As soon as he’d left Rebecca, Mason actually looked around and realized the settlement was totally different.
Streets had changed, buildings had merged, and he was pretty sure the whole thing expanded entirely. How exactly the walls had been moved out he didn’t much understand, but then, this was the robot apocalypse.
He glanced around and noticed faces he didn’t recognize, too. Apparently they’d had some more refugees while he was gone. Ultimately he didn’t much care, and mostly just wanted to see Haley before realizing she wouldn’t be at home, but in the hall. He sighed, and slowly trekked up the hill.
A few of Blake’s player minions were guarding the door, and when they saw Mason coming they sprung to attention or otherwise clutched nearby weapons with some kind of nervous energy.
“Master Mason,” said the oldest with a kind of salute.
“Just Mason is fine,” Mason said with a forced smile. “Carry on. Or at ease. Don’t worry about me.”
“Course, sir,” the man smiled with equal effort and opened the door.
Mason was surprised to find a veritable party inside. Music played from the town’s digital system, several women lounged on the furniture with drinks. Blake, Haley, and Seul-ki stood at the back of the room in conversation with an olive skinned, attractive couple.
Most of the new faces that turned to Mason went wide with panic or horror, and he knew they were civilians seeing his deep red, player killing aura. He sighed, and walked through the middle towards Blake, scattering a few groups.
“There he is! Come on in, brother,” Blake waved him forward with a gesture.
A wide smile spread across Haley’s face at seeing him, and the thought of putting her aside blasted from his mind as impossible. She stepped forward and kissed both his cheeks, then a quick peck on his lips before nestling into his side.
“Welcome home, master,” she whispered. And unlike the guards at the front, he had little desire to correct her.
“It looks like you’ve been busy,” he said to Blake, and his brother grinned.
“I have indeed. Cindy and Alberto, this is my brother Mason. I suppose you’d call him the muscle of the operation.”
The attractive, maybe Italian couple smiled politely but made no move to shake Mason’s hand, or really get closer to him at all. For the first time he considered how he might look, and possibly smell, and realized his clothes were covered in bat blood and claw marks.
“Sorry about the clothes. I was, uh, attacked.”
“Anything we need to worry about?” Blake kept his voice light and raised a brow.
“Not anymore.”
Blake laughed like this was a tremendously funny joke. “Glad to hear it. Well, we’ve been signing Alberto and Cindy’s people all afternoon. One new player, nine civilians. So our little family grows.”
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“Oh? Well. Welcome,” Mason said, no idea what else to say and frankly not really caring. He glanced at Haley and vaguely gestured out of the hall with his eyes. She gave him an apologetic tight lipped smile, and he knew Blake was going to ruin his day.
“Your timing is impeccable,” Blake clapped him on the shoulder, and Mason tried not to groan. “Our new friends here were part of a much larger tutorial, literally hundreds of civilians and players if you can believe it. Though unfortunately it sounds like many were killed.” Mason stared with what he hoped were ‘get on with it’ eyes, and his brother cleared his throat. “We need players to go down the main South river, find any more survivors, and bring them here to Nassau. I thought you’d be the perfect man for the job. Trust me Alberto, there’s no one faster than Mason here. He crossed half the damn world to find me already.”
“Is that so?” Alberto’s fake smile widened. “I would be in your debt then, sir. We all would be.”
“To that end,” Blake added, “I suspect we’re going to need to delay our little trip.”
Mason felt his polite patience drain like sand. “We need a moment,” he said, no longer pretending to care about the Italians.
When they met his eyes theirs widened slightly before they nodded and walked away. Mason looked at Haley and Seul-ki next, and with an encouraging smile from Blake, both turned and left as well. Mason waited until they were all well away before he turned on his brother.
“I’m not your errand boy,” he whispered. “I’m not your ‘muscle’, either.”
“I’m aware, you know I just tell people things when it suits me. That’s not at all what I’m…”
“You’re forgetting what this game is,” Mason hissed. “It’s not parties and making friends. It’s power, plain and simple, and you’re not gaining any sitting comfortably in this damn town.”
“There I disagree. Allies and town improvements are power, which is why…”
“What level are you?” Mason interrupted, and his brother scoffed and cleared his throat before lowering his voice even further.
“I’m level six. Which I’m reliably informed puts me approximately in the top 30% of players, and…”
“I’m twelve, Blake. I was your level before I cleared a damn dungeon on my own.”
Blake’s mouth opened but for once he appeared speechless save to make a sound like ‘oh’.
“Yeah. Oh. And if a few people like me show up they are going to rip your little town to pieces, starting with you. So you need to level up because it’s the most important thing for your survival. Period.”
Blake looked like he wanted to argue, but eventually sighed and glanced at Mason with a properly chastised side eye. “Very well. But we agreed on two more days, yes?”
Mason sighed but nodded.
“Then that gives you two days to round up more refugees along the river, which does add power to this settlement, I assure you. You should go right now, in fact, if you’re up for it.”
Mason felt his jaw clench and tried to relax. “And what are you doing while I get more sheep for your pen?”
“The same,” Blake glanced around the room as if someone might be listening, then grinned. “I have a new toy. It lets me fly around like an invisible drone, leaping into people’s minds, all kinds of fun tricks. Oh, and I can talk to people from a distance. Including you, by the way.”
“Great.” Mason took a breath and glanced at Haley watching him while she chatted with a newcomer. He would have much rather spent the night banging her brains out, but since he just gave Blake shit for sitting around Nassau too comfortable for his own good, he couldn’t very well justify it.
“Now if you’re done giving me jobs, I’ll go get your damn refugees. And can Haley be excused, my lord?”
“Yes, yes, stop that. Now come here, this is why I need you. I’m occasionally wrong. Very occasionally.”
Mason gave his brother a hug, with a little extra super-hero-strength squeeze for good measure, only letting up when he heard the pained groan.
“Idiot,” he said.
“Moron,” Blake agreed.
“I’ll see you later. Anything else I should know?”
“There’s probably monsters chasing them,” Blake said far too happily as they released. “The refugees, I mean.”
“This day just gets better and better.”
Mason turned with a wave, no longer bothering to smile politely at any of the people watching him in the hall. That was his brother’s job.
Haley met him without instruction at the doors, and he took her arm as they both walked out.