Chương 15: Background Characters

Cecilia gathered her people quickly. Only the roof team stayed in place. Eighty-six people who comprised the core syndicate, and two hundred more who were connected to them through payroll, contract, or blood, gathered in the reception hall under the chandelier that was still on and cast too much gold light on faces that were suddenly uncomfortable. She stood at the head of the room. Luca sat at a small desk she'd brought from the office, with his laptop open.

Ruggiero was near the main door, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed. Bianca was at the back, where she could see everyone's face. Dario was wandering the edges, a glass still in hand. Matteo stood to Cecilia's right, formally, in the way that acknowledged who she was and how she wanted things to look to the people in front of her. They had known her since she was a little girl. Some of them had known her father.

All of them had made a choice to stay when she took over, and she had made choices about who to keep. They were the people who understood the Leonelli family as a machine, and they were its best parts. Luca cleared his throat.

"Could... everyone open their System interface?" People looked at each other. Some hesitated. One or two glanced at Cecilia.

"Do it," she said. The air shifted as dozens of interfaces appeared, glowing faintly in the dim light.

"Look at the top left," Luca said.

"There should be a status bar, or a name, or something that tells you what the System thinks you are." Cecilia found hers. It was the same as it had been since she chose, but now she saw it differently. Name: Cecilia Leonelli Class: Fixer (Tier 1) Level: 4 Primary Stat: Presence Secondary Stat: Acuity Skills: Marked Ledger, Weight of Office It looked so small now. She looked up. The people in the room were all staring at their own text. Luca had gone pale.

"Does anyone see 'NPC' as your class name?" No one moved.

"Raise your hand if you do." Almost all of them did. Fifty-seven hands, out of nearly three hundred, stayed down. The room went very quiet. Cecilia felt the silence press against her skin.

"Alright," Luca said, his voice lower now.

"Look at the bottom. There should be a line that says 'Faction' or 'Affiliation.' If you don't see it, it's because you're not registered with one. If you do see it, tell me what it says." The first answer came from one of the younger men near the back.

"The Leonelli Family." Another, from a woman who ran the mid-city supply chain: "Same." The others echoed it. One by one. Until everyone with a hand raised had confirmed it. The people who hadn't raised their hands looked around the room, then at Cecilia. Then at Luca. Luca swallowed and closed his laptop.

"I was afraid of that." Cecilia understood the whole shape of it. She kept her voice even.

"Explain."

"The System is treating us like a game," Luca said.

"In some games, when you don't pick a class, you become an NPC. A background character. Non-player. You're part of the world, but you're not a main character. You can still interact, but the rules are different for you." He gestured at the room.

"You all registered late. You didn't engage with the System before the window closed. So it labeled you NPCs. The System recognizes organizations as entities. If you're part of an organization, it classifies you accordingly. If you're not, it classifies you as an NPC. Which means—" He stopped.

"Which means what?" she prompted.

"Which means you don't level," he said.

"You don't gain experience. You don't get skills. You don't progress. The System considers you... background." He swallowed.

"In most games, NPCs are weaker than players. They're not meant to be the focus. They're there to support the main characters." The silence deepened. Then one of the men in the back said, "So you're saying we're stuck?"

"Not necessarily," Luca said quickly.

"There's usually a way to change status. But I don't know what it is yet. I'll need time to figure out how the System handles it. It might be a quest, or a specific action, or—""It doesn't matter," Cecilia said. Everyone looked at her. She stepped forward, away from Matteo, and let her voice fill the room.

"What matters is what we do next. You're here because you're Leonelli. Because the family is how you survive, and because I keep the family alive. The System gave us a label. Fine. We'll wear it. But we're still the ones who control this part of the city. We're still the ones who decide who lives and who dies here. We don't need the System to tell us that." She let that land.

"I'll find a way to fix this," she said.

"Until then, we keep working. The people with classes will handle the things the ones without classes can't. The rest of you will do what you do best: logistics, support, enforcement. This changes nothing about who we are." This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. She looked at the room. Some of them were already straightening. Some were still uncertain.

"I will lead. You will follow," she said.

"The System doesn't change that. It only changes how we fight. So we adapt. We find the right people. We take the right territory. We turn this into the city we control, not the city we survive in." She paused.

"Are we clear?" A few voices answered.

"Yes, boss."

"Louder," she said. This time, they all said it. Some of them meant it, some were still catching up. That was fine. She turned to Matteo. He nodded once, then addressed the room.

"Back to your stations. There's work to do." As the room began to clear, she caught Luca's eye and beckoned him with a tilt of her head. He came over, looking like a man who was about to be fired.

"Don't," he said, before she could speak.

"I didn't—I couldn't have known."

"I'm not going to shoot you." His shoulders relaxed just enough that she believed him.

"Is there any other thing I should know?" she asked.

"No," he said, too quickly. Then he stopped.

"Maybe." He made a face.

"Reputation is a system metric. When you get more of it, other entities might treat you better. But it also makes you more visible."

"To enemies, you mean?" He nodded.

"Yeah. You shine brighter. The good and the bad see you sooner. That's probably why the notification said it. The System wanted to warn us that high-profile actions come with risks." That was useful to know. Matteo returned from the door, holding it as the last people left. When the hall was empty, he closed it and came to join her.

"You knew," he said.

"No," Cecilia said.

"I suspected."

"And you didn't say anything."

"Because if I'd been wrong, I'd have looked paranoid. And if I'd been right, I'd have had to explain what it meant before we had a plan."

"You could have told them to choose," Matteo said.

"Before the window closed. One sentence."

"Order three hundred people to accept something I didn't understand, that I couldn't undo, on a hunch?" She shook her head.

"I chose for myself. I don't gamble the family on a feeling. By the time I trusted it enough to make it a rule, it was already too late to matter." She looked at the closed door.

"That's the part I'll be living with." A pause. Then she looked at Luca.

"That's the part I'll be living with. Which is why it's your job now. Making sure I'm never that far behind again." Luca nodded slowly. He didn't look happy about it.

"What's the solution?" Matteo asked.

"I don't think there is one yet," Luca said.

"Not a permanent one. But there are workarounds. In games, sometimes you can gain a class by being sponsored. Or by performing a specific action the System recognizes as worthy of a promotion."

"Define worthy," Cecilia said.

"That's the problem. I don't know. It depends on how the System's logic is built. It might be something simple, like killing a certain number of creatures in a scenario. Or it might be something more abstract, like demonstrating leadership or making a critical decision under pressure." He frowned.

"The fact that it gave all of them the Leonelli affiliation suggests it's tracking organizational loyalty. Maybe the key is proving loyalty to the faction."

"Or proving we're worth following," Matteo said. Luca nodded.

"That too." Cecilia sat on the arm of a chair and thought about just how many people in Turin had ignored the System's prompt, or had been ordered to ignore it by authority figures who didn't understand what was happening. She thought about the police who had died at the checkpoint, the soldiers at the overturned truck, all those bodies left on the road because they had been trying to behave like it was still the world that existed the day before. There was something peculiar that she hadn't noticed until now.

Something Luca had said added up with what she'd seen on the street.

"Tell me again what the System says about NPCs," she said. Luca hesitated.

"They're background. They don't level. They don't get the same rewards. In some games, they have reduced stats. But it varies."

"Would they be weaker than a player?"

"Yes. Usually." Cecilia thought about the checkpoint again, and the dead soldiers.

"The police officer who fired at the creature on the barrier. He was using his service weapon. He hit it twice. It didn't slow down. He wasn't a bad shot. We also found a military position that had been destroyed, with multiple casualties. Is it possible that the military and police who responded to the System as civilians... are weaker? Not just lacking skills, but fundamentally less capable?" Luca's eyes widened.

"That would explain a lot. If the System penalizes unregistered entities, and if most of the police and military were instructed not to register, they'd be fighting with a severe disadvantage." Matteo's frown deepened.

"You're saying their bullets did less damage because they were... NPCs?"

"I don't know if they were or weren't, but it's possible." She looked at Luca.

"Is there a way to check?" He thought about it.

"Maybe. If I could get a direct comparison. Same weapon, same target. But that's... not an easy test to set up."

"Do it," she said.

"Use the bodies in the lane. We have ammunition. We have time." He nodded once, though he didn't look comfortable with the idea. Cecilia looked at Matteo.

"You think the rest of the military here are having the same issue?"

"Probably," Matteo said.

"The official response was to ignore the System. If the officers did that, and the soldiers followed orders, then yes. They'd all be classified as NPCs. Which means they're fighting an enemy with a significant mechanical advantage."

"And they don't know it," Cecilia said.

"No." She was quiet for a moment. Then she stood up.

"Then that's the first advantage we take," she said.

"The military is trying to hold the city with a broken tool. We're not. We have people who understand the rules. We have people who can grow stronger faster than the competition. We're going to use that." She walked to the window and looked out at the purple-black sky. The city would be full of things to fight and people who didn't know how to fight them. And in the morning, everyone would be weaker than they thought they were, except for the ones who had chosen to play. That was the gap she could exploit.

"Luca," she said, turning back to him.

"You're going to run the Analysis Division. You'll report to me. Your job is to find every edge the System gives us. Every rule we can bend. Every piece of information the others don't have." He stared at her.

"You're putting me in charge?"

"Yes."

"I— I don't know if I can—""You will," she said.

"You already are. You just don't realize it yet. I hired you because you understood what was happening before anyone else in Turin. I'm promoting you because that skill scales." She nodded toward the door.

"Go find Matteo's assistant and start working. He'll get you whatever you need." He stood up slowly.

"And if I fail?"

"Then I'll find someone who doesn't. But I don't think I'll have to." He looked at her for a moment longer. Then he nodded, gathered his laptop, and left the room. Cecilia waited until the door closed behind him. Then she looked at Matteo.

"Do you trust him?" he asked. It was the question he'd been holding since she brought Luca in.

"Yes," she said.

"Even though he could run."

"He won't."

"How can you be sure?" Cecilia walked back to the desk and sat down. She thought about the way Luca had looked at her when she told him he was in charge. The fear and the satisfaction tangled together, the way someone looked when they'd been recognized for the thing they'd always believed they were good at but never been allowed to prove.

"Because," she said, "he's exactly where he wants to be. He's just not ready to admit it yet."