There was an uncommon confidence to the voice. The sort of conviction charlatans and con-artists can only dream of. Like he was speaking his own will into existence, and he knew it.

I turned from Grayscale to study the newcomer.

Golden hair framed intelligent green eyes that studied me back. He was my height, maybe half an inch taller. His armor wasn’t armor, really—it was the same threaded kevlar-analogue composite my original starter armor was made from, only far more complex, with what looked like norse runes woven into the threading in various places. There was an ornate black-wood bow casually slung over his shoulder, with three different quivers and multiple pouches arranged at his side for easy access. A single blade—too long to be a knife, too short to be a sword—hung at his side, next to a dangling black weighted paddle. I was pretty sure it was a blackjack.

Hero

echoed in my mind with a strange confidence, mingled with dread. Before I could say anything, the newcomer stepped in and held his hand out to Grayscale. “Miles.”

Grayscale shook it suspiciously. “Dane. The hell you doing in our neck of the woods?”

Grayscale—Dane, rather—wasn’t wrong. Miles was too put together. It wasn’t like everyone else was dirty, though some were, but he held an air of sophistication and bourgeoisie edge that just wasn’t native to the locals.

Miles rubbed his neck with an “aw-shucks,” expression. He pointed across the way, towards the edge of the region, where a few nicer houses had begun to crop up. “Believe it or not, I live here.”

“Leaning towards not.” Dane edged towards him, getting within inches of his face.

Miles was unperturbed. If anything, he looked embarrassed that his attempt to volunteer had garnered this much attention. “Fair enough. Dane, I’m going to angle towards you, then reach into my satchel with my thumb and index finger to grab my wallet. Mind not skewering me while I do that?”

“Slowly,” Dane said, his hand resting on the heft of his pole arm.

With a careful smile, Miles reached slowly into his satchel. His gaze never left Dane’s eyes, never drifted to his weapon. I felt myself tensing, preparing to move at a moment’s notice.

The tension broke as Miles retrieved the wallet from his satchel and tossed it to me. I flipped it open, perusing the contents. “Miles Dempsey. Address lines up.” My eyebrow rose. “DMV? City doesn’t pay well, but it doesn’t pay that badly. Why are you slumming it here?” Midtown or Uptown would have made far more sense for a government employee, not to mention put him closer to work.

“I won’t bore you, but I’m a Director of Sanitation. My work affects people's day to day lives. As such, I find it beneficial to be among the people. And I’ve found that places like these are where you find the truest reflection of the way things are.” Miles said.

“Bullshit.” Dane rolled his eyes.

Again, I had to agree. The whole heart of the city speech would land perfectly if he was a politician running for office. But he wasn’t, and as such, it felt perfectly artificial.

“You in for the region three run?” I ignored Miles, addressing Dane directly.

“If mealymouth over here is in, there’s no way I’m not,” Dane said.

“First order of business.” I tossed Dane the Wallet. “Check his house. Make sure the ID is legit, and he actually lives here.” I looked at Miles, “You’re welcome to accompany him, if you like.”

“Nah.” Miles smiled, the expression slightly more forced than before. But only slightly. He pulled a keyring from his satchel and manipulated it, so two brass keys stuck out. “This one's for the iron gate, that one’s for the house door itself.”

Dane snatched the keys out of his hand and took off towards the street address, his armor audibly shifting as he jogged away, leaving me alone with the newcomer who watched the larger man depart.

“You didn’t know his name,” Miles observed.

“Didn’t matter,” I shot back. “He was already onboard.”

“Maybe. But if shit hit the fan, that was going to come back to bite you.”

“Yes, you did me a favor by introducing yourself, I get it.” I lowered my voice. “Just like I did you a favor by not immediately calling you out as a fed.”

Miles grinned at me. “You’re baiting me, but I’ll bite. Not like it matters. What gave me away?”

“The government ID was legitimate, but Director of Sanitation, really?”

“Yeah, I pushed back on that too,” Miles sighed. “I’m far too charismatic.”

“You here officially or unofficially?”

“Unofficially. The office has standing orders to observe and report.” No hesitation. No micro-expressions that gave him away. No tell or giveaway of any kind. Add in the classic government bureaucratic inaction, and he was probably telling the truth.

“Myrddin.”

“Pleasure.”

He made no attempt to shake my hand, and I did the same. After a moment, he cocked his head. “You a magic user?”

“No.”

“Unfortunate. Look, I don’t know what your deal is, but if you’re telling the truth and trying to resolve our blockade issue as bloodlessly as possible, I’m on board.”

“They’re our neighbors,” I answered honestly, “We have to live with them after this.”

“That’s the kind of forward-thinking that’ll pay dividends. So, you going to let me in on this, or not?” Miles asked.

I was torn. Another body could make a big difference in doing this properly. Miles was a manipulator and a liar, but his motivation for volunteering was clear—his house was near the edge of the region. He didn’t want to see what happened if the receptacle went unfilled. None of us did.

Still, I was curious. The most dangerous manipulators are the pathological kind. They select a backstory and history for themselves, and stick to it, as loudly and vehemently as possible. “Why do you live here? Really?”

Miles snorted, pivoting to look at Grayscale as he jogged back down the street towards us. “Two divorces with alimony payments, five kids on child-support. Just try living in midtown with that stranglehold and tell me how it goes.”

/////

Dane unhappily reported that Miles’ house checked out. There wasn’t any reason I could think of to bar him from volunteering, even if my instincts were still screaming at me to be wary.

I was half expecting him to try to pry leadership away from me. That never happened. Miles was helpful—and generous, considering the circumstances, speaking with the others and going over basic strategies. Still, something about the two of us together made the rest of the group uncomfortable. We were sitting across from eachother at the back of the APC, a nervous energy pervading the rest of the group as they slowly shifted away from us towards the front.

“Okay.” Bob held a hand out to Max. “You want to tell us where we’re heading?”

Max stood, holding on to the overhead rails. “Yep. So, far as I could see, the Users doing the ambushing are operating out of the storage facility on Mayberry. It’s older, vertical rather than horizontal. Before this clusterfuck, it was the perfect place to hide something you wanted to keep out of the public eye. The same holds true now. It should be mostly obvious where they’re hiding the lux, as it’s impossible to completely obscure the glow, but it’s harder to see inside a car, likely far harder than that in a storage unit.”

One of the androgynous magic users raised their hand. “I’m a little confused on what we’ll be doing. Roderick told us not to hold back, but we’re also trying not to kill anyone?” Their voice read more female than male, but it was borderline.

I shook my head. Miles’ earlier comment was still stuck in my mind. “What’s your name?”

The girl started, as if she’d forgotten I was there. “Astrid. And this is my sister, Astria.” She indicated the younger girl on her left. They were both young, late teens or early twenties, with identical short brown curls and blue eyes. But their faces looked too different to be blood related.

“We need both of you to draw attention. Throw everything you’ve got at them, try to get them to focus on you,” I said. “Bob and the bruisers will tank any reprisal once you’ve got them angry. Dane watches the perimeter for flanks. Chastity rains down hell, keeping them as pressured and disoriented as possible. We want a short-lived war of attrition. Enough to draw most of them out, while I go with Miles to find an alternative entrance,” I said.

Dane nodded.

“If we throw everything we have at them,” Astria said, her voice a monotone murmur, “I’m not sure if there will be reprisal.”

No one seemed to want to respond to that.

“Try not to be too accurate with the big stuff,” I said. “If you have to take a threat off the board, no one’s going to blame you. But if we rack up a bodycount and scare them too badly, they’ll retreat inside and hold up there, making search and rescue almost impossible. We know they’re trying to grab people alive—so if we can lure them out with a small show of force—“

“—They might not realize they’ve overcommitted until they’re pinned down.” Miles rubbed his chin. “Not a bad plan. It could work.”

“Get ready,” Max said. His face was grim, pale. “We’re in range.”

“Probability of success?” I asked him immediately.

His expression told me all I needed to know.