He frowned at her. “It’s my place now, and I’m a barber. Don’t give me that young-age hairdresser crap. Those pansies don’t know the first thing about cutting hair properly.” He looked at Nori’s hair appreciatively. “Those dreads look good on you, girl, but it can get risky in these dark times. You don’t want it to get caught on anything when you’re running away from the Warped. Would you like a haircut? It’s on the house; your money is no good here.” He chuckled to himself. “Literally.”

Nori smiled faintly. “Thanks, I’ll pass. You might want to sit down for what we’re about to tell you.”

Diamond arched his brow and looked at Bulco. “I thought you’re in charge. You’re taking orders from kids now?”

Bulco shrugged. “Didn’t have much choice. That kid nearly beat me down hand to hand, and she can fly her own spacecraft. We’re all part of the same faction now.”

“I see.” The rotund black man turned to Nori. “Brute strength doesn’t translate to smarts. Bulco made sure the old gangs took that lesson to heart. It says much that he defers to you, but I’ll reserve my judgment until we’ve concluded our talk. So speak up, what is it about?”

“First, has anyone in the shelter managed to level up?”

He shook his head. “No, and I’m quite keen to learn how y'all did it. Bulco is one thing, I watched the man rip apart a Warped with his bare hands, but how the hell did a bunch of scrawny kids manage that?”

Nori nodded. “I thought so. Very well, here’s the short version: the Tec is an alien type of nanobot that infuses both people and technology. They’re the reason we can’t use any of our own tech—not until we’ll reach higher levels, at least. An alien ship crashed down and we took control of it and managed to fly its shuttle. We learned that alien weapons can kill the Warped, and we’ve already finished off a few. There’s an alien space station in orbit around the planet, we went up there and brought back a bunch of basic alien weapons. I’ve already trained several people from the Old Stadium to use them, and they started hunting the Warped in their area. You’re keeping up with me so far?”

Diamond’s knuckles whitened as he clutched his chair, but he nodded slowly. “Everyone assumed aliens were behind the Calamity. Seeing you flying that shuttle was the final confirmation. Why did they do this to us? What do they want? Why unleash the Warped on us?”