Bagel followed her over to the adventurers guild which was the next door down. The fact that he could have another store set up two doors down on second avenue and he had only just now started thinking about how to take advantage of it was a lot. He hadn't expected to have to deal with multiple stories or with tenants to his new apartment and mixed used building. But they were there and if he was going to do something he wanted people to be here, experiencing what was going on.

The more people came into his little bubble, the bed of the bubble became more secure and the less likely was that they would get overrun by too many mobs. They would not have another Staten Island.

"When I see this building here? I see hope. And there's not a lot of Hope to go around. And when I see this little teenager making a fun name or something like drones and scones it tickles me. It's got a little bit of whimsy." She sniffled, wiping her face. "Who would have thought we needed whimsy and a damn apocalypse?"

They got to the door. Gladys opened it and they made their way up to the second floor where Khaleesi was taking notes on her own tablet. For a second, Bagel thought that Gladys would take out her clipboard but clearly she was not in the analytic mode at the moment. So far he had identified two ways that she operated one with fax body and the one it's analytic. He was pretty sure that she also had a man and Julia mode. Well if perhaps briefly he'd experienced it. For some reason he wanted to please her even though he was technically her boss.

"Bagel how is the block's handsomest boy?" Khaleesi said from the chair in the back of the room.

Half of the consoles had humans at them. The other half were almost certainly being controlled by an artificial intelligence. About six people were just lounging around in the back, most of them wearing something over their eyes to block out the Sun.

"Hello. I'm just doing the rounds with Gladys," he said.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Gladys said.

They shook hands.

"Your bagel's new person aren't you? I told him he needed to hire somebody."

"I am going to be handling Mr. Bagel's affairs from here on out in some departments. We had a couple questions about your drones. Specifically long-range capabilities."

Khaleesi grinned. "I'm glad to hear that. Let me guess. You want to send a drone out to pick up something from far away?"

Bagel jumped up on top of the table in the middle of the room. "You got it."

"We're looking for something they can go long range at a bare minimum, hundreds of miles away. But also pick up the cards from the stuff that it kills."

Khaleesi was unfazed. "Oh let me guess; you also want it to print gold and poop out cheesecake? We're only able to do so much. The drone guy I'm talking to from the Air National Guard only knows so much."

She slumped and Bagel headed over to her side. He hadn't heard much about that because it sounded like there hadn't been much fruit. She had been trying to get any kind of information from anybody in a position of power but she'd been pushed off.

"What did the National guard guy tell you?"

"Well, when he was done insulting me for being a teenager and also a girl, he told me that he wasn't going to help me."

Bagel raised his hackles. "I feel like we can take care of that problem. This person is in Manhattan?"

Khaleesi sniffled and nodded. Be glad to consider the appropriate amount of force for this type of adventure. He didn't want to come in too hard. But he also... That was when he looked up and saw that Gladys was incensed. Her glasses had moved a full two centimeters down her nose, something that almost never happened.

Bagel was gripped with fear all of a sudden.

"What is his name?" Gladys said, the ice in her voice enough to chill a moderately sized room.

"Airman Keith Barnabus..."

Gladys was up in moments. Bagel was swept up in her motion and didn't want to get caught flat footed with her next move.

Glad it's let him downstairs where she glared at the entirety of the assembled mass of people that were either awaiting assignment or between assignments and resting and the rare person who was actually doing their job.

"He's not here," she mumbled, looking at the board with all the assignments.

She rushed outside and for the first time, Bagel believed that a human could move so fast that he wouldn't be able to catch up. It was an odd, unfamiliar feeling. He'd never not been able to catch up with somebody, especially a human. Humans always moved so slow that he had often thought that they moved in slow motion. But this one? She was pure muscle and fury and hell on Earth incarnate and he was here for it.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

She looked out up and down second avenue, then started walking about as fast as an Olympic sprinter.

She moved like she meant it and Bagel kept up. Within moments they were at the fence that went across second avenue by way of forty fourth street. He can feel the heat radiating off of her. And that was when they arrived at the two men guarding the entrance to the safe zone.

Gladys opened the chain link fence door and stepped through. A man in military fatigue pants with a brown shirt was talking to a man in standard adventurers garb.

Despite moving so fast, she immediately paused and composed herself. Bagel sat next to her. Immediately both men were laser focused on them.

"Airman...Barnabus?" She said, bring up her clipboard. For the first time, Bagel was able to see what she'd written and it looked like a very extensive drawing of a nude figure. Bagel shook his head for a second and re-centered himself. He would have to examine whatever that was later.

"Senior airman Barnabus at your service, Ma'am I..."

Suddenly, their faces were an inch apart and the man gulped. Bagel hadn't really seen her move. He known she'd moved but had he looked away? He was focused on the man. That had to have been it.

"Word on the street here is that you've disrespected one of Bagel's employees."

"Who what..."

"I'm not done. Now I don't know what you do in your little boy scout outfit or anything like that but look young man. We are in this together."

Bagel could feel the tension between the two humans. It looked like Gladys was about to pummel him.

The other man backed off as if she'd let off a hairball in between the three of them. For his part, the man of the fatigues blinked several times and tried to stand up. Airman Barnabus was not having a good time by any stretch of the imagination.

"Do you understand that we are fighting for our fucking lives here?" Gladys said.

"Yes ma'am," he replied.

"And you understand that any little advantage we have against this ongoing horde of monsters is an important part of what we're doing?"

He looked to his friend and then to Bagel as if either one of them was going to help him out. Bagel is predisposed to help any human when they were in Gladys's path. Especially not after working with her for a full day.

"Yes?"

"Then can you ask care to explain to me why you were stonewalling the manager of drones and scones? And better yet why you're not up there right now? Trying to do your best Tell the way the problem that we're trying to figure out?"

"I'm on duty right now."

Gladys look would have killed a less muscular man in its tracks.

"Oh, you poor dummy animal. You saw that you had a choice in this matter? I'll tell you what? You know who I know really well?"

Airman Barnabus gulped.

"You want me to abandon my post right now?"

Gladys turned behind her. Mike was there. "Mike, can you take over for him?"

Mike grunted acceptance. He moved over to where the other man had been sitting and stared out down second avenue towards where any mobs would be showing up.

"Now I'm going to take you to talk to a very nice girl and you want to apologize for whatever it was. You said to her because you understand that we're all in this together."

Gladys linked arms with Air Man Barnabas and the two of them walked very quickly back through the gate up second avenue towards the guild. Bagel just let them go. Whatever she was about to say, He didn't need to be present. He had barely made it down there with them.

"So, Gladys huh?" Bagel said.

"Don't get on her bad side," Mike said. " I have expected her to drag him there by his ear."

"But she's been treating you all right?" Bagel said.

"I'm not going to tell you that she doesn't treat me all right because I know whats going to happen."

Bagel took his time walking between the man's legs and trying to make nice. He didn't expect to do all of a sudden be doing a shift at the southern entrance, but of course Gladys was going to make things complicated and wasn't she. And it wasn't. That bagel was mad at her but make things complicated. He really. He was not realizing how effective she was and what she did.

"Safe to say you've got no complaints?"

"That sounds about right. We like working for you. I just don't want to piss her off because honestly I'm more scared of her than I am of you."

The other man that wasn't the internet sat down.

"Well that was abrupt," he said. "He had it coming."

"There's no room for misogyny in this post whatever we had before world," Mike said, pulling a bottle out of somewhere. He examined it before popping the top off.

He then pulled out another one and offered it to the man on duty with him.

"The only kind of beer you can have on duty, ah sorry boss. I would offer you a root beer, but I only brought two."

They were still condensation on both the bottles. He had to have bought it more than ten minutes ago based on how much walking around they had done. There was no way that that was fresh but it still looked pristine.

"How is that still..."

"Cold?" Mike said. "It's a mantle power. I wouldn't have thought that being able to cool things down was going to be a perk but here I am. So glad I can do that on command."

Bagel hadn't seen much like this, but it was nice to know that there were powers that let people do cool things like that.

"I don't know how useful that is but it looks like a great party trick."

"I could keep a truck cold if we had one. At least the back of the cab. There's a limit of course, but it's unlikely that we would ever reach a limit."

Bagel had to think about that for a minute. The ability to ship things that were cold and work hard to be kept cold was one of the reasons that they got delivery so often.

"You can keep delivery trucks cool?" Bagel said. "That might be something we need."

Mike nodded. He's slicked back his greasy black hair. "I work for you now so if you figure out a way to utilize that, let me know."

Bagel snuck off, already thinking about how he was going to be able to use this to good effect. He didn't hear any yelling which he had expected. He didn't see Gladys either which made him worry about the poor man of the fatigue pants and brown shirt. But humans could take care of themselves and this particular human had already going out of his way to make his life difficult.

Yes, his own life was now more difficult because he had been a boor to Khaleesi. Becca wasn't sure what Gladys was going to do but he was pretty sure that no matter what it was, and Barnabas was not going to like it. And on top of that, Khaleesi was going to get the information she wanted and more and she was probably going to get a new lackey to work for her.

All in all, it was a good win for his day.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.