Stayers

Section 44: Stayers

"I didn't know anyone was in here. I knocked, but nobody answered." Wang Wen dropped the stick and raised both hands, trying to look as harmless as possible.

The gunman at the top of the stairs didn't show himself. He said in a muffled voice, "Nobody answered, so you thought you could break in through the window?"

Wang Wen thought it over.

Then he said innocently, "I was so hungry I had to resort to this. I'm sorry. I'll leave right away."

The gunman said nothing more. He nodded toward the gun, signaling that Wang Wen was allowed to go.

Wang Wen slowly bent down, dragging the stick as he backed away a little at a time. When he reached the window, he climbed back out.

Only after he was outside and had found cover did he raise his voice and call into the house, "Are you a Stayer? Is there anything I can help you with?"

The gunman inside fell silent for a moment, then said coldly, "I don't know what you're talking about. Leave now, or I'll shoot."

Wang Wen quietly took out a little mirror and held it beyond his cover to survey the room. "Come on, give me a chance. I'm serious. I can bring you food, water, medicine, even weapons and ammunition, as long as you're willing to talk."

This time, the gunman took a long while to answer. Perhaps he really was short of something important. At last, he relented and asked in confusion, "How did you know?"

Wang Wen relaxed.

As long as the other man was willing to talk, things would be easy.

He called out an answer to the man's question. "Those Speedster Gang members outside obviously can't understand our language. That suggests this level is probably in a foreign language. I didn't bring anything like a Synchronous Translator, so I knew as soon as you spoke."

A fist thumped faintly against the wall inside the villa.

One could imagine how frustrated the gunman must have felt.

Still, he seemed like a straightforward guy. Once his identity had been exposed, he stopped trying to deny it. He was simply curious why Wang Wen had stayed instead of leaving after clearing the level. Did he want to become a Stayer, too, and remain in the Tower forever?

Wang Wen explained, "I need a Universal Key."

The other man immediately replied, "No problem. I'll give you a Universal Key. How long until you can come back here?"

"Depends on what you need." Wang Wen glanced at the little mirror. "If you want something from above the hundredth floor, we might never see each other again. Once Sunday comes and everything resets, I won't be able to return."

"You're only below the hundredth floor?" the gunman exclaimed. "Then why are you so confident? And how do you know so much about Stayers?"

Wang Wen said calmly, "I only plan to stay below the hundredth floor this week. Besides, Stayers aren't some huge secret. Plenty of homeless vagrants like to pull this kind of stunt."

The gunman seemed to have been deeply offended. He shouted angrily, "I'm not some homeless beggar!"

"Okay, okay." Wang Wen placated him casually, then got back to the point. "So what exactly do you want?"

The gunman said hesitantly, "I'm not sure they even have one below the hundredth floor. I want an item that can take pictures and bring them out of the Tower."

Wang Wen frowned. "You mean something like a phone?"

"I know that's difficult. It doesn't have to be electronic. An ordinary film camera would work, too," the gunman added.

"An unusual, special item like that..." Wang Wen searched his memory. "All I can say is that I'll do my best to look for one. I can't promise I'll find it."

"It's fine if you can't find one."

The first half of the gunman's sentence warmed Wang Wen's heart.

The second half immediately crushed it. "Anyway, I won't give you the Universal Key until you bring me what I want."

"Hey, come on." Wang Wen protested. "Universal Keys are everywhere on the market. One costs at most a few hundred Points. What you're asking for isn't nearly as common!"

The gunman knew he was being a bit unreasonable.

He asked, "Then what do you want me to do? I can't just give it to you in case you run off."

"At least give me a deposit first!" Wang Wen's little mirror was fixed on the long-barreled shotgun.

World Tower, eleventh floor.

Another familiar layer of scattered-number mechanisms.

With the hammer handle braced in his left hand and the gun in his right, Wang Wen tapped and struck here and there, easily dismantling every mechanism.

Twelfth floor.

Bad luck: he ran into a movement-speed mechanism.

He had no choice but to put his head down and run.

He sadly sacrificed most of the stamina he'd built up along the way.

Thirteenth floor.

A timed Scientific Deciphering chamber.

There was no danger before time ran out, so he could solve the puzzle in peace. Those with strong enough nerves could even eat, drink, and rest without a care.

Once time was up, the entire chamber would collapse.

Unless you were powerful enough to ignore earthquakes and falling rocks, it was a blast.

Fourteenth floor.

Illusory Realm.

The content was ordinary. Wang Wen's mental strength didn't make him completely immune to its effects.

At the very least, it made him sleepy.

Fifteenth floor.

Wang Wen's favorite wilderness-survival series.

He happily ate and drank. All he had to do was find the entrance to the next floor before midnight or noon.

Sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth floors.

The all-around Tower Climber passed through smoothly, without a hitch.

Twentieth floor.

A multiple-of-ten floor. A brutal floor.

As usual, a miniature scanning drone assigned him at random to a team with an empty spot.

Wang Wen slung the gun over his back with the shotgun strap, gripped the hammer handle, and went in.

He'd passed through nine floors in a row without encountering one that might have a camera.

He hoped the remaining eighty floors would bring good news.

Otherwise, he'd have no choice but to pocket the deposit.

The light and shadows swirled before him.

When they cleared, he was standing in a spacious, clean, white hall.

When Wang Wen got a good look at the scene before him, he suddenly felt that he'd seen it somewhere before.

Just like on the tenth floor, three men and a woman were chatting in the hall.

More alarming still, the men were one thing.

But the woman was that same woman again!

Wang Wen felt as if his head were about to explode.

The woman noticed someone had arrived and looked up. She, too, paused for a moment.

Then she gave him a lovely smile, so charming that the three men beside her nearly started drooling.

But that was all.

She didn't go out of her way to greet him.

Wang Wen certainly wasn't going to act like he knew her.

Without a word, they reached an unspoken understanding: neither would expose the other.

Femme Fatale wouldn't expose Wang Wen's strength.

Wang Wen wouldn't expose Femme Fatale's strength, either.

He quietly stood there, holding his stick, and waited for the men and woman to start the level.

One of the three men—a middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses—spoke to the woman with great familiarity. "That's right. Girls should smile more. Look at you, you're so pretty when you smile. Don't be nervous. Big Brother here will carry you through this low-level challenge!"

The woman nodded gratefully. "Thank you, Big Brother."

That one sentence made the man with the gold-rimmed glasses grin so broadly his eyes disappeared. He turned to Wang Wen and said cheerfully, "All right, now that we've got enough people, let's get started."

His gaze paused for a moment on the gun barrel sticking out from behind Wang Wen, then moved away as if he didn't care. He called over the drone and announced the start of the level.

[Twentieth floor, begin]

At the same moment the drone's mechanical voice rang out, the walls of the hall fell.

The spotless white walls seemed to come alive, writhing and trembling as they dropped to the floor.

Every piece of "wall" that landed on the ground unfurled into all kinds of mouths and limbs. Some even spread transparent wings several times larger than their bodies.

Insects!

Insects everywhere!

The woman immediately screamed in terror.