I began by explaining how I had gotten extra options for my 'abilities' from the boss, most likely from when I killed him, but that I also got an extra option that sounded very much like something from the bluish aliens. At least I couldn't think of any other place I could have gotten it. I also mentioned that the one ability, "Half Life Genetics', had specifically mentioned making the genetic information degrade; so that made it very clear that abilities were genetic. Unfortunately it seemed like it took more than just a handshake to get access to those abilities, otherwise I would have built up a bunch of options from other people. So it was most likely blood contact. At least that was the only similarity between the boss and the aliens I went to help that I could think of that was different from the other humans of our group. Afterall, the people from our group had been mostly taken out by an electrified knockout sword or the concussive blast from his gun, which were relatively bloodless compared to the claws and teeth of the animal horde.

I finished off with my proposal. "So in order to test it all you need to do is grab onto my arm after I cut myself."

He looked at me squeamishly. "That's a little..." He only looked worse as I made a small cut on my arm.

"What's wrong" I asked with an eye roll, then continued with my best Count Dracula impression. "Don't you want to suck my blood?"

"No, it's just... This is a little weird." he answered back.

I nodded. "Don't worry, I can fix that." Then I switched from Count Dracula to Sesame Street's The Count. "I will give you to the count of three! Muwa-ha-ha! One! Muwa-ha-ha! Two! Muwa-ha-ha! Three! Muwa-"

He grabbed my arm before I could finish. I didn't bother to ask him if it worked, his face told me all I needed to know. Also he seemed to open his status with his hands: tapping a spot in front of him to open it, pulling down on something like he was scrolling, then hitting a space to his upper right to close it. He shook his head to confirm what I already knew about it not working.

Just to fulfil my own curiosity I reached forward to hit the spot in front of him where he had tapped to open his interface.

"What the? How did you do that?" he asked, closing his interface again.

"The same way you did." I answered with a shit eating grin. Ok, maybe I was pushing things, but he did just kinda accuse me of being a bad guy. I'm allowed to be annoyed.

That gave him pause, but he shook it off and went back to the matter at hand. "I think it didn't work because you were trying to let me get the ability. Like, I think it's an anti-cheating measure to keep people who know each other from trading around abilities."

I nodded; More tutorial runarounds. Not that I could blame them, whomever designed the tutorial. If the Cheaters could have brought in a tank piece by piece than they absolutely would. But stealing still works, somehow? I stole the mercenary's gun, so it had to work somehow; but it went back to him as soon as he woke up and realized it was gone, so it isn't as simple as "finder's keepers". But why? If it was about volition, the desire to hand it off, than something like intimidation might work to transfer stuff. The problem with that theory is that I have neither the desire nor the ability to intimidate these people into giving me their stuff. Or rather I had no desire to go after the other Cosplayers, the ability to go after the Cheaters, and the Aliens had basically nothing worth taking for me, at least that I know of. If that theory wasn't testable than the next step down on the ladder of fussiness would be that either the mercenary hadn't known that he had lost his gun or hadn't known that someone had taken it. If it was about loosing it than I could take a genetic sample from people, so long as they aren't handing it off, because they still have it. If the issue is with having it taken than if they see me take a sample than the game is over right then. A plan started coming together in my mind.

"I guess we will just have to see how well we can steal someone's blood." I answered, holding back a smile at his reaction. "But first I need you to help with preparations."

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My name is Dark Depths, the master of the Deep Dark Depths! This world is a chance to reinvent myself, and I will take it with both hands! Er, bad way of saying that. Really bad. My old name, that known by the mundanes outside the game, may have been Woodie Holden but it will be that no more! No longer would people make masturbation jokes when they found me hiding out in a dark corner of the library studying fluid dynamics; now I will take my water powers and show them the fear of the Dark Depths! Also, I really need to find some way to get some darkness magic because my water always comes out crystal clear, but that will be a problem for later.

Right now I was discussing the mysteries of the universe of the ARCANE with my friend Sotang. He was a Korean with energy conversion magic who almost looked like a South American except for his eyes. Both of us were dressed in black robes, as was fitting for Mages such as us. Unlike me, though, he refused to pull up his hood because he thought it cut off his peripheral vision or some such nonsense. A guy has got to make some sacrifices to fit the character, you know? He was otherwise mostly ok even though it wasn't fair that his given name was cool enough to just go by that; but my Alias of Unassailable Awesomeness would suffice.

"Seriously," he spoke, revealing his ignorance, "I don't think there is such a thing as darkness magic. I'm pretty sure that would just be light magic but you would refuse to use half of it."

My correction to his limited views on the Arcane and my attempt to make him stop being a killjoy were interrupted by a couple of other people walking up. I didn't remember either of their names but they both were fairly distinctive, at least enough to be remembered in our smallish group. The guy in front was the bossy one who followed around our leader during the first round of the tutorial and who wore some sort of scouter looking thing over his right eye. If anything he looked even more scraggly than before, with a few rough pieces of metal hanging off him. He seemed to be acting bossy again as his friend was acting a bit uncomfortable. I knew that guy even less. He was the one with the robot arm that could make simple machines. He, at least, looked good with the glowing lines all over his clothes. Both of them were techies, though, so we didn't have a lot of reason to speak with each other considering that I was a mage and proud of it.

Eyeglass spoke up first. "Hello. I came to let you know that everyone is getting ready to move out but it will be a while since some of the others wanted to go downstairs to 'help' out the aliens. Not that they won't be helping, but I got the idea that they were more interested in getting in good with the aliens than anything else."

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"How would you know?" I asked, letting my annoyance at him and Sotang show in my tone.

He shrugged and answered back neutrally. "I heard them talking about it on the stairs." So eyeglass must have come from upstairs. I knew the rumor of him falling unconscious was too out there to be true.

Sotang spoke up next. "Yeah, we will be leaving in a couple hours and then heading to the nearby trading post. If we won't be staying around here than we at least need food and water. It sucks that we can't use the dispensers here anymore but nobody trusts the Cheaters to not try something in the middle of the night."

There was a nod of agreement. "Some of us are even planning to empty out our floor earlier than that, just to make sure nothing happens. Everyone not downstairs with the aliens is outside already." He reached out his hand to help Sotang up.

"Yeah, I guess it is about time that we got going." Sotang reached out and they grabbed each other around the wrist to help him stand.

Suddenly my buddy let out a noise and shook out his hand. There looked to be blood, but not much.

"Are you ok?" Eyeglass said as my friend looked himself over to inspect the damages. He then tossed something over to his friend and then helped look over the injury.

"Yeah, it isn't too bad. I'm not sure what happened though."

Robo-arm was making weird motions with his hands and seemed to go a bit cross eyed. "Um, yes. It's good. I mean, everything is ok." Ok, that was awkward...

Eyeglass shook his head. "Sorry about that. I got some new addons for my costume, mostly just rough pieces of metal, but one of them must have been a bit too much. Are you sure you are ok?"

"Yeah, it isn't too bad and the extra fast healing we get here should take care of it pretty quickly."

He nodded. "Sorry about that again. I've got to get going. I have one more upgrade I need to take care of before we leave. Remember to get whatever you can from the food machines before we go. We don't plan on coming back anytime soon."

There were a few more words of farewell, with robot hand acting a bit more uncomfortable for some reason, and then they were gone. Part of me thought that it was nice of them to come check up on us, but mostly I had a feeling like 'that was weird'...

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It was a couple hours later and our plan had worked, but I had a feeling that Donnie was still a bit uncomfortable about it. I wasn't too worried about it myself; those two guys had pretty much separated themselves from the other non-mages since the very beginning so I had little reason to expect that we wouldn't butt heads once we got out of the Tutorial. I like my friend well enough but there isn't much you can do when lawful good starts trending toward lawful stupid. Whatever. He can have his own morality. I might not be a saint but I'm not a bad guy either. Instead of worrying about that I should focus on how I'm going to steal from the military and the hired killers.

... Yes, I appreciate the irony. I just have better things to focus on.

In order to steal the military's databases from their computer, the ones they used to look me up, I needed to buy the right type of equipment to allow my computer to connect with the military's computer and I needed to make sure that both the connection and the computer itself were powerful enough to get past any security they might have. For that reason I both upgraded my computer to the four point version and bought an 'Electronic Transmitter' at the four point level. If that isn't good enough to break into a mundane computer than I'll just have to leave without it. I would really rather have it, though. It would make a good bargaining chip at the trading post and would go a long way toward making me feel better about what the Cheaters had done.

Now came the hard part: The risk vs reward. The closer I get to the computer the better it will work but the less plausible deniability I'll have. Walking into the main room of the first floor was a new experience with my new senses. Two-thirds of the mercenaries and a quarter of the military kept careful watch over me from the moment I entered, though some of them hid it better than others. Most of the VIPs were away from the room but there was one extremely beautiful woman in civilian clothing making nice and flirting with the commanders. This seemed like close enough to get started, so I subvocalized a command to my computer to get started on the download.

The good news was that the computer had no problem getting into the system and starting to grab the data. The bad news was that one of the other mercenaries, the one focused on communication, started looking up like he knew that something was going on. Spooks, I think his name was. Thinking quickly, I headed over to Caps the unofficial leader of the mercenary subfaction and the one who had led the boss straight to us. He was over with several others but none of them were really focusing on each other.

"Do you mind if I talk to you for a minute?" I asked.

He looked at me, nodded toward the others, then stepped off to the side. The others acted disinterested, continuing what they were doing, but in a way that always allowed them to keep their eyes generally in our direction and no obstacles blocking themselves from me. There was likely more going on here but before I could work it out Caps spoke up. "What do you want?"

"Why did you do it?" I asked as earnestly as I could manage. "Why did you let them shoot our people and then lead the boss right at us?"

He looked stunned for half a second before his body slumped into a stance of incredulity. "God save me from idealistic youths," he murmured, though not softly enough that I couldn't personally hear it with my new ears. "Look, kid. I didn't get in here by being the best in the world or by being rich. I didn't even get in here by being the best mercenary in the world. People like that got in years ago. The people in charge needed disposable manpower and people like me are what was left. I'm a leach, a vampire living off their blood and strength. It is an exchange, a mutual theft between us. They steal my right to act as a decent person or to use good tactics against the enemy, and I steal the resources needed to get into the game with a good Pod. At least, better than the military or you people get."

Spooks seemed to have figured me out because he suddenly looked directly at me then spoke to several others in the area who abandoned all pretense that they weren't paying attention and started staring right at me. Before I could react or try to run Caps continued his tired sounding explanation. "I thought you were better than this. My job is a mercenary one. I got hired to follow orders and to die before the VIPs. Pretty ideas of righteousness have no place here. Go play with the other kiddies if that is how you want it."

Fortunately my download finished. Unfortunately it wasn't in time to get away from Spooks as he moved forward. It wasn't like I could have run, there were too many of them and they each had the guns and training to stop me before I took three steps. And the alertness was spreading throughout their section of the room as one hired soldier got the attention of the next. My only option was to hide my nervousness and bluff. I listened in as the communications expert whispered to the mercenary leader. "Boss man, I think the kid is playing us. Over 99% chance he has been hacking the three letter's computer during your entire conversation. I managed to slow the transfer but not stop him. What do you want to do about it?"

His eyes went wide and his posture suddenly stiffened. I could almost see the gears turning in his head as he glanced over toward the military's table and then back at me.

Taking charge I decided to answer back. "They hired you to fight and die. They don't even want your intelligence." I spoke with a knowing smile. I waited as it took a few moments for him to respond.

He smiled back, raised his hand in the air, and gave a small wave. Immediately the room seemed to calm, at least the third of it that had been paying attention. "If we meet later in The Game, be open to a team up. It is hard to find smart people who can keep their head." He seemed to relax, then frowned. "You should get going. Just don't make the same mistake we are and hole up against the coming army."

I nodded, then quickly left the building.