The cruel sun, as false as it is, beats down on everyone. The heat, seemingly empowered by magic, cuts straight through Cale’s 2-Star warrior physique. The Typicals are faring even worse. They’re lucky that Hayden, the 1-Star healer that came with them is able to cure the early stages of heat exhaustion.

  Even so, they’re consuming their water supply even faster than expected. They won’t be able to stay here much longer.

  Cale looks at Machina marching ahead, unbowed by the heat. His newly awakened Aura buoys them all. Between Hayden and Machina, they all keep going, if barely.

  A true leader does so by example, bearing the burdens others cannot.

  Every so often alien thoughts and feelings ghost across Cale’s consciousness. They never distract him, though.

  Machina eventually notices the toll the environment is taking on the Typicals.

  “Sergeant Cooper, I think we should send the Typicals back.”

  “I agree, sir.”

  “Will you be joining them?”

  Cale eyes as all the Typicals pile into one the trucks, the other two are filled to the brim with the red-gray crystals, still softly glowing.

  “No, we’ll escort them there then come back.”

  Machina’s rampage throughout the canyon crushed enough of the boulders into gravel to allow the trucks to drive through it.

  “I’ll come with. We stay together.”

  Cale gives Machina a glance.

  “Sir, you’ve been here for four hours. Aren’t you over time?”

  He waves it off.

  “I’ll shave time off elsewhere. I won’t leave you here alone.”

  Cale and Wendy’s squads make their way down the canyon, with just two empty trucks remaining. They pick their way among the boulders, though the trucks have an easier time as they follow in Machina’s wake. His weight crushes the boulders, forming a gravel road just wide enough for the trucks to pass, if barely.

  As the canyon starts to widen out into a bowl-like basin, Machina stops. Cale holds up a hand, everyone stops as well. The trucks grind to a halt.

  “I think this is it. This should be the boss.”

  The bowl is filled with holes like a strainer, and each one is large enough to run a freight train through.

  “What do you think it is, sir?”

  “I don’t know. Stay here. I’ll kill it, and once it’s dead then we can search.”

  Machina turns around to look Cale in the eyes.

  “Don’t try to fight it, Sergeant. If it comes for you, run. This isn’t your fight.”

  Cale doesn’t betray his nervousness, holding firm.

  A paragon holds when others run.

  Again, more flashes from Machina’s Aura. It’s completely unlike other high-Starred Empowered. He met Hale once, and her 5-Star was nothing like this.

  “Don’t worry, sir. None of us plan to get in the middle of whatever you’re about to do.”

  He nods and marches off into the crater. It’s not long before a bone deep rumbling can be not just heard, but felt. Four piercing snake eyes fade into view from one of the holes, and it’s not long before the entire snake pours out.

  Holy shit that thing is the size of a fucking train.

  It dwarfs even Machina, each serpentine eye larger than Cale. Massive horns jut out over each eye, and they breeze over Cale and Wendy’s squads before they lock onto Machina. It recognizes the real threat. A huge split tongue flicks out.

  The snake grinds a boulder the size of the military cargo truck just behind Cale into dust without even slowing. Clearly not all Cat-3 Fractures are equal.

  Good thing we have Machina here.

  Wendy looks nervous, unlike Cale.

  “Maybe we should back up?”

  “And what if there’s more lizards back there? They’re real sneaky sons of bitches. What if there’s just a few more lying in wait?”

  “It might be safer. Machina can’t really be all that judicious. You saw the kind of damage he did. Who knows what he’ll have to do to kill the Gython.”

  “What?” Cale asks incredously.

  “Giant Python. Gython,” Wendy explains.

  Cale only rolls his eyes at Wendy’s poor attempt at humor.

  Machina and the Gython—Damn it, Wendy—circle each other, looking for openings.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Why isn’t it charging? Monsters are usually pretty fearless.” Wendy asks.

  “They don’t usually meet Machina, I guess.”

  The Gython finally lunges with a crack of thunder, shattering rock with its immense strength. Machina spins out of the way, sword outstretched. He cuts a gash along one side, the monster’s own momentum weaponized against it.

  It hisses in pain and quickly slithers away, though not before striking with its tail in retaliation. A quick counter attack sends the severed tail high into the sky, and the snake hisses again.

  It quickly backs away, and revaluates Machina with serpentine eyes. Sensing easier prey, it locks onto Cale and the remains of the harvester platoon.

  Oh fuck!

  The Gython lunges at them, another crack of thunder echoing over and over in the bowl-canyon. Cale lunges to the side, his 2-Star reflexes barely giving him enough time to get out of the way.

  Before the monstrous snake can slaughter the much slower 1-Stars, a second echoing explosion rings out. Machina slams into the monster with a crunch.

  They both careen off into the canyon wall, shattering more stone.

  “Back! Back!”

  The platoon scrambles away, the cargo truck engines screaming. Wendy gives Cale a vindicated look.

  “See?!”

  After his heart finally slows from hummingbird down to something human, Cale weakly nods.

  “Yeah.”

  As the platoon slowly retreats over the rocky ground, they see the snake flying across the canyon. It slams into the far side, stunned for a brief second. That second is all Machina needs, instantly on top of it with a booming leap.

  He carves bloody gash after gash into its thick flesh, his sword a blur. The last thing the platoon sees before retreating out of sight is Machina breaking its spine with an earth-shattering punch.

  Cale looks at the massive corpse in awe.

  How… How is anyone else supposed to kill something like that?

  “Sir? Are we sure this was a Cat-3?”

  Machina glances at him.

  “Yes, Sergeant. Definitely the strongest Category-3 I’ve seen, but it was a Cat-3.”

  Cale gestures weakly at the train-sized monster.

  “How do we deal with something like that?”

  “It wasn’t that durable. Big, fast, and a lot of mass to chew through, but I think normal weaponry would have worked on it. An oddity for high-cat monsters, for sure,” Machina muses.

  A saw blade cuts deeply into the corpse, and the few Empowered harvesters quickly take a few gruesome chunks. There’s too much to bring back entirely, but a few small samples could prove crucial in understanding more about the creatures Fractures create.

  “Yes sir, you’d know.”

  Machina’s gaze intensifies for a moment, and Cale shivers. The raw power behind that face plate, that blue fire, is immense. It’s terrifying.

  Nothing human could wield such power.

  Whatever concerns him, he doesn’t mention it.

  “We need to move quickly, time is of the essence.”

  Machina steps to assist in the butchering process, but Cale stops him.

  “Sir, you should go. You’re hours over time, and it’ll take us a good while to fill the trucks even with your help.”

  “Sergeant, I can’t leave you here. I might have missed a Dune Lizard.”

  Despite the platoon consolidating into two squads of 1 and 2 Stars, they’re still drastically out-gunned. The tyranny of magic, as it were. If a Dune Lizard gets the drop on them, it could do some serious damage.

  Wendy and himself could certainly put one down if they worked together and stayed loose, but there’d be likely be casualties. But they can’t afford to keep Machina here on babysitting duty.

  “Sir, we’ll be fine. I’m sure you got them all, and we’ll be careful. You need to go. We’ll keep an eye out, and as long as they don’t ambush us, we can handle a couple.”

  Machina is clearly leery, the trepidation obvious as a lighthouse in his newly strengthened aura. Before they entered the Fracture, Cale wasn’t able to glean anything from it. Now it’s a loudspeaker, blasting his thoughts, his will, his very soul out.

  “Sir, please. Others need you more than we do.”

  Machina weakly nods, and tosses the three Fractal Shards he collected from the reward orb at Cale.

  “Here, take these.”

  Machina looks back one last time before exiting the Fracture.

  Cale hands off the Fractal Shards to a harvester before he takes his place as a look out.

  I push my way out of the Fracture, deeply conflicted. I want to stay there with them, to keep them safe. It’s possible I missed a Dune Lizard, probable, even. They bury themselves deep enough in the magic-infused sand that I can’t easily see them, and they’re deadly to others in an ambush.

  We all learned that the hard way. We were lucky, though. It could have been worse. Only one person died. It seems so cold to qualify a tragic death with the phrase “only” and be happy with it. It’s been something I’ve had to live with, something all of us have to live with.

  Earth is no longer safe, not like it was. We live in a brutal world, and the human race is now at war with reality. A war we can never hope to win, only to find a stalemate.

  The Australian officer’s voice comes over the radio. His nervousness, only barely hidden beneath a layer of professionalism, makes me miss McKinley’s ice-cold composure.

  “Sir, is everything all right? You were in there for hours. We’re behind schedule. From those who retreated we were told it was pretty bad.”

  The pilots at the helm of the nearby Chinook notice me, and spool up the engines. I board before replying.

  “I wasn’t going to leave them alone. The boss is dead, and they’re taking what they can now. I’m fairly certain I killed everything though, they should be fine.”

  I hope.

  The Chinook takes off with a groan, and it turns off back towards civilization.

  “Lieutenant, why are we headed back? The plan was another Outback Fracture.”

  “An emergency has popped up, and time is of the essence. We can continue with the plan if you want, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to want to hear this.”

  A million fires a day, and there’s just me. How long can this go on for?

  “What happened?”

  “A very competent team of five 3-Stars went missing in France. The Fracture they entered was Cat-3 at the time, but it’s gotten stronger. Morgan is already on site to double check the Potentiometer, but I’ve been told it’s in working order.”

  “You’re telling me the world’s first Category-4 Fracture came from a Cat-3 and killed a 3-Star team in the process?”

  The fear is clear in his voice, and he’s half a world away from it.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get me to France.”