SceneClean: Spoil The Evidence, Not Your Clothes! ]
Chaz threw his arms in the air and shouted "Yatta!" when I showed him Vaughn's hoard, so I let him and Lex handle that while I visited Kara.
Zettachat was lighting up. Raven had taken care of the Re-Couponator, but...
TroyTheFirst 9:12 PM
Can you check the body again? We still have Death Discounts over here.
GrindSetBonus 9:12 PM
For the last time, the Re-Couponator is dead! That doesn't remove Death Discount, it stops the people who have it from becoming Expired when they die!
Juice Springsteen 9:12 PM
Hey, sorry if this isn't the channel for this, but does anyone else's status window say we just lost nearly 100 people?
VVVVVV 9:13 PM
HOLY SHIT???
SkullGirl33 9:13 PM
Oh my god! Vaughn's name is greyed out?
He's gone??
amateurUFOlogist 9:13 PM
Bro??
:zeddiewhat:
SkullGirl33 9:13 PM
THERE ARE ZEDDIE EMOTES?!
WillT 9:13 PM
Yeah, about that...
Panicked questions and confused emojis filled the chat server as I approached Toys B. Goode. Kara was waiting for me at the entrance, the colour returning to her face.
"So, I saw your explanation," she said. "Did you at least punch him?"
"Once."
"Good enough. So it's safe now, right? Is there anything I can help with?"
I hesitated. I'd been too distracted to think of a good lie, but Kara would probably trust me whatever I said. "So, I wanted to check on the roof..."
Kara gave me a familiar smile. "Oh, I get it. How about I go with you? It should be safe enough now."
"...That'd be great!" I agreed. As long as we were on the roof, all I had to do was point at the tower and "Hey, what's that?" my way into the building. Easy peasy.
We took the west plaza elevator to the roof. The office block sat between us and the central rooftop, five floors of rented spaces with darkened windows. No lights on this side.
I headed for the central plaza, watching out for Mallbatz as I looked up at the tower. Just in case, I threw out an excuse as we passed the arcade.
"I'm visiting the cinema. Raven killed the Re-Couponator there, so I was wondering if he had anything that helps with Death Discount."
Kara stopped. "Oh. This is not what I expected when you invited me up here."
"Why, what were you thinking?"
"I thought we were gonna do it," she said bluntly.
"...Seriously?"
"It's been an intense day and we might die tomorrow. I'm not the only one thinking it!" she said with a cheeky shrug. "I thought we were gonna find an empty room in the arcade, maybe do a little bowling first."
"You thought I'd want to celebrate clearing the mall by asking if you want to smash at the Gamezone?"
"Kinda, yeah. You in?"
I opened my mouth to say no, and closed it to reconsider. "...Let me do my thing first."
We headed for the cinema, Kara clinging to my arm. The Mallbatz were still flapping around the rooftops, but they were too scared of Raven to come down. I kept my eyes pointed upward as we circled the tower.
Lights on the top floor. I couldn't make out any details, but the bright windows were clearly visible from the central plaza. Bingo.
Raven was hanging around the cinema lobby, dragging a Tesla coil in from the screen area. It joined the other odd devices she'd found: a huge sci-fi raygun on wheels, Jacob's ladders, a chunky computer rack that looked like something from the 80s. Some of them glowed an unsettling neon green in places, while others bore battle damage. They looked more like movie props than working devices.
"Hey," she said. "This is all the crap the Re-Couponator was using to make Expired. Vaughn said that Manaia might want to take a look at it with his Engineering thing. What do you think?"
I checked out the ray gun.
[ A Penumbra Life Science Cosmic Ray Infuser 2000! The beam emitted by this device buffs Expired and debuffs living creatures it comes into contact with. Comes with a simple 300-page operating manual!
Penumbra Life Science: We've All Made Mistakes ]
"I don't know, but it's worth asking," I said. "Anything here that'd help Kara?"
"Nope, it just gives you more Death Discount." Raven jerked her thumb at a body in the back. "Couponator's over there if you want to eat him though."
The Re-Couponator's body was bigger than a human, not including the mass of long leaves that hung over it like a blanket. A long, insectile torso lined with razor-tipped vines flopped out of the central mass and sprawled across the floor.
I reached for the body cautiously. It looked like a horror movie monster lying in wait to jumpscare someone. "Jesus. Is this what Lanari actually look like?"
"I don't think so," Kara said. "I think this is the gardening Dandy was talking about..."
[ Essence: Lanari Genefolder
+4 Cognition, +4 Somatics, +4 Nature Resistance, [+4 Free], Power: Weird Science ]
[ Power: Weird Science
Unlocks Crafting: Fleshwarping if you don't have it already. You learn the recipe for Expired Serum. Your arm can now harvest Biogrist from defeated enemies. ]
"Ah, a rare crafting profession for humans," Khan said. "You could—"
I was already dropping it. "Sorry, it lost me at Fleshwarping. I'm still a Lair or two away from level five, anyway."
Kara giggled and set off towards the exit. "You know, for a guy with a robot arm you're kind of squeamish... huh. The lights are on up there."
She'd actually noticed the office lights before I could point them out. I tried not to grin. "That's weird. Have we been up there?"
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
"Nope," Raven said. "We tried, but we got an error message."
"You wanna check it out?" I asked Kara.
Kara nodded and grabbed my hand. "Sure! But if it's empty, we're doing my thing."
"Deal."
[ You are not authorized to access this area. ]
The entrance to the tower was back on the east side. Its glass doors weren't sealed, but a message with a lock icon appeared when we tried to open it.
Raven delivered a kick that could have dented a car. All it did was create a second error.
[ Nope. ]
"See, nothing works," she said.
Kara clapped. Inspiration had struck.
"Hold on! It's here somewhere... aha!" She dug around in her pockets and found a metal key with a skull-like head. "My Cybercult skeleton key! I got it from Dandy!"
[ Opens any one locked door: analog, digital, or psychological. ]
I took a step back to give Kara some space, and she poked the door with it. The key dissipated in a cloud of white motes, the lock icon spun, and the doors slid open.
"There we go," Kara said. "You two will protect me if we get attacked, right?"
"If you're going in I probably shouldn't," Raven said. "Mall Monarch would get nerfed."
"Maybe you could stay here and protect Kara?" I suggested.
Kara folded her arms. "Nuh uh. That was my key. I wanna check it out."
"You can't heal," I pointed out.
Kara beamed. It was hard to tell if she was serious or messing with me, so I assumed it was both. "Then I won't get hurt. Easy! Or Raven can guard me. It's fine as long as we're just hanging out, right?"
"If you're not fighting, it should be," Raven agreed, seduced by the call of hangouts.
"Wait—" I began, but Kara stopped me.
"Don't worry, I'll be fine! We'll just take a quick look around and then we can, you know, go bowling."
I sighed and put my hands on Kara's shoulders. Forget subtlety.
"Okay, listen," I said, trying to speak as quietly as possible. "Vaughn told me to come here."
That got Kara's attention. "When he screwed everyone and ran away, you mean?"
"Yes. I manipulated you into coming here because he said to bring the skeleton key."
Kara frowned. "Manipulated? I came here myself, you didn't do jack."
"She did notice the lights first," Raven said, apologetically.
"And you followed me because you were horny—actually, never mind, I'm getting defensive over the wrong thing. Vaughn said I might be able to handle whatever's in there. I don't know if he meant me specifically, but I don't want to risk it."
Kara looked annoyed, but waved it off. "Well, I still want in. I promise I'll stay behind you, okay?"
I knew Kara. That was the best deal I was going to get. "Fine. Let's go."
Raven stood guard by the door. "Give me a scream if anything happens."
We entered the lobby. Nothing seemed to justify the security—whatever your mind's eye conjures when you hear the phrase "office tower lobby" is pretty much it. There was an empty reception desk, some vending machines, a couple of elevators. The level directory sign beside them was interesting though.
Most of the entries had been scratched out, and those on the top floor had a sheet of paper taped over them. It had just one name written on it: MALL MASTER.
"So how are we doing this?" Kara asked. "Do we just go on up?"
"Maybe we should be sneaky about this and take the stairs," I said.
She looked worried. "I'm not rated for that many floors. Could we take the elevator most of the way and take the stairs for the last floor?"
"We could still be seen on the camera. What if I lifted you up with Khan?"
"Ooh! I get a piggyback ride?"
"No, just regular."
"Good enough, I'm in!"
Into the stairwell. I pulled myself up with Khan, then winched Kara up as quickly as I dared. I was trying to stay calm, but on the inside I was freaking out.
What the hell am I doing?
I was breaking into a secure facility on the suggestion of a guy who'd been lying to me all tutorial, and I'd brought a friend who couldn't heal. This was easily the silliest thing I'd done in the last two days, and before we were abducted by the Zettamall I'd paid for a game that was still in early access.
On the other hand... whoever ran this joint clearly didn't expect or want us to be here. That was more than enough reason to give it a shot.
Once Kara was up, I slid over to the door and cracked it open.
Another lobby. Tiled ceilings, potted plants, plain carpet. This one had some Zettamall flair though—screens hanging from the roof showed maps of the mall, streams of statistics, sponsor advertisements, and screensavers of very long cats. I could see corridors lined with offices, their walls made of coloured glass.
Nobody was here right now. We slipped in.
"What are we looking for?" Kara asked quietly.
"I don't know, I'm just riffing," I admitted. "Let's take a look around first. Maybe we'll find something to steal."
The corridors weren't marked, so I took one at random. I walked with confidence, hoping that if I looked like I expected to be here nobody would question it. I might not have been the right species for it to work though.
The offices we passed were occupied by shoplins in robes, working at computer terminals. The computers were arrays of holographic screens floating above thick keyboards with built-in trackballs; the text was written in a harsh runic script that the Zettamall wasn't translating for me. The same script was written on the doors, making it impossible to tell what the shoplins were doing or if it was important.
Most were too engrossed in their work to notice us. One was distracted looking at what I could only assume was shoplin cartoon porn. We shared a look and moved on quickly.
The next door led to an empty corner office with a terminal. Nobody was inside, and the walls weren't glass.
"Want to take a look?" Kara whispered.
I nodded. We went inside and locked the door.
Windows ran the length of the outer wall. From here you could see the other tutorials going on in the distance, and the ringworld rising into the sky beyond the horizon.
Kara pressed herself against the window. "Oh my God... there must be so many people. Who would do something like this?"
I tried the terminal, in case there was a language option. Actually, I lucked out—the moment I sat down, the screens flickered and changed to English. The keyboard even reshaped itself, its keys melting down and reforming into familiar symbols and grids of function keys.
[ MERCHANT MANAGEMENT ]
Windows and menus appeared before me. Lists of items, numbers, names. Gronk of the Burned Coin, Merchant-4114426-Upsilon...
"Hey, this controls the item shops," I said. "I can see what they're restocking tomorrow."
"I think I see a dragon out there..." Kara mumbled, before returning to me. "Anything good?"
I tried to make sense of the interface as quickly as possible. Most of Dandy's stock had been chosen by the plant himself, but whoever worked here assigned him a batch of crates every day...
"Tomorrow's crates are mostly silvers... I can choose what crates he gets and put them on sale. Let me try something."
There was a search bar. I typed "Super-Size".
Bingo. Another Super-Size Tutorial Crate. It wasn't assigned to him right now, but I could change that...
An error message pinged. "Dammit. He's already getting too many crates."
"Take some off," Kara said. "Nobody's gonna buy all the basic ones anyway."
A few clicks later, and Dandy would be selling another Super-Size tomorrow. It even had a 50% discount.
"There we go. Okay, let me just check some things..."
I ran a search for Death Discount. Nothing that helped, but Sussy could sell "Expired Fish" that gave you more Death Discount. Hard pass. I could stock him up on Boss Basa that granted extra damage to bosses though. Whovian's store was totally cooked, but...
"I can still assign prizes for Whovian's games. Think he'll agree to play guess-the-number with me again?"
"Can't hurt," Kara said.
I meddled with his prizes, returned to the window I'd started on, found a settings button in the task bar, and manually reset the language back to Shoplin.
"I think this is enough for now," I said. "We should get out of here. We can bring Chaz next time if we need anything else."
"Agreed," Kara said. "Also, that dragon is lighting a mall on fire and it's kind of freaking me out."
No sounds outside. I opened the door quietly to check if the coast was clear.
Two porcs in suits pointed guns at us.
I raised my hands. "Uh... it's my birthday?"
Kara raised hers. "No it isn't."
"Don't tell them that!"
The porcs frisked us—no idea why, since they left our weapons—and marched us down another corridor.
"Maybe they'll just fine us and kick us out?" Kara asked hopefully.
The elevators were in the opposite direction, but I didn't say it out loud. "If there's a fine, I'll cover it. This is my fault."
"You're right. You shouldn't have manipulated me into coming here."
Some impressive double doors sat at the end of this corridor. The plaque on the front read "MALL MASTER". The porcs gestured for us to go in.
"They're not shooting us," Kara said. "Is that good?"
I went in. "Let's find out."
Now this was an impressive office. There was a window wall with a commanding view of the rooftop, a huge desk in front of it, and a high-backed swivel chair—facing away from us for a dramatic reveal, obviously. More Zettamall tech covered the desk and the walls, including floating holograms on the walls of really long cats and velociraptors that seemed deep in thought.
The guards shut the door behind us. Silence reigned for a few moments.
"Uh... hello?" I cleared my throat. "Sorry about... wait..."
I trailed off. Kara spoke up. "Before you say anything, I bought the skeleton key legally, so really this is on you."
I would have agreed, but I was distracted. I'd just noticed the hologram of an owl saying "Can't kill more players? O RLY?".
The man in the chair swiveled to face us, and smiled a familiar smile.
"Hello, Newman," my manager Jerry said.