Zerfen’s teleportation system moved them to only a few hundred meters away from the gate. Ahead they could see two roughly-humanoid player teams engaged in a short-range firefight amongst the blackened ruins of the village. Neb watched two players fall to a grenade, and then a third player revive one of their downed teammates, the orb glowing blue and pure in the darkness. But then a second grenade finished the other player, and the red skull appeared. You stupid bastards, Neb thought. Stop fighting each other.

The ultramorph hovered over the scene like a demon, so tall that even Zerfen needed to lean back to see the creature’s face. As they watched a group of three players made a run for the gate, dashing from amongst the ruins, spreading out to maximize their chances. They were some sort of quadruped civ that Neb had never seen before, extremely fast and maneuverable. They kept low to the ground and raced towards the gate. It was only a hundred meters or so distant from their position, the hugeness of the structure partially disguised by the outrageous enormity of the ultramorph. Please let them get through, Neb found himself praying silently. Please let it not see them.

But the huge creature saw or sensed them at once. It lashed down with its huge whip and the weapon crackled with white light as it scoured the earth, flinging gouts of dust and rock into the air, making a sound like thunder. Two players died under the first blow. The third player did not deviate from their course but streaked on in a straight line, as fast as Neb had ever seen any non-mechanised thing move. For a few seconds it seemed as if, by some miracle, they would make it. They were only forty meters back from the gate, then thirty, then twenty. They were within touching distance.

Then the ultramorph slammed a huge fist down, obliterating the player as surely as an orbital strike. The blow left an impact crater where the lines between the ultramorph’s fingers were visible as ridges. There was no sign of the player; the red skull hovered over what appeared only to be a patch of bar earth.

‘Fuck me,’ Meathead muttered.

Zerfen stood with the five quoncent chains hanging loosely from one of his four arms, which was back in its blade form. He took one of the chains and put it around his own neck, then held another out.

‘Choose,’ he said to Buzz. ‘One of you may go. If that person survives the ultramorph, they can enjoy Circle Two with my warmest congratulations.’

‘Okay,’ Buzz began. ‘One of us needs to --’

‘Oh fuck off, Buzz,’ Anna interrupted, and even given the circumstances it seemed a wildly shocking thing to say. ‘You can consider yourself relieved of your command.’

Buzz looked at first shocked, then enraged, but then accepting. It didn’t make any difference now. Anna stared at him coldly. ‘I presume your new friends are going to take you through regardless?’ she said.

‘No,’ he answered simply. ‘I die here.’

It didn’t soften her gaze one bit. ‘That’s a pity,’ she said. ‘Maybe you can file a complaint.’ She turned to the others. ‘Who wants to go?’

Neb, Meathead and Mallory were silent.

‘You’ll have to choose,’ Buzz said quietly to her. He was almost apologetic, Neb thought. Neb expected his mind to be spinning, heart pounding, but his thoughts felt clear. Everything was coming down to these last few minutes. In his mind he saw the non-gun, saw every millimeter of it, every symbol of every dial. He needed to choose the moment to use it.

‘I’m not going,’ she said to the others. ‘It’s one of you three. That’s an order.’

Meathead and Mallory both began to protest at once. ‘It should be random among the four of us, we can draw lots for --’

‘Shut the fuck up, all of you,’ she ordered. ‘I’m the ranking officer here. Who’s going?’

Neb, Meathead and Mallory were all silent.

‘Fine,’ Anna said with a sigh. ‘Let it be random amongst you three.’ She took a round from her pistol. ‘I’ll toss this and whichever one of you it points to is the person who goes.’

‘M’am -- Anna -- with respect…’ Mallory tried again, but she silenced him with a look.

Anna tossed the round in the air and it spun in the glare of the gate lights before landing on the coal-black ground, raising a little puff of dust.

It pointed directly at Mallory.

There was a completely silent moment. Then Meathead spoke. ‘Fuck me,’ he said to Mallory. ‘Some ambassador for humanity you’ll be.’

‘Lieutenant,’ Mallory said at once to Anna, ignoring Meathead. ‘I protest. I really fucking protest. It’s clearly better for you to be the one who --’

‘There are seventeen minutes left on the clock,’ Anna interrupted. She took the chain from Zerfen with an undisguised look of hatred, then stepped up on her tip-toes to put it over Mallory’s neck. He didn’t resist, but his eyes said everything for him.

‘Anna… Please…’

She stepped back from him.

‘Get moving, soldier,’ she said.

‘Anna…’ Mallory said, agony written on his face. ‘It should be you. What the fuck good will I be without…’ He waved his hand at the others, the gesture taking them all in. ‘I protest. I protest fucking big time.’ He just couldn’t find the words to make himself more clear.

Something yielded in Anna. She stepped forward and whispered something in his ear, her hand on his huge chest, then she hugged him.

‘Now go,’ she said, and her reserve cracked. ‘Right now, Mallory. Go.’

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Mallory stared at her for a last lingering moment. He looked like there was a huge amount he wanted to say, but he could find the words for none of it. Then he stood straight and fist-bumped Neb and Meathead and fist-bumped them both. ‘See you around, bitches,’ he said. He glanced at Buzz with an expression of loathing, and took one last look at Anna. Then he turned and walked across the blackened land towards the gate.

The ultramorph screamed and stamped and lashed the ground with its whip. Mallory did not flinch or deviate or look back. His body, normally so large by human standards, seemed to grow tiny in the blackness of the ultramorph’s killing field. The chain he wore did not glow or change or do anything. It seemed like just a chain. Maybe it was a stupid joke played by the Main, Neb thought. A final insult in an unwinnable game.

Mallory walked ahead boldly, steadily, never looking back. All eyes were on him. The ultramorph bellowed and a ring of flame exploded from its head and floated upwards before dissipating, as if the energies of the creature were so intense they simply could not be contained.

All eyes were on Mallory, and Neb took the chance to slip the non-gun from his inventory. Meathead and Anna were standing a few paces away from him, and Zerfen was watching them and watching Mallory. No-one was expecting any trouble from the academic liaison.

Behind his back he slipped one of the two rounds from the Game Box into the non-gun chamber and racked it with a small click. The parts moved beautifully smoothly, but the noise to Neb sounded like a hammer striking an anvil. Meathead glanced over only half-paying attention, then looked away again. Neb felt with his finger that a trigger had now emerged. It was not a non-gun any more. The artifact was ready.

Neb’s hands were slippery with fear. On the field Mallory was halfway to the gate, and the ultramorph had not reacted to his presence. But then the creature smacked its whip into the ground close enough to Mallory to raise a cloud of black dust that obscured him from view. The other humans visibly tensed. But Mallory reappeared after a few moments when the dust dissipated. He adjusted his course away from the huge creature, but then the ultramorph dashed in three quick steps to that side of the field, hauling on the chains that held it to the gate. Yet still it did not do anything to Mallory.

Buzz spoke. ‘You’ve seen the chain working,’ he said to Zerfen. ‘Our deal is complete.’

‘Not until he’s through,’ Zerfen answered without looking at Buzz, keeping his eyes on Mallory.

Very carefully Neb turned the dials of the non-gun behind his back. He knew them so well he did not have to look. There was a tiny variation in the clicks when the dials were at their home position, a beautiful detail in the design.

‘Nine minutes on the clock,’ Zerfen said irritably. ‘Can you tell him to hurry up?’

‘And how the fuck would we do that?’ Anna snapped.

‘Oh sorry,’ Zerfen smirked. ‘No comms. This level. So fucking basic.’

Buzz was standing near Zerfen, and Neb watched his hand go unconsciously to the explosive belt he was wearing, touching it as if to reassure himself it was still there. Poor Buzz, he thought. Neb was certain that their commander felt that he was doing the right thing. And maybe he was. Maybe it was Neb that was wrong.

Still, though. He was set on his course.

He grasped the artifact in his hand and got ready.

But at that moment, he saw that Meathead was also ready to go. He had quietly pulled his combat knife from its sheath, and he was tensing his body.

Oh fuck, Meathead! Don’t! Neb tried to communicate with Meathead by sheer force of thought.

Then on the field, the ultramorph howled and belched a massive expulsion of fire. Mallory was lost from view in thick black smoke and dark flame. Anna gasped. Buzz looked even stonier than usual.

‘Huh,’ Zerfen said. ‘Maybe the chains don’t work after all.’ He turned to the humans, and his four arms were now in their blade configuration.

At that moment Buzz also saw what Meathead was about to do. ‘STAND DOWN MEATHEAD!’ he yelled. His hand clamped down on his explosive vest.

But Meathead had already launched himself. He crashed hard into Zerfen, who did not quite get his blades around in time. They both sprawled on the ground. The chains went flying. Meathead jammed his knife down into Zerfen’s chest, and the maniton screamed in rage.

At the same moment Neb lifted the non-gun, aimed at Buzz’s center mass, and pulled the trigger. The round hit him in the chest with a thump, like he had been punched hard, and he took a step back. He looked at Neb with an open-mouthed shock that might in other circumstances have been comical.

On the field the ultramorph screamed. Only seven minutes remained on the Game clock. Players were coming out of hiding and running wildly for the gate. The ultramorph was in a killing frenzy, smashing and thrashing with its whip, slamming down its fists, stamping his feet, belching fire from all over its body. Neb had no idea where Mallory was.

Behind Buzz a portal opened, a circle cut brightly into the air, showing a daytime world beyond. Through it Neb could see the green grass of another Circle, one that had not been subjected to an ultrafusion firestorm. Buzz was still standing there, still processing what was happening, and then he was yanked powerfully and almost instantaneously through the portal as if pulled by an invisible rope. One instant he was standing beside them and the next he was standing on the grass of the other Circle, looking back at Neb with shocked eyes.

Meathead, Anna and Zerfen were locked in combat, rolling on the ground. Anna’s eyes met Neb’s for an instant, bright and alive, watching him shoot Buzz. He could almost hear her think: So that’s what it’s for.

Neb had a last glimpse of Buzz’s face and he saw a sad, shocked resignation. Then the portal snapped shut, in the last fraction of a second before it closed he saw the white glow of an explosion. Buzz had detonated.

Neb took the second round from his inventory. His fingers were shaking so badly he couldn’t load it into the artifact. He needed a clear shot at Zerfen, but the maniton and Meathead and Anna were a rolling ball of lethal movement. ‘GET BACK FROM HIM!’ Neb screamed. ‘GET BACK! I NEED TO SHOOT HIM!’

But that was easier said than done. Zerfen was immensely strong and was already getting the upper hand in the fight. Both the humans were bleeding from bad cuts. Meathead had blood running down his face from a deep slice. Zerfen did not seem at all bothered by the huge combat knife sticking from his chest.

‘GET BACK!’ Neb screamed again. He saw his chance and hauled Anna away from the fight. She landed painfully on her back, holding her side with bloody hands. ‘Get Meathead out of the way!’ he screamed. ‘Give me a shot!’

She understood at once. She got to her feet in evident pain while Neb still fumbled with the round, trying to slot it into the Main device. Oh fucking come on, he thought. Meathead and Zerfen were still locked together, and one of the creature’s blades was now sticking bloodily out of Meathead’s back, but still Meathead would not yield.

Zerfen was lying on his back, struggling with Meathead. Anna scooped a handful of sand and dust from the black ground and dropped it into Zerfen’s eyes, then stamped down on his face. He howled in pain. She had to jump away to avoid his blades, but then she got her opening to grab Meathead and haul him back with all her might. Anna was very strong, and Meathead was greatly weakened. He fell backwards, Zerfen’s sword-arm sliding out of his body, and landed on the ground floppily, chest heaving.

Neb finally managed to get the round into the artifact and rack it. He stepped forward. His hands were still shaking but his training had prepared him perfectly for moments just like this one. He breathed in, steadied himself, and then shot Zerfen in the chest where he lay on the ground at almost point-blank range.

But with some superhuman reflex the maniton was able to swing out a blade and partially deflect the shot. There was a ting of metal on metal.

‘Oh FUCK!’ Neb cried. The maniton laughed his grinding laugh.

‘You fucking asshole,’ Neb muttered to himself, then drew the sawfish sword and jumped forward into the last attack.