He wanted a new System, and for that, he needed quints. Lots of quints.
Thorn downshifted his truck and turned the corner slowly as he approached a mid-sized tower on the southwest side of Aba. The apartment building was new-ish and fairly clean, by Aba standards, but still down in the valley. The various guild leaders and wealthy merchants perched up in the mountains in their penthouses, looking down on the rest of the city. When they could see the city through the fog of pollution hanging over it, that was.
This was his “home,” although Thorn didn’t rent an apartment here. No, he rented a parking spot where he could sleep in the back of his truck, using the same camping kit that he took with him on hunting trips.
Thorn pulled through the tight entrance to the parking garage at the base of the tower, saw his parking spot and came to a hard stop. There was another vehicle already parked there. It was an expensive piece of machine tech too: gaudy gold-plate finish with chrome highlights and the tell-tale seams on the hubs and fenders that meant it could convert to aerial flight.
The parking space that he leased under the apartment tower was technically a sublet, but it was still a System-verified contract. The premium was significant to have a real contract in place, but it was worth it for times like this when he needed to prove his ownership.
“Alright, what’s the bad news?” his friend Lief asked, as soon as the comm connected.
“Well, okay then! First, hello, how are you, I’m fine, thank you. And secondly, how do you know I’ve got bad news?” Thorn countered. “It could be good news. Great news even.”
“Well, since when do you comm me with good news? You better not be backing out on our trip this weekend,” Lief replied. The original plan was for Lief to meet Thorn at his place.
Lief was older than Thorn; maybe even twice his age, although Thorn had never asked. He had a sharp, military bearing, and had previously run a nature preserve out west as a Warden for the Agrarian Guild. Similarly to Thorn, he had been kicked out of the Agrarian Guild under dubious circumstances. Lief never spoke about it, even when drunk on the rough moonshine he liked to make and liked to drink even more. They had bonded over the same hatred for the group that had ruined their lives.
“Nope, not backing out, of course not, just had a little hiccup,” Thorn said.
“I knew it,” Lief said. “Just like the ex-wife. Never a comm to tell me I’m good looking or to hurry home, she’s waiting up for me. But always a comm to tell me I forgot to do the dishes, or if I’m any later to not even bother–”
“Alright, alright, enough,” Thorn said with a chuckle before Lief could build up too much momentum. “It is bad news, but not that bad. Someone is in my parking spot, so we’ll just have to meet up somewhere else.”
“Copy that,” Lief said. “You know… You could try to make friends this time. Be nice to the person who needed a spot to park their vehicle and borrowed yours while you weren’t using it.”
Thorn focused slightly, pulling up his System’s HUD and pinging the fancy vehicle’s interface.
“Yes, I could try to make friends,” Thorn allowed.
It was true that Thorn didn’t want to cause any problems for anyone that lived in the building; he had learned the hard way that it was best to always be friendly with the people who lived around you, and especially so if you slept in the back of your vehicle. But given that the owner of this ridiculously expensive piece of exquisite machine technology hadn’t left any contact details, well, there were other, more profitable ways of dealing with the situation at hand.
“But it’s hard to make friends when the owner of this exquisite custom-make aerial convertible doesn’t leave a contact persona to forward a comm to. It’s a bit rude, even. They were unfriendly first.”
Lief groaned loudly.
“If you could wait half an hour, and just circle in traffic, I can be there and help you find the owner. Discretely. Very friendly-like. No need to go nuclear.”
Lief’s {14.2-09 “Warden”} System gave him significantly advanced sensing and tracking capabilities, predictive analytics for animal and beast behavior, stealth and camouflage abilities, some decent sniper skills, and most importantly: tier-3 integrated drones that were some of the best around for scouting.
His full-time job in Aba was some type of private security contractor. He never told Thorn the details, but Thorn imagined it was more than likely some kind of off-the-books, private-eye type of work for a major Guild. Espionage or counterespionage activities, protecting a Guild’s secrets, and all that. Or, given his proclivity to talk about his ex-wife… snapping pictures of cheating spouses.
Maybe it was both.
“Thorn,” Lief said. “Just wait.”
“I’m very certain you could sniff out the owner very quickly,” Thorn replied absentmindedly, concentrating as he threw his truck into reverse and backed out of the parking garage gingerly. Many Systems came with higher tiers of machine integration, allowing for autonomous or near-autonomous operation of System-linked vehicles, but Thorn didn’t have that. He was only at Level 1, having never upgraded his System with quintessence, not even once. It was possible, but highly unlikely, that at higher levels his System would unlock higher tiers of machine integration.
He’d learned how to drive manually back in the village he grew up, stealing the family’s tractors and terraforming machines and taking them out for joy rides, using the back-up manual fail-safes to operate them. Driving a vehicle was a bit of a lost art, really, but one that Thorn enjoyed immensely.
“Thorn…” Lief sighed.
“Gimme a minute.” Back out on the road, Thorn split his concentration to pull up his System HUD again. Thorn hated his System, but he didn’t hate the fact that he could easily use it to prove his contract-guaranteed rights. Pretty much any System worth calling a System could do basic comms, contracts, and quintessence binding.
“You do this every time,” Lief said, the disappointment clear in his voice. “It’s a bad habit, and you might have a problem.”
“I can stop at any time. I simply choose not to,” Thorn replied, before reviewing the response from his System.
“So who are you going with?” Lief asked, the defeat in his voice giving way to interest. Thorn had the choice of three towing companies who had purchased the right to operate in Aba from the local government.
“I’m feeling Tow-Jammers, Inc., today.” Thorn willed his System to send the confidential tow request with proof of ownership to Tow-Jammers Inc.
“Very fast, very inconsiderate, and with a high propensity for property damage,” Lief sniffed. “I approve. Can you at least patch me into a visual feed?”
“I knew you were a fellow fan of their work. I’ll let you watch when the action starts.”
Thorn circled the block while he waited, drifting in rush-hour traffic. Despite his lack of hesitation in comming a tow company to come and haul off the interloper in his spot, his friend was probably right. Lief could be a hard man at times, a stickler for details and planning, and no stranger to violence either. But perhaps because he had spent most of his life out in the wilds, caring for nature, he had an odd sense of balance. Of proportionate response… something that Thorn lacked.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
When he saw the familiar sight of a tow truck with the logo of a big toe radiating waves of neon-pink pain peeling off the side, Thorn directed a concentrated effort towards his System and turned on the visual feed for Lief. The information from his eyes was filtered by his System, interfacing with his ocular nerves, and then broadcast to Lief. He hated doing this for too long, though; it gave him a migraine, basically, as he was still Level 1 and had not been able to incorporate any additional quintessence into his mind or nervous system to help with the burden.
The Tow-Jammers tow truck descended quickly out of the sky, narrowly missing several vehicles as it slammed onto the ground outside of the parking garage. It ignored the honks of traffic around it as it backed down the narrow entryway, scraping the concrete sides as it went down. The tow truck had to be a converted piece of armor, or personnel carrier, considering how thick and scratched up the sides of it were.
“Quick, around the block so we don’t miss the exit,” Lief encouraged. Thorn obliged, cutting a few vehicles off and generating a few honks and rude gestures of his own.
The tow truck shot out of the parking garage with a cloud of sparks, immediately lifting into aerial mode. It blared its own horn, a deep bass that Thorn felt in his chest, and flashed strobing lights that pierced his eyes. The custom Helix Sovereign MK-IV banged off the walls of the parking garage and hit the ceiling as well, putting a large dent in the center of the rear foil.
“Ouch. That’s not going to buff out,” Lief commented. “T-minus five… four… three…”
Lief didn’t even get to “one” before a half-clothed man with shocking red hair burst out of the front door of the apartment building, yelling obscenities at the accelerating tow truck.
The man paused to pull a shirt over his head and tie his shorts up tighter. He tensed, then jumped ten feet into the air in a burst of concentrated power. Small turbines extended out of the machine tech organically integrated into his calves and heels, and with a sharp blast, thrust him forward into the air, chasing after his car, disappearing into the air behind the apartment building.
That was a ridiculously expensive vehicle; it must have even more custom elements than he’d thought. It brought a nice pay-day for a few minutes of work. Thorn would get over a hundred quints, and the towing company would get close to several thousand, after the fine was fully assessed and the angry young man got his fancy vehicle out of impound.
“Well, there you have it,” Thorn said with a certain amount of satisfaction.
“You sure about that?” Lief said smugly. “I wouldn’t underestimate a young scion with moves like that.”
As Thorn turned around the block, he had a better view of the aerial tug-of-war happening between the Tow-Jammers impound vehicle and the young man who had made the mistake of parking in Thorn’s spot.
The young man had his arm hooked underneath the forward chassis of the golden vehicle, and was blasting a serious amount of force through the turbines on his legs. They were several hundred meters away, at least, and yet Thorn thought he could hear the whine of those turbines ringed in blue flares.
Thorn decided not to wait to see who would win that tug-of-war, and instead of pulling into the parking garage, he made the split decision that it would probably be best if he made himself scarce for a while. The rich and powerful were not well known for controlling their emotional impulses, and if he parked in his spot, it would be far too obvious who had called the towing company.
If that man was comfortable fighting his parking ticket in such a fashion, he may well be comfortable practicing his tug-of-war skills on the upper and lower halves of Thorn’s body.
“Meet you at the diner instead?” Thorn asked. “We can grab a bite to eat before we leave.”
“Probably wise,” Lief said with a laugh.
Thorn wasn’t too upset. He wasn’t going to be around for the weekend anyways. He would also get a commission, even without seeing the end result of the face-off between the young man and Tow-Jammers, Inc. The whole System process was legal and confidential, and shouldn’t come back on him. And he had the satisfaction of sticking it to someone who thought they could just take his stuff without any repercussions.
On the short drive across town to the Stellar Eats diner, Thorn wondered what it would be like, living the life of that man. Organic machine integration, including flight and super strength. Systems could do such magical things with quintessence.
Once he earned enough to buy himself a new System, one that didn’t just give him local tow truck recommendations, he would upgrade his muscles, brain and nervous system, increasing his strength, intelligence, and proprioception. He would then be able to imbue quintessence into a tool or machine, making it harder, faster, sharper, easier to control; whatever he needed it to be. He would be able to manipulate the physics of the world around him to create gouts of plasma, gravity, or electromagnetic force…
He willed his System to pull up its basic status.
After a few years of grinding and hustling, he had 22,041 quints saved up. A small fortune to small fry like him, but a pittance on the true scale of things: the scale of Guilds, and the scale of buying a new System.
Thorn sighed as he pulled into the run-down diner and parked in the back. A neon sign out front read “Stellar Eats,” except most of the letters didn’t light up. The ones that did spelled “S……Eats,” which… was technically accurate. There were indeed seats in the diner, even if most had holes in the upholstery and more than one unidentifiable stain.
“I did not expect to see you so soon. How did the free samples go?” Cook asked as Thorn walked in the back of the kitchen. In contrast to the run-down exterior and dining area, the kitchen was a spotless expanse of chrome surfaces, clean grills and fresh food in various stages of preparation. The smells were mouth-watering as always, and Thorn’s stomach rumbled.
“Went fine,” Thorn mumbled as he went to check the meat-hanging freezer. He wanted to confirm how much room they had; he and Lief would only bring back as much fresh meat as they could fit in the freezer. Luckily, there was plenty of room.
Cook merely grunted in response and continued chopping away at the vegetables on the table. Cook’s knife hand was a literal blur, dicing each tuber in a fraction of a second.
“I’m thinking we can hang twelve humpers in here?” Thorn asked.
Cook grunted again, then his knife paused. “I also have a standing order for any awakened beast.”
“Absolutely,” Thorn said. If they could bag something that valuable… But even if they had the opportunity, his hunting partner might not agree.
Too dangerous, Lief might say. You’re not ready yet. Too young, inexperienced, and low level.
Then he would wax poetic about the balance of nature and how awakened beasts were nature’s response to an imbalance, and unless they took care to right that imbalance first, they would only make things worse. Thorn wasn’t sure about the nature mumbo-jumbo, especially since he never listened until the end of those lectures, but he did respect Lief’s opinion on the danger. Awakened beasts were animals that had absorbed quintessence into their bodies, in a process similar to but different from the way that Systems aided humans. They were stronger, faster, and smarter, not just compared to other animals, but to humans as well.
Thorn heard a jingle at the front door, closed the freezer door and walked to the service area.
“There he is,” Lief said, running a hand across the stubble on his cheeks and into the close-cropped graying hair on his head. The tall, lean man strode across the room with the grace of a lethal predator.
Thorn strode up and gave Lief a firm handshake, a smile broadening his face. “Good to see you,” he said. “And thanks as always for letting me tag along.”
“What are you talking about?” Lief said with a chuckle. “You’re gonna do all the work. I’m just along for the ride. And the free food, of course.”
“The food is not free,” said a bemused Cook, exiting the kitchen with a towel in his hands.
“That’s fine,” Lief said, sitting at his favorite stool at the bar. “Thorn’s paying, so free to me. I’ll have a–”
The front door jingled again, and in walked another familiar face.
“Hey Gammon,” Thorn said, slightly surprised to see the woman. The old gatekeeper from the Crows Guild was a semi-regular at the diner; she was the one who had introduced Thorn to Cook and helped him get his current job as a sausage delivery man, wild meat supplier, and diner waitstaff.
“I think I just heard a washed-up drunk say Thorn’s paying?” Gammon said, taking the stool at the far end of the bar from Lief. “Well then. If that’s the case, I’ll take one of everything you got on the menu.”
“Wow, who invited this old witch?” Lief rolled his eyes and grinned.
“You did!” Gammon cackled.
Lief ignored Gammon and turned to Cook. “I’ll just take the chef’s recommendation for myself, and a kid’s plate on the side. Thorn likes it if you make a smiley face with the ketchup.”
“Coming right up,” Cook said, disappearing back into the kitchen before Thorn could sputter out an objection.
Gammon sat down at the other end of the bar, on one of the stools heavily reinforced with metal studs, for patrons whose machine integrations made them weigh several times that of a normal human.
“Wow, you look terrible,” Gammon called across the diner at Lief, running a hand through her hair. “Getting even more thin on top, looks like. You should really take better care of yourself.”
“I’ve explained this a million times, you inveterate lump of rust,” Lief said. “They’re not bald spots. They’re ports for range extensions, and they’re tiny! Millimeters across. Completely unnoticeable. Even the same color as my distinguished salt-and-pepper hair.”
“So, um…” Thorn tried to interject.
“Shush,” Gammon said.
“Sit your butt down and get ready to use that mouth for the only thing it’s good for,” Lief added.
Ignoring his System’s message, Thorn sighed and took a seat at the bar himself, the rumbling in his stomach betraying his growing appetite. At this point, who cared who was paying. He was hungry, and he’d made a decent number of quints that day. He’d just have to eat fast and run, leaving the two hustlers at opposite ends of the bar to fight over the bill.