"It's messed up, right?" Radman suddenly asked him during their time together. It interrupted a rare moment of silence.

"What is? My posture?" Clay had been practicing holding Alan's rifle.

"No. I'm not a gun guy, so I wouldn't know anything about that. No, I'm talking about the reversal of roles." Radman had motioned towards Clay with a magazine he was holding. "You seem like a smart enough guy. Not as smart as me, obviously, but you got a good head on your shoulders."

Clay shrugged. It was hard to be offended when it was a compliment wrapped up in a very true statement about their respective intelligence levels.

"Modernity was supposed to herald a time where guys like you and I would stand on the apex of society."

Clay? The apex of society?

"You're losing me."

"I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud here. I haven't gotten to speak to anyone at length in a long time, and you're easy to talk to. Indulge me while I buffer this out, okay?"

Clay bowed dramatically to give Radman the floor.

"I'm just thinking that we're starting to go back to a time where might makes right. It's messed up that this had to happen just as my life was getting started. I was working internships in places so important that normal people weren't even allowed to know they existed." He sighed. "If it had happened just ten…no, five years later, I'd have been in a prime place to fix everything."

"Mmmh, it sounds like you still could," Clay pointed out.

"Hm?"

"I'm not saying you should, but I think even working with this badguy leader would still be a path towards fixing everything."

Radman's lips tightened. "I understand what you're saying, and I’m telling you that it isn’t an option. There are personal and ethical reasons for why."

Clay nodded. It hadn't been a serious suggestion anyway.

"I'm sure you can tell that I'm not so great with people. Technology doesn't have any moral compunctions; it's how people use it. So, even though I'm not a people person, I have a responsibility to make sure only good people have actionable control over the things I make. It's for the sake of humanity!"

It was a pretty thing to say, but Clay didn't buy it. "Helping humanity is good. I don’t think that's the deciding factor for you, though."

Radman gave him a questioning look and waited for him to elaborate.

Clay wasn't anywhere close to being as capable as Radman. In fact, the few jobs he ever had were either in manual labor or fast food. Dead-end jobs that made him miserable. Staying in his room all the time also made him miserable, but the reason he chose to live that way instead had been because...

"You just didn't want to be a cog in someone else's machine."

Radman's face split into a grin. "That makes sense, yeah. I don't care who it is; I won't let anyone shit on my legacy. I'm someone who should have ended up ruling the world, goddammit!"

---

The lighter opened and closed behind Clay as he walked.

His eyes felt fuzzy from all the crying, but he was much calmer now.

I'm probably going to die.

Alan was somewhere behind him with a gun to the back of his head.

Clay had made a show about Alan not knowing anything about Radman.

"He said he doesn't trust Alan! He didn't want to see him! I'm sorry for misleading you, Alan!" He'd said without looking at him. Fear turned him into a messy creature that couldn't meet his eyes.

Likely caught off guard by the situation, Alan said nothing and allowed things to go the way the asshole patrol wanted.

Now he was leading them to where he'd told them Radman would be. Kissy was cradled in his hands, one of her legs twitching strangely.

Clay whispered something to her.

Squeak!

"Holy fuck, I'm starting to wish I never got to talking to you," Ronny sneered, shouldering Clay's empty tool belt while adjusting the stolen machete on his hip. "I thought you were just a normal kind of loser, but now I gotta see you talking to rats? Out of this world…"

No way is this guy going to let me off, even if I hand over Radman.

It was just a feeling Clay had. Ed acted like he was reasonable, but there wouldn't be any reason to deprive Ronny of a good time after his usefulness was worn out.

'Rewarded as a traitor deserves.'

A bad ending like that was definitely in the cards.

Clay sniffed. His clothes were soaked, and the weather was cold enough that there was a constant, thin layer of snow on the ground. He'd also been crying pretty hard. That too.

Strangely, he didn't feel as nervous as before. Despite this being the worst possible scenario, his thoughts were serene, even self-aware.

Why am I so relaxed right now? Something's wrong with me.

He thought maybe he'd just become despondent, but that didn't feel right. Was it resolve? No, there should still be some amount of fear behind resolve.

A member of the asshole patrol was complaining. Clay didn't know his name, but he did recognize him as the one who stole Kyle's revolver from him. "Damn it, this is a lot of walking! Is that the same building from before? Is this guy leading us in a circle?"

"Definitely not," Ed assured, "but I'm more worried about how many close calls we've had with Crowds. Are you trying to lead us into a horde?"

Clay's voice was monotone. "He lives close to a lot of hordes because he knows it's dangerous for you to check near there. I'm used to going it alone, so trying to navigate with twelve people is hard."

"You could just tell us where he is, then we could send a group over to check it out while the rest of us watch you." Ed patiently suggested.

"No. He has defenses in place, so you'll need a familiar face to lure him out. You'll have to let me off if I do all that, right?"

"Prudent, but I already plan on letting you go as long as you're not lying to us."

Sure you are.

"Fuck, this guy creeps me out." Ronny entered the serious conversation with a 'joke'. "He was all crying and shit earlier; now he's like a robot. I want to burn him up just to see if he's got wires instead of veins under there."

"He's probably just in shock," another one pointed out. "If I was two seconds away from getting lit up like a birthday cake, I don't know how I'd be acting afterwards."

Even they can notice how weird I'm being.

It didn't matter. They could come to their own conclusions.

Eventually, Clay took a bad step and fell forward. He allowed Kissy to slide smoothly onto the ground so he could catch himself with his hands. She proceeded to run off, away from them.

"Hope you had him chipped!" Ronny taunted.

Clay stared at the pavement as he propped himself up on his hands and knees. "It doesn't matter. She's probably safer on her own right now anyway."

"Cope whatever way you want, man, just get your ass up and start walking."

Clay stiffly got back to his feet. "I was already a little tired when we met up, so all this walking isn't good for me. Can I just have a moment to rest?"

"No," Ed told him straightforwardly. "You'll have plenty of time to rest after we're done. Please keep moving."

"I didn't want to complain, but I've already been feeling a little sick ever since Ronny hit me, so--"

"Oh! So now it's my fault you were being rowdy?"

"Ronny!" Ed commanded sharply, cowing him into silence. "You, whatever your name is, that's enough. Stop stalling and continue leading the way, or I'll light the gasoline myself."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Clay looked over his shoulder, faced forward again, then nodded limply. "Yeah, sorry. To tell the truth, I'm stalling.”

He adjusted the way he stood. “Ever since I got to talking with Radman, I could see why people don't really like him. He's kind of an asshole. If it weren't for his expertise, you guys wouldn't even bother."

Now that things had come to this, he was suddenly feeling much more talkative.

"The thing is, even if he's an asshole," Clay went on, "I still feel bad about betraying his confidence. I understand where he's coming from, and I don't think he's wrong for running away from you all. I'd even go as far as to say that I like him."

Nobody said anything. Even Ronny was just standing there with a grin on his face, just waiting to see where this was going. He still had his lighter in his hand, and he thought that was threat enough not to point his gun.

"I was having second thoughts, but even if I like him, I like living a little more." Clay pointed to his side at a gas station—a gas station that was half fallen apart. "He's in there."

"Doesn't look like it would provide a lot of shelter," Ed observed. His wariness made Ronny flick open his lighter.

"Makes you think it's not worth checking, right?" Clay slipped his hand into the soaked bangs hanging in front of his face in preparation to move them out of the way. "There's a trapdoor in the back office that he works out of. It's still daytime, so he'll definitely be here."

Everyone was whispering again. Clay exchanged a glance with Alan.

"It's pretty genius, right?" Clay easily asked, starting to take a few steps towards it. "I can go lure him out like I said I would."

"No, that won't be necessary. I think you might subtly signal him somehow," Ed decided, prompting Ronny to place a firm grip on the sleeve of Clay's jacket and keep him from going inside. His hair fell back in front of his eyes. "Thank you for being so honest with us. In return, I'm going to give you the same courtesy. I don't like it when you talk either. You have the bearing of a spoiled teenager, and you have the same eyes as a lot of problem kids I've seen."

Everything felt distant. He had no idea what sort of face he was making. Clay perfectly registered what this man had said. He just didn't care.

Ed pointed at three of his men and directed them to go ahead.

The back office is completely wrecked. I can't count on them stumbling on you like I did. They're going to see you almost as soon as they go in.

With guns at the ready, they entered the darkness of the gas station. If it had been a different time of day and the sun were right, they'd already know not to bother.

At the same time, Kissy skittered back and hopped on top of his shoe. Clay raised his leg so she could use it like a bridge and climb into his jacket pocket.

That's why I've already provoked you.

The world began to shake. There was shouting, then gunfire.

"What the--!?" Ronny started to say, but Clay was already taking advantage of the distraction to take his hammer out from his waistband and slam it down against his knee. In the same motion, he looked over at where Alan was and dropped the sound of a gunshot next to the head of the man in charge of him.

The man had been caught completely off guard, but Alan had seen it coming and was covering his ears. With an elbow to the throat, he had no trouble stealing the shotgun out of the bewildered man’s hands and blowing a second member away.

Everyone was out of sorts. There were too many things happening at once. Ed tried to make a command in the midst of all that, something crucial to rally his forces in a time of crisis.

However, the sound didn't come out. Clay stole it.

It was the perfect storm for Clay and Alan to split up and sprint in different directions, leaving them to deal with the emerging Hammer.

"Fuckk! You little piece of shit!" Ronny didn't have his gun ready and used his critical split-second reaction to try throwing the lighter at Clay. He took a step forward on his newly injured leg and the projectile went wide. "I should have just did it! I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do!"

Clay rounded a corner to start fleeing the scene, but he made sure to shoot Ronny a smirk before vanishing from his sight.

"It's a Hammer!" Ed was finally able to say. "Forget them! Shoot the Hammer and stay on the move! We have to get out of here!"

Go on a rampage. If we're back to living in a world where might makes right, show them how wrong they are.

It was all in service to Clay at the end of the day. They could kill each other for all he cared.

This had been one of his precautions from the beginning. Even where Alan was going now had been worked out far ahead of time in case things went down this route. He was going to meet up with Radman and take advantage of some intel that a certain rat allowed Clay to acquire.

Squeak!

If it weren't for Kissy, they wouldn't have had an easy way to correspond with Radman that wouldn't set off any alarm bells. Notes tied to her body and a pink ribbon to tell her apart after an introduction streamlined communication in place of phones or radios.

That wasn't all. One day, after the asshole patrol messed with them, Clay deployed Kissy to follow them and later show them where on a map their base was located. Radman, of course, was given a copy.

Now that a confrontation had been forced, Alan was going to tell Radman what's happened, and then they were going to ambush whatever stragglers made it back to base.

Depending on the plan they ended up having to go with, it could have been either Clay or Alan linking up with Radman. In most of their plans, it was Clay. Only in this, the most severe and volatile plan, did it have to be Clay who stayed behind.

Why?

Because this would be his best chance to kill the Hammer. If the Hammer was going to die, Clay had to be the one to kill it.

When Clay proposed this idea, he never thought things would actually get to this point. He also never thought he'd be at risk of immolation, but that's where life brought him.

He passed by a series of preparations he had Radman set up on his behalf, the most important of which was hidden inside a trash can underneath a window with a smiley face drawn into the dust on its interior surface. Clay felt something surge inside him when he discarded his hammer and retrieved what had been left for him.

It was the rifle that Alan gave him the night he went to speak with Radman. They couldn't carry guns around or risk having them stolen, so Clay's plan had been to have Radman put the gun somewhere he could reach it in a worst-case scenario, something Alan had not been happy to hear about.

You should listen to me more often, old man!

There was a decent amount of distance between him and the action now, but he could feel the vibrations of the Hammer's rampage and hear the sounds of conflict. Gunshots, screaming, even an explosion. Did a few men have grenades on them he hadn't noticed?

It wasn't a good situation for them. Clay hadn't confirmed it, but he'd put stock into the idea that the three men Ed initially sent inside died quickly. Alan killed a fourth one during his escape. Two more would find it difficult to recover enough to escape in time, especially Ronny.

That's right. Odds were that Ronny would die first.

I wonder if he's going to be taken apart like that Crowder.

Clay's smirk didn't waver at all.

More than half of their forces were cut out of the equation with one move. It'd only be downhill from there.

The best thing to do now was bide his time and wait until they did whatever they could against the Hammer, which would allow Clay to swoop in like a Spooker and eat the scraps.

Once the commotion became more slamming than screaming or shooting, Clay started to make his move. As he walked back down the path he'd taken to get there, he took notice of how hard his heart was beating in his chest. It wasn't hindering his hearing now. It felt good.

His eyes saw things better than they ever had, like someone flipped a switch and he'd gone from low quality to high definition. He was perfectly aware of what he could and couldn't do. His hands weren't even shaking anymore.

Clay was passively aware of the strangeness of this, but he was mostly focused on one thing.

I think I can win.

It wasn't a certainty. Even with everything he'd put together, nothing was for sure. He'd be stressing over that if he were in his right mind. What if something went wrong? What if it wasn't enough? What if there was an outside influence he couldn't account for?

At this moment he was sure that he'd done everything he could. If it wasn't enough, he could figure it out as he went along.

Clay emerged from the space between buildings he'd fled into when things popped off. He placed a hand on the wall next to him to peek around, fingers grazing over a telling chip in the surface of the brick.

He hadn't noticed in the commotion that someone had taken a shot at him when he was running. Had it been after he had already entered the alley, or had he just been so absorbed in escape and smug satisfaction to realize? How close had this close call been?

The first thing he noticed was scattered, dismembered body parts. There was also fresh viscera he couldn't identify any individual part of because it had all been smashed into one pulpy mass.

It was only after he realized his lack of a reaction to it that he started to examine what was happening to him.

Maybe he really was in shock.

Clay hardly felt the vibrations now, even though he could see the Hammer a little ways down the street.

It's weird how there weren't any Crowders around after all that noise, but he wasn't going to jinx anything by thinking on it too much.

He took aim. The Marlin STP had an ammo capacity of five, plus the one in the chamber. Clay was used to making six bullets count.

Now that he had a chance to think about it, that fear hadn't vanished. The world that was shaking felt far away.

His face hurt from smiling so much, so he stopped. This sort of focus was unfamiliar to him, but he wouldn’t deny it.

I'll ride the high! You're not the only one that wants to go on a rampage!

He pulled the trigger. The rifle slammed back into his shoulder. It hadn't hurt as much as he thought it would.

Like last time, even with this distance, the Hammer was too big of a target to miss.

The Hammer noticed him even with the minor damage he inflicted. It could feel what happened to every inch of room-meat. Clay used the lever action to expel the used-up casing.

The farther away a target is, the more he has to worry about wind and other factors he wasn't experienced enough to know and not smart enough to intuit. He'll only choose big targets or normal- to small-sized targets if they're close enough.

The Hammer was running at him now. He could see that it had already taken enough damage to leave noticeable gaps in the room-meat on its arms and chest. Clay maintained his aim and took a few steps to the right.

There were a few things Clay noticed about this world that made it odd to him. The appearance of the propane tanks in that café had been the beginning of these thoughts.

The Hammer was getting faster. The change in Clay's position meant it would have to cut through the front of the gas station to reach him if it wanted to maintain its straightforward trajectory.

The stories he heard had also caused him pause. Even the fact he was able to make that car explode the last time he faced the Hammer puzzled him the more he thought back on it.

He even ended up asking Radman for clarification on a few things.

"Propane tanks?" Radman looked at Clay like he was stupid, not that that was too different from how he usually looked at him. "Of course they'd explode when you shoot them. That's basic stuff."

This world wasn't just an alternate timeline with a few things moved to the left. It had its own rules and physics that, while similar enough to his own that it was hard to tell them apart, were still different. It wasn't just the zombies that made this world strange.

It charged through the parking lot, next to a gas pump. Clay fired.

Natives couldn't see how weird it was, but he could. They thought he was abnormal even though they were living in a gamey powder keg of a world all along.

The gas pump that should not have exploded blew up just fine after his bullet struck it. It caused a chain reaction that blew up the other gas pumps in equally illogical fashion.

The first ignition was as silent as it was destructive after Clay used his [Sound of Silence], but the other explosions rang out without restraint.

Clay ejected a second casing.

The air pressure of the explosion made his bones shake and his hair fly back, but he was far enough away that he didn't worry about debris.

The volume of the explosions he couldn't absorb with his Skill also made his ears ring, so he felt the continued movements of the Hammer better than he heard them.

When it emerged from the smoke and fire, half of its body mass had been taken from it. Scattered pieces where he could definitely see the weak core it tried to hide.

It wasn't good enough. He needed more pieces missing around its head to finish it off.

It's not over.

He'd slowed it down enough with the explosions that its charge had been interrupted. However, it hadn't given up on reaching him yet either.

Clay had four shots left and a few cards up his sleeve. He backed up into the alley once again.