Chapter 27

<Quest Received>

Quest: The Cradle of Civilization

Primary Objective — Form the Foundation of the Merchant’s Guild.

(1 of ???)

Secondary Objective — Achieve the Primary Objective before greater violence erupts. 

Personal Objective — Remain unidentified by other Users. 

Threat Level: ??? 

EXP GAIN (L)

Time Limit: ???

Reward: Increased relationship with Kinsley, Merchant. Allies within the Merchants Guild.

Reward: Progression towards Vocation ???

It was a quest chain. My mind was firing on all cylinders as we grew closer to our destination, every thought a spiraling cascade of follow-up considerations and possible outcomes. 

There was a serious power imbalance at play between Users and civilians now. The only thing that was saving us was that most civilians were oblivious that the imbalance existed. Otherwise, the anarchy we were seeing would have been catastrophically worse. It wouldn’t break out right away. But from what I’d seen, the Users weren’t exactly being subtle, and the first civilian to pick up a gun and kill a User would likely send things into an irreversible spiral. 

You might be thinking that none of this is my problem. And you’d be right. But as long as the dome was up, I had to live here. And I’d much rather carve out my already difficult existence in a place not entrenched in civil war. 

“I can’t believe you gave me a black eye.” Kinsley grinned impishly. 

I nearly missed a step. “Shut up.” 

“With a hammer.” Kinsley added seriously.

I took a wide, long look around us to make sure no one had heard that, then glared at her. The black eye—while merely a shadow of what she had when I met her—was dark red and pronounced. 

“That’s a gross misrepresentation of what happened. You wanted to sell it. Not to mention, your idea was worse. Who asks for a punch to the face?” I scoffed.

Misgivings about hitting someone who had recently been through serious trauma aside, it’s a terrible idea to give yourself a black eye by hitting your damn eye. It’s trivially easy to screw up any number of anatomical balancing acts, messing up your vision or potentially losing it altogether. I’d immediately refused the idea, then reconsidered. It had almost worked on me, after all, the first time I saw her. And that was like drawing sympathy from a stone. 

A black eye would go a long way to presenting the image we wanted, and all you’d really need to do was bruise the delicate surrounding skin. 

So, instead of punching her like some neanderthal, I’d taken a trim hammer I found in one of the warehouse boxes and—okay, relax—gently tapped around her right eye. It was slightly uncomfortable, sure, but not painful. The weight did most of the work. 

There was the rickety sound of a shopping cart with three bad wheels. I reflexively stepped off the sidewalk and onto the grass, putting one hand out to tug Kinsley along with me. A man with sun-burnt skin and a dreamy smile came barreling around a corner with the cart at a full sprint, two freely spinning wheels bouncing off every patch of sidewalk. 

I nodded to him as he passed. 

Behind me, Kinsley shivered. “Everyone’s losing it.” 

“No, that’s just Greg.” 

She looked up at me, shocked. “You know him?” 

“Your family was, what?” I side-eyed her. “Middle class? Upper-middle? Before all this.” 

“I… don’t know.” 

Upper-middle, then. “If this works out, you’re going to have to learn how to network. People are resources. The more people you know and can call in favors from, the better off you’ll be.” 

Kinsley frowned. “Wouldn’t it be better to just have a small group of people you trust?” 

“At first. Fewer people, less potential for things to go wrong. The problem is, more often than not that creates a dependency. You have a more limited perspective on the reality of things. And if you’re overly reliant on a group, or worse, exclusively reliant on a single person…”

“Then it’s easy for them to take advantage of you.” Kinsley’s brow furrowed. “Weird advice, considering who it’s coming from. Can’t imagine you as anything besides a loner.” 

I snorted. “Rude. And you’re conflating friends with contacts. I may not have a lot of the former, but plenty of the latter I can call in favors from.”

“Beep boop, robot man has no emotions and needs no friends.” Kinsley shifted her arms in a mocking approximation of said robot. 

A spark of irritation went through me. “We’re almost there, try to look like someone beat you or something.” 

“With a hammer,” Kinsley added. But said nothing after that. 

We had an ample view of the skyline as we walked. A single red flare shot upwards, cresting over a small building and plummeting back down. There weren’t many people out, in my neighborhood. Judging from the lights, most of them were bunkering down, trying to stay out of the chaos. I thought of Nick, and, irritably, pulled out my phone to text him. 

<Matt: Burner on its way out. Reception bad anyway. Anything critical?>

<Unknown Contact: No. Well, not yet. There’s supposed to be an open forum in a couple days outside City Hall, I think they’re trying to keep the peace. But it’s REALLY important dude. There’s a train leaving, and trust me, u want to be on it. Meet u there to talk in person?> 

That was interesting. Nick struggled with keeping things discreet, especially if he was excited. This seemed big. But there was nothing here to indicate what he was talking about, not even one of his signature hints. 

I wasn’t certain how concerned to be. 

<Matt: Will do. Stay safe.>

<Unknown Contact: U 2.>

I snapped the burner in half, tossing it in a nearby trash can. After the texting storm earlier this morning, it was in serious need of a refresh, and I’d be home in less than an hour anyway. 

“I’m not saying you don’t need friends,” I finally said. 

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“Jeez, I really touched a nerve—“ Kinsley started.

I cut her off. “But they can compromise you. Easily. Friends will always need people like us more than we need them. And especially when you’re struggling to make it on your own, you shouldn’t commit to a friendship unless you’re willing to make an allowance for that.” 

It wasn’t ego. I don’t think I’m better than anyone, or more elevated. But when you spend the majority of your life finding the solution for impossible problems, you get used to occupying that space. A space that makes most people profoundly uncomfortable, sometimes paralyzed. It becomes a second home to you. 

“So… you know my psychological history. It’s only fair that I know yours,” Kinsley hedged. 

“Oh, is that how HIPAA works?” 

“Mhm.” 

“Well, I have a high chance of early onset dementia,” I said wryly. 

“Fine. Don’t tell me then,” Kinsley mumbled. 

I turned left, and she followed me into the poorly lit apartment complex, three, or four blocks from mine. It was overdue for yearly maintenance by about a decade, with more paint chipped off than left on the walls. I walked under the paper-thin metal overhang, as I had many times before. “Remember. Stay quiet. This sort of thing works better if you leave most of it to subtext.” 

Kinsley said something I missed, but lowered her head, looking appropriately cowed. 

I knocked once on the door. Then again, with three short raps. No answer. 

Of course. Who’s going to answer the door in the middle of a riot?

I cleared my throat and raised my voice. “Open up, Abuelita!”

The door opened immediately, clinking at the end of its chain. A short woman with dark skin and a cross face peered out. “Matthias, you little—“ Her eyes tracked to the groceries in my arms, then the small girl next to me. “Hello there.” The crossness in her voice disappeared. 

Kinsley lifted a bag of groceries in a half-wave. 

“Did you hear what he called me? I’m not even fifty.” She said, only her eyes visible from behind the door.”

“I heard,” Kinsley scowled at me.

Probably better to hurry this up. “Professor Estrada, Kinsley. Kinsley, Professor Estrada. The only teacher to ever give me a B minus.” I turned back to the cracked doorway. “She’s a friend of a friend, helping with deliveries. Mind if we come in?” 

She opened the door and I walked past her. “Matthias, I’m well-stocked. You should take all that to someone who needs it.” 

“Uh-huh. I’m aware of what you consider well-stocked, professor.” 

“So disrespectful,” Estrada clicked her tongue, but there was no malice in it. I half listened to her chat with Kinsley as I unpacked, shifting the small legion of pitchers filled with meal-replacement shakes in the refrigerator aside for groceries. 

For a single person living alone, the apartment was cramped but clean. There wasn’t much in terms of clutter or decorations, only a family picture lit by a single candle. I’d always found it striking because the professor was actually smiling in it. 

I’d signed up for a dual-credit history class at the community college in Richland, expecting it to be an easy addition to future applications. It wasn’t. Estrada was one of those professors too brilliant to teach, the sort that expected their students to understand everything they did. I ended up dropping the class but staying to audit, dodging the black mark on my record but sticking around to talk to her, finding her insights more valuable than the credit. She had a way of applying her subject to the world at large in a manner I found fascinating and oddly useful.

Then she disappeared. The college was tight-lipped when I asked, overly so. When I finally tracked her down through a combination of social media and old-fashioned footwork, I found a shell of a woman afraid to go outside who needed help with errands. Our conversations resumed. She never told me what happened. But I could guess.

Like Estrada herself was fond of saying, the devil is always in the subtext.

I wanted to go back to the dungeon soon, power through the fourth floor before the open forum. I had a plan. The beginnings of one. But I needed someone to check it against, in case there was a chance I’d make things worse. And there was no one better to talk to. 

Kinsley announced, a bit too loudly, that she needed to go to the bathroom. 

Professor Estrada’s arms were crossed as she watched Kinsley go. “She’s hurting.” 

I took up a spot next to her. “Kind of obvious.” 

“Not just the eye.” Estrada shook her head. “Body language, Matthias. There’s more going on there, under the surface.” 

“Thought you said your bachelor’s in psych was useless.” 

Estrada snorted, then crossed the room into the kitchen and inspected the small bounty. “Well, considering how everyone just started seeing strange screens and interfaces, I’d say it got a lot more valuable. Where’d you get all this, I thought everywhere was sold out?” 

“Got lucky. Kinsley’s family is in distribution.” That was the story we’d agreed on beforehand, so there was no chance of Kinsley accidentally outing us.

Estrada took a jar of pickles out of the fridge, inspecting it, then returned it to the shelf. “She having… trouble at home?” 

“Yes.” I considered what to say next. The truth of it was, if Kinsley was allowed to stay, I’d be killing two birds with one stone. Kinsley would be safe, it would be easier for her to coordinate with me without worrying about her being isolated. And Estrada would—unknowingly—have a semi-permanent food supply. It was the correct call. But that didn’t change the fact that she was one of the rare few people I hated lying to. 

I was about to open my mouth again when the professor beat me to it. “She can stay here.” 

“Uh.” 

“You’re not hard to read.” Estrada gave me a judgmental eyebrow. 

I chuckled. “You might be, legitimately, the only person in the world who thinks that. I’ll take care of the food. It won’t be a burden on you.”

“Wouldn’t matter if it was. And it’s not like it’s the first time I took in one of your strays.” Estrada looked at me knowingly.

I grimaced. Iris stayed with her while Mom was going through withdrawal the first time. It wasn’t a pleasant memory. One that was likely to repeat itself if I didn’t get home soon. 

Estrada sat down at a small round table, picking up a pair of transparent-framed, half-rimmed glasses and placing them on her nose. Then she steepled her fingers, and studied me. “Come on, out with it. There’s something else you want to ask.” 

I sat down across from her and crossed my arms beneath me, shifting forward. During the journey over here, I’d been thinking about how to phrase this exact question. I wasn’t a history buff, as it didn’t factor much into standardized testing. But I knew some. And there was really only one event that met the bill in terms of the potential for unimaginable violence.

“A theoretical. I’m a young noble in late 17th century France, one particularly attached to the idea of keeping his head on his shoulders.” I rubbed my neck. “How the hell do I stop the French Revolution?”

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