Silver flame, p.4
Gate Crasher Apocalypse: A Men's Fantasy Adventure in Boston (The Boston Reaver Book 1), page 4
"Don't touch anything until Conferitti clears you," Colleen said. "She runs this floor tighter than a submarine."
"Conferitti?"
"Armory Cadre. She'll be the one outfitting you." Colleen walked toward a long counter at the far end of the room, past a section of heavy weapons that made Danny's fire axe look like a toy. "Try to make a good impression. She controls your gear allocation for as long as you're F-Rank, and she takes it personally when Hunters mistreat her equipment."
Behind the counter, someone was field-stripping what appeared to be a mana-enhanced crossbow with the focused intensity of a surgeon performing an operation.
* * *
Adelle Conferitti had long white hair pulled back in a tight regulation braid that hung past her shoulder blades, a posture that could have been measured with a level, and the kind of eyes that inventoried everything they looked at. She wore MHA tactical gear with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, revealing forearms corded with lean muscle and a tattoo on her left wrist that Danny recognized as a military unit designation. C-Rank. Mid-thirties. The way she held the crossbow components said she'd been handling weapons since before the Gates opened.
She set the crossbow bolt housing down on a cloth and looked up when Danny and Colleen reached the counter.
"Flaherty…" Her voice was clipped, professional, the kind of tone that came from years of issuing commands and having them followed. "This the new registration? The Reaver?"
"That's him. Danny Gallagher. Feeney wants a full F-Rank equipment loadout and field gear for a Gate assignment this week."
Conferitti's gaze moved from Colleen to Danny, and it traveled slowly. Very slowly. Starting at his boots, moving up his legs, pausing at his chest and shoulders with an attention that bypassed equipment sizing entirely and went straight for what was underneath the clothes.
"They make you wear that?" she asked, nodding at his MHA-issued black t-shirt and tactical pants. The shirt was a size too small, something the intake staff had grabbed from a standard rack without asking for his measurements, and it pulled across his chest and arms in ways that left very little to the imagination.
"No," Danny said. "It's a choice. They gave me what they had."
"Good choice." Conferitti came around the counter, and the way she moved had a precision to it that was pure military but with something else layered underneath. She circled Danny once, the way a drill instructor inspects a recruit, except drill instructors didn't usually let their eyes linger on biceps and shoulders the way hers did. "Most Hunters I see, whatever muscles they have, they got from the System. Level up enough times, put your stat points in the right places, and your body adjusts. Gets bigger, gets harder, gets functional." She stopped in front of him and looked up, because Danny had four inches on her. "But you. You're the real deal. Those aren't from a System at all. At least they weren't."
Danny shrugged. "Just the usual. Mountain climbers, stair sprints in full gear, weights. All of it, no days off really."
"Firefighter PT." Conferitti said it with the appreciation of someone who understood what that meant. Twelve years of hauling equipment up stairwells, dragging hose across rooftops, carrying people out of buildings that were trying to kill everyone inside. The kind of functional strength that no gym routine could replicate because it was built from doing the real work, every shift, for over a decade. "I was Army before I Awakened. Eighty-second Airborne. I know the difference between System muscle and earned muscle, Gallagher, and I can tell you right now that what you've got is the second kind."
"It's Danny."
"It's Conferitti until you earn a first name." She turned and walked back behind the counter, but there was a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. "Let's get you outfitted. Flaherty says you've got a heavy weapon affinity?"
"Axes," Danny confirmed.
"Good. Axes I've got."
Colleen leaned against a display case with her arms folded and the expression of someone watching a show she'd seen before but still found entertaining.
* * *
Conferitti moved through the heavy weapons section with the efficiency of someone who had memorized every item in her inventory and its exact location. She pulled four axes from the racks and laid them on the counter in a neat row, handles aligned, blades facing the same direction.
"F-Rank combat axes," she said. "Standard issue, MHA-approved, mana-reinforced steel. All of them are rated for sustained Hunter combat up through E-Rank Gate clearance." She pointed to each one in turn. "Single-bit felling axe, good reach, light enough for speed work. Double-bit battle axe, heavier, more damage per swing, slower recovery. Bearded axe, good for hooking shields and limbs. And this one." She touched the last weapon with something that might have been affection. "Broad axe. Heavy head, long handle, reinforced haft. Built for someone who hits hard and doesn't stop hitting."
Danny picked up the broad axe.
The weight settled into his hands the way the fire axe had settled in the warehouse, the way a tool feels when it's designed for the work you're about to do. The head was forged from dark steel with a faint blue tint, the edge ground to a line that Danny could feel cutting the air when he gave it an experimental swing. The handle was wrapped in black leather that conformed to his grip immediately, and the balance point was perfect. Heavy forward, designed to put maximum force behind every strike.
He took a step back from the counter and swung it through a proper arc, the kind of two-handed overhead cut that would split a goblin from crown to navel. The axe moved faster than its weight suggested, and the air made a sound when the blade passed through it. A clean, sharp hiss that said this weapon was built to do damage.
Conferitti watched the swing with the same intensity she'd given his body earlier. Professional assessment, this time. Mostly.
The blue window updated.
「WEAPON DETECTED」
「MHA Standard Combat Axe (Broad)」
「Type: Heavy Axe」
「Quality: Uncommon」
「Durability: 100/100」
「Damage: +18% vs. Common Axe」
「Reaver Affinity: HIGH」
「Recommendation: Equip」
"That one," Danny said.
Conferitti nodded approvingly. "Figured you'd go for the broad axe. It's the heaviest thing on the rack and most F-Rank Hunters can't swing it more than a dozen times before their arms burn out." She looked at his shoulders, his forearms, the way he held the weapon without any visible strain. "I don't think that's going to be your problem."
"It won't be."
"No," she agreed. "I don't think it will." She pulled a form from under the counter and started filling it out. "This weapon is MHA property, issued on loan. You break it, you report it. You lose it inside a Gate; you fill out the paperwork. You bring it back with monster guts caked in the mechanism, I make you clean it yourself while I watch and judge you." She slid the form across. "Sign here."
Danny signed. Conferitti filed the form in a drawer that was organized with the kind of precision that suggested alphabetical order within date-sorted folders within rank-categorized sections.
"Now." She pulled his fire axe from the gear bag where it was protruding, handling it with a care that surprised him given how battered the weapon looked. She turned it over in her hands, studying the chipped blade, the scored handle, the dried black blood that still crusted the steel. "This is what you used in the warehouse?"
"That's it."
"City fire department issue. Common quality, thirty-four percent durability, structural damage to the haft from impacts it was never designed to absorb." She looked at him over the weapon. "The System says it's bonding with you."
"Reaver bond. Twelve percent and climbing."
"Interesting." She set the fire axe down on the counter with respect, handling it the way Danny had seen old soldiers handle worn-out weapons that had seen real combat. "I've seen weapon bonds before. Rangers with their bows, Swordmasters with their blades. It usually takes weeks of shared combat for a bond to start forming, and it almost always happens with high-quality weapons designed for Hunter use." She looked at the chipped, blood-crusted fire department axe. "Never heard of one forming this fast, and never with a weapon this beat to hell. Whatever the System sees in this axe, whatever connection it's building between you and this piece of steel, it's worth keeping." She pushed it back toward him. "Carry it as a secondary. The bond might matter later."
* * *
The rest of the outfitting took forty-five minutes.
Conferitti moved through the process with military efficiency, pulling items from storage and stacking them on the counter in organized groups. Reinforced tactical clothing, layered with flexible armor panels that could absorb monster claws and low-caliber impacts. A comm unit that linked directly to MHA dispatch and Colleen's mentor channel. A field medical kit with supplies rated for Hunter-grade injuries. A small pack designed for Gate deployments, with compartments for potions, materials, and whatever loot Danny pulled from dead monsters.
She sized everything to him personally, adjusting straps and panels with the quick hands of someone who had done this hundreds of times. Her fingers lingered on his shoulders longer than strictly necessary when fitting the armor panels, and when she knelt to adjust the leg guards, she looked up at him, her face pure professional evaluation layered over something considerably less professional.
"You fill out this gear better than anyone I've outfitted this year," she said, standing. "Most new Hunters are either skinny kids who got lucky with their Awakening or desk jockeys who never ran a mile before the System gave them stats. You look like you could've done this job without the powers."
"Wouldn't have had the axe, though."
"True." She turned to the last item on the counter. A small metal case, brushed steel, with the MHA emblem engraved on the lid. She opened it and held it out.
Inside, a key rested on black foam.
It was about three inches long, made of a dark metal that caught the fluorescent light with a dull blue sheen. The head was stamped with the letter F and a serial number. It felt warm when Danny picked it up, and the blue window responded immediately.
「ITEM RECEIVED: F-RANK GATE KEY」
「Type: Gate Access Key」
「Rank Authorization: F」
「Status: Active」
「This key grants physical access to F-Rank Gates」
「Required for authorized Gate entry」
「Property of the MHA - Issued on Loan」
"F-Rank Gate Key," Conferitti said. "Required for authorized entry into any F-Rank Gate in the MHA's coverage area. Without it, the Gate treats you as a civilian and won't let you pass through the boundary."
"What happens if I try without one?"
"The Gate's mana barrier repels you. Feels like walking into a wall made of static electricity." She closed the case and pulled another form from her apparently bottomless supply. "Same rules as the weapon. This key is MHA property, issued on loan. You don't own it. You are responsible for it. You lose it, you report it immediately, because a lost Gate Key in the wrong hands is a security incident that generates paperwork neither of us wants to deal with."
Danny signed the form. Conferitti filed it with the same precise efficiency as the first.
"When you pass the E-Rank exam, you'll turn that key in and receive an E-Rank replacement. Same process at every rank tier going forward." She leaned against the counter with her arms folded, and the militaristic bearing softened just enough to let something else show through. "Any questions about your gear, your weapons, or the care and feeding of MHA equipment, you come to me. I'm here six days a week, and I answer my comm on the seventh."
"Six days a week?"
"The armory doesn't run itself." Her eyes traveled down his body one more time, slow and deliberate and not even slightly subtle about it. "Besides. This job has its perks."
Colleen cleared her throat from the display case she'd been leaning against. "We done here, Conferitti?"
"We're done. For now." Conferitti straightened up and the military bearing snapped back into place, the shift so clean it was almost audible. She extended her hand to Danny. "Welcome to the MHA, Gallagher. Try to bring my equipment back in one piece."
Danny shook her hand. Her grip was strong, calloused, and held on for two seconds longer than a handshake required. "I'll do my best."
"Do better than your best." She released his hand and turned back to the crossbow she'd been working on when they arrived, her attention already refocusing with the discipline of someone who compartmentalized the personal and the professional the way soldiers do. "Flaherty, make sure he reads the equipment manual before his first Gate. Section four covers axe maintenance. Section nine covers the key."
"There's an equipment manual?" Danny asked.
"Three hundred and twelve pages," Colleen said as she pushed off from the display case and started walking toward the exit. "I'll get you the digital version. Try not to fall asleep before section four."
* * *
They left the armory loaded down with gear. Danny carried the broad axe over one shoulder and his fire axe in the gear bag on the other. The tactical clothing was comfortable in a way his firefighting turnout gear had never been, lighter but somehow more protective, designed by people who understood that the person wearing it needed to move fast, hit hard, and take damage without slowing down.
The Gate Key sat in a reinforced pocket on his belt, warm against his hip. He was aware of it constantly, the way you're aware of a new watch or a new ring. A small weight in an unfamiliar place that reminded you something had changed.
"She likes you," Colleen said as they waited for the elevator.
"She was checking my gear fit."
"She was checking a lot of things, and most of them weren't gear." Colleen's voice was dry. "Conferitti does that with the ones she finds interesting. It's harmless. Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"Mostly." The elevator arrived. Colleen stepped in and hit the button for the ground floor. "Medical wing next. Feeney wants Meg Keenan running your baseline before the Gate assignment, and Keenan's been calling his office all morning asking when you'd be available." She glanced at his new gear, the axe, the tactical setup. "At least you'll look the part now."
Danny looked at his reflection in the elevator's polished steel doors. MHA tactical gear, combat axe, reinforced armor panels, comm unit on his collar. The man looking back at him didn't look like a firefighter anymore. He looked like someone who killed monsters for a living.
The blue window tracked his updated inventory at the edge of his vision.
「EQUIPMENT LOADOUT UPDATED」
「Primary Weapon: MHA Broad Axe (Uncommon)」
「Secondary Weapon: Fire Axe (Common, Bonding 12%)」
「Armor: MHA Tactical Gear (F-Rank Standard)」
「Accessory: F-Rank Gate Key (Active)」
「Comms: MHA Dispatch Link + Mentor Channel」
「Field Kit: Medical Supplies, Gate Pack」
「Status: Equipped」
「Residual Fury: 2 (Fading)」
「Next: Medical Baseline (Meg Keenan)」
The elevator descended, and Danny stood there in his new gear with his new weapons and his new license and the certain knowledge that within forty-eight hours he was going to walk into a Gate and find out what it felt like to build Fury again.
He couldn't wait.
five
Station
They were halfway to the elevator when Danny heard footsteps behind them, moving fast, and a voice pitched with the urgency of someone who'd been waiting for hours and was running out of patience.
"Gallagher. Stop."
Danny turned. A woman was coming down the corridor from the direction of the medical wing, a tablet clutched to her chest and a lab coat thrown over clothes that looked like they'd been slept in. Dirty blonde hair pinned up and losing its battle with gravity. Dark circles under sharp eyes. Curvy despite the lab coat, and she wasn't trying to hide it.
"Meg Keenan," Colleen said, low enough that only Danny could hear. "The healer I told you about. Brace yourself."
Keenan reached them and planted herself directly in Danny's path with the body language of someone accustomed to patients who tried to leave before she cleared them. "I've been calling Feeney's office since seven this morning. Your bloodwork came back with nine anomalies that don't match any Hunter baseline in our database, your tissue samples are doing things that shouldn't be possible at Level One, and you're about to walk out of this building without letting me run a proper workup." She looked at him the way a mechanic looks at an engine making a sound she's never heard before. "I need two hours. Minimum."
Danny looked at the elevator, then at Keenan, then at the equipment bag on his shoulder that was already heavier than it had been this morning. The combat axe strapped across his back was drawing stares from every Hunter who passed them in the corridor.
"I've been here since seven AM," he said. "Processed through registration, classified as a one-of-a-kind anomaly, outfitted for my first Gate, and told I'm going into combat tomorrow at 0600. What I haven't done today is eat, shower, or call my mother back."
Keenan's expression didn't change. "Your bloodwork is showing enzyme levels that suggest your muscle tissue is restructuring at the cellular level. If I don't establish a baseline before your first Gate, I'll have no way to track what combat does to your physiology. Every hour of delay is lost data."
"Then it's lost data." Danny kept his voice even, not dismissive, just honest. "I'll come back. You'll get your two hours. But right now, I've got about fourteen hours before my life changes again and I'd like to spend some of them being a normal person."
Keenan stared at him for a long five seconds before exhaling through her nose and pulling a card from her lab coat pocket.
"My direct line. Call me when you're ready and I'll have the lab prepped before you get here." She held the card out, and when Danny took it, she didn't let go immediately. "Don't be late, Gallagher. I've been up since four AM reading your file and I don't do that for patients who aren't worth the lost sleep."
