Collateral Power

11. Fork in the Road


"What do you mean it doesn't count? I damn well killed it, didn't I?"

"Technically, it did expire three seconds before you did, but that's quite besides the point. It's a matter of upholding certain training standards."

"The goal of that exercise was to kill the wolf. I killed it, so I passed."

The words came out strained, accompanied by grunts of exertion as Barry moved through a series of spear thrusts. Pokka had insisted that he should practice outside of virtual reality as well, so he'd gotten a spear for a handful of Value, courtesy of his MAFT.

"A normal, unempowered human being, trained with the spear, should be able to take down a wolf with no or only minor injuries. You are one and a half times as strong and durable as the top one percent of human beings. That makes your so-called achievement-"

Pokka broke off and rephrased his sentence in a way that Barry already knew to associate with his new Psych Module kicking in. It was meant to sensitize the combative AI to human emotions, but so far the results were not very impressive.

"It means you should set your standards higher. We can't settle for mutual destruction," Pokka said, then floating closer to point at Barry's hips,

"You need to fully step into the thrust and brace your core so as to maximize the force transfer to the tip of the spear."

Barry tried to adjust his posture, bringing his weight of gravity down a bit and leaning forward as he stabbed, but it still didn't feel quite right, like he was doing lunges while he happened to be holding a spear.

Pokka shook his head, his projection standing out in the dimly lit cave, appearing bright and remaining untouched by the warm, orange light that painted the rest of the surroundings.

"Try that again. One smooth movement, the force transferring into the spear."

He repeated the exercise a few times, following Pokka's instructions. Despite being athletic and highly flexible, these movements were not easy to perfect, the spear feeling clunky in his hands, limiting his options.

"That last one was passable. Let's move on to downward slashes."

After a few more minutes, Barry was leaning on his spear, trying to catch his breath as sweat rolled down the small of his back.

"Why are we spending time on this, when I have no chance in hell of actually stabbing a Roid-Bull to death?" Barry asked, panting, frustration clear in his voice.

"It will take time to drill the combat basics into you. It would be too late to start only once you reach yellow zones, if you do manage to survive that far. You should also consider that these single, powerful strikes may work well in combination with your stealth abilities, allowing you to strike oblivious targets with a quick yet fatal blow."

That had struck Barry as an interesting use for the set of Abilities he was planning to get. The tricky part of getting that to work though, would be to get better at free manipulation, which required many hours of practice.

"Fair point. Then we agree that I should immediately start using Abilities in the VR combat training?"

"You cannot progress free manipulation training in the VR environment, but integrating Abilities in your combat training would indeed be the next step. Once you manage to kill that wolf without taking a wound."

Barry scoffed but didn't argue further.

"That reminds me. Since I did technically beat the wolf, you owe me some information. Show me where my family is."

With clear reluctance, Pokka agreed to share the information, noting that it was anyway time for Barry to get clarity on the journey ahead.

After another purchase through the System Interface, they were soon looking at a projection of a multi-colored map. It was a large tapestry of colors and borders to reflect the zones and, after Pokka showed him how to adjust the settings, it showed bodies of water and elevation as well.

The AI explained that it would only reveal the current continent he was on, which, as far as Barry could tell, was enormous. If he zoomed out completely, the zones were barely more than colored dots. As he got a better sense of the scale, his stomach sank. He might have to traverse the equivalent of entire countries to get to his family.

"We are here." Pokka said, highlighting a dark orange zone in the upper third of the map.

"Your family would have been sent around here." Pointing to an area further north and slightly west of their position. Barry's spirits lifted as he saw how close they were. If you were to split the upper third of the map in half, the areas would both still be in the bottom part. He started looking at the legend and trying to make calculations, but Pokka helped him out.

"You will have to traverse forty zones at a minimum. It will be at least five thousand miles, but of course the distance depends on which route we were to take. Let me show you."

"What? That small piece of the map is five thousand miles? How the fuck is that even possible?"

Barry dropped his spear to the ground with a clatter and started to pace.

"It is possible, because your former planet has increased in size. I've mentioned this before."

"I might have overlooked some of those interesting factoids while I was processing the fact that you had destroyed human civilization. How is that even possible? It should at least create a bunch of other problems, like, I don't know, our trajectory around the sun or just… gravity?"

"While the surface area is significantly bigger, the overall mass has not increased. It's less dense now than it was before. So gravity remains unchanged. As you may have noticed."

Deciding not to waste time with more technical questions, Barry continued to pace as he thought of that insurmountable distance. Five thousand miles. That would be something like walking from Mexico up to northern Canada, while fighting ridiculous monsters along the way. He grimaced as the sense of hopelessness came back, hitting him like a punch to the gut.

As usual, Pokka took his silence as a sign to continue and brought up the map again.

Three trajectories were plotted from their position up to the other area, where his family was supposed to be, shown as dotted lines on the map. The middle one was simply a direct line and therefore clearly the shortest route, but as Pokka pointed out, it went not only through bodies of water and across mountains, but also through two red zones.

The longest route moved westwards, curving around the large mountain range that stood in the way. This option would avoid any red zones, but would cross a series of orange zones, including two dark orange ones, which were equivalent to the zone they were currently in.

The final route moved slightly eastward, meandering through different zones to avoid anything higher than medium orange after exiting the current zone. It was shorter and safer than the western route, but the main disadvantage was that it had to cut through the mountains.

Barry listened in silence, nodding absently every now and then, his face growing pale and his expression ever more hollow as he processed the information.

"As you might expect, the chances of success are highest with the eastern route. As with the others, the risk will be highest at the start, while you attempt to escape the orange zones, but here you'll only have to contend with two orange zones before being able to move into dark yellow. Then there will be a series of yellows, followed by a series of greens, before having to cross through orange and yellow again. Traversing the mountain will bring its own challenges, but those carry less risk than even a light orange zone."

To say this was bad news felt like an understatement. Barry walked over to his carpet and sat down, trying to push away the feeling of despair and gather his thoughts. It felt different than the usual stress, which urged him to act. This was more like a crushing weight that settled on his shoulders and grew tendrils through his body, sapping his energy. It was comforting, in a strange and insidious way, telling him he might as well lie down and curl up because nothing he did would matter anyway.

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"A hundred and eighteen days." He murmured after a long silence, staring out in front of him.

"What's that?"

Another pause, followed by a deep sigh.

"Four months, give or take. That's how long the eastern route would take, assuming twelve hours of walking per day at an average of four miles per hour."

"Your math is correct. But your assumptions-"

"That's after another… I don't know how many months of this," Barry raised his voice and waved his arms around angrily at the cave, then got up, "And this."

He punctuated the last word with an angry kick to the VR helmet, which bounced off the cave wall.

After angrily pacing in circles for a while, he walked up to the thin, horizontal gap in the cave wall, lifting himself up slightly to be able to see outside and breathe the fresh air. It felt warmer than the cool air inside of the cave. Due to the rock overhang on the outside of the gap, he had to angle himself just right to see only a thin sliver of the blue sky.

He took a few breaths, trying to think through the problem. Despite all the pain and suffering it had brought, this new System was nothing if not a new set of tools. It could make things possible that were previously unthinkable. He just had to find the right angle.

"Are there any transport vehicles for sale in the System Store? Something like… A small helicopter?" He called over his shoulder, the tone of his voice indicating that he didn't believe there was much chance of that.

"Nothing that would help you in your journey."

"What about the totems? The MAFTs, I mean. Couldn't they be used to teleport a person instead of food?"

"It is technically possible to transport a person, but this option is not available to you."

"Well, can I unlock it in any way?"

"No."

Barry let out another sigh. If there was really no other way than to cross through all those zones, he'd have to think about this with the tools that he had.

"If I brought my Speed up to 20, I should be able to run a thousand meters in like, what, a minute or two?"

"That should be in the realm of possibility, yes."

He paused as he thought that through. Thirty miles an hour would be theoretically possible, if he could sprint for that long, which he definitely couldn't, but perhaps that could also be fixed.

Recalling something he'd seen, he went down into his Stats and brought up the info sheet. After playing around with the options for a while, he confirmed that it was possible to allocate a point of Strength or Durability just to his heart and lungs.

"Hypothetically, if I wanted to be able to run at my maximum speed for longer, after increasing my Speed, Strength and Durability, what would be the limiting factor?"

"Energy, of course. Your body needs time to convert nutrients into readily usable chemical energy. At higher speeds, more energy will be required for your muscles to burn. When you increase those physical stats, your metabolism is also being boosted, but for an increased performance you will have to consume more nutrients. Alternatively, you can use the PE Node to feed energy into your muscles. That Ability will become available once your Strength or Speed hit 20."

A small ember of hope started in Barry's chest as he began to form a vision, though it was still faint. If he could learn to hide himself completely while finding a way to run long distances at a high speed, it would be possible to drastically reduce the travel time, as well as the risk. He nodded to himself as he stared out through the thin opening in the rock. He'd have to work out the details, but at least theoretically, it made sense.

First, he'd have to get his Speed Stat up to 20 and unlock the Ability to feed energy into his muscles. That should be easily done, though it would need some experimentation to understand how much energy he'd consume by doing this.

Next, he'd have to find the best stealth Abilities to hide his presence. So far, he was covering sound traveling through air and ground, but that still left the visual aspect uncovered. A solution would have to be found for that.

Finally, the greatest challenge would be to get proficient in manipulating those Abilities, so that he could keep himself hidden while moving. Nearly all of the standard Abilities had significant limitations and in the case of stealth Abilities, the main limitation was that they only worked within a certain radius, not moving along with the subject.

At least that last mountain he had already started to climb, though progress was slow. Learning to communicate directly with the PE Node to enable free manipulation was like learning to use a new limb.

"What are some methods to speed up free manipulation learning? There has to be a way."

"You are currently following a balanced training programme which is optimized for developing a necessary skill set. Your progress in free manipulation is above average. As I've said before, trying to rush it is dangerous."

Pokka observed Barry carefully as he replied.

"You did not answer my question."

"I would be a poor mentor indeed, if I gave you reckless exercises that might maim or kill you."

"Listen, Pokka, I'm not going to beat around the bush here. If your plan means I only reach my family nearly a year from now, then I'm going to be following a different plan. That timeline is not even close to acceptable."

"Need I remind you that you committed to following my instructions on the condition that I lead you to your family? It's remarkable that right after me giving you a clue as to their location, you're backing away from that commitment. I believe you humans would call this betrayal."

"Our agreement was based on a general understanding. We left out some important details, like the damn timeline, which is where you and I are now disagreeing. I don't remember signing any fucking contract."

He moved over to this carpet, stubbornly sitting down in a cross-legged position to start the usual meditation exercises for free manipulation training. If the old AI didn't want to help him, he'd simply find a way to progress by himself.

"First you ask me about running speed and stamina, now this sudden focus on free manipulation. You've come up with some new fantasy, haven't you?"

Ignoring the question, Barry focused instead on the imagination of tendrils coming out of his body, a fresh, new limb constructed just for the purpose of sensing waves in the air and ground. He'd already gotten better at holding on to that imagination with less conscious effort, but it would not be possible while having a conversation.

"It would be better for everyone if you finally let go of these childish fancies. You don't know enough of the outside world. Your plan will not work." There was no hint of emotion in Pokka's voice, sounding as calm and clear as ever.

Barry zoned it out, starting to sense the soundwaves now, small cone shapes extending downwards in front of him, which he'd come to know as the sound of his breathing. As Pokka spoke, he could feel multiple spheres, lengthening and expanding as the sound traveled through the room. They grew more faint as they moved, fading away after bouncing off the cave wall. He focused on the stronger ones, sensing their shape and trying to connect it to the sounds he was hearing.

"Let me take a guess at your plan. You hide yourself, while running at high speeds through dangerous zones. Is that the extent of it?"

Having Pokka continue to talk was useful for sensing the sound, but he was having trouble ignoring the words. The fact that the AI made valid points only served to ignite Barry's anger, and he had to fight the urge to argue back. It wouldn't get him any closer to his family.

What he needed to do was to move past only sensing the waves, and learn to manipulate them. How would that work?

He imagined stretching his tendrils around the bubbles and cylinders moving through, pushing against their ribbed sides to try and compress them. Nothing happened, his tendrils just moving straight through.

Perhaps he should start not by manipulating soundwaves, but his existing ability. Activating [Cast Wave - Sphere], he faintly sensed the energy leaving him to trickle into the sound-proof bubble. It was invisible to his eyes but with his feelers, he could easily sense the edges of the sphere, as that's where all waves came to an end.

"Somehow, you must think it feasible that you'll simply leave all the high-tiered monsters behind, scratching their scaly heads in confusion. And what happens then?"

A wave of anger and frustration rose, but Barry pushed it down, refusing to allow it to grow. He moved his feelers to different points of the sphere, trying to gently push at it to change the shape, but they just moved straight through. He then thought of the PE Node, of where it sat inside of his neck, imagined a line of energy extending from it to the tendril and gave it another mental push.

Again, there was no effect. It was clear that some energy would be needed to manipulate the Abililty, or his feelers would just pass through it. But how?

Pokka refused to let the issue rest, seeming determined to tear his freshly hatched plan to shreds.

"You arrive just in the nick of time, to save your parents who are beset by monsters, about to be destroyed. Good that you ran so fast, or you would have been late! Is that what you think would happen?"

A flash of anger at the mention of his parents, and Barry was starting to lose patience now. He focused on just one of his tendrils, trying this time only to amplify the Ability, to somehow drive energy into it. Any effect whatsoever would be fine at this point. But once again, nothing changed. Cursing his PE Node, he wondered what would it take for this damn thing to finally do something?

Digging deeper, he tried to focus on that trickle of energy, feeding into the active Ability. It was a kind of tugging, or siphoning feeling, like something was being taken out of him. With a thought, he pushed again, focusing closely on that sensation. There it was, clearer now, something being pulled from him and manifesting into the sphere. Now, if he just added to it, and moved the sphere only a tiny bit to the left… But still no additional energy left him.

"Even then, there is still one small problem, isn't there? You never learned how to fight, having decided to de-prioritize that part of your training. So in reality, you'd be left to watch, fumbling your spear like a toddler, as monsters tear your family apart. Congratulations! You raced five thousand miles in record speed, only to watch them die."

Barry had kept pressing with his will, trying to find that feeling of draining something out of himself, and now he nearly snarled with fury as he gave it a mighty push.

Finally, something happened. He grinned victoriously as he felt the edge of the sphere distorting slightly to the left, as if it had been made out of clay and he'd pinched it there.

His grin faded quickly as the energy kept moving, the trickle quickly turning into a pour and before he could do anything about it, all at once it was ripped out of him.

There had been total silence within the bubble, but as it went out of control there was a sudden sound, like a wailing siren, but only for an instant. Then it turned into a blast which again lasted only a short moment, but still it felt too long.

It was a moment of sudden agony; the noise was loud, unbearably so, the loudest sound he'd ever heard. He thought he felt the cave shaking around him, but then there was a painful silence as he fell to the ground, stunned and disoriented.

He blinked up at Pokka, looking at him sideways. The old man's mouth was moving but no sound was coming out. All he could hear was a faint, shrill tone. His ears felt wet and then he was staring at his bloody fingers, uncomprehending.

"You will have to go ahead and hook yourself up to the Fixer Upper."

Barry blinked again, still dazed. Pokka's mouth had stopped moving, but somehow he could now hear his voice. He opened his mouth, moving his jaw around in an attempt to pop his ears, but he stopped at a sharp stab of pain.

"I'm communicating through your PE Node. You have blown out your eardrums. You need to heal soon if you want to avoid permanent damage."

He touched his ears again, looked at the fresh blood on his fingers, and finally began to process Pokka's words. He grimaced at the rising pain, tried to get up, stumbled back down, then decided to crawl over to the Fixer Upper on his hands and knees.

"This is what happens when you choose not to heed my warnings. There are good reasons for progressing carefully, step by step. You should go back to the training programme and…"

Barry zoned him out, still dazed as he shook and tilted his head in an attempt to feel normal again. It only seemed to make things worse, so all he could do was sit back against the cave wall and wait for the Fixer Upper to do its duty.

As clarity slowly returned to him, there was plenty of time to reflect on what had happened. Blowing out his eardrums was an unexpected setback, but still, it was some form of progress. How long would it have taken him to influence the sphere, if not for this reckless push? A week? Longer?

Though he also had to admit, despite the AI's crude statements, he did have a point. It would be stupid to discontinue combat training; he'd need some basic skill at the very least, in this hostile world. He'd have to raise his Stats, too.

There was a lot of work ahead and he would have to do it while walking the fine line between reckless and risky.

Ears still ringing with the sound of bloody progress, he was already opening the System Interface to look for light-based Abilities.

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