No-one moved. Neb could see the long nose-like protuberance of the sawfish, and his body felt numb. He had expected he would come face to face with one of them again sooner or later, but he had never thought it would be so soon. Memories and images of his fight at the military base flashed before his eyes. At the same time a frightening thought came to him: I don’t regret it. He gripped his rifle tightly, taught as a spring.

But the sawfish did not move or react. It seemed to stare straight at the humans, but then it looked left, back down the main tunnel towards the River Door. Buzz made a silent hand gesture and the whole team stepped backwards a full silent pace. Then another, and another. The silence was total. What the fuck was happening? Why was the sawfish not screaming and shooting? But then Neb understood the answer: the creature had been using its overlay. It had not been watching the tunnel properly.

A second sawfish stepped into view, but the humans were now far enough back in the tunnel to be lost in the shadows. The two sawfish spoke together quietly. They were elegantly framed by the round junction of the two tunnels, Neb thought, like a strange painting. He fought to stay calm. What would they do to him if they caught him, after what he had done to one of theirs? He glanced down at the pistol on his hip grimly. He understood Anna’s single-round strategy now. All too well.

"Gray," Buzz mouthed, a mere hint of sound. She nodded, understanding at once. The sniper rifle was in her hands. She got to the ground and lay prone. They took defensive positions around her. She took her time, focusing on her breathing. It was about seventy meters to the tunnel junction. Neb knew that she was using her multi-targeting skill. And yet in any instant the two sawfish could move out of sight and the opportunity would be lost.

Do it, Neb urged silently. Do it now.

Gray’s eye was on the scope and her fingers moved over the rifle settings, adjusting it silently, without a click or a scape. Then she took one last deep breath.

The sawfish moved, one striding swiftly back the way it had come.

But it didn’t matter.

Gray fired two shots in such quick succession that they made a single cough of sound from the weapon. She hit both of the targets in the center of their skulls. It was virtuoso shooting, Neb thought, whether it was assisted by her Game skill or not. The first sawfish fell with the red skull icon already visible. But the second gasped and staggered out of view down the main tunnel, and they saw the blue glow of a healing orb being used.

"MOVE!" Buzz yelled, and his voice smashing the silence sounded like a thunderbolt. They sprinted as one. Anna and Buzz reached the junction first and Buzz risked a quick glance around the corner. Then he stepped out into the corridor and fired at the retreating sawfish, which was now in full flight back to where its companions presumably waited. Neb saw the glitter of the creature’s shield from Buzz’s, but it continued to run. There was the cough of Gray’s rifle again and the thing staggered from another headshot. But still it didn’t go down, and then it had disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel towards the River Door.

"Fuck," Buzz snapped. "Hustle!"

They sprinted hard after the sawfish. Ahead was the River Door, and it was just as huge as the Temple Door. It stood half open. There were crates and piles of wood and stone scattered about. Around the door was a wooden construction that took up the whole space of the tunnel. They could see that the door was trying to close, putting pressure on the wooden beams and stone buttresses which were keeping it open. What the fuck? Neb thought. Why would anyone do this? Were the sawfish involved, or did they just happen to be here?

But he had no more time to think about it. Through the half-open gate they could see the river outside that gave the gate its name, dim in the day’s first light. As Neb watched one of the giant centipedes wiggled over from the top of the gate and fell to the ground, then snaked its way inside.

There was a burst of gunfire and he dived behind a pile of wood reflexively. The wood danced and splintered as automatic fire bit into it. Fucking 20 HP. Hs heart was pounding relentlessly. So stupid. One good shot could be it. If by some miracle he survived this, he swore, he would never neglect his Strength stats ever again.

His training kicked in and he knew he had to move. He saw Meathead across the tunnel crouching behind a stack of blocks. Once Meathead returned fire towards the sawfish, Neb dashed across the tunnel to shelter behind some sacks of sand, where Anna was already taking cover. Up ahead Mallory and Buzz were sheltering in the mouth of a small side tunnel. Mallory was crouching down and getting something ready. It was safe to assume, Neb thought, that it was something explosive.

A harsh voice called to them from the shadows of the construction up ahead. ‘You fucking humans!’ it said. ‘You have no chance in this Game with your betters.’

"Tell that to your dead," Anna shouted back, and there was a strangled snort of rage.

Mallory risked a peak around the corner of the tunnel mouth, and Anna fired a covering burst. Then she was on the move further up the tunnel, and Neb covered her. There was a rattle of gunfire in return from the sawfish, and Neb heard the muted thud of Gray’s sniper rifle from further back behind him.

Up ahead more and more of the centipedes were coming into the tunnel. Meathead took out a wave of them with his flamethrower, casting a golden light on the scene that faded slowly as the bodies burned.

‘Get ready to cover Mallory!’ Buzz yelled. As if the sawfish guessed something was about to happen there was automatic fire from several places at once, pinning the humans into their positions and slamming into the tunnel mouth around Buzz and Mallory. Neb and the others returned fire but it was impossible to see the sawfish. Mallory stepped out into the main tunnel and in one smooth movement flung something heavy towards the sawfish, like a full-field pass from a quarterback.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE, BITCHES!" he roared, as then he and Buzz turned and sprinted back up the tunnel.

The other humans covered their retreat but there were bursts of fire from multiple sawfish locations. Both Mallory and Buzz grunted in pain but neither man slowed. A sawfish stood up to get a better shot but almost immediately took a round in the shoulder from Gray and fell backwards out of sight. Meathead and Neb provided waves of covering fire. Neb’s ammunition was almost out, but he rammed home his final magazine and sprayed a burst. Then they all turned and ran together, taking heavy fire and returning it wildly, until they reached the side tunnel and dived into it. Growl was already there, barking angrily. They scrambled to their feet and kept running, putting as much ground as they could between themselves and the imminent explosion.

"I think I may have used a little too much of the --" Mallory began, but then the whole world shook and bellowed and they were thrown to the ground as if in an earthquake. Flame flashed down the main tunnel behind them almost instantaneously, like the ignition in an engine cylinder. It created a perfect circle of roiling orange fire at the tunnel junction. Then an arm of flame reached up the side tunnel as if trying to grasp them. Growl barked frantically.

"RUN YOU BASTARDS!" Buzz roared, and fear lent them all speed. With an instant to spare they dived out of the flame’s path down another side tunnel. The main force of the explosion howled by them, and after what seemed like a very long moment of pure rage, it petered out into nothing.

"Mallory you stupid fucker," Meathead growled. ‘You almost killed us.’

"I’m mission focused," Mallory said.

"Hustle," Buzz growled. "We need to get to the Control Room."

They were back on their feet and running again before Neb had a chance to catch his breath. Growl dashed sometimes ahead and sometimes behind. They followed the twisting path that the Guide had highlighted on their maps until they reached the Control Room, panting and sweating. Still so much running to go, Neb thought, but he just didn’t let himself think about it.

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He had been sure the Control Room would be locked, providing another challenge from the Game, but the door stood open. They entered in strike formation, hard and fast, but there was no-one there. Growl sniffed around happily, as if he was visiting a familiar place.

The room was large but almost empty, a high rectangular space with no windows. At the center was a table with a large, flat slate-like panel on it. The layout very much reminded Neb of the Room of Need with its central altar. He and Anna approached the tablet together, and when he touched it, symbols glowed in each corner, with a large one in the center. None of the symbols triggered Neb’s Main Scholar skill, but it didn’t matter -- he knew from his Earth studies that the central symbol was related to speaking or voice.

"Machine," he said. "Is the River Door closed?"

At once a silvery three-dimensional shape formed over the smooth panel, a formation of bright dust that hinted at a mouth and nose and eyes but was constantly changing and reforming.

"It is closed," a smooth and not-quite-human voice said.

"BOOM!" Mallory yelled, and there were high-fives all round, but Neb kept his focus.

"Can you open the Room of Need?" he asked.

"Only when the Temple Door is closed."

‘How long will it take to close?’

"Fourteen of your minutes."

Fourteen minutes. They were taking such a crazy risk here. Neb looked at Buzz, who nodded.

"Please close the Temple Door," Neb said. It felt like a momentous thing, and yet it also felt like a completely ordinary moment. He started a timer in his overlay for fourteen minutes, and shared it with the others. As he did so he saw the Game clock was down to eleven hours. Fuck.

"The guardians are on their way to close the Temple Door," the voice said.

"Understood," Neb said. "Open the Room of Need." His stomach felt sick. If something was to go wrong with this step, if the control system refused, then all of this would be for nothing. There was a pause wherein he felt his stomach might not be up to the task and he would simply vomit all over the tablet, but then the voice confirmed: "The guardians are on their way to open the Room of Need."

"MOVE MOVE MOVE!" yelled Buzz at once, frightening Neb half out of his wites. Neb dearly wanted to spend more time with the tablet, but he turned and ran with others.

For all of them, the long run back to the central space was tough, but for Neb, it was hell. The fourteen-minute timer ticked down relentlessly. Neb gritted his teeth and kept going far beyond the point where he felt that he would keel over in another two or three paces. He thought of how he had fallen at the zoo, and told himself over and over: You do not have permission to stop. Growl bounded and barked over and back past him as if in encouragement, and Neb envied his energy.

At last they burst out under the tree of the huge central space and stopped at the Room of Need. Neb leaned on his knees and heaved for breath and thought he might vomit. Two of the stone-like guardians they had seen inside the Temple Door were already at work on the Room of Need’s door. Seeing them in motion was unsettling, something made of stone come to life. Each of the massive lumbering things had inserted a crank into the holes on either side of the door, and were turning it smoothly. So in a way, Neb thought, it was that simple. The locking mechanism was in motion, small wheels whirring rapidly, the motion of the huge wheel that dipped below the floor barely visible. The door itself was sliding slowly but smoothly back into the wall. The humans were barely able to contain their impatience, the clock ticking away.

When it was fully open the guardians turned away and lumbered back across the space. The humans swept into the room, grabbed the printer without even a moment of celebration, and then sprinted on the path towards the Temple Door. There were only seven minutes left before it would be closed. Plenty of time, Neb tried to tell himself. But the words sounded ludicrous in his mind. They were still far from the Temple Door, and he knew it.

They pushed hard, every one of them now suffering. They did not even try to be cautious or quiet. This was all or nothing. Meathead was at the front of the group, making up for what he lacked in grace with bloody-minded determination. Anna and Gray were just behind, running lightly. Buzz and Mallory occasionally grunted but showed no other sign of the inner battle other than their sweat. Neb just forced himself along at the rear, his thoughts veering wildly from the darkly negative to the delusionally positive.

Then at last they could see the Temple Door ahead. The two guardians they had seen when they first entered stood on either side of the door, turning huge cranks they had inserted into holes in the wall. Their movement was so regular and so disconnected to what the humans were feeling that they somehow seemed toy-like. Each turn of the crank made a clicking, mechanical sound. The door was closing infinitesimally slowly, turn by inexorable turn.

But it was still open wide enough for them to get out. They were going to make it! Neb felt his heart soar. Only two minutes remained on the clock, but that was all they needed. Gray had taken the lead beside Buzz, sniper rifle strapped to her back, and Neb allowed himself a slight smile. She had done well. They all had done well.

But then he was covered in warm blood. He was falling. He couldn’t hear properly. He was sliding painfully on the ground. He could not make any sense of events. Something terrible is happening, his mind said, but it had no idea what.

His eyes were fixated on Gray. She was falling and trailing a thick arc of blood. She landed as though she had been violently thrown.

Over her head was the red skull of death.

"NOOOO FUCK!" screamed Neb, but the sound was muted.

Ahead of him, three sawfish stepped from the shadows. They would have been visible if only the humans had shown a little more caution.

One of the sawfish carried a short, thick energy weapon with a wide barrel. It fired at Meathead, who fell hard but then staggered to his knees. The sawfish shot him again, hitting him in the chest with a greenish energy projectile. Meathead looked at the creature with pure, undiluted hate before coughing up blood and falling forward heavily and lying still. He was down to two HP.

"No," Neb moaned. No. Dammit. He saw the three sawfish coming towards them slowly, and he recognised the walk. They were coming to give the still-living members of the team an agonizing end. And Neb wouldn’t be able to escape it this time.

He heard Buzz shouting but there was another blast from the terrible sawfish weapon. Silence followed.

Neb groaned again. He coughed and tasted blood in his mouth. He tried to move and managed only to cough harder. But he forced himself to angle his head to see what was happening ahead of him. The sawfish were approaching slowly. This is what they live for, he thought. Total victory. What would they do to Neb? He thought of his promise to himself and the one bullet he had promised to save, but he was far too badly injured to even reach for his pistol. Perhaps he would be dead before the sawfish could get to him.

Fuck. He could see the Temple Door ahead, closing slowly. The Guardians turned their cranks and ignored everything happening around them. Neb felt like an animal taken to the slaughter, gripped in a system designed to be impossible to escape. He sighed, and it turned into another painful cough.

He strained to see Gray. Her face was close to him, and in death she looked peaceful. He made himself look at the skull icon and at her face, as if to cement them in his memory. ‘Fuck,’ he said quietly, aloud. He thought of their last session with Ver, when Gray had been the lowest level of anyone in the team. Was that why she had fought so hard against the sawfish, taking risks to snipe them? Was that why they in turn had targeted her first? Neb felt a warm tear form, and his body seemed to lose whatever last touch of strength had been holding it together.

A sawfish was standing over him, looking down. Smiling, maybe, with its fish-like expression.

"Now you will learn," the creature said. Fuck you Neb wanted to say, but he found he could not form the words. The sawfish slowly pulled out its sword, the metal making a dull scraping sound. It was similar to the one that Neb had carried, the blade edge shimmering white, but with a different design of arcs and whorls of metal. "It was a freak event that you defeated Gerath," the sawfish said. "But we are stronger for his death. In his name I will take your heart, and restore the natural order."

The sawfish sank the tip of the blade into Neb’s chest and Neb screamed, a howl of pure agony. He thought the pain could not possibly get any worse but then the sawfish sliced down through his ribs in a neat straight line. Neb felt the bump of impact at each bone, the blade cutting through almost frictionlessly.

"FUUUUUUUCK!" he screamed, and now his only thought was: Let this end.

The sawfish stood over him while Neb screamed for a long few seconds more, then it withdrew the bloody sword. It reached down slowly with its ugly, grasping hand. It’s going to feel around in my chest and pull out my heart, Neb thought, and he could feel the fore-presence of the event as if it was already happening. He gurgled in pure fear and horror, and the thing did its strange smile again, a softening of its features. Its fingertips touched the cut and began to nudge their way inside.

Then there was a blur of movement and an exhalation of air from the sawfish as it staggered backwards. Growl stood over Neb, true to his name, sounding ferocious.

The sawfish was shocked for a moment, but then it smiled. It took out its sidearm deliberately, and shot Growl at point blank range.

There was a whimper and then silence.

Neb let his head fall hopelessly back to the floor.