My encounter with Jean Claude had been unnerving. He was clearly much more than he seemed to be, given his level and his observational abilities.

It made me want to reconsider. My entire plan was based on the idea that I could slip in undetected and listen in enough to get a handle on these people's movement. The question was whether or not I could pull it off.

Maybe I needed to find a skill book on acting. The biggest danger to all of this would be my inability to bluff. Some of that would be due to nervousness, which Gamer's Mind would help with, but inexperience Would be harder to deal with.

I'd have to bite the bullet and go to a full priced bookstore. Presumably I was about to have a small income, which meant that I could probably afford to buy a few skill books.

It was eight o'clock, so I still had a couple of hours until the closest store closed. I had my work uniforms safely in inventory and I still had money to spend.

Uniforms Unlimited was actually in a nicer neighborhood than I was used to. He'd been right about one thing; eventually I'd Need a better costume, if only so my face would be concealed when doing things when murdering people.

I didn't need a full costume; real ninjas had worn the same clothes as everyone else. The danger had been that they could look like anyone.

All I needed was a hoodie and a mask.

The best thing to do would be to make my own, but that wasn't a skill I had, either in my personal life or through my power. That meant that I had to buy one or steal one.

The idea of wearing the masks of my defeated enemies was appealing; it would certainly add an intimidation factor. However, it was going to be a while before I could kill even a single cape.

At the moment, all I had was a Miss Militia handkerchief, a souvenir of the one time I'd visited the rig gift shop with MoM before she'd died. I Hadn't been thinking much about her lately; was that because of Gamer's Mind, or had I just been busy?

For a long time I hadn't been able to think of anything else; after all, I'd been the one she had been communicating with when she died. I had always blamed myself, but now I could see that it might have happened even if she wasn't texting me.

Kids always blamed themselves, even for things like their own parents' divorces. I'd had a part in Mom's death, but beating myself up about it now would just be hurting me for something that could not be changed.

Mom wouldn't have wanted that.

I had always thought that Dad had blamed me. Now I'd never know. Even if he had, he hadn't been in his right mind for years. He'd had a status effect, depression, as my power would describe it.

The smell of smoke suddenly became apparent to me. It wasn't strong, but it was acrid, and it was coming from the south.

I hesitated.

This probably had nothing to do with me, and at best it would be a distraction. Still, it might be an indication of a parahuman battle, and I might learn something.

Heading in the direction, I smelled the smoke, I found that the smell grew stronger and stronger over the next three blocks. Although the Uniform store had been in a nice neighborhood, we were now six blocks away, and in Brockton Bay sometimes that was all that was needed to make the difference between rich and poor.

The smoke was coming from somewhere a block away. Onlookers were gathering outside an apartment complex that was on fire. Smoke was pouring out of the upper windows and people were screaming.

The apartment complex was only three stories tall, but the rooms were not accessible from the outside. There had been fire escapes once; I could see lighter brick where they had once been. Had the fire escapes been damaged by parahuman battles, or had they been removed because they had made it too easy for criminals to break into residences homes?

For whatever reason, the apartment complex had become a death trap, nd the people on the third floor looked like they were in trouble.

Response time by the fire department in this neighborhood was abysmal, likely because it was close enough to merchant territory that there had been attacks. The merchants didn't care that they might be the next victims of a house fire. All they knew was that fire trucks often carried equipment that they could sell, including medications. They also often had parts that Squealer could use in her vehicular monstrosities.

I felt bad about the whole thing, but what could i possibly do? I did not have fire powers, and I could not jump up like a brute and carry people down. I couldn't teleport the victims, or bend space and time like Vista.

Vista probably wouldn't even be allowed to come here; the Protectorate liked to keep their agents solely focused on parahuman problems.

I began to turn away when an alert popped up on my screen.

NEW QUEST ALERT!

GET ALL FIRED UP!

SAVE THE POOR VICTIMS OF BROCKTON BAY'S GREED AND INEPITITUDE AND PROVE THAT YOU ARE MORE THAN JUST A MURDEROUS ASSASSIN.

REWARD: 100 XP PER VICTIM SAVED.

FAILURE: LOSS OF REPUTATION POSSIBLE DEATH.

Shit.

My power seemed to think that there was something I could do with my abilities to save these people. It hadn't even bothered to ask me to accept the quest. Presumably I simply wouldn't get any points if I didn't save anyone.

Yet there was something about the wording of the quest. Was this a choice that would define my path going foreword? It would be easy to lose your soul by murdering eight hundred people, especially of there was nothing to balance it out on the other side.

I'd always wanted to be a hero, and while the path I'd Committed myself wasn't just that, I couldn't sit and watch as people died if there was anything I could do about it.

Could I stack cars with my power?

I likely could, but it would give away my power and would likely get me killed. Besides, panicked people trying to climb down a stack of twenty cars would likely end up falli g and hurting themselves.

"What's going on?" I Asked a man standing near the back of the crowd.

"Somebody had a meth lab on the second floor," he said. "Blew themselves up and started a fire that filled the second floor. The carpets are all on fire and the walls."

"Can't someone do something?" I asked.

"The fire is too hot, and there's too much smoke," he said. "Nobody could get through. The people on the third floor are dead."

"How do you know all of this?" I asked.

"I'm writing an article about corruption in the city government," he said. "The landlord bribed the inspectors to look the other way about the fire escapes, even though it was an obvious violation of the city code. That means that every inspector who came by here chose to look the other way."

The deaths would give his story meaning.

"Do you live here?"

"We all live here," I said. "This city is our home. Everybody who walked by here and saw what was happening and didn't do anything is complicit."

He brightened at that.

"Can I quote you on that, Miss?" He asked, but I had already used my stealth skill to slip away through the crowd while he was looking down for his notebook. I hoped it looked like I had just vanished.

The problems were likely three fold in nature. There was the fire, there was the smoke, which likely contained all sorts of unhealthy chemicals, and there was whatever structural damage had been done by the fire already.

The first thing I needed was water. I could try to inventory the water from a fire hydrant, but it would take far too Long. People were dying even as I stood there.

We were in the northeastern part of the city, between the docks and the train yard. The Bay was only five blocks away- that was three thousand feet or so away.

If I sprinted, I could be there in two And a half minutes; five minutes round trip. It would be obvious that I was moving faster than a normal person too, so I shouldn't wear one of my normal hoodies.

I pulled up my hood and I passed by a group of young street punks who were laughing about the fire. The people around them were visibly uncomfortable, but there was an aura of danger about the boys that had everyone looking away from them.

Perfect.

The boy in the back of the group was wearing a heavy leather jacket, one that would be a little large on me, but that would provide a little protection From the fire. Furthermore, he and his friends were all facing away from me at the back of the crowd and everyone else was looking away from them.

I slipped a Miss Militia handkerchief over my mouth, and as I passed by him, I tapped him on the shoulder.

"Inventory," I murmured, and the jacket disappeared from his back.

I'd already slipped into the crowd by the time he noticed that the jacket was gone. By the time I turned the corner, I had the jacket on my own back, and then I was running.

It was real leather too, not the more flammable fake leather.

I wore the jacket over my hoodie, with the hood up. It took me a couple of minutes to reach the Bay, and I waded out into the water up to my waist.

"Inventory, inventory, inventory, inventory," I chanted. I filled a single slot with fifty units of the same thing, water. Each unit of water was close to my limit of weight, a little more than a ton.

Each ton of water was about the same as that in eight bathtubs. I filled two slots with fifty tons of water in each slot.

One hundred tons of water might not be a lot, but it was the best I could do. I was acutely aware of the passage of time; people were dying as I sat with my hand in the water, watching water vanish in great gulps all around me only to be refilled over and over again.

I stepped out of the water, and then I sprinted back.

A message told me that my running speed had increased to sixty percent, which meant that it took less time To get back than it had to get there.

Still, five minutes had made all the difference. There was no sign of any firemen, fire trucks or police. The flames were twice the size they had been before, and the smoke billowing from The top floor had changed color, from white to gray. I could no longer see the top floor, and I wondered if everyone had already died.

The smoke had already filled the floors below; the fire was spreading. The impression I had was that the lower floors had been evacuated already.

The handkerchief wouldn't provide much protection, but the fact that I had soaked my pants And coat would presumably help a little.

I could presumably eat to recover my health, provided the fire wasn't so hot that it would kill me immediately, or if I got trapped in it.

Reaching the apartment complex, I noticed that the crowd had grown even larger. I Pushed my way through people, and I ran up to the front door.

Smoke filled the entranceway, and as I pushed my way through the door, I immediately began coughing.

"Inventory," I said, and the smoke in the room immediately cleared. I felt a little light headed, because the smoke had taken up some of the oxygen in the room, and that had not been replaced.

The room began filling up with smoke almost immediately, but I was already pushing my way forward. I ran through the lobby, fighting to reach the stairs.

The stairs were fortunately made of concrete. I ran up the stairs two at a time.

"inventory, Inventory, Inventory," I Said, pulling more and more of the smoke into my inventory. The problem was that the smoke was replaced almost as soon as it was Vanished.

It was at the second floor that I saw the problem. A ceiling had collapsed, Filling the stairwell with rubble.

-5 hp! BURNING DAMAGE.

As I touched the rubble and said "Inventory," I felt A sharp, burning pain in my hand. I Banished the Rubble, only for more to fall from above.

-5 HP BURNING DAMAGE!

NEW SKILL CREATED!

FIRE RESISTANCE!

-2% TO BURNING DAMAGE PER LEVEL

STACKS WITH PHYSICAL DAMAGE RESISTANCE!

LEVEL 1 -2 %.

I quickly ate some candy bars to restore my health, throwing the wrappers on the floor. I Then resumed my task, banishing rubble piece by piece along with the smoke.

By the time I reached the third floor, I'd gained 6 levels of fire resistance. Added to my physical resistance, I was now 16% resistant to fire.

There was a wall of flames in front of me, and so I now began to release the water, spilling water from the Bay into the hallway. As a ton of wateR hit the floor, I could hear the floor groan with the added weight, but there wasn't anything I Could do.

The pressure from the water knocked several doors down; they were only hanging on by a thread. People had blocked the doorways with everything they could think of. Towels, blankets And the like were washed away by the water.

"INventory, inventory, inventory," I said. "Is anybody still alive?"

The only sound was that of crackling flames and falling pieces of masonry. The voices I'd expected to hear weren't there.

"Inventory, inventory, inventory," I said. Each time I summoned water, I dropped it from the ceiling. It hit me like a ton of bricks, and my knees buckled.

As quickly as the water soaked me, providing some protection from the fire, the ambient heat dried me off. The steAm that was created was blindingly hot.

I chewed dried trail mix over and over, and yet damage was still hitting me. My heat resistance kept rising, too. Six levels quickly became twelve, and then fifteen. Along with my physical resistance, I was now reducing the fire damage by more than a third.

I couldn't focus on anything other than eliminating the fire. The people would have to wait, because I couldn't save anyone while the smoke and fire continued.

The leather jacket I'd stolen was in tatters, burned over and over again until it was ready to fall apart.

I filled the area with water, collected smoke and then filled the area with water again. The heat was intense; It was hot enough that even with Gamer's Body it was hard to breathe.

How long it took, I had no idea. All I knew was that my inventory of water was rapidly depleting, while I had a growing inventory of smoke.

I'd been so focused on the fire that I hadn't been able to tell whether a single person was still alive up here.

I was coming to the end of My water, leaving the floor covered with almost a foot of water. The fire was still going, although there was less than a quarter of it left.

Finally my water was depleted, and I was standing in a foot of water.

"Inventory," I said.

The water was high enough to hit my ankle, and that was enough for me to inventory the water closest to me. I Ran back and inventoried the most water I could. A Lot of it had turned to steam, but . Was able to collect enough to continue until the last of the fire had vanished.

I'd undoubtedly done a lot of damage to the floor and the ceiling of the floor below. The question now was whether I'd saved anyone.

I'd wondered why people hadn't tried jumping out of windows; we were only on the third story, and falling seemed less painful than burning to death.

The windows were barred, likely from before the fire escapes had been removed. The owner was going to have a lot of explaining to do.

The first label over a huddled figure beside a window was definitive.

Corpse.

They'd clearly tried to break out of the bars; I could see the tools they'd tried to use to get out. This first body was so burned that . Couldn't even tell what gender it had been, and the descriptor told me nothing either. They had been Next to the window, desperately trying to breathe.

The second room had a dead family of three. The third was a coUple.

It was in the fourth room that I finally found two survivors. I suspected that they'd had more time to prepare than the others. It was a woman and a teenaged girl. Their window was somewhat larger than most of the others, because it was in a corner, and their Room was farther away from The fire than the others.

Despite this, they were both in critical condition. They'd inhaled too much smoke, and their skin was burned.

As quickly as I could, I began to perform CPR on them. I could hear the sound of sirens finally coming. I did my best to perform CPR on both of them, bit it was quickly apparent that it was impossible.

The woman was worse off; she'd covered her daughter with her own body, and her lungs were much worse.

I had to make a choice, and I did.

By the time the fire fighters reached us, the woman was dead, but her daughter was still alive.

As the paramedics came to take over, I found an alert on my screen.

ALL FIRED UP!

QUEST COMPLETE!

100 XP.

Somehow I was less than impressed.