“Since you’re the leader, you have to keep really close track of your location. Always think about which roads and paths you’re going to take to get somewhere, think about where you’re stopping to rest, where you’re spending the night.”
“Not sure I follow,” I said.
“Radii. Or, to make it simpler, locations and distances.” This explanation was even vaguer. “The closer you are to a problem, the more likely it is.”
“Still not getting it.”
“Hmm... Let me use your situation as an example. Where’d you run into the pluxes?”
Zone 1, Block 2. Where we picked up the blocks.”
“I know the place. It’s under constant surveillance, but there are a few shady, even dark paths nearby. Right?”
“Yeah. The pluxes came from one of the dark paths.”
That’s what I mean! Mother monitors things all the time, watches the hallways and chambers, right?”
“Right,” I nodded.
“At that point you were just ordinary grunts. That was your status.”
‘Grunt status’? That sounded about right...
“Okay...”
“Right. So you were just working, planning the rest of the day, when
“Calls for help.” That wasn’t hard to guess.
“Exactly! But she can’t ask you specifically, because you’re grunts. Not fighters. Not even cadets. So Mother starts looking for someone she can trust with an urgent combat job, and she starts right at the epicenter of the problem — these pluxes. She expands the search range. There’s no one within a hundred yards. Still no one within two hundred yards. Or three hundred. But in a four-hundred-yard radius, she finds some fighters, and gives their leader a job — get to Zone 1, Block 2 right away and eliminate four pluxes. She gives a brief description of what they’ll face — three rats and a tangerine.”
“Three rats and a tangerine...” I repeated.
“That’s...”
“I get it. Slang terms, keep it short.”
“Yeah. The system uses the proper terms, listing all the threats it spots — three small gray plunar xarls, one small yellow plunar xarl... Like that. We just shorten it.”
“Okay.”
“You mentioned something about cadets?”
“That’s what you are now. Any combat jobs you get have ‘extra’ status, which means you can choose not to complete them. But if you decline two in a row, you won’t get another for a really long time. Cadets can also decline emergency combat jobs with no penalty. They have the right to self-preservation. No one stays a cadet for long, though. Almost everyone becomes a fighter, as we call them. Once you do one extra combat job as a cadet, the system will start prompting you to level up to fighter. It’ll keep asking every time you win a fight. You see?”
“I see. Thanks.”
“Once you become a fighter, you have to keep a really, really close eye on your location! There are a lot of paths where it’s bad to linger — where you shouldn’t even bother walking unless you really need to. Places where it’s common for pluxes to show up. It’s not an uncommon situation: your group is exhausted, someone’s injured, maybe, you’re barely dragging your feet along — when
“Yes.” I nodded slowly. “I get it. That’s really important advice.”
“Exactly! Even if your group is on their last legs, you’ll have to do battle! You’ll probably just get slaughtered, but at least you’ll buy some time for the system to find other fighters who will eventually handle it. A lot of combat groups have died that way. It’s easier for cadets, who can just refuse if they sense a bad situation. Fighters can’t do that. Better for them to do battle, even if it’s not on even footing.”
“Why? Afraid to lose their status? Fuck that! Anything is better than losing your life.”
“Status? That’s not even it. Fuck status! Goblin... have you ever heard of a tribunal?”
“A military court. Strict and merciless.”
“Right. As soon as you sign up for fighter status, you get a lot — more sol, more rewards, lots of gifts, access to special vending machines and info points. Does that remind you of anything?”
“The... police? Is that the right word? No… Since you said tribunal... Is it the army? Special perks and benefits.”
“Exactly. Like the army. And if you fail to follow an order in any army anywhere in the world, you get sent to a tribunal, and you’re in for serious punishment.”
