Thirteen jabbed his thumb on the longest key on his board, bringing the screens to life. The electricity line sparked, making some displays blink and glitch. Another thing to fix. Later. Time wasn't the most stable medium around.

The counter's blare and the red lights flashing in the hall snatched his attention back to the problem at hand. Another counter, but he had a plan. At least, he thought he did. The moment the screens flickered on, Karrel's move became evident. The pins. They were gone.

A curse flew out of his lips. His hand flew to his ear and switched all the channels on. "Command is blind," he said. "Report hostiles status, stat."

Five's link fizzed. "Copy that," she said. "Location—vulture dog, west. Heading to alpha rise, north. No hostiles in the west."

"No hostiles in south," Eight's voice followed after Five closed her channel. "Heading towards hostile territory. North. Are the others there?"

Thirteen followed the only pins left on the simulated map of the grounds. "En route," he answered.

"Entering hostile borders," One reported. "Shadows moving southbound. Four. First count. I can be wrong."

The door to the command center burst open and Nine and Eighteen spilled out. "What's going on?" Nine asked. "Is there something wrong?"

Thirteen didn't turn away from the screens. "Pins' input down. Karrel must have figured it out," he said. "Activate your ability."

"On it," she replied, shedding her jacket. Her toned arms ripped off her tight tank top. When did she find the time to work out? Oh, right. Thirteen freed her from her job ages ago when he developed the pin system. Look at where they were now.

She braced the edge of the table and closed her eyes. "Eighteen," Thirteen called, sensing the older girl creeping towards her usual spot. "Go through the records on that screen. We don't have much time."

Karrel could find the fighting unit, and no one would be able to stop her. Not without knowing her ability and how to stop it. Only Five could take Section H's leader on a stalemate, but if Karrel got a hold of stronger, elemental abilities like Eight's, then Five was toast.

"Nine, any progress?" he asked.

The girl's head tilted from side to side as if a seizure was slow to come. "I'm trying," she said. "They're too far out. Reaching the northern quadrant is hard."

Another curse flew out of Thirteen's lips. It was followed by another and another, until a string of them followed in his wake. He waved Eighteen off just as she came to bring a stool to where he instructed her too. This was why Thirteen preferred systems and digital interfaces. They were faster. More efficient.

Time wasn't a stable economy, and everyone ran out of it all the time. He couldn't afford wasting it like this. "Back off," he hissed. His fingers ripped drawers until he reached the lowest niche. One of Five's earlier daggers slid into view. She had given it to him long ago, claiming he needed to have ways to defend himself should the building get overrun. Not going to happen in a long while, but Thirteen kept it there to humor the effort.

Now, he was glad he did that. It had another purpose now.

"Step out for a moment," Thirteen said. "I'll get the system back online. Somehow."

Nine and Eighteen didn't argue, although curiosity and confusion shone in their eyes. As soon as the door closed behind them, Thirteen snatched the dagger and held it against his wrist. He slashed down. Pain streaked up his arm. His teeth dug into his lip. It was just a wound. It'd heal. They have Three. What was the next bit?

Almighty God. He forced himself to look down at the stream of blood pooling from the gaping wound. Then, he plunged two fingers into it. Deep. Flesh squelched around. He felt for the chip, tamping a raw scream clawing at his throat. His fingers brushed against something hard and edged. The chip. His thumb joined the fray, and as soon as he gained a stable grasp, he yanked it out.

Something snapped within his arm—that much he was certain. No time to dwell on that. He perched on his stool again, trailing blood everywhere. He had studied Slate and Flint's chips long enough to figure out how to connect it to the system. Like all parts of a computer, the chip was just another drive. Another way to store information. And if he tweaked the concept a little bit...

He could turn it into a network.

His chip slotted into a reader he developed for it. His mind went to work, directing his fingers, his eyes, and his reason to get what he achieved. A screen displayed his progress, the cursor blinking and following the strings of code running across the dark blue expanse. Come on. The system responded. Access denied. Oh, motherf—

The wound burned. His blood seeped out of his body as if they belonged to the air. Come on. Keys clacked against the barrage of his fingers. A different route. He should take a different route with the code. More strings of near-gibberish. For some reason, he understood it and what they were meant to do. Maybe Five was right. Maybe this was his ability.

The new code finished laying out the last of its conditions. He launched it to the system. Access Cleared. Fetching packages....

About time. He launched to work, opening a direct link towards everything that carried the same signal as it. If Karrel was right about people watching them from above, they couldn't have done it by following everyone around, right? They would have done it from the inside. What better way than to insert portable tracking devices? Like the chips, for instance. And if Thirteen could gain access to that feature...

He hit the key that finalized everything. Access Cleared. Managing dependencies. Fetching dependencies...

One glance at the counter's clock showed him everything he needed to know. Fifteen more minutes to go. "Nine, Eighteen," he said to the comms. "Command. Stat."

They must have been waiting by the door with how soon it opened. "What happened?" Eighteen asked, scanning the room for any detail that was added in her absence. Thirteen hid the reader where his chip was in the depths of the wires behind the screens. "Did you get the system online?"

"Working on it," Thirteen answered, fingers tapping away to alter some features of the codes. Move that there. Delete that condition. Build a dependency here. And... "Voila," he said, hitting the finalizing key once more. Before him, the screens glitched and blinked. On the final flicker, it displayed the accurate location of all the chips present in the grounds.

A work well done, if he said so himself.

"What the hell?" Nine breathed, covering her mouth. "How...?"

Thirteen glanced on the middle top screen. "Oh, shit," he hissed. Before the others could ask him to explain, he tapped into comms. "Five, One, Eight, anyone, status report? Command is eagle-eyed."

Static.

"Thirteen, what is that?" Eighteen pointed towards the clump of pins converging into a single coordinate.

"That's Section H," Thirteen replied. "And they brought reinforcements."

Those were from the remaining sections, and if Thirteen trusted their records, Section O was included. This was a problem. A gigantic one. "What are we doing then?" Nine slapped a balled fist on her palm. "We have to help them!"

Thirteen whirled to her to find Eighteen even considering it. "What are you going to do there?" he demanded. "You'd just be in the way!"

"It's better to go and help them than stand here and do nothing," Nine said. "I'm going out."

He turned to Eighteen who oscillated between him and the girl who was already stalking away. "Eighteen, don't you dare," Thirteen warned, shaking his head to show he was serious about it.

"I'll protect Nine, don't worry," Eighteen said. "See you in the field."

Before he could stop her, she ran after Nine. Together, they ran out of the command room and, perhaps, to their deaths.

Thirteen cradled his arm to his gut. Well, it was time to get some sun.

The horizon loomed closer, filling Twelve with hope. She dashed across the clearing, letting the sun's rays batter her with its heat. After the counter's blare went off, Thirteen sent them straight into the fray with a single instruction—take Section H down. How he knew what to do, it was beyond Twelve's capacity to understand. Thirteen was a different kind of beast, and it was in her best interest to never question him or anything he did. It wasn't like he liked telling, anyway.

Beside her, Four matched her pace, the cool afternoon air driving her brown hair off her forehead. Instead of letting it fall over her back, she insisted Twelve braid it. The tail of Twelve's braid bounced against her spine with every stride, reminding her of the style she shared with Four.

Thirteen's voice resounded in Twelve's ear, and she toned it down with her ability. Loud blasts mixed with stark orders were never the good combination. "Command is blind. Report hostiles status, stat."

Four tapped her ear to reply when she paused. Before Twelve could ask, the girl whipped around and sent an arc of ice shards. The substance speared from the ground in sharp icicles, spearing for a figure rushing from Twelve's blind spot. It was the metal boy. Caden, was it? Thirteen never bothered introducing all of Section H more than throwing their names when he talked about how to deal with them.

Twelve screeched to a halt, bracing a hand against the wall of ice Four made for them. Caden's metal darts decorated the wall's other side. This was both their fortress and their prison, forming a crescent around them. They needed to get out here. Four had the same idea, judging from the grim glint in her eye. Section H found them again, and they were keen on preventing Section M from raiding their headquarters. Together with Four, Twelve made a dash towards the crescent's tip.

Caden slid past the opening. His hands were flexed, ready to send a hailstorm of darts. Behind him, Karrel's blond ringlets bounded into view. Her smug smile was as pesky as ever.

"Caught two mice by their own legs," Karrel said. One hand rested on the pommel of the sword sheathed on her side. The other smoothed the fringe to the side. Had that much time passed by them, that she needed to do that to avoid poking her eyes? "What do we do about them, Caden?"

The metal boy shrugged. "You know better," he said.

Karrel turned back to Twelve and Four. "You heard him," she said. The twinkle in her eye told Twelve the leader found it nice to make Thirteen suffer through them. It was as if Twelve wasn't a person of her own. As if she was just a way to get to Thirteen's nerves. "It was nice knowing you. I assume Thirteen's having a blast with my move. Can you ask him how he is?"

Twelve clenched her jaw. Her teeth ground against each other. Command is blind. Karrel did that? How did she manage to hack into Thirteen's system without him knowing?

When neither of them moved, Karrel cocked an eyebrow. "What? Not going to indulge me?" she said. "I might as well kill you."

Twelve turned to the ice around her, opened her mouth, and unleashed the loudest sound she could. Four dove behind her, hands pressed to her ears. The comms might help block most of the frequency, but it would have been a lot to handle. Karrel and Caden fell to their knees in shock, and the ice around them cracked. Twelve increased her output, until the cracks webbed wider and wider. Within a few seconds, the spiky fortress crumbled.

"Go!" Twelve roared, going back to the normal frequency. They jumped over the chunks of melting ice and made a run for it. She switched the comms on. "Five! We're almost to RP! Karrel's here."

The clearing sped by them as they ran. What was Karrel doing all the way out here? In the central region? Shouldn't she be out there, raiding other sections? That was the assumption Thirteen operated with. What would happen now that the foundation of his reasoning was pulverized? Did Karrel see through his tactics and use it against him?

A clump of trees and undergrowth approached them. If Twelve remembered the maps correctly, beyond that would be the highway crossing towards the northern quadrant. They just needed to get through that, and with the haze of leaves and branches around them, Caden would maybe have a harder time aiming.

Karrel's blade whizzed into view. Twelve swerved left, knocking into Four. They sprawled to the ground, rolling in opposite directions just as the sword's judgment bore down. Blond curls flew with the wind when Karren yanked her sword from the ground and whipped towards Twelve.

"Enough," Section H's leader said.

Then, she lunged. Her eyes glinted, sparking an ability within her. Twelve did the same, mustering the next blast of sound. It would burst Karrel's ears, and hopefully, that would buy her and Four enough time to catch up to Five and the others. She opened her mouth on her way to meet Karrel. Her concentrated sonic rage speared towards Karrel, but the girl sailed right through it. Unscathed.

Twelve scrambled back just as Karrel closed the gap between them. A sharp weight exploded into her gut, and her body slumped forward against her will. Her chin rested on Karrel's shoulder, and the leader's sweet and nutty smell hit her nose. "Such a shame," Karrel whispered, running a hand down Twelve's hair. She might have recoiled, but she was stuck on the leader's sword. "Loyal and powerful. You would have made a great friend."

Before Twelve could reply, Karrel pushed her away, yanking the sword. Blood splattered all over—the grass, the trunks, and the clothes of anyone nearby. From a distance, Four heard the specific sound of a sword digging into someone. It couldn't be...

Twelve's body was motionless as it hit the ground. The girl's black hair spilled all over her head like spilled ink, the braid undone. Red colored the ground beneath her. No. This wasn't happening. Four tapped into her comms, finding Thirteen's. "Twelve, down! I'm with two hostiles. Chief in sight! I repeat, Chief in sight!"

Her shin erupted with pain, pushing her to the ground. She looked back to find a metal dart embedded in her leg. Where...?

Caden dropped into view, a hundred dart tips pointed towards her. Karrel shook her blade free from the last drops of Twelve's blood, clicking her tongue when some splashed on her boots. The little bitch. She'd pay for that. She'd pay for Twelve and Ten's deaths.

Four's ability burned in her veins. Ice could eat away at flesh if she wanted it to. Karrel would look nice without a nose. With a scream and clenched fists, Four lurched forward. Ice shards sat on her palms, ready to launch the second she told them to. Caden jumped away when a wall of ice spread from her feet, locking him out of the battle with Karrel. Let him try and chip away at a glacier with his flimsy toothpicks.

As if expecting Four's rage, Karrel met her halfway, swinging her sword. Metal met rock-hard eyes, driving Karrel back. Four shaped the ice around her arm to a tapered point. Karrel would meet her fate the same way Twelve met hers. She was about to stab down when the ice on her arm melted in a torrent of water. What—

Karrel zipped past her defenses, a wicked grin plastered on her face. Four scrambled back, summoning the ice back to her arm. Her ability felt so far away, out of her leash. What was happening? Her foot hit a clump of bushes, stopping her retreat. Karrel lashed out, her slash calculated.

Four dashed left. On her way, her periphery caught something she hadn't thought to be possible since the Game started. Thirteen hid in the shadows, his face lit only by the ominous blue light of his portable gadget. He stared at her, not a finger inches from his comms. Did he even hear what Four said earlier? About Twelve being struck down? Why wasn't he helping? Where was Four's orders?

What now?

She touched her comms again. "Thirteen! I repeat, Twelve down! Send reinforcements—"

Karrel's sword slashed from the ground, slicing clean through Four. She fell backwards, the air leaving her tattered lungs as she slammed into the carpet of grass. Her insides burned, struggling to keep up with their functions. Did Karrel...?

Four groaned, mustering the last of her strength to turn towards Thirteen's direction. He stared back at her, not a muscle moving to go to her, to help her. As Four's vision blurred and blackened, the last thing she saw was Thirteen's inscrutable face. He didn't smile. He didn't move either.

Thirteen let her be killed.