Carefully and cautiously, Call makes his way through the rubble to stand across from me over the remains of a kitchen table. He slowly takes in the destruction, but with his face covered by his helmet, I can’t get any hints about how it makes him feel.
“You probably already know thanks to your organization, but I’m the Gambler.” I say and put three coins down on the table. “First encounter I had with the Preservation was them trying to attack me after I killed a dragonjet. So imagine my surprise when an old friend calls me up and tells me that someone from the Preservation is coming to talk with me.”
I tap one coin, and projectile flows down into it. Then I move down the line, putting shield and relocation into the other two. Call’s helmet moves ever so slightly to follow my fingers, but other than that, it almost feels like I don’t have his attention.
“Hey, buddy, if you don’t want to be here, I’m not going to make you.” I lean back and cross my arms. “I’ve got two living ex-Preservation members back at the resort who’re more than happy to be gone. That’s not enough to convince anyone to raise their eyebrows at the Preservation, but when I combine it with the info we extracted from the krarig, it starts to paint a really shitty picture.”
Call snorts. Can’t tell if it's amusement, agreement, or dismissal. But he doesn’t look away.
“Alright, this is going nowhere.” I clap my hands together and wave to empty air, pretending to signal Ursula. “Mercenary, we’re done here.”
“No, wait–” Call sighs and shakes his head. It’s his voice, all right, but technically I shouldn’t know that. “Alright. I had to confirm that you aren’t someone else from the Preservation here to honey trap me. That’s why you put the coins down, right?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Didn’t think you’d notice so quickly. So, satisfied that I’m not from the Preservation? Or do I have to bring more proof?”
He raises a hand to paw at the back of his helmet. “No, there’s only one account of a Gambler coin existing. You. But if we’re doing this face to face, you’ll need confirmation that I am who I claim to be.”
Hisses of slightly coloured air break free from Call’s helmet as he pulls it apart at the back. It folds in on itself over and over again until only the glassy faceplate remains. Finally, he presses his other palm to the chunk of darkened glass and slowly pulls it away with a wet pop.
Revealing a face that is… not what I expected at all. A nearly bald head with an extremely thin layer of fuzzy brown hair lined with so many scars that I can’t imagine what could’ve made them. Both of his eyebrows are fuzzy like caterpillars, and they rest atop yellow-blue eyes that always seem to cover half his irises. A close-cropped beard finishes off his face, with some fuzz around the shaved parts.
And… the top of his right ear is unbelievably mangled. Like a small dog bit onto it and didn’t let go until part of it ripped off. Call watches me take him in, but I know what’s written on my face; surprise. Nothing more, nothing less. Somehow, that drains tension from his shoulders and he lets out a sigh of relief.
“No questions about the scars, please. It’s personal.”
I shrug nonchalantly. “We’re here for business, anyway. Now that you’re talking, I need to know how far you’re willing to take this. Are we going to be rescuing people like Diane and Razi, exposing the Preservation’s crimes to the world, or actually moving to sabotage their–your–operations?”
“I’ll go as far as it needs to go. If that means we peacefully remove the rot higher up, then we do that. But if we have to burn everything to the ground because the rot’s spread through everything, then I’ll set the trail of gunpowder as long as you bring the matches.”
“Hm. Good answers.” I flick the relocation coin at Call. He catches it easily. “Eventually, you’re going to get discovered. That coin is your lifeline. Accept the spell in it, and if things go so wrong that there’s no hope left for you in the Preservation, I’ll save your life. Though you’ve gotta send me a message first.”
He stares at the coin for a little too long. Honestly, I can’t blame him. The moment he accepts that spell, he’s a traitor. If he hands it back empty, he can run away and go back to the Preservation like nothing ever happened. By taking it, he’s opening a door to a hallway he can’t even imagine the end of.
“How many of these coins can you have at once?”
Okay, not the question I was expecting. I exhale through my nose and try to weigh the feeling of a relocation coin against what I’m pretty sure is my absolute limit.
“Ten at once without screwing over everything else. Why?”
He nods to himself and accepts the relocation target. Then… he sticks it in his pocket. So he doesn’t know how the spell works.
“There’s a group of kids that are being… groomed… to take on Class Coins when they’re old enough.” Call says with utter vitriol. “Experiments by our scientists to test out if compatibility with a Class matters at all. Each and every one of them was orphaned by one disaster or another, and if it goes on like this, they’re going to be loyal Preservation slaves.”
“And you want more of those coins so I can get them out of there.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“I do.”
I shake my head. “Not how it works. The coin trades places with whatever it touched to activate, and I can’t force people to accept being targets without spending a good chunk of Worth. So you’d have to bring in a bunch of empty coins, designate all the kids as targets, and sneak back to me so I can bring them here. Plus, I’m not so hot on teleporting in a bunch of potentially brainwashed teenagers. Who knows if one of them would betray us to the Preservation?”
Call clenches his jaw, but I can see that he agrees with me. Though something made him bring it up in the first place. Probably personal stakes, or just a clashing sense of values with whoever’s running the… I guess they’re experiments.
“That’s… reasonable.” He grinds through clenched teeth. Frustration radiates from him like a miniature sun, but from the way he glances away from me, that frustration is at the Preservation. “How about… I feed you information as I watch the kids. Your group can decide if they look like they’re going to be dangerous or not, and I’ll only move the ones that are safe to move.”
“Nope. The moment kids start to go missing, your cover’s dead. Either you do it like we did with Diane and Razi–writing them off as believably dead–or moving the kids is the start of a massive attack.” I lean in and show just a little of my teeth. Call doesn’t flinch–but I can see just a little fear seep into his posture. “So how about it, Call? Can you manufacture a scenario that fools the researchers into thinking all the kids are dead? Do you have enough influence in the Preservation for that?”
He looks down at his feet. I suppress a laugh.
“So that’s a no, then. Well, that’s not a problem–you just have to get powerful enough to make it a reality. All the while making sure the Preservation doesn’t catch on to what you’re doing. Easy enough.”
“If it was, then I would’ve done it years ago. I… wasn’t strong or influential enough for my voice to be heard. Even if they call me a speaker.” He nearly spits the word, and when he raises his gaze, fire burns in his eyes. “Three years. I can get strong enough in three years, and all the while I’ll feed you information that’ll help you slow down the Preservation’s plans. But I’ll still need a few of those coins to help people like Diane and Razi–the ones who’re in actual, immediate danger.”
I’m sure the three year time limit has nothing to do with when those kids are supposed to be given their Class Coins. But this is one thing I feel doesn’t have to be said. Call’s emboldened himself to our cause. We’ve got a high-ish ranking spy and saboteur who only plans on getting more important and powerful to fulfill a goal only I can provide him.
I fan out five more relocation coins between my fingers. “Five coins. Contact me when you need someone moved as soon as possible and we’ll set up a meeting time. Here’s my info, and in a few minutes, I’ll send you a link to an untraceable network where you’ll upload the info you find.”
He stares at the coins like a man about to die of thirst would look at ice cubes. “I’m not going to do anything that’ll blow my cover, even if you ask me to.”
“No point in doing this if we’re just going to blow your cover.” I place the coins on the table, but leave my hand covering them. “We don’t just want info, we want samples of everything you can safely get your hands on. Tech, materials, whatever–if the Preservation doesn’t want someone else having it, we want it. I expect you to contact us once a month on a random day, even if you just report that you’ve got nothing to report, and I want to know every time you’re moving between worlds.”
Call can’t take his eyes off my hand. “That’s no problem at all.”
I nod and slowly pull my hand away. “Then they’re yours. If it's possible, send me someone’s profile before I have to bring them over. Long distances can be disorienting, so it’ll be good to know what to expect. And finally, this.”
One final coin, filled with a relocation that harbors untold destruction, joins the pile.
“That’s the absolute last resort for if the Preservation tries to destroy the world. Do not use it for any other reason.”
“Understood.” He says as he eagerly scoops up all the coins. “Thank you.”
…Thank you? What the hell does he have to thank me for? I load up a question on the tip of my tongue, but before I can get it out, his eyes start to water. He laughs to himself and wipes one eye, then the other, and carefully puts the coins into a compartment in his armor.
“I never even considered this was an option, you know. The Preservation was always the best in my head, and when I saw the heinous things they were doing… I just sort of… accepted that everyone else was worse.” He breathes deeply and smiles brightly, though it feels very melancholic. “Now all that time… just feels wasted. But now I can actually do something with it. Maybe there’s a chance I can get the Preservation back to what I always thought it was.”
A huge part of me supremely doubts that. But it doesn’t feel like the right time to say it. I don’t know Call for shit, and we’re about to use each other for our own ends. Hell, there’s a good chance he’s going to get caught and maybe even executed before three years is up. Probably better that I keep an air gap in our relationship.
“Just go. I can see how antsy you are.” I wave him off and take back my two remaining coins. “I’ve got an appointment I need to get ready for, and you need to do whatever the hell you need to do. So go do it.”
“I… yes.” He takes his mask off the table and presses it back to his face. It unfurls into a helmet in no time. “Thank you. Seriously. You won’t regret this.”
Then, without so much as looking over his shoulder, Call sprints out of here like a kid on christmas. There’s definitely more of a story there than he told me, but it’s not good to get invested in someone I might have to sacrifice if things go horribly wrong. I assume it’s the same reason he didn’t ask anything personal about me at all.
“Aaand he’s gone.” Ursula finally speaks up a few minutes later. “That went way better than I expected it would. You want to head back to the resort right away, or is there something you want to do in the rubble?”
I don’t even look around before I walk out of the ruins and into the debris-filled street. “There’s nothing here for me anymore. Besides, we’re meeting the client in a few days. Then we’ve got an entire… party, or whatever, we’re supposed to escort her to.”
“True, true.” Ursula says, then turns to look at me as I relocate back to the resort. “Welcome back.”
I roll my eyes at her sarcasm and hold out an arm for Pearl to scurry down. She hops onto the meeting table where everyone’s already sitting down, waiting for us to get back from our little trip. I pull out my designated chair, settle into it as Pearl sits down on a tiny chair March made for her, and turn to face the screens.
I’ve finally got somewhere I feel actually comfortable being. And I won’t let anything take that away.