Kobe jumped out of the way of a charging pony, then used his Ability to launch his twin tipped wires straight into its flank. After another quick activation to build a charge, the pony began to convulse, falling to the ground so that he could easily cut through its neck with his spear.
He'd gotten a lot better at using the Ability, but lately it felt too limited. Seeing how flexibly Tasha could now move objects around had opened his eyes to the fact that his ambitions had been far too small. Sure, electrocuting beasts was cool, but a broader control of magnetism would allow for so many more options.
It was impossible to keep a grin off his face as he imagined himself performing awesome feats in some modern rendition of sleek metal armor. It would be fashionable, of course, colored only in neutrals and muted tones, without any tacky features like a cape. A crowd of onlookers would cry out and swoon with admiration as he floated down from the sky to land in their midst with outstretched arms and a dazzling smile.
None of it would be easy, but with the right level of control, it should be possible to achieve some form of flight. Getting to that level of control, however, would not be an easy feat. One so-called training session with Tasha had left him reeling; that extract she used was extremely strong. Having to leave early the morning after for a delivery mission had been a real struggle. He might also need a lot more energy to support his weight and, besides that, he'd have to find a material that was highly magnetic, but not conductive. But then it wouldn't be much of a dream if he could accomplish it in a single day.
As he wiped the blood from his spear and began to jog through the grassland again, New Haven came into view with its black walls and sprawling campsites, bringing his thoughts back down to more immediate concerns.
Dericka's requests were becoming increasingly onerous. It was one thing to sneakily buy a few bottles of whisky through the MAFT, but quite another to be stealing entire caskets of food or pushing to reprioritize the allocation of building materials. To make matters worse, he didn't even understand why she needed these things from him. All he knew was that she was using the goods to ingratiate herself with some influential figures.
But the truth was that Kobe had a good thing going. In a single week, he'd done more deliveries than most others did in a month. He was making a genuine effort - even going so far as to review some of their order management and stock keeping processes and suggesting improvements. By showing off his skills, he would get the recognition he was due and work his way up.
People were learning who he was and starting to show him respect. Jakob, Candy's assistant, had quickly picked up on his talents and was already giving him side projects. Besides, by doing those deliveries to teams in need, he was saving people's lives. It was an honest and rewarding job and he felt really good about doing it.
What he did not feel good about were these erratic requests from Dericka. If he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar even once, all his efforts would be for nothing. His reputation would be ruined, and what would he do then? Slink away to the next settlement over and start anew?
Kobe kept mulling things over and by the time he walked through the town gates, he'd made up his mind. He was going to find Dericka, lay out his concerns and explain why he couldn't keep helping her in this way.
That conviction remained at the front of his mind, right up until he learned of the incident.
***
"That fucking snake!" Kobe growled through gritted teeth as he paced back and forth, hands continuously clenching and unclenching by his side. "That bastard! I should go over there right now and cut his damn throat." His jaw was clenched and his eyes burning with rage as he stomped over the barracks floor. "I thought something was off about him right from the start. But this is really fucking unbelievable!"
Dericka's eyes moved from left to right as she traced his path, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, waiting for him to calm down. It took a long time - Kobe was seething. They'd tried to abduct Tasha. Kind, quiet Tasha who never harmed anyone and kept to herself. What kind of worthless excuse for a human being would try to harm someone like that?
"Why? What could possibly have compelled them to even try that?" Kobe shouted.
Dericka shook her head.
"Can't quite wrap my head around that either. It's very likely that the Captain found out about her special Ability, but she'd already agreed to test it out with R&D anyway. The best I can come up with is that he would want to get back at me by harming my Party. Which would be a surprisingly sharp insight for a lunatic, since I do actually care about you all."
There was a short pause as Kobe continued to pace.
"But I won't let that happen." Dericka said.
There was something in her tone that took Kobe out of his rage spiral for a moment and when he looked over, he noticed that her eyes looked wilder than usual as she spoke quietly, more to herself than to him.
"No matter what I have to do. I don't care what the consequences are. I won't let them take you away from me."
She was staring vacantly at the wall in front of her with a kind of hard-eyed fervor that made Kobe uncomfortable.
"But what can we possibly do against them?" He asked, the anger starting to fade as he felt it suddenly necessary to be the voice of reason. "They control what, hundreds of soldiers? Not to mention it's them who decide where all the Value goes. Even if we could prove wrongdoing, this is hardly a democracy."
Now that he was thinking more clearly, he was forced to consider some disturbing implications. If it was true that the Captain and perhaps others wanted to abduct or even kill some of them, then shouldn't they be leaving this place at once? These people had a small army at their back. But it did feel wrong, like they'd be giving up and running away.
Then, as he thought of what he'd been trying to build, his previous ambitions were starting to look more than a little misguided. The Captain and the Major sat at the very top of the hierarchy in this settlement. Weren't these the very people he'd been hoping to impress eventually, through all his hard work? Kidnappers and murderers.
"I'm not so sure about that," Dericka said. Some of that fervor was still in her eyes, but it was joined by something else now. It looked like she was calculating.
"I have a plan. It's going to sound a bit crazy, so please hear me out."
***
After what became an extended Q&A session with Dericka, Kobe was heading for the Supply Department, feeling thoroughly shaken. In the space of a few hours, all of his thoughts and plans had gone straight out the window. He felt like an idiot now, having so quickly accepted his role and settled for putting his head down and working his way up.
In the meantime, Dericka had not only spotted risks that he'd missed, but she'd gone around asking questions, taking the pulse of the settlement, considering the politics and working to build alliances.
He was determined to help her do that now, risks to his reputation be damned. There were at least a dozen ways her crazy plans might go wrong, but he didn't have any better suggestions. It felt like taking control of their fate and, more importantly, like hitting back at these people.
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The first step had already been taken right after the failed abduction attempt. Dericka had run over to the few remaining people of the Party they'd saved from the dogs, using their mobile MAFT to get handcuffs, duct tape and a few drugs that Tasha had selected. Then, she'd gotten two squad leaders that had the night shift, but also had Tasha contact Deborah while she called in a favor from Gabriel, asking him to join in as an impartial observer.
Before all those people got there, they fed the unconscious soldier a cocktail of drugs that not only woke him up, but had a strong inebriating effect. Tasha had put the ingredients together, based on her experience and the effects listed in the System Store, to leave the man feeling drunk and disoriented while also taking away his inhibitions.
When the others arrived, they began to question the man, blaming his condition on the tranquilizer dart he'd tried to use on Tasha. It hadn't gone exactly as planned - the effects of the drugs and tranquilizer were strong enough to make the man incoherent at times as he faded in and out of consciousness. At one point, he had confessed to having taken orders from Captain Garfield, but given his condition, it wasn't quite the smoking gun it could have been. Still, it had been observed not just by Gabriel, but also by Deborah, who had seemed shocked and disturbed by the news.
As the squad leaders dragged the drugged soldier to the brig, Dericka had demanded an investigation, but everyone expected them to attempt to keep it quiet. She would keep working on that, complaining and lobbying for something like a trial to take place.
Gabriel had later agreed to mention the incident in a sermon, which would ensure that this information would travel across the population, spreading the idea that there were severe problems with their current military leadership.
Interestingly, the priest did not act only out of a sense of righteousness. There were, in fact, a number of things he wanted in return, which was why Kobe was readying himself to dodge any thrown items as he woke Candy up from her nap.
"Ooh, Kobee!" She said with a voice that was somehow high-pitched yet rough and husky at the same time, her deeply wrinkled face contorting into what he guessed was a welcoming smile as she put down a knife. He wasn't even sure where she'd grabbed it from. "Already finish your delivery? Such a fast boy!"
He cleared his throat as he nodded.
"Yeah, this one wasn't very far."
"Good, good! I have more deliveries for you. There are more dangerous missions than normal. Boss made it clear, it's important they don't fail. So do your best, yah?"
Kobe nodded, filing that information away for later.
"I'll get right to it. But before that, I did actually have a request."
"Ooh? What is it?"
"I've been talking to some people from out there, in the camps. There's a religious group, they've formed a congregation, or something like it. They're helping people who are hungry, or injured. Filling the gaps left by the military, you know?"
"So what?" Candy lifted an eyebrow, waving her hand to indicate that he should get to the point.
"They would be able to do a lot more good if they had a basic building and more food and water. I think we should help them. I've run the numbers - we could easily do it, if we re-allocated some resources. Stocks for the soldiers are fine and the builders are well on schedule."
"Too risky," she said with a shake of her head. "Maybe we run behind schedule. How will I answer Tony's questions, then?"
Kobe had expected as much. He swallowed. Now came the risky part.
"I've got some, uh, gifts to make it worth your while. Got them from a friend. She said these will really knock your socks off."
Her eyebrows lifted and she looked at Kobe differently, as if re-evaluating him. The silence and scrutiny made him even more anxious, so he gave what he hoped was a confident smile as he put three vials on the table, naming them one by one.
"Upper. Downer. Hallucinogen."
This was a gamble. Candy had never asked for any of this, of course, but he thought she might like a change from the whisky. Anything that went through the fixed MAFT was logged and could come under scrutiny, and the Major had forbidden all drugs besides alcohol, for which there were limited quotas.
"Koobee-" She crooned in that sing-songy way she liked to use, "this is not just a gift, lah. You trying to bribe Candy? Hah? Naughty boy!"
He swallowed as she looked him over, resisting the urge to look away and fiddle with something. Instead, he showed her another grin.
"I've just been listening to your advice, that's all. Wasn't it you, who told me that any day could be our last? That we should enjoy our precious time, especially now during the apocalypse?"
Her eyes narrowed a fraction and he was sure his attempt was going to backfire, until she burst out laughing.
"Koobee! I misjudged you, lah. You are learning. Learning fast. Good student," she grinned as she looked the vials over, one by one. "One building and two crates of food. Make it fast, yah? Make sure we don't fall behind schedule."
Kobe's eyes lit up as he nodded, a weight falling off his shoulders. This could have gone a lot worse.
He got the necessary paperwork done and hurried over to the storage house to recruit a few workers to help him move the stuff out to the campsite, where Dericka was waiting for him. She'd been socializing with the builders every day, bringing food and water around as she got to know them. What had really gotten them on her good side though, was the one time that they'd snuck in a crate of whisky during the night.
She had been accumulating favors, and now she was going to call some of them in, with the promise of more booze to come their way. With their help, it wouldn't take long to get a basic building set up in Gabriel's camp, which would serve as a 'center of prayer and worship', as he called it.
Kobe had known she was good with people, but as he watched her talking to Gabriel and Joe, coordinating things and making sure she was seen in a leading role as people gathered to watch the new building go up, he realized that she had a knack for politics, too.
Content that things were going well here, he looked around for Tasha, but she was apparently over in R&D, working hard to test and master her special Ability. She'd decided to sleep in the campsite at night, where there were too many people around for any further attempts to whisk her away. Apparently, she was now always armed with hidden weapons, a set of needles and poisons as well as some daggers that she kept on her person. He knew she'd be able to defend herself, but still he worried about her.
"Hey! There you are," Dericka called out as she jogged over. "Things are going really well here, good job. A lot of people are already complaining about the military leadership and it should spread further. I'm going to continue making noise, pushing for an outcome of the investigation. Soon we should have enough support to move on to the next step."
Her expression didn't exactly match that message though, looking thoughtful and concerned.
"Still," she continued after a while, "a lot of people are driven by fear, and they feel secure under the military's protection. I think we're going to need another push, something to show that they don't have everything under control."
Kobe lifted an eyebrow. They hadn't discussed this before. She turned to him, meeting his eyes with a serious look.
"When you go to make your next deliveries, tell the teams to retreat. That they should abandon their missions. It'll put a lot of pressure on the Major, making sure he has to send nearly all his soldiers out to handle Quests."
He frowned. That was a serious deception.
"Candy did mention that there were more dangerous missions now. I'll get my new instructions soon, but I'll probably have to hit multiple deliveries."
He paused, scratching his chin. "Isn't this… dangerous, though? What about the consequences? Once those teams return here, it'll come out that I was the one to tell them to retreat. They'll fucking crucify me for that."
"Maybe you can send them away? Tell them to go on another mission, or even to abandon this settlement and head to the next MAFT. I've been speaking to a few Parties who are considering exactly that. They get sent on the most dangerous Quests and they don't even get to keep the full rewards. To get to shelter here isn't work risking their lives every other week."
"Aren't we going too far with this? The Quests are important right?"
Dericka's expression darkened. "They tried to take Tasha. If anything, we're not going far enough. But I won't let anything happen to you either. Just… if you can stall them, at least. I'll try to speed things up. I think in a few days everything is going to come to a head here, anyway, which should be before your return. If it fails, we all run, together, and we'll find a better place."
Kobe frowned as he thought things over, feeling conflicted again. It felt drastic and irresponsible to go around messing with these missions. The settlement needed resources, and he wasn't sure what other consequences there might be. He wanted to get back at these corrupt leaders, but the last thing he wanted was to endanger innocent lives while doing it.
He continued the back and forth with Dericka, trying to understand the risks, but also narrowing down the exact timeline and sequence of events so that everything was clear in his head.
His doubts remained until Dmitriy returned, bringing the terrible news of his failed mission and Jim's passing. When they learned that it had been the Captain who'd changed the Quest at the last minute, any lingering hesitation was wiped away. Kobe hadn't realized before how dangerous those Quests were, nor how high the casualty rates could get. He'd most likely be saving lives if he could convince a few teams to abandon their mission.
Dmitriy was brief and unusually quiet, mumbling about needing to get stronger as he headed straight for the training grounds. With everything that was going on, Kobe reacted like most people: with shocked silence. There was simply not enough space for the sadness to take hold right now. The mourning would have to come later. Everyone gave Dmitriy space as they discussed how best to take care of Jim's daughter now that he was gone.
Instead of feeling the usual grief, somehow the news of Jim's death lit a fire in Kobe's belly. He left for his deliveries feeling resolved to take a note from Dmitriy and put more focus into training again.
With the challenges they had ahead of them, a few new tricks could go a long way.
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