Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

"They're doing what?" Bagel said.

"Billionaires don't want to be millionaires, Mister Bagel," the man said. "They're trying to keep the status quo. But nobody knows what's happening next week, or can control it. Never forget that if they wanted to they would have killed you and taking your powers. You're just a figurehead for them."

Bagel paused. His mouth felt dry and he didn't know if he wanted to say something to the man.
Did he know who he was speaking to?

Well of course he did. He was speaking with both hands.

Why would he say something like that? Was he only worth his using his card powers for things? Because it was the less convenient to kill him? It might be.

He was going to have to rethink all of his relationships now and later this new development. If people saw him as disposable then how was he going to make his way in the world.

It probably wasn't the question to ask the building inspector from the city. He wanted answers, but he wasn't going to get it from this man. Indeed he probably wasn't going to get them at all.

Khaleesi being nervous made him nervous. She had it all, but the buildings guy could make her take it all down.

He kind of regretted taking the Janet elevator up there but it wasn't something he could do without.

He was going to have to leave her there if he went first.

So instead of jumping down like he really wanted to, he just sat on the corner and thought about things for a long time. He didn't know what he would do if he had to leave the Bodega.

He didn't know where he would go. With the humans he could trust? He trusted Khaleesi.

She spent all her time trying to convince him that she was trustworthy and that she was doing the right thing. And if not for his sake... She just wanted to help. She was just a kid in a bad situation trying to do the most and Khaleesi kind of felt like Meatball.

Meatball just wanted to help.

She was limited by the fact that she was a cat and that no one would take her seriously the same way that they took Bagel because she didn't own the shop. The same way that people took the NYPD seriously.

Whether it was because she was young or because she was a girl, it affected how she showed up.

It was too strikes against her that her even showing up. The same way that being a cat was already a huge strike against him and it put him into some sort of second class citizen category. But by virtue of him being able to use a special power to help humans, he was deemed worthy of being in proper society. And what was meatball then?

A cat and a female?

If she hadn't had been built up by jellyside layer, if she hadn't been given to want to go work with Bagel? It wasn't for him to say either way.

Meatball followed her own path. And it seemed that for now, she walked the same path as him. Even if right now she was running a dungeon with other people. Eventually, whenever good Bagel did would echo back to her. His decisions would affect her the way that her decisions affected her deck.

He paused for a long moment there. If she only controlled her deck, interactions and what was her life worth? At his core, he was more than just the functionality of his card. He was motivated to help.

---

"What are you talking about?" Meatball asked. "What do you mean you have some questions about what I want to do with my life? Clearly I'm just living my life on my own terms right now. I don't have some big master plan that I'm going to be working my way towards. Except for like eating. I want to eat lots of cool things."

She had to take it seriously. He hadn't really expected that to happen.

He needed to get it through her skull what she was actually doing here and the danger that these humans are actually represented. They could just try to kill her to take take her cards away. True, she had a pretty rough deck at the start but she swapped enough cards out now that it was her own deck and he wasn't going to do much about that. Also, she had the unique ability to not be protected through the fact that she was a small cat.

Nobody took her seriously but that was also fine because he said need to be taken seriously. She just needed to be able to kill mobs to level up and get more cards. If she was able to do so, running more dungeons then most of the humans in the area

"The the building inspector guy came by and he was telling me about how the ones that used to be in power really want to be in power again and that made me think they probably don't know that much about the TSA. We were briefly taking dollars for for credits but now it's mostly credits."

Money had value. At least according to the people who wanted to invest it.

What people didn't want to invest in their money or invest in spending their money on certain things, they weren't going to show up with it. Then went over something online.

The correct the matter was that people with lots of cash, money or money in the banks were not going to be able to transfer that easily. Credits? You didn't need a bank account for credits.

Humans had their ways.

They would find a way to launder their digital currency into something else manageable. He would still accept digital currency like the dollars that the banks send him when he got paid by a credit card. At some point in time they were moving off of the dollar standard towards the credit standard... Or at least his block would.

The whole thing just made an itch. Humans were so caught up in their little schemes about money and making it an entrepreneurship that it was easy for him to just show up and just do the job fine because he got approximate knowledge of things. Beyond that it wasn't going to really matter much what that was.

The rich people wanted to be able to flex their power. Then they had to be in a position to pay for that power to show up and actually do something. Jellyside Layer had no idea if that was possible. In his estimation. A lot of the billionaires that were in the city probably hadn't made it.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Would there be retaliation? He began to get into a dark place and people had noticed, trying to get him out of his funk. Initially he had one to explain anything but she insisted and he...

---

The message came to Copernicus and quickly and the cat was on his way up midtown before Bagel even had an idea that he'd answered it.

They met on the roof.

"Do you think that the humans are going to try to replace us?"

Copernicus swished his tail. The stoic cat had only freaked out a little bit at being pulled up to to the six-story roof in netting. Bagel had told him that it was serious. He'd even brought meatball into the conversation as well, though she had been a bit more reserved and circumspect.

"When you say replace us, what do you mean? They love us."

"They love that we're helping them out, but I don't think that long-term. They're going to like that we can compete against them for the same resources. Like do you think that if they could just kill me and take my cards they wouldn't just do that?" Bagel stared him down.

There is nothing about this situation that gave Bagel the confidence that he needed.

"I have reason to believe that some of the humans that used to be rich are going to start flexing their influence to try to regain their positions. And guess who's just been stacking up credits on behalf of the city government?"

"Bagel please let's not be rash. Why do you think that the humans are going to turn on us?"

"Because they're going to think that we're going to oppress them or something. Because they always oppress each other."

It was well known fact that humans were pretty off the humans. In many ways. Bagel had seen great things, but it was one of the things that the the building inspector had said that really stuck with him.

"Humans got climate change not because the poor were greedy but because the ones at top could never have enough," he said.

"So what are we trying to do? Preempt the humans? Get some of them vetted?" Copernicus said.

A taxi cab honked.

"It's human nature."

"It's about trust. We trust you. Jellyside layer trusts you and only a few people know that cats are running it."

"But once they figure that out, what's stopping them from stealing it from us?"

Bagel realized that he was yelling. He collected himself. Meatball cuddled up next to him and her warmth felt just right. They couldn't solve everything today but they could take the first step and figure out what was next.

"So what do we do? Make sure that we're actually talking to humans that are not going to come by and try to steal all the hard work hard-earned gains? Work in the silence and the dark and become a force in our own right?"

"We were never supposed to exist in the first place. We were never supposed to be awakened," Meatball said. "This life? This struggle, is a gift."

Bagel didn't like change but change was coming.

"What did she say?" Copernicus said.

"We're not even supposed to be here. Do we really have to fight against the people that once welcomed us with open arms? Or is this just just a way for us to divide ourselves. You don't think that the Billings Factor was trying to get a rise out of you. Did you?"

Bagel had in fact thought about what the building expected was trying to do. The Afghan comment was one of severa this comment actually stuck with him though.

So it's just not all humans. It's just the ones that used to be rich that are now trying to reassert their dominance in this new world.

"How would we even protect ourselves from humans? What would we do?" Copernicus said. "They are everywhere!"

"We have to change it so they can't deny us. More cats. More deck bearers. Already we are seeing that there's only so many humans that are willing to work within the confines of the system. The adventures guild stalled recently," Bagel said.

Copernicus looked taken aback. "What do you mean they stalled?"

"For the first time, we didn't have any new signups for about half a day. So either the word isn't getting out, or things are a bit different than we thought. At this point, everyone who wants to volunteer to be a deck bearer to help out. The community has already done so and now it's just trying to figure out who is capable but not as willing."

"Well we're going to expand operations, right?" Copernicus said.

Bagel noticed how it was the royal we who would be expanding operations. He needed their help and ... He wasn't being paranoid if he was right?

"Bagel, you seem extra tense. Maybe we need to take a nap and sleep on it."

Meatball was probably right. She knew things.

"I've got extra cards. Let's make more deck. Bearer cats. At the very least we give them the option. At worst, we won't randomly by wiped out by humans if they are capricious."

"That's really dark," Meatball said. "We can make more. It's going to be... If not okay, better."

It would have to do.

"I'm sorry Copernicus. I don't know what came over me."

The elder cat purred. "This is a very trying time. All this is unprecedented. You wouldn't be remiss in saying that you don't want to partake in this, but you didn't have a choice. The system took that from you."

He gave him a look and then the three cats perched up on top of the exterior of the shell of the building were constructing over the Bodega. Below, several cabs flew through a still blinking red light, because even in the apocalypse, the city never slept.

"You know I would have thought that by now the taxi cabs would have been out of business, but so long as there's someone crazy enough to operate them there's probably going to be someone crazy enough to drive them," Bagel said.

"I'm crazy enough to keep going if you want to keep going too." Meatballs warm presence was just there, not pushing or pressing, just existing there.