He activated the Pegasi ring and floated in a straight line towards a corner of room, at the bottom of one side of the library. He kept eyes on the Chosen guards via the hacked feeds. They were all keeping watch on the area and he moved through their line of sight, but they saw nothing. None had the kind of bionic eyes necessary to spot the faint signs of him, and by using a Pegasi ring to float he didn’t need to move his body, minimising the faint shimmers and blurs that a shimmer poncho in motion created. The sentry above had possessed such an eye and might’ve been able to spot him, but with his brains dashed on the floor he wouldn’t be saying anything.

  Arriving below the balcony he floated straight up and crested at the top, his head poking over the wooden banister. Glancing over, he saw the Chosen guards over at the bridge. There were two Chosen on the flat area on the top of the stairs, sitting behind their half-built sandbag emplacements, watching the area down below. To the left of them the bridge passed into the Library itself, where another four Chosen were stationed, two on either side of the where the bridge exited. One of these groups had the LMG which was in the most completed part of their emplacement, setup to provide fire on the main entrances into the lower area.

  These guards were all clustered quite close together, which made Nicolai’s job a little easier. However, there were two more out in this lowest level of the library, which he only knew about due to Cyberwarfare’s work. These two were dragging a little cart between the shelves, pulling books out, glancing them over, and chucking them into it.

  Nicolai rose over the balcony, and ghosted towards the group of six guards, thumbing the pistols safety off beneath his poncho. Before rising over the banister he’d charged his rapier and now sent it out. It pressed against the side of a shelf, using it as cover, then rose into the air to crawl over the top of that shelf. Arriving, he crept up slow behind the guards then lurked just beside them, an unseen companion.

  They were chatting, voices quiet.

  ‘Wish I could be out there with the rest, punishing those bastards,’ said one of them. ‘Heh, it’ll be a bloody day today.’

  ‘They deserve it,’ added another. ‘Should’ve just joined up at the start. All this blood, and for what? Because they don’t want to work for Vikrum? It’s senseless.’

  ‘He oughtn’ve have taken our Seeds,’ muttered one.

  ‘Shut it. We’ve had that talk enough times. We’re gonna get our Seeds back, that’s what he says.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what he says, but—‘

  The man beside the talker dug an elbow in his ribs, casting a wary gaze at the others who were watching with narrowed eyes. ‘Ignore him,’ he said to them with a forced smile. ‘Just not got his priorities straight yet.’

  ‘Hope so,’ murmured another Chosen in a dim voice, eyes narrowed. ‘Vikrum is a great man.’

  ‘He is,’ echoed the others quickly.

  Beyond them, further in the library, the two towing their cart of books passed between the shelves. One of them waved at the guards, who waved back as they went.

  Nicolai found the conversation quite interesting, but he had a job to be getting on with and now those two had passed by, he had his opening, so it was time to cut the talk short. His rapier floated down, sliding along behind a bookshelf, getting into position to strike.

  His arm rose and the very tip of the pistol’s silencer poked out, appearing in open air. None of them noticed it because none were looking his way, focused on their conversation or watching the area down below.

  Click. The man beside him jerked and a faint spray of blood came from his head. The others began to turn in reflexive confusion. Click. The next in line ate a bullet in the head. The pistol raised higher, to aim at those on the landing. Click. A bullet caught a man right between the eyes as he turned to look. Click. The next one died just as he was opening his mouth. With his other hand, Nicolai made a sudden gesture.

  There was a sharp fleshy sound, and the rapier appeared, its blade glistening with blood as it formed a bridge between the two remaining men by the LMG. Its hilt was nestled in the hair of one of them, the blade emerging from the other side of his head to spear through the head of the other.

  The two, glassy eyed, collapsed in sync with the other four.

  Nicolai reloaded his pistol. His rapier returned to slot into its sheath as he opened his poncho, tucked the pistol into a long pocket, and strode across the bridge. Bending down he picked up one of the corpses, slung it over his shoulder, headed back over and dumped it with the rest, then went to retrieve the next. Out on the stairs, they were visible to anyone looking down from the balconies above, of which currently there was no one but Nicolai was a firm believer in the value of risk management.

  All of those who had died had dead man’s fingers setup in their implants, a method where if their internal monitors detected injury, they would send an automatic message over the Local. “I’m injured/dead! Help!”

  These automated messages, along with the single Local cry one of them had managed, had gone unheard by the other Chosen. All were caught by Cyberwarfare.

  Nicolai strode through the library, making a beeline for his next two targets, who remained entirely unaware of him. Once in position, he held the pistol against the side of one of the bookshelves, his Soul Sense pouring through gaps to settle around his targets.

  Click. Chips of wood flew, and he shifted the pistol a few inches to the left. Click.

  Two bodies toppled to the ground. Nicolai took a moment to redistribute the ammunition in his magazines, bringing one up to full and slotting it back in. Over Local he called to Jo and Beth, and through the feeds they shared with him saw them dashing over the open area below, to the stairs which they hustled up.

  The three of them met at the entrance to the stairwell, then crept inside and upwards. Drones and cameras on each level recorded no signs of them as they moved up and up through deserted floors, the sounds of battle at the top coming closer.

  ###

  Vikrum stared at his Mark’s UI, where he had his Quest open. A short time ago he had seen his Loyal counter suddenly decrease by five.

  As he watched, it went down again. Two more Loyal had died.

  He frowned, and sent some directions. Cornwall performed a quick check of the entire compound, showing him dozens of feeds.

  Throughout the base his Chosen prepared, arming up for the days activity. Everything was fine here. It must be one of the groups he’d sent out into the castle.

  He pulled a radio, already set to channel 18 which they had been using for brief communications. Cornwall immediately provided him the next password in line, part of a list which was shared by those external groups.

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  ‘All groups, this is Command. Report when ready for communication.’

  After a slight pause the replies began rolling in.

  ‘High Rollers: Here.’

  ‘Book Club: Here.’

  ‘Zoo Keepers: Here.’

  ‘Carry On Crew: Here.’

  After hearing from the fourth and final group, Vikrum spoke again. ‘Command: Tracer.’

  ‘High Rollers: Timber.’

  ‘Book Club: Nightingale.’

  ‘Zoo Keepers: Politics.’

  ‘Tourists: Dust cloud.’

  Vikrum relaxed a little. ‘Command: Requesting status report.’

  ‘High Rollers: Seeing some activity on the floor, but experiencing no issues ourselves. No sign of any card sharps. The game is good to go ahead.’

  ‘Book Club: The current story is quite tough to get through. Two members gave up on reading. We are making steady progress to the end. Expect to be finished soon.’

  ‘Zoo Keepers: The monkeys are in their pen. No problems.’

  ‘Tourists: Finished our first trip. It was relaxing; a nice break. Have now left the setup zone. Will be home soon to begin our second trip. No problems.’

  Vikrum frowned. According to the reports, none of the groups had encountered any serious issues. Only two had died at the Library where they fought that Guardian creature. He’d noted those losses earlier and they had contacted him about them, as they were supposed to. But he’d just seen seven of his Loyal die in a moment, and it wasn’t at the main compound where the vast majority of his Chosen were, and according to the groups… it wasn’t any of them, either. But, it could only be one of them.

  The radio communication was not entirely reliable. Even with the passwords and code words, he couldn’t know exactly what was happening.

  Perhaps one of the groups—or at least the member of them talking on the radio—had missed something. Or, perhaps the speaker was not the leader of that group, but part of the group who had killed them all…

  Vikrum considered how to phrase his next question, and ultimately decided that now was not the time for messing around with code words. Now was a time to be very clear. He couldn’t afford to have too many Loyal die.

  ‘Command: we have to reason to suspect some have died. Pause all activities insomuch as possible and perform a full, face-to-face roll call.’

  The affirmatives came in one after the other. Then the Carry On Crew reported that the roll call was complete and all members present, followed a short time later by the Zoo Keepers. It would take some time for the High Rollers and Book Club members, who Vikrum knew would be more dispersed, to perform their own physical checks.

  Vikrum could only wait, concerned and irritable.

  ###

  The Chosen field leader up there had been talking to someone on his radio. Nicolai had heard all of it, on his own radio. The Chosen tended to use either channel 7, 14, or 18, and he found them on 18. As always, they spoke in code, Nicolai had heard a few of their quick communications before, but had only been able to guess at what they were discussing. Now, however, the details were filling in. Book Club were obviously the guys in the library. Carry On Crew were those delivering sandbags. High Rollers and Zoo Keepers remained unknown; but if nothing else it was clear that the Chosen only had four groups operating externally at the moment.

  He had never heard the Command ask for a “full, face-to-face roll call.” He did not think it was any kind of code, he was pretty sure it was exactly what it sounded like.

  This was confirmed when over Local he first listened to the leader querying all those below, requesting a feed check and status report.

  Cyberwarfare’s ghosts gave the man exactly what he wanted, speaking in the voices of dead men.

  ‘We’re fine,’ said one of the ghosts, sending an imaginary feed of the area below the Library. ‘All quiet.’

  ‘Is something up?’ asked another.

  ‘There’s no problem. Maintain your posts,’ answered the leader. Cyberwarfare and Nicolai observed as the leader split into a private message with one of those in the group facing the Guardian.

  ‘Go down, and take those resting with you. Go check on everyone down below, then get back up here.’

  ‘Sure. But is there something up?’ asked the man.

  ‘I don’t know. The big boss is skeeved about something, wants us all to do a face-to-face check and make sure everyone’s accounted for. Just have a look, and be quick.’

  Was this simple bad luck, or something else? Nicolai couldn’t say. He saw no way for the voice on the radio—presumably Vikrum—to know that these Chosen were in trouble, so perhaps it was no more than a matter of chance. But Nicolai found it quite suspect; the timing was too convenient. It gave the impression that there was something he didn’t know about Vikrum and the Chosen.

  He had wound his way up the stairs and was about to reach the penultimate floor, Jo and Beth right behind him. Above them, another man was descending from the topmost floor, coming down the same stairway. Also trickling down from above was the gunshots and called out orders of those above.

  In the room on the penultimate floor was a group Nicolai had been aware of, and had intended to kill before moving on to those at the top. These numbered eight, and were here as active reinforcements for those above. Only so many people could be up there at any time and fight effectively, so these guys were ready in case of any issue. Already they had swapped out a few times when someone up there ran out of ammo, suffered a jam or sudden injury. Three of them were those who’d been injured.

  Nicolai considered the variables, conferring with Threat Analysis and Cyberwarfare, then came to a decision. With the time available and their positioning—already practically on top of the enemy—it should be possible to avoid alerting those above.

  He issued swift orders to Jo and Beth while floating soundlessly up and out the stairwell, through the room where those resting Chosen gathered. Most were busy reloading magazines with rounds from boxes of ammo, performing maintenance on their guns, or for some, sitting quietly and with pained faces, the bloodied bandages on them showing injuries.

  There were eight in total. Nicolai slithered through them and took up position in a dim corner of the room, where there was a stone column he could lurk behind. He prepared his pistol and extended it, almost emerging from the poncho, ready and waiting.

  While he did so, he maintained eyes on the Chosen in the room. His eyes lenses marked their locations, and with the help of Threat Analysis he communicated this to Jo and Beth. Similar as what the Chosen leader was doing above, Nicolai’s implants worked with theirs. To the other two, lurking in the stairwell just around the bend, they would now be able to effectively see through the walls, via their eye-lenses overlaying red hologrammatic three-dimensional shapes; the Chosen in the room. Nicolai’s eye-lenses traced the positions and outlines of the enemies then relayed that data directly to the others.

  Software capable of doing this wasn’t standard with a typical BIS, but as sentient Killbot Modules both Threat Analysis and Cyberwarfare were more than up to the task of allowing for such functionality on the fly.

  A Chosen stepped down the stairs and emerged into the room, unaware of the three sets of eyes watching his movement.

  ‘Anyone who’s able, come with me,’ the man said. ‘We’ve gotta go and put eyes downstairs.’

  The others asked the man why, but he waved a hand, as dismissive as his own leader had been. ‘Someone’s worried, that’s all I know. We just gotta go have a look, that’s all. Who’s in?’

  Nicolai didn’t wait any longer. He issued the order to Jo and Beth who started creeping up the stairs. With the data streaming between him and them, he knew their exact positions.

  The moment they were in place, he took aim and squeezed the trigger.

  Click, click. The most alert looking of the Chosen blinked and stumbled and stared down at his chest where there was a red stain soaking through his clothes. Click, click, click, click…

  The Chosen had no time to react properly as a succession of speedy clicking noises bounced off the walls. Jo and Beth were aiming out of the stairwell, shooting their own pistols. They all aimed at the brain-stem, as it was a spot where a shot would guarantee instant death. As the targets were stationary and Jo and Beth had both training and Combat Chips, he could rely on them to hit their shots.

  None of them targeted the same Chosen, as he and Threat Analysis split those in the room up, labelling them with differing colours and IDs to show who should shoot who. Software like this was commonly used by militrary and law enforcement for teamwork, as it allowed targets and jobs to be clearly and explicitly split. Once more, Threat Analysis did the job entirely by itself, and even went a step further by working with Jo and Beth’s Combat Chips to ensure seamless targeting.

  One of the Chosen managed to begin crying out, the sound cutting off an instant after it started as two bullets passed through his head. Then the only sound was of their bodies hitting the floor.

  Jo and Beth pressed out of the stairway and Nicolai moved to join them, all tucking their pistols away and taking hold of their primary weapons, ready in case any of those above had heard. A needless precaution. He’d timed the attack to coincide with one of the Chosen’s massed volleys at the undead Guardian, and none of them had heard over their own gunfire.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said via Link, stepping towards the stairwell once more, his AA-12 ready. Jo and Beth fell in behind him, fully loaded SMG’s gripped in their hands.

  They moved in a line, quick and efficient, a team of killers who still were completely unknown to those above. If he had his way, the targets above wouldn’t suspect a thing until the very moment they were taking bullets to the heart or brain.