“Interesting to see how much people were pooling control and build points,” Ayres remarked wryly to Mai as a plethora of new buildings, trenches, tunnels, tank and mech traps and automated weapons turrets sprung up across the city.

Mai nodded, watching the map as more and more points appeared on it.

“Did you keep yours back like that?” she looked away from the map for a moment.

“No, we dug down. You only penetrated the top layer, we have many more down below,” he smiled gently at the reminder that she and her people had attacked his base. “Defence in depth. Literally.”

They both shared a quick laugh at that. Mai felt more at ease in his presence than the other faction commanders. There was no attraction, he was far too old and rugged-looking, and she was sure he wasn’t interested in her either. But there was a solidity about him that she appreciated. He had a calming presence, and a way of speaking and listening that made people feel that they had one hundred per-cent of his attention.

Ayres was also quietly competent. Unlike other leaders, he didn’t shout about his accomplishments, of which there were many, but rather let them talk for themselves. His faction had recovered quickly after her attack and had taken advantage of her attacks on other factions, slowly and quietly expanding his territory more by just walking in and taking over a certain building than by actual force. By the time a faction had realised what was happening, Ayres’ people would have advanced their borders, and entrenched themselves in such a way that fighting them wouldn’t have been worth the effort.

This in turn had forced the factions to look to other areas to regain their status, creating more tensions and conflicts which Ayres had also been able to take advantage of. It helped that his people, both players and minions alike, were utterly professional in their approach to the people of the city. Unlike the gangers and prisoners, they didn’t rob and pillage their way through the lands they held, nor the lands they annexed. Services were quickly improved and Ayre’s faction had some of the smoothest-running public facilities in the area.

Since he had aligned himself with Mai, other military factions such as the Alphas, Bravo Two Zeros, Recon Rangers, 5thNether City SpecOps and the Scythes had all come under the Ghosts banner. Like the wise leader he was, he had allowed the different factions to keep their names, whilst intermingling the personnel so that only his Ghosts had units in which they were the majority. Not only did that mean that old rivalries were held in check, but it also meant that if he ever needed to back his words up with force, his Ghosts would be more than capable of doing so.

“How long do you think we have?” she asked him.

“Well, not having seen for myself the people up in Upper City, although I do thank you for the retinal monitor recordings, what my spies are telling me is that the truce you disrupted had far reaching effects”

“Oh?” Mai hadn't had time to sit with Biyu since they had returned, being far too busy moving around the city and corralling the faction leaders so that they would do what they had promised to do. The city council had been called mere hours after her return from the Upper City. She couldn’t remember the last time she had actually been able to take time to sleep.

“The combat spread. Once cullers in other areas of that level learned that the truce had been broken in the staging area you were in, they immediately resumed fighting. Reports also said that the gangs you tricked into fighting each other also had members at several other staging points. All hell broke out.”

“Couldn’t have planned it better,” she chuckled.

“Planned, or winged?” he laughed, patting her on the shoulder to take the sting out of his words.

“Hey, I resemble that remark!”

She projected the map before them, making it larger so that she could plot out the various sectors.

“As agreed, we’re breaking the city into sectors based upon former faction control borders. Also as agreed, each of the factions must provide a third of their forces to defend other sectors.”

“I judge by the tone of your voice that it’s not going so smoothly?”

“No,” she agreed, jabbing a finger at several sectors, turning them red in the process. “These ones are either flat out dragging their heels, or only sending small numbers. I would try holding back reinforcements for them, but I don’t want people thinking they can just refuse to work with us.”

“That’s not a problem, my sector has deployed our troops to the sectors you assigned us, but we have more than enough reserves to make a point. I’ll send units to the recalcitrant sectors, in addition to the ones that have arrived and say that you’ve asked me to ensure that deployment of their troops goes smoothly. I’ll even offer transport. They won’t be able to refuse without losing face.”

“Love it. Great. We’ve set up minefields on the three main approaches to the city, and every street should by now have either trenches or barricades blocking them.”

As she spoke the items she mentioned flashed into existence on the map.

“Might I suggest that we add a series of three trenches, covered by heavy weapons bunkers here, and put three lines of mines in front of them in such a way that they channel attackers this way?” he slashed a line across the map and Mai nodded as she saw the reasoning behind it.

“That’s going to cost. Each mine is point two-five of a build point. I’m not sure that the Block Twelvers have got enough.”

“Not to worry, they cede the territory to the Abandoned Seekers, urbexers are terrible at hoarding points. Once the defences have been built, the Abandoned Seekers return the territory, and the defences will stay.”

“Genius,” Mai quickly put an order together and sent it winging to the two factions Ayres had mentioned. “Okay, done. Let’s hope the Block Twelvers don’t get their knickers in a twist.”

“I doubt it, for prisoners they’re not a bad bunch. Far less psychopathic than the Canninebalz,” he shuddered dramatically. Whilst the Canninebalz were the smallest faction in the city, what they lacked in size they more than made up for in attitude, achieving somewhat legendary status amongst even the other prisoner factions.

“How are your knights coming along?”

Mai appreciated the fact that Ayres didn’t mention the destruction of his last academy. The city council had agreed that the rebels and military factions were best suited to mecha-combat. Urbexers were to act as recon and scouts, using delaying actions, whilst the prisoners would be close-combat specialists. Gangers were to be used on the barricades and in the trenches alongside the rebels and military units.

“Rather well, we’ve got them on an accelerated learning programme. We’ll have roughly two hundred and fifty ready to go when the enemy attacks.”

Mai whistled, impressed despite her faith in Ayres. Her academy had managed to train just shy of three hundred. Fortunately, it was all simulator based, or the city would have been drained of bio-mass in no time at all.

As soon as the fortification of the city had commenced, units had been sent into the Upper City to try and obtain as much bio-boost as possible. City minions had turned over all of their stocks and given players their entire lives’ savings so that they could use credits to buy the bio-boost.

“At the rate we’re building, we’ll be ready for them in under two days. Have you considered fortifying the tunnels approaching here?”

“It was mentioned by a couple of other council members, and I’ve had my engineers look into it. We’ll have to build small dwellings out into the tunnels and expand our control areas. Once we’ve done that, we can then build defences further out.”

“How much will that cost?” Ayres marked places on the map where he clearly felt the new defences should go.

“We’re working on that now. The plan is to maximise the distance between the buildings, so that we can push out quickly. We’re also trying to work out how big the buildings have to be in order to count as expansions.”

“Might be wise to change those buildings to bunkers, drop a few more trenches and automated weapons systems down there as well,” Ayres opened up the DEFENCES section on the map and dropped a five-man bunker down onto the first of the test buildings. “Seems that they expand the control points more than the test buildings.”

Mai slapped her forehead, she hadn’t slept properly for days, and wasn’t thinking as clearly as she was used to.

“Damn, I should have checked that. Looks like a normal house has an expansion grid two squares deep around all sides. That five-man bunker, although it costs three times as much in control points, also has an expansion grid of five squares on all sides.”

“Mai, don’t beat yourself up,” Ayres laid a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “For someone so young, you’re doing a fabulous job. I’m surprised none of your people pointed it out to you.”

Mai sent a quick message to her engineers, covering that exact same point and voicing her displeasure in no uncertain terms. She muted the conversation as a flood of panicked messages started to appear.

“What does five expansion squares actually mean in terms of distance?” Mai wondered as she zoomed in on the map. “Where’s the legend?”

Ayres leaned over and tapped the map’s legend.

“Each grid is fifty paces. So between each bunker will be ninety paces, that’s a good distance.”

“Ninety paces?” Mai couldn’t get her tired brain to parse the information quickly enough. It felt as though she was in a cloud of fog.

“You can’t build outside of the grid. So bunker one will have two hundred and fifty paces out. The next bunker has to be built so that the expansion grid of the second bunker overlaps the expansion grid of the first bunker, meaning that it has to be in the last ten paces of the first bunker, which means between them will be four hundred and ninety paces, and not five hundred. And it’s the same on the other side for the next bunker.”

“Okay, let’s look at an automated turret. They’re cheaper than bunkers but have less firepower and armour. Although their range and damage per shot is higher because they all have heavier weapons,” Mai selected the TURRETS sub-menu and chose a twin-barrelled autocannon.

“Three squares,” Ayres stroked his chin whilst he did the maths. “We can put a bunker down and gain two hundred and fifty paces. Placing the turret in the last fifty, then adds another one hundred. Meaning that between bunker and turret we have three hundred and fifty paces. Less than if we went for bunkers, but far cheaper and it means that the turret’s greater range and damage will cover the bunkers better.”

“Looks like we have a plan!” Mai grinned as she beckoned over an engineer and outlined what she needed them to do.

“There’s a dead zone,” Ayres marked the area on the map before zooming in. “Seems that building density also affects how many turrets and bunkers we can put out there. Unless someone’s physically in that area, we can’t expand.”

Mai groaned, the dead zone was at the mouth of a narrow hole in the cave’s walls. She could easily fit several bunkers and turrets in there and punish the enemy as they tried to move down what was essentially a killing field.

“Looks like I’m not going to get to bed anytime soon. I’ll take a team. We’ll get the bunkers set up.”