Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
When the gates burst, the military strike teams had gone inside to close them. In the interviews with survivors, a lot of them reported seeing a second portal. Most of the people didn’t get a good look at it, because as soon as they reached the chamber, they were gripped with an overwhelming urge to attack the anchor. The moment someone destroyed it, the second portal collapsed.
In Prime Four’s case, they had held off on anchor smashing long enough to peer into the second gate. The reports described a world under a green-tinted sky, and a never-ending column of horrific monsters stretching from the portal across a grassy plain. The creatures kept pushing their way through the portal and attacking people in the anchor chamber, and eventually the military team destroyed the anchor to keep from being overrun.
Since then, the US government made three attempts – that I knew of – to allow for a controlled gate burst. They sent in teams to clear the breach and then sat on the anchor until it accumulated enough energy for the gate to rupture and the second portal to form. Then they tried to put a nuke through it.
We didn’t know what happened. In all three cases, the gate collapsed and nobody came out. It didn’t seem to have any effect on the frequency or strength of the gates. In fact, after the third attempt, another gate opened just five miles away and it was a dark orange.
We knew nothing except that this was clearly an invasion, and our extermination seemed to be the goal of it.
And I had more pressing things to worry about right this second. We had one canteen of water left, so we needed to get a move on. If we found a water source, I would need to wash up. My coveralls were drenched in stalker blood. My hair was bloody too, and it stuck to my face and neck. I hooked the empty canteen to the loop at my waist, put the hard hat back on my head, and nodded to my dog.
“Once more into the breach. Living the dream.”
Bear wagged her tail, and we started across the stone bridge.
7
Elias studied London from across the conference table. The man was lean, in good shape, with an expensive haircut and the kind of face most people would describe as attractive. He seemed ten years younger than his forty-five, and the way he sat, although not overtly confrontational, signaled that he was neither nervous nor afraid.
It was that easy confidence, coupled with innate ability, that first prompted Elias to promote London to leader of Assault Team 4 four years ago. He appeared capable and stable, and in practice and training matches he outperformed most of the other top-tier Talents. London inspired confidence. People trusted him to take them into the breach and bring them out safely. A perfect candidate to lead an assault team.
He saw London differently now. What he’d previously mistaken for confidence was instead an ever-present air of polite entitlement. Even now, when most guild members would be sweating bullets in his position, London held himself as if this was a meeting of equals. He wasn’t impatient – that would’ve been impolite and London was never impolite. Rather he managed to make it clear that he considered this entire process a formality, a series of tedious procedural steps, at the end of which he would be released with all his troubles swept under the rug and forgotten.
On paper, he and London were not dissimilar. Both blade wardens, both in their mid to late forties, both with nearly a decade of gate diving. At one point, years ago, the gap between their abilities had been much shorter.
Elias had grown in power every year. Ten years after his awakening, he was stronger, faster, and more experienced than when he had started. He learned to imbue his blade, so his weapons cut through solid steel and stone. His shield lasted a full five seconds longer now than it had when he’d walked into his first gate, and each second was hard won through grueling training and life and death battles.
London hadn’t progressed at nearly the same pace. It might have been the limitations of their inborn abilities, but Elias had come to suspect that it was a limitation of will. London was happy in his current position within the guild. He was well compensated for taking a relatively low-risk role, he had no immediate supervisor breathing down his neck, and he rarely spent a night in the breach. Elias could see the appeal. But he also knew that he, himself, would never be satisfied with just that.
He'd thought about it while rereading London’s file. Alexander Wright came from an upper middle-class family, had gone to a boarding school, followed that with Cambridge, and ended up with a job in finance. Affluent, comfortable, respectable, just as expected. Unfortunately for Wright, the market collapse following the first gates’ bursting bankrupted the firm he’d worked for and wiped out his personal wealth. He was forced to pivot. This struggle was short-lived, since he’d conveniently awakened to his talent. Six months later he was in the US, making a name for himself as London, moving from smaller guilds to more prominent ones, until a Cold Chaos recruiter scouted him six years ago.