The Original Beefcake

Marcus knocked at the door to Russo's office and entered after Russo told him to come in. "Good. Take a seat for a moment, I will prepare the rest." Russo waved to him and continued to work on his PC. "Normally you would write a report, but in this case I talked with the higher ups and we are going to take a shortcut," Russo explained and Marcus started to get clammy hands. "Time is of the essence, so you have a short interview with Miss Greyer here." Russo pointed at the seat in front of the PC and Marcus put his large body before the screen.

To his surprise a video conference was already ongoing and a middle aged woman with a sharp look greeted him, "Guten Tag Herr Freimann. Ich hoffe Sie haben sich von Ihren Verletzungen erholt?" This took Marcus by surprise but he quickly answered, "Vielen Dank Frau Greyer. Ich bin völlig Einsatzbereit. Was kann ich für Sie tun?". She just nodded and tipped on her screen a few times.

"From here on out everything will be recorded, so we will stay in English." Marcus' stomach felt weird and he suddenly regretted his large lunch.

As it turned out the LCPS wanted a direct report about the ork attack. Details and all. After some time Marcus realized what the purpose of this was and decided to be proactive. "I believe you want to evaluate the possibility of a large-scale ork raid, correct?" Miss Greyer leaned back and for a moment looked at something outside of Marcus' view. "Correct," she answered.

"I believe there is a high probability of a follow up attack, or even a large ork raid," Marcus continued. "Two or even three of the orks were class holders. They also had blood markings, which would be evidence of a Blood Mage, which hold great importance in their social structure…." He counted down all the evidence he had seen that a larger group was behind this. After ten minutes Marcus finished his impromptu ted-talk, "And lastly, if we take Singh's work into account: The warlord is forced to show his strength if he is challenged, by inside or outside forces. Such a show of strength can be in form of a set of successful attacks or a large-scale raid. The death of several class holders could be seen as a challenge."

"Your knowledge of the matter is impressive," Miss Greyer stated with a smile and Marcus gave a short, empty smile back. "We will take your input into account. Thank you. I would like to talk to Mr. Russo for a moment." And just like that the meeting was over. Marcus waited outside the office, feeling strangely drained. He had sweated through his shirt and debated if he should change, when the door opened again and Russo joined him. "Very good work in there. This should give the bureaucrats enough reason to get a move on." He praised Marcus.

"About the second topic." The old man led Marcus to a room in the basement of the building. Marcus had never been here and inspected the heavily reinforced door in front of him. Russo opened it with a key card. As Marcus stepped into the room he realized it was some kind of armory. Several shelves held weapons and armor, even grenades. Russo moved to a table with a blanket and removed the textile. He revealed a black tipped spear, carefully mounted and maintained. "This is what I wanted to talk about," Russo said, and looked a bit nervous. Marcus recognized the spear as the weapon that had nearly gutted him. "According to the looting rules of the LCPS it belongs to you," Russo explained.

In the LCPS basic stuff gets sold and directly paid-out (Marcus got a bonus for the wolves too, but he never checks his bank balance), but rare and expensive objects belong directly to the person who makes the kill (or team, depending). Those orks had been scavengers, like most of their kind. The spear looked of good quality and it had cut through his heavy armor with ease, he remembered all too well. "Is it worth something?" Marcus asked, still inspecting the weapon. Russo pulled out his phone and showed him an official price estimate. "Heillige Scheiße!" Fell out of Marcus' mouth. 250000 dollars!

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"I would like to buy it from you, before you put it up for sale." Russo looked a bit unhappy with the situation. "With a bonus of course," He quickly added. Marcus was more surprised than anything else. Russo explained further, "The truth is, spears of higher quality are very rare and even beyond the price, the availability is the main problem. I have been trying to get an upgrade for years, but the open market is dry." Marcus nodded and said somewhat bland, "Okay." His mind was still trying to get to terms that the spear was worth several years of his current base salary.

Russo looked like a heavy weight had fallen from his shoulders. When they went to the office to set up a contract, the 'old man' looked 20 years younger.

After this was done and Marcus assured his boss that he could go and take the spear right this moment, Russo became serious once more. "Marcus, I know you have already recovered from your wounds, but the mind heals much slower than the body. Even for normal humans." Marcus didn't know what to say, he didn't feel bad. "Give yourself time and if you want to talk, no matter when and no matter what, you can always come to me. Anything we discuss stays between us," Russo said.

On Marcus' way back to the barracks he met Janette, who grinned like the Cheshire Cat. She pulled out a paper target. It showed a tight grouping of hits. "50 meters, pistol and get this… my left hand," she giggled like a school girl. "It is like I can't miss!" She hugged him and danced away to tell her Cherry. Back in his room Marcus checked his bank account and for sure, it had a whooping 300k dollars extra. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with this money.

When he got his armor he also had looked around what the prices were for more exclusive products. More materials and lower demand meant that heavy armor was even more expensive than light and medium armor. At the time 200k for a suit of armor with just one more level of defense rating seemed unreasonable. Now, it was well in reach. One level of defense rating didn't sound much, but was in truth the difference between a bruise and a punctured lung. Marcus quickly found a nice offer, about the same weight but one rating higher. It used some chitin plating instead of ceramics and the weave also used exotic materials. It had no magic properties (put several more zeros to the price for that), but it was exactly what Marcus wanted.

He was about to buy when he saw another offer. It was the same armor, but it also offered a built in gas mask and IR vision. 290K dollars. Marcus thought about it for a good while and then bought it without regret. He went to bed feeling fulfilled. New armor, new ability, three more levels. Things were going well for him.

Marcus woke up in the middle of the night. He was covered in sweat and his heart was racing as if he had just run a marathon, with his armor on. He went into a sitting position and tried to calm himself. He closed his eyes and a particular picture came to his mind. The moment he had his hands on the face of that ork. The look in the orks' eyes. Marcus shivered and put his hands around his legs.

It was the same expression. Unwanted, another picture forced its way into his consciousness. The same eyes, the same fear. His mother dying in front of Marcus, her eyes, which no longer recognized him. Her dead, empty eyes. Tears started to flow. On and on, until Marcus was sobbing and shaking, sinking his face into his pillow. "Mamma." He was a child again. Alone. Helpless.

Some time later Marcus stood in front of a door and couldn't decide whether to knock or not. He stood there for several minutes. The door opened before he had decided and Luca Russo waved Marcus in. "I will make some tea." Marcus took a seat on a soft chair and once the hot tea warmed him from the inside he started to talk about his mother.

The next day was filled with training for Anchor and nothing too exciting happened until late afternoon, when the air suddenly was filled with the sound of helicopters. In less than an hour several transport helicopters landed on and around the base, bringing dozens of class holders and other personnel. Trucks with materials and provisions arrived all night long, and by the end of the next day nearly 100 combat personnel of the LCPS and local clans had gathered.

"Well Luca, are you prepared to get killed by an ork?" A tall, muscular, black man greeted Marcus' team leader in front of the barracks and the team. "Not before you kick the bucket, Ron," Russo said with a cold voice. Then the two men hugged and laughed.

"May I introduce to you, Ronald Brahms regional commander of the LCPS and in charge of this task force." Russo made the introduction, but The bald man just waved it off. "So, who of you is Marcus Freimann?" Marcus raised his hand like a school boy, which caused a laugh from his team mates. The new commander stepped right in front of him. He seized Marcus up and shook his hand. Brahms's grip felt like a steel vise and Marcus was sure the man tried to break his hand.

"Well, it seems you are the real deal." Brahms laughed, and turned to his old friend, "Let's have a talk Luca. If your boy is right, there will be a horde of orks crawling all over us."