1.13 - Desireto
I can admit when someone is better than me at something. Kai is a way better driver, especially when it comes to driving fast. Most of his money in game doesn’t come from quests or mercenary work. It’s racing. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a racer in real life. I don’t think I ever asked him what he does. He’s never asked me either, we never talk about what we actually do at work.
“Kai, what do you do for a living?”
“Do you mean what I do for work?”
“Yeah.”
“Weird question, I work for the parks and recreation department. I’m not super high on the totem pole but I’m hoping to move up. Right now I spend most of my time trying to get money to upgrade the facilities.”
“That’s cool, cities need more parks and recreation. I’m not just saying that either. We really don’t have a lot of third places in our cities anymore.”
“What’s a third place?”
“Somewhere that isn’t work or home where we can socialize with others. It might be a bar, a rec center or even a local park. But since COVID we lost a lot of those. Everyone is so isolated now.”
Kai doesn’t get a chance to respond, he slams the breaks and swerves the car. There’s a loud thud as we come to a stop and something slams into the door on the driver’s side. The two of us take a moment to gather ourselves. Kai is nervous so I take initiative to step out of the car and see what we hit. As I make my way around the car, I keep my finger ready to squeeze the trigger on whatever we hit. I cover my face with my hand when I realize that we hit a person. At least they’re breathing and a quick scan tells me they’re an NPC.
“What do we do,” Kai asks when he finally gets out the car.
“Put him in the backseat until he recovers.”
“Thank you, my friends,” the NPC suddenly sits up. “I needed help and you arrived right on time,” the man speaks in a broken French accent meaning he’s a refugee. “My name is Remy,” he stands and introduces himself as if we didn’t just smash into him going over 100 miles per hour.
“I know where this is going,” Kai says to no one in particular.
“I’m glad you helped me, but my people are in need of help,” Remy says as if the words hurt him. “We were being brought to freedom in Astro City. But our captives have taken a different path. They intend to sell us into slavery. Will you help?” The familiar sound of a quest being added to my log plays.
“Daamin is going to be so annoying that we’re late,” I sigh.
“What can we do? It’s slavery. We have to do the right thing,” Kai agrees. He turns to Remy, “take us to your people?”
I hadn’t thought about how strange it was to see a forest in the badlands when trees are so rare around here, or the entire world really. Luckily Remy does what every escort NPC does and provide backstory as he takes us further into the woods. This forest was protected by a billionaire named Christopher Phillips Evans III who truly believed in protecting the Earth’s natural resources. He felt that humans could live in harmony with nature. He was cornered outside of a new eco friendly apartment complex he opened shortly after announcing a run for mayor; several of his enemies participated in stabbing him to death. A real Julius Caesar moment, capitalized by the fact that his enemies split all of his wealth afterwards. The forest was named after him and kept as a monument and landmark for Astro City, but also a reminder of the dirty little secrets for those in power.
“We’re getting close,” Remy alerts us, as the quest updates.
“Alright, should we just run a gun stun,” Kai asks.
“Yeah we can do that,” I confirm.
Kai and I have been teaming up so long we name our combat moves. Gun stun is a generic term for a plan where I run in and catch them off guard. Guns, and smoke grenades. Meanwhile Kai hacks their systems. Everything from tech implants to cellphones and even AI assisted weapons. I gun, he stuns. Usually it’s for enemies we don’t think will put up much of a fight. Remy stands still as Kai and I prepare, occasionally stretching his arms out in the shape of a T.
“Kay had the nerve to complain about nobody beating her game or playing it the right way when she’s still got NPCs hitting the T pose,” Kai laughs.
“She’s insane right?”
“Yeah, she should be in jail when this is done.”
“Playing basketball in Pelican Bay.”
“23-hour lockdown.”
“Never see the light of day.”
“Chill out, if we laugh too much they’ll find us,” Kai tries to hold back a laugh.
I watch as Kai launches his drone into the air. It silently flies above the tree line until it’s out of sight. He manages to locate the targets and ping the location back to me. I head out into the woods, as Kai feeds me information. 37 captives, six handlers, all armed, two with AI assisted weapons, three with tech implants and one guy trusting his own body and aim. I approach them from behind and follow for a while. The captives are chained together like a classic chain gang being led through the woods. One of them spots me and I motion for them to stay quiet.
I link up with Kai’s drone giving me a top down infrared view of the area. Phones begin to ring from the handlers causing distractions and signaling the start of our plan. I roll out a few smoke bombs clouding everyone’s vision except mine. I move through the smoke as if it’s a top down shooter. I make my main target the man with no implants, Kai can’t do anything to help with him. It’s easy to sneak up and fire a silenced pistol shot through his back. A man shouts in pain before dropping and I know Kai has taken out his implants which means less guns are in play. I smash my gun into the face of a woman before blasting a round into her head. Another shout means the second with tech implants is down. The smoke starts to clear and I take cover.
“Give me an update, who’s left?”
“Two guys but their guns are useless,” Kai sounds calm.
I can take them out, in a straight forward rush but I don’t get the chance. Slowly the shackles begin to fall from each of the prisoners. Kai seems to have set them free. The slavers attempt to fire their guns but it’s no good. When they realize nobody is able to stop them the captives swarm them. Fists and feet pummel the men, the NPCs are taking them out with everything they’ve got. The quest updates again as Kai arrives with Remy.
“Thank you, my people have been saved. We do not have much but take these as a token of our appreciation and a token of appreciation from our people, a token of appreciation” Remy repeats variations of the same line several times before he reunites with the captives as bracelets appear in our inventory.
“They gave us friendship bracelets,” Kai rolls his eyes sarcastically, but equips the bracelet.
“That’s stupid. What are we kids,” I laugh as I equip my matching bracelet.
The bracelet is mostly black beads, hand carved and a little jagged. There are a few other beads that each seem special. A yellowish bead with a flame burning inside. A green bead with a lightning bolt that flashes. A green stone that holds some kind of plant fossil. Lastly a blue stone with bubbles floating inside it. It’s a really cool bracelet, would be a shame if I didn’t wear it.
