“Bob? You awake?”
“Barely,” Cousin Bob said, sounding hung over. “What’s up, Rolls?”
“Can I come over? It’s kind of important.”
“How important?”
“Lock and load important.”
The old code phrase perked Bob up right quick. “I’ll make coffee.”
“Be there in twenty,” Roland told him before hanging up.
“First cousin. We grew up together until I went into foster care, then the Army. Hung out on and off afterward. Played in his tabletop gaming group until GameDrop changed my schedule.”
Roland leaned back, thinking about the good times. “Funny, until today, he was the weirdest guy I knew. A big nerd. Big on comic books, gaming, you name it. Bit of a gun nut as well.”
“That’s the plan, more or less,” Roland said as he grabbed a duffle bag and a backpack, looking for stuff to take with him. “First, I want to score some guns off him. After I use the guns to solo-clear the spawning dungeon, I’ll know if it’s safe to bring him in on another run.”
“You left out one part: they’ll get so many rewards if they survive.”
“Don’t I know it. On top of almost getting killed on the regular, people keep cheating to get me and the System doesn’t do anything about it.”
“Fine. How about human rules? How did some woman – pretty sure it was a woman; small hands – manage to backstab me on my way out and nobody at the Chapel did anything?”
Roland thought about it. “I agree to let you access my memories of the attack itself and twenty seconds before it happened. Nothing else.”
He remembered reading that fairies would follow contracts to the letter but gleefully rules-lawyer ways to screw you. They were a lot like demons that way.
“Deal.”
“Good to know.”
He felt a tingling sensation starting at the front of his head, then traveling to both sides. Like someone was running a low-voltage current through his brain. It wasn’t the most unpleasant thing he’d experienced that day, but admittedly he’d had a pretty bad day so far.
“Well, what did I see?”
A floating image appeared before Roland’s eyes, circular but with fuzzy edges, like something made out of cloud matter. In it, he saw himself and Takeda, bowing to each other in the cave-like room where he’d first entered the Chapel. The portal was there. They were alone, because all the other students had departed already.
Did Takeda set me up? Roland wondered. I don’t think so. Yang also saw Hao off by himself, a little earlier. Most of the high-placers had personal send-offs with their mentors. I was the last out because I was in first place.
He saw himself walking toward the portal. Takeda stood by, watching him. Roland looked around the vision, trying to find a sign of the woman. Nothing.
“Do you see her anywhere?” he asked Trixie.
Roland watched himself pause. He was beginning to react, but it was too late. He saw himself sort of stumble a little as he went through the portal.
The floating cloud screen vanished.
“That’s it?”
“There were five female instructors in the whole Chapel. I only interacted with one of them, and only when I got there, for like thirty seconds. A Japanese woman. She was with Yang and Father Takeda. Going by crime movie logic, since she’s the only woman with any screen time in my movie, she has to be the culprit. Besides, Ninjas are Japanese. Case closed.”
“Hey, I have a twenty percent chance of being right. But who she was doesn’t matter. Only one person had the motive. It’s not a big mystery. I’m amazed how personally he took it. Me beating his prize pupil, I mean.”
“Faction? I thought the Chapel was neutral.”
“Okay. Point. Even Takeda warned me some instructors could have their own agendas.”
“I’ll try not to let that go to my head.”
Roland smiled. “Oh, yeah. I ‘killed’ him when there were still like two dozen people still in the fight. He only got a participation trophy. A bit of Essence and a Rare pill. Too bad for Cultivation Malfoy.”
“That’s the plan. Call my Familiar. Do the dungeon. Fix Dantian. Save as big a piece of the world as I can. Then sweet revenge. Damn. Revenge is going to take a while.”
“Yeah. Just like ice cream. The wait is annoying, though.”
“Gives me something to look forward to. But now I gotta pack up and go see a man about some guns.”
He had a feeling this might be the last time he saw his place. If Wu Hao still had it in for him, he might try to finish what his butt buddy Yang had started, and a search would start at his place of residence. Roland hoped that crippling his cultivation would be the end of it, but depending on the kindness of a-holes was likely to end in tears.
The pain was almost gone, thankfully. He still got pangs of something like a toothache, except in his gut. It flared up whenever he tried circulating Mana through his damaged – okay, obliterated – Dantian. The same happened if he even thought about his Techniques. But redirecting the flow of Mana around the damaged area took care of most of it.
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None of that took care of the real problem. All his Techniques were gone. For now.
Setting the negative thoughts aside, Roland looked at his worldly possessions.
Two different gaming consoles, a desktop computer, a big screen wall unit connected to all of the above. Roland shook his head. Wasted money, wasted time. Gaming didn’t matter now that he was his own player character.
He picked up his phone and charger and left the rest of the electronics behind.
Roland packed up some clothes, deciding to keep the Pants of the Wandering Monk on, but decided to replace the Chapel’s uniform jacket with a t-shirt so he didn’t look like he’d wandered off from a martial arts dojo. He stuffed all the clean underwear and socks he owned into a duffle bag, along with the uniform jacket. He soon discovered that none of the shirts in his dresser fit him anymore; he’d gained at least an inch, maybe two, and his shoulders had broadened considerably. He had to go through the closet to find some XXLs he’d bought last year, when he’d let himself go and gained an indecent amount of weight.
Rummaging through the closet, he found his father’s old biker jacket, bagged in transparent plastic. He hadn’t thought about it in years, but the sight triggered a feeling of nostalgia. And sadness.
Randall Webb had been a bit on the wild side during his youth, before he met Christine Acosta – at the Acosta-owned pawn shop Cousin Bob worked at, of all places – and settled down. He’d been a member of a notorious motorcycle club for several years.
Roland didn’t learn the details, or even the name of the club, until years after his father was gone, because Randall had liked to keep that part of his life secret. He’d removed all the patches on the jacket, leaving behind nothing but faded marks. On occasion, he would tell an amusing story about the old days, but always omitted details that might identify times, places and people. His father had taken the missing parts of the stories to the grave, but Roland had later unearthed some of the sordid stuff.
That jacket meant many things to him, and now that he knew about his Bloodline, it meant even more.
You could say it had a great deal of significance for him.
Roland ripped the bag open and ran a finger down the sturdy leather, thick enough to protect someone from being flayed alive after taking a spill on the interstate. Thick enough to serve as armor. He had upgrade tokens he could use on it, and he had a feeling the tough leather would take to the enchantments a lot better than something bought off the rack, because of the connection to his family. Karma was a thing in the System’s world, and maybe the one before it.
The jacket went into the duffle bag, carefully folded. The bag was going to go into his inventory once it was filled.
There were no weapons in the apartment; the baton had been it, and he no longer had a use for it. Roland figured Cousin Bob would help him take care of his murder-tool needs.
He did one last circuit of the apartment. Nothing else caught his attention. No mementos worth their name. Mandy had kept most of their parents’ things: picture books, a few pieces of jewelry, a handful of knickknacks of sentimental value. Roland had gone into the Army traveling light and had kept traveling light afterwards. Maybe the bad memories of lugging around a hundred pounds of gear on his back during his enlistment had reinforced the notion that you only took what you needed.
The fridge had a few beers and a handful of three-day-old pizza slices, still in the box. He munched on a couple of slices, washed them down with a can of beer, and left the rest there. He’d eaten breakfast at the Chapel, somewhere in the Himalayas or in a pocket universe, depending on who you asked, but a couple bites of junk food made for a nice break from the boiled rice that comprised most of his diet for the better part of a month.
Roland turned his back on his apartment after he instinctively locked the door on his way out.
He never saw the place again.
* * *
Cousin Bob’s neighborhood was going through some rough times. Not ‘graffiti on every wall’ bad, but every fifth house was boarded up, the cars were mostly old and in need of some bodywork repair, and the yards were surrounded by wire fences.
Bob Acosta had inherited the house from his mother after she passed, three years ago. She had divorced Bob’s father and got the property in the settlement. It all belonged to Bob, free and clear, and he earned enough to pay the utilities and property taxes, if not much more.
“Supposed to be my land, but the government charges me rent for living in it,” was his common complaint whenever it was tax time.
Bob had turned one of the three bedrooms into something of a halfway house and homeless shelter, taking strays in – mostly ladies in various types of distress – and letting them stay until they got sick of Bob’s ways or found greener pastures.
Roland hoped that the current roomies – a guy and his sister, Bob had said – weren’t going to be a problem. He was about to ask Bob to commit several felonies, after all, and witnesses might complicate things.
His cousin worked part-time at the family pawnshop and put in another twenty-odd hours a week at Uncle Gorman’s junkyard. He spent most of his pay maintaining his house. The rest went to junk food, computer and tabletop games, feeding the strays he let stay in his place, the occasional second-hand gun purchase, and Military Special Gin, vile stuff that his Army buddies got for him at ten bucks a (plastic) bottle.
The old house looked a little rattier than the last time Roland had come to visit. He normally met Cousin Bob at one of the bars between Stratford and West Haven and if he dropped him off, it was under the cover of darkness. He hadn’t been there in daylight since last Christmas, when he had to quit the weekly game. The siding could use some work, and the front yard was a mess. Fortunately (or not), the house fit in with the rest of the block. People in the neighborhood weren’t particular about the way their properties looked.
Roland parked in the back yard, driving around the two cars filling half the driveway. The back door was open. Roland let himself in, noting half a dozen empty bottles of Military Special lined up on the kitchen counter like a boozer’s honor guard.
Trixie said in his head.
What, my fam not fancy enough for you? Roland thought at her, getting an annoyed snort in return.
“Rolls, get in here,” Cousin Bob said from the living room. “Want you to meet somebody.”
Oh, great, Roland thought.
Part of it was the ‘Rolls’ nickname, which got on his nerves, but most of it was the ‘meet somebody’ bit. Bob’s taste in friends wasn’t quite as bad as his taste in drinks, but it still wasn’t top-notch. New people were a crapshoot, ranging somewhere between tolerable and insufferable.
The living room was dominated by a big-screen plasma on one wall, and a collection of well-worn couches and sofas arranged in a loose C-formation around it, with a coffee table covered with water stains and cigarette burns in the center. The smells of coffee, tobacco, booze and pot competed for dominance. A football game was on the TV, but the sound was off. Roland didn’t follow sports, so he had no clue who was playing.
Cousin Bob was in his customary recliner chair, wearing an undershirt and baggy shorts. The guy was on the pudgy side and was in dire need of a shave and a haircut. His curly hair was unkempt and puffed up in what his friends called a bro-fro. From his sharp glance, he had skipped his customary morning blunt and had stuck to coffee; he had taken Roland’s call seriously enough not to get high.
The big yellow couch on the side was occupied by a girl, maybe old enough to drink, who was snoring softly. Only a mop of dirty blonde hair and part of her face were visible under the blanket covering her.
Roland was briefly startled when stat boxes popped over everybody he could see in the room. He’d gotten used to them at the Chapel, but it felt different somehow, seeing them in a normal, familiar setting.
Bob Acosta (Human)
Health 20 Endurance 22 Mana 25
“Hey, cuz,” Bob said. “Get a load off.”
Roland glanced at the girl as he sat down in a nearby armchair.
Wendy Hennessy (Human)
Health 21 Endurance 22 Mana 26
“That the sister?” he asked in a low voice, nodding his head toward the sleeping girl. Bob’s shout hadn’t woken her up, but he didn’t want to be rude.
“Yeah. My army buddy, he’s here visiting, and she tagged along.”
“Cool, I guess,” Roland said.
At least the girl didn’t seem to be one of Bob’s crushes. His cousin not-so-secretly hoped that one of the strays would eventually be grateful enough to fall in love with him – or at least have sex with him. To the surprise of no one except Bob, it almost never happened, and when it did, the ensuing mess was never worth the trouble.
“I gotta speak to you in private, Bob. Like I said, this is lock and load important.”
That phrase was from their childhood, something from a movie. Later in life, Roland learned the term came from the procedure of loading the M1 rifle, the one that American G.I.’s had carried across Europe and the Pacific during World War Two. But the meaning was clear. When you locked and loaded, it meant things were serious or about to get serious. It wasn’t much of a secret code, but it was what they had.
“I will. Just want to introduce you to the roommates,” he said just as a guy walked out of the guest bedroom.
The new guy looked like he was in his thirties, which made him a little older than Roland or Bob. Blonde, receding hairline, high-and-tight haircut, weak chin, and a thin moustache that didn’t help his weaselly features. His eyes were as bloodshot, marking him a 420 aficionado who, unlike Bob, he hadn’t skipped his morning blunt.
“Who’s this?” the stranger said.
Roland didn’t need to ask for his name, of course. The System ID’d the guy:
Josh Hennessy (Human)
Health 23 Endurance 22 Mana 19
“I told you my cousin Roland was coming over. Rolls, this is my buddy.”
Roland noticed that the guy’s name hadn’t come up.
Cousin Bob had a shady side, and from the looks of it, so did Josh. Roland was there mostly because of that shady side. Getting a gun in Connecticut was a freaking ordeal that required a license just to buy the weapon and another to carry it anywhere other than your home or place of business. He didn’t have time for any of that.
The unknown buddy – Josh, but Roland wasn’t supposed to know that – gave Roland a suspicious once-over. “You a fed, big guy?” he asked.
Roland suddenly realized he was towering over both men. Even the XXL shirt was a little tight around the shoulders and he was at least six-two, up from the five-eleven he’d been the night before. People didn’t usually call him ‘big guy.’
“Nope,” he replied. “I work at GameDrop.”
“You look like a fed.”
Roland looked at himself; he was still wearing karate dojo pants, a t-shirt that was a size too small, and his work boots that also felt tight. “I think feds usually go for khakis and polo shirts.”
Anonymous Josh didn’t crack a smile. “A fed would say that.”
“Dude, chill out,” Bob jumped in. “I’ve known Roland since I was a kid. He was Army, too.”
Josh’s expression softened a little. “You served?”
Roland nodded. “Three years.”
“What MOS?”
“11B,” Roland said, listing his Military Occupational Specialty.
“Infantry, eh? Deployed anywhere interesting?”
“Nah. Mostly spent my time at the motor pool.”
Josh laughed a little at that. “That’s how it goes, when they ain’t giving out a new war. Rank?”
“E-5.”
“Where were you at?”
“Fort Detrick; I was with 302d Signals Batt; never deployed overseas.”
“Must be nice to serve in peacetime. Me, I got shot at for my paycheck.”
“Syria?”
“Nah. Afghanistan. Fourth Infantry. I was there when we pulled out. Now that was a Charlie Foxtrot.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“Why only three years?” Josh asked.
“OTH.”
There had been an incident with some drunk 88Ms – truck drivers, basically, bored and mean – and the ensuing brawl and a Commanding Officer with a stick up his ass had led to Roland getting an Other Than Honorable discharge. Maybe the fact that he’d broken one of the guy’s jaw had factored in.
Josh the Unknown Buddy grinned for the first time. “Better than a chicken dinner, but not by much. Guess you ain’t much of a fed, then.”
“Look, bro…” Roland started, getting a mite tired of being grilled.
“It’s all good,” Bob interrupted Roland before things got dicey. “He’s just a little jumpy is all, Rolls. Let’s go talk at my office.”
“Yeah,” Roland agreed.
Josh was cagey, and clearly involved in something illegal. But none of that would matter in two weeks, if not sooner.
“I’m trying to sleep here,” the girl mumbled from the couch.
“Sorry, sis,” Anonymous Josh said as Roland followed Bob to the other spare room.
He didn’t want any extra complications, but he had a feeling he was going to get them anyway.