Chapter 1008 (1/2)

Honestly, when the head of the Order Machina wandered back from the brief meeting with Tatiana wearing an expression of deep confusion, Evan Crane felt a rush of catharsis. So much so that he had to carefully school his face to remain neutral.

Truly, if Erickson Steel would have fallen to this sort of diversion, it wouldn’t have been a company worthy of having Evan at its head. It was only because it continued to elude the many traps that Senator Heathridge set in its path that it proved to be the gem that Evan Crane so long obsessed over. It was worthy of his jealousy due to the fact that so few other hands were able to brush it.

“How could they just reject me out of hand…?” The head of the Order Machina mumbled. Devin Finde was a rather young man, considering his position, but he had been a rising star at an Engineering firm before the System arrived. But, of course, he was an insufferable ass who spent more time tinkering with old cars and obsessively trimming his goatee than actually attempting to improve himself.

Not that what he had accomplished wasn’t impressive. Devin had created a parallel methodology of creating drones that involved heavily reinforced exteriors and interior circuitry that was much closer to old-style technology than the Erickson Steel method of simply Engraving runes onto the materials.

The benefit of the Order Machina style was that machines could be preprogrammed to respond to quite a bit more scenarios. That internal machinery gave the makers a lot more real estate to work with in terms of Engraving surfaces. In addition, it did not require that they be connected to Ghost’s network in order to be controlled to fight. They could function on their own, should Zone 1’s network ever be taken down… or if the drone owner wanted to accomplish something without Ghost being aware of it.

Which is why people like Senator Heathridge and his slimy ilk pushed for the Order Machina to be inducted as an official Order. There was a lot of dirty money that flowed into Linde’s many businesses that desperately needed an air of legitimacy.

However, that variety of drones were extremely time-consuming to make. Undoubtedly they would have been completely priced out of the market by Randidly’s drones… if only there were more people at Erickson Steel who were capable enough to make the Engraving based drones.

Randidly’s Engravings were theoretically open to anyone to utilize, but most people were dumbfounded by the elegant ingenuity that they incorporated into their structure. Without an Engraving Level over 100, it just wasn’t possible to do what Randidly did with any sort of consistency. Hell, without an Engraving Level above 150, doing what Randidly could do in an afternoon took an entire week.

Perhaps there is some sort of tool that Erickson Steel possesses that gives Randidly that ability… Crane fantasized. His fingers twitched, but he resisted the urge to pull out and light a cigarette. This was his last pack for today, and he wanted to save them as much as he could. And when Erickson Steel becomes mine… then it will be ME that is the greatest Engraver in the world. I’ll call it the Crane-method...

Abruptly, Crane realized that Finde had settled beside him on the hood of Crane’s humvee in a slump. “Ah… she didn’t give any reason to reject the Order Machina?”

“Bah, she said it was because they didn’t need our help.” Finde’s hands curled into claws. “I told you we should have waited until the monsters started to wander up here. Hmph, then we’d have the pleasure of watching that bitch Tatiana begging for our help.”

That lovely eventuality, of course, was something that Evan Crane couldn’t allow. Because if they waited for the monster attack to actually come, Erickson Steel would likely suffer irreparable damage. And that was something that Crane couldn’t bear. So he just grunted noncommittally in agreement.

“So our next move-” Crane began, but he trailed off as he saw a group of very dirty travelers jogging down the road toward them.

Although the Order Machina had brought out their drones with their full regalia to impress Erickson Steel, it was possible to condense their forces into a much smaller group of transport carriers for ease of movement. Which, after they were rejected, was exactly what Finde did. All of his pretty little toys were folded into smaller pieces and then moved around through the surrounding forest North of Erickson Steel to the East road, where Crane had been watching the whole process play out.

And now, from the east, a group of about thirty people was jogging past in an extremely haphazard looking line.

All of the people in the ragged column were at least a little dirty, but the group was led by three individuals who seemed a little bit more put together than their followers: a teenage boy, a lizard person, and a cockroach.

Crane narrowed his eyes. Why do these three seem so familiar…?

Aside from the three more composed and stoic leaders, the followers seemed completely gassed. They staggered forward, often stumbling over even the smallest obstacle in their exhaustion. Large drops of sweat gathered on their foreheads as they continued onward. And the more that Crane looked, the more he released that they were equally covered in dirt and blood. It seemed like these people had wandered out of a battlefield to arrive here.

“Should we…. Help those people?” Finde scratched his nose, his own depression driven out by the extremely bedraggled state of the new arrivals. He straightened and climbed onto the hood of the humvee. Then he put his hand above his eyes and peered at them and the direction from which they originated. “Are they refugees? But why would they be coming from the East…”

For almost ten seconds, the two men watched the procession approach. With the drones stored away in their transports and hidden in the surrounding forest, it was likely that this strange parade of wounded wouldn’t even see the pair. Which was probably for the best, because Crane just couldn’t put his finger on why-

Finde went pale, then abruptly bright red. “Unless… the monsters did attack. But they somehow wandered past Erickson Steel and attacked another town…?”

“Shit...shit.” Crane gritted his teeth. If that was true… Senator Heathridge would be pissed. Part of the agreement here was for Crane to maintain control over the situation. It wasn’t hard for Senator Heathridge to arrange for the patrols to vary and allow monsters near Erickson Steel to build up, but the good Senator would be thrown under the bus at the drop of a hat if the oversight came to light.