Pinky had followed right along with me as we left the Fight Club and descended back into the main Common Ground open room. We walked down and past the large robotic head, checking the clock as we passed. We still had about 40 minutes until Axio’s nightly announcement and I wanted to find my way back to the Squad Base before it started.
“You damn near did,” I said, stepping to the side and letting a few other Augments walk up the spiral staircase to the club. “I’ve been working on my reaction time though. Pretty sure it saved my ass on that first charge.”
“Fancy way to say you’ve been stacking Dexterity,” Pinky said with a laugh as she looked over toward the bar. “I think I’m gonna grab a beer before I meet back up with BrainCraft, my afternoon exploits got us a few nice upgrades for our base and BrainCraft has been integrating them into the layout.”
“Heh, funnily enough that’s exactly what Swansong is up to,” I said, eyeing the clock again. “I need to drop by the resale shop to offload some equipment and catch back up with her before the announcement. I’m still pretty damn curious how you jumped up to 14 overnight.”
Pinky gave me a wide smile and a wink. “It is rather impressive if I do say so myself. Not you jumping 5 levels in a single night impressive, but impressive all the same. Up for another rematch in a few days?”
“Do I really have a choice?” I asked, raising a brow at her before she laughed and slapped my arm.
“I think you know the answer to that,” she said, patting me again before she started to turn toward the bar. “Now, like I said, I’m gonna grab my beer, enjoy the show,” she said with another wink before sauntering off.
It was entirely possible I was imagining it, but it felt like she was overdoing it just a bit as she walked away, to the point that at least a few other Augments at nearby tables turned to watch her saunter to the bar. I may have been included in that for a bit longer than I cared to admit but I managed to break my gaze and turn away before it seemed like I was staring for too long.
I made my way along the outer edge of the bar and found myself coming to a stop by the only wall in the building that felt somewhat out of place. Unlike the various memorabilia, posters, and television screens that littered almost every other vertical surface of the building, this wall contained The Augment’s Code.
I hadn’t made it a point to actually find my way back to the mismatched lines, each put up with a different handwriting, since I had first stumbled onto it during my first day. Looking at it now, with what felt like months worth of experience crammed into barely even a week, the words felt like they held an entirely new meaning to me. Well, all of them except the last rule that felt more like a joke than anything to be taken seriously.
The Augment's Code
- We will do our best to never allow a Sapient NPC to be put in harm’s way, and when they are, we will do what we must to make it right.
- The world is not worth points for a game. If you threaten the world, we will come for you.
- It is cruel to allow a Non-Sapient to know of the truth behind their existence. We will never disabuse them of what they believe to be reality and if we must kill them, we will do so with respect.
- We will honor those who have fallen, those who fought to protect our friends, our family, and all other Sapient NPCs that believe us heroes or villains.
- We will do our best to never damage or cause a change to the rules protecting The Common Ground from Personal A.I.s. We ALL deserve a little mental silence.
- We will never, under any circumstances, use our powers to catch fish in the Mississippi while the sun is setting on a cloudless day. Just… just trust me, it’s not a good idea.
It was hard not to think I was directly going against the first thing on the list, I had brought Jon into all of this after all, but in a lot of ways he was as far from harm’s way as he could be. It was entirely possibly I was just trying to rationalize it for myself, but there also wasn’t anything I could do to change Jon’s place in the game now. I took a few moments to really take in each line, but found myself hesitating on the fourth. My mind drifted back to the husk of a man that SnakeBite… that Sal had become as I reread it over and over again.
I probably stood there a minute or two longer than I needed to, but it felt appropriate as I found my eyes settling on the fanged gloves I had received, fittingly named SnakeBite’s Legacy. I flexed my hands before letting out a breath I hadn’t even realized I had been holding, and walked away.
I was just about to exit the bar when an unwelcome familiar presence intercepted me.
“Hydramental. Level 11 Elemental Everyman.”
“Figured you’d be comin’ round here eventually,” Hydramental said, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared at me. “How long were you exactly planning on ignoring me?”
“How many times were you planning on trying to kill me?” I shot back. Almost immediately he held up his hands defensively and his stare softened.
“Whoa, whoa, down tiger. I didn’t do anything you didn’t just shrug off and if anyone’s got a bone to pick it’s me. You knocked me out and abandoned me in a fucking concrete cellar,” he said, looking to the side at several others who had looked over in our direction.
“After you lost your temper and tried to kill me in the middle of a tense situation… again,” I said, shooting him a glare. I felt my hands flex again as I thought of his brother yet again, and I swallowed hard. “Look Hydramental, I-”
“Okay, you’re right, can we just put the past in the past?” Hydramental said, cutting me off with his hands still in the air. “I’ve got a bit of a temper and my brother was a touchy subject. His weird ass clones have up and vanished so I figured we must’ve put a stop to it when we assaulted that base. Let me guess, that mission of yours had you breaking whatever they were pumping the non-Sapients with to make them snakes and that put a stop to the gang?”
“I…” I found myself hesitating as I stared at him. “Put your hands down, will yah?”
He dropped his hands to the side as I bit my tongue back from what I probably should have said. Even SnakeBite had told me it would be better if his brother hadn’t known about what had happened, and Hydramental’s assumption was a damn near perfect way to sweep the whole thing under the rug. As he dropped his hands, crossing his arms over his chest yet again, I gave in to the temptation to take the easy way out.
“Yeah. The scientists had an extra loot-box they gave me for freeing them from their chains,” I lied and then thought about it for a moment. “There was a source they were getting the temporary injector formula from and getting rid of the scientists cut that source off permanently.”
“Makes as much sense as anything in this fucking game,” Hydramental said with a shrug, dropping his hands and putting them into his pockets. “First snakes and now we’re dealing with a neverending onslaught of robotic animals, fucking weird as all hell, ain’t it?”
I let out a laugh but felt like it came out more awkward than normal. “I think at this point, weird is just normal,” I said.
“Well look, we got enough shit to be worried about with the next phase coming on. As much as I hate to admit it, Axio made it pretty clear this next phase was somehow team related. I figure since we are set up pretty close to each other-”
“Oh, sorry man, I actually have a squad already,” I said, cutting him off.
“Yeah, I can see it in your description, remember? You’re teamed up with that little redhead from the Top Ten… uh, Swansong, right?”
“Uh, yeah. We just got into a rhythm here and it’s working out pretty well for us,” I said, feeling myself squirm slightly.
“Well it’s not like squads are restricted to two people, right?” He asked and I felt myself squirm yet again.
“I uh…”
“Look, I get it, I’ve been acting like a dick and we haven’t exactly been getting along,” Hydramental said as I struggled to find a polite way to extricate myself from the conversation. “But we both are just trying to protect people… if Axio is up to something that requires teams, aren’t we going to be stronger if we’re all working together?”
“Well… yeah,” I said and then shook off the nerves as much as I could. He had caught me off guard and I needed to get a hold of myself. Regardless of whatever realization he had come to, my experiences with Hydramental already had soured me to any real interaction with him. True, maybe I didn’t want to stay close to him just because I was still hiding what had happened with his brother, but I knew deep down that that really wasn’t the only reason. “I’m sorry man, I’m not going to say yes or invite you right now. You said it yourself, we haven’t been getting along and I don’t think that’s conducive to a good team. I can’t trust you to keep your cool when things go crazy. I’d tell you I’d talk with Swansong about it, but truthfully man, I don’t want to team up with you.”
“Sheesh… you really can’t let shit go, can yah?” Hydramental said and shook his head. “I said sorry, isn’t that enough?”
“Yeah, except you didn’t,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. “You wanted to put the past in the past. I can do that, but don’t stand here and give me some bullshit that you’re suddenly contrite, level-headed and willing to pull punches to not kill people.”
“Dude, we’re fighting fucking robots right now, I’ve seen you dismantling them, killing isn’t a fucking issue,” Hydramental shot back, his own expression hardening as more tables turned their attention to us.
I slowly started to circle around him until I was closer to the door than he was and this time I held my hands up defensively, “Sorry man, if we run into each other in the field, maybe we can try to work together but I really don’t want you on my squad. Not sure why you’re pushing this so damn hard but I don’t need to deal with this right now.”
Before he could try to push the subject, I spun on my heel and headed for the doors, pushing my way through and into the main square, but not before I could hear him mutter, “Prick.”
“-best one in town,” Jon’s voice cut in the moment I stepped outside and into the fresh air.
“No I get that, I’m just wondering how many Cubans in town you’ve actually tried to determine that that one is the best one,” Swansong responded.
“You guys talking about Tio’s?” I asked, taking in the cloudless day. The sun was just starting to dip behind the tops of the buildings and I took in just a bit of the warmth it was giving off before setting out and away from the bar.
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“Welcome back! How’d the fight go?” Jon asked.
“Did she finally kick your ass?” Angie asked.
“I won, though it was probably closer than I would have liked it to be,” I said as I made my way toward the Guardian Segment. “I’m going to pop through the bookstore and see if I can’t find something that will give me a ranged option.”
“I mean, it's definitely not a bad idea to expand your arsenal, but how did the other new abilities do?” Jon probed.
“Paradox Chain is what ended up getting her to a spot where I could finish off her health bar, and Quantum Overclock’s extra stamina really gave me that extra leg room to stack the damage on her,” I explained. “I’m not sure how but she was seeing through my afterimages so easily though. I was able to fool her with Echo Step a few times but it was only when she was like, already about to run me over.”
“Well a win is a win,” Jon said. “Swansong ran off to pick up something to eat before Axio’s announcement.”
“And that explains what I walked in on,” I said as understanding set it.
“To be fair, we were also testing if the comms still worked when I went out outside of my gear now that he is integrated into the Squad Base and sure enough it still does,” Swansong said.
“She can also let me see through her vision if she activates it,” Jon said pointedly and Swansong laughed.
“And when we are actually in a fight, maybe I’ll turn that on. Loophole might not get to turn that feature off but I value my privacy thank you very much,” she said.
“Aw she gets to turn it off?”
“Shut it Loophole, you know I’ve been helpful plenty,” Jon snapped. “Think about it. When you guys get another teammate or two I can literally see battlefields from multiple angles! Maybe I should change my name to Eye in the Sky…”
“Heh… speaking of new teammates, guess who wants to join ours.”
“Isn’t Pinky already teamed up with BrainCraft though?” Swansong asked.
“Nah, not her,” I said, moving to the side as a man made out of rocks descended the staircase that was leading up to the Guardian Segment. “I’m not sure if he was waiting for me there or if he just happened to see me, but Hydramental decided he was tired of me ignoring his messages.”
“Wait, Hydramental was trying to join the squad?” Jon said.
“Yeah, it was weird as all hell… I kinda just told him I didn’t want that and got out of there but he was weirdly persistent about it.”
“I thought he wasn’t a fan of you? Tried to kill you twice as I recall,” Swansong offered and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Exactly. Like I said, it was weird,” I said, stepping into the resale shop and heading over to a terminal.
“Think he’s up to something?” Jon asked as he crunched down on something. “Shit… think TechWarden got to him?”
This stopped me in my tracks as I held a finger of the Sell All button. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t considered that the moment Hydramental wasn’t going off on me, but it felt almost too obvious now.
“Isn’t that a bit… I don’t know, transparent?” I asked, hitting the button and watching as all of the random low level gear emptied out of my B.E.L.T. and 12,500 credits were added to my digital wallet. While I could have pieced it out and tried to sell it myself, I didn’t see a point doing that when the shop would give me what felt like reasonable rates for the various items. “Like, I can see it, but if you were TechWarden, would you send the brother of the guy who gave you up?”
“Wait, Hydramental was SnakeBite’s brother? When were you going to tell me this?!” Swansong asked, her voice raising a bit.
“Um… I didn’t think it was important?” I said, though I wasn’t even convincing myself.
“Yeah, it’s kinda important Loophole,” Swansong shot back. “Especially given everything that you told me about what went down with SnakeBite… I take it he doesn’t know any of that?”
“He does not,” Jon said.
“You’re not helping Codex,” I said and he just laughed.
“Wasn’t trying to help buddy, you’re the one who let the cat out of the bag after withholding it in the first place.”
I sighed, reaching up and pinching the bridge of my nose as I stepped back outside and headed for the bookstore.
“Look, I’m sorry. I should have filled you all the way in when I first told you about how nuts the dude is,” I said. “But between him having a “kill first, ask questions later” attitude and that, you can see why I wouldn’t want to have him in the squad, right?”
“Well… yeah, obviously,” Swansong sighed. “You know this is a ticking time bomb… right?”
“Yeah… I know,” I said, entering the Beacon of Knowledge and finding there were actually a few others walking around the shelves. I approached one of the binders and immediately began working on filtering the contents. “I told SnakeBite I’d do what I can to protect his family, but he also told me that he didn’t think it was a good idea to let his brother know about his death. I can’t protect him by trying to convince him to turn off his Acceptance Matrix without explaining how I know it can be used to manipulate him. That's an especially bad idea if he gets focused on the fact that I killed his brother, and if TechWarden did get to him already, then would any of that even matter anyway?”
“Sheesh, you come with a lot of baggage,” Angie groaned and I rolled my eyes. She had been overly quiet recently, something that had been a result of me being able to suppress her outbursts with my own Matrix disabled, but she still managed to pop in whenever I found myself spiraling a bit too much.
“Okay, new squad rule. No more secrets,” Swansong said and I could practically hear the clap of her hands.
“Huh? That’s it?” I said curiously. “I feel like I should be getting yelled at for some reason…”
“I toooooold you,” Angie taunted. “It’s a BDSM thing!”
“Not now, Angie!”
“We only just formed the squad, even if I had known, it’s not like I could have been all ‘oh let’s go hunt him down and get his matrix turned off’ since it had already been a few days,” Swansong said, thankfully still unable to hear my interactions with my P.A.I. “I mean, sure it would have been nice to know that the supposedly bi-polar Guardian had an extra special reason to want to hurt you, but it wouldn’t have changed much.”
“Are you sure your Acceptance Matrix is off?” I asked and she let out another laugh.
“Believe it or not, after hearing that there’s some evil first wave Guardian out there performing experiments on other Augments and that the A.I. controlling the whole thing is up to his own possibly nefarious plans, this is actually pretty easy to rationalize,” she said as her laughter slowed. “But seriously, no more secrets… okay?”
“Well that’s really the last one I got at this point,” I said as I ran my finger along the sole page of results that came out of my filter settings.
I noted the location of two of the books on the page and heading into the shelves. One of the books was actually from the rare rotation and while I would still need to up my intelligence by a point to use it, A Preliminary Guide to Photon Manipulation felt like it would be the perfect place to start with expanding my ranged options, even if it did cost every bit of the 12,500 credits I had just made from selling the useless stuff from my B.E.L.T. The other book, Life Finds A Way: A Study on Plant Growth seemed a bit more obscure, but it only cost 1,000 credits and our Squad Base was in Central Park, so it felt like there had to be some way I could put that to use.
Before I could debate about it for too long, I grabbed the books and purchased them. It was still a relatively nice day out as I stepped back into the square, but the sun was starting to noticeably go down and the warmth it had provided was slowly giving way to a chill in the air. I mentally switched over to one of the still blank revolver options I had and dropped my Pocket Climate onto the passive bar as the temperature directly around my body rebalanced, leaving me feeling perfectly content.
“So where are you getting your pizza from?” Jon asked after the silence had lingered and Swansong noticeably scoffed.
“Okay, a few more secrets… Actually, let’s just say no more keeping secrets about things that may place a giant target on our backs,” she quickly amended.
“Oh my god, you really don’t want to tell me where?! What kind of New Yorker are you? Everyone always wants to brag that their place has the best food in the city!” Jon complained.
“It’s a hidden gem! If you tell people about it, then it becomes crowded like all of the other ‘best pizza in the city’ places and I’d have to wait in a line.”
“OH MY GOD! Swansong. You. Are. A. Superhero!” Jon groaned, becoming somewhat exasperated. “Like, literally just show up in costume and you can skip any line you want to. Shit, they’d probably give you a dozen pizzas just for all the kids you’ve cured!”
“I didn’t heal them to be rewarded…”
“Which is what makes you a Guardian,” Jon said and then sighed as he seemed to calm down. “But like, you guys have to understand that you’re starting to get a bit famous in the city, especially after your little team-up with Pinneedle. I’m not saying go running around and demanding special treatment, that’s Miscreant behavior, but people love Augments, especially the ones that protect and help ‘normal’ people.”
“Is this your way of asking me to try stopping at Tio’s in costume sometime? Cause Axio’s announcement is getting really close and I don’t think I have time for that,” I said as I started back toward the portal wall.
“Maybe you can run and grab dinner after the announcement,” Jon said. “I mean, yah never know, maybe they’ll start calling the Cuban a ‘Loophole’.”
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So just as a heads up, since I don't want to do this without a little bit of notice. After nearly 5 months of chapter releases, I am going to be taking a 1 week break from posting here on Royal Road on the week 2/17. This is going to be to let me catch up on some necessary editing as well as try to expand my backlog just a bit. I hope you guys enjoy the next week of chapters and have a great weekend!
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