She continued staring at me while tears welled into her eyes. “You're suggesting some random alien killed my sister?”

  “I doubt there was anything random about it,” I answered. “Did she ever have a run-in with Sedaya?”

  “No. Why would she?” She paused, face tensing. “No,” she whispered, and then her eyes widened. “Oh, no.”

  Watching her reaction, it hit me. Emerald had watched me create an invisible shield that prevented the creatures from ripping us limb from limb and hadn’t looked even a little bit surprised or amazed. I assumed it was because she was too crazy to care, but seeing her reaction now, she clearly wasn’t as batshit as the Kill Spree promo or Druck had made her seem. According to the promo, Emerald had been part of the Hegemony’s top technology think tank. She probably had access to research programs and records, especially historical records, that most individuals couldn’t touch.

  “Sedaya came to you, didn’t he? About sigiltech?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t know what it was at the time. I’d never heard of it. He set up a meeting, ostensibly to discuss a research project he wanted me to vouch for as an official member of the Advanced Research Collective. Only he didn’t discuss anything with me. He told me he needed information stored in the ARC mainframe and he would see that I was extremely comfortable if I got it for him. I’m not a murderer, or at least I wasn’t at the time. But I’m also not a total rube. I saw an opportunity to make a lot of electro in a hurry just to pull some records. A dream come true, when you think about it.”

  “Which quickly turned into a nightmare,” I said.

  “Exactly. I went back to the ARC and started searching for the data. I found files that hadn’t been accessed in almost a thousand years. Craziest shit I’ve ever seen. The files were sitting on backup drives buried deep in the archives with an inch of dust over their sleeves. Records of starships with fractals etched into their hulls, channeling extra-dimensional energy through weird interactions between DNA and special alloys. A history of a war nobody had ever heard of, entire planets destroyed and millions dead. I wasn’t completely sold on handing that information over to Sedaya. I didn’t want to be responsible for anything that might bring technology like that back into existence. I contacted Sedaya and told him I hadn’t found anything. He was cordial, but he also wasn’t happy. I thought that was the end of it.”

  “Did you ever tell your sister about what you’d found?”

  “I told my sister everything. We didn’t have any secrets.”

  “How soon did you tell her what you’d seen, after you’d seen it?”

  “Probably within the same week. We both lived on Midas. I didn’t trust talking to her about it over comms, but we met in person pretty often to talk.”

  “Did she seem different when you spoke to her?”

  “I remember her being more quiet than usual.”

  “How much time passed between then and when she was killed?”

  “It was the last time I saw her alive.”

  “Damn,” Druck said. “Maybe you are telling the truth. That totally sounds like Blorb to me.”

  “Me, too,” I replied. “Do you know if anyone else in the ARC changed after that? If you met with Blorb masquerading as your sister, then he knew the records existed. He might have paid off someone else to retrieve them.”

  She shook her head. “I have no idea. After Ruby’s death, I was too distraught to work. I quit the ARC. Then a few months later, law enforcement shows up at my door, accusing me of murdering dozens of people in a rampage through the streets of Neo Tokyo. They showed me the surveillance footage and I lost it. I don’t really remember killing the agents, but I know I did. I just couldn’t take it anymore. All I’ve wanted since then is to get off Melchior and figure out what really happened.” Her eyes returned to mine, her gaze much softer this time. “And here you are with all of the answers, showing up out of nowhere in my greatest hour of need. Maybe you really are my hero." She suddenly looked contrite. "And I nearly cut your throat.”

  “The important thing is that you didn’t,” I replied. “We’re headed to the settlement to find my friends. The invitation to join us still stands.”

  “I…I don’t know. I’m probably better off alone.”

  “When we’re done here, we’re going after Sedaya,” I said. “We’re going to bring him down. You can be part of that.”

  She remained hesitant. I could tell she wanted to trust me, but everything that had happened to her obviously made that difficult for her.

  Before I knew what was happening, she dropped into a crouch and scooped up my blaster, swinging it toward Druck’s head. He opened his mouth and ducked as her pair of rounds swept just over his scalp. I activated pull to pin her to the ground, only to let it go when I saw a drone that had been approaching us spark, smoke, and veer away, crashing in the woods.

  “Geez, I think you took off the rest of what little hair I had left,” Druck complained, rubbing his bald head. “What’s the point of shooting the drones? They can still see and hear everything we do through me.” He blinked several times, reminding everyone of his surgically-attached lenses.

  “But at least they can’t swoop in and try to interrogate us through you,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “Sprite has to be the most annoying virtual persona on the hypernet. Besides, if you close your eyes, they can’t see a thing.”

  “Talk about the blind leading the blind.”

  That got a laugh from her. She turned to me, holding the blaster out to me, grip first.

  “Keep it,” I said before turning to my team. “Grab your gear and let’s go.”

  Druck and Kat retrieved their weapons, and we started after the creatures, leaving Emerald standing there, still hesitating to follow us. We had to have been almost out of her eyesight when she took off, running to catch up to us.

  I didn't bat an eye in surprise when she fell silently in beside me.

  CHAPTER 15

  The woods gave way to a second large clearing where we discovered the bodies of nearly twenty contestants and at least a hundred creatures. Most of the humans were shredded and bloody, killed by the demons. A few other killers had clearly shot one another, caught out in the open without enough time or trust enough to join forces rather than turning on each other. It made me appreciate my opportunity to talk to Emerald even more. Instead of one of us killing the other, we had gained another ally in our fight, both here and in the larger one against Sedaya.

  The revelation that Blorb had likely killed her sister wasn’t completely able to clear her of whatever mental distress had gained control over her since her incarceration. Years on Melchior seemed to have taken their toll, and while we mostly maintained silence to avoid drawing the demons’ attention, Emerald didn’t seem capable of staying quiet for long. She murmured to herself and broke into unexplained fits of laughter without warning. I cringed at the idea of Matt winding up the same way, left to consider that if I couldn’t find him in time. At least his end here would be better than spending years in misery there.

  It was cold comfort that drove me to pick up the pace.

  We made our way across the clearing to a wide road. Once composed of a thick layer of asphalt or a similar composite mixture, time and the elements had left it a crumbling mess with plenty of weeds poking up through the cracks. A haze of dust still floated over it, thicker in the starlight further ahead, evidence that the swarm of creatures was following the path to the settlement.

  Careful not to gain too much ground on the demons, we had to slow down again when the rear of the mass came into view. Hissing and clawing as they marched on the ruins, the creatures huddled tightly together, practically pushing over one another to move forward.Occasionally, one would stumble and be trampled by the others, a group of which would pause to kill the weakened creature outright.

  “Look,” Emerald said, pointing into the distance. I followed her finger, heart leaping to my throat when I saw another mass of demons moving toward the city from a different direction. There had to be at least a thousand of them in the group, probably more.

  “Talk about overkill,” Druck said. “Especially with us humans out here killing one another.”

  “Not just humans,” I said. “Shaq is here, too.”

  “What?” Druck replied, surprised. “I’ve never seen a jagger on Kill Spree before. Seems a little unfair.”

  “Because he’s small?” Kat asked.

  Druck laughed. “Oh, I don’t mean for Shaq. I mean for everyone else.”

  “You’re friends with a jagger?” Emerald asked, glancing at me.

  “Ben’s friends with everyone,” Druck said, shoving his thumb at Ixitat. “Case in point.”

  “I just show them kindness and respect that other people don’t,” I said. “Humans here are so high on themselves, like we’re the best just because there are so many of us. Maybe if Ixy or Shaq had opposable thumbs they’d be ruling the universe.”

  Ixitat laughed at that. “Yesss.”

  “Meanwhile, most of what I’ve seen from people since I came to the Spiral has been ugly. Justus says it’s not as bad as it seems, but even Gia, the feel-good lollipop queen, runs a pillow fighting league that can turn fatal.”

  “I think it’s just because you got involved with Avelus Keep,” Kat said. “Everywhere he goes, trouble follows.”

  “And he continues turning up when I least expect him,” I added.

  “Would you rather still be on Earth, dying from cancer?” Druck asked.

  “If it meant Matt was there with me, safe and sound? Yeah, right now I think I would.”

  “We’re stopping,” Emerald announced.

  My attention returned to the group of creatures ahead of us. A large, low-slung building of some kind had come into view just off the road. The main group of demons had paused while a smaller group of fifty or so peeled off and scurried toward the structure.

  “Scouts,” Kat said. “Those things obviously aren’t completely mindless if they’re sending a group to check out that building.”

  “I bet there’s at least one killer holed up in there,” Druck said. “Maybe more.”

  “Matt could be in there,” I said.

  “Matt could be anywhere,” Druck replied. “I hate to say it, but he may already be dead.”

  “Then I’ll scour this whole damn planet until I find his body.”

  “What if those things ate him?”

  “You saw the corpses in the field,” Emerald said. “They didn’t feed on any of the people they killed.”

  “True.”

  “I’m going,” I said. “You’re welcome to stay here.”

  “No way,” Druck countered. “I think the safest place on this rock is with you.”

  “I don’t know about that. If the main group moves in, we’ll be in the same place we were back in the woods. And I can’t reflect them forever.”

  Kat shouldered his rifle. “Then we’d better get in and out while the getting is still good.”

  “Right on, soldier boy,” Emerald agreed. She turned to me and saluted. “Private Parts reporting for duty, sir.”

  “You’re such a weirdo,” Druck said.

  We left the road for the cover of limited scrub brush lining the slope leading to the building. I didn’t know the purpose of the structure. From here, it looked like it might have been a storage warehouse for the machinery and resources used to lay the asphalt. A pair of large doors faced a driveway that led out toward where the bulk of the creatures waited.

  As we cautiously moved in on the building, the demons hunkered down in the darkness, lowering their profiles and visibility. I intently watched the demons on the road. They fell eerily silent as the scout group slipped through a tear in one of the doors, vanishing inside. There were no immediate screams, hisses, or gunfire, the scene remaining silent and still.

  I was nervous every time one of us made any kind of noise in the grass, but thankfully, none of us spoke. Not even Emerald. It was good to know she could keep her outbursts in check when the stakes were high.

  The creatures believed there was something worth checking out in the building, but I didn’t know which senses they had used to make that determination. Could they smell us? Hear us despite our caution? See the dim glow of the veins in my neck above and beyond the light from the stars? Did they already know we were here but biding their time? There was no way to know. I kept the construct active, ready to spring into action the moment we came under threat.

  Tense minutes passed. We reached the uncontested side of the building. A line of windows sat nearly twenty feet overhead, most of them intact. A single small door rested near the back corner, away from the demons. There still hadn’t been any hint of activity inside, which would have been a lot more meaningful if the scouts had rejoined the main group and all of them had moved on.

  Ixitat tapped me on the shoulder with one of her forelimbs, using another to motion to one of the broken windows above us. I shook my head, worried they might see her during the climb. The demons didn’t seem to have much interest in her, but if they made the connection between her presence and us, our cover would be blown. I motioned to the door, signaling that we would all go that way.

  We only made it about four steps along the side of the building before the door swung open ahead of us. A pair of contestants spilled out in near silence, closing the door behind them. In the dim light, it was hard to make out their faces, but their body types—one too round, the other too slight—told me neither was Matt or Quasar. We remained pressed against the side of the building as their heads darted back and forth, searching for an escape route before turning our way and finally noticing us. Their posture stiffened, hands stretching toward whatever weapon the producers had seen fit to provide them.

  Slowly, I raised a finger to my lips, warning them to remain quiet. The movements stilled, and then the heavyset one mimicked my gesture, agreeing to the momentary truce.I motioned them to get in line behind the door in front of me. They hurried to comply, flattening themselves as closely as possible to the side of the building.

  All of us waited. We didn’t have to wait for long.

  The door flew open, nearly hitting the thinner guy and one of the scouts peeked out, turning its head from side-to-side as if it were listening for us or sniffing us out. Only the partially open door kept it from seeing any of us, and possibly from smelling us. I held my breath as the seconds slowly ticked away, worried the slightest whisper might attract its attention.

  Just when I thought it would retreat, a spotlight appeared overhead, shining directly down toward the demon. Immediately, I sensed Emerald shifting behind me, raising my blaster to shoot it out of the sky.

  “No.” Druck rasped, also moving behind me.

  The scout hissed loudly in response to the sudden light from the drone, clearly uncomfortable. The drone sank toward it just as I heard a thump behind me. I turned to see that Druck had tackled Emerald to keep her from shooting the machine down and giving away our position. Not that it mattered. The spotlight swung from the demon to us, leading the entire mass of creatures right to us.

  Intentionally?

  I would bet my life on it.

  The entire mass of demons screamed and hissed at once, suddenly charging our way like a bunch of lolliglots rushing the stage at a Gia concert.

  “Inside! Fight your way through them!” I shouted, breaking for the open door and the scout demons now streaming out of it.

  Hisses filled the immediate area, followed by flashes of light in the darkness as Kat and Emerald opened fire on them. The rat-tat-tat of Druck’s machine gun joined their plasma bursts, putting the scouts directly ahead of us down like dominoes and quickly freeing up the route forward.

  The last one to the door, I paused just outside to look up into the face of the drone and emphatically flip Yen and his production team the bird.

  CHAPTER 16

  The last person to enter the warehouse, I pulled the door closed with an echoing slam, holding it tight against the creatures rushing toward it. That would buy us some time against the external threat, but it wouldn’t do anything to help us against the demons once they began pouring through the hole in the front garage door.

  “Keep going!” I snapped at the two killers who had rushed into the warehouse just ahead of me.

  One of them whirled around, swinging a knife my way. Unlike Emerald earlier, he didn’t plan to stop the momentum before he sent it through my throat.

  I ducked low, losing my grip on the door as I avoided the swing of the killer's knife. One of the creatures yanked the door open while the group directly behind it lunged into the warehouse. Their leaps took them over my head and into the guy who'd tried to kill me. He screamed and slashed at them, collapsing under the weight of the four who crashed into him.

  My gaze darted to the heavier contestant. He had moved to follow Druck and the others deeper into the building before pausing to watch. He nodded to me as Emerald stepped up beside him, neatly blasting each of the creatures on top of the thin guy in the head. I looked back at the door, slamming it closed again in time to cut off another wave of attackers.

  “Who are you?” The heavyset man asked me.

  “Ben Murdock,” I replied, rising to my feet.

  Emerald crouched next to the other guy. “One less killer,” she said flatly before glancing at the more stocky player. “Care to make it two?”

  “No, ma’am,” he replied sharply and then turned his attention back to me. “You...you’re the fugitive from Persephon. The one who escaped. I didn’t know you were a contestant.”

  “I’m not,” I replied. “I’m here for my friends.”

  “You came here on purpose?” he asked in shock. “Are you crazy?”

  “I am,” Emerald offered.