Beth elbowed TJ in the gonads so hard, he tossed his cookies all over. Satisfaction swelled in her chest and she grinned as he doubled over, cradling the goods.

“You okay?” she asked. Not that she particularly cared what the answer was, but it felt like the thing to do after she’d emasculated him.

“Peachy,” he groaned.

Maverick held up his hand and Beth met it in in a silent high-five.

“What’s the next phase of your plans, TJ? Was there an implant? Beth wouldn’t be stuck if there wasn’t an implant. Come clean, so we at least know what we’re dealing with.”

When TJ didn’t answer, Beth stepped between the two men, seeing Mav’s drawn back foot ready to kick TJ in the stomach.

“Give him a second to recover,” she whispered, patting his muscled arm. Too muscled.

She didn’t know she was such a fan of muscles. Beth had always thought guys who spent so much time in the gym did so because they didn’t have anything in their heads and had to compensate for it. She’d seen Maverick in real life, and while he wasn’t the divine specimen that the game had made him out to be, he also wasn’t hard to look at.

She tried picturing his face in her head, but could only see his avatar when she closed her eyes.

“She signed the paperwork for the implant,” TJ eventually said, his voice still a little strained.

Beth pulled out her Glock again and aimed it at his head. “You sonuva bitch,” she screamed. “You tricked me.”

He sat up, both hands up in the surrender gesture. “You should’ve read the document, you just signed it.”

She squeezed the trigger, putting a bullet in TJ’s shoulder.

“Fuck! Stop that!” TJ opened his backpack and started wrapping his shoulder with an ACE bandage. “We need to get you through this damn horde night, then you can kill me again, if you must.”

“How many lives do you have, anyway? You’re like a cat.” Maverick had told Beth that they only had two. She’d hoped that killing him the second time and feeding him to the damn zombies would’ve been the end, but no. Here he was in front of her. Living. Breathing. Pissing her off.

“Not enough for you to just shoot me every time you feel like it.” He climbed to his feet, hands still out. “Listen, the horde is going to be starting any time now. We need to get ammo and get ready to defend ourselves. In the next couple of days, I hope to have located all of the compatible players that you started with, and get them all here to help Nyx. Including your friends, Maverick.”

Mav ran a hand through his hair and went to adjust glasses on his nose before he realized he didn’t have any and dropped his hand awkwardly. He glanced at Beth and she looked away, pretending she didn’t notice.

Beth glanced at the timer.

Day: 10 Time: 21:49

It was almost nighttime. The sun was just about to drop below the horizon. They probably ought to get ready.

“Fine. Temporary truce.” Beth put her gun back in her inventory and held her hand out to TJ to shake it. “But if you do anything else shady, I’ll make you wish—”

Maverick put a hand over her mouth, stopping her words. “We’ll be on our best behavior. Thanks for this chance to help out.”

She bit his finger and spun on the traitor. “What’s wrong with you?” she hissed.

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“Later,” he mumbled.

Beth shook her head and smacked Maverick’s shoulder. “They’re watching my live-stream. There is no privacy later.”

“Shit.”

She smacked him again. “Yeah, ‘shit.’ Just say what you mean.”

“Fine. I don’t trust him.”

TJ’s boots scraped on the grates as he stepped closer. “It doesn’t matter if you trust me. We have a common goal, get Nyx out of here alive, therefore, we’ll work together. You don’t have to like it.”

Mav muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like ‘prick.’ And walked out of the enclosed space of the second floor and onto the grates.

“They’re coming!” he called.

Beth grabbed some ammo out of the storage bin, along with another quiver of arrows.

The three of them spanned the east side of the base, shooting through the grates at the zombies as they approached.

Some died on the spikes below, while others began beating at the pillars.

“We need to try to spread out their damage. If we see them breaking through pillars, we need to move. They’ll follow. They can collapse the whole side of our base if we aren’t careful,” Mav said as he sprayed into a group of about ten zombies all beating on one pillar.

The spikes apparently only did so much damage before they disappeared, which seemed really shitty, but Beth tried not to complain. They were working, after all.

She used her bow and arrow, frustrated when she had to account for the arc of the arrow. She aimed slightly higher than the zombies’ heads, then released the arrow. It was annoying, and she missed more often than she hit, but they had a lot more arrows than bullets.

“They broke through a pillar over here, let’s shift west,” TJ said.

They ran across the base to the west, the zombies being dragged over the remaining spikes as they pursued.

“How long do the horde nights last?” Beth asked.

“The first one is only 90 minutes.”

Beth glanced at her time again; it had only been fifteen. She switched the bow for her Glock and put her helmet on, using the flashlight to help her see the zombies below. She regretted the decision almost instantly. Several pairs of dead eyes slowly raised until they were locked on her. They climbed over each other to try to reach her. Dogs howled in the background, and the eerie music raised the hairs on her arms.

This isn’t real. This isn’t real. She repeated it over and over, trying to convince herself.

“Another pillar is missing a block on this side!” Mav shouted.

“South!” TJ ordered.

They moved south.

The last of the spikes beneath the base disappeared as Beth sprayed into the fray.

Welcome to level 7! You’ve received 1 skill point.

Her aim was crap, and she needed to figure out whatever skill it was that would help her better than, and put some points there.

Beth looked at her clock again. They only had to make it eleven more minutes.

“Two blocks down on this corner, and another being taken out now,” TJ said, “Go north!”

With her heart hammering in her chest, Beth crossed the base a final time, hoping they could make it out of this unscathed. Hoping the last ten minutes would trickle down and they’d be fine.

“Another wave incoming!” TJ shouted.

Beth had learned that her Glock couldn’t pick off the zombies from very far away, so she focused on the half-dozen zombies still attacking the pillars below.

TJ was the only one with a weapon good at ranged attacks, and he picked off a couple of them while Beth and Mav killed the ones beneath them.

When the zombies were close enough, they started pummeling a pillar on the corner of the base.

“How many do they need to destroy before the whole base collapses?” Beth asked.

“If they get all three in the corner, or all of them against one side of the base, that section will fall, but the rest will still be up. The problem is, once they’ve collapsed that section of base, they can use the rubble to climb up and get to you.”

Frack, that was bad. She filed the information away for later use.

Finally, she squeezed the trigger and killed the final zombie.

Welcome to level 8! You’ve received 1 skill point.

Beth dropped her gun and slumped onto the grate next to it. It took a little bit of stamina to shoot the gun, but her stamina regenerated fast enough that it hadn’t affected her ability to kill the horde.

“First horde night down, nine to go!” TJ said.

Beth glanced at her stamina. Was it worth it? Yeah, it was. She picked up the Glock and aimed it at TJ’s head. “See ya later.” And she squeezed the trigger.