Warring

Trying to find some small satisfaction in finally swatting one of the swarming pests, Lamia neared a critical breakthrough. These humans were far too well-coordinated, suggesting a single, brilliant mastermind. Whether computer or flesh, that would be a target worth briefly diverting from its primary objective.

While searching for any Watchers that were physically manifested, it built a mental map of this labyrinthine facility, which dwarfed anything it had seen on Elpis. Though it couldn't guess the cause of damage to the building's exterior, its brief moments in those areas had greatly aided its estimation of the total dimensions. The puppet master micromanaging these frustrating humans was both swift and subtle, but Lamia's knowledge neared a critical mass. There were three general areas along the building's central axis that Lamia had been steered away from more than once. The subtlety of these maneuvers, the depth of intuition thus displayed, suggested intellect nearly on par with Lamia's own. Perhaps one of these contained a Watcher that had grown too weary to remain ephemeral. Neither Charlotte nor that boy had been able to escape via immaterial flight, and Lamia wished it was more certain of their limits and abilities. In any case, anywhere these humans didn't want Lamia to go must have something of value…

Duri's head ached as his latest gateway closed. Private O'Neil had taken a hit to the knee while dashing toward cover, and he hadn't been able to jump for the ladder to the floor above. Duri gave him a quick salute and jogged away, his heart aching. I can't save everyone… no matter how much I wish I could…

Blanchet's death had been far too sudden. Lamia had broken its pattern, ignoring the soldier firing on it to target someone else. From his occasional efforts in old RTS games, Duri knew how hard it was to micromanage forces in an effort to keep every individual safe. Hasina's brilliance exceeded his expectations, but nothing could guarantee safety.

Telling himself that might satisfy his logical mind. It did little to soften the feeling of having failed another brave woman.

With the override access Hasina had granted, he ducked into a private room and rolled under the bed. The Chief required him to relocate every time he used a gateway, as the nature of the power was a near-total mystery. For all they knew, Lamia could detect hints of where Duri's gateways opened, and he shouldn't stick around after using them.

There must be a way to create gateways without seeing the location. Lamia did it every time it was summoned to take an Unwanted. Duri hadn't figured it out yet. He pushed through the growing pressure in his head, restoring his Trance. Based on Fawzia's continuous updates, he quickly located Lamia. He couldn't be sure, but it seemed to be moving more slowly. Duri needed that to be true. Over his fifteen years Watching, he'd seen many deaths, but he'd always forced himself to stay detached and analytical. He had to preserve his psyche for the long haul of a taxing but vital career. But seeing two women die, one in a horrific instant and another more slowly, tore at him. And with his heart raw from the brutality of Charlotte's end, and the void she left in his world…

Later! Face it later! Every second counts right now. Take as long as you need to face these losses on another day. Right now, I need to focus on guessing who might be in the most danger and–

Lamia sawed through the floor so suddenly Duri's perspective shot past it. By the time he returned and followed, the monster was out of sight. How? There's no other damage to the structure, and the hallways are clear in every direction?

Then Fawzia sent a priority alert to everyone in the facility: "Lamia just went through a gateway! I've completely lost track of it!"

Fighting down a surge of fear, Hacina's mind raced. Who's the new target?

She issued orders for Duri to relocate immediately using a gateway, and for the soldiers pushing Peng and Fawzia to reverse direction. Niko refused to leave Doctor Sharma, and Anya still–

A tearing crash of rending metal reached Hasina from outside of her Command Center. For a fleeting instant, her thoughts scattered, as she realized this change in enemy tactics was not targeting a Watcher…

Then the wall behind her tore open.

Hasina's left hand triggered her transfer of command contingency.

Her right hand blurred across the emergency panel, entering the destruct code for her bunker.

The rending whirling storm of invisible blades struck her… just as she hit the final key.

Lamia's elation lasted less than a second before its world filled with liquid fire. The flames poured into the room from small projectors in every corner, and for just a moment, Lamia's entire reality was pain.

It launched itself upward, tearing through the ceiling. It raced away from the inferno, rolling and flipping and rippling its vast body, but not all of the viscous fire could be shed without cost. Even as it hurled itself down the corridor, it ejected its outermost layer of flesh, starting toward the top and front of its shifting form and continuing down its body in a flowing cascade. The crisis was over, but it left a thick trail of burning meat in its wake.

Weariness beat upon it. It felt its power waning. A primal panic that should never be experienced by its kind seethed deep within it. It had cut off the head of the human resistance… but its remaining time had been halved by yet another violent restructuring of Elsa's tissues. It needed to find a vulnerable Watcher. Nothing else mattered.

Benicio Martins felt his heart tear and his world shift, even as his harder self came to the forefront. The most competent and confident human he'd ever known… was gone. The genius who'd won a sprawling battle with only one fatality, who'd manipulated and diverted Lamia with incomprehensible expertise, who valued every life, who and had defended the Watchers for decades… She'd died in two seconds of dehumanizing gore and devouring flame.

And he was expected to fill her role?

He never could match her capacity for command on such a scale and with such meticulous care.

All he could do… was face this crisis his own way.

"Command authority accepted," he said coldly. "I am now acting Security Chief, Five-Star General, and Supreme Commander of the Allied Earth militaries." He could barely imagine himself filling the first role. As for the rest…?

"I've found Lamia," Fawzia-11 whispered, her voice desolate. She resumed her steady stream of coordinates, though now she couldn't hide the strain and loss that surely filled them all. Everyone's confidence and sense of purpose had been undermined and shaken by Charlotte's death, leaving them fragile in a way they'd tried to hide. And now, they had lost their best chance of getting through this without any more deaths.

With Hasina gone… anything could happen next.

The other Watchers checked in, acknowledging the change in authority. Anya sounded lost. Duri couldn't disguise his undeserved shame. Niko openly wept, and Doctor Sharma could be heard comforting him. And Peng… he sounded ready to kill.

Benicio closed off his heart, storing away the grief for another day. Instead, everyone's best hope would be his darker half. The peerless killer. The storm of adrenaline and movement and hypervelocity gauss rounds. "All personnel, stay away from the enemy if at all possible. Harassment and complex maneuvers are no longer realistic. Renya Baldwin will prioritize repositioning the Watchers and keeping everyone out of Lamia's path."

The monster's current location was very far from Benicio. He pounded toward it as fast as he could, which would bring him past an ammo storage rack.

He didn't have Hasina's ability to mastermind an entire web of defense in pristine detail.

He would lead from the front.

Peng-24 raged.

For years, he'd viewed Hasina as the warden of his prison, but that had started to change on the day Klaus-21 had vanished. He wasn't sure exactly when he'd shifted from tolerating her to respecting her. Maybe when she'd first posted soldiers in his Chamber in the faint hope that they'd go with him were he abducted. Maybe when she'd sent the vast majority of her seven hundred troops far from safety, clearly putting the Watchers' welfare first. Maybe it was the sheer brilliance of her maneuvers ever since Charlotte's death.

Maybe… it had only clicked when she'd flooded her own Command Center with plasma.

The vile abomination that had killed Peng's most important protector had suffered. In shedding its outer layer, it had even left behind a lot of bone. It still moved faster than anyone could run, but there was a desperation to it. Before, it felt like a predator. Now, though still deadly to the extreme, it seemed afraid. A cornered animal could be even more dangerous, but he'd relish this thing's fear.

And he'd do his best to stoke that fear.

Giving himself over to rage, he imagined his hand plunging into the writhing mass of shifting flesh and bone. He felt the vile thing, and with a mental wrench he tore a satisfying chunk out of his victim…

And Lamia came to a stop.

It didn't scream, it didn't turn toward him. It just stopped.

Blinded by his rage, he struck again, this time with both hands. Broken teeth and shredded flesh pulled away and dropped to the floor.

This time, a new sensation managed to penetrate the red fog in his mind. It wasn't the buzz of being Watched, not exactly. But he felt a disturbing sense of a changed awareness. That this horrific thing was putting two and two together…

Then it hurled itself forward, tore through a side wall, and smashed through the floor.

Leg throbbing, sweat flowing, Anya reached the large conference room Renya Baldwin had directed her toward. Doctors Tessen and Parks were expecting her, and they quickly finished with the archivists they were treating. Head Archivist Nelson and the two oldest members of his Department were trying to calm the others, who all showed signs of exhaustion and severe stress. In that moment, Anya was grateful for her physical training in a way that had never really mattered before today. It wasn't about excelling, performing, or receiving praise. She was just far less vulnerable to the physiological aspects of a terrifying ordeal.

Doctor Tessen injected Anya with a followup dose of the med intended to counter hypercalcemia, while Doctor Parks turned his attention to her wounded leg. Though the needle tooth had left a very small hole in her shin, the spreading bruise across her calf proved how serious a supersonic impact could be. Even such a light projectile badly shocked the body at that speed.

"Without all this high-density muscle to absorb the kinetic energy, you'd likely be unable to walk," Tessen observed. "No one ever expected Watchers to take so much as a punch, but I'm glad you never stopped caring about your body."

"I can still run," Anya insisted. "I don't want to stay here any longer than necessary. Other than Duri with his gateways, I'm the Watcher most capable of avoiding Lamia without endangering other–"

"Anya!" Fawzia's voice all but shrieked over the comm. "Lamia's heading directly toward you! Get out of there! Duri's still struggling after creating his last gateway!"

Tácito Nelson's mind locked up. Rumbling, tearing crashes could be heard, approaching fast, and there were a dozen people in the room. Niko might be able to get Anya to safety, but the others…

A command from Captain Martins ordered everyone to scatter, and Tácito almost obeyed. But when Anya hesitated, he did too.

"Move, 28!" Doctor Parks roared. "You're worth more than all of us put together!"

But Anya was not the sort to give in to intimidation, and Tácito feared he was about to see a stubbornly brave Watcher die…

But the elderly Toshiko Yasuragi had just the right mix of grandmotherly authority to get through to the young woman. "Please, child… we all value you above our lives. Don't risk making us fail in our highest duty."

Anya's bravado faltered, and when the two doctors grabbed her arms, she didn't resist. Soon, the three were sprinting toward the far door. Most of the archivists scattered to either side, as everyone in the room received more specific movement orders from Baldwin's team.

But Toshiko, and the even older Logan Walsh, were clearly spent. In their seventies, they'd have retired years before if not for the encouragement and support of Klaus-21. On this day, they had pushed through stress and fear, coordinating the evac and rescue of soldiers near the sites of the merculite detonations… It had taken all they had. Even the far younger Tácito knew he wouldn't be able to run far, having pushed not just his mind, but his untrained body.

Toshiko-san drew her gauss pistol.

Tácito and Walsh did the same.

"Spread out," Tácito said, trying to keep his voice calm as the incoming sounds of tearing metal drew close. "With all these chairs and desks, it shouldn't be hard to track Lamia's movements…"

The main entrance tore apart, and the three archivists opened fire. An animal growl of annoyance was immediately drowned out by the crash of furniture being hurled into distant walls. Tácito fired two more shots, a shattered desk missed him by a meter…

And Lamia reached Toshiko.

In a horrific instant, a woman Tácito had worked with for twenty-six years vanished in a wild spray that his mind simply couldn't process.

And from the scattering of chairs, seventy-six-year-old Logan Walsh would be Lamia's next victim…

A chair fell through the solid floor, and with a gasp of surprise, Mr. Walsh dropped through as well.

The invisible killer halted, denied one victim, and the room fell quiet.

A surge of relief washed over Tácito. Duri had saved at least one of his oldest friends.

But then his terror returned. The enemy had stopped moving, not ten meters from him, and the nearest exit would take him far too long to reach. What was Lamia doing? Why wasn't it going after Anya? This silence was somehow more chilling than the shocking violence of moments before…

Then, the invisible enemy crashed through the room on a new heading.

Almost as an afterthought, a hail of needle spines punched through Tácito's head at Mach 2.

Jabari Khalil knelt beside the crying Unwanted girl, doing his best to cheer her up. His daughter Isis still hadn't returned from the Institute, but at least she'd sent help. Old Susan Jax and the young nurse Quinn Fitzgerald shared the load of feeding the twelve Unwanted that sheltered in the cave. Jabari still hated the fact that there were only twelve. The Watchers had helped fourteen to escape the Dying Zone, one of which had been carried to safety by his father, the Colonial Governor. But of the thirteen others, one boy hadn't lived long enough for Jabari's people to rescue him. Out in the woods, far enough from the nearest town for gunshots to be ignored by the authorities, the Unwanted boy had been killed by a hunter.

Susan led the crying girl down a side tunnel, while Nurse Fitzgerald coaxed an Unwanted child into taking another drink. The reports from the Institute seemed too good to be true, but if they got confirmation that Lamia was no longer a threat, they could move all of these Unwanted to–

"Well, well, well! Isn't this the most idiotic waste of time!"

Jabari froze. He didn't recognize the voice coming from the main entrance, and the tone conveyed threat.

"Very slowly, I'll need both of you to raise your hands and turn toward me."

Obeying, Jabari found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle. Wearing forest camo, the newcomer sneered as he took in the sight of the little refugee camp. He wore a rare and expensive multi-scanner over his left eye. "I thought there might be more out here. The two of you sure are putting a lot of effort into maintaining your collection of hoarded trash…"

The hunter gestured to the handgun at Jabari's hip. Slowly, carefully, Jabari removed his belt, dropping the holstered weapon to the floor.

"I've never seen a whole group taken by Lamia…" The man smiled, keeping his rifle at the ready. "This should be quite a show… Lamia! Lamia! I call to you! Take these Unwanted things away! They're for you to do with as you please! Lamia! Lamia! Claim what is yours!"

Heart speeding up, Jabari's mind raced. Even if the reports were true, and Lamia had been taken offworld, this hunter wouldn't just give up. He'd already murdered one Unwanted…

"There's no point," Nurse Fitzgerald said. "Because we have very good news. After years of study and preparation, our Institute has ended the Lamia threat. She's gone. There's no longer any danger in caring for the Unwanted, because she'll never–"

The rifle now pointed at Quinn's face, and she fell silent. "You can't seriously expect me to believe that. We're talking about a monster that can shatter buildings with a thought."

With the attention diverted from him, Jabari considered his options. Bending down to grab and unholster his own gun would take way too long with this invader on alert. But he still had Charlotte's advanced pistol in his pack…

Quinn stayed commendably calm and collected. "I assume that you've summoned Lamia before. Have you ever known her to delay? With so many Unwanted in this cave, shouldn't she have eagerly struck by now?"

The hunter seemed to ponder this, and he slowly looked about the room. Jabari subtly shifted his pack and tried to keep his breathing steady.

"She might be busy answering another summons… but let's assume you're somehow right," the hunter said. "If Lamia's gone, that just means we don't have a convenient method to dispose of the Unwanted without getting our hands dirty. Doesn't that make it our job to step up?" He turned his rifle toward the first Unwanted the Watchers had saved, the red-haired Karitas. Without missing a beat, the nurse sidestepped to stay between the hunter and his new target.

"Really?" The man shook his head. "You're not just sheltering and feeding the things, you'd actually die for them? You should know better than most just how useless they are."

"A person's value isn't determined solely by how much they can contribute."

"Person? Don't be stupid!" The exasperated hunter briefly let the barrel of his rifle drop toward the floor. These things aren't legally alive, and–"

Jabari moved. He slid his pack off his shoulder even as his hand plunged in. The noise of the sudden movement drew the hunter's attention, but Jabari was faster. Charlotte's futuristic gauss pistol was now trained on the hunter's face. "Drop the rifle!" Jabari shouted, his voice cracking from the strain.

The hunter didn't move. "What… is… that? You're threatening me with a toy?"

"This is a gauss pistol! It packs enough punch to take your head clean off," Jabari warned.

"This is a very weak bluff. I'm familiar with the only firearms manufactured on the planet, and that isn't one of 'em. I admire how smooth that move was… but I'm not falling for it." The rifle began to raise…

Jabari lowered his aim, targeted the hunter's left knee, and he pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

"What was the point of that?" the hunter demanded. "I already knew you were bluffing."

Heart sinking, Jabari let his hands fall. Of course such an advanced weapon would have security measures. Maybe only someone with implants from the Watcher Organization could operate it…

The rifle again aimed at Quinn. "Now that we've gotten that little joke out of the way, let's wrap things up. Both of you: face down on the floor. If Lamia isn't interested in these Unwanted, I'll pick up the slack..."

The nurse growled. "We will not stand aside and let you murder them."

"It's not murder," the hunter said with a longsuffering sigh. "The one I dropped out in the forest a few days back didn't even count as vandalism, since it was clearly abandoned."

Rage welled up in Jabari, and he couldn't hide his disgust. "You're pointing a rifle at a nurse. We all know what kind of man you really are."

The rifle shifted from Quinn to Jabari. Gratified that this brought him relief instead of heightened fear, he stood a bit taller.

The hunter flashed Jabari a disturbing smile, and tapped the advanced scanner covering his left eye. "Scan complete. I have confirmation that all of your security cameras fell prey to the active jammer in my pack, which I switched on before I entered this cave. So, if I clean out these caves completely… no one will ever know it was me…"

The gunshot made Jabari's heart skip a beat, but he was proud that he didn't visibly flinch.

The hunter hit the floor with a hole through his forehead.

Three of the Unwanted started wailing, and two others hid under their sheets. Jabari turned toward the side passage, and nodded to Susan Jax. The elderly woman held her smoking gun in grizzled hands, and her steely cold expression actually scared Jabari. He gulped. "That… was a very good shot."

"It had to be," she said, holstering her weapon. "I couldn't give him a chance to pull the trigger."

Jabari looked down at himself, thinking of how the rifle had been aimed low, for a slow and gruesome gut shot. "Thanks," he whispered, a bit dizzy.

Nurse Fitzgerald stepped over to perform a perfunctory check of the hunter's vitals.

Then the three crying Unwanted fell silent, all at once.

The abrupt change felt even more unsettling than the earlier screams. Jabari snatched up his handgun from his dropped belt and took aim at the entrance.

Quinn Fitzgerald pulled out a scalpel and a loaded syringe. "What has them spooked?"

Mrs. Jax swept the room with her revolver at the ready. "Are we certain Lamia's gone?"

Double-checking to ensure his own weapon was ready to fire, Jabari set his jaw. If anyone tries to hurt these Unwanted, they'll have to get through us first.

Duri-22's heart and head both throbbed as exertion and compounded grief continued to build. He had saved one archivist, only to fail two others. People he'd known since his Induction, who he'd worked with for countless hours when interviewed about his Watch footage… both dead in under ten seconds.

Why had Lamia stopped? Fawzia had feared Lamia might be growing more sensitive to the locations of the Watchers, but if that were true…

He shook his head, clenched his fists, and tried to clear his thoughts. He took a moment to center himself, looking around the quiet room where he currently hid. With small changing rooms and a sink, it served as backstage to the facility's largest auditorium, where all of HQ had gathered for Klaus-21's funeral. His heart ached for the thousandth time at the loss of his closest friend, and he forced his thoughts back to the task at hand. Projecting his mind to the most recent coordinates Fawzia-11 supplied, he looked upon the enemy.

Lamia was noticeably smaller than before, and he tried to stay analytical and emotionless. The enemy moved more slowly, and he hoped its powers might be diminishing too. Though Duri's head throbbed from overuse of his own abilities, he would not give up. If old Fawzia could keep going, sending continuous updates on Lamia's position, he would keep looking for people in danger.

The monster ripped through the floor and turned right. Duri sent his perspective on ahead of Lamia's new course, looking for anyone who might be in her path…

And he saw himself.

His perspective ground to a halt in the backstage room of the auditorium, looking down at his own body, and panic filled him. His Watch sharpened in response, but the fear disrupted his initial attempt to create a gateway. His projected awareness and his real body both heard the crashing and scattering of chairs as Lamia tore through the auditorium, heading straight for him. With a telekinetic pull, the monster tore out the entire wall, shrieking in triumph when it saw him.

Forcing his mind to visualize his quarters, he opened a gateway….

Then the gateway closed.

"Get out of there!" Captain Martins roared over the comms.

With his mind in analytics mode, Duri managed not to panic. Clearing his thoughts, picturing his bedroom, he opened the gateway again.

And again, it closed.

The booming, guttural laugh told Duri all he needed to know. For the sake of his colleagues, he reported, "Lamia's closing my gateways. Keep up the fight."

Then the huge, amorphous thing engulfed Duri, held him close… and went to work.

Another Watcher… I've failed another Watcher… Unless… unless Lamia's so weak I can kill it before Duri's wounds become lethal…

Heart pounding, acting Security Chief Benicio Martins pounded toward the main auditorium. Niko's voice came over his comm, clearly on the verge of a panic attack, weeping over his failure, hating himself for not trying to project Duri to safety. Benicio knew that was unfair. Everyone had expected Duri to escape on his own. But he'd never be able to convince Niko of that.

Reaching the auditorium, the Captain heard Duri's screams. The monster had already begun the torture, desperate to get back to Elpis. Crossing the room in a serpentine pattern, Benicio fixed his eyes on 22. The writhing, shrieking Watcher looked distorted, and wounds appeared all over his body with no visible source.

Taking aim a meter to Duri's right, Benicio opened fire.

Grunts of bestial annoyance were followed by a volley of needle teeth, but Benicio was already in full evasion mode. Zigzagging, leaping off chairs, diving and rolling, the Captain avoided the salvo. He sent another storm of shots at his invisible enemy, aimed to miss Duri by half a meter.

This time, the shots struck the wall with no sign of injuring Lamia.

"It's reshaped and compressed its form!" Fawzia warned. "It's far smaller, and it's keeping Duri directly between you and it!"

Fine. Let's try something with less penetration power…

Changing direction with a kick that nearly broke the chair that served as his anchor, Benicio avoided another volley of teeth and hurled three concussion grenades. Two of them smashed into a distant wall from a telekinetic push, but the third detonated two meters behind Duri. The monster roared in frustration, and an invisible force seized the Captain, holding him in place.

That should have been the end of him, but another force came from the right, tearing Benicio from Lamia's grip just before a heavy volley of needle teeth would have torn into him. Very good timing, Peng.

With a quick mental command, he triggered multiple hatches to open in the high ceiling, and ladders extended downward. He had no intention of retreating from this room, but they'd give him more options for redirecting his movements midair.

Then Duri's screams clenched off, and he managed to subvocalize words that Lamia couldn't hear, but that his implants shared with the Captain. "I can't hold out! The fear… it's stronger than the pain! No matter how much it hurts, I know how much worse it can get!" A grinding crack, a scream so horrible it barely sounded human, and Benicio's sense of failure intensified. Duri managed to resume his silent words. "I think… right now… I might be powerful enough to take Lamia back to Elpis… And I'm not brave like Charlotte… or Niko…"

"Project your mind to Niko!" Benicio commanded, seizing on the only remaining chance to save this Watcher. "He'll abduct you!"

After another series of agonized howls, Duri said, "I can't! Lamia's anchored to me, and feels my intent!" Another hideous wail, accompanied by the sound of splitting bone. "It won't let me do anything except take it to Elpis!"

Benicio's heart rate slowed. The cold killing machine was about to take over. For he knew where this was going. He twisted, dived, and lunged, keeping chairs between him and Lamia, never giving it more than a quarter second to attempt a telekinetic hold. And while his body maintained this unpredictable evasive strategy, he psyched himself up for what he suspected he'd have to do.

Duri's latest burst of screaming sobs choked off, and the twenty-second Watcher confirmed the Captain's fears. "I'm going to break… I can't take it… Please… Captain… don't let me. We can't undo everything the others died for… Please… do what you have to do!"

The screams resumed.

All his life, Benicio had known that Watchers must be protected. And with the recent breakthroughs in physical projection, Watchers would soon be able to connect all human worlds.

They were precious…

But so were the people of Elpis.

Benicio would not let all their efforts and sacrifices be undone. Duri had made the hard choice… and the right call. The Captain had sworn to protect the Watchers…

But he would put the Watchers' ideals first. Klaus-21 had given the Organization greater purpose, and Charlotte had unlocked a bright future. Ever since 21's abduction, the Watchers had risked themselves repeatedly to save lives on Elpis, and unless Lamia was sent back, the Unwanted need never fear it again.

That was even more precious than the life of one Watcher… especially one who approved of such a trade.

Reloading his rifle with his last magazine of armor-piercing rounds, Benicio sprang from cover, took aim at the forehead of Klaus-21's dearest friend… and hesitated. Despite everything, he still hesitated.

He flung himself to the side, correctly anticipating a volley of supersonic teeth, and he made himself take aim yet again.

Aloud, Duri screamed, "Take the shot!"

Closing off his heart, Benicio pulled the trigger.