My theory that Axio wanted the Tokens to be found easily was rather quickly reinforced when Swansong announced that she found the 10 AM Token floating right out in the open atop the Empire State Building before I could even step foot back outside of the base. I was relatively sure none of the other Augments in our wave could fly, but I wasn’t entirely sure if Clockwork Tyrant could instruct his drones to collect the tokens.
I was relatively sure that Axio had specifically told us that the generation of the Tokens was reliant on multiple Tenth Wave Augments being in the same region, but that wasn’t the same as saying that Augments outside of our wave couldn’t collect them at all. In fact, I was also relatively positive that Axio had also said that all Augments in a region would be alerted to the Token’s location if it hadn’t been found by its deadline.
Although there was still a good amount of time until the Token would turn into a beacon, I had Swansong scoop it up and into her B.E.L.T. instead of risking another one getting snatched out from under us. She had just been stepping back through the door into the base when her phone modification had started to go off. I barely managed to get a few words out of her before she shoved the Token at me and vanished through the door into her Safe House. Knowing where her Safe House was, or more specifically who else lived in the same place, it didn’t take a leap of logic to guess just what could have spurred her to move as quickly as she did, so I pulled the Token into my B.E.L.T. to handle later when we had the entire squad in the base.
As he had requested, I let Duskbreaker know that we had scooped the Token up already and after he thanked me for the update, I asked him if he wanted to meet me at The Common Ground to talk. Even if we weren’t going to immediately start expanding the squad, I wanted to be on good terms with him and make sure that he did know we were open to working together. He asked for a raincheck, citing a personal matter he had to handle, and with that I actually found myself feeling unsure of what to do.
While I instinctively knew I wanted to be out there trying to do something about Clockwork Tyrant, I was also aware that I wasn’t doing this by myself any longer, and there was very little I could actually do to make any of this better on my own. I hated, absolutely hated, the idea of letting things sit as they were, but for all the destruction that had been caused through that first night, I had been surprised to find out that the overall death toll was surprisingly low.
The worst of the death had come from the destruction of the Brooklyn bridge where a large scale still parted the river flowing beneath what remained of the structure. From the, admittedly difficult to find, sources that Jon was able to gain access to, there were so far just over 8,000 reported deaths, and that was across the entire city. Alongside similar situations and reported numbers across the country, it would easily qualify as one of, if not the, worst terrorist attacks in history.
There were still various types of Search and Rescue efforts going on. It was yet another thing that had taken me by surprise when Jon told me that they were proceeding mostly without issue. Though they were apparently being closely supervised, and occasionally assisted by, various Clockwork animals, from dolphins under the destroyed bridge, to oversized badgers helping to pull wreckage out from the sewers. I didn’t even want to risk trying to help there, lest the droids decide to turn the area back into a battlefield.
From everything that we had been able to figure out, it really did seem like the civilians were being primarily used as hostages, with areas of the city that we hadn’t been able to get to mostly free from anything outside of surface level destruction. It would have been easy to shrug that off given that Clockwork Tyrant’s entire point during his speech the prior night had been wanting subjects to rule, but even that didn’t settle quite right for me.
I knew that Axio was behind it. Right down to keeping as many of the Sapients alive as possible. My mind kept drifting back to that single conversation I had had with the mysterious A.I. just before I had been given the Command Gear for Jon. As unsettling as that conversation had been, not to mention every one of his over the top announcements, nothing he had done seemed to indicate that his goal was the wholesale genocide of the human race.
I wasn’t sure just what Clockwork Tyrant thought was going on, and it had been partially what I had been trying to figure out when I did confront him through the Falcons. It was clear that he did realize Axio had a hand in the pot, but I wasn’t sure if he believed his actions were his own and Axio just happened to be assisting or if he was aware that he was just a tool.
I had been leaning on the assumption that he was just that arrogant. Even if it was a small chance, I was hoping that by putting even the slightest bit of worry into Clockwork Tyrant, that maybe he’d start to second guess himself. It wasn’t much, and like I had said, it was a stupid thing to have wasted time doing, but I had dealt with plenty of bullies in my life. I knew that even the cockiest of them could be unnerved if you just put the right thought into their head.
It was a long shot and more than likely wouldn’t matter, but it also did feel good to finally be able to confront him, even if it did end up being more symbolic than anything. And maybe I just needed that to feel just a little bit in control of the situation.
With well over an hour left until the next Token was generated and a desire to not kick the pot for just a bit while the city was trying to recover, I decided the best use of my time was still the first thing I had tried to do. Although Duskbreaker might have been busy, I did have at least one other person I had been meaning to check in with after the chaos of the prior night.
“Popping out to the Common Ground, send someone to grab me if something comes up,” I called over to Jon as I passed and his head popped up to look over at me.
“Don’t be too long, we want to try and grab the noon Token too if we can. Pinky is still hunting for their region’s 10AM, but we are definitely gonna want to keep collecting as many as possible,” Jon responded. “I almost wonder if you guys should start looking at the roofs of buildings to see if you can identify what Tyrant is using as network nodes, but if he catches on that you guys are looking for them, he might move to protect them… if he isn’t already…”
“It’s not a bad idea, I guess it depends on what BrainCraft comes up with… although the dude’s got, what, four different projects he’s trying to work on?”
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“Super powers man, makes it hard to actually judge what you guys are capable of,” Jon said with a laugh. “Go grab some lunch bud, I’ll probably grab something once you guys start searching for the next Token.”
With Jon turning his attention back to his monitors, I popped through the door and back into my bedroom, briefly looking down at the bed that I had gotten less than stellar sleep in the night before. I promised myself I would actually use the base’s shower before I went to bed again, just to make sure I got the benefit of a good night of sleep.
Sanctuary Square was nowhere near as desolate as it had been when I had come through the previous night, but there was still a noticeable weight to the air. There was less of a jovial feel to the few groups gathered around the courtyard. Where there would once be Augments randomly showing off their abilities, now there were groups huddled together, whispering amongst themselves.
Even the Common Ground felt less relaxed, and although I might have been imagining it, it almost felt like there was an obvious split down the middle of the bar. Several tables at the center were completely abandoned of people, and the Augments at the tables closest to this split were actively trying not to look at each other.
Given the wide range of costumes and powers, it was almost impossible to tell if it was actually split directly between Guardians and Miscreants, but it certainly felt like that’s what had happened. I saw Silver at a table on the side closest to me, staring away and at one of the televisions up on the wall. Partially out of curiosity, I highlighted him and listened as the monotone robotic voice that spoke inside the Common Ground’s null zone read it out.
“Silver Wrangler. Level 54 Werewolf Hunter.”
The first thing that stood out was his lack of a squad and I dropped down into the seat opposite of him. He shot me a wide smile, reaching up and actually tipping his hat.
“You know, I’ve been to rodeos, demolition derbies, and a hell of a lot of family reunions, but god damn last night was something else,” Silver said. While he still had a bit of that happy energy that had been persistent in his attitude every time I had interacted with him in the past, it was clear he had had just as long of a night as the rest of us.
“I don’t know what family reunions you’ve been to that are comparable, but yeah… it was something else,” I agreed as he held up a hand to wave down one of the NPC waitresses.
“Shit man, you’re missing out if you’ve never been to one. You’ll have that random ass cousin you haven’t seen in months showin’ up to throw gasoline on a bonfire just to see what’ll happen.”
The waitress popped through and we both put in food orders before she vanished back into the crowd. There was a part of me that almost wished I had bothered BrainCraft to grab one of his privacy devices. Given that he had intended to build us something to help with tracking down the network nodes already, I had to assume that his tech wasn’t reliant on him being nearby to use. I mentally added it to my list of things to talk with him about before I looked back over to Silver.
“So uh… You’re a Guardian now, huh?” I asked with a raised brow and he just shrugged.
“Y’know, I never really cared for those labels, they just weren’t nuanced enough. I mean, I get it, I’ve been robbing businesses and banks, so the system, and I guess a few of those fellas at that first bank I robbed, went and marked me as a Miscreant. But y’know, I’ve always seen myself a bit more like Robin Hood rather than Billy the Kid.”
“Well… yeah… that’s kinda illegal… wait, are you saying you gave away the money you stole to the less fortunate?”
“Yeah, some of it,” Silver shrugged. “I mean, I ain’t a saint, I sure as hell have made myself a comfortable little life here ever since I got lucky enough to be Augmented, but I sure as shit wasn’t gonna sit around and watch my old neighborhood rot because some fucker decided that the place could be neglected.”
“Huh…” I said, looking down toward the table briefly. “So uh, why the change of heart then? Or I guess, what happened that made the system switch?”
“The Desperado fuckers happened,” he said and I looked up in time to catch as his lips turned downward. “Robbing banks is one thing and I could honestly give two shits about the Non-Sapients, but we all have our lines to draw. Half my squad wanted to align with them, said it was the only choice we had…” Silver’s frown turned into an actual snarl and I could see his fists clench even through the thick gloves he had on. “Bombshell, the fucking asshole, killed Harpy when she tried to stop him from following an order from Shadow Bandit to blow up the hospital we had been near. The shit happened so god damn fast…”
Silver took a few deep breaths before he looked from his fists back up to me.
“The fucker got away, Air Skipper helped him get out of my reach before I could restrain the two of them, but I stopped his bombs from going off… guess there were enough people who saw me doing it and the argument we had that it reclassified me,” Silver said with a shrug and then sighed. “Honestly, besides still having to deal with fucking Desperado Incorporated, the most annoying damn part of this whole fuckin’ thing is losing access to the Miscreant Guild Hall.”
“Huh?”
“Y’know, the side specific place where you can take extra jobs out? You shoulda gotten access to it after your first phase was finished up,” he explained, the memory hitting me quickly. I had kind of put the place out of my mind with everything else going on and wasn’t even really sure what the relevance of it was. “I got damn near 10,000 Miscreant Tokens I’ve been saving up to buy an S+ box, now I gotta either hold onto them and swap back once this nonsense is over or take the shit conversion rate once the coolin’ off period passes and I can go into the Guardian Guild Hall.”
“I honestly completely forgot that place was a thing,” I admitted. The mention of a token of some sort brought the Ascension Tokens back to mind and I realized I had the answer to more than a few questions right in front of me. “Actually, a bit of a random question. Are you aware of the Ascension Tokens that started to appear with this new phase?”
Silver nodded just as the waitress showed up, depositing a large plate of wings, carrots, and celery in front of him and a double stacked burger and fries in front of me.
“Yeah, we got a bit of a briefing the night before the wave started. Axio told us he’s realigning all of our phases to be in line with y’alls schedule moving forward,” he explained. “He went ahead and explained what the Tokens were for. Told us that while they aren’t worth any points for our respective leaderboards, if we collected 15 of them, we could exchange the group for either an S:Tier loot box or a level, but we could only grab them after they got lit up.”
“Huh, I guess that makes sense,” I said, taking one of the fries and dipping it in some ketchup. “Have you seen any of them light up already?”
“Yeah, the first two became beacons. Honestly as nice as they’d be to get, the way I see it, unless I’m actively lookin’ around and trying to stop folks from getting to them, I sure as hell ain’t gonna get 15 of them. So I ain’t gonna go stomping on some newbies just to take items that were meant for y’all,” he said, taking and tearing pretty much all the meat off of one of his wings in a single bite. He was still chewing when he added, “Don’t get me wrong now, I’ll definitely stomp a newbie if they try and say they can tell me what I’m allowed to do in my territory. But as dumb as it might sound to some folks, those Tokens just ain’t at the top of my priority list right now. Not as long as Bombshell is still out there.”
“I guess that makes as much sense as anything,” I said, thinking about it for a moment. The barest start of an idea was beginning to form, especially knowing just how squads could be put together. “I wonder if you’d get credit for the tokens if you were just in a squad and in the base when the token got claimed.”
Silver let out a laugh, “As nice of a thought as that might be for those extra rewards and as cool of a dude as I might think you are, we’re in different states. Besides that, I really ain’t a Guardian, even if I am sidin’ with y’all right now.”
“I mean, I know you don’t like the titles but it kinda sounds like you’ve always kinda been a Guardian. My buddy would probably say you were something like an anti-hero, but that’s close enough in the craziness of all this,” I said and he nodded his head to the side in a way that seemed like he was agreeing with me.
“Yeah, maybe, still ain’t change the fact that I don’t got a squad base to merge with yah and we’re in different states. I ain’t about to abandon my place to go help you out just for a chance at a few levels and boxes, no offense bud,” Silver said.
“Oh none taken. That wasn’t what I was thinking at all,” I said and he cocked his head to the side. “Do you know any of the Tenth Wave Augments in your area?”
“Uhhh, I think I’ve seen a few of them around but haven’t been able to add them to my Friend’s List. I know there’s at least some dude running around called Red Lasso,” he said before he picked up one of his carrots. “What, you think I should go join up with them? Help them out?”
“No… well, actually yeah, I do think that you should do that,” I said, “but that’s also not what I was thinking.”
“Oh? Well yah got me as curious as a fish lookin’ at a wigglin’ worm,” he said, popping the carrot in his mouth. “What are yah thinkin’?”
“I’m thinking you might need to arrange a meeting for me.”
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Okay folks, I have some Good News and some Bad News.
First for the Bad News. There will be no new chapter this Friday or at all next week. The chapters are still needing editing and finalizing before they can go live and I need to take just a few days to refocus my attention because the Good News iiiiiiiiis....
The Augment's Code has been picked up for publishing by Podium Entertainment!!!!
every Post-Chapter Note, but if you want to be kept in the loop and see things like Cover Releases, Book Samples, and all the Advanced News for the eventual release, hop on over to my Discord! ---> <---
Thank you to each and every one of you that has read and followed along so far. I couldn't have gotten here without you.