6.16 Grasping I

Their spy shells revealed very little about the target of their mission. Just an idyllic little town, abandoned but not ruined. The worst damage seemed to be caused by the dead and mutated plant-life. Manicured lawns had grown into tough looking mini jungles while tree roots buckled cement and asphalt. Besides that, it almost seemed like the town's missing residents could just move right back in when they woke from whatever vault the System was keeping them in.

There was no obvious sign of either humans or Scourges anywhere in the town but a System Station was sitting untouched in the middle of a parking lot, under the shadow of the town’s white water tower.

Absolutely everyone agreed it was a trap but no one wanted to risk burning it down. As numb to violence and risk as people had become, even the most cynical and selfish of their number didn’t want to risk burning people alive.

Even just thinking about it made Derrick slightly sick to his stomach, thanks to memories from his fights with the Grey Legion Drones.

So, once more, Derrick found himself leading a small team on a recon mission. Their goal, to make sure the erriely normal buildings weren't full of tragically orphaned children and their pets.

Jenny, Blake, Third Striker and himself made up the team. Three manna proficient Users that could protect him while he probed the buildings with auril.

Farmer’s fields surrounded the town instead of woodlands, but the tall crops did offer protection from sight. They were deep in areas touched by the Inoculation but not destroyed by it. The fields were patchy but still easily blocked line of sight.

Trusting in his auril to reveal traps and ambushes, he led his team though one such field. He figured it was less likely to be trapped than the roads. Plus, he could see no sign that any kind of machine had moved through the fields. The tall and healthy looking stalks were completely untouched by anything but tiny patches of thin white mold.

Derrick rubbed one such moldy leaf between two fingers.

“Something to worry about?” Jenny asked.

“I doubt it,” Derrick replied. Even if the mold was from a Spore Tyrant, this was not the kind of trap they made. Besides, it would be too busy trying to survive the Inoculation to worry about a small group of Users.

“What about you?” he asked. “You said you have some detection abilities?”

“Most people in West Hills do these days,” Jenny said. “You’re living proof of how important that kind of thing is. Those of us without auril had to try and find other ways to avoid being ambushed. In my case, it’s mostly this,” she finished and pointed to the silver orb still floating silently above her shoulder.

He had to admit he was intrigued, it was clearly a piece of pure System tech. Some kind of reward from their generous AI Overlord. He’d seen System technology like it before.

“This little guy is not only full of sensors, but lets me extend my kinetic field,” she said.

“Range?” Derrick asked. It wouldn’t be running on batteries, it would be tied to her manna hub, which in turn was wirelessly drawing power from the Abomination. Technically, he could power nearby hubs with his Core but that was unwise for a number of reasons. Like how he didn’t like sharing and it might drive people insane.

“Four hundred feet,” She said confidently. That was a whole lot better than his own hundred and fifty feet. Auril was a lot subtler than a shiny floating orb zipping around a battlefield though. It would need some kind of stealth before it could even try to replace the utility auril pulses. The best use for the scouting orb would be picking targets during active firefights, not stealth missions.

“What’s it called?” he asked.

“Familiar Drone,” Jenny answered. “Apparently they’re not too rare.”

“Nice,” Blake said, while his eyes scanned the dark green corn stalks that surrounded them. “How’d you unlock it?”

“Came with my Sentinel Role,” she replied easily.

“Oh? Second level. Congrats,” Derrick mused. That was still very rare. Red Works only had three hunters and one upgraded Fighter whose lack of auril prevented them claiming that class.

The ex-police woman just shrugged.

“The only important part is that it lets me save more lives,” she said.

“Ya, I’m sure you hate being faster and stronger than other people while being able to stop bullets with your mind,” Blake mocked. “It’s awesome, you can just admit it. You’re not going to be penalized for honesty here.”

It was pretty awesome. Even if the Scourges hadn’t invaded the Earth, the kind of power the System was offering would have been irresistible to most people. That wasn't even including fringe benefits like a general health boost that led to longer more active lives. Even if the System never gave out actual technology, just the physical and biological boosts would have been enough for it to conquer the Earth probably.

“Power is just a tool,” she said eventually. “The System makes us pay for what it gives and not just with points.”

“Power is essential and rejecting it very costly indeed. Strength is the foundation of all morality and society,” Third Striker disagreed. “To seek power is to seek life and a society that venerates suicide or despises itself cannot be moral.”

“Not for long anyway,” Blake added.

“That’s a soldier’s philosophy,” Jenny said, ignoring Blake. “There's more to life than war and survival.”

“Yes,” stated the hybrid with a smile. “There is also glory. Peace is only ever created through strength. This is as true for your kind as any other. Such self indulgent philosophy is common among the biggest fish in the smallest of ponds.”

“I may not have travelled the universe but I know that sapients are not animals,” Jenny said. “There’s no point in wars that cost without gain. Earth managed to become a mostly peaceful place despite huge power imbalances between nations.”

“That’s not morality,” Blake pointed out. “That’s economics. Besides, that peace was built on total control of the environment. The brutal and efficient extermination of vermin, predators and diseases. When you’re in total control of your environment, peace is a fun idea because it lets you enjoy that stability and control. Rich and fat people don’t like risk and love the rules that keep them rich and fat.”

“Talk like this is why you clowns scare so many people,” Jenny said.

“Good,” Blake said nastily. “If people aren’t scared, they aren’t paying attention.”

“You’re being quiet Derrick,” Jenny said and looked his way he could feel her regard. “What do you think about people being scared of you. Do you also enjoy it?”

“I think the people that know me best, the people who work with me, aren’t scared of me. They’re the people whose opinions matter to me.” He replied indifferently. “The people you're talking about, spend most of their time cowering anyway. I imagine they’re scared of lots of things.”

Jenny began speaking but he cut her off.

“I also think that while approaching a possible nest of survivors while loudly debating the morality and practicalities of power is an interesting way to prove we’re human to anyone who overhears us, I think silence is probably the wiser move from now on,” Derrick state. “I don’t think any of the Scourges would be impressed by anything they heard.”

They were communicating through their masks, so the chances of actually being overheard were slim, it was still a distraction though.

The group of four emerged from the field behind a building that housed a coffee shop and gas station. Probably the biggest business in the small town. Auril revealed it and the adjacent shops to be empty of life, so they entered through a backdoor and made their way to the shop’s main lobby.

There were no corpses littering the floors, no odd growths or even claw marks on the floor or walls. Even with his enhanced vision, every window he could see was uncracked. It was just an abandoned town. Almost picturesque.

“Weird,” Blake said, crouching behind a coffee shop table. “I can’t be the only person weirded out by this.”

“Maybe everyone was evacuated safely?” Jenny proposed.

“No,” Third Striker said. “Something very odd is going on here. I cannot detect the Station’s influence on the Fold, which I should from this distance if it were operational. There is also… interference. Something I cannot pin down, it is all around us though. A subtle manipulation of the Substrate.”

“Rebel Instruments then?” Jenny asked. “I’m no expert but that sounds like a corrupted Station to me.”

Derrick used his manna core to lightly touch the Substrate, where manna moved behind the scenes. It felt still and placid. Like something was holding it down. He frowned to himself, unnerved by the odd feeling. The stillness was powerful enough that it made probing the substrate difficult. Interference was a good word. It was easy to imagine the effect was created to hide something.

“That makes this definitely a trap doesn’t it?” Blake asked. “The smart move now is to leave and come back once the embers have cooled.”

“Children!” Jenny whispered sharply all of a sudden. “They just darted across the street to the west, at the top of the hill.”

Derrick looked but saw nothing. Jenny seemed serious though.

“Oh come on, really?” Blake asked, head in hand. “I change my mind then. Nuke this place from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.”

Derrick didn’t really disagree. Something incredibly fishy was going on here.

“How clearly did you see these children?” he asked skeptically.

“Perfectly. They weren’t illusions or robots, ” Jenny stated. “Two of them, around twelve years of age. They had System masks.”

“And you didn’t see anything odd about them?” Derrick asked, trying to get a better handle on what was going on.

Jenny hesitated.

“Spill it,” Blake said, noticing the same hesitation.

“They weren’t wearing any shoes,” she admitted.

That… was fairly odd. It didn’t really clear anything up though. It didn’t make them less likely to be human, it just made the situation slightly weirder.

“The truly strange thing here is how your kind have such very soft feet,” Third Striker added. “You can hurt yourselves in environments you yourselves designed just by traveling without protective layers. That is just silly.”

Not untrue, but very off topic.

“All right,” Derrick said “We head that way, avoiding the System Station where any trap is likeliest to be and I’ll try to pulse them. I’ve yet to run into anything that can fool auril. Hide from it, yes, but not fool it.”

Jenny at least looked grateful at his bravery. Blake looked like he wanted to slap him. He kept his mouth shut though, he knew the chances of them leaving children in the middle of a warzone were slim.

Third Striker had adopted an emotionless expression, one Derrick couldn’t pierce. He followed him though, when he left.

The quartet darted back out of the back door they had come in through and moved west. This was the heart of the town, so it was a fairly dense collection of buildings surrounding an intersection.

Never once did they hear any sign of life. No childish laughter from the shadows or the click of metallic limbs on pavement. Not so much as a single cricket.

As he was vaulting over a wooden fence, a pulse returned to him with more information.

“Shit,” he swore aloud as he landed in someone’s overgrown garden.

“What,” Jenny asked, concern obvious.

“You were right,” he admitted unhappily. “Two very human seeming children hiding in the home across the street.”

“Closer to the Station,” Blake noted emotionlessly. “What a coincidence.”

The Station was a good thousand feet away still, so just crossing the street only took them about a quarter of the way towards it.

“Something is watching us,” Third Striker said, his tone leaving no room for doubt. “Children should be protected, but know, it is dangerous here.”

Derrick agreed, a fact that really bothered him because his Quantum Awareness was silent. Not so much as a tingle from it so far. That was pretty strong evidence of this being a nest of Rebel Instrument machines.

“I can go alone,” Jenny offered and Derrick knew she meant it.

“No,” he answered and moved into the open street. “Let's get this over with.”

He casually walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. It rang and a second later, the door was opened by a young teenager wearing a dirty grey hoodie and jeans. Behind him was a slightly younger girl. Both of their faces were covered by standard System masks.Though the girl’s had what seemed to be purple crayon covering it.

Each was holding what looked like kitchen knives and his auril senses told him they were both human and completely unmutated by anything he knew about. They were also the only non-plant living things he could detect other than his allies.

The boy, apparently the speaker for the pair, spoke softly but firmly. He didn’t seem to be a User even though he had the mask. Probably it had been given to him.

“Nice jacket,” he said.

“Thanks,” Derrick said and then struck by the absurdity of the situation paused, not knowing what to say.

“There wouldn’t happen to be monsters around here, would there?” was what he settled on. It was an important question and one even a child could answer.

“Only one,” the boy said. “It ate the others.”

Lovely.

“Where is that monster,” Blake asked from behind him.

“Dunno,” the boy said. ”You can’t see it.”

Even better. He resisted the urge to pick the child up and make a run for it. He’d been stabbed by enough children already.

He felt Jenny tug at him from behind, so he stepped back and let her deal with this.

“Hey, I’m Jenny,” she said, kneeling in the doorway. “What’s your name.”

“Adam and I’m thirteen,” was his muffled but sullen reply. “Don’t treat me like a child.”

Derrick would have guessed he was older than that. The hoodie and mask added height and thickness.

“Well Adam we need you help,” Jenny said brightly. “Is there anyone else in the town?”

The masked boy shook his head.

“Thank fucking god,” Blake swore. “Can we leave now?”

“Are you sure?” Jenny asked the children and they both nodded.

“We’re sure,” he said. “The robots chased most people away and the rest disappeared when the ground changed.”

Derrick mused on that little tidbit of wisdom.

“Why don’t you wear shoes?” Derrick asked.

“There’s a monster in the ground,” Adam said. “You can feel it when you touch it. If you walk on the bad spots too much, it takes you.”

Ah.

“Bad spots? Like where?” he asked the boy carefully. It was his sister that answered though. She pointed to a patch of ground they had crossed to get to them. It was just a regular patch of sidewalk, now covered in light footprints.

“What kind…” Blake began before he shut his mouth.

The ground writhed erratically and the footprints disappeared, the cement somehow consuming the dirt.

There was something very familiar about how the ground had moved. Like worms… no, fingers moving below the surface.

“I call it the Grasper Grinder,” the boy said. “As long as you don’t walk on bad spots, it leaves you alone.”

“Fuck me,” said Blake, he was the closest to the ‘bad spot, not for long though. Jenny shot him a look, because the important thing right now was setting a good example for the children.

“Third Striker, is that what I think it is?” Derrick asked, already knowing the answer but wanting the Crusaders expert opinion.

“The same one,” was his reply. “It’s kind don’t usually hide, if that’s even what it is doing here.”

“What is it?” Jenny asked.

“Grab the kids,” Derrick said. “They should be safe to handle. If they resist, knock them out.”

Blake and and Jenny did so. There was no resistance.

“Do we worry about these bad spots?” Jenny asked. “I don’t really want to try and feel the way with bare feet.”

He didn’t blame her. The movements of the ground had been unsettling, to say the least. Creepy was probably a better word for it.

“It does not matter,” Third Striker said. “The children avoided its notice because they had no connection to the Fold. It must have came here for the corrupted Station’s Core. It was never unaware of us, we have been using manna constantly. It simply hasn’t acted yet. When it does, it will be stronger than last time.”

It probably hadn’t done anything because they hadn’t tried to leave.

What is it?” Jenny asked again, the girl now riding on her back.

“How bad is it?” Blake asked at the same time, the boy now on his.

“Feral Artisan,” Derrick said as patches of the ground around them began began to writhe wildly. It looked like a dozen forms were trying to claw their way out of the ground. HIs eyes were drawn to movement, the houses in the distance seemed to be moving. Slowly sliding together to block the way out. “It is about as bad as it gets.”