I slept a lot longer than I wanted to. But in a lot of ways that was a good thing. I appreciated that nothing bad had happened since I hit zonk-out zone. It was a nice change of pace. And, hell, I’d needed it with the running fight of the day before.

The room was different. Clean. Tidied. Faint smell of roses. Stuff that definitely wasn’t me. My senses blared to alert and I was out of bed in an instant.

“Hey, glad to see you’re up. Now we can finally have some breakfast.”

There, in the kitchen, at an angle that had been just out of eyeshot of my place in bed, stood Jack Daley. He was dressed up dapper in a business suit with tie in a windsor knot, uncorking a bottle of whiskey and pouring just a little into each of two steaming cups of coffee, and I suddenly felt like a penguin in the Sahara.

This was the sort of thing that meant I was about to be asked for favors. Something that in my past life I’d generally messed up.

“Duh,” I said, staring.

He looked at me, smirked, then ordered up some food. In an instant two steaming plates of eggs, bacon and spicy breakfast sausage sat on the table before me, my Irish coffee on their flank. My stomach groaned, commandeering my legs and plopping me down into the nearest seat.

I stared at Jack, wide-eyed terror in my eyes. “I suck at — I didn’t meant to —”

He chuckled.

“Oh shut up. You made the right call on the whole hostage thing. And as for clean-up, well, that wasn’t me. I got one of the cleaners to take care of your place for you while you snored.”

I cast about, trying to find my tangled piles of clean and dirty clothes. They were gone. As were any traces of dust or disorder. It boggled my mind—I hadn’t even known we had cleaners in our gang.

“So you’re not here to, uh, dress me down on the crap show that is my house? Don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve been a bit busy.”

He laughed before taking a long swig of coffee.

“When this world first came to us, I was able to make things right. Go back to who I used to be.”

He showed off hands bereft of spots, skin taut and fresh, before stomping both feet on the floor.

“And that’s part of the reason I’m here. But the other part is that I wanted to make sure things were alright between us. I know you didn’t feed me to the wolves. And I wanted to make sure that you knew that too.”

I took my own swig of coffee, letting the burn of fine whiskey roll down my throat while the strong caffeine of it all drove lances into my brain. It was a damn fine way to wake up. I saluted him with my glass.

But it all seemed fishy to me. I didn’t like it. Jack had more in play than he was letting on. And I was afraid that, with all of the buttering up he was slathering over my apartment, it was going to be something big.

Too big.

I dug a spoonful of eggs and ham off of my plate, savoring the exquisite tastes of Prestige Gaming.

“That was a hell of a fight, yesterday. Exhausting. Dangerous. Thank you, Jack,” I said, then nodded. “I appreciate it.” I broke off a chunk of sausage with my spoon, scooped up another mouthful of scrambled eggs, and downed it all in one delicious bite.

“Uh-huh,” Jack Daley nodded, eating small bites from his own plate. “It was a hard one, that’s for sure.”

I scooped some more food in. “You did good work with the diplomacy. I think it might be a good idea to make you chief ambassador to all us Toons.”

He nodded, poking at his food. I was starting to get pissed. He was a fellow vet. He didn’t need to sit here, playing mental footsy with me. I wanted him to get to the point.

“You know, once we get this main quest done and the boss finished, we’ll be that much closer to shutting down this whole park and moving things back to the way they used to be. If you’re worried about the future, don’t be. I have us covered.”

Jack stopped eating and his eyes locked with mine. In them, I saw a glimmer of liquid. The same sort of sadness I saw in a lot of eyes when me and my brothers were told to leave the desert and come back home.

The sort of sadness that said, please, don’t do it.

“I don’t want to end this,” he said.

There it was. Inside of me, a brief flash of shock collided with a quick wall of understanding. My mind wheeled, rolling over all the types of people I’d met in this world, wondering how many had not just survived, but whose lives had gotten better.

“Ah hell,” I muttered, yet again avoiding the swear jar. There were lots of them. It wouldn’t just be Jack. The crippled were walking again, I was sure of it. All of the people in hospitals or at home were suddenly cured.

Hell, anyone with a good sense of street smarts and a good knowledge of gaming was probably having a good time of it.

“I feel like, in Gojira X, I finally found a place where I belong,” he said, giving me an embrassed small smile. “I know it is selfish, but my whole life I’ve been trapped in a world that I fought to defend, and repaid me with no legs and a shit pension.”

There were plenty of people who Deus Ex had given paradise too. But some of those places that I’d seen on the vid screen were well the opposite. There was a literal hell not far from where we stood. Washington DC had gone all zombie. London was apparently a post-nuclear racetrack for flying jets that liked to shoot each other and explode.

None of it was fair.

Jack was watching me closely, and I realized that all of my thought process was clear as day on my face. I opened my mouth to talk, closing and opening it again several times before I knew what to say.

“Jack, there are a lot of people out there that are in a bad place. People are dying off, hard. Here, well, we don’t have it so bad. Maybe because of me, I don’t know. But think about how it all started, with monsters roaming through the building killing people. For some of them, out there, that is their daily life. In some of those places they are back in the stone age, having to relearn basic survival skills while being surrounded by actual goddamn dinosaurs, maybe with real caveman gods rolling around in the sky throwing lightning bolts at them if they don’t make the right sacrifices or say the right words.”

I felt goosebumps rising on my arms, could feel a flush rising to my chest and face. I hadn’t realized how much of myself was tied into this conversation. I was angry.

I was angry that the tech had been kept secret at Prestige Gaming, and not shared with the world. And that they had let it out in such an uncontrolled spill.

Now we had this AI, Deus Ex, rolling around with the power to make everything into the actual Garden of Eden. And he was doling it out willy-nilly, in the name of entertainment.

It’d be like if a genie showed up, gave you the powers of an angel, then shat in everyone else’s mouth.

In front of me Jack stared, his mouth a down-turned U. “Yeah, that’s why I’m here. Is there some way you could fix the world while, maybe, leaving just this section?”

My gaze fixed on him, a stony thing without ire but also without compassion. “Jack Daley, I need us to agree on this. We are going to shut it all down. They’re nanobots, maybe you’ll stay as they’ve made you. There are people dying out there every day and I’m going to save them. Even if it turns out that you have to go back to being who you were before.”

He grimaced and sighed. “Yeah, I guess I’m being selfish, aren’t I? I’m sorry, Kevin — I mean Dirk. I guess, I just hoped that’d there’d be a way to make sure I get to be like this forever.”

I felt cranky. I wanted to lash out at something, get some combat in, do something tangible. I was never good at this sort of stuff. But if I was going to be a leader for people and fix the damn apocalypse, I’d have to keep that all in check. I stuffed it all away.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you were able to talk to me, Jack. Whatever happens, I’ll always be there for you.”

He nodded, giving me a little bit of a half-smile. "Thanks. I better get out of here now, let you get ready for your day."

He stood up from the table, leaving a full half plate of his breakfast behind and headed out the door. I stared out after him, imagining what I might do if I’d been in the same boat.

I'd probably kick the crap out of anyone who tried to change things back.

I stuffed another mouthful of eggs and sausage into my mouth and chewed without really tasting it, hoping hard that things weren't going to go the way my gut was saying they would.

Because if push did come to shove, I would kill to save the world.

I popped up from the table and got to my heels, walking over to the force field window of my apartment and looking out at the city. On a whim I opened up the system map and took a look over Gojira. At first, I had to marvel at how much of the fog of war had retracted away from the areas surrounding my turf. The whole of the Ringo-Dango territory was laid bare before me now, and a few places into the Kebukai-Kogan Yakuza zone as well.

The map was pocked with little red zones, something I hadn't seen previously.

I focused on the largest of them, trying to get some information on what they actually were. In my side eye I saw a label pop-up. Turf battles (observed or reported, ongoing).

A useful function to have. But the parentheses seem to indicate that there was more to it than major unit battles simply popping up on the map. I wondered if there might be a way to stealthily take on another battle unit without it being announced to all of the city bosses.

There probably was. And it almost certainly involved Doug. I sighed, wondering what sort of nonsense I would find when I went to visit him.

Screw it. I'd go see Nolan first and see what kind of gear he had ready and waiting for us. I could save Doug for last.

I scrolled through notifications, noticing that there was nothing community-wise to be notified about. It felt very odd considering everything that had occurred at the meeting. All the others were fighting turf wars but no one else was coming after us for breaking the peace?

I somehow found that to be very doubtful. I brought up my messenger and prepped for a team wide announcement.

Corporals, triple the size of patrols and triple the presence of patrols. From the looks of things we might be the eye of the storm right now and I'm expecting something major to come soon.

 Yeah that'd be enough for now. And maybe there was something proactive that I could do as well. I opened up my journal feature, looking for quests that I still had in operation, and also checking to see if there were available but unstarted quests in the log.

 

The city is in chaos. War has spread throughout Gojira-X. The time is ripe for acquisition.

 

Quest: King of the Hill

 

Objective: Take down the Boss, unite the gangs, and crush those who oppose you.

Reward: Access to the next district

 

I hesitated over that one. I’d do it later if possible. We were in dangerous territory now and I wanted to find a way to strengthen myself, my griefers, or my growing nation of us humans. I scrolled down, checking out the next several options.

 

Mrs. Buttonwith’s cat is trapped in a tree. Won’t you help wittle Fleas Mc’Cormick down to the ground and get him reunited with his loving owner?

 

Quest: Cat in tree

 

Objective: Get cat out of tree and into arms of Mrs. Buttonwith

 

Reward: Plus 500 Reputation with Mrs. Buttonwith

 

I stared at it. What a worthless quest. What a waste of AI capacity.

Unless there’s more to it than the AI is letting on.

 I’d played some games like that. You go down to clear the basement of rats and all of a sudden you’re stuck in the middle of an immense labyrinth filled with zombies, treasure, and the torchlit hint of brimstone.

I marked it for later. Why not? Worse came to worse I’d be best friends with a local granny.

The next item on the list was a gathering quest conceptually, but a war crime in progress really.

 

A desperate series of clashes between the Puddin Pack and the Roly Poly Craft Ninjas has left many dead, and local borders in flux. In the last clash, the Roly Poly Ninjas prepped a kill zone at Children’s Park and led the Puddin’ Pack through it to great effect. But now that the border in the area is secure, no one has had the decency to clean up. Children will be returning any day now to play in the sun, and if you don’t collect the mines, things will get deadly.

 

Quest: Remove landmines from Children’s Park

 

Objective: Disarm and remove 20 mines.

 

Reward: 1 random uncommon card, Plus 700 reputation with residents of Bangchom District. Gain ownership of Bangchom District (Optional). Minus 700 reputation with the Roly Poly Ninjas. (War with Roly Poly Ninjas if ownership claim to Bangchom District is pressed.)

Gears were turning in my head. This could all be synergized. I could clean up the mines, take the Bangchom district, fight a quick war with the ninjas and maybe take some additional territory, swing by and help Mrs. Buttonwith, then take the boss quest. I scrolled down more, trying to fit everything into productive mental timeline that’d finish up with me killing the boss and getting me to the top so I could stop the dying.

There were a couple of combat quests with rare item rewards. A few gathering quests. I skipped past those since they didn’t seem to have anything worth my time.

Unlike Mrs. Buttonwith? I asked myself. Nah, she was worth it. 5 minutes for a slice of some old timey gratitude felt like a reward all on its lonesome.

Casting aside my reverie, my eyes fell on one more listing and my eyes grew wide. This one was a doozy.