“Levi. Hold up!” Fira jogged to catch up with him as he marched out of the shop, stretching his legs as far as they’d go without actually running. Out the rear door, he stepped into the back alley, stripping off his mask and cape and stuffing them into his backpack.

Panting, she drew up alongside him and shot him a look. “What was that? What happened?”

“What happened is, I heard enough bullshit and needed to get some fresh air. The stench was killing me,” Levi said.

“That’s not what it looked like,” Fira pointed out.

“Looks can be deceiving.”

“It looked like you saw a ghost.”

Levi stopped on a dime and rounded on her, closing the distance in a breath.

Fira jerked to a halt seconds before their faces collided. She leaned back, away from his pepperoni-and-olive-scented breath.

Dark eyes bored into hers. Empty, devoid of emotion, they stared her down., Fira reflected dimly on those soulless eyes, nothing but an insect in their gaze. A microbe. A bacterium. If she died, those eyes would not blink, nor shed a tear.

She stared back, quavering on the inside but defiant on the outside. Her chest tightened and her fists balled, instinctively preparing to attack.

Levi smiled, and the spell broke. “Let’s get to the Gate.” He whipped around and marched off again, without a single word of explanation.

“Levi…” Fira sighed. She shook her head and followed, but warily this time, leaving a few feet between them.

Levi hummed to himself, but his voice pitched up, the notes keening at the edge of in- and out-of-tune. He put his hands in his pockets and surveyed the sky, paying no attention to his surroundings.

A few steps in, he froze again. Slowly, he turned, staring up at a building. Frustration melted off his face, replaced by earnest fear.

Fira backed away a few steps, raising her arms just in case. “What?”

Levi pointed. The skyscraper looming over Old Town stood empty, the sun shining off its windows.

Fira frowned, lost. She looked at Levi. “Seriously. What?”

“Tony’s gone.”

“And?”

Levi shook his head, expression grim. “Did I never tell you why Tony’s the hunters’ mascot?”

“No.”

“It’s because he’s a good luck charm. As long as he’s around, the Outbreaks aren’t too bad. But if Tony hoofs it, if Tony’s gone…” Levi shook his head. “It means you’re about to get hammered.”

Fira glanced at Levi. “Proof that the Apostles foresaw a powerful Outbreak?”

“Not necessarily. Tony would leave if they artificially incited an Outbreak, too. He skedaddles for people poking the Gate as often as he does for real Outbreaks. It’s more like…hmm, how to put it. Like he can somehow see the other side of the Gate, and gets out of dodge whenever a lot of monsters come close. Sometimes, he vanishes for a week or two, and nothing happens at all, or a bunch of low-level monsters come spewing through, and it’s no problem.”

“So…it might not be a problem?” Fira guessed.

“Sure. It might not. Yeah.” Levi glanced up at the skyscraper again, then took off running.

Fira followed him, jogging down the street after him.

At the end of the street, the city widened out, or rather, laid flattened for hundreds of yards in every direction. Buildings crushed, the roads cracked, trees rotting and cars torn asunder, as if a thousand tornadoes had crushed it down, repeatedly slamming the space. At the far end of the massive open area, a barbed wire fence closed off a hundred-yard space. Supers patrolled the far side of the gate, walking over the stark concrete pad. The bodies of monsters piled up just outside the barbed wire, all the unfortunate beasts who had spawned too close to the gate and immediately been blasted by the supers discarded thoughtlessly and left to rot. Down-on-their-luck extractors and monster-cleaners poked around the pile, looking for more intact bodies to process.

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Beyond the barbed wire, beyond the patrolling supers, beyond the hundred yards and out over the river that marked the edge of Old Town, a ball of scintillating white light whirled. It never stood still for long enough to make out what stood at its heart, but glimpses appeared here and there. The hint of rolling plains, or the rocky, sharp peak of a mountaintop, a strange monster or a tree, perhaps. Whatever glittered on the far side of the Gate never remained for long enough to make out its entire form, or be sure of what they saw. Always changing, always shapeless, never still, never static. Morphing before the eye could resolve. Flickering the second one began to understand.

Fira drew to a halt. Her eyes widened, and her mind went blank. Image after image burned into her skull, each one vanishing before she could comprehend them, each one chased by the next. She swayed in place, lips moving.

“Hey.” Levi nudged her.

Fira jolted. She blinked, rubbing her eyes. “I…what?”

“It’s the Gate. It does that to people.” Levi nodded.

Down by the pile of bodies, a subset of the people swarming the monsters stared toward the Gate instead. They pressed their faces up against the fence, eyes big, their faces full of devotion.

She rubbed her face and shook her head. “Why?”

“I don’t know. We—that is, humanity—doesn’t know a whole lot about Gates in the first place. Or the System. Or any of that.”

“Huh,” Fira muttered.

“Once, we…” He paused, then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Do you see any Apostles?”

Fira scanned the concrete pad past the barbed wire fence. “Nope.”

“Huh,” Levi muttered. He pinched his chin, thinking.

“Then…they really did predict the Gate having an Outbreak,” Fira murmured, watching the Gate.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. There’s lots of weird skills. Anything could happen.”

“I guess,” Fira muttered.

Levi glanced at her.

She glanced back. “What?”

“Keeping the mask on?” he asked.

“Yeah…why? Aren’t we doing sketchy shit? Why’d you take yours off?”

“Well, I was thinking that I’d pass as an ordinary citizen and go poke around, but if you’re going to—”

From the back of the concrete pad, one of the supers lifted off and swooped toward them. The roar of air from his forceful movement through the air cut Levi off, forcing him into silence. He landed with a thump, his muscular body looming over Fira and Levi alike, eyes glittering with red light. A brutal face glared down at them, at least six inches taller, his shoulders twice as broad as Levi’s. Crossing his arms, he barred their way. “No further.”

“What? The hunters are allowed so much further!” Levi complained.

Expression unchanging, the man turned to Levi. He narrowed his eyes. “They are authorized to approach the Gate. You are not.”

Abruptly, Levi turned earnest. He leaned toward the man, terrified and stressed. “Please. We just—we overheard a terrorist meeting. They were hidden up in the back room in the pizza shop, just over there. The leader said they could incite an Outbreak—is there anything you can do?”

The man furrowed his brows. Fira and Levi stared up expectantly, holding their collective breath.

Throwing back his head, he laughed raucously. The laughter pealed out over the ruined land, his shoulders shaking, muscular chest heaving. At last, he rubbed his eyes, amused. “You think some ordinary super or hunter could break through our elite forces?” He gestured behind him, at the supers. “Not a single one of us possesses less than a hundred points in at least one stat, if not all of them. Our skills are top notch. We—”

Levi pursed his lips. “I don’t know, man. Those terrorists seemed pretty confident. You sure you could take them?”

The man’s jaw worked. The red light burned in his eyes.

Fira grabbed Levi’s arm. “We should go.”

Levi shook her off. “I came all the way over here to warn you, and you’re just going to shit on me? Do you know how hard it was to be polite to you? I mean, goddamn, at least show me an ounce of belief. Don’t you guys have some kind of policy for bomb threats or something? Why are you being so unprofessional? Fucking—”

Red light blasted from the man’s eyes. The upper half of Levi’s body vaporized. His legs staggered, almost balancing for a second, then toppled to the ground.

Fira shrieked. She jumped back, stumbling away from Levi. Eyes wide, she stared at the gently-smoking place where his body cut in two, the meat instantly cooked where the man’s laser eyes had burned it.

The man turned. He pointed his eyes at Fira.

Fira whirled around and scrambled off. Mud flew in her haste to escape, and she slipped and fell, rolling to the side. A red beam scorched the earth where she would have been if she hadn’t fallen.

Clawing the mud, digging her toes in, Fira hoisted herself to a kind of half-crawl, half-run, and sprinted off as fast as she could, zigzagging across the open space. Blasts of red light burned the earth behind her, never quite catching up.

The man snorted. “Sometimes it’s fun to toy with flies.” Shaking his head, he flew back toward the Gate, leaving a body behind.

[You lost a life!]

[Lives remaining: -17251]

DEBUG: Corruption Level Medium | Ability Points non-degraded | status GOOD

Press X to reallocate your ability points.

Levi’s foot twitched.