Chương 54: 53-Out of Control

Mel talked to Elena as they both put the finishing touches on the new classroom, placing the students' names on their assigned desks. Today was going to be an important day. Education had been an afterthought in the aftermath of the apocalypse; only Mel had tried to keep it functioning. She wanted to create a school open to everyone, but for now, only Scions and Citizens had volunteered to attend.

Aram's arrival was a tipping point—many Avatar parents had decided they could no longer postpone it and sent their kids to school. Mel suddenly found herself with 120 kids instead of the 9 she was already caring for. Dignity had commissioned a larger building and was seeking volunteers with teaching experience. Mr. Spaulding, a Citizen who had worked all his life as a teacher before being reborn, had stepped forward.

"Oh, God, I am having second thoughts about this," Mel told Elena. Even though Elena was younger—only sixteen years old in apparent age and three months in real age, Mel saw her more as an equal than as another student.

"Come on, Mel, you know you love it." Elena smiled back.

"This is going to be chaos. We have Avatars, Citizens, Scions, and unenhanced kids. It is not just that some have powers and others do not. Their mental capacity varies widely. We are going to put together normal kids with little geniuses. You have seen them run circles around me, Elena. What will happen when we put them together with other kids?"

"They will probably run around them in circles, too. Or play dodgeball with them. Dodgeball is fun," Elena said, her face totally serious. Mel smiled. Elena had that effect on her. There was no challenge the young Scion would run from.

"We also have that thing about Activation," Mel said.

"Most people wait until their kids are at least fourteen before letting them choose a Class. Then we discovered that the Answer was preying on the systemless—many parents want their kids to be activated as soon as possible."

"But activation has a minimum age, doesn't it?" asked Elena. Mel refrained from asking her how she had realized that. She had long ago accepted the fact that Elena was incredibly brilliant.

"Twelve years old. The Teaching Competency will not work on anyone younger," Mel explained.

"But Dawn can do it without using Teaching, can't she?" Mel smiled in appreciation. Smart as a whip.

"She won't. Dignity asked her to, but she refused. I am not going to experiment with minors, she said."

"She feels responsible for the destruction of her world due to an experiment. You have to grant her that," Elena answered.

"How did Dignity take it?"

"They reached an accommodation. Dignity won't make Dawn activate anyone against her will, but Dawn will be responsible for some of those kids." Elena thought for a moment and whistled.

"Of course. She taught at a university. So I guess she is the last member of our team."

"That is the idea. That guarantees she is always near the kids. If the Answer ever breaches the city, she will activate them all before they can get hold of them."

"Something does not fit," Elena said.

"We are only getting the twelve unenhanced kids we found in Milwaukee. I know we have at least fifty more children, probably more if we count the babies. Where are they?" Mel sighed.

"Dignity sent them to Belona. She does not want them here in case we get attacked by the Answer. They are systemless. They would be targeted first. The older kids would also be evacuated, but only if the zealots get too near Babylon—the Answer is just not interested in them."

"I can see that. But why is she keeping the twelve systemless kids from Milwaukee in Babylon? Oh!" said Elena, suddenly understanding it all.

"She does not trust them. She thinks they could be a ploy to lead the Answer to the rest of the children."

"We have already been infiltrated by Druk the Defiler. You have to grant her that."

"She thinks they could be infected? That they could be zealots?"

"No. She had them magically scanned. We know they are not carrying the parasite—the scan would not even work on a zealot, as it is based on divination magic. She thinks the Answer could have a way to track them. That is why they can't be with the rest of the kids."

"I don't like this, Mel. I don't like this at all. We are teachers, not policemen. And they are kids, not monsters. If anyone finds out about this, those children will go through hell. You know how people are when they are afraid."

"I know, Elena, but there is no way around this. We are at war, and the enemy has shown it is not above using children as weapons. It seems to rather like it, as a matter of fact."

"This is going to be a nightmare." Mel tried to lead the conversation away from the thorny subject.

"I don't know how to organize the groups."

"There are only four teachers, Mel. It is not as if we have many options. We can only sort them by age and hope it all works out."

"Fine. You are getting the age group with our former students. You are good with them. I will get the teenagers." Mel smiled mischievously.

"Don't worry, I will not hog Aram too much. You will still have time to be with him." Elena blushed furiously. That counted as a moral victory for Mel. ◇"Who was he?" Ron asked as he shoveled dirt on the dead man's face. He hated digging graves. He would have preferred to give the old man the shovel and make him do it himself, but he was already dead when the group teleported to Maureen's location. They had to get inside the city walls to do it—the dimensional blockade was in full effect.

"Just some old wino who did not even bother to get a Class. I watched him for two days. No friends. No relatives. The house wasn't even really his. He had just moved in when the old owners died," Maureen answered. She was still in the shape of the homeless man whose throat she had cut, which made it even creepier. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Maureen was special ops, with a Class based on shapeshifting—Infiltrator, or some such shit.

Like most special ops, none of her powers were based on gear. That gave Ron some food for thought.

"Do you think Hawking knew our tech would fail sooner or later? Perhaps that is why he insisted that some of us not use it."

"Would not put it past the man. He was a big believer in heroism, as long as some other dumbass did the dying," answered Maureen, laughing at her own joke. Ron frowned.

"You are not using, are you?"

"Not while on a mission, Ron, you know that."

"Good, because I will personally kill you if this goes south because of you." He needed Maureen. She would use her shapeshifting abilities to infiltrate the town and gather intel. Lewandosky and Higgins were already in their knapsacks, snoring furiously. A few days. He only had to spend a few days with these pieces of shit. Necessity had personally assured him that he would be the next Omega if his group fulfilled the mission. Then, he could leave all this behind. He had already chosen his Name.

He was going to be Regret. ◇"Nothing about this makes any sense. Nothing," Dignity said as she studied the map. The Answer's troops were marked on it. Jenna, Alarel, Bob, and Elariana were present for the strategy session, as always. Dignity had asked for Pob to attend as well. The Beli was crafty as a fox, with two centuries of experience under his belt.

"How did they destroy the Federation's dungeons?"

"I don't think they did," Jenna answered.

"When the Answer destroys a dungeon, it does not release Essence. Now we know it is stored inside the parasite, keeping it alive. Feds destroyed those dungeons—I think they were following the Coven's orders."

"What did the Coven gain with this?" asked Elariana.

"It set the zealots on us. The Answer eats dungeons. By releasing a huge cloud of Essence on our position, they drew the Zealots to us. Necessity knew the area would fill with wild dungeons," answered Jenna.

"But I can't understand what the Answer is doing now." Pob intervened.

"They are sending all their troops against us. Madison is much nearer. They could even split and take both Babylon and Madison at the same time; they have the numbers for it."

"They must know Madison, Belona, Valdar, and Babylon are joined through the Imperial dungeon, New Velta. We can transport troops to any of those points," answered Alarel.

"But why make their troops trek all the way to Babylon? They could have their final battle just by attacking Madison."

"And why walk? I get they can't teleport near the city, but a few spatial gates could cut their trip short by a few days." Bob studied the map, as if he could pry the answers from within.

"Daughter?" Alarel asked Jenna. Jenna thought for a moment, her enhanced mind evaluating all the possibilities.

"I saw them through Captain Beaky's eyes. They are marching in perfect formation, their creepy smiles in place. Their vanguard is made up of kids."

"I think the obvious answer is that they are playing a psy op. We are coming. You are going to have to kill children if you want to stop us. They will need at least twelve days to reach us at their current speed—they want us scared and demoralized when the battle begins, and they are not worried that we can use the extra time to better prepare for them. They believe nothing we can do can stop them." Jenna stopped talking and thought for a couple of seconds, a worried frown on her face.

"It does not ring true. Too simple. Too obvious. Nothing is obvious with the Answer."

"They are playing a deeper game, but I don't know which one. Yet."

"There is something more that should trouble us," Alarel said.

"How many dungeons are there between them and us? Each boss they kill means one extra zealot." Jenna's eyes glazed as she expanded her Spirit.

"Damn! You are right." There are seven dungeons, most of which are rank three and four. We must take them out before they reach them."

"Billy is still Lawman, isn't he?" asked Dignity.

"You can repeat the same play you made at Milwaukee—replace the dungeons with Halls of Law, and evacuate the Bosses to Babylon."

"Not that simple, I am afraid," sighed Jenna.

"Billy took a closer look at the reproductive mechanism of the Hall of Law. It will not work if the dungeon is more than seven miles away from the original Hall."

"Have you considered using Morton's dungeon seeds to transform those dungeons before they are taken?"

"It is too risky," answered Jenna.

"We can't use Morton's powers to repeat the play we used in Milwaukee: the seeds he creates guarantee that the dungeons born from them will have the symbiotic and reproductive tags, but not the hatchery one."

"The dungeons become vulnerable if their Bosses and Cores can't leave them—the Answer could destroy them and use them to create more zealots."

"That would only be a band-aid," said Pob.

"You would be releasing a huge amount of Essence by destroying those dungeons. It could create new wild dungeons that would be cannibalized by the Answer."

"Billy has a new power that allows him to store Essence from a dungeon he destroys. We would remove that Essence from the equation," Jenna explained.

"The path is clear, then—can you take those dungeons before the Answer reaches them?" Dignity asked Jenna.

"Consider it done." ◇ Necessity watched events unfold as the Answer began its long march towards Babylon. The Coven leader already had second thoughts about having created it. The Federation was a tool, precise and easy to handle. They thought they were in control, but Necessity had been guiding them all along. The Answer was different—more a virus than a tool. A virus created to address the potential threat that symbiotic dungeons posed.

Dungeons served two purposes: they tested Avatars, making them grow in power and generating Omegas strong enough to feed Limbo, and they fed energy to the system, allowing it to create more quests. Symbiotic dungeons did nothing of the sort. They gave most of the energy back to the Avatars. If they were allowed to propagate, the system would stop working. No more quests. No more Omegas. Much more Limbo. The original plan was to use them to wipe out all the symbiotic dungeons on Earth.

They were naturally drawn to higher-rank dungeons, and they would target them first. If the ploy worked, Necessity would repeat it on Belona. It seemed so simple. So elegant. And it was good to play with Eidocytes again, even if he did it by proxy. He had not touched the damned things since this whole story began, so long ago, in Erela. They carried too many painful memories.

One of his first decisions as Coven leader had been to restrict any Compendium ability focused on Eidotycs—that meant Joseph had to go when his usefulness was over. No great loss—it could not have happened to a nicer guy. He studied his own emotions as he used Logsight to watch Dawn through the eyes of some Avatar she was interacting with. They were an odd pair. They were both survivors of a long-lost age. They probably should be friends, but their goals were too opposed.

He feared her, even with her memories removed. He remembered her well, even after all this time. She had gone through all kinds of hell to stop the Compendium and, given half a chance, she would do it again. The woman was dangerous, too unpredictable, too powerful, too far outside the rules. Unpredictable—just like the Answer. It was not behaving like a virus at all. Zealots were impossible to read—they were systemless, and he had no idea what the Answer was trying to do.

And the Answer was targeting not only dungeons but also the Compendium itself and its human expressions—Avatars. It seemed to loathe the System. It did not feel at all like a precision weapon, but like a raging wildfire. Necessity wondered briefly if he had not unleashed a second threat to the entire Universe.