Chapter 9 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 9 — Juice Box's war room

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Ceasefire · Previous: Chapter 8 — Larracos, City of Dreams · Next: Chapter 10 — Hamed's club; the small wedding · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

Juice Box changed to her familiar human form as she sat on Louis’s lap, her arm draped ove

Summary

Juice Box takes her human form on Louis's lap — new scars, a left ear that forms ten seconds late — and her card says Human, level 35, Co-Warlord of Team Retribution; the level changes with the form and Mordecai says her real one cannot be known. She lays out maps, castle locations, troop strengths and resupply schedules, and pointedly puts some papers in a drawer: allies, but their own people. 'You didn't do what I wanted' — she wanted everyone regenerating; Carl: they would never allow it, 'so we did the next best thing. We made it so we can kill them instead.' Shanty Town, a ring of hovels around the top entrance that 'just sprung up out of nowhere' after the flood, is far larger than any season's, with new food markets, temples and a hidden Club Vanquisher entrance in buildings nobody built — someone's Emergency Action Item, Carl suspects — and it stays open to the other teams after the ceasefire. Juice Box's plan to poison and destroy its food markets is scrapped: every team bought stock the moment the ceasefire refreshed it. Shanty Town's mayors keep being killed by the outworlders, one of them in single combat; the latest, who cannot be touched, is Ferdinand. Rend chews a pen in half. Ruby and the compression-sick children are safe with Mordecai. Juice Box has no menus, only the mind-voice and floating words; a voice from nowhere once forbade her a clandestine meeting. The cat is the workaround: 'Warlord on High, Sir Ferdinand', not an NPC but 'of the same stock as you', has been given control of the system and the city defence, so he must be kept alive, and is at the bar with 'that infected elf outworlder' — Drick, the NPC team's adjutant, solid to the touch and untouchable to a blade, with a Valtay worm in his head. Ferdinand is telling people he is Donut's fiancé; Donut, already deep in a furious chat with him, is scoffing, and Juice Box looks relieved. In chat Louis says she is different in messages than aloud — pretending confidence, really scared, in over her head — and that he will marry her because they need each other; Donut coaches him ('SAY IT TWICE'); he stands, takes her hand, asks her to turn into something else, and says 'I love you' to a blonde cheerleader somewhere between Taylor Swift and Iggy Pop. Carl and Arief exchange the same sceptical look. Britney, who has been reading the papers the whole time, taps one: 'How big are these diggers?' 'Have you not seen dwarven automatons before?'

Characters

• Juice Box — Co-warlord with maps and a drawer; no menus; scared in chat; a cheerleader for a kiss.
• Louis and Firas — Louis says yes to a marriage of houses, twice.
• Ferdinand — Warlord on High, mayor of Shanty Town, holder of the city defence, 'fiancé'.
• Drick — The NPC team's adjutant, a ghost to a blade.
• Princess Donut — Furious in chat with a cat; a romance coach.
• Britney Proskurina — Reads the plans and asks the only tactical question.
• Carl — 'We made it so we can kill them instead.'
• Ruby — Asked after; safe with Mordecai.

Locations

• Shanty Town — A ring of hovels around the entrance that nobody built, with markets, temples and a mayor who keeps dying.
• The Desperado Club — A back room behind the kitchen.

Motifs

• Faction Wars — The NPC team has no warlord menu; a cat holds the controls; emergency action items suspected.
• The Valtay Corporation — Drick's worm, a different species from Chris's.
• Waking the NPCs — 'A voice spoke out of nowhere, telling me I wouldn't be allowed to talk to that person.'
• The changelings — An ear that arrives late; a level that changes with the form.