Blake paused as he tried to think of a solution. “Do the materials have to come from a specific level one scenario, or will any of them work?”

“I don’t know,” Jordan admitted.

I need to talk to someone who does.

Blake piled his confiscated firearms on the ground, and for the first time in weeks, summoned his companion. A portal swirled before them, and his companion appeared out of it. A moment later, the spatial distortion disappeared, and his companion asked in his baritone voice, “Is there something you need?”

Blake quickly filled him in while Metal stared at him with a blank expression. “So, have you ever heard of something like this happening before?”

“I have not, and I have been a tailor for decades,” the wraith replied confidently. “Perhaps you are mistaken.”

“I think I can read...” Jordan muttered.

Blake waved him to silence. “What about the scenario change?”

“I am a non-combatant,” Metal droned. “You would know better than I.”

Damn. He’s right. I’ve done thousands of missions, but that was the first time I’ve had something like that happen.

Blake sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I think the Architect has it out for me.”

“Doubtful,” Metal replied.

He looked at his companion in disbelief. “What do you mean, doubtful? That bastard obviously wants me to die. Why else would it change all this stuff for me, but no one else?”

“You are attributing malice and hate to a supreme being which has none.”

Blake sneered at Metal’s use of the word ‘supreme’ and threw his hands in the air. “Really? Then why does it kill over ninety percent of humanity? I’d say that’s pretty hateful. And, don’t get me started on this, ‘supreme being’ bullshit. It’s a computer, not a god.”

Jordan and Brent exchanged concerned glances.

“I am not certain what a ‘computer’ is, as it was not translated, but if the Architect truly wished you dead, you would be so. After all, it is inside you and powers your strength.”

Well shit. He has me there.

“Can this computer really just kill us?” Brent asked.

Blake had lived with the nanomachines for so long that he had forgotten they were the long arm of the Architect. It stood to reason that if the AI wished him dead, it could likely self-destruct the nano within him.

Now that’s a comforting thought.

“Probably,” Blake responded bluntly.

Brent’s eyes widened.

“Okay, then. Not much I can do about that,” Blake admitted. “What about this Tungsten-Iron alloy we need? Do you think it needs to come from a specific scenario, or will any do?”

“I believe that material is available on many worlds. The only addendum to its acquisition was that it needs to originate from a level one scenario.”

“Okay, so we can get it anywhere,” Blake rephrased.

“I believe so,” Metal agreed.

Blake glanced upward at the drone that hovered a hundred feet above them.

I wonder what they’re making of Metal right now? Hope it keeps them up at night. We should get inside. Who knows how far away it can pick up sound.

He thanked his companion for his knowledge and sent the wraith back to its home.

Blake turned to the two constructors, and discreetly glanced up at the drone. “I think we have our solution. Do you two think you can keep my dad company in the cookhouse?”

Brent nodded knowingly, while Jordan answered, “Will do. No reason to stand outside anywho, and I could use a cup of coffee.”

After they left, Blake skimmed the messages Montgomery had sent him. He quickly pushed through his exuberant commentary on Blake’s fight with the SWAT team, and then ignored the annoyed messages when Blake refused to respond. After he was sure there was nothing of importance he had missed, he finally responded to his friend.

Lord Blake Summers, Scion of Humanity: Hey Montgomery, can you and Jeff head over to the faction hall? We’ve got a problem.

Montgomery Brown: Oh, sure. Now that there’s a problem, you respond. I see how it is.

Lord Blake Summers, Scion of Humanity: I’ve kinda been a bit busy, if you haven’t noticed.

Montgomery Brown: Fine, you get a pass. This time.

Blake rolled his eyes, lifted the SWAT team’s weapons, and navigated the gravel streets to the faction hall. On the way, he received another worried message from his mother.

He let her know he was fine, and that he would meet her in the lobby. By the time he opened the door to the three-story building, his mother and two friends were already present inside.

Donna looked harried, while Montgomery ran up to him and clasped his shoulders.

“Dude, that was so badass!” Montgomery gushed. “You flew up there like Uberman and slapped those guys down like they were babies!”

“You knifed a helicopter,” Jeff rumbled with a smirk.

Donna frowned and eyed the collection of submachine guns, rifles, and pistols in his arms. “I couldn’t see much out my window. You didn’t kill any of them, did you?”

“No, they’re fine.” Blake then remembered the possible broken wrist. “Well, mostly fine,” he admitted.

“Where are they?” she asked.

Blake set the firearms on the ground and began to lean them against the wall. Montgomery reached for the nearest and Blake quickly slapped his hand away, “They’re now our hostages. I put them in Jerome’s cell and let him go.”

“You did what?!” she shrieked.

Blake’s brows rose in surprise at her reaction.

“Yeah, bad move, fam,” Montgomery chided him as he rubbed his sore wrist. “Never shoulda let that asshat go.”

Donna rounded on the young firefighter. “Both of you have misplaced priorities. It’s a GOOD thing that he finally let Jerome go. I’m worried about our new hostages, not him.” She turned to her son. “Have you thought this through, Blake? The entire government is going to be focused on us now. Weren’t you trying to stay hidden?”

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“I didn’t have much of a choice, and I think ‘hidden’ is a thing of the past,” he replied, annoyed. “I might have been able to keep things quiet when it was just the sheriff, but he called in SWAT from Phoenix. They have video of me teleporting around, and they saw how fast I am.”

“Snatching up their men will totally make things better…” Montgomery interjected.

Blake ignored him and his mother’s growing frown. “If I walked them out the front gate, do you think they’d just leave us alone? At least this way, we can delay them until we get the Shield Generator up. Then, nothing they do will matter.”

“But that won’t happen until tomorrow,” she reminded him.

“Actually, right now, it won’t happen at all. The Architect decided to screw with us. That bastard won’t let us finish the building until it gets some new material from a level one scenario.”

“It really does hate you.” Montgomery responded helpfully.

“Did you talk to Metal and see what he had to say about it?” His mother asked.

Blake nodded. “Yeah, he’s never heard of this happening before.”

“Then what are we going to do?” she complained. “You can’t leave, not with the police outside and hostages in the basement.”

“That’s what this meeting is about,” Blake replied.

“Jeff and I will take care of it,” Montgomery volunteered.

Jeff slapped the taller man’s chest with the back of his hand and shook his head.

“Yeah, Jeff’s right,” Blake agreed. “It’s too dangerous. You guys barely finished a level one scenario before, and you had four people then. With just the two of you, I don’t like your chances unless you have classes of your own.”

“You think we should just take the basic class now?” Montgomery asked, disappointed. “We were so close to snagging a dual class.”

Blake quickly opened his interface to see his status.

Just a hundred and ninety mega-nano?

He sighed, closed the window, and asked his friends, “How much nano do each of you have?”

Montgomery’s eyes crossed for a moment before he responded, “A hundred and eighty-four.”

“One eighty-five,” Jeff added.

Blake’s brows rose. “That much? You guys have been busy.”

While it was nothing compared to the insane amounts of nano Blake could accumulate, he admittedly was not normal. Their gains were impressive, especially for how new they were to fighting.

And in two weeks, they’ll be veterans compared to the rest of the world.

“Yeah, well, we get a lot more nano with just the two of us, and we’ve been cranking out two a day. We were halfway to a hundred mega-nano before Dahteste died, and it’s been, what, almost three weeks since we kicked that asshole out?”

“Two and a half,” Blake corrected automatically while he did math in his head. When the result came up short, he frowned and turned to his mother. “How much nano do we have in the treasury?”

“Forty-four million nano,” she replied immediately, no need to look up the number.

“That’s it?” He blurted, surprised. “I transferred a crap-ton over a few days ago, where did it all go?”

“We’ve been upgrading the bunkhouses nonstop, like you asked. That takes a lot of nano, even with Debra finishing the enchantments,” Donna explained.

“Sorry, you’re right,” He apologized. “It just seems like it disappears the second I transfer it over.”

His mother nodded in agreement.

Blake turned to his friends. “If I give each of you enough nano to get a dual class and six attributes, do you think you can handle it?”

“Hell yeah!” Montgomery replied with confidence.

However, Blake’s eyes rested on Jeff, who was far more grounded. He watched as the quiet man considered the task before them before he eventually nodded.

Blake let out a sigh of relief.

Good. That solves that problem.

“We won’t make this a habit, but considering the circumstances...” He turned to his mother. “Can you transfer nano to them out of the treasury, please?”

“Woo-hoo! Boost us!” Montgomery invented a small dance.

She nodded and complied.

When the treasury was empty, Blake transferred his personal reserves to each of them as well. “Okay, go ahead and buy a dual-class now. It’ll take a while for you to level, and you can’t increase your attributes until you officially get a class.”

“What are you going to do now?” His mother asked.

Blake was about to answer when the lobby door burst open and his brother stepped inside. “What the hell is going on?”

“Oliver, I told you to wait in your room!” his mother reprimanded her son.

“Oh please, mister superhero here,” Oliver hiked a thumb at Blake. “Took care of everything. The only thing outside are those drones.”

“There’s more of them?” Blake asked.

Oliver nodded. “I spotted at least four on the way here.”

Blake turned to his mother. “I need to head downstairs and talk to the SWAT commander before they send in more people with guns.”

“I should go with you,” Donna stated.

Blake shook his head. “If you’re there, they’ll try to turn us against each other.”

While that was true, the real reason he did not want his mother present was because threats and violence were all but guaranteed. There was no way the police would respect any other response, and his mother would only undermine his efforts.

She frowned, but did not protest.

“Just tell them what’s going on,” Montgomery said and wiggled his fingers. “Show them some more magic.”

“I plan to, but I don’t think that’s going to change anything. We’re holding their men in jail,” Blake reminded him. “Just because we show them magic is real, doesn’t mean they’re going to just say, ‘Oh, all’s forgiven’, and walk away.”

“Do we really want them to know what’s going on?” Oliver asked.

“Yeah,” Blake answered. “I’ve actually wanted to tell the world for a while, but I didn’t want the government coming after us. But, the cat’s out of the bag now. I might as well spread the word far and wide. The more people know, the more we may save. Wouldn’t you want a chance to save your family?” he asked his brother. “Hiding things makes us really no better than all those secret government agencies.”

“When you put it like that...” Oliver mumbled.

Suddenly, he had an idea. “What if I get the Commander to send a reporter to us. I can go on camera, and they can release the footage on the news. Then, we can upload the primer to the internet and everyone will know about it!”

Oliver snorted. “I thought you wanted it to go far and wide?”

Blake frowned. “I do. What’s wrong with my plan?”

“Only super old people watch the news.” Oliver informed him. Montgomery nodded, and even his mother had to agree. “You need to do a podcast.”

“With who?” he asked.

Blake could only remember a couple of popular podcasters off the top of his head. Neither lived in Arizona, and he doubted they would drop everything and go into a hostage situation just because he asked.

“Jennifer Taylor,” Oliver replied.

“Who’s that?” Blake asked, not recognizing the name.

Montgomery threw his hands into the air. “How do you not know who Jennifer Taylor is?”

“I’ve kind of been busy the last ten years,” Blake responded dryly.

“Yeah, but you were a normal kid before that, weren’t you?” Montgomery replied. He turned to Donna. “You didn’t force him to stay off the internet, did you?”

“I did not,” she informed him. “But I don’t know this, ‘Jennifer’ either.”

Oliver huffed. “You’ve never heard of ‘The Taylor Report’?”

When his brother mentioned the name of the podcast, Blake finally realized who he was talking about. The show came out of nowhere just a year or so before Invasion Day and had exploded in popularity. The podcaster had gained incredible traction, especially among Gen Z, by constantly challenging the establishment.

For her first video, she had gone on a date under-cover with an executive at a pharmaceutical company. The resulting viral video exposed their fraud to the world, and led to the mega-corporation’s eventual destruction.

It made her an overnight star. But, unlike most, her fifteen minutes of fame did not fade. Instead, she began a constant media barrage that increased her exposure. She released continuous videos and interviewed whistleblowers from all industries, despite the death threats she received.

Of course, it also did not hurt that she was incredibly good-looking.

“I remember her now,” Blake told his brother. “You think she’d actually come?”

“She’s a publicity whore,” his brother snorted. “And this is gonna be the biggest story ever. There’s no way she doesn’t bite. Besides, I’m her number one fan, she responds to all my comments.”

Montgomery snorted. “That’s a bot, you idiot.”

Blake ignored their byplay. He had his doubts about whether she would agree, but it would not hurt to ask. In the meantime, he had a Commander to appease.