Chapter 9: Waste Not, Want Not
Under the yellow light, Pete's face — a patchwork of bruising in varying shades, mapped over an expression of pure fear — bore a striking resemblance to Munch's The Scream.
"Ross, head back up. And on your way, give the guards down here a week off."
Matthew added, without looking back: "Paid leave."
Eleanor acknowledged this quietly and left. The word reached the guards on the floor shortly after. The staff who had been maintaining the most carefully neutral expressions all shift found those expressions loosening slightly at the news. They had caught fragments of the conversation, but had not been able to confirm anything until the official notification came through. Now it had.
[System points +5. Marcus Powell feels like he picked the right boss.]
[System points +3. Brandon West's long-suppressed inner self feels a sense of relief.]
[System points +1...]
[System points +1...]
By the time the notifications settled, he had gained another twenty-odd points from a single administrative decision.
Matthew looked back at Pete.
Pete flinched the moment their eyes met. His body did it before his brain had finished the thought.
"What are you, what are you going to do?"
"Nothing."
"...What?"
"Joking." Matthew waved a hand and smiled. He reached into his jacket and dropped a stack of documents through the cell bars onto the floor. "I came down here to thank you. Three years of your... attentive service. What's on those pages is your reward — yours and your colleagues'."
He put weight on the word reward.
Pete picked up the papers with the wariness of someone defusing something. They were not documents in any standard sense. They were experimental trial reports, and the outcomes documented inside them covered a range of conditions that included, but were not limited to, dermal dissolution, uncontrolled vomiting, and severe dissociative episodes. Accompanied by photographs.
Pete's skin went pale in a way that showed clearly through the bruising.
"I said you were going to serve as drug trial volunteers at headquarters," Matthew said, his voice entirely calm. "You didn't actually think that was a joke, did you?"
Pete was on his knees before he had consciously decided to get there. His expression had gone past pleading into something more fundamental.
"Mr. Lawrence. I know I was wrong. I'm asking you, please — please let me go."
No response. Pete kept going.
"To make up for everything. I'll hand over everything I have. All of it."
Still nothing.
"I don't have much on me now, but I have savings. Seven hundred thousand dollars. It's in a warehouse at 45 Citrus Avenue. There are also Magia Gang criminal records stored there, the full ledger. Sell those to another gang and they'd be worth serious money."
Matthew raised an eyebrow. "Didn't expect you to be a rat."
Pete latched onto this immediately. "Hey, everyone needs a backup plan these days."
"45 Citrus Avenue." Matthew repeated it quietly, then gave a small nod. "I'll remember that."
"I'll have someone collect it."
"So..." Pete stayed on his knees. "You'll let me go? That's everything I have—"
"Of course." Matthew pressed his palm to the biometric lock on the cell door. It opened. "You can leave."
Pete stared at the open door. He swallowed.
"I can really go?"
"You're welcome to stay longer if you prefer."
Pete was on his feet and running before Matthew had finished the sentence.
[System points +50. Pete Gray is grateful you showed him mercy. He has decided to turn his life around when he gets out.]
The other cells were watching. When the rest of the Magia crew saw their leader make it to the elevator, they erupted into a simultaneous chorus of offers, cash hidden in various locations, criminal ledger locations, and, in at least one case, a proposition involving the transfer of a girlfriend that Matthew declined to acknowledge at all.
He processed them the same way he had processed Pete.
They were a resource. An inefficient one, but a resource. Waste recycling: threat them, then release them, and let their relief do the rest. The System registered genuine gratitude at scale. The points rolled in.
[System points +80. Lucas Shelton sincerely thanks you for sparing his life and intends to leave the gang lifestyle behind.]
[Accumulated System points: 440. Milestone reward — T-001 Tyrant x1 (deposited into System storage).]
[Next milestone: 550 accumulated System points. Please continue making full use of your System rewards to benefit the people.]
[System points +40, +30...]
[Accumulated System points: 680. Milestone reward — Low-Grade Optimization Uses x3 (deposited into System storage).]
[Next milestone: 800 accumulated System points. Please continue making full use of your System rewards to benefit the people.]
Matthew stopped at that last one.
"Low-Grade Optimization Uses?"
He checked the description.
[Low-Grade Optimization Use: Can be used to optimize one Lab defect costing up to 150 System points, at no System point cost.]
He looked at this for a moment.
Three uses. The Low Intelligence defect on the T-Virus cost 100 points to optimize — within the 150-point cap. So were most of the others. Three free optimizations, effectively equivalent to four hundred and fifty System points he would not have to spend.
That was an excellent evening's work.
Coming down here had been entirely worth it.
"Mr. Pete, sir. Your clothes."
In the corridor outside the elevator, several of the same large men who had put Pete on the ground that afternoon were now holding folded stacks of clothing.
Pete approached this with caution. "That's... for me?"
"That's right." The man in front nodded. "Mr. Lawrence instructed us to return everyone's belongings and drive you all back."
Pete and the crew exchanged glances. Then, carefully, they started getting dressed.
The vehicle waiting for them in the parking area was a boxed cargo van. The kind used to transport fresh meat. The Umbrella Corporation logo was on the side.
"In you get," the large man said.
Pete looked at the van. He looked at the parking area, which was full of ordinary vehicles. He looked at the van again.
"You said you'd drive us back," he said slowly. "In a refrigerated cargo van."
"All the company vehicles are out on assignments tonight. This is the only one available."
"What about all of those?" Pete gestured at the rows of cars.
"Those are personal vehicles. We can't authorize their use. Please get in."
There was no good answer to any of this, but the men were looking at them with expressions that did not invite further questions. Pete and the crew got in.
The cargo hold was cramped and dark. The only sounds were the ventilation fan and everyone's breathing. For the first ten minutes or so, someone attempted a joke. It did not land particularly well.
Then the jokes stopped.
"Boss." A quiet voice from somewhere in the dark. "Has the Umbrella building always been this far from our neighborhood?"
A beat.
"Also... did anyone actually tell them where we live?"
The realization arrived at the same moment for most of them. They started banging on the walls of the cargo hold. The sound went nowhere, the van had been built to certain specifications, and those specifications included not carrying noise outward.
The van drove on through the dark.
Eventually it slowed, turned, and pulled into the grounds of a private hospital. The Umbrella logo was visible on the building.
When the van pulled out again some time later, it was moving noticeably faster than before.