Chapter 30:

But the biggest concern was the MP5 he had pointed square at my head. His finger was placed gently on the trigger, but judging from his placid posture he didn't seem to be in any hurry to pull it.

"Argo's going to be annoyed if you shoot me." the man's muffled voice said through the fabric of his mask. I tilted my head.

"Uh, pardon?"

He reached up with the hand not holding the grip of his submachine gun and lowered his goggles to his neck. A pair of storm grey eyes with dark circles under them stared back at me. They were all too familiar.

"Wait, Noya? Is that you?" I asked, bewildered. "What the hell's with the get-up?"

Noya lowered his weapon and let it hang on his hip by a nylon strap, "I'm on the clock. You paid for Argo's protection so naturally, I'm here to protect you." he leaned to the side and gave Sinon a curt nod by way of greeting. "Unfortunately that doesn't extend to you. I hope you understand."

Sinon had Hecate aimed straight at his center mass, but slowly she lowered the rifle until the barrel was safely pointed at the ground. "I can take care of myself."

"Very good." Noya straightened up and put his goggles back over his eyes. "Were you followed?"

"By a whole parade," I replied. Noya nodded along.

"Any clowns?"

"Yeah, throwing pies at each other."

"Nice." Noya pointed a finger to our left. "Stay right behind me and keep close. I know the quickest route to Argo without having to aggro a bunch of mobs along the way."

We did as he said and traversed through the sandy terrain with him up front and Sinon behind me. We climbed up another sandy hill and pushed through the ruins of a lab. Good grief, the smell was horrible.

Like a dead animal lying atop a pile of burning tires. Even worse, things hissed or snarled at us from the shadows, warning us to stay away or risk getting torn to shreds. Every so often, a wandering reptilian monster the size of a motorcycle with a fat body and tiny legs would spot us and growl, but Noya kept moving unperturbed...

"You sure you know what you're doing?" I asked him as we exited the ruins in short order and crossed another plain of sand.

"Positive. I take my work seriously." Noya said to me. "Argo doesn't pay slackers. She expects the best out of the people she employs and I aim to do that. Nothing more, nothing less."

Wow, talk about a guy dedicated to his job. I almost left it at that until everything he said registered in my brain. "Wait, Argo pays you? Like an actual salary?"

"Yeah. She figured it's for the best, considering her position in GGO right now. A little money spent to get the right people on her side is no waste." Noya said. He tilted his head like he was thinking something over. "It's nothing extravagant, but it beats working part-time at a beef bowl shop."

"Just knowing she's essentially paying you real money is extravagant enough," I said.

"She...doesn't like to say it, but Argo doesn't have as good of a foothold in this game as she'd like."

"A lot of competition?" I asked.

"That plus she came in late to the game. There was already an established organization of info brokers by the time she came to GGO," he said. "Money's a hell of a motivator here. People make their living playing this game and they're not scared of protecting their keep. It's an entirely different beast than the one Argo's used to conquer."

"But she's going to try anyway, isn't she?" I asked.

"It's in her nature," he said. He came to a stop at the crest of the hill we were on and pointed down. "There's our target."

I looked down at the slope. We were above a wide swath of land that was just as full of vibrant beauty as the rest of the place. At first, I was expecting some bombed-out facility or maybe a metal pod lying alone in an ocean of sand, but as I shielded my eyes from the blazing sun and took in what we were looking at, I almost chuckled in disbelief. "You're not serious, are you?"

At the bottom of the massive hill was a town, not abandoned like every other place in the Wastelands. The wooden buildings were still standing, untouched by the ravaged landscape around them. It was fairly small, about a dozen or so of the structures all facing each other with the main road between them.

There were people walking about too. Some were on the rooftops armed with rifles, others were conversing amongst themselves like it was an ordinary day. But they weren't NPCs. Their movements were too fluid, too natural. They couldn't be anything other than real players who were armed to the teeth and guarding every inch of the settlement.

"Noya, this is Valley Moor," I told him, too baffled to say anything else.

"You know it then?" he asked. I grunted in agreement, scratching my chin. There wasn't a person in GGO that didn't know it. Valley Moor was one of the game's little wonders, a trading town founded by, run by, and protected by normal everyday players instead of the usual NPCs. Some entrepreneurial people found the buildings unaffected by the ravages of war and took it upon themselves to use it as a way to sell their goods to weary passerbys. The people took care of Valley Moor like it was a second job, switching off guard duty, welcoming new residents, and kicking out the troublemakers, all to maintain their community and live a relatively peaceful life outside of Glocken.

This just goes to show that even in a game filled with shooting, killing, and looting, there was always going to be that one person that wants to roleplay a shopkeep.

"Argo's over there in the shade," Noya pointed at a pile of rocks little ways to our left. "Sinon, would mind helping me scope the place out?"

While the two got settled, I walked over to where Noya pointed and circled around the rocks. Argo sat in a small opening, her cloak whipping against the dry wind. Several holographic windows floated around her as she slid one in front of her, scanned through its contents, then flicked it aside to make room for the next one. Her hands never stopped moving.

One typed out a message on a holographic keyboard, and the other flicked through a series of documents, all the while she divided her attention to each one without ever slowing down. A window closed then two more appeared in its place, circling around her with the others then grabbing her attention for a brief moment before being dismissed — then she repeated the process all over again.

It was mesmerizing watching her work. Argo was in her element, absorbing and categorizing every ounce of information with effortless finesse. When someone is intently focused on a task, they reach a certain point where they can perform even the most complicated procedures with barely a thought. Argo exemplified that to its full potential. She moved with all the efficiency and grace of a well-oiled machine, completely enraptured by the world of information quite literally at her fingertips.

As much as I wanted to keep watching, she called me here for a reason, so I leaned against the nearest rock and rapped my knuckles against it.

Argo jumped and blinked several times like I knocked her out of a trance, then turned her head slightly to face me, "Ah, there ya are. Good news, bad news, and worse news. Which do ya want first?"

"Might as well start with something that'll put me in a good mood," I said. Argo rose to her feet and walked out of the shade, pointing at the town below.

"Your vault's in there," she said.

"Yeah, figured that much," I said. "What's the bad news?"

"It's in there," she said. "And we probably ain't gettin' to it without startin' a shootout with the whole town."

"Do they know it's in there?"

"Probably not. Far as I can tell, there hasn't been a word about anyone findin' a secret vault filled with treasure." Argo's finger drifted to an unassuming single-story building a bit further away from the others. The paint was peeling off its walls and a window shutter was dangling by one hinge and constantly slamming against its wooden frame. A real fixer-upper. "The entrance is in there. In the basement, if I hav'ta venture a guess."

"A guess?" I asked, somewhat skeptical.

"Don't get scared now," Argo tittered. "I had to cash in a few favors owed to me and managed to snag a high-level drop that came from a raid nearby. It's a map covered in all sorts of markings where underground bunkers are supposedly located. See, there aren't a lot of buildings still standin' to hold a vault in the Wastes. So that means it's most likely underground, and the only underground place big enough to hold a lotta treasure was this one right here. Plus, it's in an area Ikuchi hasn't looked, if Serena's info is any good that is."

"I don't know, Argo." I chewed on my lip and watched the area around the building. There was nothing out of the ordinary, but it was out in the open with nothing to use as natural cover. If it came down to a shootout, there wouldn't be anywhere for users to run without getting riddled full of holes. "Fighting bounty hunters is one thing, but fighting a whole town?"

"If ya wanna back out now you're more than welcome to," Argo turned slightly to face me. Her eyes were barely visible underneath the shadow cast by her hood. "But ya better be ready to pay the rest of my bill some other way. I ain't a fan of people who flake out on their payments and they ain't fans of me when I catch up to them."

The tone of her voice was deadly serious. I tried my best to ignore the sharp gaze lingering on me. I'd dealt with Argo enough times to know she was joking. At least that was the hope.

"Is it empty?" I asked.

"Nah. Guy runs a pawn shop outta there. Pretty clean business from what I could gather," Argo said. Her earlier hard tone disappeared without a trace. "Ya want the worse news now?"

"Might as well, I guess."

"I was talkin' to some of my contacts earlier. The pros know you're online. And some of them are mobilizin'." she said. I cursed under my breath. Pissing off the entirety of Valley Moor would make this difficult enough. Having highly skilled players jump into the fray as well as bordering on suicide. Just one more scoop of misery to add to the pile.

"Yeah, we had some of them watching us when we left Glocken," I said. Argo hummed and pulled the beak of her hood down slightly.

"That'll get dicey if they catch wind of where ya are before we're gone. We oughta hustle," Argo replied as she went to rejoin Noya and Sinon. The former was peering through a pair of binoculars at the town's front entrance while the latter aimed her scope over its length.

"So whaddya think?" Argo asked.

"The same as before. Assuming things get loud, we'll have maybe a minute before the entire town is on us. The best plan right now is to do this as quietly as possible for as long as possible," Noya said. He acknowledged me with a small tilt of his chin. "Once we got the goods, we'll run back up this hill and take the same route I took you guys through."

"And if they follow us?" I asked. Noya tilted his head to one side, and I got the distinct impression he was smirking underneath his balaclava.

"A big crowd like them? They'll draw the attention of all those monsters we passed on the way over."

Argo cleared her throat and with a few flicks of her wrist, sent all of us a party invites to accept. Once our earpieces were in place, she cracked her knuckles with a fearsome grin. "Enough chattin', boys. Time to get paid."

Noya got up to his feet and gave her a crisp 'affirmative' before the two started down the hill. I didn't follow. I turned to Sinon who was still lying in the sand. The ends of her muffler fluttered against the wind, but otherwise, she remained motionless. I knelt down and touched her shoulder to grab her attention, "You staying up here?"

She answered with a slow nod and nothing else. "I can give you better cover from this vantage point. If things go bad, I can at least whittle down their numbers."

"Okay. Um, thanks," I said.

Sinon opened her mouth, closed it, then finally turned to face me. "Be careful down there."

"You too," I said. Sinon went back to watching the town, but I didn't move a muscle. There was still something I wanted to say. It had been on my mind ever since we left Glocken. Was now the most appropriate time to bring it up? Probably not. But I had to for my own peace of mind. "Sinon. When this is all over, can we talk? It's...important."