Jack could not deny that for all that he was happy to see An again, her arrival had created a… certain amount of tension in his household.

If he looked closely, he could almost swear he saw sparks jumping between Ren and the cat girl as they glared at each other across the dining hall. A feat that was all too possible given the strange world he’d been living in for the last year.

“So,” An said with feigned casualness as her chopsticks picked through her rice with a little more aggression than was perhaps strictly needed. “My nose detects that our master has finally deigned to bestow some favor upon you.”

Ren’s smile was full of teeth. “On a most regular basis.”

That… wasn’t strictly untrue. He was a guy. Ren was a very eager and willing woman. And without the fear of her crushing him between her thighs, he’d actually rather started to enjoy their little BDSM sessions.

An twitched, before a languid smile slipped over her battle-scarred features. “Well, one supposes that when the quality of one’s partner is lacking, quantity may serve as an apt substitute.”

This time it was Ren’s eye that twitched. “Your diction has certainly grown sharper in our time apart, cat.”

Most of the room was studiously ignoring the confrontation. As the guest of honor, Yating was sat on Jack’s right, constructing some sort of building out of his rice. To Jack’s direct left, as decided by the impromptu turn system, Elwin was still struggling with her chopsticks. Meanwhile Gao was deep in thought over something or other.

The only exceptions to the rule were Lin and Huang. The mortal girl was watching the exchange of barbs with undisguised amusement, while Huang seemed to be studying both women with an unusual amount of intensity.

It also wasn’t lost on Jack that both of the ‘mortals’ were sitting together. Two people who up until a week ago couldn’t have been further apart in status.

“Would that you didn’t still dress the same,” Ren continued. “I would have thought you a different person from the scruffy looking country bumpkin that we left behind all those months ago.”

That last line finally jolted Jack from his observations, as with a put upon sigh he decided it was time to intervene. He knew from experience that nothing would be gained from trying to play peacemaker between two strong willed women. In his experience it was better for people with strong personalities to figure out the pecking order on their own.

Still, he knew that last comment tread on a topic that was close to An’s heart as the woman flinched slightly, feline eyes and catlike ears flicking in Jack’s direction for just a moment.

“We didn’t leave An anywhere,” Jack said slowly, all eyes in the room turning to him. “I placed all of you where I thought you might be most valuable. You knew the city. An was familiar with the Jiangshi and the militia. I positioned her there because I trusted her enough to operate without me for a time. Trust she has vindicated in full.”

Ren frowned, but said nothing as a beaming smile slipped over An’s face.

“As our master says. And as you said, my diction has improved much. It was not a deliberate move on my part, merely a direct consequence of lessons learned in forging Jiangshi from a small town into the network of fortresses that it is today.” An leaned back. “Though I apologize if my wardrobe has not also not likewise evolved to accommodate your fashion sense, Ren.”

Jack felt like slamming his head against the table. He’d been hoping for his words to be the final line in the argument. Instead it seemed to only be the opening to a new round of hostilities as Ren squawked and shot back with something he didn’t bother to hear.

As he stared up at the ceiling, he felt something lightly tapping him on the shoulder. Grateful for the show of support, he looked over, expecting to see Elwin – or even Yating.

Instead his heart skipped a beat as he found himself staring at a tentacle.

Well, at least it’s attempting to be helpful, he thought as he fought to get his racing pulse under control. Now if only the fact that it’s capable of considering that an option didn’t terrify me.

The machine was still an enigma. All diagnostics scans came back green. Of course, it wasn’t lost on him that he was essentially asking the AI to diagnose itself. If it was capable of deception then that would be the moment to lie.

He didn’t think it was though.

He watched as the tentacle receded once more, slipping back under his clothes.

It was clear the microbots could now think and feel. That did not necessarily mean they thought and felt in the same way a human would.

Truth be told, if he was going to liken the nascent AI to anything, it would be a dog.

The AI didn’t speak. It didn’t seem to have any real wants beyond doing what Jack commanded it to do. It only really acted of its own volition when it perceived that he was being threated – though an argument could be made that it was acting to protect itself, given it was essentially tied to him via his neural control interface.

He sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t need this shit right now. He had enough problems on his plate. The microbots were still working. Hell, they were trying to be helpful. They could wait.

Right now he needed to focus on getting all of his affairs in order.

Starting with the growing criminal underworld in his new city.

---------------------

Cheng Bo struggled fruitlessly in Snake Tooth’s grip as his feet dangled in the air, held aloft by a single arm. Perhaps, if he had been a bit older that would have been a reasonably impressive feat for another mortal to pull off, but as Cheng was only a boy of ten summers, it was considerably less impressive.

“Let this be a lesson to all of you!” Spittle flew from Snake Tooth’s lips as the gang leader’s gaze flitted about what had colloquially come to be known as Sky Block Nine’s dining hall. “I am lord here. This is my domain. And I expect to receive my dues for so kindly allowing all of you to live in my home.”

Around him, the gang leader’s underlings snickered as the other residents of the sky-block shrunk back fearfully under the man’s tirade. The room could easily fit three hundred people at a time, which while large, was barely a tenth of the Skyblock’s overall population. Not all of Snake Tooth’s gang was here. Barely half of it was, the rest were on other floors. Yet the rest of the room outnumbered the gang members present, if only barely.

Cheng Bo knew his numbers. He knew that the gang barely had a three hundred members. And Sky Block Nine had nearly three thousand residents.

The gang was outnumbered nearly ten to one.

Yet the residents still lived in fear of them. They shrunk back at their table’s as the gang leader’s eyes flitted across the dining hall, as if searching for any show of resistance.

He found none – and neither did Cheng.

It pained him to see. Despite himself, he had hoped against hope that someone, anyone, would come to his aid.

Some had tried to fight back in the early days. Hardy rural folk that refused to pushed around by the city gangs.

Cheng still had nightmares about what happened to them.

Which was why he was unsurprised when he saw no defiance in the eyes of the other residents present. It had all been beaten out of them. First by losing their homes and then by life on Ten Huo’s unforgiving streets.

Cheng’s mother had said it would be better for them once the great Sky Blocks had been built. And in many ways it was. Within the great stone constructs they need not fear the biting wind or freezing snow. The dormitories were warm – and even safe after a fashion.

But it wasn’t perfect. Not even close.

Because of people like him, Cheng thought as he glared up at the man who currently held him aloft via the scruff of his threadbare shirt, the man’s meaty arm near as thick as Cheng’s emaciated torso.

If the refugees of Ten Huo had seen an opportunity in the great Jack Johansen’s beneficence, so too had the gangs.

“A toll.” Snake Tooth continued, the green scales around the snake-kin’s eyes flashing as he spoke. “That’s all this kind man asks in return for allowing you and yours to partake of his home. It’s not much. A few coppers. A little of your food. Old Snake Tooth will even accept a flask of drink if you have nothing else to give.”

Cheng grunted in pain as the grip on his shirt tightened and he was lifted even higher. “So why do me and my boys constantly have to deal with ingrates like this trying to skirt paying their due!?”

Finally, one of the crowd stepped forward. An older man, one who Cheng vaguely recalled had been headman of whichever village he had once hailed from.

“Please sir Snake Tooth, he’s just a boy.” The man bowed deeply, as if he were speaking to a cultivator or the magistrate herself rather than some upjumped thug. “With his mother ill, I can only assume that youthful passion overrode his good sense.”

Yes. Cheng’s mother. The reason he had tried to set aside a few of the rations that the Imperial Army was providing to the Sky Blocks. It wasn’t much. Barely anything really. A bowl of porridge each day to keep the city’s poorest quiet. For the poor knew that if they rioted, raged against the unfairness of the world, those deliveries would stop and they would all starve.

Everyone except the gangs, Cheng thought hatefully.

He knew not how large Snake Tooth’s stash was, but rumors abounded of entire rooms on the top floor piled high with oats, rice, meat and drinks of all kinds. All stolen or ‘tithed’ from Sky Block Nine’s populace.

For people like Cheng, they were left just enough to survive. And perhaps that might have been enough.

Unless you fell sick. Everyone knew that when one fell sick, they needed to eat well or waste away. As his mother was doing.

Wasting away, not eating well.

“The rules are the rules,” another voice piped up, one that had swiftly grown as hated as Snake Tooth’s. “If we start making exceptions for little uns’, soon we’ll have their parent asking us to make exceptions for them too. Then everyone else.”

Liang Ya.

The man had undergone a meteoric rise to Snake Tooth’s second though over the last month.

Partially because he was lean as a snake and twice as ornery, but mostly because of his newfound ability to ‘find’ things.

Food. Medicine. Drink. Weapons. No one knew his sources, but he seemed to be an endless font of valuables.

Just last night he’d shown up with an entire barrel of rice-wine, which the entire gang was now partaking of as they lounged about the dining areas long tables. As Cheng glanced over, he saw that some had even collapsed into a drunken stupor.

Many of the skyblock’s residents whispered that Liang had a connection with a sect. A family member or childhood friend. Others thought he might have ties to the Imperial Army – what was left of it. Others still thought he might have an in with the Hidden Master’s ‘militia’, a theory that had only grown in the past week as Liang’s ability to scrounge supplies grew with the arrival of the Hidden Master’s secret army.

Cheng didn’t know. He didn’t care either. He hated the man all the same.

“I-” the man who had spoken earlier started to say, before he was interrupted by the arrival of one of Snake Tooth’s gang members.

“Boss!” The young man shouted. “We’ve got trouble. Guards.”

Cheng Bo winced as he was unceremoniously dropped to the floor as Snake Tooth whirled on the newcomer, though clearly the wine was stronger than the man had anticipated because he staggered a bit as he did. “Guards? Imperial? Sect?”

“Neither.” The youth shook his head. “Them new shiny ones that showed up yesterday.”

“Johansen,” Liang Ya breathed. “They’re probably here for an inspection.”

“That his name?” the gang leader slouched into his seat. “Make no difference. No one says a word. We’re all gonna make nice until the bucketheads leave. Or else.”

His eyes pivoted down to Cheng Bo. “We’ll finish our discussion later. For now, scram.”

The boy didn’t hesitate as he scrambled up and into the crowd. Yet even as he did, another reason as to why he hated the gangs burned in his mind.

They were all cowards.

Snake Tooth might have proclaimed himself king of Skyblock Nine, but only so long as the guards stayed away. When they deigned to show their faces in the massive stone structures, the gangs faded into the background, becoming just another group of residents. They played the sheep until the shepherd was gone.

And it worked too. Sure, the illusion was only skin deep, but that was enough for most guards. Empress, even if someone fingered Snake Tooth as a villain, it wouldn’t matter. The gang would survive. And while the guards were clapping themselves on the back for bringing another evil doer to justice, anothergang leader would rise up – the most likely candidate at this point being Liang - at which point they’d kill whoever spoke up - even if it did benefit them in the end.

“Look alive lads,” Snake Tooth grunted to his partially comatose underlings. “Guards incoming.”

All he received in return was a muffled groan, but a few of the portlier men did manage to lever themselves paretially upright.

“Shit, this stuff is heavier than I thought,” the gang leader slurred as he looked down at the drink in his hand. “Where’d you say you got it?”

“Some cultivator’s private stash,” Liang answered instantly. “They died in the fight, so it was up for the taking.”

“Immortal wine, eh?” Snake Tooth grinned.

Cheng Bo almost jumped as a hand suddenly gripped his shoulder. Looking up, his eyes met the worried gaze of the man from earlier – the one who had tried to speak up in his defense.

“Come on boy, let’s get you out of here with any luck the pig will have forgotten you by the time his dealings with these… militia are complete.”

Cheng nodded hurriedly, following after the man as they crept towards the exit – only for them both to curse as the sound of shuffling armor issued forth from the door.

In marched a dozen men and women clad in full armor and carrying strangely warped spears.

Cheng Bo was aware of ‘Johansen’s Gonnes’. The entire city knew of them. Both the large and small varieties. Still, now that he could actually see them in person, he couldn’t help but feel slightly underwhelmed by them.

Not least of all because they were blocking his path to the exit.

The man in the lead, his face covered by the strangely tall helmet the militia all wore, glanced around the room before his gaze landed on Snaketooth.

“Are you the headman of this block?”

“Aye,” the gang leader said in a voice that suggested that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “I see to the distribution and protection of the supplies the Magistrate and your leader so beneficently provide to this great domicile.”

Huh, Cheng Bo hadn’t been aware that Snake Tooth could be so eloquent – especially while drunk.

“Much of which appears to be wine, by the looks of the men behind you,” the militia leader deadpanned.

“Not at all.” Snake Tooth raised his hands defensively. “What you see here is merely the result of a small windfall that turned into an equally small celebration. Months without drink of any kind however has left my people’s tolerances woefully diminished.”

“I’m sure,” the man’s voice was muffled by the grille of his helmet, but their was no missing the disdain there. “So if I were to order my people to search the topmost levels of this tower, they would not find a horde of drink, food and other contraband?”

Snake Tooth was unruffled. Nor did Cheng Bo’s hopes rise. He’d seen similar confrontations play out before.

Which was why he knew exactly what would happen next.

“Not at all,” the gang leader said. “Though I might argue that such a search would be a waste of your precious time. Even with the siege over, I’m sure your… militia has many duties to attend. To that end, perhaps you might try searching the basement. There you might find something that might have you on your way, time unwasted.”

There it was. The bribe.

Most of the time it was accepted. Sometimes it wasn’t.

It didn’t matter. Even if this man took Snake Tooth in, someone else would take his place. That was life in Ten Huo.

That was the moment things when off script though.

“The bribe’s not there actually. I had it moved up to the top floor along with the rest of our ‘taxes’.”

All eyes in the room turned to Liang.

“You!” Snake Tooth started to round on his second in command before the man’s hand whipped out and sliced open the gang leader’s throat.

It happened so fast that Cheng Bo nearly missed it.

He definitely didn’t miss the spray of blood that issued forth from the pig of the man as he slumped to the floor, a quickly widening pool of blood forming around him.

Their was a small shriek from the crowd, but none tried to flee. Curiously, there was no noise from Snake Tooth’s gang either.

They were all out cold.

“We were supposed to take him alive,” the guard leader said finally.

“Plan changed,” Liang shrugged as he wiped his blade on a nearby gang member’s shirt. “Fat bastard was supposed to be comatose five minutes ago. Instead he’d nearly shrugged off whatever was in that wine by the time you showed up.”

The militia leader said nothing, before striding forward. “You better hope for your sake that no other plans have ‘changed’.”

“They haven’t,” Liang said as he backed up, hands up in mock surrender. “I did exactly as your boss asked.” He gestured behind them. “Here we have all the rapists, murderers and sadists. And let me tell you now, it was a bitch and a half to get them all in one place for this.”

“And the others?” The guard leader asked as the rest of his subordinates fanned out and started applying small metal cuffs down to the comatose gang members.

For just a moment – fascinating as this was – Cheng considered making for the door, before realizing that two members of the militia were stood there, and neither seemed inclined to let anyone pass.

“My lads should have gotten the signal now,” Liang said. “The rest of Snake Tooth’s loyalists will be rounded up before you know it.”

“And the stash?”

At that, Liang looked slightly mutinous. “We’ll… begin distributing it as soon as Snake Tooth’s people are mopped up.”

The man stepped forward. “See that you do, because you know what happens if you don’t.”

For some reason, Liang’s hand went to the back of his neck. “Aye, I suppose I do.” He paused. “Though that won’t keep this band of cutthroats in line for long. Especially if I give away the stash.”

“Which is why they too will receive a salary.” The man lifted his helmet to spit to the side. “Which is more than the likes of yours deserve. Why our lord is even bothering with this charade is beyond me.”

Liang snickered. “Because you don’t know this city. You don’t know the underground. You don’t know how all of this works. If you tried policing this place you’d either end up as just another gang or eaten alive bit by bit by one.”

Liang glanced down at he now still corpse of his former boss. “Nah, your boss is keeping you away from temptation.”

The guard rounded on the gang leader. “And you’re above it all?”

“No.” Liang’s answer was instant. “But when it comes to the likes of me, your boss clearly has a way of keeping me honest that he might hesitate to use on you.”

The man scratched at the scar again.

Something that seemed significant to the guard.

“I suppose…” Then he scoffed. “Still, the idea of paying criminals to keep them out of trouble. Where did our lord even get the idea?”

“Dunno?” Liang sighed. “What did he call it?”

“The Privateer initiative.”

Liang settled back onto a slightly blood bench. “Private Tear? What does that even mean?”

The guard just shrugged.

He had no answers. And neither did Cheng Bo.

What had he just seen?

He didn’t know.

Nor did he suppose it really mattered. All that really mattered was that less than an hour later, barrels upon barrels of food were escorted into the dining hall by the very same men who had taken them in the first place.

No one stopped him when he grabbed a handful of jerky from the irritable gang member that was forced to distribute it. No one stopped him as he tried to leave. And no one took it from him as he fed it to his mother later as she lay on her sickbed.

Nor did anyone take his porridge the next day. Or the next day. Or the day after.