Brandon stood up when Ros entered the room. She smiled and joined him at his table. She immediately opened a trade and handed off his half of the mining loot.

“What’s this? It’s almost bigger than my ring can hold.”

“Your half of the mining day.”

“Jezuz. You’re supposed to get it refined and accept scrip for most of it. There’s a scrip only store with a lot of goods and equipment.”

“I know. You can also take your mining stuff to the Hall Monitor in the dog area and get raw materials or plain coins.”

He huffed. “I’ll probably sell it all in the city. Better prices there anyway.”

“Uh huh. If you’re nice to me I’ll gift you a bigger spatial object.”

“Here. I’ll get you dinner. What do you want to order?”

“Steak and fries with that mushroom sauce.”

“Sure.” He kissed her forehead and went to get it.

She watched Mac’s progress around the room. He seemed to know a few people. Brandon came back with two steak dinners.

There was a lot of tension in the room. It was more crowded than Ros had ever seen it. Everyone quieted suddenly when Martin stood at the karaoke microphone:

“I know that everyone is still upset about the murders.” There was a rumble of agreement. “Let me assure you that Brandon and I personally dealt with the situation. One of the newbies has a hugely expensive tracking ability.”

He briefly made eye contact with Ros. “It was an isolated group of three men who were apparently kicked out of Bentley group in G for hitting on women that didn’t want them. Believe me that they talked. I’m not above forceful questioning. We also caught them dead to rights, they thought they couldn’t be traced, but we did trace them. We magically observed them killing those boys and we tracked them home to where they were holed up. It was pretty clear they were looking for some girls to kidnap and hold.”

There was a bunch of muttering.

“What’s Franklin going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

There was a huge uproar and Martin held up his hands. They quieted.

“Nothing he hasn’t already done. He offered a reward and he’s satisfied with the deaths of the murderers.”

“What’s he going to do with all the new people?” Shirl demanded loudly.

“What is there to do? What did we do with you hundred when you came in?”

“You at least taught us how to kill dogs for money.” Someone yelled.

“Look.” Martin tried to placate the crowd. “There’s three of us who were here before you, only one of Franklin. What can we do that you lot can’t do? Be in charge? I don’t want to be in charge, do you?

“If you want the newcomers protected, or taught to protect themselves, make some new friends and go out hunting with your new friends. Don’t make it out that I have some obligation to teach all the newbies to hunt, if anyone is obligated, it’s you lot. But sure, I’ll be gathering newbies too. Setting them on their paths.

“If you need anything, have questions, whatever, I’m still here. Franklin and Brandon are still here. I do know one thing, if you can never find Evrets when you’re hungry anymore, it’s because your quest is done. If you take a handful of newbies out to hunt Evrets the darned things keep spawning and spawning at a group comfort level rate until you are so sick of Evrets you never want to look at one again. Then you butcher enough for everyone in your party and poof. You’ll never spawn another Evret again.”

“He’s right.” Brandon said, he was lounged in his booth seat, feet up, cuddled with Ros. “I mean about the spawns. Anyone remember the difference between a monster and a beast?”

“Reproduction.” Someone yelled. “Monsters spawn, beasts fuck and make new babies.”

“Yeah.” Brandon said, and Ros was close enough to see the microphone he was using from his seat. It was magical, it would sound like he was directly beside each listener, just chatting. “Look. You don’t have to train newbies. I’m not going to train a bunch of newbies. I’ve got a thousand Moon Wurms to kill. Nobody is telling you that you have to train newbies. The spawn rate thing makes sense, though. I’m going to the city with Franklin when the train comes. Be gone a few weeks, both of us. Y’all are the captains of your own ships. That’s what it means to be privateers.”

“Look. I’m going to find or build a group of six or eight would be hunters myself.” Martin said, the sound system crackling slightly. “Maybe even two groups. I like doing it. I had fun with you lot when you first arrived. There’s nothing to say you can’t hunt bigger prey in your usual teams part of the day. But the sooner everyone in H is self sufficient, the less work we have to do. And the happier the new people will be too. I very clearly remember not wanting to get involved with you lot, and I’d like to say that I have real genuine friendships with nearly all of you.”

“Some closer than others.” Virginia, the hooker hollered. The whole gathering laughed.

“Anyway, no pressure and I’m around if you have questions or problems.” Martin said.

Ros ran butterflies on if it was time to offer dome houses or not and came up with not as the definitive answer.

She watched Martin work the crowd.

“He’s always been better with people than me.” Brandon said, his microphone off and put away. “He was some sort of manager or executive in the before. We were the youngest two of the Second Wave, you know.”

“I’m not surprised. The waves are getting younger. Nobody older than 65 this time, but not under 18 either. Fifth wave will be even younger.”

“Shit.”

“Sixth wave there will be parents with young children.”

“No. They can’t.”

“And sixth is the last wave. That closes the instance.”

“Huh. Weird way to put it.”

“No, the sixth wave came in saying it that way. 100,000 people per observation deck, a billion new faces total. We’ll be full, even if nobody fourth wave and above stay in the stations. On the other hand, the trains get faster and they will run from the beginning, no two week delay. It’s going to be a slaughter anyway. Too many people who can’t defend themselves from other people.”

“Huh. You need to write a creepy poem about that and start a prophecy thread.”

She snorted, but she agreed, so she flagged the conversation in her diary. “Take me to your bed?”

He looked shocked. “Uh… Uh sure, promise not to laugh when you see where I live?”

“No promises. Can’t be that bad.”

He grinned sheepishly. “Actually it can.”

They exited the bar using the main lift and went up to the top floor. He led her to the stairs going up to the platform at the top of the observation dome. There was a chain across the stairs at the base. The platform at the top was close enough to touch the top of the roof glass. There was a door retrofitted across the top of the staircase. A door with a metal ‘PRIVATE’ sign. He opened the loose handle and ushered her in.

“Ta Da!” He used presenter hands like a game show model to showcase his nest, a twin size bunk with a bunch of pillows and blankets, all mussed up.

Oh. No. Not an actual bunk, several mattresses piled up to bunk height.

“What a view.” She looked out at the landscape. She could actually see the fog of the atmosphere, pooling in the fissures and cracks.

“Sunsets and sunrises last for days.” He stepped up behind her and put his arms around her waist. “When I moved up here I didn’t even have a ring. I had to lug the mattresses up from the lift one by one.”

The other four stairwells were blocked too.

She turned her head and shoulders so she could see his face. “I’m not laughing. It’s an inspired thing to do.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

He smiled down at her and kissed her upturned lips. “Help me move the mattresses, we can pad the whole floor two deep. It’s really comfortable.”

She laughed and helped him. He had king size sheets from a balcony room that they used.

The sex was sweet and considerate. They fell asleep together and woke up to what sounded like a party in the observation deck.

“And that’s the problem with the room.” Brandon groaned. “That and the lack of a bathroom.”

“Oh. I didn’t need to pee until you said that.” Ros laughed. “Let’s go down.”

They went into the public restrooms, which someone had painted gender separation signs on, and met again after.

“I’m totally going to move.” Brandon groused.

“Move in with me.” She shrugged.

“The…” he looked towards the dome houses.

“Yeah. You can have your own room.”

“You don’t want to share?” He teased.

“I don’t know. Either I don’t want to share, or I’m sharing with everyone or something in between.”

He smiled ruefully. “So it’s probably better not to build up a bunch of white picket fence dreams?”

She ran a bunch of butterfly projections and she didn’t exactly like any of the answers. “I don’t want to think about the future. There are too many unknown variables in our future.” He could die and she didn’t want to be too attached to him if he did.

“I’ll take it.” Brandon said solemnly. “What’s even going on in here?” He asked loudly.

“A pick up group fair.” Someone nearby said. “If you know which monsters you want to try, find the sign and get with a group that wants to go to the location. There was an announcement this morning. A bunch of third wavers are looking for fourth wave teams.” The girl looked excited she stopped talking and went down the stairs into the lounge.

“And so it begins.” Ros said. “Bunnies?”

Brandon nodded. “Bunnies sound so much better than this. Let’s go before we get swarmed by people who should still be fighting dogs.”

They went to the lift and got on after everyone coming up got off. The lift stopped at every floor and people crowded on, even though they wanted to go up and the lift sign was pointed down. A bunch of people got off at the floor below where they got on, shouting going down as they got off.

The lift got to orange and suddenly stopped opening at every floor. Ros and Brandon made eye contact and suddenly giggled. They shook their heads and got off at the ground floor.

“Into a room to gear up.” Brandon said. “Sometimes I shower down here.”

“I was going from room to room for a while. Some of them still have small loot items to find.”

He looked surprised. “I never found loot in a room.”

“Franklin probably got to all of the close stuff before you got here.” Ros opened a random door and they went in. She did her search demonstration and she was surprised by the quality of what she found. There was a full medical kit in the spot on top of the cabinet. There was a bubble pack of ten 500 point health recovery pills in the bathroom mirror, and a bottle of stimulants. Inside the bedroom drawers there were two jumpsuit uniforms with an unintelligible name on the nameplate.

Underneath there was a girlie magazine with human looking girls with green or gold skin. Brandon kept that. Ros teased him about it or he might not have.

There was a gun under the mattress, but she only found it because she sat on the bed to pull on her armor pants. They weren’t in environment suits because they weren’t going out into the environment.

They were going upstairs at the mine into the administrative offices and the infested levels above.

“I hate these bunnies.” Ros said. “Let’s go ahead and kill the maximum we’ll need.”

Brandon laughed, “they’re not so bad.”

“Bunnies are supposed to be cute. No fangs, no red tears making them look like they’re crying blood.”

“They are crying blood and the eyes are a real weak point.”

“Yeah. I know. It’s the fangs. I don’t like the fangs.” Saber tooth fangs not vampire bunny variety fangs.

“Well, if you want them all, don’t cut off any feet.”

“Yeah, I know. Just keep count.”

The Blood Bunnies, the little ones that each quester needed ten of to get the first potion, were innocuous. They couldn’t really get their jaws open wide enough for a real bite. They mostly ate lesser Raaits, which meant they weren’t safe for humans to eat.

Being in that fauna ecosystem also meant that they had tentacles off their ears. Whippy little tentacles that had a sharp barb on the end. It also meant there were swarms of Lesser Raaits in the administration offices. There was a balcony to the chasm and that’s where they swarmed.

Ros shook off the creepy feeling she felt as she climbed the stairs when she saw her first butterfly marked foot placement.

“Let’s do this.” She breathed out quietly.

She stepped into the optimal standing place and looked through the giant hole in the building wall. This place didn’t have holes in walls accidentally, they were spawned that way. The same hole, exactly the same shape, was in every administration office of every mining station on the moon.

Her automatic targeting ability kicked in and offered her the choice of optimal weapons. Her favorite knives were actually determined to be one of the worst options. She picked a flechette rifle with an automatic setting, she even had two spare ammo pods. The bunnies were dangerous, but they weren’t very big.

The gun appeared in her arms and she didn’t resist as the targeting ability sighted on each fluffy head and sent three destructive little needles into each bunny and just one at each raait on the balcony.

Brandon came to stand next to her as she lowered the gun. “You’re just a little scary, know that?”

“Why?”

“You get this almost blank look on your face when you’re shooting, and I’ve never seen you miss. Not once.”

“Missing wastes ammunition and gives a lower score when you get point multipliers for multiple shots in a row.” Not that it made a difference in real life, but her favorite video shooters were arcade target games, not first person shooters. All the realms had arcades.

She paused long enough for the butterflies to flutter forward into another spot, just past the ruined wall. She didn’t see Brandon shake his head and follow her.

She’d already killed five bunnies and about fifteen lesser raaits. There were no more bunnies, but there were a handful of Raaits. She dropped them.

“Do you want the bodies or just the feet?”

“Feet. You going to cut them off for me?”

He held up a pair of kitchen shears with a strong hinge. “I’m on it.”

She waited, watching the open, malfunctioning, balcony doors for more mobs. Brandon handed her the five paws, half of what she needed for the first set.

“Thank you.”

“I know you don’t mind getting your hands dirty. Plus I just made like a billion coin selling part of your mining haul. I can afford to stand back and watch you do this.”

“How many Gore Bunnies do you need?”

“Only like twelve. I didn’t feel like five more points was anything to chase.”

Ros grunted. She hadn’t repeated the bunnies at all. Creepy fuckers, and what kind of a stat is luck anyway? “Sixty two. Keep count?”

“Sure. It’s easy enough.”

“Moving.” She announced, moving to her next vantage point. Three blood bunnies, four lesser raaits. “Are you sure you’re not bored back there?”

“Honey, I’m watching your ass. It’s a nice ass.”

“Pervert.”

“You have no idea.”

She ignored him and opened the first closed door that should have bunnies behind it. She switched the flechette rifle to fully automatic with barely a thought. She swept the stream of deadly needles back and forth, strafing the reception area, hitting tens, hundreds of lesser raaits.

“Dirty. Shitting. Rackin’ frackin’ wiggly bastards.” Ros growled, dancing back and forth onto butterfly footprints further and further into the reception room as she cleared the alcoves of the waiting room. There were three blood bunnies huddled behind the receptionist desk. They didn’t last long.

“I’ve never seen so many lesser raaits.” Ros said.

“Do you think they’re spawning to replace the ones being killed in the chasm, but they couldn’t get down there with both doors closed?”

“As good a guess as any. I’m worried about what we’re going to find in the bullpen office. Back me up. We’re going in both guns blazing. Kill whatever is closest.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He said seriously.

Ros made sure the door to the balcony was open and checked behind the door into the hallway with the broken wall. Still clear. She left that open too, not that it mattered much. The bullpen was a maze like collection of desks in a large room with private offices along two of the walls and doors into a break room and conference room opposite reception.

No more raaits, but the whole bullpen was swarming with hundreds of blood bunnies, the slightly larger gore bunnies, and one huge man-in-a-furry-suit looking nightmare Easter Bunny.

“Have you seen anything like the big one before?” Ros asked. She felt mesmerized by the dirty, torn, shiny blue vest it was wearing.

“No.”

“Me neither. Fall back with the door open.” She waited until she was sure he was stepping back and switched to her new shotgun with the buckshot. She sprayed and prayed as she unloaded the shotgun into the swarm.

“I’m falling back.” She also stepped to the side, out of his line of fire as she pulled the flechette rifle back out. “I didn’t see any Horror bunnies.” She observed.

“No. They’re usually upstairs.” He agreed.

She stood where her butterflies told her to stand and switched back to semi-automatic. Even a 15,000 round flechette rifle ran out of ammunition eventually.

Suddenly the nightmare furry was in the doorway and up close his fake seeming mesh eyes glowed. His mouth was a jagged mess of sharp, needle shaped teeth with a jaw that snapped open and closed.

Ros saw her targeting system blink that her equipped weapon was ineffective against this monster. The recommendation was a high powered pulse cannon off the heavy guns list. She pulled it out.

“Fire in the hole.” She said. Brandon dove to the side and rolled. She shot the nightmare bunny at point blank range with the cannon. For an odd moment it seemed like nothing had happened, except that the bunny had an eighteen inch circle seared out of its paunchy belly.

There was no recoil. There wasn’t even any sound.

She put the cannon away as the shoulders and head broke off and fell backwards.

Obtained: 78,000 coin; mysterious map

“Back to regular rifles.” Ros said, as the smaller bunnies started swarming over the big one.

She began targeting the bunnies with small bursts again.

“What the hell was that?” Brandon asked after a moment of his own rifle fire.

“Pulse cannon. Effective.”

He laughed and kept firing. The bodies were waist high before they stopped pushing forward.

“Cover me.” Ros began picking up the bodies, mostly to clear a path. There were a few live bunnies here and there in the bullpen. Each little side office had a few, but only two or three. The conference room was empty. The break room was set up like an office party had been interrupted. There was even a cake. There was only one bit of writing left in the icing and it was in the indecipherable builder’s script.

Ros took the moment of calm to open the map the big one dropped.

“Have a look.”

“It’s… it’s a map of the mine.”

“Yeah. Look here.” She pointed to the red circle.

“Obviously.” He agreed.

She put it away, reloaded her shotgun and reviewed what weapons she had on hand. She should have worn the ammo vest. She grinned at the thought, unaware how she looked, splattered with nightmare bunny, with that smile.

The break room had an open arch to the staircase up to the two floors of employee apartments and top floor of branch director’s penthouse.

Ros shuddered and started up the stairs. They were clear, so was the hall leading to the double bunk rooms.

“Sweep and clear.” Ros said, taking point again. She crossed the hall each time, shooting the two or three larger Horror Bunnies in each room, carefully checking each corner, behind any drapes and in each bathroom.

“Watch the door.” She said, in the first room as she very quickly tossed each room, throwing whatever she found in her belt. Since her necklace was currently stuffed almost half full of bodies and she wasn’t done making bunnies into bodies.

She searched every room. There was a lot of contraband. The admin office workers liked to hide booze in the vents.