Logan felt his nerves surge as the group approached. Many times, he'd gotten his hopes up that he would be dealing with sane people, only to be shot in the foot again and again. At first, Damsel's group had appeared well organized. A group that protected its citizens.

Look how that had ended up.

By now, Logan had learned that he couldn't trust his first impressions.

For all of that, he couldn't deny feeling hope. Low leveled soldiers led the group in front of him. Organized, and with a clear command structure. Even the leader was low leveled at level 41, which meant there was no way they were XP harvesters.

It was possible that Emily wasn't in charge and the true leader was like Damsel, but Logan had to believe that there were good people in the world. Just because humanity had gone to shit didn't mean that everyone had fallen into moral decay.

His sword was inside of his spatial storage, he'd collapsed his talons, and he'd removed his facemask and helmet. Logan ran a hand over his hair, trying to straighten it, grimacing when it came back crusty. He hadn't cleaned himself after the fight in Australia, and his hair had dried with clumpy bits of blood, his bangs standing up in spikes. Well, at least he didn't have blond hair.

The group was fifty feet away, then thirty, before the soldier in the front held up his arm and clenched his fist. "Hold!" he shouted.

As one, the soldiers on the sides reformed to the front.

Twenty soldiers held up their massive weapons and pointed them at Logan.

"Whoa!" said Logan, holding up his hands, palm-side out. "I mean you no harm!"

The sergeant, Emily, narrowed her eyes and adjusted her weapon, the rifle pointed at his chest. "If you're looking for XP, you fucked with the wrong people. Leave or you won't like what happens."

"I'm not looking for trouble. I'm not an XP harvester. If you scan me with [Identify], you can see that I care about profit. You could say profit is my XP. I've been traveling from city to city, helping."

"Don't trust him, ma'am," said a soldier in an undertone.

"I'm not going to, private," she snapped.

Logan kept his arms up. "I'm telling the truth. I have a skill that lets me travel from place to place, which goes hand in hand with my other skill. I can offer you a private System market. A store. A store that has weapons, clothing, supplies." Logan smiled. "Even spatial storage devices."

The sergeant didn't move, but she licked her lips, and her stance had a different air. Logan could tell that he'd intrigued her.

"You heard about spatial storage devices, huh?" he said. "I've got twenty of them for sale."

She blinked, gave him a once-over, and then commanded, "Gary! Up front!"

A soldier with bulging biceps and short, black hair scrambled to the front of the crowd. "Ma'am?"

"Scan him with [Identify]. List his stats."

She must not have leveled up [Identify] enough to see hidden names and characteristics.

The soldier squinted at Logan, before his eyes glazed, that faraway look everyone had as they examined a System message. Straightening, he focused on the sergeant. "It says he cares about profit," he said in an undertone. "Gave himself the hidden name 'Lord Logan'."

Emily sneered and lowered her weapon. As if that were a sign, the other soldiers followed suit. "Well, if you have spatial storage devices, how much do you want for them?" She gave him a discerning eye. "Quite the get-up, there, buddy. Where do you have your goods? I'm assuming you're keeping them inside a spatial storage device of your own?"

Logan tensed. He had to be careful here. He'd used the Gem of Subterfuge to drop his level, which meant that if Emily and the soldiers weren't as law abiding as he'd assumed, they might try to take his spatial collar by force.

"Not many people are as reasonable as you are, some have tried to take what wasn't theirs. My suit has been invaluable, helping to protect from their attacks. But they were stupid."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," said Logan, giving her a self-depreciating grin. "Why try to take a spatial storage device and kill me? It's all they'd ever get. Whereas if they'd let me set up my private market, they could have an endless supply of weapons and storage devices. Not very smart, wouldn't you say?"

Emily's face was blank. "Some could view it that way." Behind her, the civilians shifted impatiently, while others tried to peer over the soldiers' shoulders at Logan. "Show me this market, then. If it's as good as you say, I want evidence."

Logan gave her another smile. There was a fine line between appearing accommodating, a salesman, and a pushover. "I can only give you access to it via a lodestone—an access point on a physical object. If I craft it on the street, everyone will have to travel here each time they want to purchase an item from the store. I'm assuming you have a base—a place that you're taking these people to? It would make logistical sense for me to craft it there instead."

Emily's lips thinned.

"Ma'am," said Gary. "Why not just take him to the general and let him decide if he's telling the truth?"

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The sergeant tapped her finger on the handle of her rifle. "You're right, private. No sense negotiating with this civilian until Hawthorne tells us what's what." She swung her weapon over her shoulder by the strap and then pinned the soldier with a look. "I'm leaving you in charge. Keep leveling the civilians, but don't take unnecessary risks with their lives if you encounter something other than the low-level rats. I expect to see you in the compound by sundown, you hear?"

The soldier nodded obediently, straightening, his shoulders up. "Yes, ma'am!"

"Dean and Zachary," she said to two soldiers on her left. "You'll come with us."

They were taller than the rest, towering over Emily. The first man wore a black headband, keeping his short, blond hair away from his eyes. His nose was crooked, as if it had broken in the past and never healed right.

The other soldier had light brown skin and sharp cheekbones. He had a rifle like the others, but he'd also strapped several knives to sheathes—two on his upper right thigh, and one clasped to his upper arm. He scrunched his nose at Logan and curled his lip. "Ma'am," he said in acknowledgement.

Logan scanned them with [Idiot's Inspect]:

[Dean Waldoner: Level 31. A human being.]

[Highest Stat: Agility. Characteristics: Protective of those in his sphere. Hidden name: Browser.]

[Zachary Davis: Level 35. A human being.]

[Highest Stat: Intelligence. Characteristics: Loyal to the core and not the individual. Hidden name: Zach.]

"Keep them safe," snapped the sergeant. "Keep the risks within acceptable limits." She gave the soldiers a hard glance and then led the way into the street and broke into a jog. The other two soldiers, Zachary and Dean, followed on her heels. Soon, they powered past Logan and kept going.

Logan raised an eyebrow. That must mean that they wanted him to follow them.

Logan broke into a jog, but he had to consciously force himself to slow down when one surge of his legs managed to almost overtake them.

They soon left the civilians and other soldiers behind, surging past the remains of animal carcasses and yet more piles of trash. Every once and a while, they passed more scurrying, overweight rats who were digging through the trash like crowd surfers, eyes glazed and mouths panting in pleasure, but the soldiers paid them no mind.

They turned a corner.

Logan slowed to a stop as the others approached a…

He blinked, disbelieving his eyes.

A car.

On the side of the road next to another towering pile of trash, there was a single, abandoned car. But this wasn't an electrical vehicle. No way. It had a door that was green, a trunk that was red, a rusted-out muffler and a beaten up, weathered hood. It looked like a junkyard vehicle, something that you'd pull for scraps.

Logan furrowed his brow in puzzlement. As far as he was aware, the System had blown up the gas-powered vehicles in the world, so why were they staring at one? Unless the car had never worked in the first place, so the System hadn't bothered blowing it up? But then why would it be in the middle of New York in Times Square? Logan doubted the city would have let a beat-up old car remain in an affluent area like this.

Unless it hadn't existed before the System Integration.

Logan's mouth grew dry. "Is that…?"

Emily smirked. "A car? A gas guzzler? You bet your ass it is." Approaching the driver's side door, she used an old-fashioned key to open it, then went around to the passenger's side door and did the same. The thing was so old that there must not be automatic locks.

"You built this?"

"Not us, specifically," said Dean. "But the general, Hawthorne, he arranged it. We have dozens of them parked throughout the city in case we need to return to the base quickly. Or take someone who supposedly has a System store to see the boss in a hurry."

Logan thought back to the first System purge message, and how the System had warned people not to build cars after the purge. The System had blown up people who hadn't listened to teach everyone a lesson.

"Isn't this risky?" asked Logan, leaning down and looking inside of the car. It had green, scratched leather seats and smelled like mothballs. "The System could blow it up at any time."

Emily unlocked the back door and then scooted into the driver's seat, while Dean took the passenger side, Zachary taking the seat in the back directly behind the sergeant. Emily handed her rifle to Dean who rested it on the floor next to his own.

That left one seat for Logan.

"We've taken a calculated risk, stranger," said Emily. "But we don't think it's a danger, not anymore. Those messages about carbon were bullshit. Absolute bullshit! Hawthorne is convinced it was just an excuse for the alien to kill as many as it could. It's AI, so it had to stick within its own rules, hence the arbitrary messages. But you had to have read the last one. That the whole thing was nothing but a tutorial, a death trial. Since that message, there hasn't been one warning about carbon. Bunch of bull."

She shut the driver's side door and then cranked down the window, her mouth pursed as she looked at Logan. "But it's up to you, I'm not forcing you. Though this is the quickest way to meet the general. I think he'll want to hear you out. So, what do you say? You game?"

It was possible that she was right. The System might be finished blowing up everything in sight. Logan had been convinced that carbon had been an excuse all along, a way for members of the Collective to harvest the planet for valuable animals to create skill rings.

There was one problem with that theory though.

His Save Humanity Quest.

If carbon was no longer a threat, then why had the System given him a quest to reduce it? Just because it had stopped blowing up cars didn't mean the risk wasn't there. The System was vindicative. Logan just pictured it. Everyone would go back to gas powered vehicles, convinced that it was safe, when the System would come out of a nowhere with a gotcha penalty.

But then again, for Logan, the risk was reduced. Drastically. After all, Logan was convinced that with [Regenerate], he could come back from most injuries. Although the others wouldn't survive a blown-up car, Logan was betting that he'd be okay. He might be worse for wear, even missing a few limbs, but then [Regenerate] would go to work.

Moving around to the other side of the car, Logan scooted into the seat, wincing as his armour around his thighs caught on a rip in the seat fabric, making the rip even worse.

"You made the right decision," said Emily as she gunned the engine and sent them flying down the street.

Christ!

Logan dug his armour covered fingers into the seat cushion, holding onto the handle of the door with his right. Emily was going down the street as if they were on the highway, 70 miles an hour at least. That would be fine on a highway, but the corners were tight, and they kept running over animal corpses and trash. Even worse, the car had an exhaust problem, and rancid gas filled the inside of the car so thickly the others let out coughs. They lowered their windows, letting in air and sticking their heads outside like dogs.

"All the good vehicles are gone! The System blew them up, understand?" Emily shouted over the wind. "We had to work with what we had, which was a bunch of crap. Once we open the car factories, then we'll really be moving."

The car skidded around another corner. Logan snapped his gaze to the nearest building, his interest piqued.

A library.

Talk about a gold mine. Logan suspected that in this new world, without the internet, knowledge would be power.

Emily zoomed past another block, a swarm of rats shrieking as they darted to the side, just missing the hood of the car. There had to be thirty at least.

"Note that location down, Dean," said Emily.

"Yes, ma'am."

Logan felt his stomach lurch as she took another turn, his teeth clacking together.

They skidded to a stop.

"We're here."

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