> Who is she talking to? Where is she getting this information? It’s correct, but Fluffy’s client ought to have no way of knowing that.

>

> – Radio transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

I did my best to ignore the irregular thump of Ben’s anti-tank gun and what it represented.

It wasn’t easy.

My medical room had been carved out behind the mayor’s office, which was right near the ramp into the quarry.

People kept coming downstairs, gasping in pain, helped along by concerned friends and family. I hoped whatever injuries they’d taken were healable, but it was obvious that a lot of people were getting hurt.

Other shouts made it clear that Alexandra had set up a schedule of combat groups to defend the fort. Leaders raised their voices, organizing their teams as they waited to be sent up to fill gaps on the walls above.

I’d asked Ariel for more information about the new Titans to pass along. Some of it was... if not positive, not as bad as it could have been. The newly-arrived Snakeropods and gasylosaur were very similar to the ones we'd seen in the Challenge. Like the D-rexes, they were bigger and tougher, with more dangerous special attacks - the gasylosaur could essentially emit gas continually without running out - but they didn't have any surprises. The Titan version of the milliceratops was only a little different; it had small patch of regenerating front-facing spines surrounding each horn that it could shoot like arrows.

Unfortunately, even if the monsters were largely the same, the destruction they caused was more devastating when they were busting through buildings rather than a forest of trees. I’d heard voices calling for Helen and the other stoneshapers, and was grimly certain that Fort Autumn’s walls had taken damage.

It was stressful, but there were tons of people who could fight the Titans, and only me - in the whole universe - who could get Ariel to answer questions.

Well, some questions.

Ariel refused to tell me where my counterparts were located. She told me how many there were, but refused to give any other information, citing privacy restrictions.

She was far more willing to answer questions about the contest’s hazards and monsters, but getting useful information from her was painfully slow. I was surprised to hear that she didn’t design the monsters herself, but pulled them from a massive database she’d been provided.

The database included nearly every monster used in any past Maffiyir, modified to work in Earth’s gravity, atmosphere, and biosphere, as well as a few new designs made specifically for this contest.

Unfortunately, Ariel’s databases didn’t include a tidy summary of strengths and weaknesses designed to be processed by limited biological sapient minds. Each entry had a difficulty rating and dozens of general categorizations: things like “flyer,” “amphibious,” “toxic,” “siege,” “infiltration,” “ambush,” “fast,” and “agile.” The machine intelligence had the full specifications to build each monster, and was more than willing to answer questions like “What would a Fire Bolt do to it?” or even “Which organs can we damage to lead to its death most quickly?” but she was flummoxed by questions like “What unexpected vulnerabilities or weaknesses does it have?” Ariel was willing to answer, but didn’t really understand what “unexpected” meant and initially didn’t tell us anything that Analyze couldn’t.

After fifteen minutes of frustration, Vince snapped his fingers. “Meghan! Does Ariel have statistics on people who killed some of the later monsters while they only had one or two abilities? Can she tell us what abilities were most common?”

That tactic bore more results, especially when we combined the data we got with our connection to the Arsenal and its growing army of people willing to test any hint we got. In short order, we found out a number of interesting things. We’d long known that the snakelike apeps could be decoyed into attacking a heat source, but the news that several people had killed them with only the ability Heat helped us uncover the fact that they could be distracted indefinitely if that heat source was kept just slightly warmer than human body temperature. Initial testing had suggested that Burden and Gravity Null weren’t effective on the rustpiles, unless gravity was nullified to an extent that the monsters actually floated, a very tiring proposition. The news that gravity-focused abilities had been enough to kill the monsters led to more sustained testing and we found that even a mild increase or decrease in weight was enough to render them unconscious if you were willing to wait ten minutes.

“Why is this working?” I asked Ariel.

“Well, that’s awesome. I mean, it probably won’t become the kill method of choice, but it will still help, especially for people in more rural areas who don’t have something like Fort Autumn to back them up. The rustpiles are pretty tricky to kill, usually. What about the new guys? The shiny rhinos? Have they been out long enough to gather this kind of data?”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Ariel cut off mid-transmission.

I frowned. “Ariel?”

It was ten, full, lengthy seconds before I got a response.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You don’t just cut out like that and come back and pretend like nothing happened.”

Ariel didn’t respond.

I sighed. “Ariel, explain why the previous transmission was interrupted.”

“Retain control… Ariel, did one of the other linked users die?”

I interrupted impatiently. “Ariel, how many linked users do you have now?”

“So… one of us died.”

“Yeah, whatever. What systems did you lose?”

“Are you shitting me?”

“What’d she say?” Vince asked.

I groaned. “One of my counterparts bit it, and Hamlet is going to dump a ton of new Threats on our heads any second now.”

“So wait… Hamlet isn’t going to drop more Threats on us?”

“Meghan?” Marie spoke, her face anxious. “Got an answer for us?”

I sighed. “He is, and probably a nasty one, but not until after the next Challenge. He can’t do it too frequently. I’m guessing he’s already reversed our spawn rate reductions for the current Threat. Can you check on that, Ariel?”

“Great,” I said, and passed the information on.

Vince sat on the edge of my bed, looking pensive. “It seems really suspicious to me, that your counterparts were all fine for several days, even though they were unconscious, then one of them dies within a few hours of Hamlet popping out these new Titans. Do you think he could be targeting you guys specifically?”

I blanched. “Fort Autumn has certainly been under constant assault, but I’d assumed it was because we had so many Intensifiers here. Ariel? Is it possible that the Titans are after me personally?”

“Ariel says they can’t tell who’s linked to her.”

“He can see everyone’s abilities, though, right?” Micah said. “Don’t they have a Compatibility Specialty like you, Mom? And everyone’s watching you, so they probably know who you are…”

“Is that possible, Ariel?”

There was the slightest pause. I don’t think I would have noticed it before I’d been linked to Ariel, but the AI was ever-so-slowly tardy in responding.

“You guys are allowed to try to kill specific contestants?!” I yelped. “That definitely seems like the kind of thing there should be legal restrictions on.”

“And they can try to kill specific contestants?!”

“So… no, but basically yes. Are there other rulings that let them fu- uh, alter the contest for the sake of entertainment?”

“So, to sum up: the Maffiyir executives have every reason in the world to want me dead, and a vast toolbox of options to try to make my death happen.”

I swung my feet over the edge of the bed. “Enough resting. I’m sure there are more advantages to eke out by questioning Ariel, but the most important thing I can do is get stronger. I don’t know what they’re going to throw at me, but the Titan onslaught means there are a ton of points pouring into Fort Autumn. We need to rake in as many as possible.”