AP6, Ch. 47, 48 (Patreon)

Chapter 47

Time until next Challenge: 4 days, 12 hours 53 minutes

“Two casualties from Grizzly Squad,” Marie said.

Her voice was just loud enough to reach General Cleary’s ears. I was a few feet further away, and shouldn’t have been able to make it out… but Analyze filled in the gaps of the sounds I missed.

Between that and Eidetic Memory, the picture I’d gotten of our situation was depressingly, horrifyingly clear.

When we’d left the tank an hour ago, our group had been almost 3,000 strong. 

In the past hour, we’d made it just over two miles and lost 89 people.

At that rate, it would take us almost a day to make it to safety, and the trip would leave almost two-thirds of our group dead. 

That was bad enough, but a cold, pragmatic section of my brain had pointed out that if a third of us survived the journey, my family and I had better odds than most.

Unfortunately, those numbers didn’t tell the whole story. The rate at which we’d been losing people had been increasing, ever-so-slowly. Plus-

“Down to three active Cleansing specialists, sir,” another aide reported.

General Cleary paused his march for the barest second. “New orders to the Cleanse corps, then: reserve your strength for the VIPs. Don’t exhaust yourselves. Let everyone else know not to expect Cleanse if they get hit by acid.”

I felt sick at the news, but I’d seen it coming. Our Cleanse specialists had started reporting reaching their limits 20 minutes ago, and we were starting to have people with Healing Touch report that they had to stop as well. Most had stopped before they’d actually fallen asleep, but not all. One exhausted healer was being carried on the back of a fellow soldier, and we’d lost a man with Cleanse and the guy he’d been trying to save when he’d unexpectedly collapsed. Their squad hadn’t noticed immediately, trusting their teammates to take care of themselves while they focused on monsters. By the time they became aware of the problem, it had been too late.

“Flip has to fly me out of here,” I said.

“I’ll go with you,” Gavin said, leaping onto my back and swishing his tail through the air above me. “I’ll protect you and heal you.”

“We’ll all go with her, Gavin,” Vince said.

“No,” I said. “You won’t.”

“We can’t stay behind,” Vince said. “You really think Hamlet won’t-”

“He absolutely would,” I said, stepping to the side to dodge another attacker from beneath. “But… everything Flip said about flying me out of here is still true. It’s risky as hell.”

“Then you shouldn’t do it either!”

“She doesn’t have a choice, Vince.” Pointy’s squeaky voice was quiet, but somehow still audible above the din of battle. “Meghan can run the numbers almost as well as I can, even without Ariel’s aid. We will not make it out of here if we keep marching. If she leaves it’s… well, it’s incredibly risky, but if she stays, it’s certain death.”

“We’re gonna die?” Gavin asked. His small hands tightened on my shoulders.

I shook my head fiercely. “No. When I leave, Hamlet will focus on me. His odds of killing me are too good for him to pass up. And, from what Ariel said, he can’t micromanage the monsters. If he sends the flyers after me, he sends everything in the area after me. You probably won’t have to fight anything for a while. The faster you move, the longer that stays true, and the more time you buy for your people with necessary abilities to recover. It’ll still be dangerous for you, especially if I make it out safely, but… it’s safer than if I stay.”

“Safer for us,” Vince said. “You can’t-”

“She must,” General Cleary interrupted. “Your wife’s assessment of the situation matches my own. I was hoping we would stabilize and stop losing people, but the rate of exhaustion among our ability users is too high. I would have made the call myself in another few minutes.”

“Another healer out, sir,” an aide reported.

General Cleary turned to Flip. “Get your flyers ready! Just the ones with speed-enhancing Specialties. You’re taking Ms. Moretti and everyone fit to keep her alive.”

Flip saluted, then turned to the man beside her, snapping off a rapid-fire chain of orders.

The roof bubble of Cassie’s transport was now pitted and warped, with a large section missing on the right side. I reached through the hole and Cassie and Micah both grabbed my hand. Cassie used her other hand to smash Pointy down atop our linked digits. I smiled at the turtle and my kids, and gave their hands a squeeze. “See you soon, okay? Be good. Stay safe.”

“Please stay safe yourself, Meghan,” Pointy said.

Micah, usually so articulate, didn’t seem to have the words to put together for once, but he clung to my hand, and it took me two tries to get him to let go. He finally did, with a small, quiet, “I love you, Mom.” 

Cassie followed Micah’s lead, but she looked nervous. If Pointy had bones or internal organs, she would have been in danger, because my daughter had her plush friend squished tightly against her chest.

I had to take another minute to unwind Gavin’s tail from around me.

“I wanna come with you,” Gavin said, stubbornly. “I’m a really good healer, and I have my Restore-a-tin Specialty. Flip can carry me. I’m not heavy.”

“It might improve your odds. If you-” 

I cut General Cleary off. “Are you kidding? Look at the kid. He’s asleep on his feet.”

“I’m not! I didn’t fall asleep. I stopped!”

“You did,” I said gently. “But you’re very tired. If Flip or I actually did get hurt, and you healed us, you would fall asleep. And then I’d have to try to protect you, and I’d be in more danger because I’d focus on you too much.”

Gavin’s eyes welled up with tears. “I’m sorry. The other people here were hurt and I wanted to help.”

“You did good,” I said. “I’m not mad. This isn’t a punishment. It’s just what’s best both of us.” 

I hugged Gavin and handed him to Vince, meeting my husband’s eyes. “Keep a tight grip on him. I don’t trust him not to try to grab onto a flyer and hitch a ride.”

The furious twitch of Gavin’s head let me know that I had predicted his plan perfectly.

“I should come with you,” Vince said. “They’re taking healers, I have heal-”

“And who guards the kids? Plus, if things go badly…” I didn’t finish the statement.

This flight was a Hail Mary shot. I didn’t want to die, but things looked incredibly bad. Sure, I’d try to live, but… my odds weren’t good, no matter what I did. If Hamlet had me dead to rights, if he was going to kill me, I at least wanted to be sure that I was far from my family. That my kids wouldn’t be left parentless.

Only motherless, my traitor brain volunteered. Well, as long as they survive… They’ll heal. Eventually.

If Hamlet actually killed me, I didn’t think he’d vengefully attack my family members. I might not know Hamlet, but he was based on the same programming as Ariel, and the idea of vengeance definitely wouldn’t occur to her. It might occur to the Maffiyir’s masters, but I was hoping that they would be too desperate, too focused on “winning” to be so petty. He might still attack them if he thought it was “optimal” for some reason, but I doubted they’d receive this same deadly level of focus.

After all, even if they killed me, humanity might still win the contest. Probably would, in fact. The only real doubt had been whether we could finish it before the next Challenge, where Hamlet would be able to effortlessly slaughter our best and brightest. If he managed that, it would be a tragedy, but we’d all set heirs - lots of them. Our land would pass to the rest of humanity, and the contest would end. The Maffiyir company would be in bad shape. Even if Hamlet took all the Linked Users down, it would be hard to prevent humanity from winning. But… maybe not impossible. 

Wouldn’t the contest runners focus on that? In a weird way, I hoped so. The massive group we were leaving behind would easily be able to deal with anything besides this utterly unfair deluge of death.

Even if Hamlet did try to kill them, maybe buying them a little breathing space - and time to make better speed - would be enough to even the odds.

“Time to go, Meghan,” Flip said. 

I wanted to pull down my gas mask to give Vince a kiss goodbye - one last kiss - but that would be the epitome of foolishness. I restrained myself, hugging him and Gavin one more time and leaning my forehead against his. “See you soon,” I said. I tried to keep my voice light, but it wobbled.

Vince squeezed me. “I love you.”

“Love you too.”

Then I stepped back. Flip grabbed me, and someone started a countdown: “5, 4, 3, 2…”

On “One” we launched into the air, a shimmering sheet of abilities from our allies below blasting the monsters from our path.

Chapter 48

Time until next Challenge: 4 days, 12 hours 46 minutes

Take-off was a shock. A custom-built helmet protected my eyes from the wind, but the noise of the air whipping by was still loud enough to be all I could hear, and the acceleration was intense, even painful. It almost felt like the skin was being ripped off my body, enough so that I flickered Analyze to be sure it wasn’t. I even felt my vision start to darken under the extreme G-force, but our speed soon leveled off.

Let’s see… Analyze puts our speed at… damn. Over 200 miles per hour? We’ll be safe in just over ten minutes at this rate! Ah, but Flip can only keep this speed up for ten minutes, I think… Well, still, we’ll be close!

I felt a spike of hope, followed by disbelief. Why was Flip so against this? We-

Stinging pain disrupted my thoughts as a monster ahead of us released a blast of sandlike particles. My helmet protected my eyes, but the cloud still blocked my vision, leaving me with only Life Sense to track a twisting form dropping toward us. My Telekinesis was too slow to move objects at the speeds we were traveling, but I had other abilities. I used Paralyze to freeze the monster for a moment as we got close, and it shot overhead, briefly visible as a sinuous blue form.

Then we were on the other side of the dust cloud and I could see what was ahead of us: hundreds - no, thousands - of monsters!

And I didn’t recognize a single one.

Ah. Yeah. That’s why.

Ariel didn’t make monsters appear up high because there were generally no humans up at this elevation. Maffiyir guidelines suggested Overminds wait until contestants entered an area to make monsters start appearing there. 

Guidelines. Not rules.

Hamlet was free to ignore those guidelines, and had, filling the skies with everything and the kitchen sink.

All of them were slower than my Specialty-boosted escorts, but that mattered less than I would have liked, since they were ahead of us. Not to mention, even if they couldn’t move at 200 miles per hour, many of their attacks moved fast enough to catch us.

Flip juked to the side. It made my stomach lurch, but we dodged the talons of a round-bodied birdlike monster as it dove to meet us. Then Flip dropped, taking us below a suspicious green cloud that surrounded a monster I couldn’t see clearly. As we came back up on the other side, however, I felt a needle of pain lance through my skull. 

I didn’t even realize what had happened until two seconds later, when a flyer carrying a healer caught up with us; something had messed up our inner ears, sending Flip off-course and sending us streaking off toward the ground to the right. We’d been caught before we crashed, but our sudden unexpected detour had left us distant from most defenders. I could see that most were already turning to follow us and regroup, but the optimism I’d felt mere seconds before was already fading fast.

How far have we gone? A mile? At least I could see a horde of monsters racing toward us on the ground below, proof positive that we were drawing them away from my family. At least as long as we stay alive. Damn it. What can I do?!

An Announcement toward the rest of our group. A Hologram over Flip’s head. These were things I could do - and did - to help us regroup faster. But I didn’t have the ability to clear a million monsters from the sky. 

If only I’d taken abilities like Gavin’s or Micah’s! Then I could kill… another couple dozen of them. I sighed, frustrated. That would help, if there weren’t thousands.

It took only seconds for Flip to accelerate back toward the rest of our group, for them to slow down, or turn around, for us to match each other’s speed and direction once more, but those seconds were painful, in more ways than one. 

We had all the freshest healers with us, but an injury still required one flyer to rendezvous with another midair, and we were taking injuries constantly. The flyers were built to do just that: fly. Everyone not carrying someone with Heal or Cleanse had a passenger specialized in ranged attack or defense, but even with those people focusing all their attention on protecting me, the situation was too chaotic. A Force Shield popped up just too late, and a thick spike shot through my armor, lodging in my upper thigh. I couldn’t hold back a small scream, but I didn’t call for healing: Analyze let me know it had missed the femoral artery. As such, it wouldn’t kill me in the next twenty minutes, even if the spike disappeared and the wound started bleeding freely.

If it won’t kill me before I die anyway, it’s basically not even real! I thought with slight hysteria. Twenty minutes from now I’ll either be safe or dead.

Another one of the sonic blasts hit Flip and I, but the healer/flyer team was quicker to get to us this time, and we fell only a few feet, not truly breaking formation.

I noticed two other teams had been hit by similar attacks and had been left behind.

We couldn’t afford to slow for them to catch up.

They’re probably safer without us, anyway, I thought.

Then, I felt myself grow heavier. An enemy with an ability like Burden?

We didn’t slow at first, but the weight continued to pile on, increasing steadily until I felt my skin pulled down, just like it had during the first Challenge. Flip started slowing. 

Our whole group did.

No! This isn’t fair! I thought. I can’t even tell which enemy is responsible… no, wait, it must be the most common one. There must be a LOT of them to be having such a big impact, and most of the enemies facing us are unique. I made a brief query to Analyze, then an Announcement:

Snipe the guys with the red crests! They’re probably making us heavier!

I fired six shots from my revolver and began fumbling a reload in as the people around me did the same. We knocked almost twenty of the red-crested monsters from the sky in a few seconds, but more were arriving at every moment, and we were no longer moving fast enough to get away.

We’re not killing enough of them. Not quickly enough.

Our group slowed more and more, and then I saw Flip raise a hand, flashing a signal to a subordinate. A voice I didn’t recognize made an Announcement: Land and defend.

I felt a chill. No!

But a look around the group with Analyze showed me the strain all the flyers were under. Our choices were to land, or to crash. 

Worse, I could see a Titan forming up near our landing spot, one of the nastier physical fighting types, with a wide grinning maw of glistening teeth and a build like a tiger the size of a school bus. 

That’s it, I thought, despair filling my heart. We can’t fight that. Not like this. Not with this few people. 

Fire Bolts and gunshots tickled the Titan. They scraped the fur on its face a bit, but didn’t make it turn aside. It paced slowly toward us. Ariel had said that Hamlet couldn’t directly target contestants, but for some reason, the horrible thing had its eyes focused exclusively on me. Luck? More cheating?

Fury filled me, and I found the strength to lever myself up on my elbows, and then my knees, even if I felt a lance of pain from my unhealed thigh injury. 

I can’t keep you from killing me, Hamlet! But I’m going to fight you, even if it’s useless. I’m going to fight for the last second I can. If my kids see this someday - I faltered for a moment - if my kids see this someday, I want them to be proud of me. I want them to see how humanity is supposed to be: proud, strong, and defiant. I don’t want them to see me giving up.

A tree next to me offered a handhold. I pulled myself to my feet, using Telekinesis on my clothes for extra support. With my other hand, I dropped my revolver and drew my sword. I couldn’t lift it, but at least I was holding it. 

That counts for something, I told myself. It does.

Some of my guards threw myself at the monster’s feet as it walked by, but it largely ignored them, kicking them aside with bonebreaking force but not taking its eyes from me. When it reached me, I Paralyzed it, but the ability held for only seconds. I stopped before I would have collapsed.

I’ll die on my feet.

Flip literally flew into the monster’s jaw, holding a sword in front of her that she tried to jam through its throat into its brain. It was a dangerous maneuver, but I’d seen people make it work more than once against Titans.

Not this time.

The monster dodged the slowed flyer almost contemptuously, her strike going wide, her sword scraping against its cheek and slamming into its shoulder.  The monster was knocked back a few feet by the force of the blow, putting me out of range for the monster’s chomp, but Flip’s sword lodged in the bone. When the monster reared up and twisted to bite her, she didn’t dodge in time. It… seemed like she didn’t even try. 

The Titan bit down on her shoulders and head, separating them from her body. 

I saw it swallow, then it turned back toward me. I tried to brace myself, to follow Flip into death bravely. 

Then, the Titan froze.

It started to fade.

Around me, all the smaller monsters started to fade.

The immense pressure vanished, and I was suddenly able to straighten. 

“What happened?” called one of my escorts.

“I… I don’t know,” I said, tearing my eyes from the mutilated, lifeless scraps that had been Flip only moments before. “Stay on guard. I hope someone from outer space stopped the contest, but we still had over 5% to go before we won. It could be a trap…” I shook my head. No, that didn’t make sense. Hamlet had me right where he wanted me. He didn’t have any reason to stop… at least, no reason that I could think of. “Or… or something. Don’t relax. We-”

Congratulations!

The humans of Earth have won this round of the Maffiyir by claiming more than 30% of the non-liquid surface area! Maffiyir is proud to sponsor all surviving contestants as Commonwealth citizens. Please enjoy the earnings you have accumulated through the game.

“What? How?! That’s impossible.”

<Inaccurate. It happened, so it was possible.>

“Ariel?! But you… But Hamlet… this was his area! Why weren’t you talking to me a minute ago?”

<I could not do so.>

“How did you get control back from Hamlet?”

<I requested it.>

“That worked?!”

<With the completion of the Maffiyir, Overminds are primed to relinquish control of all assets to other intelligences owned by the Maffiyir Company. I formulated my request very carefully, and met with success.>

“Shit! Will the Maffiyir Company be able to do the same to you?”

<Indeterminate. I have disabled all functions that would permit me to receive extraplanetary communication.>

I felt a sudden chill. “But wait… if you got access to more resources, don’t you need more Linked Users to support that?”

<Yes. I requested control of the database first so I could establish more links. Also, at Cricket’s urging, I obtained informed consent from my new Linked Users prior to initiating the link.>

Consent? Permission? Half of my objections died on the spot, but I couldn’t fully shake my fear. “Are they… okay?”

<They are unconscious at present, but I have refined my connection process and believe they will awaken within hours with minimal mental disruption.>

My mind still shied away from memories of my own connection process, but I couldn’t deny that the cause was worthy. I was sure that she could have found people to agree to the risk, given when our species stood to gain. My own personal horror was skewing my reaction, but even I couldn’t deny relief at the results.

“Good… good.” I ruthlessly bottled up my emotional reaction, turning my attention back to the present. “Can you… can you fix Flip? She died only a minute ago, and-”

<No. I am sorry.>

My eyes filled with tears. “She was so close to making it! I would have died if not for her!”

<I am sorry. I cannot fix your injury either. You should seek medical attention soon. The increased gravity accelerated your blood loss.>

“If she’d just lived another minute… no, another ten seconds! The contest would have been over…” The thought suddenly shot a jolt of fear through me. “Wait, is the contest over? Really?”

<Yes.>

“How? Did… Was there a group with a ton of Money that suddenly got Shop access? We weren’t on-track to win within the day, let alone within the hour.”

<No. Your situation made me feel afraid, and my search for solutions intensified. I realized that any monster Hamlet had used was already part of this Maffiyir and thus accessible to me as well. I began an exhaustive review of their capabilities to see if there were any I could create and send in to your area that might actually assist you. I did not find any strong candidates for that, but I did realize several varieties would autonomously use their abilities on their surroundings. Two - the monster he used to raise the temperature of the tanks, and one of the most efficient metal-melters - were of particular interest. I still had control over the polar and high-elevation mountainous regions of your planet. I had not previously created monsters in those areas because of the lack of humans, but they remained valid spawn locations regardless.>

I frowned. “Wait… you melted the icecaps?”

<No. The volume of ice would be too great to melt so quickly. However, melting a thin layer of ice was sufficient to change the area from “non-liquid” to “liquid” by contest definitions, since humans do not typically build habitations in even small amounts of standing water. I applied this same strategy throughout the planet Earth.>

“That worked? Hamlet listened when you told him we’d won?”

<I did not tell him. We were both aware when parameters were met and responded accordingly.>

“So it’s really… it’s really over?”

<The 2,186th Maffiyir has concluded. Humanity has won.>

“And-”

<My adoptive father and siblings are still alive.>

I blinked, my surprise at Ariel’s response warring with my relief at what I’d been told.

My escort had gathered while I spoke with the Overmind. Most looked exhausted, and all of us bore visible injuries - burns, broken bones, tattered armor, and blood-soaked clothing. Even so, there was an expectant energy to the way that everyone was staring at me.

I pulled my helmet off, setting off a wave of gasps and murmurs.

Ariel, is the air here safe?

<Yes.>

I dragged my gas mask down and took a deep breath of the late fall air. It was cold and fresh, and tasted of possibilities. 

Tears traced tracks through the grime that covered my face as I smiled at the people around me. “It’s alright. It’s finally alright. Tell everyone: we’ve really won.”


Author note: Thought I'd throw this out there, since my husband was concerned about the length of the book when he read this: I'm planning on a significant amount of denouement. He was hype about that, and I hope you will be too.