I leaned in close to his ear. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done? What you’ve made? You and everyone who put us here has already lost. All that’s left is for the wreckage to settle in place.”
The alien, shivering, swallowed. He didn’t respond. He knew what was about to happen next.
He knew he was about to leave the dungeon. He knew he would go back to his small, defenseless spaceship. The same spaceship that was currently trapped in orbit over Earth. He knew a few friends of ours would be waiting for him upon exit.
Elle sighed, wiping her eyes. “My Barry really did love that song.”
[ 73 ]
Imani:It went smoothly. Your cleaner bot could only fit forty people, but the one from Bobby Montague, the Illusionist guy with the tall hair, managed to fit 105. The total number sent to the Pineapple Cabaret is 227, not including Na. Zhang, Tran, Daniel, Archie, Randall 3. All gone. All cleaner bots were purchased immediately.
Mordecai: Cactus remains steady, glowing with a single bloom. Also, that one druid, Ronit, managed to figure out an improvement on the dread system. She assigned everyone a small plant. I had to build a large glass terrarium for them all because some of the sluggalos were starting to eye them. It’s two-hundred-something different, small potted plants, each tied to the life of a different crawler. The plants are now on display in the guildhall common room, protected under glass.
Donut: WE’RE CALLING IT THE GARDEN OF DELIVERANCE.
Mordecai: That’s right. Li Na’s dread cactus is the only one with the complicated messaging system. Theseare much simpler. If the plants wilt or disappear into dust, it means the associated crawler is dead. If flowers bloom, it means they’re out of the dungeon. It means they escaped. It’s the only way we’ll know. Even the showrunners can’t see what’s going on in there.
Elle: That’s not anxiety-inducing or anything. Everyone, be safe.
Carl: Okay. See you at the finish line.
Imani: Don’t you dare die this heat. All of it will be for nothing if you don’t make it through this next race.
We pulled up to the starting line. Pontiff sat in the driver’s seat, Donut sat upon Dorota, and I sat just between them and behind in one of the chairs we’d used for the last race. It still had bloodstains all over it, and the smell reminded me of Dong Quixote.
I took a deep breath and just let myself be for a second. I hadn’t meant for the confrontation with Linus to have gotten so intense. Everyone thought the whole thing was a big joke, but I’d been rattled by it because I’d been one of the last ones to notice there was something fishy about the guy, especially when I prided myself on being so self-aware.
If he could slip in, who else, what else was out there waiting to pounce? Not every outside attempt on our lives would be so clumsy. The AI had stopped Harbinger in his tracks. It hadn’t even bothered with the Linus thing because we clearly knew. But what about other threats on top of the dungeon challenges themselves?
Despite what I’d said, we still had some internal crawler strife. Osvaldo was a good example. And what about Agatha? I hoped she was dead, but she’d pretty much just disappeared. And her existence, just out there somewhere, made me ridiculously nervous.
We had one more mercenary in the back, sitting on the second chair. This was a rare Zebani, a blue-skinned humanoid. This was a woman namedNester, and she was a level 65Cartographer. We’d picked her because she came with both gravity spells and a radar skill.
Her existence reminded me of something I couldn’t get out of my mind. That now-dead crawler Burcu had accused me of killing her father. I was assuming her dad had been a crawler named Emir, who was also a Zebani.
Just another mystery, a reminder of how fractured we still were, despite our best efforts.
We were all lined up side by side, with us in the first block. Osvaldo and Filipe pulled up next to us astride Bruna. Whatever upgrade they’d gotten this last race, it wasn’t obvious. Osvaldo still hadn’t responded to my last message about his plans. Just past him was team Free Love’s van, and after that was Dwight, who sat alone in his vine.
“Carl, the stupid unicorn has a debuff,” Donut said. “He’s drunk again! How did he even get to the starting line? What is his plan? He’s not going to be allowed to drive!”
I grunted with amusement. “Good.”
“That’s what he did last time, and look what happened!”
“What happened?” Pontiff asked from the driver’s seat. His massive horns, thankfully, curved forward somewhat, but even with the seat all the way back, they still pressed against the windshield.
“He cheated. That’s what happened,” Donut said. “He skipped the whole race and went to the finish line on the outside.”
“Clever,” Pontiff rumbled. “If he was clever before, he will be clever again. Maybe.”
“Where are we, anyway?” Donut asked. “It looks like we’re inside a 1950s version of the future. Why is everything chrome and shiny? The floor is bouncy, too.”
The starting blocks appeared to be some sort of thin metallic material. We’d driven out of the garage and turned the corner, and now we were in a huge dark box with a light ahead of us.
It was Louis who figured out what this actually was.
Louis: Anybody else’s starting block inside of a giant AC duct?