The whiteness was beyond bright, as if all matter was absent and they were floating in pure energy. Neb clung to Anna and she to him. The brightness dimmed slowly, gently disappearing as though the world was coming back into existence.

When Neb and Anna disengaged, every other being in the room, including all the other humans, was lying on the ground.

‘Jesus Neb,’ Anna said, and she was pale. ‘Are they dead?’

‘Just stunned,’ he answered.

‘What the fuck… What just happened?’

It gave him a small extra dose of satisfaction to see her finally knocked off balance.

‘This printer,’ he answered, and tapped the device where it still sat on the desk, ‘is not the original.’ He looked at it almost lovingly. ‘A thing that can print a copy of itself is a very interesting item. And this particular copy has a few modifications.’

‘What…’ Anna began. ‘But… is that not a weapon? How was it not prohibited by the rule we agreed to?’

‘The prohibition is on offensive weapons,’ Neb said. ‘This one is defensive. And non-lethal.’

‘But… How do you even use it? When did you even create the copy? How did you know we would be betrayed? ’

He smiled. ‘It’s easy to use the printer -- you just ask it for what you want. I used it when we were resting in the tree. And I didn’t know we would be betrayed, but it seemed worthwhile to take the precaution when it was easy to do so. I asked for a copy of the printer that was indistinguishable from the real thing, but would emit a discharge to make everyone in the room unconscious if they did not have their eyes tightly closed. The countdown started as soon as Favian pushed the power button.’

‘And… it could do that?’

‘Look around,’ he said, gesturing. ‘It’s a device of nearly unlimited power. Unfortunately though, it came with very little charge, and one of the things I discovered is that it won’t print its own power source.’ He smiled to himself. ‘The Game ensures its own integrity.’

‘But how do we wake up our own people?’ Anna asked. ‘When will they come around?’

‘Everyone will come around in a few minutes,’ Neb said. ‘Humans, goblins and others.’ He had a reckless, half-in-control feeling. He had thought about this moment, but never really expected to come to it. ‘I was able to print one wake-up orb also.’ He held out a gray orb in his hand.

‘But…’ She was still trying to catch up. ‘We’re totally outnumbered. How are we going to get out of here? And there are dozens more guards upstairs. Maybe hundreds.’

‘We’re going to teleport,’ Neb said. He took a new egress kit from his inventory and opened the box. ‘The receiver is in the transport outside.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Did you print that too?’

‘There wouldn’t have been enough energy. But as it happens, I stole it from these goons when they first showed me the weapon.’ He looked down at the unconscious Favian. ‘I saw the kit in the safe, and it was easy to drop the weapon as a distraction and grab it.’

‘Bloody hell, Doc,’ Anna said. ‘Weren’t you afraid you’d set it off?’

He half-smiled. ‘I think Meathead was afraid of that, too. But you think the Main developed weaponry far beyond our understanding that could be set off accidentally? Seemed worth the risk.’

She was very nearly back to her usual state of equilibrium, he could see. It was extraordinary how fast she could adapt. ‘So what now?’ she asked. ‘Who do we wake up with the orb? Buzz?’

‘Well,’ Neb said. He went to the back of the room and put the ultrafusion device into his inventory. ‘I actually had something else in mind for it.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘I want to get my sword back.’

‘Where is it?’

‘I don’t know. But I know who does.’ He touched the gray orb to Favian, and a countdown timer started from 30 seconds. ‘Maybe you can encourage him to tell us. You can’t use any weapons, but… I suspect you might find a way.’

She met his gaze. Then she said: ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

The moment Favian woke up, she kicked him hard in the face.

‘Argh!’ he screamed, clamping his hands to his face, blood welling through his fingers. ‘What the -- ARGH!’ She kicked him again in the stomach and he doubled over, wheezing.

‘Favian,’ she said, in the tone of voice someone else might use for ordering a coffee. ‘We’d like the sawfish sword back, if you don’t mind.’

‘What… I don’t know… ARGH!’ She kicked him again. Favian was still trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. One moment he had been in total command, sending the humans off to be tortured to death, and now he was on the receiving end of some very unpleasant treatment.

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‘It’s in one of the other two safes, I’d suspect,’ Neb said. ‘We’ll need the combination.’

Favian hesitated, and Anna stamped on his chest.

‘Argh! The left safe! Left!’ He groaned in pain, clutching his ribs. ‘Seven… Nineteen…’

Neb used the numbers to open the safe. His sword and the goose canon were inside. He sighed as he picked them up.

Neb tagged the humans with egress tags, and held the activation switch in his hand. Anna looked around the room, at the unconscious goblins and guards. Favian glared at them hatefully, cradling his chest, his face covered in blood and already starting to swell. He didn’t dare speak.

‘We should take out the goblins before we leave,’ Anna said quietly to Neb. ‘They’re enemy combatants.’

‘Yeah,’ Neb said. He reached down and picked up the funerary knife from where it had fallen from Mrax’s grasp, and weighed it in his hand. It was a hypnotically horrible thing.

‘It’s tactically the right thing,’ Anna pressed. ‘If you don’t think you can do it, I can…’

‘I thought of adding a delayed explosion to the printer,’ he cut in. ‘It could take out this entire room. Maybe all of Edgetown.’

Anna regarded him coolly. ‘Did you add it?’

He paused a beat. ‘No.’

‘That’s a pity.’

‘Quite possibly.’ He looked down at Mrax and felt a surge of longing to drive the funerary knife into his chest. But he would be frozen if he did so, under what Favian had called the System Rule. A curious phrase, and something Neb knew he would need to think more about. ‘But I was afraid that if I did, the printer might be classed as an offensive weapon, and be disabled.’

Anna met his gaze for a long moment. He knew she was trying to read him, to determine if he was telling the truth. And he knew she wasn’t sure what she saw there, because he wasn’t sure himself. Maybe he should have added the explosion. Maybe a part of him regretted not doing it.

‘A fair point,’ she said. ‘But still, there are other ways.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But everyone is going to wake up any moment. I don’t know exactly how long we have left. But not long. We should go.’

‘Neb, tactically there is no ambiguity about --’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know. But we’re out of time. And anyway, the Game…’

He trailed off, not sure how to complete the thought.

‘The Game wants us to kill or be killed,’ Anna said.

‘Probably you’re right. But we’re out of time.’ Already some of the goblins and guards were starting to stir.

Anna sighed. ‘I hope we don’t regret this,’ she said.

‘We might.’

She looked around at all the helpless forms. ‘You did well here, Neb,’ she said.

‘Thanks,’ he said, and hit the egress switch. Instantly they were outside in the cold evening air.

Mallory, Meathead and Buzz came around only a few moments later, and were quite confused to find themselves suddenly outside. They heard shouts from the town as the alarm was raised.

‘No time for questions,’ Neb said. ‘We need to hustle.’

There was no argument. Once they were all in transport and Meathead was driving them smoothly away from Edgetown, Neb and Anna gave Buzz a full rundown of what happened. Neb then had to listen to several long minutes of Buzz berating him for not sharing everything he had known or guessed ahead of time.

Neb did not defend himself, but silently held tight to the point that had known nothing, and had guessed a lot. And guesses, as he had established, didn’t hold much water with Buzz. But eventually Buzz slowed, then stopped and was silent. Then he said: ‘Well fucking done, though, Doc,’ and he clapped Neb on the shoulder. ‘Now -- let’s talk ultrafusion.’

They spent the remainder of the journey talking through how they would deploy the weapon. Predictably enough, Buzz wanted to do so immediately. They made straight for the gate. There was less than four hours left on the Game clock as they reached a hilltop about two kilometers out. The mesomorph raged and bellowed against its chains. Distance and size played tricks on the mind -- the Mesomorph seemed by turns close and far away. It was too big to be there, too outrageous to exist. Neb felt a nervous tension in his chest and stomach.

‘Okay,’ Buzz said, for about the twentieth time. ‘Here’s the plan. Everyone gets in position. Mallory fires. We check for impact. Then we ride out of here on the transport in case the boom’s a little bigger than anticipated. Everyone clear?’

They were all clear. Mallory bent to his work like a master technician. And he was a master technician, Neb knew -- he had trained for years in explosives and heavy ordnance. And like everything else that Mallory did, he loved it. Neb wished he had known him better, and then he caught the past tense of his thoughts, and pushed them away like something shameful. The five of them were still alive. They were reaching the endgame. Take out the mesomorph and get the fuck off this Cricle. As to what lay ahead… Let tomorrow’s problems be tomorrow’s.

The ultrafusion weapon on its tripod looked pure to Neb in a way he couldn’t quite define, an object that was the essence of the Main. Mallory dialed in the final adjustments calmly, as if he had been getting ready for this moment all his life. Then he stepped back.

‘Locked and loaded,’ he said.

Buzz’s eyes were bright. He was standing taller and straighter than ever. All eyes were on him, but the commander seemed distant, as if he had reached a new plane of hyperfocus. It was so much pressure to bear, Neb thought. But Buzz looked like he was having the time of his life.

‘Final checks,’ he ordered. Mallory went through everything one last time. Neb felt his heart speed up. Down at the gate there was no sign of movement in the little village. The mesomorph stamped and howled and pulled on its chains. Evening had fallen, but the scene was brightly lit up by the gate lights.

‘Ready,’ Mallory confirmed.

‘In three,’ Buzz said. Neb looked from face to face of the others, each one tense with expectation. Even Anna’s excitement was obvious. A new weapon, a new theater, a new adversary -- this was what they lived for.

‘Two…’

Mallory had the launch control in his hands and he was staring at it as though it was his last connection to reality.

‘One…’

Neb found himself unable to look away from the weapon. Was this an act of Game-altering genius or mind-boggling stupidity? They were about to find out.

Buzz said: ‘Fire.’

Mallory pushed the button.