Chapter 97: Is Handing Out Gifts Really That Suspicious?
The Main God Space — North American Team Plaza
Marcus turned the sealed Airborne Anti-T Virus dispersal unit over in his hands one more time, then tossed it casually into the air.
Zack's expression tightened instinctively — that thing was worth 3,000 points and a C-rank quest completion, and it had just been lobbed upward like a baseball in a parking lot.
Then it vanished.
No flash, no container, no visible storage device. It simply ceased to exist in the open air and was gone.
Across the plaza, Cole's eyes tracked the moment with quiet precision. Spatial storage, he noted internally. Either equipment or an innate ability. High capacity — the four Terminators came from the same source, and those aren't small. He ran a quick mental estimate of the volumetric requirements for four full-size Terminator units and revised his assessment upward significantly. Whatever Marcus Foster was working with, it wasn't a standard Main God spatial item. The scale was wrong for that.
Cole kept the observation to himself and continued watching.
"Alright, Zack," Marcus said, turning back to the group with the easy manner of someone wrapping up a business lunch. "The four Terminators are yours. I'm giving you Level Two authorization — you can direct them however you need, full operational control. The one restriction is you can't order them to act against me. Everything else is on the table."
Zack was already looking at the four units with the expression of a man recalculating his odds against every threat he'd faced in the last six missions.
Marcus continued, "I could've handed you full top-level authorization right now, but transferring that cleanly through the Main God's system is more administrative work than it's worth at the moment. Come find me in the Resident Evil world — if you still have all four when you get there, I'll upgrade you to full authorization then." He paused, then added with a slight grin, "And even if you've managed to lose them all by then, don't sweat it. I'll bring something else."
"Thank you, Mr. Foster," Zack said, and genuinely meant it.
"Don't mention it." Marcus waved it off and turned toward his exit point. "I've got business back in Resident Evil. Try not to get eaten before you visit."
He was two steps toward departure when the Transcendence System flagged a notification in his mind.
"Due to the Host's influence on Zack and the introduction of four Terminator units into his operational future, the river of fate in the Main God world has experienced a measurable fluctuation. Fifty Destiny points collected."
Marcus stopped walking.
He stood there for a moment, quietly processing that.
The Terminators had been — genuinely — a casual decision. He had a significant stockpile of Terminator units, Skynet was already reverse-engineering the TX technology back in the Hive, and giving away four of them hadn't felt like any kind of strategic investment. It had felt like tipping a valet.
And he'd just earned fifty Destiny points from it.
Zack noticed Marcus hadn't left. He looked up from where he'd been experimentally issuing his first commands to the T-1000 units, slightly embarrassed. "Mr. Foster — something else?"
Marcus had already made his decision before the question finished.
He snapped his fingers.
A T-800 materialized in the plaza — the classic configuration, built like a professional athlete made of military-grade hardware, the Arnold-chassis model that had become the most recognizable Terminator design across multiple timelines. Marcus looked over at Jordan, the team's note-taker, who had been quietly observing everything with sharp, cataloguing eyes.
"Jordan," he said. "You want one?"
Jordan hesitated for exactly one second — the pause of someone running a rapid cost-benefit analysis. "...What are your terms, Mr. Foster?"
Marcus laughed — a real one, not performed. "Nothing complicated. I need raw materials that are cheaper in the Main God exchange catalog than they are anywhere else. One hundred cubic meters of gold, one hundred cubic meters of platinum. That's the trade."
Jordan pulled up the catalog immediately, cross-referenced the T-800's listed value against the materials cost, and confirmed the exchange before Marcus had finished his sentence. It wasn't close — the T-800 was worth multiples of what he was asking.
Two hundred cubic meters of gold and platinum appeared in stacked, gleaming formations across the plaza floor.
Cole observed the volume quietly. Two hundred cubic meters, he calculated. Gold alone at standard density — that's nearly four million kilograms. Where does it go?
Marcus snapped his fingers.
All of it vanished instantly. No effort, no visible strain, no delay.
Cole's expression remained neutral. Internally, he upgraded his spatial storage estimate by another significant margin. Whatever the dimensional capacity was, it handled nearly four million kilograms of dense metal without registering as notable.
"Same terms as Zack," Marcus said to Jordan. "Level Two authorization — full operational control, one restriction. He doesn't move against me."
Jordan was already issuing her first command to the T-800 with the focused enthusiasm of someone who had been quietly wanting exactly this for several missions and wasn't going to waste time pretending otherwise.
The Transcendence System updated Marcus again.
"Due to the Host's influence on Jordan, the river of fate in the Main God world has experienced an additional fluctuation. Thirty Destiny points collected."
Marcus kept his expression easy and unhurried, but internally he was recalibrating.
He'd come to the Main God Space with one objective — acquire the Airborne Anti-T Virus without burning Destiny points. That box was checked. But the secondary yield from handing out Terminators was something he hadn't fully anticipated. Eighty Destiny points from two casual exchanges, with zero cost to him beyond equipment he had in surplus.
The Screenplay Theory didn't just apply to world-saving events. Any genuine deviation from a person's predetermined fate — even something as seemingly minor as putting a Terminator T-800 in the hands of someone who wasn't supposed to have one — created a ripple. Small ripples, but real ones.
This was worth thinking about more carefully.
"Mr. Foster."
The voice was measured, unhurried, and came from the person Marcus had been peripherally aware of since he'd arrived — Cole, the sharp-eyed observer who had spent the entire visit cataloguing everything without volunteering anything.
"If there's something else you need," Cole said, "I may be able to assist with the exchange."
Marcus looked at him directly for the first time since the opening greeting. He ran a quick internal query. System — what's the Destiny cost to force a meaningful change in Cole's trajectory? He's clearly not an ordinary team member.
The Transcendence System's response was immediate. "Given Cole's structural importance to the river of fate in the Main God world, a direct causality reversal affecting his core trajectory would cost three thousand Destiny points."
Marcus's answer to that was equally immediate. Absolutely not.
Three thousand Destiny points for one person — even a significant one — was not a trade he was making today. Or probably any day soon. He didn't have three thousand points to spare on a side investment in someone else's storyline.
He studied Cole with the kind of mild interest that revealed nothing. "What do you want?"
Cole adjusted his position slightly — not nervously, just precisely. "A Terminator TX."
"And what are you offering?"
"Whatever you need that falls within my capabilities," Cole said. No hesitation, no hedging, no attempt to negotiate the terms first. "Name it."
Marcus tilted his head slightly. "You want to study the TX. The weapons systems specifically, right? The directed energy components."
Cole didn't deny it. "The TX's onboard energy weapon architecture is unlike anything in the current catalog. The theoretical applications go well beyond what Skynet originally designed it for. I want to examine it — fully, which may include complete disassembly."
"I'll give you a TX with full authorization — including disassembly and destruction rights if you need them," Marcus said. "My condition is simple. I don't just get the energy weapon research. I get everything. Every finding, every derived application, every technical conclusion your analysis produces. All of it comes to me."
"Agreed," Cole said immediately.
Marcus held his gaze for a moment. "I should mention — I can tell when someone's not being straight with me. I'd recommend against it."
"I won't lie to you," Cole said. The statement carried the flat certainty of someone who considered lying an inefficiency rather than a moral position.
Marcus snapped his fingers. A Terminator TX stepped forward from his dimensional storage — lean, precise, the most advanced combat chassis Skynet had ever produced — and Marcus transferred authorization to Cole without ceremony.
The Transcendence System notified him before the transfer had even fully completed.
"Due to the Host's influence on Cole and the introduction of a TX unit into his research trajectory, the river of fate in the Main God world has experienced a further fluctuation. Fifty Destiny points collected."
Then, almost immediately after:
"Additional notice — the river of fate in the Main God world has experienced multiple compounding fluctuations. The Main God is now actively managing the river of fate to compensate."
Marcus processed that for a beat. What does that mean for us practically?
"In practical terms — the difficulty of generating future Destiny point yields from the Main God world has increased. The Main God is applying corrections."
Marcus exhaled slowly through his nose.
So the Main God Space had a self-correcting mechanism. Introduce enough deviations in a short enough window, and the system started pushing back — tightening the river of fate, reducing the amplitude of fluctuations that Marcus could harvest.
He glanced around the plaza one more time. Zack was running his Terminators through formation drills with obvious satisfaction. Jordan was issuing her T-800 a series of increasingly specific instructions to see how granular the control actually was. Cole had already withdrawn slightly from the group and was studying the TX with the focused stillness of someone who intended to understand it completely.
One hundred thirty Destiny points. Airborne Anti-T Virus acquired. Three significant deviations introduced into the Main God world's river of fate.
Not a bad return for a visit he'd originally planned to keep short.
Stingy, Marcus thought at the Main God in general. I introduce a few legitimate deviations and you start adjusting the correction coefficients. Some nerve.
He stepped toward his exit point and made the jump back to Raccoon City.
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