Hale breathes a sign of relief as soon as I step through the portal. Deep bags under her eyes, and a paler-than-normal complexion illustrates the kind of strain portals place on their caster.

  She gives me a tired, lopsided grin.

  “Good to see you, mate.”

  The smile turns grim.

  “I wish it was under better circumstances.”

  There aren’t that many 3-Stars across the globe, and the loss of even a single team is a serious blow to humanity’s ability to defend itself. A Fracture growing in strength after doing so is even more concerning. None of the other Fractures, even ones that have been confirmed to have killed Empowered, grew in strength.

  I’m quickly led off to the Fracture site, where I’m met by a gaggle of officers and other Empowered. Morgan is here, shoulder deep in a humming device the size of a car. Runes are glowing all over it, and I understand exactly none of it.

  The first officer to meet me is an American Major, his patches indicating he’s part of America’s nuclear forces.

  “Sir. I’m here to take the nuclear device from you.”

  A huge armored convoy is on the outskirts of Amiens, the city I’ve been brought to. We’re halfway between Paris and Belgium, where America has nuclear weapons stationed.

  I briefly consider keeping it, at least for the moment. We don’t know what’s inside the Fracture. Maybe a weapon of mass destruction would be necessary, but I don’t know enough about nuclear weapons to even confirm it works.

  Best just to get rid of it.

  “Lead the way, Major.”

  Once I carefully hand off the warhead, and the convoy rumbles off, I return to the site where Morgan has finished her newest Opus.

  “Heya, Mach.”

  “Hi, Morgan.” I gesture to the now dormant Opus, the runes having faded away.

  “What’s that?”

  She perks up, her more energetic side of her peeking through the exhaustion.

  “The latest and greatest in Fracture measuring Opuses! Now with improved accuracy! It can even give an estimate on rupture times!”

  She starts looking shifty.

  “But, uh, it needs a Fractal Shard to work. Any Amplitude will work.”

  “Amplitude?”

  She waves my question away.

  “Strength of the Shard, I’ll explain later, I promise. Don’t suppose you can fork one over?”

  I have over a hundred Shards, and I quickly hand one over. Morgan takes it gingerly before slotting it into a port. She places a hand on a rune, and the entire Opus hums to life. The runes glow brightly, and the entire thing sends tendrils of Potentia into the air.

  “It’s a bit inefficient,” she admits. “Later versions won’t be so wasteful, but this one is a heavily modified version of the first iteration.”

  An LCD screen on the side displays a series of graphs and a huge list of numbers. Morgan looks over it, and grimaces.

  “Yep. Category-4. Confirmed.”

  Everyone around takes a breath. There’s only a handful of individuals on the entire planet who could possibly clear a Fracture this strong.

  “How long until it ruptures?”

  Morgan works the touchscreen, flipping through various different measurements the Opus provides.

  “Seventy to eighty days, best guess.”

  And everyone releases the breath with relief. At least we have time.

  France has brought in a few of their 4-Starred to assist, though myself and Morgan will be taking the lead. No one wants to lose anyone else. I teach myself French as quickly as I did Korean, so the language barrier is nonexistent. I do have to translate for Morgan, though. Her powers might give her accelerated learning, but she’s been too busy.

  The French team—the Luminaries—is made up of four 4-Stars, led by Duelliste, a warrior. With him are two sorcerers and a second warrior. One sorcerer, Guérir, is a healer. If there are any survivors, I’m sure her talents will be needed. The other is a Pyromancer who goes by Pyro. The final member of the team, Chevalier, is a heavily armored knight. He’s easily the tallest of the four, and wields a classic longsword with a shield.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Duelliste begins our briefing.

  “While our most important objective is obviously closing the Fracture, we have two other objectives in descending importance. Finding the lost team, and taking whatever isn’t nailed down,” he said. “The team sent in originally is presumed dead, but it’s possible there are survivors. We’ll do our best to search for them. We’ve brought along a dozen drones that will help with the search. They’re automated, so we shouldn’t need to control them.”

  “Are we splitting up?” Morgan asks.

  Duelliste looks grim.

  “No, while that might speed up the search, we can’t risk it. Whatever is in there will be the most dangerous monsters yet. We’ll need you to enter first, Machina. If anything is waiting on the other side, you have the best chance to defeat it on your own. Once the boss is confirmed to be dead, only then will we start looking for the lost team as well as valuable items. Any questions?”

  When no one speaks up, Duelliste continues.

  “Communication will be difficult. Fractures tend to interfere with radio communications. Anything beyond short range will be extremely difficult to make out. If we get split up in the chaos of combat, return to the entry point.”

  I raise my hand at that.

  “I might be able to help with that. I can act as a very powerful radio repeater. I might be able to burn through the interference. I can’t promise anything, but I can try.”

  Duelliste nods.

  “Good. Unless there’s anything else, let’s gear up.”

  I fiddle with the drones the French team brought in. Each one is about a yard across and each of the six rotors is about a foot from tip-to-tip. The radio on it isn’t the most powerful, certainly not powerful enough to burn through the interference on its own.

  That’s where I come in. I already know I can be a powerful enough transmitter and receiver to reach into low orbit, where telecom satellites hang out. I experiment with a drone’s controls once I connect to it. I can fly it manually, or let it search on its own.

  Though, I notice that the algorithms are pretty basic, at least when compared to my own. It takes only a few moments for me to upgrade them. The onboard computers are simply too slow to run the full scale ones, though the upgraded algorithms are a magnitude better.

  I can control all of them easily. Splitting my cognition into a dozen simultaneous streams is child’s play for me. I send them flying in a complex dance, something only a powerful network like the one I’ve created could do.

  Morgan joins me next to the Fracture, followed by Duelliste and his team.

  She gives me a smile. “Having fun?”

  “Yes, actually. They’re fun to fly. I also upgraded the onboard automatic control systems. They should be much better.”

  “I would have preferred you asked before modifying several million euros worth of equipment,” he says, clearly annoyed.

  I shrug.

  “I saw something that could have been better, so I improved it. Blame the engineer in me.”

  Duelliste nods at the Fracture.

  “You’ll be leading us in. Are you ready, or do you need more time to modify French property?”

  The rebuke isn’t subtle, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m long past letting people tell me what to do. Especially when lives are at stake.

  My drones form up behind me, and I push through the shimmering light.

  The sensation of falling is stronger than ever before. It feels like my litho-braking maneuver I pulled during my entry to the Second Battle for New York. The drones behind me don’t notice anything, their guidance and control systems are rock steady.

  This Fracture is a massive French-styled manor. The entrance is just inside the foyer, and the door behind me is closed. The interior is massive, the vaulted ceiling nearly sixty feet above me. For the first time in a while, I feel small.

  I advance deeper into the extravagant hallway, looking for both monsters and the lost team. I find nothing. The hallway is empty and silent, huge pedestals topped with vases the size of a house stand stoically. There are no corpses or signs of battle marring the lavish interior. The drones move out.

  The radio interference caused by the Fracture is intense, but I’m able to burn through by jacking up my transmit power. The drones are normally controlled by a 10 Watt transmitter at 5.8 GHz, but I’m forced to crank the power up to a 100 Watts. More than enough to harm a normal human being, but between the interference and everyone’s superhuman constitution, it shouldn’t be a problem.

  Morgan steps in behind me, and the Luminaries follows in shortly after.

  The French team is smooth and professional, rapidly clearing the space around them. Duelliste has a silver and golden rapier out, with an equally fancy parrying dagger in his off hand. Once he’s confirmed the area is clear, he turns to me.

  “Well,” he asks. “Anything yet?”

  With the improved control systems, the drones are able to fly a lot faster without crashing into anything. Despite their speed, they haven’t had much time to cover any meaningful distance.

  “The Fracture is huge. They still haven’t found anything. Monsters or otherwise.”

  All of us share morbid looks. No monsters at all? Every single Fracture so far has been teeming with them. We set off into the manor, eyes and sensors peeled.

  The entire Fracture is a maze that goes on for miles. The drones just keep finding new hallways. Not a single room has been spotted yet, nor any evidence of battle.

  The silence is pervasive, and keeps all of us on edge. The only sounds are our footsteps, muffled on thick carpet. The azure fibers would come up Morgan’s knees, but she floats above it all.

  “How far could they have gotten?” Pyro asks. “How much of this place have we checked already?”

  Quickly checking the drones, I get an answer. “Between all of the drones, we’ve mapped nearly a hundred miles of hallways over the last hour.”

  “How is that possible?” An incredulous Chevalier asks.

  “The geometry of this place is literally impossible. Oftentimes drones are making the same turn several times in a row without doubling back.”

  “Can you tell how far away the drones are based on radio signal strength?” Morgan asks.

  I shake my head.

  “No. The strength doesn’t make any sense either. It drops and grows seemingly at random. If I’m able to make anything of it, I’ll let you know, though.”

  Duellist sucks in a breath.

  “If we can’t find anything in a couple more hours, we’ll retreat and rest. I won’t have us facing the boss exhausted.”

  As we all nod in agreement, one of the drones finally finds something out of the ordinary— for what counts as ordinary for this place, anyway.

  As it grows closer, I’m able to identify it.

  Blood. Lots of it.