I was stewing in our base, having just gotten up from an unsuccessful attempt at a nap, when Veda's message came flooding in.

We've got good news and bad news here. I'll send Juana all the details, but we won a few points in court, lost a bunch more. None of the humans are being shipped out until the conclusion of the Reality Engine exploit.

I let out a whoop as I headed for headquarters. Juana and the admin team were up and talking excitedly. They beckoned me over. A minute later, Grandpa followed me in the door.

"I assume we're all getting the same message from Veda here," I said.

"She's sending me a full data dump," Juana said. "It sounds like there was quite a lot of fireworks, and she's in some pretty bad trouble personally, but what affects us is that the Patriarch of the Order of the Progenitors has invoked some law that allows him to lock down our system until this Reality Engine exploit is concluded."

"I guess they don't have separation of church and state here," I said.

"I don't think it's that simple, Shad. It sounds like he is one of many beings with the power to call in this set of contingencies. What it means for our fellow Earthlings is a stay of execution, nothing more. Their contracts with Alabaster Sky remain, and presumably as soon as the exploit's over, they'll be shipped out."

"But it gives us some time," I said grimly. "What else?"

"Let's see," Juana scrolled through as I checked the short-form Veda had sent me. She concluded with, We'll have to strategize later. I know you're doing the best you can, so keep up the good work. I don't really care what happens to me now. I want you to rip these assholes a new one.

I laughed and turned back to our team.

"All right, so the next thing we need to figure out is how to get a little more breathing room. We've got to get Waters and his assholes off our back, and we need to take out more of the opposing teams. If we can knock a few hundred more out, we're gonna have a lot more flexibility. How are the sabotage and spying plans going?"

"Pretty well," Juana said. "Our farm teams were getting ganked when they went into other Phase Three instances. So we started embedding a core of fighters into some of the farm teams. After a few nasty ambushes, word got out and our farmers are being left alone. That gives us room to start Project Trojan Horse."

"Excellent," I said, rubbing my hands together. "I just wanted to confirm with you that we really do want to spend the resources on that plan. If we can't get the rules change, it's going to cost us a lot for no return."

"We'll get the rules change," Grandpa said. "Don't worry about that. Ames's got a plan in place. They're gonna think it was their idea," he laughed. "So yes, let’s deal with Waters.”

Juana cleared her throat. “So, first, in this discussion we need to keep straight the difference between our guild and our faction. Misfits Guild signed up — well, our daring strike leader Shad signed us up — to be part of the faction known as Team Tunnel Rat. Unfortunately, so has what’s left of the Free Human League. We outnumber Waters and his crew, but as long as they follow the rules set down by the leader of Team Tunnel Rat - that’s the Kobold King — they’re part of the faction.”

“I don’t think the Kobold King exists. I’ve seen his throne and Captain Kobold talks about him but never seen so much as a whisper,” I threw in.

“Good to know, but not crucial,” Grandpa said. “Juana, you were saying?”

“Since I'm an admin for Misfits Guild and we are the prime affiliate of Team Tunnel Rat, I'm able to get a full list of everyone who has signed on to Team Tunnel Rat. I'm assuming that anyone who isn't already part of Misfits Guild is probably an enemy. It looks like about a hundred and fifty of them."

“That’s not too bad," I said. "I mean, it's annoying since we can't get rid of them permanently, and there's plenty of ways they can grief us, but I was worried it was going to be thousands more."

“I petitioned the Faction leader to close recruitment for twenty-four hours. That gives us another 18 hours to figure something out,” Juana said. "We've got a waitlist about 4,000 miners long. I had a quick word with your friend Mr. Black. He told me that Proxima sent out word that anyone who joins Team Tunnel Rat and helps grief us will be excused from the rest of their contract."

"Ugh. That's the worst-case scenario for us.”

“Right now we do still outnumber them quite a lot."

"Yeah, but all they have to do is clog up the tunnels and we have a much harder time moving around between instances," I pointed out. "Or they follow us to one of the boss fights we're planning to mess with and take us out. We've got to get rid of them.”

“Kill them and they just respawn. We can't offer a better bribe than Proxima, and we can't remove them from the faction. So what do you suggest?" Juana asked.

I rubbed my aching head. That was the exact problem that had kept me awake for the last four hours.

Sage wandered in. "Got any more of the macaroni and cheese?" she asked Juana.

"No, sorry. We ate it all. I think Mama's got a big pot on at the restaurant if you want to pop out and get some."

"Might do that," Sage said. "Y'all look like you've got a funeral coming up. Why so glum?"

"Just trying to figure out a way to deal with Waters and his crew."

"Oh them," Sage scowled. "Stupid, quisling traitors. They should be taken out and shot as enemies of the human race."

"That would solve all our problems," I agreed, “except they’ll just respawn right away, so as nice as it would be to put a bullet in Waters’ brain I’ll have to go with another solution.”

"So what are you gonna do about it?" Sage asked. "Go for a Shad special? Run in there guns blazing, blow them up?"

"Won't do us any good," I said. “Downside of removing the death penalty.”

“Then we need to try diplomacy," Sage said. "Ooh, you're not so good at that."

I scowled at her as we all stared around the room, looking unhappy. I could see Juana thinking. Grandpa was scowling at the wall, drumming his fingers on the table. Dwight had a wire-and-glass device out on a table in front of him and was tinkering with it.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"This is definitely a time to ask yourself what would Shad do, and then not do that," Sage said.

"Very helpful," I grumped back. I pushed my hat back on my head and thought about it a bit. "Maybe you're right," I said slowly.

Grandpa frowned at me. "Don't be so dismissive of yourself, boy. You've got a good head on your shoulders."

"I know, but a lot of my strategies tend to be lone wolf things. I run in there, get everyone's attention, blow things up spectacularly. That's not gonna help here. Makes me think we need some sort of group solution." I gestured around the room, “Playing to your strengths, Juana, not mine."

"I'm an administrator," she said. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do in this situation."

"Well, this is an administrative problem." As I talked I felt the stirrings of an idea. “Yes, it is…. Look, we've got a bunch of people in our way who are nominally part of our faction, but they really aren't. We can't fire them. But there must be something we can do.”

Juana's eyes went wide. "Right," she breathed. "We can't fire them, so we put them on a process improvement plan that they can't possibly fulfill.” She pulled her clipboard out of thin air and began to scribble down notes. "Shad, you're brilliant."

I couldn't help grinning like a fool. "I'm also devilishly handsome.

“And good for nothing," Sage broke in.

“Hey, I just solved our problem here!”

Juana was ignoring me. "We can't fire them, but as an affiliate, we can propose rule changes for our faction. Then all Team Tunnel Rat members can vote on accepting the changes.”

“Like no killing each other?" Grandpa asked. "Or maybe don't be an asshole. That should make Waters explode."

"Not quite. What I'm thinking here is we set performance metrics." She turned and gestured. An image appeared in air like our stat screens. It read:

[Team Tunnel Rat Contribution Points List.

All members of Team Tunnel Rat are required to contribute to the cause.

Contribution points are as follows:

1 hour farming: 25 CP.

Crafted item: CP equivalent to soul coin value of item as assessed by system.

1 enemy combatant kill: 100 CP.

1 enemy non-combatant kill: 500 CP.

Participation in successful blocking of enemy team attempt on boss: 5,000 CP divided by number of miners contributing to this event.

Friendly miner kill: -1,000 CP.

Any miner who does not contribute a positive total of at least 50 CP per day will receive a soul coin penalty to be assessed against his or her contract holder.

Any miner who carries a negative CP balance for three days or more shall be fined 100,000 soul coin.]

She smiled beautifully. I read through the list again and shook my head in admiration. "Juana, you're a genius."

"You could say that again," she invited.

"You're not just a genius, you're the most clever and beautiful woman I've ever met," I said recklessly as I studied the chart. "This is perfect. We need to confirm that Proxima or one of the other conglomerates holds all of the contracts for the turncoats. I don't know what would happen if we tried to assess a penalty against the system itself."

"I checked. All of the ones that I know for sure are traitors have contracts with Proxima. There's a couple that might actually be legitimate recruits. This will give them a chance to prove themselves."

"What if someone from Waters' guild builds something really, really expensive and then kills a couple of us and winds up with a positive CP total anyway?" Sage asked.

"I don't think that would be a sustainable strategy for very long," Juana said. “It would just cost too much. These changes do need to be ratified by a quorum of Team Tunnel Rat members, but we have the majority. I'm sending out a Misfits Guild -wide message telling everyone to vote yes when I send out the proposal here in a minute. Anyone have any other changes they think we should add?"

"How about we give me a million CP signing bonus so I can go around and assassinate Waters and his team?" I suggested.

"We need this to be something that will stand up legally if it's challenged," Juana said. "I'm worried that any kind of favoritism toward you would not be well received."

"Point taken," I conceded. "All right, let's get this in place. And I'm going to get my team back on thwarting boss' attempts. Arjun, got a situation report for me?"

"Come over here and we'll put our heads together," he said. Grandpa and I joined him in the corner while Juana put the finishing touches on her messages.

Arjun bent over his workstation, shuffling around papers. “We've had several teams make progress in the eight hours that we've been down. Our farmers report that twelve instances have had five or more bosses cleared. No one has taken down more than seven. There are at least two bosses remaining in all instances."

I crossed my arms. “Okay, the ones with only two are our top priorities. We've got to give them some setbacks here. Otherwise, one slip-up and we're done.” I turned to Grandpa, who nodded agreement. "After that, we prioritize the teams that we don't think are going to be taken down by Operation Trojan Horse. As soon as Juana's got the CP thing going, I want her back on planning that."

"Understood," Arjun said. "In that case, my team and I have several suggestions for you, Captain Williams."

As we strategized, I got the Misfits Guild-wide message from Juana, followed two minutes later by a pop-up from our faction detailing our new contribution points rules and a vote yes, vote no. "Once the Reality Engine exploit is complete, contribution points may be redeemed for Soul Coin or other prizes subject to the treasury belonging to Team Tunnel Rat,” the end of the message said. "We'd like to be able to make guarantees, but right now we all know the sort of situation we're in. We can't promise you'll be rewarded for your efforts the way we'd like, but we will do our best."

"That's clever, adding a carrot as well as the stick ,” I said as I clicked yes on the pop-up.

"Sage's idea," Juana said.

"Hey, everybody likes prizes," Sage said, "and this way it'll be a competition to see who can contribute the most."

"If this works, I can open recruiting back up," Juana said. "Maybe we can get a few more of the Lotus Eaters in."

Five minutes later, the faction-wide voting was over. It had passed by a total of 37,416 votes to 512.

"Since when do we have 37,000 people on Team Tunnel Rat?” I asked. “Are they all part of Misfits?”

“You haven't been paying attention to the daily status briefings," Juana said. “And no, we’ve had to start two allied coalitions to help manage things.”

"I thought you said there were only 150 or so of Waters' traitors.”

"Yeah, I'm making a list of everyone that voted no. I’ll follow up. I have a feeling some of them just didn't bother to read what I sent."

"All right, good enough," I said. “Heading out.”

I called up my team as I emerged from headquarters. They appeared cheerfully, a spring back in their step, shouting encouragement to each other. “Time to kick ass?” Javier asked.

"Let's get some scouting down there," I said, calling for Constance and Ray, my two best stealth miners.

Juana followed down the headquarters steps as I gave the scouts their assignments. "Let it never be said that Shad Williams can't learn," she said cheerfully, coming to stand beside me as Constance and Ray disappeared into the portal. She set her hand on my shoulder. "Thanks for coming up with that idea. I've been racking my head for hours trying to figure it out."

"You're the one who had the idea," I said, "and likewise. I couldn't sleep at all. It was really bothering me."

"Well, we'll just take joint credit for it then," she said.

I leaned over to plant a kiss on her cheek, but she turned as I did, and our lips met briefly. The team around us cheered or whooped. I stepped back and cleared my throat. I was pretty sure my face was bright red.

"Let's focus on the mission here, people. Constance, Ray, report."

Tunnels are still filled, boss, Constance reported back. Lots of Waters' people down here.

"All right, I want Ray to step out of camouflage and see what happens."

A minute later, Ray reported back.

They're just staring at me. Some of them are shouting some threats, but nobody's made any attempt to attack me.

Good, so they understand the penalty.

But they're standing wall-to-wall here. At least ten rows deep. I don't know how we're gonna get past them.

Like any good tunnel rat would, I replied, then turned to the folk assembled in front of our nexus. "All right, team, let's get in there."

We lined up to begin touching the stone. I turned to Juana.

"Keep holding down the fort. We'll be back later with some more scalps. As soon as we have word that Operation Trojan Horse is a go, let me know, all right? I want to be in on that action."