I stepped through into Threshold and immediately sent a message to Kirin, Arjun’s manager. Need to talk to you and Arjun in person. Where are you?

At the guildhall. What’s wrong? Mama Grace just tore out of here like her hair was on fire, told us to do whatever your team said but she had to go deliver a lunch.

That was odd. Maybe Juana had asked her mother to do an errand. I’ll be right there and explain. I jogged down the steps of the portal and off along the streets of Threshold.

As I went, I appreciated just how much we humans had managed to achieve in our months here. My biggest achievement wasn’t talking to the reality engine or reaching Phase Two, but the piece I’d played in getting us to stop fighting each other and start working together. It hadn’t been all me, but I’d been part of it.

It struck me for the first time how I’d never seen an alien here in Threshold. Yet they were present in Phase Two. How were the orcs and elves and lizardfolk getting to the portals? Was there another entrance? Maybe they could teleport I directly.

The restaurant was almost deserted. A couple of our crafters sat at a table. They looked up as I came in. I ignored them and went to find Kirin. She and Arjun were in the large back room, alongside half a dozen other humans. Arjun was bent over a notebook, scribbling. Kirin saw me and hurried over. “What’s going on? Everyone’s too busy to talk to me.”

“Phase Two Challenge. It’s all on the line. Win and we’re in Phase Three, lose and we’re out of things entirely,” I said. “I need Arjun.”

“What for?” She stepped back, putting herself in my path. “He’s working on some optimized rotations for our third farm team. Don’t break his concentration right now.” Kirin glared at me.

I glared back. “I understand you’re used to protecting him, but this is important. We need his skills. He’s got to come to the outpost with me. It’s perfectly safe. He can’t be hurt. We’re going to be coming up against better equipped, more experienced foes. The one advantage we might have is better intel, and we need someone like Arjun who can put patterns together in his head fast.”

Kirin hesitated. “All right, but if he says yes, I’m going along.”

“Fine.”

She stepped out of the way and I approached Arjun, standing across the table from him and waiting until he noticed me. He looked up, staring just past my shoulder. “What is it?”

“Arjun?”

“Oh, hi Shad. Didn’t recognize you.”

I was wearing my same coat as always, but maybe my new hat had thrown him. I took it off and held it. “Oh yeah, that’s you,” Arjun said.

“Have you been following what’s going on with Phase Two?”

Arjun nodded. “Sage keeps sending us video updates. They’re very exciting.”

“Oh, cool.” I hadn’t known she was doing that. “Well, there’s a big twist about to start and I’m going to need help. We’re going directly up against fifteen better-equipped orcs.”

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“‘We’ meaning the Mongeese, the Ragtags, and Team Twofeather?”

“Right.”

“Ah.” Arjun’s eyes unfocused a little. “Are these the same orcs you fought before? Or allies?”

“No, this is Existalis. We haven’t seen them in action yet.”

“No profiles or combat assessments?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

He looked me right in the eyes and grinned. “Oh, this will be fun.” He rubbed his hands together. “Start feeding me information and I’ll get cracking.”

“Unfortunately, we’re going to be cut off again in —” I checked my timer — “forty-eight minutes. No communication with the outside world permitted. I’m going to need you to come with me?”

His face fell. He turned away from me and hunched in on himself. “No. No way. Sorry, Shad, I can’t.”

“You have to!” I resisted the urge to grab his shoulder and get him to look at me. Arjun wouldn’t respond well to that.

Kirin came at me. “You need to leave—”

“No.” I held up my hands. “No. Arjun, we need you. They’re better equipped than we are, by a lot. They know the rules of the game, they’ve played this a million times. The only advantage we have is our people. We need you to tell us how to defeat them. To look at their skills and ours and make a strategy. I need you to tell me how to kill these fuckers.”

Arjun shuddered. “I can’t go back in there. The spiders…”

“No spiders,” I said firmly. “We have pirate skeletons and dinosaurs and you’ll be inside our outpost. Lots of guns to keep you safe. I swear.”

He seemed to hesitate. “You’re sure…”

“Absolutely,” I told him. “Believe me. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you.”

Arjun took a deep breath and stood up. “I — I’ll try.”

At first, I thought I'd stepped through the portal into a different place entirely. Most of our fortifications were gone. The two inner rings had disappeared. The outer ring was bristling with turrets and towers. I could hear them from here as they shot down the wave of creep approaching our node.

Most of our support structures had been moved closer in to the node itself. There was a huge clear area where the defenses had been, and about three hundred people standing or sitting in the grass there. The ground between them was littered with crafting mats of all descriptions. Baskets full of skins, crates full of metal, barrels and boxes overflowing with different material.

Over by the node itself, the command table had been transformed into a desk setup. There were three chairs at the desk. Juana sat in one, Arjun in another, and in the middle was Sage. They wore headsets like they were about to cast a football game.

Grandpa strolled over to me. "Enjoyed your beauty sleep, boy?"

"I might still be asleep." I pinched my forearm. "Nope, guess I'm not dreaming. What's going on?"

"We called in the cavalry." He gestured at the people working in the open space. "Every capable crafter that belongs to us or any of our friendlies, Dwight's directing them now."

"That's a lot of materials.”

“Everything we've had stockpiled for Phase Three. If this doesn't work, we're broke. If it does work, we're going to have to scramble to come up with resources."

I pointed over to the desk. “What’s this?”

“We’re going to need serious centralized command for this. Veda sent us some presents." He held up a box. It was labeled, "All-Seeing Eye, Personal Model." "Here's yours. Go ahead and equip it now."

I took it. The system description read [All-Seeing Eye. When equipped, allows miners' visual and audio inputs to be transmitted and shared to a central location. Be careful where you point this thing. Allows two-way voice communication between all wearers.] I equipped it. "So we're all going to be wearing these, and they'll be watching? Seems like a lot of input."

“It does,” Grandpa agreed. "We're just hoping it's enough. They'll be directing squad assignments and tactics.”

I looked over at the team sitting at the command table. I felt a little nervous. While I respected each of their abilities, did they really have what it took to direct an operation like this?

Grandpa must have seen my doubt. "Sometimes you've just got to take it on faith that the commanders know what they're doing," he said. "Oftentimes they don't. But we're not going to be able to see the whole picture. Not while we're fighting it. This is a pretty slim chance we've got here. I like the plan we've come up with. But I still think we've only got about a 20% shot at pulling it off."

"Well," I said, "guess I'd better go get the briefing."