“No shit?” Ursula leans in even closer. Her eyes narrow heavily, then go as wide as saucers. “Shit, you’re right. And unless China’s got way less restrictive laws on selling other world materials, that means she’s got a contact who’s supplying her. Or if she isn’t hiding her wealth, she’s got friends in high places. That’s dangerous as shit. Can I have the tablet back?”

I nod and hand over the tablet. Ursula takes it and starts frantically tapping away at it. She’s ignoring the one easy solution to all of this; let it be someone else’s problem. The woman will either find a way to get her coin or ease her requirements at some point, and that’s when we could try to deal with her. Right now there’s way too many questions and pretty much no answers. And we can’t even trust the answers we’ve got.

“So… what now?” I ask when it’s obvious Ursula isn’t going to be done looking any time soon. “Is there anything a little closer to home that I can do? Noland has to have a bead on some coins I could go out and get; I can do that right now.”

“Except for the one in this room with us right now, there aren’t any within my range.” He says, then snaps his head to stare at me. “Waaaait a second. Unless that coin grew legs and walked right over here, I’d say someone had to pick it up and bring it here.”

Ursula looks over her tablet and raises an eyebrow. “You’re the one that picked up the coin? Damn, that’s lucky. Which class is it?”

Guess the cat’s out of the bag now. Not that I was trying to hide it. I pull the coin out of my pocket and hold it up for everyone to see. Including March, who’s focused on me like I'm the most interesting thing in the room.

“Defender. It’s Fate, Body, and Soul. Is it a good one?”

“They’re all good ones.” Noland replies eagerly. “Too bad it isn’t one of the ones we’re looking for, though. That’d make things a little easier. So, what’re you going to do with it? Sell it? Give it to someone? Hold onto it for a rainy day?”

“Flip it!” March chimes in.

Noland turns and points at her. “Or that. I vote for that.”

“Same here.” Ursula agrees.

“For what it’s worth, I’d like to see it too.” Pearl adds. “I’ll make it stop if it looks like it’s going to do something horrible to you.”

I didn’t know Pearl could do that, but that’s reassuring… I guess? The coin weighs heavily in my hand as I press it up against my thumb. Potential millions of dollars could be thrown away with just one motion. Curiosity wars against common sense as everyone in the room eggs me on with their looks of excitement. Even Pearl lets out a curious little squeal as I tense my thumb in preparation.

“You all know there’s a chance this doesn’t even work. My skill only works on things with Worth, and I don’t know if Class Coins even have Worth.” I remind them. “Don’t be too disappointed if nothing happens.”

With the warning in place, I set the shield as tails and flip the coin high into the air. Everyone’s eyes follow it perfectly as it spins in place… and spins, and spins… and spins some more. A keening whine grows louder and louder as the coin spins faster and faster, shoving enough wind at my face to set my hair blowing and forcing my eyes partially shut.

“Is this normal?” Ursula asks over the growing noise.

I shake my head nervously. If anything, this feels like when twist fate should activate–not a weird side effect of high stakes. The coin spins faster and faster, whipping enough windy noise up that an outsider might think we’re trying to launch a jet. March covers her ears and looks away with a groan of discomfort, but Noland and Ursula both stare at the coin as if they were entranced.

My awareness flares as something takes hold of my body. Pearl yelps in surprise as her enhanced awareness is dragged into it as well, guiding my hand up to the coin with the inevitability of a log being dragged towards a circular saw. Tendrils of black speckled with colour snake out to wrap around the coin, slowing its incessant motion down to a leisurely spin as my fingers wrap around the slightly warm prize.

The shield sears itself into my palm. I flip my hand over and take a deep breath, hoping really hard that the tendrils are something only I could see, and spread my fingers as I speak a single word.

“Heads.”

A black luster spreads over the silver coin. It melds with the blue to create a darkness dotted by tiny stars of colour, painting the coin in a completely different light. My awareness greedily devours this new sensation as I flip the coin into my fingers to take a closer look. But aside from the new sheen, nothing really seems to have changed.

Class ??? Coin: Fortress.

Primary Stats: Body, Soul, and Fate.

Ownership Status: ???.

You have an ??? Class; as such, this cannot be used.

“Fortress?” I frown and hold the coin up to the light. The pattern’s still exactly the same, so what’s with the name change? “Ursula, Noland, March? Have any of you heard of ‘Fortress’ before?”

Ursula shrugs. Noland shakes his head. And March gingerly takes her hands off her ears since the noise has finally died down. I’ll take all that as three ‘no’s. What the hell is Fortress, then? If there’s only one class per grouping of stats, there shouldn’t be a difference between this one and Defender.

“Is there a difference in the description?” Noland asks. “That’s usually where we get our hints from. Unless the system decided to be nice and told you the differences?”

I snort out a laugh at the same time as Ursula. “Nope; just a bunch of question marks in inconvenient places. Who has the highest Mind stat here?”

March’s hand rockets into the air. I nod and flick the coin to her, which she catches with ease. She stares down at it for a moment before she takes out her Class Card to check the description. Her face scrunches into confusion after just a few seconds of reading.

“Do you see three sets of question marks?” I ask.

She nods. “One after ‘Class’, one after ‘Ownership Status’, and one between ‘an’ and ‘Class’.” She lists off with a frown, then swipes through her screens. “Why does it say ‘an’?”

Noland raises an eyebrow in question. “An?”

“Uh-huh. The descriptions I recorded all say ‘You already have a Class’. This one says ‘You have an ??? Class’. No ‘already’, and it replaced ‘a’ with ‘an’.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“That’s weird. March, can you roll it over here?” Ursula asks. March nods and does exactly that. “Thank you. Shelby, do we have your permission to pass this thing around to as many people with different Classes as we can find?”

She eyes the coin suspiciously, but doesn’t open her system to double-check March’s description. I check her face and body language for any signs of greed, but she actually just seems interested in whatever mysteries the question marks in the description hide.

“Sure, I guess. But you can’t leave it with anyone; you give it to them, get them to tell you what they see, and take it right back. I’m not losing something this precious because one of you gave it to some money-grubbing asshole. Oh, and I’m keeping it for now.”

Ursula nods and hands me back the coin. “No worries about that; we’ll oversee everything ourselves. I’ll report any of our findings right back to you, too. So, did your skill change at all? Is it on cooldown? If so, how long is the cooldown?”

“Give me a second to check.”

I pull out my Class Card and swipe over to my skills. A very obvious change stares back at me in bold letters, but it doesn’t solve any of the mysteries the new coin created.

High Stakes: Gambler Class skill.

Create a situation with a non-determinative outcome.

Any Worth you wager on that outcome will be paid out based on the situation’s odds.

If you are caught cheating, you instantly lose.

Worth gained in this way cannot be used again with this skill.

If used on a coin with a Worth value that is not a pure Worth coin, this skill cannot be used for two hours.

If used on a Class Coin, cannot be used on another Class Coin for 2400 Hours. Cooldown reduced if the empowered Class Coin is used.

Current maximum odds: 1/1.

Upgrade cost:???

Upgrade requirements:???

“Twenty-four hundred hours.” I say with a gulp and close my Class Card. “Lowered by an unspecified amount when someone uses the coin. Luckily it doesn’t lock me out of the skill like using it on a skill coin does, but that’s still one hell of a cooldown.”

“Three in a year? Yeah, I’d say that’s a massive coodown.” Noland chuckles and crosses his arms. “From experience, the system doesn’t hand out cooldowns like that unless the effects are really worth it. How long do you want to hold onto the coin before you give it to someone without a class?”

“Until I’m sure I won’t be giving them anything weird. Or a part of my own class.” I pocket the coin and pat it with two fingers. “I don’t trust the system with anything; this could be one complicated way to screw me over somehow. I’ll… give it to someone when I’m about to go back. That way I can actually see what happens to them.”

Ursula nods in agreement. “Good call. You want us to keep it somewhere safe for you?”

I shake my head. “It’s safer in my pocket than anywhere else. So, the Chinese woman?”

“Right, okay. We’ll put her on the backburner for a while until we’ve got more information or a coin to sell her. Hopefully nobody finds what she’s looking for for at least a few months.” Ursula takes out her tablet again and puts it on the table. “Oh, looks like another request’s come in. This one’s in the country, at least, and it’s a… huh. Not a sale. We don’t get those very often.”

“Ooh, not a sale? What is it?” Noland leans in close. All interest quickly leaves him as he sees what the job actually is. “An escort job. Yuck. You can do that one, Ursula.”

“That was always the plan, but thank you very much for volunteering me.” She says flatly. “And would you look at that–there’s another part of the request that she wants us to do before we escort her. Looks pretty dangerous to me.”

Noland leans on one elbow and waves Ursula off. “You know I can’t go into the limelight anymore. They’ll be on me like ants on a picnic. March, will you be here until the deadline?”

“I don’t know.” March says as she scooches her chair closer to Ursula. “When is the escort thing?”

“A week and two days.” Ursula relays as she reaches around Noland to hand March the tablet. “If everything goes right, you should have half a day to spare before you get to leave. You alright with spending a few days helping us out?”

March nods slightly as she reads from the tablet. “I can do this easily. I’ll get the equipment ready and stock up the fridge.”

Ursula accepts the tablet back as March gets up and walks straight to the wall-door. “We’ll contact you when we’re ready to get started. Shelby, are you coming along?”

“Yeah.” I say without thinking. “We’ll be counting on you, March.”

A shy smile crosses March’s lips, and she waves back at us with her fingers as the wall opens up for her. She walks through a second later, leaving the three of us alone to prepare for whatever job I just signed up for. I gesture for Ursula to hand me the tablet.

“So what did I just sign up for?”

She spins it around and drops it into my hands. “Escort work for some kind of model. Uh, bodyguard duty. Escort work sounds… not like what we’re doing.”

I smile at her poor choice of words and tap on the description to bring up the first part of the request. Which… looks like it’s actually the second part of the request. Since it requires a coin that the requester–who hasn’t provided a picture–needs us to retrieve for her. Not get, but retrieve; she’s apparently already found the coin, and we just have to go get it from her storehouse. A coin for a class that she’s not willing to divulge until she gets proof that we’re at location.

Which is an abandoned offshore oil rig. Out in the middle of the ocean. Which is infested with monstrous machinery that was touched by the apocalypse. Oh, and it’s in the process of being claimed by the apocalypse, if everything else wasn’t enough.

For the next week. After which it’ll become a monster like the one that caused the Northwest Passage to become completely un-sailable for almost a decade. How in hell did she manage to get the coin onto an offshore oil rig in the first place? Isn’t she supposed to be a model? Am I missing some connection between fashion models and offshore drilling companies?

“Getting cold feet?” Ursula asks with what sounds like sarcasm. But when I look up with a retort at the tip of my tongue, all I see is sincerity. “I know this is probably a lot for your first outing, but we shouldn’t see anything worse than that dragonjet.”

“Nothing worse than the dragonjet? You think this–” I rap my knuckles against the tablet in disbelief, “isn’t worse than a dragonjet? The last time an offshore krarig appeared it almost destroyed half of Greenland. No offense, but I don’t think the two of us have the combined military might of the preservation to kill it with.”

“A little offense taken. But the krarig won’t be completely taken until we’re done with it. The bigger a thing is, the longer it takes for the apocalypse to claim it. Sure, there’ll be a lot of weirdness and little monster machines, but we don’t have to fight the krarig itself.” Ursula grins devilishly and flicks her tablet with one finger. “Unless we’re lucky. If we wait any longer than this, the Preservation will recognize the krarig as dangerous and send people out to destroy it. So; cold feet or hot drop?”

I stare down at the tablet with my eyebrows knit together. This should be an easy choice; there’s literally no reason to put myself in danger. Ursula should easily be able to do this on her own, so it’s not like me not going means it doesn’t get done. But I can’t bring myself to say it. I want to do this. I don’t feel like I have to, or even that I need to. There’s just a small voice in the back of my head telling me that this’ll be really fun and fulfilling.

And it isn’t Pearl’s. She’s been quiet for a while now, and–

“You should definitely do it.” Pearl says. “This sounds like it could be super fun, and I want to see what a human model looks like. Ooh, I want to see what a human festival looks like, too! And whatever a krarig is! From a… safe distance, of course. But I want to see the other two up close. Can we? Can we please?”

Well, guess that’s two against one. Now I have to go.

I smile confidently, bearing my teeth as I hand the tablet back to Ursula. “When do we leave?”

“Two hours.” Ursula throws her tablet into her briefcase, then snaps it shut with a grin. “Better pack a bag. This will take all week.”