15.1 Chai
Ever since her Will Block, Maeven has gotten quite good at staring. She was up all night and nothing happened in the bunker, except for a few men walking out and into another hut, and a ute being pulled up to the side of the village. After Eliza returned from scouting, her and Victor eventually fell asleep. The Sky leader told Maeven to switch watch with him at some point in the night. She chose ultimately not to wake him. Besides, it was peaceful walking around, staring out to the sand bed, seeing clouds of it whoosh up with the wind.
Unfortunately, in all those hours she made no progress with June’s clipboard. Then the sun rose. An engine roared near the cluster of huts.
Eliza wakes immediately. Victor is still fluttering his eyes so Maeven shakes him by the shoulder. “They’re up,” she says. They all peek over the berm. According to Eliza, the boss of the bunker was going through their stolen goods last night. One by one, he would put them up to the light, bite gold chains to check for dents. He would scream at his subordinates when he saw something wrong—something counterfeit or not worth the trouble in all likelihood—and otherwise grant a silent nod of approval before placing the items in a duffel bag.
The assignees see that the bag is now being carried into the Ute’s passenger seat.
“How the fuck’re we supposed to follow them in broad daylight?” Eliza mutters.
“Great question Eliza.” says Victor.
There aren’t many things to hide behind here.
“Can we use a car?” says Eliza.
“We’d still be following them. We’re uniformed,” says Victor. “Let’s follow them in bits. We can do it on foot can’t we? Why not. Send out another radar, tell us when the next depression is.”
Eliza places a fist on the berm. The robbers, not attuned to Will, don’t see the line of yellow Resonance as it pulses around. “What are they doing?”
The driver of the ute is angry, he’s conversing with a man standing outside the vehicle and gesturing at something above his steering wheel. Eventually, he gives up with the throw of his hand and withdraws from the window.
“I took out the mirrors,” Maeven explains. The sides and the rear. She thought something like this might happen, when it seemed like the robbers weren’t going to proceed during the low light. It was the only vehicle readied by the road, facing the on ramp to highway 8.
Sky Company turns to her, as the Ute starts northward.
Eliza points. “Fifty metres…there’s a ditch by the bridge.”
“Wonderful. Let’s head for it once everyone else is inside.” Then Victor casually says to Maeven, “Prudent.”
They follow the Ute for almost two hours, occasionally using ditches, sand hills, and the sparse plant life to hide in case the robbers felt like craning their neck around. Eventually they come across the river, and the decline to the bank is enough to keep them out of site for miles.
Maeven’s Optimisation might finally be acclimating her to the desert sun. She didn’t need to take off her VR jacket at any moment during the run. But it was difficult not to let her exhaustion show. Running is brutal. It’s a growing, spindly pain in her lungs. It seems to be catching up to Eliza too, Stendahl, possibly on the inside. I wasn’t this bad a year ago, it’s ‘cause of my Will Block. Did I mention I have Will Block? Part of her wants to find a way to mention that, except that it would be incredibly lame.
They make it to another city, where the Ute begins to slow with the traffic. The assignees cling to buildings.
“D’you know where we are, Vic?” says Eliza.
“Uh.” Victor glances around. “Haffa, I think, going by the river.”
The Ute turns right, so the assignees decide to cut the block to meet it further down the road. In dirt-paved hallways between the buildings, they rush through a market. Maeven sees fruits in large woven baskets, as a savoury, meaty aroma wafts in the smoke.
“Hello, how are you?” says a passerby. He cheers, “United States of America!”
“Assalamualaikum!” says Victor. “UL!” corrects Eliza.
“See that?” Victor points to one of the baskets. Inside: green nuts, still in the shell. “Betel nut. They wrap it in a leaf and you chew on it. It gives you a high, and it makes your spit red.”
“It’s very addicting, apparently,” says Eliza. They’re all still at a light jog.
“Would you try it, Riel?” Victor asks.
“I’m okay.”
Suddenly they spot the driver of the Ute and the duffel bag passenger walking through the market. Their boots drag to a stop, and they veer into a side street. Maeven almost crashes into a bicycle. They peer out the building.
“Liquidation,” says Victor. The robbers walk into a windowless storefront with their duffel bag and close the door behind them. “Maeven.”
She looks.
“Want to go see what they’re trading for?” he says.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Me?” She points at herself. It’s Sky’s mission, Victor should do it. However neither of them butt in the silence she gives them to reconsider. So in the interest of progression she zips off her VR jacket, untucks her black t-shirt so it hangs over her pants, then hangs her pants over her boots. It looks much more like a normal outfit this way.
She finds the parked Ute nearby, then stations herself on a plastic chair at a neighbouring restaurant. A little out of view, a little obscured by the kitchen smoke. When the robbers finally walk back forty-five minutes later, their duffel bag has deflated, weighed down by something much smaller than what they came in with.
Could be the items they couldn’t liquidate, but the boss should have screened for those items. It’s not that. It’s the payout.
Maeven stands, walks ahead with a look of unnoteworthy intent. She passes behind the robbers, flares her hand with Will. With a slick in-and-out motion, she rips through the canvas and takes out some of the contents. Thankfully, they’re only small.
The robbers climb into their vehicle without noticing a thing.
“Gold chips,” she says to Sky, fanning two of them in her fingers. She drops it onto the table. Victor and Eliza had stopped for some chai while she was gone. There’s an extra cup waiting for her, as well as a wooden stool and her jacket.
Victor picks one of the chips up. They’re about half the size of his palm. Rectangular, the edges are slightly rough and putty-like and stamped with swirly symbols. “So they trade their stolen goods for these nice little cards, lock it in the safe and live happily ever after,” he says.
“Happy now?” says Eliza, lowering her cup.
“Yes,” he says, smiling. “Now the Mortaresi police have the full story. Great job Maeven. Eliza, as always.”
“It’s no sweat,” says Eliza.
“Mm!”
Maeven’s just sipped the chai. The flavours are complex. Sweet, spicy, aromatic, creamy. It’s a lot more flavourful than the tea bags in the UL.
“You like it?” says Victor.
She licks her lips. “It’s good.”
She absorbs herself in the bustle of Haffa’s markets, enjoying the atmosphere. There’s something peaceful about the sounds. The voices of the street merchants, the rumbling bicycle baskets.
Working with Sky Company isn’t all that bad.
On an impulse, she takes Captain June’s clipboard from her waistband.
She flares her body with Optimised Will and presses it against her leg. She thinks about where she was just a few weeks ago, alone in her bedroom, unsure if her life had begun, or if it had ended. She recalls her graduation certificate and academic medallions turned down flat against the shelves. Piles of trash and books eating dust. When she would look at her bedroom from the outside, she witnessed that the crack under her door had grown so invitingly dark, so contemptibly tucked away from the world.
Harder and harder she gathers her will. For a split second, the metal clip catches the sunlight, and it glints like a story item in Drake Quest VIII.
SNAP!
Her body jolts as her leverage falters. The clipboard. It’s broken. Little pieces are fluttering to the dirt.
“Yes…” she mutters, a voice of pure impulse. How? What had changed? It felt like the hardest damn thing she ever had to break. Crumbs of it are spilled over her VR pants.
After a while, she hears a voice from Victor.
“You okay Riel?”
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15.2 Leichman's Update
Doom and Jackson Farrington from Sky Company wrap up the thief syndicate campaign between themselves over the following day. Collaborating with Jurn’s police force, they’ll be seizing the robbers along with all their loot. It’ll hardly the challenge for the two of them, Maeven thinks. After all, none of the robbers are Users.
After Stendahl relays this to her, Maeven shakes his hand and leaves across the tent for Ocean’s side of the bunks, wondering what Captain Eyeshot has for her next.
“How’s Scat Company?” is the first thing she hears from dear, dear Ocean.
How I missed you, Halcutt.
“All done,” she says.
“Gunner was afraid Victor was going to take you away. Then we would have no leader.” says Forrest as he ties his boots.
“Fuck you that’s not what I said.” says Halcutt.
“Yes it was.”
“I said if Sky takes Maeven then maybe we’d have to merge with Sand.” he says, flicking his tongue. Sand Company has mostly women in it.
“No.” Forrest punctuates. “If that happens then we steal Maeven right back. Once an Ocean leader, always an Ocean leader, right Maeven?”
She thins her lips. Reaching down to the plastic bag under her bunk, she exclaims, “Anyway.”
Everyone says sorry in their own little way. For Maeven and her family, it usually comes in the form of gifts. Things may have moved on since the fight between Gunner and Callum, but Maeven still thinks about it. Maybe it’s just her that thinks the situation hadn’t quite concluded. Or maybe she feels bad about never introducing herself on her own prerogative. She doesn’t really understand it.
“This is for you, Callum.”
Callum pauses, he shoots her an iffy grin as his hand stretches out. “Are you serious?”
“Take it, please.”
Forrest asks what it is. Callum demonstrates by unfolding it on the floor and sitting on it: the field chair from Captain June. It folds out into an X against a strip of camo canvas. It was strange thinking back on it. When she finally handed the broken clipboard to Captain June after they returned from Haffa, he responded by laughing. Like a lot.
“Why all of a sudden?” says Callum.
“You know,” says Maeven.
“I really don’t.”
“Your legs, aren’t they…?”
“You’re talking about my knees?” The assignee folds his meaty arms, smirking. “You do pay attention.”
“What’s wrong with your knees?” says Gunner.
“Tore a ligament. Never recovered correctly,” he answers casually.
I thought it was obvious. She reaches into a plastic bag, then tosses something to Gunner, then Forrest.
“Oh shit, Hustler!” Gunner exclaims, stretching the pages over his face. He flips it sideways and they waterfall down the size of a poster. After Captain Mills took away her pads, she’d never seen so many people indulge in good old magazines.
Forrest catches an ointment box, for his itch. It’s small and red. The Chinese characters on the cover tells him it’s a brand from the Empire. “Thank you, Maeven! How do you know this brand?”
“My dad sells it,” she tells him, before turning to the Creationist. “Win.”
Win's reading on of her textbooks on his bunk.
“I didn’t get anything for you.”
He responds with a look and a dramatic flick of the page.
Suddenly, conversations whittle out across the tent. Everyone turns their heads. Ina’s popped in through the flap.
“Victor, Riel,” she calls. “Leichman wants to see us.”
Out in the community centre, where assignees are lounging by their tents, waiting to be handed their tasks for the day, Captain Leichman announces to the three of them that they’re moving again to another city.
“As soon as Sky Company completes their mission,” he explains, hand clasped neatly behind his back.
Maeven glances at Victor and Ina, wondering why they’re hearing this first.
“If you haven’t noticed it already. You three lead the only companies that have Will Users,” says Leichman.
“And why is that, Captain?” asks Victor.
“Because we’ll need your companies for missions such as what Sky is doing with the thief syndicate. Missions a tad dangerous for the average assignee,” he explains. “We’re trading favours for intel, if you’re curious. Made sense to lump all the Users together.” The captain cracks a grin, and she doesn’t know what to think of it.
“Riel’s the last User, the rest of Ocean aren’t Willed,” Ina comments, shooting her a sided glance.
“Larosa will manage. Eyeshot has an eye on her, right Riel?” says Leichman. He’s grinning again, then it drops immediately. “I’m telling you this in advance. You may carry on.”