Day 35.
The North Gate Courtyard.
Sauget, Illinois.
04:30 Hours.
The ground was shaking before I saw them.
I stood on top of the concrete barricade overlooking the Gutter, the Fang .45 heavy in a hand that didn't feel like mine. It felt distant, like I was operating a claw machine with a joystick that had a bad connection.
The System's "Balance Patch" was active.
`[DEBUFF ACTIVE: LATENCY (0.5s).]`
I moved my thumb to check the safety.
Click.
The sound reached my ears a split second after I felt the vibration in my thumb. It was disorienting, a sickening disconnect between will and action. I was operating on dial-up internet in a fiber-optic war.
"Here she comes," Boyd radioed from the tower. His voice was tinny, distorted by the atmospheric interference. "North road. Moving fast. She's got a tail, Jack. A long one."
Twin beams of light cut through the pre-dawn gloom, illuminating the swirling dust and the dead factories of the industrial park.
The armored pickup truck roared around the corner of the ruined warehouse district. Yana was driving like a maniac, drifting the heavy vehicle through the debris, smashing through a rusted chain-link fence.
Behind her, the darkness moved.
It wasn't a pack. It was a landslide.
Five hundred grey bodies, shoulder to shoulder, filling the street from curb to curb. They were sprinting, a unified mass of hunger driven by the noise of the truck's horn. The sound of their feet on the pavement was like the roar of a rushing river.
"Open the gate!" Yana screamed over the comms. "I'm coming in hot!"
"Open it," I ordered.
Travis stood by the winch. He grabbed the chain. He didn't use the motor; he just pulled. The heavy steel gate rolled back with a groan of rusted bearings.
The truck skid through the gap, screeching to a halt in the courtyard, mud spraying the intake fans.
"Close it!" I yelled. "Close it now!"
Travis dropped the chain. He kicked the locking mechanism. The gate started to slide shut.
It was too slow.
The first wave of the horde hit the gap before the steel met the concrete. Hands jammed into the opening, fingers snapping as the gate crushed them. But the bodies behind them pushed harder.
"They're in!" Ronnie shouted from the roof. "Containment breach! They're flooding the courtyard!"
"No," I said, raising my gun. "It's a harvest."
The zombies poured into the courtyard. They didn't look at the walls. They looked at the noise. They looked at the Gutter intake fans roaring in the center of the killbox. They looked at us.
"Fire!" I ordered.
I squeezed the trigger.
...Bang.
The delay threw me off. I aimed for a Runner's head, but by the time the signal traveled to my finger, the Runner had moved. The bullet sparked harmlessly off the pavement.
"Miss," Carter, the Null next to me, whispered. He sounded confused. The Architect never missed.
I ignored him. I adjusted. I had to lead the targets. I had to shoot where they were going to be, not where they were. I had to play the game with lag.
Bang.
A Shambler dropped.
`[KILL: +10 PTS.]`
"Travis!" I shouted. "Hold the choke point! Do not let them reach the mechanism!"
Travis stepped into the floodlights. He stood at the edge of the intake grate, a grey giant against the tide. He looked like a statue carved from ash and pain.
He didn't swing immediately. He waited until the press of bodies was thick enough that he couldn't miss.
Then, he became a machine.
SWING. CRUNCH. RESET.
SWING. CRUNCH. RESET.
He was knocking them directly into the grinder blades below. Black spray erupted from the vent, coating him in a slick, oily sheen. He wasn't fighting; he was shoveling coal into a furnace. Every impact was a deposit.
`[BIOMASS PROCESSED: 200KG.]`
`[POINTS: +45.]`
The numbers ticked up on the projection Boyd had thrown onto the Silo wall.
`[BALANCE: 1,595.]`
`[TARGET: 2,000.]`
"Keep them coming!" I yelled. "More noise! Draw them into the center!"
But the wave was too heavy.
The sheer volume of biomass was clogging the system. The zombies were climbing over each other, forming mounds of writhing flesh that bypassed Travis entirely. They spilled over the barricades.
A group of three Runners scrambled up the concrete wall toward my position on the catwalk.
"Boss!" Carter yelled, his voice cracking. "Left flank! They're climbing!"
I turned.
My brain said fire. My hand said loading.
The Runner lunged. I tried to sidestep.
Lag.
My legs didn't move fast enough. The Runner slammed into me. The impact knocked the wind out of me. We hit the concrete hard. The gun skittered away, sliding toward the edge of the platform.
The zombie snapped at my face. I could smell the rot on its breath, see the maggots wriggling in its gums. Its fingers clawed at my vest, trying to find purchase.
I grabbed its throat.
`[STRENGTH CHECK...]`
`[RESULT: COMPROMISED.]`
My grip was weak. The "Glass Cannon" debuff had sapped my physical power. The zombie pushed through my defense. Its teeth were inches from my nose.
"Help!" I grunted.
The word tasted like bile. The Architect asking for help?
BLAM.
The zombie's head exploded. Black gore coated my face, blinding me for a second.
Carter stood over me, his pipe-gun smoking. He looked terrified. Not because of the zombie, but because he had just saved the Architect. He had seen the god bleed. He had seen the lag.
"You... you went down," Carter stammered.
I shoved the corpse off me. I scrambled up, wiping the blood from my eyes. The dizziness was overwhelming.
"I slipped," I snarled. "Get back on the line!"
"You didn't slip," Carter said, his eyes wide. "You were slow."
`[LOYALTY: -5%.]`
`[STATUS: DOUBT.]`
The doubt was contagious. I saw the other Nulls looking. If I couldn't hold my own, why were they following me? Why were they dying for me?
"Look at the score!" I shouted, pointing at the wall. "Shoot the zombies, Carter! Not me!"
I grabbed my gun.
I checked the balance.
`[1,850 PTS.]`
We were close. But the courtyard was flooding. Travis was disappearing under a pile of grey bodies. He was buried.
And then, the worst sound imaginable cut through the noise.
GRIND-CLUNK.
The intake fans stopped. The roar of the macerator died.
"Jam!" Boyd screamed. "The Gutter is jammed! Too much bone! The motor is overheating!"
The point counter stopped.
`[1,850 PTS.]`
"No," I whispered. "No, no, no."
Without the grinder, the biomass was worthless. We were just killing them for safety now, not for points. And we were still 150 points short.
"Travis!" I screamed. "Clear the jam! You have to clear the jam!"
The pile of zombies on top of Travis shifted.
Travis erupted from the mass. He didn't use the hammer. He grabbed a zombie in each hand and slammed them together like cymbals, their skulls cracking wetly.
He roared. It was a wet, gurgling sound. He was coughing up pieces of his own lungs.
He heard me. He looked at the jammed intake. A tangle of limbs and scrap metal had wedged the blades.
He didn't hesitate.
He plunged his hands into the machinery.
"Do it!" I yelled.
Travis grabbed the obstruction—a fused lump of three zombies and a stop sign. He pulled. His muscles bulged, tearing the grey skin of his arms. Serum leaked from his shoulders.
SCREEECH.
The metal gave way. The obstruction flew out.
The blades spun up again.
ROAR.
Travis shoved the pile back into the pit.
`[BIOMASS FLOW RESTORED.]`
`[POINTS: +60.]`
`[1,910 PTS.]`
"Ninety points!" Paige screamed from the logistics deck. "We need ninety points!"
The courtyard was thinning out. We were running out of zombies.
Then, the gate buckled.
A massive shape crashed through the remaining gap, tearing the steel frame out of the concrete.
It was a Brute. A massive, bloated corpse fused with scrap metal. Its arm was a twisted wreck of rebar and concrete.
It roared, scanning the courtyard.
`[ELITE ENEMY: SCRAP BRUTE.]`
`[BOUNTY: 100 PTS.]`
"There it is," I said. "The paycheck."
The Brute charged. Not at me. At the machinery. It was going for the generator intake. If it smashed the generator, the Gutter died, and we failed.
"Travis!" I yelled. "Intercept!"
Travis turned. He was barely standing. He dropped the hammer. His hands were mangled from clearing the jam.
He lowered his shoulder.
The Tank met the Brute.
CRACK.
The sound of breaking bone echoed across the courtyard. It sounded like a tree snapping in a storm.
Travis stopped the charge cold. But he didn't push it back. He locked his arms around the Brute's waist.
The Brute hammered on Travis's back with its concrete fist.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Every hit drove Travis deeper into the mud. I could hear his ribs cracking from the catwalk.
"Shoot it!" I yelled to the snipers.
"We can't!" Ronnie shouted. "Travis is covering the kill zone! We'll hit him!"
Travis looked up at me. His eyes were flickering.
He didn't let go. He lifted.
With a roar that tore his throat lining, Travis lifted the five-hundred-pound Brute off the ground. He stepped toward the pit.
The Brute thrashed, tearing chunks out of Travis's neck.
Travis didn't stop. He walked to the edge.
"Overtime," Travis wheezed.
He threw the Brute into the pit.
The grinder screeched. Sparks flew thirty feet into the air as the machine chewed through the heavy bones and scrap metal. The sound was horrific—metal screaming against metal, wet crunches, the roar of the motor straining to process the elite load.
`[ELITE KILL: +100 PTS.]`
Ding.
The counter froze.
`[CURRENT BALANCE: 2,010 PTS.]`
"We got it!" Paige screamed. "Two thousand!"
"Close the gate!" I yelled. "Seal it up! We're done!"
Travis collapsed. He fell to his knees in the sludge, then pitched forward onto his face.
The Nulls slammed the inner blast doors shut, cutting off the few stragglers.
Silence fell over the courtyard, broken only by the cooling fans of the generator.
I leaned against the wall, my chest heaving. The lag was fading, but the exhaustion remained. Carter was still staring at me, the doubt etched into his face.
"Boyd," I wheezed. "Buy it."
"Transaction pending," Boyd said.
A holographic window opened in the center of the courtyard, hovering over the blood and the muck. It was beautiful. A blue schematic rotating in the air.
`[BLUEPRINT ACQUIRED: THE RIVETER.]`
`[DOWNLOADING SCHEMATICS...]`
`[100% COMPLETE.]`
"We have the gun," I said.
I looked down at Travis. Helen was already running to him with a crash kit, sliding in the mud.
"We have the gun," I repeated. "Now we just have to build it."
BOOM.
The ground jumped.
It wasn't a zombie. It wasn't the truck. It was an earthquake.
I looked south.
The sun was rising. And silhouetted against the orange light was a shadow that blocked out the sky. A walking mountain of fused corpses.
The Leviathan had crested the hill.
It was here.
`[BOSS EVENT: ACTIVE.]`
`[DISTANCE: 500 METERS.]`
`[ETA: 10 MINUTES.]`
"Ronnie!" I shouted at the roof, ignoring the pain in my body. "Is the mount ready?"
"It's ugly!" Ronnie yelled back, his voice shaking. "But it's welded!"
"Boyd!" I shouted. "The rails?"
"Copper is stripped!" Boyd said. "I need twenty minutes to wind the coils!"
"You have ten," I said.
I looked at the monster on the horizon. It let out a sound—a chorus of four hundred dead voices screaming in unison. It was a sound that promised extinction.
"Bring the rebar," I said to the crew. "It's time to go to work."
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 35
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) █████████░ 9/10 Nodes
STATUS: BLUEPRINT ACQUIRED
THREAT: LEVIATHAN (500 Meters)
JACK: COMPROMISED (System Sickness Fading)
TRAVIS: CRITICAL (Unconscious)
NEXT EVENT: The Siege / Construction Under Fire