“So,” Ellie said, fiddling with the bottom of her breastplate as they walked, “I’m gonna drop outta SysPol. Even if there isn’t an Event or anything, they’re doing something shady. Mom’ll get over it, eventually.”

They’d woken up early that morning and both belatedly had the same idea, to try to find some help before they actually walked into a potential disaster zone, and found that their message systems were blocked, and probably had been since the day before. Hunter couldn’t get in touch with his mother, his uncle, with Kiki, with the campers they’d helped, with anyone, and neither could Ellie. The only messages that worked at all were the ones in their two person group chat.

“I mean, I get blocking me. Oh, there it is,” she mumbled as she clicked something and her armor faded from bronze to a flat black. “But they’re probably blocking everyone, and like, for why?”

“I can’t decide what’s worse,” Hunter replied. “If they screwed something up and they’re covering, then that’s awful.”

“So awful.”

“But if they didn’t, and they’re just locking down the whole area for no reason? They’re putting, umm, well at least eight people in danger for nothing. Including us.”

“Exactly,” she muttered as she untied her scarf from around her waist, then balled it up and tossed it. “There, I’m out.”

“Wait, that’s all you have to do? Get rid of the uniform?” Hunter asked and stifled a laugh.

“What? Oh,” she giggled and pushed him with one hand. “That was symbolic, Red. I just had to push a box. Now I’m stuck with a lousy Order path and no lousy Order.”

“The tutorial said you can change your path to whatever you want as long as you’re a beginner. You’re a beginner still, right?”

“There’s a tutorial? I didn’t get a tutorial,” she frowned and scrunched up her face.

“You didn’t miss much, it kinda sucked,” Hunter said, pausing for a moment after. “If you want a fancy path, you can use mine, umm,” he mumbled as he sent the link to Ellie over the group window, “if you want.”

“Oh wow,” she stopped in her tracks and blinked. “That’ll make us such a good team, Red! Thank you!” She was grinning as she grabbed him in a tight hug.

He stopped, puzzled how does that make us a team, then checked his path info oh it changed.

Truth Seeker Knowledge is the foundation of all success, and the most important knowledge is when it is good and right to act. You are a Seeker of mysteries and secrets, at many times the first and only to delve into the darker places, and a righter of wrongs when you inevitably find them. Combat Path - +essence gain when exploring or researching ungrouped or partnered with another Truth Seeker, +essence gain for righteous or honorable combat, (bonus) +skill growth and progression

“We already are a great team, Ellie,” he laughed and hugged her back after that brief hesitation.

“Lucky I’m still a beginner, huh. What I don’t get,” she said after a moment, “is how you’re still level one. I mean, you didn’t even do anything worth essence on accident?”

“Oh, that,” he blushed, then mumbled, “it’s on purpose. Got a thing from Ernie that eats all the essence and gives me crystals.”

“Red! You gotta take it off, like right now.”

“What, why?”

“Well, umm,” she pulled back, linked her arm in his, and they started walking again. “We’re on a quest, in an emergency. We’ve got greater plus essence coming to us, and we don’t want to waste that plus.”

“Back that up a little? I don’t get it.”

“When Infra starts throwing plusses on things, that’s when you’re gonna get good levels. Extra stats and stuff, you know.”

“Wait, no, I absolutely didn’t know. So like, if I did something that was say, one hundred plus plus, I’d get better stats than normal?”

“Yep, exactly!” she chirped, and gave him a bump with her hip. “We’re already on plus, and if things get worse, it’ll go up from there. Mom says, at least when she’s being all like, misanthropic mom, that’s why people go to emergencies, for the good levels.”

“Oh,” he sighed, “flip.”

“You didn’t!” Ellie gasped, and then giggled. “Red, I love you, but wow.”

“I did,” he just groaned and unzipped his hoodie partially, reaching in to detach the armband, then stuck it in his satchel as he continued, “I didn’t know. Don’t tell Ernie, oh wow, he’ll never shut up about it.”

“How did he, anyone, how did Mama Red let you even keep wearing that?”

“I told them I had a plan,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “Oh my gosh and they believed me.”

“What was the plan, anyway?” Ellie asked as she tugged on his arm to keep him walking.

“I was, I am, umm,” he sighed, “I was gonna do the Open.”

“At level one? Wow, Red, like, the guy who won the Open last year was level seven hundred something. And a professional. It’s a pretty tough tournament.”

“I mean, after I got all my skills maxed, then I was gonna take the bonder off. Then the Open after I levelled up for the rest of the two years left.”

“Oh, so,” she smiled, patting his arm with her free hand, “you were pretty close to taking it off anyway, you’ve got to be up near two hundred in the good stuff with how you move.”

“Well, there’s still refinement, but I guess I was pretty close.”

“I don’t think, like, no,” she shook her head, “I’m pretty for sure, actually, that you can’t refine skills until advanced mortal. Unlock at beginner, advance at class, except we get the emergency protocol exemption, then refine at advanced. No exemption there.”

“Oh, you’re kidding me, Ellie,” Hunter sighed again and leaned against her, his head tipping down to rest on her shoulder.

“Well,” she said slowly, face pressed against his hair, “we both learned stuff today. Now you’ll be even more prepared for the Open. And, you know, since we’re like partners now, and learning stuff,” she lowered her voice to a whisper as she continued, “let’s look at each other’s sheets.”

"How about," he mumbled, "when we get done with this. I'm gonna need a new notebook and a few pens, probably."

"It's a deal."

“What happened here?” Hunter asked, after they’d been walking for most of the day. The broken highway and flat, grassy plains changed abruptly in front of his feet, replaced with a dark brown surface with small white lines every couple of yards. He glanced over to his sides, and the slightly bumpy ground material went on in both directions as far as he could see.

“Drone zone,” Ellie said as she stood next to him, looking around as well, but her eyes were turned up to the sky instead of the ground. “Surveillance, kill zone, that sorta thing. Means seven miles or so from here to the walls. But like, I don’t see any drones.”

“But how,” he mumbled, reaching out to tap the ground with the toe of his sneaker, and found it ever so slightly squishy. He squinted, gazing down where the road they were on would have gone, and shook his head. “There should’ve been buildings pretty soon if we’re that close to town.”

“Nope, flattened,” she replied, waving one hand with her palm down to emphasize. “Defense in depth. Don’t wanna leave a big car dealership out here for bad guys to hide behind. So, mow the entire surroundings down, mark out distance meters for your snipers, and dust the whole thing in hovering blaster drones. That’s a SysPol base. Except, like, for serious, where’s the drones?”

“What about,” he said under his breath, “teleporters, invisible dudes, gas attacks, what else, umm. Plus if someone did all this, levelled almost an entire town, someone else could do worse. That’s the rule.”

“Red, they pulled back the drones,” Ellie said, quietly. “There’s like millions of them, they get squeezed out of this box, and if they get like, bent a little they just throw them away. They pulled back the drones and they left me out here.”

“Oh,” Hunter murmured, then stepped over to give her a hug, “oh wow. You’re right, they are total jerks.”

“They are,” she sniffled and nodded against his shoulder. “Let’s go save some people who aren’t jerks, though. There’s something definitely going on.”

“Yeah, for sure,” he said, while scanning that unnatural, flat expanse until he thought he might have spied something in the middle in the dim light of dusk. “We better hurry, though, because I think something’s going on like, right now.”

He pointed over Ellie’s shoulder and she turned to look while still clinging to his chest for a moment before she nodded. Over in the distance there were flashes of light every three or four seconds, mostly red and white, but occasionally green, just about where Rapid City would be. They both watched them for a few minutes, and while Hunter was just trying to figure out how dangerous something that made all those lights could be, Ellie had a different perspective.

“That’s the late warning system,” she murmured, stepping back and wiping her eyes. “But it’s not in any code I know. Someone’s just flashing the lights any way they can. Which means, like, townies or hostiles got into the coordination rooms.”

“Well,” Hunter pulled up his hood, tapped his floating focus to get it up to full speed, and offered her his hand. “Let’s go help.”

Hunter and Ellie were nearing the walled city, which seemed oddly quiet to him, with just the flashing lights and nothing that sounded like fighting that he could hear over their footsteps or breathing. They weren’t quite running at full speed over the weird material, but close, and in the last mile or so he had a thought.

You are posting to all grouped members in the immediate vicinity (1).

[Hunter]: this base was a lot of work, right? to put out here, do all this. so what’s it for?

[Hunter]: this’ll seem funny, considering, you know, Willard. but this is the middle of nowhere, what’s the point being here

[Ellie]: oh, rapid’s like the command and operating base for the area. i get in trouble if i call it comops tho

[Ellie]: so it’s the comops. they got the source about twenty miles sw, and straight w is the research facility

[Hunter]: shoot, umm, what are they researching?

[Ellie]: i dunno. w/e it is takes a lot of crystal. been on the hauling runs for that. lots of it

[Ellie]: oh! they might have a slide there? i know there’s one around here they keep for some reason and just shoot whatever comes out of it

[Ellie]: that might be where it is, actually. y?

[Trips]: back left

Hunter spun, wizard stick suddenly in his hand as he swung it, and he felt the impact of the wooden staff smashing into something before he even saw what it was. He felt a yank on the back of his coat oh no we’re surrounded and stumbled back, but it was just Ellie pulling him away from oh a very tall, very skinny shape. She had her sword out already as she stood next to him, the shiny surface reflecting the lights from the city, and she swayed back and forth as she whispered to him.

“Be careful, can’t see the level. Couldn’t see it on those puzzle people either.”

He nodded and just kept his eyes on the shape, thinking that if he stared long enough he’d be able to see details, but it didn’t happen. It was just tall, shadowy, and had a large number of limbs that it was flailing at him in quick, sharp strikes in between the random flashes of light. He deflected each slash and stab, but they were too quick for him to try to counterattack, keeping him on the defensive as he circled to his left. He had affinity to spare, so he even tried activating A Light to Follow, but that just made everything clearer except for the thing attacking him.

Hunter realized, as he moved, that he had a new rhythm, finding that the new talent he’d received in the bath miss that bath did something to his affinity that he couldn’t quite define. When each swipe of the shadowy limbs flicked out toward him, he only felt the slightest pull as he dodged backwards or slapped it away with his staff. Instead of the flickering, jumpy, go every direction sensation, it moved with him, around him, and it felt right Ernie said correct. It felt correct, until a series of explosions went off in the distance, Hunter startled briefly just a moment, and the indistinct monster slapped down hard on the top of his head.

[Shadow Infiltrator] has struck you for fifty-one (51) damage!

He stumbled back, dazed move, the low hood covering his eyes move it’s right there, the pinpoint lights too bright as they pressed against his face, MOVE then Flicker Stepped even farther away. Before he could get his vision right, he heard a hissing screech and then a sound like a grease fire, splattering and steaming. He pushed his hood back finally and saw Ellie grinning as she flicked some dark, hazy goop off her sword and onto the evaporating heap of a body between them.

“Next time I get to be the bait, and you get to do the thumping, I promise,” she said with a wink.

“That’s, umm, a cool plan,” he nodded, slipping one of his last three favor cookies from his bag into his mouth, then pulled out the oldtech binoculars.

[Major Favor Cookie] has healed you for ten percent (5) of your missing resilience!

[Major Favor Cookie] has healed you for ten percent (5) of your missing resilience!

[Major Favor Cookie] has healed you for ten percent (4) of your missing resilience!

[Major Favor Cookie] has healed you for ten percent (4) of your missing resilience!

[Major Favor Cookie] has healed you for ten percent (3) of your missing resilience!

“So, they’re bombing out front and sneaking around the back,” he murmured as he looked at the tall, white metal walls of the city, scanning for more of the spindly infiltrators.

“Yeah, we’re gonna hafta, umm,” Ellie looked down at the ground and leaned on her sword, frowning, “Get the east gates open, I guess? See if we can’t help evacuate, if they haven’t already.”

“They look locked up tight,” he said, then paused to reach over and squeeze his friend’s shoulder. “Guess we’re climbing the walls after curfew again.”

Hunter stood back to keep an eye out while Ellie went up the wall first, which meant he could watch her technique while Trips scanned the area. It was made out some filmy white metal Ellie didn’t know the name of, and it looked like the entire fifty feet height was going to be a completely sheer climb. However, there must have been access panels or hidden turrets or something, Hunter didn’t know what, because she practically twirled her way up the featureless expanse she’d said was a gate, bouncing from spot to spot on her way up and only occasionally letting out a burst of wind to propel herself. Once she’d made it to the top, she leaned out over the edge, waved, and let him know by message it was clear.

He had to walk all the way up to the wall, peering straight up, before he could see the faint ledges Ellie must have used on her ascent, and only then the nearest ones. The sun had gone down fully a half hour previous, but luckily the material was very faintly luminescent, so Hunter figured that, combined with his armor lights, would have to do. He dropped his duffel and sleeping back right up against the wall and then prepared himself.

He checked his shoes perfectly laced, thought briefly about his breathing steady somehow, crouched slightly, and then ran up the wall why. He made it about eight feet up before he had to grab a narrow ledge, his fingers just barely hooking onto it, then with a quick swing he flung himself to the next one. They turned out to be irregularly-spaced the whole way up, and never close enough that he could touch two at once, but every so often he found a divot above one that he could dig his hand into and grab onto with one foot holding him up. Even going as fast as he could, Hunter picked out eight separate spots where someone could have easily dropped something on his head while he climbed.

After Ellie helped him up over the edge, she grinned and kissed his cheek, murmuring, “I went faster.”

“Yeah,” he laughed a little, panting, “but you cheated, so I don’t figure we should count it.”

“Aww, there were rules?” she giggled. “I woulda broke more if I knew.”

“That sword dance thing,” he mumbled, leaning against the lip of the wall to peer into the city, “is really pretty.”

“You think so, Red?” Ellie said as she stood next to him. “I mean, I’ve been working on it since we were kids. It didn’t start pretty.” She paused with a faint giggle, then continued, “It’s weird how Infra will just like, give you talents for stuff you do, right?”

“Yeah, it is,” he nodded, shifting a little to press his shoulder against hers. “We’re purposefully not talking about how the entirety of Rapid City is full of those shadow dudes, right?”

“Oh, for sure,” she said with a soft sigh. “It looks like the people might be safe, maybe. See how there’s a lot of the shadows milling around in front of that one big building? That’s one of the emergency shelters, they mighta locked themselves in.”

“So,” he checked his satchel briefly, “I’m down to two sparklers and one crackler. I’d say we could try a distraction, then evacuate those shelters, but,” he trailed off.

“But three grenades isn’t enough for me,” she said, slowly, “to harass and bother an entire city of monsters? Red, have you met me?”

“Oh,” he laughed weakly. “Is that, umm, something you can get done and still stay safe?”

“As long as I, well, sure?” Ellie said with a little grin. “You gotta stay safe too, though. First step, get way less conspicuous.” She reached up to his throat and squeezed a hidden button he didn’t know was on his jacket collar, and the pinpoint lights dimmed before going out.

“Wow, that’s how you do that?” he whispered, half to himself.

“Yup, and if I’m guessing right,” she knelt down just long enough to do the same thing to the tongues of his sneakers, which slowly faded from a bright orange to a dark gray, then she popped back up and grinned, “that’s how you do that, too.”

The one thing, in the entire time Hunter had been in Kansas City, that he and Pete had ever even slightly bonded over, was sneaking around the downtown area, and really the concept of stealth in general. It wasn’t really the teen’s favorite part of exploring the city, but it almost always gave him a funny story to tell if he took the time to watch the people he was trying to avoid. Sharing any of the weird stuff he saw later at dinner would get little chuckles from Ernie and Breaker, and big ones from Pete, and then Pete would tell him everything he could have done better while hiding.

You’ve gotta see them before they get a chance to see you.

Ellie ran off around the edge of the wall, making her way to the other side, and Hunter stayed to watch the infiltrators. If they were only interested in the emergency shelters, then he guessed they were doing a good enough job guarding, because there were six or eight hard to count from here in a small crowd at the big, reinforced entrance of the one he could see. If they wanted to take the whole city, though, they were terrible at it. There were small packs drifting down the streets occasionally, which could be patrols or just random groups, but there weren’t any shadowy figures where he’d post a guard. None on the flat, square buildings, none up on the wall with him and Ellie, none lingering at the one large intersection he had a good view of.

Don’t give em any extra help finding you. Since you’re not good enough to move like something that belongs, just stay still and make sure everything on you stays still, too.

He pulled the cords on his jacket, first the ones that would move the bottom hem from his thighs up to his hips, then did the same to his sleeves until they hit his wrists instead of his knuckles, and finally tightened the straps to pull the entire garment, including the hood, closer to his body. Hunter snatched his focus out of the air and powered it down, wearing it on his forearm where he could still make use of it at a reduced level. Trips hopped into his nearly empty satchel while he adjusted it with a second strap that went around his waist, keeping it from bouncing around at the cost of not being able to shrug out of it quickly, and then he checked himself over. Nothing on his person would move or flap in even a stiff wind, so he figured he was good.

Humans are stupid, so don’t let practicing on them give you bad habits. Some things out there are gonna look up, you know.

There was a fairly straight path he could take across the rooftops toward the first shelter, but every so often he saw the shadow monsters drift through one of the streets he’d have to cross. Instead, he made his way a few hundred feet to the right and picked out a few buildings that he didn’t see anything near, then visualized the path he’d have to take across them to his goal. There’d be a few dicey patches in the middle, he figured, especially with the lights still flashing every so often, but he didn’t see anywhere obvious he’d get cornered or stuck.

When you have to move, do it all at once. Quiet, decisive, quick, in that order.

Hunter vaulted over the side of the wall, just far enough that one hand and foot stayed against the smooth surface as he descended quickly. About ten feet down, he pushed off and jumped for the closest building, hitting the roof already in a roll, and then froze. For the first time since he’d taken it, he really noticed and appreciated his Light-footed talent, because none of that, the slide, the leap, the landing, made any noise at all. No shadows swarmed up the edges of the building to confront him, so he took off in a crouched run toward his next stop.

There’s no perfect stealth without augmenting it, but you can get close, because people don’t pay attention even when they should.

He ran along the rooftops, keeping an eye out for any patrols he missed, but not finding any, even in the places he had already planned around being possibly guarded. About halfway to the shelter, a few city blocks, he got the message he was waiting for from Ellie, and he slid to a stop at the corner of a building. He’d positioned himself along what looked like one of the main thoroughfares in town, but it was hard to judge because the entire walled area was organized so oddly. Even though basically every building was some kind of boring rectangle shape, the heights varied by two or three stories from block to block, and no street went farther than a couple hundred yards before dead-ending.

Course, you run with a partner that’s good at getting attention, everything’s gonna be a lot easier.

In between the signal flashes that Hunter had almost started ignoring, there was a high-pitched, artificial scream, and he could see the flicker of a strobing explosion from the west end of the city. He peeked over the edge of his roof, waiting, and then saw one of the passing patrols veer off suddenly, changing direction to head toward Ellie and whatever else she had planned. He slowed his breathing, waiting come on come on, and then after less than a minute he saw a second group go by, larger this time, from the direction of the shelter. He backed up and then continued on his route with a leap to a lower building and then to the ground, running at just under a dead sprint to stay quiet.

When you get caught, and you’re gonna get caught, you make sure you hit first, you hit hard, and you make it count.

Something was wrong, Hunter felt. He raced down the street toward the first shelter, a couple turns away if he’d counted right, and tried to figure out what it was. Slowing to a stop, he peeked around the corner at one of the places he’d seen lingering infiltrators from up above, but they had apparently gone west to deal with Ellie that’s not it. He waited for his vigor to climb a point or two, checking the clock function on Infra, and then frowned, looking around the area carefully, but the street was empty.

[Hunter]: hey, silly question, but are you in combat?

[Ellie]: oh ya maybe? they be chasin

[Ellie]: me, they’re chasing me

[Hunter]: ok, cool. did you know that if you’re in combat, i’m in combat?

[Ellie]: nope!

[Ellie]: aw nuts, did i screw u up?

[Hunter]: no, no it’s fine. you’re ok right?

[Ellie]: yaya they’re pretty dumb

[Hunter]: so, umm, how long have they been chasing you?

[Ellie]: since like a minute before i set off the sparkler, so 5-6 min probs

[Hunter]: ok, cool. almost at the shelter, ready for part b

He ran again, toward the large building, easily the biggest he’d seen since leaving K.C., and let himself relax just a bit. Rapid was a weird place, especially since according to Ellie, it wasn’t even exactly Rapid City, in a certain light. Everywhere else he’d ever been was new built onto the old, leaving and utilizing what the previous generations had built and only adding to it when necessary. His family lived in one of the few houses that was in Willard pre-apocalypse, for instance, the Fourex building was an oldtech frame with Infratech built onto it, and even Winner, as wholly weird as its egg buildings were, was only like that out of necessity.

Rapid City, however, the old one, had been completely demolished, going so far as to pound the earth into a flat, level grade as far as the eye could see. What was put onto it was wholly modern, wholly SysPol, and felt nothing like a real place, especially when down in its perfectly straight streets, surrounded by its algorithmically irregular buildings. Hunter was feeling unsettled as he turned the last corner without thinking, and ran straight into a tall figure made out of hard shadows.

As distracted as he was, he’d still planned for it, gone over the previous fight, and figured out where he’d gone wrong enough that Ellie had to save him, so he acted almost immediately. He dropped into a crouch and lifted his left arm, already swinging it to parry the downward strike aimed at his head. He flicked his right hand out and summoned his staff at the same moment, sweeping the end of the suddenly appearing stick right into the middle of the monster’s torso. His next move was going to be a twisting leap backwards, to let it pin him against the wall, where its long arms and looping strikes couldn’t be used to full advantage without hitting the supernaturally tough material of the building behind him.

Instead, when his wizard stick collided with the bundle of shadows that made up the middle of the infiltrator, there was a tearing noise Hunter couldn’t place, then a short screech like a tea kettle as a plume of sizzling black just ew fluid shot out the back and side of his opponent. It teetered for a moment and then collapsed, while he slowly stood up and frowned, puzzled for a few seconds. Then oh he had a realization, and took off toward the shelter again.

[Hunter]: hey, if you can’t lose them, it’s ok

[Hunter]: round up as many as you can, i got an idea

[Hunter]: i’ll meet you at the second shelter after i clear this one

[Ellie]: u sure?

[Ellie]: i mean, ok. sry. partner. c u soon

Either the shadow monsters were as dumb as Ellie said they were, or SysPol had very intriguingly smart engineers doing its designing. To open the shelter, he had to stick his hand in a snug hole, which made a screen on the door light up reading “MORTAL HUMAN,” and then “What color is the sky?” He glanced up at the night sky, pitch black with stars, occasionally lit up with white, red, or green flashes, then coughed and said quietly, “Blue?”

The huge door, big enough to push a moderately-sized house through, opened swiftly and nearly silently, revealing a crowd of tired people. Most were sitting, but some near the entrance were standing, gripping various makeshift or old weapons, which they all hurriedly readied. He stepped back, hands raised, and gave his best smile, trying to stay calm public speaking oh no.

“Hey guys,” he mumbled, and then spoke louder, “Umm, I’m here to help? Yeah. There’s no SysPol in town, as far as we can tell, and none for miles either. Not sure when any’s coming, either. Heard you folks got a vehicle bay somewhere around here, and I think it’s time to get to using it.”

“Who are you?” more than a few people shouted. Some, however, just yelled out “What?”

“Just a kid! But like, with a plan,” he said, and grinned. “There’s more of those shadow things coming from out west somewhere, and my partner says they cracked the gate over there, so they’re gonna fill this place up, it looks like. Best to get you out before that.”

“Ok,” said a woman that looked a little like his mom, if she had a darker complexion. Maybe not related if you gauged by their facial features, but definitely twins with that hard-set expression. “The whole base is on lockdown, though. That includes the vehicles and the other gates.”

“Right, but I got this place open,” Hunter replied, with a weak chuckle. “Which means the local overrides work, thankfully. We’ll just need to get there, instead of like, calling the little cars on your Infra, or however it worked. Same thing with the gate. We figure someone’s already in the ops center, if you go by the lights.”

The woman stepped out of the shelter and looked up, then peered back over her shoulder at someone still in the throng of people, having a quick, silent conversation.

“I think I know who’s in the center,” a man said as he stepped forward.

“Good! Great,” Hunter said with a nod, “The way there should be clear for now. You take a group that way, people who can go fast and low-profile, and get the east gate open? I mean, if that’s ok?”

There was another quick Infrachat, apparently, before the woman nodded, “Yeah, he’ll do that. You’ll take the rest of us to the garage?”

“Oh, for sure, absolutely,” he said, nodding again quickly. “We’ve just got a stop or two to make first.”

Hunter ran point, ahead of the group of a hundred or so people, mostly adults with a few children sprinkled in, all what SysPol called their “civilian population.” He was being more careful than earlier, not just because he was responsible for all of them, but because they were closer to the middle of the compound, and he and Ellie hadn’t been able to scout this deep into the city from the outer walls. Trips was on his shoulder again, since maximum stealth had taken a backseat to maximum watchfulness, but neither of them had seen any more infiltrators yet.

In his Infra screen, he was also looking at the new spell he selected, part of the new version of their grand plan, and trying to force himself not to get nervous.

[Instant Whirlpool] The water roars as it spins, a dangerous hazard to all opposing you, if only for a moment. You sit at the center and reap their weakness. (infusion) (active) four (4) affinity. five (5) round duration. moderate (10%) penalty to combat ratings for all opponents within five (5) yards, +trivial (5%) combat ratings for each opponent affected

Hunter tried not to think about everything that could go wrong in the next few minutes, how it was a dumb plan, how the spell was too expensive, too short, how if he screwed up he and Ellie and all these people they were trying to rescue would die. All that left his head at once, however, when he rounded a corner and saw two of the infiltrators standing in the middle of the street. He froze, waved off the crowd of people half a block behind him, and then moved.

A step forward into a crouch, then two Flicker Steps even if the quick vigor use drained him, and then Hunter lunged. The shadows were just shifting, probably turning to face him, when his hands jabbed into their lower torsos, fingers in slightly curled claws digging into the strangely unyielding mass of darkness that made up their bodies. He felt a moment of resistance, and then his fingers were touching nothing again, as the pulse of whatever energy Oncoming Storm used blew them across the road and into the nearby building.

Hunter turned around and dashed out from under the trail of crackling, black fluid that led from their original position to the smears on the wall, slowly floating down to the ground in defiance of physics. He signalled the group of people following to catch up with them, and made sure they all avoided the steaming messes on the ground.

“Watch your step, k, please,” he mumbled to each person, helping the kids and other smaller people across the remains. “We’re almost to our first stop, then we’ll be getting out of here soon.”

The woman who seemed to be in charge, Marianna, stopped next to him as he was ushering them through. “I suppose I see why you think you can protect us, if you did this,” she said, gesturing to one evaporating line of slime.

“I’m just trying my best, ma’am,” Hunter nodded, then leaned a little closer as he dropped his voice, “But the next part is gonna be tricky. Get the folks with guns up front at the next corner, and if they see anything come out, make sure they don’t stop shooting.”

“I think we can handle that,” she replied, then paused for a moment. “They’re really just gone, all of them, aren’t they?”

“SysPol?” Hunter tilted his head, then scratched the back of his head through the snug hood. “Seems like it. Don’t much like them, but any help would be nice.”

“Better this than just waiting in the shelter, then,” she said with a firm nod, then walked off.

Once everyone was past, Hunter raced ahead of the crowd again, but didn’t find any more infiltrators on his way to the second shelter. He doubled back, and with Marianna’s help, got the group as silent and prepared as possible, just in case anything went wrong. The building they gathered in front of had a weird, recessed entrance, where they had the children huddle, then the unarmed people surrounded by those with close combat weapons, and finally the guns facing the corner.

He walked back to where he and Ellie were meeting, stood in the middle of the street, and waited.

[Ellie]: good news bad news kinda thing

[Ellie]: good news i’m about a minute away

[Ellie]: bad news i had a hiccup

[Hunter]: uh oh

[Ellie]: doubled back the wrong way, picked up about a dozen i thought i’d lost

[Ellie]: so, ya. can u do like 25?

[Hunter]: …

[Hunter]: as long as you pick up the stragglers, maybe

[Ellie]: i can do that. ok incoming

Hunter stood there, as calmly as he could, his focus once again floating to his side, his robot clinging to a ledge of the closest building just in case. He heard Ellie laughing, loud and gleeful, before anything else, and then she ran at full-tilt into the intersection in a tight turn, her boots skidding on the odd surface of the street. He shifted a hand to the side, pointing at a door he’d wedged open, and she nodded as she ran past before tumbling into a still giggling heap just inside the building. Then the shadows came, following more quickly than he’d seen them move yet.

Five swept through the intersection, ten, then they were a swarming mass he couldn’t count, racing directly toward him. His spells were up, his meditation was at full combat levels, they had a plan, and he still didn’t feel ready.

The first tall, shadowy figure reached him, two of its gangly limbs on one side slashing diagonally toward him, and then he used his Flicker Step again. Instead of away from the teeming crowd of infiltrators, he moved into a narrow gap between two of them, right in the middle of the front of the group. Then he cast his new spell at the same time as he reached up to tag the monster on either side of him.

As soon as he infused his affinity with the Instant Whirlpool, he was bombarded with multiple sensations. At first he felt his essence rush out, the waves that normally rocked back and forth inside his being flooded all around him in a tight spiral, threatening to make him dizzy if it wasn’t over so quickly. By the time his fingers touched the two shadowy figures, all that essence spun faster and then twisted back into him, and everything went calm, quiet, and cool. Twenty minutes of Oncoming Storm had built up by then, his fingertips holding the equivalent of twenty of his Water Bursts behind them, but he barely noticed as the two infiltrators were blasted away when he slapped at them.

He could feel that his spell hit sixteen of his opponents, because he’d felt sixteen individual little ripples in the wave that slipped back into his channels. Hunter was a fast kid, he always had been, and he’d been training to get faster almost every day since he was ten, but it never felt like he’d made huge leaps in his speed, it was more gradual than that. As soon as his affinity merged with him again, as each ripple brought its stolen power, he could feel that he was immediately how much? wow eighty percent faster than he had ever been, his mind, his body, his magic, all of him.

Hunter knew there was a monster behind him, and he could see the one directly in front of him winding up a swing, but it was so very slow. He could feel a flickering light above him, centering the roaring vortex around him, and then he attacked.

One hand went up to slap away the insultingly slow attack from his front, a foot slid back to intercept the approaching monster at his back, and before either target had a chance to disintegrate from the unnatural force behind his tight, gentle movements, he was on to the next group. They were bunched up from rounding the corner, so it was only a matter of steps before he was in the midst of them, nerve strikes slamming into undifferentiated shadow flesh but still eviscerating as they landed, while Hunter kept parrying their sluggish attacks or simply weaving in between them.

He noticed that his awareness, not his vision, but his entire sense of space, was narrowed down to a mere fifteen feet on any side of him, but he could still catch flickers of motion at the edge. In between demolishing the infiltrators, formerly so quick he couldn’t even free, immediate counterattack their blows, he saw a glimpse of Trips descending on one and turning it to paste on the street, another of Ellie slashing two into pieces with one Wind Cutter. Mostly, though, all he saw was the next target, and only briefly until his hand touched and it exploded, and then he turned to the next.

Thirty seconds of carnage later, his newfound speed faded away like the tide rushing out, but he managed to pull his staff from the wristband and crack it against the side of the last infiltrator he could see before stumbling and using the stick to hold himself up. Hunter looked around frantically, anxiety following quickly after exhaustion, but the only shadows he saw were either natural or in steaming pieces, splattered around the street.

“Red,” Ellie said softly as she ran up and slipped an arm around him, “you ok?”

“I think so?” he managed to reply, wobbling.

“That was,” she shook her head and giggled, “that was amazing.”

Hunter laughed and stumbled a little, even with her helping, then mumbled, “Learned it from my mom, I think.”

Hunter and Ellie, but mostly Ellie, managed to herd both shelters’ worth of people to the vehicle bay near the north end of the city. He could only really wander along after, his vigor returning quickly but the bottom dropped out of the bucket feeling of that sudden rush leaving his body still lingering. Ellie had managed to gather up what she said was the majority of the invading monsters and ditched them all on the other side of town, so their route was fairly straightforward and uneventful.

The third shelter was apparently broken open and empty, but oddly enough no one they were guiding seemed to be missing anyone that should have been taking refuge there. Ellie thought maybe that it was supposed to be where the recruits gathered in emergencies, but she wasn’t really sure. Hunter managed to stay awake until everyone was loaded up on the long trucks SysPol used to transport supplies and Ellie had found a three-wheeled buggy thing with heavy tires to escort them out of Rapid City. He must have drifted off at some point soon after that though, because he woke up suddenly draped against her back, somehow still seated on the rear part of the contraption.

“Hey, did we?” he mumbled.

“I got them headed to Winner,” Ellie said, reaching back to pat his cheek. “I think those shadow guys are gonna be too dumb to attack there, if the illusion’s as good as you said.”

The faint motor was thrumming underneath him, but they’d seemed to have stopped moving, and he looked up to see why.

“Is that,” he said, as he looked at the huge silver spire stretching into the night sky, off in the distance, “where those things came from? That’s a broken Source, we can’t do anything about that.”

“That is what it is,” she murmured, but shook her head. “I don’t think it’s where they’re coming from, though.” Ellie turned his head a little, hand still on his cheek, and he saw a sparse line of shadowy crowds coming down out of the hills, all headed toward the hopefully empty Rapid City.

“Oh flip, then where?” Hunter said, and couldn’t keep the soft whine out of his voice.

Ellie twisted the handle of the buggy and they scooted forward a few feet, then reversed again, while he was trying to figure out where the shadows originated, and then he saw it. A sliver of the stars in the sky, over to the west and completely separate from the angry metallic flare, disappeared into blackness as she rocked the vehicle back and forth. There was a chunk of the horizon missing, a dark hole where there should have been something else, and for it to reach that high up in the air, from that far away-

“It’s huge,” he whispered.

“I’m pretty sure it’s getting bigger, too,” Ellie said quietly, her voice flat.

“And there’s no one coming.”

“I told them,” she nodded vaguely to the east, “to try to message anyone they could as soon as they got out from under the block, but who knows when that’ll be.”

“We’re screwed.”

“I think everyone’s screwed,” she said after a while. “But yeah, we’re screwed in particular.”