RavensDagger - Save Scumming - Chapter One Hundred and Ninety-Three

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The ride over was awkward for two reasons.

First, I was stuck in the back of a van filled with a half-dozen sweaty guys ranging from their late teens to their early twenties. Franklin seemed to be one of the exceptions in the River Rats, being a thirty-something adult. 

Like, okay, I wasn’t exactly old myself, time-fuckery aside, but I still felt like there was a gulf of difference between how I saw the world and this bunch. For example, I liked the idea of showering, and wearing deodorant, something this bunch hadn’t yet discovered.

The second thing was that Becky had to sit up front. She was... somewhat in charge as well. The River Rat’s didn’t exactly have a clear and concise organization chart. It was very much a ‘whomever talks loudest is in charge’ kind of outfit, and the D-rankers had a much louder voice than the rest. Obviously, Mouse was a step above even them.

I glared at the gormless idiot sitting next to me until his smile slowly faded and he thought better than to keep trying to flirt with me. 

We rode through the city in a caravan of three vans and a couple of bikes. There had to be three dozen gangers with us, which made up a decent force. 

If they were half as competent as a corporate team, than this many people could cause some serious trouble.

Unfortunately, I’d give the average corporate combat squad four-to-one odds against this gaggle. Most of the gear I saw had a distinct lean towards smaller, more concealable guns that could fire a lot of bullets very quickly. The type of shit that could be held out of a window to spray wildly in the direction of a target and yet miss with all thirty-odd rounds fired. 

I didn’t expect this bunch to hold their own once bullets started flying either. Maybe I was wrong on that account, but... yeah, I didn’t peg this group as particularly brave.

The ride brought us past the city’s walls, then north, though one of the older sections. Technically within the ‘downtown’ area, but the lower-class parts, not too far from the river and right across from a more industrial area. 

We turned into a parking lot that had access to three different warehouses, then rode up and into one of those.

Its interior was wide open, with only some old pillars taking up space, so the crew spun around and parked side-long to the entrance. And then everyone was squeezing their way out of the vans.

I was quick to move over to Becky’s side, hands in my pockets and eyes narrowed as I tried to adjust them to the right semi-lowlight setting for this place. It wasn’t quite dark, and it wasn’t quite light, and the auto-adjustment in my new eyes was switching back and forth a lot. I mean, that was probably for the best, but it was damned annoying. Like putting sunglasses on and off constantly.

“So, what exactly are we waiting for?” I asked.

It was Franklin that answered. He had an old-school smart phone out and had been reading through some long texts on it. “Meeting with a gang. For a job. They need help with something, and are willing to trade some things that Mouse wants.”

“Alright.” I said. “What do we know about them?”

“Not much,” he said. “They’re new. Weird, too.”

Becky nodded along next to him. “They don’t even have a name,” she said. “Just showed up recently and did their thing. They’re pretty strong, for a small time gang, but like... no drip.”

“No drip,” I repeated. 

“Yeah. Like, River Rats? Look at us. We’re cool as fuck. But them? No style. Just a bunch of guys that dress off the rack and listen to like... whatever plays on the radio.”

I didn’t know how important it was for a street gang to have a strong identity, but from the way Becky talked about it, it was at least important to her. I didn’t have time to really dig into it. One of the younger River Rats whistled, and the entire gang perked up. A minute later a pair of vans were pulling into the warehouse. 

They circled around the other way, coming to a stop with a decent amount of space between us and them. Then the others came out and... yeah, I saw what Becky was saying.

The people jumping out of the vans could have been just anyone off the street. Jeans and coats that were in fashion two years ago and just... nothing to make them stand out. Any one of them could have been dropped onto any street in Fortress ENE and they wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. In the rougher places they’d just be a local walking by, and in the ritzier parts of town someone would write them off as a worker finishing a shift or something. 

“What’s their name?” I asked. 

“Don’t have one,” Becky said. “Sad, right?”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

Then I caught something. The second van looked a little strange, its body was low, and its side-door was a little wider. But what caught my attention was the mechanism inside. It had one of those lifts for wheelchairs. Probably because the person within was in one. 

I stood stock still for a moment. 

Franklin stepped up and started to talk to the guy. A small box traded hands, and they continued to talk rather amicably. The tension in the room slowly bleeding away as it became clear that this wasn’t going to be a violent sort of encounter.

But my attention was entirely on the girl in the van.

She was sitting down, so judging her height was tough, and even with my optics, I couldn’t see her well through the slightly-tinted glass of the van... but that was the chick that I’d had a fight with once.

That was... a couple of weeks ago, in real time? Much longer in my personal time. But I could still remember a dozen loops spent trying to get closer to her and eventually finding her place. She had some sort of prediction ability, or omniscience or something of that nature. 

I hadn’t exactly tested her, but I knew that she could fuck with my plans and with my loops in a weird way. 

So, at least a D-ranker, to have that kind of innate magic. It was possible that she was a regret mage too, though that was less likely. 

“Hey? You good?” Becky asked.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry,” I said.

Becky eyed me, then glanced over at the van. “Someone you know?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. She’s never met me.”

“Okay?” Becky said. I didn’t think she caught onto the exact wording there. “Lemme know if there’s something up, yeah?”

“I will,” I said.

I was tense for the rest of the meeting, but there might have been no need for it. Franklin shook hands with the guy he was talking to, they laughed about something, then they split. There was a moment when he looked back and the girl in the van said something into a cellphone, but that was it. 

I watched as the two vans turned around in the warehouse and drove off. Then I turned towards Franklin. “So, what was that all about?” I asked. I nodded to the box.

“Eh? Mouse wanted this,” he said, raising the box. “It’s some techy stuff.”

I didn’t think I’d be getting much more out of it than that. Though I did get to see the thing. Franklin opened the box and took a picture, then sent it to Mouse. It looked like the insides of a computer. Some sort of drive and some... tech stuff. I really didn’t know anything about computers.

“Wanna head back with us, or are you two gonna split?’ Franklin asked.

I considered it. I could follow them. But then... last time I’d tried to do something like that, it had taken a dozen loops. This was a wasted loop anyway, but... “Nah,” I said. “Becky?”

“I’m good to head back,” Becky said. She stretched, then let her arms fall loose at her sides. “I need to do my dailies.”

I laughed. “Maybe I’ll watch with you,” I said. “And I guess I could do some research or something.” 

It felt wasteful to just... lounge around. Maybe I could start trying to pick up a new spell? Or I could keep practicing the ones I knew. It might be a while until I got coaching from Dharti again for Nature-aligned spells. Getting to know Grasping Growth a little better might impress her enough that she’d teach me another first or second tier spell. 

Or I could just stress out about things entirely outside of my control. That was also a great way to spend an afternoon.

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