Levi jolted awake. He looked around him.

Dirty back alley. Filth and empty wrappers all around. His shirt, sticky against his back, and a cold sword against his butt.

Ka-click.

Levi looked up.

Sneakers. Jeans. Hoodies, shaved heads. Three men loomed over him, guns leveled at his head.

Levi chuckled. “Good afternoon. Can I help you gentlemen?”

“You have something of ours,” the man in the middle stated, matter-of-factly.

“Me? I do?” Levi looked around, startled.

“Don’t play coy. In that backpack,” the man said, pointing.

The second he was distracted, Levi whipped the sword out from behind his back and threw it at the man. The blade stabbed into the man’s gut, then sagged in the soft flesh. Blood sprayed everywhere. At the same time, he threw himself to the side, rolling away.

The other men pulled the trigger. Their bullets chased Levi, cutting deep pits in the brick behind him. He lunged at the one to the right of the main man, drawing his knife from his pocket. Bullets slammed into his chest, but he didn’t let it stop him. Striking the man bodily, he slashed at his neck. The gun bucked against his stomach as lead tore through him, hot metal burning his gut. He ignored the pain, the sudden sick feeling that surged through his body as the bullets struck something important, and jumped at the third man.

The man shrieked and stumbled back. Levi’s lunge missed, and he fell to the ground.

[You lost a life!]

[Lives remaining: -17256]

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

Press X to reallocate your ability points.

Light filtered in. Levi shook his head, looking around. A man with a gun stood over him, panting. At Levi’s movements, he jumped, shrieking again, and pulled the trigger.

One bullet kicked up asphalt by Levi’s head, and then the gun clicked. Levi grinned, jumping up from the ground and closing the distance in one great leap. He bared his knife, still bloody from the man’s compatriots. “Shoulda counted your bullets.”

Throwing his gun away, the man turned and fled. Levi lunged, using all his speed. In a single jump, he reached the man. His hand wrapped around the man’s face, pulling it back, and his knife darted forth. The man struggled, but his struggles quickly grew weaker.

“Shh…shh,” he whispered. He carried the man to the ground, then let him go. Looking around, he grabbed his backpack, then ran off, leaving the sword behind him.

--

Thumping down the stairs, her metal leg clanking as she went, Maury clicked on the light to her underground lab. She wandered over to the table, picking up the note left there. Scanning it, she raised her brows.

“Yeah, you can ignore that. I kind of did it myself.”

Maury jumped. She whirled around, raising her arm. A gun folded out from under her sleeve and leveled itself, aiming at the figure sitting on the bed.

Levi raised his arms. “Whoa, man, whoa. It’s just me.”

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“Fucking hell.” Maury lowered her arm, flicking her wrist. The gun vanished back up into her sleeve. She shook her head at Levi. “You know better than to scare an old lady like me. What if I have a heart attack?”

“You’re going to give me a leaden heart attack before I give you one,” Levi said, jumping to his feet.

Maury pursed her lips, tilting her head back and forth. “Even odds.”

He reached into his backpack and pulled out the cooler full of shots. “Here. I stole this. I think some bad dudes are planning some bad shit with them. Could you check and see what’s in them?”

Maury gave him a look. “Do you think I’m an infinitely capable scientist? I’m an engineer. Doesn’t mean I can do everything.”

“Yeah, but you can mentally connect to a spectrum analyzer,” Levi said, shaking the box. He waggled his brows.

Maury snorted. She took the box. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll spin ‘em, see what I see. No guarantees.”

“That’s fine by me. Worst case, I’ll just try one myself.” Levi backed up to the bed and hopped onto it.

“Not the best idea you’ve had. What if it corrupts you?”

“Eh.”

“That’s not an eh. That’s a real problem,” Maury reminded him, opening the box to reveal the glass vials within.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve done it before. Corruption isn’t fatal.” Levi shrugged. “Nothing is.”

“Start losing those stat points I worked hard to give you, and you’ll find out how fatal it is,” Maury grumbled.

Levi squinted at him. “That threat makes absolutely no sense.”

“No threats make sense. You’re immortal.”

He laughed. “Fair.”

Time passed. The machine whirred and grumbled, spinning away in the corner. Maury wandered around the lab, working on bits and bobs. Metal clanked, her foot thumping as she stomped around. Lowering a welding mask over her face, she lifted a welding torch and touched a lighter to it, sparking it to light.

“What’s that gotta do with the spectrum analyzer?” Levi asked, leaning back on the bed, playing with his phone in one hand.

“Spectrum analyzer takes time. Might as well work on something that’s worthwhile,” Maury returned, touching the torch to her suit. Jet Engine’s engine sat on a cart nearby, waiting for her to mate it to the suit.

“Mmm. Wake me when it’s done.” Levi laid back on the bed and curled up.

“Sure thing.”

Time passed. Levi snoozed on the bed in the lab while Maury worked. Abruptly, she looked up. Lowering the torch and cutting it off, she lifted her mask and turned toward the analyzer. Her brows furrowed. “Levi.”

Eyes opened in the dark. “What?”

“That stuff…what did you say it was?”

“Bad goo made by bad guys?”

She rolled her eyes, then nodded at it. “That goo’s got Gate particles in it.”

Levi frowned. “What?”

“Gate particles. It’s stuff the Gate emits…weird stuff, weird, weird stuff.” She rubbed her nose, then glanced at him. “Back in the day, we used to study this stuff. Recognized it instantly. In large enough quantities, it draws monsters. Under the right conditions…it spontaneously creates monsters.”

“Creates monsters?” Levi asked, sitting bolt upright. He pursed his lips, thinking.

“Yeah. That mean something to you?”

He nodded, pointing at her. “It’s not monster bait, it’s monster maker. There’s someone on the Apostles’ team that can stimulate the Gate. Open it, somehow. I thought they just poked it normally, but then the supers would have been on high alert if someone had actually approached the Gate. And Fira didn’t see anything, either. Sure, it’s possible she ran away too fast, but getting in behind the supers that quickly, or getting past them with a bullet or something, without Fira hearing the gunshot?”

Levi shook his head. “No. They must’ve activated it from a distance, without anything visible or audible. Activated it with a skill, or something like that. And if they can do that, and they can stimulate the Gate particles…”

“Boom, monster,” Maury said, nodding.

“Fuck, that’s messed up,” Levi muttered. He pointed at the vials. “They were injecting that shit in people.”

“Give the Gate particles enough biomass to really get a reaction going, yeah…Could be real nasty,” Maury agreed.

Levi squinted at her. “How much research did you do on those Gate particles?”

“Oh, plenty. We used cabbage, though.” She rubbed her nose. “Lots of biomass. Nice and dense. And cheap.”

“Cheap?” Levi asked, raising his brows.

She shrugged. “We didn’t have shit for budget. No one ever wants to pay for research.”

“Fair ‘nuff.”

Maury took a deep breath, then looked at Levi. “Where was this happening? How many people got shots?”

“I broke it up pretty early, but…what’s the chances I found the only one? They’re probably doing this all over the city.” Levi pressed his lips together. “Fuck.”

“Yeah. Fuck,” Maury agreed.

“You think this is what the precog was trying to warn us about?” he asked, cutting his eyes at her.

Maury threw his hands up. “Hell if I know. What’s the precog even got to do with this?”

“He…” Levi hesitated, then waved his hand. “It’s too much to explain. Doesn’t matter. Point is, he’s got something to do with it.”

“Right, well…” Maury glanced at the vials. “You’ve got about three hours until that stuff goes critical in the average human body.”

Levi jolted. “Three hours?”

Maury nodded. “Three hours.”

“Fucking…” Levi’s eyes lit up. He glanced at Maury.

She raised a brow. “What?”

“Alpha’s going to be distracted,” Levi breathed.