Sidekick by Carl Stubblefield (10 best novels of all time .txt) 📗

a low battery. It began to be so irritating that Gus stopped working and tried to localize the sound. It wasn’t until he used his augmented hearing and found that he could localize a direction when the beep sounded again. After three more beeps he found an old console in the corner covered in dust.

On the screen he saw the message:

(1) message pending.

“Nick, what do you know about this?”

“Due to the bio-stasis shield, this communication network was never configured and connected to the system, so I did not receive any notice. Wanna have me do that now?”

“Yes, obviously. This looks pretty old,” Gus said, swiping a finger across the monochrome screen, then rubbing the dust off his fingertip. “How far is the range on this thing? Can I communicate with the mainland?” he asked.

“Okay, comms are linked. You’re in luck. It can relay to the mainland. You want to call home?”

“Yeah, no. Not yet. I… um, let me level up some more. I’m not quite ready for everything that calling my father would entail.”

“You can’t avoid him forever.”

“I know. I just don’t think I’m ready yet. I want to be able to stand on my own a bit before we cross paths again. He’s got a very dominating personality. I don’t want to give that up just yet.” Gus exhaled. “Sorry for being so defensive, but I need to do this myself. For a little bit, at least.”

“Understood. What about your bros? I know you miss them.”

“Yeah, that’d be good. What’s that message though?”

“Right. Well, time-stamp is from six days ago, looks like a couple days after the bio-stasis field went down. Here it is: ‘Thank you, whoever you are. We have been looking for the manor for so long. Now that we know where you are, we will be seeing you soon to reclaim what is ours!’”

Gus’ blood ran cold and his heart felt like it was being squeezed.

“You said six days, right? They could be almost here! Do you think they’re supers? Of course they’re supers if they know about the manor, who am I kidding?” Gus shouted in panic. “No, no, no. I’m not ready for this! Oh damn, Nick, couldn’t you have told me about this before?” Gus pinched his eyes shut and rubbed his temples. “And that upgrade, that’s not going to help me at all, is it?”

“Sorry, slugger. It should only work for people without Nth, as I described—”

“Hells to the bells!” Gus blurted. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you talk me into that!”

“Hey now, don’t pin this on me. You were stewing in your moral quandary over there and if you recall, it was the hybrid-Nth’s suggestion, not mine. And just FYI, throwing me under the bus—seriously not cool.”

“Sorry, sorry. You’re right. It was my choice. It just sucks because I would have done things differently had I known.” Gus rubbed his face, looking at the display through one eye as he tried to think. “At least I hadn’t unlocked any facilities yet, thinking I had all the time in the world. Let me see what takes priority now.”

Gus returned to the other console and reviewed his notes on options and narrowed down his choices based on the new information. He wished he had more FP; there were so many cool things the manor could do if he just had the points.

He had worked out his next unlocks:

Remote Sensors: 1,500 FP.

Remote Sensors Tier 2: 2,000 FP.

Cafeteria Tier 2: 2,000 FP.

Training Arena Tier 2: 2,000 FP.

Brig: 150 FP.

First, he figured he needed an early warning on who was coming to the island. Nothing offensive was affordable, so he’d have to do the heavy lifting there for now. Nothing’s ever easy.

Next, the ability to raise stats on the go, which the cafeteria could help with, and third, more training in disarming and disabling foes in non-lethal ways.

Am I insane for trying to defend the island with one hand tied behind my back? Any invaders would be playing for keeps and would not have any qualms about using lethal force. He had debated when he was younger about how he would do things different than his father and brother had, but was that too idealized and naive? He had seen their way of dealing with their opponents, and part of Gus rejected that unequivocally.

And finally, a place to store those who he detained, assuming he could even do that in the first place. He would have waited on this, but the cost was so small and he couldn’t afford anything else on the list.

“Gus, you’ll figure it out,” Nick interjected into his thoughts before he was able to get too wound up. “I think you have a good plan—for now. If it’s not working, we can modify it. Not everything has to be solved with force, and that may be difficult with your current level of skills, so go with what you know.”

Gus turned back to the menus and focused once again on his plan. Remote sensing would allow the island, and by extension his minimap, to gather data from a certain radius around the island, a mere ten miles at level one. At tier two, however, the range would jump to one hundred miles. That would allow some time to mount a defense or get into position.

There were other offensive options to protect the island, but they were unreasonably expensive at his current level of FP. Maybe someday, he thought bitterly.

The brig was self-explanatory, and fortunately it was equipped with a dampening field that could interfere with Nth functioning. The only downside being that this would also affect individuals outside of the cells as well as those inside the cells. Not a total deal breaker, but useful to know. It would most likely be best to have any prisoners incapacitated, as he would not be able to fight back in most cases if they chose to resist. What to do with them in the future was a question for another time.

The cafeteria would offer