It was the first variant Alex ran into on his mad dash, but it was not the last. By the time he made it back to the rendezvous point, he had faced off against three brutes and four of the grey Zotari. As he had expected, he hadn’t seen any of the giant or deranged variants. He was also extremely pleased that none of the sleeper variants that somehow had all of the powers showed up. He wouldn’t be able to detect them ahead of time and did not like his odds of one of them blindsided him, especially if he had already been fighting another variant.

He wasn’t sure why there hadn’t been any. They might be on a different level, or maybe they had been sent back to prove to their superiors that their research had borne fruit. The giants frankly would have been cramped in the basement so it made sense why none of them were found in the hospital. Alex imagined the first giant to be created had been quite the surprise depending on how quickly it grew.

From the corner of his vision he saw the rest of the group coming around the rows of tents. They were squatted down as they ran, obviously trying to stay out of view. They each carried large boxes full of papers and other supplies. He could see random glass vials sticking out of one of the boxes while another Saxan was struggling to keep his papers from flying out of the box he was holding.

“Looks like you guys got what you were looking for?” Alex asked.

“We have enough. I would have preferred more time, but we cut it close as it was,” Krizzik replied.

“I’m sorry. I did what I could. I cut it close too. Too close. I think if had waited even another moment, I would be overwhelmed right now.”

“I am not blaming you. You gave us much more time than we could have expected. I just wish we could have cleared out all of the Zotari and really delved into the all of the knowledge. We will have to do this later and only with the limited resources we have found here.”

“Yeah. Well, hopefully us demolishing the lower floors of the hospital will allow you to at least get caught up to the Zotari advancements while they try to recover. I don’t know if they made any type of backups for their data. That would’ve been smart, but maybe they thought this part of the hospital was well enough defended. That would set them back a lot allowing you guys to hopefully reverse engineer something for yourselves. It’s the American dream really. Take someone else’s hard work and steal it. You’re doing God’s work here.”

“What is American? Is this where you are from? This is your planet?” Krizzik asked with a puzzled expression on his face.

“No, America is my country. Earth is the planet.”

“What is ‘country’?” Krizzik asked trying to imitate what Alex had said.

It was only then that Alex realized his translate skill hadn’t done anything to that word. He had said it in English. It had been the same for Earth and American, but it made sense that names would be in whatever language they were created in. There wouldn’t really be an equivalent in the Saxan language.

That was odd.

“Do you not have that word in your language?” Alex asked.

“I have not heard this word. What is it?”

“On Earth we are divided into different countries. They are a separation of nations ruled by different groups of people. You seriously don’t have that?”

“No. We are one. We have a queen that rules over us all.”

“This is Saxar IV. Does she rule over all the other Saxars?”

“There are no other Saxars.”

“Well that’s just confusing. Why would you call this Saxar IV then?”

“We are the fourth planet in our solar system,” Krizzik said matter of factly.

“I mean I guess that makes sense, but it still seems kind of confusing.”

A small explosion followed by a yell sounded in the background. The temperature in the room had been steadily increasing during the course of their conversation.

“I think that’s our cue. We need to get out of here. I’m no expert in bombs, especially not Saxan made bombs, but I bet they don’t mix too well with fire,” Alex said.

“You would be correct in that assumption.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Another explosion and the group wasted no more time. They hustled up the stairs, taking multiple steps at a time. Once they reached the top, Alex planted a bomb quickly and they continued on their way up.

They had been hoping to hear from camp with alternate way out, but hadn’t gotten any word. Without an escape plan, they would just focus on getting to the ground floor. From there they would just need to walk out the front door.

For most of the basement levels, they had likely resistance to their exit. Now that they had reached the main floor however, there was a problem. The Zotari were abandoning this building. It was no longer prudent for them to remain as they were being attacked from within the building itself now. Before they were totally overrun, they wished to save some of their numbers.

If word had gotten down to the lower levels about this exodus, they had made no indication of acting on such news. It likely had to do with their distractions and the reactions of some of the larger variety of Zotari. The brutes that Alex had fought were at least, if not more destructive than he had been. It was likely any means of communication, other than word of mouth, had been wrecked.

Geez. I hope people don’t see me as much of a meat head as these brutes are. Hopefully keeping my stats a little more balanced will keep that from happening to me. Do I have any way to verify if that’s the case? Not really, but a boy can dream.

They hadn’t been spotted yet and so they ducked into a room to try to come up with some type of plan. Alex peered through the circular window in the door. He could see swarms of Zotari clearing out of the building. They came in clumps of around twenty soldiers, moving like their lives depended on it. Which was fitting, because their lives likely did.

There was a squad of guards armed with a type of rifle Alex hadn’t seen yet. He called them rifles even though they didn’t resemble any rifles he had ever seen. He just somehow knew that they would be some type of firearm. They were long, jagged shards of black crystal. They sort of formed over the bearer’s arm all the way up to their shoulder. It had a slight bend right at their elbow giving it a sort of hockey stick shape. It looked as if one of the crystal golems from the tutorial had tried to absorb them and they had broken off a piece at the last minute.

“Have you seen anything like those before?” Alex asked Krizzik and the others.

They all shook their heads.

“I have not. I do not know if it is because they have only just designed them, or if they are expensive weapons meant for protecting high value targets. In war, the unknown can be scarier than a known threat. We can plan for an escape, but without knowing what those are capable of, we may be dooming ourselves in the process,” Krizzik said.

“Yeah. We have a saying on my planet. ‘Don’t bring a gun to a knife fight.’ The only problem here is we don’t know if this is a gun fight or a knife fight.”

“That does not seem like a good analogy for our current situation, but I understand your meaning.”

“So what do we do? Do we wait for them to clear out? That would give their researchers time to escape. If they do, they would be able to recreate a lot of their research quickly, even without all of their notes.”

“This is true. We need to make sure that they cannot escape. We should set off our charges sooner rather than later. I am wary to set them off while we are still inside the hospital however. We do not know the ramifications of that. It may destabilize a large chunk of the building. We could get trapped along with them.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like we can just run really fast out the front door either. You guys have a ton of junk. Valuable junk, but also heavy, bulky junk. It’s going to slow us down tremendously. I hate to say it, but I think I need to be your meat shield. I’ll draw their fire while you guys run away. Can we call in a squad to cover your retreat?”

“I believe that will work, but we still run into the issue of those firearms. We do not know their capabilities. You may only be able to take a single hit from it. If that is the case, not only will you die, but we will be left in the open. We would not be long behind you.”

Alex looked out the window again. He could see that the majority of the Zotari were coming from the same direction. He wasn’t sure if that was because they were holed up in the same spot or what, but that had to be useful somehow.

“Does anyone have any more bombs? I’m all out,” Alex asked the group.

One of the Saxans held up a bomb. No one else had any others.

“What are you planning?” Krizzik asked.

“I’m going to throw this down the hallway where most of the Zotari are coming from. I think if I can draw those guards over there, we have a chance to get out of here. We may not even take a single shot if we time it right. If I can hole up in this other hallway, I think I can toss it into the crowd.”

“We only have one detonator and all the bombs are on a synchronized signal. How will you set it off without setting all the others off?”

“You said that they don’t too well with heat. Lucky for you, I can produce heat rather easily. I’ll just shoot it.”

Krizzik looked at him silently for a long moment. So long, Alex started to shift around uncomfortably.

“You think that you would be able to hit the bomb from that far away? I do not mean to question your precision, but we would need to be certain that you could hit it,” Krizzik said.

“Ouch! I think I can hit it.”

He looked at the bomb in his hand. It was about the size of two loaves of bread duct taped together. It was a decently big target.

“You think you can? Or you can? These are two very different things.”

“I can. I know I can. If I hit it with a death ray I’ll for sure get it.”

“I do not know what a death ray is, but I doubt it is very subtle. Will that not draw the attention of the guards?”

“Oh, my death ray is the one where I shoot it out of the palms of my hands. The bigger one.”

They had been fighting together for a little bit, but it was enough that Krizzik seemed to know what Alex was talking about. He nodded at Alex.

“Then it is exactly as I thought. It will draw their attention to you. I would prefer you to use your finger blasts. They are much more subtle. I think they still might see the projectiles, but the explosion should be more of concern.”

“They are finger guns. If you’re going to say the name, say it right. And yes, I can hit it, even if it is with my finger guns. Trust me.”