> “Rogue Overmind.” The very description is unsettling! Should we initiate legal action to try to end the contest early so the Overmind can be terminated?

>

> – Radio transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

The next few days were a whirlwind.

More and more of Fort Autumn snagged Specialties. By the end of the week, more than three-quarters of us had our own personal superpower, and hundreds of those had been tweaked and prodded by Ariel and myself, maximizing the power and utility they’d provide and ensuring a better fit with existing powersets.

I’d been too focused on earning my own Points to help everyone, but that focus had borne results. I’d dragged myself across the thirteenth threshold shortly after Gavin earned his Specialty, and across the fourteenth late in the evening before the new Challenge. I’d chosen to enhance “Compatibility” both times, giving Ariel two more chances to tweak my brain structure back into something that felt more familiar to me.

I’d regained a few more memories each time, although I usually wasn’t immediately aware of what I’d regained. For example, it wasn’t until I was snacking on a spacecake after passing my fourteenth threshold that the crunchiness made me crave Cheetos. Suddenly, I realized I could remember all my favorite pre-apocalypse snack foods, and that I hadn’t been able to a few hours prior. The returned memories of snack food made my life harder in some ways, as most of those items were likely lost to me forever. But as inconvenient as my unsatisfiable yearnings were, I was delighted by how real they felt. I wasn’t faking anything here! I really wanted junk food! Just like Meghan-in-my-Memories!

Popcorn should be doable. Cows for butter will be the hardest part, but corn and salt are easy! If we get through the Maffiyir, we’ll definitely be able to get popcorn back, I encouraged myself. Maybe even during the Maffiyir, if we do well enough!

A lot of my past was still a mystery to me, but I was content to go slow, as long as I was going. Ariel had been almost apologetic about the hack job she’d done with our original connection, using phrases like “untested code” and “poor user experience.” She was going much more carefully with her repairs, making small changes and carefully examining the results. As much as I wanted to be back to normal, I fully supported her caution.

Now, another Challenge was due in less than an hour. We expected it to be a nasty one, and we weren't sure what shape Fort Autumn would be in when we returned. During the last Challenge, we'd aggressively cleared all the Titans from the area before we disappeared. This time, that wasn't possible; there were just so many more Titans. Unlike the most of the little monsters, they wouldn't leave the fort alone if people weren't inside. The presence of the Shop would encourage them to attack relentlessly, and there'd be no one to stop them.

The higher number of Titans was worst around Fort Autumn, but it was bad throughout the Huntsville area. Travel was difficult. The Arsenal had gotten teams of elites through to act as my bodyguards, but they'd all swiftly achieved max Novelty and would be coming with us. The idea of having another team poised to rush in the moment we vanished had been raised... but General Heggins had vetoed it: "Any elites we can spare will be dedicated to Ms. Moretti's bodyguard force. We have nearly 100 Shops in the area. Humanity as a whole has only four linked users, and we don't know where three of them are."

Instead, we'd filled our underground bunker with weeks upon weeks of water and rations. I'd withdrawn all my Money and continued my land purchases. What else could I do? The Shop had been so critical for so long. It was still extremely useful, but I had to admit General Heggins was right about its relative importance.

We'd coated the Shop in rock and metal. I hoped it would survive, but I'll admit that I was more worried about the new Threat, which would would arrive later today. At least the timing of the last Threat's appearance meant that it couldn't come while we were away at the Challenge, but that seemed like a small island of mercy amidst a sea of bad news. Radio traffic between our space lawyer allies made it clear that the Maffiyir company had been providing tons of new data to Hamlet, which suggested that both the Challenge and the Threat wouldn’t be pulled from the databanks Ariel had access to.

We did have one amazing advantage: Ariel was confident that she could choose how we were separated out for Challenges.

She didn’t know how many contestants would be taken to each Challenge, and wouldn’t until Hamlet's request came, but she could speculate.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Even so, we were preparing for anything. Each person was either standing alone or touching a single other person. They’d then tied themselves with string to close family and friends, giving Ariel easy referents for who contestants preferred to fight alongside. All across the southern United States, groups we were in contact with were preparing the same way.

Ariel was had been supposed to send us to Challenges in a way that maximized conflict between groups and minimized opportunities for communication, but her priorities had already been altered several times this contest. It was the kind of thing a linked user could absolutely alter, so I didn't hesitate to do just that.

We still hadn’t located the other linked users, although we were fairly certain that I was the only one in North America. If it was possible, Ariel would be pairing several outreach teams from the Arsenal with groups from far-flung areas of the globe. Each team had a member with the Quantum Reservoir, translators, and guards. If everything went well, we’d be in touch with people from over twenty different countries from around the globe by this evening.

If.

But, despite the uncertainty, the atmosphere in the Quarry was different than it had been last time.

Before, people had been terrified.

Today? They were still scared, sure. But we’d fought thousands of Titans this week, and we’d weathered the assault. We were all far stronger than we ought to be. We were about to be tossed into something that was guaranteed to be lethally unfair, but we’d be going together.

The atmosphere was angry, almost predatory.

People were tense, but like they were ready to lash out. To fight.

A few feet away, Priya gave me a small smile. Her family would be coming to the same Challenge as mine unless the arena sizes were really small, but the team of thirty dedicated bodyguards the Arsenal had sent over would take up the first slots. Flip had made a full recovery and been placed in charge of them, much to her chagrin.

“They made me strong, so then they give me high rank. I’m high rank and strong, so they put me in charge,” she’d complained. “It’s not fair.”

The rest of my team? Many of them had come with us to the Dinosaur Challenge, or were people I’d met during the assault on the Threat. It was clear that the Arsenal was going out of its way to make me comfortable with the protection they were providing.

Flip was still Gavin’s ruler, technically, since the Arsenal didn’t want to deny either him or me the seconds of Flight we’d accrued, but the composition of Gavin’s followers had changed significantly, and the Arsenal had gone through a great deal of trouble to get him the crown from another local ruler who’d died, letting him have more followers and an extra vassal. Vince had become one of Gavin’s vassals, and other Rulers had been assigned to fill his other slots, maximizing the number of people who could benefit. After Pointy and Ariel had figured out how to make it work, Ariel was looking for opportunities to replicate what she’d done with my son’s Ruler benefit, but Rulers weren’t terribly common, and those that had the Regeneration ability were even rarer.

The rest of Gavin’s followers had been shuffled around a lot, leading some people to call him the “Cripple King.” I didn’t like that, and had tried to make “Healer King” happen, but it lacked the same ring and didn’t seem to be catching on. Unfortunate names aside, Gavin and his new followers were delighted.

Kurt, one of Vince’s engineering friends, had been blinded in the early days of the Maffiyir when he took a monster claw to the eyeball. The pupil had been completely destroyed or removed, and Healing Touch hadn’t been able to restore his vision. It was a small injury, but hugely debilitating. He’d only been Gavin’s follower for a few days, but he could already sense light and dark. I’d asked Ariel to run the numbers and she told me his vision would be fully restored in about four months.

My mangled hand would take much longer - well over a year - but it would be restored to me eventually. People with missing arms and legs would be waiting close to a decade, unfortunately, long after the Maffiyir was finished. Of course, as Gavin got stronger, that time would incrementally decrease… but they would still be waiting years.

Even so, there was something inherently different about “My leg is gone for five years” versus “my leg is gone forever.”

Now all we needed to do was survive.

Congratulations! If you’re hearing this, you’ve survived the sixth duodenary of the Earth Maffiyir!

The familiar announcement frustrated me. Ariel was in charge of it, but she didn’t have leeway to alter it. Maybe I could have helped her find a way around that, but I’d had my focus pulled a thousand different ways this twelveday and I hadn’t been able to put focus on this in particular. Maybe next time, I told myself.

Ariel continued to ramble through the standard spiel, and I tuned it out until she finished with the usual gratingly upbeat ”Good Luck!”

I had just enough time to take a deep breath before the casing snapped around me.

Let's see what we're in for this time.