Sara stood at the corner of the building. Nasser had taken down the titan with one spell. He stood in a fury of light as he readied to deal with the monsters attracted by his work. Bob and Sheira had formed a triangle to keep the monsters from circling around and attacking from Nasser’s back.

She didn’t see Wayne. The man in a t-shirt had vanished somewhere in the dark while she was making sure Bob could see. She doubted he had deserted them. He had an attitude that prevented things from bothering him that much.

Someone had combined monkeys with sharks and wings, given them guns, and sent them out to hunt freelancers from the sky. Sara made out visors on some of them to help them see better in the dark.

“Let me start,” said Sara. “Keep an eye out for more of them coming in.”

She activated the pig stone. Light erupted from her eyes. That was enough to take the leader by surprise as he swooped down. Shields activated but he was already on fire as he headed in for a rough landing on the roof.

A fist of rock punched the predator off the roof as he tried to get his wings to work. He screamed as he fell to the ground.

Sara turned her attention to the rest of the flock. They had learned from the leader’s mistake and activated their shields to keep from being lasered. They didn’t seem to be able to shoot back while the green light hung in the air in front of them.

The twenty two sign came to life, moving like a big cat. It pounced in the middle of the monkey sharks with claws of steel. It didn’t do anything, but the attack had scattered the attackers so they couldn’t sit back and shoot from out of range while the freelancers fled.

“I call on the hands of fate to change our destiny with a fiery grip,” said Nasser.

Hands made of the glowing blades that seemed to be his signature grabbed the closest monkey and crushed the shield and the wings underneath before letting the monster drop to the ground. The spell jumped wherever he looked, taking down one member after the other with catastrophic squeezes and releases.

Sara used her lasers on any monkey that tried to get to their magician to stop him. She was just a distraction. Her eyebeams couldn’t get through the shields but proved enough of a distraction that they were squeezed, caught by the sign come to life, or ran into a flying ball of stone ripped from the building she stood on.

The swarm broke and fled from the freelancers. They left their dead on the ground, and flew toward easier targets.

“Should we chase after them?,” Sara asked.

“I think we should try to reach the inner wall,” said Sheira. “We’ve been lucky, but sooner or later, we’ll run into something we can’t handle.”

Sara nodded. She didn’t see any reason to keep fighting if they were out of danger. Chasing the monkeys and putting them down would help other freelancers who couldn’t get by with what they had.

Wayne appeared on the roof of a building diagonally set from theirs. He waved a bloody hand before heading toward the monument of Light in the distance.

“I wondered what he got into,” said Sara.

“The explanation is probably getting caught in the open and punching something in the face,” said Bob. “He’s a one man army.”

Sara nodded. Wayne did seem faster and stronger than other freelancers, but he didn’t flaunt it. He might have something else, but she wasn’t sure how much it allowed him to fight.

She used the lion paw to cross the street to get to Wayne’s building. The others followed in their various ways. They headed for the Light block via the roofs.

“We might not be able to stay for more than a few minutes,” said Wayne.

Sara hoped they could take a break under the aegis of the Light for those few minutes. It would be good not to be on constant guard. She also understood why no one tried anything like a mobile fort except for the Light.

Building something that sent the message too tough to be stopped would attract the Dark from all over the inner ring. Freelancers would have to fight twice as hard instead of quick engagements they could carry out against the Dark and move on.

Bob’s idea did have merit if they could invest it in something that would keep its passengers safe first. Maybe if they had someone who could build renewable weapons, that would make things easier for the crew.

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She imagined something from an Errol Flynn movie zooming around. Maybe they could build a giant truck like the Ark. How would they get a combustion engine, and what would serve as gas?

She wondered if the others were thinking about this like she was, or worried more about getting to the inner wall. She supposed she should be paying more attention to things around her.

She thought they could get the plane from Voit’s tower if the guns would let them cross. She decided they wouldn’t do that. Dark powers hunted the freelancers. They probably ran the guns too.

Blowing part of the wall to take the guns down was impossible without a lot more of the imaginary weapons at her disposal.

And the scale of the project was not going to lend itself to the five minute thinking she was doing. She was going home long before she could get anything together to benefit anyone else. If she was staying, it would be different.

The group assembled at the edge of the block of Light buildings. A small stone wall cut the block off from the rest of the city. Turrets had been set up inside the wall. Guards kept an eye out for trouble coming their way.

They shook their heads at Wayne. He shrugged. One of the guards, probably a senior man, pointed in the direction they wanted the group to go.

“They don’t want to let us through this way,” said Wayne. “Too many problems with the Dark trying to get through. There is a camp around the corner so we can plan how to get to the inner gates there.”

“There’s not a lot of Light forces here?,” asked Bob.

“Not like on the rim,” said Wayne. He started down to the corner. “Apparently the Dark is more likely to run in packs like we’ve seen. The Light only expands when a vast number of the nearby buildings are cleared by freelancers. They just extend their marker wall out around those buildings and change them to what they need. No hospitals, of course.”

“Why?,” Sara asked.

“Why what?,” said Wayne.

“Why no hospitals here?,” said Sara. “Freelancers need them here more than

anywhere else.”

“Because hospitals are where the living enter,” said Wayne. “And they don’t want new freelancers jumping to the most dangerous part of the map first.”

Sara nodded. If she landed here alone, she might have been killed before she cleared one block.

A group of snipers shot at something a few blocks closer to the tower than the Light campus. Tracers of light marked their position to anyone who wanted to take their rooftop.

Something exploded and Sara decided that could be anything. She hadn’t seen a lot of vehicles. That didn’t mean there wasn’t cars roaming the streets with guns lighting up anything in their way.

And if they ran into something they couldn’t handle, a puff of flame would be the result.

Wayne turned the corner. He caught something out of the air and dropped it in the street. He waved at whatever was out there.

Nasser fired a bolt of light back to let the attacker know they should try someone else.

The group walked down to where the wall formed a small courtyard. Stone benches were provided for sitting, a sign with a map of the hub showed you where you were, and turrets overwatched things so if the Dark raided, they would get something more than a group of tired freelancers wanting cups of coffee and the memory of breakfast.

“We’re closer than I thought,” said Bob. “A little off course, but that’s to be

expected.”

“How off course are we, Bob?,” asked Sheira. She claimed one bench for herself and Nasser. He pulled off his helmet. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve.

“We’re about ten blocks right of where we want to be,” said Bob. “I think the tracks are on separate speeds.”

“The left-right-left helping us?,” asked Wayne. He stood at the edge of the court and looked out at the darkness.

“Yep,” said Bob. “We have a landmark to help us more.”

“What do you mean?,” asked Sheira. She turned to look at the map over her shoulder.

“There is a gate indicated here,” said Bob. One finger stabbed the map. “This is where we are.” He touched a lit block on the map. “Halfway between us and the gate is a building that looks like a star.”

“So we should be able to see the gate from that building?,” asked Wayne. “Okay, I got it.”

“The only problem is the gate is going to be going one way, and we’re going to be going the other way,” said Bob. “By the time we get to that building, the gate might be out of sight.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Wayne. “We can use that building to stage up the last part of the trip.”

“That’s how close we are?,” asked Sara. “A few blocks?”

“Maybe ten,” said Bob. “I can’t really tell from the map. And there it goes.”

The courtyard shifted to their right one slot. Then it settled back in place.

“Do we wait here, or do we try to catch the star?,” asked Bob.

“We’re going to have to wait,” said Sheira. “At least a little. Nasser is at the limit with the magic he has been hurling to get us across the city.”

Sara opened her mouth to say they should go while they could, but then stopped. She had taken some hits, and knew the value of pausing. This was their chance to pause and take stock. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t sleep because of what she was, and where they were, but just not having to watch for danger for a minute would be good.

“We’ll take the time out,” said Wayne. “We don’t need to rush and get killed in the last section of things like amateurs. I got an eye on the building. I have to agree with Bob. It’ll be luck that it will line up with the gate when we get there, no matter if we go right now, or later. Once there, we’ll take a look at what’s in front of us and deal with it.”

“The Dark will mass up a force to stop us from getting through,” said Sara.

“Not just us,” said Wayne. “Everyone.”

“But they won’t be able to stop every freelancer trying for the gate,” said Bob. “We’re going to have to use the others for a distraction if we want to go through without a problem.”

“I still have a few more tricks up my sleeve,” said Sheira. “Nasser?”

“There are some things listed by the helmet that we can use to knock away any barricade,” said Nasser. “I’ll need time to hurl them.”

“We’ll worry about that when we have a look at the gate,” said Wayne. “We might get lucky and have a free go at things.”

“How much luck is that?,” asked Sheira.

“More than I have ever seen,” said Wayne. A smile crossed his lean face.