Sometime halfway through the conversation, the light went out. Daniel had to get up to bring out a few candles, which did a much worse job of lighting up his collection of maps and notes.

Gelnwick, for all its lack of defences, had done an excellent job at restoring a lot of the base services. In addition to the small-scale farming most keeps practised in between Horde waves, the town had managed to get the brewery running. It wasn’t running full-scale, and limits to the number of pints per person per day were set, even for those passing through, but it was clear a solid team of keepers with engineering skills was behind all of this.

Yet limitations and curfews were still present, and Daniel had to hastily finish his story under the dim candlelight, and without the possibility to offer any more tea refills.

“Wait, so you what, hacked the System itself and gave yourself a set of overpowered skills? I don’t follow.” Farrah interrupted when he’d gotten to describing his first quests. “And how does any of this relate to OBELISK?” She wasn’t fully following. It had taken weeks for her to start getting relevant skills, beyond those the mastery of which increased through use. And what he’d described – that he’d survived "giving up" – it made her question certitudes she did not want to revisit.

“And how did you survive in a city full of those monsters?” Vega jumped on the opportunity to ask her own questions.

“Well, it wasn’t that hard. I just had to be sneaky. I made a spear thing with a broom and a knife, and that got the job done until I got to the library,” He continued.

“Got the job done? They swarm when they smell their dead kin. How did you get past that?” Farrah had no reason to doubt his story until now, but she was slowly catching up to where Vega stood. Details didn’t add up.

“Yeah, I found that out the hard way on the way back,” Daniel glanced to the side, “Well, I never did return to the dorm because of that actually. To go back to your question,” He turned towards Vega, awkwardly lifting his head up to meet her eyes. Her refusal to sit had proven to be quite a good move in the end, as it made Dan feel more cornered and more inclined to answer questions. “I met some people from the uni when I got to campus. They secured one of the lecture halls. It was one of those six-storey buildings that connected to the medical faculty through sky bridges,” he rambled on.

The two candles flickered in unison, as a gush of wind broke through the cracks under the doors and windows, before vanishing as quickly as it’d come.

Scan

- Directional

- Targeted

Cost: 1P.

It was a reflex, one that she quickly came to regret, as she swore under her breath, pulling up her stats window.

Stats

Skills

Goals

Other

Power

Luck

Conditions

Goals not fulfilled

Addiction

Vega turned to the door, taking a defensive stance, while Dan asked:

“Everything alright?” He then looked up at Vega, concern flashing over his face. “What’s – going on?”

“Nothing, nothing, it’s fine,” Farrah waved it off. “I just burned so much Power today, I’m down to 9. And I lost 2 Luck cuz of overflow, but never mind, it will restore tomorrow. Vega?”

“What?” She seemed surprised. “Oh, I just thought you were, umm, going to shoot at something again.”

“Why would she, indoors, in a Heaven?” Daniel asked, eyebrow raised.

“Well, that’s what happened last time?” She didn’t sound too sure if she was supposed to be admitting this. “Most times actually, when you scan an area, and then swear.”

Farrah chuckled.

“It’s a habit of mine,” She explained to Dan. “Scanning has become second nature, and with all the domain benefits, even when it’s not free, I still have power in the triple digits to sponge the difference. But let’s get back on topic.”

“Damn, like, you Collectors are a whole different breed…”

“Sorry?” Vega asked, clearly offended, as she crossed her arms over her chest again.

“No, urgh, I don’t mean it-” he snapped his fingers, trying to figure out something to say instead. “It’s just - insane what the System can do to you. And, I don’t know if you girls have ever thought about it,” he slid back into the couch, taking a more comfortable position. Farrah also shifted her legs under her, as she waited for Dan to get to the point with OBELISK. Unfortunately, it seemed he had yet another tangent to go on about, “If the System hadn’t been this buggy, if thousands of people hadn’t died and if the government had gotten the zombies under control, what kind of world would we be living in? You two,” He nodded at them, “Have fully surpassed all human limits, and under the correct leadership, you would have been the ones to rule the world. There would have been ranks, divisions, information about skills, goals, and rewards would have been even more closely guarded than now-”

“I don’t like where this is going.” Farrah interrupted him. Less than 60 years had passed since the last great war. That was half the reason they had terrorism drills to this day because that conflict of people who thought themselves superior had never truly ended, simply shifting into something more subtle, something that could more easily cross borders and sneak explosives into busy public spaces. What the System had done to the world was horrible, but what it could have done had the military and government not turned into bloodthirsty undead, or mutated into incomprehensible nightmarish creatures, would have been so much worse. Yet, something else in Dan’s words caught her attention. “If the System hadn’t been this buggy.” She repeated his words. “Elaborate.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“Sorry, I know I’m interrupting,” Vega spoke, as she fidgeted with the straps on her suit. Dan gave her a confused look, and Farrah waited for her to speak. She knew Vega had more to say on the subject than her. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she continued, “It’s just, umm, I did think about it. And I don’t think it would be a good world. Everything I have, and I’m, umm, sure that’s true for Farrah too,” She glanced down at the woman who gave her a nod, “It came at a, umm, price isn’t the right word, but it was a lot. And people, as much as I don’t agree with your, umm, ‘trust strangers because we’re all brothers’, no one deserves the experience, umm, of getting skills, or mastering them.”

Farrah hummed and nodded. Daniel agreed, before giving a quick look to the stainless steel cross that hung over Farrah’s chest.

“I don’t believe this is rapture, and that we’re all going to go to heaven any day now,” Farrah said with a soft smirk, as she played with the cross.

“That’s not what the holy scriptures say,” Daniel replied, his expression unreadable.

“They don’t mention the System,” Farrah shrugged, “Corinthians 15:51 also clearly uses the word ‘incorruptible’ when describing the rising dead. And beyond not hearing any trumpets on the day of the Fall, I will conclude by reminding you that Men are the ones interpreting God’s words, and above all else, ‘the Father has given us his love’,” She paraphrased John 3:1. “God wouldn’t do this to any of his children.”

Vega gave Farrah an extremely confused look, and while Farrah was tempted to explain these things a bit further, because this topic was much more tangible than that of the birth of the Prophet some few thousand years ago, and she reckoned she could get through to Vega, now was not the time. Judging by Daniel’s expression, he was going down a similar line of reasoning.

“We can discuss this more another day,” He spoke. “It is getting very late.”

Farrah pressed a corner of her mouth up in a smirk. Meeting another believer was rare these days. She knew they’d get along for certain now.

“Sorry, I didn’t follow, what’s god, umm, and, umm, rapture have to do with the System?”

“Neither are related to OBELISK at least,” Daniel finally got back on topic. “What I was trying to get at was that OBELISK is the organisation behind the System. It stands for ‘Omni-Biological Experimentation and Lifeform Integration Systems Komplex’ spelt with K because I guess they wanted to sound fancy.”

Farrah nodded. She already knew that thanks to Vega.

“And how did you find that out?”

“Well, your friend was right, I did eventually manage to access the System source code. The .ssy program that’s always running in the background.”

“You lost me again,” Farrah interrupted. “How can all of this,” She made her screens appear in front of her with a hand gesture, “Be coded? I did some programming during my bachelor’s. There are requirements, servers, terminals. It can’t just exist.” Daniel grinned with excitement, promptly causing Farrah to add, “And please don’t say that I can believe in this because I believe in much more difficult-to-accept concepts. Or that God made the System.”

Dan shook his head. His happy smile remained on his lips as he spoke:

“I don’t know about that. Maybe they used a higher-dimensional device to implement it. Maybe we’re all living in a simulation, used as batteries to power an alien spaceship. Have you seen that movie?”

Farrah made an annoyed noise.

“They used the mensphaera,” Vega replied, animosity finally gone from her tone. “Don’t ask me what it is, I barely understand the word,” She quickly added. “But they couldn’t do it fully, it’s too volatile for the materials they had. Um, that’s why we can’t see each other’s screens.”

“What the actual …” Dan looked at her in shock.

“Fuck.” Farrah finished the phrase for him. “Is that something we can use to find the OBELISK?”

“Well, whatever’s left of it at least?”

“Pardon?”

“Huh?”

Dan looked at women with just as much confusion as they’d looked at him with.

“Wha – I mean, the complex blew up,” He kept glancing between the two of them. “On the day of the Fall, it all went down. The last records of theirs I managed to track in one of their external databases was dated to 5-something AM on the 27th of September 2014. I scraped all I could, but those places didn’t have good backup generators, and 4 months in almost all of them shut down. The second Horde wave destroyed the rest.”

“When we found the files, the windmill factory, it still had power. Not a lot, and I had to fiddle around with some switches, but that’s how we found you.”

Daniel nodded.

“Yeah, hordes never go into cities.”

“Hordes go where people are. But why would they destroy server-”

Daniel scooched off the couch, cutting Farrah off, as he crossed the short distance separating him from the map.

“This is where their main, I don’t know, centre, lab, whatever it was, was,” He tapped by a pin by the west border of Aireshire, almost at the border with Cudria and Olsheim. Other than several artery highways, and fields-full of sheep, there was nothing in that region. “It blew up, and 10 hours later we got hit with the System.”

Farrah nodded. She looked up at Vega, expecting some comment, but the woman’s face was grim. She’d covered her mouth with her hand, eyes squinting at the map, which she probably had much less trouble seeing.

“Now, these,” Dan pointed at 9 little sticker dots spread out throughout Airshire, “is where they had smaller branches. And this is also where the zombies come from, and return to during horde waves.”

“Huh?” It was Farrah’s turn to use Vega’s favourite question. “That doesn’t sound plausible.”

Daniel made a barely noticeable mouth shrug, betraying his lack of confidence in what he was saying.

“Those Collectors, the ones you keep bringing up,” he made a small hand gesture towards Vega, “I paid them to go investigate one of these spots. At first, I thought they’d run off with everything I gave them on my skills and the Tech domain, but then the wave came, we had to evacuate, and I saw one of them among the zombies.”

“They became a walker?” Farrah asked.

Daniel took just a few seconds too long to agree.

“Give me a second,” Farrah opened her notes screen and quickly recapped everything Dan had just said. “You can keep talking,” She added when awkward silence filled the room.

“You’re taking notes?”

She hummed.

“I was going to do it later, but I’ll the fluff tomorrow on the way.”

“So we’re going?” Vega asked misplaced optimistic hope in her voice.

“I knew Dominic, and Chiara. I’m not sure who else they went with, but they were Lonley and Tech specialists. I don’t know what happened,” She finally finished thinking of the words that should appear on her screen, and returned her full attention to Daniel. “But I trust my skills, and Vega is an excellent fighter. We both need to gather more information on OBELISK, and if going to an office campus in the middle of the countryside is what it takes, then that’s that.”

“I don’t think it will be an office...” Vega spoke.

“I’m imagining a bunker, the kind with grass on top that makes it look like a hill.” Daniel chipped in.

“Yes, nothing shadier than a bunker masqueraded as a hill in the middle of the UDR countryside.” Farrah sighed and shook her head. “But what makes you think it’s a zombie nest? I’ve scanned these fields through and through. I never saw any agglomeration of zombies.”

“Well, that just confirms the bunker theory,” Daniel grinned. “I will admit, I would rather have you think that there are hundreds of zombies, and mutant variants, ready to kill you, than for you to set out for a roadside picnic. There are things in the wording of some of the reports I got that suggested the containment of the zombies they were breeding. There was also a lot of medical jargon, so I think they were working on a cure.”

Farrah glanced up at Vega, only to see her face paler than usual.

“Okay, that’s enough. Anything else you want to brief us on before bed? I’d like to leave before midday tomorrow.”

“Wait, wait, you also owe me information!”

Farrah got up, stretched her left leg that’d almost fallen asleep, and extended a hand towards Daniel.

“No, I mean actual information.”

“It’s all in my notes,” Farrah insisted. She’d filtered them earlier when he was rambling on about ferry ticket prices, to hide anything regarding Vega.

Daniel looked around the room. His gaze travelled along the routes drawn in marker, then onto the scribbles on the whiteboard that he’d never finished explaining. He sighed, with something akin to nostalgia as he stared at the manuals on the coffee table for just a few seconds too long.

Farrah put down her hand, as she pieced together what the man was thinking. She wanted to tell him no. That they didn’t need a keeper that one of them would inevitably have to babysit. But they needed him. There was so much more he clearly knew, and was willing to share, bit simply hadn’t had the chance yet.

Part of Farrah wanted to tell him off for having rambled for so long instead of giving them a concise and straightforward brief. Then they could have gone to where a sticker marked the spot. At their return, they would have shared a pint, and continued their conversation about God, before getting kicked out of the pub for getting too animated in their arguments.

But Vega and she needed him.

“I’m coming with you,” Daniel finally announced. His voice was strangely void of emotion. Perhaps he understood the danger he was putting himself in. Perhaps he’d already resigned himself to his fate.

What bothered Farrah was that he had no clear reason to come with them. He wasn’t the ‘scientific curiosity’ above all else type of person. Nor did he come off as overly concerned for the fate of the few remaining folks, and how uncovering those behind the System could help the keepers restore some parts of their lives.

Before asking him for his motives, or agreeing to the company, she turned towards Vega, asking for her thoughts with a silent nod.

“Huh?” Vega snapped out of a very clearly unrelated train of thought. “Why – umm, it’s your call. It’s your quest.”

Farrah nodded, much appreciating the woman’s support. Then, she turned towards Daniel.

“That’s right. It’s my quest, so what’s in it for you?”

Daniel scoffed. There was something ironically funny about Farrah’s question, but he wasn’t going to explain what exactly.

“I know you’ll keep prying, so I’ll be upfront, I don’t want to tell you. Because you’ll judge me,” His eyes landed on Farrah’s cross again. “But, I know what you’re thinking, about me slowing you down, and getting you hurt and all that. I’m not as helpless as those assholes from earlier told you.”

“It’s fine,” Farrah waved him off. One of them would have to be on babysitting duty.

Daniel made a small, resigned, sign.

“Okay, then at least accept this, as a combined apology, and proof that I’m not useless,” he extended a hand. Before Farrah could say anything or shake it, he added, “Actually, you can have it first. I don’t know what I did to start us off the wrong foot, but I am sorry,” He walked the few steps separating him from Vega. “I’m Daniel, or you can call me Dan.”

“Vega,” She shook his hand after a few moments of hesitation.

He looked at his palm with a sad, dejected smile, before turning to Farrah.

“Farrah Deveraux,” The woman introduced herself, extending a hand.

Information Shared

Offer: Skill: System Breah from Daniel Maximilian Mercer.

Gift: Notes on the Obelisk created by Farrah Deveraux.

Accept

Yes

No

System Breach

Allows user to access the statics tab of a given target within a 5cm range, for a duration of 25 seconds.

Untrained

Cost: 15P per use.

“Huh,” Farrah stared at her palm. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“It’s the Tech domain Expert Mastery bonus,” Dan explained, before stretching and yawning. “I guess I’ll go tidy up upstairs. Are you girls okay with sharing a bed? I can’t be asked to change more than one set of linen. Otherwise, there’s the couch,” He gestured before picking up the long-empty tea cups.

Farrah glanced at Vega, who blushed before suddenly asking:

“Do you need help, Dan?”

“Sure, thanks!” His voice came from the kitchen. “So, about the beds?”

“Yeah, I don’t mind,” Farrah replied, as she pulled up her notes screen to add one more line about Dan’s unexpected, but perhaps unsurprising, domain mastery.