COLIN POV

"We have an opportunity," I told Sage and Rok'gar. With Gambler’s help, we had moved Victoria's garden back to our headquarters at Monte Carlo and re-sculpted it around our town core. Now we sat in the shade of tall willow trees beside the pink snail monument. Gambler was listening in, as always, but he and I had already talked about this plan several times. “Victoria's allies gave her a connection to the first level. Gambler's absorbed that.”

"So we can evolve and move up?" Rok'gar asked.

I shook my head. "We're nowhere near big enough. Compared to the patch fragments up there, Gambler is a minnow, and they're whales. He'll be eaten as soon as he pops his head up, and the three of us have no chance of taking out one of those fragments."

"Then what do you suggest?" Sage asked.

"Robbery," I said. "Gambler is taking very, very small and careful looks upstairs. He's found a way to move where this, let's call it the ladder, connects. There are some zones which are being fought over by several dominators. That gives us an opportunity. We slip in, we steal from them, we sneak back down here."

"And what good does that do us?"

"A single theft should double Gambler's ethereum supply," I said simply. "That will let us push out our alliance further here on this level and hopefully gather more fragments, preparing us to move up into the higher ecosystem sooner than we expected. It could shave weeks or months off of our timeline.”

Sage's eyes lit up. "Anything that gets us home faster, I'm all for. When do we go?"

"Immediately. We've got a target picked out. Now, this is just going to be the three of us. None of our allies, none of our units. It's a smash and grab. Nothing more."

Sage stood up. She took out her lariat and whirled it around her head a few times. "I'm ready. Any more time to prepare, Colin?"

I swapped out a couple of skills, trying to dredge up skills and memories that were months old now. It was like putting on a well-worn pair of boots. Everything slid right into place.

"I've got a list of targets for us," Gambler said. "We should be able to hit multiple of them before the Dominators know we're there. But they'll figure it out eventually, and then they'll come looking for me. We've survived so far by being not worth noticing. If I do this, that'll all change. Then we just need to make sure to hit them hard enough and fast enough that you can move up to their level and take them on directly."

Sage told him, "We're ready." She looked between me and Rok'gar, and we nodded our agreement.

"Then we're going to get in fast. I'll bring you as close to the vault as possible. I'll be translating the underlying imagery as best I can. The Dominator network has their own visuals and perceptions, but we can't tap into those. Every single zone we're targeting is one where multiple Dominators are fighting, and the Fragment still has some agency remaining. We're going to sneak in and speak with those Fragments. If possible, we'll take their Etherium and a portion of their selves to preserve. If they refuse, well, we'll take the Etherium anyway and get out. Load up," Gambler ordered.

He placed and opened the ladder. It was, in reality, a portal leading to the topmost emulation layer. I peered out. We were looking at a desert, harsh sun beating down on mounds of sand with a few sparse bushes sticking up here and there. A snake slithered out from under a bush, sunning itself.

"Two armies are besieging the Fragment. You'll find it holed up in a fort approximately a mile west," Gambler said. "Once you're in position and closer, I'll be able to move the ladder to you, which should allow us to make a clean getaway."

I stepped out into the sand. Sage and Rok'gar followed. The hot sun started baking my head immediately, so I grabbed a hat out of my inventory and put it on.

It was so nice to be somewhere that looked like a real landscape again, after who knews how much Protoss hell. We struggled across the desert landscape until we crested a dune and saw the camp laid out in front of us. A mud-brick stockade surrounded ragged canvas tents. Uniformed soldiers with rifles and sidearms were shooting down at a mass of enemies circling them. The enemies were mounted on horses and camels. They wore long, flowing robes with head coverings to protect their heads and necks. I itched to get my hands on one of those.

"French Foreign Legion," Sage said.

"They cover that in school?"

"Nah, saw it in a movie."

"How are we going to get across there?" Rok'gar asked. I was studying the enemy. The way they all moved and worked told me they were NPCs. If there were any miners capable of handling exploits here, they weren't making themselves known.

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"We need some disguises." I opened my Book of Possibilities and swapped out skills, then flipped open my multi-tool and pulled out a sewing machine. "Good thing I've always got supplies on hand," I remarked as I began sewing us long white robes and headgear.

When we were all three equipped like the raiders, we slipped down off of our dune and approached the circling crowd. Sage stepped forward.

"My turn." She whipped out her lasso, and it settled around the necks of three of the horses. They all reared up, kicking off their riders, who were immediately trampled underfoot by their fellows. Sage cut the horses out of the circle and brought them over to us.

"Mount up," she said. "They're friendly for now."

Rok'gar eyed his dubiously. "You humans are very strange. You ride other creatures?"

I shrugged. "We're not as far from our primitive roots as you are."

"You called me civilized," Rok'gar growled. "I should make you eat that."

"Mount up," Sage said again as she deftly swarmed into the saddle. She had good posture. This probably wasn't the first horse she'd ever ridden.

It took me a few moments to scramble up into the saddle. I had never been on a horse before. The horse had a western-style saddle with a big pommel in the front, which I didn't think was era-appropriate. But it made a nice place for me to grab onto, since I didn't actually know what I was doing here.

"Now, we ride into the mess, out the other side, and try to get over the walls without being shot," Sage said. "Easy peasy. Come on." And she spurred her horse forward.

"Go," I told mine.

Rok'gar was growling at his. "Move, you beast. Move or I'll smash you."

I don't know if our threats worked, but eventually, the two followed as Sage wove her way deftly through the screaming crowd of angry Bedouins. I just tried to cling on and hope my horse would do what she told hers to do.

We were racing around the fort at breakneck speed. Some of the other riders got within inches of me, front and rear, as I galloped about, shrieking challenges to the defenders.

A bullet spanged past my head. I ducked lower. I didn't want to get shot off my horse. That would be embarrassing. Then we were through to the far side of the pack. Sage urged her horse to backtrack into the cloud of dust that the attackers had kicked up. I saw what she was trying and followed her. We slipped in closer, screened by the dust, until we came up against the walls. My horse almost ran straight into it in the blinding cloud.

I slid down off my horse and pressed myself up against the baking brick. My knees shook and I resisted the urge to kiss the sandy ground. Rok'gar pulled out a grapple and rope from his inventory, and a moment later, we were all swarming up onto the battlements.

The nearest couple of defenders spotted us and shouted. Sage Tamed one while Rok'gar charged one of the others and knocked him off the wall into the sand below. I was looking around, trying to spot the treasure vault.

In the center of the stockade was a small house. Outside of it stood a woman in an apron, looking worried. Past her, inside the house, I saw several children. I jumped down off the wall, landing lightly, with Sage and Rok'gar following me. We raced over to the woman. She drew a heavy revolver and pointed it at us. Still shaking, I held up my hands.

"Whoa, whoa, we're here to help."

"Are you?"

“Close enough," Gambler told me. "I'll speak to her." I heard Gambler's voice as he quickly explained things to the woman, who I guessed must be the representation of this fragment. Her eyes widened.

"Can you save me?"

"We don't have enough to save you," Gambler said. "I'm sorry, you're too big to fit back down here, but we can take your children and your treasure." Three children were playing in the house beyond. A toddler, a baby, and a little boy of about four. The woman hesitated.

"But it's your choice," I told her. After a moment, she nodded.

"Come inside." We entered the hut. I could hear the shrieks of the Bedouins behind us as they broke down the gate and swarmed into the fort.

The woman went to the bed. The whole place was two rooms. I couldn't see what was in the one beyond, but this one held a couple of beds and a cooking area. She pulled out a box and set it up on the bed, then opened it. "For you." Inside were stacks of old-fashioned banknotes, which I knew represented the Etherium. Sage stepped forward and collected them.

"Open the ladder," she told Gambler, and a moment later, a hole appeared in the floor leading downward. I picked up the largest of the boys and saluted the woman. Someone yanked the door open. The woman turned and shot the first Bedouin in the face.

"We'll take care of them," I promised. I leapt through the hole, Sage and Rok'gar each grabbing a child and following me.

Gambler snapped it shut behind us. "That was closer than I liked," he said as we stumbled back out into our base.

We set the children down. They ran together, laughing in delight, into the trees, and then faded.

"I have incorporated these elements of that fragment into my alliance," Gambler said softly. "When we are larger and have established ourselves, we will remember her courage."

I checked our Etherium count. We had almost 100,000 units of Etherium in our bank now. That had been a good haul.

"Alright," I told him. "Let's go to the next one."

We hit four more zones in quick succession before Gambler had to abort an attempt.

"Someone is looking for us," he said. “I had hoped we would get a few more before that happened, but apparently not.”

We had almost tripled our original Etherium reserves and had rescued elements of four of the fragments. The fifth had been too broken to salvage anything.

"I don't want to stop now," Sage said.

"And we won't. I'm looking at other targets, but we do need to consider our next move carefully."

“Who’s looking?” I asked. “Can you tell?”

“The Dominators are trying to track us. They seem to suspect we’re down in the second layer; they’ve been probing.”

By now Gambler’s network of allies had spread far across the second layer, even deep into the Wash, where our units had yet to travel. Neighbors spoke to neighbors, and word that there was a way out of this trap had gotten around. We had alliance members scattered all over. I didn’t love the responsibility that laid on my shoulders, and I sensed Gambler was nervous, worried the whole scheme might come down around our ears.

Now it was proving a boon. Several of our far-flung members had reported probing attempts from above to make contact. We had the advantage here. The Dominators were just too big to descend here; they had to work through intermediaries, and we had a good idea now of who could and could not be trusted.

But it could all come down like a house of cards, taking me and Sage and Rok’gar with it.