Mallory’s pistol was a very different beast to the one Neb carried -- it was much larger and heavier, a dense piece of metal and polymer-alloy, the peak of Earth’s gunsmithing ability. It was, as Neb would reflect later, a darkly beautiful thing, which in a strange way gave it something in common with the sawfish itself.

Neb had done some basic training with every weapon the group carried, including the heavy pistols. But in this final life-or-death instant, he didn’t need it. Mallory had been ready to fire. The swordfish was right on top of Neb, lifting its sword for the final blow when Neb heaved the weapon around. There was just a fleeting instant of dawning awareness in the sawfish’s eyes as it looked down at Neb, and then Neb pulled the trigger. The gun jumped upwards but he controlled it, feeling the muscles in his arm bulge and giving silent thanks for all the misery Meathead had put him through at the gym. The heavy round punched through the swordfish like a lance. Its eyes widened.

Then Neb fired five more times in quick succession. The final round hit the sawfish in the center of its face, and Neb and the surrounding rocks were showered with spurting dark-red blood. The sawfish fell to its knees, its two odd eyes staring at Neb with a universally recognisable look of shocked horror. Its long tooth-nose swung loosely.

Then it collapsed backwards on the ground. But somehow, inexplicably, it was not yet dead. It was making babbling, burbling noises, and the bar over its head read: 4 / 30.

Neb lay there breathing heavily, feeling pain wrack his body. With a huge effort he levered himself to his feet, his ribs a torture of grinding pain. His leg was agony, but not actually broken. He wobbled as if he was going to fall but steadied himself, then took two slow paces to where the sawfish’s sword had fallen. Each step was misery, but not as bad as bending down to pick up the weapon, which caused a surge of pain that almost made him pass out. Dimly he heard gunfire from the base below, but he ignored it. He stepped back to where the near-destroyed sawfish lay on the ground, and stood over it with the sword. It was still alive and gurgling. He hesitated, feeling the rage and pain and humiliation rush through him, feeling what it had been to be lifted and kicked by the sawfish, to be nothing more than a bloody plaything. Then he lifted his boot and stamped down on the thing’s face, pushing its hideous protuberance back into its skull. The sawfish screamed and jiggled and jerked, a picture of agony. But Neb didn’t let up -- instead he turned his boot slowly left and right, squashing brain and skull and face. Then, after a long moment of letting the sawfish buck and thrash, he sliced across its throat with the sword. The sawfish lay still and the red skull appeared.

Neb stared at it for what felt like a short lifetime, his heart pounding in his chest. Something was already building in him that he was pretty sure was going to be a deep regret. He had just discovered a part of himself that he had never known was there. Not a good part.

He looked up to see Anna watching him. She had a cut on her face that was bleeding heavily, and she was bruised and dirty.

‘Kill or be killed, soldier,’ she said quietly.

‘I know,’ he said shortly. He lifted his foot away with a squelching sound. ‘Anyone else make it?’

‘Everyone is down but revivable, if we had orbs.’

He looked at the ruined body of the sawfish and checked its inventory. It had two of the blue healing orbs and Neb took them, ignoring everything else. He resisted the urge to use an orb on himself to ease the fiery pain in his ribs and leg, and was turning away when something else in the swordfish’s inventory caught his eye. It was a small yellow access card, and he took that too, even though he recoiled at the idea of touching anything that belonged to the creature.

‘There’s a mounted gun on the tower,’ he said to Anna. ‘One of us should go to it, and the other should revive two of the others.’

‘I saw the cannon,’ she said. ‘I’ve been trained on that platform. I’ll get to it and cover you.’

‘Understood,’ he said, and then Anna was in motion, flitting across the battlefield. Neb went to throw the sawfish sword away, his arm half-forming the motion, but he paused. He had no other weapon. So instead he kept the sword in hand and stumbled wearily and painfully back up the hill, not wanting to think too much about any of this. Only a few moments later he heard the second cannon spring to life in the courtyard below, and he turned to watch. The first cannon had finally run out of ammo, and the combatants who were still in the courtyard were not expecting fire from Anna’s direction. At least half a dozen of them dropped in the initial onslaught, skulls popping up like red lights. Anna was covered behind the thick metal shield of the turret, and the return fire plinked helplessly against it. She methodically and remorselessly mowed down anyone who was caught out in the open. The white fire from the gunbarrel lit her up clearly from where Neb was standing, high on her tower, expertly managing the huge weapon. The angel of death. He shivered and turned away.

Moving was slow and painful and it took him a while to find the others. He revived Buzz first, then Meathead, and they scrambled down to the courtyard. All the remaining players had retreated inside the base buildings to escape Anna’s cannon, and the world was strangely silent again. The courtyard was littered with bodies. Meathead went from place to place gathering orbs, then came back up the hill and healed Neb. To Neb the quenching of the fire in his ribs was one of the most pleasant feelings of his life. Meathead sent Neb to heal Grey and Mallory, then returned to help Buzz in the courtyard.

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Mallory looked around in confusion when he came around, then his face dropped in disappointment.

‘I’ve fucking missed everything, haven’t I,’ he said.

‘I’m afraid so,’ was all Neb could answer.

The team regrouped in a sheltered corner of the courtyard, out of sight of the building windows. Anna covered them with the cannon, and Meathead joined her on the elevated platform to prevent a sneak attack from the rear. A quick inventory showed that despite their scavenging in the courtyard, they were still very low on offensive capability. The weapons systems of different civs used incompatible ammo, and the fallen players had gone down shooting. The humans ended up with a hodgepodge of foreign weapons they were not familiar with, and a wide range of ammo types without having much of any one type.

‘Fuck,’ Buzz said calmly, when he had assessd the situation. ‘Options?’

‘The interior of the base is going to be fucking crawling now,’ Mallory said. ‘Everyone ran in there once Anna started shooting.

As if to underline his point there was a burst of fire from the cannon as Anna saw a hint of movement at a window. The huge rounds slammed into the wall like small missiles, only ten meters or so from the team. But even Neb didn’t flinch; he was just too tired.

‘Well we can’t stay out here,’ Buzz said. ‘We still need to find some proper weapons, so crawling or not, we’re going in. He pointed to a door in the far corner of the courtyard. ‘Let’s take the entrance furthest from the action.’

‘Get Anna to frag it first,’ Mallory said. ‘You can bet your ass that fucker is booby trapped.’

‘Affirmative,’ Buzz said. ‘Gray -- haul ass over there and tell Anna to hit it.’

Gray was as fast and light as Anna, and she was on top of the tower in a few moments. Anna rotated the turret and unleashed a storm of bullets on the corner door, and almost immediately there was a dull boom and a billow of flame.

‘Ain’t nothing for free in this life,’ Buzz said. ‘Let’s move.’

Anna, Gray and Meathead were already down from the cannon the tower and racing back across the courtyard. Where do they get their fucking energy, Neb wondered. The team formed up outside and then swept in as one, pistols in their hands. They found themselves standing in broad corridor, and on the wall was a sign covered in Main symbology.

‘Doc,’ Buzz said. ‘What are we looking at?’

Neb stepped forward. The Main Scholar skill triggered for two of the symbols, which were beside each other. But he already knew this sign was not like other things they had encountered.

‘Only the bottom line is Main,’ he said.

‘What are the others?’ Buzz asked.

‘Not Main,’ Neb answered with a shrug.

Buzz looked at him dangerously.

‘Sorry sir, but that’s all I know. They’re some other languages I’ve never seen before. The two Main symbols I’m getting from my skill are beside each other. They mean commander and rare or precious.’

‘Together?’ Buzz asked. ‘As in, all one meaning?’

‘I think so, sir.’ Neb was silent a moment. ‘It could mean high ranking people, maybe,’ he said after a moment. ‘Scholars have often noted that the Main were quite hierarchical, despite being post-scarcity. The thinking is that post-scarcity actually drives hierarchy. When anyone can have anything, there’s nothing other than social games to play. In fact the --’

‘Give us the lecture later, Doc,’ Buzz cut in. ‘Do we go in this way or not? A fucking booby-trapped door is not exactly a welcome mat.’

Neb hesitated, but Anna spoke. ‘We know no-one else came in this way, because the trap was untriggered,’ she said. ‘If Neb is right in his interpretation, this could be some sort of VIP section, sealed off from the rest of the base. We might have it to ourselves.’

‘Good point,’ Buzz said, seeing the logic of her thought immediately. It was unnerving how quickly and completely he could make up his mind. ‘Let’s move,’ he said. ‘And Doc, put away that fucking sword or someone’s going to lose a limb.’ Neb looked down at the sawfish weapon in his hand. He hadn’t even realized he was still holding it. It was a cruel-looking thing, and again he thought of throwing it away, or giving it to one of the others. But he had a relationship with the weapon now, he realized. He put it into his inventory. Rather than just disappearing like everything else, it reappeared on a scabbard on his back, and he reached back and touched the handle in surprise.

‘Wonder why the Game did that?’ Gray said.

‘Probably because it looks bad-ass,’ Meathead answered. ‘Even for Doc.’

‘Focus,’ Buzz snapped. ‘On my mark -- move!’

They hurried deeper into the base. The walls were smooth and painted, the floor polished stone, and there were decorative features of concentric designs and sharp corners. This was a place that had been meant for high-ranking people. Doors opened into small rooms that looked like they had never been used. Further down the hall was a large room that looked like it might have been intended to be a mess, but it too was empty. They came to a T-junction, and to their left was a short hallway ending in a heavy metal door with a large wheel on their side.

‘Might be the divider between the main base and this VIP part,’ Gray said.

‘Keep back from it,’ Buzz ordered. ‘Would be a likely place for another trap.’

They proceeded cautiously down the hall in the other direction. Meathead was in the lead, and he came to a stop at a second heavily-built locked door. This one was of a different design, with a small window set into it. It opened off the corridor to their left. Meathead paused and looked through it.

‘Well?’ Buzz demanded. ‘Anything in there?’

Meathead didn’t answer at once.

‘Meathead!’ Buzz snapped.

‘Yes, sir,’ Meathead answered, not turning to look at him. ‘Yes, sir, there is something in there.’ He had his face up against the glass. ‘Something fucking beautiful.’