Monroe - Chapter 365

“Well, the good news is that Alex is going to score us some upgrades,” Jack reported. “DARPA has a few racks of decommissioned servers that are significantly more robust than what we currently have, and he’ll have our upgraded armbands ready for us before we leave.”

“Not to be a doubting Thomas, but do we really want computers from DARPA?” Jessica asked. “Aren’t they likely to be loaded with controls and backdoors and such?”

“Probably,” Jack shrugged. “It’s unlikely we’ll ever be in a position to trigger those, so why worry? I know for a fact that every single microprocessor made in the last twenty years has hard coded back doors. It is what it is.”

“As long as there isn’t anything that is suddenly going to disable the Freedom, it’s something we’re just going to have to live with,” Bob agreed.

“Maybe,” Dave grinned. “Did you know that Yorrick made a deal to help Taiwan in exchange for help building his own manufacturing plants? He’s running at ten nm, so four generations back, but still, those are respectable chips. I bet you could get him to build some systems with no backdoors, courtesy of a System backed oath.”

“He made an agreement with the ROC to not sell them to anyone else, but apparently the way the language was worded didn’t exclude sales in other dimensions,” Dave continued happily.

“The Terran Confederacy goes on our list as a potential source of microprocessors,” Bob shook his head.

“So, Bob,” Amanda began, “while I was handling your facebook page, which is mostly accepting friend requests, I found a request from a group that had named itself ‘Please help us.’ It’s from a group of kids in Dharavi, which is apparently a suburb of Mumbai. They’re asking you to help them get clean water.” She shook her head. “The utilities there were pretty shoddy before the integration and afterward, not much effort was put into fixing it. The kids said that they’ve managed to save up enough crystals for a dozen rituals to gather and purify water in large cisterns they’ve built, but they don’t have anyone with enough power to cast them, and the waiting list to get someone from the government to do it is fourteen months. They’re spending almost all of their crystals on low level rituals to create water.”

“My gut reaction is to jump over and throw a few rituals,” Bob said. “But, I have to ask, is this another situation like with the elderly being ignored? Should I be communicating with the government so they can fix the problem? It sounds like the government knows already.”

He shook his head. “The problem is that everyone started at zero,” he sighed. “Or at least so many people started at zero that the few who were able to level up aren’t able to make enough of a difference. I think we should have brought people out of stasis in groups, leveled them up on Thayland, and then sent them home. As it stands, everyone who came back to Earth at level zero has just been fucked.”

“You did the best you could, which was better than most,” Jessica said softly, laying a hand on his arm and giving it a gentle squeeze. “You weren’t in charge, and this isn’t on you.”

“Let’s just jump over,” Eddi said. “It’ll take the afternoon, and we were just going to be lounging around anyway. We’ll go to this Dharavi place, knock out a few rituals, and try some new food. If it triggers another tide, we can let the people in charge take care of it.”

“I agree,” Wayna said. “I can’t imagine not having clean water.”

Bob looked around the room, receiving nods and thumb ups from the group.

Mohinder Naresan exited the Dungeon, dutifully paying the soldier at the entrance eighty of the one hundred crystals he’d earned, who then updated his card to reflect his delve and the rations he’d earned.

He joined his friends, waiting for the rest of the group. There were ten of them, the maximum size group the Dungeon would allow. They’d chosen to remain at level zero, because the government allowed level zero’s to delve more often, as it didn’t drain as much of the Dungeon’s energy.

There were two Dungeons in Dharavi, both of which had been designated by the government as level zero Dungeons. If he leveled up, not only would he be able to delve less frequently, but he’d have to travel a lot further to reach the nearest Dungeon with a higher maximum level.

Despite the restrictions, Mohinder felt like he was making progress. He was taking care of himself and his sister, who wasn’t old enough to delve yet, and he was almost a month ahead on their rations. Today was a milestone, as he wasn’t able to absorb any more crystals. It was well known that you could absorb crystals one at a time until you had enough to level up, and it was further known that you could use any crystal to level up until you reached level five and accepted a path. What was less well known, or maybe just not practiced often, was that you could absorb enough crystals to reach level five while you were still level zero.

At the moment, crystals remained more valuable than levels. While it would be nice to not have to fight dog sized lizards with the sticks they picked up in the Dungeon, he wouldn’t be able to keep his sister fed if he leveled up that far. There were just too many people and the Dungeons only had so much energy.

Now, Mohinder would be able to have his sister absorb ten of his crystals. It would take eight months or so, but she’d be ready to jump to level five herself. The trick was keeping one of them at level zero, and he would rather she have fewer delves if that meant she would have the abilities to protect herself.

As the last member of his group finished up with the soldier, they headed back to their home, which was only an hour away at this time of day.

Delving the Dungeon was a double edged sword. On the one hand, it provided the credit vouchers that guarunteed his ability to feed himself and his sister. If he wasn’t the delving the Dungeon, he would have to work at one of the many tanneries or sewing shops that littered Dharavi, which was hard, brutal work that paid very little. His father had died when he was very young, and his mother had worked long hours as a seamstress to keep her two children fed. After the integration, they’d returned to find Dharavi even more ruined than it had been, and his mother had been afraid of delving the Dungeon, not wanting to orphan her children. Mohinder thought she would have been better off delving the Dungeon, as she’d died in a building collapse two weeks after they’d come back.

Mohinder had lied about his age, but not about being an orphan or having a younger sister to look after. He didn’t know if the officer who had given him his delving license had believed his lie, or had respected his desire to keep what family he had left close to him, but regardless he’d received his license and begun delving four days later.

That was also the first time he’d been robbed. Two men had thrown him into an alley, and pressed a knife to his throat, demanding his crystals. He’d given them up, and learned the valuable lesson that he wasn’t safe leaving the Dungeon, as criminals would mark who exited, relaying the information to their cohorts deeper in the city, away from the soldiers, so they could rob them of their earnings.

Moving as a group of ten prevented that. They’d been jumped twice, but both times the boys had fought them off, taking a few small wounds, but demonstrating that the Dungeon had conditioned them for violence, and any assailants would pay in blood to rob them.

Once they’d reached their neighborhood, the boys split up, with Mohinder rushing to the room he shared with his sister.

“Mohinder!” His sister, Shanti said as she stood up from the bottom bunk that was her bed and rushed over to hug him. “How was your delve? You didn’t get hurt, did you?” She ducked under his arm and circle him, peering at his arms and legs critically.

“No, it went well, none of us were injured,” he assured her.

“You got a message while you were out!” Shanti said as she dragged him over to the small stand that held the ancient laptop he’d managed to salvage a few months after they’d returned.

He peered at the screen, ignoring the line of black on the right hand side. It showed the facebook page he had made a week ago with his group and some of his neighbors, asking the famous American who had worked to save everyone for help. He’d made it when he’d read about the guy saving the elderly, but the page he’d sent the friend request to hadn’t been used in over a year, so he hadn’t held out a lot of hope.

He stared at the screen. His friend request had been accepted, and he’d gotten a message from him.

“We’re on our way.”

“We really should think about having some sort of atmospheric craft,” Dave mused.

“He always wanted to get his pilot’s license,” Amanda confided in the group.

“He’s not wrong, though,” Mike grumbled. “We can’t exactly set the Freedom down just anywhere, and she’s not exactly the cheapest thing to move around. Having some sort of shuttle craft isn’t the worst idea.”

“I think this is awesome,” Eddi said enthusiastically, patting his Pterosaur on the neck, receiving an affirming call from the hawk next to him, which was actually Wayna, his girlfriend, who had transformed to join them on their descent.

Bob had provided eight Pterosaurs by way of his Eternal Servant skill, then summoned one for himself. Eddi and Amanda had summoned their own, while both Bailli and Erick were perfectly capable of flying on their own.

The Pterosaurs were larger than anything that had ever actually flown the skies of Earth, with wingspans breaking fifty feet, but they were still single passenger affairs.

They were rapidly descending into Mumbai, aiming for the center of Dharavi in the hopes that their contact would have responded their message. If not, they’d ask around for the nearest water source and go to work.

They were getting close enough to the ground to be able to see that the streets were packed, when a figure flew into the middle of their formation.

“Please halt your descent, and identify yourselves,” the man stated. He was wearing a uniform and looked like a member of India’s armed services, not that Bob had any way to identify him.

Bob held up his hand and the group came to sort of hover.

“I’m Robert Whitman, and these are my friends,” Bob said gesturing toward the group. “We received a request for humanitarian aid from a group of children in Dharavi, specifically requesting that we help them with the potable water situation.”

The man had drifted closer, and Bob was able to see him more clearly. He was in his thirties, which meant he hadn’t reincarnated yet, clean shaven, with bright hazel eyes and deeply tanned skin. “Ah, yes, Mr. Whitman. I am Captain Suresh. While I wish I could say that a group of flying dinosaurs is an oddity, our world has become one of miracles and wonders. Still, we were not expecting you, and I’m afraid that you’ll have to enter India like anyone else. I assume that you’ve summoned those creatures, and will dismiss them once you’ve reached the ground?”

“Yes,” Bob nodded.

“Excellent, I’ll bring you directly to the concours then, if you’d please follow me,” Captain Suresh said as he began to fly towards a large airport.

“Looks like we have to go through customs,” Bob relayed to the group. “This nice gentleman is Captain Suresh, and he’s instructed us to follow him.”

“You know, half of us don’t even have identification, at least not Earth identification,” Amanda said. “I know I didn’t bring my passport.”

“Do they still use passports?” Bob asked. “I mean, you can just display your name with the System. There’s also a user identification tag there as well, which you’d probably want, as I know I’m not the only Robert Whitman.”

“That’s a good question, one which we’ll have the answer to shortly,” Dave said as they watched the man descend onto the concrete between two large passenger jets.

The group landed, one by one, with Bob landing last, at which point he dismissed his summons.

“Excellent, I’m afraid we don’t have a good way to get you up to the concours, so you’ll need to follow me through what is normally an restricted to terminal personnel. Please follow me closely, and don’t wander,” Captain Suresh advised, motioning them to follow him through a set of double doors that led into the terminal.

The group followed him through a maze of corridors, before taking a flight of stairs, where they found themselves on the concours of the Mumbai International Airport. Captain Suresh waved his hand, beckoning a security officer over. He quickly explained the situation, advising the officer that this was thatRobert Whitman, before turning and smiling at the group. “Please, follow Officer Ahjit, he’ll escort you to the arrival desk, where you can enter the country properly.”

“Thank you, Captain Suresh,” Bob replied, before turning to Officer Ahjit. “Please, lead the way.”

Officer Ahjit appeared surprised to hear perfect Hindi from Bob, but smile professionally, and gestured for them to follow.

“Yes, that is Mr. Whitman,” Elania sighed into the phone as she looked at her tablet.

“Honestly, the man has never demonstrated an agenda beyond helping people. If someone in your country asked him to help them with their lack of clean water, then he’s there to do exactly that. The question is, will he keep bouncing around, fixing that same problem everywhere it exists? I’ve discovered that if you acknowledge the problem and put a plan in place to fix it, he’ll either work with you, and leave it alone, trusting that you can fix it,” she explained.

She listened for a moment.

“I feel confident that Mr. Whitman will not act aggressively unless his group is attacked. Given his stature, I’m not sure who exactly would attack him,” she replied. “Although, to be fair, our most recent intelligence places Mr. Whitman at tier eight, level forty-two, which means he is nearing what we would consider a global threat.”

She continued to listen.

“Yes, Prime Minister, I appreciate the opportunity to consult with you on this matter,” Elania said. “If you have any other questions, I’ll be available.”

The President shook her head as the call ended, looking across her desk at her chief of staff.

“We don’t have any water issues, do we?” She asked.

“Nope, we’re solid there,” Taylor replied.

“Good.”