“Our gods are dead. Ancient Klingon warriors slew them a millennia ago. They were more trouble than they were worth.” -Worf, Star Trek Deep Space Nine-

  _____

  James walked into an argument in progress between the first local militia guy who he’d met back when there’d been daylight, and a much younger and much taller kid in a patch covered denim vest who was shaking as he shouted back at the older human. The two were engaged in some kind of yelling match in the Wal Mart furniture department, where Nate had moved his command after rapidly getting sick of the narrow stairs up to the office, and realizing that there were better tables and chairs right there for use.

  ”Gentlemen!” James raised his voice as he approached. “You can’t fight in here, this is the war room!” He intoned the words as he ignored the fight and took a seat next to Nate. The two arguing mostly ignored him, and so he did them the same courtesy. “What’s up with them?” He asked as the older militiaman started shouting about killing communists and the younger one seemed to restrain himself from strangling his conversation partner.

  ”Who fucking cares.” Nate said, briefly looking up. “JP’s partner has been keeping me from hearing their bullshit so I can focus.”

  ”Sorry, what?” James asked, looking around for JP and finding his friend absent. Lot of other people, many of them civilians in various states of confused or terrified, but no JP. “Who’s he working with these days?”

  A soft burble of a voice floated through James’ hearing. “Me.” An infomorph spoke into his head. “Quiet?”

  ”Nah, I’m good. Someone should pay attention in case they actually try to kill each other.” James tried to spot if the infomorph was manifested and found nothing. “Hi there. James. Nice to meet you.”

  ”Sartori. You were there when I was made.”

  The comment was probably true, but James felt like he should remember something like that. Also he felt like maybe JP should have told him that he had a new infomorph… child? Friend? Operational partner? The fact that James didn’t even know what category this whole new person was in made him feel like there was a growing gap between himself and one of his older friends. But he didn’t say that right now, because there was a bit of a crisis. ”Huh. Neat. We should talk later! But right now, updates.” He took a breath as Nate looked up to focus fully on him. “What’s the next step?”

  Nate stared unmoving for a second as he formed a response, no casual motion to betray his exhaustion or mental stress. “With those two anchors down and both teams successful, we’re in a weird place.” He said. “The problem is, the frontline is coming from four directions now.”

  ”Explain?”

  Nate sent him a map, skulljack communication program helping him draw arrows on it as the two spoke. “Originally there was only really a couple roads that fed into the zone. But for the second line, we had to rush to cut off side streets coming in from both sides. Now, we’re seeing people fleeing the zone in our direction who are coming through from the other side.”

  ”So… that’s good.” James said, tapping his fingers and Zhu’s talons on the table as the navigator hung out but didn’t bother controlling his own limb. “Right? That means that’s the end. Three more, and we’ve got this.”

  The big man shrugged, glancing at where one of the yelling men was storming off while the kid just glared after him before sitting down at the table and saying something to Ben, who was working at Nate’s side. “It means something. But it mostly means we don’t have the people for a full blockade.”

  “Shit. Are we… are we losing people?” James asked. He knew it was going to happen, but even still, when he said the words, he was not-so-secretly hoping he would hear a negative.

  ”Yes.” Nate said instead. “Two deaths so far on our end, nine more from our helpers.” It was stated so matter of factly. Almost cold. “More from the civilians.”

  James almost reacted badly to the tone, before he caught the emotion and processed it with the smooth fluidity of someone who had quite a few red orbs under their belt. Nate was keeping himself calm, because people who were angry and upset made mistakes, and mistakes would cost more lives. The dungeon was a threat, and a problem, and it was going to hurt to push it back. It was always going to hurt. Because that was what it did. It hurt people.

  ”Okay.” James let out his held breath, trying to not guess which faces he wouldn’t be seeing around the Lair ever again. “That isn’t that many, compared to what we’re fielding.”

  ”We didn’t have enough to encircle that much ground to begin with. We barely have enough for our small blockade, and we’re only stopping cars going in, not anything coming out. Though we are also stopping things coming out. The People’s Sword are armed enough that they’ve been useful for that though.”

  James didn’t comment on the militia name. Actually he didn’t hate it, but he did suspect he wouldn’t like them much. “Okay. So we need to hit three more targets, as soon as we can.”

  ”We do. And we’re running out of people to do it with. Not because of deaths, but casualties are stacking up. Deb tells me the non-lethal diseases are softening people up for bigger problems, and injuries that put someone out of commission can’t all be magiced away. We can’t offer the same kind of support for a push on three fronts that we could last time.”

  ”Dungeon’s still there though.” James said. “So what do we do?”

  ”Hire help.” Nate said. “I’m bringing in some firepower that can probably handle one anchor on their own. Your paladin group, and every able shield knight, get the other one.”

  ”That’s two.”

  And at that Nate grinned, baring his teeth in a way that looked alien on a face that was normally frowning even if he was having a good time. ”Well. I’ve got good news.” He said. “The Underburbs fucked up. Or maybe it didn’t think it would have to not fuck up like this. Or maybe it’s not a person, and ‘thinking’ isn’t on the menu, who fucking cares.” Nate marked the map where the next anchor spots were outlined.

  James bared his teeth too, not really a smile, but a grimly satisfied expression nonetheless. “They’re all the exact same radius, aren’t they? We know exactly where the next three are.”

  ”We have one mortar shot left to make it two.” Nate told them. “Unless we can secure more.”

  ”Rob a different military base.” James said bluntly. “Just pick one. Who fucking cares? We can teleport and if they actually knew what was going on they’d be doing this themselves.”

  ”Not sure we’re ready to crack that hellpit open.” Nate said honestly.

  Next to him, Ben turned to look over at their conversation, the slightly better but still wobbly Wal Mart wooden dining room chair bending under him as he twisted. “Why, because you’re worried someone might get upset? We’re in a shooting war on US soil. If anyone was going to care, they would by now.” He said more viciously than James would have predicted. “Get off your fucking high horse and let Myles do his job.”

  ”Hey! Don’t talk shit to me! Someone has to make sure that when the smoke clears, we’re not all executed for treason!” Nate snapped back. “This is this, but robbing the army isn’t a casual jaunt, you dumb fucks!”

  ”Kind of why we’ve been training people to do heists though, right?” Ben stood his ground, but softened his tone as he spoke in a low voice to the Order’s chef and military man. “You’re forgetting something, boss. All that respect for the uniform, that lingering sense of patriotism, that thought that maybe the government is the legit power of the land? That’s you. That’s a human thing. And half of us aren’t fucking from here, and your congress and president and generals aren’t for us. So maybe let us do a little treason, and get back to fighting the real threat to life on this ball of rock?”

  ”If we weren’t friends I’d fucking punch you.” Nate grumbled. But he said it with the kind of lack of anger that meant he was actually listening and not just trying to browbeat Ben into silence. ”We’ve got one other problem though.”

  ”No sign of any other enemy delvers while we were attacking.” James said quickly, hoping the tension would bleed off if he talked fast enough. “But I have to believe there’s more.”

  ”There are more. We’ve spotted at least two.” Nate said bluntly. “No idea what they’re after, but they’re hunting something. The only thing we can do is try to track them and be ready if they try to defend the next anchor. The important thing is getting to them. They’re farther away, and like I said, infection and injury is going to slow us down. Thoughts?”

  ”Yeah. Small team, give Pendragon layered authority protection, and use all our movement magic to close the gap at high speed.” James said, already having thought of this. “Watcher hazards are a problem, but if we stay low, and Planner only has to screen one dragon, it’s doable. I asked. So your hired goons hit one, we hit one, and bomb the third, and… that’s it. Hope that’s it. Hope we get lucky.”

  ”Hope is a stupid thing to rely on. Especially here.” Nate opined. “And luck is just probability someone’s taking personally.”

  ”Weird time to get philosophical on me.” James wanted the stoic Nate back. “Those anchors have to come down. They just have to, no question. There’s still a good chance people are still alive in there. This is a mass casualty event, for sure, but it’s not over until it’s over, and if we save even one more life, it’s worth it. If all we do is deny the Underburbs the ability to eat a pet hamster, then fuck it, no bedtime snack for the invader.”

  Nate nodded at him. “We’ll get it done. Can you do your part?”

  ”Easy as breathing.” James said, standing up with a smooth motion. He felt so much better than he had any right to; a potent combination of his continuing fitness regimen, exercise potion, endurance and energy levels, and his combined purple orbs, all working together to make him feel not just capable but good.

  ”Alright. Take a break, twenty minutes, maybe forty. When it’s time to go, you’ll know. Keep your phone on.” Nate ended the conversation, turning instantly to someone else who needed his time, working tirelessly to organize the whole effort and make sure everyone fit together into the bigger picture. “I’ll let you know when Harlan’s here.”

  ”…you hired… Harlan.”

  ”You know anyone else who owns missiles and a surplus Soviet-era attack helicopter?”

  ”I probably could if I start looking on the dark web?”

  Nate glowered at him. “Get out of our hair. I’ve got shit to do before everything kicks off.”

  James wondered if the Order should start having medals for things like this. Because if anyone deserved a merit badge for an Event, it was Nate tonight.

  But still. Harlan.

  That was going to be a trip.

  _____

  “Are you okay?” Spire-Cast Behind asked Simon, approaching her peer as he sat on a pallet of unshelved cases of soda in the back stockroom of a human grocery store, head in his hands. “You do not seem okay.”

  ”Mmmuugh?” The noise Simon made as he practically wrenched his head upward, hands getting tangled in his hair while he rolled his neck around and focused on her, was not an encouraging one. “I’m fine.” He said. “Fine.”

  Spire-Cast-Behind twitched her tail in a small motion of contempt before slithering forward and leaning her heavy frame against the packaged beverages next to him. “It wasn’t your fault.” She said. “And it wasn’t mine either.”

  ”It’s always going to be our faults. That’s what we signed up for.” Simon said. “I just… I didn’t think it would come this soon. And that’s two first terrible things in one day.”

  The camraconda tipped her security cam head sideways, curiously hissing. “One of us dying, and… the other thing?”

  ”Killed someone.” Simon said bluntly.

  ”You have killed before.”

  He shook his head, black spots forming in his vision from the sudden motion. “Not a person. Not like this.” Simon started to turn to her, but thinking about the moment made him gag and he reflexively clutched a hand to his mouth just in case he started to throw up. When he composed himself, he sucked in a shaky breath and continued. “When we hit the first Status Quo, there was lot more capturing than killing. When they hit back, I was… I was out early. So it never came up. Hell, even on delves, I’ve never killed a person, I don’t think. You know I’ve never actually seriously hurt a camraconda?”

  ”This seems unlikely. Ratroaches. Or by coincidence particularly smart striders. Something.”

  ”Maybe.” Simon leaned forward again, cupping his forehead in his palms. “Probably. I dunno, there’s a difference between that and taking a guy’s head off with a sledgehammer.”

  ”I imagine there is more feedback.” Spire-Cast-Behind wasn’t sure if she was helping or not. Or even what helping looked like in this situation. “I am sorry you are hurting.”

  Simon gave a single rough laugh. “But?”

  Sometimes Spire wished she could shrug more like humans. The limb pack she was wearing wasn’t good at it, and also she needed to conserve battery life. Also one of the arms was jammed anyway right now. “There is no but.” She said instead. “I do not want you to hurt, but I don’t know how to help.” The camraconda leaned back, most of her body pointed upward while resting on the soda next to him, both of them ignoring the pair of Wal Mart employees that were not so sneakily watching them from behind some clear plastic flaps. “This has been coming up for me often lately. Karl, the young human from Ophiem? I do not know how to help him either. How do you tell someone that they will heal from the end of their world?”

  ”I dunno, how was it for you?” Simon asked. A little bit coy, but genuinely curious too.

  Spire thought about it for a second, still looking up at the vents of this foreign warehouse. “Confusing, mostly. But my case is special.” She let out a long hiss as she kept talking, all while moving herself back into a slithering position on the floor. “You are still alive. And I am glad for that. You are in my top rankings for humans.”

  Simon watched her glide out of the back area, wondering if the camraconda was maybe just as full of nervous energy as he was as she took a rapid turn to go take the opportunity to explore a frozen food section without anyone pestering her.

  Her version of a pep talk had said nothing about helping people, or his responsibility as a paladin, or anything about their capabilities to act. But then… he already knew those things didn’t he? And while Spire’s words were short and delivered in that odd tangential way a lot of camraconda spoke in, he did feel better.

  That could be enough for tonight. He’d deal with the rest of this later, after the world was saved.

  _____

  James sat on a bus stop bench, pretending to enjoy the rapidly freezing October night air, but mostly just wanting to not be inside a place they were using as a temporary shelter, or around anyone else. Not for a little while anyway.

  Well, almost anyone. The coarse orange light of Zhu’s feathers and eyes, some of them layered on his armor, some of them poking through in places like around his collar where the navigator was tucked inside the shell, showed off his friend’s presence. While James sat with his arms limply at his sides, hands open as he focused on trying to focus on nothing at all, Zhu instead kept twisting and turning his manifested arm and talons like he was inspecting them, even though his main eye was staring in the same direction James was.

  ”Tired?” James asked softly, his voice feeling a little hoarse.

  Zhu laughed at him. “Yeah, I’m tired. But I hate this place, and I’m ready to fight. I won’t fail you this time.”

  ”You’ve never failed me.” James said reflexively. “Also what’s wrong with Missouri?”

  ”Don’t be a dumbass.” Zhu flicked at James’ cheek with the side of one of his talons, the sensation both startling and also somewhat electric on James’ skin that had spent the better part of the last four hours sealed behind a mask. “But also yes Missouri is sad so far too. People seem nice though.”

  ”Nothing like a crisis to short circuit people’s ability to form racist opinions.” James agreed. “Also there’s- hey, you’re bleeding.” His voice spiked in alarm as he caught sight of Zhu’s arm.

  “I’m not bleeding, you bleed. I’m… leaking. It’s probably oil?” Zhu turned his arm again to study the holes in his manifestation that were currently slowly dripping some kind of fluid. It glowed with a much darker orange light than the rest of him, and in a bizarre bit of infomorph functionality, James realized that when those drops hit the pavement, they didn’t vanish. They just stuck around with all the litter and grime. “You’d think I’d be more worried about this. But then, I’m part you, so, you know.”

  ”It’s oil, yeah.” A voice behind the bench said. James didn’t jump, because he’d spotted Vex coming with his drones that he was keeping low just in case, but Zhu was sure startled. His arm whipped around, spraying more of his blood onto the bench next to them and getting a surprised yelp from the woman that had approached them. “Uh… yeah, sorry. It’s oil. Weird fucking oil, but still.”

  ”How do you know?” Zhu asked as he composed himself and smoothed out his feathers.

  Vex walked around in front of the bench to lean on the metal sign with the bus schedule on it; the pole tilted like it had been hit by at least one car, or possibly the bus itself. “It’s my domain. That’s what it does. Sensing oil is a part of it; weird fukkin’ oil included. I’m guessing you got a domain for… biiiiirds?”

  ”Ah. No, sorry, not how our magic works. Yet, anyway.” James said, and noticed that Vex blinked as she processed that he and Zhu were both talking in different voices. “So, Zhu, you made of oil then?”

  ”He - he?” She pointed at the most obvious part of the navigator, and Zhu gave her a thumbs up. “Yeah, you’re not made of oil, I can only really feel through the holes you’ve got there. There’s something fucking wrong with it though, and I don’t just mean because it’s… uh…”

  ”Glowing and maybe not completely real?” Zhu offered helpfully.

  ”Yeah.”

  He blinked placidly at her. ”Yeah, I have a long term potentially fatal infection from this place we’re fighting from a while back.” Feathers slumped as James took his hand in a comforting grip and Zhu tried to keep his own mood up without clenching his manifestation hard enough to saw into his companion’s flesh. “Never really thought about what I’m filled with though! I guess I’m oil based life! That’s cool, but also really stupid?”

  ”…why?” Vex asked, the look on James’ face making her feel like she was about one full college degree behind everyone in this weird militarized cult when it came to knowledge about magic.

  Zhu pointed back at himself. “Navigator.” He said, and then when he remembered that Vex didn’t know what that meant, he spread his talons out and explained apologetically. “I’m not a car, I’m a map. Oil seems appropriate at first, but only if someone has a kind of… I guess distantly racist idea of what my species is?”

  ”Maps used to use oil paints, though. Or, like… some kind of coating? For naval charts? Am I completely wrong here?” James asked, the conversation tugging his spirit into active participation in a way that felt good in contrast to the dark events of the day so far.

  “Are you asking me about the history of human seafaring? Now?” Zhu asked sarcastically.

  James cleared his throat, itching at something on his neck. “Yes?”

  ”Well it’s not the stupidest thing you’ve ever asked me under pressure.” Zhu had to admit.

  Watching the two of them, Vex crossed her skinny arms over the biker leathers that she was wearing. “You two are a cute couple, but how can you be like this when the world’s ending?”

  James raised two fingers. “Couple mistakes there.” He said, ticking off points. “One, we’re not dating right now. But two, and more important, the world is doing fine. It’s just… here. As far as we know. And three, why are we like this? Well, Zhu said it earlier kinda. We’ve been here before. Fought this one before. It tried to swallow us up and erase us from the world, and it couldn’t manage it when we were alone and weak and sick. I’m not sure what worse shit it has in store, but so far it’s not impressing me with its ability to fight anyone who isn’t a terrified civilian.”

  Zhu, feathers fluttering, spoke in confident agreement, the exhaustion banished from his voice for a time. “Yes, this dungeon is deadly, evil, and actively trying to kill us, and it’s going to lose. But more importantly are we not dating?”

  “…when would we have started dating?”

  Zhu made a considering noise. “Maybe that was a dream. I’ve been sleeping a lot lately and your subconscious is a mess. Wait did the sex actually happen?”

  James gave Vex a pained gaze, motioning at his attached companion. “You see what I have to live with? I can’t tell if this is serious or not. My reality is so uncertain it’s like training in ten times earth’s gravity but for being shocked. The dungeon can’t surprise me after this.”

  Vex watched him and Zhu, carefully keeping an eye on the people she was tentatively trusting to help her and Mags out. And she just… didn’t understand. She was talking to someone who had a mutant bird ghost growing out of his arm, who still had at least two guns on his person and clearly knew how to use them, and who was acting almost relaxed in the face of an apocalypse. It just didn’t make any sense.

  Her girlfriend that was on this side of hell, Mags, had wanted to get help finding Astra and then fuck off, keeping contact as short as possible. But Vex wanted something else. She wanted to know these people. She wanted to know why ‘these people’ seemed to contain more species than Springfield contained ethnicities. She wanted to know what they could do, and where they found it all.

  So far, she’d gotten a little window into a few of them, and the scope of this ‘Order’ was wider than she’d expected. Nate was a constantly angry tattooed white guy, so that was something she was familiar with at least. But then Momo was some kind of incarnated being of reckless decisions and also probably depression. And now James. And Zhu, too, she supposed. And they were… just people. They were bantering like old friends, making being funny a priority while somewhere within half a mile, there were squads of their compatriots escorting the firefighters that had come in here so they could contain structure fires without getting killed by something made out of tetanus and hate.

  ”I guess it’s nice you guys are gayer than most secret cabals.” She muttered.

  It wasn’t actually intended to be something James heard, and if he’d been intending to spy on her, he would have kept quiet about his enhanced hearing range, but he wasn’t that clandestine, and he had an important question. “How many secret cabals are you up to by now?” He asked, noticing Vex’s eyes widen in alarm for a split second. “Cause we’re at… five? Six?”

  ”We could litigate that all night.” Zhu commented. “Let’s say five.”

  ”Just one for us.” Vex said, trying to keep her cool and not seem completely outdone by these dumbasses.

  ”Cool.” James didn’t really think that was cool; there were too many people who seemed to be parasitizing off of what the Order had originally called the Field Effect, and now sort of understood was a complex web of memeplexes that made basically every facet of human civilization harder. “Great. We can talk about that later.”

  “So…” Vex met one of Zhu’s eyes and tried not to get weirded out by how fucking strange it was that there was a golden-orange hawk eyeball growing off of some guy’s arm. “You want me to try to help with your oil problem?”

  ”Oh, the holes heal.” Zhu said. “This has happened before. I’ll be-“

  ”No, I mean… I mean the other part. The infection inside.”

  James and Zhu froze, every eye on them widening as they stared at her, Vex suddenly noticing that James had some kind of fucked up bird eye too, making them look like a sliding scale from one side to the other of how avian a person’s face could get. “Yes.” James said instantly. Zhu started to say something slowly and hesitantly, and James overrode him. “Yes, he means yes.” He told Vex.

  ”I do.” Zhu said. “But… how long would it take?”

  ”I dunno, hour or two?” She had no idea. Her domain wasn’t an exact science, and her abilities were esoteric enough that this might not even be possible. But if she could help, maybe they’d owe her a favor.

  Zhu slumped, eyes closing and opening in a row down James’ side as his feathers fluttered in tiny motions. ”Then I say yes, but afterward. It’s the Underburbs. So… so even if it would help, you should do it after. And we should do it with Deb watching, and a lot of different magic on standby. To keep us all safe while you try.”

  ”Also I have ten minutes before I’m going into the next dark zone.” James said. “We’re going, I guess.” He patted Zhu’s manifestation.

  “Well at least you’re incentivized to keep me alive until then.” Vex said, and instantly felt like she’d fucked up.

  James wasn’t offended though; if he got mad every time someone said something stupid while they were stressing out about a life or death situation, he’d never have time to calm down. “I’m incentivized to keep everyone alive. There’s only one ultimate fail state for a person, and that’s death. As long as someone is breathing, they can get better. And there’s a lot of people out there breathing Underburbs air, and they need us at our best.” He looked down the street to where a bus was in the process of dropping people off who looked very confused about everything going on. “Like these people, for example, need me to tell them to fuck off. Which means I’m not gonna be resting for that much longer.”

  ”Looks like your stormtroopers have it handled.” Vex pointed out as a pair of Recovery knights caught up to the bus before it pulled away and got even close to the barricade they had set up down the street.

  ”They’re not… I mean, sure.” James sighed. “Anyway. I need a little quiet before I go nearly die again. You can hang out if you want, but…”

  ”Oh, yeah, I’m gonna go find a place to sit that isn’t covered in your boyfriend’s fluids.” Vex nodded as she left, ignoring James’ weak protest that followed her while she went to find her partner and see what Mags had turned up.

  It was entirely possible this was all one giant smokescreen. That these guys were nice and everything because they were living comfortable off human sacrifice or some shit. She wanted to trust them. Really did. But no matter how nice a person was, they could still be evil, and asking questions early would have helped her and her girlfriends out a lot the last time this had come up.

  Ironically, James seemed genuinely heroic. Which, Vex admitted it was stupid, but that made him seem like the least trustworthy person she’d met so far. Nate was a dick and Momo was an idiot, but those were genuine human personalities. No one was as chill as James was.

  Maybe the bird ghost was invading his brain. That could explain it. Which made her feel a little bad that she was relying on him to clear the way so she and Mags could retrieve their own important human.

  But whatever. If he was as cool as he acted, he’d be fine with it.

  _____

  Cam had been ordered to rest and recover as much as she could in the next two hours, just like everyone else. Unlike the others, she had familiarity with short turnaround times between operations, and so she had a priority list already mentally prepared. Sharing it with the shield team that had come with them was a different experience, but they were training to be soldiers, and that meant more than just knowing how to fight. It meant knowing how to maintain yourself. And they were willing to learn; Cam respected that. Nate was no Last Line, but he was a good commander, even if he was learning a lot of it himself and faking the rest.

  First thing after the medical check was a shower. Nosebleeds and open sores and fevers had taken out half the group, not dead, but held in group quarantine until the dungeon politely informed them that they were no longer carriers of potential civilization-breaking plagues. But even ignoring the dungeon’s love of biowarfare, there was an importance to cleanliness. Blood, dirt, ichor, and asbestos from one too many destroyed walls, all of it was a potential vector for infection, or just simple irritation. And when you were going into another fight, having your trigger finger itch at the wrong time could go from an annoyance to a fatality.

  So Cam had secured the use of the locker room of a gym two blocks down the road. Showering with the others was of no concern to her; the Order’s baths were a good place to learn to be social while going through the process. But also… the baths had perhaps taught her the lesson that it was okay to enjoy the feeling of hot water. To let herself be not just scoured, but soothed. Though she still thought that the woman she asked to help clean the hard to reach parts of her wings treated it as a much more intimate experience than Cam herself saw it as.

  After that, food. Procure on site if possible, because every teleport from the Lair was someone who wouldn’t be allowed to return until the threat was absolutely contained. And that meant that Cam, in underclothes but still bearing her wings and weaponry, led a half strength shield team into a Del Taco to inadvertently terrify the staff and more intentionally get dinner.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Her first choice had been the steakhouse across the way, but they were already closed and emptied out. The staff making the informed choice to get clear of the part of the city that was turning into a blockade and warzone. Cam didn’t blame them, but she had wanted something better to eat.

  The Order had spoiled her, getting her thinking of food as anything more than just fuel. And she found she didn’t mind that much.

  Step three of the good soldier’s checklist was ensuring their gear was in serviceable condition. For the Order, this also meant that the crates of stockpiled yellow and blue orbs got put to use as well. The former absorbed by those who could to stay awake and refreshed longer, the latter cracked for tasks like repairs or restock, or absorbed as well to resupply pools of ability uses. Shield teams didn’t make use of blue powers heavily unlike most knights, but there was no point in leaving tools on the table when there was no cost to carrying them.

  And then, step four. Rest. Because the body, even her body, did not simply do what it was told without protest. Cam gave the group the task framed as a command; they should find a place to sit or lay down, and let their body and mind both have a moment to recover. They should socialize, or play games on their phones, or simply nap, it didn’t matter, but do nothing for a time. Don’t worry about the others who were still on search and rescue, their job was different, and stress wouldn’t save lives.

  Then Cam went to do something that ignored her own advice.

  “Hello sister.” Cam’s voice sounded distant to her own ears as she sat down next to the bed.

  ”Traitor.” The injured Camille replied, staring rigidly at the ceiling. “Why are you here.”

  Cam’s mouth twitched as she considered both her real answer, and her reply. As she spoke, she realized they should be the same thing. “Because even if you hate me, I do not hate you. And I am concerned about your injuries.”

  ”Father has seen to them.” The Camille said, still refusing to even shift her all too familiar eyes to look at Cam more than was required. “I will be ready to deploy when I am called upon.”

  Had Cam ever been this way, she wondered? She knew the answer; of course. Lying to oneself wasn’t how Azure’s operated. Perhaps why they were always defectors eventually, if they lived long enough. “Your armor has been restored.” She said instead of what she was actually thinking, which was more along the lines of just calling the violet an idiot. Deft fingers that had made the motion a thousand times began loosening straps and unhooking the plate. “Your visible injury is reduced, but you were not checked for injury under the plate.”

  The violet Camille finally shifted as her sister tried to pull away the platemail she was in. “Do not touch me!” She snapped, a gauntleted hand lashing out.

  Cam just let it hit her, the strike at an angle where it couldn’t do damage, and the other copy of her form not putting much power behind it anyway. “Our supposed father is many things.” She said calmly, raising her gaze to stare into her sister’s eyes, ignoring the brown-red scar that covered half her face in a spreading rootlike pattern. “But he has difficulty looking past the shield.” She yanked, and the chestplate came away, revealing a flat grey shirt underneath the metal and its padded interior, the cloth on both sides stained red. The smell of it made Cam wince. “Infection. And you said nothing.”

  ”Father said I would survive.”

  Ignoring the fool, Cam spoke into her radio. “I need a medic, back of the Wal Mart’s mattress section. If there is a specific cure for the bioattack that causes bleeding wounds on the stomach and chest, please bring that.” She stood back, wiping down her fingers with a sanitizer cloth to minimize the risk of spread. Within a minute, someone wrapped in a green film of an authority jogged to their location, medical kit in one hand.

  It took only a short look before they nodded and got to work sterilizing and bandaging the wounds, talking softly to the Camille about exactly what they were doing and even getting her to willingly swallow a pair of pills. “She’ll live. It’s a low one.” The medic said with a hoarse voice. “Infectious, but only through contact, and the vitamins reduce the time a lot. As long as she doesn’t have any other’s, it’s fine; this one mostly just softens people up for the bad stuff.” He closed his eyes for a second, swaying on his feet. “Anything else?”

  ”No, thank you.” Cam said. And then feeling like that wasn’t enough, quietly added, “She deserves more care than she was shown.”

  “Don’t we all.” The medic sighed before their radio crackled and they were off again.

  Cam looked back down at her sister, who was back to a rigid resting posture, hands at her sides, eyes fixated like laser sights on the ceiling. “You…” she stopped talking. What was there, after all, to say. That this Camille was foolish? Of course she was. They all were, herself included, up until they were not. And once they weren’t, they were discarded. That Camille could join her? Just as foolish a thing to say out loud. Her sister would reject it. That Cam, for reasons she did not understand, still felt like she was connected to this girl? That she felt like she owed this violet something for the fate that befell the last one of her color line? That she pitied her?

  Out of all the Camilles, Cam’s job as an intelligence gatherer made her the most socially adept. She wasn’t as easily swayed by basic rhetoric, she wasn’t easily verbally tricked, and she knew how to talk to normal humans like she was one of them, when she put the effort in. And she also felt like she was starting to understand there were times when nothing she had to say would be enough.

  So she said nothing, and set a trap instead.

  This Camille would not be in contact with anyone enough to be considered stolen or tainted or traitorous. Instead, the next time she returned to a safehouse and removed her armor, she would find two pieces of paper. One dungeontech, one the more mundane form of magic that was a note from someone who cared.

  Sister. With permission, I offer you a choice. If you choose to leave, stop anchoring yourself, and tear the attached page. I will find you.

  You can inform him if you wish. But I wouldn’t bother. We both know he doesn’t care, and won’t until you make your decision.

  Cam.

  A small lie, attached to the telepad. There was no permission. But there was a truth there too. She really didn’t think the Last Line would give a single stoic fuck about the priceless dungeon artifact the Order had handed her like it was just another form of ammunition.

  And maybe someday soon, she would have a real sister. Another one, to go with the two still recovering in Townton who were, apparently, never going to be taken back in by the Last Line of Defense. Too far gone, apparently. Lost to the concept of someone giving a shit about them.

  She could worry about that later. There was a war to fight, and she had to finish her checklist, and find a place to sit before it was time to fight again.

  _____

  Alex had been told to take a break.

  That sounded nice and all, but the Underburbs wasn’t resting, and she didn’t feel comfortable doing so either.

  It wasn’t like it was a huge deal, but there was a problem with roving monsters. When the dark zones got reclaimed, a lot of the living things in them couldn’t tolerate the shift and died. Maybe some kind of dungeon pressure adjustment or something. But some stuff was still out here, and as the civilian population of the field dropped due to either side claiming people, the Underburbs creatures were starting to test the blockades the Order had put up.

  And by ‘test’, what was usually meant was ‘running around them’. The blockades were to stop cars from going in. They weren’t fortress walls. At most, there was a derelict Best Buy that got used as a line where they didn’t have to worry about the dog things sneaking over. At worst, there was the rest of that empty strip mall’s parking lot, where there were just enough dumpsters and abandoned RVs to make it impossible to track the staticats that tried to slink through.

  Stuff was getting past. Even though there were armed patrols being deployed, it wasn’t enough. Those patrols were mostly the local militia and also anyone who wanted to defend their homes and was comfortable with a gun thanks to the absurd armory the local militia had stockpiled, but the Order tried to put a knight or two in each of them just because that kind of expertise made everyone safer. It wasn’t enough to stop everything, just because it wasn’t enough to cover all the miles and miles of border.

  Alex had no idea why the dungeon seemed like it was actively hunting people. No one really did. Research was on the ground and deploying a half dozen weird fucking tools they’d made to ‘take readings’, and they weren’t pretending that they knew what it was doing either.

  And ultimately, it didn’t matter.

  Alex blurred through the air as she spotted a team in trouble from the rooftop of her derelict Best Buy fortress. They didn’t know they were in trouble, but she could see them getting encircled as the four-man team tried to shoot a maneuvering quadruped shape. They didn’t know because having a good elevation for spotting was a liability with the Underburbs, which Alex fucking hated; paladin training had just started to drill into her the capacity and habit of having a spy drone active at all times, and now, doing that would cause her bones to explode and her fingernails to melt. So being up high here was a risk too, just because she could see more and might accidentally spy a watcher hazard after it had a chance to set up, but she was taking the small risk.

  Whatever Alex had stolen from the murderer she’d taken out, it hadn’t come with an instruction manual. But she was feeling it out. The supply of it, like an electric tingle sensation coating her bones and filling her flesh when she used it, was less limited than she’d thought. It would slowly refill over time. But it did seem like every use slowed it down, or maybe degraded the cap. She didn’t know, it wasn’t like it was measurable.

  What she did know was that she could use it to speed up, and, importantly, to slow down that imparted speed. The coordination was a nightmare, but at least her Sewer lesson let her time every action right, even if she couldn’t always pull off what she knew was the correct pattern of steps.

  This time she got it right. Flashing forward and then stopping most of her motion when she was a foot off the ground, soles of her feet sliding forward on the sticky mud of the dirt lot as she landed. Her arm slashed out, no restraint on the speed there until it was through with the arc, and the sword she was holding cleaved halfway through the flanking orb dog before it knew she was there. Then she vanished and did it again to the one on the other side, though it cost more lightning to run around the rusted out RV in her way.

  [Killer - Low : +1 Skill Point]

  Afterward, her shoulder hurt like a motherfucker. Selectively not arresting her speed was a great way to rip her own bones out if she wasn’t careful.

  But if she was too careful, people would get hurt.

  Alex went back to her break, waiting for when they were supposed to go kick in the last row of the Underburbs’ teeth. Wondering if the delvers on the other side that she knew were out there were having the mirror to her own thoughts. Lounging around and thinking about how cool it would be when they killed a bunch of people and ruined a bunch of lives.

  It was important to not dehumanize the enemy, Alex knew. But that was sort of the problem. The enemy was a little too human.

  That was fine. She had a sword for the monsters, and, as she already knew it worked, a gun for the monsters that were shaped like humans.

  ”This is the least restful break I’ve ever had, and I’m friends with Deb.” Alex complained softly to herself as she tried to stop her runaway grim thoughts.

  _____

  Three or maybe four years ago, James and Anesh had been going into Officium Mundi for one of the first times on purpose. Anesh had just figured out that the chemistry department at the local university would help you make basically anything dangerous as long as you looked like a math student in over his head, and James had figured out how to do some simple tracking and also how to use a webcam.

  They’d killed a tumblefeed together. Taking down their first creature that dropped a green orb, and then going out to get a really late dinner together at the only diner that was open at that hour afterward. It had been terrifying, exciting, and also they’d both smelled burning rubber for the next three days as the smell stuck in their clothes.

  But the orb, that first green orb, had done two things. Most importantly, it had opened up a new horizon; the idea that they could change places. And once they started to have the outline of the Order, the force multiplier of any given green orb could be a defining trait for dozens of daily lives.

  The other, slightly less important thing, was that it had given James four whole skill ranks in indirect fire weaponry.

  That hadn’t been useful even after the events of Townton had left the Order in possession of a military mortar and the ammo to use it. He’d been busy, and there were a few people who’d been in the army who basically had their organic skill ranks anyway.

  There was some debate over what, exactly, a skill rank from the Office was worth. One rank made someone competent, that much wasn’t in question. Two ranks, though, how much better did that make a person? It was actually hard to tell, hard to measure. It was definitely some, because they could compare, but it wasn’t like they knew how many ‘ranks’ organically learned experts in subjects had.

  What was clear was that when you started to get up to four or five ranks, you were looking at a comfortable mastery of a subject. Not complete mastery, there were some weird gaps, but a confident and reliable ability to produce hands-on practical results.

  ”Ranging shot.” James called, loud enough to be heard over the double layer of earmuffs and shooting earplugs. A moment later, a pressurized exhalation from the portable artillery gun washed out over him and the two others nearby. Everyone else was farther back, but keeping a perimeter; they weren’t in the Underburbs, but this was definitely a contested neighborhood.

  Launched on a stream of flame that quickly went dark, the mortar shot vanished into the sky, target several miles distant. Seconds passed, and then, the distant noise of a wartime blast.

  Manifesting around the knight acting as James’ loader, Planner twisted two of his tentacles around. “Covering drone footage. Checking.”

  James already knew he’d hit something though. Though what was up in the air; he’d never seen this particular moniker before.

  [Killer - Tidal : +3 Skill Points]

  ”Got it.” The spotter said, eyes closed as he looked through the drones that Planner was keeping the watcher hazards out of. “Close hit. Estimate ten meters at two seventy.” James began to make the adjustment to their emplacement, just as one of Planner’s manifested eyes popped like a grape and the infomorph started screaming. “Shit!” The spotter knight yelled, ripping out his own skulljack braid as the fastest way to shut down all incoming sights. “Plan!”

  ”Hurts! Hurts!” The infomorph wailed as the thick tentacle the eye had been on leaked what looked like cold blue light. “How?!”

  ”It’s finding ones that can hurt you. We can’t keep pulling this trick.” James said as he finished lining up the next shot. “Get out of here. Stick with Nate and Ben, okay? We’ll… you’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. This won’t happen again.” He looked at the knight next to him. “Load.” He instructed through their link so he didn’t have to yell.

  The mortar shell looked like the most deadly thing James had ever seen. A football with wings and a tail, his instinct was to never touch it because he knew it would explode on contact. But his skill ranks overrode that paranoia with false experience, the knowledge of exactly what it could tolerate and how safe it was. At least for their side.

  Planner faded away, and James double checked where he’d ratcheted the mortar to. Then he took a breath, and forced his jaw to relax. “Ready! Fire for effect!” He yelled and sent, preparing the others as he ignored the pop of gunshots from nearby.

  This one wasn’t one of the ones Myles had… borrowed… for them. This was the last of the high explosive shells that they’d gotten from the ruins of Townton, and James made it count. As soon as it was in the air, he had a feeling that he’d done it right. He started packing up the mortar before it even landed, not counting the seconds to impact like the other two were. By the time it hit, his deft gloved fingers had them ready to move, which was good, because they needed to move if they were going to line up their attack with Harlan’s strike.

  Harlan was here. James was deeply uncomfortable with that. But Nate had grudgingly vouched for the mercenary’s code of business, and Harlan’s squad did have their own air support. In theory it should be nice having someone else to commiserate about how shitty the Underburbs was to survive, but Harlan had apparently forgotten it all already, so that was off the table. James didn’t even talk to them, just letting Nate handle giving them orders and open initiative as long as they moved in concert with the paladin team.

  The high explosive shell landed in the distance, and demolished the anchor. It didn’t kick the dungeon out; they’d need to send someone to do that. But it made everything so much easier. Also it nearly overwhelmed James with the number of informative alien thoughts pounding into his skull.

  [Killer - Low : +1 Skill Point]

  [Killer - Shallow : +3 Skill Points]

  [Killer - Low : +1 Skill Point]

  [Killer - Deep : +5 Skill Points]

  [Killer - Low : +1 Skill Point]

  [Killer - Low : +1 Skill Point]

  [Killer - Low : +1 Skill Point]

  …

  And on and on. James hadn’t been doing a great job tracking his skill point count to begin with, and the sudden influx of over a hundred more, all broken into small chunks, ensured he’d never really know the exact number until he zeroed out his balance later.

  And it didn’t matter. What, was he going to stock up on sixty ranks of screwdriver skill? That sounded a little silly. And right now there was something more important to do.

  ”Mount up!” He called, removing one layer of ear protection as he broke off from his mortar team, leaving the weapon with them. They’d be taking the ride back with the ground vehicles. James, meanwhile, ran for Pendragon, his form cutting an orange line through the night as he and Zhu lit up the way to the drake that had uncomfortably ridden on the roof of the APC on the way here. “One more! Who’s ready!”

  ”We want it known that this is terribly uncomfortable.” Dave and Pendragon announced as the four paladins along with Cam and Frequency-Of-Sunlight made themselves comfortable in her flanks. The dragon had blinders on, and previously they’d been going to rely on drone spotting with Planner screening for hazards to guide the duo in. But now, that wasn’t an option. So the dragon and her pilot were fully blinded, and would be relying on the most detailed map and GPS that the Order could provide. Pen had eaten a couple dungeontech items before that gave her near perfect knowledge of her own distance traveled and directional heading, but that still meant there was a lot of guessing, and flying through the night without being able to see where they were.

  Their target was a UPS warehouse. The most covered of the anchor points out of the three, and also the one with the largest roof for them to drop onto. And if they were lucky, the notification James had gotten for his ranging shot was because he’d taken out the enemy delvers.

  Probably not though.

  ”I both love and hate this.” Zhu announced as Pendragon launched into the air, paper and aluminum wings hammering them upward as she and Dave poured power into the limbs. “Because flying in a friend is always nice, but I am certain we are going to run into a telephone pole this way.”

  ”Certain because you’re part me and you’ve got an anxiety disorder, or certain because you’re a navigator and that’s actually gonna happen?” James asked as he reflexively tried to buckle up before realizing this ‘pod’ of Pendragon didn’t have a seatbelt. The comment was mostly a joke. Zhu would definitely tell them if it was the latter.

  “Are you seriously bantering now?!” Alex’s voice came to them bounced around inside Pendragon’s ribs.

  There was a noise from Cam that came so close to being a laugh, James wanted to cheer at it. “Of course they are. They are predictable idiots.”

  ”You’re bantering too now!” Sunny called out as Pendragon dipped slightly before righting her flight path.

  ”You are encouraging them.” Spire-Cast-Behind added with an amused confidence.

  The dragon was covering distance fast, unburdened by petty things like ‘any object less than twenty feet tall’. But they still had a few minutes before they were over their target, so James, comforted by the people who had chosen to dive into hell alongside him, used what time was left for something a little more substantial than joking. “Alright, listen up!” He called to all of them. “We’re going to land on the roof, just in case! The objective is simple! Find the anchor, and take it out!” James paused and mentally sorted through who was here with him. “It’s likely the enemy delvers will be here. If we encounter any of them, Simon, Sunny, let the rest of us screen for you and get the anchor, okay? Cam, don’t rely on your bulletproof ass either. Got it?”

  Simon’s return yell over the rushing air outside would have sounded indignant if it weren’t so obviously relieved. “If we need it, I can fight too!” He offered, though his heart wasn’t in it, and James could fucking tell.

  ”Sure. But you can also take out i-beams with your build, right? So it’s you or-“ James stopped talking with an alarmed yelp that mixed with Zhu’s own squawk as Pendragon lurched to the side. “Are we there?! Davedragon?!”

  “Something hit me!” Pendragon’s mixed voice carried confusion that rapidly turned to terror. “Something hit me!? They’re shooting at us!”

  James swore. Pendragon was a lot of things, and when she and Dave were mixed together, the combined person was both intelligent and fearsome. But Pen was still alive, and being shot was horrifying. “Bracers!” James yelled the reminder, trusting the Dave part of the gestalt to set them to something useful. “How close are we?”

  “Close.” Zhu spoke up just to James, because their pilot and aircraft was busy twisting in midair and sending the passengers sliding in their seats. “Quarter mile.”

  “Hang on!” Was all the warning the group got before Pendragon rolled. The whole body of the dragon whipping sideways, sending James slamming face-first into the paper scale that separated him from a thirty foot fall straight down, until the dragon’s movement turned so he was facing up and falling backward into the ‘seat’ with enough force to knock the wind out of him. “Ow, ow, something is wrong!” Dave’s voice shouted the words, while Pendragon’s own voice screamed into the night.

  James saw what was wrong pretty quickly. Normally Pendragon was resistant - practically immune - to high power impacts. The dungeontech binder she’d eaten just turned the force into more paper. It meant her grooming routine was a bit extensive, and the Order made regular trips to the recycling depot, but it also meant she couldn’t get shot down.

  But now, around the upper edge of the paper scale that James was facing, there were black moldy lines creeping inward.

  ”Infection!” He shouted, at the same time that Spire was calling out something similar from the pod next to his. “New plan! Pendave, get us low enough to jump, then teleport out!” Alex was already on the other half of the plan; sending details to Deb and getting the medic team ready to receive a bus sized patient that was going to need to have a lot of her body scoured or possibly torn away before the rapidly growing mold spread into her organs. “Dave!”

  ”We hear!” Pendragon snapped. Another impact shook her body, everyone inside making noises of alarm or pain as they were tossed about. Pendragon’s fresh scream cut through the Underburb’s eternal night, adding to the noise as she lost altitude in an uncontrolled fall.

  James braced himself. Arms trying to hold his armored body in place against Pendragon’s paper form, Zhu grabbing on to an overhead cord to add to how stable they were. His mask had been slapped into the wall hard enough that it was only half on his face, and something had caught in his hair and fucked up his ponytail enough that there were strands of it poking into his eyes, but all of that took second place to the sudden sense of plummeting, and then, the stop.

  The crash could have seen them sliding for several blocks, but Pendragon hit something big enough to stop her high speed body first. The others with authorities were yelling to their companions to help, but James could only barely hear over the ringing in his ears. He’d hit his head, and the sliver of the outside that he saw through where Pendragon’s scale had wedged open was swimming in his vision, the inside of the pod now completely dark except for Zhu’s light.

  ”Ow.” James slurred.

  ”Shit, you’re concussed.”

  ”Can’t be.” James wheezed out as the ringing in his ears resolved itself into the sound of a half dozen car alarms declaring their allegiance outside. “I’m too annoyed to be concussed.” He tried to figure out which way his stomach was trying to go, and failed. “Am I looking up or down?” He asked Zhu.

  ”Down. I’m holding us here.”

  James didn’t nod, because that sounded like it would hurt like hell. ”Let go.” He said, and was ready to slide his feet through the gap, shoving aside the broken piece of Pendragon as the duo dropped to the pavement.

  Standing up was a little wobbly, but not too bad. Overhead, Pendragon looked like a shaggy variant of herself, the damage from the impact mostly turned into more and more paper that made her look almost floofy. Except for the rot trying to chew through it. Maybe the damage would be a perverse shield, James wasn’t sure. Alex sure didn’t seem happy, the girl crawling out of the side of Pen that was sticking up in the air. “Simon!” She was yelling at where one of the passenger pods was pinned shut by a piece of bent metal. “Spire!”

  ”Can’t get out.” Frequency-Of-Sunlight’s voice wasn’t a yell, but she had turned her volume up as far as she could. “What do.”

  A hit from the inside of the pod next to them signaled Cam trying to punch her way out of the obstruction, but all she got for her trouble was buried in paper. James could feel her swearing, even though she didn’t say anything. He was trying to formulate a plan, when Alex made eye contact with him and saw him swaying on his feet with the distant stare of someone who’d just been made to headbutt a wall.

  Something in Alex’s eyes changed, and she took charge of the situation. “James, get Spire out, now! Simon, telepad. Get Pen and Dave back for medical. Return if you can. Cam stop punching you’re making it worse. Stay here if you can when Pen teleports!” She flickered and was no longer standing on top of Pendragon’s body. “The rest of us keep going. Zhu, if you don’t have a concussion, make sure you guys have a telepad ready.”

  A chorus of assent followed, making Alex pause for a second before she shook off the abrupt realization of what she was doing, and took a look around the street they were on.

  James got Spire um-wedged a few seconds before the telepad popped the dragon and the remaining passengers away, Alex’s authority flowing back to sheath her head in a green plate helmet just before the others vanished.

  ”Nice hat.” James said. “Also Cam’s gone. That’s probably not good.”

  ”Keep low.” Spire-Cast-Behind told him, pressing herself up against the wheel well of the pickup truck that was currently screaming its electronic heart out about being body slammed by a dragon. “Sniper.”

  ”Right.” James looked around them. Not much here, just a gas station they’d mercifully missed hitting, the lights still on in its little convenience store; a few old single story houses that might be small businesses; a defiantly intact taco truck; and a traffic light at the intersection that was blinking with a constant dull red throb. Also fog. The wispy pale mist of the Underburbs that brought light but didn’t emit anything past its edges. It was everywhere, and James didn’t need the repeated clicking of the dungeon detector on his belt to tell him where he was. This was more like what he’d expected fighting the Underburbs. Bullshit, head trauma, and isolation. “They’ll be coming for us.” He realized. “We never got a final count, but at least two other delvers. Split up, take the house…”

  Alex noticed it at the same time James did. “The houses are all the same.” She said, stopping her movement and ducking back down behind the truck with Spire while James - mostly directed by Zhu - scampered to his own piece of cover, gloves keeping his hands safe as he knelt behind a low brick wall that covered the corner of the intersection. Though he wasn’t sure which way the enemy was coming from, so it might be worse than useless. “Dogs!” Alex switched from verbal to their link as she pointed out different spots where the things that definitely weren’t dogs were posted up around the houses in the area. Four or five that could be seen for each building, their unmoving forms blending into the mist.

  And from where they were standing, changes emanated. Original architecture, even if it was run down and old, shifted to the template that the Underburbs used. Houses became houses. Everything that made them unique worn away and replaced. “Hate that.” James sent back. “But they’re not attacking, so stay quiet and wait for our problems to arrive.”

  ”They are watching us already.” Spire sent, adding a visual ping to the rooftop of a house two blocks distant. “Or trying to. I do not know if they have seen us.”

  “How many?” James didn’t have an angle to see and didn’t dare send a drone up here.

  ”Two.” Alex sent back, peeking around the edge of the truck. “One has a rifle.”

  ”They’re closing in.” Spire added. “How do we handle this? Let you do the talking?”

  ”I’ll let you know.” James shot back, pressing himself low against the wet earth as he heard the thud of one person, then another, landing on the dungeon-altered shingles of the building he was in the shadow of.

  And then he heard a man’s voice, with a playful little Russian accent. “Are you certain you hit them?”

  The woman that replied to him didn’t sound Russian, but did sound pissed off. “You bloody damn saw the beastie fall down! Don’t blame me if they got whisked away!”

  ”No one flies when they can teleport.” The man’s voice said with the kind of confidence that James wanted to agree with if he weren’t currently trying to murder them. “Does not matter. They are gone. We will be rewarded for one, maybe two bites.”

  His partner spat over the edge of the building, the glob of saliva hitting the mud close enough that James heard it. “Facking awful game this time. At least Mario is dead. Hated that cunt.”

  ”You hate everyone.” The man reminded her, stepping around on the roof. James dared to move just enough to turn his eyes up to the edge of the building, just in case someone looked down at this stupid angle. “Mario was useful. But yes, I am annoyed our prey has left. I wanted to extract from them.”

  ”Eh, we’ve got that one girl.” The woman said with a shrug. “I wanted one of the snakes, but fuck with it, can’t get everything. Not like we won’t see them again I bet I bet.”

  ”Mmh.” The man grunted. And then began to suck in a long breath, which coincided perhaps not by coincidence with the light-fog pulling and shifting around the area. “We are being watched.” He said.

  ”Oh good! Maybe I can get a real meal!” The woman’s glee suddenly spiked to an almost manic level. “What way? What way Gregor?!”

  ”Calm.” The man said, breathing heavily again, and pulling more and more mist in, gloomy dungeon darkness starting to take over the street.

  James felt like the skulljack link was somehow going to sound like a gunshot when he sent a message, but he did so anyway. “Hey, I’ve decided talking is a bad idea. Alex, fireball ‘em.”

  ”They likely have someone we know as prisoner.” Spire sent back. “If we kill them now, we might not find their captive, whoever she is.”

  ”If we kill them now, they can’t kill her first.” James pointed out. “Do it. While we have the initiative.”

  Alex wasn’t sure what it meant to be a paladin, really. If you’d asked the version of her that had existed before all of this if she’d ever kill someone in cold blood, she would have been offended and probably pretty angry about it. But right now, all she could think about was that these two assholes standing on the roof across the street were not only looking for people to harvest the loot drops from, but also expected to be rewarded for their part in bringing the Underburbs out to murder who even fucking knew how many people.

  This was less murder, and more active self defense against someone who was currently trying to kill her. The fact that they hadn’t spotted her first didn’t matter; Alex was under no obligation to give her murderers a fair chance.

  She opted for the unignorable version of an alpha strike. Cocking the incredibly dangerous nerf gun as quietly as she could, and then opening up on the rooftop with a cluster shot before cocking the gun rapidly and doing it again. Under three seconds and six screaming orbs of red-orange plasma carved burning holes out of the upper part of the building and the people standing there.

  ”We are being shot at!” The man - Gregor - announced.

  ”I facking know!” The woman’s reply was cut by a scream of pain as one of the fireballs got her and she tumbled through a smoking gap in the rooftop to slam into the ground on her side, eyes widening as she saw James laying in a similar position and looking back at her with a cold eyed stare. She was missing her left leg, mouth open in a shocked expression of pain as she splattered mud upward from her fall, a long matte black rifle falling alongside her to stick barrel-down in the churned muck of the yard.

  And then James met her widening eyes, took a half second to say a flat and unpleasant “Hi”, and pulled the trigger on his rifle to maker her day significantly worse.

  Shouts and more fireballs overhead meant that the other man was still alive, but Alex could handle that. James let Zhu help push him to a kneeling position as he let the highly illegal full-auto mod on his rifle empty twenty five .308 rounds into her head and torso before he used his bracelet to reload and double that without letting go of the trigger.

  It would have been more brutal if the woman hadn’t blocked most of it, her hand that wasn’t pinned down and possibly broken blurring as she intercepted most of the bullets James was sending downrange. But while her hand seemed fine, the rest of her sure didn’t, and a quick flick of the rifle downward to her belly and remaining leg where she couldn’t easily reach got better results, blowing gory holes in her form. Shooting someone in the groin felt mean to James, but he’d apologize later, if she lived, and wasn’t still trying to eat people.

  The damage was enough to put a hardened veteran into shock and be assuredly lethal for your average human. But while she kept screaming in pain, she didn’t stop blocking what she could, and struggling to pull herself backward. And James ran out of time when, responding to her sound, the first of the bulbous dog-things rounded the corner at a bound and made a bee-line for him. And it wasn’t alone, four, maybe five more rushing after it. Alex and Spire sending alerts about their own incoming enemies.

  James switched where he was shooting just long enough to down the first one, then the second, before realizing he didn’t have the time or ability to hit everything that was going to be a problem. Putting the rest of his current magazine into the woman’s fallen rifle and hopefully rendering it useless, he let the joints of his legs bend around the wall he was backing against and rolled over it in a motion that made the world spin in his vision, before he started running across the street to gain ground. Keeping to behind cover when he could, since Alex was still clearly trying to hit the man on the roof that somehow wasn’t dead, James put down three more dogs that were bounding for the group as he tried to circle for a flanking angle.

  [Killer - Low : +1 Skill Point]

  He was moving through the intersection, rapidly using up his last casts of Appointed Arrival to cover distance erratically and putting bursts of fire down onto the roof just to keep the man hunched up there alert, when suddenly something hit him in the chest. James had just enough time to realize that the enemy delver, Gregor, was standing in front of him in the mostly dark intersection, before he was struck in the chest by an uppercut that was embarrassingly telegraphed and James should have been able to redirect or block.

  But the next thing he knew, he was blinking pained stars out of his vision, his armor having mostly saved him from getting cut up by the plate glass window of a gas station convenience store that he’d been punched into.

  ”He doesn’t see us.” Spire sent, and James nodded numbly as he failed to acknowledge the message digitally. “Moving to get an angle.”

  The crunch of boots on glass sounded, and an imposing figure stepped into the light of the gas station. Gregor was a little taller than James, with a lowered hood pooled around his neck and a thick if somewhat scorched bomber jacket and jeans. He looked like a normal man, even if his goatee would have made him a shoe in for an audition to be a villain in an action movie, and despite having several guns and knives openly worn on his person. “So.” He said in his low Russian voice. “You are the problem.”

  ”Oh good, he’s a monologuer.” James squeaked out breathlessly, struggling to pull himself out of the plate glass he was lodged in without making his situation worse.

  ”I have the luxury.” Gregor nodded in acknowledgement, confidence in his own survival radiating off him as a whole pack worth of the bulbous dogs fanned out around his back among the gas pumps and the one car abandoned in the parking space here. “Now. You will tell me who you are. And I will let you die quickly. That is a good trade, yes?”

  There were all kinds of ways James and Zhu’s combined intellect could come up with to tell this man to go fuck himself. But, the shared bond between the two was capable of formulating even through James’ mild concussion, there was an opportunity here.

  Zhu couldn’t quite talk to James normally, not without actually speaking. But right now, he was pushing one impulse as hard as he could, and James, barely able to grasp it, agreed.

  In both of their experiences, people like this said way too much when they thought they were winning.

  James let himself sag backward, defeated in appearance. He coughed once to sell the scene. And also because his lungs ached. “Yeah.” He said with acted bitterness. “You win this one. Let’s talk.”

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