Chapter 127 (Patreon)

Chapter 127

It only took the repair sub about thirty seconds to mend the damage. The moment it was fixed, Donut and I teleported away. But when we jumped, we did not return to our personal space. That did not surprise me.

Our destination, however, did.

Entering the Desperado Club.

We were in a small room with a desk. The paper-covered desk was occupied by a tall man. The shadowy figure wore a dark cloak with a hood, which supernaturally obscured his face. Like he was a grim reaper. His hands, the only flesh I could see, were a dark, dark purple, almost black. His elongated fingers were almost elf-like, though the man’s height suggested he was nothing of the sort.

It was a small office, with wood slat walls and the same tiled floor as the rest of the Desperado Club. A tapestry hung from one wall, looking almost like a Turkish rug. There were no other decorations. Through the wall, I could hear the very distant pulse of the nightclub dance floor.

Our status indicators did not snap back on, but I could examine the man’s properties. Sort of.

Orren.

Syndicate Liaison.

There were a pair of old, wooden chairs in front of the desk.

“Please,” the man said, indicating the chairs. “Carl and Donut. Sit.” He had the voice of a British professor. Authoritative, but not aggressively so.

We both wordlessly sat down. I chewed on the jagged edge of my fingernail. The chair wasn’t high enough for Donut to look over the desk, and she suddenly looked very small sitting there. I reached over and gave her a pat. She was trembling.

The man put his pen down and folded his hands together. He regarded us. The darkness under his hood swirled.

“My name is Orren. I do not work for Borant. I am an independent consultant retained by the Syndicate. I am a neutral third-party observer. I work in concert with the current season’s showrunners, the Syndicate government, and the controlling AI. You would not normally meet me or one of my colleagues but under certain extreme circumstances. And as you can imagine, the events that just occurred most certainly qualify.”

“So, what? You’re like the vice principal of a high school? You collect the naughty boys and girls and tell them what their punishment is?”

He approximated a shrug. “I am a non-AI fact finder. Not quite a sheriff. Not quite an attorney.” He paused. “Not quite a judge.” He moved in his chair, and it creaked, like his body was heavier than it looked. “If the Syndicate sees something that requires more information, they will ask both the kua-tin and AI for reports on what happened. Sometimes those reports contradict each other. Sometimes those reports are inconclusive. In such cases, a liaison such as myself investigates. And if the facts warrant it, I recommend what should be done about it.”

We were in extreme danger here, and we both knew it. I felt for poor Donut, who’d had nothing to do with what had happened in the trailer. But I didn’t regret it. Not one bit.

The creature steepled his fingers. “Do you know how many assassination attempts there have been on dungeon admins over the solars?”

“Probably a lot,” I said.

“More than we would like to admit, yes,” the man—Orren—said. “And quite a few have been successful, too. Two seasons ago, a crocodilian managed to snap the head off of his outreach associate. He shouldered the admin into the hallway and literally bit the man’s head off. And instead of teleporting him away into the crawler disposal unit, the idiot Fortent admins sent two of their own security agents to subdue the crawler and also got themselves killed before the AI finally intervened. Three admins at once, which were the only admins killed by crawlers that season.”

Orren casually leaned back in his chair, which continued to groan and creak ominously. I knew he was wanting me to say something, to offer up information—much like how a real vice principal would if he was trying to get an unruly student to admit their guilt. I wasn’t going to say a word unless he asked me a direct question.

“Three was nowhere near the record, of course. But three is still considered a lot. Last season the Squim Conglomerate had no admin fatalities due to crawler attacks. I’d like you to guess how many have died this season so far due to your fellows.”

That was a trick question if I’d ever heard one.

“Zero,” I said.

The man grunted with amusement. “Not including this most recent death of Admin Loita, the number for this season currently stands at 15. Lucia Mar has killed two. Three if you count her first game guide, which we do not. The rest were all one-off attacks.”

I was genuinely intrigued at that, and more than a little proud of my fellow humans. “I thought all violence against admins was met with immediate justice from the AI. That’s what the warning says.”

Orren ignored me. “Fifteen is already considered a disaster. Do you know why that number is so high this season?”

I shrugged. “Probably two reasons. My people don’t like fish telling them what to do. And the kua-tin are running this show as cheaply as possible. I don’t know the details on how these zone things work, but I know they make it more dangerous for the workers.”

“You are correct, on both accounts.” He drummed the desk with his hand. “However, crawler. Every one of those fifteen deaths, and in fact, every single admin murder from the first crawl until this very moment all have one thing in common.” He leaned in. I detected a very slight distortion to his voice, like he was talking through a speaker. “We know exactly how the crawler pulled it off. This dungeon is the most scrutinized, most surveilled place in the history of the universe. Yet, nobody knows exactly how you did it.”

“She died because that stupid cat blew up,” I said.

“Carl, I’m beginning to suspect this Orren fellow thinks we murdered Loita,” Donut said, speaking for the first time.

“No, no, you misunderstand, crawler Carl. We know exactly how she died. It took longer than I’d like to ascertain all the facts. We were, at first, thrown off by the force of the explosion. There were no extra explosives brought into the production trailer. Yet, the explosion was more powerful than it should’ve been. That was the first mystery, though the AI did have a quick explanation for that. Do you know what it was?”

“I had the cat on my table,” I said. “She was watching me decant those infusions.”

He slapped the desk and pointed at me like I’d just given him the answer to an equation. The sudden and unexpected sound was like a thunderclap. I tried not to flinch, and I hated myself for flinching anyway. “Yes! The yield on the toy’s self-destruct mechanism was artificially enhanced by the AI simply because it sat upon your sapper’s bench while you were working on it, which as you know is one of the benefits of your table and your explosive handling skills. But that happened on its own. Records indicate you made no direct adjustments to the toy’s explosive. It’s what you did next that caused the explosion.”

Donut scoffed. “Oh my god, he does believe we did it on purpose.” She made a frustrated noise and then jumped onto my shoulder so she could look directly at the man. “If Carl was going to purposely kill Loita he would’ve shoved a stick of dynamite in her gills and then kicked her in the head. Carl is very good at killing things, and he can be very clever about it sometimes, but he doesn’t do secret agent man style murders. That’s not his style, and besides, every one of his plans always screws up somewhere along the way. He would’ve been caught. When he was with Miss Beatrice, his definition of ‘subtle’ was pulling his boxers down and saying, ‘me so horny.’ No offense, Carl.”

“What? I never did that.”

“Oh, right. That was Brad, wasn’t it? Anyway, you get my point. This was not my Carl’s handiwork. It’s quite impossible. He is not a ninja. And before you ask, it wasn’t me, either. Do you have tape of the actual explosion? I would just love to see it. Are you certain it wasn’t one of those Skull empire orcs? Or maybe the Veriluxx people remote detonating it because Carl had discovered their secret, evil plan?”

Orren nodded. “We have surveillance from the Mexx unit in the trailer, but that is it. Since you weren’t in the room, the footage isn’t nearly as holistic as we’d like. But it doesn’t matter. What happened is quite clear. Administrator Loita jumped down off the couch. The toy jumped down to follow, and a few seconds later, it exploded, killing her and almost killing you two as well. The panel on the back of its head dislodged when it jumped, which activated the creature’s self-destruct sequence and set off the explosion. Due to the interface lock-out because of Admin Loita’s presence, neither of you received the self-destruct warning.”

I grunted. “So that shitty little panel on the back of the cat’s head fell off? Look, it’s no secret that we didn’t get along with her. But that panel was made out of plastic. That toy was a cheap piece of crap. I mentioned it was going to fall off on its own more than once.”

He nodded. “I know. I watched the recording multiple times. It’s not plastic, at least not as you know it. The panel was made of a reactive, tamper-proof polymer called Zentix. It’s very popular throughout the galaxy, especially in children’s toys. It’s designed to fail under certain circumstances. Obviously, the explosion part isn’t usually a feature of the toy, but the panel is designed to break if someone tampers with or attempts to illegally modify the toy’s innards.”

“Then why is there a panel in the first place?” Donut asked. “If you can’t play with it, then why is it there?”

“It depends on the toy. Most have varying degrees of features depending on the user license. Some panels can only be accessed by authorized users. Some have controls that can only be adjusted by qualified personnel. It’s a smart polymer with multiple security settings. It’s not important. We are straying from the point.”

“So what is the point? What’re you trying to say?” I asked.

“I’m saying the residue dust left behind by the disco ball smoke curtain started to slowly eat away at the panel. That process was greatly enhanced when you placed the toy within range of Admin Loita’s rebreather apparatus. The moisture caused the remaining dust to run across the panel and along the edges. Then you engineered a situation that would cause the admin to get up off the couch. And because the toy was programmed to follow her, the act of jumping down dislodged the panel and thus caused the explosion. It was, quite simply, one of the most brilliant assassinations I have ever seen a crawler execute. And I applaud you for it.”

“This is just like the end of a Perry Mason episode,” Donut said. “I’m almost disappointed it’s all made-up and Carl isn’t really going to start crying from the witness stand and confess to the murder.”

Donut was cracking jokes, but I knew that she was very tense. And worried.

“But,” Orren continued, ignoring Donut, “as impressive as it was, we cannot allow crawlers to murder admins, even low-level ones such as Loita.” He slid a piece of paper from the pile on his desk and turned it toward me. It was a mostly-blank sheet of paper with a signature line at the bottom and a hand-written headline at the top in Syndicate Standard that read, “Admission of non-sanctioned violence by Crawler number 4,122 ‘Carl.’”

“You want me to sign a blank piece of paper?” I asked. I was mildly offended that they’d think that would actually work. “Yeah, no.”

He shrugged. “You might just survive if you admit it. Lucia Mar happily signed a confession both times, and she’s still in the dungeon. We’d give you a similar deal.”

“If you really thought I’d killed her, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You wouldn’t be asking me to sign anything.”

Orren didn’t say anything for several moments. “You knew the forcefield would protect the trailer’s hull from the explosion. You asked about it. You knew about the chemical reaction that would eat the panel. You created one of the few explosive combinations that leave behind a persistent residue.” He pulled the blank sheet of paper away and produced a second one, and this one was covered with many, many paragraphs of text. It still had a blank signature line at the bottom. “You’re obviously getting information from an outside source. We know it wasn’t Agatha or any of her helpers. None are in your bubble. We don’t believe it was Odette, either.”

I reeled at the mention of homeless, shopping cart-pushing Agatha. What was it she’d said to me way back on the second floor? They already know I’m here. They just don’t know what to do about it yet.

“Tell us who your source is and how they communicate with you, and you will be returned to the dungeon with no penalties, and you will be given a Legendary box that will contain an item that will all but guarantee your survival until the ninth floor.”

I was stunned at the offer, but only for a moment. Contract or not, there was no way I was going to trust them about anything. Besides, my “source” was the cookbook, and I did not want to give it up. If I mentioned it, it would disappear. Would they even believe me? It wasn’t worth the risk. No fucking way.

Plus, this guy’s version of the assassination was significantly more complicated and high-tech than what had really happened.

I had no idea about the polymers or the residue of the disco ball reacting with the weird space plastic. That shit was well beyond anything I’d be willing to trust. Donut was right that my plans usually went off the rails. This time it had been to my benefit. That whole chemical reaction thing was nothing more than a happy little misdirection.

I had known about the forcefield thanks to Coolie’s passage in the cookbook. I had known that the disco ball would’ve covered everything in technicolor dust, also thanks to the cookbook. My purpose with that had been simple. I wanted to get that crap all over the toy so they wouldn’t want it brought into the studio. That was it.

I had not known that little panel was made of some weird type of plastic. I did, however, know it was a piece of shit. I’d been worried from the start that the stupid panel would fall off. I’d been toying with using my duct tape to hold the thing in place.

Instead, I came up with an idea for it to fall off exactly when I wanted it to.

If I was going to risk everything, then all of the circumstances had to be perfect, and I wouldn’t know if they were until the last possible minute. Only then could I gamble on “arming” the toy. I hadn’t realized the dust from the disco ball was already doing the job for me.

Any kid who’s had battery-operated toys—or any adult who’s had a remote control for their television—knows exactly what happens when that ridiculous little plastic tab over the battery compartment breaks or somehow gets out of whack. The whole cover refuses to stay put, and any big jolt causes it to take a dive, usually disemboweling the batteries in the process.

I couldn’t just outright break off the little tab. That would’ve been both obvious and would’ve caused it to fall right away. So instead of breaking it, I simply pushed it down with my left palm, placed my left thumb between the little tab and the holder, and I broke off my strategically-cut left thumb fingernail, creating a shim.

I’d been collecting all the broken pieces of the robot Donuts every time Mongo killed one. I had a perfectly-preserved back panel from the first iteration in my inventory. I sat on the toilet and practiced the move several times with other fingers before I got it right. I’d cut my nail 3/4s off, but close to the finger so it wasn’t noticeable. The panel thing was such an utter piece of crap, it easily fell off with just a little foreign object. In fact, it was so flimsy, so easy to fall off, I was starting to suspect the toy had actually been a low-effort assassination attempt on us.

When I’d leaned in to tap on the glass and ask Loita if the trailer could go into space, I’d attempted to get my nail in place, but it’d slipped out. I’d had to lean in a second time to get it right. I leaned over the couch, and I’d made the move with my left hand, pressing the robot toy against my chest. In the end, it’d been simple. I held the panel in place as I pulled my hand away. When I placed the toy on the couch next to the admin, I’d pulled away with enough force to dislodge my fingernail, which held the panel precariously in place.

I practically shit myself when the robot Donut had turned its head to say some creepy shit to Loita. But the little panel had held. It wasn’t visibly loose. But I knew it would go flying the moment it jumped to the ground. Loita had been so distracted by my attempted extortion of Veriluxx, she likely never noticed the little piece of plastic falling off the cat and landing on the carpet.

And that’s what killed her.

“I’m not signing anything because I have nothing to give up, nobody to rat out,” I said. “And believe me, I’d love to get a free legendary box. But I have nothing to give you in exchange. This was an accident. But you’re obviously not an idiot, so I won’t lie to you. I wish I had thought of this. I wish I had outside help because if I did and thought I could’ve gotten away with it, I would’ve done it without hesitation, but I wouldn’t have wasted the opportunity on some low-level bitch like Loita.”

Donut, still on my shoulder, was stiff as a board.

The faceless man said nothing for a moment. “And who would you have used it on, then?”

I didn’t answer. There were only so many lines I could cross. There was so much I wanted to say. I thought of Brandon. Of Yolonda. Of everybody else in the world. They had all died, and nobody cared. Yet someone like Loita died, and we had to go through all of this?

You will not break me. Fuck you all. I will break you. I will break you all.

Orren sighed and pulled the paper away. “Very well. As we are unable to determine what happened and no consensus exists regarding the incident, I have no choice but to recommend that the Syndicate close the matter. However, you should know we have implemented a punitive measure onto Borant for the remainder of this floor, as this wasn’t an isolated incident. No crawlers will be allowed to be teleported away by third parties until the next floor opens. Yes, that means your next appearance on Odette’s show has been canceled. She’s already filed an appeal.”

I had so many new questions. Lucia Mar had killed two admins and gotten away with it? How? Why wasn’t she dead?

“You can leave via the door,” the man said, dismissing us with a wave. “Your bodyguards are outside waiting.”

“Sledgie is here? Yay!” Donut said.

“And just so you know, Carl. That was lucky. I admire your grit. It makes for good entertainment, but I wouldn’t press that luck. Whomever this is, they are not doing it for your benefit. If the kua-tin hadn’t intervened on your behalf, this would’ve gone much differently.”

I paused as I stood. “What do you mean? How did they intervene?”

He didn’t look up. “Certain crawlers are simply too valuable to just throw away off screen, no matter how recalcitrant they are. Ultimately it’s their call. And even though I can’t find legal cause to place Administrator Loita’s death upon you, if it were up to me, I’d have you removed anyway. We discussed this in council, and it was decided that my personal recommendation be ignored. For now. The mudskippers aren’t known for their ability to recognize threats. If the rumors are correct and we do take over after the next floor, I hope my own people will be much more willing to listen to my personal assessment.”

My interface was still turned off so I couldn’t look at the timer, but I suddenly felt a chill. As far as I was aware, Loita had blown up about 45 minutes ago. But all of this… council meetings, court appeals, hand-written confessions...

“How long have we been away?” I asked.

“It’s only been five days. You’re lucky it wasn’t longer. You still have five days left to finish your bubble. Your partner Katia has gotten into some interesting adventures while you’ve been gone. She’s back on the top ten list. Above you, actually. You two are about to slip off, so you probably want to get back to work.”

“Goddamnit,” I said. I slapped the man’s desk in frustration, and papers went flying. I wasn’t upset about slipping off the top-10 list. I was pissed about losing all that time. Don’t be too mad. You’re the luckiest motherfucker in the dungeon right now. You did it. You got away with it.

Next time it won’t be so easy.

Orren looked up then, and the man’s hood slipped. The swirling black coalesced, and I realized it was actually a face-shaped bowl of liquid, made to look like swirling darkness. Within that liquid I caught a tiny glimpse of light. Mordecai had described what they looked like to me, so I recognized what was in the liquid. A worm. A Valtay worm.

~

If Mordecai wasn’t covered in feathers, I knew he’d be pale as a sheet.

Donut was completely poofed out and hopping up and down like she’d taken two extra espresso shots. She’d released Mongo, who fed off her energy and was also bobbing up and down excitedly. She’d already told Mordecai and Katia about the death of Loita and was now breathlessly attempting to explain what had happened afterward. It all came out in one, long, unfiltered, incomprehensible paragraph.

“…And they thought Carl was doing some Breaking Bad chemistry stuff, and I told them that was impossible because Carl used to pull his pants down when he wanted relations from Miss Beatrice, and that’s when the guy realized that Carl probably didn’t do it even though I was wrong because that was actually that Brad guy she went to the Bahamas with. Though I think maybe the AI told them that Carl probably did do it? I don’t know, it was quite odd. Because he also said that the kua-tin said he didn’t do it. And that means the AI had to have thought that he did because he said there was a disagreement about the facts. And then the grim reaper-looking guy accused Agatha the shopping cart lady and Odette of helping us even though they’re not even in the bubble and Carl was all grumpy and said, ‘I wish I had done it’ and I thought we were going to get into more trouble but the guy didn’t care. But she’d really just died because the back fell off and blew up. And it was really her own fault, wasn’t it? She’s the one who insisted on putting the blow-up stuff in the toy, and they did, and it ended up killing her. The commercial was lame anyway because it was only going to be shown at gas stations. I mean, really. It’s embarrassing. But we can’t go on shows anymore for the rest of the floor. Odette is so mad she filed a court case about it. Oh, oh Katia, did that mean they canceled your show? Sorry about that.”

“My show wasn’t canceled,” Katia said. She didn’t sound too thrilled about it. “I went on it. They added the ban as it was being taped. Zev told me about the ban just before I teleported back down here. She also told me what was happening with you three.”

Donut gasped. “Zev? Really? You talked to her?”

“She said she’s our temporary PR agent until everything gets sorted out. She said she’d send a message later.”

Donut did a little hop.

Mordecai nodded. “I didn’t think I was going to see you again. I got a notice that there was a liaison hold on Donut, and then suddenly it was five days later.”

“Wait, so you were also gone?” I said. I turned to Katia. She was now down on the land quadrant and was in the personal space via a pub down there. She was also now level 40, three higher than the last time I’d seen her.

Donut and I were still in Hump Town. “You must’ve thought we were dead.”

“I didn’t know what the hell was happening until Zev told me. You weren’t available on chat, Mordecai disappeared, but it didn’t show you as dead. Once I learned we wouldn’t know your fate for a few days, I had to take matters in my own hands. I tried flying the house to the land quadrant, but it wouldn’t let us at first until we figured out what was wrong. By the way, if you hadn’t left the controller with Louis, we never would’ve been able to fly the thing. I’ve spent the last five days killing scorpion men and arguing with Gwen. We could really use your help down here. Louis and Firas are already on the way back to pick you up. They’ve turned into quite the pilots. Once you get your asses down here, I’ll catch you up.”

Mordecai still looked out of sorts. He was muttering to himself. “Only the fifth floor, and the liaisons are already involved. By his left tit. Next thing you know, the lawyers will be here. Everything gets complicated once the lawyers get here.”

I ignored him. “Do you know if Chris and Maggie are still trapped?”

“They are,” Katia said. “Langley and his guys are still up there with you, and he’s keeping an eye on them.”

“Why couldn’t you get the house down to the land quadrant?” I asked.

Katia waved her hand. “It’s a long story. We almost died figuring it out. It was because of the stairwell in the master bedroom. Remember what Louis did to his mother’s minivan? He had to do it do the house. You’ll see. It’s not the most elegant solution, but it works.”

“Jesus,” I said. “We really do need to catch up.”

Mordecai was still going off about what had happened to us. “A godsdamn syndicate liaison. And he just let you walk right out of there? I can’t believe it.”

“Yeah,” I said, grinning. “He didn’t even say anything about this.” I held Loita’s rebreather up in the air. I’d looted it off the dead kua-tin’s body. Since I couldn’t access my inventory at the time, I’d just shoved it into my boxer’s waistband. The device was small, about the size of a cat collar. I tossed it into my inventory now. It wasn’t very valuable and could only be used by a knee-high creature with gills, but you never knew what was going to be important.

Mordecai just gawked at me, beak hanging down.

“Wait until you hear what Carl said to my sponsor!” Donut added.

***

Happy Tuesday everybody! I hope you are doing well. Welcome to all the new patrons. I spent the weekend in a recording studio with my band, and we got absolutely nothing done, which is exactly what it's like to be in a band. It was still fun.

We're probably closer to the end of the floor than ya'll realize. I think we're done with intergalactic intrigue and politics for at least one or two chapters, but Carl's conspiracy theories with Veriluxx might have unintended consequences further down the line. Also, there were quite a few small, subtle reveals in that last chapter, some of which have been brewing since the very beginning. There's still plenty of craziness to unfold before this floor finishes including a monster whose form you're going to vote for.

Incidentally, I once broke the tip of my thumbnail off closing a wiimote battery case, and it hurt. a lot. It was probably the third or fourth stupidest self-injury in my life story. The second was when I accidentally invented napalm with a flaming marshmallow and the first involved an iguana named Chuck that bit my finger off.