1

“We could refuse to go back out there,” Emma said defiantly. “Just stay here in the landing zone.”

Zack shook his head. “There’s no bathroom, and we’d need more food and water. Our food inventories won’t hold up.”

“So, we go out and come back,” Jordan countered. “Maybe if we stay in the LZ, we’ll be immune to the mutation effects.”

Harper felt a headache coming on. She closed her eyes and massaged her temples. “I doubt that.”

Emma scoffed. “Well, by searching for Harris, we’re just doing what they want.”

“Yeah,” Jordan added. “Maybe if we stay here, we can force their hand.”

Damon stared at the video screen, resisting the urge to break it. “At this point, it comes down to—”

Abruptly, erratic rays of light shot from the blue orb in the center of the room. The Inmates retreated to the wall. Electrical bolts danced across the floor, shining brilliantly throughout the room. Damon could smell burnt toast and hear electricity crackling near his ear.

When the light flashes stopped, four bodies appeared on the landing zone floor. Two human mages, a human hunter, and a Grimalkin hunter rolled on the cold surface, disoriented from the transfer.

The only female in the group, a young adolescent mage, began crying. The human hunter, who touched down near her, slid over and laid his arm across her shoulders. The girl violently pushed away his gesture.

On the other side of the room, the Grimalkin hunter stood up and walked over to the Inmates. “Are you guys the first insertion team?” the twenty-something recruit asked with an Italian accent.

Zack nodded. “Yeah. Who are you?”

“Lorenzo Morelli. I volunteered for this mission.”

“Volunteered!” Harper scoffed. “Well, for your sake, I hope you know it’s permanent.”

The blue-furred Grimalkin nodded. “I’m here to find Will Harris.”

Zack laughed bitterly and wrapped his arm around the slight recruit. “Welcome to Team Death Row, Lorenzo.”

2

“I came willingly—the others didn’t,” Lorenzo told them as he nodded to the three other recruits. “They were immobilized, strapped down to their pods. I feel sorry for them.”

The young girl remained on the floor, still sobbing.

“How old is she?” Harper asked Lorenzo.

“I believe she is fourteen years old,” he said.

The Inmates gasped.

“Why would they send over someone so young?” Damon asked.

Lorenzo shifted uneasily. “She’s insurance.” He pointed at the man that had tried to console her. “To ensure her father toes the line. That’s Nevan Quinn, the original lead software architect of Epiphany16.”

“God damn,” Angie whispered.

Nevan attempted to approach his daughter again, and this time she allowed him to hold her. The Inmates heard him whispering to the girl. “I’m sorry, Kylah… I’m so very sorry.”

3

The fourth recruit, a human mage, took the longest time to shake off the post-transfer stupor. When he did, the muscular man bellowed loudly. “Yebat, pizdets, Potselui mou zhopy! Zhopu porvu margala vikoliu—”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Damon hollered at him. “Comrade. There are youngsters in the room!”

The mage jumped up and stalked over to the Inmates. “Firs,” the man said with a thick Russian accent. “I’m not your comrade. Two, I try to help de youngster when day tie her down! Yebat, dos fucker politicians!”

Zack started laughing, despite the situation. “I think I might like this guy,” he said, grinning. “What’s your name, Yuri?”

The tall man glared at Zack. “Yuri? Haha. You funny guy, pigface,” the mage shot back humorlessly. “I am Vladimir Dubrovsky and Cloud Nine force me into dis fucking realm, too!” Then the big Russian turned and punched Lorenzo square in the face.

4

“What the fuck, man?” Zack shouted as he and Damon restrained Vladimir. Lorenzo got up from the floor, rubbing his chin, which was swelling.

“Dat man do nodding when day tie us down on da pods!” the Russian bellowed.

Zack peered at the Italian suspiciously. “Is that true?” he asked. “Why wouldn’t you help them?”

The Grimalkin hunter shrugged. “What could I do? They would’ve tied me down too had I interfered.”

Still restrained by the orcs, Vladimir’s face turned dark red. He spat at Lorenzo’s feet.

“Alright, that’s it,” Damon grunted as he hauled Vlad up off of his feet and slammed him into the wall. “Look, Vlad,” he growled, “this has already been one hell of a day and we’re not interested in babysitting you and the Italian, so pipe the hell down.”

Vlad struggled against Damon, but the orc held him firm.

“Pizdets, you lucky I don’t come over as orc!”

Damon banged him against the wall once more.

“Mne do lampochki, alright, I leave zhopoliz alone,” he sighed.

Damon lowered him to the floor. The Inmates gathered between the two recruits, keeping them away from each other.

“So, why did they send you over, Vlad?” Zack asked.

The bearded Russian sighed. “Ugh, I am da top engineer for company and day dink I can solve dare problems while looking for your dolboyob VIP!” He pointed at the father. “Same ding for Nevan.” Vlad looked at the Inmates, shaking his head. “His poor kid,” he muttered.

5

Angie and Harper walked over to the father and girl to introduce themselves. While the man kept his head lowered, the daughter looked up. The girl’s grace and innocence struck Angie, despite the tears that soaked her face and dampened her hair. Her soft round cheeks still held the vestiges of childhood, and her light brown eyes revealed keen intelligence. “I’m Kylah Quinn,” she sniffled, “and this is my dad, Nevan.”

The man glanced up, his contorted face displaying his inner misery. “They… they tied my daughter duh, down,” he sobbed through a tortured expression. “How could they do that? Wha… what am I going to do?”

Angie felt her eyes water. She knelt down and placed an arm on each of them. “Nevan, we will protect… take care of you… and your daughter.” She turned her head away as tears rolled down her cheeks.

As she and the Quinns got acquainted, Harper strolled back to the Inmates by the wall. “We have to move on,” she said. “We can’t stay here in the landing zone.”

The Inmates regarded her soberly.

“As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t just about finding Harris anymore.” She nodded back to the Quinns. “We have to find a way to get them the hell out of here.”

6

“The first thing we should do,” Harper told the Inmates, “is start collecting the human remains from that glitch in the tree and the snake’s lair.” She glanced at Jordan. “We might get lucky. Maybe Jordan and Ethan were wrong, and it is Harris

Jordan looked unconvinced but didn’t argue.

“Like I said,” Harper continued, “any way, by hook or by crook, we can convince Cloud Nine to allow us back home.”

Damon grunted. “Then we head back out there today,” he said, then looked at the Inmates. “Our time is running out.”

Kylah and Nevan Quinn joined the others. After looking over their stats, the Inmates realized that the new recruits were starting at level 1, just like they’d had to. Nevin told them that Cloud Nine applied their twenty bonus points across all six base stats, with constitution getting the extra 2 points left. They had been fitted with the same basic weapons and armor, too, depending on their race and class choices.

The blue orb in the center of the room flashed again.

“Jeez, what now?” Emma exclaimed.

Lorenzo looked at them calmly. “That’s the second wave of recruits,” he said. “Ten more bodies.”

They watched as the lightning strikes materialized bodies before them. When the transfer was over, four orc warriors, one Grimalkin hunter, one Grimalkin mage, and four human healers were lying on the landing zone floor.

“Silo?” Harper whispered as she focused on a goateed orc.

“What do you mean ‘silo’?” Damon asked, confused.

Harper shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. “Silo, um, Stephen Parker. He’s one of the top gamers in England.”

Damon grunted.

As the ten new recruits got up from the floor, the Inmates asked all of them if they knew how to swim. The Grimalkin hunter raised her arm. As one of the smaller members of the new team, the woman’s Vietnamese features were distinctive, even through the game’s redesign of her body. Interestingly, her dyed-red hair had stayed intact through the transfer. It descended over her blue frame in a startling contrast of primary colors. “I can’t swim,” she said nervously.

“That’s okay,” Damon said. “We’ll pair you up with someone who can.”

Emma approached and introduced herself to the timid recruit. “I like your hair,” Emma said.

“Thanks. My name is Thao.”

“Dow?” Emma asked, wanting to make sure she was pronouncing her name right.

The young woman nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. It’s spelled T-H-A-O.”

“Well, Thao, don’t worry about the water,” Emma said. “I’ll take you to the top of that lake.”

Thao looked at her, confused. “But I thought this was the earth realm?”

Emma smiled knowingly. “It is… and it was.”

7

“Is anyone else here against their will?” Damon asked the ten newcomers, who stared back at him with bewildered expressions. He pointed to Vlad, who was pacing behind the entire group, and the Quinns. “That’s Vladimir Dubrovsky, and those two over there are Nevan and Kylah Quinn. They were strapped down onto their pods.”

The new recruits gasped.

Damon sighed heavily. “Look. You’re going to have to follow our lead. Daylight is fading. We have to go back out there and find a place to camp.”

The newcomers murmured.

“I want each of you to give us a brief introduction,” Damon continued. “Just the basic stuff so we know who you are once we’re out there.” He gestured to the orc Harper pointed out earlier. “You. Silo? Why don’t you start?”

The orc stepped forward. “Cheers, mate,” he said in a strangely high-pitched tone. “Name is Stephen Parker,” He said then grinned cheekily. “But you can call me ‘Silo’!” he yelled audaciously as he leaned back, pumping his arms. “Because I’m the freakin’ champion of the Nuclear Nights and the British VSports tournaments!” He surveyed his audience, expecting a wave of admiration.

The room was as quiet as a mausoleum. Harper rolled her eyes.

Silo’s grin faded. “Err, anywho… I’m an app developer from Liverpool,” he said as his face reddened, “and I’m looking forward to that money at the end of the line.”

Damon glanced at Harper derisively. Don’t look at me, he’s not my recruit, she telepathed to him. Silo retreated quietly back to the group. The orc beside him raised his arm. “My name is Armando Rodriguez. I’m a former Marine, and now a police and corrections officer from Bridgeport, California.”

“Hmm, another Marine,” Zack whispered to Damon, sounding pleased.

There was a long pause. The newcomers stared at the two remaining orcs, waiting for them to identify themselves. After a few moments, they got the hint and the bulkier orc strode forward.

“Oh, hey y’all, I’m Jackson Reed,” he said with a thick southern accent. “This here is mah buddy, Madison Hayes. We grew up in Montgomery, Alabama.”

The taller orc lifted his arm. “Hey y’all, like Jackson said, my name is Madison Hayes, but y’all can call me ‘Hammer.’ We’re both Seabees and…”

“What’s a Seabee?” Jordan interrupted.

Hammer appeared embarrassed. “Gosh, right,” the soft-spoken Southerner replied. “We’re in the Navy. In the construction battalion—that’s where Seabee comes from, for the letters C and B. Cloud Nine contacted us for this here mission and we were both game.”

With the orcs fully introduced, the Grimalkin mage spoke up next. Interestingly, she had an elaborate tattoo, just below her breastbone. As a result, the blue fur on her chest was emblazoned with the images of skulls, lions, and roses. “My name is Sierra Garcia,” she said guardedly. “I responded to the company tweet about this job. I’m a physical trainer from Los Angeles.”

They went on with the introductions for the next fifteen minutes.

Among the healers’ group, there was a nurse named Heinrich Muller, from Tampa; Keshon King, another nurse from Bangor, Maine; Zahra Carter, a nurse from San Antonio; and Rachel Moore, a drop-dead gorgeous zoologist from San Diego, who’d been recruited internally by the company.

Lorenzo stepped forward, introducing himself to the broader group. “Hi, I’m Lorenzo Morelli, an SCI official…”

“What’s that?” Harper asked.

He looked at her, irked. “Security and counterintelligence. I worked for the NSA out of Fort Meade, Maryland.” Lorenzo peeked at the group sheepishly. “Cloud Nine recruited me internally as well.”

The remaining Grimalkin hunter, Thao Nguyen, informed the group she was a cartographer from Kansas City.

Emma elbowed Harper. “Hey, she might come in handy, drawing maps for us,” she whispered.

As the only human hunter of the new group, Nevan Quinn told them he was the lead Epiphany software architect for Cloud Nine. “And, as Damon told you,” he said as his voice cracked, “they forced me and my daughter into this.”

The group murmured again.

“How awful,” Zahra muttered.

A long hush settled over the team before the young girl broke the silence. “Like Dad said, they kidnapped us. I’m Kylah and they made me a mage.” She glanced at Harper. “Dad and I”—she peered up at her father—“we don’t know how to swim, either.”

“Don’t worry, Kylah,” Harper replied thickly. “We’ll take care of you.”

Vladimir Dubrovsky was the last of the new recruits to properly introduce himself, doing it in his already-familiar brash style. He complained about his tight-fitting jack of plates armor and peppered his dialogue with Russian swear words.

8

While the new recruits chatted, the original six walked to a quiet area of the landing zone. They expressed their anger and reservations about having to advance further into the realms, but their defiance wilted in the face of Kylah’s predicament.

“Maybe we should leave Nevan and Kylah here,” Jordan said.

The Inmates considered the option. Damon shook his head. “They’d have to venture out at some point,” he said, “to go to the bathroom, or to get more food.” He glanced at the other five and sighed. “Then it would just be the two of them.”

“And they don’t know how to swim,” Harper added.

Emma swore, disgusted with the situation. “I bet part of the reason Cloud Nine sent her,” she said ruefully, “was that they knew it would force our hand.”

The Inmates agreed miserably. They watched the newcomers milling about.

Harper sighed. “Okay, so we bring them, but we’re going to be extra vigilant with the Quinns.”

The Inmates grunted their agreement.

“I cannot fucking believe I’m asking this,” Jordan hissed. “Where should I put the 16 attribute points from the Kali kill?” Harper told him to drop them all into endurance, bringing that stat in line with the other two stats she had been focusing on for Jordan.

“So which portal do we go through?” she asked.

Jordan glanced at her, puzzled. “Huh?”

Harper pointed toward the portal room. “There are two portals enabled now. One will drop us at the start of the realm and a new one will connect us to the tower.”

“We should start from here,” Damon replied. “The newcomers are at level 1, and the creatures will be easier to defeat at the beginning of the realm. They need to gain experience, just like we did.”

Harper shrugged. “We can bypass the water if we go straight to the tower?”

Angie shook her head. “No, Damo is right. The XP will be essential for them. It won’t take as long this time. We know what to expect. Plus, it’ll allow us to cover more ground, maybe find something we missed.”

“Okay.” Harper shrugged. “I can’t argue with that.”

9

With daylight wasting, Damon led the twenty teammates into the immense circular portal room. He made sure they had their telepathy switched on and knew how to use it. Then he warned them about the glitches before focusing on the lake. “After you go through the portal, you’ll be underwater,” he told them. “At least twenty, thirty feet deep. I’m going to venture in first. Sort of do a test run.” He glanced at the Inmates. “It may take me a few minutes to scope out the situation, so don’t get concerned if I’m not back right away.”

“Good luck out there, Damon,” Rachel, the human healer replied.

Damon thanked her, feeling rattled by her stunning beauty. He thought Rachel looked like a model. Then he turned and sauntered up the green-painted path to the earth portal and jumped through.

10

Minutes passed.

The group’s anxiety increased. Even the original Inmates became worried. Zack was about to jump through the portal himself when Damon emerged, drenched from the water. He crash-landed heavily onto the green path.

The newcomers rushed over and formed a tight circle around him.

“Whoa, y’alright?” Jackson exclaimed as he knelt beside the soaking orc.

Damon nodded, then coughed and turned on his side. Puddles of water had passed through the portal along with him, making the green paint slick.

“What happened out there?” Zack asked.

Damon looked up at him to answer, but he was out of breath and gulped more air. After a few moments, he answered. “The… the current is very strong… had to fight against it… Swam to the top, I… I think we can make it.” He coughed hoarsely. “It’s still daylight and… and I can see the clearing, just before the trees, not… not covered by the water.”

Angie placed her hand on the back of Damon’s neck. His skin was cold. Water trickled from his steel armor.

He stood up and took another deep breath. “We need to take advantage of the sunlight while we have it.” Damon stopped and looked at every member of the team, assessing them. “It’s rough out there, but doable. Like we said earlier, you’ll have to trust us.”

He paused, letting his words sink in. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

Some members nodded. Others quietly affirmed they were ready.

Damon exhaled. “Okay, I’ll go through the portal first.” He glanced at Jordan. “I want you to follow behind me and then the rest of you go in. Zack, you’ll bring up the rear. Does anyone have questions?”

No one replied. The new members lined up in a row. Emma walked up to Thao. “Let me jump in,” she whispered, “then you come through, right after me, okay?”

The petite Vietnamese Grimalkin nodded.

Emma smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll be waiting for you and won’t let you go.”

Already very anxious, Thao clasped onto Emma’s hands.

Harper and Jordan made the same preparations, lining up with Kylah and Nevan. Then the fourteen recruits stood ready, staring at Damon. He glanced at Angie, feeling the moment needed a speech, that he had to say something profound.

She nodded at him.

He turned to face the group. “The world out there,” he said. “It’ll be nothing like you expected.” He scanned the new recruits. “I know most of you are here for the money, but take it from me, that will be the furthest thing from your mind before the day has ended.”

Damon paused, searching for words. He saw Harper with her arms draped around Kylah. The newcomers watched him attentively. “In the nine days we’ve been here, our group has bonded into something that will always be special… for the rest of our lives. I hope that you… we… together, can have that same bond.”

Behind the new recruits, Silo smirked.

Damon glanced at Angie again. “My hope is that we will learn to trust each other… depend on each other.” He paused. “Stay close to one another when you get out there and, if you run into trouble, call out telepathically.”

He inhaled. “Finally, take a deep breath before you jump.”

Damon turned quickly and, rather than walking, dove into the portal this time. Jordan raced behind him and disappeared into the shimmering green oval.

The new recruits sprinted for the portal like soldiers running headlong into a mission. Zack stood beside the portal, bellowing and urging them on. Harper ran ahead of Kylah as they swooped through the portal, almost simultaneously.

As the original six embarked with weary apprehension, the newcomers jumped into the strange world with the same sense of fear, exhilaration, and determination that had gripped the Inmates when they first entered the earth realm.