The first thing Leo was aware of was the smell. Ozone. Sharp and acrid, like the air after a lightning strike. It was a familiar scent now, the smell of Ben's miracles and his own agonizing reality edits. He groaned, a low, guttural sound that seemed to be torn from the very depths of him. His head felt like it had been split open, filled with broken glass, and then crudely stitched back together.
"He's coming around." Chloe's voice. It was tight with a strain he'd never heard from her before.
He managed to pry his eyelids open. The world was a blurry, swimming mess. The brilliant white of the floodlight was a dull, hazy star. He was on his back, his head pillowed on one of the duffel bags. Chloe was kneeling beside him, her face a pale, worried moon.
"How… how long?" he croaked, his throat raw.
"Fourteen minutes," she replied, her voice shaky. "You were out for fourteen minutes." She glanced at the tablet, which was propped up nearby. "The network is still down. They're still frozen."
Fourteen minutes. It felt like a lifetime. And an eyeblink.
He pushed himself up, his muscles screaming in protest. A wave of vertigo washed over him, and the tunnel tilted violently. "Whoa."
"Easy," a new voice said. Maya. She was there, a steadying hand on his shoulder. She was holding out a half-empty bottle of water. "Drink."
He did, the cool liquid a balm on his raw throat. As his vision cleared, he took in the scene. The tunnel was the same, a tube of concrete and light and oppressive darkness. But the atmosphere was… different. Charged. The quiet hum of the floodlight seemed louder now, a buzzing, impatient thing.
Ben was hunched over the Core, his face grim. The makeshift interface he'd attached to Leo's temples was lying on the ground, its wires smoking, the metallic pads blackened and warped.
"The bio-interface is fried," Ben said, not looking up. "Completely melted. I… I almost killed you, Leo." The guilt in his voice was a heavy, tangible thing.
"But you didn't," Leo said, his own voice sounding stronger now. "And it worked. They're frozen."
"For now," Maya stated, her gaze fixed on the darkness down the tunnel. "Chloe's been timing it. We figure we have an hour, tops, before that Taskmaster thing reboots the system. We've used up almost fifteen minutes of that. If we're going to help those people, we have to go now."
The choice was already made. He'd paid the price. Now they had to cash the check.
"The gym is on the fifth floor," Chloe said, pulling up the building blueprint on her phone. "The service stairs are our best bet, but… we don't know what else is between here and there. The cameras are still dead on floors three and four."
"Doesn't matter," Maya said, shouldering her pack. "The mission is simple. Get in, get the survivors, get out. We're not fighting anything we don't have to." She looked at each of them in turn, her eyes hard. "We move fast, we move quiet. Understood?"
They all nodded. The time for debate was over. Now, it was just execution.
They left the floodlight and the direct network tap behind, a small, lonely island of light and information that they couldn't afford to carry. They were back to their phones, feeble beams cutting through the oppressive dark, with Ben's core providing its soft, blue, ethereal glow from the rear.
The ascent was a tense, nerve-wracking affair. They moved with a speed and purpose they hadn't had before. Every floor was a new level of hell. The first floor was quiet. The second was a tomb. The third, where they'd fought the Leech, was a disgusting, sticky mess that they moved through with grim determination. The fourth floor was an unknown. The doors to the main hallway were jammed shut, and they didn't waste time trying to open them. They stayed in the stairwell, their ears straining for any sound.
Nothing. Just the echo of their own footsteps and the distant, rhythmic drip of water.
They reached the fifth floor. The air here was different. It smelled of sweat, fear, and the coppery tang of fresh blood. The sounds were different, too. Not the roars of goblins, but the low, terrified whimpers of human beings.
Maya held up a hand, signaling them to stop. She crept to the edge of the stairwell door, which was propped open a few inches, and peered through the gap. After a long, tense moment, she pulled back.
"It's just like the map," she whispered, her voice a low hiss. "The gym is at the end of the hall. The glass walls are shattered. The goblins… they're everywhere. Just… standing there. Frozen."
It was an eerie, horrifying sight. The hallway was a frozen tableau of an attack in progress. Goblins in mid-lunge, their crude weapons raised, their faces twisted into silent snarls. They were like grotesque, green statues in a museum of violence.
"Okay," Chloe whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "So we just… walk past them?"
"We don't have a choice," Maya said. "Stay quiet. Don't touch them. They're like… like computers in sleep mode. Any unexpected input might wake them up."
It was the most terrifying walk of Leo's life. They moved through the silent, frozen horde, their hearts pounding in their chests. They were ghosts in their own nightmare. He could smell them, a rank, sour odor of unwashed bodies and stale blood. He could see the details on their green skin, the crude stitching on their leather armor, the hateful, unthinking expressions on their faces.
They reached the shattered entrance to the gym. Inside, it was a scene of utter devastation. Bodies, both goblin and human, were strewn across the floor. And huddled in the center, behind their pathetic barricade of treadmills, were the survivors. About a dozen of them, their faces a mixture of terror, confusion, and dawning, unbelievable hope.
An older man in a torn business suit saw them first. His face went slack with disbelief. "You… you're alive."
Chloe stepped forward, her voice a low, urgent whisper. "We don't have much time. We're getting you out of here. Is anyone hurt?"
A woman with a makeshift bandage on her arm nodded. "A few of us. But we can all walk."
"Good," Maya said, her eyes already scanning for exits. "Follow us. Do exactly as we say. And for God's sake, be quiet."
Getting the survivors out of the gym and through the frozen gauntlet of goblins was a nightmare of controlled chaos. People were crying, their sobs muffled into jackets. Someone tripped, the sound a gunshot in the silent hall. A goblin, jostled by the fall, swayed on its feet, its head twitching. For a terrifying second, Leo thought it was waking up. But it settled back into its frozen state.
They herded the terrified, shuffling group back toward the stairwell. It felt like an eternity. Every step was a risk. Every sound was a potential death sentence.
They were almost there. The stairwell door was just ten feet away.
Then, from the far end of the hall, came a low, guttural groan.
Leo's chest tightened. He snapped his head around. It was the Taskmaster. The tall, gaunt figure in the security guard's uniform. It was standing in the middle of the hall, its head twitching from side to side. It wasn't frozen like the others. It was fighting it. Its system was more complex, its protocols more robust. It was trying to reboot.
A low, warbling sound, like a corrupted dial-up modem, emanated from its throat. And all around them, the goblins began to stir.
An arm twitched. A head turned. A low growl rumbled in a frozen throat.
The network was coming back online.
"Run!" Maya screamed, the command a sharp, explosive crack in the tense quiet.
The spell was broken. Chaos erupted. The survivors surged forward, a stampede of pure panic. The goblins, their systems rebooting, began to move, their movements at first slow and jerky, then faster, more fluid.
It was a race. A mad, desperate dash for the stairwell door. A goblin reached out, its claws snagging a survivor's jacket. Maya was there, her knives a blur, severing the arm at the elbow. Ben and Chloe shoved people through the door, their faces a mask of grim determination.
Leo was at the rear, trying to keep the path clear. A goblin, its eyes flickering back to life, lunged at him. He stumbled back, tripping over an abandoned weight. He fell hard, the air knocked from his lungs.
The goblin was on him, its hot, foul breath washing over his face, its yellowed teeth snapping just inches from his throat. He saw its nameplate, [Goblin Grunt Lv. 3], and below it, its stats.
He didn't have time for a complex edit. He didn't have the strength. But he had proficiency. He had practice.
He focused on a single, simple variable.
Object: Goblin_Grunt_Armor_Strap [Property: Tension_High]
He pushed. A small, sharp pain lanced through his head.
[Property: Tension_Critical_Failure]
The leather strap holding the goblin's crude chest plate on snapped. The armor plate fell away, and the goblin, surprised by the sudden shift in weight, stumbled.
It was all the opening Maya needed. She was there, a phantom of vengeance, her knives plunging into the goblin's now-exposed chest. It gurgled, and fell silent.
She hauled Leo to his feet. "Go!"
They scrambled through the door, Chloe and Ben slamming it shut behind them. They could hear the horde pounding on the other side, the sound of their fury echoing in the concrete shaft.
They had done it. They had gotten the survivors. They were bruised, battered, and terrified. But they were alive. And they were not alone anymore.