> The instant attacks are a clear violation of the orientation period requirement.

>

> – Radio transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

An hour later, we’d gathered up everyone who’d been brought to the Challenge.

Or, in five tragic cases, their corpses.

People had been aggressive about moving to each other’s aid, and almost everyone had enough abilities to have a fighting chance at self-defense.

But there’d been over 1,700 Fort Autumn residents in this Challenge. Inevitably, a few had gotten unlucky. In most cases that meant itchy rashes from the surrounding vines. For two dozen others, it meant permanent injuries as fingers, legs, or arms were lost to the tuskwolves’ snapping teeth. But for five, it meant an end to luck entirely.

The bodies had been wrapped in sheets and were being carried by mournful loved ones. We'd bring them back home with us, so their families would be able to bury the dead. I hoped that would be some comfort. Some of the shrouds looked awfully… small.

Don’t tell me, Ariel! I need to focus.

At least those I was closest to weren't among the dead. I was a little ashamed by the thought, but I couldn’t deny my relief.

“Okay. We’re going to need to start heading up. I’m not sure what to expect-”

I cut off as Ariel interrupted mentally.

I blinked slowly. “Okay. Ariel says that the first part of our climb is heavily trapped. Pit traps, and, um, deadfalls. I’m not sure how deadfalls are different than pit traps, but-”

A man in a camo print jacket waved at me from the crowd. “Not the same thing at all, ma’am! A deadfall’s where something real heavy, like a rock or a big log, has been set up to fall on a hair trigger.”

Helen squinted up at the mountain. “How tall is this shit, Ariel? How much ground will we need to cover?”

It took a little mental prodding on my part to get an answer out of the AI. I carefully translated her overprecise response into plain English before I spoke. “She estimates the diameter of the mountain is a little under three miles. The slope isn’t constant, but it’s steep. She thinks we’ve probably got close to two miles to cover to reach the top, and some of that is going to be a climb over cliffs.”

The older black woman seemed to consider this. “Two miles, eh? Xander, you still pretty fresh? Martina?” She paused only a moment to listen for shouted confirmations before turning back to me, her hands spread wide. “Clear us a route. There’s plenty of rock. We’ll make you a staircase.”

Byron clapped his hands together. “You heard the lady, team! Same as we’ve been doing, but up the mountain this time!”

Before he’d even finished speaking, the vines ahead of us sagged briefly before being telekinetically lofted aside. The moment the plants were gone, a stream of stone fountained out of the ground and washed upward, settling into a steep, almost ladder-like, staircase.

I started toward it, only to find my way barred by the outstretched arm of one of my bodyguards. “Sorry, ma’am. I’m going to need you to let us go first.”

“If I’m near the front, Ariel can use my senses to help let us know what we’re facing.”

Speedster Andy had also been assigned to my team of soldier bodyguards. He grinned at me. “We’ve got hundreds of sensory augments across our group. I think we’ve got it covered. I don’t think we want you at the back, but we don’t want you in the first thirty or forty people, either.”

“Okay,” I said. His words were reasonable, but I couldn’t help but feel a little surprised. I’d been so used to being thrust into leadership positions.

Taking the backseat, letting others take care of me instead of taking charge? Weird.

But for once, I didn’t feel like I needed to grab the reins. Alexandra was here, decisively shouting our marching order: a vanguard of high-power individuals with a variety of sensory augments, then me and my family, then all the families with children, then a rearguard of older adults.

“My daughter and husband will be marching with the children, but I will join the rearguard,” Alexandra said. “I invite any families with multiple parents to nominate one to join the rearguard. We've been told that the slowest among us will be penalized, so putting more adults in the rearguard keeps the children safer.”

Her example quelled most of the grumbling. Not all, but no one was forcing anyone to follow her marching orders. People could slot themselves into the line wherever they wanted; they just had to be willing to bear the judgemental stares of their neighbors.

A few were. Most folded in short order, slinking belatedly to their suggested positions as I began to climb.

The staircase was on the narrow side, wide enough for one person to climb comfortably or for two people to crowd together. I couldn’t blame our stoneshapers for conserving their strength: we had a long way to go.

As our shapers pulled stone to the surface from underground, they caused tremors. The vibrations were barely noticeable to me, but Gavin grabbed my hand, letting out a soft, impressed, “Whoa;” Seismic Sense must be giving him a different impression than the rest of us.

As the staircase stretched into an area dotted with massive boulders, five began to tremble simultaneously. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, rocks the size of minivans overbalanced and rolled down the steep slope toward the gathered crowd below.

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Force Shields thrown up in front of the moving boulders shattered like glass, but the shields lasted longer when put up at a steep angle. They still broke, but turned the boulders aside slightly before they did so.

“Charge them!” Vince yelled. “Knock them aside!” He dashed up the mountain, followed by dozens of others, including Gavin. Seeing my little boy head forward made my breath catch, but he stuck to the nascent staircase, lashing his tail left and right to “punch” the boulders as they came by.

Vince took a less measured approach, dashing up behind Gavin and leaping out to the side to throw his shoulder up against a falling rock, bodychecking it. It shouldn’t have done anything - that boulder had to weigh a hundred times what he did - but his contest-granted abilities were enough to make physics look the other way. The rock’s course altered.

I didn’t respond to Ariel, but my brain couldn’t ignore what she’d said. Over 40,000 pounds?

And yet… they were slowing. I’d brought my iron plates forward close to the ground, letting the rock’s own weight drive them into the ground like wedges rather than try to resist with my paltry Telekinetic strength.

All around me, over a thousand others were doing their part. Missile attacks splattered against the face of the stones, each sapping a miniscule portion of its momentum. Dozens of men and women ran forward, each giving the side of a stone a kick, punch, or tackle.

We still didn’t stop them before they reached the group - they were too big, too heavy! But we slowed them, letting people get out of their path. When the rocks finally stopped in the midst of the crowd, no one had been crushed.

I let out a long breath. “Stoneshapers? Can you fuse the other rocks to the ground so that doesn’t happen?”

Helen nodded. “Already on it!”

Part of me wanted to complain to Ariel, to ask why she hadn’t suggested just that, or warned us that creating the staircase would trigger the deadfalls, but I knew the answer already: creativity and initiative weren’t her strong suits. If I’d asked her if making the staircase might cause issues, she probably would have let us know, but I needed to be the one to ask. Ariel was trying, but empathy was difficult for her, and volunteering wasn't something she'd had any experience with.

It was an inauspicious beginning for the staircase, but the construction’s usefulness soon became obvious. The ground, disturbed by the shifting stone, had collapsed in several places, revealing deep pits that ended in wicked spikes or suspicious liquid. The sight made me deeply grateful for the solid rock beneath my feet.

I tried to keep my focus on the climb ahead, in case Ariel caught anything our scouts missed, but the attentiveness of our vanguard and their wide array of abilities and sensory augments made us fairly superfluous.

Even as Ariel spoke, so did a tall woman in the vanguard “Hey! Telekinetics! Take extra care to keep these vines away from the group after we cut them free. They’re different somehow.”

It wasn’t until we were up among the plants themselves that Ariel could give us any new information.

I don’t need the exact chemistry. Can you tell me what you suspect the poison does?

I shuddered. Hallucinations and mountaineering? Terrible combination. I raised my voice. “Good call on steering clear of those new thorns! Ariel thinks they’re coated in a painful hallucinogen.”

It was good information to know, but it ultimately didn’t change anything we were doing. Her help - my help - hadn’t been necessary.

That pattern continued as we kept moving upward, encountering and dealing with hazard after hazard.

Massive barnacle-like critters that shot jets of high-pressure acid at anyone who got close? Easily identified and taken down from a distance.

Cliff so steep that it actually leaned outward? No trouble, the rockshapers drilled right through it.

Literal lava rivers in a flatter section, popping and spitting flecks of molten stone? That slowed us down a little, but Micah and other temperature specialists worked to reduce the heat to a safe level, and our handful of air specialists pulled in a breeze, blowing the sulphurous air away. It was a hassle, but didn’t actually threaten us.

The only obstacle our organization couldn’t completely eliminate were the tuskwolves and a monster we were calling “geckogators.” They weren’t actually very much like alligators, except in size. The gecko comparison made more sense to me, as the sinuous predators scrambled up sheer surfaces just as easily as flat floors. Like the tuskwolves, they had a knockback ability.

Our vanguard did their best to wipe them out before they could threaten the rest of us, but the monsters roamed widely enough that the rest of us had to remain alert, in case one closed in after the vanguard had passed.

I was glad Vince was carrying Cassie. He was far too speedy for either attacker to close with, even if we somehow failed to take one down before it got close.

Is this really “fair?” I asked Ariel. Aren’t there rules about how mean you can make these Challenges?

I know Hamlet made this! I’m just asking what the rules are.

I sighed. Look… just tell me. Do you think this follows those rules?

There was a pause. A noticeable one, long enough for me to climb several more steps.

So it’s stuff they think they’re likely to be sued for.

Indeterminate, my ass. Just because they didn’t program you to think about that directly doesn’t mean you can’t see patterns in the past rules.

I hesitated. Not right now. What I want you to do instead is log data on everything you think might be breaking existing rules. When we get back, we’ll find a way to get that to Fluffy and the other the space lawyers. Try to make it, I don’t know. Organized? Easy to understand?

I sighed in relief as I reached the top, where a floating portal waited. When I made it up, Andy darted through first. Flip tilted her head thoughtfully. “Got a Ruler message! He’s through. Returned and safe. Meghan, you and Vince are up next. If there’s any bonus for being first, we want to be sure you’re eligible. Then we’ll send half your bodyguards, then your kids, then the other kids, then the other half of your bodyguards. I’d like to stay and help with the evacuation for longer, but… if we get penalized, someone else is going to have to step up for guard duty, and we just don’t have that many people trained.”

I smiled at her. “Look at you! So responsible. Doing all this leadership stuff so well.”

The look she gave me was hurt, almost betrayed. “Don’t remind me.”

“Well, you’re doing a great job. I’ll just wait in the Quarry until the rest of you are back. We should have at least another two hours until Hamlet can drop the next Threat on us.”

Flip squinted at her wrist, noting the time on a mechanical watch. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour to get everyone through the portal, I think.”

“Ariel thinks it’ll take 48 minutes and 42 seconds at the speed the line’s been moving, for whatever that’s worth,” I said.

“Okay. Plenty of time, then.” She nodded at me decisively. “See you soon?”

“See you soon!”

I stepped through.