CHAPTER 5: The Pillar
Although something was definitely up with Nora’s son, for the first time in days I felt like something approaching safe. Unfortunately for me, with relative safety came the let down of adrenaline, or maybe just the release of the constant tension of fearing death around every corner, but all of a sudden, I found myself being flooded with all the pent up emotional trauma of the last few days. Mom and Lacy were dead, all my friends from the base were most likely dead. Hell, odds were pretty good that everyone I had ever met was dead. Surrounded by people not trying to kill me for the first time in days, I suddenly felt more alone than I ever had in my life.
Nora was now standing in line, head constantly bobbing up and down to look at her son, as it was obvious he wouldn’t speak to her further until it was her turn. I walked outside and headed around the side of the building. I needed to find a quiet spot to sit and think … perhaps let myself grieve a little bit.
Some time later I was woken by “Ding … congratulations, you have reached level 3. You have twenty nine free stat points to allocate.” Rubbing my eyes after the nap, I felt far better than I had any right to. Zero aches or pains. Not even a crick in my neck from sleeping awkwardly against a brick wall. Vitality at work I supposed. Judging based on the events of the day and my new level, I figured that I had slept about two hours. I felt like I had slept for a week. As I walked in, I saw Nora back in line for the counter, impatiently waiting her turn to talk to her son again. I don’t know if she didn’t get it, or refused to accept it, but it was pretty obvious to everyone else that her son had been “Recycled” and was now an asset of the System, never leaving the counter, never blinking, serving coffee and slices of cake with a never changing, plastered on smile. Beyond creepy, but at least he wasn’t mulch in some alien garden bed or whatever.
That’s when I realized … he was serving coffee. Three seconds later I was four people behind Nora, patiently waiting my turn to approach the sacred altar and receive the nectar of the gods. Nora was not looking good. I could only imagine what she was going through. Her husband which she had obviously cared deeply for murdered in front of her, now her only child, recycled into what was effectively an NPC slinging coffee without pause and no other purpose in his ‘life’. On the few occasions there was a gap between customers, he stood motionless, a barista at the wax museum. Poor woman. I wanted to say something, but had no idea what I could say that wouldn’t make it worse, so just stayed in my lane, now reminded once again of my own loss.
As I stood in line, I saw the lady who had lost a few fingers holding up her hand and staring at it, talking animatedly with a man who looked to be in rough shape. She was telling him that he could spend his mana in the Vitality menu to heal himself, swearing up and down that less than two hours ago she had been missing three fingers. He looked a bit skeptical. Well that’s a great bit of info to have, I thought to myself. Chances were good I was going to get shot sooner rather than later, despite the near festive Starbucks atmosphere.
I pulled up my stats while I was waiting, and was about to copy the distribution same as my last level up, but decided it might be a good idea to check out the pillar before making any hasty decisions. After all, my next level up wouldn’t be for another eight hours … I think. Trying to do mental math made my head hurt, but in any case, I didn’t want to potentially screw myself over. As I was handed a slice of cinnamon swirl cake and a large cup of black coffee, I turned to get in line for the pillar. The mana transfer had been simple. A little pop up confirming I wanted to spend one mana for the coffee, and one mana for the slice. A mental button punch and I was handed the goods. The coffee was sublime. It was hard not to stop where I stood and close my eyes to really savor it … rich, black as midnight in the Marianna trench, not a hint of bitterness.
The lines were much shorter now with only a few people at each screen. It was about an even split who walked away looking pleased versus those with clear disappointment. Short on mana I assumed, but impossible to say for sure. Somehow, once a person interacted with a screen, it appeared to go black, but the individual at the screen didn’t seem to notice. They just stood there motionless for a couple of seconds, blinked, then walked away. Must be some sort of security or privacy measure. Nice. I certainly wouldn’t want anybody looking over my shoulder to see what I was purchasing.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I was finally standing in front of a screen. As I touched it i felt a little “pop” … perhaps some sort of privacy bubble to go along with the black screen everyone in the room was now seeing? As ruthless and horrifying as this entire experience had been, I could imagine a world where the mana core was sufficient to not require a purge. It would be incredible. Technology breaking down is a bit of a knee to the nuts, but it already sounded like there were ways around that. Now I just needed to understand what in all the hells I was supposed to be doing. Hanging out at Starbucks drinking coffee and eating cinnamon swirl cake slices for the rest of my life did have some appeal when compared to the last few days, but long term? Not so much.
The System pillar was everything I’d expected, which is to say a waking fever-dream of everything I hated about late-stage capitalism, except even Amazon would never put an entire planet in a meat grinder for a bit more profit. Probably. The pillar’s UI was flawless—a flick of my eyes or a focused thought and the menu collapsed, unfolded, or bloomed with neon-hued icons. There were tabs for everything: “Weapons”, “Abilities”, “Armor”, “Apparel”, “Class Specific”, “Quests,” even a “Mana Exchange” … Interstellar Cashapp?
The top banner read: Welcome, Joseph Vane, Reaper, Lvl 3. A smaller ribbon underneath: System pillar #572, Starbucks Minot, ND, Earth, Phase 2.
The “Class Specific” tab was prominent, and I hesitantly clicked it, knowing it would likely be a long list of available abilities, all themed around nuclear war and genocide. I was not wrong. "Population Collapse." "Blood Debt." "Extinction Event." All deeply on brand for my new class. I kept scrolling, doing my best to ignore anything that reminded me of what I had become. I eventually got to the defensive and utility based abilities, and things started to pick up for me. I found one called “Containment Field” that created a ten meter bubble that kept whatever was inside of it, inside… for sixty seconds. Sounded like a hell of an escape ability. I also found one called “Reactor Shielding” that served multiple purposes. It could not only block five vitality points worth of any damage type every ten seconds, but completely inoculated me from radiation based damage. I don’t know that anybody else on the planet had an ability like “Meltdown” or fucking “Cancer”, but I knew that this would at least let me go home… I had to be sure. I purchased both. Ten mana for the “Containment Field” and twenty mana for “Reactor Shielding”.
I purchased some new clothes as well. They weren’t in the armor section, but they did offer one point of vitality damage protection every thirty seconds, but their main draw was the climate control, self-repair, and self-clean. They seemed ridiculously expensive at forty mana, but a set of clothes that kept me at the perfect temperature regardless of the weather, AND wouldn’t take a blood stain? Yes please.
With half my mana reserves spent, I started browsing other categories. One called “Territory and Settlement" caught my eye, which I clicked on. I staggered back a little as a hyper-realistic globe probably ten feet in diameter expanded in front of me. Tens of thousands of little green lights all over the thing greeted me. Doing my best Tom Cruise impersonation, I spun the globe and zoomed in on Minot, North Dakota. The little green light was exactly what I was expecting. System pillar #572, Starbucks, Minot, ND, Earth, Phase 2.
I mentally jabbed the light. “Do you wish to claim System pillar #572, Starbucks Minot, ND, Earth, Phase 2? Cost - 1,000 mana” "What the hell?” I whispered to myself and clicked “no”. I focused on the prompt and more information popped up. “System pillars have been placed in all Starbucks locations on this planet, along with their accompanying 100 meter diameter System enforced safe zone. The territory associated with each pillar varies based upon the proximity of the next nearest Starbucks. System Pillar #572 includes a territory encompassing 642,941 square kilometers as indicated on the user interface module. “Holy Shit!” I exclaimed, shocked more by the fact that there wasn’t another Starbucks closer than that than I was by the amount of territory itself. However, looking closer at the map, I could see that the territory extended south only about half a mile, as there were in fact two other Starbucks in Minot, but headed east, west, and especially northward, there was nothing for days. It looked like half of Canada was in this territory. Suck it, Tim Horton.
Tons more information was present, talking about all the possibilities one would have with controlling a territory, from structures, infrastructure, defenses, even dungeon creation and of course … taxation. I needed 1,000 mana as soon as possible. The only problem seemed to be that there was no apparent layaway plan. You either had 1,000 mana in your pocket or you didn’t.
A thought occurred to me and I quickly rotated the globe and focused in on Bismarck. Four glowing green dots. I zoomed in tight on my house, but it was obvious that the System took their playbook from Google Earth. This showed no indication of a nuclear bomb detonation, so no way of knowing when this image was captured. However, the pillars were green and active. It is one hell of a hike to Bismarck, but a quick stop at Walmart for a bicycle would help out quite a bit.
I closed the pillar interface and stepped away, based on the faces I saw, I knew that just like everybody else, only a couple of seconds had passed in the real world, despite what felt like hours of browsing the System shop to me.
Time to make a quick trip to Walmart, get a few kids on the right track, and head for Bismarck. Right after I grabbed another coffee.
