Wendy Hennessy (Human)
Health 21 Endurance 22 Mana 26
Bloodlines: 1
Skills: Precognition (Uncommon, Special Beginner 1)
Now that she wasn’t mostly hidden under a blanket, Roland got a good look at her. Same dirty-blonde hair as her brother, but her features were nicer, with a narrow nose framed by high cheekbones, and big blue eyes under the pixie cut that gave her an elf-like vibe. Pretty, in an ‘I don’t care how I look’ way.
She had the kind of face that would change very little from ages sixteen to twenty-nine, although Roland guessed she was closer to the latter. Something about her eyes. She had seen some crap.
Roland ignored the Guide’s prattle and turned to the woman. “Listen, Wendy...”
“Save your lies. I know something bad is coming, and you are part of it.”
“Okay,” Roland told the girl. “Are you feeling, huh, a growing sense of dread?”
“Yes,” Wendy admitted. “And more than just a feeling. Nightmares. I’ve seen people dying. Cities burning. Monsters in the dark. And just now I woke up and felt Death looking down on me.” She took a deep breath. “And it kinda looked like you.”
“You are not crazy, Wendy,” Roland told her.
“I know,” she said, not sounding very happy about it.
“What you are feeling is real, yes, but I’m not here to make things worse. You don’t have to be scared of me.”
“It’s weird. I should be, but I’m not. Scared, I mean. You may be surrounded by death, but I don’t get the feeling that you are a creep or a psycho. And I usually can tell.”
“I’m not. I don’t mean any harm. I’m actually trying to help.”
“Do you know what’s going on?”
“I do. If you can wait until Bob gets back, I’ll tell you what I know. Don’t want to tell the same story twice.” As he spoke, he heard a car coming into the driveway. “Looks like they just got back.”
Wendy’s expression became anxious. “My brother... Listen, we’re having some problems. Like, legal problems. Is this going to make things worse for us? We can go somewhere else.”
“I doubt it. Then again, I doubt legal problems are going to matter much in a couple of weeks. And going away isn’t going to help, either. Not unless you can leave the planet.”
“Shit. Is it going to get that bad?”
“I’ll explain in a minute,” Roland promised as the back door opened and Josh and Bob stepped inside, each carrying a long weapon case. Bob also had a smaller handgun box.
“We come with guns!” Bob announced.
“Hey sis,” Josh said. “Everything okay in here?” he added, giving Roland an unfriendly look.
“Yeah, everything’s great,” Wendy spat back. “No thanks to you,” she added.
Josh blushed and put the gun case on one of the couches. “I said I was sorry.”
Wendy looked like she wanted to start yelling, but she visibly controlled herself. “Okay, forget about that. Roland here has something to tell us. Something important.”
“Ready to spill it, Rolls?” Bob said. “Or do you want to check out the shotties I got you? I still don’t know what you’re planning, but I got you a couple of options. Or you can get them both. The coins are good, by the way.”
“Let me take a look,” Roland said, ignoring Wendy’s glare.
“If he’s a Fed, those guns will get you a long vacation,” Josh warned Bob as Roland opened the cases.
“I’m beginning to wonder if you’re a Fed,” Roland said, flipping the first case open.
Inside was a nice Mossberg pump shotgun with no stock and a pistol grip. Roland was fairly sure the gun wasn’t street legal in Connecticut, but he wasn’t planning on asking. Normally, using a pistol grip shotgun without a bracing stock was good mostly for making noise and hurting yourself, but with his current Strength stat Roland figured he could shoot it one-handed, Terminator style. Probably a good idea to go to a discreet gun range and try it out.
“Sold,” he said after checking the action. “Five shots in the magazine?”
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“Eight plus one,” Bob said proudly.
“Even better.”
The other case had another shotgun, a bullup model that was actually shorter than the pistol grip weapon and looked like a tacti-cool shooter’s dirty dream. A quick check showed Roland that the stubby weapon had not one but two tube magazines side by side. Nice, if it worked reliably.
“This beauty is special,” Bob told him. “A Kel-Tec KSG 12-gauge. It’s got two 7-rounds in each mag plus one in the chamber. Fifteen shots.”
And most likely not street legal in Connecticut, Roland thought. Not that it mattered. Thanks to his Inventory, nobody would catch him carrying either of those bad boys.
Finally, the smallest box had a Ruger semi-automatic with two ten-round magazines. Nine-millimeter, which wasn’t the greatest in terms of stopping power, but no handguns were, not even the vaunted .45 ACP or .44 Magnum. If you were serious about putting someone down, you took a shotgun or rifle along, as far as Roland was concerned. In his opinion, a handgun’s only virtue was that you could hide them more easily. That, and it was better to have a handgun than an empty hand if trouble came calling.
“I’ll take them all and all the ammo you can get me. Slugs and buckshot.”
“I figured. I have two, three hundred cartridges at home, including some nice sabot-discarding slugs that pack a mean punch. Five fifty-round boxes of full metal jacket for the nine, and one fifty-round box of hollow points.”
“Perfect.”
“So, are you finally going to tell me what this is all about? I committed three felonies to get all of those. Maybe four.”
“Okay,” Roland said. “Y’all might want to sit down for this.”
Josh plopped down on the couch next to Wendy while Bob returned to his customary armchair. “Can’t wait to hear this,” he said.
Roland considered telling Josh to take a hike, but Bob had pretty much invited him into this mess, and he wanted to recruit Wendy. Someone with an active Bloodline had to be way ahead of the curve, just what he needed to start a party. And if he didn’t cut Josh in, he suspected the guy might end up going to the Feds. If he was in trouble with the law, he might think dropping on Bob and Roland was his ticket to cutting a deal. Best to keep him close.
“You know about all the weird incidents happening lately, right?”
“I sure do,” Bob said. “We were talking about it last night. Just this morning, they found a guy and his wife butchered in their apartment in Hartford. Like someone went full Jack the Ripper on them. That ain’t normal.”
“Well, you were right, last night. Many of the incidents are related. Do either of you read fantasy books? I know you do, Bob.”
Wendy raised her hand. Josh looked blankly at him. One out of the two noobs. Could be worse.
“Ever heard of a System Apocalypse?”
“Like the Wong books? I kinda gave up after the third or fourth one, but everyone loves ‘em,” Bob blabbed before the question sunk in and his eyes got wide. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“Not sure about systems. But apocalypse sounds bad enough,” Wendy said.
Josh shrugged. “I know Bob and his folks are preppers. You saying the balloon’s going to drop for real? System breaking down?”
“Yes and no. The System I’m talking about is not the government or the economy. It’s bigger than that. Like aliens, kind of.”
“Whoa, Nelly!” Josh said with a laugh. “Now we’re talking!”
“You noticed I’ve put on a lot of muscle since last night, Bob.”
“Yeah, coz. Now that I had time to think about it and take a second look, I can see it. You’ve gotten taller and turned every pound of flab into solid steroid-grade muscle. Since last night, which is impossible.”
“Bingo. A lot of impossible things are happening.”
“That’s... Okay, if you are punking me and somebody is videoing this, I’m gonna be pissed, Rolls.”
“Nobody’s punking you. The new muscles aren’t the only thing I’ve gotten from the System,” Roland said. “Let me show you.”
He picked up the Kel-Tec shotgun and made sure it was unloaded. You never wanted to start playing parlor tricks with guns until you were sure the weapon couldn’t turn evil on you. And he still made sure it wasn’t pointed at anyone while he handled it. Good habits around firearms had been ingrained in him early in life.
“Okay, for my first trick, I’m going to make this gun disappear.” Holding the shotgun over his head, he did a slow twirl. “As you can see, I’m just wearing a t-shirt and pants. Nowhere to put this.”
“Weird-ass pants, too, come to think about it,” Bob commented. “They look hand made.”
“Maybe you can take off the pants,” Wendy said. “Give us a show.”
“Winnie!” Josh went off.
“What?”
“Anyway. Watch the shotgun,” Roland told them holding it sideways with one hand. When everyone was looking at it, he sent it into his Inventory. Poof, there one second, gone the next.
“WTF?” was Josh’s comment.
“Where did it go?” Bob asked.
“My inventory. Like in a game. I have an inventory I can put stuff in.”
“I didn’t hear a pop,” Bob said, going into nerd mode. “If teleportation was a thing, you’d get a pop every time an object is removed. Air rushing in to fill the gap. There was no pop.”
“Come to think of it, some teleportation moves I’ve seen produce a pop,” Roland said. “But not all of them, and not when I use my inventory. Weird. Not sure why.”
“Where did you put the shotgun?” Josh said. He sounded angry.
“Here,” Roland told him, and brought the gun back to his hand; everyone recoiled at the sudden appearance.
“No pop again,” Bob confirmed.
“Fuck your pop!” Josh growled. “How did you do it?”
“Here, take the gun,” Roland said and handed Josh the shotgun. The somewhat unhinged guy grabbed it and held it with both hands, almost like he was considering clubbing or even shooting Roland with it. Luckily, it was unloaded.
“Okay, now I’m going to touch it and send it away while you hold it.”
“You can try,” Josh replied, tightening his grip on the shottie until his knuckles went white.
Roland reached out slowly with one hand and touched it with his index finger. The gun disappeared and Josh fell back on the couch, shaking his hands like he’d stuck them on something hot.
“What the hell is this?”
I wasn’t sure I could do that if someone else was holding something, Roland thought, happy his guess had turned out to be right. Trixie, can I use that trick in combat?
Figures.
Out loud, he went on. “This is the System, bro. Pretty soon, everyone will be able to access an Inventory.”
“When do the monsters come out?” Bob said.
“About the same time System comes online,” Roland explained. “About two weeks from now.”
Wendy’s eyes got bigger. “Monsters.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, monsters,” Bob said, giving Roland a hard stare. “I didn’t read all the Wong books, but there are a few other writers dealing with the same subject. They don’t paint a pretty picture. System Apocalypse means monster hordes show up. Dungeons and dragons, but for real. Tower climbing, landscape getting rearranged in real time, all kinds of crap. In most of those stories, almost everyone dies. Like ninety percent or more.”
“My dreams,” Wendy whispered.
“You dreamt about this?” Josh said. He had gone pale and kept shaking his head. Some people might not have enough imagination to process the stuff Roland was showing them and Josh seemed to be borderline at best.
“You know how my dreams work, Josh.”
“Yeah,” Josh said, still on edge. “You told Mom and Dad about that tornado when we were kids. Saved our lives. And you warned me I was about to get pinched by the cops, which got us here. But this...”
“This is bad,” Wendy cut him off. “I saw people dying. Lots of them.”
While she spoke, Roland grabbed the Mossberg and sent it to his Inventory to fill another slot next to its fellow shotgun. The third demonstration seemed to hit Josh even harder. He started hyperventilating until Bob handed him a shot glass full of Military Special. Josh downed it in one gulp, coughed, and leaned back.
“At least I know one thing,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“This is too crazy to be a Fed op.”
“Yeah, bro,” Roland told him. “Feds are the least of our problems. Now let me brief you and you all can decide what you want to do.”