When he awoke the others did not seem to have slept or changed position. They were still gathered together, still trying to come up with something to try to escape the compound. This is probably how it should be, Neb thought, with a wrench of sadness. Them and me separately.

He stood and stretched, and looked down to see that Growl was asleep on the floor beneath. Anna saw him looking down. ‘He was barking for hours,’ she said to him with a smile. ‘I think you’ve made a friend.’

Neb smiled back. He knew it looked sad but he didn’t try to hide it. If he had Anna’s ability to lock things away and control emotion, he would be a very different person. He sighed. What would happen to Growl and to the guardians and to Favian and everyone else once this Circle closed? What kind of life were they, really? He was tempted to say they were just creations of the Game, but they seemed so much more than that. So much more alive. He strongly felt that the Main, for all that they were clearly fucked up, would not treat life cheaply, even in simulacra.

Then Anna’s words came back to him, as if in an echo: He was barking for hours. I think you’ve made a friend.

Growl was not a dog, though. He was an intelligence of his own. A rightful citizen of the Emorist compound. A friend to the Emorists.

He got to this feet suddenly. His subconscious was trying to tell him something. A thought almost formed.

Why had Growl been barking?

Neb whistled and Growl immediately woke up. When he saw Neb he tried to dash up the trunk of the tree before falling back, barking repeatedly. He was very worked up, his body shaking.

Oh shit.

‘Guys,’ Neb said. The others looked over curiously. Neb felt a wave of irritation so strong it was really just anger. ‘Growl is telling us to follow him. Is that not fucking obvious?’

‘Follow him where, Doc?’ Mallory said. ‘This place is designed to be fucking impregnable. We’re going to have to find a way to blow a --’

The thought slipped into place in Neb’s mind as if it had always been there.

‘Yes,’ Neb interrupted. ‘Impregnable from the outside.’

That got their attention. But Neb felt his irritation catch and linger. Did they not understood that Growl had already fucking saved them all? That it was only because of him that any of them were still alive?

‘We need to go right now,’ Neb said, and then, without waiting for confirmation from Buzz or any of the rest of them, he began to climb down the tree. Already Growl was streaking towards one of the side halls. Neb did not look back to see if the others were coming. He just ran after Growl as fast as his aching body could manage. Growl turned down a small tunnel then another smaller still. It led into a cylindrical chamber with stairs spiraling around the walls, and when Neb looked up the stairs were lost in a distant brightness.

Growl dashed up a few steps and looked back, barking. Neb sighed and began to climb. He already knew that he would not be far up when his legs and lungs started to burn. He took one step after another, pushing through the pain until finally he just had to stop to take a breath. The others were behind him now, and they waited for him to move without saying anything. He didn’t have the courage to look up and see how far there was still to go, but just returned to the endless task of climbing step after step towards the brightness above.

But finally, blessedly, the stairs came to an end and the group came out onto a narrow metal balcony. Over his head was a metal grating, and beyond it was the Game’s late-afternoon sky. Air moved around the huge space in a constant whisper. The balcony ran around the circumference of the space until it reached a final set of stairs that led up the grating itself. Growl dashed up and down those stairs, barking furiously. Then he sat and waited, tail wagging but his eyes and teeth giving him the impression of a hellhound about to pounce. Neb patted him and Growl growled happily, a deep, machinelike sound.

Neb climbed the last few stairs, ignoring the shaky numbness in his legs. There was a hatch in the mesh at the top of the stairs, and it opened easily. Impregnable from the outside. He turned to look at the others properly for the first time since they had left the tree, and they filed past him as if on silent command. They climbed out onto the mesh and buzz gave orders, putting them in defensive positions.

Neb crouched down beside Growl and pulled the creature’s head to his own. Growl nuzzled back. ‘You’re not coming, I assume,’ Neb said to him quietly. ‘That wouldn’t really fit the Game’s narrative.’

Growl kept growling and wagging his tail. Neb held him for another long moment, then gave him a final pat and stood. He went up the steps out onto the grating, and held the hatch open and looked back at Growl.

‘Last chance,’ he said. But Growl just panted and wagged his tail and growled, and then barked his deep bark.

Neb sighed and let the hatch close. Growl barked one final time, then turned and disappeared back into the darkness.

Neb felt the tiredness seeping into his bones. He heard Anna say: ‘It’s not far back to the transport.’ There was more conversation, then they were on the move again. Neb let himself just follow without thinking. They jogged along the edge of a deep gorge, then scrambled down some very steep slopes. They came back to the transport from the lower range of the mountains they had seen behind the temple. It was a relief to see the machine again, and they piled into it. It seemed bigger without Gray in it, Neb thought. As soon as they were moving Neb let his mind completely disengage, holding his rifle but knowing he was unlikely to notice even if a fifty-meter monster appeared right in front of him. He could not ever remember being so tired.

It was late evening as they approached Edgetown, its lights bright in the gloaming. Just over seven hours remained on the Game clock. They had not seen another player or creature on the journey back. The world seemed to be awaiting its own extinction.

‘Drive slowly,’ Buzz said to Meathead as they got close. ‘Don’t want to spook these jumpy bastards.’

They were met by a group of security guards who gathered around the transport in a practiced motion when they came to a stop. As soon as they were out of the vehicle the lead guard said: ‘Do you promise not to use offensive weapons in Edgetown?’

‘We do,’ Buzz answered.

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The overlay updated at once with their new weaponless status, as it had done for Neb and Meathead. Neb experimentally tried to draw his rifle, but could not. We’re fucked, he thought. He could not shake the certainty of it.

They followed the guard into the town, walking in a formation that still expected Gray to be there. Neb’s eyes kept going to the empty space where she should be. He thought of how she had been the night before the scorp attack, upstairs in the ruined house. Concerned for him. Protective. She had tried to help him, but in the end, he had not been able to help her. He felt that something boiling and powerful had been ignited inside him and would not now be quietened. Not just anger at the Game and its fucked up world. More than that. Rage.

They were led through the courtyard and to the tower. The castle was full of deep shadows. Meathead was beside Neb, and asked him quietly: ‘You okay, Doc?’

‘Never better, Meathead,’ Neb answered flatly. And in a strange fucked-up way, he meant it. Meathead punched him on the shoulder a little more gently than usual, and said nothing more.

They were escorted down the stairs to Favian’s room. He was sitting in his chair exactly as before. Guards lined the walls, a lot more of them this time. The three safes stood closed.

Favian was silent for a long time after they arrived, moments in which Neb could almost feel the Game clock ticking down. Favian stared at them from behind his steepled hands.

‘I must say,’ he said finally, ‘I didn’t think I would ever see you again.’

‘Well then you must be fucking thrilled,’ Buzz said, and Neb found himself half-smiling at the commander’s unyielding hardness. ‘Doc, show him the item,’ Buzz ordered.

Neb paused a moment. Was this right? Could anything here be right? But there was no other option. He took the printer from his inventory and put it gently on the desk, and there were some gasps around the room. He saw something in Favian’s eyes that was hard to name -- lust and greed, certainly, but something more. Something darker. The moment made Neb certain that Favian really was alive, more than a simulation.

‘Now give us our fucking weapon,’ Buzz demanded.

Favian could not take his eyes off the printer. ‘I need to confirm it’s real first,’ he answered after a moment, not looking up.

‘You know it’s fucking real --’ Buzz began, but Neb jumped in.

‘First open the safe,’ he said quietly. ‘We need to know the ultrafusion device is still here. If it isn’t, you don’t need to worry about whether the printer is real or not.’

Favian’s eyes flicked to Neb for a fraction of a second, then he nodded to one of the guards. ‘But you may not approach it,’ Favian said. ‘Not after last time.’ He glanced at Neb derisively. Favian’s hands were caressing and exploring the printer in a way that was unsettling. What is he dreaming of? Neb wondered. The printer was a wildly powerful device -- what did it really mean, in the Game’s uncertain, fucked-up language?

On Favian’s command the lead guard went to the middle safe, hiding the combination numbers with his body just as Favian had done. The door unlocked with a clunk and the guard opened it. The ultrafusion case was sitting there as before. Three guards sood on either side of it, grim-faced people who looked as if they had been waiting all their lives to do this particular duty. The lead guard opened the case, and the ultrafusion weapon was there as before.

‘Thank you,’ Neb said to the silence of the room. ‘I have just one more question.’

Everyone in the room looked to him except Favian. He could almost hear the unspoken question from Buzz and the others: What the fuck are you doing?

‘Mmm,’ Favian said, not really listening. He pressed the power button on the printer and a gentle blue glow began to emanate from the base of the device. It was brighter than the blue of the healing orbs, more like the blue of the sky.

‘Where are they?’ Neb asked.

Favian did not look up. ‘Where are who?’ he said distractedly.

‘The goblins,’ Neb answered calmly. ‘Your friends.’

Favian’s eyes finally snapped to him and he stared at Neb with a hard-to-read expression on his face. Neb could sense the reaction of the humans behind him, followed by their collective thought: Oh fuck we can’t use our weapons.

Favian seemed to be Neb to considering a lie, and then in an instant his whole demeanor and expression changed. His body language transformed to such an extent he seemed to morph into a different person.

‘You guessed,’ he sneered, and he smiled humorlessly.

Neb smiled back, just as coldly. ‘They seem like your kind of people.’

Favian glared at him with a hate that was now undisguised. Every hint of polish had disappeared.

‘You fucking humans,’ he said. ‘You’re such fucks. Why did you come back here, if you knew? Did you think you could fucking talk me around, or that maybe you’d find a way to make your guns work against a fucking System Rule?’

He stepped around from behind the desk and stormed towards Neb, who didn’t flinch. But then Favian stopped suddenly, looking at the others. They were looking from Neb to Favian, and their confusion was evident.

‘Oh shit,’ Favian said, looking from face to face. ‘You didn’t know, did you? You didn’t know! This little fuck didn’t tell you that you were going to your deaths, even though he knew. What the FUCK!’ He yelled the last word, like a slap. ‘Humans are just fucking wild, man!’ He turned towards the back of the room. ‘Yoreth, Mrax -- get in here!’

A door opened and a troop of goblins entered. Last was Mrax, and there was a look on his face that was similar to how Favian had looked at the printer but lit by an even darker evil. In his right hand was the funerary knife, and he turned it around and around unconsciously. Almost lovingly. It looked more like a tool than a knife, Neb thought, something industrial or agricultural. He shuddered.

The other goblins stopped at the back of the room. Mrax came forward, taking his time, holding the knife, walking down the line of humans. He paused at Buzz, and then at Anna, but when he got to Meathead, he smiled. He reached out and touched Meathead’s face with his scaly hand, letting it linger there. Meathead didn’t flinch.

‘No words now, big man?’ Mrax said softly. ‘You had so much to say before. But I told you you would learn my name.’

He tensed as if about to strike with the funerary knife, but Favian interjected. ‘Not here,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t make a mess. The dungeon is prepared. With all the toys.’ He smiled, a touch of his old polish creeping back darkly. ‘I may even come and help.’

‘Your house, your rules,’ Mrax said, though his irritation was evident. He glanced back at the other goblins. ‘Take them,’ he ordered.

The goblins came forward as one.

‘Just one moment,’ Neb said, stepping forward. His action was so unexpected the goblins paused and looked to Mrax, uncertain what to do. But Neb ignored them and stepped over to Anna. ‘There’s something I always wanted to tell you,’ he said to her quietly.

‘Oh would you fucking look!’ Mrax cried, and then he laughed deeply, a sound that was as genuine as it was horrible. ‘Well fuck me!’ he yelled. ‘I guess you two will have to die together! Love is a beautiful thing -- especially the unrequited kind!’

There was a roar of laughter in the room. Anna looked at Neb with something close to shock in her beautiful eyes, as if to say: What the fuck are you doing?

‘Anna,’ Neb said. Her beauty was absolutely flawless, he thought. The years had brought her a sense of presence that turned her from angel to goddess. The room was silent, watching this briefest of pauses before the horrors to come.

‘Anna…’ he said again. He leaned in close to her, his head almost on her shoulder, and for the tiniest, strangest of moments, he found comfort there.

Then he whispered into her ear: ‘Close your eyes as hard as you can.’

There was a little sound behind him, and then the room went purely, intensely, painfully white.