Chapter 123 - Captives

Within the break room, men and women lay on the floor, shackled with makeshift restraints. Their hands were tied behind their backs with shirts, while gags filled their mouths. A faint whiff of ammonia filled the air, a testament to how long they were left in that condition.

Well, at least they didn’t kill everyone before they ran.

When Blake first entered, they shied away, fear written across their faces. However, they quickly recognized he was not one of their tormentors. He strode forward and quickly began to remove their gags. Jennifer boldly followed behind him, he assumed to capture the moment for her viewers.

“Bobby, stay out here, please,” Jennifer called over her shoulder.

The moment the first woman was able to talk, she pleaded, “Quick, get us out of here before they get back!”

Jennifer Taylor: Say something to reassure them and move slowly. This looks great for us. Remember, you’re on camera.

“They aren’t coming back,” he replied calmly as he carefully used his knife to cut through the fabric restraints.

While she rubbed her wrists, Blake moved on to the next captive. He heard a scuffle outside the room, and then Bobby threatened John, the Black Diamond’s combat co-leader. 

“You don’t understand,” she insisted. “They have guns. They’ve already killed a few of us. They forced us to work and used some of us for…”

“This is Blake Summers,” Jennifer interrupted. “You may know him as the Scion of Humanity.”

After the announcement, a few looked at him with wide eyes.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe now. The monsters can’t hurt you anymore,” Blake soothed them.

He heard a snort from behind. One of the men he freed disagreed. “The monsters aren’t the problem, it’s those thugs. They dragged us here by gunpoint, and forced us to do whatever they wanted.”

Blake looked him in his eyes. “Those are the monsters I was referring to. The Architect forces creatures to attack us or die. Human monsters though… They do it all on their own.”

The man grunted in agreement.

“Did you kill them?” the first woman he freed asked.

Blake shook his head. “Only a couple. We took the rest prisoner and interrogated them. That’s how we knew where to find you.”

“We came straight here as soon as the sun rose,” Jennifer assured her.

“What about Jacob?” the woman pressed. “He’s the one in charge.”

“No, sorry. He ran away once he realized what happened,” Blake answered as he released more captives.

“So, he’s just gonna get away with it?” another captive asked as soon as she was freed.

Blake opened his mouth to respond, but Jennifer beat him to it.

“Oh, he won’t get far, I promise you that. I’m going to make him infamous.”

“Who’re you, and how are you going to do that?” a captive demanded.

“That’s Jennifer Taylor,” another answered in a whisper. “She’s famous. She’s got, like, millions of followers.”

“Does anyone have a recording of Jacob or his faction members, the ones who did this to you?” Jennifer asked.

One of the freed prisoners snorted. “Phones don’t work anymore, don’t you know anything?”

“No, you idiot,” a man chastised. “She’s talking about the alien interface.” he turned to Jennifer. “Right?”

Jennifer nodded and kept her tone even. “Yes. If any of you recorded them, you can share the clip with me and I can post it to all my viewers. Someone will find them and let me know where they are.”

“I have a recording of Jacob,” a thin woman in her upper twenties said softly. A tear formed at the corner of her eye. “It’s embarrassing, but if it’ll mean he faces justice…”

“You recorded that?” another woman asked in disgust.

The thin woman scowled. “Don’t you judge me! I needed proof of what he did! Proof it was against my will!”

Anger surged within Blake. He had already known what happened, it was all too common after society broke down. He had seen it dozens of times in his past life, but that did not mean he accepted it. Blake could not wait to get back to their new faction town and exterminate their prisoners like the vermin they were.

Jennifer noticed the flash in his eyes and gestured for him to calm. He took a slow breath.

After this, even Jennifer won’t argue against it.

“No one will judge you,” Jennifer assured the thin woman. “And don’t worry, I can help you edit the video so no one will know it was you.”

The thin woman sniffed and nodded in thanks. She left the room, and Jennifer followed behind her. However, Jennifer stopped in the doorway and presumably continued to film everything.

By the time Blake cut the bindings of the last captive, some had exited the employee break room, eager to relieve themselves in private. The last released prisoner thanked him profusely, and he nodded in reply.

Just when he was about to announce his plans, he heard a commotion outside. He instantly cast Mind Sense, but it only detected people nearby.

No monsters. What’s going on? Did John attack one of the captives?

Blake quickly raced past the former captives and Jennifer, but skidded to a stop when he saw what occurred outside. John was on the ground in a fetal position while two men and a woman kicked him feverishly. He groaned and screamed as his former captives punished him while Bobby watched on.

Oh. Good for them.

“Shouldn’t you stop that?” Jennifer asked quietly from behind him.

Blake shook his head. “No. It’ll be good for them to take some aggression out on one of their captors.”

“But… What if he dies?”

Blake turned to Jennifer. “Then it saves us the trouble.”

She opened her mouth, paused, then shook her head. After a moment, she turned and reentered the break room. 

She still doesn’t get it, even after everything she’s seen. I bet she’ll edit that out.

Once John lost consciousness, their anger receded and they left him alone with his bruises. While he remained alive, his condition was poor, and he would likely not be able to walk unassisted.

For the next half hour, Blake, Jennifer and Bobby made sure the captives were comfortable. He invited them to the Terran Alliance, and assured them they would have a safe place to sleep.

“Don’t worry,” he assured them. “We’ll grab enough campers, so everyone will have a bed to sleep in and some privacy. After a few days, I can even teleport you to The Dome.”

He hated referring to his main town in Pinetop that way, but the name had spread. 

“You can teleport, too?” a man asked.

“Short distances only,” Blake replied. “But, we’re building a portal room, which will allow everyone here to travel to it instantly. I’m not sure when it’ll be ready, but I’ll give you an update after my meeting.”

Blake had not held a meeting with his council since the evening before, shortly after they arrived at Prescott. A lot had happened overnight, and he felt it would be a good idea to inform them of the new development. He messaged everyone on his new council, and asked them if they could attend an impromptu meeting in five minutes.

After everyone agreed, he found a couple folding chairs, motioned for Jennifer to follow him, and carried them to the faction hall. At level one, it was only a hut, but it would afford them a semblance of privacy. 

One by one, his council members appeared before him. As usual, Corwin and Jessica were early. Meanwhile, Councilor Tessay and his new head of security, Sir Fred Dansey, arrived two minutes late.

“Okay,” Blake began the meeting. “Now that everyone’s here, I have some updates for you.”

For the next five minutes, he filled them in on recent events. Corwin asked a few clarifying questions, but for the most part they let him talk uninterrupted.

“At this point,” Blake concluded. “I think we should abandon this faction hall and head back to Lake Goldwater. It not only has better placement, but has a portal I need to check out as well. It’s been a couple of days since I ran a scenario, and I need the nano to level.”

“Not so fast,” Corwin said. “While it may not be next to a water source or portal, it offers safety and supplies. It will also allow us to continue recruiting once our faction hits the limit.”

Blake quickly checked his interface to see how many members were now in his faction.

Faction Members: 9,948/50,000

Wow, almost ten thousand already.

While Blake was updated daily on their recruitment effort and supplies, the speed of their growth still surprised him.

“I don’t know about that,” he disagreed. “It’s been a week, and we’re only at twenty percent capacity. By the time we run up against the fifty kay limit, the faction hall should be updated to level five. According to Metal, that’ll let us recruit up to five hundred thousand people.”

“About that,” his mother grimaced. “It may take longer than you think.”

Blake frowned.

Donna continued. “Jordan finished the last prerequisite upgrade, and we finally found out the requirements to reach level five. He says the next upgrade not only requires a lot more materials from multiple worlds, but they have to come from level eight scenarios.”

Blake closed his eyes.

That’s not good.

At his current strength, he could defeat a scenario two levels above him. If that remained true in the future as well, he would need to level four more times before he could even attempt a level eight scenario. That would be at least a year or more at his present speed. If he skipped spell evolutions, or borrowed nano from taxes, he could get there faster, but it would still take far more time than he expected.

Maybe I only need level five.

Blake suddenly realized that his achievements might allow him to punch even higher above his weight, especially if the scenarios were good matchups. However, level five was still months away, so he put it out of his mind. 

“Does it really matter if they’re in the faction?” Sir John asked. The Payson head of security had a furrowed brow. “They can still sleep inside the wall, even if they’re not officially part of our faction, right?”

“Yes, but if they’re not in our faction, they don’t pay taxes,” Jessica Nguyen replied. “Expanding the town and upgrading bunkhouses costs a lot of nano.”

“Not to mention the unrest if people find out others are exempt,” Corwin Taylor added. “You’d see plenty of people leave the faction so they could freeload as well.” His intelligence advisor turned to Blake. “You should keep the faction hall and upgrade it as much as possible. By the time we reach capacity, it could be close to level three and allow us to receive taxes from another five thousand people.”

“If people join the Black Diamond faction, can they still reside within the walls of my town, or will they need to remain in Prescott?” Chancellor Tessay asked.

Blake frowned. “I don’t know of anything that would prevent them from staying in Eagar. You can put security controls on the subfaction just as easily as our own faction.”

“Then that would be a good work-around,” Donna said. “Especially if we can upgrade it to level four.”

Blake nodded. “Now we just need to figure out who’s going to run it. It needs to be someone we trust, especially before a portal room gets built. Right now, it takes a full day to get here.”

“Only a half day from Payson,” Jessica reminded him.

For the next half hour, they discussed who would best serve as a sub-faction leader. Many nominations were put forth, and a heated discussion followed. Blake, however, remained uninterested. The only thing he truly cared about was whether they were trustworthy. 

Finally, they came to a decision and Sir John Anastacio promised to send two combat teams to escort their candidate and some volunteers. Their assistance would free up Blake to rescue others and complete scenarios.

After decisions were made, Donna broached a new topic. “How will we transport those prisoners to the jail here? You said you captured almost twenty of them, right?”

This is not going to be a fun discussion.

Blake was about to inform his mother of his plans for them when Jennifer Taylor finally spoke up. So far, she had remained silent for the entire meeting, and Blake had almost forgotten she was there.

“They all need to die,” the influencer said resolutely.

Wow, I didn’t expect that.

“What?!” his mother gasped. “We can’t just kill them! They haven’t even received a fair trial!”

“I think the captives we just rescued would disagree,” Jennifer argued. “Blake glossed over some of the details, but trust me, it’s bad. Real bad.”

“Did all the prisoners participate in those crimes?” Sir Kasey asked. 

“I’m not sure, but I’ll find out,” Jennifer promised. “Don’t forget, I can read their minds.”

“See,” Blake smiled. “There’s a trial right there, better than any courtroom.”

His mother scowled at him.

“I don’t believe we should execute any of them,” Corwin said carefully.

Wow. I didn’t see that coming.

The ex-military intelligence officer was very pragmatic, which was why Blake was so surprised the man was against the death penalty. Just a few days before, the intelligence advisor had suggested baiting other faction leaders to assassinate them.

“They could be a valuable resource,” Corwin explained. “Donna is correct. They could be contained within our jail cells and only released to complete scenarios for nano. Is it possible to increase taxes to one hundred percent on specific individuals?”

“No, it’s not,” Donna replied. “But slave labor is wrong. It would make us no better than President Warner.” She then turned to her son. “Can’t we just exile them?”

Blake shook his head. “No, not after what they did. Do you really want to be responsible for what they do after we let them out? Besides, you should never let an enemy go. That’s just asking to be stabbed in the back later.”

He saw Corwin nod in agreement.

“But,” Blake continued. “I’m more worried about what people would say when they find out. And, they will find out. Prisoners might not be able to use the interface inside the cells, but they’re free to talk all they want once they leave.”

Jennifer snorted. “Once I release my expose, that won’t be a problem. You’ll have people praising you for foresight.”

I doubt it. There’s always people who side with criminals.

Despite his skepticism, he kept the thought to himself. Chain gangs were nothing new, and were common in his past timeline. However, his old faction, Knights Honor, had not practiced the tradition, which is why it had not occurred to him. Personally, he thought it was a great idea.

“At least that’s better than just killing them outright,” his mother finally admitted.

Not really. A quick, clean death is a far better fate than being eaten by monsters.

Again, Blake kept his mouth shut.

“How soon can we transfer the prisoners through a portal?” Blake asked. “Right now, they’re being kept in a bathroom. It’s not exactly secure.”

“Three days,” Donna answered. 

Three more days and they’re someone else’s problem.

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