2gamer

It was three in the morning by the time I got home. If it weren't for Gamer's body, I'd have been exhausted, my feet dragging, aching and sore.

Instead, I gained two points of constitution and a hit point.

That was exciting.

If I was going to be getting into a lot of fights, I was going to need all the hit points I could get. The damage reduction was going to help, but without the ability to survive in the first place, I was in deep trouble.

A glancing shot from a gun had almost killed me.

If it weren't for Gamer's mind I would have been freaked out by that, much less by the fact that Dad was dead. Or maybe I'd have been in shock, still in denial and feeling numb.

I actually felt like that.

I reached into my inventory and pulled out my backpack. I'd been using a decoy at school so Emma and the others would have something to focus on. It had driven them crazy when I'd pulled out homework after they'd doused my backpack in noxious liquids.

The trick to my inventory was that you could put lots of things into one thing. If I'd tried to put all the things in my backpack in my inventory individually I'd have used up all the slots and still have things left over.

I'd only had my power for a week, and I'd hardly done anything with it. Maybe if I had I'd have been able to save Dad.

Well, I couldn't dwell on that now.... literally.

Pulling my key from my backpack, I unlocked the door, and I slipped inside.

The Empire were going to notice when their men didn't come back, and our house was one of the first places that they were going to look. That meant that I had a limited amount of time to get the things I was going to need and then I was going to have to get out.

Immediately I headed for the basement to get as many boxes as I could. I headed for the pantry and began filling the boxes, carrying them out to the car.

Dad still had the keys in his pocket.

The Empire had caught us on our front lawn before we'd had a chance to get in the house.

None of the neighbors had even bothered to call the police, or there would be crime scene evidence everywhere. I could still see the blood stains on the porch from where they'd hit Dad in full view of all the neighbors.

I grabbed as many clothes as I could and took them down to the car. There wasn't a lot of money in the house. Summoning the other car, I went through the pockets of the bodies, coming up with five hundred dollars in bills of various denominations.

When I tried to put it into my inventory, I discovered that it had its own placeholder; it didn't take up a slot.

I left the computer; it was old and there wasn't likely to be an internet connection where I was going.

I grabbed a lot of Dad's clothes too; hopefully this would make the Empire think that we had both gotten away. They'd be looking for a man and a teenager instead of a teenager alone.

When I'd gotten as many things as I could think that I would need- I took my entire bed, even though it took up a slot, and I took a sleeping bag.

I took cleaning supplies too; I doubted that there would be a maid where I was going.

I could have tried to drive the car, but I hadn't learned how yet.

Leaving the other car crossed my mind; a car full of bodies would be a declaration of war with the Empire. Unfortunately, at the moment my only real offensive power was my Inventory, and I didn't want to ruin Dad's car by dropping it on top of some thugs.

Brockton Bay wasn't safe for anyone, much less a teenage girl out late at night. The ABB was known for enslaving girls and throwing them into brothels.

I was going to have to go to ground somewhere in the Docks area, too.

While I was white, that wasn't all that unusual in the Docks. More importantly, the Merchants didn't have the kind of force they needed to keep the Empire out.

The ABB did.

The problem was that I lacked a lot of the skills I was going to need to survive on my own. I needed a place with access to food and water, although in a pinch I could likely use my inventory for that.

Electrical power would be nice; even this early in the year there were often terrible storms that came through town.

The odds were that I wouldn't find any of that, and even if there was such a place, I wasn't sure that I'd be able to break in.

I hesitated as I passed by the bookshelf. I now only needed an hour of sleep a night, and I'd once heard that half the reason the homeless fell into drugs was boredom.

I started putting the books I hadn't read into a box, along with a few favorites.

There were some other books. I hesitated as I looked at the Red Cross First Aid Manual.

I no longer bled, which meant that the manual was likely useless to me. Still, it was possible that I might want to help other people.

I grabbed the book, only to stop as a pop up appeared.

Do you want to select a skill book?"

Yes/ No

Wait. What?

"Observe," I murmured.

The American Red Cross First Aid and Safety Handbook Paperback – May 27, 1992

This is a book your mother used often when you were young. You were a clumsy thing, weren't you?

I sometimes wondered if my power was an asshole, or if my unconscious mind simply hated me.

The cursor blinked on yes, and finally I touched it.

There was a flash of light, and my mind flooded with knowledge. I knew how to perform CPR, or at least the best version from 1992. I knew how to handle minor injuries and contusions.

NEW SKILL CREATED!

First aid-The first moments after an injury are the most critical. This skill allows you to treat wounds and stabilize the dying. Keep your friends alive and make your enemies suffer longer! Beginner level.

There wasn't a percentage listed. I was a little relieved, because I'd have hated to have only a ten percent chance to stabilizing someone. I knew what was in the book as though I'd been practicing it for a long time, but I only knew what was in the book.

Excitedly, I looked for other skill books on the bookshelves.

Unfortunately, other than a beginners guide to fishing, I didn't find anything that gave me any skills.

It was already four o'clock, and in an hour the neighbors would be getting up for work. I needed to be out of sight before nine; truant officers paid serious attention to kids out during the school day because the schools lost a lot of money every day we missed.

At least I wasn't going back to Winslow.

New Quest!

Find a home base.

Find a place where you can rest, relax and plot the demise of your enemies.

Reward: 100 xp.

Failure: Death or capture by the authorities.

Yes/ No

I hesitated.

Would capture by the authorities be so bad? Maybe I could go to the PRT and demand justice for my father. I had powers, and that meant that they were likely to listen to me.

They were always in desperate need of parahumans, and they would likely arrange for a foster family, or I might even be able to live at the rig. I could go to Arcadia, and my life would go back to normal.

I stopped at that thought.

My life was never going to be normal again. Mom had been taken from me by an accident, but Dad's death had been ordered.

They'd wanted control of the Dock Worker's Union, presumably so they'd have people in place when they finally got the courage to attack Lung and his people.

He'd refused multiple times; he'd even tried to send me over to the Barnes' house, not understanding why I didn't want to go.

Now he never would.

The gangs did this all the time; they ruined people's lives and they threw people away like they were toilet paper.

I'd dreamed of being a hero when I was younger, of being an Alexandria, a Legend, even an Armsmaster.

But the heroes weren't going to let me do what I had to do. They'd had thirty years to clean up the Bay, and it was worse than it had ever been.

They might even call me a villain before I was done.

It didn't matter.

This would have been easier if I'd had a bicycle. Instead, after locking the door behind me, I turned and I vanished Dad's car, full of everything I'd been able to think of.

Then I began to run.

The Gamer's Body was probably the best part of my power other than the Inventory.

In my old body I'd have been out of breath in less than a block. Now I simply gained the fatigued condition after three blocks.

I only felt mildly tired, so I pushed past that.

Three blocks after that I gained the exhausted condition. While I didn't really feel any more tired, I discovered that no matter how hard I tried to run, my running speed was reduced to half.

I slowed to a walk.

It'd be ridiculous to get killed because I was too exhausted to run away.

At this hour, not even the criminals were up. With less than an hour until the early risers started getting ready for work, the criminals were already heading for bed.

It took almost thirty minutes for my condition to return to normal. I started to jog again.

Through vigorous exercise, you have increased your endurance. +2 to constitution and +1 hit point.

That took me to twelve hit points... a measly number, but even a single point might make the difference between my living and dying in a fight.

If the damage I'd done in my first fight was any indication, I could maybe survive being stabbed twice by a determined teenage girl, unless she got lucky.

If I could ever get my damage resistance up to a reasonable level, at least twenty percent, it might start making a difference too.

Maybe I should have tried driving Dad's car. It would have gotten me where I wanted to go a lot faster, and it wouldn't have left me alone in the middle of a creepy street in the middle of the night.

Apparently I could still feel unease, even with the Gamer's mind. That was good to know.

The buildings here were getting older and more decrepit the farther I went.

My other reason for going to the Docks was that in the Merchant areas, the homeless tended to have already taken all the good spots.

The ABB intimidated enough of them that I might be able to find a spot to hide.

Looking at the warehouses around me, though, I didn't feel particularly encouraged. I might be able to jimmy a door with a crowbar, but then I'd have an open door to my place.

I couldn't simply inventory a door; I wasn't able to take part of an object without taking all of it, and I had a feeling that an entire warehouse was well above my limit.

Just walking by and checking doors showed all of them to be securely shut. Any that weren't would be useless for my purposes.

Finally I found something that might work.

The warehouses might as well have been vaults as far as I was concerned, but there was an old red brick fire station up ahead. The overhead door was down and a quick check showed that it was locked.

There were windows on the second floor though, and several drain pipes.

Only one of them toward the back was even close to strong enough to hold my weight; the others were rusted through, likely due to the Brockton Bay weather and the salt water from the bay.

Fortunately, the back also had a window where a board looked loose.

I hoisted myself up and started to climb.

-8 hp.

Skill Leveled Up!

Physical Resistance: -4% to all damage taken. Level four.

Crap.

If I'd been a normal person, a fall from ten feet would have probably broken my leg or my ankle.

I pulled some cereal bars from my inventory.

As I chewed on them I stared at the drain pipe, and I considered my options.

The smartest way for me to get up would be a ladder; I could summon it and send it back when I didn't need it. We didn't have one at home; Dad had always preferred to leave roofing and other tasks for the professionals.

In the meantime, though....

I looked around, and when I saw no one in the area, I summoned Dad's car as close to the wall as I could. I then clambered up on the hood and on the roof.

I climbed up onto the pole, and then I reached down with my toe and inventoried my car again. I had to touch an item to inventory it, although I could pull it out of inventory and place it anywhere within fifty feet or so of me.

I pulled myself up, and I found the window I'd spotted on the back wall that had some loose boards. I climbed up as well as I could, and I reached out and managed to pull the loose board out.

I tried to pull on the other boards, but they were nailed in solidly, and I didn't have the leverage to force them out.

The space was larger than my head, but not my much. Well, ten percent was better than nothing.

I squeezed and tried everything I could to get inside., but there wasn't enough room. No matter how I wriggled, I simply couldn't get through....

"Inventory clothes," I said.

Now nude as the day I was born, I was able to slip through. My clothes were bulky, especially since I'd been bullied and had been trying to hide my body due to pointed comments from Emma.

A gesture and my clothes were back on me. I wondered if I could swap clothes back and forth this way; if I could, then wearing a costume was going to be easy.

I wasn't close to that yet though.

Skill leveled up!

Escape Artist: The art of escaping bondage and of wriggling through tight spaces. You can wriggle into any space larger than your head.

+20% chance. Level two.

Somehow this wasn't a skill I expected to use a lot. Once I got started, the gangs were likely to put a bullet in my head if they caught me.

New Skill Created:

Climbing

You are skilled at scaling surfaces, including those that are angled and uneven. Reach new heights and look down on everyone else. +10 % Level One.

Maybe I'd skip the ladder. Being able to climb up on roofs like a monkey was a superhero thing, right? At least it was in Dad's old Pre-Scion superhero comics.

The skill book hadn't given me percentages, but skills I learned on my own apparently did. Or was it because these were physical skills as opposed to general knowledge like first aid?

It was terribly dark in here; it took my eyes a little bit to get adjusted to the light.

The whole place was filled with dust and cobwebs. The great thing about a firehouse was that they were meant to have people living in them twenty four hours a day. That meant that it had showers and toilets, even if the water wasn't running.

It would have a place for Dad's car down in the bay where the fire engine had once sat. If I could find a better way to get in and out, it'd be perfect.

What I could see in the shadows was encouraging. There was a large, empty room, with a kitchen through a door in the back. There weren't any appliances; those had all been taken a long time ago, but there was still a sink.

A bathroom was off down a hallway.

Maybe I could find some skillbooks on plumbing, and find a way to steal water. Otherwise, I'd have to survive on bottles of water.

I could likely flush the toilet if I had water to pour into the tank. It was something to think about.

I'd probably have to get some bug bombs, or I'd wake up with a spider on my face. This place was going to need a lot of work before it would be livable.

Still, I'd found it.

I looked in front of me waiting for an announcement, but none came.

Was there something I was missing?

Oh.

I pulled my bed from the inventory, and the screen appeared.

Quest completed!

Find a home base.

Find a place where you can rest, relax and plot the demise of your enemies.

Reward: 100 xp.

I dismissed my bed; no way I was going to let the creepy crawlies climb between my sheets while I was trying to clean the rest of this place.

Fortunately, because I only needed an hour of sleep, I had seven hours to kill.

I slid down the fireman's pole, and I pulled out Dad's car. I'd had the foresight to stash a few cleaning supplies, and so I got into the car and I got to work.

I hated bugs, and I definitely had no intention of sleeping in a place full of them. I'd sleep in the car first.

Still, this was a good start, assuming I could keep people from seeing me go in and out. Maybe I could come up with a better route that people wouldn't notice.

Part of me wanted to start going out to stop the Empire, but I wasn't nearly ready yet. Four percent damage reduction and twelve hit points meant that I was dead if someone hit anything other than my limbs with a gun... pretty much like anyone else, except that it would hurt me less.

For once I had to be smart about this.

For wise decision making you gain +1 Wisdom.