Chapter 16: The Obvious Choice

The last time Rick had been unprepared, he had ended up in a death match against someone who was literally called "the Slayer." This time he planned to do everything he could before things got ugly.

He began by leaving a message with his uncle, since Uncle Frank had seemed to know something about this "Golden Core." When he didn't get an immediate call back, he began doing research of his own. For a start, he confirmed what Granny Whitney had said about special cores. Though all the details seemed to be confidential, there was definitely information that abilities like that existed, at least if you were rich enough.

While he didn't know anything for sure, he could piece together an approximation of what might have happened. Maguire Incorporated must be testing a new form of core that could operate at lower levels of lucrim generation. Either as an experiment or just as a perk of being the founder's son, Mike Maguire must have held one of those cores. During their fight, his inexperience might have fractured it into core fragments, one of which Rick absorbed.

That last part was the weakest link. While something like that must have happened, his knowledge of Lucores was too basic to be sure about any details. Whatever exactly had happened, Mike and then his father's corporation had figured it out and now they were after him.

Research into Maguire Incorporated had quickly proved daunting. It was like a lot of conglomerates, in that it contained a private combat sect and owned a variety of conventional manufacturing companies. Once they had power of one kind, they tended to seek any power they could seize for themselves. That often included cutting-edge research into lucrima and related phenomena.

Faced with an aggressive multinational corporation threatening legal action, his best choice was obvious: give them what they wanted.

There had been a few movies about plucky heroes taking on multinational corporations, and of course the lone warrior challenging the dominant combat sect was an old cliché. But those were stories, and this was reality. Maguire Incorporated had thousands of ordinary employees who were stronger than him, much less their elite combat groups. He had people he needed to protect and few resources, so his best bet was to cooperate and hope it went well.

However, that didn't mean going unprepared. All during his shift on Sunday, he trained as intensely as he could, trying to solidify his recent combat experiences into real gains. Though he wanted to read Granny Whitney's book, he decided it was safer to leave it at home.

When he finally got back, however, he found Melissa desperately trying to save a scorching pot roast and realized that he couldn't dive into training just yet. She winced when she saw him come in.

"Aww... I was hoping I'd have everything ready before you got home, but I kinda screwed it up..."

"It smells okay." He stepped in and helped her with the heavy pot. "Bit burned, but okay. What's the occasion?"

"I just wanted us to eat a bit better for once. We've been so busy we've just been eating whatever was around, and that can't be good for us." She gave a sheepish shrug. "But it turns out cooking is not really my strong suit."

They salvaged what they could and sat down on the floor to eat. Aside from the burned smell, it was actually quite good, heavy but with more subtle seasonings. Certainly better than the cheap crap they'd been eating lately, so he took the time to enjoy it.

Before too long, however, his sister stopped eating and instead glanced at him. "So... while you were gone, I shamelessly snooped through your things."

"Hey."

"Kidding - I saw it when I put your stuff away, after you passed out. Anyway, it looks like you got some valuable stuff. I'm not good at estimating lucrim, but I haven't seen a container that fancy before. Not to mention the old book and the weird medicine."

"Yeah. I'm going to have to work them off eventually, but these will be a real step forward." He was silent for a while, chewing another bite of potato. "Some of it will take a while, but I intend to take all of the lucrim and see how far it will get me."

"Couldn't you just use it to pay off the leech things directly? Or is that not how it works?"

"Not how it works." Rick ate in silence for a while, trying to think about how to explain it. Some things had been so obvious to him for such a long time that it was easy to forget that it was all obscure to some people, and others he had only recently started to understand himself. "Normal people dealing in lucrim are talking about increments of energy, which is what I received. But when lucrima users talk, they're almost always referring to their lucrim generation rate. Another way to put it might be lucrim capacity."

Melissa cocked her head at him. "Those don't seem like the same thing."

"It makes sense if you think about the old days. Back before we mined the atmosphere so effectively, trained warriors could gather lucrim to themselves just by focusing. But there's a limit to how much people can gather and hold at one time, which is your generation rate. The general rule, which is where the official numbers come from, is that your maximum capacity is the amount you can generate in one year."

"Oh, so the name is kinda outdated? That makes sense. It didn't seem like everybody could actually be generating that much all the time."

"Right. So the 50,000 lucrim I received... I could use it to buy things, or I could use it to recharge myself several times. But you can recharge with cheap serum, or even just resting enough, though the rate is extremely slow thanks to the lucrim mining. A much better use of excessive lucrim is to absorb it all, then try to crunch it down into your lucrima soul. You burn through it, but in the end, your capacity increases. That lets you hold more power at once and invest it into useful applications, hence that's why everybody is most concerned about generation rate."

"Got it." Melissa nodded thoughtfully and chewed for a while. "So you're going to do all your main preparations, then head to this corporate place?"

"Just the branch office in Branton, but yeah. That's the plan."

"Then... good luck, Rick. I hope that ends it and I don't get something else to worry about."

She didn't mean to make him feel guilty, but that was definitely his main reaction. The extra stress couldn't be good for her, and based on how things were going with the Underground, he was likely to just add more to it. He was nervous about how things might go with Maguire Incorporated, but better to address the issue directly than to let it sneak up on him and make things even worse.

After the meal he felt satisfied and a bit sleepy, but there were too many hours left in the day to rest. Instead Rick cracked open the book he'd been given and looked through it carefully. It seemed that it was a collection of technique descriptions. Like most books of its kind, it was easy to skim, but more difficult to fully comprehend and far harder to put into practice.

What Granny Whitney wanted him to do was fairly clear, at least. One of the first major exercises taught was called Graham's Focus. It promised to improve cohesion of one's lucrima portfolio - done consistently, he would be able to absorb the two Birthright Cores fully.

That step would have to wait, but he could start with the initial exercises. The book also explained the purpose of the sand-like substance: apparently it was used as part of a purification ritual. It sounded like it was rough on the body and it required mastery of a few basics, so he would have to leave that behind.

Figuring out the pills was as easy as reading the label on the bottle. They helped restore one's lucrim reserves, but also helped purge damage done to a lucrima soul. The leeches were definitely leaving behind a lot of issues, so he could use the pills to help recover as he got rid of them. For now, he resolved to finish doing all his training before he took any, since they looked expensive.

It took him two days to work through the basics and feel stable enough to risk a visit to Maguire Incorporated. Plus, he couldn't get a day off work until then.

He'd looked up the location of the branch office, but he felt a little uncomfortable about just showing up there. Of course, it was even more uncomfortable trying to go to work with his boss constantly breathing down his neck about the pressure.

He had an unusual shift that day and went home early, so Melissa was still at school. Rick repeated his new exercises a few times, wondering if he was just wasting time instead of acting. Just as he was beginning to work himself up to the point of leaving for the headquarters, he got a text message.

It was a short message from Uncle Frank, indicating that he should set up video chat. They only had a creaky old laptop, but Rick fired it up and opened the program.

Soon his uncle appeared on screen, smiling. It was night on his side of the world, but it appeared that he was calling from some sort of ancient ruin. That wasn't surprising, but Rick was pretty unclear where he was getting electricity or internet. Perhaps it was a satellite connection, though he didn't bother asking because they had much more important issues.

"Richard!" His uncle smiled broadly. "Sorry, but I only just got your message. I can't talk long, but I wanted to check in with you."

"Thanks, Uncle. Do you think I'd be making a huge mistake with this?"

"Well, to be honest, the problem is that all your other options would be much bigger mistakes. You don't want to get on the wrong side of Maguire Incorporated." Uncle Frank took off his broad hat and balanced it on one finger idly. "The real question is how exactly it happened and who they believe. Based on the fact that this Mike fellow was looking for the core himself, it's possible that they're viewing this as his fault."

Rick breathed a sigh of relief. "I was thinking that, but I didn't want to assume anything might go my way."

"It's still good to be cautious, but I think you should go visit them. However, there's one thing you definitely need to do first: go to an independent professional and get the core properly extracted and stored. You do not want to let them do it themselves or they'll be able to take you for even more."

Now that it was said, it seemed obvious, but he had been planning to head in without it. Another dirty trick they pulled against people like him, but at least he was prepared this time. "Do you have anyone you can recommend?"

"Honestly... it's been so many years since I've been to Branton, I'm not sure. Heck, just look up ratings online and pick someone who looks half-way decent. The main thing is to have their core extracted in a form that you can just hand them when you walk in."

"I definitely will. Anything else?"

"I've been looking deeper into this Maguire Incorporated and I can't say I like the look of what I've found. Not that they're involved with anything illegal - if anything, they seem overly concerned with the rule of law. But they like using the law against people and they've done a lot of lobbying. Better to wash your hands of them as soon as possible."

"Thanks, Uncle. I definitely will if I can."

They talked about Melissa's condition and a few other topics, but then his uncle said he had to go. As the call ended, Rick felt lighter than he expected. Though his uncle might not be able to help him very much directly, it was good to have someone whose advice he could trust. With his uncle's blessing on the plan, he decided that he might as well get started that day.

After leaving a note for his sister, Rick headed out into the city. Searching through lucrim-based businesses on his phone, he quickly found one that looked like it could extract the core properly. He started to psych himself out reading one star reviews that talked about horrible side effects, but those seemed to be present for every single store in existence. Eventually he made his choice and headed down.

The location was a simple building, a clinic with a pharmacy attached. He'd seen the picture online, but it was much smaller than he'd anticipated. Rick headed in and discovered a small, clean lobby. A middle-aged woman looked up from the front desk and smiled at him.

"How can I help you?"

"I have a core fragment that I need extracted and preserved."

"Hmm." She frowned a little, examining something on her screen. "We can definitely help you, but the price will vary depending on how much it's meshed with the rest of your lucrima portfolio. Some Lucores aren't very discrete, you see, and it can be a long operation."

"This one was just an accident, so I doubt it merged with anything."

"Our expert will decide that, but hopefully so!" The woman gave him another sunny smile and took him to one of the back rooms.

Their expert turned out to be an old man in a traditional combat robe and a cowboy hat, as if he was going to challenge someone to a lucrim pistol duel at any moment. Rick tried not to let it bias him - it might be out of fashion today, but that outfit had once been widely respected.

In any case, the man certainly knew what he was doing, quickly isolating the Golden Core. As Rick had hoped, it would be an easy operation. The cost was just over 500 lucrim... there was a time when that amount would have made him hesitate, but now it was a cost he could absorb. If it let him finally be finished with Mike and his family's company, it was more than worth it.

"Sit down and relax, sonny," the old man said. "This isn't going to work unless you've completely suppressed your aura and put your whole portfolio in proper order."

Since he'd been training at that for some time, that part was easy too. The old man raised a hand in his direction, muttering to himself for a while, then lowered his hand. Rick frowned and glanced at him. "Is something wrong?"

"No, I'm done." The old man shifted his hand palm up, a tiny golden fleck floating within. As he transferred it to a small containment device, he cast Rick a disapproving glance from beneath his bushy eyebrows. "You're better off without this, sonny. Getting a bunch of power early might seem nice at first, but you'll pay for it in the end. If you ask me, they shouldn't even be allowed to sell these."

Rick had a feeling that this man gave a lot of opinions regardless of if anyone asked him or not, but he had no reason to argue. He carefully took the containment device and stood up. As he turned to go, the old man called after him.

"Just a minute, sonny. You bought the device, so you want the core... you're not keeping it as a souvenir or anything, are you?"

"What? No, why do you ask?"

"Because it's not going to last long. A core that small can't survive, not unless you've got some serious containment equipment. So if you want to do anything with it, you've got... oh, about twelve hours or so before it starts deteriorating."

"Ah. Thanks for telling me." Rick managed to keep a neutral expression on his way out, but as soon as he left the clinic, he scowled.

Showing up without no core and a suspicious story about losing it would be insane. He'd been hoping to take another few days to choose the right time, but instead Rick found himself hailing a taxi for the ride across town. It seemed he was going to Maguire Incorporated that day.