Day 35.
The Roof of the Silo.
Sauget, Illinois.
05:00 Hours.
The sky didn't turn blue with the dawn. It turned red.
It wasn't the soft pink of a sunrise. It was the color of a bruised organ, a deep, arterial crimson that bled through the clouds.
A low-frequency hum vibrated through the concrete of the Silo, shaking the dust from the solar panels. It wasn't the Leviathan. It was the atmosphere itself. The System was broadcasting.
DING.
The sound was deafening. It hit every user in the sector simultaneously, dropping a Null carrying a welding torch to his knees. It wasn't a notification chime; it was a gong.
I grabbed the railing to steady myself. The interface opened without my command, overriding my vision with a crimson alert box that pulsed like a dying star.
`[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT: GLOBAL EVENT INITIATED.]`
`[EVENT NAME: THE GREAT FILTER.]`
`[OBJECTIVE: PROVE YOUR WORTH.]`
`[PARTICIPATING SECTORS: ALL.]`
"Global?" Ronnie yelled, pulling off his welding mask. His one good eye was wide, reflecting the red sky. "What does that mean?"
"It means we aren't special," I said, forcing myself to stand despite the trembling in my legs. "It means we aren't the only ones dying today."
Boyd was plugged into the comms tower. His silver hands were twitching violently as he surfed the frequencies. Smoke was rising from his shoulder joints.
"I'm picking up chatter," Boyd shouted. "Everywhere. Sector 4 in Chicago. Sector 9 in Memphis. The bandwidth is saturated. Listen."
He flipped the speaker switch.
Static washed over the roof, followed by voices screaming in terror. It was a collage of extinction.
"...it's in the wire! It's melting the wire! Fall back to the—" (Static)
"...need air support! The wall is breached! Oh god, it's eating the—" (Static)
"...Sector 9 is offline. Repeat, Sector 9 is..." (Silence).
"It's a purge," Yana whispered. She was standing by the ammo pile, heating rebar in a makeshift forge made from a 55-gallon drum. The flames illuminated her pale face. "The System is cleaning the server."
I looked at the Leaderboard in the corner of my HUD.
The names were usually static, a list of the strong, the unkillable Warlords of the new world.
`[RANK 12: IRONLORD (SECTOR 4).]`
`[STATUS: ONLINE.]`
I watched as the text flickered.
`[STATUS: CRITICAL.]`
`[STATUS: DECEASED.]`
The name turned grey. Then it vanished, deleted from the list.
Ironlord. Rank 12. A Warlord who controlled a fortress in Chicago. A man with thousands of points, military gear, and a legion of followers. Gone in seconds.
If Rank 12 couldn't survive this, what chance did Rank 172 have?
`[ADMINISTRATOR: STRESS TEST ACTIVE. INEFFICIENT ASSETS WILL BE LIQUIDATED.]`
The crew was paralyzed. They were listening to the death of the world, and they were ready to join the choir.
"Focus!" I roared.
I grabbed a wrench and threw it at the ventilation unit. CLANG.
"The world can burn later! Right now, we have a job! Do not look at the sky! Look at the target!"
I pointed to the south.
The Leviathan was here.
It wasn't on the horizon anymore. It was at the perimeter.
The three-story tower of fused meat towered over the remains of the cornfield. Its forty legs churned the mud, crushing the burned tractors and the bodies of the deer it had used to clear the mines. The sheer mass of it defied biology. It was a walking hill, a monument to the virus.
It didn't charge. It didn't run.
It stopped fifty yards from the Silo wall.
"Why is it stopping?" Ronnie asked, his voice trembling.
"It's charging up," Helen said. She was looking at the creature through binoculars, her knuckles white. "Jack, look at the chest."
I activated Decay Sight.
The nine giant faces embedded in the creature's torso were stretching. Their mouths opened in unison. Their jaws unhinged, revealing throats that glowed with bioluminescent violet light.
They inhaled.
"Cover your ears!" I screamed. "Get down!"
The Leviathan screamed.
It wasn't just noise. It was a weaponized frequency. A harmonic resonance designed to liquefy the inner ear and scramble the nervous system.
SCREEEEEEEEECH.
The sound hit us like a physical blow.
My vision blurred. The world tilted sideways. It felt like a drill bit was being driven into my temple.
The Nulls on the roof collapsed, clutching their heads. Blood sprayed from Ronnie's nose, soaking his mask. Boyd's audio receptors sparked and shorted out, sending him convulsing against the comms tower.
`[STATUS EFFECT: SONIC DISORIENTATION.]`
`[BALANCE: -80%.]`
`[FOCUS: -50%.]`
I gagged, fighting the urge to vomit. The lag from my "Glass Cannon" debuff mixed with the vertigo, making me feel disconnected from reality.
"Build the gun!" I yelled, but I couldn't hear my own voice.
I crawled toward the mount.
The Riveter was a mess of scavenged parts. Two heavy steel I-beams welded together formed the rail. Copper wire, stripped from the generator, was wound around the barrel in crude, hand-wrapped coils. It looked like junk. It looked like suicide.
"Boyd!" I grabbed the Technomancer's leg. "The power! Connect the power!"
Boyd was seizing, his silver fluids leaking from his eyes. He shook his head, trying to clear the static. He reached for the heavy power cables.
His hands were shaking so bad he couldn't thread the connection. The silver fingers scraped uselessly against the copper terminals.
"Let me," I snarled.
I grabbed the cables. My own hands were lagging, ghostly trails following every movement.
I forced the connectors together.
SPARK.
I shoved the locking pin home.
CLICK.
The weapon hummed. The coils began to glow a dull, angry red as the generator below surged to life.
"Ronnie!" I shouted, pulling myself up using the gun barrel. "The dampener!"
Ronnie was on his knees, wiping blood from his face. He looked at the rear of the weapon mount. He looked at the concrete.
"It's... it's not enough!" Ronnie wailed. "The concrete is cracked! We dropped the beam, remember? The anchor bolts aren't deep enough!"
I looked at the mount.
He was right. The baseplate was loose. The concrete around the bolts was spiderwebbed with fractures from the hasty construction.
"If we fire this," Ronnie yelled, pointing at the massive barrel, "the recoil will rip the gun off the roof! It'll fly backward and kill us all!"
"Reinforce it!"
"With what? We're out of steel! We used it all on the rails!"
The Leviathan screamed again.
Down below, the Silo walls shuddered. The creature had started to move. It slammed its massive, fleshy bulk against the concrete wall.
BOOM.
Dust rained down from the ceiling. A crack appeared in the courtyard below, running from the gate to the Gutter.
"It's breaching!" Yana screamed from the forge. "We have five minutes before the wall buckles!"
We had the gun. We had the ammo. But we didn't have a mount strong enough to hold it.
"I'll hold it," a voice rumbled.
Travis.
The Tank had climbed the ladder. I didn't know how. He looked like a dead man walking. His skin was the color of ash. Black sludge dripped from his eyes and nose. He was barely standing, leaning heavily against the parapet.
"Travis, you can't," Helen cried, following him up. "Your bones are brittle! The serum has leached the calcium! One impact will shatter you!"
Travis ignored her. He walked to the back of the gun.
There was a space between the recoil plate and the concrete blockhouse. A space meant for a hydraulic piston we didn't have.
Travis squeezed into the gap.
He put his back against the concrete wall. He put his massive, stone-skinned chest against the recoil plate of the railgun.
He spread his arms, grabbing the anchor bolts on either side.
"I'm the dampener," Travis rasped. "Strap me in."
I looked at him.
I looked at the physics.
The Riveter fired a steel bolt at Mach 1. The equal and opposite reaction would deliver thousands of pounds of force backward.
If Travis took that hit... it would crush his ribs. It would liquefy his remaining organs.
It would kill him.
"Travis," I said. "This will break you."
Travis looked at me. His orange eyes were calm, burning with the last of his fuel.
"I'm already broken, Jack," he said. "I got ten days. Let me spend 'em all right now."
He looked at the cargo straps hanging from the mount.
"Tie me down," he ordered. "If I flinch, the shot goes wide. Make sure I can't flinch."
I hesitated.
This wasn't leading troops into battle. This was human sacrifice.
`[CRUELTY TRAIT: ACTIVATED.]`
`[LOGIC: ONE LIFE < THE SILO.]`
`[DECISION: ACCEPTED.]`
I grabbed the heavy ratchet straps.
I pulled the nylon webbing across Travis's chest. I looped it around the steel beams.
I cranked the ratchet.
Click. Click. Click.
The strap tightened, biting into Travis's grey skin. He grunted but didn't pull away.
"Tighter," Travis wheezed.
I cranked it again.
Click.
He was fused to the gun. He was part of the machine now. A biological component in a death engine.
"Ready," I said. My voice was cold, detached. I couldn't let myself feel the warmth of his skin through the straps.
"Load it," Travis growled.
Paige ran over with the first bolt.
It was a six-foot length of rebar, glowing cherry-red from the forge. She held it with heavy tongs, her face sweating from the heat.
She slid the hot metal into the breech.
HISS.
The induction coils engaged. The weapon whined, a high-pitched sound of charging capacitors that set my teeth on edge.
I climbed into the gunner's seat on top of the barrel. I looked through the iron sights.
The Leviathan was right below us. It was battering the wall.
BOOM. BOOM.
The faces on its chest were looking up at us. Screaming.
I aimed at the center face.
I put my hand on the firing lever.
Ding.
A System window popped up, blocking my view.
`[ITEM CRAFTED: THE RIVETER (MAKESHIFT).]`
`[QUALITY: POOR.]`
`[WARNING: MAGNETIC RAILS UNSTABLE.]`
`[CATASTROPHIC FAILURE CHANCE: 40%.]`
"Forty percent," I whispered.
If it failed, the gun exploded. We died.
If it worked, Travis died.
There were no good outcomes. Only necessary ones.
"Clear the roof!" I shouted to the crew. "Get back!"
Ronnie, Boyd, and Helen scrambled for the hatch. Yana stayed by the forge, readying the next bolt.
I looked down at Travis. He was crushed between the steel and the concrete, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow.
"Travis," I said. "Fire in the hole."
Travis opened his eyes. He grinned, black blood coating his teeth.
"Send it."
I pulled the lever.
KRAKOOM.
The world turned white.
The sound wasn't a gunshot. It was a thunderclap.
The railgun kicked back with the force of a train wreck.
I saw the recoil plate slam into Travis's chest.
I heard his ribs snap. A sound like dry branches breaking in a fire.
He screamed.
But he held.
The bolt flew.
A streak of red fire cut through the morning air.
It hit the Leviathan.
The bolt struck the creature in the upper torso, right between two of the screaming faces.
It didn't stop. It punched through the fused meat, through the bone, and exited the back of the creature.
The bolt buried itself deep into the bedrock behind the monster.
The Leviathan shrieked. It tried to pull away, but the rebar had fused the meat to the ground. The heat of the bolt cauterized the wound instantly, preventing the biomass from separating.
It was pinned.
"Hit!" I yelled. "Reload!"
I looked back at Travis.
He was slumped against the wall, held up only by the straps. Black blood was pouring from his mouth, soaking the front of his vest. His chest was caved in.
"One..." Travis wheezed, bubbles forming in the blood. "Nine... to go."
"Paige!" I shouted. "Bring the next bolt! Hurry!"
The Leviathan thrashed, its forty legs tearing at the earth. It was pinned, but it wasn't dead.
And the System was watching.
`[BOSS HEALTH: 92%.]`
`[WEAPON INTEGRITY: 90%.]`
`[TRAVIS INTEGRITY: CRITICAL.]`
"Again," I whispered. "Do it again."
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 35
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) █████████░ 9/10 Nodes
THREAT: LEVIATHAN (PINNED - 1/10 BOLTS)
WEAPON: UNSTABLE
TRAVIS: SACRIFICED
NEXT EVENT: The Iron Ladder