Dante

  Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.

  --Sun Tzu

  People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.

  --Ursula K. Le Guin

  The Dragons each rock with one more massive explosion as Arden’s mech uses its fists and chain to crush the life out of the one trying futilely to crush her in return.

  “Incoming!” Foresight announces, his voice ringing out from my smartwatch as I land on a massive, rising counterweight overlooking the battle. “And… outgoing!”

  “What?” I ask sharply, casting a quick look around, but he’s already answering.

  “Dragons!” he explains. “Smaller ones,” he clarifies hastily. “The wisps the Precept’s people don’t collect are turning into tiny versions of the big ones. And they’re heading for the Library and that point in the sky the mech came through…”

  My chain snaps out and whipcracks a dozen of them into oblivion as they crest the edge of the cylindrical weight I’m perched on.

  “…And for you,” Foresight finishes.

  “If what she said was true about there being a control system for the wormhole in our world…” Logos begins.

  “I get it,” I tell them, glancing over to confirm Anton made it to a matching counterweight on the other side of the main battle. “Can we stop them?”

  “Not in both directions, but if we can finish these two you could retreat to the Library and fall back to our world from there, eliminating whatever intruders you can find on either side of the portal you came through,” Legios remarks. “I’ve yet to find anything I can hack in these creatures, even using the Circle’s nonsense.”

  “Which leaves the direct application of force,” Logos concludes. “Open battle.”

  “More like snipe hunting, if the snipes were real.” I get a sense of Legios shrugging. “But, whatever.”

  The mech is suddenly covered in sheets of raw lightening as plasma blasts from its open hands through the wavering form of the coiling Dragon around it. With a crack of thunder and air reeking of ozone, the Dragon at last shatters in its grasps.

  And hundreds of wisps explode from his form, racing away in all directions. I’m sure I see at least dozens transform into these mini-Dragons my AIs are discussing.

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  Which seems ominous.

  But Arden’s mecha staggers and I look again, realizing her machine looks almost spent. The other Dragon is closing in, and I’m running short on weapons to engage with.

  “Almost there!” Andi calls out over the comms.

  “Incoming!” Christopher announces. “Friendlies. And not just us, it looks like.”

  “Try to stop the outbound baby Dragons,” I tell him without looking up. “Anton, let’s get back to the Library and do the same thing there as we fall back. We need to keep these things from the wormhole controls, or they’ll be able to bring through, or block, anything they want.”

  “Wormhole controls?” Anton, Andrea and Christopher ask simultaneously.

  “Something Kestrel built, apparently,” I say. “Just understand we need to keep the Earth from being invaded from multiple universes, and it gets a lot simpler.” I look across at Anton. The Library isn’t even directly below us, but its entrance has to be at least a hundred yards below us.

  “No big deal, then,” Anton says wryly.

  I meet his eyes from across the gulf of air separating us, and nod towards the one building still left in this strange pocket universe.

  “You good?” I ask.

  He raises the partially folded-up parasail. “Ready when you are.”

  I nod. “Then… go!” I leap, firing one of the handy rappelling lines from its launcher. I tag a weight some ways below me, drop hard into a long swing taking me under the giant clock counterweight and…

  The line snaps free, and I’m falling.

  And firing my other rappelling line so smoothly it’s like I planned it that way. Which I did. Which is too bad, since crazy spontaneity backed by crazier reflexes might serve me better here than thinking my way through the problem.

  I can’t shake the sense we’re trying to outthink something very smart here, and our best bet is to move faster than it can keep up.

  My other spools back into its launcher, and I can see the gleam of the adhesive coating the mini-grapnel at its tip. Ripped away before by the force of my drop, not any lack of potency.

  I fire it again, snag a final chain smoothly rising between me and the building, and swing from there to the sidewalk by the side entrance, just as Anton lands beside me with a thump and a whoosh of retracting parasail cloth. I can feel cold radiating from it like a window into an Arctic storm. He angles his 4-foot by 6-foot makeshift shield behind himself as he rushes with me for the open door.

  We get inside, jump a smoldering crater blasting diagonally through the lower floors – one of the shots where a Dragon tried to vaporize just a few minutes ago – and we run through the halls for the base of the clock tower I came through maybe 15 minutes prior.Or maybe a lifetime. It certainly feels like that.

  We hop Circle bodies strewn across our path. I’d almost forgotten how many of their troopers I’d taken down on my way out the door.

  To my right, something hisses, then explodes in a blast of raging plasma.

  I lunge sideways. Anton snaps his parasail around as he jumps the other way.

  And the mini-Dragon we’ve discovered sweeps his blue-green fire first harmlessly across Anton’s oddly repellent cloth. The backwash of energized particles rushes back at the reptile itself, causing it to jump back in startlement. The creature doesn’t appear harmed where the plasma touches it, however.

  And it turns its gaze to me.

  And catches the end of my chain dead center in its forehead. And promptly explodes.

  I take shelter in a doorway as plasma scatters while Anton hides behind his parasail and then we charge forward again.

  “First of many, I’m sure,” I remark. “Keep your eyes open.”

  Anton nods. “Any idea where these wormhole controls they’re heading for are?” he asks.

  “Until 10-minutes ago, I didn’t know there was a wormhole,” I answer. “Let’s take these out, hope they’re leading us to it, and do what we can with drones and AI to track them on the far side. Assuming the Circle’s whole Earthside army isn’t waiting for us when we get there.”

  I whip the chain around my forearm just before we go back into the clocktower base, and grab two more spare rifles from the very unconscious Circle cannon fodder laying in the corridor. Anton picks one up as well.

  We meet each other’s gaze from either side of the shattered door I’d previously emerged from and, without a word, move to cover the shaft with our rifles from the entrance.

  Tiny Dragons roar their rage and unleash their power. And we fire in return.

  For a moment I’m dazzled. And grateful for it. Because as my eyes and mind clear, I realize what I’ve seen.

  The inner walls of the clocktower are covered with miniature Dragons, all swarming upward. The ones we’re fighting are just those on the floor waiting for their chance to climb.

  As we exchange fire with those groundbound creatures, I see a thousand pairs of eyes turn to look straight at us.

  And for a frozen moment of silence, I hear the indrawn breath of a thousand pairs of lungs.

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