Chapter 273

Chapter 273

Talia padded alongside Nick, ears up, nostrils flaring. She was manifested in her true form, white and gold fur rippling as she kept pace at his thigh. The two of them together made a picture straight off the cover of a fantasy novel: The Ceaseless Knight and his elegant talking animal companion.

Other than Nick and Talia, the rest of us maintained a single-file marching order, not unlike the ants we supposedly mimicked, trying to match behavior to appearance. Lucas took up the middle in front of Julien, while I brought up the rear.

I watched mutely as a small trail of ants passed by us, each approximately waist height. So far, at least, between the hex and the marching order, our precautionary measures seemed to be working. The invertebrates were oddly scarce and for the most part paid little attention to us.

It was odd, though. Because despite the honeycombing network of passageways and tunnels, there didn’t seem to be nearly enough of them. Part of me wondered if this was nothing more than my own bad habit of looking a gift horse in the mouth, but every time I was about to disregard the notion, there was a slight buzzing from Not enough to sound the alarm, but from my prior experience with the title, I kept my guard up.

For the most part, the team we’d put together seemed competent. Julien and Lucas both had no issue with following Nick’s cues.

The only problem—and I hesitate to call it a problem—was that Lucas seemed dissatisfied with the lack of action, and couldn’t seem to stop running his mouth.

Once the most recent ants were far in the rearview, he started up again, like clockwork. “As usual, Charlotte’s ‘help’ was completely unnecessary. These tunnels are a ghost town.”

From behind, I saw Julien’s fist clench at his side.

“Whole point of prep is it’s better to need it and not have it, then have it and not need it.” Nick shrugged.

“And we may still need it.” Julien agreed. “Not exactly a bug expert, but I’m guessing we’ll see the most resistance closest to the queen.”

“Dunno big guy.” Lucas elbowed Julien. “Could definitely see you as an insectologist.”

“Entomologist.” Nick corrected, at the same moment I said “Myrmecologist.”

I shrugged. “Same difference, tighter category.”

“Fuck me, I’m surrounded by nerds.” Lucas groaned.

“One in every group.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

The jab at Lucas was unnecessary, but if I was honest, he was wearing on my nerves as well. I knew what he was. The sort of person who agreed to a difficult task almost exclusively because it gave them something to complain about. Harmless. But that didn’t make it any less annoying.

Lucas walked backward, doing his best to stare me down. “Got a problem, Page?”

I snorted. “The second transposition event is a problem. Organizing the regions before said event hits is a problem. You are not a problem.”

From the way his face darkened, Lucas didn’t like that. He was about to say as much before Nick interrupted. “Speaking from experience, I can confidently advise not starting an argument with the guy who runs practice LSAT questions to pass the time.”

“Whatever.” Lucas turned his back to me. “It’s always the smartasses that crumble fastest when the action hits.”

No self-awareness whatsoever. It’s honestly kind of impressive.

Julien slowed, staring down a side passage. Further down the tunnel was the silhouette of an ant, roaming in panicked meandering circles. It wasn’t the first time we’d seen this behavior, but the queer feeling of wrongness washed over me just the same.

“Another off the trail. How many does that make now?” Julien asked.

“Four.” I answered. “Thirteen if we’re counting the ones that seem sluggish and drunk.”

“You kept count?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded in approval, lips quirked in concern. “It’s a little weird, right?”

“Maybe.” I wanted to say more, but for the moment all I had was a gut feeling with little evidence to speak of. “If there're hundreds, it might not be that strange for that many to have a screw loose. Odd that we keep seeing them, though our sample size is in the low fifties, so we may not have an accurate picture.”

“So, bide our time and assume system fuckery.”

I raised an eyebrow. Having thoroughly learned my lesson about keeping my paranoia to myself, I’d been on the verge of voicing something similar. Julien kept hitting all the right notes, like he wasn’t even trying. Suspicious. But not unwelcome.

“Exactly.”

For once, Lucas had nothing pithy to say. Maybe the sense of uneasiness had gotten to him like the rest of us, or maybe he was just tired of the sound of his own voice. Nick froze in place and held a fist up, directing us to the cover of an upturned mound of dirt before a half-dozen ants scampered through the intersection in front of us. It took a second to identify them as the addled, scrambled variety, largely because they were moving quicker and less aimlessly.

“Okay, that looked organized.” Nick squinted, stretching up to take another look before dropping back down.

“Something pissed them off.” Julien agreed. “Or someone.”

“Nobody should be this far in.” I shook my head. Then waited, giving my mind time to work as I isolated a single image, no more than a flicker from the last ant to cross our paths. Like the rest, they should have only had three segments—abdomen, the lumpy, trunk-like center, and the head. But I could have sworn I’d seen four. I poked at Lucas, using the disruptive element of the group to stall while I worked through it. “Thoughts?”

“How the fuck would I know? Maybe it’s aphid milking hour or something?”

I cocked my head. Despite fully expecting the verbal equivalent of hot garbage to come spewing out of his mouth, that wasn’t the worst theory. It was wrong of course. But not half-bad.

More than enough for confirmation. I gestured for the rest of them to follow back to the main path, barely keeping the nausea and terror at bay. Thanks to the overseer’s broadcast of the situation in region six, it didn’t take long before they connected the dots.

Nick looked like someone punched him in the face, while Lucas looked as close to the verge of panic as I was.

“We have to go back. Warn everyone.” Nick said, looking fully prepared to sprint all the way back to Basecamp.

“No. That’s exactly what we need to avoid.” I clenched a fist.

“This isn’t the time for coy shit, Matt—”

“Listen to me. Word gets out before we have our ducks in a row, it’s chaos. Especially the region six connection. More than anything else, keep that to yourselves. Someone infected slips down the elevator in the mayhem and the entire city is fucked.” I looked to Julien and Lucas. “You’ve both spent more time in camp than I have. How many people have been injured, leaving room for error?”

They exchanged glances. After a moment, Julien cleared his throat. “Less than ten, on the conservative side.”

“Assume twenty.” My mind raced as I recalled the encounter with the Adventurer’s Guild Users earlier, how they’d wanted to get back into the action immediately. “Cross-reference with the healers. Keep in mind there’s a good chance that not all injuries were reported. Look for anyone walking in a strange way, favoring one side or another, wincing as they move, any tell. Lock the exit down. No one gets in or out.” I started to pace. “The Duskblade Knight and the Queen. How are they in a crisis?”

“Their arguments suddenly disappear.” Lucas rolled his eyes.

“Will they stay put?” I rounded on him.

“If we hint how important it is, they will.” Julien said.

I nodded. “Park them in front of the elevators. Out of everyone, they command the most respect and they’re the most intimidating. We need a full accounting of everyone present and anyone that might be missing. Any User who’s received medical care since arriving needs to be isolated, sedated, and monitored.”

“Guessing you’re telling us all this here instead of back at camp for a reason.” Julien observed.

I ground my teeth. The point of going over it this way was burying the lede, because I knew Nick wouldn’t like the next part.

Julien continued to jump ahead, understanding dawning in his eyes. “You still want to scout the boss.”

Lucas’s eyes bugged out. “Are you insane?”

Just as expected, Nick immediately squared off with me. Trauma-fueled terror took over. “Hell no. No way we’re splitting the party for a scouting op. This takes precedence.”

Judging from their collective body-language and the way they hesitated, it was obvious I was losing them. Best bet was to put everything on the table. “Think about how fast this thing spread. An entire region was overtaken in a matter of hours. Just because there’s less right now doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way. I’d stake my life on that. So, no, we’re not scouting the boss. We’re killing it. And we have to do it now.”

“Matt—” Nick started again. He had every right to be afraid.

It wasn’t a card I wanted to pull. But I leaned in and whispered in his ear, playing it anyway. “We’re out of time. Let. Me. Work.”

Nick stiffened and pulled away, his mouth tight, looking vaguely hurt. He knew I was referencing our deal to combine our methods to do whatever was needed to end this before the second event. In that detached, theoretical moment, he’d agreed. Simple fact was, it was a lot more difficult in practice.

But Nick didn’t argue. When he spoke, he purposely looked away from me. “Okay. Where do we go from here?”

Julien mused aloud. “More importantly, how many people do we send back?”

“Much as I hate to say this... it has to be me.” Nick rubbed the back of his neck. “People in both camps listen to me. I’m already going over the order of who I need to talk to and how.”

“I’ll go with him.” Lucas immediately volunteered, visibly sweating.

Julien rolled his eyes. “Of course. Not like we could use the extra firepower.”

Talia stepped forward, giving Lucas serious side-eye as she gravitated towards the center. “As a summon, I am immune to most status effects and can simply be re-summoned if I die.” She looked at Nick. “May I remain with the attack team?”

Nick nearly missed the fact the question was being directed at him instead of me, but recovered quickly. “That’s probably for the best.”

“Can you handle a boss?” I turned and asked Julien point blank. From context and some whispers I’d heard around the Order’s compound, I already knew he was monstrously strong. On the upper echelon alongside Nick. But more importantly, he seemed to have a better-than-average head on his shoulders, with little ego to speak of. Given the stakes, further bolstered by the fact he appeared to be in deep thought rather than answering immediately, I’d probably get an honest answer. “If you can, I’ll do everything possible to support you. I’ve seen Talia in action enough to know she’s fairly strong, so between the two of us you won’t be solo. If you can’t, that’s okay. My instinct is to have all four of us return together, wrangle a few other heavy-hitters and do this the hard way. But we’ll lose the benefits of a stealth approach.”

“... And significantly increase the group’s risk of exposure. A group filled with strong Users. Fuck.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Uh. I feel... uncomfortable making that assessment.”

Good.

“Realistically, there’s no way for me to know.” The color of his eyes was almost clear in the lighting, entirely unreadable. “Assuming the boss is a simple bump in difficulty from the floor below, then, yeah. Easy enough. But there’s no guarantee it will be. And if you’re right about this floor being completely overtaken in a short time, whether we throw twenty people at it or two people and a summon, this is our only shot.” He cocked his head. “It’s a question of harm reduction now. And, being frank, if the three of us can’t handle it together, I’m not sure throwing more people at the problem would do anything other than increase our casualties and put both groups in a worse position for the second event. I think we go for it. Do or die.”

This was the outcome I’d wanted. But something about it made my mouth go dry.



“Then we need to move.” I said.

Julien nodded.

He’d repeated my reasoning almost verbatim. Between an anti-eldritch summon, the Ordinator, and a high-ranking member of the court, I was pretty sure we had this. But Julien shouldn’t have known any of that. To him I was just a low-ranking member of the court, and Talia was a magical wolf. I thought back over our interactions, reviewing everything I’d said and done since our first encounter, finding nothing he could have possibly drawn the conclusion from.

Maybe he really was just that confident in his abilities, and had included me and Talia in the estimation to be polite.

It was either that, or we had a serious fucking problem.