> Decaying sustenance. I… don’t think they are.

>

> The dimensional jump infrastructure just powered off. We can’t leave the system.

>

> -Intercepted transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

We traveled in a large group: me and my family at the center, surrounded by a huge swarm of allies. By now, I had nearly 200 Arsenal-assigned guards. They weren’t usually all on-duty at the same time, but they were all with me now. Those who didn’t have the speed to keep up were being carried by those who did. In addition, around a quarter of Fort Autumn had chosen to accompany me and lend a hand: nearly everyone who didn’t have children to look after, and a few who did.

I didn’t see George, Arnav, or Samar in the crowd, but Priya was jogging behind Vince, face grim, while her oldest daughter, Anju, flew beside her, sticking close to the ground to avoid the twotwos’ attention. I was curious what had led the family to part ways, but answers would have to wait.

After a few minutes, Marie confirmed that we had made it out of the ring of encroaching legoliaths before the trap could close on us… and the Threats had turned to follow.

So they are after me, personally. Not Fort Autumn.

We can’t fight so many! They’re too tough, and we’re all out of explosives.

There was a pause of several seconds before Ariel responded.

We can’t keep going like this forever! Vince and the speedsters carrying the kids will have to sleep sometime, not to mention the guys and gals clearing our path of monsters!

I felt a flash of pride at Ariel’s suggestion - she really was learning and growing - even if the suggestion wasn’t workable. Thanks for helping brainstorm, but that’s not sustainable.

That’s not what I mean! I interrupted. Yeah, we can make it work for a little bit, but eventually we’ll make a mistake. It’s not stable. Plus… won’t the Pylons keep spawning more Threats?

The statement proved prescient. Right on the heels of Ariel’s assessment, I got a frantic Announcement from Marie.

Left! Hard left! Another one just appeared right in front of you!

Vince changed direction immediately, sparing a glance back to be sure that the men and women carrying the kids had followed.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Kite them?” he responded. “I was kind of an expert at that back when we played MMOs.”

I snorted. “Just because you got Bladeweaver to follow you across a whole zone?”

“Poison got it eventually! And I finished that quest all by myself. No deaths, no assistance. I didn’t even take damage. He just followed me around and never touched me! The video got over 30,000 views!”

Despite carrying me and running at a speed I couldn’t hope to match, my husband didn’t even seem out of breath. That was reassuring enough to cut down on my panic and make me start thinking more rationally.

“You’re right,” I said slowly. “But when you kite monsters, there are basically two options. First, you can use poison or some other slow-but-safe damage, like you used on Bladeweaver. I don’t think that’s an option here. We can plink away at them, sure, but from what Ariel said, the legoliaths will probably pick up more mass as they travel and make new segments. To kill them, we have to outpace their ability to grow. That will take a focused attack, not gradual erosion.”

“Yeah. That’s not feasible without something else like our gunpowder stockpile.”

“Right. So that leaves the other reason to kite monsters: you keep their attention until something else means you no longer have to fight them. In videogames, that might be killing the boss that’s mind controlling them or being able to lead them into a trap. Trying to think of someplace lethal to lead them is a good idea, but not something we can count on… let me check on something real quick.”

I tilted my head skyward and blasted an Announcement toward the pair I could see in the sky, shaping the ability into a narrow beam, my high synergy letting me use it like a poor man’s Mental Speech.

Flip, Marie. How’s Fort Autumn doing? Did it survive? Can people go back?

There was a pause, then I got a reply:

The threats were following you from too many angles. Two of them crossed the boundaries of the fort. The walls are severely damaged and the tower collapsed. Between that and the weight of the Threats, there were several cave-ins. The walls and the stuff belowground are clearly still partially intact, but the damage was severe.

I frowned.

What about the rest of the area? The one that headed for us seemed pretty set on traveling in a straight line, but are the other ones detouring around obstacles?

This time the response was immediate:

No. They’re just crashing right through. It is not hard to see where the legoliaths have been.

“Meghan?” Vince asked.

I realized that my whole body tensed. “With these things coming for me, we needed to make decisions. If they’re that set on taking me and the other linked users out… Well. We’re not strictly necessary. I know we’re valuable to humanity. I know Ariel is valuable. Even so, if the costs of defending us were too high, I thought, ‘Maybe we just accept the risks anyway.’ The rest of you could technically go on without us. I didn’t want to selfishly suggest we throw away the massive advantages we could gain by owning the majority of our oceans.”

“Is that really-”

I squeezed my arms around him, interrupting him. “That’s not how things are.”

He threw a quick glance over his shoulder, confused.

“The costs are probably here whether I ask people to try to defend us or not. Fort Autumn was heavily damaged,” I said. “It can probably be repaired. It can probably be reinforced, too. Apparently, a lot of it was strong enough to hold up the weight of a legoliath, but not every location. That much could be fixed. Even so, anyone staying there will need to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice, and they’ll need to build in more exits so they can evacuate in time if a legoliath appears nearby.”

Vince shuddered. “That will make it a lot less safe. More exits means more entrances that need to be guarded against everything from Titans to night leeches.”

“Right. That’s not the worst part, though.”

“Oh?”

I shrugged, counting on Vince to feel the motion against his back. “Name one place in the entire world that’s better equipped to survive an attack from those things than Fort Autumn.”

He hesitated. “Nuclear bunkers, maybe? I take your point. Any aboveground building will fare badly, and a lot of belowground ones won’t be as strong. Those things have to be heavy as fuck.”

I tilted my head, listening for a moment. “Ariel says the one that came after us was probably over 3 million pounds. That one was probably bigger than the others, since it appeared at the Fort Autumn Pylon, but we’re still talking about an absolutely massive monster that’s going to be knocking over walls and trees wherever it goes. It’s hard to engineer something to take that amount of weight, and even worse when you add in those unpredictable variables. Even if there are places that can withstand it, your average basement doesn’t have a chance.”

Vince snorted. “There’s an understatement. Plus, I don’t think most people have a basement.”

“Right. That’s why we need to get word out: forget the oceans. It’s time to try to end this contest as fast as possible.”