Gen's brow crinkled at LEO's criticism, it was true that people and iguanas who were arguable allies with her kept having unfortunate things happen to them around her, but… she still felt confident that all those events fell into two categories.
People who deserved what was coming to them like Roger and Gary or things that she had no way of knowing would happen like that lady she'd bashed the head in of or Jasper's unfortunate accident…
Nodding her head confidently she dismissed any lingering feelings of guilt and ignored the writhing ball of iguana flesh as she exited the boss incubation chamber.
Outside Francine looked nervous and said, "I saw the notification so it's really happening?"
Gen nodded, "A bit of Morna's group is around outside so I'm getting some updates, but I don't know how long it will be before a protagonist reacts."
Francine nodded and then looked confused, "Where's Jasper?"
Gen looked at her empty shoulder. She was still in the headquarters so she reactivated her teamwork augment and summoned an iguana directly on her shoulder.
Immediately she regretted her decision as she'd forgotten her ability was at full-power so a ten lb iguana appeared wrapping around her neck instead of the mini-version she was used to. Face to face with a tan iguana she questioned, "You're not Jasper…"
It shook its head no.
She looked back to the boss incubation room, was Jasper still alive in that blob? At least for actors being fully infected was the same as death and would end the event for them, for her summons however the rules might work differently.
Further investigation was interrupted as LEO's voice rang out from above.
"Pause!"
She felt her body freeze in the same way she'd been frozen at the start of her first scenario while he explained the objective.
"Great job everyone! And by a great job I mean there's been a plethora of wanton violence and loss of human life across the city! I sure am glad the board of parental guidelines isn't in charge anymore or this definitely would have been NC-48!"
"Quick summary for folks! Protagonists have been doing really swell no zones have fallen yet, one antagonist headquarters has been destroyed. Last-minute special zombie incubation, however! Been a while since we had one of those day one of an event mainly because it ended so poorly for the the antagonists every time they rushed it before, but who knows maybe this time the person responsible knows what they're doing and isn't just wasting the valuable resources of their lucky friend…"
"Annnnywaay, it's time for the union mandated night break!"
Abruptly Gen felt a wave of static and she was back in the street where their group had first entered the event area. Next to her was Francine and a lot of the other generated they'd been with Alfred at the front.
She had no time to consider LEO's message that seemed very pointed toward herself as Rusty was nearby and she quickly stepped away from him avoiding eye contact.
Alfred clapped his hands, "Welcome back everyone! LEO aims to make city events fun experiences so each evening will pause the event and allow you to go about your normal activities. Tomorrow morning you will be teleported back into whatever situation you were just removed from and your state restored to what it was at the time."
Gen had been too disoriented to notice immediately, but she now realized some small scratches she had accumulated were healed, her clothing was repaired, and the tan iguana on her shoulder had been replaced with Jasper.
Jasper hissed at her.
"I didn't know it would do that!"
He hissed again.
"You read all the chat messages I did! You might be riding on my shoulder, but don't act like you're just a passenger!" She put on a pouting expression and said, "We're partners!"
Jasper actually seemed a bit taken aback by the declaration and she pressed her momentum with the carrot, "Morna and Chuck mentioned dinner together I'll buy you something tasty to make up for it."
He mulled over the bribe and eventually nodded, but still had an air of indignation about him. She wasn't sure if being crammed into the fleshball just wasn't that traumatic of an experience or if he just really liked eating that much.
Taking out her phone she saw that Morna had already made a new chat with Chuck and her.
Morna: DingDINgDING! Dinner time! Chuck you're on team loser, but I already invited you so you can come.
Chuck: It's fine I died already, I was taking it easy guarding a headquarters and some high-levels came by on some sort of flying saucer and killed us all before our allies could respond
Morna: Lol u loser~
Chuck: …
Gen's altercation with Jasper hadn't actually gathered much attention as Francine and Bo were getting into an even bigger one at the moment with Alfred between them.
Bo was pointing at Francine accusatorily, "You're worried about me now? I had my throat ripped out and you didn't even stick around to see if I was okay!"
Francine was speaking weakly, "I messaged you…"
Bo scoffed, "That's it? Of course, I didn't respond with how you've been acting. I expected you to wait for us to get back to the market and keep going on the orientation if you actually cared so much like you said you did."
Francine looked helpless and Alfred started trying to mediate.
From the sidelines with the other generated Gen narrowed her eyes while she considered her options.
She'd been worried about Francine's relationship with Bo already, but his current attitude really got to her.
She could respect not wanting Francine to excessively worry over him, but his current reversal of acting like a victim now that Francine did exactly what he wanted...
Francine was silently taking the criticism with their head down while Bo went off on a self-righteous rant.
Gen still wasn't that close with Francine, but they were her closest friend from the group of new generated.
Her group chat with Morna and Chuck chimed again and she was starting to feel hungry. Maybe the only solution to an unreasonable person was an unreasonable solution?
Reaching her decision she walked up to Bo and sucker-punched him in the face feeling a satisfying crunch as his nose broke.
He collapsed on the ground with an expression of fear and shock while her victory was interrupted by some sort of restrictive force enveloping her, it was similar to when LEO froze everyone, but much weaker, and if she forced herself she could move slowly.
Alfred loomed over her and she didn't resist as he placed a hand on her shoulder with a dark expression, "I'll recognize you just emerged from your first event and might have been in a tense situation at the time, but outside the event, you can't assault people without consequences."
Moving slowly she forced her neck to nod in acknowledgment, her cooperative attitude was lessened by Jasper hissing at Alfred from the side. He shot a glance at the iguana before releasing Gen from his ability and turning to help Bo up.
Bo's nose was streaming blood and he had a livid expression as he stemmed the flow with one hand and pointed a finger at Gen, "You can't just give her a warning! You said that there were laws here right!? I want to press charges!"
Alfred stood between them and exuded a harsh magical aura that gave them all a tremor of fear and silenced Bo immediately. He cast an eye at everyone causing several generated to flinch back before speaking, "I have been assigned to be in charge of your orientation and as such for the duration of your first month here any disciplinary action required is up to my discretion. Gen has been given a warning and that decision is final. Any future violence amongst this group however will have harsher penalties. Am I understood?"
He was looking directly at Gen so she nodded again in understanding. A part of her wanted to be flippant about it, but she recognized that he had done her a favor by not making a bigger issue of things.
Seeing her acknowledgment Alfred continued speaking, "Now with that said orientation is complete for today. I will be returning to the orientation center and anyone is welcome to join me and ask more questions as desired, for anyone else remember that your rooms can be accessed from any dormitory room in the city. I will be sending out messages for the schedule tomorrow, for those still in the event feel free to prioritize it as I will be going over the same information again next week when we likely will have a less immersive event."
Bo was still holding his bleeding nose while glaring at Gen, but she ignored him as she focused on Francine who was standing there shellshocked. She grabbed Francine's hand and tugged them along, "Come on! My friends invited me to dinner, you should join us."
Francine didn't react immediately allowing themself to be pulled along, Gen pulled out her phone and scanned the messages, there were a lot of Morna teasing Chuck repeatedly, but eventually Morna posted an address to a restaurant and Gen quickly clicked it and started following the directions.
It turned out that Spotlight had a robust public transportation system that only cost 1 emmy per month to use, despite her limited funds she quickly bought a pass and also bought one for Francine as they still seemed out of it.
Within a few minutes they were on a trolley car sitting next to eachother riding along her GPS's route to what looked like a pizza place based on the pictures she'd quickly seen on Morna's link.
Francine finally seemed to snap out of it and see their surroundings, 'What…? Where are we going? Why did you do that?" They pulled our their phone, "I've got to message Bo!"
Gen snatched the phone from them, "No you don't."
Francine's face flickered between emotions, "Give it back! He's going to think I made you do that, he already hates me!"
Gen glanced at the other passengers on the trolley a couple who were giving them odd glances.
Francine noticed the look and quieted down having an angry whisper, "Give me my phone I need to try and fix this!"
Gen looked at the stolen phone in her hand, she didn't know if she was doing the right thing. In her fragmented memories, only Kyle had had many hearts to hearts and in typical teenage fashion, many of them hadn't ended well. Sophia had no friends as she just wanted to kill everyone, Victor had friends, but they were more just gaming buddies and he was too focused on enjoying the games and running the shops to engage with them on a personal level, ironically CJ had actually been next up on fostering genuine relationships as there were several other mechs they had fought alongside for years and formed bonds with even if they had never spoken to each other.
Gen looked at Francine, "Francine he’s what happens when life forgets to humble someone, him berating you for not caring more when he told you to leave him alone is completely narcissistic behavior. You keep wanting to try to protect him, but from my perspective, you're the one pushing yourself into an abusive relationship." She gestured around, "This reality is halfway to being a videogame there are plenty of tutorials and safeguards, he'll figure it out, and frankly with how self-assured he is I'm sure he'll find plenty of sycophants willing to put up with his attitude."
Francine started to reply and then stopped, this repeated a few times before they sighed. The trolley kept clattering along and they sat quietly for a few minutes.
Francine looked at her again, "Why did you do that? Why are you doing this now? I asked you before in the cafeteria and you said it was because I was alone, but you went out of your way to try and help me even if I don't agree with how you did it."
Gen hesitated, she really wasn't sure herself, she looked at Jasper for inspiration and he gave her a flat stare as he rolled his head. Eventually, she shrugged, "I don't know. I have less sets of memories than you, but that doesn't make it easier to know who I am. Honestly, it just pissed me off hearing him talk to you like that after telling you he didn't want help to begin with. The… the---" she gestured ambiguously, "The gall of some people really just irritates me. I think in all my lives there were people who deserved to get punched in the face, but never had it happen and well I'm new here and everyone knows fresh generated are off in the head so I figured I should capitalize on whatever beginner leniency I have while it lasts."
Francine took that statement in and eventually gave a weak laugh, "I think I have twelve sets of memories and they make it abundantly easy to tell who I am. I'm a victim. I'm the rube that trusts the wrong people, ignores the good advice, and eventually reaches a dead end that was obvious to everyone but me."
Gen looked at them, "You can make chopsticks right?"
Francine looked confused, "I can make wood and shoot it, outside of the events and scenarios though it's basically just making chopsticks."
"Make one."
Francine looked a bit annoyed but made one.
"Do it again."
Francine created another and Gen made them repeat it a couple more times before Francine got frustrated and questioned, "Is the point of this just seeing how far I'll go just doing what other people tell me to do?"
Gen laughed and shook her head, "No, but yeah you probably should've demanded an explanation before making seven of them. Make twelve total, or rather thirteen so we have an example."
Francine sighed but conjured the requested amount.
Gen grabbed the stack of twelve in one hand and the individual one in the other, "Chopsticks are pretty weak, see I can easily snap this one by itself." She grabbed the single one and tried to snap it and failed. Setting the other twelve down she focused grabbing it with both hands trying to snap it with all her strength, but only managed to hurt her hands.
Exasperated she looked at Francine, "Okay so your chopsticks are too strong and ruined my analogy." She held up the one, "This one is supposed to break and then I hold up the twelve other ones together and show that they can't snap because they're stronger together. It was going to be really poetic about how maybe you've got the memories of twelve chumps, but combined together you can be a badass now, either way, I guess it just means that they're all strong individually too and you're just super badass after combining them."
Francine stared at her and stared at the chopsticks and eventually smiled, "Thanks. I don't think my issues can be fixed with a chopstick analogy, but I do feel a bit better now." She hesitated and looked at Gen, "I know we're both new here, but… would you be interested in dating me?"
Gen immediately floundered, she didn't normally really look at people in detail so she hadn't noticed that Francine was somewhat attractive in a mousy androngenous librarian kind of way albeit with lightning eyebrows, but…
She shook her head, "Sorry nope, I'm good, like sure you're… umm attractive and seem nice, but… I think being newly generated doesn't make us in a good headspace for getting into relationship commitments. I'm sure Alfred is going to have a whole orientation section on it."
Francine looked a bit disappointed, but nodded, "So you're saying not right now, but maybe in the future?"
Gen groaned and then tried to walk it back as Francine looked hurt, "Sorry no it's not you. Well yeah, but…" Taking a deep breath to collect herself she tried to elaborate more clearly, "Look I think we've both got plenty to figure out and I am going to be very direct with you that I think you've got more to figure out than I do. From the pieces of your memories, I've heard it seems like most of your bad memories revolve around relationship trauma whether it's with a partner or a cult and I think if you want to move past that and be this new Francine person who doesn't repeat the same mistakes then you need to learn to be okay by yourself rather than just finding a new person to be co-dependent with whether it's Bo, myself, or Morna's cult which I'm sure she'll try to recruit you to at dinner."
Gen braced herself to see how Francine responded to the word vomit, but Francine didn't look offended and was just thinking it through.
"We're both new here and there's going to be a lot that happens and so I'd like to be friends, we can go to dinner, hang out, work in the event together, but I sense you've got boundary issues so… there'll be limits. We're not going to move in together and we're not going to talk or hang out every day. If you need help I'll try to help you, but we both just met so we're not going to be making a blood pact any time soon."
Francine looked disappointed at the clear boundary, but Gen hoped that getting it out in the open early would keep anything from imploding later.
Morna's voice was clearly inebriated as she yelled, "I'll swear it's not! I'll even make a blood oath with you! I swear on my life it's not a cult!"
Chuck and Gen shared a look.
"Cult."
"It's a cult."
Francine was a bit more agreeable, "Well it sounds like a fun club… I don't think it's a cult, but… I'm trying to figure things out for myself so I'm not looking to join any organizations in the near future."
Morna looked on the verge of tears as she focused on Francine sensing weakness, whipping out a business card like the one she'd given Gen she waved it, "See this side LEO's Ladies" she flipped the card, "This side is LEO's Laddies, aaaaand" she held the card up with great preamble before separating it along a hidden center seam and unfolding it to show a square center card face that read "LEO's Non-Binary Folks!".
The reveal was met with dead silence.
Chuck cleared his throat awkwardly, "Morna we can all see Francine's name, but did you really think they were only not joining immediately because your business card happened to not include a non-binary noun for members?"
Morna looked at him squinting as she wobbled slightly and took another sip of her martini, "Yes."
Chuck's tone was very patient, "Did it occur to you that assuming she would join based on her gender would be even more offensive than not including a non-binary noun at all?" He paused, "Also why is it hidden on the inside? It's like you guys are ashamed of them and hiding them or something…"
Morna gasped, "Don't you see!? Their card face is twice as big as the other two once it's opened up! That makes up for it being hidden inside! It's not offensive!"
She looked at Gen for help, but Gen quickly shook her head back and forth not wanting to get involved in this PR disaster.
Morna looked at Francine who was looking very uncomfortable and replied, "Well I umm… I think I see where you were coming from, but yeah it is a little off-putting?" She quickly spilled out the rest, "It's just that for ladies and laddies there's a clear alliteration thing going on and then just saying non-binary folks it's like an after thought like you forgot to include them to start and are just shoving them in…"
Chuck laughed and Morna groaned as she slumped on the table and threw the card away, "This is all Gen's fault…"
They glanced at Gen, but Morna shook her head, "Not you the OG Gen she founded the group and came up with the cards and name."
Gen looked at her, "What exactly is the group named anyway the cards aren't really clear…"
Morna avoided her gaze as she said, "It's called LEO's Ladies, Laddies, and non-binary folk, or LLLNBF for short."
Chuck started choking as he sprayed some of his drink out of his mouth.
Gen directly commented, "That's terrible…"
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Morna shifted attention back off her cult's terrible naming and advertising sense and tried poking more fun at Chuck for dying on the first day of the event.
He shrugged, "Yeah I am disappointed, it's shaping up to be an interesting zombie event too what with the special zombie coming out so soon and everything. Either of you near the headquarters that is happening at? The theories online are going crazy of which group organized such a big play and what their plans are for the counterattack tomorrow."
Morna laughed and looked at Gen who looked away, seeing the reaction Chuck caught onto something, and a few minutes later they'd filled him in as he was already eliminated.
He whistled and looked at Jasper his eyes narrowed before focusing back on Gen, "Your ability definitely is unusual, most people who can summon creatures have a limited number they can create at a time and other limitations such as cooldowns. Granted they're usually stronger in terms of combat ability like a bear or a giant spider, but the last time I remember someone getting enough biomass for a special zombie with only a single ability was that guy who could conjure sacks of meat."
Morna yelled, "I love meatsack guy!"
Gen ignored her, "How do summons work to begin with, Alfred our orientation guide, explained some stuff with souls and how there's a finite quantity, but he implied that animals had souls before all this too so does each iguana have a soul? LEO straight told me spamming it was wasteful I couldn't tell if he was making a joke or if I really was messing something up making a thousand iguanas."
Chuck shrugged, "No idea, what a soul is exactly is something there's a lot of money in investigating. If LEO has all the answers he's not sharing them and most people suspect he doesn't know himself. It's similar to how for a long time people had gravitational theory which was totally wrong, but close enough for them to use, and now we have the gravitational laws. LEO could be using souls to sustain reality based upon observed effects without actually understanding what they are."
Morna's mouth was full of pizza as she added, "Don't think about it too much. LEO wouldn't give you an ability he hadn't fully thought through."
Gen considered that some of LEO's comments had almost implied he didn't have full knowledge of what was happening in the world and with her polls, but she couldn't tell if that was an act or not.
Morna kept talking, "It's hard, and my cul--- I mean my club tries to research more, but LEO doesn't answer questions."
Gen looked at her, "He answered my questions when I first was generated though…"
Morna pointed at her excitedly, but her mouth was too full so Chuck spoke, "Yeah it's a privilege of new generated to actually have questions answered and if you found out anything novel during your conversation then some organizations would pay big money for the info, but…" He looked at Francine and her and shook his head.
Gen thought back to her own first moment and tried to consider if she'd asked anything philosophical or interesting for the world at large and she sighed, "Let me guess most generated either aren't coherent enough to even ask questions or they all end up asking the same questions so they don't gain any new knowledge and as LEO is the first person they meet after being generated there isn't a way to prompt them to ask anything more important."
Morna finally finished swallowing, "Exactly! That's why I was so excited to talk with you when you seemed so…" She glanced at Francine and pushed ahead anyway, "So coherent for a new generated! I thought maybe you would've asked something unique."
Gen shook her head feeling disappointed in herself for focusing on understanding her immediate situation instead of demanding the secrets of the universe.
The topics meandered some and eventually, they started talking about the event again as Gen asked, "Is my zombie incubation really doomed?"
Chuck shrugged, "I don't know how good Morna's group is, but the more resistance the protagonists face in claiming the base the more and higher leveled reinforcements will start to show up. We're talking about hundreds of actors with some being over level five. Your only advantage is your zone is on the edge of the event map."
She looked at him questioningly.
He elaborated, "So antagonists and protagonists can both buy a variety of equipment and upgrades at their respective headquarters. One of the things protagonists can buy is a quarantine, it's an action that forms barriers around a whole zone. The closer to the center of the city a zone is the more expensive it is to quarantine. So depending on how many resources it would cost to invade your headquarters they might elect to quarantine it instead, this would effectively cut you out for the rest of the event, but they won't bother to stop the incubation allowing you to complete your bonus mission."
Gen nodded, it made sense from a cost/benefit perspective, but it was disappointing to hear that her base could be removed from the playing field by the bigger players without ever having to invade directly.
As the evening wore on Gen found herself being lost in the conversation and too tired to dig into some points. Chuck and Morna mentioned lots of things in passing as if it was common knowledge, some sort of yearly war between cities, actor-created dungeons, expeditions to invade dimensions owned by other AIs, and something about seasons which by context had nothing to do with the weather.
Morna generously paid for Francine and her, "Don't worry about it Gen, you've made this event way more fun! Everyone in the club is hyping me up for inviting you and getting them involved in defending a boss incubation! Plus I'm getting to fight some crazy girl with a katana!"
Gen smiled, "Thanks, I am a bit short on emmys, but I've done the math if I do a scenario every week then I don't need that many more viewers to make ends meet."
Chuck and Morna shared a look and Chuck said, "You know you can only do a scenario once a month right?"
Gen felt her stomach drop, "Alfred said scenarios are run weekly?"
Chucked nodded, "They are, but there's an individual limit of once per month, you can choose which scenario day in the month you do it and usually people will aim to synchronize with friends in the off-chance they get to go to the same scenario, but once you go you have to wait until the next month to do another one."
Gen frowned, "How do I afford food then…?"
Morna laughed, "There's always LEO bars!"
Gen shook her head, based on Alfred's comments and Morna's tone she nevery wanted to try one of those.
Chuck laughed, "Well you should get some reward from the zombie event and usually after a big city event they'll have a more lowkey three-week event. If it's a worker event you can get paid as long as you put in the hours to do whatever your viewers assign you. Honestly, it's more sustainable than running scenarios constantly, most people aren't professional actors trying to level up they just want to live, they casually play some events, and keep enough in savings to pay the reboot fee if we lose a city war."
Gen was about to ask what all that even meant, but her weary eyes made her stop. Jasper was asleep on her shoulder having eaten more than his body's weight worth of pizza and the four of them had walked together to the nearest dormitory room. Plenty of people were opening doors around them and turning in for the night and there would always be the next day to return to considering her financial crisis.
Saying their good nights they separated she went straight into her room not even bothering to peek at what Chuck's and Morna's places looked like. Once inside she laid Jasper on the bed and was asleep immediately.
Event resumes~
Gen's eyes were suddenly open and she was standing instead of laying down in her bed. She was frozen in place by LEO's power for a moment before being released.
Francine was in front of her looking similarly disoriented as they remembered exactly what they had been doing before the break. Gen considered that she definitely didn't want to ever be mid-fight right when an event break began as it would be really difficult to get back into the rhythm.
Ding~!
LEO's voiced echoed in her head, You do realize there is a level of irony in wasting my energy to break a tie for a poll I gave you specifically in order to emphasize not wasting energy right? Well, the gloves are smaller than the robot so in the name of efficiency here you go!
Gloves appeared on Gen's hands, they looked like dirty gardening gloves. She quickly read the description. Absorb energy from attacks that miss you. Discharge a finger to shoot a bolt of lightning.
Despite LEO's sarcasm, the gloves seemed genuinely useful the requirement for having to miss an attack for it to work was annoying though.
Thinking of iguanas she looked at her heavy shoulders and saw the tan iguana. Grabbing it she sat it on the ground, it didn't hiss or scratch at her as she sat it down. Addressing it she said, "Sorry for summoning you into a zombie apocalypse… I meant to summon Jasper, but umm yeah there's not really anything for you to do here so feel free to sleep or something. If you stay in the headquarters then you should be safe unless protagonists invade which they'll definitely try to do…"
The iguana stared at her for a second and then ambled off down a random hallway ignoring her.
Francine had watched the exchange and said, "Thanks for introducing me to your friends last night."
Gen smiled, "Yeah of course." She felt awkward, but had to ask, "Did you end up messaging Bo anymore?"
Francine smiled, "He'd sent me a bunch of messages, but I… I blocked his number. I think you're right that I'm just filling old patterns with him and also sorry for hitting on you yesterday that was really desperate in hindsight…"
Gen looked away, "Don't worry about it."
Feeling awkward she said, "So my poll gave me an iguana zombie hatchery for the base, want to find out what that is?"
Francine gratefully took the advice, but as they walked down the hallway they stopped seeing another person enter the front door. It was a man with short black hair and thin wire glasses wearing a dress shirt, above his head read G2n - Level 3.
He looked at them, "Do you really not have any guards at the base incubating a special zombie?"
Gen recognized his name from Morna's chatroom but felt weird meeting him in person and had no idea how to pronounce his name. She forced a smile while looking away, "There were guards, but the spitter zombies got them…"
He looked doubtful and pointed at an amulet he was wearing, "They didn't purchase advanced protection amulets?"
Gen shrugged, "Maybe they couldn't afford them?"
He still looked skeptical, but moved on as he said, "I'm coordinating with the group through the chat, but we should fortify this headquarters as our top priority. It looks almost entirely unupgraded so if a single high-level actor rushes here then we will be in trouble."
He looked back toward the door "What is the upgrade I saw outside, it looked like some sort of organic structure. I'm assuming it is a poll reward as it doesn't match any standard headquarters upgrades."
Gen nodded, "Yeah that's mine, we were just about to go look at it, it's a zombie iguana hatchery."
He looked back to them, "Buy advanced amulets first, there's iguanas with spitter mutagens everywhere."
Walking up to the NPC on the interior side Francine quickly bought two advanced amulets and gave one to Gen as she was still at negative contribution points.
G2n explained quickly, "I know you're both generated so I'll explain, but we're short on time with protagonists having all night to plan a response. The amulets will make zombies ignore you and the advanced versions are needed for mutated zombies, they charge up when inside allied headquarters and deplete when outside."
Gen appreciated the explanation, but still read the item description confirming what he said as they headed outside to inspect her upgrade. It was about the size of a shed and looked like a giant egg growing out of the side of the building. It was yellowish and had black veins along its surface.
As they watched a small slit opened and a zombie iguana slid out splatting on the ground. It lay still for a second before standing and scurrying away. A second later another iguana emerged.
G2n looked at it, "The zombie iguanas are much faster than you would expect. It looks like it is only creating basic versions at the moment rather than the spitters I saw before." He looked at the structure, "Anyone can upgrade it, but as it's your poll reward you can do the honors."
He motioned her forward and she laid a hand on the egg structure being surprised when it was soft and leathery instead of hard like a chicken egg. Immediately a menu appeared.
Spawns per minute
- Standard: 30
Mutagen Upgrades (10000 contribution points)
- Mutagens: No available samples
She quickly scanned the options and explained them to G2n. He nodded, "It's standard for a nest, the only difference is the spawn rate is six times that of standard and it makes iguanas instead of humananoid zombies. In case you are unaware the nest upgrade for a headquarters is usually 50,000 contribution points so it's quite the windfall from a poll. If we grab the spitter iguana you secured by the door we can use it as a zombie to unlock spawning spitters for 10,000 points." He looked at Gen, "How many contribution points do you both have?"
She looked away and said quietly, "Negative five hundred or so…"
Francine sounded nervous as she said, "I have 8,341"
G2n didn't look phased as he seemed lost in thought, "I'm assuming your friend initiated the zombie horde around here in that case. I have a little over 3,000." He looked at Francine, "I'll transfer enough for you to buy the upgrade. I'm messaging in the chat right now asking for anyone with over a thousand points to head here and buy other upgrades for the headquarters. At the very least we'll need a downsizer upgrade to protect against lone wolves."
Gen didn't know what a downsizer was but shared a look with Francine and they both silently agreed to go along with it, they were both newly generated and G2n was higher level and the glasses definitely made him look like he knew what he was doing.
A few minutes later they'd shoved the spitter leashed by the door into a slot on the egg and used it as a sample. G2n made the transfer to Francine and bumped them up to 10,000.
Accessing the egg menu Francine upgraded the hatchery. Gen placed a hand on it and observed the new state.
Spawns per minute
- Standard: 40
- Spitter: 6
Surprised she said, "The standard spawn rate increased too."
G2n nodded, "That's normal, every time you upgrade a nest all its spawns increase in speed. Late in an event normal zombies are easily eliminated with all the event items protagonists get, but this early it's possible that we can overwhelm this zone and start infecting the surrounding ones to get an even bigger buffer."
Gen nodded with a hungry look in her eyes, "Do we have any more mutagens?"
G2n shook his head, "Let me fully emphasize how lucky your friend was to get two mutagens. Per day in the event normally we'll only see 3-4 in the whole city and most of those are used by… by people like Morna to create shortlived hordes. Within our group, no one else has gotten a mutagen and I'm not aware of any mutated hordes in other zones we could obtain a sample from. Big clans will be hoarding any mutagens they get ahold of until they have a nest of their own to start spawning from and enough upgrades on the headquarters to defend it."
He pointed at the headquarters, "In no uncertain terms if the protagonist team realizes there is a nest here in addition to an incubating boss then this place will be reduced to ashes by the end of the event day. Our one saving grace is that it's spawning iguanas instead of zombies so it might take them some extra time to realize it's a nest."
Gen's phone gave her a new notification of her being added to another chat group.
Susan has added you to channel VERIFIED PROTAGONISTS.
Your rank is recruit you may not recruit new members.
Susan has upgraded your rank to lieutenant you may add more members.
A direct message appeared.
Susan: Hey! Been running around, but I didn't forget you, if your iguana verifies any more protagonists then feel free to add them to the chat! Particularly if they're high level, we're working on putting together a raid on that incubating boss.
Susan: Absolutely do not add anyone who isn't verified by you personally! There is a lot of classified information in here!
Gen's eyes widened as she took in the new information. Unlike Morna's group which had a single chat spamming information, this was a whole channel with several hundred chats dedicated to different topics and zones.
Taking in the information quickly she realized there were over a thousand members and that was just the verified ones. Many people in the chat had their own separate chats with other potential protagonists, but they didn't have enough people with lie-detection abilities to verify them all so this channel was only for the ones who had actually been verified by one means or another.
Filtering through the different chats she eventually located two relevant ones, one was for general discussion about zone 98 that she was in and another one was a special locked channel that she could only access because of her rank that was titled Incubation Response.
Peeking into it she saw several hundred messages from different people, the main discussion was debate over which group was behind the rushed incubation and how many defenses were waiting for them.
Morna and Chuck had let her know that it was common for people to form clubs, clans, guilds, and all manner of other consortiums to cooperate on events. At the start of each event, they would split in two based on which roles their members were assigned and it was immediate exile if anyone was ever found to have lied about what side they were on.
Gen was sweating as she read the chat of people she assumed were high-level as they imagined the forces arrayed against them and prepared a high-powered offensive. If they knew that only a small club was involved…
They even knew about the spitter iguanas already, apparently, Susan's daughter happened to be in the area doing routine patrols and reported them.
The fact that a mysterious faction had not only one, but two mutagens this early and had acquired enough biomass for a special zombie in only a single day had them all imagining a vast conspiracy.
The prevailing theory was that this mysterious organization didn't even intend to complete the incubation and was instead laying a trap to eliminate any protagonists that went to respond or creating a high-investment distraction before launching a real attack on one of the center zones of the city.
Gen felt dizzy and out of her league, looking at G2n who was busy on his phone coordinating the rest of Morna's allies in the area. Smiling she decided not to worry about the details and invited him to Susan's channel.
He looked up at her questioningly before looking at the channel on his phone and she had the satisfaction of his eyes widening.
He forcefully pulled his eyes away from the phone and said, "I need to go inside and use my ability."
Francine and Gen didn't know what to think of that, but they followed him into the headquarters leaving the egg behind which had already plopped out several hundred iguanas while they were standing around.
Inside he sat down in a cheap chair in the building's lobby and a spectral wire shot out of his arm and into his phone. An instant later several dozen holographic screens appeared in front of him and his eyes started to glow green.
Gen couldn't follow the many screens that were all scrolling through different chats and images all at once. It looked like some sort of scene from a B movie where the computer whizz starts tunneling into the Pentagon and was equally incomprehensible.
She sat in another chair and quickly explained the situation to Francine while waiting patiently. She'd invited G2n because he exuded a level of technical confidence and she was increasingly thinking it was her best decision of the event so far.
Her phone buzzed several times notifying her that Morna's chat's map had been updated with a colossal amount of information. She was momentarily regretful for missing out on whatever amount of contribution points he'd gotten for doing that, but either way, the points would be going toward upgrading the headquarters.
The door opened and Morna stepped inside with two new people following her, Morna was missing an arm and it looked like the wound had be sloppily cateourized, despite that she had a big smile as she spotted Gen.
"Hey Gen!" Morna looked over to G2n as well and rolled her eyes, "Twen is in cyborg mode already?"
G2n ignored her, but a man behind Morna who was level 1 named Hon laughed. Another man with them who was level 2 and named Pali was looking at his phone in surprise, "Twen how'd you get all this map info?"
G2n didn't look up and just pointed at Gen, "Ask her."
All three turned to look at her and Gen gulped, "So I might have tricked a level 7 lady named Susan that I was a protagonist and had a lie-detecting iguana… she added me to a pretty big channel."
G2n scoffed, "She was added to the primary protagonist channel with lieutenant rank." He looked at Gen and held out another spectral wire, "Let me interface with your phone I can't access the locked channels with my rank."
Morna jumped between them and held out her remaining arm blocking him, "Don't let him do it Gen! He can copy your whole phone in an instant and steal all your nudes!"
G2n glared at her, "Morna."
Morna took a step back under his gaze and quickly retreated before saying, "I mean he could, but he wouldn't." Secretly facing Gen she silently mouthed don't do it.
Used to her antics Gen ignored her and unlocked her phone before passing it to G2n. If she'd actually had the phone any amount of time she might be more hesitant, but there wasn't any personal data on there yet to steal to begin with.
Morna face palmed and shook her head, Gen looked at her and asked "What happened to your arm?"
Morna's face lit up, it was awesome! Remember that katana lady I told you about? Well we had a duel she got my arm, but I smashed her good and it activated her emergency evacuation equipment flying her out of the zone.
Gen thought back to some of the messages in the zone 98 channel and laughed, "She called you a psycho cat lady in the chat and said that your hammer was definitely compensating for something."
Morna looked aghast, "She's in that channel!? Add me! I've never lost a flame war."
G2n who had been ignoring them glared over, "No, and don't mention this to anyone outside the zone if they figure out they have an information leak then they'll start purging anyone recently added and this chat is the only advantage we have."
Morna groaned, "Just add me! I'll keep a low profile! She won't even know it's me, I'll make her fall in love with me, and then on our honeymoon I'll smash her with my hammer and be like Who's compensating for something now!?"
G2n just stared at her, "It would still definitely be you compensating for something in that fantasy of yours… Nobody else is getting added to the channel I can't trust any of you to not immediately blow our cover just because it would be funny."
Hon laughed and dragged Morna back, "He's not wrong Morna it does sound like something we would do."
Pali looked at G2n and asked, "So what's the plan we've got basically our whole chat converging here."
G2n wrinkled his brow and shut down his ability handing back Gen's phone, "I hate when Gen is on the other team I always end up having to lead all you lemmings."
Morna wrapped her remaining arm around him, "Don't say that Twen! You know you love us!"
He murmured something about Stockholm syndrome and then clapped his hands together, "Okay here's the situation we've got three level 6's en route, their goal is to scout the headquarters and destroy it if possible. Our one advantage is the other team has no idea how weak we really are so they are being cautious giving us a little more time. From the channel, I've got several courses of action, first an antagonist stronghold is forming in zone 60, if we can coordinate with them then maybe just maybe we can get some allies strong enough to be half as strong as the protagonists think we are, second in zone 83 there is a mutated leaper horde, if we can bring back a sample then we could upgrade Gen's nest again and get some much needed firepower, and third we've got to get this place upgraded and secure any protagonist equipment from the actors who got taken out by the spitter zombies."
He looked at them, "I'll put it in the chat, but everyone either pick or poll your viewers of which option you'd like to do. The majority of people are going to need to be on option 3 to help fight against the incoming level 6 group."
Gen felt confused, "Poll our viewers?"
G2n nodded, "Yes LEO isn't the only one who can make polls you can always create a poll to ask your viewers what you should do. You can't give yourself rewards like LEO, but it can be helpful in cultivating a following to make sure that you're doing what interests your viewers. You could technically ignore the results of the poll, but it's easier to just not put options you don't want to do."
Gen was surprised, but after a brief explanation, she understood the gist of it. Not having a preference between the three options she went ahead and created her first poll.