Goodbyes were said, and Cody changed it to a see you soon.

I’d left the pair in the canteen-cum-bedroom to plan their own strategy, and swung by our hackers on the way out.

“Hey, man,” said Vision, reaching behind the computer. “I was trying to work out a way to put one of these together, and the machine… kinda did it for me.”

He handed over the small black box. It had no ports or wires protruding from the seamless casing. “What is it?”

“It’s what the machine changed my backdoor into, man. It’s a… it was a hard drive with a few of our speciality rootkits and worms ready to rock and roll. Once you plugged it in, it would launch a multipronged attack against their firewalls and allow you to use this.” He handed me a spool of cable with two unfamiliar ends. “I have no idea how the new machine even works, but with what this thing has already accomplished, I trust it to get the job done. That little beauty, plus the cable, should give me an uplink I can use to get into Lake’s systems.”

“We’re going after Milley first. The head of the CID.”

“Hell, man. Use it on him too. Their systems might be connected and we can piggyback the link between the two. I could be in there like a ninja.”

“So I just… what? Plug it in? Sit it near their computers?” I’d seen the movies where the secret agent places a modem or something near the target and it allows entry to the techie in a nearby van.

“Damned if I know,” Vision replied. “When I disconnected the hard drive, there were wires. Now there aren’t. They just kinda went back inside the case like it was fluid or something. Freaked me right out.”

Mythic pulled a face that told me she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the seemingly benign little package either.

“The other cable has a standard adapter that fits most ports. You can’t go wrong with it.”

“Thanks,” I replied, slipping the device into my pack. “Keep up the good work.”

“You keep the pockets coming, and we’ll keep surfing the digital highways, man.”

Mythic held up her half empty glass of orange drink.

“I’ll make sure they bring more soda too. Don’t panic.”

She gave me a thumbs up and went back to work. I saw camera feeds from the city’s CCTV system being pulled up, and wish I hadn’t caught what was on show. Fires. Fleeing. Feasting.

Cris pulled me away before I could side-track myself with any one of the dozens of buildings under siege. “That’s down to Cody and Sun.”

“Two against that?” I muttered, slipping on my ear defenders again.

Felix and Rhys led the way, picking the easiest route that didn’t involve simply leaving the pump station access and running across the city. That would’ve been the fastest way to reach our goal, and it was also no better than jumping into an industrial blender with the power turned on.

“Two, plus an army of ex-soldiers,” she thought at me. “With heavy weapons and missiles.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“There’s not much to like about this whole thing. Except new friends and good company.”

“I’m not even being that.”

“I’m cutting you some slack due to our circumstances. You’re making up for it with occasional cuddles and a firm ass to stare at.”

“Hey! I’m the one supposed to be perving over you!”

“It’s 2022. Women’s lib is a thing, you know.”

“You wait until I take you out for a meal and you see me chew with my mouth open.”

“Eww! You don’t!”

The hellish noise of the pump room masked my chamming and lip smacking. Just the sight alone was enough to have her grimacing.

“Ok, maybe you do. We’ll have to eat in separate restaurants. I’ll video call you between the courses.”

“I spend most of the time belching between my main and dessert. I drink too much lemonade with my meals. Those bubbles have to come out somehow.”

“Remind me why your last girlfriend left?”

“She said I wasn’t a good listener.”

“I think that might’ve just been a copout.”

“Pardon?”

Cris smacked me playfully. “Nice try, buster. I might be a natural blonde, but my intelligence is 14. I don’t fall for things easily.”

I looked at her dark hair for roots. “You’re a blonde?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. Your intelligence obviously isn’t 14, though.”

“Well, shit.” I needed to remember the rule to disbelieve everything coming out of her mouth.

“What do you think we’re going to find at this place?” I asked, changing the subject back to the task at hand.

“I know the aliens are dicks, but they wouldn’t have given it to us unless there was something there. It won’t be Lake, that would be too easy.”

“What, then?”

“A clue about this whole thing. It’s why they dropped you into the jungle. It set off a sequence of events that led us to this point. You found Liza, then the scorpions and the box, proving they were planted on purpose. Then Cody arrived.”

“And we lost Liza.”

“Which revealed the involvement of the CID. We rescued Jessop from their clutches.”

“And got caught by the Disciples.”

“Who we’ve now turned to our cause!” she fired back. “And they managed to evacuate a sizeable portion of the city into the drains. Plus you took the time to help out the Blood Nation, which allowed them to save some of their people. I know it seems like we’ve seen nothing but shit, but you have to look at the bigger picture in what you’ve achieved. I can’t imagine any of the other volunteers are doing better. You’ve worked miracles in this world already.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

“I’ll make you a deal, you concentrate on the fighting, I’ll deal with the progress analysis. How does that sound?”

“It sounds like you’ve got the easier job.”

“With you in my party playing Gloomy Gus the whole time? I’d rather fight a T-Rex.”

I chuckled. “You make a good point.”

“Damned right I do. But honestly, let me deal with the bigger picture. Let me take some of the strain from you. We’re a team here. It’s not Mark and his Amazing Invisible Party Who Just Look Pretty.”

“That’s quite the mouthful. And you’ve got the cheek to take the piss out of me for calling the raptor Rappy.”

“I was trying to operate down on your level,” she teased.

“Bart, can we have a ‘remove party member’ option added?”

“You’d be so gone if we did,” Cris warned. “I’d replace you with Jean-Claude Van Norris-Schwarzenegger.”

“That’s three people.”

“You’ve seen what Lake can do. I’m sure if I stole some of their blood we could make an unkillable hybrid.”

“Or it would just be a drooling mutant mess like in the movies.”

“Either way, we could throw the hybrid actor at the enemy. Worst case scenario? The genetic mess being eaten buys us time to run away.”

“I like your way of thinking. I’ll need to think of my party in terms of a food distraction going forward. I wonder how far I could throw you if we were being chased?”

“Not as far as my nova could throw you, buster!” The already dark air darkened further and I held up my hands in surrender.

“Ok, I’ll just throw Rhys.”

“I’ll allow that.”

We both laughed and looked at the advisor.

He narrowed his eyes at us. “What?”

Pulling off my ear protection now that we were clear of the pumps, I replied, “Just thinking of any other ways we could use you.”

“Oh. I’m here to serve,” he offered, eagerly. “Whatever you need,”

Cris mimicked the whine of something falling followed by a plop.

“I reckon about fifteen yards if I get a good runup. How about your nova?”

She looked him up and down. “Twenty. Maybe twenty-five if I put everything in to it.”

“What are you both talking about?” he asked, angling away from us until his shoulder hit the wall.

“You’ll know when the time comes,” I replied, grinning.

Cris burst out laughing at the bewildered look on his face which only made things worse.

“We should keep the noise down,” Reb suggested as tactfully as he could. Given the chance, I expect he would’ve barked it as a furious order. But he didn’t, and it wasn’t.

Cris pulled an apologetic face at me. “Sorry, I got a little silly there. It wasn’t even that funny.”

“I think given the circumstances, we take our laughs where we can get them. I don’t think there’s going to be many when we get to the city streets.”

The tunnels dragged on and on. If it wasn’t for the changing numbers on the walls, I’d have sworn it was like the tutorial dungeon where they just used the same map template and the same corridor art file. Even the similar looking piles of debris took up position in the same corners from the natural flow of the system.

We heard shrieks echoing around the passages. Our heavily armed entourage glanced around nervously. The nature of the maze ensured we had no way to pinpoint their direction. The one thing we knew for certain was that they hadn’t yet found any of our defensive lines. A lack of accompanying gunfire was a dead giveaway. It was only a matter of time, but it was beyond my control and I put it out of mind.

Sun and Cody would hold them back.

“Share the load.”

Cris took my hand and squeezed it. “Exactly. I know you can’t let go completely, so you take fifty percent, and the rest of us will share the other half.”

“Forty percent would make the math easier for me. That way you can take twenty each.”

“Simplified calculations aside, can you let go of that extra ten?”

“Probably not,” I admitted. “So what would that leave? Sixteen point six recurring each?”

“See, you’re not just a pretty face. You can do third grade math.”

“There’s no stopping me now!”

Reb stopped me with a raised fist. He sniffed, and I was about to ask what his game was until I smelled it too. The air was cleaner, the gentle flow passing by us fresher. It hadn’t even registered with me that until that point, we’d been accompanied by a vague tang from the burning city above.

“We should go quietly from here,” whispered Reb.

I agreed, even though the minimap showed no immediate threats within a decent distance. After the stealthy orc and other enemies jumping out at us, I no longer trusted it as a fool proof tool for ensuring our safety.

Our destination neared, and with it the light of the day grew on the walls from a pale glow, to full afternoon brilliance. The sky was a deep blue, unmarred by clouds unless you included the growing blanket of black that spewed from the buildings to the south. I kept my vision firmly planted on the clear, sunlit north, hoping to trick my brain into ignoring the horror. It didn’t work, because I could still hear the roars and faint screams of the hunters and the hunted.

“It’s nice to breathe proper air again,” said Rhys, drawing it in deeply and sighing. “Even if it’s only for a few minutes.”

I began to reply. “I’d say you guys should take a break, but…”

“There’s no time,” finished Reb, holding out a radio. “We’ve got shit that needs doing. You can hear how bad it is.”

“I guess this is where we part ways,” I said, taking the offered handset.

“Once you’re done, call in and we’ll come get you,” said Reb.

“That’s if we get it done,” I replied.

He stared at me intently. “You will. You don’t have it in you to quit.”

And with that unexpected compliment delivered, he turned and led the team back through the rectangular mouth of the large storm drain.

“He’s right, you know,” said Cris.

“About the fresh air?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. The not quitting part.”

“I’ve come close more times than I’d like to admit,” I replied, heading for the gently sloping concrete bank and its golden arrow.

“I think if you look it up in Webster’s, the definition of a quitter is someone who actually quits, not someone who contemplates it when the going gets tough. Think of all our relatives who fought in the wars. Did they want to quit? Sure. But did they? No.”

“I think they faced a firing squad for desertion, so the comparison doesn’t match.” Cris was about to blow, but I cut her off. “I get what you’re saying, and thanks. If I didn’t have you guys with me, I honestly can’t say I wouldn’t have clicked yes on the screen though.”

“Well, we are here, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

We scurried up to the fence that closed off the channel and found a break in the chain-link to crawl through. We were back in another section of the suburbs that had been thrown up as quickly as possible. Apartment blocks had been dropped in between the box homes without rhyme or reason. It looked bizarre, but uncovering the reasoning behind planning decisions wasn’t my purpose on the world.

The territory of the Blood Nation and the Disciples hadn’t reached this far out judging by the lack of graffiti and the presence of hundreds of civilians. People milled in their tiny gardens or watched the distant fires from their doors and windows.

An old man hobbled over on a walking stick. “You folk running from the city? What in the blazes is going on? The TV’s on again, but there ain’t nothing about all that!”

Leaving aside his poor choice of wording, I was at a loss with how to reply. Blazes were exactly what was going on, and they were growing in strength. They could also hear the noises coming from within the metropolis, but believing their source would be almost impossible and I didn’t have time to spare to convince them.

Cris saved my bacon with a plausible story. “There’s been a terrorist attack. Bombs and gas. We’re evacuating as many people below ground as possible in case the wind changes direction.”

His eyes flicked between us and the raging inferno. “Won’t it go down into the tunnels? The gas I mean?”

“No. We have a professor from the university with us. He says the density means it doesn’t settle to the ground. It just blows around and hurts people.”

“Good lord!”

I picked up the thread and ran with it. “We’ve managed to get a lot of food and water below ground already. You should gather what you can and head down the way we’ve come. Tell as many people as you can. I’ll make sure the cops we’ve got come and find you.”

“Why are you heading out of the city then?” asked the man.

“We think we know who did it and where they are. We’re going to put a stop to any further attacks.”

He didn’t seem convinced that two people were capable of such a feat, but the fires weren’t a figment of our imagination. The flames soared into the sky like orange tongues, keen to taste the heavens. I put the call in, and Mahoney came back with an agreement to send some of his men north to find the newly homeless.

The old guy nodded as if accepting the story. Before he could turn around and begin packing, his eyes grew so wide I thought they might pop out of his skull.

A red dot appeared on my map. The ground trembled as its owner took a step out from the wide alley it had been waiting in.

I slowly turned, as did Cris. My old friend from the bridge was glaring at me, the blood still fresh on its snout.

“Run,” I whispered, taking a tentative step back.

“Run!” Cris screamed, triggering a much needed pandemonium that had everyone fleeing for their lives.

The T-Rex charged.

We ran.