Maxi talked with her mom for a while, going through the knowledge her mom had as the former head of the Paranormal Investigator Branch. Her mom had an apt analogy. It was like the Director of the CIA during the cold war spilling their secrets, most of it was stuff that seemed obvious. It was reading classified World War II documents, things that seemed inevitable given the circumstances.
Maxi was thankful for Farhad’s presence because both her and Tara could get heated to the point where they were just yelling at each other and not really listening. His presence had calmed that roiling family tension. She loved her mother dearly, but Tara could also be thorn in her side. Her father had always been the peacemaker in the family, and maybe it was mutual trauma of losing him that made them take it out on each other. At least Farhad being there had allowed her to keep focus on productive future minded conversations rather than butting heads over old grievances.
She had learned new information she didn’t know before, one that her “mentor” Ted, didn’t even know. For example, he thought the quest system was just a way of allocating tasks. Rather than a boss telling an employee they need to construct an important presentation for clients, a quest would be created so anyone in the company could make that presentation and reap the rewards for the quest.
Rather than have employees whose job was to create presentations all day, anyone with the chops, the time, and the will could do it. Decentralized workflow was the term. An employee earns, as much as they work, and works when they want with the rewards increasing the more specialized the expertise needed to complete the task with product sorting being low payout to large scale engineering projects and monster fighting being some of the highest.
However, what Maxi or Ted didn’t know is how those quests were created or who decided to hand out quests to Ank, the Statistician of the Power Twelve who made the company lots of money in Wall Street that they’d then use to fund less profitable quests like monster fighting. Her mom knew, because that hadn’t changed since she was in power.
It was Terry, or at least a Terry equivalent. While her Terry, the one who was accessible by every employee in the company as their friendly HR Assistant was entirely allocated to employee relations, another Terry, located in an offsite secure location (company code for another dimension), coordinated quests between dimensions and pushed them out to every world.
If a monster attack was detected in Peru, the transdimensional Terry would assess the threat, create the quest parameters, and spit it out to the Earth queue where the Branches would attempt to snag them. The same system managed individual employees creating quests calling for tech support or asking their coworkers for magical sticky notes.
Ted made it seem like he was creating Generalist quests for his Branch when he was really no more than a quest broker, as Branch executives always got first dibs before the quest would go to the all employee queue. However when life was in danger as monster quests often were, they usually were pushed out to the entire company thus allowing her to get some before the PIs did. In some cases there was no limit to how many teams could accept the quests, which those contributing the most taking the lion’s share of the rewards.
Thus why the PIs were getting irritated that Maxi’s Pool was encroaching on their territory. It had always been the unwritten rule of the company that the Branches take the fighting quests, as all the major fighting ones had people watching the queue 24/7. The Sales Associates and the Paranormal Investigators were always in a rivalry to get to the job first. Maxi was disrupting that balance because when she, Farhad, Patti, or Flav accepted the quest, it would count towards their branches. While Ted didn’t think it was wise for Maxi to take fighting quests, he didn’t complain either because he got a cut of her rewards. It also explained why the Sales Associates weren’t complaining about Daisuke going rogue and working outside the branch because his wins were their wins.
The only ones to lose were the PIs. By trying to save as many people as she could, she was disrupting a status quo that had been around since her mother’s time. Let the branches do the fighting, and everyone else made the money so they can do their job.
Maxi didn’t care in the least that she put a target on her back for disrupting the pissing contest the branches had for who killed more monsters. She didn’t care about money, power, or prestidge. Her success, at the end of each day, was lives saved. She felt the company had lost sight of that and everyone putting their heads down and saying, “it could be worse,” had warped the original mission.
November first came, and a new raid was announced. She was aware that raids were simply a stop gap from multidimensionals from decimating their enemies. It gave each company a fighting chance as each boss's power was restricted based on the sum total of levels of each employee in the company.
November’s villain of the month had shown up in the lobby of the company building. Terry signaled that it was time for her Office Pool to go to the raid, and they readied themselves with their cheap to replace rather than expensive to repair equipment. Farhad loaded his gun with bullets he could buy at the local gun store that was a fraction of the price ones with magical properties could cost. Though magic was a loose term. A +5 Bullet could just be something from another dimension, a “secret sauce” that made it better than anything made on Earth.
They piled into the elevators and made their way to the Lobby that was determined to be the battleground for this month. The Antitrust’s Lawyer was actually in the home dimension of the law firm Alfred, Alfred, and Alfred that had attempted to take the company down with the legal lethal means. Magic elevators meant that employees could travel to other dimensions and not even know it, especially when there weren’t windows. Now that she was cleared for the alternative dimension secret, she realized that most people probably had traveled to another universe without even knowing it. She still was pretty sure there was a bathroom dimension despite assurances otherwise.
Being that they were going to the lobby of their own building. There were plenty of windows with views of Manhattan street. Most of the twelve elevator doors opened at once and teams stepped out from everyone except for Tier 4 through 1, Tier 6 and 8. After the teams stepped out, Tier 9 through 12 opened again, as well as Tier 7. Maxi had a notification in her eye piece to wait for the teams to assemble before proceeding to the battleground. The next round of players were just tier 10 through 12.
As the teams came out crowding the area near the elevator shafts. Maxi got a notification that the lobby was closed till further notice and employees should use the Water Street entrance. Maxi hadn’t been in the lobby much since joining the company when the internal transit system could take her anywhere she wanted to go with an elevator. After a few more rounds of less and less elevators bringing more Office Pools, Tier 12 was the last elevator in operation after about three more teams came out.
They were given directions to proceed forward, and were greeted with a peculiar sight. There was a picket line of protesters blocking all the entrances and exits to the building. Compared the lawyers from Antitrust lawyers raid, the protestors were grubby long haired hippies who looked no more dangerous than Mr. Jones on floor 5 of her apartment who always smelled like weed and wore John Lennon glasses and tye-dye panchos.
However, there was something off about the crowd. Their signs were generic, and said things like “FOR SHAME” and “STOP NOW”. She had even seen one that said, “DOWN WITH OPP” which made her chuckle. They were signs that weren’t really pertinent to anything the company did. It felt as if they were riled up citizens protesting nothing in particular.
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Maxi had a friend like that in college. He was a guy that grew up in a strict religious family that felt like they were ripped out of a 1980’s movie where they thought dancing was temptation by the devil. After he was free of his family’s grasp, he went radical in just about every way possible and joined every protest he could because his rage against the establishment felt like it was more directed at his parents.
Maxi understood him, as she had harbored some anger and rage against her parents. However, unlike her friend who’d probably never be able to reconnect to his parents, Maxi felt like the relationship between her and her mom was never better. With the secret Tara had been harboring out, they had more real conversations then Maxi could ever remember.
There wasn’t any indication where the higher Tiers should be. They pushed forward as a group into the lobby and the lone security guard normally on duty had evacuated his desk. The ranged power players began making their way into the security desk while the tanks blocked the entrance. Other lower tier teams began to form a meat shield between the desk and the protestors that had assembled.
The only other objects in the room were fake plants and a couple couches and chairs, some soulless corporate artwork that was probably mass produced for generic, inoffensive office decor. Maxi eyed a corner of the lobby that was far enough from the protestors, and the players that there would be a gap in the fighting. She signaled her team to form over there.
As they broke from the group, other players scowled when they bucked the convention of the lower tiers acting as meatshields for the upper tiers. It wasn’t the first time, and wouldn’t be the last, but with no obvious boss among the protestors, Maxi had a gut feeling that clumping wasn’t the best strategy.
Daisuke and Farhad turned the couch in the lobby over to act as a barrier between them and the protesters. It wouldn’t do anything against ranged attacks, but after the group added some of the fake plants and chairs, the barricade would at least slow down the melee fighters.
A few of the lower tier teams saw what they were doing and broke from the main group. One of the players from the Tier 5 group called to the people heading towards Maxi’s corner of the battle, “Cowards.”
Maxi let the comment slide off her back. They had a month to clear the raid, and this was the first day. If the strategy of protecting the power players was the best one, she would position herself differently next time. However, by being as far from the action as possible, she might be able to glean something she wouldn’t if she died in the first few seconds of battle.
The players outnumbered the protestors, and the lobby had massive glass walls in the front with clear views to the street. Maxi remembered it being one way glass and people wouldn’t be able to see inside. As good as Janitorial was at planting the right suggestions to traumatized people, a battle in the lobby would be noticed if bystanders could watch it from the outside.
There were no more protestors waiting on the outside of the building. Unlike the lawyer who seemed to have an endless supply of underlings, these people were a fixed number with no leader. Maxi had the realization that they were all bosses when a buzzer sounded in the lobby signaling the start of the raid.
Firebolts, lightning, machine guns, plasma rounds, and grenades were hurled from the center of the players assembled in the security station. They ranged from people in full power armor to mages with midnight blue ropes and pointy hats as if they were auditioning for the part of wizard in 1960’s retro piece about Lord of the Rings.
In one fluid motion, the protestors condensed into a tortoise shelf formation with their signs acting as shields, and the initial volley of raw firepower harmlessly bounced off the formation. The enemy marched forward as one tight unit. When the dome of the impenetrable signs reached the front line of yellow shirts, the players chopped at the signs with their swords and electricity shot through their body, and they slumped over dead.
Meanwhile the ranged power players weren’t getting through. Once the melee fighters realized they would get shocked, a few had attempted to lock arms and make a human wall. The signs parted by a minuscule amount and shurikens launched forth taking out employees.
“What’s the call?” Daisuke asked Maxi.
She had been concentrating on the battle and didn’t realize that all the Lus3rs and the few teams to join were all looking at her. The expressions on their faces were probably same ones people had over the years at battles like the Alamo where when they realized they were fucked.
“Rearrange the barricade,” Maxi said. “Spread them out like when you played floor is lava as a kid.”
“I never played floor is lava,” one yahoo said from one of the other teams.
“You know what I mean,” Maxi said. “Do it.”
They scrambled to break down their barrier and turned it into an obstacle course. Meanwhile the phalanx of prestors shocked and pierced their way to the edge of the security desk, never breaking their defense even stepping over bodies. They climbed on top of the desk and over without a break in their defense. Even the power melee players couldn’t survive the shock when their weapons connected to the signs.
WIth the employee defenses broken, the ranged fighters went down. Even the one who had called them cowards. Once the bulk was down, the survivors fled for the elevators. The protestors turned towards Maxi’s field of chairs, plants, and couches.
The elevator access was cut off and the janitorial fee returning their bodies to their Office Pool res chairs was going to be hefty because they were collectively higher level than they were compared to the first time Maxi died in a raid. The fee per person was decided on the collective level of her Office Pool, and she was newb the first time it happened. Luckily there would be no equipment return fees on top of the ones for their corpse because Belinda hadn’t brought her clockwork critters, and pets couldn’t be resurrected so she left Dalek in the shop. Something about the chairs was fine tuned for human life. There would be no pet cemeteries bringing back cats anytime soon.
The phalanx marched towards Maxi’s group. As they hit the first obstacle, the other Office Pools who had thrown in their lot with Maxi ran for the elevator doors. Shurikens made short work of the players attempting to flee.
“Hold,” Maxi yelled, and her team stood fast.
The protestor went over the obstacles that reminded her of ocean waves on a crowded beach. There was flow to the group like when they climbed over the desk. However, unlike the security station, the chairs, plants, and couches were at irregular intervals. It was just enough that the sign they were using would briefly show an arm or a leg. It was an opening she could use if she timed it just right.
She concentrated using the breathing techniques Swami Robinson had been teaching her, and focused with the same sense of the serenity her sword teacher had shown her. There would be a moment where she could strike, right as they went over a large toppled lobby chair.
She saw the moment, an arm briefly visible. She lunged forward in the astral plane holding a spear like she was a Spartan soldier leaping for the kill and it connected to the guy’s arm. To her surprise, the man screamed and dropped his sign leaving a brief opening in the tortoise shell. The others didn’t waste the moment.
Farhad shot several rounds with a pistol, and Daisuke whipped out a shotgun from an invisible hostler on his back and blasted the guy. Flav shot a crossbow, and Patti had some psychic force lightning powers going on as she lit up the guy like she was Palpatine trying to impress a date. Maxi was going to have to give the Customer Care Advocate skill tree another glance.
Belinda hummed a tune while she constructed some pieces of equipment together that grew in size when she retrieved them from her backpack while Maxi slammed the exposed guy again and again with Mind Shards. Their collective firepower was just enough to prevent the others from closing the gap as the protestor was being peppered with everything her Office Pool could muster. Despite not being able to close the hole in their defense. The phalanx was pushing forward.
Maxi was starting to wonder if Belinda would get shot in before they would all be murdered by the tortoiseshell when she realized what Belinda was making, it was a gatling gun. Just as Maxi was running out of psy and others were low on ammunition. Their inventor woman cooed and purred as she stepped in front of the group with her weapon that was three times the size of her. She cackled with glee, and she lit up the man.
His body shook and fell to the ground, forcing the Phalanx to reconfigure, which was enough time for them to run, and Maxi signaled their retreat. They were out of effective shuriken range by the time the protestors had reorganized to account for their fallen comrade.
They piled into the elevator cheering, and patting each on the back when a message appeared in Maxi’s field of vision
QUEST (RAID): DEFEAT PROTESTORS.
GOAL: Participate in daily battle.
One protester eliminated. Protesters left: 99/100.
Lus3rs killed one boss.
Time to next raid 23:59:37 with the seconds ticking down.
Individual Awards: +5 Levels. +1 Speed. +4 Creativity. +10 Stats. +20 SP. 10000 credits. Shirt of Growth is now +22.
Their glee was short lived. Even though Farhad had said “Office Pool” when they entered the lift, the door opened to a different location. It was time for Maxi to take a drink or pull out her sword. She was hoping it’d be the former, but assumed it would be the later.
