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Maxi took the elevator to the bathroom after failing to trigger any movement from the magic transport by saying “Albuquerque.” Once she was there, she pulled up the email from her mom containing a full confession.
When she was two years old, her world had fallen. She would have died if Tara hadn’t brought her to work the day it had happened. The destruction had been quick, as if all the machines on the planet had grown fangs and started attacking humanity all at once.
“There were outbreaks before the end, and the Company was doing their best to contain them. No one expected it would all just happen so quickly,” Tara had written.
If it hadn’t been for the impromptu family get-together in her uncle’s office, no one would have survived. Tara went on to explain that she had never wanted her to join the Company and learn about any of it.
The hardest part for her was that both her father and mother had lied. Her whole life, they had made it seem like her father was a deadbeat who abandoned his family, but he had been working for the Company all that time. She thought he didn’t care, when the reality was that he had been working those long hours so she could have a semblance of a normal life.
He had been earning credits so that Tara could afford the time off to take care of her and keep her out of the Company daycare. They had been literally paying an amount equivalent to their mortgage just to keep her blissfully ignorant. The gambling addiction explanation was something she herself had cooked up, and her parents had gone along with it to hide the truth.
In short, her father hadn’t been hit by a subway. He had died on a Company mission, and her mom had been able to use his death benefit to buy out her contract and leave the Company once and for all. Everything she had thought about her life was a carefully fabricated lie, because her parents had chosen not to burden her with the truth.
As for her mom, she had been pressuring her to find a job to keep her away from the Company. While Lo had kept his promise to stay out of her life, or at least never to try to recruit her to work for the Company, their plan was unsuccessful, and Maxi had joined anyway.
“And for that, I’m truly and deeply sorry,” was the end of Tara’s confession. It didn’t help that Tara had added, “Don’t trust my brother. He is always in it for himself. He used your dad, and he’ll use you too if you’re not careful.”
That last part didn’t help her with the new quest that appeared in her quest invites. “A FAVOR FOR LO KEY: HELP LO FIGURE OUT WHICH OF THE POWER TWELVE IS PLOTTING AGAINST THE COMPANY.”
She was now on “PRINTER OF NEVER JAMMING IV” and still had “FETCH QUEST FOR BOBBY.” Not having the capacity to spend the gobs of points waiting for her, she decided to read the text for Bobby’s quest.
Help! I need Sticky Notes of Wonderment!
–Bobby
She pulled up the Free Market again. Sticky Notes of Wonderment were still just 5 credits, and since they were a Generalist item, she was in a unique position to buy them, if she had the credits. Considering Bobby’s quest paid 50 credits, it was easy money. All Bobby needed was either a Generalist to buy him the ones for sale on the Free Market or a person to stumble across them during a quest and give them to him.
Why the person selling them didn’t just deliver them to Bobby and make the 50 credits themselves, Maxi couldn’t quite fathom. “FETCH QUEST FOR BOBBY” was an open quest, meaning that anyone could accept it, but only one person could win it, unlike “PRINTER OF NEVER JAMMING,” which was considered closed after she had accepted it, so she was the only one who could complete it.
She flipped over to her character sheet, and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. Not only was she back to a positive credit balance, but it turned out that figuring out how to beat the raid boss had given her a boost in prestige and a small percentage of everyone’s earnings based on her emotional intelligence stat when the raid had ended.
It was enough to wipe her debt entirely and leave her with 94 credits spending money. Also, her stats had received quite a healthy amount of natural boosts.
Revitalized by the things turning around for her, she spent her stat points. Afterward, she bought Psychic Darts and a skill called Leap of Faith that both Customer Care Advocates and Paranormal Investigators could get. It was a teleportation skill that would allow her to leap thirty feet to anywhere in her sight line. It also required Psychic points.
She also leveled a couple of her skills and specialized in swords for the intermediate line, where she had to pick a category of weapons to receive extra bonuses without paying the exorbitant costs to level the skills beyond 10. It brought her ability with the sword to an equivalence with her psychic abilities. Considering the mechanoids she had fought were immune to Psychic attacks, and there was probably something lurking out there immune to weapons, she sought balance in her leveling. She would have to join training classes for all her new skills, but it seemed worth it.
She also found out her Shirt of Growth had not only improved her armor rating but also got some mechanoid defense and another Tier in the speed boost. Despite it being the equivalent of cloth armor, it was still on par with other types she could purchase for her Level, and with all the other boosts it gave her, it was her best item.
“Not bad for cloth armor,” she muttered to herself. Not that she ever understood how cloth armor would have any protective capabilities. The same applied to robes, hats, and other gear the newbie shops in RPGs had. She didn’t see how cloth was all that effective against a sword, but then again, her shirt was something else altogether.
The training to use her abilities for the first time was out of her price range, but some low-level fetch quests should provide the credits to level her skills. She felt as if there was some time to breathe, since there was no impending boss raid, “PRINTER OF NEVER JAMMING IV” didn’t have a defined end date, and the grutomaton invasion was still an existential threat.
According to TERANCe, the beasties sometimes would show up in a world for the first time, and then a couple days later the whole place was an apocalypse, whereas other worlds had the creatures showing up for hundreds of years with no apocalypse on the horizon.
All she could really tell is that when the end came, it usually happened quickly, all over the world seemingly at the same time, with no precursor or a trend to follow about when it was going to happen. In short, she could have her entire career to find the Printer of Never Jamming or only the next couple of hours, and since there was no way to predict, she had to go on with business as usual until something happened to guide her otherwise.
The alternative would be for her to become an apocalypse prepper and to build a bunker out in an abandoned nuclear missile silo in Wyoming or Montana. And since she was such a city girl that a yurt with internet, satellite TV, and a Jacuzzi sounded like roughing it to her, she doubted she’d be very comfortable living the prepper lifestyle.
Her big priority now was finding her dad, or at least learning what had really happened to him. While it was most likely the case that he was dead, she still needed closure. A door had been opened that she had never thought even existed. She hadn’t given much thought about what she’d say to him if she ever saw him again.
Now her mind was bouncing around with possibilities, partially explaining why she was having trouble concentrating at work. She had spent an inordinate amount of time spending her points, because every time she’d think of him, she came up with something else to say.
Her first reaction had been anger. She wanted to berate him for abandoning her and her mom. But then she thought she’d push him away if she went on the attack, so maybe she’d try to bargain with him, figure out why he had done what he did, and ascertain what would motivate him to be back in her life. However, that made her depressed. She shouldn’t do anything for the guy. He was the one who had abandoned her, so maybe she should ignore him.
She finally settled on acceptance. The situation was pretty much “shit on a stick, only without the stick,” as he would always say. There was nothing he could say or do that would change that he had left. Regardless of how that confrontation would go down, if he was still alive, the two of them talking face-to-face was inevitable.
She pulled up her character sheet.
Name: Office Maxi
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Other
Office Pool: Lus3rs (Cumulative Tier 9.12)
Tier: 9.11
Class: Generalist
Level: 54
Stats:
Ambition: 77
Adaptability: 28
Dedication: 32
Speed: 44
Creativity: 91
Emotional Intelligence: 34
Luck: 130
Life: 21/334
Psy: 972/972
AR: 29
Att: +31 Longsword (32-34 damage)
Att: +38 Mind Shard (10 PP) (39-48 damage)
Att: +38 Psychic Darts (50 PP, 39-48 damage, 100 feet range, 30 feet diameter)
Psychic Darts was in red, with an explainer that said she couldn’t use it until she completed her training. Her longsword attack was also in red, with a little indicator that she was suffering from penalties until she attended her combat training classes. She looked at her skills next.
Skills:
All Skills +26
Climbing (basic) +20
Customer Service +6
Dodge +18
Investigate +33
Leap of Faith +18 (250 PP)
Listen +30
MacGyver +30
Melee Weapons +25, Intermediate Boosts: Swords: +5
Rally the Troops +6
Sneak +28
What is Lost is Now Found +36
Psychic Abilities:
Mind Shard +38 (10pp, 39-48 damage), a Psychic attack against anything that can be reached by a melee charge, modified by creativity.
Psychic Darts +38 (50 PP, 39-48 damage, 100 feet range, 30 feet diameter) AoE Psychic attack that creates needles of Psychic energy pelting any opponent in a 30 feet diameter; Friendly Fire: No, modified by creativity.
Leap of Faith +18 (250 PP), grants user ability to teleport 30 feet anywhere in a line of sight, modified by creativity.
Credits: 94
Items:
+11 Bluetooth Headphones
+23 HR Glasses
+1 Khakis
+1 Longsword
+3 Muddy Buddies of Grutomaton Deterrence (2)
+20 Shirt of Growth (Legendary): Defenses: +5 Grutomaton, +2 Mechanoid, Mending, Mythical Beast Taming, Speed Boost II, Stat Boost I.
+1 Stapler of Binding (uncommon).
Utility Belt.
Storage: (Cubicle)
Bat Minions (500): AR: 5, Life: 10, Att: +5 Bite (2-8 damage), Duration: 1 hour, requires printer to use.
Pets: Irritable Inkjet of Nipping (Deceased)
Satisfied that she was sufficiently badass, it was time to face her teammates, who would be her people for the foreseeable future. After she had become a pariah, most of the offers to join other Office Pools were rescinded, except for the sketchy-sounding ones that were either scams or sex work. It was hard to tell, as the Company seemed to have many branches in many businesses, all to fund their primary mission to keep the Earth safe, if she believed her uncle.
She called the elevator, and moments later, she was in her Office Pool.
“The prodigal Generalist returns,” Daisuke said as soon as she walked inside.
“I got us to Tier 9, didn’t I? I just saved one of your lives,” Maxi said.
“Your own life, more like it,” Daisuke said. “Try not to fuck this up.”
“From him, that’s a compliment,” Flav said.
“Fair enough,” Maxi said, and plopped back down on her chair.
She could feel it stitching her wounds as she sat. It was an odd sensation, somewhere in between that heating gel and a scab that really itched. While she’d have to sit for a while to recover her life points fully, it was nice not to be fighting for her life for a change.
They made small talk and filled her in on what had happened. Apparently, the cash bump she had received for discovering the raid boss’s weakness was shared by the entire Pool after her debt was settled. While her percentage was higher for originating the idea, it was still enough to get each of them out of debt and then some. Most of them had already spent much of it on upgrades, equipment, and a few days off.
Her brain was having a little trouble adjusting to the fact that a couple hours in the other dimension had been more than a week here, which explained why her dad had been disappearing for months on end. While she now had more sympathy for him than before, it was still hard to forgive him, as she had been the one stuck in the slower time stream.
Her Pool all had questions about her quest from one of the Power Twelve. Like how she was able to go on it when quests were suspended for the raid, who it was from, and what she had done. She used the “Company secrets” line to tell them as little as possible, but she did talk a little about battling mechanoids, which weren’t too common on Earth. She wasn’t sure how much they knew about alternate dimensions and decided to keep it to herself. There was enough to do on Earth, rather than worry about all the other worlds that might be out there.
Once the conversation died down, Daisuke, Patti, and Yancy went out on a quest. Farhad was healing from one this morning and was doing some menial labor to pass the time, and Flav wasn’t feeling too well and called it an early day. Her chair was back to its normal healing rate at her Level per hour, which prevented her from doing any serious questing for the rest of the day.
However, she also didn’t like the thought of menial labor. Playing video games, browsing the internet, anything fun to pass the time, cost credits, and she didn’t have much to spare. Since Farhad had popped earbuds on and was clicking away at some sort of task, she decided it was finally time to get Bobby his sticky notes.
She pulled up the Free Market and bought the sticky notes. Delivery to her cubicle was at the extortion rates, so she elected to get it delivered to the mailroom. After she purchased the item, she saw it was marked with “shipping delays.” After a quick chat with Terry, she found out shipping delays were just a way for the company to disguise the item was coming from another dimension, as most employees weren’t cleared to know about their existence.
Since it was going to be awhile for her sticky notes, she found a “Basic footwork” combat class that was only 50 credits and starting in the next few minutes, so she decided to get one of the prerequisites for her sword abilities out of the way.
***
MAXI KNEW AN ARGUMENT was coming with her mom. She was upset that Tara had hidden the truth from her and wanted nothing more than to verbally eviscerate her, but that wasn’t fair. Her mom was doing what she had thought was best. Parents tried to preserve their children’s innocence and shield them from the harsher realities of the world, but at what point did a mother’s instinct to protect her child hinder their growth as a human being?
When she was little, keeping her from the truth had been perfectly valid. Her mom had created a life where all Maxi had to worry about was what gifts she’d get for the holidays. A “by the way, the reason you have no grandparents is because they were all viciously killed by murder printers” would have traumatized her more than it would have helped. But what age would have been appropriate for such revelations?
Her teenage years had been a mess of hormones and rebellion. Resisting the school industrial complex and carving her own path. Staying up too late gaming and falling asleep in class. Had that been a better time? She cognitively would have understood it, but enough had been going on when she was a teen for her to worry about her own shit, much less her mom’s.
Then college came, and it wasn’t like knowing about it then would have done her any good. After all the hand holding of high school had gone away and she had failed out her first semester, she had realized no one was going to slog her through college, and that she had only barely achieved. She couldn’t sit still long enough to be very good at academics. Still, her mom should have told her. At least had a talk with her... something. Sure, Maxi was dealing with her own stuff at the time and college had felt just as chaotic as high school, but she wasn’t a child. She had deserved the truth. While she felt right to be angry with her mom, she didn’t want to hurt her.
So in a way, she had gone down the same road as her parents by avoiding to talk to her mom and throwing herself into work, and spent the next couple weeks doing low-level quests to get the money for her training. There wasn’t much XP in the rewards, and she had only gained a few Levels, but it gave her enough money to raise all her skills, abilities, and stats. They were mostly low-level fights and gathering items for other players who couldn’t be bothered to do it themselves.
After dispatching a scaly creature that was literally tearing parts out of the planes in an aviation factory, she sat at her desk, healing her wounds. She pulled up her uncle’s quest “A FAVOR FOR LO KEY.” The rewards, time limit, and failure penalty were all marked “undetermined.” She was still waiting on the sticky notes to be delivered and had cleared all the other tasks she had completed for the day.
She pulled up her uncle’s investigation file that she read whenever she was healing and looked over his notes. Most of it was tracking the damage the Power Twelve had been doing to raid bosses during the past year. After a long while spent reading material that was about as exciting as tax returns, she was just about to pick out another quest when she got a notification that the Sticky Notes of Wonderment had been delivered.
Most of the Office Pool were out or lost in their tasks, so she got up without a word and called the elevator. When she got to the mailroom, the atmosphere was different than when she had first arrived. Before, she was a cog in a vast machine. Now she felt more like the control panel. People stared at her, and there were whispers. She even caught a person pointing and then pretending to be nonchalant when they saw she had noticed them.
It wasn’t quite either admiration or hate, but more like seeing a washed-up celebrity well past their heyday. At least, that was how she felt. It was like she was a rapper turned reality TV star, and people were noticing her while she tried to do something mundane like go to a hardware store or buy falafel from a street vendor. No one was outright hostile to her, but they weren’t giving up their place in line for her either.
It was like she had risen to the top, fell to the bottom, and now was in a strange in between space where people knew who she was, but didn’t know how to react to her. She hoped she could just fade out of memory and go back to being a regular employee, but that would probably never be the case.
As much as she wanted to avoid it, either her uncle’s quest or the Printer of Never Jamming was going to put her back into the spotlight again. Whether she liked it or not, she was going to be in a situation where people she had never met were going to formulate opinions about her. The price of fame, even fifteen minutes’ worth, was that there would always be people who thought they knew her better than she did herself.
At least if she was going to symbolize something, she could be the one for cutting out the bullshit and focusing on what mattered. She held her head high, sauntered into the mailroom, and even waved at the man pointing her out to his friend. She then cut the line and walked to the empty Tier 1 station, leaned on the counter, and smiled at the nervous attendant.
The kid, probably barely out of middle school, squeaked, “The Tier 9 line is there,” and pointed to the gobs of people who were all waiting while the higher Tiers moved through with efficiency.
“I’m here, and you’re not doing anything,” Maxi said. “I want my sticky notes.”
“I can’t really... I mean, if one of the Power Twelve came up while...” the boy stammered.
“Then they can wait a few more seconds. Now go, before you really do make one of them wait.”
The boy shifted his weight back and forth, then scampered off. Maxi turned around and leaned against the counter. She smiled and waved at the gawkers. The normal hustle and bustle of the busy mailroom had gone silent. People who had come to pick up their packages seemed to have forgotten why they were there. The employees who were normally dashing around in the back were staring.
Maxi was about to ask about any good book recommendations when a hulking man with scars all over his face and wearing bloodstained jet-black armor that put heavy metal album artwork to shame came up to her.
“You’re in my line,” he said in a low, gruff voice.