal. He pulled his cane back and a square of cable metal came with it. The edges of the metal plate were cut completely clean, with minimal warping. He shook his cane and the panel dropped to the ground with a clang.
Jack would give it to him, “Damn, that’s impressive. Was that a Skill?”
“An old man needs to have a few secrets.” The Clan Head smiled again. Jack could tell he liked showing off a bit. It wasn’t a hostile smile but it wasn’t completely friendly either, at least according to Jack’s take.
Subconsciously, his body was adapting. He consciously knew that his EQ wasn’t Allocated enough but his subconscious was able to adapt and partially compensate.
Things he managed to observe or notice through his Senses; instead of feeding directly to the portion of his brain that controlled interpersonal communication, it fed through his IQ to digest, pick apart, and analyze. His IQ then fed the information to his EQ.
He thought that maybe he should try and be a bit more polite to the old man.
Jack took Yuma’s portable again and plugged it in, trying to keep the AI disk out of sight.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“A young man gets to be a wise old man by keeping a few secrets.”
“Yes, you seem well on your way,” the Clan Head responded.
Jack wasn’t sure where he pulled that from but if it came across as wise he’d leave it at that.
“Lee.” Dammit, more respectful.
“Jack.”
“I think you should know that the crab is building an incredible amount of energy inside of it. I don’t know what it is planning on doing with it all.”
“It isn’t losing electricity with it firing and maintaining the two shields?”
“It isn’t even losing electricity now, with only one cable.”
“Did you have a Degeneration Cannon on the North side as well?”
“Yes we did, that thing was brutal.”
“Are these,” he indicated Yuma and Jonah, “all of your companions? No other’s survived from the North?”
“We have others, we had more than that, the Run was pretty brutal.”
“Yes, we faced losses as well.” The Clan Head’s
Jack ripped out the cord as the cables withdrew and handed the portable back to Yuma. He passed her the AI disk as well, he couldn’t see an opportunity to do it unnoticed.
The Clan Head put his free hand up to his chin in thought. His Sentinel, Leanne, stopped shouting orders for a few moments to join the discussion. Yuma joined, standing across from the Sentinel. Jonah and Head Monitor Yoseh pulled themselves from their focused side conversation to finalize the informal pow-wow.
Ok, 4th time’s the charm. “Mr. Lee, do you mind sharing how many soldiers you have?”
It was honestly less effort killing a crab than having to phrase a sentence politely. At least it seemed like it was turning the discussion in a more productive direction.
“89,” he turned to the Sentinel, a crab broke through a young man’s shield defense, the Lancer with their spear had been covering for another shield-bearer’s mistake.
“88,” he dispassionately updated as the boy was dragged into the crowd of crabs.
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Jonah’s hair started rising off of his scalp. He idly patted it down and continued talking. He paused when he was forced to repeat the action.
Jonah tapped Jack’s shoulder, no response. He tapped him again, harder this time. Still, no response. Yuma picked up on it and touched Jack’s arm, he turned.
Jack saw Jonah’s hair and reached out to pat it down, eyes squinting at the elderly man’s scalp.
Jonah started talking, “We need to get out of here, now. Well except maybe for Jack.”
Did everyone absolutely need to talk about his Skills or Affinities or whatever they were called? The Clan Head was about to ask for clarification, but Jack, used to Jonah’s scattered, overly complex way of explaining things, hopped in. Hopefully before others continued to dish about his Nano.
“Untethered Electricity, a lot of it… it’s coming down the pipe.”
At that moment Leanne, the Sentinel, fielded a report and looked to the Clan Head. He nodded and casually scattered his hands across the group, “Here, is fine, Sentinel.”
“Clan Head the crabs have pulled back.”
He raised an eyebrow, “All of them?”
“Yes Clan Head.”
They all stepped away from the pipe, Jack the slowest of the group. Gouts of electricity preceded the mass he felt following behind it. They started to fray the edges of the ribbed and cut metal. A jolt jumped to Jack.
He recoiled his arm, “Ow, that’s really strong.” He rubbed the part of his forearm that was struck. “You should pull your people out of here.”
The Clan Head scoffed before another, stronger arc connected to one of the more curious Monitors nearby. She was launched back into a pillar, crumpled and smoking.
“It’s not getting weaker Mr. Lee.”
Clan Head Lee studied Jack intensely for a few extended heartbeats. The Sentinel had already passed on orders to be ready to move.
“Leanne.”
“Yes Clan Head,” Yuma caught the modest rebuke in the emphasis on his title.
“We move.”
“Mr. Lee.” He turned back towards Jack.
“This is just excess energy from the Labs, the big crab is still holding all that electricity it had picked up before. It’s still growing.”
Lee thought for a few seconds then asked, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stay down here and head towards the center.” The electricity that had just struck Jack was odd, he had never felt anything like it before. If a bunch of it was in the crab then he wanted to have more exposure to it.
A report was quickly relayed to the Clan Head, “Thank you Sentinel,” he turned to the rest of them, “the red shield around the crab is down.”
“What about the one on top?” That was the one Jack was most concerned about.
“Still there, it might even be more dense than before.”
Jack wondered how he could know that, they must have some people who knew some stuff.
Mr. Lee continued, “You will be able to handle it down here?”
Jack was glad he had decided to start talking more respectfully, Mr. Lee was already more conversational. He wasn't going to say 'Clan Head' everytime but Mr. Lee was ok to use if it meant he was getting more information than before.
He imprinted the lesson in his mind and wasn’t sure if it would stick. Still, regardless of the growing level of comfort between the two, he didn’t feel comfortable enough to start giving away his Personnel Allocation or Skills.
“Either way, I’ll be fine.”
The Clan Head was trying to process the unspoken part of the response. There wasn’t one, at least from Jack.
“He means he’ll be able to handle it or he won’t have to worry about it because he’ll be dead. We’re heading out with you,” Yuma zapped Jonah to get his attention, he jumped a bit, then she was gone him trailing her to a line heading up top.
Well, he knew that he didn’t mean that, he didn’t mean that at all, he had no desire to die. What he was doing was trying to say as little as possible about his Skills while also trying to not to be rude. The experience condensed into a snippet, it was better to be misunderstood directly than have others do it for him. He imprinted that as well. Being a more comfortable chain of thought, it was much more sticky in his subconscious.