The boulder beach was brutal even for adults. For Linneya, each stone felt like a small hill. She slowed the group down so much that Garrick finally scooped her up and set her on his shoulder like a sack of grain.
Morag, meanwhile, made it less than a kilometer before his legs started to buckle. He kept moving, but his breathing grew harsher by the minute. Starling suggested a break. He refused.
Instead, the old doctor discreetly pulled out a metal case, took a red pill, and swallowed. A moment later, his heart rate and breathing steadied. He even straightened his back and strode out in front as if he’d rolled the clock back decades.
Half an hour later, the four of them reached the edge of the caverns. The boulders thinned. The ground began to tilt upward, cut by long trenches that ran like defensive ditches. Starling and Morag couldn’t cross them without Garrick’s help.
They were moving when Garrick stopped dead and looked back.
The others turned too. They saw nothing. Linneya was about to ask when Garrick raised a hand—silent—and pointed to a trench ahead. They dropped into it.
Seconds later, everyone heard it: light, messy footsteps in the darkness. More than a few.
Garrick prayed it was just a patrol that would pass by without noticing them.
Then the rhythm changed—too regular, too stiff. The sound wasn’t flesh and bone. It was machines. In the absolute dark, the noise crawled straight under Linneya’s skin. Her heartbeat sped up as the marching drew nearer.
Garrick climbed out, dragged a boulder wider than the trench, and carefully set it over the three of them like a lid. Unless someone walked right up to the edge, it would be hard to spot them.
He gestured again: don’t make a sound. Then he vanished into the dark.
The footsteps grew louder. They weren’t coming from one direction, either—spread out, moving slowly. A searching line. If they crossed the trench, they could still find the hidden boulder.
Linneya’s scalp went numb. She squeezed Starling’s hand. Starling squeezed back—both of their palms slick with sweat.
Then—
“Boom!”
The ground shuddered as a violent explosion ripped through the silence.
Gunfire followed, sharp and continuous. In the dark it felt like a thunderstorm flickering again and again. The noise was so close Linneya could have sworn the firefight was right on top of them. A couple of spent casings even clinked down into the trench and rolled to her boots. She clapped both hands over her ears and fought the urge to scream.
The shooting raged for almost five minutes before it finally tapered off.
Silence returned. Heavy, thick, and unnatural.
A set of footsteps approached above them.
When Garrick finally lifted the boulder away, Linneya couldn’t hold it in. A strangled cry tore out of her.
“It’s safe,” Garrick said. “Come out.”
Morag climbed up first. He stared at the smoking wreckage scattered across the ground and clicked his tongue.
“How many this time?”
“Didn’t count. About forty.” Garrick hauled the others up. “They were in a line, sweeping carefully. I didn’t have a choice. I hit first.”
Morag let out a breath that sounded like defeat. “Looks like I owe you another life.”
Starling stepped closer, eyes scanning Garrick. His light armor was cracked in several places, and his tactical shades were shattered.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Garrick moved through the bodies, collecting whatever he could. Starling and Morag each chose a light rifle to sling over their backs.
Then they pressed on.
The incline steepened until the ground became a mountain path. Morag compared their position against the holographic map and found a stairway cut into the rock. It zigzagged upward in a tight “Z.”
At first the climb was manageable. Then the path narrowed—down to a strip no wider than forty or fifty centimeters. One side was sheer rock. The other was a black drop into nothing. A rusted chain had been bolted into the wall as a handhold, but the links looked old enough to crumble.
“Are we sure this is even a real route?” Linneya whispered. “It looks like nobody’s used it in hundreds of years.”
“You’re right,” Morag said grimly. “No one has. The fact it still exists is a miracle.”
Starling frowned. “If nobody uses it, how do the guards go up and down to the signal station?”
“Aircraft,” Garrick said. “There’s a small flight platform at the top.”
“Oh.” Starling glanced at the chain again. “Then why build a path at all?”
“This path wasn’t built by them,” Morag said.
Linneya blinked. “Then who built it?”
“A great explorer named Luden.”
“Luden…” Linneya repeated. “That sounds familiar. I think my dad mentioned him.”
“He’s famous,” Morag said. “He wrote many books. Anyone who likes exploration knows his name. He led the expedition that discovered the Glimmer Caverns. This path was how they entered and exited the caves. That was over two thousand five hundred years ago. The signal station up top marks the earliest entrance Luden found.”
They kept moving as they talked. On a ledge this narrow, Garrick’s bulk became a liability. He had to turn sideways, back pressed to the rock, inching along at the rear. Starling stayed tight behind Linneya, watching every step.
Morag led, but after ten minutes his breathing broke again. His legs began to tremble. He hurriedly pulled another red pill from his case and popped it into his mouth.
This time Linneya caught it. “Doctor, what are you taking?”
Morag managed a wheezing laugh. “A… youth potion.”
“It’s that good?” Linneya’s eyes lit up. “Can I’ve one? I can’t walk anymore either!”
Morag shook his head. “It has nasty side effects. Otherwise I’d have given you one already.”
“Like what?”
He hesitated, then said, “It’ll… uh. It’ll make a little girl grow a huge beard. Like, all over her face. Are you scared of that?”
Linneya froze. “Uh… never mind. I can keep going.”
Morag’s breathing settled again, and he pushed onward.
The mountain route twisted and shifted constantly. They climbed for more than an hour along passages that changed without warning—tunnels through the rock, natural ledges, stretches that widened and flattened, collapsed sections, forks in the route, even paths that dipped downward for a time. More than once, Morag had to stop to check the holographic map and make sure they hadn’t drifted off course.
On a broader platform carved into the cliff face, Morag checked again. They were halfway.
If nothing went wrong, another hour would put them at the relay station.
They rested just long enough to get feeling back in their fingers and toes, then moved on.
The path narrowed again.
Starling turned to warn Garrick to watch his footing—and found he hadn’t followed.
Garrick was still on the platform, rifle in hand, crouched at the cliff’s edge. He leaned out and listened.
A cold knot formed in Starling’s stomach. She walked back, keeping her voice low.
“What is it?”
“I think I hear tapping on the rock below,” Garrick said.
Starling’s face drained of color. “Don’t tell me… more pursuers.”
Garrick remembered the coordinates Chabu had sent him at the very start of this run, and a sick possibility snapped into place.
He turned to Starling. “That bullet that hit you—was it fired by an S2 drone?”
“Yes.”
“And it curved?”
“Yes.”
“And after it hit, you didn’t feel much?”
“Yes.”
Garrick exhaled. “That’s why it felt wrong down there. They’ve known where we were the whole time.”
Starling’s throat tightened. “Why? What does that have to do with me getting shot?”
Garrick pulled a flashbang from his belt, yanked the pin, and tossed it down into the darkness.
It struck the cliff and detonated in a burst of white.
For an instant the rock wall below was daylight-bright—and Starling nearly collapsed.
The cliff face was crawling. Spider-bots, packed so densely they looked like a living carpet, writhing and scrabbling upward. Beyond the reach of the light, more red pinpricks glittered in the dark, countless.
Garrick racked his heavy rifle.
“Do you understand now?” he said.
“You were hit with a tracker round.”