(There are monsters roaming near the stairs), Doms said in my head. Our link had extended quite a long way, and if there was nothing blocking us, it would stay connected. After fetching Lizzie and my human body, she also checked if there was danger in our path. I stayed behind with Paolo and Julie who were tending to their father’s body.

(Good thing we didn’t encounter them. Is Lizzie okay?) I was going to ask about my human body, but I figured I would appear more thoughtful if I asked about her daughter first.

(Yes, she’s fine. She said she heard them wander near her hiding spot, but they moved away. She’s a good girl that listens when I tell her to stay very quiet.)

(And the sleeping prospective Corebring?)

(Also with us.)

(Hmmm. If there are monsters by the stairs, that means we can’t get to the elevator either.)

(We could fight.)

Fight? What was up with her being reckless? (I’d rather not, for now. We're doing plan B), I said, referring to the convenient way left for us by the gorilla monster. Even if we were capable of fighting, it was best to avoid the monsters. (Let's see if there are monsters hanging out by the elevator door of the floor below us.)

(…)

(Doms?)

(Yes…yes, you’re right. We’re on our way back to you now.)

(Take care.)

I crossed my legs and leaned back on a comfy office swivel chair, waiting for them to return. Whenever I sat on one, I had the urge to spin it with my legs stretched out; I always did that with Dad’s chair in his office when I was a kid. To distract myself, I tapped my metal foot on the floor, getting lulled by the rhythmic clinking, watching the two kids wipe as much blood off their father’s corpse as they could using office documents—I guess calling them ‘teens’ would be more fitting, but they were still just kids in my eyes.

Paolo, the older sibling, was blonde, same as their mother based on the memory their father shared with me, but he had some hair accents. He sported a crazy haircut and wore a sweatshirt with the logo of a band that I had heard of in passing. His sleeves were torn off, the strips of cloth were used to bind their father’s wound.

His sister, Julie, was nothing of note. Quite an average looking brunette—by the way, that was coming from someone who was, admittedly, average looking too, so I wasn’t being a judgmental bitch here. She did have some fashion sense though, more than I did. But then again, I intentionally wore plain clothes as part of my general face.

They appeared to have recovered from the death of their father.

At least Julie had stopped sobbing. She now had a determined, yet caring look on her face as she and her brother arranged the body of their father inside a cubicle to hide it. Then they pulled out the drawers of a tall filling cabinet, clearing out all its contents. Using the emptied filing cabinet, they carefully covered the dead body with it like an instant coffin.

We obviously couldn’t bring the corpse with us in our escape so I suggested to Paolo and Julie they do this to hide their dad’s corpse from monsters that might eat it. They could retrieve it later when the rescue came.

That’s me, just your super thoughtful, friendly Adumbrae.

Too bad I couldn’t save their dad.

For one, I wouldn’t be able to fully heal him. At some point, my healing power reverses itself or something; I wasn’t sure exactly what was happening. Their injured father would just slow us down, and we were already dragging my human body around.

At least, I saved his kids. He should be thankful for that.

Then, there was the matter of making these kids trust me so they’d go with me and I’d have more puppets. Or just get them to my side; there was no need for actual trust.

Take Doms for example. She was ready to do everything and accept help from anyone so long as she could get her daughter safely out of here, especially since she considered her husband already dead—she wasn’t wrong about that. No trust between us required. I just needed to deliver on my promise to help her escape and she’d be on my side, no questions asked.

Paolo and Julie would have a different mindset.

Kids like these were taught in school that Adumbrae equals bad. That lesson was drilled into their heads. I was also taught that, and I believed it too. My experience with Adumbrae so far told me it was kinda true. Heck, I was an Adumbrae and I wouldn’t trust myself if I was in their shoes. Which was why I had to do that little performance with their father to get them on my side, to make them have a reason to work with an Adumbrae besides escaping.

My main target was Paolo because I was sure he would desire to avenge his father if he could. A guy thing maybe? I heard most of the augmented BID agents were people who wanted to take revenge on Adumbrae for one reason or another, and most of them were guys. If I had Paolo with me, his sister would be sure to follow him.

Tada, and here we are now. The situation presented itself to me and I just took it.

Another interesting thing I took from this encounter was the application of Rule #4.

I wouldn’t bother the world as long as it didn't bother me.

Like, how would that apply to the bald dude? Was I bothering him without getting bothered first?

This was simple. I could explain this away with my usual justification: I was just going about my business and, unfortunately for him, I ended up bumping into him. Just like if I bumped into someone during rush hour at the train station and knocked them down. That wasn’t my fault they were in my way, right? I wasn’t out to specifically get them. On the flip side, I also wouldn’t get angry if someone bumped me in the train during rush hour. That was fair. Stuff like that was unavoidable and part of daily life.

Just because there was a life involved didn’t make this any different from all the other instances I manipulated social situations to my advantage.

I could’ve left it at that, but another thing popped in my head about Rule #4.

The bald dude was inevitably going to die if I wasn’t there. Viewing it from his perspective, there was nothing lost or gained with what I did to him. The end was still the same.

The perfect application of Rule #4.

Technically, the status quo wasn’t preserved. The bald guy actually came out with a net positive when you think about it. I saved his children! If I wasn’t here, these two would surely die, either by the hands of the gorilla monster or by some other creature crawling out there. In the end, I was actually doing good.

Huh…I’m an actual hero.

Kinda?

I hadn’t considered viewing Rule #4 this way before. Such logic could be extended to most people I’d encounter in this building. In all, a very interesting mental exercise.

Those thoughts went through my mind while Paolo and Julie discussed what they were going to do with the dead body of the woman their dad tried to save. This woman wasn’t their family or friend; they told me they didn’t know her, but just ran into her. Their dad was a swell guy for trying to save someone he didn’t know. Turns out, a majority of the human race was pretty decent.

As a side note, a majority of the human race wouldn't include me in the ‘pretty decent’ category.

The siblings decided to hide what remained of her body under a table and covered it with the folders and papers from the filing cabinet encasing their dad. They really were dealing with the situation quite well. Kudos to them. I usually didn’t like interacting with kids, but these two were okay.

Paolo wiped his hands on his pants after they were done with their job. “Jules, you still have no signal on your phone?”

“No, or I would've already called for help. Whatever weird thing the Adumbrae did to block this entire building, it’s still up.”

“Keep your phone safe, ‘kay Jules? Protect it.” He picked up his guitar and put it over his shoulder. “And I’ll protect you.”

Her sister had a confused grin. “Ye-yes? I will. What’s up with you? Don’t be weird.”

“That’s the last words of Dad in your phone. If the internet was up, we could’ve uploaded it online so it’d be safe.”

“Ah, you mean that. Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll keep it safe.”

“They’re back,” I said as Doms appeared out of the corner carrying Lizzie while pushing the cart with my body.

Before Doms left to get her daughter and my human body, I connected my armor, strength, and healing fingers to her. She didn’t reform an entire armor because there was no corpse to use—well, there were two corpses nearby, but I had a feeling my two new companions would object to such a suggestion—and I wouldn’t allow her to use too much of her own energy, or whatever the bone armor was using. As compromise, she made do with creating bladed gauntlets as weapons for her protection, the same as the ones she used during the gorilla monster fight.

“Thank god, they’re safe,” Julie said. “And is that her daughter?”

“Yep,” I said. “Her name is Lizzie.” She wasn’t wearing a blindfold now.

“She’s really cute. I hope she’s going to be okay with…all…all these things happening to us.”

“That mummy on the cart,” Paolo said. “She’s the girl that the Adumbrae want?”

Hehe, I do look like a mummy, all wrapped up in white blanket. I nodded. “The prospective Corebring.” I did give them a summary of the bullshit backstory I concocted to explain away my human body. To be fair, it wasn’t complete bullshit as there would be some truth to it if it was really the 2Ms behind all of this.

“If she’s with us, then the Adumbrae that turned the residents into monsters would come to us, right?” he said.

“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Julie said, worried.

“That’s great!” Paolo said. “I can fight them.”

“No!”

“You’re going to give me powers, Pino?”

“Pao! Remember what Dad said. We’re going to get out of here in one piece. Don’t do dumb shit like fighting Adumbrae!”

“I know what Dad said,” he grumbled. “Pino, I can get powers like Doms, right?”

“I can give you powers to fight,” I said. I needed to change this conversation because this wasn’t the time for it. “But first,” I said as I stood up and looked around for something we could use to get down the hole, “help me gather these extension cords.” These should be long enough to get them down.

 

---

 

We stood at the lip of the hole, bent steel bars jutted out from the craggy edge. An uninviting pile of debris was below.

Doms quickly braided the cords and wirings we found—it made them stronger, according to her—turning them into a rope; she knew her way around knots, making me wonder again what her background was. Next, she tied it around the nearest concrete column, giving it a couple of tugs to make sure it was secure. The plan was to lower the siblings first so they could take care of Lizzie when we lowered her next, then the cart, and the last to go down would be Doms. I could just jump down on my own.

“Looks like it’s clear.” Julie crouched at the edge, stuck her head down, and scouted for danger. “Oh! The body of the monster is there!”

“It’s dead,” I said. “We made sure. No need to worry.”

“Get away from the edge, Jules. You might fall down.”

“Don’t be such a fussyfart. Only now do you care about what I do.”

“Hey! I do care about you.”

“Who first?” Doms said,

“Me,” Paolo said. He tossed his electric guitar down the hole. “I can catch Jules if the rope breaks because of her weight.”

Her sister had a perplexed look on her face. “What do you mean? I’m not heavy—”

“It’s a joke, Jules. Not much of a joke now since I had to explain it.”

“Oh, I see,” his sister replied awkwardly. I could tell these siblings weren’t really that close, but I could see Paolo exerting effort now. Was it because of the life-and-death situation we were in? Or was it because their father died?

Doms tied the other end of the braided cords around Paolo's waist and slowly lowered him, using the column as sort of a pulley to control his descent. Lizzie held my hand as she waited for her turn.

“You weren’t afraid when you were alone in the closet?” I asked Lizzie.

“Nope! I was with sleeping lady. You said she’s a Co…Corebrrr—”

“Corebring. She's going to be one.”

“Yeah! Corebring. They’re heroes! Mommy always tell me they keep us safe.”

“That they do.”

“Are they going to come here and save us?”

“Well, I’m sure they’ll come if they know what is happening here.” Would Clive and Trepanner come to help us? They probably would. But how would they know?

Wait.

The thing Paolo said about uploading the recording of their dad’s voice online returned to me. If only we could stream a video of what was going on here, it would eventually reach the Corebrings. They didn’t even need to come here. Clive could spear them through the camera. If only we had a signal.

 

---

 

All of us made it safely down.

“What the hell are you doing, Pao?” called Julie. Her brother was beside the gorilla monster, his guitar held high.

“That won’t change anything,” Doms said. She bent down and patted Lizzie. “Don’t look at it, sweetie. I said you could take your blindfold off if you listen to me when I tell you to look away.”

“Yes, Mommy.” Lizzie turned around with a small hop.

Paolo sighed and lowered his guitar. “I know. I know it won’t bring back Dad.”

“But we can still use this corpse.” Doms gave me a sidelong glance with a brow raised. “How about it, Pino? I think I should use this now to make a full armor. We'll need it.”

“Before that,” I said, “I want to see first what powers Paolo will get.”

“You’re finally giving me powers?”

“You see, when I bestow a power on another person, it can manifest in different ways. We saw how it manifested for Doms. I’m not sure what it will be for you.” That was obviously not true. I made this shit up because I was going to test a different finger on him, and I had no fucking clue what power the next finger would give. “This is a good opportunity to test whatever power you get on this corpse before Doms absorbs it. Are you ready, Paolo?”

He briefly looked at his sister before saying, “I am.”