I was up to my eyeballs in gnomes when the emergency message came through.

Don't know if I've mentioned the gnomes yet. We didn't much run into them in phase two. They're an insular bunch, keep to themselves. About 5% of the teams in Phase Three were gnomes. They're about three feet tall, with bald heads, even the women, and long beards, even the women, and buxom breasts, even the men. They liked to wear bright red, green, or blue. With the tall pointed caps most of them favored, they sent Sage into a fit of the giggles every time we encountered some.

My team and I were in the middle of a pack of two different gnome companies. We'd really gone all out this time. With help from several of our miners with tanking abilities, Marilla and Dante, we had dragged one boss and the gnomes attacking it out of that boss's room, down the hallway, up two flights of stairs, to the top of a tower where the other pack of gnomes had just pulled a second boss.

Now there were 32 gnomes, 14 humans, a 7-foot-tall necromancer, and a creature that looked like a giant blue version of the Pillsbury Doughboy, on top of a tower that was about 20 feet across. It was surrounded by a low wall topped with crenellations, and I was picking up gnomes by the ears and throwing them over the side. My gun stayed in my holster for this fight. This was both satisfying and effective.

Three of the little twerps charged at me, screaming and flailing with their tiny little hand axes. Grandpa Shadow-Stepped in behind one and Scalped it, removing its hat in the process. "You can't properly scalp something with no hair!" In disgust, he heaved the gnome over the edge of the tower. Sage giggled as she Tamed two of the gnomes and set them running madly around our feet.

The great thing about fighting gnomes is that they get tunnel vision. You make them mad, and they stay mad. We'd throw those little guys off the tower, and they'd be bounding back up six flights of stairs the next minute, respawn cost be damned, to get in a couple more swings at us.

"42, 43," Sage was counting like she was in a kill count battle with an ill-tempered dwarf. "44, Shad! We’ve killed all of them at least twice so far, and they keep coming!"

"I know, it's great," I replied, as a pair of angry gnome women rushed me and shoved me back against the battlement. The only way I could tell they were women was because their eyebrows weren't as bushy as the men's. I'd been curious about the apparent lack of sexual dimorphism in the species, and asked Veda if they only came in one sex. She had said no, though it really only mattered if you were a gnome, and told me the eyebrow trick.

I hurled one of the gnome women over my shoulder and crouched, trying to get my hands on the other one, when Juana’s message came in.

Everybody get back, right away. That's a priority.

I grabbed the gnome, tossed her, straightened up, and whistled. "Time to leave!"

Sage let out an exasperated cry. "Fine, fast way or the slow way?"

I was already heading for the stairs. "We'll take the slow way. Might as well get a few more kills in on the way down."

Back at the base, we assembled in the dusty church building, where I got the shock of my life.

Veda was sitting at the long table between Juana and Mama Grace. Kieran and Dwight were struggling to bring another table over to seat the whole crowd. I did a quick check. Pretty much everyone who made decisions or ranked as a department head in the Misfits Guild was here.

Sage plopped herself down next to Veda. "I didn't know you could come in here."

"Anyone can, once they've used a soul coin from this engine to attune themselves," Veda said. "I just haven't usually wanted to spend the time on the round trip. Not when there's always work to be done up top."

"So why are you here?" I asked.

She took a deep breath. "Let's get everyone settled and I'll explain."

That certainly sounded ominous.

We piled into chairs, Grandpa and I claiming the last two at the main table. Juana stood up.

"First, some context," she said. She pulled a flipboard out of her inventory and set it up. I had no idea where she'd gotten that thing. Maybe somebody had been abducted in an office supply store and looted it on their way out. She even had four different colors of marker.

She flipped over a page to reveal that she'd already written on the first sheet. There was a big number at the top: 857.

"This is the number of teams who entered phase three," she said. She drew a line under it, then wrote 602. "That's how many made it past the first gatekeeper in their respective phase three raids and are in the race for clearing the last boss of their raid."

She drew a vertical line. On one side of it, she wrote, "128." "That's how many teams we've forced to leave the game so far. They can't get back in either. The terms of our secondary rule set impose a 1,000 soul coin a day upkeep to everyone's outposts, our own included. These teams went broke. They forfeited their outposts."

Below that, she wrote another number, "82." "These are teams who are still paying their upkeep but haven't ventured out of their outposts in days, not even to farm. We can't write them off just yet, but we can say they're pretty desperate."

I tried to keep track of all of those numbers. "So you're saying we have something like 450 teams still to defeat?" I leaned back in my chair. That sounded like a lot right now.

"We did," Juana said, "until an hour ago when Alabaster Sky announced they're pulling out of this exploit entirely and taking all of their associates with them."

I must have misheard her. But no, I couldn't be, because all around me people were getting to their feet, whooping and hollering and shouting rude things about Alabaster Sky.

"What's that take us to?" I asked as the cheering died down.

"Something like 375. I'm still trying to confirm allegiances."

375. That was fewer than half of the teams that had started phase three. I grinned at her, shaking my head.

"We can do this," I said. "As more teams drop out, it'll be easier for us to focus on the leaders. Nobody's downed more than three of their bosses yet, have they?"

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"No. We've got some time there. But there's a problem." Juana turned to Veda. "You want to take it from here?"

Veda stood up. She flipped over a page on the flipboard.

"This is convenient," she remarked. "There's something soothing about physically putting your hands on your data displays." She picked up one of Juana's pens and started scribbling on the board. I stared at her squiggles, trying to make them make sense. After about two seconds of lag, the System kicked in and translated them for me. It was like I was seeing subtitles hanging over her squiggles. She had written a number: 1,723,413.

The last whoops and hollers died down. There was an uncomfortable silence. I didn't know what that meant, but something about Veda's expression made me not want to know either.

At last, Grandpa cleared his throat. "So what's that?"

Veda said, "It's the number of human miners who have outstanding contracts with Alabaster Sky or one of its subsidiaries."

Oh, shit.

"Does that mean what I think it does?" I asked.

Juana answered. “If what you think it means is they're recalling anyone who's got a contract with them and arranging to ship them out of our solar system to who knows where, then yes, that's what it means, Shad." Her eyes were filled with anger. I didn't like that look turned on me. “According to Veda, it's completely legal and there's nothing we can do.”

"Now, just a minute," Veda protested. "It is completely legal, but that doesn't mean there's nothing we can do. I'm filing a protest with the Indigenous Species Protection Council and—“

Grandpa snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure that's gonna go real well. Do they have any actual power or are they just going to send sternly worded protest letters to Alabaster Sky saying that they deplore the actions that have been taken and administer strict censures?"

Veda looked at her feet. "Maybe slightly more effective than that," she mumbled.

"So, no." Grandpa stood up. His face was dark with rage. "What are they going to do with our people, Veda? Drop them off in reeducation camps? Serve them up as delicacies at parties?”

"They're contracted to assist with reality engine exploitation," Veda whispered. "The rogue engine exploit that's coming up soon. There's no indigenous population to use there. My guess is most of them will be shipped there since they already have experience with reality engines and it's turning out your individualized classes and abilities are useful. Much more useful than anything I’ve ever seen before.”

I shook my head, not quite believing what was coming out of her mouth. "You're the one who told us to farm mission levels in phase one for interesting abilities. Did you not expect us to actually come up with anything?"

"Mission levels always have interesting gear and abilities," Veda said. "But the sheer amount of different talents you humans have managed to generate is mind-boggling, frankly. We're not actually sure how well those are going to transfer to other reality engines. I thought you were going to end up with improved healing or buffs to your rate of fire, not three-barrel racing and whatever that crazy dueling move Shad likes to throw is. That's what makes you worth the cost of shipping to other star systems. Generally speaking, Alabaster Sky would usually leave the indigenous miners behind and write off their debt as a business loss.”

Oh, now I was angry. "You said way back when that we had to work it off. You didn't tell us that if we just held out, they'd write us off.”

“And now they're not going to," Veda snapped. "Most of you here are fine. Those of you who have contracts with me, I’ve already taken care of assigning to a shell company. My mother is suing me and I'm going to have a hearing about that in a few days, but the contracts are taken care of. Those of you who had contracts with the system itself..." She hesitated. "Well, there's a hearing about that too. It's to decide if your contracts are being held by the reality engine or by the system. Usually those are one and the same. Here we've had a motion to consider them separate entities and then adjudicate who holds the contracts."

I turned to Juana. "Your contract and your mom's and sister's, they were with the system, weren't they?"

"They were," Veda interrupted. "But I bought them out back when Misfits Guild first started to become a thing."

I breathed a sigh of relief. That was something, at least. Juana's angry expression softened a little. Then she turned on Veda. "We are not giving up on a million of our fellow humans. What do we do to help win this hearing?"

"Well, you could stop attacking the conglomerate's champions and let them finish this exploit," Veda suggested.

"That's not happening." I folded my arms. “The stakes are just too big. I don't want to see a bunch of us get shipped off to who knows where. But we have a real shot at winning this."

"What's your endgame?" Veda asked me directly.

I set my jaw and didn't answer.

"No, really, Shad. I'm sticking my neck out for you over and over again. This could get me in some serious trouble. I know you're upset about what we did. I'm sorry, but I've always tried to be fair and up front with you. If this hearing goes badly, I'm going to be in exactly the same position as all of you, with an indenture to a master that I can't easily shake off. I could get sent to clear Phase One levels in the next Reality Engine exploit. Though, after the way you all do it, I'm almost looking forward to it."

I sat back in my chair and considered Veda. She looked smaller than I'd seen her before, and lonely. Here in this crowd of humans, her alien-ness stood out in a way it didn't usually back on the Hub. I was struck by the fact that she was also very far away from her home. At least I had my family on my team with me.

I took a deep breath, uncrossed my arms, and leaned forward. "We're not going to throw the game. So what can we do?"

"We start making deals," Juana said.

"We can't compromise. There's no way for us to win, and anyone else as well. So we start making deals. How? What do we have that anyone else wants?"

"What Veda said." Juana looked up at me and grinned. "We have skills, Shad. Abilities and combinations that nobody else has got."

"But our skills are only good at exploiting reality engines.”

“Not quite,” Dwight said slowly. "I mean, my crafters and me, our skills are good anywhere.”

“And your crafting skills have some real advantages over what's common in the galactic arena," Veda said. "That's why all the crafters' guilds are so scared of you. I can put you in touch with some merchants who would be very interested in finding ways around the established guilds' strangleholds. The problem is, we don't know what will happen if you do win. That makes it hard to broker deals.”

I opened my mouth. Grandpa caught my eye and shook his head. "Let her speak.”

Veda took a deep breath and continued. "I'd need help from one of the major factions, but I think the Order of the Progenitors might be willing to assist us. We could negotiate a draw, allow a couple of teams to reach the end and take control of this reality engine. In exchange, they agree to keep it as a training facility. We can bring people who've never attuned and therefore don't have a class yet here, run them through level one, keep the safeguards on so they're in no risk of dying, but let them farm for abilities that just can't be got anywhere else in the galaxy, as far as we know. People will be lined up to pay for that privilege for decades, maybe centuries. It could completely change everything about reality engine exploits."

Her voice was rising in excitement as she spoke.

"We could make exploits into entirely professional endeavors instead of this current insanity of grabbing locals and throwing them at the meat grinder. But that's beside the point. We can negotiate to keep all the humans here, helping run newly attuned Galactics through the levels, harvesting mats and producing wares based on patterns we can bring you from outside. It really could be an ideal situation. We would need the backing of at least one of the major conglomerates, though. Nothing this important would go through without them."

I hesitated. It sounded good. Maybe too good. The idea of just stopping now and taking a well-deserved win appealed to me. I could see it in the eyes of everyone around me. We were tired. We had been fighting for so long.

Grandpa cleared his throat. "That's a very interesting offer, Veda," he said. "We need time to consider it as a team — as a people."

"You've only got that negotiating power for as long as you're keeping everyone else away from the winner's circle," Veda said. "And Alabaster Sky is going to have their transports here within a week. They'll start shipping people out. I respect that you need to discuss this, but you're running out of time, and so am I."

She stood up, looking tired. "I do hope you'll actually consider it."

"We will," Juana said quickly. "This is an all-of-us decision," she added, shooting me a sidelong look.

Veda nodded. "Thanks for hearing me out, and I'm glad I got a chance to see your outpost in person. It's pretty damn impressive. I still can't believe we made it through Phase Two." She shook her head in admiration.

"I'll talk to you later. Good luck, Misfits."