“System,” I said.

  [“Hello, thief.”]

  No blue screen this time. No messages. Just that mechanical voice.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I shouted into the air. “I never said to start the Universal Survival Protocol.”

  [“Yes, you did.”]

  “No, I didn’t.”

  [“Yes,”] it paused, [“You did.]

  “No,” I paused. “I didn’t. When did I say to start the USP?”

  [“You said, ‘we need to start the USP’.”]

  It sounded vaguely right. I had said something like that but not in that context. Surely not. I thought back on what I’d said and it came to me. This machine was dumber than I thought.

  “No, you idiot. I said I’m thinking we need to start the USP.”

  [“So you agree with me? You said it. Anyway, I think you have bigger concerns on your mind right now.”]

  “What bigger con–”

  Something smashed through the windows, shards of glass flying everywhere. I was lucky I had my back to the door. Everyone ducked, Carmen screamed, and I was the only one who saw the violet gems that littered Kaelyn’s bracer glow as she blinked out of existence. Of course she’d abandon us. She’d only known us for a couple of hours. How did she manage to leave though?

  “KEEP YOUR HANDS UP. DO NOT MAKE SUDDEN MOVEMENTS. AND EXIT THE VEHICLE.” The announcement came over a loudspeaker but I was vaguely aware of movement outside the car. Kian gave me a look that I knew meant there was no way out of this. He was calm. He’d been in these situations before. Was used to police. I’d also had my fair share of run-ins with them, though maybe not as the centre of a global manhunt. Charlotte wasn’t fazed either – she’d been around police aplenty. She’d met Kian whilst visiting her brother in prison. That and she was a professional fighter – she needed a certain calm under pressure. Only Carmen looked terrified, hands frantically reaching for the door.

  “Calm down, Carmen.” She looked at me, pure terror in her eyes. “No sudden moves. Stay calm.”

  Kian put the windows down and put his hands out. “We are getting out of the car,” he shouted out. “Do not shoot.” He turned to the rest of us and nodded to indicate we should open our doors. “Slowly.”

  We all opened our doors, but I remained seated whilst the other three were given orders to come towards the police and get on the ground, hands behind their backs. They complied.

  “RIVER CLARKE. GET OUT OF THE CAR NOW.”

  “I cannot,” I shouted back. I stuck frail hands out of the door as I turned my body. “You can come check for yourself.

  Several officers approached my door from both directions of the pavement. Cautiously. They weren’t about to be caught off-guard again. Looking around, I noticed the cars that had stopped earlier a few metres ahead, with their tinted windows. Undercover police. I wondered how they had found us so soon.

  As the armed police in their tactical gear drew closer, they seemed to be having doubts about who I was. One of them shouted to me to remove my hood and I did, and though they looked no less confused, they also had to accept that instead of the twenty-eight year old in the prime of his life young man they had expected, the frail, old man on his last legs in front of them was River Clarke. Unless there was someone else out there, with a gem embedded in their forehead.

  “I can’t move very well,” I said. “I’ll need help to be taken to your cars.”

  One of them nodded at a couple of others and pointed towards me. Those two dropped their weapons, fingers still pressed to the side of the triggers and came towards me, using their free hands to pat me down. The one patting the front of my hoodie raised an eyebrow as he carefully reached in and pulled out the revolver I was carrying. I acted like I didn’t know it was there. He placed it on the bonnet of the car. The other one grabbed my ciggies, lighter and phone out of my bottoms.

  The phone. Was that how they had found us? For all that true crime I had watched, I was just as stupid as those geniuses committing their crimes, leaving a trail of evidence behind. But come on now, I wasn’t a bona-fide criminal. I knew my way around police from my younger years, but now I spent my days with spreadsheets and my evenings with screens.

  Who the hell would even think about the ways you might be tracked? I’ll tell you who. Someone who was the most wanted man on earth and smarter than me, that’s who. This is what happens when you have too much to track, too much to think about. Like getting ready for a last-minute trip abroad and realising you left your passport at home only after getting to the airport. I didn’t think I was the kind of person who would do that. I thought wrong.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The two men wrapped their free arms beneath mine, wrapped their hands around my back and helped me get out of the car and then walked me away from the vehicle towards the waiting police cars that had activated their sirens. There must have been at least fifty to sixty officers as I was gently marched into the road towards a waiting police van. I saw the others in the road, face down, cuffs on their wrists, as the two officers helped me into the small seat to one side of the van and sat me down gently. It was a confined space, a metre in length at most, a metal barrier to my right, the van doors to my left.

  My friends were surrounded by police rifling through their pockets. Others were checking Kian’s SUV. The two that had helped me, stood guard, backs to everything else, eyes carefully on me. I wondered where Kaelyn was. How she had managed to give them the slip. Those were mana-stones on her bracers. They had to be. Were they like mine? They obviously weren’t Divine artifacts. Otherwise, she would be just as hunted as I was. Well, I didn’t know that for sure, to be honest. Who knew how the Pantheon and the System truly worked. Maybe Kaelyn was their ally. Maybe she and the System had fed us some bullshit to keep me in place for exactly this.

  Suddenly, a deafening thunderstrike roared amongst us, as if lightning was right above our heads. I flinched and cowered, before looking up to the skies, but it was a clear night. Not a single cloud.

  Then I saw him. Or was it a her? It was an it for sure.

  Looming above the police, not too far from my friends, was a giant of a being. Human in shape, if humans had legs resembling goat hooves and horns protruding from their heads as long as they were. It was the height of three men, and covered in gems in a myriad of colours. I saw violet, turquoise, gold, silver and others, all with their own internal glow. Some of them seemed to be on items of armour, like the bracer Kaelyn had worn, whilst a few were like mine – embedded into the beings skin at various parts of its body.

  Then I noticed the brightest one. Of a size like mine. A gold gem, embedded in the shoulder.

  Gunfire rang out, whilst someone shouted, “Live rounds. Switch to live rounds.” I don’t know how many of the officers were armed but I could see muzzle fire from multiple directions. All of it seemed to be as much use as throwing feathers at the thing. Bullets ricocheted off the armour, its skin, the gems, pinging around the place, striking the metal of cars nearby, shattering windows.

  Kian, Carmen and Charlotte were all screaming and trying to writhe away like snakes, scraping skin on tarmac, as bullets dug into the ground around them. A few officers noticed and ran out to grab them and drag them away. They weren’t prisoners now. They were civilians in need of help. The two closest to me were also firing but as they emptied their mags, they looked at each other and then to me. Then the bastards slammed the van doors shut.

  “You fucking prats,” I shouted through the metal with all the force I could muster. Old man or not, I was going to make sure they heard me. “Get me the fuck out of here.”

  They hadn’t cuffed me. In my condition, what would have been the point? I tried the door handle, frantically rattling it as if that would somehow unlock it. I made feeble attempts at banging on the doors, but only managed to bruise my hands. I sat back, listening to the muffled gunfire.

  “System.”

  [“Hello, thief.”]

  “Who is that?”

  [“Who is who?”]

  “Are you kidding me right now? Now’s not the time for the jokes, man. Who is the dude outside, with the goat’s hooves and horns? About eighteen feet tall? Mana-stones all over his body.”

  [“Are you sure about what you’ve seen?”]

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  The System went quiet but as I waited for its response, the van vibrated into life. It pulled off with a squeal and almost immediately stopped with a jerk. I crashed into the metal to my side, too slow to put an arm out. As I gathered my bearings, I could still just about make out the sound of the wheels spinning above the gunfire outside, when everything suddenly stopped. No gunfire. No wheels spinning. No screams or commands. I could hear nothing except my thumping heart.

  A split second later, a sound like a thousands whips being cracked in the air tore through the silence, followed by the sound of metal ripping through metal as small pellets shredded the police van door. Not pellets. Bullets. I cried out as one slashed across my stomach, another tearing through my shoulder.

  Suddenly, Kaelyn blinked back into existence, taking the seat opposite me.

  “What the hell?” I spat out, with a little bit of blood. “Where did you go?” It was difficult to speak. I put one hand on my stomach, the other on my shoulder. I gritted my teeth, breathed slowly like the longer it took me to breathe, the longer I could hold onto my life.

  “We need to go,” Kaelyn said. “That’s Melkarieth.”

  “Who’s…Melkarieth?”

  “A Pantheon member.”

  [“Melkarieth, the Sunderer? Are you sure?”] the System asked.

  “I’m sure,” she responded.

  My eyes widened as I raised my brows at her. “I thought you said they can’t come for the stone themselves?”

  “They can’t. At least, that’s what I was told.”

  [“She is correct. It is against System Protocol. One moment please, while I verify the information.”]

  Kaelyn moved over to my side, hunching over me. “Let me see.”

  I pulled my hands away from my stomach and my shoulder and let her have a look.

  “Flesh wounds. How are you feeling?”

  “A little light-headed, old, feeble. Other than that, I’m feeling grand.”

  “Do you have the strength to move?”

  “You going to blink us out of here?”

  “I will, if you can handle it? We need to get out here before he comes.”

  “Is there an alternative?”

  “I can take your head and go.”

  “Say no more.” I took a couple of deep breaths, then nodded at her.

  She sat by my side, put my arm around her neck, put her arm around my waist. “You might feel nauseous after this. I’ll check your wounds properly after I’ve taken you to safety.” Her bracer began to glow.

  “What about the others? Where are they?”

  She turned her ice-blue eyes to me, looked me right in the eyes.

  “They’re gone.”

  I didn’t have time to react to her words.