The day started like anyone, save for the cursing. "Fuck!"

  Gladys was suddenly wide awake. Bagel really needed to give her more coffee.

  "What is it?" Gladys said.

  "Janet show the map please."

  Janet show the top graphical map of Manhattan. There was a clear line from 1st avenue all the way up to 96th Street and then across 96th Street all the way till tenth avenue.

  "What am I looking at?" Gladys said.

  "Janet, highlight the most recent acquisition up there."

  A building on the corner of ninety seventh Street and ninth avenue lit up like a beacon. It was not connected to anything else. Janet quickly added colors. The entirety of Turtle Bay as well as the entirety of Bagels line of control was blue. The tiny building was a clear yellow light in a sea of grey unclaimed buildings.

  "We're going to need so much more money."

  "Boss, if you think that you're going to go around them then we need to figure out who that is. Just like the guy that bought up that one spot. I don't think that this is going to be a problem. Now if there was someone behind that? Someone not a squirrel? We could talk to them."

  Something told Bagel that this was another squirrel. They hadn't even bought anything inside of large box that it was constructing around them. They could still have purchased stuff inside of it. He just wanted to get everything outside of Central Park. Well, at least outside of Central Park and consistent with a certain radius. If he got that radius and he'd be a happy cat. He would own enough real estate that he wouldn't have to worry about mobs anymore.

  He already felt safe.

  Now we just need to figure out how to commodify that safety and get the humans to pay for it and then he would be a happy cat. It seemed like everything in the world wanted to get him away from his plans. He would have to deal with this head-on.

  "Can we dispatch a drone and see who's running that? I don't know what kind of bill that is and I have a feeling that what is the thing that you use to check?"

  "Lougle Street view."

  "And it's not working? Okay. Well we can't rely on that."

  Gladys gave him a serious face. "We do have the drones. Let's figure out if this is the squirrels or not before we do anything"

  It did a little bit to calm his nerves. They would check and they would find out what was going on.

  If it was a human that had got a mental card in a dungeon then things would be better. If it wasn't a human that had gotten a mantle card then that was still okay. It just meant that he had to figure out if he was going to keep going out until the East River or if he's needed to start boxing them in. He did not want to start spending money on streets when he didn't have to. Without buying up the buildings that surrounded the streets, there was a possibility that mobs would spawn within buildings or other places.

  He gotten the sense that mobs would move within a certain radius if there was another place for them to go. But if he figured a way to eradicate an entire region's worth of mobs, which for him meant all of Turtle Bay, he was pretty sure that they wouldn't spawn anywhere else.

  That was his hope. No one had fully cleared up a region where a card had spawned yet and it was unclear if that would actually change anything or not. If it did, it would be a great boon for him as he would core the market on that particular card.

  It was a separate issue that nobody wanted a pizza rat card, but that was really not for him to care too much about. If you figured out a way to stop the supply from existing then he could corner the market on it.

  Then he could crank up the price and charge as much as he wanted for cards that now had no value. And the only time that people would make more would be if they went to the arena which would lead them to spend more time at the arena... It was a genius move from the most handsome boy on the block.

  He just needed to get there. All in all it was going to take would be more money, more cards and a little more time. With those in hand, he would be able to relax.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  ---

  "What do you mean you can't tell?" Ashley said.

  Khaleesi sighed. "What I mean is you see what I see. There's nobody in that building. Or at least they're not coming out. So I don't know what you won't think Bagel wants us to do here because I don't think we're going to find anything."

  Ashley placed her hands firmly on her hips. Whatever bagelhead wanted this was not going to be able to find it. If this had been the worker of a squirrel? There probably was going to be some sign the La Noche on the area. Then all they had to do would be to stake out the area for as long as possible until they saw a squirrel leave. Or alternatively a human that worked for the squirrels.

  Because if you could have one of your lackeys be the person in charge of buying a property for you then why wouldn't you? It just made sense and I'll was not going to work out so well.

  It was clear through their interaction since that Bagel did not fully understand as humans and to think otherwise was the height of folly. Nobody

  Could understand humans not even other humans despite thousands of years of trying to understand psychology. Even the establishment of the field of psychology was just elaborate. Ruse for humans to try to say that they understood what made their brain stick. Ashley knew what made people's brains tick. And it was something she couldn't put directly into words but she felt it. Whatever bagel was doing? It was going to keep them safe and she wanted to keep that going.

  If it meant that they had to screw over a rival gang? She was all for it. But they had made several strange moves in the last hour or two, buying up unconnected land north and south of 96th Street, almost as if trying to make light of the situation.

  "The way that the squirrels are buying up these plots of land. It's like they are trying to taunt him. Like they've got what five people with mantle cards that have bought absolutely along the line and on both sides. It looks like they're investing a lot of cash into those specific blocks."

  Khaleesi whistled. "It would be a shame if somebody just went by and tried to buy them out, wouldn't it? It would be a real shame if we just figured a way to take care of this."

  "It would definitely be a shame if we showed up there and admitted protection payments or something. We're not going to but I can see why the squirrels did that. I just don't understand their long-term plan, but they probably want a consult under their base first before they move out anywhere."

  Ashley didn't need to rock the boat. She would rock the ferry all the way up to Spanish Harlem. If she had to. She would prefer not to obviously but the way things were going? Bagel was her ride or die, day one. If Kate had really not been lying about these new places for the drones to go check out? They might have been in a different position now. But the way things are going with La Noche? It just made their agreement with the pigeons look even more naive.

  Ashley didn't want to be naive. She would look naive for her girlfriend when they were doing a role play, but other than that that really wasn't going to be her jam.

  Really at the end of the day, if they couldn't control the squirrels acquisition of parts in Manhattan that would be okay. But if they didn't destroy as many places where the mobs could spawn as possible, then she wouldn't be able to forgive herself.

  ---

  A flock of pigeons flew over Staten Island. It wasn't hard to miss them. Todd wasn't even sure if the word flock was correct when referring to that grouping of pigeons. But there was a lot of them and they were flying as that they were about to come move in. He never really figured out how many pigeons were flying at the same time. Well he knew raw numbers but the question was how many had become deck bearers and how many? Those deck barriers? How many more pigeon deck bearers just by virtue of being trusted by other patients? Implicitly?

  The usual patterns of the pigeons that were hitting Staten Island have been established. Several dozen would show up in the morning and stay during daily hours. We're probably the same amount would head back at night but now the pigeons had a reason to head this way that. They were making a large area where they controlled everything. Far from being overrun, whatever enclave they built was not close enough for them to get a full view of it. He knew that there was some way that Bill could tell where Orlando have I brought up. They definitely had bought something up.

  If you could just see them then he'd be able to make a decision. Then he'd be able to call it in. But this was the first time that so many patrons had flown from Manhattan to Staten Island as if they were going to not only take the land but also keep and hold it. The patients had to be generating hundreds of credits a day just from killing mobs around their investments. Because that's what it was. Real estate used to be a solid investment but now it was just pure speculation. Would they make enough credits off of that place by having a safe house in the middle of it? Todd could not argue with it because he had his dream house on Staten Island.

  Or at least he had his little lighthouse that he was slowly using more credits to expand towards the Verrazano bridge. It wasn't even that far away. Just that they'd picked a very defensible spot for him and he was very happy to sit there with the teams that he got sent and fight off. Whatever came.

  But curiously, at night when he expected a lot of the pigeons to get up and leave back to Chelsea, almost done left. So it appeared like they had either given up something or this was a large contingent of them that was on some sort of special order. He checked and rechecked... By the time was ready to be dark, only a handful of pigeons had left.

  He wasn't sure if they were going to to like what he had to say or not, but they needed to know. Another large attention to them came to harvest mana with her about to try to establish another dark city.

  When therefore came up, he wanted to be clear and concise. The guild wanted him to actually portray the picture but how was he supposed to say that some pictures?

  When therefore came up, he wanted to be clear and concise. The guild wanted him to actually portray the picture but how was he supposed to say that some pictures entered either...

  The best part about having pigeons around? No more flying mobs. They did not like competition. It felt like a huge release to have them being taken care of before they even got to the part where they could fly.