Ch26 Dining Etiquette

 

Tedium and chaos aren’t concepts that go together if I understand them correctly. Tedium implies repetition of an insignificant task, chaos implies random occurrences; the two don’t make sense when put together. But, I was inclined to trust Pebble’s opinion since he was an experienced minion. It was probably one of those human concepts that made more sense after you had experienced it, like bittersweet. Either way, I was now quite a bit more apprehensive of this upcoming job. My analysis of Pebble’s personality and actions had led me to think that he liked chaos and ‘wild’ henching jobs. A job that gave him pause was cause for concern…

 

…or maybe he just disliked tedium. He certainly seemed set on destroying the packet of instructions, rolling them up and twisting them like he was.

 

I looked at and memorized the instructions from several of the other minions. It brought more details into focus, but I was still missing large sections of the overall plan. From what I could make out, most of it seemed to revolve around a planned confrontation with E12’s heroes, robot lemming handling instructions, and escape procedures.

 

I discussed the upcoming job with a few of the other minions. Gregor had never heard of Trebla before, and Olson had heard of Trebla, but never worked with him. Ifrit fortunately did know some information about him. Apparently he was a villain who did “high profile” jobs almost exclusively, often hiring Hellion’s Henchmen since he tended to make complicated plans that needed a variety of power sets and talents. Looking up Trebla’s info on my phone revealed a lot more was known about him than other villains, at least when it came to his criminal record. Stealing odd items from ‘museums’, attempting to take over an entire sector in a single night, and threatening to take away Wednesdays were all among the random assortment of crimes in his criminal history.

 

I talked a bit more with Gregor, Olson, and Ifrit about Trebla (Olson at least seemed enthusiastic about working with a “big name”), but eventually excused myself. I was eager to see the bio-weapon Nicole had found.

 

It took an elevator and a bus to get close enough to Manchineel St. that I could walk the rest of the distance. In comparison to the other places I frequented, the tunnel that led to her den was somewhat out of my way, being both south of and far from Ashwood St, but I didn’t mind. There were several food vendors that were only represented in this area. Like Puzzle’s pretzels.

 

I stopped at the same one I had before and bought a bag of the cheezy buns. Sandra had advised me to be thrifty with vendor food, but in this case I was buying them to bring some to Nicole. When Mikey came over to my apartment, he had brought a lot of other things besides just the pan, utensils and ‘condiments’ among them. When I asked him why, he had claimed his ‘gran-mama’ would slap him from beyond the grave if he went to eat at a friend’s place and didn’t bring anything to share. This was a terrifyingly strong power. How did someone attack while dead? More importantly, how would you attack them back? I had no idea, so the safest bet was to simply comply with his gran-mama’s rule.

 

I texted ahead to make sure I didn’t surprise Nicole like last time, and reached the specific manhole cover a few minutes later. Wait a minute for the coast to be clear before entering, go down the ladder, bonk an overeager Nessie on the head (it probably smelled the pretzels), and head around the corner bringing Nicole’s den into sight.

 

“Hello Nicole!” I yelled down the tunnel, and watched as the two “boulders” that blocked one of the intersection tunnels shifted and moved, revealing themselves to be Nicole’s claws (already fully regenerated). She moved until her forward half was sticking a comfortable distance out of the tunnel where she made her home.

 

“Hey Tofu. I uh, guess you didn’t get my messages?”

“I missed them because I was in an orientation for my job. Here, I brought pretzels,” and I offered her the bag, “I already ate my share, so you can have the rest.”

“Oh! Thank you. You didn’t have to.”

“If I didn’t Mikey’s gran-mama might attack me.”

“…Okay.”

 

She nibbled on one of the pretzels, but soon excused herself to put the rest away for later. I was starting to worry that Nicole only ate raw food, she seemed less than enthusiastic about the “cooked” food I brought with me. Next time I’ll bring something more suitable. She said rats were disgusting, but maybe I could find another dark-shrieker… or maybe sushi?

 

“Anyways,” she began, “Like I tried to tell you, you didn’t need to come all the way down here.”

“Don’t you need someone to bring the corpse up for the cops?”

“Well, I was gonna ask my courier, I didn’t mean to make trouble for you. It’s gotta be a hassle to come all the way down here. Especially since you were busy with your job, and it’s Odd Summer on top of that.”

“It’s fine Nicole, no trouble at all. I didn’t even see any cars on fire this time.”

“…Cars on fire?”

“Yeah, apparently they light on fire and then start driving themselves around. You didn’t hear about it? It’s become quite common apparently.”

“I don’t really watch the news. The local stuff is usually just who beat up what today, and the news from Central is the paparazzi fluff. If it’s actually important I’ll catch the emergency broadcast.”

“I see.”

“Anyways… since you’re already here I guess you can take the body then. It’s right here,” and she pointed to a wrapped lump which was obviously the dead bio-weapon, seeing as several warped limbs were sticking out of it. I was definitely interested in it, but there was something I wanted to do first.

“Okay, I’ll bring it up when I go, but there was something else I wanted to talk to you about,” I pulled my phone from my pocket, “I noticed that Gribblin Tamer has a two-player mode.”

 

---

 

I finally got past level five in Gribblin Tamer. My solution was to simply click on every single interactable object until something happened. Clicking on a ‘sword’ embedded into a rock finally wound up being the answer, although I’m unsure how I was supposed to figure it out. It didn’t match the other puzzles up until that point.

 

When I asked Nicole she said it was clearly a ‘King Arthur’ reference, which turned out to be a very old fiction story. Basically a test of strength to select a new leader. It made sense in context to that level of the game, but I wouldn’t have made the connection without knowing the story. Just one of those human things you had to know to make sense of.

 

“I’ll get the monsters and you set the levers,” said Nicole.

“Okay.”

 

Solving the puzzle had unlocked the ‘multiplayer’ feature in the game, in which you could get different rewards for playing with others. I had been eager to try it, but Mikey didn’t play the game, and Lily refused to play with ‘shrimps’.

 

“Ack, manticore trap!”

“I see it.”

 

All in all it was quite interesting, the experience worth more than the promised rewards. The puzzle and maps were modified for two-player gameplay, which meant it served as a cooperation test. I’d never had anything like it back at the lab.

 

“Uhh, red button or blue button?”

“…Blue?”

 

Of course, some of the presented challenges still required good reflexes. Which made it all the more impressive that Nicole was able to play on a small flat screen using a pair of claws. True, it was the smaller pair of mandible claws, the ones with ‘digits’, but when compared to myself, and my ability to modify my hands to fit the phone screen precisely, it made her skill all the more impressive.

 

“How do you tap the phone so quickly without breaking it?”

“Huh? Oh, I put in a scratch-resistant screen, but I also have a lot of practice with delicate electronics. When I’m scavenging for abandoned gizmos and gadgets sometimes I need to disarm them first.”

“You scavenge for parts? Like the Tinker Tots?”

 

She looked up from the game for the first time in a while, with a look that I can best describe as a grimace, before going back to it.

 

“Except I’m actually scavenging, not stealing like those brats.”

“I take it you don’t like them.”

“There’s a reason I’m south of Ashwood and they’re north of it. Besides, they take all the best gizmos, or just break them, nothing good left over in their area. The lot of them need a good spanking, the lousy little…”

 

Her voice trailed off into inaudible mutters for a bit, which switched to a frantic yell as our gribblins triggered a new trap, one she avoided with ease despite her surprise.

 

“Well it seems your practice with gizmos paid off.”

“Ha, this is nothing! You should see what I can do with thumbs.”

“Alright.”

 

I waited expectantly. I didn’t realize she had thumbs (maybe her claws can shift?), but if that was the case then I was interested in how much of an improvement they made.

Nicole kept playing for a bit, but when she noticed I had stopped she asked, “What’s up?”

 

“You were going to show me how well you do with thumbs.”

 

Her eyes opened wide, all eight of them, and she stammered as she tried to respond. I didn’t quite expect this reaction, but I recognized what it was about. Luckily, Mikey had shown me the proper response.

 

I raised my hand in a stop gesture, “Say no more. I won’t pry.”

 

Despite her lack of real facial features, her relief was palpable. She muttered a brief “thanks” before we went back to playing the game. We made it pretty far before I decided it was time to leave; I still had a few things to prepare for tomorrow.

 

“Thanks for playing with me Nicole.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“Oh, no prob. I haven’t been able to try those maps myself, so this was fun.”

“I’ll drop by when I have time to play more.”

“Okay. Um, call ahead first though, sometimes I’m out in the tunnels.”

“Will do.”

 

We bid goodbye and I headed for the manhole exit, dead bio-weapon in tow. This one was much like the last one, but definite improvements had been made to the overall design. Nothing of any real interest yet, but if the creator kept improving I hoped these would eventually be quite valuable… although I’d probably have to kill them first if the creator finally got it right. Out of curiosity I tested my slingshot design on one of the tougher portions of the bioweapon.

 

The results were pleasing.

 

---

 

I woke Saturday morning when my mask beeped, reminding me of the meet up time. There was actually plenty of time until Trebla’s plan was to be put into motion (at noon), but the high complexity of the plan required Hellion’s Henchmen to meet up hours in advance. I made sure my disguise was good and headed for the elevator.

 

Surprisingly there were two other powered minions on the elevator, both mutants with combat enhancements, and the elevator was somewhat crowded for it. I had talked to both before, if briefly, and we exchanged good mornings before chatting about the upcoming job. They were cautiously optimistic, as Trebla was a “big name client,” and the bonuses for a job well done would be big. Both of them were full-time minions, and “making ends meet” was important to them.

 

The composition of powered minions in Hellion’s Henchmen is diverse, but could be divided into roughly three groups. Most of them were mutants, often with combat modifications that made getting a civilian job difficult, such as in Gregor’s case. Then there were people with powers who, for a variety of reasons, hadn’t chosen to become a villain or a hero. Maybe they had a previous ‘record’ that prevented hero work, or their power was a ‘glass cannon’ ability unsuited for direct combat, or they were training to eventually be a full villain, or even just they didn’t care for the ‘limelight’. Finally, the last group were both mutants and supers who, despite not having much actual combat power, had decided to take the risk of being a powered minion in order to get a pay increase. Buzzer was one such example: while he could manipulate sound-waves, he was not completely immune to his own power, and couldn’t use it for combat without risking his own health. This last group was decidedly small, for obvious reasons.

 

The elevator let us off, and I headed for the cafeteria for breakfast. There were more minions about than there usually were this early in the morning, most of them drinking coffee while going over their instruction packets. I went to grab some coffee and bagels for myself.

 

“Tofu you bottomless pit. Leave some for the rest of us.”

“Good morning Buzzer.”

“Not if you drink all the coffee it won’t be.”

 

Buzzer grumbled as he made himself a cup of coffee; he appeared quite agitated. Every time he grumbled, I detected a subsonic vibration emanating from him. He did this sometimes when extremely agitated or frustrated.