{I am here.}

Chase sat up in his bed. “Jeez, dude. That’s ominous. Tone it back on the intensity, can you?”

{My apologies. It appeared you were undergoing some kind of denouement.}

He sighed. “And chill on the big words, too. I’m trying to sleep, not increase my IQ.”

{All good, matey! I be nice and simple for you!}

Chase paused.

{That was a joke.}

“Yeah. Got that.”

He placed his head back on the pillow and tried to sleep. All he could think about was the System’s — Enro’s — giant oppressive mind staring into him, waiting to be prompted. It was like trying to play a chess game whilst your opponent stared relentlessly at a pimple on your nose.

Turning off the Relay was always an option, but he wanted to give it a chance. He’d neglected it all this time — one night with an omnipresent intelligence looking down on him couldn’t be that bad.

Could it?

*******

The next morning, Chase was so tired that he almost missed the step between the train and the platform as he began his commute to Herb’s place. He’d always assumed that the robotic voice advising him to ‘mind the gap’ was just a perfunctory effort to protect the train station from lawsuits. A form of ‘I told you so’, just in case someone felt like jamming their leg in a chasm where legs are not supposed to be jammed.

He napped on the train. Slept, even. When he missed his stop and found himself spat out in the bowels of Six Town, he switched trains and went back the other way. He napped again, marginally more alert because missing his stop a second time would just be embarrassing.

“If you’re going to keep me awake all night with your creepiness, could you at least wake my brain up when I’m near my stop?”

{I have no control over your motor functions. I can set an alarm when you reach your destination?}

“Well, I don’t need it now, but in the future, yes. If I’m asleep, that is. And not too loud.”

{Like this?}

There was a deep blaring in his head, like the bells and whistles of a nuclear power plant going through a meltdown. Chase flinched, jolting in his seat and startling the person next to him. He apologised, and they glared at him before switching seats.

“Bit quieter, please.”

Once in Five Town, Chase ambled through the well-kept streets between the station and Herb’s. The residential areas were quiet, most of the inhabitants having gone to work or school. He ducked under a low-hanging bough, wondering how such an opportune branch had survived being ripped off by overzealous schoolkids or late-night partygoers.

Perhaps that’s just an Eight Town thing.

Turning into Herb’s driveway, he saw the alchemist’s father, Aroon, tending to a colourful rectangular gardenbed just outside their front door. There was no room for a front garden on the battleaxed property — to be fair, there was barely enough room for the three houses that had been stuffed into the tiny space. They were so tightly packed that they basically shared walls.

“Morning, Aroon!” he called.

“Aye?” The man squinted, shielding his eyes. “Chase! Couldn’t see you for the sun. Here for a couple rounds of chess, or for Herb?”

“Business, I’m afraid.”

“Ack, dreadful stuff.” Aroon waved a garden fork. “Go on then, you know where to find him.”

Chase entered the house, stopping at the top of the stairs to enjoy the savoury aromas escaping from a slow cooker sitting on the kitchen bench. He opened the door to the basement and was immediately assaulted by something with a less enjoyable pungency. The Stench of Science had been brewed for a while.

He’d timed his visit well. Inside, Herb was on the large bench in the middle of the room, crouching over a mixture on all fours. He held some kind of magnifying glass in one hand, peering at a reaction taking place in the beaker beneath him. If he’d noticed Chase enter, he didn’t let it show.

“Hey, Herb? What’s cookin’ good l— Is that alive?”

The alchemist twisted like a panicked cat, his right leg slipping off the bench and bringing the rest of him down in a muted whump. There was a low grunt, then Herb’s shock of spiky hair bobbed up next to the table.

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“Hooley dooley!” he cried, darting to his feet. “Chase! Gone and scared me you did, wot wot. Scared the pants offa me!”

Chase glanced under the bench to make sure he wasn’t being literal. “What’s that you’re cooking up?”

“Nothin’! Wasn’t cookin’ nothin’!”

Whatever was in the mixture had stopped squirming, so Chase let it slide. There was no point investigating further. Herb spent so much time down here that constant surveillance was impossible — it would take a round-the-clock team to keep tabs on the guy. His creations were volatile, but he seemed to know how to contain them. The scorch marks on the ceiling and the back wall notwithstanding.

Chase produced a few plastic containers from his backpack, placing them on the bench. “Well if you’re not busy, there’s something I’d really appreciate your help with.”

Herb came closer. He pried the tops off the containers, inspecting the essence inside.

“No more of that crystal stuff?” he asked. “It was fun to use. Tasted nice, too. Like rock candy.”

Chase wrinkled his nose. “Umm, no. That’s from an S-Rank called Nebula. No one’s seen her for a while, I think.” Herb scratched at his nose as though that was fine and dandy, so Chase continued. “I was hoping you could use these to make the bullets, like, spread? Or blow-up? I shot a big wooden monster the other day and it didn’t really do anything.”

The alchemist dabbed his pinky into one of the containers then tasted the contents.

“It’s sweet, but kinda spicy. Is this nitro-glycerine?”

Chase thought back to the Hunter he’d gathered it from. It was a B-Rank whose Talent allowed her to conjure little pearls of energy that exploded upon impact. He’d gathered the residue with a brush-and-shovel.

“Well, it’s explosive, so it could be. Should you, like, spit it out?”

“Gah.” Herb brushed him off. “They use nitro-glycerine to treat heart-attacks. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you having a heart-attack?” Chase asked.

The alchemist didn’t reply, simply cracking the lids off the other containers then poking through cupboards and lifting out equipment. Once his workbench was cluttered with all manner of machinery, he looked up, as if remembering that he had a guest.

“You got the bullets?”

Chase produced three boxes of 9mm and a box of 7.62mm.

“One step ahead of you.”

*******

Ballistic had a busy week, completing seven Raids in six days. None were as interesting as their first, but Chase didn’t mind the same-old dark caverns and hordes of Echin and Noctants. If he wanted to fight some new species of monsters, he could always make a day trip up the coast to another region.

Australia had enough land mass to house six or seven different regions, of which New Melbourne was one. Most of the population gravitated to the various central hubs where the concentration of Gates was the highest, which resulted in an upheaval of Australia’s old system of states and territories. The city of Adelaide, once the coastal capital of South Australia, had basically been uprooted and moved about four hundred kilometres inland, where huge numbers of Gates were showing up.

On the eighth Raid of the week, Chase and his Hunters were sent into a gloomy cavern complex. The rock walls were tight, hemming them in so they had to travel single file. The Tanks went first, then Jamie and Chase, followed by David. Chase didn’t like the idea of using his Beretta while two Tanks were standing in the line of fire with their backs to him, so he followed along while everyone else did the work.

It sucked. They’d had a wildly successful week, and now he’d be ending it with a boring slog through a claustrophobic cavern. He wanted action. He wanted pressure, nerves, and adrenaline.

When the cavern finally opened up, blossoming into a wide-open boss room, he was overjoyed.

And reckless.

Herb’s creations functioned exactly the way he wanted. They were imbued with additional, powerful effects, drastically increasing his offensive output. He’d used a different type of bullet each Raid that week, and he was itching to try out that day’s concoction — a creation that effectively gave each of his bullets a tiny explosive charge. Supposedly, they would detonate as soon as the projectile struck the target, ripping apart any monster that wasn’t thoroughly well armoured.

As they entered, Chase saw the boss on the far side of the room. It was thin and emaciated, with large, webbed feet and bulbous calf muscles on its three greying legs. It looked as if a paper cut might cleave straight through it, let alone a speeding bullet.

So he rushed it. Breaking through the protection of the two Tanks, Chase swept out to the left of the room to get a clear shot at the boss’s widest side. He dropped into his shooting stance — knees slightly bent, back foot bracing the front, shoulders forward and the Beretta clasped in both hands. By now, he’d done this hundreds of times. It was familiar, if not absolutely perfect.

His first shot zipped through the air and took out the monster’s left arm. On a human, and even some monsters, it would be an instant takedown. But the boss required a little more convincing.

It jumped to face him in a blur of movement. The big muscles on its lower half propelled it forward effortlessly, closing half the distance between them in a second leap. He fired again. Missed. Another volley of three bullets dug into the rear wall, the explosions showering dirt and shale everywhere. In his peripheral vision, he saw David trying to restrain the boss’s erratic movement, but it flashed around the arena like lightning, avoiding him. Jamie was chanting. The Tanks jogged in circles, never fast enough to restrict their target.

Then the boss beelined for Chase, and he knew he’d made a mistake. By separating himself from the group, he’d become an easy target. The week of successful Raids had given him confidence, and now this unfamiliar foe was taking advantage of that fact.

He tried to run, but everywhere he went, the boss’s cold azure gaze found him. He made a final desperate sprint back to safety, only to be intercepted. It stood still, but he couldn’t shoot it, not when the others were liable to be hit by a stray bullet. All he could do was brace himself for impact.

The monster’s webbed foot arced through the air in a roundhouse kick that was eerily human. He felt it make contact with his shoulder and left side, but the crushing pain he expected did not come.

Not initially, at least.

Instead, the webbed membrane seemed to curl around his body, sucking him into its grasp as the rest of the monster’s leg continued past him. Too late, he realised what was going to happen.

Like a rubber band stretched to its breaking point, the boss suddenly released all the pent-up elastic energy and catapulted Chase to the dirt. There was a stabbing pain through his cheek. His back and head crunched into the rough wall, dust and small rocks covering his face and…filling his mouth? Time seemed to skip. He didn’t see Jamie release his spell, either because the black spots in his vision blocked it, or because he’d fallen unconscious.

When he came to, he was lying down on a hard surface. The murky roof of the cavern drifted by above him, at times seeming like he might brush his nose on it, other times like it was as far away as the clouds. An ache in his head roared, not helped by the constant bounce on what he suddenly realised was his Tanks’ shields.

They’re carting me out. On a stretcher.

He tried to speak, but it was nauseating. His cheek felt odd when he did, and it was hard to pronounce the one word he really wanted to say.

“Huck. Wa’ da huck ha’ened?”

Jamie replied from somewhere in the next room. At least that’s what it sounded like.

“You got fucked up, buddy. Hang tight and we’ll get you back.”