> Initial estimates put the casualty rate of the Clothes-Lover Challengers at around 1 in six. That’s relatively low for any Challenge, and absurdly low for a deception-themed Challenge.

>

> – Radio transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

As soon as I’d verified that my family had made it back safely to the quarry, I shut most of my eyes, focusing on the intangible bracelet on my wrist. I didn’t see any other gems on it, but the one I’d had before seemed to be housed in a slightly fancier setting. I touched it and looked at Vince. Previously, it had told me Vince’s strongest ability - “Biological Augment: Rapid Regeneration - 733.3%*”. It still told me that, but it now also returned “Powerful Blow - 208.3%*,” which was his weakest ability.

This must be the minimal prize we got just for survival, I thought. It wasn’t totally useless, especially since I would likely keep being sent to Challenges with people who didn’t speak English, but it really wasn’t great, given the risks involved.

I fought Big Mama and got trapped in their little horror zone. I ought to have something better than that.

“Check your Blueprints, Meghan,” Pointy said.

I followed the turtle’s advice and found it, a new entry at the bottom of a list of alien conveniences and ready-to-order architecture.

Threat Fragmenter 103% - (20,736 Money)

“Huh. A fragmenter? To break a threat up into smaller pieces, I guess? Any idea what the percentage means?” I asked.

“I believe so. This is one of the possible threat management tools the lawyers thought we might be given. In previous contests, it has been a structure that can be erected near a threat that must be protected for a brief duration. Following that, it can be activated, whereupon the Threat will be broken into a large number of minimum-strength pieces spread over a large area. However, if the power of the Fragmenter is below 100%, the resulting Threats will take more total power to destroy.

I winced. “So… if someone uses a 3% strength Fragmenter on that Treezilla in the UK…”

“That would be very bad.”

“Well, obviously, but how bad? Would it be like 30 Maximum-Treezilla worth of little Threats?”

“Oh, no. It would be more like two times what you’d get from a 100% Fragmenter.”

“That’s not so bad… if the little Threats are small enough to be taken out by the death of a single treewalker…”

“Well, certainly, but if any of the hundreds or thousands of new Threats get lucky and manage to take out a few dozen people early, they'll land the whole area in the same predicament it was to begin with. And even a few dozen will take time to take down, and they'll grow if not addressed quickly. I can quite understand why the Voices for Non-Citizens didn’t think highly of this offering.”

“It at least gives us options,” I said. “So… 103% is pretty good, then?”

“Yes. It looks like the majority of the strength was granted by the optional hidden area, as Cassie and Gavin have rewards identical to yours, and Micah and Vince have 100% Fragmenters.”

I made a face. “That seems weird. The hidden room was scarier, but Big Mama and her kids were about as lethal.”

“True, but you faced Big Mama with a great many allies. And you were warned that secret areas would come with additional dangers. Imagine if people had relaxed and enjoyed the apparent safety.”

I wanted to argue with that, to say that no one would have done that during a Challenge, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to. Even with the warning, plenty of people - including my own husband - had lounged in the chairs, and a few had sampled the snacks table.

It was easy to imagine how much worse things could have gone, especially if people fell asleep or if more had sampled the alcohol. People were incredibly dangerous. One could easily injure dozens in a moment of confusion, and if it wasn’t clear exactly who the culprit had been…

Vince tapped my back, interrupting my dark thoughts. “The Turners are all okay, Meghan.”

I opened the rest of my eyes. I’d thought I felt them, but I’d been too nervous to look. This Challenge had been cruel, and we hadn’t seen them in our arena.

They were all back. Their armor was battered and their clothes were streaked with blood, but it looked like whatever injuries they’d taken had already been healed.

It was a relief.

Unfortunately, opening my eyes let me see the rest of the room as well. It had been crowded before we left. It still was, but it didn’t take Analyze to spot the gaps.

“How many casualties?” I asked.

“If I extrapolate from the people in the Quarry, Fort Autumn has done quite well. I estimate we lost around 5% of our Challengers. That’s about a third of the global death rate for this Challenge, judging by the radio communications I’m picking up.”

The news made me feel exhausted. Or maybe that was the aftermath of my multi-hour adrenaline trip.

Mayor Alexandra was shouting something and I frowned for a moment, focusing. Oh, she wanted people to check in with their team leaders, or with her if they didn’t have a combat group. I guess she was trying to catalog our losses?

It was a fine thing to do, but I just… couldn’t. I was so done with today.

Five percent dead. One in twenty.

There have to be people I know in that total.

And that’s better than it could have been. By a lot.

I tugged on Vince’s arm. “Can I convince you guys to come and take a nap with me? Or just snuggle and read books together? I don’t know what the week’s new monster is, but maybe we can find out tomorrow. I need some time off.”

Vince frowned. “I’ll walk you and the kids to our rooms, then I’ll check us in as safe. Then… well… Kurt and his family made it back okay, but...”

“You want to find Davi and Byron and John?”

He nodded.

“Come back to us after that?”

He leaned down for a kiss. “Of course.”

The kids didn’t resist being herded toward the bedroom. There was plenty of joy and relief in the Quarry, but plenty of sobbing and grief as well, and the kids didn’t seem any more inclined to run off and play than I was inclined to let them.

I didn’t actually fall asleep, but the boys did. Gavin picked up a book but never turned past the first page, his eyes drooping shut almost immediately. Micah made a more solid effort, laying down next to me and getting two chapters into Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh before the book flipped closed on his unresisting fingers. I put a bookmark in for him and gently tugged the novel aside, all without moving my arms.

Man, Telekinesis really was the perfect Mom ability. Suddenly, I had the five extra hands I’d needed all along.

Cassie didn’t fall asleep, but she sat on my lap quietly and listened to Pointy play children’s songs. She was sucking on her thumb again, but I didn’t have the heart to stop her.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

It took Vince longer than I would have liked to come back, and I looked up in alarm when he entered, flickering Analyze to look for telltale traces of tears on his face.

He smiled apologetically. “Sorry for the wait.”

“Your friends…?”

“They all made it. Somehow. But…” He glanced down at Pointy. “Has she told you anything? I know she’s probably listened in on a lot of this.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“If you don’t want to know…”

I sighed. “I didn’t, but now that you’ve confirmed that there are things to know, I think you’d better tell me what they are.”

Vince looked away, guilty. “Right. Well, no new monster yet.”

“That’s good news!”

“Kind of? We need the increased Points it offers to unlock new abilities. But… yeah, I think it’s mostly good news. Most people seem happy with waiting a day or three.”

“So, no new monster, and your friends are fine. What were you hesitating to tell me?

“Well…” Vince rubbed his neck. “A lot of people died. Some of them, pretty important ones. And a lot of the others are leaving. I can’t blame them. I’d say we should leave if I thought it would make any difference. These Challenges are brutal.”

“Important people died?”

“Dane and Tamara Zwerinski.”

I sucked in a breath. “You… you’re sure?”

Vince nodded. “He was in the same Challenge as Clint and another of the smiths. They heard him make a few Announcements at the beginning, but… a Big Mama got them both. Clint saw the bodies.”

It was too much to process. The Zwerinskis, dead? It seemed nonsensical. Unbelievable.

One question gripped me. “Who else?”

Vince looked uncertain.

Pointy cut in, her voice tight and angry. “Of the people you know, the Zwerinskis were the most prominent casualties. You will need to find a new hairstylist, as Ricki did not return. Keith also died.”

“Keith…” It took me a moment to process that. “Wait, so we lost Irving, also? The other Information Assistant?”

Pointy nodded.

“I’m so sorry, Pointy.”

“I don’t understand,” she muttered. “I didn’t even like him. Why do I feel such distress?”

“Grief is weird,” I said. “And I’m sure you’re feeling a lot of fear as well.”

“Irving’s death does not elevate the danger Cassie and I face by a statistically significant margin.”

“That’s probably true. But… Irving had a lot in common with you. Even if you weren’t very fond of him, he faced a lot of the same problems you did. Now he’s dead. That’s got to feel a little personal. If I only knew a handful of humans, I’d be really upset if one of them died.”

“Perhaps that’s it,” Pointy said. “That is still irrational, but in a comprehensible way.”

“Well, that’s progress.” I put my face in my hands. “Feel free to speak up if you understand how I’m feeling about the Zwerinskis’ deaths, because I sure don’t.”

“Hmm… I would expect you are feeling quite a bit of guilt. You seem quite prone to feeling responsible for those around you, and the Zwerinskis lived under your roof for a brief period. He also showed you a great deal of trust, never returning any suspicion or ill-feelings you felt for him. In addition, I suspect you are still angry with him for letting Mason go free - I certainly am - and guilty again because you recognize it was the logical choice. You’re also probably grateful to him for doing so much to protect this community - offering Cure Disease for free, taking abilities to benefit the group, things like that.”

“He’d probably be alive if he’d been more selfish with his ability choices. He didn’t have much offense at all.”

“Okay, so you’re angry at him and Tamara for dying, also.”

“I am not-” I started. “Okay. Maybe I am. So, yeah, that’s all a mess.”

Vince cleared his throat. “I didn’t know any of the dead very well, but… They're already talking about putting up a memorial for them. Meghan, I’m sure you can help by using your holograms to guide the artist’s renditions. And, Pointy, we’ll make sure they represent Irving on it.”

Pointy looked up at him, surprised. “I’d… like that, I think. Thank you.”

He smiled at her, a little sadly. “I’ve been thinking about the treezilla memorial for a while, wondering if it’d be alright to do something similar for the people we lost on the way over. They weren’t part of Fort Autumn, but…”

“We’ll use the hallway outside our rooms,” I said.

Vince glanced at me in question.

I shrugged. “We own these rooms outright, so I figure we own that wall space too. It’s close enough to the Quarry to be accessible, but not intruding on the common area.”

“Do you think people will be willing to help?” he asked, hopefully.

“If we pay them enough.” I poked his forehead, my finger passing through his translucent crown. “You’re practically King Midas, aren’t you? And my Shop brings in more in taxes every day. Not to mention Gavin's Ruler income.”

“That’s true.” Vince relaxed.

I had a boy on either side of me. Vince stole Gavin’s spot, lifting our six-year-old into his lap. Gavin’s eyelids fluttered open for a moment, but closed after he saw his father’s face. Cassie glanced over, but seemed content to stay with me, although she grabbed Vince’s fingers when he offered her his hand.

My husband started quizzing Pointy on what information the lawyers had offered about the Trial on their radio broadcasts.

The only thing I really cared about was that this Challenge type was generally uncommon and wasn’t likely to be offered again soon. I knew I should care about the other things - the casualty rates, the really unusual decisions - but I didn’t. Maybe I would, later, but when I felt myself falling asleep, I didn’t resist. It might only be mid-afternoon, but I’d used up a month’s worth of emotions already today.

…

“MEGHAN!” Pointy’s shrill voice startled me awake.

“Whuh?”

“Meghan, get up! I need you to carry me to the wall of Fort Autumn. Right now!”

I blinked at her in confusion, even as I slowly got moving, extricating myself carefully from my pile of family. At some point, my husband and Cassie had fallen asleep as well. “Okay. Why…?”

Pointy hissed at me shrilly. “You remember the courier ships I told you the Maffiyir company sent out?”

“No?”

“Well, they did! Early on in the Challenge. I found out when we got back, and I’ve been following the speculation about what messages they’d been carrying closely. A few hours ago, several new ships arrived in-system. The lawyers recognized one of them immediately as a database ship from the company that handles the overriding system intelligence.”

I lowered Cassie onto the mattress and carefully stood, picking up Pointy. “So you’re worried they’re going to reprogram her?”

“No. This isn’t the first ship from that company. They can’t really alter her - too many safeguards to prevent tampering - but they’ve done overrides a number of times. I thought, initially, that this was another temporary override.”

“And now?” I had reached the door of our room and was jogging through the hallway.

“Well, now the lawyers recognized one of the other ships! Well, kind of. Its emissions show that its most recent port of call was a particular system near Eridanus that is known for holding condemned prisoners!”

Pointy shouted that as if it should be some kind of grand reveal, but I just glanced down at her in confusion. “And… you need to warn her? What are some condemned prisoners going to do to her?”

“Die!” Pointy yelled.

“Still not following. Anyway, can’t you warn her from downstairs?”

“I did! But I can’t hear her response. These will be her last words. I need… I need…”

The little turtle was incapable of tears, but her voice was quavery and panicked. I shook my head, trying to clear my sleepiness and figure out what Pointy had discovered.

Condemned prisoners were going to die, and then the system was? That didn’t make sense. The system was linked to Maffiyir executives, not to some randos. And it was linked to multiple, so that the big intelligence couldn’t be taken out of commission by an assassination or a heart attack.

But… what if the Maffiyir wanted to destroy the system’s governing intelligence?

Pointy’s bond with Cassie wasn’t transferable, not after Cassie’s Specialty had integrated the two of them, but was a unique situation and an unpleasant surprise. She’d previously hoped to transfer it before the end of Cassie’s lifespan.

Most bonds were transferable.

You wouldn’t want to kill your CEO.

If the prisoners were condemned anyway…

“Shit,” I said, as I started making my way up the ramp from the Quarry “But wait… I’m sorry for your friend, but isn’t this a good thing? This sounds like it’ll end the Maffiyir!”

Pointy shook her head. “I don’t think they’d kill her if it would end the contest. They’d lose too much money. And there’s that database ship from Intangible Connections in the system. I think they brought a new AI and they’re going to load it onto the nanomachine network and have it take over when she dies. There might be a… disruption. But not an ending.”

My heart sank, but only a little. Even as I’d hoped, I’d known it had sounded too good to be true. “And the new AI is probably going to be specially-designed to be extra nasty, now that they know how much trouble humanity is giving them.”

“That seems likely,” Pointy said. “Please, hurry!”

I dashed across the courtyard and pulled myself onto the wall’s walkway, lifting Pointy high to give her a good view of a wide area.

As soon as I held her aloft, I felt the turtle stiffen.

“Meghan!” she screamed. “Get off the wall and lay down! Right n-”