The glass wall flared a pure, blinding white that forced Riyun to shield his eyes. He staggered away from it, one arm held up. The heavy smell of dense woods carried in on air gone thick. This time, it wasn’t just animal sounds filling the big room. There was a different sense of pressure in his ears, like when a ship rapidly plunged from high altitude.
“Lonar, our gear!” Riyun almost slipped in the blood pool.
The big man was already at the inner door, beefy fist drawn back. “On it.”
In the observation window, looking down on them, Beraga clapped his hands. “That will prove to be a waste of time, Mr. Molliro. That glass is impenetrable by design.”
Riyun caught the flare of alien images again, heard winds pressing against the walls of his father’s house. Not real. Dreams. Fight it. “There aren’t a lot of things Lonar can’t break, given time.”
“Time isn’t something you have. This test you volunteered to help me out with—it won’t be long now, then you’ll be quite involved.”
Javika launched herself at the wall beneath the observation window. Her gloves caught on the slick glass, and she quickly scampered up, just as Lonar’s first strike landed with a deep, reverberating crack.
The bald billionaire took a step back. “What—?”
“That—” Riyun pointed at the Biwali warrior now a few feet above the other man’s position. “—happens to be someone you grossly underestimated.”
Hirvok was at Riyun’s side. “We don’t get those guns, we’re fu—”
“We’ll get the guns. You get the others ready.”
The sergeant gritted his teeth. “We should’ve walked away.”
A forest clearing replaced the blinding white light. The static and pressure in the air grew stronger. Beraga had said something about time. How much did they have?
Was there something different in the image this time? It seemed like it. “Beraga, Yola knows we’re here. She knows we suspect you.”
The bald executive’s eyes jumped from Javika to Lonar. The Biwali warrior had her blade out now, drawn back, ready to strike. But the big tweak had landed a second blow, and it sounded like something had cracked.
The glass wasn’t unbreakable.
Kozmut squinted down at Riyun. “I would’ve killed you quickly and cleanly, Molliro.”
Riyun caught the hint of fear in the other man’s voice. “That’s the only way to get rid of me.”
“Oh, I think you misunderstand. I mean I was going to show you mercy.”
Javika’s blade slashed against the observation window glass, chipping away a palm-sized chunk with a terrible screeching sound. Even Kozmut looked up.
“I don’t think we’re the ones who need mercy, Ozkyr.” Riyun scooted closer to the others, where they huddled near the inner door. “Lonar—”
“Just—” The big man grunted and drew his fist back again. “—a few more.”
Once again, a fist hammered the glass with a force few could appreciate. It was the sort of power that could crumple metal. Lonar wasn’t just heavy. He wasn’t just strong. He’d been born on a low-gravity orbital platform, then made capable of life on Magilar, a high-gravity world. He’d been tweaked. Modified. Amplified.
And his blows were testing the glass like it had never been tested before.
A faint crack appeared where the last blow had landed.
Riyun’s head twisted up at the sound of another screeching strike from Javika’s blade. It was one more thing someone like Beraga wouldn’t understand: Some weapons were crafted by masters and could do things far beyond reasonable expectations. Javika was one of those weapons, same as her blade.
Beraga slapped his palms against the window. “Stop it! The circuit!”
Riyun shook his head. “Ozkyr should’ve told you, we don’t stop.”
“Well—” The billionaire staggered back as another strike of the blade sliced away a larger piece of glass.
At the same moment, the pressure from the forest clearing grew stronger, and with it the sights, sounds, and smells became even more real. The image extended to the walls on either side of the room, so it seemed as if grass was beneath Riyun’s boots. When he lifted a foot, the blades were bent and darkened.
What sort of VR made it seem like grass was beneath you? Not just beneath you, but bent?
It was just the effect of the Portal, still playing with his mind. He turned at the sound of Hirvok’s voice—far away and weak. From where Riyun stood, it seemed as if he were looking into a glass room in the distance, sheltered in the thick woods.
He took a step toward the room. “Hirvok? Javika?”
Hirvok was looking right at Riyun, but there was no sign that he was truly being looked at. It sounded like a huge sheet of glass shattered in that far room.
Riyun rushed toward the others. “Go! Get out of there!” He waved them away. Whatever he was experiencing, they didn’t need to know. They didn’t need to be put through…
What was he being put through? An alien world? This wasn’t VR.
The glass room grew farther and farther away. No matter how fast Riyun ran, he couldn’t close the distance.
What was happening? How was it possible?
Pressure intensified in his head. It became harder to breathe, and what he did breathe had no hints of the metallic tang in the Kamiyan air or the cool, recycled freshness of the Total Rewrite building. He had tasted something like it before, on the visit to Cologa, a planet not yet corrupted by human imprint.
But this wasn’t Cologa. And it wasn’t Kamiyan.
He had to get back. He had to warn the others. He had to contact Yola, he had to…
Stop Beraga.
The glass room disappeared. The team stood just in front of him and off to the right, gear in hand. They must have gotten past the inner door.
Javika fell from the sky, easily landing on her feet.
Riyun skidded to a stop. “No.”
Lonar held a chunk of thick, blue glass in his monstrous hands. The jagged edges hadn’t cut through his gloves, but he grimaced regardless. “I almost had the outer door…”
“We’re not in the room anymore.” Riyun turned to Quil. “Are we?”
The pseudo glanced around. “Amazing.”
Amazing. A dense forest like nothing Riyun had ever seen before. Strange sounds coming from the trees. Far beyond the trees, cliffs that rose to mountains. The cerulean sky. The puffy white clouds.
It wasn’t amazing.
It was terrifying.
His heart pounded in his chest. It felt like his brain was on the verge of shutting down. How could he possibly make sense of what he was seeing? It didn’t exist, this place. It couldn’t. He spun around in a circle, trying to take it all in.
Then he was knocked to the ground, and he realized Hirvok was on him, punching and growling. The blows cut through the confused haze.
“You stupid son of a—” With each word, the sergeant landed a punch.
Riyun got his hands up. “Hirvok! Stop!”
“—bitch!”
Someone rushed in from the right: Javika. Her boots caught Hirvok in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. She tumbled away and got back to her feet before the sergeant could get to his.
That was all Riyun needed. He scrambled upright, hands up. “Hold it together, everyone.”
Hirvok seemed ready to charge again, at least until Lonar tossed aside the chunk of glass and grabbed the smaller man by the collar of his duster.
“You heard the boss.” The big man lifted the other man off the ground to make a point.
“All right!” Hirvok threw his hands up. “I got it.”
Riyun sucked in a deep breath. “We can’t fight amongst ourselves.”
“I said I got it.” The sergeant shrugged the big man’s grip off.
He was under control again, so Riyun turned to Quil. “Quil, talk to me. Where are we?”
The pseudo’s silvery eyes danced around the woods. “I am not sure if this is a question of where, Lieutenant.”
“Not a question of—?” It became even harder for Riyun to breathe for a second.
“These trees. The vegetation. It seems entirely possible this is what this world looked like millennia ago. Many millennia ago.”
“Time—?” Riyun swallowed. “Time travel?”
“It is a possibility. There have been theories about it for decades.”
Riyun turned to Naru. “Signals? Any sign of the network?”
The hacker’s eyes were huge. She seemed worse off than anyone else, even Tawod. “I—”
“Naru.” Riyun dashed over to her. He put his hands on her shoulders and shook them slightly. “Naru.” He softened his voice, hoping that was giving her space. “We need you. We’re all going to need each other.”
Symbra slowly made her way to the hacker’s side and nodded at Riyun. “Naru, let me help.”
The hacker blinked. “No signal. No…network.”
No network. Could that be an illusion? Could it all be an illusion? Images could be beamed into people with the right implants, receivers that connected to the optic nerves or into the brain. Is that what they were experiencing? Was that Beraga’s new technology?
“Is there some way you can check to make sure this isn’t an illusion?”
“Check…an illusion? How…?”
Riyun sighed. “What about something that runs a logic test? Would that get around false images? I don’t know. That’s what I need you people for—thinking outside the box.”
“But if we’re seeing things, we’d still see the bad information.”
“Right.” Riyun’s shoulders sagged. He couldn’t give up, and he couldn’t let the others give up. “See if you can think of something. Quil?”
The pseudo nodded and drifted toward the hacker.
Riyun stepped away from the rest, eventually angling over to Javika, who was running a thumb along the edge of her blade. “You okay?”
“That was not normal glass.” Her eyes flashed up to his for a moment.
She was frightened. It was something he’d never seen in her before.
He gently took the assassin’s sword from her and inspected it. “Nothing’s normal right now, but it looks like you came close to hacking through.”
“Close is for others. A Biwali warrior must never fail.”
“I’m not your mother.” He handed the weapon back. “I understand that we all fail.”
Javika winced. She sheathed the blade and turned her attention to the sky, cupping a hand to shield her eyes from the sun’s radiance. “It is beautiful.”
“Clean air, bright sky, sort of peaceful, no pollution.” He shrugged. “If you like that sort of thing.”
A smile touched her lips for just a second. “I do.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure about the others. Tawod looks like he’s in shock, and Naru isn’t handling it much better.”
“And Symbra?” The Biwali warrior craned her neck to look past Lonar and Hirvok. “Is her calm true, or is she also in shock and hiding behind that calm?”
“We’re all in shock. If she can make it look like she’s keeping herself together, she’s one step ahead of the rest of us.” Riyun patted Javika’s back. “I’m counting on you.”
A steely resolve settled over her face as her jaw took on a familiar stiffness. “You always can.”
He made his way over to where Lonar had dropped most of the gear, digging out the assault carbine that seemed so necessary in such a crazy and unpredictable moment. The weapon was strength and resilience. It was logic and consistency. Flipping off the safety and squeezing the trigger would send bullets out. Things would be destroyed.
It was a grim touchstone, but it was all he had.
“Listen up!” Riyun hooked the weapon to a strap, then slung it over his shoulder. “Wherever we are, it doesn’t look like there’s an ammunition depot anywhere nearby.”
Lonar chuckled. “Nothing’s nearby.”
“Maybe. We don’t know that yet. So check your weapons, conserve your ammo, and collect your casings. We may need to reload our bullets.”
Tawod had been caught up in his own thoughts, head bowed, but he whipped around suddenly. “Conserve our ammo? What would we even shoot at? We’re in some sort of primordial jungle. We don’t have a signal from the network. There’s nothing here.”
Quil lowered himself to a knee several feet out from the rest, a little ways off from where Riyun had been. “I am not so sure about that.”
“Not so sure about what?” The demolitions expert swept a hand in a semicircle. “Look at those trees. Look at that sky. You think there’s anyone for miles?”
“Someone has been here. There are tracks.”
Tracks? Riyun hustled over to where the pseudo was studying the ground. There were indentations in the soft earth, and blades of the dark grass were torn and twisted. The impressions weren’t like the boots his team wore.
And there was blood. Old. Seeped into the ground.
“Those simulacra.” Riyun searched the ground nearby. “Everything that was in that room…”
“Was here as well.” The pseudo stood and brushed his gloves against each other. “I am not sure whether this supports the notion of time travel or something else.”
“Some sort of gateway? Like the Golgar Portals?”
“We still have no true understanding of those.”
“But Beraga hired all the big brains.” Riyun nodded toward Naru. “Right? You said—”
The young woman blinked. “All the—?” She stared at the ground for a second. “I guess.”
“What if he found someone who figured the Portals out? What if he’s transporting people to all-new worlds?”
Quil shook his head. “The transportation methodology is the least puzzle of the Golgar Portals. We know they open wormholes or something equivalent. It is the manipulation—the selection of destination—that continues to befuddle. That is why we must take the routes that we do when we do. It seems unlikely anyone would invest in duplicating something so unpredictable. And to do so, to travel directly to a world? It is an unprecedented use of the technology.”
Riyun grunted. “Sounds like you have an idea now.”
“I have been eliminating possibilities based on the level of improbability.”
“All right. Not wormholes. Not time travel. What’s that leave?”
“Hey!” Lonar pointed skyward. “Something’s coming.”
Dark shapes—six of them—broke through the clouds above. They seemed almost triangular, like some of the smaller attack craft Riyun had encountered early in his career. Those had been automated, piloted remotely mostly. That had required a reliable network. If these were the same sort of aircraft…
The shapes circled wide overhead. They seemed to be spiraling down.
Quil cupped a hand over his eyes. “I was afraid of this.”
Riyun squinted, trying to make out details of the aircraft. One of them seemed to…flap its wings? “Your theory?”
“It would seem less of a theory now.”
“What do those sharp eyes of yours see, Quil? Assault drones?”
“That would be much less distressing.” The pseudo pulled his own assault carbine off his shoulder. “We will need to reconsider the idea of conserving our ammunition. For the moment.”
“Those don’t look like any assault drones I’ve ever seen.”
“Those are not assault drones, Lieutenant.”
“Then what—?” But Riyun could see now what the pseudo must have understood earlier: These weren’t machines but animals. They were animals of some freakish nature, with reptilian characteristics. Winged, with pointed beaks and wicked-looking talons. “What in the—?”
“Monsters.” Quil flicked his safety off. “Fantastical monsters.”
“Fant—?”
“Wholesale Fantasy, Lieutenant. Remember what Beraga said? This is Wholesale Fantasy. This is the game.”
What kind of game had such fantastical monsters in it?
Riyun was about to find out.