10   Consolidation: 13:13:27:45

  Bee-doop-bee-doop.

  I woke up to the most annoying sound imaginable.

  Beep-beep-beep-beep.

  It was Jasper, hovering over me and making alarm noises. It was, no shit, vocalizing the noises and its eyes flashed with green and yellow lights as it beeped and dooped at me. I growled and took a clumsy swipe at it, which went right through the thing.

  “Good morning, [Victor]!” Jasper said, the cheer in its voice absolute proof it wasn’t human. “Congratulations! You hit another milestone! You reached it last night, actually, but sometimes we wait until you’ve had some downtime before informing you. Isn’t that considerate?”

  A message appeared in front of my sleep-crusted eyes.

  Milestone

  You have three points to add to your stats. You may not raise any stat by more than one.

  You may choose one of three new Abilities!

  Ability: Sense Donor

  Spend 1 blood point to locate all living creatures within 50 feet. Instantaneous.

  Ability: Blood Mist

  Spend 2 blood points to instantaneously transform your body into a cloud of bloody mist.

  You are immune to all forms of physical damage while in mist form.

  You may not initiate physical attacks while in mist form.

  Your mist form lasts for 3 seconds, during which you move at your normal movement speed.

  Note: Returning to your physical form in small or narrow spaces may be hazardous.

  Ability: Ghost Step

  When activated you may take (Agility) steps in any direction, vertical or horizontal.

  This effect ends with your last step. Costs 1 blood point. Instantaneous.

  While it was good to know I’d get additional chances to pick up abilities I’d passed on, I still had zero desire to learn Sense Donor. Both Blood Mist and Ghost Step seemed worth having, and both could be useful in and out of combat. The movement aspect of Blood Mist meant I could get in almost anywhere. Few doors were airtight. Similarly, I could see how nice Ghost Step would be in a variety of situations.

  Honestly, I wished I could pick both. After dithering for a few minutes, I selected Blood Mist. The lure of nearly never having to deal with a locked door was just too great. That done, I opened up my character sheet and considered which stats to raise. It was tempting to continue putting all my points into Strength, Agility, and Vitality, but I resisted, at least partially. I put one point in Agility, and one point in both Will and Perception, raising them above the human average. My sheet now looked like:

  My stomach grumbled and I wondered if we could find some breakfast. Rolling out of bed, I headed for the shower. We’d looked around the safehouse for a place to crash when we were done in the command room last night. The bedrooms all looked pretty much the same, and all came with an attached bath. I’d picked the first empty one I found, peeled off my clothes, and was almost instantly asleep. Padding back out of the bathroom after my shower, I picked up my clothes and gave them a sniff. I was amazed when they looked and smelled clean. It was like I hadn’t fought a half dozen people yesterday or been covered in blood. That was nice surprise.

  Fully dressed, I stepped out of the bedroom and immediately smelled sausage cooking. My stomach gurgled again and I followed my nose to the kitchen, where Gost, dressed in a white T-shirt and blue jeans but still barefoot, was busy cooking eggs, sausage, bacon, and toast. He also had coffee going. The big fane gave me a grin when he saw me lurking.

  “Head on into the dining room,” he said, motioning with his head toward a door. “I’m serving.”

  “Really?” I said. “Thanks, man.”

  “No problem.” Gost shot me a finger gun.

  I went through the door he’d indicated and saw that Marko, Aria, Kaius, and Tolun were already there, munching away. I found an empty chair and poured myself a cup of coffee. Aria and Marko waved, while Kaius gave me a serious nod and Tolun ignored me completely. Kaius was dressed in a tailored white suit and wore a burgundy tie, while Tolun was informal in a burgundy tracksuit. I’d barely settled in when Gost appeared out of the kitchen and set a plate in front of me. It looked delicious.

  “Aren’t you glad we didn’t kill him?” Marko said to Aria.

  “I’m sure glad,” Gost said, grinning.

  “We’ll see,” Aria said, dunking her toast in a runny egg.

  “Will you require anything today?” Kaius said.

  “Just a car,” Marko said. “But we already have one. Tolun was nice enough to lend it to us. Speaking of which.” Marko pulled the BlackBerry Onyx magiphone out of a pocket and looked over to Tolun. “What’s the lock code?”

  The fane gave Marko a black look.

  “Those are expensive, you know,” Tolun said.

  “I do know,” Marko told him. “Which is why I want the code.”

  “Tolun,” Kaius said, levelly.

  “Fine,” Tolun said. “80085.”

  Marko burst into laughter, one hand covering his eyes, his shoulders shaking. He continued to laugh for a solid couple of minutes while Tolun stared bloody murder at him.

  “You really,” he said, wiping his eyes. “You really made your lock code ‘boobs’?”

  “Oh shit,” Aria said, a broad smile on her face. “I forgot about that. Boys did that with their calculators all the time.”

  “Can I be excused?” Tolun said, face turning a bright pink.

  “Very well,” Kaius said, and his son immediate bolted, almost running out of the dining room. “I apologize for him. He is still very young.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  Marko, still laughing, plugged the code into the magifone, which made a happy beep. Aria scooted over next to him to look at the screen. Her expression immediately soured.

  “Lame,” she said. “I’d pay good money for an iPhone.”

  “Now you’re being ableist,” Marko said, still poking at the device. “It might be a little primitive, but it’s not that bad. It even has Tetris.”

  Aria snorted and went back to eating.

  “You’ll find the car you drove here last night in the garage,” Kaius said. “I had it brought into the safehouse as a security precaution.” He stood. “Please let me know if you require anything else.”

  The silver-haired fane gave us a slight bow and left the dining room. Gost hustled in and gathered up dirty dishes before disappearing back into the kitchen. Marko put the magifone back in a pocket and looked at me with a serious expression.

  “What can you tell us about Adam?” Marko said.

  “Not much,” I said. “He showed up on TV during the tutorial and said someone was after me. I didn’t hear from him again until last night.”

  “You saw him?” Aria said. “What did he look like?”

  “Fake,” I said. “It was AI slop rather than a real person. I have no clue what he really looks like.”

  “Any idea why he’s helping you?” Marko said.

  “None,” I said. “He’s not great at answering questions.”

  “If he’s some kind of admin, he could be useful,” Aria said.

  “Maybe,” Marko said. “I’m more concerned about the potential threat of an unknown person or persons gunning for you, Victor.”

  Adam (GM): I’m working on it. For now, I’ve put safeguards in place in case anyone tries to mess with you again.

  I blinked.

  “He’s listening,” I said. “He just told me he’s working on the problem and has safeguards in place.”

  Victor: Why are you helping me?

  I didn’t receive a reply.

  “I guess that’ll have to do,” Marko said. “We can’t afford to waste time just sitting around hoping nothing bad happens. And we can’t have you on the bench. We have a little under two weeks in the consolidation phase, and I’d like to grab as many hexes as we can while we can.”

  Aria nodded.

  “How you start a 4X game is super important,” she said. “You only get so much time before bad guys start showing up.”

  “You seem to know a lot about games,” I said.

  “So what?” Aria said. “You saying girls can’t be gamers?”

  I raised a hand to calm her.

  “Nope. Just noticing is all.”

  She gave me a look, obviously trying to tell if I was making fun of her or not.

  “It’s a hobby,” she said. “Hard to have a social life when you work evenings and weekends.”

  “You said you were a bartender?” I said.

  “Bartender and DJ. I was moderately popular. What about you?”

  “I worked for Brinks and taught martial arts. It was enough to scrape by.”

  “That explains how you move like you do,” Marko said. “I did some wrestling and boxing in college, but nothing serious. I was more interested in betting on fights than engaging in them.”

  “He was in the mob,” Aria mock whispered.

  “I was not in the mob,” Marko said. “I told you I knew people in the Detroit mafia. Those things are not the same. You run into all sorts in big money games.”

  “I take it you like to gamble?” I said.

  “I like odds,” Marko said. “I just happen to be good at betting on them. Always had a knack for math. Paid back my college loans with a little help from the local casinos.”

  “We can talk more on the drive,” Aria said, standing up. “I want to get to Pine Ridge. If we’re lucky, it’ll be easy enough we can grab two sectors today.”