Chris Huisjen
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Apocalypse Engineering B1 C22: The Nature of My Game
🕑 Added 2025-02-15 21:23:17 +0000 UTCIt took us an hour to fight through the streets, killing a few stray monsters and trying to stay away from Eddie’s group. I hit Level 28, while Calvin made it to 10. Tori did not level up—a fact she was downright pissed off about. Both my points went into Charge; I needed a bigger pool to make this class work and a dozen fresh ideas I wanted to try.
The whole time we walked, we planned how to sneak into the town. Calvin wouldn’t stop talking, planning, and doing his drill sergeant thing.
“It’ll have guards. We’ll want to avoid them.”
“Do you know any back ways into the museum? Maybe we can sneak through.”
“What about swimming across the harbor?”
We had backup plans, contingencies, and emergency options. We were incredibly ready. And in the end, none of it was necessary. We just walked in.
No one stopped us. No one cared who we were. The guards—more bikers around Level 20—told us to register with a ‘Charlie’ at the Field Museum steps, but they didn’t walk us over there, and we disappeared into Museumtown.
◄▼►
Museumtown…wasn’t a town.
It was barely a tent city—although a few people were working on skipping the camping phase and moving straight to sheet-metal and plywood shelters. I didn’t know where they’d gotten any of the supplies. For all I knew, they were something the Consortium had left here as loot. The whole mess looked like a cross between a tent city, one of those third-world megacities’ outskirts, and a favela from Rio de Janeiro—all tucked between the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium.
The Greek-looking museums and public art installations scattered around what had once been a park clashed with the tents and slum shelters, and I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the contrast. We stood near a fountain covered in tile sea creatures and waves. A bronze man hugging a gigantic fish sat in the middle and, somehow, continued to spew a stream of fresh water.
Calvin sat on the fountain’s rim, staring at Tori as she paced back and forth. She’d crossed her arms, and her fingers wouldn’t stop tapping her sides.
“How are we supposed to find her in that?” she asked, staring at the mess around us.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure, but we don’t want to be too obvious. I’ve got a feeling that all the biker dudes are trouble. Let’s keep our heads down.”
“So, no asking around, then?” Calvin asked. I shrugged, and he laughed. “Alright, that’s doable. Tell me about your step-mom.”
“What about her?”
“Whatever you want. Everything helps.”
She stopped pacing, so that was good. Watching her was getting exhausting. Instead, she closed her eyes. “Her name’s Jessica Silvers. She’s a paleo-anthropologist, and she works at the Field Museum, studying ancient cultures and stuff. You know that already, ha. Uh, she’s very interested in education, and she volunteers for, like, every emergency in northeast Illinois and southern Wisconsin. She likes to drag me along when she does.”
“Seems like a nice lady,” I said. She sounded like she’d fit right in back home; we looked out for our neighbors and helped them out when they couldn’t solve their own problems.
“She can be, yeah,” Tori said. I caught the hint of something there. “She can also be…kind of a bitch.”
Calvin snorted.
“No, really. She’s trying to be the ‘serious’ parent because Dad’s in a pissing match with Mom about being the ‘cool’ one. I see through them, though. At least Jessica’s being honest about who she’s trying to be. And…like, I like her. I just don’t know if I love her. Sometimes, she’s way too up in my business.”
“Focus, Tori.” She was starting to snowball into something that wouldn’t help us, and right now, tracking her down was the most important thing.
“Right. What she looks like?” I nodded, and she took a deep breath. “Gray-brown hair, five-foot-five or so, forty-five, kinda overweight? If she’s not all armored up, she’ll be in a cardigan and slacks. That’s what she wears to work every day, even if it’s hot out. And knowing her, she’ll be somewhere she can watch the Field Museum. She’ll try to go in as soon as she can, too.”
“Got it,” Calvin said. He started walking fast, his backpack bouncing.
I looked at Tori, who shrugged and followed as Calvin took off along one of the many concrete paths. He made a beeline for the Field Museum, passing by a dozen people on the way—including some who looked like they were even more down on their luck than he’d been. He offered a couple of cans of beans to those folks.
It struck me again that before the end of the world and the Tutorials, Calvin had been homeless, the poorest of the poor, and that he now had the kind of wealth people begged for. It also struck me that he hadn’t even thought twice about giving that food away. He’d asked for a trade with me in the Tutorial.
When I asked him about it, he nodded seriously. “Yeah, but you had something I needed, and you could take care of yourself. If you’d showed up at Level One with only a single kill, covered in rags, I’d have shared, no questions asked. These people don’t have anything of value anymore, and they don’t know the basics of surviving.”
“You think so?”
“That’s why they’re here,” Calvin said sadly. “You can see it in their eyes. They’re lost. I’ve seen it a lot in the last twenty years. Usually, someone who’s new to the streets starts out lost. Then they get angry. Then they either accept it, or they go dead-eyed. After that, there’s no coming back.”
He went quiet, and I didn’t press him.
◄▼►
I’d never been to the Field Museum.
Tori had, though—a dozen times. She’d gotten behind-the-scenes tours, free tickets for her and her friends—anything she could possibly want. According to her, Jessica had offered to host a private birthday party for her in the Egyptian wing. She’d wanted Six Flags, but compromised on the aquarium.
The crude-looking fortress sitting on the steps reminded me of Fort Kiosk if we’d had concrete, lumber, and sheet metal. I thought it was ugly. Tori scowled at it like it was a personal insult.
The stockade around the stairs was a good fifteen feet high. I couldn’t see any guards on it, but they were probably either patrolling the town or clearing nearby dungeons like Eddie’s bikers. The tower loomed over that; it ran up the entire front of the Field Museum, covering the multi-colored banners and Greek-style pillars. The first floor had a concrete first floor—still wet—but after that, it was sheathed in sheet metal.
Whoever had built it had built it fast. I checked the timers.
Time until Tier Two Dungeons Activate: Twenty-Two Hours, Three Minutes
Yeah. They’d secured the spot, found the supplies, and built the hideous-looking castle in a day. It might be ugly, but it was impressive. Whoever was running this show had serious organizational skills. I glanced over my shoulder toward the Shedd Aquarium; it didn’t feature a wall or tower…yet.
Calvin ignored it all. His head was on a swivel as he led us through the tent camp, then toward a row of slightly nicer-looking shacks leaning against the Field Museum’s marble facade. “She’ll be here,” he muttered.
“How do you know?” Tori asked.
“Pretty sure she picked Healer. I’ve been watching. Neither of you got healing class choices. Brian’s team had one, but he died. I haven’t seen anyone else with the Healer class yet. That makes her important,” Calvin said. “She cares enough about whatever’s inside that museum to wait outside of it, and whoever has the organizational chops to put this together knows how valuable a healer is. I bet he’s one of them video gamers.”
“Har har,” Tori snarked. “DPS is better.”
“Sure, sure. But your parental person won’t see it that way. She’s a whatever-anthropologist. She knows how to make things work. And you said she was an emergency volunteer. She picked healer, and she’s around here somewhere.”
We searched every building, all the way along the museum’s side and up to the service entrances. Tori got more and more nervous the further we went from Museumtown’s center, but we didn’t see anyone who matched the description. Then, just before we turned around, a woman screamed.
I turned, pulling the Trip-Hammer out of my inventory.
The woman screamed again, and this time, I could hear her clearly. “Tori!? Tori, is that really you?”
Tori spun, slipped on the grass under her feet, and took off running. She slammed into Jessica like a cannonball, knocking the woman back a full two steps. Then they were hugging and crying as Tori said, “I love you, Mom,” over and over.
I put the Trip-Hammer away and waited for the reunion to end.
◄▼►
Brian watched Zane light the fire with his magic, and they settled down on Millennium Park’s covered amphitheater. He’d picked a spot right on the stage since it felt less exposed. Across the way, The Bean kept moving and grinding at the concrete pad it was supposed to be on. “Of course the Consortium would make that thing a boss,” he muttered.
Zane nodded. “Absolutely an atrocity. Almost as bad as that thing existing to begin with.”
None of them had wanted to go toe-to-toe with the Level Thirty-Five Field Boss, but camping near its stomping grounds, while risky, did have one major benefit.
There were absolutely no other monsters in Millennium Park.
Carol lay on the cement. She was already asleep; most of the fights they’d been in had been on her back, since she was the team’s best front-liner. Brian let her rest and worked on heating the various cans of beans they’d gotten from Calvin. She needed the sleep more than he did. His eyes couldn’t stop drifting westward, though, toward the towering black skyscraper he’d worked in most of his adult life, and toward the huge, seemingly invincible boss.
“Brian, what are we doing?” Zane asked.
“What we have to. Advancing and getting stronger, like that message said. We’re well on our way—and you two will be caught up to me in no time. Maybe even past me.”
“Because you keep letting us take the experience.” Zane closed his eyes and blew air between his lips. Then he stared at the dark sky overhead. “You’ve got to take care of yourself, too.”
“I know.” Brian went quiet.
The silence stretched on for a while, and the first can of beans started to smell like sugar and bacon. He pointed to it. “Wake up your sister. You both eat first.”
“You sure about that?” someone said from the dark nearby.
The biggest guy Brian had seen since his Tutorial started stepped into the fire ring as Zane hit his sister in the shoulder. She woke up, reaching for her weapon. Three more men, similarly bearded and wearing leather jackets, followed him. Brian held up a hand. He needed the twins calm “Hello there. Where’d you four come from? You need something to eat? We don’t have much, but we can share.”
He looked at the big man’s nameplate.
Eddie Petrovich: Level 28
Class: Shield-Bearer
“Looking for a man. He’s about five, ten years older than the boy here,” Eddie said. “You tell me where he is, we give you directions to our base. You three could find work there. The Captain would love to have you.”
Brian handed the can of beans over, and Eddie started eating. The brown sauce dribbled down his beard, but he ignored it. Zane tapped Carol on the shoulder to wake her up.
“What’s special about this man?” Brian asked.
“Ambushed us, knocked me out, and robbed us blind,” one of the others said.
“Tommy’s got it,” Eddie said. “Uses some kind of self-swinging hammer.”
“Sounds like—“ Zane started, but Carol hit him in the side. “Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you finding him. Good luck. We don’t know anything about anyone else. You’re the first people we’ve seen.”
Brian held his breath as Eddie finished eating. “You four moving on tonight?” he asked.
“Think we’ll stay here. Food’s good. Where’d you come from?”
“Lincoln Park,” Carol said.
Eddie went quiet and stared at the girl. “That so? You clear the dungeon?”
Brian stood, hand on his saber hilt. His eyes narrowed, and he gulped. He couldn’t fight Eddie—not if he wanted to win—and he definitely couldn’t fight all four of them. But the big biker’s eyes were narrowed. He knew something. Brian could feel the tension mounting. In a second, it’d explode.
The big man’s knuckles cracked, and suddenly, a shield appeared on his arm. “Why don’t you three come have a chat with The Captain? Either you come with us willingly, or we’ll force the issue.” Behind him, the others unlimbered their weapons.
“No,” Brian said. He drew his sword. He’d been wrong before. This was his Battle of the Bulge.
Eddie roared and charged, shield up, and Brian parried the bladed edge. “Kids, get out of here!”
Instead, Zane started casting a spell, and the night exploded into flames.
Eddie crashed through them and hit Brian like a freight train.
