> Pungent excrement! This is supposed to be an Ascent Challenge? Is this truly within parameters? Many contestants are being attacked moments after arrival.

>

> – Radio transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

The orange spark in the distance grew and I flickered Analyze, trying to figure out what was happening. It was Ariel that filled me in, however.

I’d already gotten Ariel to stop spamming me with contestants’ internal ID numbers. “Cara Stevens” took me a second, though.

Flip, Ariel. Call Contestant Cara Stevens “Flip,” okay?

The fire in the distance was far enough away that it didn’t look like it was moving quickly, but that flicker of Analyze had told me otherwise: it was coming toward me fast, at over eighty miles per hour.

As it got closer, I could see that they were flying close to the ground, with Byron using his Specialty to incinerate a wide swathe of thorny vines, lowering the temperature behind him as he left. In their wake, I could see diminutive figures: other people standing unharmed in a road of ash.

The flames flickered out before Flip reached me, but she continued hurtling onward, pausing for the barest moment to drop Byron at my feet. “Eight minutes left on Booster! Gonna grab everyone I can from the weeds!”

She didn’t wait for a response. Seconds later, she was back to drop off a blinking grandmother and a gangly eight-year-old - the people nearby I’d sensed earlier - before departing again.

I turned to Byron. “How much will it tire you to keep burning a path? I’d like to get to the open area you made…”

He squinted at the dense wall of underbrush. “If I’m a little more strategic about it, I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

A coil of vine in front of us suddenly dropped, a thin slice of burned through on both sides.

“That’ll work,” I said. I kept my four largest plates out, but floated the toddler in the Summoned Shell into the arms of the kid who’d just arrived. That gave me three open telekinetic “hands” I could use to grab segments of plants Byron had burned free and toss them away.

We’d only made it a few feet before Flip returned with a load of five children: one girl clinging to her back and two others bundled under each arm. She was off again in a flash, as soon as she’d disentangled herself.

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It was a pattern that repeated several times, and our slow progress soon accelerated. The people she was rescuing may have been the “weakest” Fort Autumn residents, but even a few minutes in the tower was enough to net someone seven abilities. That was the positive aspect of the steeply-rising Points thresholds: getting too far ahead was difficult, but people who were behind had an easier time catching up.

I could tell these kids weren’t as comfortable in combat as my own children, but each and every one had made it through the previous Challenge. They needed help, but they weren't helpless. The few who were crying were doing it quietly, with eyes wide open and scanning our surroundings.

When a little girl with plant-control abilities was dropped off, she immediately blunted the tips of every nearby thorn.

A boy with overlarge ears took over my duty to monitor the monsters, pointing and loudly announcing how far they were away. A set of teenage twin girls unloaded their handguns wherever he pointed and reloaded them with quiet efficiency afterward. Their imprecise fire only took down the monsters about half the time, but the elderly woman Flip had rescued first was ready when they failed, using Paralyze and following it up with Powerful Blows until the monsters fell.

Even better, I could hear the sounds of allies through the thorns ahead. I’d continued to update the hologram marking our position, and people were clearly extending the arc Byron had burned, cutting their way through to us.

There was one heart-stopping moment when Flip came rocketing over with a single mutilated armload that had previously been a child. We all froze while kids with Healing Touch clustered around the mangled body, small hands plunging bravely into the gore.

Somehow, impossibly, a child took shape under their hands, a boy maybe seven or eight years old with an Asian cast to his features. The effort of restoring him left three of our small healers exhausted and unconscious, but I still felt my heart unclench as I saw the little boy draw a deep breath and open his eyes.

I was a little surprised to realize how strongly my emotions had been running in the past few minutes. Sensing the child in the Summoned Shell in danger, seeing this little boy so gravely hurt… it had genuinely terrified me. Really upset me. I hadn’t been pretending, or going through the motions.

Maybe the real Meghan is still in here after all.

A blaze of fire to my left drew me away from my introspection. When the flames faded, I saw Micah - my Micah - standing proudly in a cleared patch of land, separated from us by only a narrow barrier of vines. I didn’t see Cassie or Vince in the crowd behind him, but Gavin was there. I couldn’t see his grin under the gas mask he was wearing, but I could tell it was there by his exuberant tone and madly waving arm. “Hi Mommy!”

“Whoa! Hold up, little man!” Byron called, his eyes on Micah. “Y’all gonna tire yourself out! Do it like this!”

He demonstrated his tightly-controlled approach, using his flame abilities like a laser cutter, and Micah’s eyes widened. “Ohhhh.”

It took less than a minute for our groups to reunite, to feel my boys’ arms around me.

“Have you seen your father? Cassie?”

Gavin shrugged and Micah shook his head. “Not yet.”

Byron cleared his throat. “I started pretty close to Flip, but almost dead opposite the mountain from you. We kinda picked a direction and ran with it, but there are still plenty of people in the other arc that are still trapped in the weeds. We figured it was more important to get people together than to waste time waiting around.”

I nodded. “I think that was a good call. The AI didn’t mention a time limit, just a penalty for the slowest climbers. Let’s keep burning a path. I want to make a full circle around the mountain and get all of us together before we start our ascent.”