“That is… not what I was expecting… not necessarily terrible of course, just not as immediately functional for making us stronger right away,” BrainCraft murmured

  “Hey Codex, do Squads normally have size limits?”

  “You know I could answer that question faster than cute Codex over there,” Angie piped up and I rolled my eyes.

  “Yeah but you can’t talk to the others in the squad,” I said and she groaned.

  “I could if you guys would get the A.I. Comms expansion for the base. I think Codex might appreciate that actually, right now he’s the only one who gets to hear all of us,” she said before Jon cleared his throat.

  “It looks like a Level 2 Squad Base can accommodate a total of fifteen squad members,” Jon said, “I guess that sort of makes sense, I don’t think I can think of any group really ever being much larger than 6 or 7 members. Otherwise it stops having that… you know… hero team feel to it.”

  I looked at the item again as it sat against the wall of our main lounge area. It looked like nothing more than a giant, door-sized cork board. Mostly because… well that’s what it actually was. Granted it did have more functionality to it, including a knob that would open the door to another new room in the base.

  “Phase Lounge. Level 1 Squad Base Expansion. This board allows for the temporary expansion of your squad and adds the Phase Lounge to your squad base. Members recruited through this board will be added to your squad for the length of one phase (based on the guidelines for your wave set out by the system A.I.). Members will not have access to full squad base functionality or expansions not installed within the Phase Lounge. Squad members recruited through this method do not need to be within the same region as you and do not need to have their own Squad Bases to merge with yours. Access to the Phase Lounge for non-full squad members can be gained through the Guardian Guild Hall. You are currently at 0/25 Phase Recruits.”

  “I feel like I’m missing something with this… Like… why not just try raising our squad base and inviting them in as normal members?” Pinky asked, crossing her arms over her chest as her head dropped to the side.

  “Well seeing as we’ve had our own base for longer than Loophole and Swansong have and ours was still Level 1 before we merged, I’d say trying to increase the capacity through the squad base level isn’t the route to go,” BrainCraft explained. “Plus as the item listed, it removes the need for the other Augments to have a base of their own, something that is rather expensive in its own right. If you were to head out to Sanctuary Square, with your social graces I’d be willing to bet we could fill out those 25 slots in no time at all.”

  “Okay, but why? Like, don’t get me wrong I get the idea of having more people on our team since it would give us more potential tokens to share between all of us, but doesn’t that kinda go against Loophole’s worry about people with their Acceptance Matrixes? Matrices? I’m not sure which of those is correct…” Swansong said, stepping up next to Pinky. She was a good bit shorter than Pinky was, something I hadn’t noticed when the two had only been seated near each other.

  “They’re both technically correct, though English grammar is not a tangent that we should go off on. We’d be stuck here for hours,” BrainCraft replied, shaking his head. “I am still working on a way to isolate modified variants of the matrix but Pinky and I will need to visit the Common Ground so that I can have her reenable hers long enough to get a proper baseline scan, I believe we could potentially do that here tonight before Pinky starts working the crowd.”

  “Like, I don’t mind doing that of course, I have a good few people on my friend’s list already that I think would happily join up, but I’m with Swansong, how does this get rid of Loophole’s worry of spies?” Pinky said, scratching at the side of her head before she looked over at Swansong who just shrugged.

  “It doesn’t fix the issue at all,” I said, shaking my head. “Honestly this feels like an expansion that will be better for us after BrainCraft figures out the scanner. But…”

  I found myself trailing off as I pushed the door open into the new space. If I hadn’t already been used to just how weird it was to see a space that shouldn’t have been able to exist, seeing the Phase Lounge might have been a bit much. It was actually a bit reminiscent of the large gym that Hydramental and I had found when we had first entered SnakeBite’s supposed squad base, though instead of a variety of gym equipment, the room was littered with several different types of picnic benches and large, round tables. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to their placement though and I could see as several of them started to disappear and reappear in a slightly more organized layout.

  “But what?” Swansong asked as she followed me into the room, ignoring the shifting of the room as presumably Jon tinkered with things.

  “But this just further reinforces what BrainCraft already discovered and was just theorizing about… Axio wants us to be in larger groups. He wants us to be sharing the Ascension Tokens,” I said, wandering my way across the large room. There was still a lot about this that I was nowhere near smart enough to figure out and I still had no idea what Axio’s long term plans were, hell I was still positive that helping him advance them probably wasn’t in our best interest either, but I could still put the easy puzzle pieces together. “There’s what… six tokens per region that spawn every day?”

  “Yes, theoretically that should mean there are 600 tokens that spawn every single day across the 100 regions he had created,” BrainCraft said, though he stopped in his tracks as he reached up to rub his chin. “Er… I should say there’s a max of 600 tokens that could spawn. Axio also mentioned that there has to be at a minimum two Tenth Wave Augments in a region for them to spawn.”

  “Oh yeah, that Tempest’s Wrath chick cleared out her region didn’t she?” Pinky said and I looked back at her.

  “Should we be worried for you guys? Isn’t she just north of you?” I asked before a speaker somewhere in the ceiling high above us crackled to life.

  “She was last spotted up near Vancouver, though from the footage I’ve seen she can move pretty fast,” Jon said before the speaker cut off.

  “She is a concern of ours, but The Colony has taken just a bit of precedence,” BrainCraft explained. “Though that’s not to say I haven’t thought of some countermeasures for her.”

  “Okay well leaving her out of the equation let’s say, in theory at least, there’s 594 tokens that can be gathered every day. Now, I’m not gonna go and say that we could in any way get all of those tokens every single day, shit, we can barely get all the ones in our own regions, but that’s still a lot of points and, probably more importantly, levels.”

  “Yeah, 10 tokens entered into an upgrader will give us a level for… every… member…” Swansong said, trailing off as she realized exactly where I was going with it. “Oh…”

  “If we filled this lounge, we could theoretically power level nearly 30 people at the same time. Even if each of those 25 people only found 1 token a day, and that’s assuming these trackers that BrainCraft has made don’t work, that’s 2 extra levels a day for all of us,” I explained, stopping and leaning against one of the tables. “And since the Phase is a month long, that’s, again at a minimum, 58 levels we could gain in a month… Granted that’s assuming we filled out the lounge tomorrow which I don’t think we should be necessarily aiming for… but the math is there.”

  “That… that can’t be what Axio is after though… can it?” Swansong asked.

  “Loophole is correct, the math suggests that it probably is at least partially what he’s after,” BrainCraft said and the speakers crackled back to life as Jon could be heard laughing.

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  “Sorry, I’ve known Loophole for a long time, and hearing him being correct about math, even basic math, is still funny to me,” he said as he settled down.

  “Oh shut it,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Look, I’m not gonna lie. You guys have already had to take me at my word on everything with TechWarden, and I am 100% still worried about what he’s up to in all of this, it’s why I’m not jumping at BrainCraft’s suggestion to have Pinky start recruiting until we have his scanner functional. But it’s better if-”

  “Crime Alert! Citizen Unrest! Oh look, some NPCs aren’t happy with a bunch of new robot overlords telling them that they have an evening curfew. A large group of normal humans have been seen marching along 5th Ave toward… wait am I reading this right? They’re marching on the Guggenheim? Yup, okay looks like that’s right. They’re marching toward a group of droids gathered outside of the Guggenheim. You might want to get over there before one of those squishy fleshbags go and get themselves hurt. You have 5 Minutes until the group has amassed outside of the museum. Reward: You will receive a Medium Reputation Boost and a B:Tier Squad Base Loot Box.”

  “Shit, we just got a crime alert, it looks like some regular people aren’t exactly happy with their new robot overlords… not that I can blame them,” I said, looking over toward Swansong. She nodded as she started for the door as I looked back toward BrainCraft. “Work on the scanner and… er… sorry, not trying to be the boss but-”

  “Oh my god Loophole, just spit it out, democracy is cool and all but we got shit to do,” Jon said over the speaker and Pinky let out a laugh.

  “I’ll get the matrix scanner finalized, message us if you need us immediately,” BrainCraft said without me needing to actually finish the thought before turning his attention to Pinky.

  I didn’t wait for more than that before I moved to catch up with Swansong. Jon barely had time to raise a hand to wave to us before we were both into the tunnel, moving as fast as we could. It probably shouldn’t have surprised me that it didn’t even take a day before a group of normal people decided to revolt, but the relative quiet of the day had left me surprised all the same. Even still, I felt a swelling wave of anticipation as we burst through the door and took to the skies.

  The Guggenheim wasn’t necessarily right next to us and even at just Swansong’s top speed, we were able to intercept the large crowd a full two blocks before they were able to get to the museum. We didn’t come in hot, instead dropping to the ground a dozen feet ahead of the leader of the pack, a gruff looking man with wild hair and a thick mustache.

  “Whoa guys, where’s the crowd going?” I asked, holding up my hands and, luckily, bringing the crowd to a halt. There weren’t any droids immediately within our vicinity, but I was sure I could make out just a few of the falcons in the darkness above us and I knew I had seen at least a handful of the Clockwork Gorillas ahead of the Guggenheim as we had passed.

  “Move outta the way Loophole,” the gruff man said through gritted teeth and I quickly scanned him.

  “Sebastian Reed. This is a Sapient NPC. Sebastian has had a long, long day and isn’t much a fan of people telling him what he can and can’t do. Normally working the night shift, Clockwork Tyrant’s mechanically enforced curfew has stopped Sebastian from making any money the last few days, something he really doesn’t appreciate.”

  “We can’t do that Se- er… Sir,” I said, correcting myself before I called him by a name that I shouldn’t have known.

  “You heroes can’t do a lot it seems,” Sebastian spat and the crowd behind him grumbled in agreement. “We’re in this mess because you guys didn’t stop him, so we’re gonna do it ourselves.”

  “Are you fucking stupid?” I asked before I could stop myself and Sebastian’s face twisted in anger as I cursed under my breath. I knew I shouldn’t have said it, but who could blame me either? You’d have to be a bit stupid to think you could stop something that people with actual superpowers were having trouble with. Thankfully my Time Bank had been completely refilled and while I probably could have fixed things without it, I still rewound time by 5 seconds.

  “-so we’re gonna do it ourselves.”

  “Look sir, I understand your frustration, but I can’t let you guys go down there…” I said, with Swansong nodding next to me. I looked over at her, briefly meeting her eyes before she floated back up into the air and started to sing her Song of the Peaceful Mind.

  We had used her ability to calm more than a few groups during the siege, though each of those groups had been a fraction of the size of the mob that had gathered in the otherwise deserted street. I could see the telltale signs of her ability working as Sebastian’s body relaxed ever so slightly and the wave passed over the first few rows of people behind him.

  “Hey what’s going on up there?”

  “Tell the heroes to get the fuck out of the way!”

  “Fuck the Augments!”

  Several voices started to yell out, with more and more jeers coming, slowly drowning out Swansong’s song. She tried to sing louder, but her voice was quickly being tuned out and Sebastian shook his head out, the tension immediately returning to his body.

  “The fuck kind of mental bullshit are you assholes trying to pull!?” He demanded, walking toward me and I held my hands up again as I took a few steps back.

  “We are just trying to deescalate things before-”

  “Before what!? Are you two fucking working with this Clockwork fucker?” Sebastian demanded, the crowd starting to advance behind him. “You’re either with us or against us Loophole.”

  “YEAH!” The crowd shouted in unison.

  “Will you people CALM DOWN!” I practically yelled as I jumped into the air, floating high above them. Unfortunately, regardless of my demands the crowd kept moving forward. Several empty bottles and cans were lobbed in our direction as Swansong as I lifted higher into the air.

  The Crime Alert timer was still ticking down and I looked over at Swansong, catching as she stared down at the crowd with some panic in her eyes.

  “I… I didn’t think that drowning out my voice would stop the effect,” She said in our internal chat. “What are we supposed to do?”

  “I mean… that’s an angry mob right there… I doubt there’s anything you could actually say that would have stopped them though,” Jon said and as much as I hated to admit it, I knew he was right. I looked toward the still slowly advancing crowd and then up the street where the Clockwork Gorillas seemed to be moving to intercept them.

  “We can’t just let them march to their deaths…” I said and then swallowed as I looked over at Swansong. “If this doesn’t work I’ll rewind us to this moment… but I think we need to go in hot, if that mob sees us fighting… maybe they’ll stop.”

  Swansong broke her attention from the crowd as she looked up and over to me. Had her family still been held captive, maybe I would have gotten a different response from her, but I could see a hard look of determination spread over her face before she nodded. “Okay… Hercules then?”

  “Yup, I’m going for the impact. If the crowd goes silent, try the Peaceful Mind again, but move more, get more of them to hear the song and get them away from the fight,” I said and Swansong nodded as I started rising higher into the ground. I needed to make sure I was going to get the most damage I could from Earthbound Impact if I was going to… well make an impact.

  Angie groaned in my head and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to be listening to my inner thoughts,” I said to her as I tore away from Swansong. She was moving to get into position and I could see several of the Falcons themselves moving into position.

  "Trust me, I wish I didn't have to hear you attempts at jokes to yourself," she said, though I knew I could hear a bit of a laugh in her voice and I shook my head as I rushed toward the Falcons.

  It was more than clear that Clockwork Tyrant was paying attention to this, and I had to hope that his threat of retaliation against the civilians was only for the prior night. Given that he was supposed to be following orders from Axio, it seemed likely that he wasn’t going to take it out on the Sapients for us striking back. I crossed every mental finger I could as I darted toward the nearest falcons, striking through them and throwing them to the sides before they could explode near me.

  Once those were gone, I moved myself as quickly as I could into position above the gorillas and activated Earthbound Impact. The wind whipped by me as I hurtled toward the ground, and the impact brought with it the same small boom that came every time I hit the ground at max speed and at the same time a hush spread over the crowd as the half dozen Clockwork Gorillas were each crushed downward in the ground.

  I barely gave them a moment to recover before I activated Launchpad and went hurtling all the way back into the sky, turning over only to immediately reactivate Earthbound Impact in my Yo-Yo combo. The quick set of strikes was more than enough to overwhelm the Clockwork Gorillas that I only barely managed to scan in time before the last of them died. They had only been level 12 and I looked over as the sound of clapping reached my ears.

  From the front of the Guggenheim, a short man with grey skin walked out, clapping his webbed hands together as a dangerous looking smile spread over his face.

  “Wells look at you Loophole, strong as ever,” Barracuda said before he let out a noticeable yawn and snapped his fingers.

  The entire side of the Guggenheim exploded as several new holes appeared in the rounded edges of the building. At least two dozen robotic figures stood in the new holes and other figures started to pop up on top of the roof as Barracuda let out a grating laugh.

  “Youse are about to find out whys you prolly shoulda taken up Mr. Tyrant on his offer,” Barracuda said, bringing his fingers to his nonexistent lips and somehow letting out a sharp whistle. “Okay droids, you knows what the boss wants. Capture them.”

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