Again, silence loomed upon them. Gravel took out from his pocket the tag he’d retrieved from Kaeda Tanaka earlier. The tag was clean, pristine, and not yet tarnished by the jungle’s blood-soaked embrace. He flipped it in his fingers and then glanced at the body it had come from. He had recognized her insignia earlier—a coilgun with her name engraved in its barrel.

  “Well, she isn’t gonna use it now, is she?” he muttered as he walked over, all the while checking the listing if there was a reward for the proof of Kaeda’s death individually. There was.

  5.5 milion ducats, about 25% of the total payout. The reward was good enough, and he didn’t need to account for the rest of the Syndicate’s gear.

  Hunter glanced over at him. “What’s that look for?”

  Gravel said with caution. “Seems this little souvenir could be more profitable than this whole job. If we go back now, we get to recoup some creds and not lose our lives here.” He bit his lips as his eyes darted between the corpses, the torn bodies of mercenaries, and the sabertooth tigers’ massive carcasses. “Kaeda left a holo-note. It said that they were some sort of test subjects.”

  Hunter didn’t answer right away. She followed Gravel’s gaze, then looked back up at Gravel, her brow furrowing. “This was an unauthorized test zone. There’s a reason nobody’s ever completed this quest. Whoever took it on before us must’ve figured out the hard way.”

  Priest nodded. “We retreat.”

  Gravel already retraced his steps. “Not permanently. Just for now. At least until we figure out what we’re really getting ourselves into. We take a breather, regroup, reassess the—”

  “Someone’s approaching,” Priest muttered, touching the side of his visor.

  Hunter steadied her gun and fell into a defensive stance. Gravel’s Morkanium crawled on his skin again.

  The silence stretched, but they heard no footsteps or no sounds of movement. But they trusted Priest. The man had better senses than them, and it wasn’t just because of the visors.

  A figure emerged from the sands and trudged through the thick underbrush on the far side of the oasis. The man’s gait was unsteady, and his clothes was ragged and torn, stained with dirt and blood. Bruises marred his face, and his outer clothing looked like it’d been torn through by a clawed beast.

  He staggered as he approached, then raised his hands into the air.

  “Don’t shoot,” he pleaded with a strained voice. “Please, help us. We’re all going to die…” Then his voice cracked.

  Hunter’s grip tightened on her weapon, but she didn’t raise it. Gravel exchanged a glance with Priest, his muscles coiled.

  “Who the hell are you?” Gravel called out.

  The man’s face twisted in agony as he came closer. “I—I don’t know how much longer we have. Please,” he gasped, his breath ragged. “We were part of the last convoy. We came to check out the wreckage from the Syndicate, but… but we got caught.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Gravel didn’t move, but his eyes narrowed. He glanced over at Priest, who gave him a subtle, knowing look.

  The pattern and the stitching suggested he was wearing the same kind of gear as the Syndicate mercs. The same clothing, the same insignia.

  Gravel snorted. “You think we didn’t recognize those clothes, buddy? We’ve been in the game for longer than you know. You’re not some random survivor.”

  The man’s face paled, his lips quivering as if he was about to speak. But nothing came out, only ragged breaths and a pleading expression.

  Hunter raised her gun. “Tell us the truth.”

  The man swallowed hard as he spoke. His voice was barely audible because of the distance. “Please, you don’t understand… They’ll come for you, too. We were trying to escape—”

  Gravel stepped closer, his eyes narrowing. “Escape from what? What’s out there?”

  “Gonzo,” The man opened his mouth, but another deep growl rumbled from behind the sand dunes cut him off. His face twisted in terror. “No, no, no… Not now…”

  Something massive exploded from the sand. The sand kicked up in clouds, and the creature—the third sabertooth tiger—burst from the earth, wrestling the man into the ground.

  “Ahhh! Please, help me! Save me! Please!” The man screamed in horror as he stretch a hand toward the direction of the trio.

  “Retreat!” Priest pressed.

  They turned and ran.

  Behind them, the scream grew ever louder, ever more horrifying. Then silence.

  ***

  “Status! Are you all okay?” The second the three of them stepped to the edge of the desert, Fang’s voice blasted on comms.

  “We’re good,” Hunter replied. “Did your signal drop or something?”

  “I lost contact with you guys. It seems like something’s jammed the comms, since you guys couldn’t have gone that far.”

  Gravel’s gaze shifted over to the horizon, his senses still on high alert. “You’ve been offline for a while. What’s the situation on your end?”

  Fang’s voice came back with an edge of frustration. “Nothing’s good. The area’s crawling with interference, and I can’t make heads or tails of it. I’ve been trying to get a lock on your positions, but all I’m picking up is static and some weird energy spikes. Whatever’s causing it isn’t natural.” Then she sounded more urgent. “The energy spikes I’m reading? They’re all concentrated around your position.”

  Gravel’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying, Fang?”

  “I’m saying,” Fang’s voice took on a tone of disbelief, “the creatures—whatever they are—aren’t the only threat out there. Someone or something is controlling them. This is way bigger than just some escaped beasts from a failed project.”

  Hunter interjected, “But the file said this site is supposed to have been abandoned.”

  “There might be a reason that it is abandoned,” Priest said. “Fang. Can you look up everything you can on the name ‘Gonzo’? A syndicate member uttered that name right before he died.”

  “I’m on it,” she replied.

  “The threat might not be from those running the project.” Gravel took in a small breath, careful not to breathe in too much dry air. “Those things must have arrived recently. That Japanese syndicate has been operating for a long time and they died just now.”

  Priest spoke, “Enough speculation. Get out of here first.”

  Hunter looked over at Priest. “We’ve got gliders to get down, but how the hell do we get back up? No one really thought that through, did they?”

  Priest’s eyes shifted toward the distant rocky outcrops to the east. “There is a rocky outpost about five clicks from here.”

  Gravel chimed in, “Shoulda read the handouts, Hunter. The dockworkers said it’s the place where they can get us airborne again. The gliders are supposed to launch from there and head back to the station.” He glanced down at Hunter’s glider, which was lying half-buried in sand. “But, that doesn’t help if your glider’s broken.”

  Hunter scowled, inspecting her glider. “We’ll figure it out later. Right now, we get to that outpost.”