3:15 P.M.
Redgrave and Voight-Kampff crossed the threshold into the relative safety of the East Gate. Redgrave fell to his hands and knees coughing while VK leaned against a concrete barrier and dry heaved. Nothing came up because the [Rapid Healing] skill had already cannibalized all food within VK’s stomach.
Mander approached the remaining two members of the Arson Team. “Is the third man with you?”
After a long moment of no response beyond Redgrave’s racking coughs, VK responded, “He’s dead.”
“Understood,” Mander responded grimly. “Close the Gate!” he shouted to the defenders. Mander let out a long sigh and sat down atop a concrete barrier. Mander kept an eye on Redgrave’s prone form until Redgrave’s coughing fit passed. “Are you okay, Redgrave?”
“Yeah,” Redgrave said with effort. “Just some smoke inhalation.”
“We lost a few players while you were gone,” Mander said sadly.
“Do you mean the artillery barrage?” asked VK. “We saw it hit the wall from where we were.”
“Partially,” said Mander. “Three players died in the bombardment, and four more players were killed by Deluvians on the ground.”
“Eight deaths at the East Gate alone,” VK sighed.
“So far,” said Redgrave. “Mander, do you think there will be another wave?”
“Unlikely,” said Mander. “Ashcroft has reported a full Deluvian retreat at the North Gate, and Tantalus says the West Gate hasn’t seen any Deluvian activity for the past ten minutes. They seem to be in full retreat.”
“Thank God,” said VK.
“So we’re safe for now,” said Redgrave.
FullDan, dressed in a bloodstained white undershirt and blue pants, approached Mander. “We’ve moved the corpses,” FullDan said to Mander. It was clear to Redgrave that an air of melancholy had settled over FullDan.
FullDan gave a weak smile and lightly slapped Redgrave and VK on their shoulders. “Glad to see you two made it,” he said. “Redgrave… most of the people that drove over with us are dead now. Enzo, Damocloid, and Poldra. They didn’t make it.”
Redgrave, FullDan, and VK walked over to the corner of the East Gate where the corpses of four men were arranged in a line. Redgrave recognized the figures of Enzo and Damocloid, but he did not recognize the other two.
“The fire prevented us from collecting the bodies of those killed in the bombardment,” said FullDan.
After a long silence, Redgrave asked, “How many people showed up to defend this Gate?”
“Forty or fifty,” said FullDan.
“That makes a twenty percent casualty rate,” said VK after a moment of calculation.
“Do we know what kind of casualties the other Gates took?” asked Redgrave.
FullDan closed his eyes. “Give me a second.” After a long pause, FullDan opened his eyes and said, “Three at the West Gate and six at the North Gate.”
“Seventeen people died on the whim of GM,” VK spat.
Redgrave reached down toward the corpse of Enzo and began fishing through his satchel. VK and FullDan looked at him strangely, but they did not say anything. Slowly, Redgrave extracted two oblong metal objects attached to a necklace. The text on the necklace read:
ꦞꦩ’ꦨꦮ ꦙ ꦡꦚꦑꦜ
“Dog tags?” asked FullDan.
Redgrave reached into his own satchel and removed Dendrite’s dog tags. “I should take these back to the West Gate.” Redgrave held his fist out to FullDan.
FullDan touched his fist to Redgrave’s. “Make sure you stay alive until we meet next,” said FullDan.
“You too,” said Redgrave. “With you, though, I’m more worried about the Deluvians.”
Redgrave and VK touched fists. “You did well in that fight, VK,” said Redgrave. “When the odds were stacked against you, you didn’t give up.”
“Thanks,” said VK. “If we’re all alive in a few days, we should get a drink together.”
“Sounds good,” said Redgrave.
“I said close the damn Gate!” Mander shouted from far-off.
“Do you have it handled here?” said Redgrave.
“Worst comes to worst, we just have to kill some NPCs,” said FullDan. “Compared to the Deluvians, it would be a walk in the park.”
“If you say so,” said Redgrave as he turned toward the City. “I’ll see you guys later.”
Cadmium sat in a large bunker that was filled to the brim with hundreds of NPCs and a dozen players. It had taken him a long time to reach the bunker using his rifle as a crutch to compensate for his missing foot. Cadmium had asked Tantalus to drop him off near a crowd of NPCs. If there was anything he was certain of, it was that he would be next to useless in a combat situation.
The NPCs in the massive bunker frequently gave Cadmium dirty looks. Rather, it was more that they were giving dirty looks to his firearms. Cadmium turned his collar up and tried not to make eye contact with any of the NPCs. He sat on the ground with his back to a wall and opened the menu.
The menu popped up in the solitary darkness of Cadmium’s mind. There were the familiar nine words: Character, Attributes, Skills, BloodNet, Messages, Friends, Guild, Map, and Settings. Cadmium had already investigated the Character, Attributes, BloodNet, Messages, Friends, and Map items on the list. With this in mind, Cadmium decided to open his Skills tab.
Immediately upon opening the Skills tab, Cadmium was overwhelmed by information. There were two large sections of the Skills tab: General Skills and Special Skills. Only two items were listed under Special Skills. These were [Holy Blood] and [Rapid Healing]. Upon clicking on the Special Skills icon, a drop-down list was opened with a list of more than a hundred greyed-out words and phrases. The greyed-out text said such things as [Auto-Dodge] or [Assassinate]. Cadmium immediately realized that these were the special skills that he had not yet unlocked.
The General Skills portion of the screen held twenty items in five groups of four. These items were: Athletics, Appraisal, Close Combat, Construction, Cooking, Crafting, Driving, Electronics, Outdoors, Languages, Literacy, Lore, Magic, Mechanic, Medicine, Perception, Rogue, Science, Stealth, and Supernatural.
All of Cadmium’s skills were at level one except for Crafting, Driving, Electronics, Ranged Combat, and Science. Crafting was at 15, Driving was at 10, Electronics was at 22, Ranged Combat was at 5, and Science was at 30. Upon clicking on the Science icon, a drop-down menu appeared with the items: Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics.
Overwhelmed by all of the information he had suddenly gained access to, Cadmium clicked on a faintly flashing notification under the Special Skills tab. The notification said, [Congratulations! You have unlocked a new Special Skill! Currently available Special Skills to you are: Auto-Craft; Eyes of Identification; Fire Resistance; Inspired Scientist; Limited Pain Nullification; Superior Skill: Chemistry; Superior Skill: Physics].
After reading through these options, Cadmium decided to go with the special skill [Auto-Craft]. This special skill would allow Cadmium to reduce the amount of time spent crafting an object down to zero. He could make anything instantaneously as long as he had the required materials and tools to create an object, according to the skill sheet. The draw-back of this skill is that twice as many materials would be needed to create the object, and any tools used would be worn out four times as fast compared to if the object had been naturally crafted.
[Special Skill set! Two slots remain!]
Turning his eyes toward the crowd around him, Cadmium saw that four players had congregated near the center of the large bunker. They were easy to spot in the crowd due to the striking blue color of their uniforms. It suddenly struck Cadmium that the uniforms had probably been designed in such a way that they could be seen from far away. While good for unit cohesion, the uniform’s color was terrible for camouflage. In that instant, Cadmium realized that the military of Osiris didn’t care about the well- being of the Revenants. The players were viewed as completely expendable, unlike the NPC soldiers who had been issued sensible green uniforms. Anger at the NPCs began to flower in Cadmium’s chest.
In disgust, Cadmium removed his jacket and cast it to the floor. He then began to limp toward the other players, using his rifle as a crutch. The process was easier than Cadmium initially anticipated due to his avatar’s natural athleticism. The process was further facilitated by the fact that the NPCs in the crowd gave Cadmium a wide berth as he passed by.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to…” one of the NPCs began to say meekly.
“Shut up,” Cadmium said venomously.
Cadmium soon arrived at the small group of players. There were four of them total, and two of them were women. One of the men caught Cadmium’s attention. The man seemed to be about fifty years old, and he did not carry any guns on his person. The man’s age struck Cadmium as odd because just about all of the players Cadmium had met so far had avatars which were in their twenties or thirties. The remaining three players in the group were two women and a black man.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” Cadmium asked.
“No problem,” said one of the women.
The group of players quickly gave their introductions. The older man was called [Riemann59]. The women were called [Glitter_Bee] and [Eska_Tology], and the black man was called [KuroD].
“How’d you lose the foot?” asked Kuro.
“I left the West Gate and one of the goblins shot my foot off,” Cadmium said gloomily.
“It’ll grow back,” said Riemann.
There was a strange sense of certainty in Riemann's words. Cadmium remembered that Tantalus’s voice held absolutely no conviction when he said that Cadmium’s foot would grow back. Riemann's voice did not carry the same doubt present in Tantalus’s voice.
“How do you know?” asked Cadmium.
“Developers of a game like this wouldn’t allow a player to spend the rest of the game crippled. It just wouldn’t be good game design,” said Riemann.
“Were you a game developer, Riemann?” asked Eska.
“Yeah,” Riemann responded quickly.
“The real reason I came over here,” said Cadmium, “is that I wanted to ask what you guys plan to do now. The rest of the group I logged in with is fighting on the front lines. If I were to go with them, I’d just get in the way. So, what’s next for you guys?”
“Well,” Kuro began speaking first, “I don’t know about these guys. We just met on the street an hour ago. I was in business school IRL, so I think I’m gonna look for business opportunities in the City. I asked an NPC about the stuff in our packs, and we each have ten thousand Ren, which I think is a lot of money. I plan to invest that money in a business.” As Kuro spoke, Cadmium looked at the black pieces of paper in his satchel. It was only at this point that Cadmium realized that the paper was a currency.
“I hadn’t put much thought into it,” said Glitter, “but Kuro’s idea sounds pretty smart. Maybe we could pool our resources alongside some other players and start a business. Do you guys have any ideas for a business?”
Thus, the five players sitting in a circle began planning their joint business venture. Kuro, Glitter, Cadmium, and Eska quickly became excited by the prospect of the joint venture. Riemann, while less enthusiastic about the agreement, agreed after a few minutes of convincing. As he agreed, he muttered, “Might as well.”
“So what should we call it?” asked Glitter.
“How does the name ‘Prometheus, Inc.’ sound? I’ve always wanted to run a company called that,” said Kuro.
“That sounds good,” said Glitter.
The rest of the group agreed to the name. When they turned toward Riemann, his eyes were locked to something in the distance. Realization and terror showed on his face. After a moment, Riemann shook himself and said, “Oh… yeah… that’s a fine name. The name just reminded me of a story I was told recently."
“What’s that?” asked Eska.
“Long story,” Riemann responded quickly. “Right now, we have more pressing concerns, like the business model for Prometheus, Inc.”
With that, Cadmium found a way to contribute to Tantalus, his friends, and Osiris as a whole. At the time, however, he did not know the importance of the institution he was helping create or the significance of the man sitting across from him. Over the next few days, however, all of this would be made clear.
