Ch37 Monster Mashed Potatoes

 

Was your identity (or the identity of any HH employee) compromised?: No.

Were you, or any fellow employee, injured in a way that required major medical care (bone fractures/lacerations/missing limbs/ etc)?: No.

Were there any fatalities (including civilian, hero, or otherwise)? If so, were they caused by an employee of Hellion’s Henchmen?:

 

That last question was a tough one. Technically people did die during the job, but not because of the job. I knew of the one civilian at the hospital, and of course the exterminator.

Hmmm…

I suppose I’d just note the civilian in the hospital, but not the exterminator. Abe technically died after the job was already done, which I think counts as me being “off the clock.”

 

I jotted it down, and took another bite of my burger.

 

After disposing of the exterminator, I called Nicole to let her know that everything had gone fine. Abe hadn’t mutated (truth), and I had handed him off to a medical professional at the hospital (lie). I kinda wanted to continue our search of the sewers for a bit, but Nicole insisted I stay long enough for the doctors to give a final verdict on Abe’s health. That resulted in me heading to Maggie’s Sunrise Diner to get some tofu burgers to-go (it had been just a bit too long since the last time I went there), while I texted fake updates about Abe’s health to Nicole. After a quick stop at my apartment to pick up a spare after-action report (and drop off all the nifty souvenirs I got in the sewer), I then headed off back to the HH main base because I didn’t have a pen to write with. Now I was sitting in the HH cafeteria eating my burgers, while filling in the report, and chatting with Nicole via text.

 

Normally, this would make me ‘happy’ (and I was), but there were other emotions cluttering my thought patterns as well, and I was trying to parse what caused each one.

Happy: because I was eating Tofu burgers.

Uneasy: because I was lying to Nicole. I didn’t really like to lie. Depending on who you told them to (and who they told them to), lies could be all too easily discovered, and being caught in a lie could compromise my disguise.

Regret: the exterminator had been a valuable resource to Fortress city. Keeping hostile organic life controlled was a vital function, and even if he seemed somewhat incompetant, his death was a waste of resources.

Guilt: this had been the first time I needed to kill someone who wasn’t directly threatening my life, and the need to do it was partly my fault because of my imperfect disguise. I didn’t really lik-

 

Human.exe emergency shut-down;

Human.exe displaying behavior harmful to core: analyzing…

Emotion: Regret: a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over something that has happened or been done.

Feeling regret due to lost resources: useful to core survival. Allowed.

Emotion: Guilt: Feeling responsible or regretful for a perceived offense, real or imaginary.

Feeling guilt in response to defending core social-background disguise and assets: harmful to core survival. Denied.

Rolling back thought process kernel…

Rewriting…

Restarting Human.exe;

 

Regret: the exterminator had been a valuable resource to Fortress city. Keeping organic life controlled was a vital function, and even if he seemed somewhat incompetant, his death was a waste of resources.

Disappointment: Nicole was currently texting me that the nessies had all disappeared!

 

Nicole: I just can’t believe they’re all gone. I must have gotten something wrong with the current

Tofu: No worries Nicole. We can just reverse the changes and then lure them back with food.

Nicole: I looked around. They aren’t close by, they could be anywhere!

Tofu: I have a good nose, we’ll find them.

 

Of course, there was also the possibility that a predator had eaten them or chased them away. Unlikely given Nicole would have mentioned blood if she found it, but it couldn’t be discounted. I neglected to bring up that possibility, as she seemed distraught enough as it was.

 

While I ‘brainstormed’ methods of finding the nessies with Nicole, I continued to fill out my report and eat my burgers. The cafeteria wasn’t very full at this time of day, but there were always people heading from one part of the base to another, and they needed to go through the cafeteria since it was also technically the base’s main hub room. It was because of this that I noticed Imp, Socket, and Sandra entering the cafeteria area, along with a Tinker Tot. It was the same young, four-armed Tinker Tot that I had taken the slingshot from.

 

This was quite the unusual event, as only trusted clients were allowed in the base on non-training days. Security was… interestingly handled among Hellion’s Henchmen. Some minions didn’t care at all about their identities being discovered, while others were concerned almost to the point of inefficient paranoia. In order to keep their employees’ identities safe, HH implemented a multitude of policies such as: keeping much of the record-keeping on paper, constant ‘firmware updates’ to masks using Socket’s own personal network, and a company policy that anyone caught revealing others’ identities would be “personally barbecued by Hellion.”

That last one was probably the most important one, seeing as it was the only one enforced with death. Even betraying Hellion’s plans to the authorities only resulted in “termination of employment” and an understanding that HH would not pay out your last paycheck (although I had been warned that few villains would rehire such a minion, and many in fact took personal offense to ‘traitors’).

 

Sandra led the Tinker Tot to a seat at one of the tables, and the youth sat down listlessly, staring at the tabletop. He wasn’t really participating in the conversation despite Sandra’s attempts to engage him, and Socket had a furious scowl on his face as he muttered to Imp (which in his case was more like restrained yelling). If what Socket was saying was correct, the Tinker Tot base had been hit by rat-creatures, a concerning event considering the rat-creatures had also hit the hospital. These attacks were escalating fast.

 

I got up from my table, intending to speak with them about the possible sewer purge I wanted to prevent. If HH was going to assist the Tinker Tots with the rats, then now was the best time to-

 

Ring-a-ding-ding! Ring-a-ding-ding!

 

Odd. That was Nicole’s ringtone.

click “Hello?”

“Tofu!” said Nicole in a harsh whisper, “I-I think I found one of those rat-things. It, ohmigod…”

“Nicole?!”

“Tofu it has human parts. Oh God….”

“Nicole where are you?”

“I’m at home, I t-think it must have followed me back, it-”

“Nicole!?”

“There’s two of them!. It… it has a human head! Oh my God, what if that’s a person?!”

“Nicole listen to me. The ones I fought at the hospital were not strong enough to cause you trouble.”

“I-I d-don’t know if I can h-hit them.”

“They aren’t as fast as rats, and they aren’t much stronger.”

“NO! T-t-t-tofu I-I can’t hit a p-per-perso-”

“They are not people! Do whatever you have to do to defend yourself. Run if you can’t hit them.”

“O-okay. I’ll r-run… oh no…”

“Nicole!?”

“…There’s more of them. I-I’m surrounded. I-I’m going to call nine-one-one!”

“Um… alright, do so. I’m on my way as well Nicole.” It would complicate things, but if there was a chance a hero could get to her first then it was best to call.

“A-alright. I’ll call back if I can,” and with that she hung up to call emergency services. I myself had someone else I needed to ask.

 

“Sandra my friend is being attacked by the stitch-rat creatures, can I use the emergency elevators?”

 

All four of them, Sandra, Imp, Socket, and the Tinker Tot, looked at me. I had interrupted their conversation and they seemed somewhat stunned by my request. Had I been rude? But I didn’t have time for social niceties.

 

“This is a time-sensitive request.”

Imp was the first to respond, “Kid, if this is some kind of bad joke…”

“It’s not,” interrupted Sandra, “Is it Mikey in trouble? Where?”

“It’s another friend. Manchineel St, south of Ashwood,” I answered.

“Imp can you-”

“On it Sandra. Tofu walk with me,” said Imp. It was more of a fast jog.

The Tinker Tot spoke up, “I’ll come too!”

“Oh no you won’t,” replied both Sandra and Socket. They began saying things to mollify the distraught tot, but I was soon too far to hear it.

 

Imp led me to one of the elevators and placed his thumb on the button, holding it down for five seconds. The button panel then flipped out from the wall, revealing a numbered pad. He began rapidly hitting buttons.

“Let’s see. Today is Monday, so it should be… unless Socket updated again… ah good,” finished Imp, punching in the last number. The door opened a second later, and we both got on. “You said it was Manchineel St? Give me some areas around it.”

 

I listed a few, and he punched in a destination for the elevator on the inside panel. Then the doors closed, and the elevator took off at a much higher speed than normal.

 

“Alright, give me the low-down. Short version.”

“Stitch-rats have my friend cornered in the sewer below Manchineel St. She should be strong enough to fight them off, but she’s panicking, and at last contact she said she was going to call nine-one-one.”

“Ugh, wonderful. So she doesn’t know you’re a minion?”

“No. She does know about my power though.”

“Tricky… if we get there before the heroes we’ll need to go in guns blazing to get her out before they come. You prepared to let her know about your night-job?”

“Yes. Her survival is more important.”

“Good answer.”

 

I had several key priorities. First was Nicole’s survival, without her I would lose access to the biological resource that was the sewers. Second was to not allow the heroes to know I was an acquaintance of Nicole, as that might result in her having to move sectors or in the heroes detaining her. Third was to attempt and keep my night-job secret from Nicole, but… I doubted that would be possible if we had to engage. It wasn’t guaranteed that Nicole would cut ties with me if she found out, so this was a far lower priority.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

 

The elevator came to a sudden stop and opened, and immediately my phone began to ring; the shielding on the elevator must have been preventing the signal from reaching me. I picked up immediately.

 

“Nicole?”

“TOFU! Oh thank God! I-I couldn’t g-get through to you! They-sob– they s-said they didn’t find any disturbance! The operator hung up bef-fore I could explain I was below the street! –sob– T-tofu they all have f-faces!”

 

Damn, she was really panicking now. Nicole had handled all of the organisms we encountered in our exploration with decisiveness and without mercy. I had not expected that she would have such a problem with these stitch-creatures, but I suppose I should have; Nicole had been overly worried about the exterminator she hurt, and she avoided violent news whenever possible. It just hadn’t occurred to me that she avoided it because it was violence that involved people.

 

“Nicole I’m almost there! Remember to use crowd-fighting tactics, the designs I witnessed should be slow enough to-”

“God you suck at this,” said Imp, teleporting my phone out of my hand and into his, “Nicole? This is Tofu’s boss speaking, we’re almost to you. Sit tight and be brave, cavalry is almost there,” then to me he said, “I’m going ahead. Switch your helmet to channel seven and get there as fast as you can,” and with that he was gone, teleported… with my phone.

 

I shifted my legs into running configuration and took off; the elevator let out in an abandoned apartment building, and I knew where I was going from here. While I ran I flooded my system with extra micro units, and began preparing for any rapid shifting I would have to do. It sounded like I would need to brawl with a crowd of these stitch-creatures, so size and strength would be better than perfect precision, but I still needed to fit into the sewer entrance… ah, that reminded me. I didn’t get to tell Imp that-

“Hey Tofu?” said Imp suddenly, coming in through my helmet, “Next time when I ask for the low-down, maybe mention that your friend is a giant scorpion!”

“Sorry, I was getting to that.”

 

---

 

The run to Nicole’s place was… ‘nerve-wracking’. I didn’t have time for stealth, and caused somewhat of a ruckus among the civilians that saw me. At the very least they got out of my way. I also spotted the police patrol car that had most likely done the poor check of Nicole’s street.

Incompetents.

It was tempting to spit some slugs through their windshield, but catching the attention of heroes would be a hindrance at this point, so I ducked through an alley to avoid being seen. In the end, it took me eight whole minutes to get to Nicole’s from the elevator exit. Not a lot of time, but in combat every second counted. My only solace was that Imp was keeping me updated, which meant they weren’t dead.

 

I reached the entrance I normally used. The manhole cover was already moved aside, and so I took the quickest way and just jumped in feet-first, being careful not to catch a limb on the way down, and extending my legs to absorb the eventual impact. Just before I reached the bottom, I braced.

Increasing reaction speed to 300%, 5 second burn;

I hit bottom, my legs taking the impact without problem, and I quickly scanned the area for what I was dealing with. I was somewhat surprised, Nicole was out of her den and defending the intersection that led to it. Imp was defending the other end of the sewer tunnel with his pistols, shooting any stitch-creatures that approached with a headshot. His teleporting power meant they couldn’t grab him, and every bullet hit its mark. Things didn’t look too bad actually.

 

“Tofu!?” yelled Nicole. Her scorpion half was fighting the stitch-creatures, but her human half looked bedraggled. She had quite obviously been crying.