CHAPTER 28

  Resist

  The underground dining hall was cramped and smelled like boiled roots. Bash sat at a rough wooden table and was joined by his companions only a few minutes later. Nora gave him a suspicious look but kept her silence.

  Bash was starving, but it was hard to have an appetite when every person in the room kept stealing glances.

  "That's him," someone whispered behind him. "The player. The one who broke the contracts."

  "I heard he freed one hundred people in one night."

  "Thirty," another voice corrected. "But still. A player who actually helps."

  Bash hunched lower over his bowl, hoping no one would notice the changes, willing himself to become invisible. It wasn't working.

  Luis, naturally, was having the time of his life. "Bash, my friend!" He clapped Bash on the shoulder. "You're a hero! Look at all these people! They love you!"

  "Luis, I swear to god…" Bash groaned, pushing something gray around his bowl with a bent spoon.

  "No, no, seriously!" Luis spread his arms wide, addressing the room like a carnival barker. "This man right here? This humble, smelly, poorly dressed man? He is the real deal! A genuine, certified, grade-A hero!"

  A few people actually started nodding. Someone in the back gave a hesitant thumbs-up.

  Bash wanted to crawl under the table and die. Again. "I'm going to kill you… slowly. With this spoon."

  Across the table, Nora watched him with an unreadable expression. Her eyes tracked his every movement, assessing, calculating.

  Bash caught her staring and felt something click in his memory. "It's not polite to stare," he said flatly.

  Nora's eyebrow arched. For a moment, something flickered across her face. Surprise, maybe. Or amusement. Then she looked down at her bowl and resumed eating in silence.

  Patrick had already finished his meal. His empty bowl sat pushed to the side, and his arms were crossed over his chest. He watched Bash with the patient disappointment of a parent waiting for a child to stop throwing a tantrum.

  "Eat your food," Patrick said.

  Bash looked down at the gray slop. Looked up at the roomful of people still sneaking glances at him. Looked at Luis, who was now waving at admirers like a pageant queen.

  He stood up. "I need air." Before anyone could respond, he was moving. Out the door. Down the corridor. Left turn. Right turn. Another left. He didn't know where he was going and didn't care. He just needed to not be there, not be looked at, analyzed like he was some kind of freak, or expected to be something he wasn't.

  He found a dark corner where two tunnels met, a forgotten junction that smelled like damp stone and old regrets. He leaned against the wall, pressing his forehead to the cool rock, and tried to remember how to breathe normally, before his evolution.

  Hero. They called me a hero. Memories flashed, the priest's neck snapping. The bone punching through skin. Slowly strangling Richard when he could have finished it quickly. Some hero.

  A tug at his shirt. Bash looked down. The same little boy from yesterday stood there, the one who'd fetched Luis. Wide eyes. Serious expression. Professional urgency.

  "Jill needs you! It's urgent! Hurry!"

  Bash just sighed. He was wise to this game now. "Fine. Whatever. Lead the way."

  The kid took off running, bare feet slapping against stone, vanishing around a corner before Bash had taken two steps. Bash sighed again. "Seriously? Does no one in this place ever just walk?"

  He gave chase, his new form and enhanced stats making it easy to keep pace despite the kid's head start. They wound through corridors he didn't recognize, past alcoves and storage rooms and clusters of people who all stopped to stare as he passed.

  More whispers. More pointing. More of that awful, unearned reverence. Finally, the kid skidded to a stop outside a doorway and held out his hand, palm up.

  Bash fished out a coin and dropped it into the kid's waiting fingers. The boy inspected it, nodded solemnly, and vanished back into the shadows.

  "Little extortionist," Bash muttered, but he was almost smiling. He stepped inside.

  The room was small but felt important. A heavy wooden table dominated the center, its surface scarred with knife marks and covered in papers. Candles flickered in iron holders, casting long shadows across hand-drawn maps of the city above.

  His companions were already there. Patrick stood against the wall, positioned where he could see both doors. Luis lounged in a chair, somehow looking relaxed despite everything. Nora hovered near the exit, ready to bolt.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Two strangers sat at the table. A broad-shouldered woman with gray streaking her braided hair, arms crossed, expression unimpressed. Beside her, a wiry man with nervous energy, fingers drumming against the wood.

  Jill gestured. “Bash, this is Marlene and Connell. They lead cells in the eastern and northern districts."

  Marlene looked Bash up and down. "So this is the miracle worker." She sounded unimpressed.

  Connell stared, his drumming fingers going still. “He’s younger than I expected.”

  “I moisturize,” Bash said flatly. As usual, no one laughed. He was getting used to that.

  “First,” Jill said, turning to Bash, “Thank you. What you did last night will be remembered. Those people now have choices they didn’t have a day ago.”

  “Can we skip the gratitude part?” Bash said. “I’m really bad at accepting compliments.”

  “You’ll have to get used to it,” Marlene said. Her voice was deep, steady. “Word spreads fast down here. By now, everyone in the underground knows your name.”

  Connell leaned forward. “She’s not exaggerating. We’ve waited years for someone who could do what you just did. Years of watching contracts tightening, hope bleeding out one day at a time.” His voice cracked slightly. “And then you walk in and just... break it. Like it’s nothing.”

  “I’m not some chosen one.” Bash said, more sharply than he intended. “I’m just a guy who got lucky.”

  Patrick grunted from the wall. “He’s right. Though I would say his luck is questionable.”

  “See? Thank you, Patrick. Always honest.”

  Jill let the moment pass, then gestured to the table. “Sit. We have things to discuss, and not much time.”

  Bash dropped into a chair, grateful for something to do besides accept praise. The others arranged themselves around the table.

  Jill waited until everyone was ready, then closed the door. The click of the latch felt final.

  Turning, Jill spread her hands across one of the larger maps. It showed more than just Londonland. Much more. Bash recognized the rough outline of continents, ten of them arranged in a loose circle around a large central sea.

  “You’ve been focused on survival,” Jill said. “That’s smart. But you need to understand what you’ve stepped into.”

  She tapped on three continents on the eastern edge of the map. “These are the Free States. The last holdouts against Maximus’s expansion.”

  Bash studied the shapes. Each continent was roughly the same size, scattered around in a fairly symmetric pattern.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “Non-human?”

  “Originally, yes. Elves, dwarves, and half-orcs. But that was before.” Jill’s finger traced the seven continents under Maximus’s control. “When these fell, refugees flooded east. Anyone who could run, including humans.”

  “So now it’s a coalition,” Patrick said. Not a question.

  Jill nodded. “Fragile. These continents all have scripted history. Old wars, old grudges. But Maximus upset the balance and gave them a common enemy.”

  “Nothing unites people like a shared hatred,” Marlene added.

  Bash leaned back, processing. The scale was staggering. He’d been thinking in terms of towns and cities. But this was a world war, and he’d stumbled into it with nothing but brass knuckles and bad jokes.

  “The Free States,” Bash said slowly. “How are they able to resist?”

  “Geography, mostly,” Connell shrugged. “Also, Half-orcs are just really, really hard to kill.”

  “But it won’t last,” Jill said. “Maximus has time. Resources. Every Upload he controls is another body for his armies. Every year, the Free States lose ground. Slowly, but inevitably.”

  Nora spoke for the first time, her voice quiet. “What about Uploads? Are there others in the Free States?”

  Jill hesitated. “We don’t know. Communication is... difficult. We work in cells. Isolated groups, minimal contact. If one falls, the others survive.”

  “Smart,” Patrick said. “Standard resistance doctrine.”

  “You sound like you’ve seen this before,” Marlene said, eyeing him.

  Patrick’s jaw tightened. “Different life. Different war.” He didn’t elaborate, but something in his tone suggested trenches and body counts, the kind of knowledge that didn’t come from construction or guard duty.

  Patrick had layers he hadn’t shown yet.

  “The point,” Jill continued, “is that we’re not alone. The Londonland resistance is one piece of a larger network. We have contacts across other Maximus controlled continents. And yes, we’ve managed to get messages to the Free States. Occasionally. When the routes aren’t blocked.”

  “So there’s hope,” Luis said, his voice bright. “Real hope. Not just us against the world.”

  “Hope is a resource,” Jill said. “Like food or weapons. We spend it carefully.”

  She turned to Bash, and her expression shifted. More direct. More calculating. “I understand you have plans to go west.”

  Bash glanced at Nora, who had gone very still. “We have unfinished business,” he said carefully.

  “I overheard your conversation earlier,” Jill said. “And I want you to know, your goals and ours align perfectly.”

  Bash waited.

  Jill continued. “Chucky controls the Plantations. Thousands of acres, worked by Upload slaves. His operation feeds half of Maximus’s armies. Grain, vegetables, livestock. Without those supplies, the war effort slows.”

  “So Chucky isn’t just a monster,” Bash said. “He’s a strategically important monster.”

  “Exactly.” Jill leaned forward. “Kill Chucky, and you don’t just get revenge. You cripple Maximus’s logistics. His troops go hungry. His expansion slows. The Free States get breathing room.”

  Patrick spoke up. “Supply lines win wars. Cut the food, and even the largest army starves.”

  “There are also rumors,” Marlene added, her voice dropping. “Things that go beyond simple labor camps.”

  “What kind of rumors?” Luis asked.

  Marlene exchanged glances with Jill and Connell. “People who get sent there don’t come back. Even when their contracts should have ended. And sometimes, new Uploads arrive with no memory of their old lives at all.”

  A cold weight settled in Bash’s stomach. “You think he’s doing something to them?”

  “We don’t know,” Jill said. “But Chucky has been one of Maximus’s favorites for a reason. Whatever he’s doing out there, it’s valuable enough to earn him a continent’s worth of protection.”

  Nora’s voice cut through the room, sharp as a blade. “I don’t care about supply lines or strategy. I care about making him pay for what he did.”

  Everyone turned to look at her.

  She met their stares without flinching. “But if killing him helps your war, fine. That’s a bonus. Just don’t expect me to pretend this is about anything other than what it is.”

  Bash studied her face. The rage was still there, banked but burning. Whatever Chucky had done to her, it went deep. Deeper than Richard. Deeper than anything she’d shared.

  “No one’s asking you to pretend,” Jill said quietly. “Revenge and strategy can share a road. Go west. Find Chucky. End him. And when you do, know that you’ll have struck a blow that echoes across every continent.”

  The room fell silent. Candles flickered. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped against stone.

  Bash looked at the map, at the tiny cluster of free continents holding out against the vast swaths of territory under Maximus’s boot.

  He thought about Simon’s tears. About the children clapping in the atrium. About all the contracts he’d broken and all the ones still binding millions of souls across this digital hell.

  ‘This is bigger than me,’ he thought. ‘Bigger than revenge, bigger than survival. This is a war for the soul of an entire world.’

  And somehow, impossibly, he was part of it now.