“Senior Shop? May I enter?”
[Of course, Employee Shen Ai. You may always enter.]
“I find myself in a position of unexpected power and would like to consult with someone. Do you know where Seniors Ivy and James are?”
[They are in the tower. I cannot detect them more precisely without accessing the tower’s internal network which would be an intrusion with an 83% probability of being noticed and a 72% likelihood of instigating retaliation.]
“Ah.”
[You may consult with me if you are in need of calculations for your future actions. Representative James and Co-Owner Ivy have begun to arrange loan-style purchases by fronting their own lifespan stockpiles to obtain goods to sell. I am not sure whether this is a viable long term plan but Representative James is quite confident in it.]
Shen Ai perked up at this. “Do we know what kind of things the people of this world desire?”
[From what has been so far established, they seem fully wrapped up in obtaining these tower cards. It seems rather limiting to me, forcing all powers to conform to the same framework when we could sell anything that can be imagined, but at least funneling all wishes through this format will fully shield us from responsibility. With the tower giving out cards freely, any powers we introduce will be perceived in the same way. I simply need more examples to draw upon before I can begin to formulate my own varieties. Right now my understanding is too limited.]
“I do not like what I see here,” Shen Ai admitted. “The powers in this city consume their people as thoroughly as the sects of the heavens did back on Aiguo, only with false promises and despair rather than overpowering force. And here there is no division of realms to protect them.” Not that the division of realms had helped nearly enough, but it had at least forced the cruel masters of the heavens to send people like Shen Ai into the lower realms instead of wreaking havoc themselves.
Or maybe that was worse.
[Then it will be easy for you to find people whose lifespan they should be liberated from.]
“That is one way of looking at it.” Shen Ai smiled faintly. “I would like to correct the balance of this place. Can you help?”
[Of course. We only need to find what people most desperately desire and provide it to the right ones.]
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“Name?”
“Merek Sion.”
“Rating 1.5. Current balance: one thousand eight hundred and three.” The accountant didn’t even look up. “What do you have for us today?”
“I’d like to pay out the balance of my contract.”
The accountant frowned faintly and tapped at the screen. “That’s two hundred and three thousand four hundred and fifty-five shards. Minus your current balance, that leaves—”
Merek placed the Dominant Vengeance card on the counter, and the man’s voice trailed off into stunned silence.
The scanning block lit up white to match the card’s light and chimed loudly enough that everyone in the room turned to stare.
Merek smiled, taking in the absolute shock registering on everyone’s faces as he stood with the pure brilliant glow of the card in front of him.
The accountant stared at the card. Then he stared at Merek.
“I want to buy out my contract,” Merek repeated. “Now.”
“Uh… I’ll… You can… wait here. I’ll go get…” He backed away from the brilliant white glow as though it were deadly radioactive, turned, and ran for the back. Merek heard him shouting for his boss and smiled.
While he waited, he picked up the card and reread it again. It was a thing of beauty. He wished he could keep it, but this had been entrusted to him for a purpose. He couldn’t start paying off his new deck until he paid off his old life.
At the thought of never having to come to this drab office again, never needing to turn over anything he didn’t choose to, a smile grew on his face that even the obvious tension of everyone in the room couldn’t squelch.
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This was it.
After today, he’d be free to earn what he wanted, how he wanted. The new debt was the lightest, easiest thing he’d ever seen. The terms were so flexible it felt unreal. But if they really could enslave his soul for eternity, that was a pretty good insurance against him just disappearing with their cards.
His cards now.
He pulled them out just to look at them again. Five perfect rectangles, the pure blue glow of every single one beyond his wildest imagination.
He hadn’t chosen his class upgrade path yet and wasn’t sure he wanted to bother. Brawler had never been a class chosen for anything but pragmatic reasons. He’d been aiming for Burst at the time, because he knew that would get him the best chance at earning shards quickly. In combination with his heart card, he could become a force to be reckoned with.
Instead, he’d received Pushback.
That had been a major setback, the worst possible outcome of all the basic Brawler cards. If not for his heart card, Personal Perimeter, being a similar but stronger personal area control ability, it could have been invaluable. But as it was, he was basically useless until he saved up enough to add the Burst card he’d wanted from the start.
Once he had that, everything finally started to change for the better. His deck may be small and his tactics simple, but they worked. He’d been able to start repaying some of his existing debt, keep up with rent most of the time and not fall any further behind.
It was a joyless existence, but he’d believed in his long term goals enough to keep trudging through.
But now…
With these, he could go anywhere.
Third tier Healing could get him a job at any hospital, as an adjunct to an emergency response group, or even as a standby for research facilities—any of which would pay more in a year than he’d earned his whole life until now.
Link, Analysis, and Counteract were almost as good. Link would get him into any number of social or legal fields. Analysis at Rare would make him one of the most sought-after resources for researchers, and might even be enough to qualify him for special government incentive programs. Counteract was a little harder to build a career around, but it would be invaluable for his trips into the tower.
And, even carried away on dreams of his beautiful future, he couldn’t deny that he would need to go back into the tower. He owed the strange shop owners too much. Even if it was only one day a week, he could start to pay them back without harming his career or normal life.
Everything could finally be the way he’d always wanted. Better, even.
“Merek Sion?” Ray Liash, the ostensible owner of this company, stood on the other side of the counter with his arms crossed. “I understand you’ve been holding out on us.”
Merek tucked his personal deck away and held out the epic. “I’ve come to pay out my contract. That’s all.”
“One epic, sure, that pays off the primary amount, but there’s still—” He tapped his companion block and consulted the paired wrist-screen. “—one thousand six hundred and fifty-two shards in interest.”
Merek’s heart sank. He still had the common monster card, but that would only count as two shards. “I haven’t chosen my uncommon class card. If I let you pick and take it, could we call it even?” he proposed without much hope.
Liash took the card, then frowned as he scanned his screen. He shook his head. “Looks like you’d still need four full Uncommons if you wanted to pay it off that way.”
Merek grimaced but nodded. “I’ll be back soon.”
Still, with an almost fully rare deck, he could surely earn four Uncommons easily enough.
He laughed at himself. A week ago it would have been impossible. Today, that goal was very attainable. Just a minor setback. Nothing to worry about.
His perfect future had never been closer to becoming reality.
For the first time in his life, he was smiling as he walked toward the tower to start the morning’s climb.
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“Don’t worry about entering this in the records,” Ray Liash quietly instructed the man on duty, slipping the Epic card into his pocket. “I’ll take care of it personally.”
“You’re the boss,” his underling said, though his eyes weren’t the only ones lingering on Liash’s pocket.
“Go on, back to work,” Liash said in a soft yet carrying voice. “And a friendly reminder that any items which pass through this office during work hours are to be considered strictly confidential. I don’t want to hear any whisper about this specific card’s existence, let alone its location.”
Nods and murmured assent, fearful workers returning to their scurrying business. Just what he liked to see.
Liash crossed to his personal elevator and tapped in the code for the basement. He may be nominally aligned with the Ascenders and give them preferential treatment with any ordinary products that came through, but this card wasn’t the kind of thing he could simply sell.
He traded out his business block for another identical one in a hidden drawer at the side of a filing cabinet, paired it to his peripherals, and crossed to the rear of the elevator shaft. Another hidden door, and he was descending yet again.
Yes, a card this special deserved a full auction. No one faction would ever offer as much if they didn’t think there was a chance of it falling into enemy hands.
He could almost taste the wealth now. Very, very few people had an Epic heart capable of holding such a powerful card, but to those who did have the capacity, such a card would be irreplaceable.
He chuckled to himself as he exited into a dark tunnel lit only by the glow of his iris screen and wristlight and held up the covert block to tap in the destination. “Nothing better for the market than a bit of healthy competition.”
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