My impulse was to roll to my feet immediately, but after an initial twitch, I restrained myself, not wanting to startle the newcomer. Instead, I rose slowly to my feet, keeping my right hand open and flat. I held the spear in my left hand, but made sure to keep the tip pointed down, away from the stranger.

“Let’s stay calm,” I said. “I don’t want any trouble. We don’t need to fight each other.”

“Ohhh… English?” I could tell it was a man’s voice now. He sounded surprised and slightly confused, and he said the word “English” with an Asian accent… Korean or Japanese or Chinese, one of the countries where L and R are the same letter. He said something else that I didn’t quite catch, but the way it sounded seemed familiar to me.

“Japanese?” I asked.

“Hai! Hai!”

I knew that one: “hai” meant “yes.” I didn’t really know Japanese, but I knew the words we used in aikido class and I’d picked up a term here and there from shonen anime. That lexicon might actually be slightly useful here, in a combat situation surrounded by monsters.

That said… did I want to talk to this guy? Did I want to stick around him? He seemed friendly enough, but I didn’t know him. I doubted he could keep up with me, and slowing down seemed like a mistake. Better to get out of sight and climb a wall again, keep heading toward the center.

Still, no reason to be unfriendly. I gave him a shallow kind-of-bow and said “Sayonara” before I started backing away. That was good, right? Polite, but making it pretty clear that I’d rather not travel together.

He apparently disagreed. He rushed out around the corner into full view and started babbling frantically, while bobbing in something like a bow and using both hands in an upside-down “come over here!” gesture. I caught the word “onegai” repeatedly, another word I knew: something along the lines of “please.”

Oh man. This is probably a bad idea, I thought. Nevertheless, his desperation was compelling. If he was planning an ambush, he was an excellent actor.

I started following him, but made sure to keep my infrared vision active, scanning the hallway for more people or monsters.

I didn’t have to follow him far before I saw one: an Asian woman was sitting slumped against the wall. She had one hand pressed to her throat, blood leaking from beneath her fingers. On the ground next to her was one of the big cat-monsters. It was dead now, but it had clearly gotten a hit in before it expired. The man gestured to the woman and continued to back away, pleading.

Well, I wasn’t an asshole. I reached out and set a hand atop the woman’s, pulsing my healing ability once. With my synergy, I could sense four parallel gashes through the front of her neck; dangerous, but easy to heal. I wouldn’t even need to use my ability again. The woman slumped in relief, then caught my hand and spoke. I didn’t catch any of the words, but her posture and tone of voice made it clear she was thanking me.

I sort of expected the man to hug her - it was clear he’d brought me to save her life - but he stood several feet away, and when he spoke it was relieved, but polite. Did they… not know each other? I’d thought they did, especially when they both spoke Japanese. They both had matching armbands too, black-and-white striped pieces of cloth. Maybe they had just come from the same area or organization.

I hoped so, because if that was the case, the odds that my friends were in the same maze I was were higher. Maybe we could find each other and offer help. I got up to leave, offering another goodbye. This seemed to distress the woman. She grabbed my pantleg, saying “Iie, iie!”

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“No?” Why is she saying no? What now? I thought. Do they want me to heal someone else? I need to get moving.

Instead, the woman untied her armband and used a dagger to slice it lengthwise, then made each half glow with an ability - I assumed Repair - until the ragged ends healed over. She got to her feet holding one of the thinner bands up in clear offer to secure it around my arm.

I let her. If there were two people from their group, there were likely more: appearing to be on their “team” might keep other people from taking potshots at me. Of course, there was a chance some people might attack me because I looked like part of their group, but I guessed that most of those people would have attacked regardless. I’d have to keep it in mind, though: if the armband was a liability, I’d have to take it off.

As soon as the woman finished, she bowed deeply and offered a carefully enunciated “Thank you.”

“You speak English?”

She shook her head, expression apologetic and slightly confused. “Thank you.”

Oh well.

This time, no one objected when I started to leave. Both people waved cheerfully, each offering me a slightly accented “Goodbye!”

They seemed like nice folks, but I had places to be and the communication barrier would make it difficult to work together. I backed slowly around the corner, then jogged away as soon as I was out of view, carefully scanning the route ahead. I could see a pavemimic in the distance, and my mouth watered at the thought of killing it and taking its delicious carcass home with me… but I was too far from the center, and the situation was too uncertain to spend time focusing on frivolities. The maze hadn’t seemed too terrible thus far, but I couldn’t forget about Airman Hutto. Only 5 percent of the people from Albuquerque who’d been taken to the last Challenge made it home.

I’d like to go over the walls, instead of through the corridors. I’ll be able to head straight for the center, rather than twisting and turning, and I can keep an eye out for my friends as I travel… but the last time I went up there, I got shot. Hmm…

I eyed the pavemimic. Maybe I should kill it after all?

A few minutes later, I had killed the monster and rolled up its body, using some rope from my pack to help keep it in a floppy bundle. I jumped to catch the top of the wall with the fingers of my left hand, then used my right to lift the monster’s body above the edge of the maze. I waited for a full minute, but nothing happened.

Freak accident? Attack by another competitor? I should do more testing. If it’s an automated system, it might only target humans.

The bullet had been incredibly powerful. My skin had gotten tough enough that a lot of the starter monsters, like the spacedogs, couldn’t even scratch me. The bullet had still gouged a massive hole in my shoulder and even destroyed a portion of my ultra-strong skeleton. My skull might fare better, but it might not. At a minimum, I was sure my eyes were vulnerable.

Dropping the pavemimic corpse, I gripped the top of the wall with my right hand and lifted my left as high as I could, fingers spread wide. Since I was keeping my head below the wall, I couldn’t see very far ahead or behind me, but I did my best.

It only took a few seconds before I saw a flash. I tried to pull my hand down, but the bullet was moving quickly: too quickly for even my superhuman reflexes to dodge without warning.

“Fuck!” I shouted, dropping to the ground.

I examined my hand grumpily. I hadn’t lost much of it, just the top inch or so of my middle finger, but it stayed gone even when I healed the injury: my first fingerbone and fingernail had been completely demolished. Regeneration should replace it eventually… it probably wouldn’t even take that long, if Davi could expect to regrow an entire forearm in a year. I had three times her synergy, and I’d lost much less.

Thinking of Davi made me frown. I hoped she hadn’t tried to fly. The aliens’ maze setup made it tempting to try to bypass it, but the alluring over-maze route was clearly a trap. If she hadn’t yet… yeah, this was worth using up a Message on.

I’m in the same maze as John. Don’t try to go over the walls! There’s some kind of sniper system in place.

Hopefully I’d been fast enough. If Davi heard me, she didn’t burn her own Message to acknowledge my words.