Dammit. Leah dove off the shelf before the bullets started flying. Barrels and boxes hissed against the gunfire. She rolled from one to the next, keeping ahead of the shots before they could land, then sent volleys of her own in retaliation. It was no use. The Beholders had summoned reinforcements and claimed the catwalk before long.

“Do you see where the traitor went?” one shouted.

Another sneered. “No, this is one of the heretics.”

“Then he is still free!”

“Kill her!” another ordered. “They must be working together.”

Together? So, she wasn’t the only one suffering from a turncoat problem lately. Who else had broken through their indoctrination to get them so spooked?

“Stop! I know this heretic!” another more familiar voice rose above the others. “Come out, Leah. I know you’re in there!”

Leah grit her teeth. This motherfucker right here…

“So that’s how it is now, huh!?” she shouted back. “Having a seat at the table wasn’t good enough for you? Thought you’d throw everyone under the bus to get it all!?”

The asshole snickered. “It is as I told you before, Leah. These people are quite a beauty to behold. They get so much more accomplished than we could ever dream.”

She checked her satchel again. Three and a half minutes. Still had a third of her devices not placed.

She sighed. This would have to do. There was no way to plant more. Not without them becoming wise to her trap.

“Always wondered which of us would fold,” Leah called out, hoping to buy more time instead. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Someone had to have given Abraham the heads up about my plan to assassinate him, and of everyone on the Council, you were always the greediest piece of shit, Sinclair.”

“Believe what you will,” he said. “It matters little now.”

Leah stepped into the open, her arms in the air and eyes fixed on the Beholders in front. Her former ally sat in their center, his simple cloak a pure white between the squad of black. A simple yet clear rejection of the world he’d come from before.

Rifle barrels narrowed onto her, but nobody shot. They wouldn’t. Not until their new boss gave the order.

She focused on him instead. “Tell me, Sinclair, was it worth it? Is their God’s love more worthwhile than that of the people whose lives you threw away?”

His whitened teeth glinted under the fluorescent bulbs, his skin as polished as ever. “So narrow-minded, Leah. Who says I have wasted anyone’s life? By my count, your combative nature has driven us to this place. You were the one to try to purge their hierarchy, after all. The Beholders merely responded.”

“Without your intervention, this would have been over ages ago.”

“And without yours, we’d be amidst a gilded age as we speak.”

“With you sitting at the top, huh? A couple more bookshelves full?”

Sinclair scoffed. “Do you really think all I care about is lining my pockets with a few pics?”

“Can the bullshit,” Leah said. “We both know why you did it.”

“Do we now?”

“If not for power and profit, then why choose the Beholders over the rest of us? Instability is hardly your modus operandi.”

He beamed. “Don’t you understand, Leah? Because this is for profit. Not just mine, but for us all. What the Beholders have created is the greatest profit in this world.”

Leah blinked. “Huh?”

“You still don’t see it, do you? By putting all our faith in the hands of the Lord, the Beholders are capable of toiling endlessly without cost. No hidden fees. No resources spent. No bureaucratic waste. Only the power of collective faith is necessary, and faith in Him is infinite.”

His scarlet eyes burned bright in the dim room. “This is the ultimate form of our capitalist system. The perfection of industry! Through the strength of the Lord, our entire economy will enter a new frontier. One devoid of the inefficient suffering that we have become so accustomed to. An endless, flawless growth!” He stared down his nose at her. “Don’t you see how much better that is of a goal than a few meaningless books?”

Leah stared at Sinclair. At this adviser turned enemy. She watched the merciless titan who placed profit above all else.

And she guffawed, loud and long. Oh, what a fucking joke this is. Sinclair’s eyes twitched as Leah laughed out loud, too trapped in the hilarity of it all to care about his sensibilities or trigger-happy grunts. She slapped her knees, chest hunched, trying to keep her sides from splitting.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping a tear away. “I really thought you were playing some four-dimensional chess here, Sinclair, but you’re more of a fucking moron than I first thought.” She looked into his eyes. Into the forced faith beneath. “You really thought you’d be spared, didn’t you? Was it your ego that made you think they wouldn’t baptize you too?”

Those same eyes twisted to fear as he inched forth. “What do you know of the Lord’s power, Leah? You never got to Behold what we have! He will save this world, and there is nothing you can do!”

She stole a glance at her watch. Only a minute and a half left. She just needed to buy a little more time.

“You’re delusional, Sinclair,” Leah said. “You didn’t behold anything, and you aren’t bringing about some golden era for our race. Abraham used you to get to me, just like he’s used everyone else. Now, you’re no more than a puppet to him, to be tossed aside at the slightest inconvenience. These aren’t your choices anymore. They’re just his propaganda coming out of your mouth.”

“You are wrong!” he snapped. “I make my own decisions.”

“No, they only were your decisions. The second they threw you into that pool, you lost your autonomy. I warned you that would happen, but you refused to listen. Too full of yourself to think that anyone else could ever tap into that mind of yours.”

“Your understanding of beliefs is so rigid and fragile. Just because I have become a Brother under God, that doesn’t mean I’ve lost an ounce of who I am. How else do you think I anticipated this reunion?” He gleamed, the frenzy at its peak. “That is right. The others thought you would hide behind the rest of the heretics, but I knew you would find your way down to here. You could never put your fate in the hands of others. Your ego does not allow it.

“That is where you and I are different, Leah. Where I am willing to adapt to a changing world, you will always wallow in self-imposed ignorance. Why, this solo invasion of yours is the most predictable thing in the world. Kill the guards, open the door, and be the hero of the day. No one else but the almighty Leah could be assigned such a task.” He beamed. “That is your plan, no?”

Leah limped forth with a sigh. “You know, had this been a few weeks back, you’d be right. Never did see any reason to trust anyone else. Not really. I always figured that the only way to guarantee my safety was by putting all my faith in the one person who never let me down. Me. I’d done it a thousand times before, and I’d do it a thousand times again.

“But then I got humbled by my own hubris, same as you. That landslide didn’t just crush my bones. It broke my spirit. My soul. There I was, a completely powerless wreck who couldn’t so much as take a shit without assistance.

“And you know what terrible thing happened to me, Sinclair? Nothing. If I learned anything from those long weeks paralyzed, it was how much of a fucking idiot I’d been. All my fears about betrayal by others were proven false. They still found it in them to save me, even after I spent a lifetime shunning the slightest helping hand.

“That is what makes our relationships different from what your Beholder friends have manufactured. They’ve always viewed others as a tool to be leveraged or disposed of, no more than insignificant cogs to be replaced the second they step out of line. But we’re different, Sinclair. True friends don’t care how badly you fucked up. They always find it in our hearts to keep the door open.”

She smiled. “To think that it took this travesty for me to see that. I guess you’re right, in a way. I’d been stuck in blind ignorance. Too arrogant to see that my lonely prison was of my own making. But that is the nature of life, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been stuck in the dark. We can always find our way back to the light. And it will always be there so long as we reach out to our friends.”

Sinclair stared on. “Such profound words. And yet, you still fell into the very trap you purport to be against. Where my allies stand by my side, you marched against our army, all alone.”

“Oh, Sinclair.” Leah raised her timer with a grin. Five seconds remained. “Who says I’m alone?”

She thrust her half-empty bag of plastic explosives forth. As the timer reached zero, every bomb inside went off.

And not just there.

Plaster shot out from the roof where Leah had placed the other charges, strategically above the main door where the foundation was weakest. Smoke and fire billowed out, but it was the ropes that dropped through that put the rest on edge.

Her allies rappelled through the opening, their automatic spraying into the shell-shocked Beholders. Flamingo, Charon, the other Hunters, even Dwayne. All of them had shown up for this final breach, despite the risks. The room flashed bright with so many bullets being unleashed.

The Beholders crumpled against this sudden ambush. Why wouldn’t they? They couldn’t fathom placing so much faith in their fellow man. Leah trusted the others to see this attack through, and they trusted her to lay the groundwork. Not because of mutual self-interest or some collective faith in a higher power, but because they believed in the strength of each other alone. No more was needed to defeat this invading army.

Only Sinclair remained when the dust cleared. He gaped, hands quaking after seeing the odds tilt so horrifically against him. Red beams narrowed onto him as the others kept aim.

Leah closed in, her pistol back in hand. She beamed. “You really shouldn’t have let this conversation drag out so long, Sinclair. No one gets to monologue this hard without someone getting killed.”

“Wait–” he started, but Leah already pulled the trigger. The .45 pierced through his skull, and Sinclair fell without another sound. That’s one asshole down the drain.

Dwayne lowered his rifle. “Area’s clear, boss.”

“How’s topside looking?” Leah asked.

“Beholders still on the retreat,” Charon said, reloading his M16. “Looks like many are falling back.”

“Where they going?”

“No idea.” He held the radio close. “But whatever they’re up to, this breach has them more panicked than we thought it would. Abraham’s already evacuated, heading East.”

Leah shook her head. “It isn’t us that has them so worried.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because someone else has come through here first.” She studied the next hallway, leading deeper into Elysium. Black blood caked the walls and floor, with Inquisitor bodies eviscerated along the way. It looked like a bulldozer went through.

Who the hell could have caused this?