Maxi couldn’t picture Farhad getting angry. He just wasn’t the type. Everything seemed to roll off his back. He always seemed calm regardless of the circumstances. The man had faced permadeath with her, and he didn’t seem to be even remotely affected by it, at least outwardly. But Maxi was sure she had upset him, or even worse he was disappointed with her.

  The following week, he had been cold, distant. Their conversations had been all business. They didn’t talk like they used to. They used to stay up for hours, chatting away, but now, it was like a switch had been flipped and she wasn’t sure how to flip it back.

  When she had told him, all of them about what happened to Daisuke, all he had said was, “You could have approached that differently.” He didn’t yell or berate her, which almost was worse. She was used to yelling and berating. Fire pulsed through her veins like when she fought with her parents, but they always came together as a family at the end.

  She didn’t know how to fix silence. Yet, somehow after Daisuke left, there was silence. Sure Patti and Flav would sometimes chat with each other. Belinda would sometimes sniff Maxi, usually after a meal, and comment about what Maxi had eaten. The routines were there, but there was an emptiness.

  Flav would lean over to ask Daisuke if he wanted a cup of coffee, but the cubicle was gone. Patti would tell a story that included their former officemate, and say that it wasn’t important. It was as if he died, when the reality was that he was still at the company, and Maxi would see him in the cafeteria or the mail room but he wouldn’t make eye contact.

  He still kept in contact with the others. Maxi saw Patti and him chatting in the booster bun line once. Flav came out of the elevator another time and Daisuke was inside pressing the button for his destination. She wondered if the Office Pool felt like what children must feel in a divorce situation, where they didn’t want to pick a side but were forced to because of a custody deal.

  Just like some divorcers must feel, Maxi didn’t feel regret for having done it, but more about how she had done it. Perhaps she had come on too strong or maybe it was that he really did have something to hide. There was no way to tell. If he was possessed, then maybe she had done them all a favor. If he wasn’t…

  “Time for the next raid,” Farhad pulled her out of her thoughts. Maxi finished leveling her character. They had mostly gone on minor quests, some grutomatons there, some zombies there. She had even, to her horror, helped with some spreadsheets. It was mind numbing work, helping HR double check that all the employees had either signed up for were notified about their health insurance options.

  “I wasn’t even aware we had health insurance,” Maxi had said out loud one day.

  “The resurrection chairs don’t cure cancer,” Farhad had said. “They just restore the body to its previous state.”

  He would have normally popped his head over the cubicle, and they would have conversed about the morality of withholding the resurrection chairs from the rest of the world or some other engaging topic, but he had said it in such a “don’t bother me way,” that she hadn’t said anything else. She just put the finishing touches on her spreadsheet from her loathsome Generalist quest pool that turned her mind to mush every time she completed one.

  After finishing her leveling, she made sure that she had all the equipment she needed for the raid and got in line for the elevator. It was sad and lonely, not the normal chatter before a raid, but silence. The kind she hated. The kind she didn’t know how to fix.

  Belinda started humming a tune that wasn’t at all dissimilar to a pop song from Earth, but was probably from her homeworld. Belinda had a peculiar way of looking at the world. At first Maxi thought it was insanity, from being alone for all those years, but more and more Maxi was beginning to believe that it was just her.

  The elevator dinged, they all piled inside and were in the lobby of the building with the assembling teams. After the rest arrived, the group moved to the lobby creating an obstacle course for the protestors surrounding power ranged fighters with lower tiers. There were 54 protesters left. Each time one of the 100 bosses fell, the next one would be harder to beat. It was as if each fallen enemy got their power and life point distributed among the whole. If they truly were growing in power each time one fell, the company wasn’t on track enough though it felt as if they were.

  The raid began and the protesters formed their phalanx, and marched through the room. They were better at going over the obstacles than when Maxi had first encountered them but the gap in their defenses was still enough for a few arrows, machine gun fire, and Maxi even got a few Mind Shards through. The raid bosses first target was the higher tiered player after the team retreated, the tortoise shell moved to the nearest team.

  Once the battle came their way, they fought until it was time to make a strategic retreat. Overall there were very few deaths and the raid resulted in another protester going down. They piled into the elevator to return to the Office Pool for some rest and menial labor, though in Maxi’s case, she had been doing as many Generalist quests as that can be done without leaving her computer. However, before they could get back, an All Employee quest appeared in their feed.

  NEW QUEST (All Employee): “GRUTOMATON OUTBREAK.”

  GOAL: Clear the Kyoto Kaze Motor factory of a grutomaton infestation.

  TIME LIMIT: 1 hour.

  ALLY LIMIT: All employees.

  REWARD: XP and Credits distributed based on employee contribution.

  FAILURE: Standard death penalties apply.

  Standard death penalties apply was company code for if they screwed this one up it would count towards their performance metrics which would get them terminated at the end of the month if they were one of the low performers. Maxi glanced up at the team who was still in the elevator reading their screens even though the door had opened to let them into the Office Pool a while ago.

  They all looked to her.

  “I know I screwed up,” Maxi said. “And I don’t expect you to follow me or even trust me, but–”

  “Seems to me,” Flav said with his deep voice. “That we are here to fight monsters, and so long as you are here to fight monsters, you’re cool with me.”

  “Meow, meow,” Belinda cooed. “Let’s kick their ass.”

  “We’re with you,” Farhad said and squeezed her shoulder.

  “Well shit,” Patti said. “I guess I’m stuck with you all.”

  Before Maxi could tear up, she accepted the quest and hit the elevator button. “Kaze Motors,” she said, and the elevator lurched into motion. Trips across the world in the magic elevated took longer than then one across town but not long enough to do anymore than down a couple snacks to regain their health. Patti tossed Maxi a pack of cookies like would be served on an airplane.

  Her glasses read: Airplane Cookies of Psy Regen added to your inventory.

  She ate one and put the other in her pocket. Her lost psy points began to tick up. Patti ate one for herself in addition to some gummy worms. Maxi took a few snacks for her health too and was still chewing on them when the elevator slowed down to a crawl.

  “What’s happening?” Maxi said as the elevator shifted and stopped then shifted and stopped again. She must have sounded nervous because Farhad squeezed her shoulder and Maxi had to admit, after the PIs were after them, she never felt quite comfortable in the magic elevators.

  “There’s probably only one elevator door entrance,” Farhard said soothingly. “And a lot of company elevators are converging on the location.”

  “Thus why there are twelve doors in the high traffic areas,” Maxi said.

  Before anymore could be said, the door opened and a PI with a sword holding his hand out for a psychic attack was rammed by a truck and his body was flung to a distant part of the factory floor. The vehicle turned to the elevator and snarled. The headlights bulged with bloodshot eyes and the grill had morphed into a maw with jagged metal teeth. Muscles burgled from the plastic and the crab legs jutted from the sides. The thing still had wheels that could turn its legs into deadly jousting weaponry.

  The creature roared and slammed into the elevator door but wouldn’t fit. Maxi used the moment to blink into the astral plane and yank her physical body onto the hood of the red truck turned monster. She stabbed into the engine block and it yelped. The beast shook back and forth and flung her to the side and she slid across the floor next to the crumbled body of the PI, who had the unfortunate collision with the thing’s grill.

  Maxi’s distraction was enough for Flav to insert himself just outside the threshold of the elevator where the creature clamped on him with its jaw and legs. He cried in pain, but used his position to stab into the undercarriage with a dagger. Patti healed while Belinda’s clockwork critters climbed around Flav and shredded the chassis of the vehicle. Blood, metal, and part flung off the creature.

  Farhad tapped at the keyboard, and shoved a dart into the usb port. He pulled the weapon and flung it at the creature. As soon as it connected to the hide, a green corrosion seeped out front of the wound and began to fester in the grutomaton’s body. Maxi’s sword was still stuck in the engine block. She stood as her party forced the adversary back to clear the way for another elevator.

  Maxi concentrated on her weapon that was getting too close to Farhad’s decay for her comfort and was going to try another Leap of Faith to retrieve her sword when she had a revelation. Instead of hopping out on the astral plane and yanking her body towards the object. She could bring the sword to her, as if she was doing a Psychic Shard but in reverse.

  She jumped out of her body, and in the split second that she would have manifested a weapon to whack the creature, she gripped her sword and yanked. It yanked free from the hood and flew across the room to her outstretched hand and she caught it.

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  Her glasses lit up:

  LEARNED NEW SKILL: Use the Schwartz (25 pp): grants minor telekinetic ability.

  She charged the creature with a yell and thrust into the side of the engine block but not before one of the legs pierced her shoulder.

  ROLLING CRITICAL HIT: Office Maxi did 2043 damage with one attack.

  The grutomaton shuddered and died. Its tongue rolled out of its mouth as Flav dislodged himself.

  The elevator dinged and another Office Pool came out. It was a crew of clean cut men in fancy Italian suits. Daisuke was among them.

  There wasn’t any time for pleasantries or rivalries or whatever it was between them. Before them was a massive factory floor that was in chaos. Gargantuan machines meant for the construction of cars were going berserk and attacking factory workers and company employees alike.

  A giant laser at the end of a furry/metal arm tore through a man in a Kaze Motors jumpsuit and nailed a Sales Associate twirling nunchucks. Two PIs were locked in battle with a piece of machinery that looked as if it screwed on various parts that now turned into deadly tendrils of an octopus-like creature with the equivalent of drills at the end of each tentacle.

  Cars like the one they had fought were attacking the workers and the company employees scattered throughout the building. The entire room that must have been the size of several football fields was roiling with grutomatons. Every piece of machinery that could beast out had beasted out.

  “We can’t let anything escape,” Maxi said when realized how fast moving the virus was when four PIs blasted a SUV into a cluster of cars that hadn’t turned yet, and they all began to shudder and pop veins as the crab legs sprouted from them.

  She saw the warehouse door that was thankfully shut but there was a battle perilously close where a few Hackers had setup turrets like the ones Farhad had used. While the barrage of gunfire kept the creatures at bay, Maxi could see that the defense was weakening as the creatures were taking out turrets as fast as the group could place them.

  Before she could order her team to move out a Japanese woman in a smart high end business suit ran down a staircase near the elevator entrance. It looked as if the business offices were upstairs and there was a viewing platform where the elevator opened on the second floor.

  The woman was young and looked familiar to Maxi, but she couldn’t place her. She ran to Daisuke and that’s when it hit her that they were related. Suddenly a picture of the business mogul who owned Kaze Motors emerged into her mind. She had seen his obituary… now that she had seen the woman, she realized the family connection. The magnate was Daisuke’s father and the woman was his sister.

  Without the three she would have never figured it out and probably just assumed that everybody kinda resembles somebody famous. She remembered when her best friend from high school changed his social media pictures to that of a celebrity that looked like him and no one noticed. But now, she was sure of it. Daisuke was a part of this family dynasty and the patriarch of the family had died recently. She felt a stab of guilt, as at least she could explain why he’d been more prickly than usual lately.

  But why did he hide it? Being related to a billionaire, even an NPC billionaire had to have some advantages. Especially when money could solve a lot of their problems. However, Maxi wasn’t quick to judge. Just because people were rich didn’t mean they had cash, especially if their wealth was tied up in the company.

  “I warned you about this, Arisu.” Daisuke said to the woman who Maxi thought was his sister. “The chips aren’t safe.”

  He saw Maxi staring at them and stepped in between them to cut off the conversation. One of the creatures rammed the front door of the building and there was a thunderous crash. The Hacker’s turrets were damaged and the door began to buckle. She forgot about Daisuke for the moment as a new goal appeared on her glasses.

  NEW GOAL (GRUTOMATION OUTBREAK): Prevent the grutomatons from escaping the factory.

  Farhard touched her shoulder and they ran towards the weakening door, the last Hacker being mauled by a fourth infected car to enter the fray. Maxi wasn’t sure if it would work but she grabbed Flav and Farhad by the arms and used her Leap of Faith ability. She hopped into the astral plane, and could feel an energy coming from both Flav and Farhad.

  She reached inside their bodies and yanked their souls from their body. However, before their physical bodies could collapse to the floor, she bamfed forward with both of them in tow and grabbed all three silvery cords. She yanked and pushed everyone back into their body. The result of her action teleported the three of them clear across the battlefield in one fell swoop.

  LEARNED NEW SKILL: Improved Leap of Faith. Touching 2 allies will allow them to travel with the player, increased range 100’.

  Even though the entire trip had taken a split second, Farhad and Flav were dazed for a moment. The roar of one of the nearby grutomatons brought them out of it. Two of the vehicles turned from pounding on the door of the factory to bare their teeth to the newcomers. The chompers were a shiny chrome base covered in blood and drool dripped from the mouth.

  The creatures raised their crab legs to skewer them, and peeled out on their wheels. Flav planted himself into the ground while his skin turned to stone. He pulled a cylinder from his belt and a spear grew in sections while he braced to receive the charge of one of the adversaries. Farhad stood in the path of the other and said, “Go!”

  Maxi jumped again through the astral plane to right behind the two pounding through the bent and buckling door. While Maxi didn’t know the first thing about car manufacturing, she didn’t have to know much to understand that there was most likely a giant parking lot of new cars outside that door, and considering how fast everything was raging out, she wasn’t sure they’d be able to contain an army of these things.

  The next moments happened all at the same time, the SUV charging Flav slammed into him as if he was a brick wall while the magical spear pierced through the beast’s engine block. The vehicle wrapped around him as if he was a massive stone pillar. On the other hand, Farhad dodged the creature and placed a brick on the hood as it passed but not without being severely scraped up by the crabbed legs. He went down to the ground.

  Maxi cut into the back tire with her blade on one and manifested a scythe with her Mind Shard on the other. The tires of both burst with blood and a hiss of air as they went flat. The creatures switched to use their crab legs and pivoted to face her. She checked her psy points. They were about halfway, but ticking up because of the cookie.

  She blinked again out of the way of the attacks from the pair swiped at nothing but air. She appeared behind them and did the same attacks but on their body. While they were agile on the legs, turning completely around gave her enough time to teleport again. However, she wasn’t regaining psy points fast enough to do it more than a handful of times before she’d run out of juice.

  Meanwhile Farhad, wounded and bleeding on the ground, tapped the keys on his laptop. The car spun around for another attack, and a light blinked on the brick he had placed on the creature. The weapon flared as bright as a welding torch and melted through the engine block of the car. It squealed and writhed in agony as the thermite or whatever he had placed on it went clear through and burned a crater into the factory floor. The vehicle twitched and died just as Farhad passed out.

  Flav wrestled with his grutomaton, which had survived the crash, and they were locked in a contest of strength as it tried to chomp his head while he held it at bay. Maxi blinked again, and attacked. Her heart sank as she saw two more break from the battle on the factory floor and sped her way. While she was damaging them and had gotten a quarter of their life bars, it wasn’t enough for them much less two more. She considered a Psychic Tsunami but that would just give them distance to charge her or the door. The only reason they weren’t free already is that the creatures didn’t exactly exhibit critical thinking skills.

  Just as Maxi used her last jump the cavalry arrived. Belinda’s critters swarmed over one of the charging trucks and it spun out and futilely tried to snap at the clockwork cat, raccoons, and others stabbing, biting, and tearing into its flesh and shredding its machine parts. The other was waylaid by Daisuke’s Office Pool who took shotguns from their invisible hostlers and blasted the thing’s wheels causing it to tumble end over end until it slammed into a giant out of control assembly arm.

  Patti skidded to a halt by Farhad and reached inside his body with her astral arm and began healing him. Meanwhile Daisuke joined the battle with the two from the otherside to flank the creatures. The beasts weren’t able to mount an attack and turned to face both Maxi and Daisuke. Like old times they coordinated their attacks to cause maximum damage, and left their opponents at a disadvantage.

  Maxi thrust her sword into the bloodshot headlight and cleaved the rearview mirror that had become an ear right off with a giant astral axe. One grutomaton pounced on Daisuke as he slid under it dragging his sword through the undercarriage cutting through guts and machine parts. Maxi leapt over him and onto the creature and finished thrusted her sword with both hands to finish it off.

  Meanwhile Flav was finally turning the tides on his creature as some of Belinda’s critters headed towards him when they finished off the grutomaton they had waylaid. Through a series of coordinated attacks, they finally defeated all the creatures attempting to break free. However, when Maxi finally had to take stock of the battlefield. They were losing. There was more grutomatons in the factory floor that company employees,

  Before she could even contemplate her next move, a new group came from the elevator wearing the trademarked blue coveralls of the Janitorial Class. They were wearing large metal helmets attached to their jumpsuits that had a rectangular face plate. On their backs, they had a giant tank attached to a hose.

  They switched on the units and fired jets of flame at anything that moved. It didn’t matter if it was a company employee, factory workers, or a grutomaton. The flames engulfed everything in their path and started an inferno that quickly ignited anything that could burn. More came from the elevator and they began incinerating everything in their path.

  Daisuke’s sister had already started making her way towards them before the janitors came. She ran now and yelled. “What are they doing? Stop them!”

  “Shit,” Daisuke said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  “What?” Maxi said.

  “It’s containment protocols. Nothing survives.”

  From the way Janitorial was methodically fanning out of the entry point of the elevator creating a wall of flame that nothing could escape, they didn’t intend to try and save anyone. The battle was considered lost, and while there was a chance they’d drag her corpse from the rubble and return her to her resurrection chair for a fee, the inferno was intense. There was a good chance they’d all be burned beyond the chair’s powers.

  She considered busting through doors that led outside, but a swarm of grutomatons was being pushed their way by the flames. If she opened the door to save her life, there was a chance that one of them would escape and infect the cars outside. She doubted even Janitorial could contain the outbreak if cars outside got infected. Thousands of cars, all beasting out. She couldn’t leave, but she also had no intentions to die.

  Or maybe that’s exactly what she should do. She realized that no matter what she did, she was dead. Perhaps she could choose it on her terms in a way that would at least have a hope of ending up on the resurrection chair.

  She turned to Daisuke. “The support beams,” she said and glanced at two support beams near them. They were large sturdy pillars, but one of them was already damaged during the attack.

  “That would bring the roof down on top of us.” He said.

  “Yes, with any luck.” Maxi said.

  “But my sister,” he said. “She’s not an employee.”

  “Flav,” Maxi said. “You think you can shield her from the collapse?”

  “Yeah,” Flav said. “I think so.”

  “Then let’s bring the house down.”

  Maxi, Farhad who was back on his feet, and Daisuke slammed one of the pillars with their weapons. Flav positioned his body over Arisu who looked too shocked to question. Patti was able to at least get herself partially under Flav’s protection. Belinda and the other Sales Associates worked on the other support.

  The horde that was being pushed back by the fire were almost on top of them. Janitorial was almost to their side of the factory. She saw a crack form. She bashed it with her sword and hit it with Mind Shard each time her psy points ticked up enough to use another one. Another crack form and she had just enough power for another Mind Shard.

  A massive ethereal hammer appeared in her hand on the astral plane. She smashed the pillar, and it burst. The roof came down and the concrete and metal rained down on them as their side of the building collapsed. There was no guarantee they would be able to contain the first before it spread to the rubble, but a chance was, even a small one, was better than nothing.

  Luck was her skill. It was her thing.

  A piece of concrete from the ceiling hit her on the head and the world went dark.