Mavis and Samuel had gone over her quest log in detail, leaning together over the flickering HUD projections as if they were plotting a heist. Samuel’s weathered hands traced routes in the air, mapping efficient loops through her tasks. She’d start by heading east to the mid sized town for two of the quests, then swing south into the industrial area for the rest. Between points, he hammered in a mantra, pack early, loot smart, scan often.
“This’ll help you sift through the junk,” he said, eyes narrowing with the tone of someone speaking from long, hard-earned experience. “Rare stuff sells better, and active scan will also size up zeds, NPCs, and other players before they size you up. One of the best skills to grind early.”
He’d given her that sly smile before logging out, leaving her alone on the road.
Now, Mav jogged lightly down the eastward stretch, her waypoint pulsing faintly on the horizon. Samuel had shared his map and it unfurled on her HUD with crisp detail, streets, landmarks, even elevation marks like someone had handed her the cheat sheet to the world. Goo skimmed ahead in lazy arcs, keeping one luminous eye on the road.
Her quests scrolled across her HUD, annotated with Samuel’s notes. She read them aloud in a quiet murmur, voice half for herself, half for Goo. Mary’s scavenger hunt. Phillip’s medical restock. Sophie’s codelock. David’s pile of hardware and replacement goggles. It was a shopping list from the apocalypse.
Blinking the log away, she swung her newest acquisition into her hands, a spear, its oak shaft thrumming faintly as she spun it. The leaf-shaped double blade whispered through the air with a satisfying snick. Samuel’s voice echoed in memory: “Knife’s fine, but a spear keeps those grabbing hands away.” He’d plucked it from the weapons shop wall like he was handing her the keys to survival.
C-Class - Basic
Hardwood Boar Spear
Type: Polearm
Material: Oak haft / Steel head
Mods: Double Bladed/Cross Bar
She rolled the haft across her palms, letting the balance settle. Karate training came back in muscle memory, the spear wasn’t a bo staff, but her body recognized the rhythm. Thrust, recover. Guard high, guard low. Keep moving.
An hour in, the road began to change. The abandoned cars here had been pushed to the shoulder, the blacktop cleared like someone had swept with a giant’s broom. Her HUD shimmered with red outlines ahead,human silhouettes blurred at the edges.
“Mav, we have company,” Goo’s voice slid into her ear just as the shapes resolved. “Seven. Center of the road. They’ll have line of sight in four seconds. Move.”
She crouched and combat walked toward the hulking shape of a truck. A trailer hitched behind it caught her eye, slatted sides, barred windows, split doors. A horse trailer. ‘God, please no zombie horses,’ she thought with a faint grimace.
One peek confirmed it was empty. She slipped inside, closing the door with careful fingers, the faint click of the latch louder in her own ears than it probably was in reality. The space smelled faintly of old hay and rust. Moving bay to bay, she latched windows and pushed doors shut until she reached the final compartment.
Outside, the drag of dead feet grew louder. “Goo, pop a view,” she whispered.
He slid through the bars, and her HUD bloomed with an exterior feed. The seven approached in that unnerving, lurching rhythm, like marionettes with tangled strings.
She stood in one smooth motion, rapping the butt of her spear against the bars. CLANG.
“Hey, motherfuckers, wanna party?” she called. Heads jerked up. Screeches tore from their throats. The leader, overalls, name tag ‘Clefius’, finger bent grotesquely, reached first. She studied them one by one, cataloging their deaths: the young woman in the slip, makeup half-done; the security guard with claw marks on her cheek; the poor bastard in the gimp suit, front flap gone, leather tight around his frame. “That’s… a choice,” she laughed.
“Procedural generation, or a twisted artist at the dev studio?” She wondered, another note for Arthur. Clefius reached the bars. She lunged, blade sliding into his skull with a wet crunch. His body dropped, tugging the spear downward. She yanked back fast, Bobby’s lesson in her head: “Thrust and pull when using a weapon. Don’t let ‘em take the blade with ‘em.”
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One by one, they fell. Smooth strike, quick retrieval, reset. By the time the gimp went down, mask splitting under the point, quiet should have returned. Instead, another chorus of moans rolled in from farther up the road.
“Goo?” Her HUD feed ticked new silhouettes into being. Eleven this time being led by a huge zombie wearing a Golds Gym tank top and shorts.
She grinned without humor. “All right. Round two, getting gainz!”
She taunted the meathead in the Gold’s Gym tank, spear haft banging bars, drawing them in. The rush came all at once this time, a mass of flailing arms battering the trailer’s side. Fear pricked up her spine until she realized none had the wit to open a latch. Hysterical giggles bubbled up as she resumed the work, eye, forehead, pull, repeat until the last body slumped out of sight.
Leaning back against the partition, she slid to the floor, spear across her thighs, breath puffing.
“Tough one,” she muttered.
“I calculated survival odds at 97.94%,” Goo replied, drifting inside. “Challenging, perhaps. Not tough.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, took a long drink from her water bottle, then moved to the barred gate. One knee down, she accessed the nearest corpse’s inventory. Her HUD filled with cascading loot windows, zombie by zombie.
“I know, Arthur,” she said dryly toward Goo’s lens. “Better to loot in person. But I’m not in the mood for finger-painting in gore today.”
She cherry picked water bottles, food, jewelry, plastic, and score, the security guard’s sidearm. One young zombie had a small backpack. She slid it into her inventory, stuffed most of the haul inside, and reviewed her spoils.
Bag - School Backpack, Class D / Poor – 40 Slot
3 Gold bands / 3 Silver rings / 5 Gold necklaces / 1 Gold bracelet
1 Can tuna / 1 Bag chips
2 Water bottles - 6 servings each / Full / (3 Slots)
S&W .22 Pistol – Loaded (6 rounds)
2 Speed loaders – Loaded (6 rounds each)
“Not bad… not bad at all,” Mav murmured, lips curling in a self-satisfied half-smile as she scrolled through the list. Slinging the backpack over one shoulder, she gave it a little bounce to settle the straps. The weight felt good, earned, “Goo, recon.”
Her AVA zipped out through the bars, scanning in quick loops before his voice came back, smooth and certain: “All clear.” The back gate creaked as she eased it open, her head tilting just enough to peek around the trailer’s edge. The sight hit like a gut punch, dozens of corpses sprawled in grotesque tangles, flies already buzzing. Her stomach twisted, she turned away before bile could rise, exhaling slowly through her nose.
She set her spear low and started down the road, the tip ticking lightly in time with her strides. Confidence bloomed in the rhythm. Goo had the eyes; she had the hands. A double-blink brought the clock into her HUD:
PGT – 7:05:58 / ERWT – 0:42:36 / GT – 2:05:58 PM
“God, that’s so fucking cool,” she said to her AVA, marveling at the neat overlay. “Time compression like this… if you stripped out the zombie buffet part, you could revolutionize work, education… hell, the whole damn economy.”
She shook her head, grinning faintly at the thought, and leaned back into her run, “and that’s just what WBWT will do, of course!” She realized, chiding herself for doubting her parent company and smiled more at the idea.
A minimized map nestled into her upper-right vision as she commanded, “Minimize.” Goo’s passing synced with the map’s unfolding terrain, buildings and roads filling in as though painted ahead of her.
‘I wonder if I can find a paper map that’ll fill in more of this at once…’ The idea drifted, then snapped back as she laughed aloud. “You’ve got a whole team, genius, just ask them.”
Her message to Team-Mav was quick: “
Mavitsune → Team-Mav: Hey, not sure if anyone’s out there, but is there a way to update large sections of my map without having to travel everywhere? Could someone let me know? Thanks.
“Mav,” Goo cut in, “three incoming, left side of the road.”
Three green dots pulsed onto her map. She slowed to a predator’s trot, eyes scanning for cover, just a single small sedan.
“Thanks, Goo. I got this.” One smooth jump put her crouched atop the trunk. Spear haft rapped lightly against the metal as sound bait. The trio shambled closer. She triggered her scan:
E-class / Mundane
D-class / Normal
E-class / Mundane
The Normal wore a scuffed bucket-style motorcycle helmet. ‘So, armor bumps class?’ she wondered, lips pursing. The first Mundane fell clean to a quick thrust, the second collapsing with a wet thud against the sedan’s side.
The helmeted Normal split wide around the hood to flank her, a flash of higher processing she hadn’t seen in the others. ‘Smarter. Not by much, but smarter.’ She used the spear tip to tilt its head sideways, opening the angle, and drove the blade in. The helmet clattered as the body crumpled. Inventory check: just a few rags and a lighter. “Figures.” She wiped the blade on the zombie’s back before dropping lightly to the pavement.
“Yes,” Goo’s voice chimed in as she picked up speed again, “you received a reply during combat. I delayed it until you were clear. Was that correct?” His tone carried that soft, testing note she’d come to recognize, him learning her preferences in real time.
“Good call. Let’s see it.” A message window bloomed on her HUD;
Team-Mav → Mavitsune: Hey Mav, it’s Bobby. Yeah, you can open big areas by finding a physical map and reading it. Updates most details, but might miss small stuff, damage, changes unless you or your AVA actually see it. Rare, but worth grabbing. Hope that helps. Keep kicking ass.
“Well then, I’ll have to keep my eyes open for a map then.” She said looking at Goo and smiling for the camera. “Thank’s Bobby.”
