eligos
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Chapter 130
🕑 Added 2022-07-21 22:35:38 +0000 UTCAN: Quick note. It came to my attention that I mislabeled certain regions. The most noteworthy being that region 15 failed the transposition, when that should be region 13. It was a pain in the ass to fix, but the chapters should reflect that now. My fault for trying to keep twenty regions straight in my head. Anyway, I've made some notes on the regions mentioned so far, and I'll post a non-spoilery version of those notes later.
After double-checking to make sure the hallway was clear, I made my way to Kinsley’s apartment.
Kinsley led us in, Sae trailing behind. In normal circumstances, I would have introduced her to my old teacher. But Estrada was completely focused on the TV, her normal congenial manner nowhere to be found. Instead, she was sitting forward in the recliner, peering at the image with unmitigated focus.
On its own, this wasn’t completely out of the ordinary. She often acted this way when a student asked a particularly difficult question. The kindly grandmother qualities disappeared when she called on her full intellect.
“Niña, did you suspend the market for the next hour?”
Kinsley swiped an invisible screen away. “It’s done. Put up a “down for temporary maintenance,” message, so people didn’t freak out.”
“Good. That should ward off at least the initial panic buying.”
“Can’t leave it down for too long.” Steinbeck said. He was leaning on the kitchen counter, eyes glued to the TV. “If people think their only source of commerce is unreliable, demand will grow exponentially.”
“I am aware.” Estrada snapped. Finally, she seemed to notice us. Her eyes flicked to Sae, then immediately back to the TV. “Come in, Matthias and company. The monster is showing its face.”
Sae hesitated. She didn’t look particularly comfortable, confronted with a new person—I could understand why. Kinsley and Iris were both kids, naturally disarming. She sat down on the far end of the loveseat opposite of Estrada.
On the television, the overseer was speaking. He looked much the same as before. His body was perilously thin, with limbs that were little more than twigs, though it was impossible to gauge his actual size. Something about his body language seemed different from before. His pose was the same, but he was drooping somewhat.
“—And so ends the first transposition.” His tone was flatter and more irritable than before. “Even with a shortened time limit, most of you performed admirably. Despite some unexpected irregularities.”
An image flashed, a barricade of red-and-blue lights surrounding a squad of police and riot shields. Most of them were unrecognizable, though I recognized Yulia, the woman at the Dallas Police Department recruiting table that was talking to Iris at the open-forum. She was near the middle of the huddle.
Hundreds of goblins rushed towards them with clubs and rudimentary swords, while taller variants waited at the back, taking potshots with slings and bows.
It was a bad match up for the goblins. In a formation that looked more like a spartan phalanx than a modern police tactic, Users with pikes, spears, and long swords paired with the police in SWAT gear and riot shields, waiting until the goblins clustered up to the point they were almost immobilized to strike.
“Jesus.” Sae poked me, still transfixed on the images. “Was it like this everywhere?”
I shook my head. “No. Inner-city got hit the hardest. But I didn’t know it was this bad. How’d they even manage to gather anything?”
“From what I’ve heard, certain humanoid monsters were dropping lux.” Kinsley said, grabbing a seat across from Sae. “No idea if the bastards dropped it naturally, or picked it up at some point. Either way, the drop rate was so low that the average User probably wouldn’t see one.”
As goblin bodies piled up at the shield wall, they seemed to realize—a bit too late—that they needed to change tact. A goblin with red-face paint raised a cudgel and shouted something inaudible, and most of the throng followed him to the far-left edge of the phalanx.
Yulia turned back and yelled to someone off-screen. A series of rapid reports rang out, tearing through the ranged goblins on the backline. The attack wasn’t as horrific as it should have been—instead of dropping the goblins immediately, the impacts were reduced to the same effect as being hit with a frozen paintball, disorienting the goblins and knocking them down at best. Suddenly, the left side of the Phalanx parted, allowing two Users—one with a giant mace, another with a double-sided axe through, easily laying waste to the bunched up attackers. When they began to pull back, Yulia leaped over the shield wall, spear glowing a vibrant red as she drove the cluster of goblins against the barricade of police cruisers in a barrage of attacks so quick they blurred together, pinning them against the cruisers while the heavy hitters continued to decimate the goblins.
Interesting. There was clear disciplined strategy at work, the phalanx, utilizing NPCs with firearms with User attacks.
The scene switched, showing members of the adventurer’s guild working together to bring down one of the giants I’d spotted near the city center. Tyler and a handful of other bruisers hacked away at the giant’s legs, while more mobile Users attacked from range and set traps, dodging in and out as the giant tried to swat at them. Sara scaled the giant—her dismembered arm replaced with a glowing yellow prosthesis—used her whip to accelerate the process. When she reached the giant’s shoulders, she danced around its shoulders and neck, lashing out at its eyes, doing whatever she could to blind it. Eventually, it fell to its knees and toppled.
“Coordination worthy of celebration.” The overseer crooned. “But not all of you were cooperating quite so smoothly.”
The next scene was a stark contrast. Two massive groups of Users that rushed at each other on a five lane road, forming colliding walls of violence. It could have easily been a LARP, or a reenactment of some kind, before the moment of collision. The impact was almost palpable through the screen, as flesh collided with flesh.
As far as I could tell, they had no way of differentiating friend from foe. There were multiple instances of friendly fire. A bedraggled man with wild eyes was stabbing another man on the ground repeatedly. Someone tackled him. A mage, who held a wand to his face and seared him until he was almost recognizable. The mage stood to his feet, swaying slightly, then stood stock still as he studied a sword jutting out of his chest.
I looked over to Kinsley. “The hell happened there?”
Kinsley chewed her lip. “Given the area, it looks like it could have been nineteen and twenty? No idea why they’re fighting.”
A familiar image came into focus. Our siege of the storage center in region 3. I felt some relief, as most of the attention was centered on the conflict outside the facility. That relief shifted into unease as I witnessed exactly how brutal the diversion had been. The assholes in region three had streamed out at first, trying to overwhelm us with numbers. Astrid launched artillery spells at the encroaching force, aiming at their periphery, trying to do enough damage that she couldn’t be ignored but avoiding the sort of center mass hit that could have easily wiped out Users whose defense wasn’t up to snuff.
Still, it wasn’t perfect. A glowing artillery blast landed a bit too close to the group, severing the leg of a nearby User, who collapsed to the ground. Another fell next to him, his eyes open.
Dead before he hit the ground.
A user screamed in rage and rushed at Astrid. Bob darted out from the median and tripped him with a bow before he could attack her shield, driving the end of the bow into the man’s head. A bit too hard, as blood trickled from the man’s ear.
The “camera” panned towards the building and began to move towards it. Recognizing the direction it was headed, I held my breath, gripping the handles of my wheelchair tightly. It passed through a blacked out window and into a hallway, where Miles and I were working in tandem to take down the Users in the entryway.
I breathed out quietly as I saw myself, garroting a user. My proportions were off, but more importantly, it looked like I was standing in deep shadow, even though—considering the overhead light—I should have been completely visible. Miles made exactly the impression you’d expect. He looked like an action hero from a bygone age, managing to smoothly dodge attacks and put his targets down with the minimal force needed.
The overseer continued on, detailing the achievements and shortcomings of several regions. Eventually, he shifted gears.
“Many of you took initiative. Put your lives on the line to protect the ungifted.” The Overseer narrated. “But there are always cowards.”
It cut away from the previous scene and showed a crowded receptacle. A handful of Users in starter gear stood around fear written on their face, diminishing somewhat as a more proactive group made a deposit and immediately left.
“For those of you who chose to do nothing? Who blindly allowed others to carry the weight, ignorant of their toil? Well. Let us state this simply to ensure you understand. Everything you’re about to see, is entirely your fault.” The overseer pointed towards the camera.
What followed was footage interspersed from region 13 and 17, the regions that had failed to fill their receptacles. I’d only caught flashes of the chaos in region 13. Now, viewing it in its entirety made me sick to my stomach. Gangs of people kicked in doors, dragging others out and executing them like livestock.
“It’s almost too obvious. The way they’re using tragedy to radicalize any remaining bystanders.” Estrada said, her voice laden with detached interest.
“And exacerbating the tensions between new and experienced Users.” I shook my head. “Anyone who wasn’t a User before the transposition is going to get lumped in with the people who stayed passive, unless they have someone respectable to vouch for them.”
Estrada looked away from the carnage on screen, locking eyes with me. “This is pure propaganda. A calculated process of creating division among the masses, when division will hurt us most.”
Despite trusting her judgement, I hoped she was wrong. Because if Estrada was correct, the overseer still had another avenue to drive that division home.
The footage cutoff mid-scream, eerily silent without the cacophony of background noise. Slowly, the Overseer leaned forward. With the way he was positioned, the jagged smile on his mask was almost crookedly apologetic.
“What we are about to show you should not have been allowed to happen. It occurred outside the natural order. It is the natural result of a warning unheeded.”
I braced myself for the inevitable, as the blood-red landscape of Region 6 filled the screen.
