“Cooperation,” Elias began. “I – he wants cooperation.”

In the end, they’d chosen to hear Elias out, despite their concerns, and with a heavily armed guard ready to take out the anchor with every bit of explosives they had left, in case the man tried anything.

Summers considered him as Pat and a few of his people stood nearby, weapons ready. Elias was missing most of his limbs, and still looking groggy from his time under, but he was still the biggest threat to those under their protection.

“And what about the rest of your people, you speak for them?” Summers asked. “Because last I checked they threw a grenade at both of us.”

“Of course, they did. They don’t care about what I can contribute to the war, but what you have here could save us, all of us.”

“. . .How?”

Elias gestured to the ground.

“This world. . . it’s dead. That’s what the anchor, as you call it, was trying to warn you about. It is uninhabitable, and if what I can tell of the stars is right, out of its normal orbit. More importantly, whatever put it here is still working.”

That explained the feeling of wrongness the obsidian world gave off.

“So, let me get this straight, you’re saying this planet was teleported?”

“Yes.” Elias gestured to the sky. “Every planet the anchor can access is earth, your earth, his earth, all variations of the same place. But this place, it is a sinkhole in reality. I suspect that’s why the anchor locked onto it.”

“Okay, what does that mean for us?”

He paused, clearly considering what he was going to say.

“When the anchor, or any teleportation device of the kind is activated, it swaps two similar earths at a certain point in their shared reality. This place, whatever device that was used, is like the anchor. And it was powerful enough to transport the planet in its entirety.” He considered the black rock beneath him. “With some. . . unusual mistakes, but nothing we can’t fix. Maybe.”

“And you want to use it to what, swap places with-” Summers hesitated as it clicked for him. He recalled how the spot of darkness in the sky was missing. “You want to use it to run from whatever’s coming.”

“Yes. That is, essentially, what we – he’s been doing for centuries. Running from it. But now, we can take a world with us, one that can support life. We swap this world,” he gestured to the obsidian ground beneath them, “and the one that still has life.”

“That plan of yours still ends with you killing everyone here.”

“No, no. This is not a plan.” Elias pointed to Summers. “He’s giving you the leverage you need to negotiate, what terms you reach are not our concern, just the outcome, survival. We,” Elias stressed the word, “-want to save as many people as possible. That includes your people. As things are, with you in possession of the anchor and your people trapped on what is essentially a lifeless rock with. . .” he paused, “trace amounts of quantum. . .” he looked at Summers. “It’s basically irradiated. Not actual radiation, but close enough. Either way, best not stay long.”

Summers bit back a curse. That could have been a lie, but something told him it wasn’t.

“You’re sure the others will believe you about this. Because if it goes bad, I’d take our odds against quantum whatever to your people against God.”

“His expertise in. . . let’s just call it teleportation, was second only to the man you called Wendel, whose input would have helped a great deal if he hadn’t been killed.”

“Not apologizing for killing the asshole that tried to kill me twice.” Summers looked to Pat. “What do you think? If we approach the samr with this deal, we’ll have to follow through on our end as well. We’d probably have to invite them in.”

Pat was silent a long moment, before turning towards Elias.

“Can you really bring back the dead?”

“In a way. Those like your Commander here, or the girl, yes, partially. Those that weren’t properly assimilated however are another story. We can infer things from their corpse, but they wouldn’t truly be the same.”

So, none of their people. At least, none that had been lost under Summers’ Command. He stared at Elias, remembering the spray of blood as Asle’s portal collapsed, moments before Orvar died, and bit back his anger.

Elias held up a hand at Summers next question.

“I should warn you. I don’t believe the. . . samr as you call them will be open to that idea. At least not, in the short term. We need our best people-

“You don’t need a world’s worth of experts.” Summers interrupted. “In fact, sounds like you need us more than we need you. Either way, we’ll handle the negotiations with your people.”

Elias raised his hand in mock surrender.

Pat chewed on that, not looking happy.

“I don’t like it. But I understand your reasoning, Commander. When we negotiate-”

“Nope.” Summers cut him off. “There’s no we in this. I’ll do the meet, if someone’s going to die because the samr don’t like Elias’ plan then it should be me.”

“You are the highest ranking-”

“Pat, I’m basically the Commander in name only. You’ve been giving the orders and leading everyone around. I kill things. They need you way more than they need me, and if this goes sideways, you’re the better option to find an alternative. Not budging on this.”

“. . .Fine.”

“Great, we’ll talk about the specifics of what you think we should aim for in a bit.” Summers looked back to Elias. “But now that we’ve settled that, we’re going to need some trust on your part.”

“What’s that?”

“If we’re going to do this, we need you to tell us exactly where we can find your friends.”

“Do we really need to do this?” Elias asked.

He’d been trussed up and used, essentially as a backpack. Just one step up from how Summers had been dragging the man earlier.

“You don’t have legs,” Summers countered.

“You could give me legs. Literally any bodies you have could be assimilated into my own.”

Summers recalled the slightly taller Wendel he’d seen a while back. He suspected they were capable of something like that but defacing a corpse didn’t sit right with him.

“Your people can give you legs when we find them, from the amount of crap we fought with limbs glued on they have to have extras.”

Asle walked beside them, along with Synel. Summers glanced at the woman.

“Still not sure why you decided you needed to come along.”

“This is a negotiation, I’m a trader,” Synel said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“The threat of horrible death?”

“You know I sold weapons during an ongoing war? The threat of death isn’t exactly something new for me.”

“Okay, fair. But still.”

“You need someone who knows how to haggle. I’m the best option.”

“We’re not going shopping.”

“No, but we have something they want, and that we have. That is haggling, dear.”

“Fine.”

Summers glanced at Asle. The two had, finally, managed to get some sleep in after their conversation with Elias, and the girl had been better for it. Right now, though, she looked unsure.

After a moment, she looked up at Elias.

“You said God was coming, what made him come here?”

“Your, well his-” He gestured to Summers, “army. Their interference in the initial coup sent up enough dimensional noise that it may as well have been a flare to the progenitor. There’s no possibility he’s not aware of us here.”

Summers saw some of Asle’s tension relax. Had she been blaming herself after what had happened in the city? He hadn’t even realized it, with everything going on.

“We’re getting close,” Synel spoke up, double checking the map. “Dearest, once you open the portal, Summers and I will step through with his companion, after that you’re to close it until the scheduled time, understand?”

Asle nodded.

They’d planned to meet up later if things went well to update the others. That hinged on them living through the negotiations, something they couldn’t take for granted. They’d kept that time and place between just the three of them, just in case.

“Meantime, get back to the anchor,” Summers added. “If we don’t show up when we’re supposed to, send that thing into the sun and try to carve out some farmland or something here.”

“That’s. . .” Elias began. “The amount of knowledge you’d be-”

Summers smiled.

“So, we’d be destroying knowledge?” Summers asked. “Not some tool.”

Elias hesitated before answering.

“The anchor houses all his people’s minds, their personalities. But you knew that didn’t you?”

“I suspected, Wendel came from it, and from what I can tell it’s made of something like the hamr. Stands to reason all that information had to be stored somewhere at first. But if your people don’t want to work together, we don’t have any reason to keep it around.”

Elias looked horrified at the prospect but said nothing.

Asle couldn’t actually follow up on the threat, but the other man had no way of knowing that for sure. He’d asked several times about how her power worked, and they’d avoided the topic for just this reason. Also, because they weren’t sure themselves. According to him, she shouldn’t even be able to portal into another world. Likely this was all some glitch he’d have to reason out over time.

“You know, with Roan’s. . . ability, we might be able to simply dissolve it.” Synel said softly enough to keep Elias out of the loop.

That was an idea.

“Ah, I should add one more thing before we arrive,” Elias said. “The samr are all sociopaths by design, given what’s required to. . . rebirth his kind. Helps us stay goal oriented. Basically, try not to appeal to their sense of morality.”

“Seriously?” Summers asked.

“Oh, it should be reversed once the crisis is over, I imagine there will be some horrific fallout after that. But that’s a problem for later.”

Summers had nothing to say to that.

They arrived at their destination a short time later. Supposedly, this was where the bulk of the more ‘complete’ samr were, those that had undergone the process of having their minds rewired more fully. Most of which were part of Wendel’s original group.

Summers gestured to Asle.

“When you’re ready. And don’t wait to see what happens, just close it once we’re through. Don’t want to risk you or the others.”

Asle took a breath before extending her hand.

“Be careful.”

Summers nodded, before putting a hand on Synel’s back. As the portal opened, they launched themselves through.

The portal collapsed as Synel and Summers, with Elias still strapped to his back, took in their surroundings. Nearly a thousand eyes were looking at them, some human, some distinctly not. Ziggurats of black flesh poked from the terrain as giant, lumbering humanoid figures in the distance turned their heads towards them.

Beneath their feet, several more eyes opened. So, apparently the ground was also flesh. Great.

“Despite my earlier bravado this is the most terrifying moment of my life,” Synel said.

“Same,” Summers agreed.

Three figures, two that looked male and one female, all clad in the slick, black material he’d come to associate with the hamr approached them as the giants began to close in.

Elias craned his neck beside Summers.

“Matteus! Try not to kill these two!”

Summers looked back.

“Which one’s Matteus?”

“The ground.”

Summers looked down to the eyes making aggressive. . . eye contact with him.

“Right,” Summers disregarded that train of thought as soon as it had arrived, instead turning to the approaching, hopefully humans. “We’re here to negotiate!” Summers carefully unslung Elias from his back, placing him on the ground, or Matteus, and keeping him upright.

“Oh, you wish to bargain for your lives?” The female figure said.

Summers noted her jaw didn’t move behind the black, featureless mask of not-flesh.

Synel straightened then, her expression haughty. It was a surprisingly convincing front.

“We’re here to negotiate peace. Should you attack us, know that your people will die as well,” She gestured to Elias. “He can testify to as much.”

The woman looked to Elias, something unspoken passing between them. Her featureless face twisted for a moment, before relaxing.

“I understand, you hold a knife to our throats and come speaking of peace,” the black-clad woman said after a moment.

“They can help us, Leah.” Elias said, glancing worriedly to the woman. “Just hear them out, they want nothing more than the chattel. That’s it.”

“Help us?”

“If what Elias thinks is right, then we’re your only hope against what’s coming.” Summers added.

The woman scrutinized him a long moment, he felt something in his body quiver before his hand went to his rifle. It stopped, and she raised her hand in a placating gesture.

“Apologies.” The woman, Leah, apparently, said. “You’re just a bit of an oddity.”

“I get that a lot these days.”

A thunderous crunch resounded behind them as the giants took one step towards Summers and Synel.

“Fine,” Leah leaned back, and a chair of black flesh formed beneath her. “Then, talk.”