Chapter 42

McCreed's voice cut through the fog in my brain like a blade drawn across smooth velvet.

"It seems you've become a bit of a nuisance, Mr. Price."

Behind us, on the Corpo side, a six-man team of combat-armored Enforcers took up position. Their carapace-like suits reminded me of warrior bugs, with insectoid-like protrusions which blistered from helmets like glossy, lifeless eyes.

With their arrival, McCreed's face brimmed with absolute certainty he had the advantage.

And he was probably right.

He stood just in front of the halfway point, near the split where the two sides, the Leafs, would separate once the purge commenced.

Mythology was filled with sentries who guarded thresholds like these.

Yama. Heimdall. Cerberus. Pick one. Pick all. Pick none.

The point was that McCreed was between us and the divide. Our separation from freedom and The Glow.

We were so close.

Sam remained positioned with her rifle aimed toward the Corpo side, but her head was turned back toward McCreed. Her barrel stayed fixated at targets beyond Rob, who was too busy to notice our predicament.

Then, on an unseen cue, Sam and McCreed burst into motion. McCreed's feet devoured the gap between them at a terrifying rate.

Sam had already pivoted her barrel up and around to reverse her original point of aim as she aligned her sights on McCreed's frighteningly fast advance.

Like packets of fragmented data, the rain broke apart to the echo of gunfire.

She struggled to score a hit. McCreed's eyes spun wildly like golden rings, no longer camouflaged to seem natural. He moved like an agile prize-fighter, always just off angle from a lethal shot; he ducked and weaved as he closed in.

Before either of us realized, he was there.

McCreed's shoulder slammed into Sam's grip, and she immediately abandoned all attempts to fire as he bounced her barrel up and away.

Sparks flew as the sharpened alloy of her talons scraped against his APM-hardened skin.

I managed to yank the magazine free just as they separated. Sam retracted her talons to grip her rifle again as McCreed dove for cover.

With an annoyed grunt, she surged forward and shoved her barrel toward him.

At the same moment, my finger found the lever to release the empty magazine. It clattered hollowly to the ground just as McCreed sprang back into motion.

Sam cried out in surprise. He flipped her across his hip and slammed her into the gate's metal surface with a tooth-rattling thud.
My fingers fumbled as I tried, and failed, to insert the magazine properly. My curse drew McCreed's attention as he stepped back lightly to narrow his eyes in my direction.

Jaw clenched, he bent down, grabbed a fistful of Sam's jacket, and with a single, clean jerk, sent her rocketing toward me.

Without a thought to the consequences, I braced myself and instinctively reached out with the full intent to catch her. I nearly blacked out when we collided.

Even through the effects of the injector, the pain was enormous. A meaty pop came from my left shoulder as we collapsed into a formless heap. My back and side slammed into the encasement behind me, and Sam's body unfolded across my legs.

I felt pinned, like a bug under a glass slide, as she rolled off of me. The sharp clatter of rounds pinged and ricocheted around us, but I barely registered it through the pain.

The sound of boots hammered into the ground from behind.

It was Rob.

In a fury of movement, he rushed McCreed's position and vaulted straight over to the next encasement with his revolver extended.

One Boom.

Then another.

And another.

McCreed's head, chest, and face took the hits as he stumbled back, wounded.

Blood streamed from his temple. His jacket, shirt, and tie were torn to ribbons and threads.

But he looked nowhere near as rough as I thought he should've.

Rob's weapon clicked empty.

Smoothly and mechanically, McCreed uncoiled to reach for the neckline of his ruined attire. In a single, fluid motion, he flexed his arm and tore away the shredded fabric to expose hidden, synthetic flesh.

Warning notice after warning notice overlapped in diagonal rows. Too many to count. Each alert catalogued a different combat mod, and the sheer volume was overwhelming.

One of the final entries registered something called an SDP mod, but I cleared the interface before I could get further detail.

Steam began to curl from McCreed's body. Tendrils of waste heat spiraled into the crisp morning air.

His APMs pulsed, contracted, and expanded as he lunged.

Rob reacted instantly.

In a sudden show of agility, he flipped himself backward to drive his knee into McCreed's chin, which snapped shut as empty shells clattered to the surface of the gate like metal rain.

Already mid-reload, Rob bounced back to activate his own APMs.

They collided in the center as the steam enveloped them like a shroud.

Rob skidded to a halt, reversed direction, and locked the revolver closed with a snap of his wrist. McCreed advanced.

A gout of red flame erupted from the barrel. McCreed twisted to narrowly avoid the first shot. The round ricocheted somewhere behind him as Rob kept the weapon tight to his body.

They circled.

The fight became a scramble as Rob fired and McCreed dodged or pounced.

The pace of the battle ramped up as the gun clicked empty.

They immediately closed the distance. Impacts thundered. Limbs became a furious rampage of presses, blocks, and counters in an eye-watering display of skill.

Rob seized the upper hand after two particularly brutal strikes landed on McCreed's neck and face. It snapped McCreed's head back.

There was a lull. McCreed shook his head as he tried to shake off the hits. Without hesitation, Rob ducked under one of McCreed's arms, heaved, and dumped McCreed onto the top of an encasement with a loud clang.

Our path was open.

My ribs screamed in protest as I was hauled up by my pack.

"Move-Move-Move!" Sam shouted. She half dragged, half guided me as we ran.

...or rather, Sam ran. I limped.

A set of yellow hazard lines framed a reinforced seam over the gate's separation point.

Behind, Rob pressed the advantage. He launched into the air and drove his knee into McCreed's abdomen with inhuman force.

The strike could've crumpled a tank. The metal of the casing buckled from the impact.

Yet even as Rob drove an elbow into McCreed's jaw, the blow didn't seem to faze McCreed in the slightest.

My optics flared to life as they tracked and visualized two pencil-thin beams that emitted from McCreed's eyes.

[WARNING]
[OTM: Class One] IDENTIFIED! [Effects: Target Identification]
[STATUS: LICENSED]
[WARNING]

Rob turned his head to avoid eye contact, then slammed another elbow into McCreed's side.

Without a flinch or other outward sign of injury, McCreed only blocked Rob's next strike with brute precision, then smirked as the twin beams from his optics locked onto Rob's chest.

Sam yanked me past her. "Now that's just pointless," she muttered. "Unless—"

A sizzling sound, like a live wire torn loose in the rain, followed a sharp, very metallic ping as it plowed through the air.

Rob was hurled forward, face-first, and off of McCreed as he fell to the gate's surface.

Sam's eyes went wide. She dropped into a crouch. I had to let out a startled yelp as her grip pulled me onto the ground beside her.

"A Sentinel! Are you kidding me?!"

From the direction of the Spires came a short, high-pitched clap of thunder a full three seconds after the sizzle's pass.

I turned and caught the flicker of a blue flash, no larger than a pinprick at this distance.

Another sizzle.

Rob was driven to the ground with brutal force once more. Three seconds later, another delayed rumble of thunder rolled past us.

It had come from one of the towers.

While we'd been distracted, the six-man team had moved. The combat team quickly approached the midway point where we were held up.

I had to ask. "What the hell is a Sentinel?"

A bead of sweat trickled down Sam's face as she peered above the line of cover and cursed.

"Automated Suppression System," she said. "Rob explained it to me once when we..." She shook her head. "Never mind that. What matters right now is the targeting, and those goons."

Rob's back was flayed.

My optics flared to life.

[WARNING]
[SDP: Class Five] IDENTIFIED! [Effects: Vital Point Projectile Deflection]
[STATUS: UNLICENSED]
[WARNING]

As Rob struggled to rise, strips of his skin peeled away like pieces of cheap paint on a dirty wall.

I was given my first-ever, unobstructed view of flesh-colored subdermal plating beneath. Matte and dull, it contrasted lightly against the living tissue it had once hidden beneath.

Whoever, or whatever, had locked onto him increased the pace. The shots continued.

McCreed was back on his feet, his eyes still designated where the volleys would land with a high precision.

Rob, unable to identify the origin of the shots, tried to stand but failed. Through punched holes, I could see at least two places near his spine that bled a rich, darkened red through his jacket, and his breathing was rough.

McCreed tilted his head as he looked down to Rob.

"What was it you said, Mr. Franklin?" He asked, maliciously amused. "'I have assets to call upon you could only dream of?'"

On cue, shots came our way.

Sam and I dove for cover as the six-man team rushed forward and positioned themselves on either side of McCreed with a practiced ease.

With a single hand gesture, McCreed halted the armored unit behind him. They slipped behind cover like obedient dogs.

With one muscular arm, he looped Rob's neck into a rear-choke.

Rob gasped, his airway sealed off as McCreed leaned back and applied pressure.

"Still playing the hero, Mr. Franklin?" McCreed said, his voice smooth and dangerous. "You're bleeding out, and I'm afraid you've got nowhere else to go. But it doesn't have to end here. I could still use a man of your strength and ability."

Rob's boot soles left the ground as he struggled to free himself. McCreed tucked his face in low behind Rob's neck and avoided Rob's desperate attempt to claw for leverage.

Sam's shoulders were tense. She gripped her rifle with a white-knuckled fury and held it aloft, ready to fire.

Like a serpent with promises of forbidden knowledge, McCreed hissed an offer into Rob's ear.

"You think you've tricked me once. But this is your only real chance. Now. No negotiations. Come to my side, and I can assure you'll be well compensated. Just like the others."

Sam's eyes widened in an admittedly "me" sort of way as she blurted out, "Others?!"

Rob's face turned red; his expression darkened.

In an exaggerated stage performance, McCreed's eyes flicked over to us in a mockery of surprise.

"Ah!" he said playfully.

Rob's shade deepened to an ugly scarlet-purple.

"How could I ever forget?" McCreed's tone was laced with venom. The targeting beams from his optics ignited like miniature suns, and I felt them bore into my skull as they locked in.

"I believe your services are no longer fit," he said with finality, "nor any longer required. Goodbye, Mr. Price."

Rob’s boots scraped against the ground again as he fought for breath. His body trembled under McCreed’s grip.

"Big—hhnng—mistake!" He croaked, voice strained and raw.

"NOW!"

In a sudden burst of movement, Rob caught McCreed, and the entire team of goons, off their guard. He kipped his body upward and jackknifed his legs straight into the air to flop them back down with all his strength.

The momentum peeled him out of McCreed's hold as McCreed fought to stabilize himself as Rob rolled free to spring to the side.

In perfect sync, Sam snapped off two precisely drilled shots.

The first caught an armored goon under his helmet, right at a vulnerable section where the neck cover and mask met. With an electric warble, he stumbled past the gate's edge and vanished from sight. A muted splash marked his disappearance.

The second round hit one of McCreed's perfect, stormy-grey eyes, the right one. The pencil-thin beam flickered and died as blood spurted out. It coated his cheek, neck, and chest.

A seismic bellow was released by the klaxon, while his cries of pain were swallowed by the thunderous roar of water.

The distraction proved fatal for two more guards, dispatched wordlessly by Sam's precision and ruthless efficiency.

A stitch of gunfire chased Rob as he dove for cover beside us.

Pain speared through my ribs and back as I flattened myself to the ground as best I could.

Blindly, I reached down and slapped my rifle's lever, just as Rob had demonstrated. Movement flickered at the edge of my vision as the internals slammed forward with a satisfying clank.

An armored goon's barrel swung around the corner, aimed directly at me.

I fired.

My sternum screamed in pure agony as the rifle kicked into it, and the goon dropped out of sight with a wet gurgle. The round had struck his neck.

McCreed's menacing form appeared above me as I gasped for breath. His right eye socket was a mangled ruin, but the lone iris ring in the remaining eye blazed like a lighthouse.

He kicked Rob aside to stare down at us in furious imposition.

“We're not done,” he growled. Tight with anger. He reached down to hoist Sam out of sight as she screamed, and I shoved the barrel of my rifle forward to pull the trigger three times.

The weapon bucked violently as the heavy rounds slammed into his leg. Sam dropped, shoulder-first, onto the encasement, and she rolled away with a pained grunt.

McCreed slowly turned his mauled face toward me as bullets zipped past.

His eye flashed once, then vanished as he was knocked asunder. Rob roared in fury and tackled him up and over to the other side of the encasement.

The impact of McCreed's back echoed as it was brutally slammed into the ground. An unseen fight erupted beyond to the sound of grunts, thumps, and the grating screech of scraped subdermal plating as it filled the air.

"GO!" Rob screamed, ragged and urgent.

The armored guards closed in like opportunistic hyenas. Their movements were cautious as they circled, too afraid to hit McCreed as they converged.

I hesitated for a half-breath, but Sam scrambled to her feet to limp beside me. My rifle was kept tight to my chest as I hobbled forward. Shots rang out from multiple rifles behind us. Bullets whizzed past, and I ducked instinctively.

Sam turned; her wounded shoulder was limp, but she raised her rifle and fired. We made it past the separation line once more as the sounds of Rob's fight grew more savage.

Flesh struck metal, impacts crunched, and a scream twisted into a gurgle as I finally limped behind cover. Rob had one of the goons in his grasp as he forced the goon to unload his rifle into another.

A round from behind smashed into the back of Rob's skull and caused him to stumble. He turned and threw up an arm toward another guard to barely deflect a round that skittered off and into the water.

The next came from a different direction and knocked his arm askew. I was close enough to see the solid projectile separate into shards of shrapnel that pinged off of the encasement beside him.

Sam's eyes widened as Rob screamed.

He was trapped in the middle of the group. His left wrist dangled uselessly. Several fingers were gone. Like an egg in a holoball match, he was thrown off balance again and again, bouncing between shooters as they targeted his joints and head.

His agony snapped Sam back into action as she raised her rifle and fired. Another guard was hit but didn't go down as one of the others locked onto us.

We ducked and narrowly avoided the rounds as I landed awkwardly.

It was a close call, as my pack nearly kept me from lying flat. With a wince, I slowly undid the shoulder straps. Whatever was about to go down, I sure as hell didn't want to be encumbered.

As my arms were freed, I caught sight of McCreed.

He'd changed.

His frame looked compacted, his musculature tightened into something almost skeletal. His subdermal plates now protruded like armor, fused into a grotesque exoskeleton.

No optical flags appeared as he slammed a V-shaped hand under Rob's chin and lifted him bodily into the air. Rob's legs shook weakly. He clawed at McCreed's wrist with his one remaining good hand as he tried to relieve the pressure on his throat.

Sam tried to stand, but a burst of gunfire forced her down. She cursed as a near hit sent a spray of molten fragments toward us.

I felt, rather than saw, my leg kick the discarded pack aside. It tumbled sideways as if propelled and came to rest just on the edge of the gate. In slow motion, my mind watched it slowly begin to tilt...then fall out of sight.

Beside me, Sam's rifle clicked empty.

"We're coming, Rob! Hang on!" she shouted.

I tore my gaze away from the loss and focused on the two people who mattered the most now.

Sam's face was resolute but terrified. She extracted a fresh magazine with fingers that trembled and slammed it into the rifle with a snap. Her movements had a manic edge as she pulled back on the lever to make it ready to fire.

She stood again, just as McCreed put on a burst of speed to turn Rob to face us. Sam froze mid-aim.

"Wait," McCreed ordered.

Only two guards remained. At his command, they froze unnaturally.

Whether through training, protocol, or the same compulsion he'd done to Golrich...I wasn't sure. But they'd reacted instantly and without question.

Their rifles and insectoid-like optics were locked onto Sam, yet their trigger fingers were motionless.

Sam didn't shoot either, too afraid to risk a hit on Rob.

We entered a stilted ceasefire.

Rob's clenched fist smashed into McCreed's face but did nothing.

McCreed laughed, low and cruel, as Rob's panic-filled expression turned red. He unleashed a series of solid kicks, knee strikes, and punches into McCreed's abdomen, chest, and jaw.

McCreed only remained amused.

He tightened his grip and cast Rob an indulgent, evil smile, like a schoolyard bully in a playfight, untouched and unfazed.

"Come now," McCreed said with a mocking tisk. "Perhaps a lesson in why it's a bad idea to strike your superiors is in order?"

With his free hand, McCreed grabbed Rob's calf and slowly squeezed.

Rob thrashed and screamed.

McCreed's sick smile only twisted further as the joint popped.

Sinew split. Muscles stretched to separation as the lower leg tore away in a twisted arc of red. He held the severed limb in casual indifference as he examined it.

"Non-reinforced joints? How disappointing..." McCreed muttered darkly.

The leg was dropped with a wet thud.

Rob's mutilated arm was next.

Sam's teeth were bared in rage and frustration as Rob's screams continued, raw and wretched.

She leaned into her weapon, her eyes locked on McCreed. A gash just over her left eyebrow bled freely. Her optics cast a pale glow across her bloodied cheek as she seethed toward him.

"Let him go! Or I'll take out more than just your eye."

McCreed covered his face with Rob's body. "Eye? Ah. Thank you for the idea..."

Lowering Rob's head, he twisted his wrists slightly to examine and admire Rob's face like a trophy. McCreed's sole remaining eye glinted in malicious delight as he looked up at Sam. "My, what a fine piece of tech, Mr. Franklin. A hidden data processor and an echolocator? What other secrets might your body possess?"

Too fast for anyone to react, he extended two fingers and a thumb as he continued to stare at Sam.

I averted my gaze, only a moment too late. Rob's remaining leg convulsed as the hand pressed forward with doomed certainty.

The scream that followed was a soul-wrenching wail as McCreed extracted Rob's right eye with a gleeful grin. Blood poured out similarly to when Sam had taken out his own.

McCreed's expression was one of mock fascination as he examined the freshly plucked optical suite above Rob's mutilated face as it lay dormant in his hand.

Sam’s breath hitched beside me; her rifle trembled in her grip as she remained frozen on the spot, uncertain what to do as I looked on in horror.

He's enjoying every second.

The goons looked unsteady now. McCreed's face was spread into a sadistic grin, too far into his enjoyment to realize they seemed suddenly uncertain of where they were and what they were doing.

I stood and pointed my gun at McCreed. He cast a mocking look my way.

"Mr. Price? How foolish. Do you of all people believe you can hurt me?"

I thought for a minute.

He's right...

I lowered my aim and shot toward his foot.

My intention was to...well, I wasn't actually sure, but I'd had hopes I'd cause him to flinch or jump.

Believe me when I say, no one was more surprised than I was when McCreed's pinky toe flew off and plunked into the water.

The unexpected loss of balance and stability caused McCreed to tilt. This triggered a chain of events where Rob shifted his weight to throw off McCreed's grip as he was slammed into the gate's surface.

McCreed shouted out, "Kill him!"

Both goons snapped back into unwillful obedience as their rifles snapped up and toward me. Painfully I dropped prone as Sam poured shots into the thorax armor of one of them. He collapsed but almost immediately stood back up and continued to shoot toward me as they broke from cover to advance, laser focused to obey McCreed's kill command.

Rob bled and shook on the ground as Sam continued to pump rounds into their armor to slow them.

Something wet and heavy hit the top of my head and skittered beyond me: Rob's implant.

Sam's face went pale.

"No!" He screamed from the ground beyond the other side. "Remember your promise!"

But she was too far gone. Her eyes flashed dangerously as she lost herself in whatever bloodlust rage had taken over. She was shot but shrugged it off as I half-crawled, half-dragged myself over to where the implant sat, wet and grimy on the ground.

Above, her gunfire rang out until her rifle was fully expended. The chamber locked open.

I shoved the eye into a pocket and sealed it shut as the sound of talons extending told me she'd kill herself in a last charge if I didn't stop her. I stood and wrapped my arms around her from behind as she screamed and tried to shake me loose.

"Owen, let me go! He can't! He can't be alone!"

Beyond, McCreed lifted Rob's motionless form, now sans most of one arm and lower leg, as a wicked look crossed his face. In an act of final defiance, Rob kicked him. A flash of irritation passed over McCreed's once handsome face as they stared into each other's only remaining eye.

"I've grown bored of you and our games," he said with an air of fatalistic finality. "Goodbye, Mr. Franklin."

A memory flashed over me then, cold and sharp.

Of stories. Myth. Aesop's, and books read long into the night when a young me should've slept. Memories of my mother. Of tales of woe and torment and the heroes she wanted me to understand. The ones who fought till the bitter end. In those stories, the heroes often climbed or crawled through horrendous conditions, always to emerge victorious because the world could be a cold, dark place.

Rob was one such hero.

The stories were good. The stories gave me hope. But I'd learned hope could still be taken.

Especially when I knew it was coming.

If this were one of those stories. The kind where the hero always saves the day or has someone or something to swoop in at the last moment and save them. I would've wished for it in this moment.

As McCreed pulled back his arm to shove it through Rob's ribcage and into his chest. It felt like my own heart had been ruptured.

I watched in dread as Rob's entire body became like a machine with its hydraulic lines cut.

McCreed's fist squeezed.

It was I, too, who felt drained as Rob went slack.

His head dipped and rolled listlessly to the side, and, on one dark morning, perched atop a gate that served as a path between two worlds I'd never realized existed...

I watched Robin P. Franklin die before my very eyes.

Sam's voice was half strangled.

A pitiful cry beside me as her hope, just like mine, was taken then and there.

"ROB!" she screamed in a banshee wail of absolute torment.

With all my strength, I had to fight to restrain her. My ribs and side screamed painfully alongside her. Her talons retracted. She stared ahead in muted disbelief, shoulders slumped in defeat. She stopped pushing. Stopped pulling.

Just...stopped.

The voice inside my own head spoke.

My fault he's dead.

I'd made the choice.

Because I'd sought him out. Accepted his offer. His friendship. His protection.

McCreed stared at us, his face a gloating mask as he dropped Rob's lifeless body to the ground. Any spark of who he was...gone. His shell empty.

Klaxons blared as our gate began to move.

A sharp sting to my left arm snapped me back to the present. I'd been grazed, but it was enough to remind me of the danger we were in. I shoved everything aside. The gate’s shifting angle would only worsen our situation.

Sam grunted as a round hit her rifle, now empty and useless as it swung on its sling.

I cataloged quickly.

More goons on opposite shores. Ahead. Behind.

No way forward.

No way back.

Sam's eyes were lowered, and I couldn't tell what she was thinking. She had once seemed larger than life, a giant in form and action. But now, with Rob gone, she felt diminished. Smaller and hollow, very likely to fight to the death like a cornered animal.

Bullets zipped by, too close for comfort, but still too wild to be accurate. I felt that would change once the lock's leaf fully opened, and we'd be pressed to the sides and exposed.

In the distance, as it bobbed along the surface, I spotted an object with a ragged hole torn by a bullet. Just barely visible.

My pack.

Like dwarves in a barrel...where the stream meets the river.

The line was from a book filled with dragons, legends, and lost homes.

"No other choices," I whispered to myself.

Sam stirred then.

I saw the fear inside her eyes as she looked up and met my gaze. She understood. She knew what we had to do. Her look hardened, but she nodded once, then closed her eyes.

A single ray of light broke through the cloud cover and illuminated the gate in a column of golden sunlight. It was almost poetic. Rob's fallen body was the last thing I saw as I leaned.

"STOP THEM!" McCreed screamed, his marred features twisted into sudden realization. "Don't hit the implant!"

Sam was pulled with me this time.

The roar of rushing air filled my ears as we fell, just as the leaves of the lock parted to allow the water to rush out.

I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath until the hammerblow of the water's surface battered my head and shoulders. Another pop echoed through my body. Icy blades stabbed at my sides, face, and arms.

My skin puckered and went numb. Sam's grip clung to me desperately, and mine to her, until the water and waves separated us. Her nails scraped against my skin as we were thrown over a second edge. Churned, smashed, and rolled.

Battered, tugged, and pulled like the lost souls cast into the River Styx, the river between worlds, I gasped as water entered my lungs and fell again, suddenly in freefall.

Just how far, I wasn't certain.

It felt like an eternity.

And in that descent, my final thoughts echoed out. Fully meant for Rob and Sam:

I'm sorry...

[END OF BOOK ONE]
[TO BE CONTINUED]

Chapter 41

McCreed staggered as Sam pulled the trigger.

A gout of red flame preceded the heavy round that impacted into the rear of his right shoulder. I stared, dumbstruck, as he quickly ducked out of view. Without hesitation, he'd used the forward momentum from the hit. The sudden lurch melted into a smooth roll with all the grace and urgency of a predatory cat startled by a hunter.

Sam's rifle barked. Additional rounds slammed into the scaffolds, and the adjacent goons scattered as the chaos unfolded. The attention of the eyes below were diverted, some toward Rob and most now onto ourselves as I jerked in surprise from a sudden sting.

The warmth of blood, drawn from my cheek, soaked my collar as bullets fell around us like hail in a storm. Most had fallen too short or too wide to be of any danger, but a few of the more accurate shots, like the one that had chipped shards of plastcreet into my face, hissed and vibrated like vindictive hornets as they zipped by.

Sam shouted as she shifted her aim, "Hillside!"

Her barrel swiveled mechanically and punched echoes through the hazy maintenance yard at guards at different levels. Those who'd fired at us abandoned their attempts to aim as they ducked, dove, or weaved to avoid her sudden counterattack.

I could empathize.

My mind screamed I'd be hit any second now. It made me want to hide. To not want to stand. A "Chicken Little" feel, like the sky itself might collapse without a moment's notice.

"Reloading!" Sam shouted as her gun steamed in the cold air and dug for more ammo.

The guards resumed the bullet rain, and I raised my rifle with the full intention to join the fray, determined not to be useless.

It went off prematurely with a jolt so hard I almost dropped it. In the distance, a lone figure tumbled down the hillside with a clutched leg. The language he used was colorful and expressive. I could hear him, even from all the way over here, but the return fire from that direction immediately became sporadic and uncoordinated. The guards had redoubled their efforts to hide, so I spared a quick glance in Sam's direction.

Her side profile was toward me; she'd turned to aim toward Rob's side of the maintenance yard, which I'd lost track of when I'd focused on the hillside. I did a slight readjustment of my grip, confident at least I was able to hold the rifle properly this time as Sam's rifle report brushed past my face like a pillow's whisper. Her shots were out of sync with my own as I continued to keep the hillside too busy to take aim at either of us.

Each shot had the impact of a mortar in a war zone. I discovered I only needed to send a stray round whenever a head or barrel seemed pointed in our direction. I was reminded again of ants on a lightning-struck hill as the tiny figures dove for cover or scrambled to remain hidden.

The blare of a second klaxon signaled another Lock gate release.

Mid-aim, a guard was twisted violently by a round from Sam. She'd snap-shifted her aim to protect Rob's back and caused the disrupted shot to fly wildly off course, where it struck another victim of "wrong place at the wrong moment" syndrome.

You and me both, buddy...

The mob-like cloud of bodies within the yard erupted into a madhouse as Rob's hulky form charged into their midst and disappeared. It all unraveled like a warped round of Marco Polo. In between moments, I could detect Rob's location simply by the screams. Gaps began to appear deeper within the pile. Bodies flew. Limbs and equipment were shattered or broken. The guards were tossed aside like ragdolls upon the pitted and scarred plastcrete as heads appeared at the top of the stairwell: reinforcements.

Like a shark, Rob surfaced.

He was positioned near the edge of the stairwell when he yanked one of the guards into the air. Metal handles scattered in random directions from the tops of cylindrical objects strapped to the front of the guard's chest. Like an overturned turtle, the guard flailed. He frantically clawed at his vest just before Rob threw him into the first wave of the reinforcements that'd reached the top. The group fell like a line of dominos into the hidden opening of the stairwell as Rob shoved more of the confused crowd into the pile.

No one came back up or chased after him as he rocketed away. A deep, gut-twisting "whump" sent a plume of dark black smoke into the air as my rifle clicked dry.

Sam continued to fire beside me, a relentless stream of rounds to cover Rob's wild dash across the yard.

A near miss slammed into the grate in front of me, and I pressed against it. My mind screamed to take cover. To find a place to hide.

"I'm low!" Sam yelled, and it shook me back to the moment. My hands flew to my jacket as they began a frantic search for the ammo Rob had stashed, but memory failed me. I couldn't recall where he'd stowed...well, anything. Bullets pinged around us as I tore through pockets filled with objects useless for the situation. My palm finally brushed the edge of a boxy magazine along the side of my waist, tucked into the pockets Rob had stuffed them into.

I felt a surge of relief as I struggled to extract them. An impossible task half crouched. Fun fact: Pockets apparently aren't always the best place for magazines in a firefight. I think I finally got why all the games had characters bristling with pouches.

I turned toward Sam as one of the boxy magazines finally freed itself with a sharp tug.

"HERE!" I shouted and threw it in a beautiful arc, straight toward her head.

I winced.

Chapter 40

Rob's voice was cryptic.

"See the drain gulch behind my left shoulder?"

I was thrown off as his head gave a subtle twitch and gesture eastward. The angle cut it to somewhere behind his back, toward the shoreline. It was a direction almost, but not quite entirely opposite of where Sam and I had been the entire time.

I blinked in confusion.

McCreed didn't give obvious reactions as he turned to stare off and into the distance. "I see no one," he said flatly.

Sam's laughter, sharp, sudden, and far too loud for the enclosed room, caused me to flinch as the sound ricocheted off the walls like a stray bullet squarely in my ear. Her head dipped as she was overcome by a sudden fit of surprisingly girlish giggles as a delicately curled finger swept the corner of her eye.

"Rob, you sly bastard!" she said when she could finally speak. "You actually had me fooled for a second!"

My head spun. "What is happening right now?"

She turned to me; the remnant of her smile lingered in her eyes. She let out a single huff, partially in relief and partially to recalibrate to the seriousness of the situation.

"Everything he just said to McCreed?" she said. "Totally fabricated."

I narrowed my eyes and scanned her face. "How do you know that?"

Her eyes snapped onto me, a brief flicker of annoyance, as if I'd missed something obvious.

But I stood my ground. Trust wasn't something I was ready to instantly jump into again. The last few hits were...too fast, too close.

Her irritation faded, replaced with comprehension. Rob's possible betrayal had shaken me, probably more deeply than I'd realized. She'd recognized that, so didn't push as hard as she likely would've.

"Owen." She said quietly, "Let's look at the context. Rob and I have been running together for a while. I can tell you, for a fact, one of the dumbest things we ever tried was pretending to be IIB agents on a sting. At best, it's a stall tactic. The cover crumbles the moment someone does something as simple as a cross-check of names. IIB is pretty secretive, and that's kind of why it works."

She straightened, arms folded across her chest. Her tone sharpened with a fierce, convictive protectiveness. "With Rob's history, it's very...VERY unlikely they'd ever recruit him for an IIB operation; that alone should add weight to it all being a bluff. But," She glanced back at the screen. "McCreed doesn't know that."

On the feeds, the underground became a flurry of movement and activity. Goons dressed in security uniforms ran within tunnels to pick their way toward stairwells scattered around the facility. I wasn't sure how it all laid out, but the outer feeds displayed their shadowed figures as they quietly made their way toward the hillside nearest the drain gulch.

Had McCreed relayed the information, or was it just someone who paid attention like we were?

I wasn't sure, but the teams in view had reacted VERY quickly. That made them dangerous.

"There, see?" Sam said. Rob's maneuvers made it so McCreed faced away from the Lock side. "As far as we all know, nobody on McCreed's short list has any direct ties to IIB; he's too greedy and itching at the chance to get his hands around some Black-Level Tech."

"Black-Level?" I asked, "You mean like your transposal suite?"

"Among others," she said with a tilt of her head, "and Rob's banking on it. He knows McCreed is aware IIB agents have a bypass to keep unlicensed mods running even with lockouts. I'd bet chits over scrit; it's why he kept his eyes normal. Anyway, the point is, he could've given us up but instead led most of the goon force away. That should be proof in itself."

Logical. I had to admit.

My thoughts drifted to the unlicensed status of Rob's Amplified Physique Mods. Clearly there was more going on than I was aware, but all that mattered in the moment was Rob hadn't betrayed us.

I cast a glance to where McCreed and Rob stood silently. McCreed's voice flowed steadily, a continuation of a conversation I'd mostly missed. "And what would you expect me to give in return?" he said.

"Nothing." Rob replied. "Those two will be a freebie, provided you can get them off my tail. I'm tired of the constant need to dodge them. They've raised uncomfortable questions from upstairs."

"The storm is...convenient, then." McCreed said in a murmur. Thunder rumbled above as Rob gave him a dry, humorless smile.

I shivered at a sudden chill down my spine.

How many people have disappeared while we were all "directed" not to realize it?

The memory of my mother's death notice surfaced and stopped me cold.

Wait. Hold on...

Suddenly, every monitor lit up with a new icon in the top right corner. An alert notification scrolled across the upper section of my optic feed in a harsh red.

[WARNING: PURGE OPERATIONS IMMINENT. THRESHOLD LIMIT EXCEEDED!]

"Uh..." I said, and relayed the message aloud to Sam. "Should we be worried about that?"

Chapter 39

We were both motionless and prone, our bodies low to the ground and hidden by the fence line and wind-tangled foliage.

Sam had edged toward the fence's base for a better vantage point. Her fingers curled around the rusted links, claw-like, until the metal gave a sharp and far too loud metallic groan. The sound jolted me awake, more effective than a gallon of caf.

"Shit, Rob." She whispered breathlessly. "What the hell are you doing?"

That, more than anything, gave me a sliver of fear.

Is Sam just as confused about this as I am?

Chapter 38

We moved through the undergrowth like ghosts.

Or rather, Sam moved like she’d haunted the green space in a deeper dark hundreds of times before, and I, more like a phantom echo of something rusted and half-forgotten, followed along as if every micrometer were weighted down with balls of crumpled fillisheet stashed in every pocket and spare crevice.

She had the kind of stride earned through hard work, and practice. Her foot placement was swift and sure, her eyes keen where they pierced the gloom, and it reminded me of something.

A woodland elf, maybe. Silent and unreal. Not ethereal in the storybook sense, but liminal. Half-seen at the edge of a clearing, or within a bush. The kind of presence that makes you question whether you were alone when you knew something was out there.

I knew the comparison was absurd, but it was stuck.

In contrast, I dragged myself through the wet terrain like corrupted syntax. I felt...oafish. Clumsy and lumbering. A Loader caught in an attempt to tiptoe through a breach zone.

The leaves cracked underneath my cumbersome feet like system errors, every snapped twig felt like a shouted confession in a silent room, a wide broadcast in the dark for anyone to hear.

Sam remained steady, but I didn’t. I was too exhausted and loopy by this point.

She halted, her face angled toward me and spoke to me, not with speech or portsign, but a glance and a tilt of her temple toward the slope. The meaning was unmistakable: Down. Away from the thicket. Away from the clamor I'd made.

She didn’t ask and didn’t need to.

I felt...relieved, maybe. I despised how hard it was for me to keep silent, but I nodded anyway. My acceptance and surrender became braided into one motion as she veered left. I quickly followed behind her as we descended.

The rain fell in sheets. Not drops. Not mist. Thick and unforgiving sheets, ready to drown the world in a Biblical sense. It was a final act on a stage, of a night already hollowed out for a morning dawn, ready to show the buried secrets beneath.

Beyond fifteen feet, everything seemed blurred by a soaked veil in both directions.

The canopy's fragile cover gave way as the trees faded to a muddled grey. The trail dissolved, swallowed by a line of water beneath us. It became obvious now, as I watched the water line move, the ditch at the base of the slope wasn't natural. It'd been carved. Masked and folded into the terrain like a furrow that traced the embankment's curve as it skimmed the edge of the green space's bowl-like shape.

The height of the water line at the base of the slope had risen since Paul's unexpected dive. The water, once still and pond-like, had shifted as it moved slowly until it pushed northward with increased urgency. Debris dragged along in its wake as Sam's voice reached me.

"Use the water," she said. "Keep moving."

I nodded, too exhausted to argue or care.

To our left, the canal's voice surged. It seemed rougher now. Agitated. Almost angry.

I stepped into the run-off ditch at the base of the embankment and felt the water grip my knees. Each step met resistance, and every stride felt skewed off-course.

I fought to stay upright as we set forward, and Sam's set pace became a sort metronomic ritual.

Forward motion, cautious balance, and the dull throb of a perpetual alertness all slipped into a form of automation where I lost all sense of time. The task wouldn't halt. It just sort of kept on, like a series of silent loops keyed for an interrupt that wouldnt come. Like a shift that never ended.

This went on for some time until the merciful moment Sam stopped us, and I gladly took the moment to rest.

The time read: 0747.

The spot we were in looked like it could mark a turning point; the embankment curved away from us, back toward the direction of The Spire. There was hesitancy in her stance. Between the looks she gave the embankment and the open field, I could almost hear her mind work on the problem.

Should we follow the concealed line of the embankment, or should we break and straighten our path to the canal?

I looked behind and realized it'd been a while since we'd seen a flare.

Wonder if Jones ever accomplished what he set out to do?

The distinct lack of patrols was likely the outcome for success or failure. So regardless, it was a win for us, even if it was only temporary.

I shook my head to clear my train of thought.

No. While Sam hadn't yet informed me of our progress, she also didn't seem particularly concerned. Purely based on logic? The numbers said stick to the run-off and embankment. Safer. Smarter.

Peaks of light came through the cloud cover from above. In between sections where the clouds thinned, the area around us became easier to see. I looked ahead. A line of trees I hadn't realized had been close due to the haze of the rain and my own mental loop of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other stood, almost like a wall or another embankment across our path.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Though I didn't know how much further we'd need to go, I had to trust Sam knew what she was doing, even if I couldn't quite shake the thought of the potentially wasted time.

Sam's got this.

I remained silent as Sam gestured for us to move again, and we continued...trudging.

You can imagine my surprise when, not much later, we arrived.

The line of trees was indeed her destination. She'd navigated us toward it carefully, and I'd been so happy to leave the water, I stepped beside her as we entered the treeline. It was her grasp on my collar that saved me when my foot waggled out into open air. Honestly, before now, I hadn't really known what to expect. but it hadn't been this. Sam let go of my collar but didn't say anything as I looked onward in awe.

The landscape beyond ended like a razor-cut line, difficult to see until we'd gotten right up to it. We stood upon a bluff, one of those abrupt geological shifts where a level part of the ground forgets its own elevation and suddenly drops.

The nearby infrastructure was familiar.

Below, the run-off ditch parted between sections of terrain and descended sharply into an inlet-outlet system. It mirrored the collection zones Rob had shown me. The one that fed water into the reservoirs for storage and processing for the subterranean Spirelands.

Beyond that? The Locks.

Sam and Rob had called one of them a bridge, but that word felt too simple now.

A canyon? A flume? An aqueduct?

Huh.

None of those words fit cleanly.

Whatever you called it, the structure felt less like a tunnel and more like a trenched wound left open to the sky. It was an open-topped corridor carved for giants and funneled into a sequence of chambers, each one sealed off by gargantuan steel doors, their bottoms staggered in height like a descending staircase.

The upper sections of each side of the Lock zone were set at the same elevation. It gave it the appearance of one long concrete platform, dotted with yards, zones, and any number of demarcation points with functions I couldn't even imagine. Between them, the tops of the gates weren’t just big. They were wide. Enough to walk three abreast and still have room to spare on either side along the narrowest section.

Eight of the nine visible "bridges" relative to our elevated point of view were already closed, their chambers leveled. Only the last gate seemed set into what appeared to be an "open" position, each door V'ed outward toward the ocean, and the Port outlet I knew lay beyond.

The water level in the next-to-the-last chamber was currently a hollowed basin in comparison to the others. From our vantage, the only parts not fully submerged within the murky water took on the appearance of metal pathways, inserted above what should've been calm and placid. The swift current of the canal banks splashed and flowed like waves on a killer shore and caused the pathway to appear as if it could be washed away at any moment. Wave after wave smashed over the first gate like a retaining wall mere moments from a flood.

Due to the rain, the whitecaps of crested waves roared past within the canal furiously. It was a stampede, angled straight into the engineered ravine with no other forces to divert it. Almost like it'd realized it'd been caught ajar, one of the two furthest lock gate pairs groaned as they drew shut. Low, almost deliberate, like a sudden breath sucked into steel lungs, water surged by in a rush as the level markers etched into the concrete walls began their slow ascent, and the next-to-last chamber began to fill.

A tap on my arm from Sam snapped me back to the present. I'd stood transfixed, but she needed us to move.

She pointed to the brush-covered drop-off, and I understood. Carefully, we navigated down to the flattened surface of the next level.

The fog had dispersed, driven to the ground like a drunkard at the cantina. The roaring canal we'd been parallel to was off in the distance on our left, though the rising slope of the embankment behind and to our right hid us from direct view above. From the opposing side, the landscape dropped into a series of steps like where we now stood. Each level was lower than the last, with layers gradually fading into trees and fencing.

The portions of the canal we'd seen earlier had the breadth of a river. It had been so wide, I couldn't make out the far bank while alongside it. What lay ahead and beneath us seemed like a hybrid railyard and port with a little something else mixed in for good measure. It looked worn and industrial where the waterway cinched inward and narrowed into the vast sprawl of the concrete channel.

Silver light cut through the mist in slats and shards like sharpened blades as I took it all in.

Across the divide, a chain-link fence stretched taut along the perimeter, and Sam halted us in front of a nearby section, masked by growth around it. One hand rested lightly on the fence, but her breath was steady. She was alert. Ready for danger. I followed her gaze. Lower down and adjacent to the locks, just beyond the skeletal sprawl of one of the maintenance yards, I could see him. A lone figure.

Rob.

He walked with a casual rhythm, the kind that might pass for ease if one didn't watch too closely. But his hands betrayed him. Held low, tight to his sides, they acted like a magician's sleight, half-concealed.

A twitch.

A signal.

I knew then he was not only aware of where we were, but, as Sam's stiff posture gave away, she'd seen the signal too.

Daylight had stripped away the cover of night, but now there was just enough ambient light for my optics to register the scene in the visible spectrum.

Sam, equipped with a newer gen of camouflaged enhancements, adjusted effortlessly and locked in with quiet precision.

Mine weren't as forgiving.

I squinted to trigger a zoom, then had to shut my eyes against the nauseous lurch of an optical shift. The stabilizers lagged. For a breath, the world spun. Edges were smeared, and any sense of depth remained unmoored until the system finally caught up. Abruptly, clarity snapped into place. Just in time to catch Rob's hand.

His fingers moved fast. Three signs in quick succession:

'C.''

'We.'

'Eye.'

I blinked, confused. The message didn't land. If he'd spoken, it would've sounded like a mouthful of carbo-bun, or—oof!

I was yanked down hard. My left arm jerked backward; vertigo overtook me like a wave. Sam had dropped like a stone and pulled me with her. Her drop had been tactical. In my case, it had been painful. I ended up on my back, my face pointed to the sky. Pain blossomed throughout my left thigh and buttock, where a rock had caught me mid-fall and rolled underneath me.

Sam, assisted by gravity and my own stunned inertia, had positioned me beside her where she rested. She was prone. Like a sniper on a ridge.

"Wha—" I started, but she silenced me with a light backhanded slap on the shoulder.

I shut up.

My sense of balance spun out, top-like. Overhead, a storm-grey cloud pulsed with dull light through my still-zoomed optics. Smeared across my vision, the image was too close, too sharp. Three quick blinks reset the zoom, and I closed my eyes. The befuddled feeling of disequilibrium a bit too much to bear.

Sam stayed silent by my side; I could feel her pressed firmly against me through the fabric of my jacket. Coiled like a sentry dog on high alert, every muscle seemed tuned to threat.

The vertigo was gone.

I slowly rolled over.

The scene still held steady. Nothing much had changed, though Rob had threaded his way toward one of the metal catwalks that stitched across one of the more distant maintenance yards. A familiar grid of yellow hazard stripes marked the concrete, dividing his starting point from a tangled sprawl of pipes, vents, tracks, and walkways scattered like debris across the cordoned zone.

"Okay. So his warning wasn't immediate." She said, her voice almost too quiet to hear beside me as she continued, "We can probably talk, but keep it low so we don't draw any attention."

We continued to watch as Rob shed the last of his casual movements and quickly and efficiently made his way over to a spot that didn't appear particularly accessible. With practiced ease, he cut through the clutter toward a half-obscured section of infrastructure that looked more like a dead end than a viable route. Then, he stopped, right at a recessed junction where three walkways met in a tangle of shadow and rust.

“Most of the catwalks are there from before the Corpos began reactivating them,” Sam said before I could ask. “We can usually pick our way over without being interrupted, provided we've got the right key.”

Silently, Rob dropped into a spot between a web of utility lines and disappeared from sight. I hadn’t expected that, but the faint curve of a guardrail suggested the presence of a stairwell, half-concealed and easy to miss unless you were looking for it. Particularly from where we watched.

“The locks run on automation now.” Sam continued, her voice still low but steady. “Most of the time it’s just maintenance drones drifting through unless a patrol’s been flagged to sweep the zone. What the Corpies haven’t pieced together is that near the first gate, the hardline feeds have been spliced to cycle through randomized schedules."

I nodded, a stray piece finally in place. The constant pressure and sense of urgency? It wasn’t paranoia. We really had raced a clock.

"What was Rob saying earlier?" I asked. “In portsign. Seemed like a bunch of gibberish.”

"It's a code," she replied. "Means we keep our distance from the lock and just watch. Rob came up with it. C, We, Eye—Seaweed Eye. Kelp-eye to Kelpie. Not a perfect match, but close enough to stick."

"Actually..." I paused, surprised by how clearly it clicked. The image of a Kelpie surfaced within my mind. Slick and patient, like something half-submerged in memory. "I do know. Like the water horses from myth, right?"

Sam glanced at me, eyebrows raised. "Yeah. How'd you figure that out?"

"They're shape-shifters," I said. "Aquatic spirits. Usually described as beautiful horses near rivers and lochs."

A flicker of amusement crossed her face. "Locks. Of course. I finally get it." She scanned the terrain ahead. "I asked Rob once why it had to be a horse. He just laughed. Do you know?"

The thought spun in my head. From what I'd read, Kelpies were often cautionary myths. Warnings dressed in allure, designed to remind you beauty could also be a trap.

"I'm not sure why it's a horse, exactly," I admitted. "Maybe something to do with where the legend came from?" She turned to peer forward again. I continued, "But what I do know is a Kelpie doesn't drag you under by force initially. It waits. You have to accept the invitation. Some of the stories say they could appear as beautiful women, or..."

Sam raised her hand, fingers curled into a fist: FREEZE

She swept the terrain with sharp precision, and I felt the itch again. To recalibrate, to prod at the dormant functions embedded in my optics.

The rational core of my mind responded instantly: Not yet.

I wanted data. Craved it like a hunger. But those recovered flag protocols? Still a mess. I hadn't mapped them. Hadn't inventoried their functions. Reactivating them felt reckless at a time like this, like lighting a match in a gas leak.

So I left them inert.

Still didn't explain why she'd stopped.

Her fist dropped, but she still remained silent. Her attention was focused toward the far edge of the lock, like she was trying to hear something buried under the concrete. The silence stretched, not empty, but heavy with a tension I could almost feel.

My imagination made me feel like something had crawled across the back of my neck. It felt insectile. Slimy.

I turned to look behind, just to be certain it was my imagination.

Huh. Nothing. Clear.

Then came the gasp. Raw and wet from behind me.

Sam.

My head and body snapped forward, eyes locked onto the scene ahead. Rob was rising from within the guts of the Lock's infrastructure. Slow. Deliberate. Like he'd waited for the right moment to return. A revenant in streetwear.

And behind him...

My heart began to race as it had on the rail oh-so-many hours ago.

Hair. Perfectly arranged.

A head.

A face.

A set of stormy-grey eyes.

The last set of eyes I ever wanted to see again...

"McCreed."

Chapter 37

Above us, the flares drifted, slow and steady.

They cast visible light, but the colors felt wrong. Too soft. Too clean for a place that held so much space. The grass shimmered underneath, almost peaceful in the artificial glow. But it felt revocable at a moment's notice, like everything else I'd come to rely on before I'd had to leave my old life behind me.

Sam moved like a half-remembered echo, her presence as taut as a tensioned thread strung in a silent room. We slinked into receded shadows, careful and wordless, two figures stitched together by a shared insistence to remain unseen.

Her eyes swept the obstacle-strewn path like a pair of searchlights in the dark.

For what exactly? Hell if I knew.

Dark shapes. A flicker of movement. Something in wait, ready to materialize like a phantom in a forgotten graveyard....whatever it was, she acted with the wariness of someone who'd been ambushed too often to mistake quiet for safety, so I paid careful attention.

After the day we’d had? I understood.

I kept close. Kept low and allowed her paranoid movements to set the pace for me. There was a rhythm to it. Her shoulders were drawn. Her breath was shallow. Her steps were soft enough the gravel was barely disturbed.

If Rob wore his carefully cultivated indifference like a mask, all smooth flow and city swagger, built for hierarchies and the concrete jungle of the stacks, Sam was different. Her movements were raw and animal.

I tried to match her crouch. Her stillness. To mimic the way she listened to the air as if it could whisper what she'd need to do to remain stealthy. She was instinctive and wild.

Between us and our path forward, everything held still. No birds. No goons in sight. Just the steady spill of rain and the peculiar hush that settles when a place forgets there's an audience. It was like, in the absence of watchers, even the landscape itself had grown self-consciously quiet.

I stopped cold as a flare tore open the eastern sky, its light briefly illuminating rain like fallen threads of electrified static. Sam paused, crouched low, her body folding into readiness like a reflex. I watched her silhouette against the shimmerless grass as more flares followed, barely a skipped beat between each as they rocketed skyward in tight formation.

Her hand rested on the butt of her slung rifle as I joined her in silent observation. "They're tracking something," she whispered.

I didn’t move. Not yet. Something tickled the back of my mind. The very last thing I wanted to do was botch it up and get us caught, but...no. Something felt wrong, like a broken rhythm where someone had missed a note in the scale.

I looked again. The positioning of the clusters was all wrong.

It felt like something we weren’t supposed to notice, except we did. Or at least I did. Each burst felt like a blip on some distant screen of predators converging, drawn toward whatever poor bastard had tripped the wire.

A chance, maybe? Or a trap dressed as possibility?

Quietly. Very quietly, I leaned over, voice low. No sudden moves.

"Sam. Quick question." I said aloud. Portsign would make it so we couldn't observe and communicate with the same amount of focus.

She didn’t look at me. Just kept her eyes on the area around us. Her voice was gruff but not aggressive. "What is it?"

"Listen. This Jones guy."

"Yeah? What about him?"

"He's looking to get out, right?"

She glanced at me, skeptical. "Probably. But what’s that got to do with us?"

"I think this is seriously important." I said, "If he’s looking to slip the net, where would he go? Any alternate exits that don’t end with a bullet?"

She paused. Actually paused. That alone earned my gratitude.

"From here?" she said. Her eyes swept the terrain. "No. The locks are the only guaranteed cross. Especially with the rain the way it’s been. The systems monitor water height. They hit a certain point, and they cycle. The first set of locks are fed into the Spireland's irrigation tanks and processing reservoirs."

Interesting. I filed it away.

"That's part of why timing is so important right now," she added, just as another set of flares went up. Green this time. Across the way, orange and green answered. Signals in a code we lacked the key for.

"But, if the rain keeps up and the levels spike," she continued, "the system triggers a purge. Emergency protocol. The locks open wide to dump the excess straight to sea. Keeps the canal sectors from flooding. The runoff lines lead out toward the Port."

Ah. That tracked.

I nodded. I’d seen the flow lanes before. Countless times. They ran like veins through the Stacks and Port, and I'd never asked where they led. Never wondered what they carried. Just another part of the machine I’d learned to ignore. Like the hum of the grid or flicker of surveillance lights.

Maybe it was the deterrence protocols or just human nature. I hadn't asked and hadn't looked too closely.

Huh.

Sam's voice snapped me out of it.

"Price. Listen, we gotta get moving. Without Rob, I've got one clean window for the two of us to get out of here, so time is short. Is there a point to all—" She waved her hand at me with an open palm, as if to scan me. "This?"

"Uh, right," I said and reoriented to my original train of thought. "So if the purge is triggered, what does that mean for us?"

Another series of flares. Orange, then orange.

Her face looked grim as she glanced toward them; they were in the direction we were going to go. "We'd have no way to tell how long we'd wait for the next window. We'd be stranded."

The word hung there, heavier than it should’ve been.

"Stranded?"

"Yes. Stranded. If that ever happened, it'd normally be when Frank or I would find Rob for new orders. Once the gates are open, the easiest-to-access physical bridge between the Corpo and Glow sides will be cut off."

Most of her expression was schooled. Calm. Procedural, like she was reading from a manual etched into her implants. She wanted to project no fear. No urgency. Just protocol. Like being cut off, isolated, and left behind was just another line in some handbook they all stuck to religiously.

I examined her face as she spoke. The edges of her eyes told the truth: she was terrified at the very thought. "If they open, the only other nearest option would be the Borderlanes." She hesitated. "Trust me, Owen. We do not want to go to the Borderlanes, especially not you. Not yet."

Another flare cracked the sky, this one slower, drifting wide. Not part of the pattern. Not part of the chase. The flares kept coming, but the rhythm was off now. Too many too fast. Someone was panicked.

"Sam, hold up." I murmured with a raised hand toward it, "Look. Over there...the stray. You see it?"

"Huh." Her voice was low, her forehead drawn tight with bewilderment.

Sam and I observed the groups as they moved. Off in the distance, the popcorn sound of gunfire was heard as another flare launched; blue.

"Okay, so is that him that's launching the flares and causing a scene?" I asked.

"Could be," she muttered, but didn't sound convinced of her own statement. "Or maybe someone got spooked and lost it."

"Why?"

She didn’t answer right away. The flare arced overhead as it cast long shadows into the open space beyond.

"To draw eyes," she said finally. "Or flush someone out."

More gunfire, followed by more flares. A mixture of orange, green, and blue.

"Why would he want that?"

She turned and gave me a look like I’d asked her to explain fire to a drowning man.

"You want me to psychoanalyze the guy who beat a man to death with his bare hands under the same tree we were hiding in?"

I exhaled.

"Fair."

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was loaded. Like the air itself was waiting for someone to say the wrong thing. Another flare went up. Orange this time, but it didn’t matter. The pattern was gone. The chase had unravelled into static. Chaotic noise.

And somewhere in that noise, Jones was moving.

Not toward escape, at least not for the moment, but toward something else.

I stopped watching the flares.

They’d lost their meaning. Too erratic, too loud. If Jones was behind it, he wasn’t signaling. He was baiting. Sam kept scanning the grid, eyes sharp and methodical. She was still playing by the rules. Still on the lookout for expected patterns.

I wasn’t.

If it was Jones, he didn’t move like a man focused on a clandestine escape. He moved like a man who tried to be seen. Every flare, every misstep wasn’t about evasion. It was about provocation.

He wanted someone flushed. Someone exposed. It was a game of chess, and only he knew the shape of the board.

I thought back to the body under the tree. The way the blood had pooled in the roots. The way Jones had looked afterward. He hadn't been panicked or rushed. Just...finished. Like he’d crossed something off a list. One task down, onto the next.

A theory began to form, sharp and insistent. I had to suppress the trill of excitement before it got ahead of me.

"Sam," I said quietly, "I don't think he's running from the system. Not yet anyway. I think he's rearranging it so they can't stop him."

She turned toward the horizon; her expression shifted as she watched the sky. The gunfire had stopped, but flares still rose. Much slower now. Spaced out like a blind game of Marco Polo with a player who refused to respond.

The short of it: whatever triggered the alert and set the chase in motion? It was working in our favor.

The irony wasn't lost on me either, that it was exactly what Sam had unconsentually been for me when I'd initiated her chase purely by accident. It had been the stroke of luck I hadn't realized I'd had until it had already changed the board.

With a shared look, I could tell she'd arrived at the same exact conclusion. The faint shadow of a scowl was on her face as, suddenly, I became very invested in what might be over the way and snapped my eyes onto the tree line to avoid her soured gaze.

Then...it happened.

The pause.

No flare. No gunshots. No sound.

We were just handed the distraction we sorely needed. A shift in attention. Eyes diverted elsewhere.

Without hesitation, Sam cradled her rifle into her arms and stood smoothly. She gestured for me to do the same.

"Let's move."

Chapter 36

“Hey!”

A panicked voice came from below.

“No! Sir—Stop!"

The shouting wasn’t aimed at us. Sam and I weren't the ones who were in danger. The notes were sharp and frantic, like a wreckage alarm on the tarmac. Another voice piled on, rising in pitch and urgency. The tree trunk at my back thudded percussively as the leaves around me shivered in time to a lumberjack's chop: rhythmic and impactful. Every blow landed with a solid metronomic precision.

A chaotic symphony synchronized with the painful throb behind my eyes as my vision finally clawed its way out of the darkness. Beneath me, the first voice rang out clearly, a breathless plea. “Help me stop him dammit!”

I desperately tried to clear the haze.

Nothing. Just smears of light and a taste of trouble.

A dying neon warning blinked at the edge of my optics, and the world churned like wet cement to match the storm clouds above. Black bled into a dirty, rusted grey as vision flickered around me to cut jagged paths through the dark.

I risked a peek with one hesitant eye. 

Below was chaos.

Light skimmed across rain-laden branches, slick with water and beaded with dew like sweat strung along a wire. Below, the man identified as Nevens dangled in the air, suspended one-armed by another man who looked carved from concrete: Rob-sized, possibly larger. His boots were planted. Wide and unmoving like the roots of the tree within the boggy mud.

Nevens, like a marionette caught in a violent dance, his rifle pinned uselessly barrel-up between them, twitched with every impact as the larger man’s fist landed in a brutal rhythm. The flashlight at the end of the rifle was pointed skyward, its beam animated by the meaty thumps as the other two futilely struggled to stop the larger man's assault. One gripped his arm. The other his shoulder. For all their effectiveness, they might as well have attempted to wrestle a hydraulic press.

The larger man's face was blank. Not rage. Not frenzy, but more of a mechanical focus. Blow after piston-shot blow rained into the limp form of Nevens. The sound was wet now. Less impact, more rupture, but Nevens didn’t scream. He couldn’t. His optical implants had rolled back into his skull. The twin metallic orbs caught the light like discarded coins as streamers of blood issued from his ears, eyes, mouth, and nose.

I watched, frozen as the light continued to rock frantically. Not out of fear, not entirely; it was something colder—detachment, maybe. Or the slow realization that this wasn’t a fight. It was a purge valve finally blown, like a mind cracking under the weight of too many unspoken things.

One of the two men stepped back to abandon his failed attempts at physical restraint and trained his rifle on the attacker's spine. His stance was slack. Weak. The barrel trembled slightly, not from recoil, but from indecision and the tremor of doubt. The other man lunged sideways, frantic to pull himself clear of the line of fire as his eyes widened in panic and surprise.

The larger man halted mid-swing to glance over his shoulder at the newly armed officer. His breath came in heavy but deliberate huffs as he relinquished his grip on Nevens, who slid along the trunk to fold upon the ground, his position no longer anchored as he crumpled into an unnatural heap.

"The silence after violence is always the loudest," a faded echo of my mother's voice said to me.

Everyone stood like statues in a mausoleum. The rain whispered like ghosts between them in the silver light of the foggy morning as the armed man took a shuffled half-step forward.

"Shift Chief Jones! I demand that you stop by order of corporate mandate," he shouted in an officious manner. "Stand down!"

Blood, now visible in the light of the man's flashlight, pooled into the mud between them. Dark and vicious.

"No," Jones said. "Fuck the corporate mandate, and fuck you if you think that's going to protect you."

"What?" The man with the gun said nervously.

"I'm leaving." The larger man said gravely and without fear. "I suggest you start figuring out where your line is too because we went way past mine the day Golrich and his Goons were integrated into my command."

"He's still alive," the man without a rifle said by Nevens, "barely. We need to get him to the infirmary!"

"Let him die." Jones said, "Or don't. Either way, I'm still leaving. I don't give a care what you do anymore."

"I...wait—you can't leave!" The man with the rifle sputtered out. His hands tightened on the grip as if he'd just remembered he was still cinched onto a lifeline ready to pull away if he let go. "Y—you just killed Nevens! FREEZE!"

"We stood by and allowed them to do the things they did." Jones said. His fists, coated in blood and fluids, were steaming in the chill air.

"We never saw anything!" The man with the rifle screeched desperately.

"We knew!" Jones barked. His shoulders were tight. Ready. The bulky uniform swelled and expanded as hidden muscles rippled beneath. and the armed man jumped as if he’d been physically slapped.

"We had orders!" the man with the gun feebly retorted back.

"Fuck the orders!" Jones said. A vein popped out from the side of his temple. A writhing snake ready to strike. "Nevens? Paul?! They're everything I detest!" He took a step forward but stopped as the man with the rifle cowered backward to maintain the distance. "You know what? Forget it. The point is enough is enough. I'm leaving, and if you try to stop me, I'll do to you what I did to Nevens. That's not a threat; it's a warning."

There was a moment when I thought the man with the gun would be stupid.

Jones spoke again, "You don't have it in you, Delmonte. Don't try it."

The second man's hand trembled as the rifle barrel dipped and wavered slightly. Faster than I would've expected, he turned and broke into an ungainly sprint and tumbled over the side of the embankment on the Spire side.

"DELMONTE!" The first man yelled out in alarm, "Wait! Where are you going?!"

Without a glance back, Delmonte fled into the tree line, his flashlight cast s jittery glow until it disappeared. We were left in an awkward silence.

Interesting. I thought. Seems like Security wasn't as coordinated as I thought. Rob was right...

The other man turned back to Jones, who had knelt beside Nevens and pulled a bundle of flares and the launcher from his belt. Identical to the ones Rob had taken from Tim and Paul.

So Nevens was the one with the signals...

"Sir! You can't just leave me here!" The first man said. There was an almost childlike naivety to his voice as he pleaded.

"Out of the way," Jones simply said, a steely look on his face.

"Harlan. What about Nevens?! Listen! If we can get him to the infirmary, we can fix this, okay? We can make it right! Nothing has to change! It's not too late, come on...please!"

There was a low noise above me as Sam shifted. The bark of the branch I was seated on bit into my palms as I balanced to look upward and pressed my back into the trunk behind me. Her rifle was swiveled around, across her front, to point the barrel downward as she prepared to ambush the two below.

I didn't think now was the moment. Something was off.

Stay. Still. Hold. Wait. Trust. I signaled.

She glared down at me and frowned but stopped her possible ambush, curious.

Jones continued to speak to the other man below.

"McCreed won't stop here," he said. "You know what they did to that kid at the Port and what they told us to say. There's nothing else here, Jasper. They've already started taking over, and it's only a matter of time before they plug the hole with our bodies to keep it quiet. You're a fool."

I looked up at Sam in surprise, whose face mirrored in my own.

It WAS a setup!

"No, listen. Please, Harlan!" Jasper pleaded, "I'm so close I can taste it! I'm only another class away from advancing; don't mess this up for me...please. I'm begging you!" He moved to block the larger man's path. Toward the direction of the bridge in the distance beyond.

Jones settled a steely glare onto Jasper's face.

"Out. Of. The. Way." Jones said, punctuating each word. "He wasn't worth the effort, and neither will you be if you try to stop me. There's nothing here, you get me? They've already begun flushing the unit of anyone who won't play along. If you're not with them, you'll eventually be forced to play a game you never wanted. I know it because I kept my head low enough to avoid it the first time, but I'm not going to sell my soul a second time..." He cut himself off and went silent.

Anger flashed over his expression.

"You know what? Screw every last one of you," he said as he stopped to retrieve the weapon he had tossed aside. He didn't wait for a reply. Just turned, took a few angry strides, and vanished down the embankment to disappear into the fog as if swallowed whole by some great creature in the mist.

Jasper didn’t move at first. Just stood there, his shoulders slumped, eyes fixed on the place Jones had vanished. He looked like a man who’d just been handed the punchline to a joke he didn’t get. Maybe never would.

The defeat was plainly written across his face as he lifted Nevens in a fireman’s carry the way one might shoulder a memory. It was awkward, intimate, and impossible to ignore. Limbs hung like broken promises as they swayed gently with each step.

There was a dejected look on Jasper's face when he finally turned to depart. The rain traced cold lines down his back as he walked through the fog like a man carrying more than flesh. He was headed in the same direction Delmonte had gone. Away from the path Jones had chosen for himself.

I exhaled. Let the breath slip out, more reflex than relief, and felt nothing at first.

I continued to watch them fade into the fog, the outline of Jasper’s frame blurred at the edges, Nevens hung over his shoulders like dead weight. My fingers twitched at my sides, damp and useless. A dull pressure built up behind my ribs, like something waiting to break loose but too tired to try. It was something I wasn't ready to name yet as I continued to breathe out slowly.

Would I have been Jasper if Rob and Sam hadn't decided to help? Abandoned and forced to beg to continue?

Above, Sam signaled it was time for us to climb down. I nodded in agreement, absolutely ready to be out of the tree and on our way to...wherever we'd go.

I picked my way downward cautiously as the hissing boom of a flare in the distance went off. An orange one. Followed by a green and red. Whatever they meant, we had no way to understand. I shelved the thought, useless without context, and made the choice to continue to move.

With a squelch, my foot finally settled into the mud at the base of the tree. Maybe we’re all just one choice away from being the one left behind, I thought. Sam landed lithely beside me. Her eyes were locked on the flares, now all directed toward what I assumed was an alert signal, only somehow pointed away as if we'd already been passed over as the other signals pushed inward instead of toward the canal.

Sam and I set off in the direction of what Rob had called "a bridge." The direction Jones had also gone toward.

Maybe we were all Jasper. I thought to myself as more flares went up further down the line.

Just not today.

Chapter 35

I panned my head slowly in deliberate sections: a periscope slicing through the ghostly silence like a probe seeking the origin of the snapped twig. My hairs were set on end; the frigid and gloomy morning wore a poker-faced stillness, a velvet hush with a sharpened edge.

Like a spilled secret under a held breath, another series of cracks froze me in place. The dampened air coated my skin in a frost-sheened sweat. My ears rang, void of footsteps, void of clues. I strained to gauge how near.

The proximity was stifling.

Panic spiked through me.

I felt a corpse-like grip seal my scream. The clammy fingers over my mouth belonged to a face no more than a breath's breadth from my own.

Recognition hit like a hammer blow: It was Sam. I couldn't blink. Couldn't respond. I'd tracked nothing. She was as good as Rob. Maybe better: Rob was quiet.

Sam was silence.

Slowly she pressed a single finger against her lips, a gesture to remain mute. Her hand peeled away from my lower face as she pointed to the bag and signaled a retreat. I expended extra care to stand as slowly as humanly possible with careful maneuvers to avoid making our presence known.

We kept the blind between us and the embankment below as we slowly edged away.

Sam placed a hand on my shoulder, and, like an idiot, I jumped. She kept a still finger on her lips as her eyes rose upward. I followed her gaze to see into the canopy of a particularly large and notable tree, easily three or four times my width.

With a start, a strange sense of deja vu and realization came over me: It's the same damn tree...

Yep. Just like the other two times, we'd all been caught entirely unaware.

She wanted us to climb. 

Chapter 34

While I had so many more questions, I knew it wasn't the time to expect detailed answers. It'd been a shock, but for the umpteenth time the statement, "We can talk about it later," crept back up from within rather than without.

I went with the easiest question we had time for: "Why are you telling me all of this now?"

Sam retreated inward to reflect on her response. "You're exhausted, hungry, and confused," she said quietly. "I can't offer anything to solve most of that—I don't have anything to give you. But I can apologize for how I acted and at least explain what little I do know. When Rob told me who you really were, it hit hard. He used to use you and your mother as a lesson in how to understand bad things happen to good people. He and your mother were close when they were children—you know that, right? Whatever I said or did before, if I'm treating you differently now, it's because Rob made me understand you're more like us than I first realized."

It had been the most she'd shared vocally since I'd known her, which, amazingly enough, only amounted to a few short hours.

Crazy....

Aloud, I voiced another question: "Us?"

Chapter 33

Rob pulled some of the pilfered equipment from my bag to distribute it between us. The largest items were the rifles Paul and Ted had been armed with.

"We've got two of these. Each of you take one."

Rob handed me one of the dense rectangles. I'd never actually seen one up close like this before in person; while I'd had enough exposure to popular culture over the years to understand where to put my hands, I was by no means a subject matter expert. Like a lumpy bed, on those nights I couldn't fall asleep, I felt restless and uneasy just from the touch of it. The arm-length gun felt oddly alien to my chilled hands: it felt heavy and dangerous.

"SK-Thirteen-R, Schwertkaufe models," Rob said. He manipulated my hands around the grip, which had buttons, labels, and all sorts of nonsense I wasn't sure I was ready to mess with. He slapped the back of the gun lightly and paused to ensure he had my full attention. "Hold this part to your shoulder. Point that end where you want it to go 'bang.' Squeeze, don't jerk."

It was a lot for my muddled brain to take in all at once. Though I'm sure Rob's delivery was rather precise and smooth, it was all jibberish as far as I was concerned. I sputtered, too busy in my attempts to not set it off unintentionally to pay attention fully the first time.

"I—uh, wh—bang where?!"

Rob actually snorted before he caught himself.

"You remember those shooter games, right? Karl and Preston wouldn't stop talking about em. I thought you were in the same circles, weren't you?"