As soon as Geraldine Cuttler saw him, she was already closing the door again, but Butcher wasn’t of a mind to be polite at this stage, jamming his foot in the door before it could close and driving the heel of his hand into the door where the chain connected to the frame. Under a single blow, the frame gave in, the chain housing tearing away and driving the scared old woman back into her own hallway.

She was turning to flee when Butcher pulled the pistol from his pocket.

‘Please don’t, Mrs Cuttler,’ he said calmly, holding the pistol pointing at the floor. The sight of the weapon froze her in place and she slid down the wall to the floor, tears already springing to her terrified eyes. ‘I won’t be here long. Just listen and you’ll not get hurt.

‘I’m very, very sorry that I lied to you yesterday, but last night your son tried to kill me, which means that the game has changed and is, therefore, a less civilized affair than it might have been. Now I can see that Ron did something to you and I know you can see it on me, too.

‘I’m not looking for your daughter. I’ve been sent by BRS to look for Ron. It’s because he’s put himself, me and now you into terrible danger. You see, these things he’s put into us don’t work right. BRS has been doing human trials and they are seeing side effects that are lethal to some participants and hideously painful for others.

‘Ron is the only one with the knowledge to fix it. His life, my life and yours all depend upon him coming back in and working with us to make this right. He’s the software guy. He can control these things inside us. He can get them out. He can fix this. He can save lives. Including yours and mine.

‘I’m sorry I’m scaring you,’ he went on, ‘but you should be scared. I’m scared. All of our trial subjects are scared. If Ron doesn’t come back in, we could all die. So I’m going to leave now. You’ve got my number. If he contacts you, please tell him what I’ve told you. Please tell him to come in. You can call me, any time of the day or night, if you know anything that will help me to help your son save lives. Including mine. And including yours.’

He put the pistol away and pulled out his wallet, peeling a thin stack of fifties out of the cash inside. He drops them onto the little table next to the phone.

‘That’s for the door, Mrs Cuttler,’ he said, turning to leave. ‘Please buy a new one, or the next person breaking in will be walking out with your telly.’

*

Damn, Butcher thought as he climbed back into the car and pulled away. That Bluff skill is something else. The ease and confidence with which he could feel himself inventing and delivering a plausible story was almost more unnerving than his experience in the New Forest. If he’d been on a polygraph, Butcher was almost certain that it would have shown his heart rate, blood pressure and skin conductivity all completely normal. Hell, he might even be plausible enough to get away with murder and treason if he ended up back in a Met interview room.

He pulled in again, not far away, at a point he’d already identified before going to her front door. The parking space isn’t ideal, but he climbs out and retrieves the laser microphone from the boot. From a position not far from the car, concealed by a mature oak tree growing at the edge of a communal green space, he could see her house clearly. Pointing the microphone’s beam at Geraldine’s living room window, he heard Geraldine on the phone already.

‘- with a pistol, Ron! … No, I’m not going to call the police. I’m not stupid. … He seemed so certain that there were dangerous side effects; are you sure -? … Yes, Ron. … No, my darling. But are you sure he was lying? … Well, OK. But it wouldn’t hurt to have his number, would it? … Yes, he left it here. … OK, do you have a pen? … No, I won’t text it to you. You know I’m useless at that kind of thing.’

She read Butcher’s number to him then, with many assurances of love and affection, she hung up.

That was a lot more than he had expected, a lot quicker, Butcher realized. And with Cally’s hard drive, he was starting to feel like he could have this whole thing wrapped up sooner rather than later. Sure, there was the thing with the whole “shooting fire from his fingers”. But that was manageable, one way or another.

For the first time in days, Butcher was starting to feel like he was getting a handle on his future. He turned back to the car, ready to find a new AirBnB in Liverpool, when a fist punched him square in the face.

Butcher staggered back, slipping on the grass and tumbling head over heels away from his assailant down the hill. Landing face down, he patted his pockets for the pistol, struggling to make his dazed brain remember where he’d put it, but locating its comforting heft on his right-hand side and fumbling to extract it.

But even as he lifted it, a foot followed the fist, contacting with his wrist and flinging the sidearm away in the same movement as a dropping elbow landed on his shoulder blade. The combination should have been enough to finish him. Two days ago, it would have. But he could already feel the difference in resilience. Instead of dropping, he used the impact, rolling with it and off to the left, coming up on to his feet, his head already nearly clear from the first punch.

Pain Resistance 2

He expects to see Cuttler, and momentarily hesitates when, instead, he sees a familiar yellow t-shirt.

‘What? Emmy?’ he just has time to ask before she leaps forward with a thrusting kick, a snarl on her face.

But it’s not the gym, now, and Butcher isn’t in the mood for playing fair. So instead of blocking the kick, he ducked it, rolled and jumped back to the point where he’d seen the Browning land. By the time Emmy turned back to face him, the pistol was in his hand and pointing back at her.

‘Enough!’ he shouted. ‘I don’t know what Ron’s told you, but -’

Emmy didn’t wait to hear, turning instead to run back towards the road. Butcher swore and followed, pushing the pistol back into his pocket before someone saw it and panicked.

‘Emmy!’ he shouted. ‘Wait!’

But as he left the treeline, he could see the door closing on her Leaf. Instead of a futile dash after her, he went for the Insignia - there weren’t many cars it could challenge in a chase, but he was pretty sure a 2017 Leaf was one of them.

*

‘Holy shit, Ron,’ cried Emmy on the Leaf’s hands-free. ‘He nearly shot me! I got him with a combo that should’ve damn near killed him, but he shook it off and bounced back like it was nothing!’

‘He’s had the procedure, Emmy!’ Ron reminded her, his frustration clear in his voice. ‘Of course he’s tougher than most people. But so are you! You’re not bullet-proof, but it’s going to take more than a pistol round to stop you these days.’

‘I don’t know, Ron!’ she shouted back. ‘I don’t know! He’s chasing me!’

‘In a car?’

‘Of course in a fucking car!’ she yelled back. ‘He’s scary but he’s not a T-1000.’

‘Find a place where you can fight him,’ Ron told her, voice steadier, now. ‘He won’t shoot you. He doesn’t know how tough you are and he doesn’t want to hurt you. If you can beat him, you’ll class. If you can class, you can level. If you can level, there is literally no limit to what you can do!’

‘I’m scared, Ron!’

‘I know you’re scared, Emmy,’ he assured her. ‘I know you are. But this is your trial by fire. No one gets to be a hero without going through this or something like it. This is your moment. He’s your first dragon. You’ve had more training, more time. You’ve got this. There’s no way he can beat you.’

For a few moments, Emmy said nothing. She was out of the town, now, driving as fast as she dared along the narrow roads through the countryside. There was a wood ahead.

‘Emmy?’

‘Fine!’ she yelled at him. ‘Fine! But after this, no more favours, Ron. This is it! If I don’t class, I’m going straight to the police, no matter what!’

‘Emmy -’ Ron started to say, but she stabbed the hang-up button and swore.

*

Butcher was maybe two hundred metres behind her when she turned sharply across the road and up a single-lane track. In seconds she was out of sight. He put the pedal down as he approached the corner, then braked around it and accelerated out of the other side in time to see her car screech to a halt in a lay-by on the edge of the woods. She was out of the car and running into the trees as he skidded to a muddy halt behind her.

Driving 2

He dismissed the update and jumped out, pistol in hand, but he didn’t immediately run after her. Instead, he listened.

It was a still day. Cold, with a damp air, but the clouds were thin and the sun was bright. There was no sound of her running and, with his nanoid-improved hearing, he knew he would have heard her if she were still running through the wet undergrowth. So she had stopped.

A snap ambush was a smart move, he thought, moving into the treeline with the pistol held ready, close to his body. In normal circumstances, he’d rush in after her and she could then use the noise of his advance to circle behind him, armed with whatever she found in the woods. But unfortunately for her, he had anticipated the ambush. So all he had to do was draw it out. Between whatever stick she had found and his pistol, it should then be easy enough to get her restrained and find out what she knew about Ron and where he was.

And then what?

One thing at a time, he told his treacherous brain. We’ll deal with that problem when we have to.

He could still walk away, he thought. He could get back into his car and drive off, faster and further than she could follow in the Leaf. This didn’t have to get any more unpleasant than it already was.

But he knew that couldn’t happen. She was Ron’s tool, here. She was a new weapon that the “mancer” had brought into play against him. And if he didn’t shut that down now, he’d be looking over his shoulder everywhere he went, half as efficient as he should be.

He advanced into the wet woodland as he thought it through, the dampness from the undergrowth instantly soaking through the bottoms of his trousers, his socks and seeping into his shoes. That was the problem with dressing for an urban observation mission, he thought. When things went rural you were wearing all the wrong stuff. But, unlike your average city type, he wasn’t going to balk at getting his shoes muddy and lose concentration -

Shit!

Blind-sided for the second time that day, he saw the branch swing a fraction of a second before it hit - not soon enough to avoid it, but soon enough to take it on his shoulder instead of his head. He heard a crack and prayed it was the branch as he tumbled forwards, finding a bank he hadn’t expected, dropping down to a stream.

He rolled and splashed, painfully, into the water at the bottom, soaked but still clinging to the pistol that he brought up to bear on his descending attacker. His finger twitched on the trigger, but he forced it to pause and shouted:

‘Emmy, wait!’

But he second swing caught the pistol barrel, knocking it aside without knocking it out of his hand this time. Then her descending knee caught his chest and the full weight of her landing threw him backwards into the water again. This time his head hit the stream - probably little more than a shallow trickle but now, after the weeks of rain they’d had, more than ankle deep. More than deep enough for Emmy to push his head under.

His flailing hands grabbed at her clothes and her face, but she kept on top of him, pressing him down with one hand as the other lifted up the rock. Through the dark, distorted light of the water, Butcher can see it: she’s silhouetted against the bright sky between the branches, distorted and long - as dark as the trees, as if they grow out of her; as if she’s the spirit of the woods, vengeful and angry, poised to sacrifice him to old gods and he waited for the rock to fall and his life to end…

Then she dropped the rock and, as he saw it tumble from her fingers it was as if life came rushing back in and he swung his right hand, still holding the pistol, to strike her in the temple as hard as he could with the butt of the handle. Emmy dropped to the side and, her weight on him released, he rose, gasping, back into the air.

Soaked through, he pushed her limp form off him. She wasn’t unconscious, but she was clearly concussed - staring up at him in a daze as he dragged her out of the stream and onto the bank. The black Adidas tracksuit she wore over her gym kit was almost as soaked as he was, mud and leaf mulch smeared across her forehead. One of her nose rings was gone, blood leaking from the ripped flesh.

Butcher flipped her unresisting form over and found the plastic ties still safe in the gabardine’s deep pockets, so he risked putting the pistol down long enough to tie her wrists before picking it and her back up.

‘Well,’ he said, staring at her as he held her carefully at gunpoint. ‘That’s interesting.’

The square brackets over her head were no longer empty. Now they said:

[PALADIN]

*

They sat, soaked, in his car. The engine was running and the heaters on full blast. Butcher had stripped off his coat, jacket and tie, and removed his shoes and socks, putting the latter over one of the air vents after ringing them out of the window.

‘Come on, you must have some idea,’ he said to Emmy.

‘He’s somewhere in the UK,’ she replied. ‘That is literally all I know.’

Butcher was scrolling through her phone. He had found it in the pocket of her tracksuit and unlocked it with her thumbprint while she was still dazed. He’d quickly altered the security settings to a four-digit pin he promised to give to her if she played the game nicely.

Butcher had pulled off the last three numbers she’d had calls from and texted them to Cook in case BRS had any resources to locate them. Cuttler’s number was probably a burner, but there was always a chance that the target was stupid or unlucky. And as smart as Cuttler obviously was, it was always worth checking.

Butcher’s own phone rang. He was still trying to decide if he was annoyed or grateful at the latest smartphones all being increasingly water- and shock-resistant. It might have been briefly liberating to not be hooked to Ball’s leash. But he still had the thing in his throat. Surely it had a battery life that would run out eventually?

‘Yeah, Butcher,’ he responded, gesturing with the pistol to Emmy to be quiet and putting the phone on speaker.

‘What’s this you’ve sent me?’ asked Cook.

‘I think one of them is the phone Cuttler’s using at the moment. I’m not sure which, though. I thought, with your resources, you might be able to trace them, tell me which one is most likely to be Cuttler.’

‘Where did these come from?’ she asked.

‘I stole them from his mother’s house.’

There was a pause on the other end.

‘You’re one cold son of a bitch, Butcher, aren’t you?’ said Cook.

‘I’m just the weapon, Miss Cook,’ he replied, looking at Emmy, who listened in silence. ‘You’re the one pulling the trigger.’

‘Whatever helps you sleep at night, Butcher,’ said Cook. ‘I’ll run these past what resources we have and see if I can tell you anything.’

She hung up and Butcher tucked the phone away and checked his socks. He didn’t mind too much if they were still damp, as long as they were warm. He’d left her in her tracksuit, hands tied behind her back, seat belt across her front. Her light clothes would dry out in no time. His suit was probably beyond saving.

‘Why didn’t you tell her about me?’ asked Emmy.

‘My life is a shit-heap, right now,’ replied Butcher calmly. ‘BRS might be the best option I have for extricating myself from his particular pile of poo, but that doesn’t make them nice people. They are bad, bad people and I’m doing my best to make sure that their particular brand of steamroller restricts its permanent damage to me.’

And - he didn’t say - I’m trying to establish a relationship of trust with someone who just tried to kill me and to whom I’ve done nothing but lie since the moment I met her. God damn this Bluff skill.

‘For what it’s worth,’ he went on, ‘I’m glad you’re not a murderer.’

‘Yeah,’ she sighed. ‘Me too.’

‘So, Paladin, eh?’ he asked. ‘That’s, like, a holy warrior or something, isn’t it? You don’t look like your average god-botherer.’

‘It’s weird,’ she agreed. ‘I was expecting Fighter, or maybe Monk. That’s what I’ve been working for. Paladin is more like a prestige class.’

‘But that’s good, right?’

‘Eh, maybe,’ she shrugged as well as she could. Aware of her enhanced strength, he’d added two more pairs of plastic ties and wrapped gaffer tape around the whole lot. ‘Ron didn’t tell me much about the classes. He said I should expect to see what I expected to see. I assumed he meant they’d all be things from D&D.’

‘That’s a game, right?’

‘Holy shit, how can you not know this?’

‘I’ve lived a pretty focused existence until the last week,’ said Butcher, honestly. ‘I read The Economist. I watch National Geographic and BBC4. Popular culture and me… we don’t really get along.’

‘Movies?’

‘Last thing I saw at the cinema was Frozen,’ he admitted. ‘Slept through the second half.’

‘OK, so D&D is what’s called a roleplay game,’ she explained. ‘It’s like a group of friends get together and all tell a story together about the adventures of a party of friends in a world with magic and dragons. And everyone has a race and a class.’

‘Race?’

‘Elf, dwarf, human… that sort of thing. Not, like, African-American or White British.’

‘Gotcha.’

‘Classes are like… career paths. Like being in the army, where you get a higher rank the longer you’re in and the better you do, yeah?’

‘I… can relate.’

‘I thought you might.’ She cracked a reluctant smile, and Butcher noticed how it changed her whole appearance. ‘So getting a class is like graduating recruit training and getting…’

‘A trade,’ finished Butcher. ‘Signaller. Tank driver. Medic.’

‘Exactly, except that there are thousands of possible classes and, if I understood Ron right, the nanoids can even combine classes or invent whole new classes if they think it makes sense. But some are basic. Fighter, Rogue, Bard… And some are sort of fancier. Like Paladin. A Paladin is like a Fighter but they have a code they follow. As long as they follow their code, they are better than a regular Fighter of the same level. But if they break their code…’

‘They get worse?’

‘Debuffs galore.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Butcher. ‘So you’re a Paladin, now. What’s your code?’

‘I have no fucking idea,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m prepared to guess that “no killing” is near the top of the list.’

‘Ha! Not “no swearing”, though!’ he laughed. ‘And I’m still not taking your cuffs off.’

‘Yeah, well, beating the shit out of you definitely ain’t taboo!’ she replied, and Butcher could see she was only half joking. ‘It’s probably mandatory, in fact. I’ve probably got a holy day every year called “Beat up Butcher Day”...’

He chuckled.

‘Which is a good point,’ she went on. ‘She called you Butcher. Is that your real name?’

‘No, it’s a nickname.’

‘It’s a fucking dodgy nickname,’ she replied.

‘It’s a stupid joke that stuck,’ he told her. ‘You pick least aggressive person in the platoon and call them "Monster" or "Savage", or something.’

‘So you were Army?’

‘Something like that,’ he agreed.

He decided to put the socks back onto his now-dry feet. They were damp but they’d dry out quick enough now they were warm. The whole car had steamed up its windows from the blowers and he would have to clear them to get on their way.

‘So why are you doing this, Butcher?’ she asked him. ‘Why are you chasing Ron?’

It was his turn to shrug.

‘It’s nothing personal,’ he told her. ‘I meant it when I said it. I’m just following orders.’

You have gained a class

[SOLDIER] - Level 1

You gain:

+1 CON for each level in your class

+1 Endurance

+2 Weapon Handling

You gain the passive feat DUTY

As long as you are pursuing an objective given to you by a superior, you gain +1 to all physical stats and the Skill Hard to Kill.

HARD TO KILL

You live close to death every day, but have escaped its clutches more times than you can count. Your nanoids will prioritize keeping you moving over repairing damage. Be careful not to push this skill too hard or you may literally drop dead.

STR

CON

DEX

INT

WIS

SPI

6(7)

8(9)

6(7)

6(7)

5(6)

6(7)

Athlete 3, Bluff 3, Drive 2, Endurance 3, Hard To Kill, Insight 1, Investigation 3, Martial Arts 2, Pain Resistance 2, Weapon Handling 3

Duty

Feat of Strength 1