The surface of the torus is cold and begs to slip out of his hand, like a block of ice. This innocent looking circle of death is supposed to allow him to carve them a way out of here despite its soft, harmless curves and spotless surface. He’s sure he can, thanks to the controls imprinted in his muscle memory. However, ability and will are two different things and no amount of stimulants could convince him he alone should go toe to toe with those dragons. Maybe he should have bought cheap guns for all three of them.

  //That would have been a terrible idea. Non-connected cannot fight the invaders, they would get slaughtered. You saw what happened with the older female-form.//

  Spec thought back to their harrowing journey through the floor and how Juin had been completely frozen several times. He’d presumed it was because of fear, but in hindsight that made little sense. She’d swallowed her fear and fought with him several times, screaming with a voice filled with rage and violence. Then she’d simply stopped, sometimes mid swing. He’s glad he didn’t voice his thoughts out loud to Rima, presuming they could pick up on his train of thought anyway. Does the connection to the Exchange protect him somehow?

  //Yes, I can follow your thoughts, to an extent. Questions are easier to decipher, so to answer yours, it is rather the other way around. Those protected against the CONTACT receive a connection to the Exchange. The rest of your curiosity will have to be sated later, for now. Remember, you alone can fight the CONTACT.//

  He relays his findings to Juin and Summer behind him and approaches the door, stimulants egging him on until his heart wants to smash through his ribcage. With the right hand crossed over his body holding the torus and the left hand against the door he steadies himself, feeling the lock unlatch. The strange weapon is vibrating slightly, eager to slip out of his hand. He slams the door open.

  CONTACT is waiting in ambush immediately outside, this time another dragon covered in already bloodied quills. He instantly throws the torus as the dragon charges him. The rounded rim flattens as it spins faster and faster in the air, turning into a thin edge glowing a brilliant white against the bloody backdrop. It flies straight into the open jaw, decapitating the dragon before its first step. The heavy body hits the floor. Spec lets the throwing motion flow into a graceful arc, turning on his good leg.

  The torus jumps to obey the command and immediately changes course in complete disregard to inertia. Two flesh mosquitos sit on a corpse a few steps to the right, their needles inserted through the eye cavity of their victim. The torus looks like a deadly halo as its edge passes through one of the monsters with barely a whisper. Spec drags his elbow back and closes his fist. Once more the torus responds instantly, reversing course to shine its light on yet another abomination. The flesh-mosquito is already responding to the first movement of the torus and heaves its body upwards, letting brain matter slide along the needle to the floor. The white halo passes underneath it and effortlessly reenters Spec’s grip, the chrome spot free and transformed to its soft, round shape.

  Spec finds a smile creeping up his face as the three legged horror charges towards him. He has a heartbeat before the dripping needle skewers his head. It is more than enough. He crouches and once again crosses the torus over his body. The arm extends and he throws it out, this time in a low path along the floor. As the torus passes under the monster he lifts his arm up, flipping the glowing halo so that its edge points towards the ceiling and shoots up vertically, completely dissecting the horror in two. Spec’s locked in drugged fascination as inertia carries the needle onwards in a slow, almost graceful arc. It lands before his feet, fails to penetrate the plastic flooring and makes a dull thud as it falls down.

  He’s never felt more nimble. His limbs felt heavy and unresponsive to his jacked up mind but the torus made his body seem redundant. If he’s to fight these abominations, then this is how he intends to do it.

  Next to him in his mind, right beside his line of thought he receives an impression of giddy excitement, of anticipation tinged with a hint of fear.

  “Are you so easily impressed?” he asks the blood splattered over the walls.

  //You are right, this is not much for a connected such as you. But I am hopeful. This bodes well.//

  Spec lets himself smile as he takes a small jump to grab the torus lodged in the ceiling, stumbling slightly as he lands. Juin and Summer step gingerly around the corpses as they follow him. The sisters make quite the sight, walking like prim glasswalkers from the Centre visiting the waterfront for the first time. The ominous hammer in Juin’s hand somewhat spoils the picture but then again, maybe the hammer would fit a glasswalker just as well. Those from the Centre are certainly ruthless enough.

  Continuing down the corridor reveals no more surprises behind the overturned stalls. His limp has returned to its usual rhythm, distinctive but not debilitating. They need to return to the first intersection they went through and move down the stairs, one floor at a time. At least they’re not going up the stairs. .

  As he approaches the first of the two intersections he allows himself to slow down. That horrible wet, sucking sound echoes along the walls, like a suction cup ritually attaching and releasing against the floor. He crouches and slowly, slowly shuffles forward until he peeks over a flipped bed in the middle of the corridor. The CONTACT must have been bashing in the doors while they regrouped in Spec’s home.

  In the wide plaza of the intersection several of the dragon CONTACT stand hunched over the floor, their extended inner mouths attaching and releasing from the floor. A couple flesh mosquitos labor through the air as if their bodies are slightly too heavy for their fragile wings. Occupying the very center of the room slouches a fresh horror from the depths of this ongoing nightmare. Spec feels his stomach turn over at the sight. Only the stimulants keep him from throwing up.

  The new CONTACT resembles a rotting, skinned bunny about the size of a human with powerful hind legs. It has no skin. Instead it is covered in a sort of red sludge, resembling the viscous liquid under scraped skin. Using the serrated protrusions covering its arms it methodically dismembers a corpse and attaches another limb to its body, joining several others. Spec can’t look away, he only keeps watching in disgust as the skinned bunny slaps another arm onto its torso and leaves it there, glued to an increasingly disfigured silhouette.

  When will this horror ever end?

  //This attack on the city seems to be reaching its conclusion. Those you call “skinned bunnies” follow closely after the first wave, collecting resources to transport back in their escape.//

  Spec shudders and stays silent, unable to answer. No one should have to see this, least of all Summer.

  He considers his options. The torus can not take out that many, not without risking even one of them closing the distance and overwhelming him. He has no idea what they will meet if they backtrack and go around, he’s not even sure they can afford the time it would take. The fire devouring the lower floors has not reached them yet, stumped by mitigation measures some politicians actually decided to include in the Million Towers. That doesn’t mean it has stopped spreading.

  Better the danger you know than the danger you don’t. Spec feels less like a glorious Berserker than a cornered rat as he considers his options against the horrors in front of him. He tries to focus his thoughts towards a question, hoping Rima will pick it up.

  //Currently you have 125 points. Would you like to make a purchase?//

  There is the impression of satisfaction and weight attached to that last word.

  “Yes. What can I buy?” Spec types out on his eye's interface, finding Rima’s presence against his thoughts unsettling. Tapping his fingers against his legs works just fine, thank you very much.

  //A great many things and simultaneously almost nothing. Specifics, if you will. //

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Can I buy a bomb?”

  //You can buy a small bomb.//

  “One would think a giant alien marketplace would have something with a bit more bang.”

  //We do, for those that have contributed more to the cause. Anything more exotic requires access to a Guild Vault. I immediately see that I should not have mentioned Guild Vaults.//

  Spec smothers his flaming curiosity and looks around him. He knows his options and resources are limited, so he needs to make the most out of them. Around him lies the aftermath of stampede and carnage. Doors are smashed open to reveal their violated sanctuaries and the ubiquitous food stalls lay scattered and smashed to pieces. So, the Exchange is letting him work for his toys. That’s fine, let’s show the Guilds some human ingenuity.

  Abandoning both the painful crouch he sits in and his dignity he starts to crawl along the floor, aiming for a lone propane tank amongst the debris. Only some of the wok stands use them anymore, championed by grandmas claiming nothing else is authentic. If this worked, he would buy all the wok he could stuff himself with.

  “Can I buy just components? I’ll send you a list.”

  //Interesting. Your plan is too muddled to identify. I will make the trade.

  Purchase:

  Crude timer, human make (5 points)

  Liquid stone (10 points)

  Valkian compound wire (50 points)

  Standard Lutanside Glove (10 points)

  Nova M50 x 3 (30 points)

  Balance: 20 points

  He gets to work scavenging the wok stand. The propane tank he takes with him, as well as the ignition mechanism and the battery from the food stand next to it. That stand uses the standard conduction stove and has one of those batteries that’s supposed to last a month of heavy use. Non-rechargeable, of course. The tank feels heavy in his grip as he performs an awkward three point crawl back to his improvised cover. He has to trust the CONTACT will continue eating for a while yet because he certainly won’t check. Instead he puts down the tank and works his way back to Juin and Summer as the Exchange finishes teleporting his stuff in.

  Summer is shaking. Both her hands and Juin’s are placed over her mouth as she desperately tries to hold back a laugh. He forces a smile back, grateful to give her this reprieve. She’s been through too much, even for someone as quickly jaded as a tower kid.

  He signs as best he can that they should stay here, behind cover. Juin draws her eyebrows together in frustration, gripping the hammer tight in her free hand. She nods quickly. They have no defense against the CONTACT paralyzing her again and she can’t risk Summer. Spec tries and fails to instill confidence as he crawls back. Truly, there is no dignity in war.

  Back behind the bed but not remotely safe, he takes inventory and finds it all there. He takes out his tools from the pack at the small of his back and gets to work.

  The timer he sets to ten seconds and wires to the ignition from the gas stove. Then he puts on the glove and connects the batteries to each other in a series, increasing the already significant voltage. Apparently valkian wire has some impressive plasticity, he realizes while pulling on it and sees it stretch out like chewing gum and then neither snap back or break.

  Liquid stone turns out to be descriptive rather than poetic. As it pours out of the glass jar it instantly turns to a hard rock on contact with anything but air. Spec uses it to attach the timer to the top of the canister and then the wire to the torus. Now for the risky part. He creeps from cover to cover with the wire stretching out behind him and sweat pooling on his upper lip.

  It tastes like salt and iron.

  Reaching the left wall of the corridor he takes out the liquid stone again. He presses the wire against the wall and lets a small drop fall, securing the wire and allowing him to move back to his original position. His heart drums against his ribcage, telling him he’s acting on stolen time. So he opens the valve on the tank, sets the timer and hobbles out of cover. For a brief moment panic grips his mind as his leg insists that it’s not in fact fine and refuses to move as smoothly as he commands it. He quickly shakes his head to clear it and swings the tank between his legs once, then twice, before letting go. It flies through the air in a beautiful arc.

  There’s no loud crash as it lands, only a dull clunk against the plastic flooring. Four seconds left.

  He wastes none of it. The torus slips out of his hand as he throws his arm out and it shoots across the room like a bullet, impacting the far wall at knee height. Eight heads look at the canister between them and refuse to scatter. These monsters are the predators that terrify entire species. He will show them the horrors of human ingenuity.

  The shockwave slams him into the ground, a primal and violent force that needs no language. Spec works himself up into a sitting position and takes in the pure carnage in front of him. The canister exploded like a fragmentation grenade, spearing anything in the intersection with shrapnel. Spec sees dragons flipped over and twitching as they leak blood from a million tiny holes and traces of the flesh mosquitos on the ceiling, as if the shockwave hit them and erased them from existence.

  Only the skinned bunny slowly stands up, shielded from the shrapnel by its armor of scavenged body parts. Spec stands up to meet it and they look at each other across the feast turned battlefield. He has a terrifying realization.

  There is some measure of intelligence in those alien eyes. as it calculates its odds against this smaller opponent. Suddenly, it breaks out of the moment and charges, leaping to close the distance with powerful legs. Spec sweeps his arm forward and then snaps his elbow back behind him, commanding the torus to leap to his aid. The skinned bunny lands in a fluid movement, stationary for but a moment as it redirects its momentum into another leap. Spec grabs the opportunity and launches the eager torus forward to butcher this abomination.

  It dodges. Spec’s eye records the moment as it pulls its body slightly to the left, allowing the torus to pass to the right as it launches itself forward in the same movement. His brain is too slow for this fight and only registers the movement after the skinned bunny has seen his torus, anticipated its trajectory and once again moved forward to dismember his body.

  It doesn’t matter.

  As Spec finally comprehends the dodge the wire trailing the torus impacts the skinned monster, slicing through attached body parts, red fluid and flesh. It finally stops as it lodges itself in its ribcage. The monster does not flinch or scream. Instead it freezes and spasms erratically, electricity flooding its body and scourging it from within.

  The wire following the torus finally snaps without a single sound to break the silence. Spec frowns, takes a finger to his ear and watches as a drop of blood makes a path down towards his palm. Annoyed and numb he recalls the torus and looks up at the skinned bunny, somehow still standing. With a lowered palm the torus changes trajectory on the way back and flies level with the monster’s neck, slicing through the grisly tissue like a butcher’s cutting machine only to lodge itself in the spine. With a large, frustrated sweep of his arm the torus dislodges and then slams back in again. It lodges slightly deeper in.

  It takes three tries to decapitate the bunny, the body long since collapsed on the floor. As he turns around from the disappointing conclusion he sees Juin step out of cover with a squirming Summer in her embrace, her hand over her eyes. She nods to him and then to the stairs with an expression of determination and resolve, in sharp contrast to his own grisly and blood splattered exhaustion. Spec picks up the gas masks from behind his original cover. They all take a moment to catch their breath before putting them on.

  They move past the bodies and body parts, boots sticking slightly to the floor with each step. It’s a long, dark journey down the stairs. The fire seems to have died down but some of the smoke still lingers over their head as they try to stay low. The stairs down to floor 45 are blocked by a mass of debris and dead bodies, too many to make sense of in the darkness. Spec diverts them out of the stairway and into the corridors before Summer can catch a glimpse. His mind keeps replaying the images captured in perfect detail by his new eye, wishing someone had done the same for him.

  Wary of searching for another set of stairs they instead use one of the scaffolding bridges connecting the towers to each other. A few of them stick out from each floor, a late and rickety addition to the towers. Spec has no idea what the original planners of the Million Towers would say if they could see what the towers had become, disfigured and abused by its inhabitants. Probably nothing, they didn’t seem to care too much when they built them.

  Spec can’t decide what’s more refreshing as they step outside, the familiar polluted air or the view. They take off their masks and enjoy a light breeze soothing marks left by the rubber. Eastbridge smells like a lack of money, at least around here. If nothing else you can always tell where you are in Eastbridge from the smell. This high up the sea breeze replaces the sickly sweet smell of garbage and the fat lining your nostrils from fried food. The hint of waste chemicals and industry are always there, of course, originating from south of the city and working to create an impressive smog despite the cars going electric decades ago. Now smoke from the fires contribute to the mix.

  They made it.