Foreman Barnes was also marked with a map waypoint, which moved along as he walked around the construction site. Well, it should have been called a destruction site, on account of everyone digging dirt and breaking rocks to clear a large area. There wasn’t much being built just yet.
Barnes wasn’t a big man, but he had the kind of stern look that made Blake think that he took no shit from anybody. He had a thick black mustache and thinning hair on the top of his head.
He was engaged in a heated discussion with someone wearing dirty blue overalls. Despite the hostile nature of the conversation, Foreman Barnes remained resolute in his posture. He wasn’t about to back down.
“I don’t care if you’ve run out of anima today, I still need you to go back down there and dig,” Foreman Barnes said in a clear but direct voice. “You’ve got arms, and we’ve got plenty of shovels. I know it’s not as fast as when you’re empowered with your cards, but there’s a lot of work to be done, and most everyone has the same limitations as you do. You don’t see any of them shirking off their duties, do you?”
After being dressed down by the foreman, the construction worker looked abashed. “No, I guess I don’t.”
“Then get back to work. I ought to dock one ration pack off your pay for that insubordination,” Foreman Barnes said, but his tone was gentle. Now that the altercation was settled, there was no further need to inflame things.
“I’m sorry, okay? I’ll get back to work right now. I’ll work harder this afternoon than I did this morning, I swear. Just don’t take the food, I have kids, and they need to eat.”
“Then you think about them being tossed out into the wild with you the next time you think about wasting my time and yours. This city isn’t going to build itself. We have a glorious purpose!”
Blake had to wonder about that. If this city had come from some kind of super powerful city card, then maybe there was a way it could level up like all the other cards and grow by itself.
Given how many construction workers were putting their backs into their shovels, Blake figured that might not actually be the case. Maybe the city card required the City Lord to do things in order to level the city up. Some of those things might involve construction projects.
Blake needed to learn as much as possible about how this system worked, so he could understand the actions and motivations of those who were running this city. Someone appearing out of nowhere and setting up all this almost overnight in the middle of a world-wide apocalypse was suspicious on so many levels he could not even begin to list them all.
Blake raised a hand in greeting. “Foreman Barnes, is it? I’ve got a work order to report to you for further instruction.”
Foreman Barnes looked him up and down. “New arrival, are you?”
“Yeah, just a few hours ago actually. Some soldiers near the front gate scanned us and put us in the citizen database, then we went and got our apartments. Now we’re here. Well, I’m here. The guy I came with was assigned to kitchen duty,” Blake explained.
“Food prep, huh? Poor guy. I’m pretty sure you got the better end of the deal there. Let me look at your profile for a second.”
The Foreman fished a strange device out of his pocket that looked a little bit like a smartphone, but it was completely transparent. It was the same kind of tablet-like device Rose at reception had used before handing over his apartment key. When the foreman lifted the device in front of Blake’s face, Blake could still see the Foreman’s face through it.
“What’s that?” Blake asked. “The woman at reception used one of those on us as well.”
“This is a data tablet. It lets me access all kinds of information about people across the city. If you manage to get yourself into a cushy position like foreman, or scanning new arrivals into their apartment allocations, you might get one too. But I wouldn’t count on that. Doesn’t look like you’ve had much life experience, kid. I reckon you’ll be working for me for at least a few years.”
Not if I can help it, Blake thought.
As soon as he found his parents safe and well, he would figure out the next steps. He hated the idea of being stuck working in construction for years. Blake got a really bad feeling about how things were run in this city.
If their old world had ended only less than a week ago, and things had changed this much in such a short amount of time, things were going to get a lot worse before they got better.
“So, Blake Thornwood, it says here that you’re from Cedar Creek, just down the road to the south,” Barnes said. “It says here that you were going to College in Denver, but not much more than that. You haven’t made much of an impact on the world, have you?”
What the hell kind of question was that? He was only 21 years old. What kind of impact did this guy expect Blake to have made?
“Anything that I could or would have done in the old world doesn’t really even matter anymore, does it. Who cares what it did before I came here? All of that’s dust in the wind now whichever way you look at it.”
“I guess that’s fair. Well, I hope you’re a fan of dust, because we’ve got a lot of it to go around. It says here that the primary element of your card collection is earth, is that right?”
“That’s right. I’ve got no fire cards at all. What exactly can you see on there about my cards? Does it tell you exactly which ones I have?”
“No. We’ve been petitioning the system to be able to give us that insight, but it refuses. It says that only a Challenger may see which cards they have. We don’t know whether there are more powerful cards out there that allow us to see more but based on all the information that we’ve got from the system, I doubt it. It wants people to be able to keep secrets.”
That was a relief, at least. The system sounded like it was chaotic and capricious, but there were certain elements to it that Blake could appreciate.
It sent out all of these power cards for people to claim for themselves, but it didn't want anyone else to know what power cards others held. When you dueled someone or watched them duel someone else, that would reveal some information, but you couldn’t just go around scanning people for the sake of finding out what they had.
“Are you going to tell me what cards you have, or are you going to be like one of those guys who invoke the systemic right to privacy?” Foreman Barnes asked.
“No, I can tell you exactly what I have. I’ve got two cards at the moment,” Blake said, which was a lie. But he wanted to see if that information was revealed to the Foreman as well. If he didn’t correct Blake on the number of cards he had, then he’d know that his total number of cards was protected too.
“One of them is a Stone Golem card, which lets me raise a monster made of stone to fight for me. And then I have a Shaleskin Wolf card which lets me summon a massive wolf that has a really strong hide and can withstand a lot of damage.”
“What the hell? I’ve never heard of anyone having monster summoning cards before. We’ve got plenty of Stone Claws, Stone Fists, Shale Skin, Earth Stomp, Fissure, Conjure Earth, Landslide, and all those other common ones, but never heard of anything like yours. Where did you find them?” Foreman Barnes looked genuinely interested in Blake’s cards.
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“Well I found the first one just sitting in the forest. The second card? I got it from a monster that was exactly the same as the monster that is summoned from the card. So maybe there’s a rare chance when you defeat an empowered monster that you can get a monster summoning card that makes them fight for you?”
“I’ve never heard of that happening, but it has only been a week since all of this kicked off. There’s still a lot for all of us to know. Anyway, I was just asking what kind of cards you had so I could figure out which of them we could use to help with our current project. Now I’m not sure whether your wolf is going to do much except scare the crap out of everybody else who’s trying to work, but your golem monster thing. Is it strong?”
“I believe it is, yes.”
“How long can you conjure it at a time? Most of the guys I’ve got working under me can activate their powers for half an hour at a time, three times a day. Planning on when we use them is most important,” Foreman Barnes said as he took a notepad and a pen out of his coat, ready to write some notes.
“Yeah, I have the same limitation. I can summon him for half an hour at a time, and I’m still only Rank 1, so I have three anima I can use.” For now, Blake thought to himself.
It would probably not be too long until Blake could start regenerating anima with the Lair card, but he needed to find the perfect place to play it.
As far as he knew, once he played the card he wouldn’t be able to unplay it. He’d be stuck with a lair wherever he activated that card.
If he used it here in the city, then he would have to stay in the city to be able to access its powers. However, if he used his lair card out in the wilds outside the city, he’d have to spend most of his time out there, and not in the city.
It all depended on where his parents were, and what happened when he found them.
“Say, that data tablet that you’ve got there, can you search on that for someone by name to see if they’re in the city?” Blake asked.
Foreman Barnes shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. This lets me look up information about someone I’m physically close to, but that’s about it. It’s not like a computer where I can just put in a name and a bunch of results come back.”
“That’s okay, it was worth a try. The only reason I ask is that my parents were from Cedar Creek as well, and they left a message for me. They said they were coming to New Meridia, but I have no idea where to start looking for them,” Blake said, his voice wavering.
“I see your dilemma. Put in good work here with us, and I’ll run things up the chain. We'll do everything we can to find your parents. But in the meantime, after your shift here today, make sure you go back to your dwelling and stop by the administration center tomorrow. They might be able to send a message through to your parents if they are here in the city for you. They can’t tell you if they are or if they aren’t, but they'll definitely be able to pass the message on to them if they are here.”
“I could just give them my apartment number and tell them to stop by in the message, right?”
“You can pass whatever message you want onto them.”
“Great. So what is it that we’re doing today?” Blake asked.
“We’re pretty generous in the construction crew. Depending on how much you want to earn, you can work as much or as little as you want. If it’s just you, with no kids and no family, then you can probably just work four hours a day straight to get enough ration packs to get through. You can get your ration delivered straight to your apartment, or we can hand them over here. Whichever you like. You can work longer, of course, and that brings with it a whole bunch of bonuses and incentives.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
Foreman Barnes shrugged. “We offer a lot of options, and a lot of flexibility. If there’s something in particular you want, if it’s within my power to get it, I’ll figure out how to do it. Then we can figure out how much you need to work to pay it off.
“For example, one of my guys, a guy named Tristan Johnson, wants one of our one of the swanky apartments up in Atlas Tower. The big glass monstrosity in the middle of the city. It’s just him with no partner and no family, but he wanted an apartment in the big tower. So I pulled some strings, and he works for us eight hours a day, six days a week, just so he can stay in that apartment.”
Blake nodded. He didn’t like the idea of working those kinds of hours or working six days a week, but he wouldn’t need his own apartment anyway. He had a Lair card which would become his base of operations after he figured out where to play it.
“Upgraded accommodation is not the only thing. You can also earn time in the advanced training rooms in Atlas Tower, better time slots for arena duels, introductions to the influential people of the city, and even occasionally spare power cards.”
That last one piqued Blake’s interest.
“How do you give away power cards? I thought that if someone picked up a card it would be bonded to them immediately. Then you can only lose it through a duel, a trade, or death.”
“Well, we’ve figured out a way to be able to pick up and transport cards without actually touching them. You see, there’s a rare card called Imprison which can be played and used to imprison an inanimate object in a secure box. Anyone can pick that box up and move it around, but the moment you open that box, whatever card that's inside becomes bonded to you.”
“So no one’s actually picked up the card and identified what it is before it goes into the box, right?”
“Exactly.”
“So it’s basically a video game loot box. You work hard and you get a random chance at a random card, but you don’t know what the hell it is that you’re going to get,” Blake said with a chuckle.
Foreman Barnes shrugged. “I don’t know. I never really got into video games. What can I say kid? We are all living in an apocalypse run by the system now. We just have to figure out how to keep working things out ourselves.”
“Gotcha. Well, because I only have the two different cards at the moment, I am interested in gaining more. What would I need to do if I wanted to get one of those randomized card boxes?”
“If you were to give me a week of eight hour days, five days in a row, of hard construction work, I’d be able to hook you up with a card box. How much do you know about ranking up as a Challenger?”
“Admittedly, not much. I know I’m Rank 1 at the moment, and when I had a duel back in Cedar Creek the arena itself could only host duels for the people of Rank 1 or Rank 2, so I know other ranks exist. But I haven’t really looked into it just yet,” Blake admitted.
“You can get all of that information from your system database about the rank up requirements. Basically going from Rank One to Rank Two is not a big deal. You just need to get at least three different power cards, and you need to level one of those power cards up to Level 5. After that, the requirements get much trickier. You start having to earn specific achievements and all of that kind of jazz, and I only know of a handful of people so far that have made it to Rank 3.”
“That guy who’s fighting tonight in the arena is a Level 3, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, he’s already famous. I’ll be at that fight tonight. The Master of Flame always puts on a good show. I have no idea how he’s been able to level up his own cards so much, but if you keep working on it, you’ll get stronger as well.”
“Is working construction going to help level up my cards?”
“Oh, undoubtedly. It won’t rise as quickly as if you were fighting monsters out in the wild or anything like that, but it will steadily rise each day. As long as you’re using your power cards for what they’re meant for. For example, one of the guys I know uses his Stone Claws card to help move earth when he’s excavating, and every claw swipe earns him a couple of experience points. If he keeps that up for the full half hour, that’s a significant amount of experience.
“Now I’ve got lots of work for your Stone Golem that none of my other guys can handle. If it can lift heavy things, then I’m never going to run out of work for it. This whole area, there’s a reason it’s called the Rockies. There’s always stone to shift, and humans just aren’t very good at that without breaking.”
“Why don’t you guys use actual heavy machinery to do all of this kind of thing? Surely an excavator or a front loader would work better than an army of shovels.”
“Well if we could actually get any of that kind of equipment here to New Meridia, we probably would. And yeah, we have teams out there looking for equipment to bring back here to make things easier, but as I’m sure you experienced, the only road out here is a dirt road. It would take a hell of a lot of fuel to get any kind of construction equipment out here in the middle of nowhere. But yeah, don’t worry, I hear you.”
“Okay, well I think I’m just going to do the four hours for my rations today, and I’ll have to think about your offer of overtime for the extra card box.”
“Not a problem at all. How much anima do you have left today?”
“I haven’t used any today, so I’ve got three anima left.”
“So you’ve got about an hour and a half of empowered golem time, which I’ll get you to haul stones with, and the other two and a half hours you can pick up a shovel or a pickaxe and either help with the excavation or break up some more rocks yourself. Whichever you’d prefer. We’ll never run out of either job for the foreseeable future.”
“Well, to be honest, I would like to keep at least one anima in reserve. I don’t like the idea of not being able to defend myself if I come under attack.”
Forman Barnes laughed at that. “Kid, you're not going to come under attack while you’re here in New Meridia. You’re in one of the safest places in the new world! That’s what our City Lord says. If you want to go duel it’ll refresh your anima just to use during the duel anyway. You can spend all your anima here, then be duel ready in an instant once you step into an arena. I don’t want you working on the construction crew if we can’t rely on you to put everything you’ve got into it. Everyone else working here uses all their anima, so what makes you any more special?”
Blake didn’t have a good answer to that, so he just sighed and shrugged. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
Foreman Barnes grinned. “Now that’s the attitude I like to see. I’m going to set your map marker up now to the shattered rocks we need moved, and I’ll put another marker down where I want them moved to.”