Flip had a boatload of Points. I’m not talking about a small boat here. This was no canoe, nor even a motorboat, or even a houseboat. We’re talking about the truly enormous kinds of boats, the ones used for shipping that get stuck in canals and disrupt global supply chains.

I’d been pleased with my Points total. Even with all the distractions and disruptions of the last few days, I still had well over 6,000, and still had hopes of making it to the next ability breakpoint - which was just over 9,000 Points - before the end of this cycle.

Flip had over 560,000.

“You’re kidding! That gives you… how many abilities? You must be so strong.”

“Thirteen. I can’t quite lift a car without abilities yet, unless it’s one of those microcars, but yeah, I’m damn strong. Even if I hadn’t had a chat planned with you, I wouldn’t have gone out drinking. Too worried I’m gonna misjudge something and tear someone’s arm off by accident.” Flip looked wan and sad for a moment, but tried to cover it up with a smile. “Plus side, the bladetails basically just tickle now. If I don’t have passengers, I can just fly around without the glider and risk nothing worse than torn clothing.”

“Over half a million points. Why? How? Why you?”

She waggled her eyebrows. “That’s what you get for being the fourth-best pilot on the Arsenal. So many Siphons on base.”

“There are three people on the Arsenal with more Points than you?”

She laughed. “Naw. Best pilot was either Sicko or Shoestring. Sicko was on the road on the south side of the base when it happened, though, and he took some real ground pounder abilities to get off the road and get inside. You know, Powerful Blow or some crap. Shoestring was the first person picked for the Eagle Initiative, but they fucked up his synergies. Assumed some shit would synergize with Flight that didn’t at all. Then they figured, ‘We know good synergies for Animate Machinery - let’s try it that way.’ So that’s what they did to poor Muffalo.”

She was clearly waiting for me to ask, so I obliged her. “Poor Muffalo?”

She cackled. “Yeah! They had people driving trucks with it, so they figured ‘Why not make it stronger and let him fly a plane?’”

“Seems reasonable.”

“Yeah… but no. Poor bastard couldn’t even get off the tarmac. They have him hauling the groundpounders around in a semi now.”

I frowned. “Why not? I mean, you’d need a propeller plane, not a jet engine, but…”

She shook her head. “That’s what they thought, but it doesn’t work out. See, when people drive the trucks and the cars, they make the axles turn and the car moves. They want the car to move faster, they turn the axles faster. They want slower, move ‘em slower, turn them, you get it. Hell, you can even just think ‘Move the car forward,’ and maybe it’s less efficient, but it’ll go. You can get a plane to roll forward the same way, but that won’t get it into the sky. You can’t just think 'go into the sky,' because that’s not a thing a plane does, it’s just what happens when it’s working right.”

“Couldn’t he just… spin the propellers?”

“He tried. Trouble is, nobody really understands, deep in their heart, how damn fast an airplane propeller is moving. Poor Muff just sat there in the pilot’s seat, moving the propeller faster and faster and not getting anywhere near enough speed to actually get the plane into the sky.”

She sat there, giving a moment’s silent respect to the tragedy that had befallen her fellow pilot, before clapping her hands. “Anyway, their loss is my gain! The brass wasn’t giving up on the project, and I was the lucky guinea pig they succeeded with. They stuffed me chock full of Points to get me up in the air. I had ten Abilities last time we met. When they heard about Specialties, I was the one closest to getting one. Then they ran it a little further, just to see what happened at the next threshold - another specialty or what.”

“Was it?”

She shook her head. “Nope. No new ability at all. I just got the choice to enhance one I already had. Eleven abilities and a Specialty might be all we get.”

And the major was keeping that from us?! I almost dashed out the door in a fury right then, but I kept my temper. With effort.

“What does ‘enhancing’ mean?”

“Just adds a bunch of synergy to the ability of your choice, which ripples out through the other ones it jives with.”

“And… Specialties?”

She frowned. “I can only tell you about mine. I think the brass is gonna raise some other people up. See some other Specialties. Look for patterns.”

“Well? What’s yours?”

“It’s called Booster. Once a day, for a little under ten minutes, I can fly a huge amount of weight and move incredibly fast.”

“How much is a huge amount?”

“I’ve only had it for a bit over a day, so I can’t say exactly… but more than twice as much as usual. But, once it runs out, it’s out. I can’t use it again for a full day.”

“It’s your ultimate.”

“What?”

I hadn’t meant to speak that aloud. “Like in a videogame. A character has a bunch of normal abilities they use all the time, but often they have ultimate moves that they need to set up the right conditions for or take a lot of energy or…”

“Or that have a long cooldown,” she finished for me, thoughtfully. “Yeah, I can see it.”

I was still thinking. “You didn’t get to pick your Specialty?”

“Nope. The voice locked me up for a few minutes and claimed to be ‘synthesizing personalized specialty based on Ability choices, Novelty, and actions taken.’”

I rolled my eyes. “Great. So my negative Novelty score might get me a trash Specialty later. Just what I wanted to hear. Ugh. I’d been thinking not getting Novelty was the way to go once we’ve got food sorted out, but maybe it’s not so simple.”

She laughed again, and there was an edge to it I hadn't noticed before. Suddenly, I realized that Flip might be the kind of person who laughed so she didn’t cry. “Door number one! Shit! Door number two! Also shit! Make your choice.”

“You said it. Well, thanks for telling me.” I got up to leave. “I need to tell Tammy… ugh, or I guess Alexandra… about this right away. I don’t know why Major Fitzgerald is keeping this to himself, but people need to know.”

“Wait!”

I looked at her.

“Two more things. First one’s a positive - after I got my Specialty, I unlocked a Leader Boon for all my followers. They each get one second of Flight each day.”

“One second?”

“Yeah, but it accrues. All my followers who didn’t use it yesterday have two seconds now. I don’t know if there’s a cap. Even if there is one, one second of Flight makes you pretty much immune to being hurt by falling in an emergency. If Gavin wants to be my vassal, he’d be able to fly himself, eventually!”

“Or save himself from idiot aerial acrobatics,” I muttered. “Yeah, if you’re willing to take him as your vassal, I’m going to suggest he signs on. Thank you.”

“No problem,” she grinned. Then her smile dropped away, and she raised her hand to touch the crown on her head one more time. “The other thing I need to tell you isn’t nearly so nice.”

“Okay…” I said.

“I heard you wanted to know if the ruler tokens can be given away.”

I nodded.

“They can’t be given, not voluntarily. As far as we can tell, they can’t even be taken while the person holding them is alive.”

“That’s quite the caveat,” I said faintly.

Flip nodded, somber for once. “One of my vassals… her brother got a rulership token from his challenge, but he was injured very badly. She tried to get him Healing when he came out, but she wasn’t fast enough. When he died, his crown became something she could pick up. When she held onto it for long enough, she claimed it.”

I stared at her in horror.

“That’s another reason I want Gavin as my vassal,” she said. “I don’t know him too well, but he reminds me a lot of my nephew. Ever since I found out how the rulership tokens are passed…” She shook her head. “He doesn’t deserve that kind of target on his back. I’m hella strong now, and I got permission to save my Specialty for emergencies. If someone comes for any of my followers, I want them to call me. I’ll do my damndest to get there in time.”