“Carl,” she said. “Thank you. I asked you to take care of my girl, and you did. But you did more than take care of her. You helped her level and taught her how to protect herself. I am in your debt.”
“How did you find us?” I asked. “And how are you even here?” I looked at Katia. “I didn’t realize others could come into our space.”
Katia smiled sheepishly. “Since I have a personal space attached to the whole, I have the ability to allow groups in. I whitelisted all the daughters.”
Hekla nodded. “We came through the employee portal thanks to your information, Carl. Sadie cast her Glass Prison spell on the Kravyad, and we all made it through. We were at substation H. We hiked up to station 60. The station was barren. Well, mostly barren. A few NPCs had gathered, looking for their families. There’s a switch there that allows you to choose which of the 12 Homeward Bound platforms to get upon. Katia said you’d come in at trainyard E, so it was easy to find you from there.”
“Wait, really?” I said, this new information momentarily causing me to forget the potential danger of this situation. We can use Station 60 to get onto any track. I held up my hand as I sent a mass message out informing everybody of this information. And then I sent a quick, additional note to Imani and Elle, telling them what was going on with Hekla and her team.
I caught sight of a daughter with a familiar name. Eva. Katia’s friend. She stood slightly back, just behind Hekla’s right side. The green, opalescent woman was a four-armed cobra-headed creature, similar to Manasa the singer, though the coloring was different, and she did not have a naga body. Also, unlike Manasa, this woman was small, only about five-feet tall. She stood on two, regular legs, though she was covered in scales. She had a pair of wide sabers over her back, placed in an X formation, and she wore green, shiny leather armor that almost looked like a tracksuit. The woman glared at me, crossing both pairs of arms. I quickly examined her properties.
Crawler #9,077,240. “Eva Sigrid.”
Level 27.
Race: Half Nagini, Half-Orc
Class: Nimblefoot Enforcer.
The woman had one large skull and three smaller skulls over her head, indicating she had killed thirteen people. Katia had said she’d only killed one, which suggested those additional 12 skulls were a recent addition. Looking about, I didn’t see any other skulls over the crew, including over Hekla. This is the one who does her dirty work.
“This is a very impressive space,” Hekla said. “We combined two personal spaces, but we don’t have any of these upgrades.” She looked at Donut. “We can’t even whitelist visitors until we buy one more space. Your manager has proved to be very helpful. It’s too bad you lost him. When is he coming back?”
“Two days and 18 hours,” Donut said. “Carl, maybe we can combine safe rooms with Hekla’s team! Do we have to all be in the same party for it to work?”
Goddamnit, Donut. “Uh, I think maybe we do,” I said. “But I’m not certain.”
Carclass="underline" Donut. Don’t say stuff like that. Let’s wait to see what Hekla wants before we all jump into bed together.
Donut: OMG YOU SHOULD DATE HEKLA. THE AUDIENCE WOULD LOVE THAT. THINK OF THE VIEWS.
At that moment, I had to confront something that had been at the back of my mind since the moment Odette had cautioned me about Hekla. Why hadn’t you warned Donut about what Hekla really wants? Why hadn’t you told Mordecai?
I knew the answer, I always knew the answer, but I hadn’t admitted it to myself.
You think she would be better off with Hekla’s team. You think Mordecai would think so, too. That’s why you never told them. It had been nagging me for a while, but I’d kept pushing it to the back of my mind. Stupid. Self-destructive. It was also par for the course. I thought of what the late Frank had said to me, about being responsible for someone else.
You don’t understand what that responsibility means, what a weight that is on your shoulders. And when you fail, it’s like being crushed, constantly crushed, only you don’t die. And the pain never stops. It just keeps coming and coming.
But seeing that woman, Eva, with all the skulls over her head, any thoughts I had of Donut being better off fled. For all I knew, each and every one of those skulls was someone who had deserved it. Or maybe it had been a mercy kill like with Imani. But my instincts told me, no. No, no, no.
I could see both Hekla’s and Eva’s eyes flash, and I knew they were talking, plotting.
Carclass="underline" Don’t let Mongo out. These guys are looking a little jumpy, and I don’t want any accidents.
Donut: WE ARE IN A SAFE ROOM. AND EVERYBODY LOVES MONGO. THESE ARE OUR FRIENDS, CARL.
Carclass="underline" Just keep him locked up for now. If there’s a scuffle, we don’t yet know if he’ll freeze or teleport away, and this is not the place to find out.
Hekla smiled. “Now is not the time for such discussions, little Donut. But we wanted to come by and pick up our lost little lamb, and we wanted to see what a wonderful job you and your Carl have done for her. But we are also in a hurry.”
Donut beamed. Katia appeared to be wavering, like she wanted to say something. If Katia left and disengaged her personal space, it would severely alter the nature of the room. Mordecai would lose access to his space. We’d lose the training room. We’d spent so much time working together, it seemed like such a waste.
“I’m afraid there is little time to chat,” Hekla said. “We have an issue, and it involves some people I believe you know.”
Here it comes, I thought. The cheese on the trap.
“Katia is but one of our lost lambs. We have a small cluster of friends who have collected with a larger group. They are gathered at station 101 on the Vermillion line. It is a significant group of people. A thousand at least. The trains are stopped on all three lines that service the station. They are stuck. Mobs are swarming all around them, and they are fighting them off. They need our help. We are going to rescue them, and I am asking the Royal Court of Princess Donut to help us do that.”
On my shoulder, Donut started to tremble with excitement. She worshipped Hekla, and I knew the thought of fighting alongside the shieldmaiden was a dream of hers.
“Tell them to hike to station 102,” I said. “Go into the robot room and ride the conveyor back.” But even as I said it, I knew that wouldn’t be feasible. Not when there were a thousand people. It had taken Imani’s crew a few hours to gather enough of the rolling cages to get her team down to the trainyard. She’d said it was difficult to extract them from the conveyor tracks without breaking them.
“They’re boxed in,” Hekla said. “There’s plenty of fighters in the group to keep the monsters back, but they keep coming. The Vermillion line is clear, for now, but they’re being inundated with mobs from the other two platforms at the station. I have the boss map from the Vermillion line, and the track is swarmed. A massive herd is making their way up the line and will be upon them soon. So the crawlers can’t just hike down the line. It’s at least 150 kilometers from 101 down to the closest stairwell at 72, and if they have to fight the whole time, they will never make it. There is a ghoul generator at stop 72, similar to the one at 12. Even Lucia could not hold the line against them. There’s also something going on at 75. And that’s all in addition to the regular mobs suffering from the DTs that are coming from the other two platforms. Any hour now we’ll be seeing whatever stage three looks like.”