Chapter 12

On Tuesday, the Terrible Trio took the contract offer to my lawyer and had him make sure it was written as they agreed upon.

On Thursday, the girls signed UE’s offer. Nat quit her job, they left Nancy’s Gym and began training at Universal Exports (UE) and spent the full weekend there

I rested home in solitude for the first time in months. At least until Friday night when Paula called for an emergency fix on an inventory control program that another contractor messed up and wasn’t discovered until after implementation. She acted like it would be an easy fix.

The two of us broke the program apart and began searching. Four, fourteen-hour days later, we found the bugs (me) and broken libraries (Paula). She even discovered a line of malicious code in one of them which had to have been inserted by the initial company. I’d let Paula and her father deal with that. I needed sleep and to return a few calls.

Heather stopped by, unannounced, with pizza on Wednesday afternoon. Setting up a radio which emitted a low-grade headache inducing hum on the table, she gave me a report of the girls’ progress.

“They are eager, curious and ready to learn. It’s just that their bodies are lacking.”

“Malnutrition growing up.” Was my response to the obvious.

“Kate has a problem eating enough food. We brought a nutritionist in and are slowly increasing her portion size.” After spending some time on the state of the girls’ health and progress, I interrupted my guest.

“I assume that you don’t need that,” I pointed at the signal jammer, “for their update.”

“You have a Portal Store list.”

“You might as well start calling it a Gate. It won’t be long before that name changes anyway.”

“As far as I know, only one Delta team is Level 4 currently, no one is telling. That team are Green Gate divers. With pooling, their team leader unlocked the 7500 price range. Why do those three think you have at least the 10k one unlocked?”

There were strange rumors regarding the transfer of silver and items outside of dividing loot in the white room or in in the dungeons. I wondered if that was the reason behind no single person being able to gather vast wealth. The whole of the US armed forces should be able to tax their soldiers and hand them to one person. Yet that wasn’t happening and no one was telling why.

I walked to my office and returned with my printed Store list and passed it across the table.

She whistled to herself.

“Can you tell me how you got ten thousand silver?”

“I didn’t. I received a reward which unlocked me seeing the list. And once it’s unlocked, it is always unlocked. You can sell that,” I pointed at the exhaustive list, without descriptions, that I kept to myself, “as long as you don’t say where it came from. Just give me something decent from whatever you get.”

“50%?”

“That’s fair.”

“What happens at Level 3?”

“One Status point, your Endurance is added to your Health, a Mana point for warriors, and I’m not positive, but I believe we get an overall strengthening of the body. I really can’t explain it, but the zombies were easier to kill. It was like they became less. They also felt less dangerous.”

“Or you became greater. The Levels have to mean something. Otherwise just giving us points would be enough.”

She hesitated, then added. “When we fought beside you, you were larger than life. David and Edna both agreed that while they thought they could take you one on one, they were concerned that you felt like an instructor.”

“And you think that is the result of Level difference?”

“I do,” she replied with conviction.

“They don’t?”

“Edna does. Who knows about David?”

“Could it be strengthening of the soul or spirit of the person and not the body?” I asked. This was not the first time I thought of the issue of levels.

Heather didn’t see a difference between the two and said so. After deliberation, she still believed that levels made a difference in perception if there was a gap just not the mechanics behind it.

“Your guess is probably better than mine. I haven’t met many people with Weapons.” I gave in to her endless theories with no desire to continue the conversation in that direction.

She considered further, “would you be willing to meet a room full? Of beginners?”

“If my identity was hidden.”

“How far are you from Level 4?”

“A little under 20% to go.”

“Can you do a solo run of your Green Gate right now?”

“Yes.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“It takes five days, and I wanted to go with the girls so that they could benefit too.”

“They won’t be ready for a month. You entered it three times you say?”

“Four, I am still on the first floor. My next run on will be my last before going down a floor. That isn’t something that I am ready for.”

“Can you take me in?”

“Just you and me?”

“Yes, you can keep everything. What you don’t know is that the other three Green Portals are all Goblins. No one has encountered any Orcs yet.”

“And you need intel on them. If it is so important, why am I still in possession of it?”

“We don’t care who has it. We just need the intel. The other rainbow colors will eventually come out and Blues and Greens will just become like the Violets are now.”

“We?”

“We,” she wasn’t saying.

“The Gate is open. We can go anytime.”

“What do you want in exchange?”

“Access to a Blue.” Apparently, our deal had just changed.

“We are going to do the next Indigo on Sunday. If we do the Green on Wednesday, you will have to wait the ten days.”

“No, I don’t.”

“What do you...” “How?” excitement shown in those intense, dark-blue eyes.

“A unique title. There may be other means out there. But I can enter extra Gates per week. I won’t show anyone the title, but I was the first person to enter in three different colored Gates and received that ability as a reward. The Shop list too.”

“How much silver do you have?”

“About 4200.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“We found a diamond, I bought it from the girls, it was worth 2500 silver.”

She felt better seeing I had a good reason for having that much silver on me. “Open your inventory and click trade.”

I did, she transferred 700 silver. I was shocked.

“Your information was worth more than that, but I can only transfer silver to you, as long as it stays under 5000.”

“Ah, that’s why.” Heather’s words and contrary actions confused me sometimes.

“Why did you give your Title and Gate information away?”

“I want to get into a Blue and thought you could get me in one. Plus, I plan on experimenting on all of the unclaimed Portals. It’s not like I can do that and not get noticed.”

“And you want my backing.”

“I think that it is fair. Don’t you? You do represent a ‘We’.”

“You want to see if you can get any other titles, right?”