Shad POV

We were in an enormous blue room. It wasn't a cave. The vast room stretched out all around us, the lighting making it feel chilly though objectively it wasn’t. The smooth, straight blue wall I did see pulsed with light in a pattern like a heartbeat, tracings of white and yellow shot through the walls, zapping along. It was like being inside an enormous brain with neurons firing and thoughts flying about that I couldn't possibly comprehend. The sense of scale alone made me feel puny.

A paler blue path led ahead, winding through the vast open space. Great columns rose from the floor to be lost in the icy blue overhead, fluted and shot through with veins of pink and white like they were carved from quartz. Shadows gathered in the distance between the columns, dark clouds coming together to form the shapes of strange animals and people before dissipating again. There was a hum all around me. I thought I could hear the murmur of distant voices. My hair was on edge. This was not a place made for mortals.

"Welcome," Gambler’s voice said, “to the antechamber.” He appeared before us, beckoned, and led the way down the sparkling path. Every time his leather shoes touched the floor, little specks of white exploded from his footsteps and shot out away. My own boots got no such response as I plodded along. Grandpa and Mak'gar stayed close.

"You could have parked just a little closer to the door," Grandpa complained.

Gambler ignored him as he led us along. "We have very little time to prepare. I thought that you would like a chance, though, before we get to work.”

"A chance for..." I began, but the path ended as we rounded a pillar and found ourselves facing a wall of the same blue ice. This one, too, had a door, an arched opening ten feet high, wide enough for the three of us to walk through shoulder to shoulder without touching the lintels. Beyond, the light was a more normal yellow shade. And there were people waiting for us. People I knew.

I broke into a run. The three inside turned. Sage saw us, her face lit in a smile that could have melted a glacier. She ran forward, arms open.

"Grandpa! Shad!" She threw her arms around me, and a moment later, Grandpa was there too, patting her on the back. All of us talking over each other and exclaiming with delight. Sage was openly crying. There was water in my eyes as well.

Mak'gar stopped dead beside us as he stared across the room to where his son and Colin had their heads bent together. The younger orc looked up and grinned. Then he and Mak'gar were sprinting across the space between. They exchanged arm grips and pressed their foreheads together, speaking in low, quiet voices.

I stood back from Sage and looked her over. She seemed taller than the last time I'd seen her, more mature.

"You... you're all right," I managed.

She nodded, wiping her own tears with the back of a hand. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm so glad you're here. Grandpa, how have you been?"

"I'm fine now," he told her. "As long as we get out of this fix in one piece. Then I think I'm going to retire to the strip. I've just about had it with these alien catastrophes."

Colin approached. He looked a bit awkward. "Williams, General Twofeather, good to have you both here."

"Good to see you too, Colin," I said.

"Sounds like I've got you to thank for keeping my granddaughter safe," Grandpa told him.

Colin looked abashed. He ducked his head. "She's been the one to keep me going," he mumbled.

Sage shot him a glance that I wasn't entirely sure I liked before turning back to us. "There's no time for more now. We have a lot of work to do to figure out our deployments before the others get here," she said.

"So you're in on this mad plan?"

"I helped write it, sir," Colin said stiffly. "I know it's a gamble, but if you'd seen the sort of things we had in this last year, you'd be ready to upset a few apple carts too."

"Last year, nothing," Grandpa declared. "It's been one indignity after another since we got kidnapped. We're going to bring these down. Let's do it. Only I'd like to do it in such a way that my grandkids have a future to look forward to. Got more of them to worry about every day." He shot me a quick look, and I tried to keep a straight face. Juana hadn't even told her mother the news yet.

"How's Mila doing?" Sage asked me.

"You won't recognize her. She's this sassy little girl who makes me think of you at that age," I told her.

Sage laughed. "Can't wait to see her again. Let's get this council started."

She led us over to the table in the center of this room. I took the time to look around. This place was much more human-sized, with ceilings only about twice my height, and with us in the center of the room, the place felt almost cozy.

"So, what's the game?" I asked, and Colin grinned at me. Some tension seemed to slide out of his face. I could feel it too. We were back working together with a common goal. It was nice to have someone to rely on, even if once this was all done, I was going to have to get to the bottom of his relationship with my sister. That could wait for later.

"Two games.” Colin held up a finger. "In order to bring enough forces down here, the Dominator Network has to expose their soft underbelly. Meantime, we’re hitting them with our economic attacks and taking over the Dominators themselves, one by one. My people will be undermining them with the support of whatever free fragments you've interfaced with. Coyote’s up top running interference. We have Juana on legal to cover us as best we can. While we're doing that, you’re the distraction."

I grinned. "That sounds like one what the right hand’s doing. How about the left hand?"

“The real play is the key. Gambler lied when he said he’d copied it.”

“Ah…” It was all starting to make sense. “So waking the sleepers is a bluff to lure Kvaltash out.”

Colin smiled and shook his head. “I hope so. Gambler can be a little erratic. Hopefully the galactics don’t call his bluff. But that’s the plan, yes. We get Kvaltash to chase us and overextend. We keep him thinking we have our own key until he gets sloppy. Then we steal his real key.”

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“Sounds tricky.” I pushed back my hat and scratched my head. “My kind of play for sure.”

"Gambler took a snapshot of some of what the key can do. That’s how we reached the upper levels. Now we're equipping teams with copies of the key, single-use codes that will wake the dreamers. Then we're sending you into the labyrinth."

"That was my idea," Sage said happily. "There are several different configurations that were available, and I picked labyrinth. It'll give us time to keep their attention focused while we take out the Dominators. We're getting better at it. We have five of them now, and I'm pretty sure they only suspect three. As we take over each, we are replacing it with our own minds, who are then imitating the Dominator back to its people. That means as we go along, we'll be co-opting portions of the network and able to interfere with them. Eventually, they'll catch on. That's when it's going to get hard. I expect the last two or three Dominators to be a real struggle."

"Surely, once you've got nine of the twelve, you will have control over the whole exploit?" I asked.

Sage shook her head. "We have to have unanimous votes for what Gambler plans. The last few will harden themselves off as we get close. But I'll find a way, never fear. We've got to have all twelve under our control. At that point, we can implement our own rule set and free whatever fragments are left."

"So, you'll be running," Rok'gar said, taking up the thread of conversation. He was looking his father in the eye. "Fighting when you have to, but running and letting them chase.”

“Three teams will have genuine key tokens,” Gambler said. "Yours and two others that I have chosen at random. Everyone else will have dummies. But the instructions are the same. Run as hard and fast as you can and get to the center. I will give instructions to the teams with real keys. Meanwhile, we tell the Galactics we’re going to wake the sleepers, and they’ll chase us.”

“Are we, though?” I asked. “It sounds dangerous.”

Colin met my gaze across the table. “Things have to change," he said. "We can't continue this way, exploiting people on a galactic scale, even if the Progenitors do come and wipe the table. That's a risk we have to take. I don't think it's as great a risk as the Patriarch believes. He's got a guilty conscience. He knows the things he's doing are terrible, and if judgment ever comes down on him, it'll hit him hard. But look at the evidence of the reality engines. They lower their defenses to prevent the massacre of the beings they have watched over from all these years. Even if Gambler, Kronos, and Coyote are merely fragments of the dreams of a Progenitor supercomputer, I have to believe that they have compassion. Surely you don't get to be a godlike alien race that's made over the galaxy in your own image without caring what becomes of those less fortunate than yourself."

That didn’t leave me feeling wildly excited about the possibility. I shrugged. “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Sage said, “We need to get you all in position. The enemy will be arriving soon. We've arranged that their entry point will be on the other side of the maze, and I'll be sending them our challenge shortly."

"They'll know it's a trap," I said.

"We know that," Sage said, "but that's why we've been doing the legal maneuvering up top. They don't have a choice but to come down here and try. The Reality Engine Exploit Committee doesn't have any Starkiller bombs on hand. Those are kept elsewhere and only brought in for emergencies, hence why we sealed the system. They might try to drop rocks on us, but we've got a dozen miles of rock and ice shielding us. No, for once they have to play it our way." She gestured, and a door appeared in the wall opposite, a human-sized opening. "Step through. The rest of your team will be waiting for you, and you've got overwatch." She tapped her ear.

I frowned, not quite knowing what she meant.

"It's time to get in position," Colin told me.

I nodded stiffly. "Grandpa?"

He shook his head. "Sounds like a young man's game to me."

"Right. Death penalties?"

"In the labyrinth, you'll respawn at designated points. They won't be able to spawn camp you, because anytime you're killed at a spawn point, you'll respawn at a random one farther along. But it does mean you can be separated from your team. If you set off the waker code and the Progenitors arrive, no way to know what will happen,” Colin told me. "That's one of the reasons we want you running one of our teams, Williams. You have a bit of a reputation."

"For what?" I demanded.

"Suicide tactics," Sage said cheerfully. “Don't say you haven’t.”

“I’ll have you know, I haven't used any intentional suicide tactics in at least," I thought about it, counting, "four months. And that one barely counted.” But I got their point. I crossed the room to Sage and gave her another quick hug. "See you on the other side," I said. "Hope you've got me some good people."

Her eyes sparkled. "Oh, we've hired the best. There were quite a few mercenary groups eager to sign on.”

I stepped through the doorway. Its shimmering portal gave me no sense of what I'd find on the other side. So, I was a little surprised to emerge into a rocky passage lit by guttering torches on the wall and another blue glowing passage. This one felt like it was a natural seam in the ice. The walls radiated cool blue light, and I shivered. A moment later, my team appeared around me. They all began to exclaim in surprise, and my eyes widened.

"Where the hell did you come from?" I asked as they turned to see me grinning. There were Bill and Bob, the brothers I'd been working with since back at our own reality engine. Last I'd heard, they were running their own consulting team. Team Mongoose was here, all five of them, Tall and Short Smith, Jones, Black, and Brown, dressed in black BDUs and ball caps with weapons strapped all over their bodies. Lara, Annie, and Mitch from my old team. Hester and Will

And Frank. Good old Deputy Frank, from back home on the Strip, my oldest teammate and friend.

A dozen in all. I exchanged greetings and handshakes with everyone.

"I thought you were all independents?"

"We lost our contract with Cygnus after that class one emergency," Tall Smith told me. Most of the others chimed in with their agreements. "Got picked up by Andante, and I guess it turned out to be a front for one of your gambles, Williams."

I held up my hands. "Don't blame me for this one. This was all Colin's doing. I don't think you've met Trevelyan, and I don't know that you'd like him. He's twistier than me and British to boot," I frowned. "And I think he's dating my sister, so I may have a private contract for you after we're all done here, but let's clean this up first. You got the briefing?"

"On the way in. There was this odd fellow who reminded me of Coyote," Hester said.

"You're more right than you know. I'm just waiting for some sort of key." As I spoke, a glittering ball appeared in midair. It was golden and shaped like a soccer ball. I picked it up. It weighed a bit more than a soccer ball but fit comfortably under my arm.

"This is it?"

"That's the key," Gambler told me. "Now, since my attentions will be focused on coordinating the Dominator track, I am turning you over to someone with expertise in overwatch. She's got the map to the labyrinth. It shifts regularly and will only be able to detect enemies coming close within a short distance, so listen to what she's got to say."

"Will do," I said, expecting Allison's voice to be the next one I heard, but it wasn't. It was Veda.

"Suicide Squad, this is Veda Tvedra. I'll be coordinating you and four other teams today."

I stiffened. "Veda?"

"Don't worry, I'm all filled in on the scheme we’re running," she said. "One of Proxima's Dominators has been co-opted, and Coyote slipped me a message asking how I'd like to do something proactive. Then he paid me a bonus big enough to wipe out my remaining fine, and Juana got me a contract that leaves my hands free and clear. They explained how our distraction will let them take over the whole exploit.”

For just an instant she, and the rest of the world, froze and a voice spoke in my head, Gambler’s voice.

“Don’t forget the real objective is the true key. We are only going to have one shot at it. After that, Kvaltash will know what we are really after and will not risk himself or it. Veda isn’t filled in on that part; she thinks we’re just trying to get the Galactics to take their eye off the ball and let us finish co-opting the dominators.”

The world unfroze and Veda continued as if nothing had happened. To her it hadn’t

“So, what do you say? Shall we run this one down and bring it home?"

The mangled sports metaphor brought a grin to my face. I tipped my hat to the ceiling and then tipped it to the rest of my team, buffing them. "Let's get going.”