Chương 12

Having awoken alone in the apartment, Oliver decided to scavenge the place for anything useful. In the kitchen fridge, he found bars of food and thick, chunky bottled liquids. It seemed that was the go-to nourishment in this biome. He took a gulp of the mystery liquid. After years of gnawing on roots and sipping bland broth, he found this new cuisine surprisingly tasty, albeit more than a bit uninspired. There was also a small box of pink strips that smelled fruity.

Oliver assumed that must be Kiki's gum and decided to ignore it.

"You're finally up," Kiki said, strolling into the room as he stuffed his new jacket's pockets with the bars.

"Yes. A bit stiff. But I'm ready to go when you are."

"Good. [Technomancer] is up on the rooftop."

"You mean he has a drone on the roof," Oliver corrected her. Kiki rolled her eyes.

"Obviously." She picked up her helmet and put it into place. The blank facemask of the helmet lit up, showing two neon pink slits, signifying the placement of her eyes across an otherwise black exterior.

"Why [Neon Samurai]?" he asked.

"I get samurai, but what's the 'neon' aspect of it?"

"One of my skills can create blades from neon lights. And I also have Neon Strike which is a burst of movement at the speed of light. It allows me a single, nearly undodgeable slice. But it has a five minute cooldown."

"Really? Interesting." Both of those were extremely useful skills. But almost exclusively combat oriented.

"And yours?" she asked.

"My skills?" He hesitated. But she'd shared two of hers. It was only polite to return the favor.

"I have Pistol Proficiency and Silver Potency from my most recent class. As well as Uncanny Sight which I haven't quite figured out yet. If you have any ideas what it might do, I'm all ears." Kiki shrugged.

"Nope. Utility skills aren't my thing. I survived these last few years by killing enemies before they could kill me. I have no interest in hiding in the shadows." Was worth a shot. He should ask Benjamin. They departed the safehouse and took a rickety staircase up to the roof. Their current building was dwarfed by skyscrapers on every side. It was tucked away, which was likely a prime reason for Benjamin's choice. Dozens of stories overhead, Oliver could spot aerial transport crossing the open gray sky.

Soon, they'd be among that traffic." I am actively designing a new drone to function as a proper carrier unit, but the prototype isn't ready yet. You'll need to hang on to the skids of my current models just as you did on the way here."

"That's fine." His Strength allowed him to dangle from below the drones for hours without issue. It would be even less of a strain now that he was actually well rested and not actively escaping a burning village.

"I assume we're not going over the mushroom biome?"" Affirmative. It will be less direct, but we'll need to travel over the Deep Sea Biome."

"Any enemies of note?" Kiki asked." None that have the ability to fly. Should be a safe flight. However, we will need to switch you to a fresh drone on one of the islands. The dangers mostly lie under the waves, so it shouldn't be an issue. However, keep in mind that there are a few lesser monsters that crawl up on land. Mostly crustaceans from what I've scanned so far."

"Mmm… crab." After a moment of contemplation, Kiki moved to wipe unseen drool from her mouth only to knock her hand into her helmet's mask. She froze, then slowly lowered her hand back to her side. She turned her back to them, unsheathed her sword, and began cleaning the blade with a rag.

"Any other experimentees in the biome?" Oliver asked Benjamin, ignoring Kiki's awkward escape from the conversation.

"I was ambushed in the mushroom village by three residents looking for an easy level up. I don't want a repeat of that."" There was one. However, he is, by all accounts, quite friendly. Which is fortunate as he's extremely well equipped and already has a third class. I considered reaching out to him, much as I did for you. His biome's location relative to mine is slightly more convenient than your own."

"What stopped you?"" A… design flaw. Incompetence on my part.

"Benjamin sounded a bit embarrassed by the admission." My drones are incapable of entering sea water. Even before the experiment, I'd never visited the sea and so sodium rich water wasn't on my mind during the design phase. A complete blind spot on my part."

"Your drones aren't waterproof?" Oliver asked dryly." Water resistance, yes. I designed them to be capable of flying through all possible weather. Even traveling through a lake or river, they'd be capable of functioning for a few hours. But salt water was an oversight. A complete blunder on my end."

"And, guessing from the biome's name, I assume you'd need to go deep underwater to find the server?" Oliver guessed." That would be my assumption. Which raises my other concern about deep sea water pressure levels. Also something my drones are not equipped for. Maybe if I had time to design a submarine unit." While Benjamin continued to ramble about different drone possibilities, Oliver looked out at the Neo Nova street from his perch on top of the on top of the squat building.

So many people crammed into this biome. It was baffling that they were all clones and mutants. He thought back to his conversation with Velocity. She was so realistic.

"Why did your shopkeeper act so life-like?" Oliver asked.

"No one in my biome acted half as authentic as she did."" I suspect it has to do with the augments used in Neo Nova City. While I have not personally encountered any people outside of the city boundaries, I believe no other biome has people quite like outs. The technology in this biome is the peak of what you will find in any biome. It could be correlation, and not causation. But the augments are my lead hypothesis.

It's difficult to test out my theory without bringing people over from other biomes to experiment on."

"Hm." Oliver considered that, wondering if there might be some other way to help the clones.

"If repairing their minds is all technology driven, what about other tech? Does their chip work the same as our own? Can you alter them if connected to more servers? Bring out more personality? Or could magic help in some way? Are there mind healers?" If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. There was a clatter of metal on metal. Oliver turned back around to see Kiki's sword, now fallen to her feet.

Her blank mask stared at him, the pink slits of her eyes flickering. There was a stretch of silence and Oliver's mind scrambled as it reviewed the words he'd just spoken, searching for what might have triggered this sort of reaction from her. Altering the chips. His heart sank with the realization. He'd spoken it out about altering the chips and been stupid enough to mention the servers. There was just a normal flight drone here, not Benjamin's little tank, voice scrambling drone.

Nothing to stop their conversation from being heard. Oliver had insisted on being made privy to the mission's details, then completely forgotten himself the moment they stepped outside. He'd made a complete ass of himself. However, it wouldn't be nearly this bad or obvious if Kiki hadn't dramatically dropped her sword and if they didn't stop speaking suddenly. Oliver struggled for words, to naturally pick up the conversation or find some excuse to play off the awkward pause.

But he wasn't used to speaking to people. He'd spoken more in the last day than in the last month combined." The other people in the biomes are nothing like us,"Benjamin said quickly, breaking the lapse and shifting the conversation away." Anyway, our mission to find the 101st biome doesn't involve them, so no need to spend energy on thinking about them. Focus on the instructions I gave you yesterday and everything will be fine. The 101st biome is within our reach."

He was trying to save the conversation, misdirect away from Oliver's slip up and make it sound like they were trying for something else entirely. It wasn't a perfect path forward, but it was at least something viable for Oliver to latch onto. Oliver opened his mouth to reply and continue the farce but was cut off.

"CONGRATULATIONS EXPERIMENTS ON SURVIVING YOUR FIRST FULL DAY SINCE THE MERGE!" The cheery voice boomed all around them from unseen speakers. Oliver grit his teeth. Maybe this was just a coincidence. If so, that meant any eyes on them would be ripped away. This could be a useful distraction. That would be phenomenal luck.

"First, worry not, once again all enemies in your area have been neutralized until the completion of my announcement." Oliver looked over his shoulder, through the alleyway slit that led to the main street of the city. Sure enough, all of the cars had stopped moving. People in the city stood perfectly still. The airborne vehicles hung far over their heads, as if suspended by invisible wires.

"In the last day since I announced the merge, we've seen an explosive growth of over two hundred levels across all our participants!" the announcer continued.

"Excellent work! We are all so proud! And, as an added little blessing, we've put together a level leaderboard of the top experiment subjects!" Oliver's vision blurred and a list appeared, obscuring his sight.

-Experiment Top 10 Rankings- Terry Dechirer - Level 79 - Sky Island Biome Benjamin Lee - Level 73 - Neo Nova City Biome August McKell - Level 68 - Seasonal Biome Sasha Smith - Level 64 - Dark Woods Biome Drew Nowel - 62 - Steam Biome Brady Moorkins - 62 - Ken Sapo Bunker Biome Chiara Conti - 61 - Cliffside Biome Alina Anderson - 59 - Cliffside Biome Harrison Hall - 59 - Cliffside Biome Trenton Gilligan - 58 - Tundra Biome"We've certainly found a few powerhouses! You'll want to be careful near these ten.

Especially since a few of them have only recently clawed their way to such high heights!

"Now, how about we even the playing field just a bit? It wouldn't be fair if these ten just went open season on the rest of you! After talking it over, we decided to throw you low leveled folks a little bone. Whoever kills any subject holding the placement 10 through 6 will earn not one level, but three! From a single kill!" This is bad," Benjamin said.

"Rank 4 and rank 5 will net you five levels! Rank 3, eight levels! Rank 2, ten levels! And finally, the big one. Killing our top ranked participant will land you twenty levels! You heard that right! That's an entire extra class worth of levels for just a single kill!

"Certainly something to consider at the very least! As a final note, while progress has yet to be made in finding the 101st Biome, you do at least know the locations of a few new objectives! Those are some lucrative Piñatas to burst. Level 100 doesn't look so far off now! We're cheering for you all!" The noise resumed at the end of the announcement, the whoosh of aerial transport overhead, the chatter of noise down in the street, a far off siren. The city moved again, as if never disturbed."

It could be worse," Benjamin said." Knowing my biome is not the same as knowing where my bunker is. And, as far as I am aware, I am the only subject with access to a map post merge. No one else knows where the borders are for each connected biome."

"Good thing you kept that bit of information to yourself," Kiki snapped. She glared at Oliver.

"Absolute incompetence. Unable to keep your teeth together for even five minutes. I should knock them out. Make every word out of your mouth as garbled as whatever gunk apparently goes through your brain."

"I'm so sorry," Oliver apologized. It was a massive fuck up on him. His eye twitched.

"But if you hadn't thrown your sword on the ground then maybe nobody would have not—"" It will be fine. Honestly, it is very informative to see that they're not willing or allowed to step in and forcefully remove me. They have to go through these extra hoops of incorporating it into the experiment. I actually believe I've gleaned enough information from that announcement that it was worth the trade for incentivizing my death."

"Still, I am sorry."" Hm." Benjamin's drones rose into the air." Those offered levels though… that's incredibly dangerous."

"Yeah. People will be out hunting you. Not to mention the other top ten caught as collateral."

"Not what I meant. The level up system itself is dangerous. You see, a 20 level boost after a single kill has the potential to be as fatal to the hunter as the victim. Maybe I'm missing some piece of information, but that large of a change over such a rapid time frame should paralyze, if not kill us outright. There's a reason we have to grind for our levels. Kill by kill."

"Gaining too many levels quickly could kill us?" Oliver asked.

"But…"" Ideally you'd gain an absolute maximum of ten levels in a single day," Benjamin clarified, answering Oliver's unspoken question." I would not recommend you exceed that amount. And not more than twenty in a week. Even under that could still cause brain tumors that could prove fatal over years." Kiki reached down and reclaimed her katana.

"Unless we want to spill more secrets, we should get going. Now I know that my primary duty will be to babysit this moron."" Kiki, stop,"Ben said." Unlike us, Oliver is not used to espionage and having every word listened to. That's not what his biome is about. We should have done better rather than let our brains stutter there. I believe there was a path forward where you and I created a reasonable explanation. We all failed here. We are a team. We need to all do better and make up for one another's weaknesses."

Kiki grumbled, but reluctantly admitted her response had been stupid.

"Let's move," Oliver said, not certain how else to respond to Ben's pep talk. Benjamin's drone hovered overhead and Oliver grabbed a hold. And then they were in the air. Oliver spotted people on the other side of the glass as they zipped past the skyscrapers. He caught snippets of their lives as they flew past. A father brushing his daughter's hair. A woman playing with a drone dog. An old man watching an augmentation infomercial on his television. A teenager passed out on the metal floor, surrounded by needles.

A family eating dinner together. Everything passed in a blur. Oliver felt a chill when he thought about who these people were. Designed to be nothing more than props. Their lives valued even below his own. His grip tightened as the drone passed them all by. He silently vowed that if he ever left this place, those who'd imprisoned him would suffer. These fucked up experimenters deserved worse than any hell he knew of.

Not only did they pit humans against one another, they also manipulated and mutilated so many others in pursuit of their nebulous objective. It was only ten minutes later that the first top ten hunters crossed the border into Neo Nova City.