They stand on the scaffolding bridging two of the Million Towers, appreciating the narrow view. To one side they can see the brackish strait with Eastbridge’s namesake continuing into the distance, to the other side there’s another identical tower to the one they are leaving behind them, but for the mosaic of advertising and graffiti. His dad once showed pictures of Soviet buildings from a century ago, claiming they must have been the inspiration for the Million Towers. It’s hard to see the resemblance when the towers have been painted over and modified to such an extent that they seem more colorful anthills than they do buildings.

  Summer shouts in excitement and is immediately grabbed around the waist by Juin, perhaps fearing that she would jump and fall over the railing. As Spec follows her gaze he sees what’s making her so excited. Far below them a gigantic army barricade spans street after street stacked on top of each other. Behind it what amounts to a war camp sprawls between towers, complete with tents, portable latrines and lines of refugees crowding the edges.

  It feels odd to actually be relieved when seeing the authorities.

  The rest of the trip down turns out to be uneventful. Leaving the scaffold bridge behind them they enter the next tower with careful steps and Spec acting as vanguard, which quickly proves unnecessary as only strange humans come out to stare at them. Instead they try and fail miserably to fit in while aiming for the elevator down to upper street level.

  Stepping out of the building they are immediately the center of attention. Several gun barrels point their way, which then lower back down again as an officer manages to cuss them out in eight separate languages, a trueborn Eastbridger. Spec watches the scene play out while trying to fight the urge to just lay down on the street and wake up sometime next week. Considering they look like walking corpses in a world of brain eating monsters, he can’t exactly fault them for all the gun pointing.

  Juin decides to take the lead as another woman runs out from behind the officer. She’s dressed in a dark green skinsuit with strange bulges all over, as if it's meant to have pockets but she put the entire thing on inside out. As she runs up and starts rapid firing questions one of the splits open in a star pattern, revealing a small drone that immediately sets to work.

  Juin talks to the medic and after a lot of gestures in his direction and some pointed words to the officer they are finally let through. Spec can barely hear them with his bleeding ears. It’s probably an angry version of the usual mess of a language Eastbridge uses.

  They follow the energetic medic to an infirmary set up in the middle of the street with perhaps a third of the hundred beds occupied, mostly by soldiers covered in dust and earth. Spec has no idea if that’s good or bad news for his dad. He’ll just let the medic do her checkup, maybe clean up a bit and then go look for his dad. With that decided he lets the medic gently guide him to a portable bunk and sits his tired ass down.

  He sits there and tries to remain still as the medic gently but efficiently unwraps his various improvised bandages covering his body, until a commotion at the entrance catches his attention. Spec hears some vague sounds from beyond the plastic separating them from the camp outside before the flap is pushed to the side by an armored fist. The most intimidating woman he’s ever seen strides into the infirmary.

  Spec quickly flips through different settings on his eye as he tries to make sense of the brick of metal marked “Triarii Kai” walking towards him while towering over everyone in the room. Her stern expression is marked by a mess of small scars, standing out as white ridges against the dark skin. Spec can’t stop staring at the armor as she approaches his bunk bed, constantly zooming in and out at the mysterious ripples below the chipped surface.

  His contemplations come to an abrupt stop as she crouches down and dominates his vision. She takes in the small wounds across his arms, his ruined eye and his bloody leg in silence, before finally pulling off her gauntlet and grabbing his chin to turn his head from side to side. Her fingers are gentle against his coarse stubble, before suddenly flicking out beside his head. She pulls her fingers back and snaps them a couple of times in front of him before softly slapping his cheek with her giant paw of a hand, wafting a perfume of sweat and actual leather towards his nose. Who has the money to sweat on true leather?

  Triarii Kai slaps her armored knees and stands up to garble something unintelligible towards the medic. A second later the words appear in his vision together with a rotating thumbs up, courtesy of Rima.

  “He looks like I ran him over with my truck and then started reversing. What the fuck happened?” Kai asks with her hands on her hips.

  “Ma’am, we have no idea. He walked out of the building next to the infested tower together with the girls over there. Noone has been here to interview those two yet and I’ve been focused on him for now.” answers the medic, waving her hand vaguely in Juin and Summer’s direction.

  “Well, I’ll talk to the girls. He can’t hear shit, though I suspect that’s the least of his worries. Can you fix him up?”

  “Hopefully, none of the wounds are life threatening in themselves. However, the blood loss is staggering, if his clothes and wounds are any indication.”

  “Spit it out woman now, none of us are children.”

  “It’s probably not only his blood, ma’am.”

  “Yeah. I’ll look into it.”

  The massive woman walks over to Juin and Summer and talks to them for a few minutes while the medic hangs up a blood bag for him. Juin stands her back turned, growing increasingly animated in the silence. Eventually Kai walks back towards him with a thoughtful expression, Juin and Summer in tow behind her.

  “Miss, it sounds batshit insane, of course I have to ask questions.” Kai says to Juin with a tinge of exasperation.

  “My prosthetic can read lips, you can tell me what you came to say..” he says as everyone but Kai flinches.

  She turns back towards Spec and lowers her hand in a calming motion. Apparently he’s just a bit too loud.

  “Well that makes this easier. Summer here is claiming you fought through the entire tower with a magical frisbee. Her guardian isn’t contradicting her, for some reason. So I’m asking, how high are you lot?”

  “It’s not that bad anymore.” Spec says before he stops to think.

  //Human communication is fascinating.//

  Spec lets out a frustrated sigh and reaches behind his back instead of answering. Kai immediately locks her eyes on his hand but lets him take the torus out. It still has the same cold, slippery feeling as before despite lying against his back for quite a while. Kai stares at it and looks at Spec for an explanation, ignoring Summer’s smug face peeking out from behind Juin’s back.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “It’s a gardening tool.” Spec blurts out, holding back from slapping himself. Apparently he’s been hit in the head quite enough already.

  “Spec! Take this seriously, she thinks you murdered someone!”

  Kai stares at the torus as a blinding smile spreads across her scars.

  “Wait, you’re a Berserker, aren’t you? Why didn’t you say something?! Ah, this is great, we’re spread far too thin around Eastbridge.”

  “Juin didn’t tell you?” Spec asks as he tries to recover from this sudden change in tone. Did she say she’s also a Berserker?

  “I thought you might want to keep it a secret.” Juin says while crossing her arms.

  “Look, Berserker Kai, can we talk about this later? I really need to find my dad.”

  “You’re barely able to hold this conversation. Do you even have a place to stay? And don’t say inside the tower, you’re not getting in there anytime soon.” She pauses to look at him, the smile disappearing behind a serious expression once more. “Tell you what, if you stay here and try to get some blood in your body then I’ll find your dad for you.”

  “Respectfully, I’m sure you’re too busy to look for my dad and-”

  “If you won’t accept my help then trade me for it. Tell me what you saw in the tower and I’ll find your dad.”

  Such a simple rhetorical trick shouldn’t be convincing, but Spec finds that it is. The question is, does he trust this Triarii Kai? Will he gamble that she won’t break her promise and leave for the battle she’s here for? Until now she’s been nothing but professional, as far as he can tell. She gave them the opportunity to explain themselves even if she didn’t believe a word of, initially. Spec meets her earnest eyes with his own mechanical one and finds that yes, he does trust her.

  So he nods and leans back against the bunk, its soft upper layer almost managing to lie about the hard metal underneath. Rest finally catches up to him and he falls asleep.

  ***

  Kai walks out of the infirmary and nods at her colleagues in the mottled green of the army. Turning on her heel she starts walking towards the largest part of the temporary camp, the holding area for the residents of the infected towers. It’s going to be a pain to find a lone old man in that chaos. Those sleazy bureaucratic checkbox crusaders from the glass towers may have taken over the situation.

  Kai has no idea if they’ll show up. Million Towers are named so for the amount of residents, not their wealth, so no one here is rich enough to warrant a ping on their augs. On the other hand this is a shitshow, the first time CONTACT has breached the walls. Whatever the situation, she did promise the strange lad. His tale had been disturbing, for more than one reason.

  As she walks by the mess tent and calls Major Vanags she catches a whiff of the bland aroma of boiled sea grapes and frowns as her appetite plummets. They don’t taste terrible, they don’t taste like anything at all really, but the little slimy balls of seaweed was bladder fucus before they were rebranded. Hard to get excited about.

  “This is Vanags, what can I do for you Kai?” a smooth male voice says from the implant in her ear.

  “Major, I just found us a new Berserker, this twenty something guy from the Million Towers. He had some intel from inside the towers.” Kai says, deciding to leave out the more insane parts of the story for now.

  “Now that is fantastic news, if you Berserkers weren’t so rare maybe we wouldn’t be losing this war.” the voice answers with measured enthusiasm. “Did he decide to fight in the towers? I swear we can’t keep half of them alive long enough to shake their hand.”

  “We barely managed this time, his veins have more stimulants than blood in them. He fought the CONTACT sir, alone and with a brand new connection.” she says as she clenches her jaw. “There weren’t a lot of them left in there. He seems to have encountered the tail end of their escape. He fought a rabbit, sir.”

  “Rabbits?! So not only do we have no idea how they got into Eastbridge, we have no clue how they left! Under our own fucking nose, with time to scavenge! This is a fucking joke!” Major Vanags roars with a voice that would put fear into any boardroom of snobby corps.

  “I request that we search the countryside, sir.”

  “Yes, of course we will fucking search for them Kai!” he says before continuing in a lower tone “We will send out the scouts and the drones, and Kai? When we find them, I want you to go out there and tear those lizards limb from fucking limb. Then get the people back here, the glasswalkers might not realize it but we need every pair of hands we can get.”

  “Yessir! Will you send Rivers? He needs the practice.”

  Kai disconnects from the call and tries to calm her roiling blood by thinking about her next purchase on the Exchange. Major Vanags is a capable if eccentric commander, in her opinion, making the best of the shit position he’s constantly in. Conceptually, the command of Spearpoint and by extension most of the Berserkers in Eastbridge should be a prestigious position in the same way conceptually, Spearpoint is part of the army.

  In reality, both of those are partially true, at best. Berserkers are bloodthirsty maniacs without training or discipline. Who can do the equivalent of teleporting in alien tanks. Orders tend to become more of a suggestion at that point.

  Major Vadgan is not a Berserker but instead an educated officer, which instantly disqualifies him in some Berserkers’ eyes. He’s well off and doesn't have the luxury of subordinates beating respect into his soldiers over several months of bootcamp. This leaves Major Vadgan without a shred of institutional authority in a position that is based on nothing else but respect for authority, like a liquor bottle with a hole in the bottom.

  This is the very reason Spearpoint is part of and wholly distinct from the army, because it’s filled with maniacs who don’t think, act or fight like soldiers. Despite this he has managed to point Spearpoint in the general direction the war requires, mostly through furious outbursts and actually knowing what he’s about.

  But damn, his temperament made it difficult to remain a detached, professional soldier.

  As she arrives at the holding area she’s relieved to see army colors standing guard outside the fence. The city has decided to bury and ignore this problem for now, although that the tune will change as they discover the extent of CONTACTs presence inside the walls.

  “Triarii Kai!” a wiry man yells out at the top of his lungs, standing in full salute.

  “Yes, Corporal Davis?” she answers, matching his posture and looking down at him with her very best imitation of a stern principal.

  Davis starts to answer but immediately bursts out in a wheezing laughter, followed soon after by the soldiers around him save one unfortunate recruit beside him. He’s using his unfortunate ability to blush to the very best of his ability.

  “You’re screwing around with the lambs again, Davis?”

  “But it’s just so much fun! You’re so terrifying that I can tell them almost anything, it really is too easy.” Davis answers as he grabs the shoulder of the recruit and gives him a mean smile.

  “Oh, don't tell me, probably something about crushing people's heads. How’s your wife nowadays?”

  “Much better, thanks for asking! She finally got the surgery for the faulty spine insert, the company got back to us after stonewalling for months. Seems strange if you ask me, but gift horse and all that.”

  “That’s great! Say hi from me then.” Kai says with an innocent smile.

  “So, what brings you to this part of town? I hear it’s a dangerous place.” Davis asks while leaning on his modified launcher, folding his hands on top of the barrel and resting his head.

  “I’m looking for an older male by the name of Max Holm, supposed to be cognitively impaired in some way.”

  “I’ll run him through the system, see if he’s registered yet.” Davis answers, suddenly professional again.

  After a bit of back and forth it turns out that it was easier than she thought to find this Max Holm. He sits in front of her with a perfectly trimmed salt and pepper beard, attentive light brown eyes and a handsome maturity that lets his height make him attractive instead of gangly like his son.

  There’s barely a trace of his mental challenges, but he calmly assures her that it won’t last for long and immediately turns the conversation towards his son. So without more to say she leads him out of the holding area towards the infirmary, thinking about how to approach the wounded young Berserker. Sadly he won’t get to rest long.