Vaughn didn't mess around. Shorts guys were streaming out of Bullseye within minutes, pushing trolleys packed with clothing, appliances, linens, toys, books, electronics, potted plants, wall art, candles...

  Lex set Snakpak down and the bot went wild, scooping up piles of stuff with her strap-arms and cramming it into her maw. We just sat on a mall couch and watched.

  "Do we really need all this?" Kara asked.

  I nodded. "The other item shops might barter with us too. We should be taking as much as we can get away with."

  "I was thinking the toys would be good for the kids," Lex said.

  "And Bullseye has games too," Chaz added. "Though their anime selection is pitiful..."

  Jordan finally stepped out of Bullseye, carrying his few possessions in a backpack. He was joined by a few others who weren't big cargo shorts fans, including the two archers from last night.

  The old guy offered handshakes. "G'day. Name's Murray."

  The younger woman shook too. "Trinity. Good work last night."

  "You did alright yourselves," I said. "I think I saw you on the leaderboard?"

  "It was all this guy," Trinity said, patting her bow. Up close it looked like someone had taken a trilobite and stretched out its cheeks to form the bow's frame. "He spreads poison."

  "Mine's more for utility," Murray said. He snapped his fingers, and a hologram appeared; it almost looked like a yellow bedsheet ghost, with a giant mouth and eyes cut out of it. A pixellated fireball spun within.

  "Is that Smoldergeist?" I asked.

  "Sure is," Murray said, tapping the hologram with a cigarette. It lit. "She's handy, I'll tell you that."

  "Hi!" Smoldergeist said in a childlike voice. I wasn't sure if she recognised me.

  "If you're doing another raid, we want in," Trinity said. "Vaughn and his guys are way too cautious."

  "Sounds good," I agreed. "Kara will want to get you in our Zettachat."

  Kara gave us a thumbs-up. "Just sent invites!"

  I let them sort out the details. Snakpak devoured the last box with a burp, leaving behind a neat pile of storage tubs that wouldn't fit in her mouth.

  "Do we actually have any raid plans?" Chaz asked. "The barriers lower at eleven, and it's not even half past ten."

  "We could show them the tape," Kara said. "Or hit the car park—"

  "No thank you!" Lex said quickly.

  My memory tapped me on the shoulder, and dropped the thing I'd set aside yesterday down the back of my shirt.

  "Wait," I said out loud. "Crap, I forgot!"

  "Leave something in your car?" Chaz asked.

  "No, there might be somewhere else we haven't looked yet. Let me check something..."

  The party room screenings had stopped for now, the chairs left empty in front of a sleeping flatscreen. Someone had thrown up on the floor, and the place still had a sharp smell of cleaning fluid.

  As the others followed me inside, I marched past a Wet Floor sign to the walled-off section in the northeast. The windows along it were taped over with gift wrap which, now that I took a closer look, was covered in little shoplin heads.

  "So, what's in here?" Kara asked.

  I grabbed the gift wrap. "Let's find out."

  Ripping it away revealed the escalators on the other side. This room reached into the central plaza, over a set of escalators that ran from Level One below us to a footpath outside—or would run, if a massive concrete slab didn't bar the way.

  "It was like that in the car park too," Lex said.

  Chaz nodded. "Yeah, outside's a bust. It's probably sealed everywhere."

  I tapped the window. "The seal's blocking the outside, not downstairs. The only thing blocking downstairs is the window."

  "Oh, shit," Chaz said. "You think this the other path Zeddie mentioned, bro?"

  "Yeah. Hold on."

  I followed the windows to the north wall of the party room, where the rising escalator was just below us. The others backed off as I grabbed a chair in my metal claw, reached back, and swung. It took a couple blows before it shattered.

  [ Bargain Hunter

  Find a secret in the tutorial.

  Reward: +3 ZETTAMALL? Starter Crates

  Breaking Street

  Find a way around a barrier before it's released.

  Reward: +5 EXP ]

  "Oh, hey," Lex said. "Two achievements!"

  Kara grinned. "That's level three for me!"

  "Damn, dude," Jordan said, slapping my back. "Clever."

  I exhaled. "Phew. Would've looked pretty silly if that didn't work."

  "I mean, you did leave it so long that it barely matters—" Kara began.

  "Don't ruin this for me."

  I cleared the glass with my claw and leaned out carefully. The concrete slab had an alcove cut into it higher up, with a crate-shaped wooden treasure chest inside. I stretched my arm out and grabbed it.

  [ You've received a Furtyv Treasure Crate!

  Furtyv: We're Perverts For Secrets! ]

  [ A Furtyv Treasure Crate! Celebrate finding a secret with a secret item. Mmm. ]

  "I found a crate, but I wish I didn't."

  I looked down to Level One. I knew there was a food court down there, but I couldn't see anything from this angle except the floor.

  "Anyone in Zettachat down there?" I asked Kara.

  She shook her head. "We have some guys upstairs, but they haven't been able to get down there. Something about the elevator being broken."

  "Let me try," Chaz said. I stepped aside as he climbed through the window.

  He vanished. We waited.

  Shirokage482 Today at 10:32 AM

  About ten shoplins. Hold on bro. Don't move.

  Shirokage482 Today at 10:33 AM

  Sorry, had to get somewhere safe. Hiding in the ice cream shop.

  The shoplins all heard you break the window and are waiting for someone to come down in what they probably think is a battle formation. Mostly archers.

  WillT Today at 10:33 AM

  Crap. Any survivors?

  Shirokage482 Today at 10:33 AM

  Not outside. We can check the shops after we get rid of them.

  I turned to the others. "Well, you heard the man. Who wants to walk into an ambush?"

  The central plaza ran north-to-south, instead of east-to-west like the others. The south end was the mall's central concourse, where corridors to the other plazas converged. The rest of Level One was a small food court, a wide oval of white tables ringed with the counters of little food joints.

  These escalators sat in the northeast corner. In the northwest, another set of escalators descended underground to a bus terminal. The hole it punched through the food court was walled off by glass, and a huge set of steel bars ringed the entrance. The bars were new, actually, but I could worry about that later.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The shoplins were in front of us, using turned-over tables and pillars as cover. Most of them had bows. When Lex and I ran down there, she barely had time to throw up a shield before they opened fire.

  "Go!" I called out, and raised my arm.

  Lex nervously crouched, raised her crossbow, and struck a shoplin. I focused on suppression fire. My blaster aim was still terrible, but the shoplins didn't know that.

  Cracks were already forming on the shield. This was a terrible starting position. But our new friends could handle it.

  Murray and Trinity moved down behind us, bows at the ready. Trinity fired an arrow from Toxobite at a table, and it burst into a cloud of greenish poison gas on impact. As the gas spread around the table the shoplins behind it began to cough and stumble, their health bars turning green as they depleted. Murray's bow was normal, but he made up for it by being an amazing shot; his arrows took the stumbling shoplins down with precision.

  That was all the opening I would get. I ducked low and ran, through the shield and off the escalator.

  A pair of pillars sat in front of us, where roller shutters would be lowered when the mall was closed but the buses were running. They were up at the moment, and I had no idea where the controls were. I bounded behind the left one in a couple steps and pressed my back against it, trying not to freak out.

  Kara followed and slid into an alcove to my left, next to a sealed fire exit. Everyone else remained with the crumbling shield. We'd need to do something before it cracked.

  I lowered my voice. "Khan, can you grab a shoplin? Archer if you can."

  "I can try," Khan said, dropping to the floor.

  My arm lengthened as my left hand slithered away. I felt it winding towards a table barricade, reaching...

  Khan snapped his claws around a shoplin's leg and yoinked him towards us.

  "KREE!"

  I flung it towards the alcove. Kara cut it down as I started firing again. This time, text appeared above the shoplin as it fell.

  [ Yum! ]

  Trinity dropped another poison cloud near a cluster of shoplins just as the shield shattered, and joined Kara in the alcove. There were a pair of ATMs in there—a normal one and a bitcoin one for scamming people—so she was able to find cover. Murray hid behind the other one.

  Lex hopped back up the escalator where they couldn't see her. "Recharging!"

  Jordan skidded behind the right pillar. He'd struggled to land a shot on the escalator with everyone else in front of him, and seemed to want to make up for it.

  "We can flank 'em," he said, gesturing with his crossbow at the terminal entrance. It was possible to just go around it. We'd have to duck low to not be seen through the glass...

  "Need an opening," I said. No way the shoplins would just let us leave our pillars..

  Kara peered into the court. "We're getting one!"

  "It's fightin' time!" Chaz yelled, as a slice hit a shoplin in the back of the neck.

  "KREE!"

  More slices flew into the shoplins. He actually took one out this time, which drew the attention of the other shoplins. If we didn't move, they'd swarm him.

  "Welp," I said, and dived.

  I raced to the nearest flipped table and blasted a distracted shoplin in the face. I had no plan. I just figured that most of these shoplins still had their bows out, so they'd probably hate a close-range fight.

  Kara followed my lead, her spear piercing another beside me. The archers kept firing, as Jordan made a valiant attempt to join us in melee range with a chair.

  "Come get some!"

  The shoplins screeched. Some decided to cut their losses and run, but the nearest two stuck around. One of them jumped its table and tried to stab me with an arrow.

  "Shit!"

  We struggled, but I managed to get a grip on the little bastard and throw—

  The other shoplin grinned and fired an arrow into my side.

  Pain exploded in my ribs. I gasped and fell. "AAH!"

  "Will!" Kara leapt forward.

  The last two shoplins were ended by spear and chair.

  [ Yum! ]

  I lay on the floor under Kara's protection, clutching my side. "Ugh..."

  Chaz loomed over me. "Hey, bro. You alright?"

  "Never better," I grunted. "Everyone else okay?"

  "All good," Murray said. "The rest got away, but we'll get 'em later."'

  "You need a can?" Trinity asked.

  "I got it," Chaz said, putting one in my hand.

  I squinted at the can. "Is this calibrated?"

  "Nope! You're safe for now, which is tactically the best time for—"

  "Damn it, fine," I said, and drank. My rib began knitting itself back together, but I wasn't happy about it.

  I tried to ignore the pain and focus on something else, like: why was the Zettamall going [ Yum! ] at me?

  That one didn't take long to work out: [Healthy Guts]. The cereal sometimes gave me extra Funbucks from defeated enemies; eyeballing my rewards so far, my intake had gone up around 25%. It wasn't a lot, but it would add up over time.

  I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my ribs. I grunted and tried harder to distract myself.

  "What is with those guys?"

  Kara looked down. "Hmm?"

  I tried to sit up. "The shoplins. That tape said they were from some other planet..."

  "Unless that was made up, and they're robots or something," Chaz said.

  "They bleed," Kara pointed out.

  "Really good robots."

  "Either way, they seem intelligent," I said. "Why... oof... why fight us? What do they get out of it? Tons of them have died too."

  The shoplin that just shot me was grinning when he did it. It reminded me of the Expiromancer from yesterday. He hadn't been consumed by rage or anything—he had deliberately traded his life for a chance to shoot me.

  "Well, they're kind of aliens, right?" Chaz said, offering a hand. "Maybe they just think in ways that are weird and alien to us."

  "Maybe they're arseholes," Lex suggested.

  I took Chaz's hand and pulled myself up. I felt much better on the inside, but there was still a painful scratch on my side. Death Discount had prevented the can from healing me all the way.

  Well, they definitely made us waste another can...

  Suddenly there was a knock, and the staff door of a noodle joint cracked open.

  "Hey," someone said. "Is it safe to come out?"

  The survivors came out of hiding.

  The one who knocked was their apparent leader: a tall Māori guy with dark curls tied into a loose ponytail, a shirt with an alien on it, big Mister Sportsball shorts, and a moko on the lower half of his face. They may have been following him because he was ripped. He was definitely the most muscled dude I'd seen in this tutorial.

  "Hey, folks," he said. "Are you okay?"

  "We are now," I said, and offered a hand. "Will. We're from Gateway."

  He grinned and shook it. "Manaia. Thanks for the save, bro."

  I let the others make their introductions, then got down to business. "So, we found a way around the barrier. You want to come to Gateway with us?"

  Manaia lit up. "That'd be choice! This place has been chocka with shoplins. Every time we fight them off, more show up. We had to hunker down to get some sleep, you know?"

  "Well, our plaza's safe," I said. "We climbed down from Huge W, actually. Just up those escalators."

  "Oh, you guys are doing alright up there?" Manaia asked. "We've been hearing shouting all morning. I thought you were watching a scary movie, or maybe you discovered a dark and terrible secret?"

  "Both, sort of."

  "It's a long story," Kara added.

  "Well, we'll join you," Manaia said. "While we're here, you hungry? We kept the noodle place running, and we also have subs and tiny pizzas. My treat! I mean, it's all free right now, but you know what I mean."

  Murray looked anxious. "We should get moving. They might come back with more."

  "We could bring more people to fight them," Trinity suggested.

  "Where are they even coming from?" I asked Manaia.

  He pointed to the other end of the food court. "From the car park down there and the... the big hole."

  The central concourse was a large open space with a big semicircular hole running through the middle. Besides the corridors to the other plazas, there was a short corridor to the south that led to the car park; the automatic doors were closed, but one of the glass walls around them had been smashed through.

  The concourse wasn't the big hole though. Another set of escalators usually sat between the concourse and the food court, leading to the upper floors, but right now they were gone. There was nothing there. Just a smooth metal floor beneath a hole.

  I pointed at it. "What the hell happened here?"

  Manaia shrugged. "It was like that when I got here, bro. They just climb down. Don't really stop coming."

  I turned to the bus terminal escalators. There was an elevator beside them, also behind the bars. "Did that happen when everything went to shit too?"

  "Sure did," Manaia said. "There's huge wolves down there, so we did not investigate further."

  Lex froze. I winced. I was starting to get the feeling she'd be facing her trauma today, whether she wanted to or not.

  "...Good choice," I said, and turned to my party. "What do you want to do?"

  Chaz checked the clock. "Barrier's going down in thirty minutes anyway..."

  "We could get everyone out of here in case the bow guys come back," Lex said.

  "Then secure the area, maybe," Kara said. "Your call."

  "No it's not," I replied.

  Kara smiled innocently. "What I meant was, what do you suggest we do?"

  I took another quick look around.

  "Is anyone in Zettachat upstairs?"

  "We don't have eyes on Level Two," Kara said. "Just Level Three where the big food court is."

  "Then what do you think about going back to Huge W and pushing Level Two when the barrier drops? Then we can connect everything."

  The response seemed to be positive. "I'd like that," Lex said.

  Kara beamed. "As the official leader of this party... What he said."

  Chaz raised his hand. "Can I do some quick looting before we go?"

  "What do you need?" I asked.

  He pointed to the shops lining the concourse. "That second-hand electronics store has a ton of DVDs. We might find some musicals for Dandy. And maybe something for another merchant, you never know."

  "Ah," I nodded. "And it has nothing to do with their collections of anime and retro games?"

  "I can have two reasons," Chaz said defensively.

  "I can help," Lex offered. "I'm getting pretty quick."

  I gave them a thumbs-up. "I'm fine with it. Just be ready to hit Level Two later. There's some stores up there that sell anime shirts."

  "You should get in our Zettachat," Kara said to Manaia as the pair ran off. "And join the fight with us! It'll be good experience."

  Manaia rubbed his chin. "You all seem pretty competent. And you're fighting to protect people, right?"

  "That is one of the benefits," I said.

  He cracked his knuckles. "Then I'm in. Let's do this."

  "Oh!" Kara said. "And we might have time to show you a video!"

  "Why?"

  I winced. "It's... important information. Sorry in advance."

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