Unwilling to face any rebel whilst she was still sweaty and out of breath from her unplanned spying mission, Mai retreated to a part of the base she could tell wasn’t frequented that often. It was the lack of tracks in the dust that mainly gave it away, as well as all of the danger signs.

Reading them made her chuckle. It was as if they’d been written not to warn people away, but to make them curious enough that they would enter. ‘Danger of Severe Injury’, ‘Danger of Death’, ‘Authorised Staff Only’, ‘No Entry’ and so on. They were utterly pointless as the only people in the base, were those people already authorised to be in the base.

There wasn’t a chance that someone would see those signs and not be tempted to see what was actually in the base. Well, a certain type of person naturally, since none of the others in the base seemed willing to pass them. However, she wasn’t like others, so she’d ventured in.

Nothing had leapt out to kill her, there were no traps to be found - she’d activated SPOT HIDDEN more than once - and she’d found a perfectly habitable room with a bed far comfier than her bunk. There was even an option to personalise the room.

Reading through the menu she saw that if she wanted to, she could upgrade it to the point that it was essentially a panic room. With its own secret escape tunnel. Sound proofing, reinforced walls, anti-gas, fire suppressors, lethal and non-lethal defences were all options. Most were still locked, but certain basics were available. It was the upgrades of what the system thought to be a basic requirement which were locked.

Why on earth hasn’t Anna taken this over?, she thought as she gradually added little comforts to the room. The first thing she crafted was a more secure door. It wasn’t as tough as the top tier version, but it had a soak of two hundred per cent, which was more than enough to keep light-fingered or nosey rebels away.

The one she had originally entered through had been hanging off its hinges, practically inviting her to push it open.

Looking at the sub-menu for the door, she saw there were options for camouflage. Intrigued, she opened up the description.

Camouflage, for when you either don’t want people to find your secret base, or want to make them think there’s nothing of value behind it. Afterall, who’s going to check out a rusty door that no-one’s using?

She smiled as she read the description. It appealed to her sense of humour. Adding rust and making it look as shoddy as possible, she stepped back to view her handiwork.

“Not bad, not bad at all.” The door looked as though it had always been there, and utterly neglected. And no-one would know any different until they tried to open it.

Next, she checked the DEFENCES sub-menu. As before, there were a number of basic options, with additional upgrades which were locked. ZAP immediately caught her eye. A blink-click and she was reading the description.

ZAP – A defence capable of being either non-lethal – for those citizens who have adventurous young children who wander into areas they shouldn’t – and lethal for those citizens who want to see thieves fry!

Mai went for the non-lethal version, not wanting to accidentally kill someone.

Still, I’d love to see their faces when ten thousand volts went through them! She’d kept the amps down so that she wouldn’t actually kill anyone, but the zap would be more than enough to convince them that the signs meant what they said.

Probably blow them halfway across the corridor, she thought with a smile. She’d never thought that interior design could be so much fun.

Once the door was up, she set about adding holograms of her sister, her parents and even her first ever pet, a draco-bat she’d called Fang. Those too were free. As she scrolled through the various menus and sub-menus, she could see that whatever the rebels had been up to whilst in the base, they’d somehow unlocked a lot of what she was now using to decorate her room.

She felt a pang of guilt for a second. Instead of immediately letting the rebels know that they could make their base more comfortable, and more secure, she’d spent time creating her own refuge.

Fuck it, she dismissed the pang of guilt, This place is almost good enough to call home, she smiled at that thought. Coming out of the room configuration menu, she saw that there was a configuration option which would let her add more rooms to this one if she wanted, heading away from the sewers and into deserted industrial units a little over a couple of hundred paces away.

“Come to think of it, there must be other options for this entire base,” she muttered to herself. Zooming out on her minimap, she looked at how far it looked as though the base could be expanded. Not that she was sure she had the right, or authority, to do so, but the idea definitely piqued her curiosity.

Stepping out of her hideaway, she made her way back into the main section of the base. Standing next to a wall she knew wasn’t backed by a room, she opened up her minimap, selected the corridor and blink-clicked the configuration menu.

Well, I’ll be. We can expand the entire base, not just that section I just came from. A grid had appeared around the base and there was a sub-menu of rooms she could add to the base. How the Hells do I unlock more options? She closed her eyes for a moment as she racked her brains to work out what had allowed her to configure the room the way she had.

Opening her SASS she smiled as she saw that the mission she had carried out, as well as the DOMINATION mission against Sharktooth, had granted her something called REPUTATION amongst the rebels.

Each of the missions had also been marked with a ‘flawless’, something she hadn’t noticed before and which allowed her to select additions for the base. Quite how it had been marked as flawless she had no clue. It certainly hadn’t felt flawless at the time.

She looked at the REPUTATION stat again. She’d never seen such a thing before, not even after fighting the urbexers. However, she put that down to the fact that she’d been part of a team and hadn’t finished the missions solo. And maybe it didn’t matter with the sewer companies? Leaders in those groups were promoted to their position. Whereas she could tell with this group at least that Anna had earned and bullied her way to being a leader.

As it was, her REPUTATION was at forty-five per cent. Only fifteen per cent below Anna’s. Even more interesting was the graph showing her reputation rising steeply, with Anna’s taking a dive the day before. Quite why it showed Anna’s REPUTATION she had no idea.

Unless I’m already thought of as a potential leader? But why? It’s like I’ve asked for such a thing!

Blink clicking on REPUTATION she read the description.

REPUTATION – Reputation reflects the standing of a certain person in the eyes of the people they are working with. This isn’t reflected in all factions or professions but is most often found amongst criminal elements such as Gangers, Prisoners, and Rebels. Scum can’t be trusted, so RESPECT is needed to garner their support.

Mystery partly solved, she thought. Doesn’t explain how I earn it though. Or why it’s comparing me to Anna.

However, she suddenly understood why Anna could create missions. She was management. Just like with the sewer company the rebels had what could be viewed as a management hierarchy. Anna was technically not only management, she was high-level management. Where that put Chan she didn’t know, yet.

And that explains how Anna was able to create the mission for me, which was definitely a mystery solved.

Making her way to the command centre, she caught Chan’s eye and nodded to the corridor outside. He tipped his head, so slightly that she barely noticed it.

Looks like REPUTATION works, that or it’s my natural charm, she thought, walking a few strides away from the entrance to the command centre she didn’t have long to wait.

“Mai? How can I help?” He looked tired, and she felt guilty as she remembered he was trying to come up with a plan to rescue some Cullers in far too short a time span, and with none of the resources he had obviously been planning on using.

“Why hasn’t this base been expanded?” She got straight to the point. Not wanting to waste any of his, or hers, time.

He frowned and pursed his lips, tilting his head.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. Why haven’t you expanded this base further? It’s rammed with people, and I’ve seen some having to share bunks on shifts.”

“Well, we haven’t had the opportunity or the resources. We just can’t, so we haven’t.” His eyes narrowed. “Why, can you expand it?”

“It just so happens that I can,” she smiled. “Want me to share my retinal display so you can see what I can do?”

What in Buddha’s balls makes me so different?

“Hells yes!” he exclaimed, before furtively looking over his shoulder. “But let’s go somewhere more private.”

“I know just the place,” she laughed, beckoning him with a crooked finger.

*

“This is beyond anything I thought possible,” Chan said for the umpteenth time as he looked around her small section of the base. “And you’re sure you can expand and upgrade other parts?”

She nodded, pointing once again to her retinal projection. Every citizen of the city could share their retinal monitor if they needed to. Often it was used by parents and teachers to explain how to navigate the menus, work out how to use maps and access skills.

But it was also useful for things like she was doing now. The base schematic rotated as she changed the camera view, opening up side menus to show the configuration options.

“Yes, the base has plenty of those EXPANSION POINTS, and already has a load of basic options unlocked. And if you keep doing missions, those points will continue to increase.” She kept her reservations about why she could do this, as opposed to any of the rebels who were already in the base from him. It was unsettling. Marked her as being different, which she was certain wasn’t going to be viewed as a good thing by Anna.

Her modifications to her room had mostly been cosmetic, with the biggest spend being on the door, but it was clear he was impressed with what she’d done. Especially considering the rebels had none of their own possessions bar the odd hard-copy picture frame. If that.

“What do you want to expand first?” she asked slyly. “Do you think we should speak to Anna?”

“No, she’s too busy,” he replied quickly, almost too quickly. “Let’s just go with making the bunk room bigger for now.”

Mai selected the bunk room on her minimap. It was one of the rooms furthest from the main entrance, so had a lot more room to expand. Pinching hold of the top left and right corners, she pulled them apart, growing the room accordingly until it was roughly a third bigger, roughly an additional ten boxes. The EXPANSION POINTS reduced accordingly by fifty points.

“Huh, it seems that each of those squares is five EXPANSION POINTS,” Chan said, speaking more to himself than actually explaining it to Mai since it was more than obvious that was what was happening. The base had over five thousand EXPANSION POINTS. Far more than enough to do what needed to be done.

“People can make their own beds I assume?” she asked. They must have been able to do so somehow, unless those were default beds. But that would have meant they wouldn’t have been able to build any more every time they got additional recruits.

“That won’t be a problem,” he laughed, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s go share the good news!”

*

From the cries of surprise and happiness, the good news was already spreading. Rebels ran past them to see what the noise was about, then added their own cheers.

“What’s going on?” Anna’s voice rang out. “Get back to your stations!”

Mai’s stomach flipped at Anna’s tone, and shared a glance with Chan. He quirked an eyebrow at her and she barked out a laugh. Both had known how Anna would react. Mai didn’t really care, but she was surprised that Chan had wanted to keep it secret from her whilst they worked on it.

Mai had a niggling feeling that her reputation with him was growing faster than it was with the rest of the rebels. She didn’t bother checking though, it felt wrong to look and work out how to manipulate him.

I like him for who he is, not what he might be able to offer me in the future, she thought. But then she gave a mental jump as her brain leapt to the next possibility. Shit, is he looking to me to replace her? She hadn’t really considered that. Kill her, yes if it came to a choice between living and getting back to Li, or having her brains splashed out on the floor of the base. But becoming the de facto leader of the rebel cell had never been something she’d considered. It put a completely different outlook on things.

“Anna, it’s okay. I had Mai enlarge the bunk rooms. She showed me it was possible due to something called EXPANSION POINTS. Seems we’ve had the option to do this all the time we’ve been here. Her two missions she performed for us also added to those points. Not sure how she’s able to do it though.”

Heads snapped around to look at Mai. There was a pause, and then cheers broke out again, the rebels surging forward to slap her on the back. Mai’s face heated in embarrassment, she wasn’t used to such adulation.

“Put it back the way it was!” Anna’s voice roared out, silencing the rebel’s celebration. All heads turned back to the rebel leader.

“But why?” asked Mai. “I spoke to Chan and he thought it would be a good idea once I’d shown him what I could do. We can’t have people sharing bunks because there isn’t enough room. Imagine what would happen if more people came to join.” She didn’t mention the Cullers that Anna and Chan were looking to rescue. Letting on that she’d heard them discussing it wouldn’t be a good idea. “It would be bedlam.”

The rebels laughed at that, much to Anna’s obvious fury. Mai quickly checked her reputation. It was at a solid fifty-eight per cent, whilst Anna’s was now at fifty per cent.

“I don’t understand why you’re so angry, it’s not as if this is a popularity contest,” Mai narrowed her eyes as she beamed a false smile at Anna. She’d had enough of the woman’s attitude.

Anna stared back, chest heaving, eyes practically bulging. As ever, she looked on the verge of violence. Just in case, Mai activated UNARMED COMBAT and DIRTY BOXING. She’d do everything she could to not kill Anna, but she would be damned if she was going to give the bitch even the slightest opportunity to beat her.

“Fine. Everyone’s responsible…”

“For their own beds, yes, Chan said that,” Mai fake smiled so hard she thought her cheeks would split.

With a jerk of her head towards her second-in-command, Anna stalked from the room. As soon as she had left the cheers erupted again and Mai was lifted onto the shoulders of the jubilant rebels.

I’m going to regret this, perhaps it’s time I made myself absent for a while, she thought as she was paraded around the room for a third time, Anna’s eyes boring into her as though they were mining lasers. Those Cullers still need help.