The two men talked deep into the night making plans and swapping stories. Brian was included when they swapped stories, but mostly kept quiet. He was making his own plans while they were making theirs.
In the morning the two soldiers separated each on his own recruitment mission. The trip back into Beaverton was largely a rehash of the journey into Portland. It was as they were traveling in Beaverton however that something new happened. They heard women screaming in fear.
Both rushed towards the sounds. They came across three women running for their lives from 10 creatures. Their skin was the color of dirt, and not smooth but rather more like a rock. They were short squat creatures each a little over 5’. They wore only what looked like purple underwear, purple boots, and a purple helmet.
Nathan immediately activated Never Miss and started firing. His bullets sunk in only a few inches into the stony skin of the monsters. The monsters turned and several broke off and started towards Nathan and Brian.
Brian had fired almost as quickly as Nathan had. His bullets were more effective, but were still far from lethal against these monsters. What’s worse is the fire seemed to have no effect on them.
The few monsters still chasing the girls had almost caught up to them when a blue domed shield materialized around the girls protecting them. The monsters started bashing the shield, but it held strong. Taking a chance that the shield would continue to protect the girls both Nathan and Brian yelled Frag out and threw their explosives. Nathan’s three high explosive grenades bounced into the heart of the group attacking them before coming to a halt and exploding. Brian’s exploded immediately on impact. The four explosions were much more effective than their bullets had been killing a few and severely wounding the others.
The explosions caught the attention of the three monsters still bashing away at the energy shield. They recognized the danger the two men now represented and turned towards them and charged.
Seeing as how his rifle was less than effective Brian dropped it and activated his Summon Elemental Gun choosing the element ice. A cool blue SMG with white accents appeared in his hand. He raised the gun and fired.
The damage the bullets caused was no greater than Nathan’s AR, with one very important distinction. The ice seemed to build up in the muscles of the one hit and caused it to slow down considerably. Brian quickly shifted targets and sprayed the other two monsters back and forth. Once a decent amount of ice had formed on those two, he turned and spayed the ones still alive but injured from the grenades. His time with the elemental gun ran out and he was back to his rifle. He still had over 10 seconds on his explosive cooldown. With the rock men frozen he tried for headshots. You are taught to aim for center mass, but that wasn’t doing much. He carefully aimed at a rockman moving in extreme slow motion; he squeezed the trigger. The bullet struck the rock man right in the forehead, and even though the rock-like skin helped mitigate the penetration. Several inches of brain penetration is still several inches of brain penetration. The rock man collapsed bonelessly. Elated at his success Brian aimed at the other two who had been attacking the ladies, and put a head shot on both of them. The cooldown on his Generate Explosive had come up and he quickly lobbed one into the mass of rock men. Two high explosive grenades from Nathan joined it. The subsequent explosions finished off the rock men.
Brian turned to Nathan while reloading his rifle, “That was a close one Nate. You definitely need a gun with more power, something like an AR-10 would be good. Or a .30-06 if you can live with the bolt action.”
Nathan hated what he was about to say. Being given firearm advice from a civilian stuck in his craw. “I think you’re right. We will swing by a gun shop on the way back to my mom’s place. But for now let's see if the ladies are ok.”
The shield surrounding the ladies had collapsed. A retching sound was heard from off to the side. Nathan and Brian raised their guns. After a few moments of dry heaving a young man stepped out of the bushes. He was average height, he had fair skin with sandy brown hair on a whole he was fairly average.
Nathan noticed the stranger first, “Who are you?”
“My name is Chris Bush. I heard the gunshots, and I came running. I was hoping it was the cops. Them or the military.”
Brian pointed at Nathan, “He’s ex-military if that helps. And we are organizing his military friends soon to help people.”
“I can help.”
“What can you do? You don’t have a gun or anything.”
“I don’t need a gun. I can do this.” And with that Christopher raised his hand and a beam of energy shot out and destroyed a car a little ways away. I can do that and I made that shield that protected the girls.”
“Another one of you that thinks this is all some kind of game? Just because you can make shields and shoot laser beams from your hand don’t mean you are ready for what’s out there.”
“Easy, Nate. He just wants to help. And that shield was very helpful. The girls would be dead if it wasn’t for them. What else can you do?”
“The beam isn’t a laser.”
“What do you call it then?”
“I don’t know. The ability is called Generic Energy Beam. I can do that, the shield, and I can cut down the time on cooldowns.”
“So more of a support type then?”
“Not really. I usually play DPS. But this isn’t a game.” Giving Nathan some side eye. “And I thought I should have a more well rounded skill set, instead of focusing. At least until I could find a party.”
Nathan rubbed his eyebrows, “All right what are you nerds talking about?”
“When you play games that involve more than one person, like World of Warcraft. There are roles that you can play. We talked a little about tanks already. They use armor, big shields, and skills to survive. Then you have DPS, which stands for Damage Per Second; like the name says they are the guys that do damage to enemies. Then you have healers, they make sure you don’t die. And finally you have support types; they have the most variety from making characters stronger, to controlling the battlefield, to bringing in additional characters, really all kinds of things. With his varied move set I thought he might be going for more of a support style unlike you and me who are more DPS.”
“This isn’t some stupid game. This is real. You can die.” Nathan snapped his fingers, “Like that. Your little “roles” don’t mean anything here.”
“We get it Nate. We know. You don’t have to tell us every five minutes. We are all just trying to make sense of the crazy world we have all been thrust into. The few areas that are game-like give us something to hold onto. Something we can understand. I have already almost died three times in two days. I know it’s real. I know. Ok?”
Nathan was definitely not expecting that from Brian, the kid he remembered had been a lot quieter and more willing to let Nate take the lead. He also didn’t push back against Nathan. Nathan wasn’t sure if he was more pissed or proud. Either way it was time to check on the ladies.
“Are you ladies ok?”
The ladies were huddled together. They had not signed up for this. They had been chased out of the apartment they were in and had run for their lives. If it hadn’t been for the shield they would be dead.
One of them near tears asked, “How is this happening? Where are the cops, the military? Why are these things allowed to harass people?”
There were no answers to her questions. So Nathan tried calming her down, “The cops and the military are doing all they can. But without power they can’t be everywhere at once. Luckily for you we were able to help. Did they hurt any of you? Do you need first aid?”
A girl with mousy brown hair and a cute face replied, “No. I have healing powers now.”
Brian blurted out, “You’re a healer. That’s wonderful. That’s going to be so useful.”
“Can it Brian. I’m glad none of you are hurt. Do you have somewhere safe to go?”
The healer spoke up, “No. We thought the apartment might be safe, but they kicked in the door too easily. We don’t really have anywhere to go.”
“You could come with us. We will be setting up a safe place in a few days. I’m sure my mom won’t mind a few ladies staying with her and my step-dad while we get things squared away. And my step-dad is a Marine so he can keep you safe.”
The girls shared a look before the healer responded, “If it’s not too much of an inconvenience we would love that.”
Chris piped up, “Is that offer for everyone or just the ladies?”
Brian beat Nathan to the punch, “If it isn’t you can stay with me at my place. We don’t want to overwhelm Nate’s mom.
Chris nodded. That was likely the best offer he was going to get. It definitely beat staying at his place on his own. At least Brian had a gun and seemed like he could handle himself.
“We never introduced ourselves. My name is Nathan, this is Brian. And who are you lovely ladies?”
The healer spoke up, “I’m Heather.” She pointed to the one who had first spoken up, “This is Mary, and this is Lola. Thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”
“Happy to help. If you girls are ready we should get going. We are going to stop by a grocery store so we have enough food for a while.”
Everyone nodded and looked to Nathan to lead the way. Brian checked his notifications to see if he had leveled up again. Nothing. “Hey Nate, did you level up?”
“No, did you?”
“No.”
“We can level up? How does that work? How can we tell?” Chris was very enthusiastic about the prospect of leveling up. That was always an awesome moment in games.
“I don’t really know how it works, but there should be a blinking light in the corner or your vision. You sort of concentrate on it, select it if you will. It indicates if you have a notification from whatever all of this is, the blue box and stuff.”
“Yes, all of my skills leveled up. They are all now Iron level 2. Do you know what that means?”
“No we don’t. I’m sure it means something. Just don’t know what.”
Nathan muttered something under his breath about nerds.
.///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The grocery store was quiet and dark. What had once been a routine thing, picking up groceries, had now become a lot scarier. Nate and Brian activated their flashlights and went through the doors first. They ladies and Chris followed silently behind them.
“Let’s split up so we can save time. We are looking for any and all canned goods, boxed items, jerky, anything that is easy to cook and will last a while.”
Lola hesitantly spoke up, “Can we not split up? You two are the only ones with guns. I would feel a lot safer if we all stayed together.”
Nathan could see that the girls were very afraid, “Yeah that’s fine. But there is no reason to be afraid. I’ll protect you.” Left out of that statement were Brian and Chris something neither of them appreciated. “I’ll be in front. Ladies, you and Chris follow me. If anything happens Chris, throw up a shield. Brian you have the rear. Grab a couple of carts and let’s get this done.”
It was only the second day since the initialization had begun and already the store was pretty bare. A few cans of the less popular vegetables had been left, every other canned good taken. Left to rot was the fresh meat section creating a smell that permeated the building. Between the smell and the flies, it was not a pleasant experience. The ladies gagged. It took all their self control to not vomit.
Not wanting the trip to be a failure without checking everywhere Nate spoke, “Let’s check the back, maybe people forgot about it and just hit the front of the store.”
The back had far more items, it was obvious at least one person had been back here, but had left a lot as they likely could only transport so much. The group was able to fill a cart with food and bottled water. They exited out the back rather than go through the front again. The fresh air was wonderful after the smell of rotting meat. Everyone stopped and took a moment to take a deep breath. Fresh air had never smelt so good.
Nate wanted to hit up a gun shop on the way back, but realized it would be better to get this group safe first.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The trip back to Nate’s mom’s place was uneventful. They saw some people out and about, but no one was interested in talking to the group. They arrived at the small house and Nate knocked on the door, before opening it and letting everyone in. He called out just loud enough to be heard by those in the house, but not loud enough to attract outside attention. “Hey Brian and I are back and we brought some people with us.
Carmen and Mr. Mcmullen walked out into the living room. Carmen greeted them, “Hello and welcome to our home. I am Carmen Mcmullen and this is Lou Mcmullen. May we have your names?”
Heather once again took the leader role, “Hi, I’m Heather, this is Lola and that’s Mary.”
Chris waved awkwardly, “My name is Chris.”
“Welcome. How did you meet?”
“Nathan, Brian, and Chris saved us from some weird rock like people. And then they said we could come back with them since we didn’t have anywhere safe to go.”
“I was out looking for help, when I heard gunshots. I ran towards them thinking it was the police or military. I was lucky enough to get there in time to put a shield around the girls.”
“Sounds like you’ve had a terrifying day. We’ll you’re safe here. We only have one extra room if you ladies would like to share.”
The girls nodded. Carmen motioned them forward, “Why I don’t show you where your room is. So what sort of abilities did you girls take?”
The women’s voices faded as they walked down the hall. Lou looked at Nathan, “How bad is it out there?”
“We’ve been attacked multiple times. The first time was 50 something soldiers carrying Medieval weaponry. With our abilities we were able to take care of it. Then a tiger escaped from the zoo and attacked us. Then finally we saved the girls from 10 guys with rock-like skin. That one we almost didn’t survive. Our bullets didn’t really do much damage. Luckily Brian was able to shoot them with ice, and that slowed them down enough that we were able to take them out. There is a lot of chaos out there, and we didn’t see any cops. Maybe they’re dead or they were guarding other areas. I did manage to meet up with my friend. He’s going to bring some people to my place and then we are going to meet up with some friends in Hillsboro. After that we should be able to start taking zones. Well after we upgrade our guns. 5.56 isn’t going to cut it against everything out there.”
“When are you leaving?”
“There’s still a couple of hours of daylight left. I was going to head out now. I should be able to make it back home before it gets dark.”
“What about these two?” Pointing to Brian and Chris.
“I figure they can sleep on the floor. We brought a bunch of food. So you should be fine for that for a few days.”
“I’m not staying here. I’m not just going to twiddle my thumbs waiting for you to do all the work. I want to be out there.”
“You’re just a liability. All we need is for you to freeze again at the wrong moment and get somebody killed.”
“I didn’t freeze against the tiger or the rock people. And if it hadn't been for me, either the tiger or the rock people would have killed you.”
“You’re staying. That’s final.”
“You’re not the boss of me. If you don’t want me around that’s fine. I’ll go elsewhere.” Brian wasn’t really thinking about how immature he sounded. All he cared about was proving he could be out there helping people.
“Where are you going to go? I thought the whole reason you came here was because you needed our help.”
“Help. Not imprisonment. I still would like to work with you. Maybe we run two teams’ you and your friends and me and mine.”
“Who are you going to get to help you? You don’t know anything about something like this. Anyone dumb enough to follow you will be dead in a day.”
“I don’t know yet. I am still working that out.”
Chris piped in, “I’ll help.”
“Great the blind leading the blind.”
“Thanks. I was going to ask you, but hadn’t had a chance yet.”
“Are you serious? Both of you think this is some stupid game. He can’t even fight, he only has that stupid laser. How many shots before he gets mana drained?”
“His shield lasts a while though, it lasted the whole time we fought the rock men. If we can shoot out of it, we will be better protected than you.”
“If. You don’t even know if you can. And so what you have a minute or so before it runs out and then you both are dead.”
“It’s not just going to be the two of us. I plan on asking that lady Jessica, and maybe that guy we met Nick. And hopefully we can find some other people.”
“You’re crazy, you, the girl with the bow, laser boy here, and the guy with only a knife are going to go out there get yourselves killed.”
“Then we won’t be a problem anymore will we?”
Mr. Mcmullen stepped in between them. “All right, back to your corners. Nathan, if they want to go, you can’t stop them. But Brian this does seem very foolish. Take some advice from an old soldier and sleep on it tonight. We can talk more in the morning.”
Brian looked at Mr. Mcmullen and nodded his head. He walked over to the couch, put his rifle in easy reach, and sat down glad to take a rest from a trying day. Nathan rolled his eyes, “Tell mom I said good night.” And with that he walked out the door.
“Tell me, Chris, was it? Have you ever fired a gun before?”
“I don’t really like guns sir.”
“They might very well save your life out there. If you two are going to be fighting, you need something to protect yourself with.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“I have my energy beam and my shield. I think I will be alright.”
Mr. Mcmullen stared hard at the young man in front of him, before he walked off muttering about the folly of youth,and kids not listening to their elders.
Chris waited a minute before sitting on the couch, scooting close to Brian, and whispering, “Where did you meet these people?”
“They are not bad people. Mr. and Mrs. Mcmullen are great. He was helping me train to be in the Rangers when I was a teenager. They are just scared we are going to get killed. These powers we’ve been given. They don’t have any frame of reference to something like this. Mr. Mcmullen and Nate are soldiers, in battle the person with the most firepower often wins. Guns play a big part of that. As for Nate being a jerk I don’t know. He wasn’t like that when we were kids. And this is really the first time I have seen him since he went to war overseas. Maybe something happened to him while he was over there. I think he will come around when we prove ourselves.Now I don’t know about you, but I am hungry. Let’s find Mrs. Mcmullen and the ladies and see about some dinner.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The next morning Brian woke up early. He was quiet as he didn’t want to wake Chris. He grabbed his rifle and pistol and went outside to get in some exercise. He had done about 50 pushups when Mr. Mcmullen opened the back door and walked out.
“I am not going to be able to talk you out of going out there am I?”
Brian stopped his pushups and stood, “No. I am not stupid. I know this could go very badly. But if the powers work like the people I’m thinking of say they do; we should be fine. The woman Jessica, she can go invisible. That makes her an amazing scout. Chris can create shields, I need to test if we can shoot through them, but if we can then the monsters won’t be able to touch us. That guy Nick I mentioned, he can become invulnerable and he can create something that will attract the monsters to attack it and then blow up. I need to find some other people before we start trying to capture zones, but if everyone agrees we have the beginnings of a pretty unique team.”
“What if they don’t want to join you?”
“Jessica is interested as is Chris. We will need to go to Nick and ask him. He was supposed to go talk to his neighbors, maybe one of them will have some useful abilities. If we go by my place I have an AR, which wasn’t always useful, but is better than nothing. There’s a range in Tualatin I wanted to hit up to see if they had ammo. No matter what, we are going to need a lot of it. Nate will at least. One the way there is a Sporting goods store. We can test out our abilities at the range. If they don’t work. I promise I will do what you and Nate want.”
“I have your word on that?”
“You do sir.” Brian extended his hand.
Mr. Mcmullen shook it, “Ok. Don’t go dying before then. I would hate for anything to happen to you.”
“So would I.”
The two walked into the house together. The rest of the people in the house were in the crowded kitchen making breakfast.
The blue box appeared for everyone. “Greetings. All zones and dungeons are now live.”
Everyone looked around the room at each other. Chris spoke first, “What does that mean zones are now live?”
Brian spoke up, “I don’t know, but I’ve walked from my place in Beaverton to here all the way to Southeast Portland. And leaving aside the crime and destruction, there was no seeming change in the landscape. I would have thought we would have noticed something different. I mean we ran into several monsters, but nothing that suggested a zone that needed to be captured. I guess we will have to see if anything is different today.”
Brian caught Heather’s eye, “Do you mind if I talk to you for a second?”
Curious, the woman followed Brian into the living room. “Have you had an opportunity to heal someone yet with your powers?”
“No, not yet.”
“I see. You mind telling me what abilities you have?”
Heather shrugged, “No, I don’t mind. I have Mass Heal(Average) “Heals everyone inside of the radius for some of their damage. Cooldown ten minutes.” Targeted Heal(Rare) “Heals a target area completely”. Special increased speed of healing. Cooldown twelve minutes.” And finally Warm Blanket “Calms and nurtures the healing process of the mind. Cooldown twenty minutes.”
Brian nodded along to her explanation, “You mind if we try an experiment?”
“Sure what do you have in- OH MY GOD what are you doing?”
After she said yes Brian whipped out his knife and sliced open his hand. Blood immediately started to flow. Everyone in the kitchen rushed into the living room at Heather’s screaming. They noticed Brian standing there holding his bloody hand. Everyone started shouting at once. Brian lifted the hand still holding the bloody knife, “It’s ok. Everything is going to be fine. Heather has healing abilities. If you wouldn’t mind Heather using Targeted Heal on my hand.”
Heather nodded dumbly wondering what kind of man did something like this. What if her abilities didn’t work? What was he going to do then? She activated the ability. And though they couldn’t see it because of the blood still flowing. The flesh knit itself back together perfectly, not even leaving a scar. As the blood flow stopped and everyone was eventually able to see for themselves that Brian’s hand was perfectly fine as if he had never cut himself. They all started muttering to themselves.
Heather grabbed Brian’s hand, “WHY did you do that? You could have been seriously hurt?”
“I needed to know how healing worked, better to find out now in a controlled environment than in an emergency.”
“And if it hadn’t worked or didn’t heal as much as you thought, what were you going to do then?”
Brian shrugged a little embarrassed, “I guess I would have had to stitch it up or something.”
Carmen was not having it, “Boy what kind of fool cuts themselves like that. Especially to find out how something works. And look at all the blood you spilled on my floor. I am never going to be able to clean all of that out of the carpet.”
Chagrined Brian grimaced. I am sorry Mrs. Mcmullen I wasn’t thinking. I needed to know how healing worked so I would know whether or not it was useful for fighting out there or if it’s more of a away from the battlefield kind of thing. I guess I didn’t think of the consequences. I’ll clean it up as best as I can.”
The other ladies,Chris and Mrs. Mcmullen walked back into the kitchen. Mr. Mcmullen stayed and with a look that could curdle milk let Brian know exactly how unhappy he was with Brian. Chris returned with a roll of paper towels and handed them to Brian. Brian quickly started mopping up the blood. “So what did you find out?”
“Well it’s nothing like the games or at least not how we think of the games. It doesn’t heal a set amount like D&D. I think it is more of a channeling thing. As long as energy is poured into the ability you continue to heal. We would need a more serious injury to confirm-”
“Which you are not going to do mister.”
Brian held his hands up in a placating gesture to Heather, “Easy. I wasn’t planning on it. I think her other ability is more like a D&D heal fixing some of the problem, but if it’s bad enough you would still be bleeding internally or externally. On a whole it’s useful, but we aren’t going to be able to tank massive hits and heal through the damage. You can do it once for one injury, but then the cooldown kicks in. Although I guess with your ability to affect cooldowns that might help. How does that work exactly?”
“It’s called Must Go Faster(advanced) “Ten minutes of time is cut from cooldowns from friendly creatures inside a diameter of 30 feet. Cooldown six minutes.”
“So speeds up the process, but for both of her heals there is still time you would have to wait.”
“What are you two talking about?”
“We are comparing your healing to healing in a game. And yes I know this isn’t a game. But we needed to know how healing worked here. In games a person can “tank” i.e. stand in front of the enemy to keep its attention, get hurt, and the healers constantly heal them so they don’t die. This allows the damage taken by the team, as well as the healing to be focused. That isn’t how it works here though. A tank would get hurt, you would begin healing their injury, likely they would get further hurt. Once you managed to heal the first injury your ability would go on cooldown and then the tank would die from wounds before you could heal them again. It would take way too many healers for that kind of strategy to be viable.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Not disappointed, just have to rethink how this is going to work. I had hoped to ask you to join us as our healer as we go out there capturing zones and hopefully saving people.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“I don’t know, maybe you have a sense of adventure, or you would rather heal in the field than wait the hours it would take someone to get back to you. Even though it doesn’t work like we want it to, having a healer around is going to save a lot of lives for anyone out in the field. And having a healer out there means we could save other people we find who are injured.”
“Why do we have to go out at all? Can’t we just capture some zones, grow some food and stay safe behind some walls or something?”
“Someone is going to have to go out, at least for the first several months, we need to look for resources, depending on how big a zone is, capture more zones, look for survivors. We are not going to be able to hole up and everything will be ok.”
“But I don’t want to go on an adventure.” She said, stomping her foot.
“That’s perfectly fine. You don’t have to.If you want to be the resident healer of the safe zone. That’s perfectly understandable.”
“Well… what are you going to do?”
Chris looked at Brian, “Find another healer I guess.”
“And what if you can’t find one?”
“Then Chris’s shields are going to become super important.”
Heather was conflicted. She didn’t want to be out there in danger. But she had also become a doctor to help people who were sick or injured. “Fine I’ll go with you, at least until you can find another healer.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“But.” Heather said, staring at Brian, “No more stupid stunts like earlier.”
“Sure.” Not telling her that they were going to have to shoot a gun inside of Chris shield to see if it blocked outgoing attacks. Hopefully Nick wants to help and his invulnerability works as advertised.
“Great, now let’s get back to breakfast.”
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
After breakfast The trio headed outside. Brian turned to the others and said, “So someone I want to talk to is between Aloha and Beaverton, and then after that I want to head down to Tualatin. There's a big sporting goods store we should hit up and then past that there is a gun range. We need to test some things out about our abilities.”
“Why do I get the sense that there is going to be a high level of danger in the testing of these abilities.”
“I hope that we can do them as safely as possible.”
“I thought I said no more stupid stunts.”
“It wasn’t a stupid stunt.” Heather shot a ‘your kidding right’ face at him. “It wasn’t. Admittedly the blood thing wasn’t thought all the way through, but I knew you had two healing abilities at least one of which needed to be tested. Combine that with Chris’s cooldown ability I was mostly sure I was going to be fine. Just be glad I only cut myself and didn’t try to stab myself in the stomach.”
Heather gasped, “Tell me you’re joking.”
“I didn’t do it, did I? But yeah I considered it. That seemed extreme for the first test.”
“Just admit it. You’re crazy. I’m going out into a monster infested world with a crazy person.”
“Look, we don’t know how almost any of this works. It is so much smarter to test in controlled environments than out in the field. If you don’t want to do this, you can just go back inside. No harm no foul. But make no mistake what we are going to do is dangerous. Having a healer around will make that considerably less dangerous, but it is still dangerous. So this is the moment of truth are you in or out?”
Heather contemplated for a moment, she wanted to say out. But if one of them got seriously hurt and she wasn’t there to help them that would be on her conscience, “All right i’m in, but let’s hope we find another healer soon.”
“Let’s go back to the part where you want to walk all the way to Tualatin.”
“Why is that far?”
Brian looked at Heather, “Are you not from around here?”
“No, I was here on spring break with Lola. She’s from here.”
“To answer your question it’s like a twenty minute drive from Beaverton. I am not really sure how far in miles. Probably not more than twelve. So from here probably less than fifteen.”
“FIFTEEN MILES. One way. Are you crazy? I can’t do 30 miles in one day. This isn’t the army.”
“My apartment is between there and here so we would only have to do like twenty something miles. But I was thinking of picking up some sleeping bags at the sporting goods store and sleeping at the range.”
Heather was glad she wasn’t going to have to walk 30 something miles in one day, but was still far from mollified. “That’s still a long walk.”
“That’s true, but with no cars working; it’s walking, riding a bike, or horseback. There aren’t any horses around so that’s out at least for the moment. But believe me I plan on finding some when we get to where we will eventually plan on living. As for the bikes, if we find some, I have no problems using them. But I plan on taking at least one cart worth of stuff from the sporting goods store if they have anything. And it will be difficult to ride a bike and pull a cart. But we might be able to find bungee cords at the sporting goods store. Keep your eyes open.”
Heather sighed, “Fine, but I am not happy.”
“Noted.”
And with that the trio set off. It wasn’t too long on their journey when the blue box popped up. “Do you wish to challenge for zone #9876?”
“Uh, no.”
A golden light shone making a barrier visible. Brian pulled back from the light. “I guess we go around.”
“Well that answers the question about the zones being live.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
During the next hour they ran into one more zone, like before they simply moved around it. They stopped once to take a break; neither Chris nor Heather were used to walking long distances. Brian broke out some bottled waters and jerky. After a few minutes they set off again.
They arrived at Nicolas’s apartment complex late in the morning. Brian realized he didn’t know where Nick lived. Well, he’d ask the mom of those two kids. That or he’d get lucky and Nick would be there. He approached the boys’ apartment. He knocked on the door. “Ma’am it’s me Brian. We met the other day. Me and my friend Nathan brought home your two boys.” He heard the sound of something heavy being moved. After a few moments the door opened and the boy’s mother answered. Wish I could remember her name. Did she tell us her name? “Hello ma’am. I’m looking for Nick. I’d like to speak to him for a few minutes if I could.”
“Have you come to take us somewhere safe?”
Brian rubbed his head, “I’m sorry, but someone should be by tomorrow or the next day to pick you up. I was hoping to talk to Nick about helping us find a safe place for everyone.”
The woman was clearly disappointed. She was obviously hoping to be rescued. Brian vowed to get back to her as soon as he could, but it would be at least two days before he could capture a zone and then another day to come get here. He would need to stop by Mr. Mcmullen’s place tomorrow on the way to Forest Grove and have them remind Nate about her and her boys. Hopefully Nate and his fellow soldiers captured a zone somewhere tomorrow. They’d better for all the fuss they made about it being an ex-soldier only group.
“Nick went to change into some clean clothes at his apartment. It’s off to the left #234.”
“Thank you ma’am.”
“It’s Beth.”
“Thank you Beth. Like I said another day or two and we’ll send someone down to get you and your boys. Hopefully we will also be able to take any neighbors you vouch for. Actually speaking of neighbors, have you asked around to what abilities they might have. If there are some good ones you might stay with them. It might be safer. If you do, just leave a note telling us where you are so we can find you. Or if you prefer, have your neighbors stay with you.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Ok. We will see you soon Beth.” And with that Brian turned and walked away. “That’s why I am doing this. To help people like that. Scared people who don’t know how to fight back in this world. Let’s find #234.” Brian and the others started their walk to find Nick’s apartment.
“That’s a noble goal Brian. I was studying to become a doctor. Next year would have been my third year, that’s when you usually pick your specialty. I was still undecided. All I knew was I wanted to help people. That’s why I chose all pink gem slots. I don’t ever want to hurt anyone.”
“While you are on the team, I will do everything I can to make sure you never have to. Then when we find another healer; you can move into the base and just heal people as needed. Which I imagine would be nice to heal someone instead of giving them some pills and hoping for the best.”
“That’s true, healing is going to be way more fun than being a doctor.”
After a few minutes of looking they found Nick’s apartment. Brian knocked on the door. “Hey Nick. It’s Brian we met the other day at the supermarket.”
Nick answered the door. It was obvious he had changed in the dark. His clothes were a horrible mismatch. “Did you find a safe place for people to stay?”
“Not yet. That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you mind if we come in?”
“I don’t really have any lights. I don’t have any candles.”
Brian pulled down his backpack and rummaged through finding his flashlight. “I got this. Should work for our needs. We’ve been walking a ways and could use a breather.”
“I guess. Come in. I have some bottled water we got at the store. It’s not cold, but …”
“That would be great thanks.” Nick handed everyone a bottled water and they sat down grateful for the rest.
“So what did you want to talk to me about?”
“You said you had defensive abilities right. You created something that got monsters attention, you could become invulnerable, and there was a third one.”
“I create a barrier with blades that blocks attacks and attacks any threat that gets close to me.”
“Right.” Brian said, lost in thought. Nick waited for Brian to continue speaking, but Brian didn’t say anything.
Chris, hating an awkward silence, spoke up. “Brian is getting together a team to capture zones and protect people.”
“Wasn’t he already doing that? And what happened to the other guy? Nathan? Right? Where is he?”
Brian exited his thought planning, “Nate and I don’t see eye to eye. Nate wants only soldiers or ex-soldiers to be out doing things in the world. He wants everyone else to stay safe. I don't want to do that. And I believe we will need more than one or two teams out there. We are going to need a lot of teams. At least in the beginning. To that end I am putting together a team. These powers we have been given mean that ordinary people can fight back without training. I think that is the whole point of them. The tutorial I got said that Earth had become a training ground for a war.”
Nick and the others were surprised. They had clearly not heard this. “What do you mean the tutorial told you that? My tutorial was mostly about the ability slots and the gem colors.”
Chris and Heather agreed with Nick.
“I’m going to guess all three of you were healthy and didn’t have any physical or mental diseases or handicaps?”
All three nodded. “I thought so. I had fibromyalgia. As such I got that cured and got a longer tutorial as a result. The purpose of all of this is to create an army. At least I think that is what the purpose is. As such I don’t think it will be as simple as turtling up somewhere and staying safe. We have got to get stronger.”
Chris spoke up, “Why didn’t you say all of this to Nathan? This is important information.”
“I didn’t think of it at the time. I was so mad at being dismissed because I wasn’t a soldier. I was going to be a Ranger you know. Mr. Mcmullen was training me. And then the fibro diagnosis came and it disqualifies you from service. You’re right though I need to talk to Nate and Mr. Mcmullen about this. When we get the base set up and start rescuing people I’ll suggest they implement some kind of training program for those that want it. It will go a lot easier if I can build a team and we can have some success first though.”
“Why do you want me then?”
“This isn’t a game. I know that, but if you aren’t going to build a team around overwhelming firepower with guns then taking some elements from games could be useful. You are a tank. You can create that construct that draws attention and then explodes. That’s very useful. Your blade barrier will be useful. And you can become invulnerable. So far all of the monsters I have seen have either been monstrous versions of animals or humanoids with Medieval weaponry. Outside of bows and arrows you have to get in close to hurt someone. This makes guns incredibly powerful. Am I right in thinking you don’t want to use a gun?”
Nick shook his head, “No, I don’t like guns.”
“Ok. So unless I get real lucky with another member or two of the team guns are out. In that case getting overwhelmed in melee is going to be a problem. You offer at least something of a solution. Depending on how much damage your construct can take, as well as how much your blade barriers can block. That and how long you can hold invulnerability. You can hold the monster's attention to let the rest of us, not including Heather, do enough damage to eliminate them.”
“Why not Heather?”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to heal people.”
“Uh, I should have said something earlier, but I don’t want to hurt people all that much either. It made me sick seeing you and Nathan killing those rock creatures. I threw up. I don’t know how much I can be killing things.”
“Yeah that would have been helpful to know earlier, but with your shields and your ability to lessen cooldowns. You could still be a valuable member of the team. Just have to focus on support abilities and not others.”
“I can do that.”
“Not to sound selfish or anything, but getting back to me. If I understand you correctly; you want me to step in front of the monsters and get hit repeatedly until you kill them? Do I understand you correctly? Why would anyone do that?”
That brought Brian up short. Why would anyone do that? It’s totally different in a game. It’s not your body. You’re not taking real damage. “That is a good question. One I don’t really have an answer for. But If I may, why did you choose all defensive abilities?”
Nick clammed up real fast. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
Heather, sensing a painful past, moved over and put her hand on Nick’s knee, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“No worries. You are entitled to your secrets. Without meaning to sound crass, someone with your abilities would be very useful out there. You can sit there, play defense, not have to hurt anything, survive whatever is thrown at you. And then in the unlikely event you take damage our healer can fix you up again.”
“You still haven’t answered my question. Why would someone do that?”
Chris chimed in, “Because you don't want others to get hurt. A tank is a protector. You take the attacks which you can mitigate so others don’t have to.”
Brian sensing Nick needed some time, “How about this? We are going to go around and knock on doors seeing what abilities your neighbors have. Hopefully we find some with abilities that can protect the complex. While we are doing that, why don’t you think about what we’ve talked about. We will come back later and check in on you. If you don’t want to help us no harm no foul. Sound good?”
Nick nodded, and the trio got up and left the apartment. Chris turned to Brian, “You know if we do this we won’t be able to make it to Tualatin before nightfall right?”
“Well then while we are asking around about abilities let’s see if we can borrow some bicycles.”
They spent the next couple of hours asking the various residents about the abilities they had taken. They found a few with offensive abilities that were willing to protect the others. One nerd with an obvious fandom could create an energy sword. The ability was called Just a Laser Sword, but let’s be honest it was a lot like a laser sword from the most influential sci-fi trilogies. His name was Evan Larsen. Another guy, Adam Williams, got really strong and could shrug off damage. There was a lady, Tammy Lynn, that had been practicing kendo for years. She took a few sword related abilities. Also important, they managed to find four bicycles they could borrow.
They made their way back to Nick’s apartment. He answered the door. “Ok I am going to go with you. I want to protect people, that’s why I took the abilities I did.”
Brian lightly clapped him on the shoulder, “That’s wonderful. Welcome to the team. I was hoping to head out and hit up a store and then a gun range. I need to test out some abilities of the group, including some of yours if you don’t mind.”
“No, I don’t mind. Where are we going?”
“Tualatin-Sherwood. Luckily we managed to get some bikes so that will make this easier and faster. You can ride a bike right.”
“Of course I can ride a bike. What kind of stupid question is that?”
Brian raised his hands, “Easy. I’m just making sure. I am sure there are some people who can't ride a bike.”
The quartet mounted their bikes and headed off. Along the way they discussed their strategy if they ran into any monsters. The plan was simple: try and outrun them on the bikes. If they had to fight, Nick was to make his construct and he, Chris, and Heather were to get under a shield. Brian would try to kill the monsters with his guns. It was not a great plan. And they all hoped they could outrun any trouble.