Maxi charged through the hall. Her sword in hand and tossing out Mind Shards to any printer in her way. When the denizens of IT despair got too thick, she used Psychic Darts. She held off on any psychic Tsunamis and had to bamf away with her limited range teleport skill when a pack of hungry for blood copy machines had surrounded her.
The training for her Leap of Faith skill had been brutal. In Swami Robinson’s dojo, they were able to maintain psychic powers without draining her energy, so she was able to stay out of her body on the astral plane as long as she wanted. There was a silvery cord that connected her to her body, and if she moved through the space it would grow to accommodate the distance from her body.
However, if she grasped the cord and yanked, her body would fly through the astral plane and come crashing down in reality wherever she happened to be when she was in ethereal form, which was rather painful sometimes. In the corporal of flesh and bone, she’d be on a yoga mat one moment and then balanced on her head with no hands to keep her up. Gravity would then reassert itself and she’d crash to the ground.
Maxi had flopped on her belly, crashed on her arm, and even gotten a few limbs stuck in the floorboards, which definitely rated on one of the more painful experiences of her life. Each time a student would teleport themselves into a floor board or ceiling. Swami was quick to enter the astral plane to release them. Joaquin, who seemed to be in all her psychic classes had even gotten his head stuck in a wall and almost suffocated.
Over the course of a couple days because time went slower in the astral plane, they had learned to flick their wrists rather than yank, concentrate about landing on their feet, and getting maximum range as any further than thirty feet from her body meant the cord was too long to get a good pull. The skill was super helpful when a pack of feral copy machines surrounded her.
After escaping the beasts and smashing a few with an astral hammer, and gutting a few more with her sword, she was able to battle her way out of the call center floor to the halls of the laboratories and server rooms of IT where it was surprisingly quiet.
There was evidence that a battle had raged not long ago in the corridor by blood smears, mangled corpses, doors blown off their hinges, and trashed laboratories, but it was quiet, other than the buzz of flickering fluorescent lights.
She had to stifle her own breath as she was still heaving to get air into lungs after the press to get here. Due to the eerie quiet around her, she was worried that there was something even scarier than the flesh and machine beasts she had faced.
Patti had figured out how to enchant snack items with healing properties that would refresh both health and psy points, and Maxi downed an entire fruit leather just getting here. As it stood, she only had two leathers and two peanut butter cups left. They were good for a fair amount of life points over the gummy bear Farhad had given her what seemed a lifetime ago, but she was still dangerously low on healing.
Still, she didn’t want to provoke what could be lurking in one of the trashed labs off to the side as she crept her way to monster holding, which was where her quest marker was leading her for the Printer of Never Jamming V. The HR glasses were convenient, and she could see why people went for the brain implant version, not that she ever would. She liked Terry well enough, but him… in her brain… all the time… nope, count her out.
Her AI companion hadn’t been very talkative after the company removed his safety protocols to capture the employees throwing the raids so they could be transferred to a newer branch with all their skills and experience. Maxi just thought that he needed time to process. Most of the Branches didn’t trust AI, despite the fact that he was given full control and didn’t murder everyone. They put the controls back in place when it was all over. He was stuck, performing the duties of a search engine when he could have been so much more.
The Company, for all its safeguards to conserve resources and mission to protect humankind, had created many inefficiencies due to its sheer bureaucracy and size of the operation. Some pencil pushers long ago decided that they could save money if everyone only used two pumps of soap.
What they didn’t account for in their micromanagement was that maybe there was too much time and resources spent to find that one person who was abusing the company coffers that ended up hindering all the hard working people who were just there to do their job and do it well. Supporting people who wanted to make a difference seemed like a better idea to Maxi than policing everyone because of that one person who didn’t seem to care.
Job performance had a way of weeding out those who were there to take advantage of their situation. Not that anyone deserved what would happen to them for a week of poor performance, but that was an insurmountable problem. Due to the multidimensional nature of her company, employee contracts could be bought out by any multidimensional corporation after an employee was severed from the company. Since there were fates worse than death, the company elected euthanization over what could happen to a person in the multiverse.
The only way for an employee to escape their fate was to buy out their contract and for the same reasoning, why the company wouldn’t allow more than two pumps of soap in the bathrooms, buying out the contract was deemed as an expense that would bankrupt the company and then the Earth was screwed.
Maxi didn’t buy it. She assumed that when any corporation complained about how socially responsible projects were too expensive to be viable, she just figured it was double speak for the rich guys who own the place don’t want to make less money because they got to maintain their private jets and islands somehow.
Her company, the company, she figured was no different, so she sought to dismantle the system by buying out contracts. Her Office Pool would take less of a cut from their loot, but she wasn’t here to buy a rooftop patio or a castle with a moat, though the latter would be pretty cool. She continued her employment because she wanted to help people.
Whether they were an NPC who lived in a world without monsters, or a company employee who had a bad month. She was there for better or worse, to make a difference. When it became about the mission and not about the money, things had become considerably easier for her.
She could focus on what mattered and cut out any of the bullshit that didn’t. It didn’t mean she was living like a monk, she’d go out to a fancy dinner on rare occasions, or take an elevator to Italy to have some gelato in Rome, but everything she did for herself was small, so her impact could be great.
It had earned her a bit of a reputation among the company for not playing by the rules, but Maxi was never much of a rule follower to begin with. A keep off the grass sign was like an invitation to take a selfie.
A noise snapped her back to the present. She heard the rattle and clatter coming from one of the labs. There was a grunt and then a whirring sound followed by a struggle. It was definitely a Grutomaton, and the spinning of a motor sound is what worried her the most.
She had visions of a murderous blender or egg beater. It sounded like the kitchen appliance from hell was in the other room. Considering the Grutomaton virus could eventually infect anything with a microchip, and she didn’t know exactly what they kept in monster holding, she could see the kitchen of the damned coming to life and cutting through the bars.
She readied her Psychic attack, and held her sword in front as she entered the room. There was another growl, grunt, clatter, and whir. Whatever was inside, didn’t sound too happy, and judging by the emptiness of the hallway she figured that it was the creature so terrifying that it scared all the other creatures.
She didn’t expect to see a cutesy little drone caught up in a tangle of computer cords. It was shaped like a three pronged boomerang with propellers on the ends of each of its blades. In the center were giant blue eyes and an adorable rabbit-like mouth. White fur had erupted from the plastic, and on the underside of the head was a camera, and several claw-like appendages. It was like someone had fused a droid from Stars Wars with a Pokeman.
It growled and tugged on the binding when it saw Maxi, but she was just too stricken with how darn cute the thing was to even think about attacking it. She came up to the thing, and said, “Hey little guy.”
It growled and snapped the little claws dangling from its undercarriage. The rotor blades whirred with intensity, but it was unable to free itself.
Maxi considered the situation for a moment. Her legendary yellow shirt had a mythical beast taming ability attached to it that unlocked when she had freed a dragon not so long ago.
“Terry,” Maxi summoned her AI companion.
“Yes, Maxi,” Terry chimed in on her headphones.
“What does Mythical Beast Taming do on my shirt?”
“It gives you protection against damage received from failed beast taming role in addition to a bonus on your Mythical Beast Taming skill checks.”
“I don’t have Mythical Beast Taming.”
“All skills checks can be attempted with a penalty–”
“Yeah, yeah,” Maxi interrupted. “I know, but what are the odds that I can turn this guy friendly?”
“While it's impossible to calculate the exact odds without knowing the creature’s ability points and level, I would say that it's about 50/50.”
Maxi shrugged. “Good enough for me.”
She fished out a peanut butter cup of healing from her Invisible Infinity Backpack and approached the creature with her morsel proffered in her hands.
“Hey there, little guy,” She said in a soft voice.
It snarled and struggled again.
“I got a treat for you,” Maxi said, and held out the deliciousness in chocolate and peanut butter form.
The creature growled, and then sniffed. It grunted then strained. Maxi slowly moved her hand forward until it was in biting distance. The creature lunged forward and snatched the peanut butter cup from her hand, and it devoured the thing.
While it was distracted she moved in and untangled the cord that was keeping it restrained. She stepped back, and it launched up into the ceiling. She looked up at it while its camera on the underside swiveled to get a look at her. She slowly reached into her backpack and pulled out a fruit leather.
The thing spun around so the face side of it was looking down at her with its cute giant eyes. Its nose twitched just like a rabbit, and it lowered from the ceiling. It snatched the fruit leather from her and chewed.
It only took a few moments for the thing to spit the food out with a blah noise.
“I don’t like the taste of them too,” Maxi said. “But they last forever and are full of nutrients.”
She pulled out another peanut butter cup, and it lowered from the ceiling more gently this time and ate out of her palm. She scratched where it’s ear would have been, and the white fur was soft like a cat. Once it was finished with the treat. It nuzzled against her. While they were distracted, an electric pencil sharpener with a Lamprey mouth wiggled its way from under a pile of computer scraps and lunged at Maxi.
The drone moved in between Maxi at the beast and flipped its underside to face the creature. It shot a laser and sliced the pencil sharpener in half and the two pieces clattered to the floor. The foul odor of charred flesh and plastic emanated from its corpse.
The drone nuzzled Maxi again, and she remarked. “That’s handy.”
A message appeared on the feed in her glasses. “You have tamed a Dastardly Drone of Blasting. Would you like to name your pet? Y/N.”
“Yes,” Maxi said and a prompt for a name appeared in her glasses. She thought for a moment and decided, “Dalek,” because the green beam reminded her of the Dr. Whovian villain.
“Grutomaton pets are like sleeping with a rabies infected dog. Eventually, it will bite you,” Daisuke said at the threshold of the doorway, startling her.
Dalek growled and lunged towards her office mate, and Maxi said, “Whoa. Dalek, he’s friendly!”
The drone backed down but still narrowed his eyes and growled. The drone flew behind Maxi, never taking his eyes off of Daisuke. The thing let out another low grunt.
“I think he likes you,” Maxi said. “Must be your winning personality.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Daisuke didn’t take the bait. He simply said, “Come on, we need to get to Monster Holding.”
“That’s why I am here,” Maxi said as she followed him out of the room. “What brought you down here?”
“I had business in IT,” Daisuke said. “Are we going to need hall passes now every time we leave our cubicle?”
“I was just making conversation,” Maxi said. “What’s up with you? You are more prickly than usual.”
“That’s what’s gotten with me!” Daisuke said and pointed to a dead man in the hall they passed as they made their way to Monster Holding. The body was unrecognizable. Maxi could see the remains of the yellow shirt but not much else. The rest was a bloody pulp. She wasn’t sure if the resurrection chair would be able to revive him.
“I’m sorry,” Maxi said, more seriously as they continued through the hall. “That’s just my defense mechanism. I joke.”
“Maybe you should try not to some time.”
“That’s just me. My family. When times get stressful, we use humor. My dad made a crack about mistaking an urn for a casserole because it was on the kitchen table. People looked at him like he was some sort of monster, but we all knew that was just his way of grieving.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, shut up,” Daisuke said and turned to go deeper down the hallway.
Maxi frowned and flipped the guy off. Dalek dashed forward, but she waved him back. Daisuke usually didn’t mind a little casual conversation during the aftermath of a battle. She was pretty sure they were in the aftermath of the encounter. If there had been more grutomatons in the area, they would have already attacked.
Not only did they have a nose for human prey, but she had made quite a bit of ruckus with the pencil sharpener. If there were anymore hiding out in the rooms, they would have come out already. The chaos that she had battled through to get here was most likely already under control by the PIs. Even with the elevators out of commission, it wouldn’t take long for the PIs to mobilize in the same building.
They made it to the Monster Holding door without any further incident. The door itself had been busted off its hinges, and the remains were laying in the hallway. It was a good sign because a containment failure was better than an outbreak of the machines in IT. A jammed printer creating a chain reaction of office electronics morphing into beasts was a bad sign, because the grutomaton apocalypse was an uncontrolled chain reaction.
A containment failure would mean that most of what she fought was just what was in Monster Holding and not a wave of infected machines. While there was no telling when or if a grutomaton apocalypse was on the horizon, more outbreaks increased the likelihood of a chain reaction that would end the world. An apocalypse was just another Tuesday in the company.
They pressed forward into the room. The catwalk near the entry was scratched and shredded by the wave of creatures that had charged through the area. Some of the guard rails were bent or missing all together. A fluorescent light was hanging from its casing and flickered in and out with a buzz. Blood was splattered everywhere though it was hard to tell if it was human or the creature.
Daisuke and Maxi pressed forward with their swords at the ready. While she was pretty sure all the creatures were gone, she may as well be prepared. They crept down the stairs to the room below and saw all the cages were opened. It was as if someone had pressed a button to open them all at once, and all the creatures were released.
There were corpses of non-grutomations critters in the room. They were mangled and mauled just like any humans who were unlucky to be in the room when it happened. Even though the cages didn’t look anything had forced its way out, they were scratched and mangled on the outside of the cage like one would expect from a massive battle.
The grutomatons must have overwhelmed everything before moving on to the rest of IT. Maxi saw the door to the room where the dissections took place was closed. There were dents on the door like something massive had attempted to smash through before getting distracted by an easier target. Grutomatons weren’t exactly known for their intelligence and ran most on predatory instinct.
If anyone was left alive, they must have barricaded themself in that room. Maxi nodded toward the door, and Daisuke grabbed the handle. It was a sliding mechanism. Maxi readied her sword, and kept her mind focused for psychic attacks. Her partner tugged, and the metal shrieked and echoed throughout the chamber.
Maxi braced herself for an attack, but as she suspected, none came. The beasts had already moved on from the area. The door stuck and wouldn’t budge after only a few inches. It was however enough for her to see into the room. If she had a sight line, she could teleport.
“No, wait,” Daisuke said as if he knew what she was thinking. She used Leap of Faith to bamf to the other side. Lab equipment, tables, and chairs had been stacked in front of the door, but wasn’t the cause of it not opening. The dents the creatures on the outside were too big, and it would no longer fit in the housing.
Daisuke peered in the crack, “That was reckless.”
“Relax,” Maxi said. “I can teleport out.”
Which wasn’t true, her psy was below the threshold for using the power again. She pulled out her last healing item, and chewed what felt to her like a dog treat. It wouldn’t get her another teleport, but she could use some Mind Shards and Psychic Darts if she needed it. Not to mention she was low on health too, so it was nice to restore some of it. The real problem with the resurrection chairs was that she had to sit in them to get healed. She was never much for sitting for long periods. Even when she was at home playing games, she had a standing desk. If there was a standing desk of resurrection, maybe she’d stop to heal more.
As it stood, healing items were probably her biggest expense. Between what Patti would make the group and what she could buy on the Free Market, Maxi just kept using healing to keep her going. She was always low on life and psy except in the morning because sleeping restored everything.
“Watch over him. Make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.” She told Dalek, and her furried drone friend growled in response.
She turned away from Daisuke and glanced around the room. The lab that would normally be full of dissected grutomatons and other creatures had surprisingly little blood. The equipment was strewn everywhere, tables overturned, and other evidence that the occupants moved rather quickly to secure the door.
There were no IT professionals cowering under the tables, but there was a door that was marked morgue and another office. She tried the office one first. It reminded her of Ted’s office, her Generalist Branch administrator’s home away from home. There were lots of nicknacks, awards, and corporate doodads of a long time employee: an acrylic employee of the year plaque from 2007, stress balls shaped like the large photocopier grutomatons, a cup with long ago conference logo filled with a assortment of pens that would make Frankenstien’s monster seem like a fashion model.
A picture hung on the wall. Von Patrick had his arms around a woman with brown hair with gray streaks. There were three grown kid pictures underneath. One was a wedding photo, another depicted a graduation shot, and the third looked like it was a high school band, judging by the old fashioned uniform and the flute.
There were snapshots of a man’s life. She wondered how much his kids knew about his real job. Did they know he was arm deep in monster guts all day. Did he miss birthdays because of raids? Maxi couldn’t help but think of her father, all the times he was away. It was hard to be mad at someone who was saving the world, but she was none-the-less. Not that she had any room to judge, she barely went home even though she could afford it now. For better or worse, she was becoming her father.
Finding nothing of interest in Von Patrick’s office, she headed over to the morgue next. She realized that nothing of note was actually a discovery in itself. The printer, computer, and all the electronics hadn’t erupted into violence, which hopefully meant that the outbreak was localized to the IT floor or at least wherever the monsters could have gotten after being released from holding. She opened the door on the other side and found a large refrigeration unit was the most prominent feature. It had many drawers like Maxi had seen in countless cop dramas, except that they were of various sizes.
They ranged from the size of a cat to one massive one that could have housed the dragon she faced back when she still fancied herself joining the PIs. She was glad to have dodged that bullet. They were dicks.
There was a large freight elevator in the back that was dead. At least pressing the button didn’t summon anything, even turn on the light to indicate the lift was on the way.
“Any ideas where they went?” She asked Terry.
“They probably escaped through the elevator before they were shut down,” Terry chimed in.
Before she could wander back over to Daisuke to see if he had any psy restoring items so she could get herself out, there was a banging coming from one of the drawers in the body storage equipment. She heard muffled screams.
Maxi kept her sword between her and the drawer and opened it. Von Patrick stumbled out and collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath. He wore a lab coat and apron that had yet to be stained with blood. Normally, whenever Maxi ventured down here, the guy was elbow deep in a creature.
“Thank you,” he wheezed while he caught his breath.
“No problem,” she said. She waited for him to recover a bit and said, “Want to tell me why you called me down here?”
“Always to the point,” Von Patrick said when he was feeling better.
“I’m not much of a small talk girl,” She said while helping him to his feet.
“The creatures…” he trailed off.
“Yeah, they escaped. Had to put up a hell of a fight to get here. Elevators are also dead.”
Von Patrick grimaced and said, “Why I choose to hide in the fridge.”
“Yeah, about that,” Maxi said. “I think the one attempting to pound through the door got distracted, so maybe next time wait until you climb into the thing with limited air supply.”
“It just all happened so fast.”
“The creatures escaping? Looks like someone let them out. The cages out there are damaged, but more from a fight than something bursting through.”
“That’s just it. No one did. No one could. The system only allows a few cages to be opened at once. It’s a failsafe to prevent a system collapse from happening.”
“It looks like your failsafe failed.”
“That’s just it. It can’t. The mechanism that opens the doors physically incapable of it. Worlds have fallen over poorly designed Monster Holdings.”
“You’re saying someone deliberately did this? How? What controls it? Software? Levers? An elaborate clockwork created by Thomas Edison?”
“Nikola Tesla.”
“That last one was a joke.”
“Tesla was the Inventor class, but most of his designs have already been made obsolete by improvements over the years.”
“But the company's presence on Earth started in the 80s.”
“It was incorporated in the 1980s. Monsters have been around for a lot longer than that. The company will send teams into unincorporated dimensions to keep them safe until they can officially expand and make it a fully operating unit. Think of it like a survey team, seeing if we can expand our operations to this world.”
"Tesla was from another dimension? But he died years ago. Why'd it take so long to setup shop?"
"Interdimensional takes time. We weren't the only company bidding for this world. There were many teams like Tesla's from all sorts of different companies all bidding for the contract to protect this world. Our company won the bid."
“So Monster Holding is some sort of elaborate clockwork?”
“Yeah, it used to be. It’s software now. However, the cage controls are not on the network so it’s highly unlikely that it would be hacked.”
“Is there a panel? Somewhere a person could update the software?”
“Sure, yeah, in the server room, but that’s under guard. If someone were to mess with it that would be a very short list.”
“So give me the list. I’ll investigate it for you.”
“PIs are the formal–”
“But they are not here right now, and I am. I have a little experience with company intrigue and what if the PIs are in on it? Give me the list of who accessed the server room and…”
“Fine,” Von Patrick said and got the far away look in his eyes that said he had one of the HR implants. Nope, still not getting it. While she trusted Terry, she did not trust the company especially with hardware in her head.
A notification came on her glasses: NEW QUEST: A Favor for Patrick Von Patrick. GOAL: Find out who let the grutomatons out. Ally Limit: 0. Time Limit: Indefinite. Reward: 50000 credits. Failure: Termination of employment. She accepted the terms with her phone and said, “Your name is Patrick Von Patrick!”
“My parents weren’t very creative.”
“First names last names is one thing, but the same first name last name?”
“That’s why I kept the Von.”
A clang from the freight elevator interrupted Maxi’s light teasing. She drew her sword and inched toward the elevator door. Von Patrick stepped behind her. She gave him the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that he didn’t level his combat abilities. He was much higher level than her because her glasses could only idefinity level if it was with 100 levels of her and judging by his office, he had been with the company at least as long as Ted.
While a high level non combat class would have a fair amount of life points and could do more damage than say a person still within the window to choose a class, she guessed that she could probably take him in a fight. So she took the lead and continued toward the elevator. When she got close, she heard screaming inside.
“Help me get it open,” She said and they each grabbed one of the doors and pulled. She felt her muscles strain, and she no doubt was rolling an Ambition check right now that was a measure of her strength. Whether it was a system that described reality with probability rolls much like Newton described bodies in motion, or a game system that influenced reality, she couldn’t know. Eitherway she could feel a surge of adrenaline surge through her muscles, and she felt the heavy freight door open with her tug. A notification on her glasses said that she made a rolling critical with her ability check.
Rolling criticals meant that she made 2 or more in a row, with each crit allowing her to roll again. She felt like what those mothers must feel like when they lift cars to rescue their children trapped underneath. The burst of strength allowed her to completely open her side of the elevator, which turned out to be a mistake.
A creature with a large horn on its snout, and sleek body with green molded fur like a cat burst forth. There were two bodies in the elevator of the unlucky IT professionals who got stuck inside during monster wrangling duty. It looked like there was a harness that had snapped leaving the creature free to maul the unlucky pair.
It attempted to gore Maxi, and she parried the blow, and used Mind Shard as a counter attack. Her astral self formed a hammer that would make Thor jealous and she thwacked it on the head. To his credit Von Patrick didn’t run away or scramble to get back in the body fridge. He pulled a dissection tool from his apron, and stabbed the thing in the thigh.
It yelped, and raked him with its back claws. Maxi used the opportunity to strike it in the neck with her long sword, and used the last of her psy for another Mind Shard. It turned toward her and struck her in the shoulder with the horn and lifted her from the ground. She scrambled to retrieve a healing fruit leather and realized she ate the last one. It flicked its head and tossed her across the room.
She hit the other wall with a thud. Her life was critically low, and she was affected with the bleeding status ailment. She would have been fine if she stopped to heal or maybe not used most of her healing objects taming Dalek. Von Patrick stabbed it again, and it gored him in the center of the chest, and flicked the lifeless body aside with the shake of its head.
Maxi stood with her sword between her and the beast, and could hear Daisuke and Dalek in the other room as they frantically tried to get inside. A whiff of seared metal said that Dalek was trying to burn through the door with its death ray.
The creature charged, and she sidestepped at the last moment. Her adversary anticipated her move and gored her, but not before she chopped halfway into the creature’s neck. They both collapsed to the ground. The creature twitched its final death throes. Her vision went dimmed as the last of her life force drained from her body.