Chapter 69 Building the Team

Chapter 69 Building the Team
Jade jogged back to the truck after her third kill of the evening run and stopped in front of me, breathing hard but not winded. "What stats do I put into?" she asked. I had been watching her fight for two hours. I had a clear picture. "Spirit," I said. "All of it, for now." She frowned slightly. "Not strength? Or agility?" "You're not going to be a frontline fighter," I said. "Not yet, maybe not ever — and that's not a weakness, that's a role. The team needs support. Healing, buffs, the abilities that keep the people in front from dying. That comes from Spirit. Push it high enough and the system starts opening those options." She looked at her hands. "I can fight though. I did tonight." "You can," I said. "And knowing how to fight is important for everyone on this team, no matter their role. But knowing how to fight and being the person who goes forward first are different things." I held her eyes. "Does that make sense?" She thought about it for a real moment — not a quick nod, actual thought. That was one of the things I had noticed about Jade from early on. She didn't pretend to understand things she didn't. "Yeah," she said. "Okay. Spirit." "Good. Go rest. Send Ryan out when you get back to the truck." She jogged back. --- Ryan came out with the blade already in his hand. He had been leveling faster than anyone else in the group except me. The system rewarded consistent engagement and Ryan was constitutionally incapable of doing anything halfway. By the time I finished working him through the next cluster — fourteen zombies on the far end of the block, three of them slightly faster than standard — he had leveled again. He stood still for a moment while the system updated. That particular stillness people had when the baseline shifted and the body needed a second to catch up with itself. Then he exhaled and looked at me. "Agility," I said, before he asked. "Then power. Reaction first. In a fight with these things, not getting hit is more valuable than hitting hard. Once your agility is over thirteen, start weighting power and strength." He nodded once and made the allocation without argument. Ryan was one of the easiest people to work with because he understood chain of command and he didn't let ego into tactical decisions. Once he trusted your competence he followed your lead cleanly. "How many more runs tonight?" he asked. I looked at the sky. The light was going. Not gone yet, but going. "This is the last one," I said. He didn't argue. He looked at the block, calculating. "Tomorrow," he said. "We should do this tomorrow before we drive. Early, while the light is good." "Yes," I said. He went back to the truck. --- I worked through the rest of the group before the light failed. Nathan leveled once more. I told him the same thing I had told Ryan — agility first, then power. He was already building toward something physically precise and disciplined and the stats supported that direction. Mia leveled for the first time on the evening run, her fourth kill, and stood very still afterward with her hand pressed flat against her sternum like she was checking whether something inside had changed. It had. That was always the thing people didn't quite believe until it happened to them. "What do you feel?" I asked. "Stronger," she said, like she was surprised to be saying it. "Not a lot. But something." "It compounds," I said. "Every level. The gap between level one and level five is larger than it looks on paper." She looked at me. "What's your level?" I told her. She was quiet for a second. Then: "How long did that take?" "Less time than it should have," I said. "I had advantages." She accepted that without pushing it and went back to work. --- Sophie leveled on her sixth kill. She had been the last one I put forward. I had watched her through the full run first — how she moved, how she reacted to stimulus, what she did with fear. She was not naturally aggressive. That wasn't a flaw; it was information. It told me where to point her. When the system update hit her she went pale and grabbed the nearest solid surface — the side of a parked car, already rusting at the wheel well — and held on for about four seconds. Then she straightened up and looked at me. "Spirit," I said. "Same as Jade. Support role. You have the instinct for it already — you read people well, you respond to what's needed rather than what's dramatic. The system will build on that." She looked like she wanted to say something about that. "What?" I said. "Nothing." A pause. "Just — I stopped the bus. And Kira got hurt. And you're still giving me a role." "You made a mistake," I said. "You understand it now. That's all I need from you." She held that for a moment. "Okay," she said quietly. "Get back to the truck. Tell Derek he's next." --- Derek leveled on his ninth kill, which surprised me. He hadn't seemed the type to adapt to physical combat quickly — he was an analyst by nature, map-brain, systems-thinker. But he was methodical, and the methodical ones sometimes moved faster through the early kills because they didn't waste motion on uncertainty. I told him to split his stats between agility and stamina. He needed mobility more than power; his value to the group was his mind, and keeping him alive long enough to use it was the priority. He nodded and made the allocation like he was filing a document. "Tomorrow's route," he said, before he went back. "I've been looking at the highway approaches. There are two exits between here and Sacramento that show high vehicle density on the atlas — that was day one data, pre-jam. If the roads are blocked we need alternates." "Show me when we get back," I said. He went back.