“Fuck!”

  Dean Crocetti swore quietly and resisted the urge to throw something, anything, from his desk.

  In the moment before he contained himself, he saw the others in the room visibly draw back.

  Control yourself, man, Dean thought. Even if everyone else loses their heads, you have to keep yours.

  “Yes, sir, it’s a, um, significant loss,” agreed Trey Zelig.

  That’s an understatement. Two more scouts missing. It’s a very fucking significant loss!

  Dean nodded. Just to have something to do with his hands, he picked up a black stapler off his desk and started fiddling with it. He and his allies were using the old law firm office building, along with the add-on structures they’d managed to erect, as their base, so he was still using his old office.

  I miss being a law partner, Dean thought. Fuck me, things were actually simpler then…

  “Here’s the plan,” he said tersely. “No more patrols. We keep everyone else close.”

  Viktor Cremieux grunted his agreement.

  “We’ll spread the word, chief,” said Gina Fergis.

  “Anyone have any objections?” Dean asked, fingers still playing over the stapler.

  Silence rang through the room.

  “Dismissed, then.”

  All of the members of Dean’s inner circle rose and slowly left the room. Except one. She waited until the door had closed on the last of Dean’s allies before she said her piece.

  “What about foraging for food?” asked Sophia Crocetti, not looking at her husband directly.

  Dean allowed himself to fixate not on the words themselves, but on his wife’s body language, for a moment. Even as she waited for his answer, Sophia still held her eyes slightly away from a head-on look at him.

  That was the worst thing about Dean’s Race Evolution. He looked like his pre-System human self, but heavily abusing steroids and trying out for Mister Universe—and he thought his face had acquired a cruel twist to it, too. Sophia had tried not to say anything negative—she knew he was making the choices he had to make for their family—but he could tell she was disturbed by the transformation.

  Intimacy between the two had completely dried up.

  And he couldn’t blame her. More than his appearance had changed. It was like his body was swimming with testosterone. He felt a very difficult to restrain anger at the slightest provocation now. Evolution had not changed his intellect or basic temperament. In time, he felt certain, he would learn to control the rage that pumped through him. For now, though, he was glad that Sophia was giving him more distance than she ever had in their marriage before.

  At least he was stronger—for the moment.

  Unbidden, the description of the Race Evolution came to mind once more.

  Evolved Human: You have struggled, and you have overcome. You have built your Stats one body at a time, until you reached this position. You have achieved the peak of what is possible for a System-Boosted Human, and you have become a peak lifeform of that type. Now the time has come to accept your peak progress and convert your remaining potential into hard power, with all that exchange implies. Your final form is that of the Evolved Human, a life form that dominates all System-Boosted Humans and sits atop the Orientation food chain, capable of besting even the hardiest foes from the Orientation setting in single combat. Gain 10 Free Stat Points for every level in your Race that you have attained to this point. Enjoy your position at the pinnacle for as long as you can maintain it!

  At the time he had chosen his Race Evolution, this had seemed the best option. He needed strength to protect his family and to more effectively lead the small but growing community of survivors that had gathered here. He now had almost two hundred people sheltering with him and his loved ones.

  It was a limiting choice, in its way, but if he could sacrifice his own potential to secure his family’s future, that would be worth it. Let his children pursue the more exotic Race Evolution options.

  If only…

  “Dear?” Sophia’s voice cut into his thought process. It was surprisingly soft. She placed a hand on his wrist, gentle but firm. “What about foraging for food?”

  Right, we’re still talking about this.

  “We have some reserves at this point,” he said. “Hunting and gathering has been good the last two weeks. If these people are going to make an attack, they’re not going to wait to starve us out. We have more to lose if they get more of our scouts than we do by eating a little light for a week or so.”

  “Mm hm.” She nodded, and he knew she was accepting his decision. At least she still trusted his judgment, even if it was hard for her to look at him now—even if he was fairly certain that he scared her a little.

  She turned to go, and he grabbed at her arm—she was leaving too soon. The movement was almost a reflex on his part.

  “Wait.” He half-choked on the word, but at least it went some small way to explaining his sudden, uninvited grab.

  She started with his touch, and he could tell she was fighting the impulse to recoil.

  “What is it?” she said in a slightly higher pitch than usual.

  “I just, um—could you send Juan in?” he said lamely.

  He did need Juan. The Mage would help him with announcing this decision about tightening the ranks.

  She nodded, the movement herky-jerky, nervous. Dean felt like a gorilla that had taken some poor girl hostage en route to climbing the Empire State Building. He released his grip, and Sophia visibly relaxed before she concealed her emotions once more.

  “I—”

  I love you, he wanted to say.

  “I’ll get Juan,” she said. “Is there anything else I can do for you, dear?”

  The term of endearment at the end sounded rote, mechanical—forced.

  I feel like such a monster in this body, he thought.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “No, thank you, dear,” Dean replied, his voice hollow.

  She nodded crisply and left the room. As the door swung shut behind her, Dean tightened his grip around the stapler he still held in his other hand until he heard it crumple. If he wasn’t careful with his strength, he could crush it into a ball.

  Damn it…

  Dean forced himself to drop the stapler on his desk, in case he needed it to staple anything in the future.

  He had regained his composure by the time Juan entered the office.

  “You needed me, Mr. Crocetti?” he asked.

  Dean nodded. “Could you use some of your Lightning Mana and get the announcement system working again?”

  This was the solution that his group had devised for communication within the office building, and Dean was rather proud of it.

  A few minutes later, Juan was running a current of electricity from his hand, through the phone, and into the building’s electrical system.

  “I can only keep it going for fifteen minutes or so,” he said, sweating and panting slightly as he spoke. “You should make your announcement soon if you know what you’re going to say.”

  Dean had already chosen his words carefully. He hoped they would not further dishearten his besieged group.

  He pushed the button to transmit and began to speak.

  “Good afternoon, everyone. As you know, there are enemies in our vicinity. The collared men who visited us this past week have initiated hostilities for reasons unknown. We have no choice but to take them seriously. The last scouts we sent out to secure our perimeter have not returned. We now expect that they will not return. The attackers have chosen aggression and violence.”

  Dean did not actually know what had happened to any of the members of his faction who went missing, but since they had all disappeared while out on their regular errands, and none of them had taken their possessions with them, he was sure enough that these disappearances had been involuntary.

  “Therefore, until our opponents show themselves, the plan is to hunker down inside of our fortifications. We are defended here, and we have enough food to shelter in place for some time. Think of it like staying home from work during a hurricane.” He couldn’t resist injecting some optimism. “I have faith that we will endure this together and eliminate these men who have breached our peace. Brave and freedom-loving people will never give in to intimidation and violence. Not while we still have the strength to fight.”

  His voice began to waver slightly, and Dean realized his own doubts were coming through.

  “God bless all of you, and bless the remnant United States of America!” he finished.

  Dean pushed the button again and nodded for Juan to cut off power.

  That ought to at least staunch the bleeding. We can’t lose people to these bastards if no one goes outside.

  “Uh, very inspiring, sir,” said Juan.

  “You don’t have to say that, Juan,” Dean replied. “I don’t need people to pretend I’m doing a good job.” He forced a smile—and forced himself to push James Robard from his mind.

  A part of him wished that he had taken his family and followed James to his new country, more so now than ever before.

  If only I’d had a little more time before we came under attack, though…

  Dean’s current Job was Developer, to his annoyance—it assisted him in improving real estate and buildings—but he thought that if he continued leveling it up, it might become a more powerful Job that would allow him to defend those who had chosen to follow him more effectively. It might even make him a Ruler. There was just no time.

  “I’m not just saying it,” Juan insisted. “People need to hear from someone who believes in what we’re doing here—who believes we can survive and maintain our independence, remain free men and women. Even if you’re afraid. You’re sharing that with us too. We can handle the truth. We can handle knowing that our situation is scary.”

  Well, at least someone appreciates me. Maybe some of that stuff he said can go on my tombstone if this doesn’t work out.

  “Thanks, man,” Dean said. “I really do appreciate it.”

  “What else can I do?” Juan asked. “How can I help in our defense?”

  “I think you’ve already done a lot,” Dean replied. “Why don’t you just go spread some of this positive energy you’re giving me around to the others? I’m sure they could use it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Juan said, grinning.

  Dean returned the smile until the door closed behind Juan. Then he shook his head and tried to bring to mind anything that he could do to improve their security.

  He recalled how five men wearing black leather collars had appeared one afternoon, seeking to join Dean’s community like the various others had before them. Dean and the other leaders had not asked any questions about why the men wore collars or what bound their group together. They had already seen a group of men with matching tattoos appear, as well as a band of women wearing clothing that appeared to be made of tree bark. These were all groups that had formed in various Orientations and stuck together, bound through common experiences.

  Those groups had come and gone, but the lesson of those interactions had been that it was insensitive and impolite to ask questions about superficial matters of appearance like those. Orientation had changed everyone in strange ways.

  There were no rules in Dean’s group about when people could come and go, besides informal norms about how much each person should contribute while residing with the group.

  The collared men had integrated themselves by participating in the community’s hunts and bringing back meat, which was more important than any odd fashion choice.

  The first sign of trouble was the disappearance of two members of Dean’s group who had gone out hunting with the men in collars.

  It was a couple of days before Dean even became aware that the two were gone. He had almost two hundred people relying on him now, and he did not take attendance. These were not children he was supposed to be babysitting; they were contributing adults who were free to come and go as they pleased.

  When another group went out hunting with the collared men, however, the collaboration ended in violent betrayal. Viktor and his companions returned, minus one member, but Viktor still carried scars from the encounter. The hunters recounted an almost perfectly identical narrative. The collared men had led them into a monster ambush, transformed into monstrous cat-human hybrids with glowing yellow-green eyes, and attempted to wipe them out. Viktor only managed to keep himself and his teammates alive using his strongest, double edged Skill, which damaged the nearest enemy severely in exchange for making his own body more fragile.

  The visible result was that one of the collared men burst like a fur-covered bag of blood, and the surviving hunters bluffed their way out of the encounter, threatening to repeat the attack. The survivors were among Dean’s most powerful community members, which made him suspect this was a sort of decapitation strike, meant to remove the strongest elements of his line of defense.

  After the hunters had returned and shared their ominous news, Dean had quickly organized a posse to chase down the traitors, including a tracker who could follow their scent, but the trail quickly went cold. It was as if the collared men had vanished.

  Still, the threat had not come to an end on that day.

  Members of Dean’s community continued to hunt and gather as usual in the following days, as they stockpiled food and built up their shelter. But gradually, they began to go missing.

  It was just individuals the first two times. It could have been bad luck, weaker members of the group falling to action with random monsters.

  But Dean didn’t think so.

  He initially warned everyone to be on their guard and instructed them to only leave their base in groups of at least two. Then the reports started coming in—glowing eyes in the woods, watching the foraging parties; wild game populations disappearing from areas where they had been plentiful; predators’ tracks on the ground around the group’s territory, though the monsters leaving the tracks remained unseen.

  Soon people began going missing again, despite traveling in pairs.

  Today’s instance was only the third case of this happening, but the trend was obvious.

  Dean rose from his desk and began to pace.

  How the fuck are we supposed to deal with these people—no, these things—when we can’t track them down, and no one’s seen them and lived to tell about it besides Viktor and the hunters?

  He had no answers other than hunkering down and preparing to defend.

  But even as Dean had issued the orders to batten down the hatches, it felt inadequate—and more than that, it felt somehow like the wrong decision. Like he was ordering his own premature burial.

  Could they still run? His mind wrestled with the possibility.

  Where would we even run to?

  The answer was obvious. Although pride made it unpleasant to contemplate, he knew one place—one person, rather—whose vicinity he thought was likely to be much safer than here.