Chapter 206: The Lady
Charlie couldn’t stop her fingers from anxiously pulling at the edges of the protective leather armor on her Ghost Reef Standard Issue equipment. If it wasn’t such a snug fit, she would have frayed the hems with her nails and her incessant fidgeting. The armor may have been designed to withstand actual blade attacks, but her fingertips were relentless. She was barely preventing herself from activating the battle-mode on the helmet and turning herself into a proper stormtrooper in order to hide from the current situation.
When they first spotted the slightly altered New York City skyline, with its vine covered towers, the relief the travelers felt was palpable. The journey from Neptune’s Bridge, up the east coast, had been a constant stream of monster encounters. Things only began to calm down as they approached the outer limits of the large settlement’s territory. The influence of the civilization shard was apparent hundreds of miles away, dwarfing even Ghost Reef’s impact on the sea.
Charlie had been able to enjoy the awestruck reactions of the phantom pirates who had universally come from a time before skyscrapers could threaten to pierce the clouds. The typically chatty crew spent quite a few moments just staring at the approaching city. They may have only been from a time period 100 years before the tall buildings started being constructed, but it seemed like human development was constantly escalating. When she brought it up to Camila, her friend commented on the time between the first flight and the first steps on the moon. A few thousand years wasn’t a big deal in the eyes of the system, but Earth had developed considerably in what would be seen as a short time in the galactic community.
It didn’t take long for the three ethereal pirate ships to be noticed by the residents of the city, and by the time they angled to dock, a small army aggressively greeted them with shouted threats and violent gestures. They were obviously under the impression that the city was under attack from the sea for the first time in the assimilation, and the random citizens had mobilized themselves quickly, unwilling to surrender even a simple landing to invaders.
Three large pirate ships rigged with black sails, emitting ghostly auras, and armed with more cannons than the entire city could claim, certainly ruffled some feathers, but the residents showed no fear. It took some shouted explanations from Carlos before their identities were eventually made clear enough, and the mob dispersed for them to dock without a fight. Apparently, they were as willing to accept refugees and tourists as they were to fight to the death with invaders. Charlie wasn’t sure if it was a New York thing or a Neon Park thing, but it was certainly something.
The next wave of interactions were from people who were clearly jockeying for political influence. Different territories within the city sent emergency delegations as word spread that powerful newcomers had arrived from the sea. They sought to bring the outsiders into their sphere of influence, as if they were pieces on a board game with unknown value. It wasn’t exactly the welcome that Ghost Reef would have provided to visitors, but it was still surprisingly friendly. Considering how quickly the people deescalated from a potential battle, Charlie was impressed by their rapid acceptance of outsiders on the whole.
Still, Charlie was completely out of her depth, almost preferring a battle at this point in her life, but Marcus was like a kid walking into a toy store with a blank check. In his eyes, each new interaction was a golden opportunity to prove his worth. Marcus would never match Coop’s battle prowess, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t excel in his own right. He sent his personally trained ambassadors with each of the groups, with the unspoken direction to commit to nothing while gathering all of the information they could. Marcus left to meet with the Champion of Neon Park, leveraging the legitimacy provided by arriving with Camila’s cousins to make his own contributions to the data collection portion of his mission.
Meanwhile, Carlos, Gabby, and Sofia rather aggressively claimed Charlie and Camila, shielding them from any other group and directing them to the Bronx until Camila was forced to wave them away as well. She knew where to go, so they didn’t need an escort. Now that they were in Neon Park, the trio’s mission was complete, so they were off to report their success, leaving Charlie and Camila to go at their own pace.
Admiral Kayla was already making fast friends with the characters on the pier, not entirely leaving the mission in the hands of Marcus and his diplomats. She claimed that the best way to gather information on a place was to talk to the people on the street level, and the pirates were perfect for lowering guards.
It seemed like everyone was happy to be docked again, but Charlie wished she was able to stay with the pirates on the ships. Even after such a long and difficult time at sea, the ship was still more appealing than meeting an unknown number of people. At least she would have been left in a familiar environment shielded by the friendly phantoms of Ghost Reef.
Instead of being comfortably hidden in the captain’s cabin, Charlie was sitting in a cozily decorated lobby with Camila reliably at her side. Her hands in her lap, pulling at the leather armor. Camila was the epitome of relaxation, lounging on the soft sofa with her feet dangling in the air.
They had traveled to the home of the borough commander of the Bronx by walking through brightly lit subway tunnels, lined with stalls as people bartered in front of small dwellings that had been dug into the walls. The entire trip was a blur of people demanding their attention, but Charlie had noted the carefully laid out dwellings. The Champion had done an impressive job of utilizing the preexisting layered construction to accommodate the population. Ghost Reef’s underground could certainly benefit from some of the principles that were applied in Neon Park.