Before we follow HuSt out of the arena, I grab Noland by the shoulder and shake my head. He glances towards the exit and frowns, but nods in understanding. A few motions with his hands and gold coats both him and me, leaving everything else out. Numbers appear in the corner of my vision, starting at 1:1, and quickly ticking down before settling at 1:20.
Noland dusts his hands off. “Our brains are now experiencing one second of real time as twenty seconds. We have about five minutes before HuSt annoys the Preservation into a real conversation, so let’s do this quick. Speak really slowly and tell Gisela what’s going on, then start walking.”
I raise an eyebrow and look around. Sure enough, Gisela looks like she’s moving in slow motion. Her lips open and a very elongated letter sound comes out as she raises a hand in confusion, eyes widening as she watches me and Noland move much faster than normal.
“Isn’t this kind of extremely overpowered?” I ask as I wave my hand in front of Gisela’s eyes. “How’s anyone supposed to fight you when you’re moving twenty times faster than they are?”
“In close range, it’s pretty much useless. The magic is so fragile that tripping over a pebble could break it.” He straightens his suit with both hands and sighs. “Plus, there’s the insane cost of keeping it up. Not just in Worth, but in exhaustion.”
“So we’re overclocking our brains and bodies. Got it.” I turn to Gisela, think for a second, then clear my throat before speaking as slowly as I can. “We’re…talking…about...important…stuff. Be…back…to…normal…in…a…few…minutes.”
Dawning recognition slowly fills her eyes, and she nods just as slowly. Instead of trying to speak, she follows our walking pace and starts to pull out her notebook once more. There’s definitely going to be more than a few questions when Noland turns off this magic, but right now, it’s my turn to ask them.
“Noland, what do you actually own?”
He chuckles happily. “That’s the first thing you ask? Not why I killed my dad, or why the people here should be terrified of me?”
“Alright, then let’s start with why you killed your dad.”
“...Okay, kind of walked into that one.” He shakes his head and laughs, but this one is bitter and filled with memories. “Before I tell you that, you need to know a little backstory from before the apocalypse. My family’s rich. Unbelievably rich. I’m not going to give any examples, because I’ll start throwing up if I have to remember the history that was chiseled into my brain so long ago.”
With a small sigh, he looks down at his feet. “We were in ventilation and purification at the industrial level. Refineries, power plants, office buildings; you name it, my family owned, installed, and outsourced it. But it wasn’t our company exactly. It was one of the hundreds of local companies we bought out and took over. My dad did almost everything, and my many older siblings helped out just as much.”
Alright. Rich parents, crappy upbringing. I’ve heard that story a hundred times before, but mostly in fiction. I don’t really have any questions so far, and I’m starting to get the picture of how that company could be indispensable to a post-apocalypse world.
“No questions so far? Alright, I’m going to assume that means you’re following. Well, from when I was born to when the apocalypse happened, nothing really changed. Dad got more contracts, he bought more companies, and he got richer and richer. Skipping ahead until the apocalypse, things changed when my older brother found a coin.”
Noland pointed a finger in the air and mimed firing a gun. “Everything started then. The company barely survived the apocalypse, and when my brother came back, he came back with some weird technology. We researched it for nearly a year, and when we were done, we had a product that could purify the magic in the air that twisted machines into apocalyptic monsters.”
I nod in understanding. “The air filters.”
Much to my surprise, he doesn’t nod. “No. The filters came from the first product; a simple paint-on film that prevented anything from being taken by the apocalypse. It was cheap to make, easy to mass-manufacture, and completely non-volatile. The only problem was that the materials to make it weren’t from Earth. And, suddenly, dad needed a planet’s supply worth of everything.”
Noland runs a hand down his face as he pauses. He seems to age a decade right before my eyes, and the self-important lovable jerk I know takes a backseat to a person I don’t recognize at all. A scared, tired, and overworked man from another life.
“Dad rounded up fifty coins. One of them was the one I have now. But it didn’t go to me first; it went to my older sister Natalie.” His hand trembles as he lowers it. I can’t bring myself to look away. “She died in six hours and five minutes. Dad was confused. So he gave the coin to a random employee. That guy, whose name I never found out, died in eighty minutes. And when dad picked up the coin again, I saw a dark understanding flash in his eyes.”
He turns to me, his mouth pinched in a thin line, and laughs like a dead man. “It wasn’t my idea to use a Worth coin to kill people, Shelby. It was his. He pretended it was an honour, and got rid of every single person that didn’t agree with him. In the span of six months, the company became a dictatorship. Our product that was supposed to save the entire world turned into a product that saved people who kneeled to my dad.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
I… don’t remember that happening. All I remember is that one day, people started making cars again. And, for some reason, those cars didn’t instantly transform. Things that could be retrofitted were retrofitted, all the dangerous stuff was disposed of, and the world started to work again.
“Your family’s the only reason Earth still works.” I say in disbelief. “Why… how… why didn’t I ever hear about this before? What’s your dad’s company called?”
Noland grits his teeth and neary spits his words. “Everyday Eden.”
…No. I still haven’t heard that name. From the look on my face, Noland figures that out and forces out a laugh.
“Of course you haven’t heard of it. By the time your home got the purifiers made with our product, dad was already dead.” He says coldly, yet like a weight was just lifted from his chest. “You probably think that because I have this coin that I disobeyed my dad and argued that he shouldn’t be king of the world. Nope. One day, I messed up his coffee order. Then, that afternoon, I suggested that a thicker coating of product on the filters would lead to less accidents.”
He opens his hand to reveal his Class Card sitting in his palm. “That night, dad threw me in the basement and forced the coin into my hands. Then he shut off the air purification and sealed all the entrances and exits. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he was giving me a choice; use the coin or suffocate to death. Since I’m here right now, you can probably guess what choice I made.”
I snort in amusement, which gets a small smile to creep up Noland’s mouth. He takes a deep breath as the colour returns to his face, and when his eyes get another faraway look, this time they’re filled with fondness.
“When I used the coin, I saw what the other world was like. I grew up more in my first visit than I had my entire life before that. And when I came back, appearing in that basement where dad had fully expected me to die, I realized something.”
He turns to me, expectation shimmering in his eyes. I wait patiently for him to say anything, but after a few seconds, I get what he wants from me.
“What did you realize, Noland?”
“Why, thank you for asking, Shelby!” He spreads his arms wide, and his grin turns savage. “I realized that, with magic, the balance of power finally shifts away from money and influence! Who gives a shit what some billionaire thinks or owns; I can teleport a nuclear bomb into his living room! So what if there’s a tyrannical dipshit raging war on a weaker country? I can kill him specifically without ever having to see his army!”
He clasps his hands together and tilts his head slightly to the side. “So I killed the closest tyrant I could find. My dad. Everyone tried to stop me. So I killed them too. In two weeks, Everyday Eden died. Over time, my brothers and sisters came back from the other world. Some of them were relieved. I let them go. Others tried to kill me. I killed them.”
Slack-jawed in disbelief at Noland’s story, I almost find myself backing up into Gisela’s slow moving form. There’s a mania in Noland’s eyes that speaks of a hatred that very much hasn’t been quelled, and from staring into his soul, I finally understand how people could be so scared of him.
“How the hell did you do that?” I manage to squeak out. “You should’ve been a fresh Class.”
Noland raises his eyebrows in question. “Pretty much the same way you killed the dragonjet, Shelby. Intelligence, well-laid traps, and brute strength way beyond what I should’ve technically had at that point. But hey, they all deserved to die. Delaying our product by just a few months caused millions of deaths. I only killed about three hundred people.”
My mouth feels dry. But not because of Noland admitting to killing three hundred people with his own hands. “M…millions?!”
He nods solemnly. “Six hundred thirty-three million, two-hundred eighteen thousand, nine hundred and fifteen people. That’s the number of apocalypse-related deaths that happened between when we finalized our product and when I klled my father. Another fifty million died between then and when March, Gil, and Ursula helped me create a distribution network to actually help the world.”
Those numbers… I… I can't even understand that much death. Words bubble up in my throat, but my tongue won’t make them. I want to admonish Noland for his violence, but… I can’t. Even if there were better options, he did what he did.
He saved the goddamn world, along with the help of the resort. And barely anyone knows about it.
“How did the rest of the resort help?”
“Oh, that’s easy. March made all the manufacturing facilities over the world, Ursula designed the machines, and Gil actually got the world on board. All I did was bankroll everything.” Noland waggles his Class Card for emphasis. “That’s how I’ve got effectively infinite money; I don’t actually spend any money. March makes the materials with her skill, and I pay for it with Worth.”
I follow his story, even with the few holes I have to fill in myself. It all makes sense. Except for the fact that some people here don’t know him.
“Shouldn’t you be a household name or something? I’ve never heard of Everyday Eden.”
“Of course you haven’t. I buried that company a long time ago.” Noland reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card. “That’s the company we’re using now.”
He hands me the card, and the second I look at it, I don’t feel any more informed. “Magical Electric? You mean… the washing machine maker?”
“Washing machines, cars, air filters, fridges, trains, planes…” Noland counts off on his fingers, then trails off with a shrug. “We basically make everything. Sure, other companies still exist, but they’re using the tech I made open-source for it. Now before you call me too generous or anything, there’s something you need to remember about March’s skills.”
Something I need to… oh. Oh, shit. “She can destroy anything she built.”
“Bingo.” Noland says happily. “All the materials every company on Earth uses for their apocalypse protection was made by her– with my help. So if either one of us so desires…”
Noland snaps his fingers. “It’s gone. Whatever we want, wherever we want, and to whoever we want. And… for now, that’s all the story you really need. We worked with HuSt and the Preservation before they started going under, so most of the senior people in both organizations know who I am. But it looks like they’ve started thinking they shouldn’t be scared.”
He leans against the concrete tunnel and stares at the backs of the three members of HuSt. “Maybe I should remind them why.”