Chương 118: 114: All the Noisy People

It wasn't quite that simple. First, I needed to explain my plan to claim the rift. I should have done so while we were wandering around Lacy's, because they had enough questions that answering them all absolutely should have counted as significant guidance. And Jeff, fair enough, got a little stuck on the big one: wasn't there a way for someone from Spruce Gap to claim the rift? It would have been fine with me if there had been.

Sure, the mall had pizza and good leveling opportunities, but with hundreds of thousands of wild rifts available, I could find others just as good. But only a Rift Keeper could claim a rift, and they were going to need to harvest roughly 989 more instances before they could become Rift Keepers. As for locking it, that feature was on the Rifts pane in my HUD. It was just a standard checkbox by the rift name, exactly like a password-protected file.

Checking it opened an empty dialog box in which to list approved visitors. Either the System had been taking lessons from Google, or Google was one of the places "seeding the cultural data stream," as Chelsea had described it back in the scenario. But the checkbox only appeared next to the rifts I'd claimed, not the ones I'd just visited or harvested.

"You're sure?" Jeff asked for the third time.

"She's sure," Jack answered for me.

"And if she wasn't helping you right now, she'd be searching for her best friend who's lost somewhere in Texas, so take the help you're offered and quit being—" He stopped himself there and took a breath. I didn't laugh. But I bet for a teenager, talking back to the principal felt just about as freeing as talking back to the police chief had for me.

"What he said," I said. The Jules-and-Toby show had quieted in my brain while I was focused on harvesting the rift and getting these people their levels and achievements, but now that Jack had reminded me… well, there were better things I could do with my time, but I was choosing to help them. So maybe they needed to not give me shit about how I did it.

"If you'd rather we just left—" Jeff interrupted me before I could finish.

"No, sorry, no—we…" He juggled the pizza boxes in his arms, eyes on the two cups that rested on top. I'd dropped my cup into his when we'd been walking back to the atrium. I had my pink water bottle for fresh water and my RMI for coffee and tea. I didn't need to take two liters of a guaranteed safe beverage away from some teenager. He'd noticed the addition, but also that I was being discreet about it, and so he'd nodded a silent thank you without turning it into a big deal.

"It's either me or you potentially lose this place to the Sovereign Ridge Patriots," I explained again, trying to keep my words more patient than bitchy. (Maybe not quite succeeding, but I tried.) "You may have the level advantage right now, but they've got a numbers advantage and a… a propensity to violence advantage." Tessa snorted.

"I don't know, my propensity to violence has definitely gotten a lot stronger this week."

"It's pretty obvious that they never entered the rift themselves. If they had, I imagine they'd have said something about the pizza. But if I lock the rift, they won't be able to enter it or shove other people into it anymore. And that's all I've got. I can't give you the ability to lock it, it's not transferable. You and anyone you bring with you will still be able to go in and out." Jeff nodded.

"Yes. Okay. Let's do it. What do we need to do?"

"First, we should get rid of the Sovereign Ridge Patriots. Or at least discourage them from blocking the gate." It would be nice if we already had. Maybe Zelda had scared them enough that they'd all fled, metaphorical tails between their legs. If they were smart, that's what they would have done. But I kind of suspected that they weren't that kind of smart.

Mike and Javi were the two who had been present when Zelda jumped Dale, and they both agreed that the Sovereign Ridge Patriots were more likely to want a second round than to accept their humiliation at the paws of a Jack Russell terrier. We gathered around the gate, trying to see what there was to see of the clearing, but the positioning wasn't great. Our view looked into the nearby forest instead of toward the road. We couldn't see the pickup trucks or Missy's SUV, but that didn't mean they weren't still there.

"I should go out first," Jeff said. He'd been in the first instance, I remembered, so he'd entered the rift first, too. Maybe he felt it was his duty as the principal to lead even when that meant walking into danger? Bear growled. Not a big growl, not a threatening growl, but a statement. I explorer. I go first.

"Thank you, sweet girl," I said, putting a hand on her head.

"But remember that guy who shot you this morning? Not fun, right? So let's not do that again." Her tail drooped, but she stopped growling.

"I could stealth out there," Leon suggested.

"Try to see what's there without them spotting me." He was rubbing his thigh, right above his knee, as he made the suggestion. It was the leg he'd injured earlier, and I knew it shouldn't still hurt. He'd healed at least seven times since then. But I could see that the memory of the pain lingered and that the idea of facing the preppers scared him.

"Or I could," Jack said.

"I could use my Shadow ability." I hesitated, but only for a second. The last time I'd sent Jack in to stealthily find out what was going on, he'd attacked a Level 14 Spider. Sure, he'd killed it, saving people's lives, but… well, I wasn't going to criticize his decisions. He was only Level 12, though, probably halfway to 13. I was Level 21. If the Sovereign Ridge guys were waiting, I'd be safer in a confrontation than Jack would be. Plus, there was that weird red glow around Dale and the berserker.

I still had no idea what it meant, but I didn't want to take chances with Jack's life.

"Nah," I said.

"If they're not out there, it doesn't matter, and if they are, the confrontation is inevitable. I've got Invisible Armor and… a couple other abilities that might come in handy." I wouldn't activate [Flag of Truce] inside the rift because I didn't think its effects would extend outside the mana domain, but I could tap it after I exited if necessary. And I also had [Body in Balance], the physical synergy trait that protected me from physical effects from lower-level enemies.

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"The angel?" Jack said.

"Oh, man, I want to see the angel." Pen clapped her hands.

"Oh, me, too. They said it was huge, ten feet tall at least, and that its wings glowed golden and its voice was heavenly." I closed my eyes, pained.

"Its wings were white," I muttered.

"The gold was just the mist."

"There were arguments about the music, though," Pen went on.

"One lady swore he had a harp, but there was a little boy who insisted it was trumpets. Do you know which angel it was? Was it Michael? Or Gabriel? Michael leads the heavenly host, so you'd think he'd be too busy, but Gabriel is God's messenger. I think it must have been Gabriel." Okay, that was very logical of her. Commendations on the thought process, and no, no, absolutely not.

But a conversation about the System and mental models would take twenty minutes, and I could already see the questions boiling up among the Spruce Gap team. And I really didn't want to talk about that stupid angel.

"We can talk about that later," I said, shaking my head no. Was I rejecting the angel identification, the questions, or the idea of a later conversation? Even I didn't know. But I looked at everyone, one a time, including the dogs, and said, "We're agreed, then. I go out first, you guys wait here until I give the thumbs up. Great." I didn't stay for further commentary, just tapped my [Invisible Armor] on and stepped through the gate. Once outside, I turned to look toward the road. I had maybe two seconds to look.

Just enough time to see the men standing there, the pickup, its open tailgate, the sandbags in the truck's bed, and a black hole. Not the space kind. But it wasn't even enough time to think, "Huh, maybe that's the barrel of a gun? A really, really big gun?" before a whole bunch of things happened at once. A sound, as loud as the crack of thunder when the lightning hits right next to you. A flash of light, white-hot flame, grey smoke, a shockwave so intense that dust and dead leaves went flying.

An impact, strong enough, hard enough, that my entire body went flying, too. For a second or so that lasted forever, I was in freefall and then I landed on my back, several feet away from the gate. Pain. Seriously crazy, intense, bone-shattering pain. Another incredible noise, even bigger than the last one. People screaming. Dogs barking. Different voices yelling. And then… I felt fine. Great, actually. I stared up at the rather nice sky and wondered what the fuck had just happened.

Of course, the notification dot was blinking in the corner of my HUD, but I didn't open it. I just lay there, looking up at the sky, thinking about nothing. Well, thinking about what a pretty sky it was, to be honest. The sky in North Carolina during autumn is that deep ocean blue, apparently. Not as dark as cobalt blue, but maybe azure? Mediterranean? It would be a good color for dishes. Maybe glassware. Probably too bright for walls, though.

Zelda huffed her way along my body, sniffing every inch before hitting my head and flopping down next to me, shoving her damp nose into my neck. Bad noises, she told me. I put my hand up so that I could ruffle the scruff of fur around her neck. People were still screaming and yelling. I had a feeling that the screaming people were in pain and the yelling people were angry, but if I wanted to know for sure, I would have to sit up, and even though I felt fine—like, really, remarkably fine—I didn't want to.

Whatever was happening over there, it was probably going to be ugly. Riley showed up next, Bear close behind him. He didn't do the full-body check that Zelda had given me, just sniffed at my chest and then lay down next to my head. Bear snuffled around the ground by my side, then went out of my line of sight for a moment. I knew I should sit up, at least to see what she was doing, but as soon as I did, I would have to be back in the real world again.

I would have to deal with all the noisy people and the plastic monsters and… I really just wanted a cup of tea. Maybe I could duck into my RMI for ten minutes of peace and quiet. When Bear dropped a piece of surprisingly hot, surprisingly heavy metal on the hand that wasn't stroking Zelda, I sat up.

"What did you bring me?" I asked her, and then I looked at it. It was misshapen, and about three times bigger than any bullet I'd ever used, but recognizable enough. Those fuckers. I opened my notifications. Congratulations! You have once again survived an event that should have resulted in your death. Award: Resist Death achievement. Survival accomplished via companion ability: Never Say Die.

Base reward: 1000 XP Times this achievement has triggered: 3 Multiplier applied: 2^(3−1) Total XP awarded: 4000 XP My hand tightened on Zelda's fur for a second, and then I went back to stroking her. Yeah, those fuckers. They'd returned with a big-ass gun and set up ready to kill. I guess they were Murder Hobos, after all, because there's no way the System would consider that justified. I glanced down at my jacket. It wasn't damaged at all. No bullet holes, no blood.

So the bullet hit me, and my invisible armor prevented it from penetrating, but not from killing me. I guess that was impact trauma or something? Like getting hit by a truck? I opened up my status sheet and read the description of Invisible Armor again. Invisible Armor: Manifest a protective barrier that surrounds you, absorbing physical and magical damage until its integrity fails or the duration expires. Duration is Will x 5 minutes. Usable up to Will × 10 minutes total per day. Cooldown between uses of 1 minute.

Strengthens with Resilience. So absorbing damage didn't mean negating damage. Maybe it was like an airbag—it took the hit, but the momentum still went somewhere. And a really big-ass bullet was like the airbag going off at 80 miles per hour: you might not go through the windshield, but you were damn sure gonna break some bones. I touched my chest gingerly. The pain hadn't lasted long, but it had been intense while it did.

"Let's not do that again, okay?" I said to the dogs. While I had my status sheet open, I took another look at my Body in Balance trait. What the hell had it been doing while I was dying? Answer: nothing. When the System said, "You automatically shrug off physical effects from opponents whose level is less than your Physical Total divided by 5," maybe it meant effects from System-enabled physical abilities, like David's [Bash] or Leon's [Backstab].

Because my Physical Total was 42, so no one under Level 9 should have been able to hurt me, but that gun definitely had. It made sense in a way. If a Level 1 person tried to run me over with a semi, I wouldn't assume it wouldn't hurt: I'd get the hell out of the way. Live and learn. Or, you know, die and learn. While I was in my status, I glanced at my total XP. With my now 92% bonus, that 4000 XP for dying was actually worth 7680 XP. It had brought me to 96, 505 total XP.

Level 22 only required 90, 800, so I was already partway to Level 23. Colonel Whitaker had said the highest-level person the government knew of was Level 14. Emma was also Level 14, so I'm sure there were plenty of other people around that level, too. But you needed a total of 29, 000 XP to reach Level 15. I had over three times that number.

My plan to let someone else take over the position of the highest-level person on the planet while I drifted into obscurity wasn't going to work out if I kept doing stupid things that rewarded me with crazy experience. 7680 XP was enough that if I'd been starting from 0, I would have come close to Level 9 in a single shot. That was a lot of XP. Next time around, if I were doing the math right, it would be more than 15, 000. It would be better if there weren't a next time.

Closing my status sheet, I finally looked over at the pickup trucks. And then I quickly looked away, swallowing hard. The gun had exploded. They must have tried to fire it a second time, and the odds had finally caught up with them. Well, the odds or the mana. The rifts had opened in order to release mana onto the planet. It made sense that the area near a rift would have more mana than average. And since it was the mana that caused the damage, boom.

Cody had gotten incredibly lucky that he'd fired two shots from his little peashooter without blowing his hand off. But damn, my Serendipity stat wasn't doing shit: I'd gotten shot twice in one day. How could that possibly be lucky? Although Zelda's [Never Say Die] only worked once a day. And my invisible armor might not have held through a second shot. So maybe that gun blowing up was my good luck at work, not just bad timing for the Sovereign Ridge Patriots. And wasn't that a bleak thought.

With one last ruffle of Zelda's fur and a kiss dropped on the top of Riley's head, I stood. Time to see what was going on with the screaming.