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by Matthew Siege

  He grunted in exasperation. "You'll have to forgive me, my lord. I had no idea I was in the presence of the Messiah, when I yanked your squealing carcass through the wall just now."

  I'd been enjoying our little spar, but now I held my tongue as best I could. As an expert in burning bridges, I knew when the pungent smell of wood smoke was about to fill the air. If I pressed him any further, I'd lose any chance to turn things around later.

  So, I bit back whatever smartass reply I'd been about to make. He and the rest of his group had gone through hell, and disrespecting their accomplishments was a shitty thing to do. My chances of reaching the top of the Citadel would be much higher if I had a group of strong, capable companions helping me out.

  Shutting up had the added benefit of letting me concentrate on the journey, which had become rough going. Zane led me left at one fork and then right down another, much more cramped one. The rock was different, and the blue glow revealed a shinier, tougher ore beneath that it looked like the humans hadn't been able to break.

  Ten minutes later Zane stopped at a section that looked too narrow to get through, though he motioned me ahead anyway. "You wanted to be the leader, right? Now's your chance. This is the tightest spot. If you get stuck, it'll be easier for both of us if I drag you back instead of through."

  "What about Map," I asked.

  "Get him to follow you."

  I licked my dry lips and forced myself ahead, trying to squeeze through the passage as our earlier conversation bounced around in my head. No wonder he'd gotten so touchy. He'd been trying to show me that the Citadel was a merciless hellscape and I'd essentially told him to try turning his frown upside down.

  If our roles were reversed, I'd have probably split his head open with the pickax by now just to prove a point.

  "You'll make it," he called. "And no, I'm not fucking with you."

  Logically, I knew that Zane outweighed me by at least a hundred and fifty pounds, nearly all of it muscle. If he could get through, so could I. But despite what my head told me, my heart was pounding and my body panicked as soon as I turned sideways and sidestepped forward, the rock scraping my back and my chest at the same time.

  "Don't freeze up," he coached. "And remember to take shallow breaths."

  That helped, and before I knew it I was through and turning to beckon Map to me. "This is the way we have to go," I told him, pushing some of the 'dog trainer' tone into my voice. "Come on, it's okay." It made me sound calm and reassuring, and I'd often been surprised when it worked on people as well as animals.

  It didn't fail me here, either. Map stopped digging his hooves in and, still shivering with uncertainty, turned sideways to let me help him shimmy through the tight space. I thought we'd have to go back and try again a couple of times, but the armored bands that protected his torso were more flexible than the ones on his shoulders and back. By reflexively sucking in his gut or wiggling with just a hint of desperation, he eventually made it through.

  "Not bad," Zane said, stepping through the gap like he was cruising down a hallway before taking the lead again. "I thought we might have to leave one of you behind. Let's pick up the pace. We aren't far now, and Neve will want to see you before she goes."

  "Goes? Goes where?"

  He didn't answer, and now that the tunnel was even rougher I didn't have the breath to keep asking. Sometimes we had to climb up a craggy incline or hop down to a new level ten or twelve feet below. It was hard going, and there were dozens of places where I could twist an ankle or break a leg.

  Map's wide hooves served him remarkably well in this terrain, although he didn't seem to be enjoying himself in the slightest. I concentrated on helping him where I could, but as often as not it was his bulk that steadied me whenever I momentarily lost my balance.

  I tried to imagine the little civilization I would soon stumble across. It would be quaint, of course, but I kept picturing a humble village of carefully constructed buildings that served a myriad of purposes. There'd be a place where they made tools and weapons, and homes in which to rest and recuperate.

  Better than all of that, there'd be people. I wouldn't be alone for much longer.

  Before we got there though, I wanted to mend fences with Zane. "You were right about the quitting, earlier. But I want you to know that I'm through with that shit. It might have technically been another life, but it's starting to feel more and more like a bad dream I'm finally able to wake up from. This place is as close to a second chance as I'm going to get, and I plan on making the most of it."

  Zane raised an eyebrow at me, but some of his earlier gruffness evaporated. He must have felt at least a little bad about the way he'd bitten my head off, because he gave me a comradely slap on the shoulder that came a couple of psi short of dislocating it. "If that's the case, I wish you luck."

  With that, he rounded a final corner. Beyond it was a natural hollow in the rock, a flat-bottomed sweeping dome with long spires of thricen ore and the accompanying blue light stretching down from the ceiling. In the middle of it all lay a couple more pickaxes and buckets. A few of the yellow crystals from the Burrower's tunnel glittered amongst the debris, but the nearest thing to houses were lopsided lean-tos poorly constructed from sheets of flaky rock that reminded me of slate.

  There were a few other humans there, all of them working hard. One was grinding something against a circular depression in the rock while another prodded a heat source that didn't look like fire before laying a line of red nuggets through the middle of it.

  It was far from the utilitarian vision I'd expected. "What the fuck is this?" I said under my breath. "I thought there were six of you? What have you been doing with yourselves?"

  "Surviving. We didn't have the benefit of 'training for this' the way you supposedly have. Here comes Neve. Make sure you tell her that you think we've been wasting our time. I'd love to see her knock you on your ass."

  Neve was a tall woman with a black, angular bob. Her limbs were lined with long, lean muscles and she surprised me by how easily her eyes let her smile light them up. "You found him, Zane. Good job! Oh, and he's brought a Mappatee! Splendid work, all three of you."

  Zane nudged me toward her. "Grabbed him right before the Burrower could. Adam here thinks he already runs the joint, despite being so goddamn stupid that he asked me what level I was right after demanding I take him to a safe place. Unfortunately, he's a moron, Neve."

  That hit me like a ton of bricks. He was right, of course. Had these guys never leveled up?

  Neve reached for me with the same expression on her face I'd seen countless adoptees have when they cuddled their new dog. She felt bad for me, and her voice was so gentle that she clearly thought I might break. "Be nice, Zane. Please? Arriving here is hard on everybody. Do I need to remind you how badly you took it? It was almost a year before you accepted your fate, so try and show some compassion."

  Zane just grunted. "You've got it wrong, Neve. He's here to help us. In fact, he's been training for th—"

  Enough. "They're just fucking video games," I snapped, cutting him off before he could humiliate me further. "That's all I meant."

  Neve reached out and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Ignore him. I want to welcome you, Adam. Know that everything we have is yours. We'll teach you what we can, and we'll happily learn anything from you, as well." She smiled even wider. "Now tell me, what's a video game? Zane's attempted to explain them in the past, but I confess that I've never really grasped the concept."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  How could she not know what a video game was? There was clearly something going on that I didn't understand. "What year is it?" I asked her. "Not here. Not in The Citadel. What year do you think it is, back on Earth?"

  Neve frowned. "Straight to it, aren't you? The year back there doesn't matter. What does, is how much time we're allotted here..."

  She had a point. If I spent too much time worrying about the past, I'd let the future sneak up on me and grab me by the throat. "T
hat's the real limiting factor, huh?"

  She nodded. "Zane has six hours to do his tasks. He's our workhorse, but all of his mining and tunneling is slow going. The harder he works, the further his network extends."

  "But that's good, right?"

  Neve pushed her fingers through her hair. "For us, sure. But it means that getting to fresh rock takes him longer and longer, which equates to less and less progress being made. He's tried to show us how to work the rock. We do what we can, but none of us have his talent or strength."

  I had a newfound respect for Zane. It sounded like he'd put this little band of survivors on his back and carried them through a lot of their struggles. "The round trip must be grueling for him."

  She laughed, though it didn't sound cruel. "You're thinking about it wrong, Adam. Tell me, have you died yet?"

  I nodded, hoping that she didn't ask how.

  "And have you hit the end of your time limit?"

  "No."

  Neve guided me over to a few flat rocks and we sat down. "When your time's up, you just vanish. There's no warning at all, and when you eventually return you're back in the last encampment you inhabited, presuming it still exists. Zane uses that to his advantage, working at the rock until he disappears. Once the Citadel allows him to return, he makes the journey back to the rock face."

  I frowned. "What counts as an encampment?"

  Neve smiled, tapping her temple with one long finger. "You're a thinker, I'll give you that. But no, him camping out there on his own isn't good enough. We've had a lot of time to experiment. At least half of us need to be a part of the camp in order for it to count, and there are too many benefits to this open area to justify us following Zane around. Still, he only needs to worry about making a round trip once he's gathered enough ore worthy of bringing back."

  I sucked air in through pursed lips. "Six hours, huh? That's not much."

  "It is not," she agreed.

  "And how long do you get?" I asked her, feeling like I was asking something intimate, like her bra size or if the carpet matched the drapes.

  "Eighteen hours. Unfortunately, I'm not as strong as he is. My skills lie elsewhere." She looked to her left. "Peter has sixteen hours, and Jia has twelve. Simon has ten. Dr. Ford's sitting pretty on thirty-six hours. A day and a half may sound like a huge amount of time, but the poor lamb's usually so far lost in his own head that it doesn't count for much."

  "Shit..."

  "It's not all doom and gloom," she said, laughing good-naturedly at my crestfallen expression. "We got lucky. The staggered times mean that not everyone winks out of existence at the same time, which allows us to maintain a constant presence here. And we're good at staying busy. Besides, if you think this is bad," she said with a wave of her hand that encompassed the sparse camp, "remember that we started from nothing. I don't know what we would have done if Zane hadn't spotted the weak spot in the wall of the Burrower's tunnel."

  I didn't think she was giving herself enough credit. I hardly knew her, but I'd already pegged her as kind and capable. "You'd have done the same thing I would have, if you hadn't sent Zane to save me—figured out a way past the Burrower until you found somewhere safe."

  Neve frowned. "Back to the safe place thing, eh? I tried, Adam. I promise. While Zane and the others chipped away at the stone, I scouted ahead. The nearest suitable place I could find was twelve hours away."

  I whistled low. That meant that Zane, Jia and Simon would have to be left behind. That, or they'd vanish partway there. And if the expedition didn't work, what then?

  "Never split the party," I said, repeating wisdom as old as gaming itself.

  Neve sighed, a cute little sound that forced me to think of her as less of a mother-figure and more of a peer. "Exactly. And we are not getting separated. Not on my watch."

  Zane sat down beside me. "If you can convince her to ditch the dead weight, you'll have my gratitude. She won't listen to me, even though the three of us have told her to take Peter and Connor on ahead without us."

  She sighed. "Enough. After everything we all sacrificed to get here, I won't abide talk of abandoning half of the group. Imagine it, Adam," she said, shifting to face me head on. "Smashing at a hairline fracture in the wall of that tunnel with whatever tools we could scrounge, all the while knowing that the last thousand deaths were just the start."

  I tried to, and failed. What they'd done had taken a strength I honestly wasn't sure I possessed.

  Neve slapped her knee, forcing a smile back on to her face. "But that's the past, so let's not dwell on it. To answer your earlier question, none of us know what year it really is back on Earth. We've gone through way too much for it to matter. I've been here the longest of any of them, and I don't even have a guess, anymore."

  Zane grunted and stood up again. "This is where I stop caring."

  I watched him go, and Neve lowered her voice. "You have to forgive him. This has been rough on all of us, but he takes it the worst. Poor Zane got here last, and we've had to rely on him the most."

  "It's 2084, Neve."

  She nodded, and I admired her poker face. "Then Jia's math was the closest. Not surprising. She used to be in the PLA, and the Chinese have never been slack when it comes to officer recruitment and training."

  I looked over at Jia for a couple of seconds. She was the one grinding something to powder against the rock, industriously gathering a pile of dark flakes of metal.

  Neve straightened her tunic. Everyone except for Zane was wearing them, a sort of durable, dusky brown thing with simple sleeves and matching pants. "None of us were awake for the trip here, so it was hard to guess how much time passed before our time in the Citadel began."

  I turned back to her, cocking my head. "What do you mean? Didn't they take you to the station, put you in one of those weird helmets and ditch you in the Labyrinth?"

  She shook her head, looking at me like I'd suddenly started speaking in tongues. "Sweetheart, all I remember is a triangle of incredibly bright lights. I was on my own, cooking dinner and then I... And then I wasn't. Somehow I was laying down, and when I tried to get up I felt the straps holding me to the slab. That was a long time ago, though. I guess it stands to reason that they take people differently, now. I suppose the way you're describing is progress."

  "Did the Army send you here?"

  "I was in the Army, Adam. It wasn't them."

  I held up my hand, speaking fast. "Wait a second. Hear me out. I got snatched by military guys, real black-ops dudes. They kicked down my door and threw me into a van and then a plane, which turned out to actually be a rocket. Before I knew it, I was on a space station orbiting Earth, and some doctor put me in the center of what she called the Labyrinth. After that, I fell through some sort of portal... At least, my mind did. My body's still back there, supposedly..."

  My words changed her entire demeanor. The warmth and concern she'd displayed was still there, but it took a back seat to fear. Neve pulled away from me and sat up straighter. "No. That's not at all what I meant."

  I looked around, and Zane was watching me closer than ever despite the fact that he'd been making a big show of not listening to us ever since he'd walked away. "What's wrong?" I asked them.

  She bit her lip and wouldn't meet my gaze. "I made a mistake. I shouldn't have sent Zane to find you. You felt like one of us, for some reason, but now I don't think you are."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Neve's gaze burrowed into mine. "How many hours do you have in the Citadel, Adam?"

  I'd been dreading that question, since I couldn't think of a way to answer it without sounding like a braggart. "Thirteen days."

  "Mother Fuck!" Zane breathed.

  Neve waved him quiet and lowered her voice, glancing at Jia and Peter to see if they'd overheard.

  They hadn't.

  "Have you talked to any of the others, yet?" she whispered.

  Was she nuts? "How could I? I've been speaking to you and Zane the whole time..."

&nb
sp; "Not us," Zane growled. "The others. The ones like you, the people that volunteered for this."

  I looked from one to the other in shock. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Zane was the first human I saw since I arrived at the Glade."

  Neve looked like she wanted to say more, but Zane was both louder and faster. "None of us got grabbed by any government Gestapo assholes. That sort of VIP treatment wasn't an option."

  "Then how did you get here?" I demanded.

  "How do you fucking think? The aliens snatched us up and brought us here themselves."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Neve found her voice again, as well as a bit of her earlier composure. "You'll have to forgive us. We didn't know you were a volunteer. I can usually sense these things, and you sure feel like one of us. We've never revealed ourselves to the volunteers."

  "Which makes this awkward," Zane said, pounding his fist into his palm, "since now you're going to have to keep our secret for us."

  "Fine," I said. "But why?"

  "Adam," Neve said, "I'm assuming your goal is the same as the one assigned to us. We need to climb the Citadel."

  I nodded. "And take the top floor. Me too."

  She watched me, waiting for me to put two and two together. She had the look of a teacher that was certain her student would learn better if he worked it out on his own, but all that did was put a fuckton of pressure on me. "Just spit it out, huh?"

  She shook her head. "Not yet. Remember what I said, when we were talking about encampments."

  "When we die, we go back to the camp we inhabited."

  "And?"

  "And..." I chewed on the inside of my cheek for a second. "And a new spot doesn't count as an encampment unless at least half of you occupy it."

  One corner of her mouth pulled up in a wry smile. "Exactly."

  It took me a while, but I got there too. "You're protecting the others, the ones you call volunteers. That's it, isn't it? You know the short timers you're stuck with are an enormous liability, and if you let them know you exist the Citadel might change things up. Maybe it'll take six humans to make an encampment, instead of three."