Jumping down, I find three kids to my right crouching behind empty crates. They're maybe thirteen or fourteen years-old. Their lips form stoic lines, but their eyes gleam with mischief. I remember that look.

Two boys flank the girl. The smallest of the three, the boy on the far left, fidgets like a bird about to take off. He hides his hand in a bag.

I pause to monitor their odd behavior until I hear my name shouted from behind.

With his hands shoved in his jacket pockets, his wrinkled pants splotched with oil stains, and his cerulean eyes downcast, Kai's muddy ghost approaches. The skin under his eyes is swollen with sleeplessness.

His phantom hands squeeze my hips.

Panic washes over me. My hands tremble at my sides.

When the initial shock sweeps over, and I'm left shuddering in its wake, the madness of the URE recedes, becoming a shallow thought in the distance. I can't let that happen right now.

Something is wrong with the people of the URE. It's time to focus.

Turning from Kai, I close my eyes to ground myself. I need to be prepared for whatever happens next.

Breathe.

There's nothing in the URE I can't handle.

Focus.

I open my eyes.

In my peripherals, two active militiamen guard their post. They're probably not aware of the little pieces clicking together in the eye of the storm. This is too much for me to handle alone. They must be aware of the potential disaster gathering.

I whistle loudly enough to secure their attention.

They glance my way.

The twitchy kid below me startles at the noise. He raises his arms, revealing a gun he'd been hiding in the bag.

"No!" I shout, throwing myself to grab it from him, but I'm too late.

He shoots off a red flare into the air above the marketplace tents. He falls over from the kickback, the gun smoking in his little hand.

Civilians duck after the shot as the light blasts upward. It catches the draping canvas of the garment booth. It blazes to life, burning the marketplace canopy.

Screams fill the air.

Kai appears at my side.

The kids struggle to haul their friend to his feet when Kai grabs the two boys by their collars. He hoists them up. The smaller uses his strength to pry Kai's hand from his shirt.

The girl sprints behind us, kicking Kai's shins with furious precision. She turns her attack on me when I grab her arm.

People cower as smoke clogs the marketplace. The destruction fans out. They grab at produce, products, scraps, and textiles on their hasty exit. The two militiamen join me in the epicenter of the insanity, screaming into their PAHLMs.

I pull rank. "Get Fire Team up here." I point to the tallest flame. "Gate two is compromised."

When I activate my comms, my PAHLM flickers as it syncs my frequencies. Frazzled voices buzz incoherent orders in my earpiece. At least SCOPE is aware of what's happening in here.

The girl pulls free from my grip. I lunge after her, but a mob of panicking civilians separates us. She pushes through, sprinting past her comrades who flail frantically in Kai's grasp. I don't want to help him. But it's imperative he be hands-free so we can deal with whatever happens next. Because something is coming.

As I shove people aside in an attempt to free Kai, a loud crackling stops me dead in my track. Enormous flames engulf the canopy. Ropes fall away as burning fabric collapses on the terrified masses.

Fire Team crashes into the marketplace as a yellow wave through Gate 1, its heavy wagon loaded with powder follows close behind. They hoist bags on their shoulders and bound into the market.

Dressed in his training gear, Dean appears behind them. He sprints over as soon as he spots me.

"I've never seen people act like this," I shout at him above the noise.

Two civilians fight over a crate of canned beef. They rip their nails on the metal box and scream over the aluminum tops. The man tears the box from the woman's grasp, flinging her to the ground. Her throaty screams rise above the crack of her bones as the mob stampedes toward the exit. I rush over and stoop to help her up.

Kai remains ineffective while dealing with the kids.

"Help him," I beg Dean from the ground. "We need him."

Dean hesitates for a brief second to mask his revulsion. He strides with his fists balled tight. The two children's eyes bulge in terror. Towering over them, Dean grabs one kid by the scruff of his shirt, shoving him against the wall. He pins him with his forearm. They scan PAHLM to PAHLM. The other boy watches from within Kai's grasp. He clutches the empty flare gun in a tight fist.

"Let's move." Dean shoves his way past Kai and the small boy.

Kai glares at Dean's back. He doesn't follow.

When Dean reaches me, we herd frantic civilians out toward Gate 3. They cover their heads, frantically charging in sporadic directions while burning debris cascades around us.

Fire Team aims their assembled hose at the flames. They pull. Within seconds, everyone in the marketplace is covered in a thick layer of the cream-colored dust. Its heavy particulate clogs my airways.

Holding my shirt over my nose, I surge against the masses and lift the trampled back to their feet. Two little kids huddle under an upturned booth. One cries while the other coughs violently. I pull them from under their makeshift shelter, grab an older man running toward an exit, and shove the three together. "Take them out," I order.

His eyes bulge out, befuddled. He abandons me and the children.

"Asshole! What the hell?" I scream after him. Frantic, I search for others to conscript, but everyone is too busy saving their own goddamn skin. When I return to grab the kids, they're already gone.

The horde at Gate 3 bottlenecks our exit. No one can escape because a swarm of people invades the disaster zone with fists raised and riotous rancor in their eyes.

"The URE!" they scream into the burning marketplace, "is tyranny!"

Rioters.

This can't be happening. I whirl around to take stock of the situation.

One group stands like a wall against the exit.

One group claws for an escape.

One group tears the marketplace apart.

One group attempts to hold it all in place.

It's impossible to focus. The voices in my earpiece clamor louder until their instructions are indistinguishable. The commands walk over one another, dirtying the line, creating more chaos to identify and extinguish.

Until they're all simultaneously cut off.

One single voice rings out. "Quick Reaction Force cleared to engage."

Dean and I cover our ears and drop to the ground.

The flash-bang canisters arc around the room. When the marketplace erupts with explosions, the civilians duck and scatter. The rebels who formed a wall around the entrance disperse as a new throng of people shove themselves through the cleared exit.

They bottleneck again.

I grab the children hiding in the crevices of the destroyed marketplace. Dean takes the arms of the rioters and shoves them aside as we stagger to Gate 1. Rioters block us.

With a kid in my arms and two more trailing behind me, I drop my load and return for more. I pluck a petrified boy from the corner of the marketplace. His mouth opens wide in terrified shrieks as he rubs smoke from his eyes.

Sweeping him into my arms, I push a group of men and women in the right direction. Dean tails me with his own group. I return to the cleaner air, sputtering smoke and blinking away soot. In the distance, Fire Team battles the flames. The heavy, black air tells me the worst—they're losing.

We're going to die in here. If we don't leave now, we're all going to burn in our underground oven.

Dean finds my gaze. We sprint for the exits.

Peering back into the marketplace, I barely catch the form of Kai swinging at rioters with one hand. In the other is the kid with the flare gun.

"What is he doing?" I shout into the noise. "Kai, let's go!"

He spins to me.

Dean looms above, his hand on my shoulder as he guides us toward the nearest gate.

Kai's lip curls in a vicious snarl.

The small boy struggles to pull Kai's thick fingers from his collar.

A rioter weilding a lead pipe charges.

"Kai, move!" I shout, handing the boy off to Dean before rushing forward.

The pipe slices the air. Kai ducks. It grazes the back of his head and smashes the kid in the face.

The rioter swings again, hitting Kai in the back.

To break his fall, Kai throws his hands in front of him, whipping the boy around. The kid contorts, his hands and the flare gun covering his face.

The boy's head cracks against the concrete floor, his body a ragdoll. Kai falls on top of him.

I run to Kai, but I can't open my eyes farther than a crack. I can barely make out his onyx hair in the blood.

The rioter with the lead pipe swivels around. His eyes flare, and his lips pull back as he stretches the pipe above him.

He swings. I step to the side and grab his head in both hands. With a quick jerk, I tear him to the ground. Using my full strength, I stomp on his hands and crush them under my boot. His broken fingers release the pipe. I kick it away as he screams.

Dean picks him off the ground and holds the bastard's bloody hands behind his back.

"No alien ships gonna take us anywhere," the man moans in agony. "No new planet. They're in our heads. There's nothing out there."

Smoke billows around the room, thicker than before. I push Dean away and search for Kai.

He's sprawled in blood. When I call his name, he lifts his head. Shaking, he picks himself from the ground.

That's when the rumble overtakes my focus.

This sensation is different when it's four levels below the surface of the Earth, but I still identify it is as soon as it travels through my boots and up my spine.

The Invaders are back. No one warned us.

The trembling increases with violent thrashing, throwing me off my feet. The cement ceiling cracks, spilling pebbles on the people fighting to stay upright. The comms are impossible to decipher. Everyone is losing their fucking minds.

A massive chunk of the ceiling dislodges from the structure and plummets, crushing civilians, Quick Reaction Forces, and Fire Team operators under it.

My instincts cry out to save the civilians—to shelter them, to protect them from death. But my lungs burn, and my eyes are nearly shut. I can't breathe. Grabbing Kai by the arm, I heave him up.

He's cross-eyed and bleeding from the gash on his head. I drag him off the shaking kid with the flare gun still clutched to his chest. "You're supposed to protect him."

The kid scrambles to his feet and takes off toward Gate 1, ditching the gun at last.

When the URE rumbles again, we fall to our knees. More pieces of the structure collapse on the people of the marketplace, the sound of stone splattering their bodies adds to the chaos. The civs scatter. Their terrified screams echo around the broken structure of the marketplace as they shove each other away. Kai and I stumble with them.

We hobble closer to Gate 1. Straining through the smoke, I barely make out Dean's head above the crowd. I sigh with relief as it seems he's close enough to Gate 3 to be out of harm's way.

My attention returns to Gate 1.

Another rumble knocks me to the ground. From the floor, I notice a second crack in the concrete directly above Gate 3, right above where Dean ushers civilians through the exit. He's completely unaware of the danger.

I scream his name. He turns.

A slab of thick concrete drops.

They didn't have enough time to see it coming.

"No, no, no, no, no, no," I repeat frantically before calling out to him over the wails of the people under the slab of stone. He can't die. That's not part of our new plan. After sixteen years of orbiting each other, we've finally come together. He's supposed to wait.

"Dean!"

I attempt to break through the crowd, but Kai's tight grip on my arms hold me back. I shove him off, fighting to escape, but I can't. I'm blinded by grime and fear.

Kai envelops me in his heavy arms, pinning me to the concrete as I struggle to kick loose. People run between the burning booths. Some wear flames that lick their skin, others leak blood as they crawl on mangled bones to blocked exists. I can barely distinguish the corresponding acts of destruction through my tear-filled, stinging eyes.

From the Rotunda, people howl as the violent quakes persist. I hear the piercing screech of a woman pass by Level 4.

I remember the times Dean has pulled me from the rubble, his hand extended to me. I gasp for air that can't break past the smoke-choked tears.

I cry into the bloody arms imprisoning me, yelling Dean's name over and over because maybe if he hears me, he'll let me know he's alive. My dry throat charred with smoke wheezes out his name by the time the rumbling stops.

My back blares in agony against Kai's oppressive grip from the endless time spent thrashing in it. I finally slump into him, but his arms never slacken around me.

Fire Team emerges from the rubble. With the terrified masses on the ground, they complete their objective. The fire dwindles.

I sob into the hands holding me.

My PAHLM vibrates quietly. I hold it closer to my face to check the message, praying it's Dean.

[Incoming Message: SLORN]

SAFE -- YOU OK?

I can't respond to my father now. Until I have Dean in my arms, I can't answer that.

A loud trill sounds collectively from all militia PAHLMs.

***ALERT***

CAS-REP TO SCOPE

The comms, in tentative voices, ask for Casualty Reports to be sent to SCOPE. We wait in silence. No one moves except the few militiamen in full BDUs in the distance scanning the PAHLMs of the dead.

The numbers appear in my hand.

CR - (12) Topside

CR - (1) Level6

CR - (7) Level5

CR - (38) Level1

CR - (23) Level2

CR - (12) Level10

The twelve from Level 10 must be victims of the Rotunda who fell to their death during the tremors.

My heart stops as I wait for the toll from Level 4.

"Level Four? Com . . . This is SCOPE TOP . . . Go with your traffic?"

When I hear Dean's voice in my ear, I stop breathing. "SCOPE TOP . . . CAS-REP One-three-two . . . Say again one-three-two . . . Confirm."

"Level Four . . . SCOPE Copies one-three-two Casualties . . . Confirmed."

I scan the smoldering destruction as Dean's voice comes in as clear as air, "Level Four to SCOPE TOP . . . out."