"Right,” said Kelly-Ann, “This is section 2: The Crafter’s Hub.”

Kelly’s elbows swung just above the high worktables as she shuffled through the narrow path. The cramped space, breaking off into other cubicles, didn’t seem like it was ever a retail store. It reminds of dental offices? Maybe a repair shop?

Further in, the distinct smell of lacquer penetrated the noses of the group and coughs and sneezes began to run down the train of them. This blew up wood shavings, illuminated by dim blue bars that lined the edges of the doorframes outside each cubicle.

They moved along much faster than the previous area, guided by Kelly’s voice and Kelly’s shoes.

“The ‘Crafters’ put things together, both in Airgead and out of it. They maintain the Market day to day, but they have a lot more time as of late, since all that’s requested is low-grade equipment at the moment.” The instructor pinched her nose. “Come on, come on, I can’t stand it in here.”

“Neither can I” Brinn huffed.

Yeung-Sung nodded and hugged himself. Not only did he miss the plants and the light of the previous hub, he also missed its heat. It was dark and eerie, made worse by the whirring of some machine that must not have been turned off inside one of the cubicles.

Kelly stopped outside one of them. She must have noticed the same thing.

“Is someone still here?” she called into the cubicle. The door remained closed, but the whirring seemed to still. She waited for a moment, holding up the group, yet there was no response.

“Excuse me,” she said, slipping past Brinn towards doorframe. She rapped on it three times. “Hello?”

Eyes locked on the instructor, Brinn twirled a long screw in his hand. It ran easily along his knuckles before being pulled back…and forward. Brinn tested the throw a few more times while Yeung-Sung made his over to the bearded ‘trainee’.

“What are you doing?” he hissed.

Brinn was closing his hand over the screw when they heard the clang of something metal fall. A pipe, maybe? Sheet metal?

Listening closely, Yeung-Sung heard what he recognised as a Hunanese – a curse.

Another scramble of noise seemed to head closer until a young, helmeted man popped his head out the door. “I know, I know. Meeting is happening,” he said, bowing regularly along with his syllables. “Almost finished. Will be there.”

Woo-Yi backed away from him with a sniff. “Alright. Be quick about it, so.”

With a last bow he disappeared behind the door again. The whirring flared up again as they continued through to the end of the hub, only to be completely drowned out by the rumbling of all the people in ‘General’, to their left. Yeung-Sung shivered again. What was so important that they all had to present, that a chat room would not suffice?

Outside the ‘Crafter’ hub, Kelly gathered the trainees out near the top of the escalators.

“Right, unfortunately we have to cross ‘General’ on our way to section 3.” She cornered them with a look. “Do NOT get distracted, you’ll all get to listen in later.

“Don’t worry,” she added, starting to lead onwards, “You won’t miss anything important.”

Brinn smiled widely at her. “Of course not. I’ll make sure of that.”

What the hell does that mean? Who is this guy?

As they passed ‘General’, Yeung-Sung had one eye on Brinn and one eye trying to spot Anita in the wriggling crowd. It was a mass o red and blues, though, so he went back to Brinn’s comment.

His attitude to this place, its people… it’s aggressive. Yeung-Sung swallowed, watching Brinn’s congealed wounds peeked out under his short sleeves. The incident that cause his burns, could it be have been caused… here?

Kelly led them to the other side of the abandoned mall, past an office coated in baby pink.

“That’s admin. We’ll come back around to that after the ‘Play-testers’.”

Yeung-Sung was wondering why -despite Kelly-Ann being part of this hub- she passed by it so fast when he noticed Brinn had split off.

He was snarling outside by the window. Was someone inside?

Not wanting to cause any more unwanted attention, he grabbed Brinn by his wrist and pulled him back towards the group. He narrowed his eyes, waiting for the ‘trainee’ to explain himself.

“You’re very jumpy,” Brinn said. He followed that with a long, relaxed breath, striding right past.

“This is Section 3; The Enchanter’s hub: The equipment from the ‘Crafter’s’ is sent here to be blessed -I’m sure you’ve heard of that by now.” Grabbing her stylus, Kelly noted the response in her tablet.

“It’s the magic of Airgead, basically. Very powerful, but really hard to figure define what it does or how to consistently use it. Some preliminary admin work is done here as well.”

The enchanter’s hub was a seating area with booths at the back, currently suffused in a thick lavender glow from a chandelier shaped in the PM logo. Well, this was a coffee shop.

Kelly-Ann pointed over to a diagram on the wall; It was a speculation on how the colour of a blessing could imply the type of effect it would produce. The group easily fit inside the hub, but it still couldn’t compare to the hall of ‘General’. One of the trainees was about to settle down in a plush beanbag when Kelly shook her head.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Hmm, let’s not. We’re behind already, let’s get on up to the next floor -You can always wander around later.”

Damn. I’ll have to come back here soon. I feel like understanding how these blessings work is the key to undermining this entire operation.

Just before he began climbing the next set of stairs, the walls of the room swirled, changing into a lovely chlorophyll green. Yeung-Sung though he could almost smell grass.

On the second floor it was much cooler. It smelled damp. There was only a small foyer, one hub area and a balcony that overlooked ‘General’. While Kelly recounted the group, Yeung-Sung looked down by the banisters. From above, the Market looking like the crashed remains of a space ship: They could show off their innovative technology all they liked, but they were never going to get off the ground again.

“What a shithole,” Brinn said. He hung back, several paces from the edge.

Yeung-Sung noticed the distance -and his shoes pivoting away like skittish brown mice. “Scared of heights? Or is this another thing you’re hiding?”

Brinn stepped forward and yawned in Yeung-Sung’s face. He stretched backwards, cracking his back.

Is this the act? Or was the it being afraid?

Brinn checked behind him -Kelly-Ann still waiting for the stragglers- and took Yeung-Sung aside. “You’re not here to join PM. I know that.”

“Neither are you,” Yeung-Sung replied, and at the same time realised it. “How-how were you burnt?”

Brinn played around with his beard for a moment before answering. “I reckon…the same as you.”

Yeung-Sung tried to back away, but Brinn kept a firm hand in the middle of his back.

“Funny, isn’t it? They promised me I’d be safe here,” he whispered, both of them looking out over the gathering below. Except, he wasn’t, he was actually looking up at the balcony that jutted out over everything; the third floor.

“And here is section 4; The Playtester’s hub. Everyone comes on -I got a message telling me that they’re going to start soon, so we have to hurry up.”

Brinn let Yeung-Sung tear away as Kelly-Ann resumed her orientation.

This hub was the type of cardboard brown that made Yeung-Sung think of his old stock room back in Seoul. While not as large as the Enchanter’s hub, it had three times the seating, scattered around its assembly-line tables. The chairs were flimsy plastic things, with most of them having a jacket or scarf marking people’s place while they were at the meeting.

Kelly crossed her arms at the unanimous reactions of disgust.

I don’t blame them. Who would want to end up here?

“Yes, it’s new -a work in progress,” the instructor admitted, “But it is the highest in demand at the moment. A way to make a name for yourself in PM”

“Why?

Kelly scowled, searching the crowd of trainees for the person that interrupted her.

“The blessings are difficult to understand, as I said,” she explained, reluctantly. “The Playtesters have to simulate many different scenarios -in non-paying Gauntlets, unfortunately- all so we can identify what the enchantments do.”

She leaned over with a smile. “There is no one way to achieve this, so coloners with an aptitude for creative thinking are especially welcome.” She shrugged “I could never do it, personally.”

Murmurs broke out amongst the group, reconsidering their opinion of The Playtester’s hub.

Brinn sniffed behind Yeung-Sung. “So, it’s a more important job than others?”

The group fractured around the two and before Yeung-Sung could point towards Brinn he was pushed forward.

“Hey!” Kelly-Ann shouted across to him. “First of all, I already told you to save your questions to the end. Secondly –”

Chewing on her lip, she quickly looked around at the group here and below. “Secondly, no job is more important than any other. This is the Player’s Market. If you are a player, you are neither better or lesser than another.”

She let her words sink in before beginning to lead the orientation away again. “Let’s proceed. Come on, now.”

Hands in his pockets, Brinn too left Yeung-Sung behind, chuckling.

That’s how it is then.

He hurried to catch up with them, but it was too late; They had isolated him at the back and when Kelly-Ann continued, Yeung-Sung struggled to hear her over the growing chants emanating from General.

“Anyway, the next section is supposed to be Admin, but since we’ve passed it already -and I’ll be honest its not that exciting- I’ll just explain it as we head up to the top.”

The stairs thinned and rattled with the weight of so many of them at once. The Market was a mountain and they were climbing it. The night had been long and PM as idiotic as he could have predicted. After all this, Yeung-Sung ached for his bed.

Is it the loneliness, or do I feel a breeze up here?

Kelly’s speech continued up above.

“While General assigns members their roles, Admin has always taken care of the rest of the HR side, finding new recruits and such. But it also handles the distribution of materials through Airgead. We’re the office of PM. And the warehouse. And the bank…”

General assigns roles? I thought we were free to choose. I thought that wats the point. And Kelly doesn’t seem like particularly happy about being assigned to Admin.

Approaching the summit didn’t change his position in the group, even though there was even less space to move them. In fact, it didn’t change anything; The air whipped harder; the damp dripped louder. Perhaps I should just go. Find another faction. Who knows what they’ll do to me if I try to run after officially declaring for them –

Yeung-Sung froze one foot on a step. Alone already, the group backed further away from him when they saw his face.

Brinn! That’s what must have happened to him. Why he’s so full of rage.

The ‘trainee’ turned back, noticing the reaction.

“Oh, don’t leave yet,” he said. “You’re going to miss the best part.”

“I’m staying long enough to hear this ‘announcement’ at least,” said Yeung-Sung, mounting the step fully.

But why do I get the feeling that you’re not referring to that.

Kelly threw up her arms, presenting section 6; The Fighter’s Hub.

“The resources that are funnelled through the other sections into Admin are selected in accordance with the strategies that General has come up with,” she explained. It was the most animated she had been yet. “The Fighters are the ones who execute these plans; Culminating all our efforts inside the Gauntlet, afterwards dispersing the reward fairly across all players.”

The hub was a little nest at the very top of PM, and was likely the security room of the mall long ago. Full of blue screens, there as only three spots for people to watch them and two of them were occupied.

Kelly-Ann, hid her arms. “You’re still here.”

Two scrawny men leapt up from the recordings they were pouring over. They don’t look like fighters, but I guess they don’t have to.

“Oh crap! Did we miss it? The meeting?”

“Almost,” Kelly answered. She looked back out to the balcony. “Any minute now. But I suppose you two hardly have to be in attendance. And you have a perfect view from here.”

She waded slowly through the group to get a better look, picking up her voice. “We’d better get down there.”

Kelly brushed past Brinn and Yeung-Sung and the rest of the group flocked around her like ducklings. Through a thicket of shoulders Yeung-Sung a particularly jolly figure waddling towards the podium at the end of General’s hall.

Simon? Why is he here?

A cough stopped the stampede. The Fighter had come outside. Vaguely middle-eastern, he looked like an overworked aircraft engineer in his cargo pants. He took out a vape, yawning.

“You gonna go all the way back down?” he asked.

Kelly spun, still gripping on the handrail. “We wouldn’t want to disrupt –”

“Nonsense.” The Fighter’s neck cracked in three places as he rolled it. “I’d say I’m due for a break anyway.”

Brinn stepped through towards him and Yeung-Sung began to panic.

He took the fighters hand and beamed up at him. “Well if that’s alright with you”, he said, their handshake rattling cartoonishly. “Much appreciated. You’re doing great work.”

Yeung-Sung checked the trainees group’s reaction, but they had all been staring at him. He could only shrug back.

“Sure,” the fighter mumbled.

Kelly-Ann disregarded the situation after a moment of confusion and began scrolling through her tablet. “Since we now have some time, I suppose…I’ll answer any questions?”

Hands flooded the air before she finished the sentence.