The group advanced down the road. Heinz and Louise on the left, Shane and Phil on the right, Tara in between. It was the usual formation. Tried and tested. Today however, they were not alone.

Archie rolled his neck, an awkward thing to do with the stiff collar of his combat armour. The armour used the same camouflage as his military fatigues and backpack. Not that it was a disguise at all here in the city. The dark greens and browns stood out like a sore thumb.

Their ‘driver’ kept pace with them off to Heinz and Louise’s left without any issue. There was however a distance between him and the group.

The six of them advanced further down the road, continuously scanning abandoned cars and shadows. This area had been cleared, but their assigned area, which hadn’t been, was close and the Swarm had no issues crossing borders before.

They were tense, alert and waiting for a fight in an unfamiliar city.

Archie sighed. “Alright, I get that you are all a bit upset. In hindsight, not saying anything wasn’t as funny as it seemed at the time. But!” With this Archie swung around to face them, weapon swinging with him. The mace was an imposing thing, painted all black aside from where someone had painted ‘Property of the 1st Brigade, 1st S&T’ in bright yellow. “Is there really a point to the silent treatment? I thought you’d all be asking questions about what we’re going to fight.”

Heinz sighed too. It wasn’t like they were being quiet purposely - not really anyway. Archie’s reveal had been a bit of a surprise, but it didn’t seem to have been intended to be a shock. Archie simply thought they’d known already and found it funny when they’d asked him about himself.

It was more discomforting to know that along with the two trucks full of soldiers, they’d been assigned a fifth threshold Reclaimer as a driver. And they hadn’t noticed.

In hindsight it was obvious. Archie’s movements were very quick. His balance was smooth and he had no trouble matching their movements. Something less obvious when he was sitting down in a van changing gear or standing by it waiting.

Heinz himself had been too busy watching out for the guns to keep an eye on the hands holding them. With Archie’s friendly attitude and lack of an obvious weapon, he’d slipped under the radar.

“We usually stay quiet when hunting Swarm,” Louise replied dryly. She too was still a bit sore it seemed. “But I suppose it can’t hurt to know more about what we’re against.”

“Eh.” Archie shrugged. “It’s usually quicker to let them know where we are when we do this kind of thing. Especially with the most common kind in this zone.” He paused. “Huh. I don’t know if they have ears though.”

“They?” Heinz prodded, noting Phil drifting closer to Tara and the centre of the formation.

“Slushies,” Archie answered with a shiver. “Picture a blanket of ants that eats metal and crawls along the ground and through cracks.”

“The cars,” Phil chimed in, unable to help himself as understanding dawned on his face.

Archie clicked his fingers. “Bingo. Buildings too. If we have to clear anything above three stories we will be making as much noise as possible from outside to draw them out.”

Heinz blanched and eyed the skyline. He took a step closer to the centre of the road. A step wouldn’t make any difference if a tower fell towards them, but it still made him feel better.

Archie chuckled, a weary and commiserating chuckle. “Yeah. That wasn’t the funnest to find out.”

“How do we kill them then?” Tara asked, rolling her hand and swinging her axe.

“Not with that or this anyway,” Archie said, gesturing with his own mace. He reached back and patted his backpack. “I’ll take care of the first few we encounter, but the general idea is fire. Lots of fire.”

Heinz brows creased. “Fire? I thought they ate metal?”

Archie nodded. “Don’t ask me. It’s because they eat metal that we figured it out actually. Look over there.”

Heinz followed his finger to a wreck further down the road. It was a shell of the former car, missing all the windows, tires and the plastic exterior was a bleached white where it wasn’t burnt or rusted.

“We couldn’t figure out why the creatures didn’t eat all of the cars until someone made a connection between the high number of burnt out kitchens and cars in slushie zones. They nibbled away at the metal until something nibbled a little too far or on the wrong wires. Boom.” Archie smiled then grimaced. “Unfortunately, the creatures also caught on and stopped eating too much. Now all these zones are full of hollow shells. It made it simple enough to figure out how to fight them.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The team diverted to the wreck to examine it, but there wasn’t much left to see. The fire had destroyed the car’s interior and the Swarm, like every other of its kind, had melted away.

A few minutes later Archie got the opportunity to demonstrate.

Louise was the first to spot the slushie, slipping a knife into her hand and flicking it at the movement.

The knife dug into the front of the creature, stabbing into the flowing mass. It hung there for a second before it began to sink, dropping lower and lower until it looked like the knife had stabbed deep into the pavement. They all knew well enough to know that this was only an illusion. Louise wasn’t getting the knife back.

The slushie continued to move towards them unhindered. If anything it seemed to move faster after the ‘snack’. It climbed up and over the empty glass door of the repair centre, building speed. The creature was a dark mass, half the colour of asphalt and half grey concrete. It travelled like water, pouring out across the floor and racing to catch up on itself.

“Excuse me,” Archie mumbled, stepping past Shane who’d brought his shield up as he stared at the new kind of Swarm. Archie flicked a lighter, sending sparks up but little else. “Fucking flimsy thing,” he growled, flicking the wheel again more carefully. A long flame ignited, flickering in a gentle wind none of them could feel. Archie brought his other hand forward and flame met cloth. The rest of the rag went up quickly.

“Perfect,” Archie said with a smile. He pulled an arm back and flung the bottle at the front of the swarm, glass shattering and the now flaming contents spreading everywhere.

The carpet caught light and stopped moving. It was all over quickly.

Heinz stared at Archie in shock.

“A Molotov? That’s your answer to the slushies? That’s what the army are doing?”

Archie raised an eyebrow at him. “Did you think I’d whip out a flamethrower?”

“I don’t know what we expected,” Louise responded, eyebrows furrowed and a thoughtful look on her face.

“How many do you have?” Tara asked, eyeing Archie’s backpack again with a lot more hesitance.

Archie winced. “Another six. It’s best not to carry too many at once.”

“Six?” Heinz repeated. That wasn’t a lot of Swarm. Definitely not enough to clear the zone.

“Usually our teams have someone with the combustant augment,” Archie said, holding up his hands. “Making and transporting all the molotovs takes time and no one is too keen on firebombing the city. Plus we need to make sure the fire doesn’t spread. We’ll need to wait this one out.”

Tara took a look at her axe, then all the other weapons they were carrying. She groaned.

“Is this everyone?”

The harried aide shrugged. She’d looked overworked when they met up with Teddy, the councillor and her boss, and returning to the site of that work hadn’t helped at all. A large part of that had to be from the sheer number of people crammed into the office building.

Heinz had expected that there would be a few families trapped in the city and a few shoppers and workers to round out the numbers. Seventy or eighty people maybe.

There were hundreds milling around the lobby. A conference amphitheatre upstairs had been the original location for the meeting, but sheer numbers made that impractical and the overworked aide was forced to reorganise everything. Even now, two electricians were frantically moving the speaker, generator and microphone setup into the lobby.

The aide stood with them a minute longer before someone caught her eye and she rushed off to solve the next problem.

“I didn’t think so many would turn up,” Heinz said, chewing his lip as he looked out at the crowd. They couldn’t all be from Kinmore, Courtmacsherry or Innishannon. That many people going missing would have made large waves in the towns. People must have gathered to hear the news. There weren’t any bouncers around the office - even if there were, what would they ask for? How could anyone prove where they’re from?

Shane grunted, not showing much with his face, but Heinz could see the edges of an envelope clutched in his hand. An envelope that held a picture of Shane’s family.

“You recognize anyone?” Heinz asked.

Shane scowled. “A few. No one who wants to approach.”

“Same,” Louise replied shortly.

The three of them descended into silence soon after. The other two members of their group were already out in the crowd. Tara was the first to leave, spotting some of her friends and racing to meet them. Phil was more sedate as he left, but he’d warmly embraced the couple that he knew. Parents of one of Emma’s friends, Heinz guessed judging by the small pink limpet that was not letting go of either of her moms.

The couple was a good indication of the situation for the ‘teleportees’ in Cork city. Stressed eyes with bags underneath them. Worn clothes - even the little girl’s pink jacket had a tear in it. None of them looked starved, but they’d hardly been living in comfort. And if what Heinz suspected was true - that the city had a Malignant problem - plenty of reason to be suspicious of other people.

It was maybe one of the reasons that he, Louise and Shane were standing alone while the microphones were being setup. They didn’t even have their weapons or armour with them, all of that being locked in a room upstairs. Like Louise and Shane, Heinz recognised a few faces in the crowd, but no one close enough that he’d go out of his way to greet and no one close enough to him that they would approach the makeshift stage.

About ten minutes later the electricians were done and five minutes after that Phil and Tara had been fished out of the crowd. The aide gave a short speech before the microphone was handed over to Louise.

Heinz wasn’t slated to speak, but he tried to pay attention and not look like he was falling asleep on stage. He thought he was doing quite well until he spotted someone in the back of the crowd, near the doors. Eyes wide he inched across the stage and tilted his head towards Shane’s.

“Back of the crowd. Near the doors.”

Phil, on Shane’s other side, gave him a look and jerked his head at Louise and the crowd.

Heinz made a face back. He knew it wasn’t the best time, but they might slip away after. It had been a while since he’d seen the photo of Shane’s estranged family, Shane didn’t flash around the one he kept on him, but the woman shared a resemblance. It was in the jaw - an almost stern quality that was more at home on the surly fisherman.

“Do you see them?” Heinz whispered again. “Brown coat beside the wool jumper.”

He choked back a gasp as Shane elbowed him a little too hard.

Another dirty look from Phil kept his mouth shut for the rest of the meeting. It was only after, after all the questions and after the crowd had mostly left and when they went to get their weapons that he could bring it up again.

Tara approached Shane hesitantly, handing him one of his armour pieces. “I’m sorry they didn’t show up. The councillor said he would get us a copy of the census, maybe that’ll have more information.”

“They did show up,” Heinz interrupted. “They were here for the meeting and left while the questions were still going.”

Tara let the piece of armour fall to her side. “What? Do you know where they went?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Louise asked. “We could have interr-”

“Enough,” Shane said softly. “I saw them.”

“And?” Phil asked, standing up. “Did you speak to them? What’s the plan?”

“No.“ Shane went back to fastening his armour.

Phil exhaled, confusion and frustration growing. “Shane. What did we come all the way here for?”

No reply.

Louise set her belt of knives down. “At least we know that they are here. Tomorrow we can find them, like Tara said the census will help.”

Shane shook his head, still working on his armour. “No.”

“Shane,” Louise started, some of Phil’s frustration passing to her too. “We came here to find them.”

Now Shane looked up. His face was blank with no colour or emotion. “And we did. We’ll open the way and escort anyone home. That’s it.”

He returned to his armour.

“Don’t you think you should speak to her?” Phil asked. His eyes were narrowed. Blaming.

Shane didn’t look at him though, instead he turned to Louise. “You helped me find them. We did. Now I’ll help you find yours.”

He stood, took his last piece of armour from Tara and walked out.