Kaleb grabbed a few knives and quickly rushed over to let the others know about Daivor’s plan. Two Gun and Claire looked more than happy to go back down to the third floor and settle the score with the giant flies. Kaleb hesitated to give a knife to Vivienne, given her love of animals he thought she would abstain from the ruthless slaughter of insects. His gut proved right when the tall Wizard shook her head at his questioning look.
Kaleb nodded and called over to Jar-lock, who was in the office standing at the terminal. “We are going bug killing you want in?”
Jar-lock turned and smiled out the large window that faced the hangar bay. Unable or unwilling to yell back their friend just gave a thumbs up followed by the one minute hand signal. Kaleb gave the okay sign and gave the others a few spare knives before he went to help Daivor. But the Gnome seemed to have finished his little flash-bang.
Daivor met him halfway and passed over the repulsor he was working on. “There’s another on the desk in case we need multiple tries to get all of them.”
Kaleb nodded and moved toward the workbench saying. “We probably will. It’s just the four of us going down there.”
Kaleb picked up the second rewired repulsor and walked back to wait with the others near the stairs. As they waited for Jar-lock, they discussed the various rooms the hangar could make. Claire and Two Gun were interested in a workout room and gun range, respectively. But Vivienne seemed more interested in what changes she could make to her personal room.
“Honestly, I am not sure.” Kaleb admitted. “Maybe that’s something you can look at with the Terminal. I don’t think you can make any changes but you should be able to window shop.”
Vivienne bopped her head as his idea as Claire asked. “But really, dear, you won’t join us? They are just a bunch of bugs.”
“I know, I also know this is just a game, but bugs creep me out.” Vivienne visibly shuddering.
“Here I thought you just didn’t enjoy hurting animals.” Kaleb said.
“I don’t. But flies are just gross. They serve a vital function in pollination and the breakdown of garbage and other organic matter. But gross is gross. Plus, I could do without getting bug guts on my robe.” Vivienne explained brushing non-existent dirt off her blue and white robe.
Two Gun hid a laugh behind a smile as Jar-lock returned from the office. Standing Kaleb handed the big Mage a few knives. Flicking his chin at the office window Kaleb asked.
“Getting your money squared away?”
“Huh, oh no. I did that when I first join the HLO. I didn’t want a third party in charge of my finances. Anytime they wanted to make a deposit they had to get my approval which should make sense since it is MY account.” Jar-lock explained.
“So what were ya doing?” Two Gun asked.
“Seeing what we needed for a Mages Library and looking up nearby stores. We need over a thousand books on various magical subjects to build a Mages Library and around seven thousand credits.”
“What’s it do?” Kaleb asked.
“Makes it easier to study and learn spells and when I turn my room into a Sanctum, the bonus should increase for me.” Jar-lock smiled.
“What about us?” Vivienne asked pointing to herself and Kaleb.
“Oh yeah, you would the increased bonus too.” Jar-lock said sheepishly. “So what are we killing?”
Kaleb explained about the Joranek and the how they could use them as power sources. He went over the plan laid out by Daivor and waved to the knives he and the others were all holding. Jar-lock listened intently until Kaleb finished then said.
“Should we really kill them all? It seems like a decent resource we would just be giving up if we slaughtered them all. Why not capture a few and see if we can breed them?”
Kaleb looked to Two Gun and Claire before he shrugged his shoulders. “I guess we can try. I think I have a plastic bucket around here somewhere. But remember: they feed on power sources. The little bastards are probably why are generators are tapped out. They may be too dangerous to keep.”
Jar-lock nodded, content to at least try. Deciding that it was time to get to it, they all waved to Vivienne as the headed down the stairs. Daivor moved back to the workbench as Vivienne moved toward the office. Kaleb shouted a reminder for Vivienne to be on the lookout for Abby as she would be the last person to arrive. As the quartet made their way through the second-floor hallway Two Gun spoke up.
“You didn’t invite the duck and the big guy?”
Kaleb shook his. “I meant to, but by the time I remembered Farrah had already taken off. We don’t exactly have a reliable means of communication anymore.”
“True.” Two Gun agreed. “Something to fix later, maybe?”
“It’s on the list.” Kaleb said wryly.
“You said Farrah. We got our letter from a sweaty looking delivery man in sweats.” Claire said.
“Oh yeah, Farrah joined me. She was the first one out here, actually. We passed off the letters to a friend, and he ran them to you guys.”
“A little paranoid aren’t you and how, exactly, did you talk an NPC into giving up her job?” Claire asked confused.
“I didn’t have too. The HLO gave her the same crap they gave me. She might have gotten it worse since she worked there longer. All I know she showed up here offering to run Ops for us and making demands for a Command Center.” Kaleb said spinning a half-truth as fast as his brain could think of one.
“As for paranoid, I don’t think so. I want the HLO to know as little as they can about what we are doing here.”
“Smart.” Said Jar-lock as they approached the stairs to the third floor. “You should know though: A Command Center is a hefty investment. You need a high-spec computer, at least a D-Net link hookup, and either your own satellite or some drones. No sense providing over-watch if she can’t see anything.”
Kaleb’s eyes bulged at the amount of equipment he would need. The computer he had expected, and the drones weren’t too much of a surprise. But it surprised him that he could get away with using D-Net. He thought no one even used D-Net anymore, most communication networks used the much newer and faster R-Wave emitters. Both were probably tricky to get though.
Seeing Kaleb’s surprise Jar-lock gave the final bit of bad news. “All of that on top of a price tag of twelve thousand credits.”
Kaleb said nothing. He just exhaled loudly and shook his head staring at the floor. Jar-lock patted his shoulder as they climbed down the last few stairs. Two Gun and Claire smirked at him as they stood in front of the gate to the Power Room. Two Gun retrieved his guns from where he had dropped them. They could all hear a slight buzzing as beyond the metal fence. Kaleb pulled the powered down repulsor out of his pocket and moved to the door in the fence.
“We are all here, Professor. We can make that money, no problem.” Two Gun said.
Kaleb stopped near the door and sighed again. “I know, it’s just that I can see how easy it is to become a criminal in this game. One bank robbery and we could probably afford to make this place a fortress.”
“Well, we need not plan any heists just yet.” Claire said jokingly.
“Least not until tonight.” Kaleb muttered under his breath. He was thinking of Under-Town and K-Tech’s dump site.
“Hmm, what was that?” Jar-lock asked.
Kaleb took a deep breath and smiled. “Nothing. Just planning world domination. You all ready to do this?”
His three friends nodded and held their knives at the ready. Kaleb quickly turned up the power on the repulsor and waited for it to spark to life. The harsh white glow exploded in Kaleb’s hand as the buzzing grew louder. Kaleb counted to three, opened the door, and tossed in the repulsor. He and the others closed their eyes and turned their backs to the metal fence. The buzzing grew to an ear-splitting level as Kaleb slapped his hands to his head to muffle them.
After a few seconds a bright white light shone behind Kaleb’s eyelids and the buzzing abruptly petered out. Opening his eyes and looking around Kaleb saw the others pulling out of their own turtle stances. Not waiting for the others Kaleb quickly dove into the Power Room and moved to the first large fly-like creature. Remembering what Daivor had said Kaleb aimed for a spot between the insect’s two large bulbous eyes.
Stabbing as deep as he dared Kaleb felt liquid ooze over his hand. “Oh, damn it. Why didn’t I use my metal hand?” Kaleb complained as he moved to another fly.
The others laughed as they joined in on the slaughter. The work was more tedious than anything once the Joranek stopped flying around they weren’t nearly as menacing. Two Gun seemed to take a particular glee in stabbing the fat flies. He rapidly moved from fly to fly, his enhanced reflexes allowed for a near perfect strike on the insects he came across.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
They did eventually have to use the second repulsor. There were just too many of the Joranek. It was Claire who noticed the first few stirring from their stunned state. They all ran to safety and closed the door waiting for creatures to come for revenge. But the creatures seemed to go back to whatever they were doing completely oblivious to their fallen brethren. Kaleb repeated the same thing he did the first time, and they all went back to work.
They only had a few more Joranek to go so Kaleb thought that he would look over the generators. Rather than get in anyone’s way. Moving to the closest one nearest to the fence Kaleb studied the large metal cylinder. Every couple feet around the structure there were thin windows looking into an ocean of blue. The interior of the cylinder seemed to spin rapidly and Kaleb couldn’t guess at what was powering it.
He found a small ladder alongside the generator and climbed it. On the top of the cylinder Kaleb found a small hatch into the inner workings of the generator. He cautiously opened the hatch and gazed in finding an ocean of swirling blue liquid. The sludge was spinning quickly, but from what Kaleb could see the liquid was outward from the center of the large barrel. He thought he could hear an electrical hum coming off the roiling liquid.
Moving across the top of the cylinder Kaleb jumped to the second generator in the middle of the room. As soon as he arrived, he noticed that something burned the hatch open. Something had created a two foot wide hole in the generator's top hatch. Judging by the green tinge to the blue liquid, Kaleb could guess what had done it. He carefully peeled open the hatch and stuck his head through, sure enough, chunks on insects were floating along the top of the liquid. A few even seemed jammed into the mechanism that spun the sludge.
Kaleb sighed loudly and was about to move to the last vat when Jar-lock got his attention.
“Hey, professor? I think you will want to see this.”
The large man was alongside the last generator so Kaleb made the short leap to the top and looked down. Jar-lock was pointing alongside the generator where the large cylinder met the wall. Except there wasn’t a whole wall there. The insects had burned through the concrete and into the Power Room. They probably sensed the power in the room.
“That explains how they got in.” Kaleb said from his perch on the generator.
“It may also be how we farm the little bastards.” See Kaleb’s curious stare, Jar-lock elaborated. “Say we cover the hole in the wall for now, then we fence off this generator. Once we got it up and running again we open the hole and let some flying bastards in. We already know how to deal with them, it’s a ready-made Fly Farm.”
“Maybe. But you can see that they can burn through concrete. Hell, the little bastards even burned through the metal on a generator.” Kaleb said.
“We control the access point this time, though. Who knows how long it took those things to burn through. All we need to do is assign someone to check on the hole once in a while.” Jar-lock said happily.
Kaleb shrugged. “We can run in by the others. I take it we couldn’t capture any alive?”
“Sorry. That was my fault. I got a touch overzealous.” Two Gun said scratching his forehead awkwardly.
Kaleb just smiled and shook his head at the old gamer. “So how do we get this things upstairs?”
“I am NOT carrying them,” Claire said testily. Her hands and forearms were a completely different shade of green from the rest of her body. “and you, Professor, are building a shower. Immediately.”
Kaleb looked around at his friends and even himself. The blood had colored all of their hands and forearms green. Kaleb just nodded at Claire and looked at Jar-lock.
“What?” The Mage asked.
“Think you can pop these things into your magic hole there, Merlin?” Kaleb asked looking for a way off the generator he was on.
“Dimensional Pocket.” Jar-lock corrected him. “Maybe. Although it might take a couple of trips.”
Kaleb found a ladder on the side of the generator. “Do you mind? It would be a lot quicker than us all trying to carry them out.”
Jar-lock gave a disgusted grunt before he said. “Sure. But you better find a use for these things.”
Kaleb smiled at his friend and climbed down to join them. Two Gun and Claire joined him at the entrance to the Power Room.
“Find out the problem with the power?” Two Gun asked.
“Bugs would be my guess. But this science is beyond me. I want to get Daivor down here to work out the mechanics. Once that’s done I can start on fixing them.” Seeing Claire about to say something, Kaleb quickly added. “But first, I’ll build that shower.”
Kaleb let Jar-lock do his thing and moved to the stairs followed closely by Claire. Two Gun stayed to keep Jar-lock company. Kaleb made his way up the stairs as quickly as he could once and stepped onto the hangar floor at a fast walk. He made a beeline for his Mechanics Room and grabbed an old lab coat using it to wipe his hands. Claire followed and mimicked him, all the while keeping her sharp eyes on him.
“Daivor, could you head down and look at the generators? If I had to guess there’s some kind of electrical sludge feeding power into the hangar. Looks like the bugs got jammed up in the other two generators though.” Kaleb asked, trying to ignore Claire’s gaze.
Daivor gave a nod as he continued levitating metal poles closer to the workbench. Kaleb assumed they were for the spears he still had to build. Kaleb glanced at where his old clock would have been in his garage before he remembered. Instead, he looked out the hangar door. The orange tinge of evening was slowly creeping closer toward the hangar.
“AHEM!” Claire coughed pointedly.
Kaleb sighed exasperated and looked up at Claire, curious at her hurry.
“Ahem.” Claire coughed awkwardly. “The bug’s blood pooled on the floor in the Power Room. I sat in it. It has seeped into places that are not particularly comfortable.”
Kaleb stifled a laugh and just nodded at the tall woman. He hurriedly moved toward the office and entered to find Vivienne swiping through images on the Floor Plan. Moving beside her Kaleb asked.
“Did you find any showers on there? We all got a little dirty.”
“Not on the hangar floor but the personal rooms on the second floor can have their own baths or we can make two of the rooms giant communal showers.” Vivienne explained moving away from the Terminal to let Kaleb take over.
“Personal please.” Claire asked.
“You and Two Gun chosen a room yet?” Kaleb said waving to the Floor Plan.
Claire waved a hand at two of the rooms at the end of the floor near the stairs to the hangar. “One of them will do.”
Kaleb picked a room at random and selected ‘add a bathroom.’ However that selection just brought up more choices: Master, Full, Three-quarter, Half, Shower only. Kaleb rolled his eyes and was about to just pick one when Claire stopped him.
“Go with a Master bathroom, please.”
Kaleb nodded and selected "Master." and began to place it randomly. But again Claire stopped him. She had him rotate the bathroom this way and that until she was happy. Then she had him rearrange the sinks, toilet and shower. Before he knew it, Kaleb was redesigning the whole room under Claire’s orders. He tried to look to Vivienne for help but the Wizard seemed busy taking notes for her own room. Kaleb sighed and settled in as Claire went over the dimensions of the room she wanted.
Luckily he couldn’t by furniture through the terminal otherwise Claire would have had him there all day. Once the room was up to her standards, Claire slapped a credit stick on the terminal and moved off to get her shower. Least she’s paying. Kaleb thought as he plugged in the credit stick. All told the room was three thousand credits. That was almost the same as the Mechanics Room he had built.
Turning, Kaleb saw Vivienne staring at him with puppy dog eyes. “Oh, come on. I would like a shower too.”
“I just want the same design she got with a few tweaks, I swear.” Vivienne said clasping her hands together begging.
Kaleb sighed and turned back to the terminal. He copied over Claire’s design and prepared to make Vivienne’s few changes. Several minutes later, Vivienne slapped her own credit stick down and rushed off to see her own room. Kaleb guessed she could probably unload her stuff too if she had the same Dimensional Pocket as Jar-lock. Thinking about Jar-lock, Kaleb turned to see where he had gone off to.
As he gazed out the office window into the hangar, he had to stop himself from cursing. Jar-lock and Two Gun were leaning against his car drinking from a water bottle and a beer can, respectively. They were both hiding wide grins behind their drink of choice. Kaleb grumbled to himself and copied Claire’s design for his own room. He made the bathroom a little smaller, but overall he was happy with it.
Moving out of the office into the hangar Kaleb spread his arms wide. “That’s it! I am done designing rooms for this evening. If anyone needs me, I will be in the Mechanics Room. Pro Tip: Don’t need me!”
Jar-lock and Two Gun chuckled to themselves as Kaleb walked around his car toward the Mechanics Room. Only on the other side of his car, just in front of the Mechanics Room was a large pile of Joranek corpses. On the one hand Kaleb was happy to have the work, on the other he wanted to get the weapons done. He turned to Jar-lock and Two Gun to ask for help and he noticed an odd shadow sticking out from the shadow of the hangar door.
Kaleb moved forward as the shadow seemed to pull upward off the floor in a strange oblong shape. Jar-lock and Two Gun noticed his gaze and turned to watch. Abby’s form took shape as she stepped upward out of the shadow. But gravity caught her as her power stopped, and she solidified and crashed back into the hangar floor. It looked like she tried to step up out of the floor and her power gave out halfway through. Kaleb and the others rushed forward as Abby lay on the floor gasping.
“Ohhhhhhh, that sucked!” Abby said placing a hand to her chest and one to the back of her head as she got her breathing under control.
“Cars, people. They make some that fly now. It’s plenty cool.” Kaleb said as he sat up the smaller woman and patted her back.
“Yeah, but her way’s more badass.” Jar-lock quipped taking a sip from his water.
“Right until she smacked into the floor she walked out of.” Two Gun agreed.
Abby coughed and laughed. “I was going for a step-from-the-shadows Nosferatu thing. Shouldn’t have chanced it. Already had to Shadow-Walk from almost a block away.”
“Why?” Kaleb asked incredulous.
“Because you choose a base in the middle of the desert.” Abby said defensively. “There isn’t a shadow within a block of this place. It’s all flat land. I had to wait till the sun got low and try from an old tree to the north.”
“Or you could have walked to the gate and Bob would have let you in.” Kaleb explained.
Abby apparently having no argument just waved Kaleb off as she tried to stand. Kaleb and Two Gun moved to help her, but she seemed to be much better. The obvious toll Shadow-Walking took on her seemed to dissipate quickly. Kaleb smiled at the thought of all his friends answering his call, but something occurred to him.
“Jar-lock can we ward against people entering like Abby just did.” Kaleb asked.
“Geez, all right. I’ll get a car.” Abby joked.
Jar-lock though, took Kaleb’s question seriously. “I think so. I’ll check my books and get to work on it. But anything I do tonight will be quick, dirty, and won’t last long.”
Kaleb nodded and led Abby over to his car to rest. “I’ll warn Vivi.”
Two Gun and Abby laughed as they moved over to Kaleb’s car. Jar-lock just shook his head and summoned a book to his hand. Kaleb gave Abby a once over, but she appeared to be fine. Looking to Two Gun he asked.
“You mind giving her the rundown. I really want to get these weapons ready before I head out to Under-Town.”
“You’re going tonight?” Two Gun asked surprised.
“That was the plan. I want to make a move as quick as possible.” Kaleb said.
Two Gun rubbed a hand down his chin. “I understand that, but if you go on too long without sleep, you’ll get hit with a nasty debuff.”
Kaleb waved him off. “Don’t worry I won’t be doing too much heavy lifting and if I need some muscle, there are plenty of people down there.”
“Reliable?” Abby asked.
“If the money’s right.” Kaleb shrugged.
“You’re not telling us something.” Two Gun said suspiciously.
“Yes, but you can trust that it's for your own good. I’m gonna get back to work now.” Kaleb said walking off.
He felt their gazes as he moved to the Mechanics Room. But he couldn’t include them in his plans for tonight. Tonight would be a dry run, just to test the waters. No need to go at a K-Tech dumpsite full strength. No, he would gather a team of patsies and see how things went. K-Tech would probably not be on the lookout for him just yet.