Chương 64: 63: Side Quest

I half-carried Joey, half-staggered through the gate. As always, I had to choose a destination. For a moment, I wavered. I could pick Pen's instance of my rift and just take Joey to her to get healed. But I wasn't sure he could manage the walk to the Dollar General, and I'd told the others that we'd be in #312, so with an internal sigh, I selected it. The rooftop was the same; oddly creepy. But the drones were gone.

"Whoa." Joey exhaled, looking around.

"Not what I expected."

"What did you expect?" I asked, lowering him to the ground.

"Middle Earth, I guess. I mean, I didn't know that's what I was expecting, but magical portals should lead to, you know, magical places."

"Ha. Mine leads to a Dollar General."

"Yours?" He looked up at me. I waved away the question. Too complicated to answer, too long a story. I turned to talk to Zelda just as Danny jumped through the gate, raising his fists in the air and shouting, "Yes!" His father followed suit at a slightly slower pace, scanning the roof just like a cop in a movie would've.

"Nothing to see yet," I told him, but I pointed toward where the first drone had appeared when Zelda and I were here before.

"They rise up from below and they shoot lasers. Our goal here is to capture one and bring it over to Joey to kill it, so let them get close before trying to fight them. But avoid getting hit if you can."

"Not a lot of cover," Mercer grumbled. Joey was breathing hard, his face redder than it had been. I couldn't tell whether it was exertion or fever, so I tapped [Analyze] again and checked his condition. No change, so we still had time.

"How do you know all this?" Danny was gazing at me wide-eyed, an almost worshipful look on his face.

"Are you some kind of System NPC? A quest giver?"

"What?" I stared back at him.

"An NPC? Isn't that like a pretend person who talks like a broken record?" We gazed at one another in mutual incomprehension.

"What's a broken record?" he finally asked. Joey chuckled.

"Oh, Danny-O. We gotta work on your education." Mercer hadn't gotten distracted, though.

"Incoming," he snapped out. I slapped the quick-access slot on my pouch, thought shovel, and Warden's Edge was in my hand, just in time for me to step in front of Danny and block the shot as the drone fired. It hit Warden's Edge, rebounded and took out the drone in a flash of sparks and sound.

"Oops." The shattered pieces of drone fell to the ground.

"Um, yeah, so we don't want to do it like that."

"What the hell—" Mercer breathed. The other three drones floated up and over the roof's edge. I looked over my shoulder at Danny.

"Ranged attack? You think you can knock one down without killing it?" He grinned.

"I can try." He pulled a slim dagger out of a sheath that had been hidden inside his zip-up hoodie. He rolled his wrist a couple of times, loosening it up, then narrowed his eyes and focused on the nearest drone. Zelda crouched. Balls! Flying balls! Time to catch!" No jumping off the roof." I abandoned my watch on Danny and turned to her.

"Be careful!" Careful. My middle name. From her crouched position, no run-up, no head-start, no building momentum, Zelda leaped into the air, as if she were a rabbit on steroids. Not really. I squawked.

"Be careful, I said!" Danny's dagger hit the drone on the left, knocking it out of the sky, at about the same time as Zelda snagged the middle drone out of the air. She twisted in mid-air, landing neatly on the ground, while Mercer went after the third drone. He looked as if he were using some kind of defensive ability to bash it. Zelda trotted back to me, tail wagging, holding the drone between her teeth, her mouth opened wide. The drone was about three times the size of her usual ChuckIt balls.

She looked ridiculous and also ever-so-proud of herself. Danny ran for the drone he'd hit and grabbed it.

"Ow, damn. Hot!" he exclaimed, but it didn't stop him from carrying it over to us. Joey took the laser sentry from Danny. It was vibrating like mad, almost sizzling.

"What do I—""Smash it if you can," I told him.

"Against the ground ought to be fine. It needs to die, but if you can't kill it, you just need to do some damage. We can finish it off once you do."

"Here." Danny handed him the dagger.

"Stab it through that line in the middle. That ought to do it."

"Good, yeah," I agreed.

"Is it gonna explode?" Joey asked. Danny and I exchanged looks and shrugs.

"Um, maybe?" I said.

"Just the second you get the XP notice, confirm your level up. You'll be okay."

"I was thinking about you two," Joey said, voice dry.

"Back up, why don't you." It was an order couched as a suggestion. Danny and I did as told, and I called Zelda to me, too. She still had her drone in her mouth, but it seemed… well, confused, maybe. Not damaged, like the one Danny had hit, just trapped. Ball. Good ball, Zelda said. She shook her head as if she were carrying a chew toy. No squeak. She sounded disappointed. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Do you want to trade it out for a real squeaky ball?" I asked her. I was pretty sure I still had one in the pouch. She tilted her head up, the drone still trapped in her mouth. Go find Jujube first? I blinked at her, somewhere between shocked and confused in equal measure. About a million years ago—okay, fifteen years, to be more precise—Jules, nicknamed Jujube, had taken care of my then one-year-old dog while I'd been trapped in hell.

Hell was a manic episode, a psych ward, and a meandering path through the criminal justice system. Throughout it, Jules had been my rock. There might have been a few hard feelings when she first dragged me to the hospital, but by the time it was over, nothing but gratitude remained. She'd been the one to call my dad, she'd held my hand while I sat with my lawyer, and she'd walked, fed, and loved Zelda. And yes, of course I did the same. It wasn't like I'd intentionally abandoned my dog.

But we hadn't seen Jules for more than a few days at a time for the past decade, and I'd never realized Zelda remembered her so affectionately. Behind us, the drone exploded. Not a huge explosion, more like a firecracker than a bomb. I glanced back. Joey had taken it too close to the face. Shrapnel had broken his skin, the heat had singed his eyebrows. But even as I looked, his injuries were healing.

"Wow." He jumped to his feet.

"Holy shit." He stretched, bending to the side, touching his toes, reaching his arms overhead.

"I could run a marathon."

"Wow," Danny breathed out next to him, his eyes glazed.

"I got a bonus. I'm so close to Level 5 now. Yes!"

"Take your time with that level," I told him.

"It's a big one. You'll get to evolve your class." My notifications dot was blinking, but—exactly as I'd wondered earlier—a bigger drone was swooping down upon us, moving fast.

"Incoming," I called out, pointing toward it.

"Do you want to fight it or do you want to run?" I didn't care what the decision was; I obviously wasn't worried about the drone for Zelda or me. But they should face it for their own sake. The only real safety in the post-System world was in levels, and they needed more of them.

"Fight it!" Danny said with exuberance.

"Fight it," Joey agreed, less exuberant, more grim.

"Run," Mercer said.

"What the hell, Joey? My kid's in here!"

"May I?" I asked Zelda, reaching for the drone in her mouth. She released it into my hand and I hurled it against the ground, well away from my companions. It shattered on impact, shards skidding across the rooftop. Mercer's defensive ability must have taken out his, too, although I couldn't see the remains, so it must have fallen off the roof.

"Kid's tougher than either of us, Dan. We've got to get tougher ourselves," Joey said, as calmly as if they were sitting around a dinner table. He stepped forward, moving ahead of Danny.

"I know protect and serve means the world to you, but sometimes protecting looks like fighting. Sometimes like now." Mercer let out a frustrated, wordless yell, his fists clenching, then joined Joey on the front line as the drone flew closer.

"You're a stealth class, so stealth," he shouted at his son, keeping his eyes on the drone. The drone was bigger than the sentries, still round, but with clusters of sensor arrays jutting from its upper half like the world's most hostile satellite dish. A band ran visibly around its middle, upper and lower chassis connected by what looked like a thick line of blinking red lights. I tapped [Analyze]. [Laser Sentinel: Level 5] I kept the ability on, waiting for the tooltip.

Classification: Autonomous Construct Condition: Optimal Description: A command-tier hovering security unit equipped with high-output directed energy emitters. Coordinates and escalates responses when standard Laser Sentries are defeated or disabled.

"It's a Level 5 Laser Sentinel, so expect laser beams," I reported, keeping my voice just as calm as Joey's. That should have been easy. I knew I didn't have to worry. But it took an effort. Battles in general still felt new to me, but battles with flying mechanical enemies felt very new. And the laser sentinel looked so much more threatening than the little laser sentries. A grapefruit-sized ball that can't even aim straight is almost laughable, but a spiky beach ball with flashing red lights? A little less so.

Maybe because I was making the effort to be calm, I stayed focused on the laser sentinel with [Analyze] still up. The tooltip started scrolling. Vulnerabilities: Metal-based constructs are vulnerable to electrical attack, particularly when combined with water. Rain plus Lightning Chain should be especially effective. Targeting the sensor array spheres will limit sight radius. The central energy band is glass-cased and significantly more vulnerable than the rest of the exterior chassis. Huh.

I had no idea that [Analyze] could do that. I guess it made sense: analysis was more than just identifying." Aim for the red lights, Danny," I said.

"Easier to break than the metal."

"Got it." I still held Warden's Edge, poised to jump into the line of fire if necessary. Dragging Joey in here to heal would be pointless if I then let him get killed. But Joey yelled, spreading his arms wide, and the drone swiveled toward him. Before it could fire, Mercer popped his defensive ability. I don't think I would have seen it if it weren't for my mana sight, but to me, it looked like a glowing blue barrier, as thin as glass, but long enough to shield all of us.

Danny's dagger was either bonded to him or had some kind of boomerang effect, because he'd thrown it twice and it kept returning to his hand. The [Analyze] tooltip reported: Damage done, 60 HP. 20/80 HP remaining. Nice. [Analyze] was way cooler than I'd realized." One more solid hit," I said and this time my voice was calm because I was calm. This battle was almost over and they'd done great. The third time he threw, Danny's dagger hit the red lights dead center. The drone wobbled. And then it went down.

No explosion, no shards, just the lights going out and a thunk onto the rooftop. For a moment, we all waited. 0/80 HP. It was dead.

"I got the notification," Joey reported.

"Me, too." Mercer's defensive barrier had fallen, but he looked more tired than ever. I did a quick check and his condition had moved from fatigued to dangerously fatigued.

"I did, too." Danny was almost bubbling with excitement.

"We should explore. While we're here and all." Mercer shook his head.

"Ross is waiting for us. Someone had to stay behind to let people know if we didn't make it back." A thread of anger ran through his words but he was too tired to yell the way he would have liked to. I put a hand on Danny's arm.

"You should explore. All of you. But not right now." I nodded toward Mercer.

"Your condition has hit dangerously fatigued. Unless you're close to a level up, you need to get some rest. But you all do need to come back and explore the rift. Safely. With better weapons than guns and maybe a few more people."

"You're outta your mind." Mercer shook his head.

"Yep," I agreed with a half laugh.

"But not about this. Rifts are opportunities and threats. Harvest the rift for experience, loot, and levels. Ignore the rift or just sit on it from the outside, and it's gonna overflow. The monsters inside will spill out onto Earth or they'll get tougher first and then spill out. If you don't send teams in to clear it out, you're screwed."

"Why should we listen to you?" Mercer scowled at me.

"I don't know." I nodded toward Joey.

"Maybe because your friend's alive because of me? I feel like that should count for something. Speaking of friends, though, I came here because I'm looking for one of my own. Juliet Beaumont. Do you know her?" Mercer looked like he was thinking about it, but he shook his head no. Joey did the same. Danny, though, said, "Toby's mom?" doubtfully.

"Yes. Have you seen her?" He frowned and shook his head.

"No, I don't think so. She might be at the school, though, it's pretty jammed."

"How do you know her?" Mercer asked.

"Toby's one of the kids on the soccer team," Danny explained to his dad, before saying to me, "I help coach the little kids. Toby's been on the team for a couple of years. He's a good kid. Not all that interested in soccer, but he tries. And his mom is nice."

"Should I look for them at the school or her house?"

"We've been encouraging people to shelter at the schools," Mercer said. The lines of exhaustion on his face looked deeper.

"We lost… the first couple days… there were…" Joey put his hand on Mercer's back and said quietly, "Call it a mass casualty event and leave it that." Mercer closed his eyes. I wanted to help them somehow. But I steeled myself. Scenes like this were playing out all over the world and I was one person. There was only so much I could do. But if I could find Jules and this looked like a safe place for Pen, I'd be bringing them a healer. That was help with a capital H, I suspected, given Joey's injuries.

"All right," I said.

"I'll look at the school first, and if I can't find her there, I'll check her house. Meanwhile, if you've got injured, help them level up. And work on getting everyone some levels. Stronger is better. Also…" I nodded toward the big drone on the ground.

"Don't forget to loot."