Faera sawed at the iron bars, cursing the Nuetta dampening runes preventing her from willing them apart when she heard footsteps approaching in the distance. Faera sprang back onto her cot, concealing the file in her hair.

Five men struggled down the hall under the bulk of a sixth, with a tired-looking mayor following close behind. Only the clone could be that big. The guards opened a cell door and threw him in the direction of the cot.

Mayor Gunderson stopped in front of Faera’s cell, giving her a good view of the bags under his eyes. He retrieved the keys from his pocket, and swung her door open. “Come with me,” he said, his voice quiet. “Gentle Nights checks out, so we’re sending you back to East Mountain with a squad.”

“That’s not enough,” Faera hissed. “The humans hav--” Faera was stunned as the mayor lunged forward to clap a hand over her mouth. He glanced at the guards who were strolling back out the jail, relaxing only after they were gone.

“That information could cause a panic, Ranger ,” he said, referring to her by her title. “The city council was unwilling to sign off on funding anything more than one squad, so I pulled some strings and made sure it was composed of veterans. I briefed them, and these soldiers are taking your warning very seriously.”

“Also,” he said, talking over her, “I asked around and two more squads of veterans are going to be taking paid vacation… in East Mountain. To, and I quote, ‘hunt the most dangerous game’.”

Faera blinked. “That might actually be almost enough.” Upwards of twenty people with assault rifles wouldn’t be able to wipe out the hundreds she’d seen piling out of those vehicles, but they would probably be able to hurt them enough to drive them away.

“I busted my ass on this one, Scout,” Mayor Kine said, leaning close. “Those men have instructions to beat the shit out of you if this is a hoax.”

“Not a hoax,” Faera said, shaking Kine’s hand. “And I appreciate your effort, sir.”

“You better,” Kine muttered, turning away. “Follow me.”

Faera followed behind him, sparing one backward glance at the man sprawled across his cot. “What’s gonna happen to him?” she asked.

Kine glanced over his shoulder as they exited the security gate. “They’re going to make an example of him,” he said. “I argued that, were he programmed to kill, he would have done it already, but the council’s composed of old codgers with PTSD. One of them actually climbed under his desk and started hyperventilating when we showed them pictures. The rest weren’t much better.”

“Guess I got lucky,” Faera said.

“You surely did,” Kine said, guiding her to the street.

“That’s a bummer.” Faera turned left toward the city gate. “He seemed like he wanted to help people.”

#

Create a new folder, bookmark Sierra, thirty seconds before the last two interruptions of consciousness. Sam lay in the bed with his eyes closed, breathing slowly. He had woken mid-carry, but felt the hands of at least four men at all times, and had chosen to bide his time. In doing so, he had overheard an interesting conversation that gave him a lot to think about.

First, there was some kind of military activity happening in East Mountain. Second, it was caused by humans.

And the third point that could be gleaned from this? These people weren’t human.

Sam laced his fingers behind his head as he considered: Which side would he choose?

Sam knew his own face well, having seen it every morning in the bathroom’s cracked mirror. Sam could tell that the man who had executed those pointy-eared people in the arena’s hologram was in pain . Siding with the humans would be safe, but he would wind up becoming exactly what these non-humans had accused him of being.

On the other hand, how could he live in peace with the non-humans, when he apparently stood for something they reviled?

Sam tapped his foot against the air, replaying one of the songs in the Rec Room jukebox with his implant.

For now, he would have to escape and witness more of the world with his own eyes, before he made a decision.

#

The sun was beginning to set when Faera came to the city gate. It had already been twenty-four hours since the attack on East Mountain, and her heart hammered with worry for her people.

At the gate was an armored military truck loaded with six soldiers. Beside it was Daniel Fall’s truck, three men in the cab and five in the bed. A third private truck held another six.

“Here’s your team,” Mayor Kine said. “You’ll be along as a guide, Captain Maillard will be in command, and the rest of his platoon--” Kine motioned to the two civilian trucks loaded with soldiers “--will be joining for R&R.”

“Right,” Faera said as the captain stepped forward. The man showed the first signs of aging, meaning he was most likely nearing his six hundredth year of life and that he’d probably been born on the other side of The Gate.

He held out a hand and clasped Faera’s with a warm grip. “Name’s Captain Maillard, Ranger. If you’ll pardon my brevity, get your ass on the truck. East Mountain doesn’t have all week.”

“Yes sir,” Faera said, scrambling up into the military truck. She was pleased to find her weapons in the bed, and she strapped her holster on as the truck rumbled to life. The grim-faced elves around her were armed to the teeth, and they sat upon ammos cases as long as she was tall. Faera fetched two extra clips for her sidearm and rifle, slipping them into slots on her belt.

The drive back to East Mountain took two hours. They bypassed Gentle Nights, instead following the road that Faera had avoided for fear of humans running her down in bulletproof trucks. After crossing the bridge, with East Mountain approximately twenty minutes away on foot, they pulled off to the side.

“Alright, listen up,” the captain said after they’d jumped from the trucks. “The report from the scout here was that the humans softened up East Mountain with artillery, then blitzed them with jeeps carrying several hundred swordsmen. The men and women of East Mountain fell back to the emergency shelter and sealed themselves in.”

“That was,” the captain said, checking his watch, “twenty-eight hours ago.” His gaze scanned across the assembled soldiers. “We’re going to return the favor. Holdan, I want you to take your squad to the edge of the forest and disable any artillery you find--the last thing I want is to get shelled like a dumbass. If you run into something you can’t handle, launch a red flare and retreat.

“The rest of you are going to follow our guide here to a good vantage point, then we’re going to get some target practice. According to the report, there’s a good chance that there’re kidnapped elves among them, so take good aim, and no grenades unless I say so.”

The soldiers gave an affirmative, and Captain Maillard met her eye. “Get moving.” Faera broke into a jog, and the captain and two squads followed her, while Holdan’s broke away to the east.

Minutes later, approached the last hill overlooking the base, Faera motioned for the soldiers to crouch. She shimmied to the top of the ridge, and gazed down at her home .

The empty, burned husk of the base stared back at her. The shattered walls and watchtowers had been set aflame, and the massive steel plate that had protected the emergency shelter from dragons four hundred years ago had been peeled away like the lid of a tin can. Their last line of defense hadn’t even held a single day, Faera realized, fists tightening.

The base was still. The Jeeps and soldiers that had swarmed the area the day before were long gone, and all of her people, her dad, and her friend, were either dead or taken.

She motioned the captain up, and he surveyed the smoldering wreckage with a grim expression. After a few minutes, the captain stood. “Ranger, come with me. Tennins,” he ordered, “stay here and provide cover in case something unexpected happens. Everyone else, with me. We need to check for survivors.”

Without waiting for the others, Faera set off down the hill, letting gravity assist in her flight down the side of the mountain. Faera’s feet only seemed to touch the ground in fits and bursts as she flew through the trees.

Finally, Faera emerged into the clearing around the base. A single road cut through the woods, leading to the elven base built into the side of the mountain. She smelled smoke as she ran up the path.

Jumping over a pile of smoldering logs that used to be the wall, Faera scanned left and right. She saw nothing alive in the main yard. Base housing lay in ruins, the apartments collapsed as though they had been flattened by the hammer of an immense giant.

“Hello!” she called out. “Is anyone still alive here?” The buzzing of flies was her only answer. Around her, human corpses lay naked in the dirt, stripped of their valuables and left to rot.

On the other hand, she saw not a single dead elf.

Heart hammering, Faera rushed to the Emergency Shelter and climbed through the peeled-open steel door. Inside, there was a destroyed barricade and bloodstains on the walls and floor. A wide stain travelled the length of the hall, where it appeared each and every shelter occupant had been dragged out, alive or dead.

Faera shivered as her blood ran cold. Why the hell did they go through so much effort to kill elves? And why did they take them? Particularly, what use could they have for dead elves?

As far as Faera knew, only the oldest elves who could remember a time before her race had resided on Earth. Humans, with their short life spans, had simply passed learned hate from one generation to the next. In those generations, they’d reverted, lost most of their technology. So how the Jeeps and artillery?

Faera walked deeper into the Emergency shelter, and found beds overturned, failed barricades knocked aside. She came to the communications room and saw that someone had taken a sword to the radio. Faera moved deeper into the Emergency shelter, looking for bodies, any clue.

In the Common Room, the furniture had been moved to create barricades near the entrance. Passing those, she saw the word first. Written in flaking brown blood, the word ‘blasphemy’ had been scrawled across the floor. Behind it lay a jumble of scorched, useless guns amidst the powdery ashes of what looked to’ve been… books. Thousands of books, taken from the now-empty shelves.

The base’s accumulated knowledge, all gone. Faera felt something evil in that pile of scrap, as if the hunts of her kind had manifested some dark, physical form right in front of her.

The muscles in Faera’s jaw tightened as she looked at the desecration, nails biting into her palms as she made fists.

“I’m sorry,” Captain Maillard said, approaching from behind. “The sweep was clean. No survivors.”

Faera wiped her cheeks and regarded the Captain. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “For coming.”

“Just wish I could have been here to lend a hand.”

“You and me both,” Faera said, biting back a sob.

“They’re going to have to take this seriously,” he said. “Between this and Gentle Nights, we’ve got to get off our asses.” He must’ve seen something in her expression. “Come back with us. Help me convince them.”

She shook her head. “I’m going to follow their trail and kill as many of them as I can,” Faera said, her eyes narrowed. She thought back to the prisoners that had been loaded into the cages. If she was fast enough, maybe she could save a few of them.

“Come back with us,” Captain Maillard urged. “If you run after them half-cocked, you’re just going to end up dead. Take a few days to calm down, make a plan, and get supplies.”

Faera glanced back at the captain, and saw the pain in his eyes. “Did something like this happen to you?”

The captain nodded. “My son had a homestead to the south,” he said. "They took em, along with my granddaughter."

Faera nodded, not needing to hear any more. She turned and walked back out of her former home with anger smoldering in her chest.

The ride back to First Word was a silent one. All the optimism and nerves mixed with bloodlust was washed away, replaced with sullen anger, disappointment, and fatigue. Faera sat amongst them, her rifle leaning over her shoulder as her mind wandered.

How was she going to get her people back? Faera knew that a large portion of them were still alive, and--best case--would be sold as slaves. Worst case, they were being kept alive to keep their ‘ingredients’ as fresh as possible so that these short-lived savaged could try to gain elven powers by eating them, or mixing their blood with mercury and drinking it, or some other stupid shit.

The humans from the twenty-first century had done the exact same thing, albeit with more care and precision. They’d been working on sequencing the elven genome, trying to isolate what made them so long-lived and uniquely gifted at manipulating the energy that seeped through the Gates.

Eventually, in their envy and frustration, the humans had tried to exterminate them. The quest to unlock the elves’ secrets had never halted, but their science had devolved into barbaric superstition. Today, humans believed that drinking elven blood granted long life and virility.

Faera rolled her eyes. If there ever was a stupider reason for genocide... Rhinos, elves, and myriad other creatures, killed to make human dicks hard.

She followed the troops into the base, where the light of the evening sun was blocked out by the massive concrete walls of First Word’s fortifications. The troops helped unload the trucks, then broke off into ones and twos, disappearing into the stretching shadows, heading back to their homes and families.

All except for Captain Maillard, who stayed to check over the truck, fastidiously making sure everything was perfect in case they had to use it in a hurry.

“Thanks for bringing me back here,” Faera said as the captain stepped from the truck. “Can you point me to the logistics officer? I haven’t spent much time in First Word.” She needed guns. Guns, dried food, knives, a water filter, camouflage, rope, a spare pair of boots and clothes, extra socks… Faera mentally began preparing the list of things she’d need for her trip into the human lands.

“I’ll do you one better,” Captain Maillard said, dusting his hands as he closed the truck’s door. “The mayor called a council meeting. It’s an unofficial debrief. We tell them what we saw, and they’ll take some kind of action. They can’t deny the fact that the entire population of East Mountain has vanished. You’ll get your help.”

The captain guided Faera through the streets of First Word until they reached City Hall, where the Mayor and the Council of Elders awaited them in an oval room that smelled of musty old wood and older elves.

“Ranger,” a wrinkled old elf in a patched suit said, nodding as she entered the room. “Captain.” Faera cast her gaze across the assembly of elders, and saw that each seat was filled save the centermost. The younger mayor sat in a far wing.

“We’d like to hear what happened at East Mountain Fort,” the wrinkled man in the suit said. There were five other elders beside him, some dressed human formal, some wearing more traditional elven robes.

“The entire fort was looted, and its population has been abducted, both the living and the dead.” The captain spoke to the assembled elders.

“That’s alarming,” a woman in robes said. ‘Uyetta Suienan’, her nameplate read.

“Indeed,” the suited elderly man agreed. He was ‘John Southland’. “Was there any evidence of small arms fire, or the artillery and Jeeps spoken of by Ms. Entramond, here?”

“There were scorch marks where high impact explosions tore apart the city gates, and tire tracks leading up to the gate itself,” He said

“Tire tracks and explosives?” another man said, also robed, one ‘Makeval Rondus’. He flipped open a manila folder. “According to your first debrief, there was a human or possibly mixed-blood who was capable of harnessing Nuetta to cause explosions. Is it possible the damage to the fort was caused by him or people like him?”

“No,” Faera said with an edge in her voice. “I saw the artillery, the gouts of smoke and the explosions. There was no soul within visual range of the walls when the bombardment started.

John turned his gaze to Captain Maillard, shifting in his seat. The old goat probably had ass problems. “Did you see any sign of artillery, captain?”

“I saw the damage to the walls, sir. The tracks were too far out to--”

“How about small arms fire?” John asked.

The captain frowned. “There was no sign of small arms fire, but--”

“You see, there is no concrete evidence of the humans reinventing anything as advanced as a simple blunderbuss,” John said, with Makeval nodding in agreement. The other elders seemed pensive, their expressions subdued.

“Why are you trying to downplay this?” Faera demanded, taking a step forward. The guards against the wall took a half-step in her direction. They’d probably tackle her if she got in the elders’ faces, so she decided not to push her luck. “You know for a fact that every soul is gone,” she continued. “Shouldn’t you be sending everything you have at them?”

“Please, Ms. Entramond, no one is more concerned about this than we are.” Makeval gave the platitude with a severe and patronizing tone.

“More concerned than the thousand elves of East Mountain? Because I guarantee you that they’re pretty fucking concerned right now. They’re probably waiting in iron cages to be cut up for elixirs or fetishes or some shit.”

“Please, Ms. Entramond, the matter is one of scale,” John said. “There would be no benefit in sending the full army when a small taskforce will do. Especially when we don’t know exactly how the Fort was attacked.”

“It. Was. Artillery. And. Jeeps,” Faera growled.

“Ranger, I’m sure you’re aware that memory is a fickle thing, even more so in a traumatic event. It’s very easy to get the order of events jumbled up, and even invent things to fit the narrative. We can’t afford to act on one soldier’s hysterics.” Makeval gave a dismissive wave.

Faera was over the desk before the guards could catch her. Her fist sank into the elder’s nose with a satisfying crack, causing the old man to spew a mouthful of blood and a tooth across the table and her sleeve . Her momentum carried them backward, and she rode him and his chair to the ground, achieving a mounted position.

“How’s this for hysterics, asshole!” She got three good hits in before she felt the rough grip of the guards under her arms, pinching her nerves as they hauled her away from the elder. Faera tried to give him a good kick to the liver as they hauled her away, but they lifted her painfully off the ground and another two men grabbed her legs, Captain Maillard being one of them.

“That was not a good idea,” he said as the four of them carried Faera out.

They dragged her straight to a cell. Faera didn’t have any hatred for the ones carrying her, or energy to spare struggling, so she went limp in their hands, spending the time being dragged through the street considering what she’d just done. She expected to be court-martialed and put in prison, but a week later the charges were dismissed in light of Faera’s circumstances–hysterics--and she was released as a civilian.

Faera woke up a free woman in her hotel, rolling her shoulders as she sat up, stretching out a muscle she’d strained in the attack on the council member the week before. She had been fortunate that the damage inflicted on Makeval had been slight, otherwise she might have found herself stuck in jail.

As Faera’s thoughts turned to jail, she recalled the human who’d been in jail with her. Apparently the man had been some kind of vicious war criminal, and so had been sentenced to death by arena participation.

Faera stood and went to the sink, brushing her teeth in front of the mirror. As she did so, she could hear the cheer of the crowd from the arena. The hotel she was currently staying in rested in the shadow of the massive structure.

It was a barbaric custom, one carried over from their previous world. Participation was more or less voluntary nowadays, with the adoption of human technology.

A rousing cry made Faera turn her head to look at the coliseum out the window. In the glass, she saw the reflection of her pointed ears. If it weren’t for those, she’d look pretty damn human.

Curious, Faera put her finger across her ear, imagining the cartilage stopping there. It truly did look like a human ear, if only it were a bit more rounded on top.

Suddenly, Faera was struck by an idea. She knew how she was going to find her friends and family that had been taken. She threw her clothes on and sprinted downstairs, tossing a few bits at the guy behind the desk.

After a quick afternoon shopping, and consulting with some body modification specialists, she found herself sitting in a chair with her ears marked with a grease pen.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” the tattooed elf asked, a scalpel in one hand and a cube of ice in the other, pressed against her ear. “There’s not a whole lot of coming back from this. It might even get you shot on sight.”

“Not where I’m going,” Faera said.

The tattooed elf shrugged and then flicked her ear with a finger. “Can you feel that?” he asked.

Faera shook her head.

“Okay,” the elf sighed, brandishing the scalpel. “Here… we… go.”