"Are we sure this alarm is the real deal?" Syd asked. Her face was flushed, her hair matted with sweat, and she still sounded a bit winded when she spoke. Ryan could only hope that what they'd been doing before the alarm went off was less obvious to Amy than it seemed to him. "The motion sensor might have been set off by, y'know, wild animals or something. We are out in the middle of the woods..."
Rather than reply, Ryan passed his phone over for her to look at.
The app that connected to the wireless trail cams was open. On the screen, under the legend CAMERA 7 LIVE, the swirling aperture of a Zorvax portal could be seen. It was impressive how sinister the anomaly managed to look, even when displayed in miniature and greyscale.
Looking over Syd's shoulder, Amy noted, "We set camera 7 up about three miles to the northwest of the campsite. They're playing it pretty cautious this time."
"I doubt it was a deliberate choice on their part," Ryan told her. "The teleporter's targeting systems are extremely precise, but their scanners aren't. With all the ground clutter around us, narrowing down the location of our Changers to within a radius of a mile or two was probably the best they could do."
"That's reassuring, I suppose, but –"
"Hold on," Syd interrupted her. "Did either of you just see that? I think something came out of the portal."
"I didn't notice anything, but the resolution on these things isn't great even when you've got good cell reception." He tapped a finger on the zoom control slider, accomplishing nothing besides turning the haze of small, blurry pixels on the screen into larger, blurrier pixels. "What did it look like?"
"I'm not sure. Some kind of dark shape. It was there and gone before I could get a good look."
The display fizzled briefly, and this time they all saw the shadowy outline of the four-legged creature that dropped down from the portal.
"Um, I can't really get much sense of scale here," Syd said, worriedly, as it stalked forward. "How big is that thing?"
"Big," Ryan said, making a quick estimate based on the height of the surrounding trees. "Definitely transformed with a Changer. Probably another Brute."
A second silhouette, equally menacing in stature, faded out of the overgrown brush to stand beside the first. Lowering their heads to the ground, the creatures began to nose around the area.
"I wish we could get a better look at – ah." Amy frowned as the video feed temporarily snapped into sharp focus. "They look like dogs... no, wait, those are wolves!"
"Not anymore, they aren't," he said grimly.
Syd shivered, her gaze growing distant. Thinking back on her last encounter with a Brute, Ryan was fairly certain. That wouldn't do.
Moving to stand beside the young woman, he threw a steadying arm around her shoulder.
"Hey, Syd," he said. "Syd. Come on, look at me."
She glanced up, meeting his eyes. Her face was tight with worry.
"It's going to be okay. You're not the same person that you were back then."
"People don't change, Ry." Her voice was soft, wavering uncertainly, a dramatic contrast to her usual overconfident tone. "And they definitely don't change in just a week. The last time I saw one of those things, all I could think about was running away. What happens if we go out there and I –"
"You won't."
"How can you know that?"
"Because I know you, Syd."
"Ryan's right." Amy, who at some point had moved to stand beside them, placed a hand on the top of Syd's head and began to playfully ruffle her hair. "This isn't anything like last time. You're going to do fine."
With an inarticulate noise of protest, Syd squirmed her way out of his embrace, freeing her arms to fend off her friend's attentions.
"Ugh, okay, I get it. I get it! I believe in the you who believes in me." She turned away from them, hiding her expression, but some of the tension seemed to have left her shoulders. "Jeez. Stop smothering me already."
"Everyone gets scared on their first time," Amy reassured her. "You just need to push through it. After a while, you might even start to like it."
Syd's shoulders twitched, then she let out a strangled snort.
"Huh? Why is that funny... oh."
Clearing his throat to get their attention, Ryan pointed at the phone.
On the screen, both animals perked their ears up at the same time, heads whipping around to face the portal opening. After a pause, their dark forms turned to regard one another, and he could swear they exchanged a nod.
"What are they doing?" Amy asked.
"Their Forward-Commander is giving them instructions, I'll bet."
"...instructions for what?"
The creatures tilted their heads back, mouths hanging open. Even though the display had no sound, it was clear from their movements that the pair of transformed wolves were howling up into the sky.
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Less than a minute later, a more ordinary-sized wolf emerged from the woods. Then another followed, and another. Before long, the pair of Brutes stood at the center of an entire pack.
At some unheard signal, the subordinate wolves suddenly scattered, darting off into the undergrowth in every direction.
"They're sending out expendable scouts," Ryan said. "That's clever."
"But what's the point?" Amy asked. "You told us that you could see where Changers were located on some kind of mental map, didn't you? Don't their Forward-Commanders have the same implant that you do?"
"Sure, a Forward-Commander can detect any nearby Changers, out to around a half-mile away anyway. But that's a double-edged sword, in this case, because both sides have a Forward-Commander leading them. We'd detect them at the same time they detected us. Using animals that aren't transformed as scouts lets them search for us without alerting us that they're coming."
"But we do know they're coming," Syd pointed out.
"Yeah, but they don't know that we know that." He tapped the side of his head with a finger. "If we hadn't prepared in advance, this would have let them take us by surprise. It makes for a nice reminder. The Zorvax might not always approach problems the same way we do, but they're not stupid, either."
The phone app let out another series of beeps.
"One of those wolves just ran past camera 3. That's..."
He glanced over at Amy questioningly, and she supplied, "Two miles due north of us."
"Alright, ladies. I think it's about time for us to pack up and move out to the ambush site."
***
"Ryan, I'm pretty sure that those are gray wolves."
"...you're not about to tell me that gray wolves are endangered, are you, Amy? Because we've already got a lot on our plates here."
"No, the American wolf population has been stable for years. They're actually a big conservation success story! Today, they're not even on the threatened list anymore."
"Great," Syd said, thumbing 12-gauge shells into the Mossberg as she spoke. Her hands were still trembling slightly, he saw, which was making the process take a lot longer than it would have otherwise. "Does that mean we can shoot them?"
"What? No!"
"Why not?"
"Because that's not your job," Ryan told her, stepping in to head off what seemed to be yet another squabble brewing between the two women. "Stick to the plan. You're supposed to be –"
"Sneaking around, finding high-value targets, and taking them out. I remember. But you know how the saying goes: plan on having your plans get screwed up by the enemy."
"That's not exactly how – well, I guess it's close enough." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "And it's a fair point. Still, you're going to want to save your slugs for human enemies in War-Form, okay? They might not look as big and scary, but they're the more serious threat."
"Ugh. Fiiine."
***
A familiar-looking, white-armored form dropped out of the tear in space. More Blasters followed behind the first. Each one landed heavily, kicking up a cloud of leaves and dust, before quickly making way so that the next could emerge.
Eight War-Forms had emerged, by his count, before the procession finally stopped. Half of them began fanning out to secure a perimeter around the portal, while the rest moved off into the woods, departing in the same direction as the wolves had gone.
Ryan monitored the Zorvax Enforcer team's deployment out of the corner of his eye while he jogged along beside Syd and Amy. The ambush site they'd selected was only a mile or two away from the camp, which would ordinarily be an easy run for a trio of young adults in good physical condition. At night, however, in the deep woods...
The bulk of his attention was focused on the projected map of their surroundings displayed by his implant, and he had to split what remained between watching the feed from the trail cams and attempting to avoid running into a tree or tripping over a rock in the night.
The burn on his side was already sending warning twinges, a strongly-worded suggestion from his body that he was going to regret all of this exertion later.
"Any sign of... of..." Syd huffed. "... of their team... leader yet, boss?"
She sounded even more winded than he was, although to her credit, she wasn't slowing their pace. Once they'd forced her to change into proper shoes, she'd proven her ability to keep up with them in training... despite her constant griping about the effort required.
"Just Blasters so far. Guess I can't blame them for being cautious, after what happened to the Reserve-Commander they sent to get us last time." He ducked under a low-hanging branch, then turned back to the phone. "Nevermind, scratch that. I see our target. Looks like they finally sent a human-led team after us."
"Someone you know?" Amy asked.
He squinted uncertainly at the low-resolution video feed.
"Unless it's someone they promoted after I left, I'm sure we'll have been acquainted." Ryan was musing out loud, speaking to himself more than to them. "But which one would they send? No way to tell from this distance and angle. I'm pretty sure it's a guy, but that doesn't narrow it down much." He paused. "Oh, that's not good."
"Hmm?"
"A Mark-II War-Form just hopped out behind him. Probably a bodyguard. No idea what type. Damn, I wish this thing could display in color!"
***
They'd only been at the ambush location for a few minutes when the first wolf came slinking out of the foliage on the treeline opposite their position. It stared towards their position, the light of the moon reflected in its eyes as an eerie, greenish glow.
The animal sniffed at the air a few times, then let out a piercing howl.
After a moment of delay, the call was repeated by one of its more-distant cousins.
Then by a number of others.
A large number.
Syd clutched the shotgun tighter to her chest, clinging to it like a child with a favorite stuffed animal. He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
On the feed from camera 7, the heads of the enemy Enforcers turned. Their Forward-Commander pointed, his pixelated mouth moving soundlessly. As soon as he'd finished speaking, the whole group took off running, pounding off into the woods.
"Here they come," Amy said, unnecessarily.
***
CAUTION: Proximity alert! New contact approaching.
Classification of new contact is [Change Matrix].
"Well, if they didn't before, they definitely know we're here now," Ryan told his team. "You girls ready to suit up?"
"I was born ready," Amy said confidently.
"That must have been tough on your mom," Syd remarked with a forced laugh. She slapped herself lightly on the cheeks a few times, then shook her head. "Let's do it, boss man."
"...okay, then. Good hunting, ladies."
TEMPORAL FLOW ADJUSTED.
COMMENCING TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE!
Time stopped.