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1007 Words
It's now or never: you drop down, knocking the Interim Director to the ground, then grab the semiconscious journalist and haul them to their feet. Podge lights up the room with his M16, spraying wildly and forcing the guards to dive for cover.
You don't know who gets you, but a bullet rips right through your heart. You see your lifeblood all over the walls before you lose consciousness.
Next
"Keep moving! Keep moving!"
Gunfire and explosions. You feel like you're floating, then realize that Elton and Podge are carrying you.
"Thunderhoof?" Elton says.
"I'm awake," you say. You force yourself upright, then stumble against a wall and throw up blood and bits of metal.
You're on the ground floor.
"Down!" Podge shouts.
You drop instinctively, and the ahroun shoots a guard as she rounds the corner, putting half a magazine into her armored chest. She falls, and Elton hauls you outside into the parking lot.
"Nomi?" you ask.
"Sorry," Elton says.
Nin shifts back into her homid form as Podge rips the door off an old station wagon.
"Everyone in!" he says.
Sirens, explosions. You crawl into the back of the station wagon. There's a crunch of gears, then Podge slowly, calmly gets the vehicle underway. He drives slow and calm past emergency vehicles as they scream into Everlite's parking lot. You're heading back toward the ahroun's apartment.
I regenerate fully.
I regenerate slightly.
I don't regenerate.
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"I mean, lots of people are already suspicious, and if we straight up tell some of my sources that Sullivan was using the data centers to mine crypto, they'll be able to reveal the truth," Podge says. "So it's worth it, even if I have to run for it."
"Where are you going to go?" you ask.
"You know, it's funny you should ask that," Podge says. "Well, it's funny to me. Because I'm running north. Town called Northampton. And I even have a roommate!"
"Wait…"
"That's right, bro! We're gonna be best bros! And I do need a place to stay, and it's kind of your fault I have to leave, so."
The ahroun peels out. Exhausted, you manage to reach the elevator and take it up to Podge's now-empty apartment. Nin has already crashed out in her lupus form. Elton is awake, though just barely, his half-open eyes trying to focus on an old-fashioned TV that's playing local news about the Everlite attack.
I regenerate fully.
I don't regenerate.
Next
Your wounds close.
Once you're done, you eat a mound of Clif bars and drink two bottles of Gatorade to replenish yourself.
"A messy night," Elton says, his voice slurring with exhaustion. "But we all made it…out…and…"
His head sinks down onto his lap and The Book of November, Elton's record of the last few months, slides onto the floor. You put it on a side table, then try to remain awake and on guard, but Podge's return wakes you up for only a moment, and then you're asleep again.
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You don't even dream, except for a brief nightmare about lines of data trapped in glass, stretching from Canada to New England. The data itself is poisonous, and people's skin turns to ash when the knowledge touches them…
Everyone wakes up late, and after a quick breakfast of everything Podge has left on the kitchen counter (lots of Gatorade and olives), you help him load his gear into the back of an old Chevy pickup that's painted like a paper cup from the 1990s. All the way back to Northampton, you and Nin listen to Elton as he tells Podge about Melodie.
"She's alive?" Podge says as he accelerates north on I-91 toward Northampton. "I guess I'm not surprised. She was always tough."
"She's in trouble, though, from what I've heard," Elton says. "Mad. But maybe we can help her."
"Well," Podge says, "let's go!"
Next
You and Podge spend several minutes at breakfast reviewing your lease as the ahroun makes extensive plans to modify the house. Extensive and potentially dangerous plans, but he seems to know what he's doing.
Where can I find Melodie Palys? I ask Podge and Elton.
I need to buy more clothes. I go shopping.
What else can I learn about the "Neo-Albion" group that guarded Everlite?
I head back to the cabin and see how Podge is settling in.
I see if I can track down Nin.
I find Roscoe's van.
I visit Hobland at his compound.
I visit Lucinda at her studio.
I head into the deep woods.
I return to the barrows where I fought the fomor.
I head to the urban blight.
I check my phone.
Next
You've never before explored the urban blight between Broad Brook's deep forest and Northampton's big box stores, and the sensation you feel passing into the slum is unfamiliar: baking-hot, broken asphalt and brick, weeds growing up through the sidewalk, leaf-jammed culverts, squatters, ghost kitchens, unregistered stores and warehouses—a population furtive, criminal, but not altogether wicked. Desperate people on the edge, not so different from you. Desperate spirits, too, of electricity and steel and carrion-eaters. But you and Podge might be able to work with them. You'll have to: this blight cannot be allowed to fester, for the sake of humans, spirits, and this corner of Gaia. Someone has scratched a name on the bricks: Rosemary Street.
The noodle lady, a fixture on this street, stops her rickety, steaming cart and offers you a bowl of noodles. Hard to say no to free noodles. You thank the noodle lady and slurp your meal down while you explore.
Elton is waiting for you.
"You still haven't earned any Gifts, cub," he says.
"I've been too busy rescuing your scrub friends to worry about doing everything the right way."
"Black Tarn taught me about the spirits." I'm sort of hoping that'll lead Elton into saying more.
"My old pack was spiritually desolate. Even our theurge couldn't awaken our pack guardian."
"'Cub'? Get that word out of your mouth, nerd."
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- Writer
