Will weighed the three options.
Leave. Fight now. Follow.
The chained man's eyes were burned into his memory — I know you're there and please in the same breath. Will had seen that look before — in hospital waiting rooms, in his father's face across a kitchen table stacked with debt letters. The look of someone who had run out of options and was now betting everything on a stranger deciding to give a damn. It stopped his hands from moving. It stopped the math.
He was done being the stranger who walked away.
"We move now," Will whispered.
Good, Khan's ancient voice rumbled behind his ribs. A general who ignores his instincts is merely a clerk. We claim them.
We aren't claiming them, Will thought, his heart hammering against his bruised ribs. We're just not letting them die.
Maddie didn't ask for a speech. She just nodded, her jaw set tight. Don looked terrified, his hands shaking slightly, but he didn't step back.
"The lieutenant took two men north," Will whispered. "Two guards left. We take them simultaneously. Maddie, I need you to draw one away. Don, you're the backup."
Maddie slipped out of her jacket and handed it to Will. "If I die, tell Allison she gets my boots."
Will crept through the undergrowth, his boots sinking into the wet, rotted earth. Every twist of his torso sent a burning spike through his ribs. The System hadn't magically healed him; he was operating on pure adrenaline and borrowed time.
He reached the edge of the camp, crouching behind a stack of metal crates. His hands, slick with sweat, rummaged through the corporate cache. He found a quiver of real, balanced arrows and slung it over his shoulder, then snatched a set of small brass keys hanging from a hook on the supply cart.
Beside the keys, a discarded comm-unit lay facedown in the mud, its speaker hissing with a frequency that made the back of Will's neck prickle. It wasn't the standard corporate chatter about logistics or profit margins. A voice, brittle with raw, unrefined fear, crackled through the static:
"The static is rising in Sector 4. Level 2 containment is soft. If we don't seal the leak, the Overseer says the First Gate will pulse early."
Will froze, his hand hovering over the mud-caked device. He didn't know what a Gate was then, only that the voice sounded like a death sentence. He shoved the unit deeper into the dirt, silencing the ghost, and forced his focus back to the brass keys in his palm.
Will nocked an arrow. He tied the keyring to the shaft using a frayed piece of his own shoelace. Forty meters away, the large chained man was hauling a heavy generator, his broad back to the treeline.
Aim for where he will be, Khan instructed.
Will drew the string. His hands shook. A targeting reticle from the System blinked erratically into his vision, pulsing an intrusive, glowing red that made his stomach churn. It felt like a parasite trying to pilot his arms. He squeezed his eyes shut for a microsecond, forcing the UI away, and relied on his own depth perception.
He released the string.
It wasn't a flawless shot. The arrow didn't land perfectly at the captive's feet. It struck a buried root three yards to his left, snapping the wooden shaft and sending the brass keys skittering into the mud.
The big man froze. He looked down at the keys. He glanced at the guard facing the cage. He didn't wait for a better opening. The captive dropped his shoulder, pretending to buckle under the weight of the generator. He hit the dirt hard, scraping his forearms across the sharp rocks to reach the keys. His thick fingers fumbled in the mud, pulling the brass ring close just as the guard turned around.
The man stayed on his knees, breathing heavily, hiding the keys under his thigh.
"He's smart," Allison whispered beside Will.
"He's been waiting," Will said.
Good soldiers, Khan noted. Someone trained them.
Maddie's reaction to being the distraction was exactly what he expected. She didn't act like a helpless victim. She grabbed a heavy wooden supply crate and shoved it violently into a weapons rack. The metal clashed loudly, echoing through the quiet forest.
Both guards whipped around. Maddie turned and sprinted back into the thick brush.
"I got her," the larger guard barked. He drew a heavy kinetic baton and charged into the trees after her.
Maddie tore through the underbrush, her lungs burning. The terrain was a nightmare of slick moss and jagged roots. She didn't fake her stumble. Her boot caught a fossilized root, and she went down hard, her knee slamming into a rock with a crack she felt in her back teeth. She rolled onto her back, the leg briefly refusing all instructions.
The guard burst through the foliage, his baton raised. He didn't offer a monologue. He just lunged, his heavy boot pinning Maddie's ankle to the dirt. He reached down and grabbed her by the throat, hoisting her half off the ground.
Maddie choked, her hands desperately clawing at his armored forearm. She didn't have the leverage for a clean martial arts throw. It was an ugly, desperate street fight. She jammed her thumbs directly toward the guard's eyes. The man jerked his head back with a curse, his grip loosening just enough.
Maddie drew the heavy scavenged blade at her hip and twisted her torso. She threw her entire systemic [15 STR] into a chaotic, two-handed swing aimed straight at the unarmored gap behind his knee.
The crushing momentum of the 15 STR sword swing completely depleted her stamina in a single violent motion. Her Tier-0 cardiovascular system simply couldn't support Tier-1 combat output. The blade bit deep, popping the joint, but Maddie instantly dropped the heavy weapon, her chest heaving as she gasped for air, completely drained and unable to follow up.
The guard roared, collapsing sideways. He thrashed in the mud, clutching his ruined leg. He wasn't dead, but he wasn't standing up again.
Maddie slumped back into the dirt, coughing violently, her lungs burning as she waited for her stamina bar to recover.
Thirty yards away, Don watched from the bushes. His chest heaved as he crept forward and began ripping the armor off the bleeding guard. His hands shook so badly he could barely undo the clasps. Don pulled the chest piece over his own shoulders. It was far too large, hanging awkwardly off his frame. The metal plates clattered against each other.
He stepped out of the treeline, walking back toward the camp. The second guard was pacing near the cage, his repeating crossbow lowered. He heard the metallic clatter and turned. He stared at Don for exactly one second. The armor was wrong. The gait was wrong.
"Hey!" the guard yelled, instantly raising the crossbow.
Don froze, terror locking his joints. He didn't run. The guard pulled the trigger.
The brutal, concussive punch threw the younger man backward, knocking the wind out of him as he crashed into the dirt. The guard racked the crossbow to fire again.
He didn't get the chance.
Allison broke from her blind-spot angle in the brush. She moved with ruthless efficiency, driving her scavenged spear hard into the unarmored gap behind the guard's knee. The man roared, his crossbow shot going wide into the dirt as his leg buckled.
Before he could recover, the chains rattled behind him.
The big captive hadn't waited for permission. He had unlocked his cuffs and the cuffs of the man beside him. They lunged. They were starved and exhausted, their movements sloppy and desperate. The big man tackled the guard around the waist, driving him into the side of the metal cage. The guard thrashed, dropping the crossbow and drawing a serrated combat knife. He slashed wildly, opening a deep gash across the second captive's forearm.
Will burst from the treeline, sprinting across the open ground. He didn't have time to nock an arrow. He tackled the guard's arm, pinning the knife against the dirt as the big captive drove his elbow repeatedly into the guard's faceplate until the visor cracked and the man finally stopped moving.
The camp fell dead silent.
Will stayed on his knees, his chest heaving, his bruised ribs screaming in protest. He looked up. Maddie limped out of the trees, her knee bleeding freely, her face pale. Don was sitting up in the mud, clutching his bruised shoulder where the bolt had struck the armor, his eyes wide with shock. Allison stood beside the downed guard, her spear lowered, her breathing steady.
A pale blue System prompt flared in Will's vision, casting an invasive, unnatural light across the muddy camp.
[Combat Encounter Resolved: Tactical Elimination.]
[Hostile Threat Neutralized.]
Will swiped his hand through the air, dismissing it. There was nothing tactical about it. It was just desperate people trying not to die.
He looked at the big man sitting in the mud beside him. The captive's wrists were raw and bloody from the iron cuffs. He was breathing hard, staring at Will with wide, disbelieving eyes. The man slowly pushed himself to his feet. He didn't stand like a soldier reporting to a commander. He stood like a human being who had just remembered what it felt like to breathe free air.
He extended a massive, dirt-stained hand toward Will. Will reached up and grabbed it, letting the big man haul him to his feet.
"Francis Tyson," the man rasped, his voice thick with emotion.
"Will."
They didn't shake hands like business partners. Tyson gripped Will's forearm tight, an unspoken weight passing between them. The System didn't register the moment. There was no notification for compassion.