They all gathered around the small window and stared inside. Two of the room’s four walls were lined with weapons -- rifles, shotguns, pistols, sniper rifles, heavy weapons systems, grenades, launchers, mines, explosives, all mounted in racks or displayed flat on the wall. Crates of ammunition were stacked neatly underneath. On the third wall was body armor, the individual pieces displayed concentrically in order of increasing size, making Neb think of a biology diagram.

The door to the armory was locked, and looked like it would withstand anything short of an orbital strike. Beside it was a card reader, glowing with a faint yellow.

‘Well,’ Buzz said, after a long look through the little window. ‘Our A-number-fucking-one priority is to get in this room. There must be a key in here somewhere. Mallory and Anna, you take the eastern section. Meathead, Doc, western. I’m going to go and --’

Neb interrupted. ‘Sir,’ he said.

Buzz broke off in mid flow. ‘What?’ he snapped.

Neb held up the yellow access card he had taken from the swordfish.

There was total silence from the group.

Buzz took it from Neb almost reverently.

‘Fuck me,’ Meathead said .‘If the key opens that door, Doc, you’ll deserve the highest kind of nerd-medal they have.’

‘Where the fuck did you get that, Doc?’ Mallory demanded.

‘From a dead sawfish,’ Neb said.

Buzz stared at him. ‘Sawfish? You’re sure?’

He saw the creature’s ruined body in his mind’s eyes, and suppressed a shudder. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Certain.’

‘But where would they have got it?’ Mallory asked. ‘We know no-one was in here. Like Anna said, that door hadn’t been disturbed.’

‘Maybe there’s another door,’ Gray said. ‘Or maybe there was a way to get in without triggering the trap.’

‘Well none of that matters right now,’ Buzz said. ‘Mallory -- check this door for booby traps like your mama’s going in there. Double time.’

The others watched in both directions while Mallory checked the door minutely, taking the time needed to do it properly. It seemed a very likely place to leave a trap. Buzz paced slowly about ten meters away, finding it hard to control himself in proximity to such firepower, but he did not interrupt or distract Mallory in any way. Mallory examined every square millimeter of the door, lying on the ground before getting lifted up by Meathead and Gray to check the upper part.

‘It’s clear,’ he said at last.

‘You’re certain?’ Buzz demanded.

‘Give me the key,’ Mallory said in answer, holding out his hand. ‘And the rest of you move your asses further down the hall.’

They did as he said. Once they were gathered a safe distance away, Mallory touched the key to the reader. There was a beep and a thunk from the door. The light changed to green. Mallory looked at the others with a gleam in his eye.

They filed into the room together. ‘Check the levels,’ Mallory said. ‘This could be be another fucking tease like the Banker’s house.’

But there was nothing over Level Five, which they were all already at. Everything in the room was open to them.

Meathead let out a soft involuntary moan. ‘This is my fucking happy place,’ he said.

He wasn’t alone. Buzz and Mallory and Gray and Anna talked excitedly over the weapons in a jargon-heavy chatter, weighing up options and making decisions on their loadout. Mallory found a Level Five rambolt that he was clearly not going to be parted from, and a matching case of ammunition large enough to max out even his generous and strength-enhanced ammo limit. Gray lifted down a sniper rifle and sighed. ‘At last,’ she murmured. Buzz was almost overcome. He had been dreaming of finding guns and ammo ever since the disappointment of the transport crate, and now his prayers had been wonderfully and extravagantly answered.

But when Neb looked around the room all he could wonder was: What does any of this mean? The Game had made it almost impossible for them to find weapons up to now. This was a hell of a lot of firepower to just hand over. But he knew how unwelcome his concerns would be at that moment, and he said nothing.

He wandered around the room examining everything and settled on a matching pair of pistols, one to replace the weapon the sawfish had sliced through, and one for backup. Each weapon was of beautiful design, solid but light, made of the hard-to-pin-down Main material they were becoming familiar with. What struck him most was the commonality between the new pistols and the non-gun from the Banker’s house, a similar grip and weight and heft and feel. He was certain that the non-gun was intentionally echoing the lines of this kind of pistol, and yet it was somehow functionally different. The non-gun had no trigger, and that was surely the most elemental part of a gun.

Buzz examined all the different automatic rifles on offer and then ordered everyone to take the same one. It was squat and heavy, constructed of matt black polymer-metal, glowing with faint green indicators and controls. It was too much gun for Neb but Meathead and Mallory loved it. Each of the big men was gathering a small arsenal, making use of every available kilogram of inventory space. Gray had opened one of the chests and found three boxes of healing orbs, prompting whoops from Meathead and Mallory. Anna was choosing from the set of combat knives, examining each one in turn. Neb had literally never seen the others look so happy.

Once he had chosen his weapons he examined the armor. He took down a silver-gray breastplate and turned it in his hands. It was lighter than he expected but would still be too heavy for him, especially if combined with the pieces for the rest of the body. The available armor sizes would fit up to very large humanoids, he noticed. Even Meathead and Mallory would be several sizes down from the largest pieces.

There was one section of the armor wall which contained decorative items, chains and bracelets and hats and so on, and hanging from hooks were thick-looking belts. He almost ignored them, but then turned back to pick one up curiously. He examined it in his overlay but the description read only: Armored belt. He put the belt around his waist and adjusted it, then clicked the two ends home. At once a golden field shimmered around his upper body and shoulders, and he recognised it as similar to what he had seen when he shot the sawfish. The field resolved itself into roughly armor-shaped curves and planes, as if matching itself to his body, and glowed strongly before fading away to just a hint of mesh lines, almost but not quite invisible. In his overlay, his hitpoints jumped to 35.

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Meathead was watching him carefully. ‘We’re going to be fucking unstoppable with all this shit,’ he said.

‘Five more minutes,’ said Buzz. ‘And there’s no return and exchange, because we’re fragging this place on the way out. So take everything you need now.’

Meathead had settled on a Level Five SPUR heavy weapons platform, a quad-barrel kinetic projectile system. ‘The Earth version was never reliable,’ he explained to Neb giddily. ‘It led to several friendly fire incidents and got removed from the approved use list. But a few were grandfathered in, and were designated Special Unregulated. Hence the name. But this guy here looks like the original that we copied from.’ He racked a huge magazine into the weapon.

Along with the SPUR, Meathead took a new Level Four plasma cannon. Mallory was bringing the rambolt and a weapon called a thumper, which fired heavy explosive rounds. Everyone brought the rifle Buzz had assigned, and the others all picked an additional rifle also. Neb’s inventory only allowed him to carry one rifle and the two pistols.

The more he saw the amount of weapons the others were bringing, the more his anxiety rose. The Game had made them work for every single moment they had managed to survive up to now. Why was it handing over all of this so easily?

Partly to distract himself from the question, Neb examined the last thing in the room he hadn’t looked at, a metal cabinet against the wall opposite the door. The cabinet was not locked, and when he opened it all he found were a bunch of empty shelves. There was a control screen mounted on the door and he touched it with no expectation of anything happening, but it sprang to life at once. The interface used Cluster Common rather than Main symbology, and Neb frowned. That was weird. Or at least, not what he expected.

He flipped through some of the screens and found that it was an inventory management system. Every weapon in the room was accounted for, and the display updated in real time as the team took down weapons or put ammo into their inventory. The main screen showed the cabinet lock controls, the lock icon currently green and set to ‘Open’. He touched an information icon and read:

LAST ACCESS AUTH: COMMANDER HENRY R BREEN

REMOVAL CO-AUTH: CAPTAIN LUCY ROCK-WHITE

DESTINATION: UNSPECIFIED

AUTH CODE: GAMMA SIX DELTA NINER EPSILON

Neb’s heart beat a little faster. There had been something important stored here, something that had required authorisation to remove. Now that he looked at the cabinet with that idea in mind, it was clear that it was designed to hold one medium-size case very prominently on a central shelf. He ran his hand over the space. What had been there? He swiped through more screens on the control panel, and then paused.

ONE (1) ULTRAFUSION FIELD LAUNCH SYSTEM

FOUR (4) SINGLE USE EGRESS KITS

There was even a picture of the case. It was of the same black polymer-alloy as many of the weapons systems, and was marked with a curving yellow-gold symbol that was unmistakably Main. There were various warnings about handling the weapon and the required authorizations. One detail stood out in particular: Be aware that the weapon is significantly heavier than visually suggested. An anti-grav field will activate on handling to enable single operator loading. If this thing was still here, it would have been the most advanced Main tech they had yet come across.

‘Sir,’ Neb called to Buzz. ‘You need to see this.’

They all gathered round. Neb explained what he had learned and Buzz flipped through the screens as he spoke.

‘Ultrafusion,’ Buzz said. ‘Any idea what that is?’

‘No, sir,’ Neb answered.

‘And you think the device was here and someone took it? So it’s out in the world somewhere?’

‘It could be,’ Neb said slowly. ‘Or it could be that there never really was a device, and it’s just a story that’s part of the Game.’

Buzz was silent for a thoughtful moment. Then he said: ‘Well, nothing we can do about it now. We’ll keep our eyes open. Everyone, get ready to move out. Mallory, get this place wired up.’

‘Sir,’ Neb said to Buzz again. His heart beat harder, but now that he had the commander’s attention he wanted to at least try and voice his concerns. ‘I also wanted to say… This room, everything in it… I think it’s a message. The Game tempted us to come to this military base, and now it’s --’

‘Don’t worry about it, son,’ Buzz said, cutting Neb off, but with something close to empathy in his words. ‘The weapons are here, and we’re going to take them, and that’s all there is to it. These Main bastards will do what they will, and we just need to roll with it as best as we can.’

‘Yes sir, that’s understood. But again, sir -- I want to mention the library. I know it’s far from our position. Yet each time we learn something about Main history or culture, we are --’

‘Maybe this room is the reward, Doc,’ Buzz said, cutting him off again, this time with quite a bit less patience. ‘I know it’s your job to think, Doc, but it’s my job to keep us alive get us through that fucking gate. So get yourself tooled up, and get with the fucking program. Understood?’

‘Yes sir,’ Neb answered formally.

‘Good,’ Buzz said. He slammed a magazine into his rifle, a movement that to him was as natural as breathing. ‘Mallory, finish up!’ he ordered. ‘Everyone else, clear out!’

Neb wasn’t sure what made him do it, but in the last few moments he went back to the cabinet. The main space on the central shelf was clearly reserved for the ultrafusion device, but around it were cubby holes and shelves for other pieces of equipment. He checked each of them in turn with his flashlight, finding nothing.

‘Come on, Doc!’ Buzz called from the door. ‘Time’s up.’ Everyone else but Mallory was already outside.

‘Yes, sir,’ Neb answered. He crouched down to see to the back of the lower shelves, and then got down on his hands and knees to check the ones at ground level.

‘Doc! Move!’ Buzz ordered.

Neb saw a glint of something right at the back. He had to wriggle forward and he could just touch it with his fingertips. He forced himself forward a little further, but the space was too small.

‘DOC, GODDAMMIT! MOVE OUT!’

Neb’s fingers closed around a handle. He yanked it forward and took the object straight into his inventory before the others could see it. He scrambled back and jumped to his feet.

‘Sorry, sir,’ he mumbled. ‘Thought I saw something.’

Buzz glared at him. Meathead and Mallory were now wearing full suits of heavy armor and looked comically massive. But they were noticeably slower than before, even with their enhanced strength.

‘One-twenty HP baby,’ Meathead said, catching Neb looking at his armor. ‘It’s fucking Game time!’

They gathered in the hallway while Mallory completed his work. They had thought of booby-trapping it rather than destroying it, but just as at the Banker’s house, Buzz thought that was too risky. They didn’t want anyone else to get the same advantage they had.

‘Here’s the plan,’ Buzz said. ‘We’re going to get to a safe distance and blow this armory. Then we take the straight road from here east to the main north-south road. That will bring us straight south to the gate. We’re going to frag anything and anyone who gets in our way. Then we’re going through to the next fucking Circle. Everyone clear?’

‘YES SIR!’ they roared. Even Neb found himself shouting with near-total conviction. When Buzz was on fire like this, it seemed like madness not to follow him. Maybe the Game could be won by brute force. He hurried after the team, hoping that Buzz was right.