Setup Mode. Like a game. I was stuck in a game.

  And my only kill was the guy who tried to kill me.

  “Now you’re getting it,” the bird said, his feathers flattening once more. He straightened, still perched on the arm rest by the door handle.

  “That helmet, there?” he explained. “That thing makes you a player. We’re trying to trick it into thinking you’re the guy you just killed—so that you’ll have access to his suit.”

  The suit? I wanted to say. I’d rather have his gun….

  The thought petered out. The node. When I made the node explode….

  The guy had come out the other side of the blast unscathed. Disoriented, but not a mark on him.

  “Okay. Okay, yeah, I want the suit,” I said.

  “Then you better hope FATE can get it done fa—”

  This time, when the explosion happened, I didn’t even duck. A part of me felt paralyzed—the part that felt fear.

  I had gone over the edge now. I looked out the window.

  Someone had blown a circular hole in the floor above us, about five feet wide, the edges jagged. As the sodiprene dust rained down in front of us, clinking on the car’s windshield, a figure with six arms stepped to the edge of the hole.

  It looked down at me. I looked up at it.

  “You didn’t mention other Hunters,” I said.

  The bird swore and flew straight out the window without waiting. At least one of us had a sense of self-preservation.

  I opened the car door. I stepped out. It hadn’t been seven minutes yet. My head felt like some kind of balloon, but I was calm, so deadly calm that I buzzed with it.

  I’m not the only Hunter, I thought.

  I hadn’t seen another one of these creatures up close. I’d only seen the destruction of their weapons. But if I’d had any doubts that these things were aliens, that doubt was now dispelled.

  The thing above me was so tall that it had to hunch to avoid the ceiling, meaning it was ten feet if it was an inch. Four of its six arms—the top set, and the bottom set—had a pair of deadly-looking pincers on the ends of them.

  The middle set of arms looked like butcher knives. Those things weren’t there to chop lettuce.

  I raised a hand. “Howdy,” I said.

  The thing bristled. Every visible part of its body was segmented like an insect, including its two lanky legs. It had two beige-colored eyes on its head, the size of baseballs.

  All in all, the creature reminded me of a walking stick bug. A ten-foot-tall, alien stick bug.

  I put my helmet back on.

  “What—oh, fuck!” the creature said.

  It was impressive how fast it moved, recoiling away from the hole, all its arms rising straight into the air. What little pupil it had shrank to a pinpoint. Its antennae went stiff. It was as if I’d just pulled on gun on the thing, and it was trying to surrender in triplicate.

  “My bad!” it blurted out in a terrified voice. “I didn’t know—thought you left—sorry!”

  Inside the helmet, I just stared.

  The thing made a clicking sound with a decidedly panicked edge to it.

  “I’ll just be going then! Bye!” it croaked.

  I raised one eyebrow, although the alien couldn’t see it through my visor. Then I pushed the car door open wider.

  The creature shrieked and ran.

  I stepped out onto the ground and looked up through the hole. A small explosion on the next floor made me duck, and I shielded my head, but only smoke rolled past the hole.

  “Did it… did it just drop a smoke bomb?” I asked no one.

  It would appear so, the computer said in my headset. The computer called FATE, not the sexy one.

  “We should leave,” the parrot said, making me start. I turned to find him clinging to a support beam near the entrance. “Word of your position will get around, and every season there’s some upstart kid who tries to take Remnant out early. They always end up as red goo, but you can’t fault them for trying. There are worse deaths than turning into goo.”

  I looked at the parrot, and my helmet caught a beam of sunlight from somewhere. Light reflected into the parrot’s eyes, making him flinch.

  “FATE, I’m muting you,” I said.

  Muted, FATE replied.

  I eyed the bird. “Should that keep her from hearing me?”

  He nodded.

  I took a breath. “All right. Who the hell did I kill with that cake? And—shit. Do you have a name?”

  “Me? Oh, I’m Dave,” said the parrot. “And you killed Remnant. It’s honestly very impressive.”

  I blinked. “Your name is Dave?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Before he could answer, a tone sounded through my helmet, and the sexy AI voice came on. As she spoke, the words scrolled across my visor in violet text.

  Welcome, Hunter Remnant, to Trash Planet: Volume Earth!

  Setup Mode will begin in ten minutes.

  Setup Mode will end once all Coreless [native-species] in designated Setup Zones have been neutralized.

  You have 10 (+9) stat points to allocate.

  Returning Hunter Bonus!

  You begin at Level 9.

  You begin with 9 additional unallocated stat points.

  You begin with a [rank3] basic weapon.

  You begin with 9 [rank3] basic charges or ammunition.

  Returning Prime Hunter Bonus!

  You begin with unlimited inventory.

  You begin with a [rank9] NerveGear item.

  You begin with Level 90 Game Guide Fuck You Dave.

  You begin with the location of a [rank9] Coreless [native-species].

  The Conduit thanks you for your service.

  Now get out there and Trash the Planet!

  “What the hells?” I said.

  Remnant, FATE’s voice cut in. I have canceled the core match request. I had to reset your system to do it, so you’ll need to reallocate your starting points and weapon. Do you want me to input them in the same way you did them previously?

  “What? No. I mean—” I thought of the laser gun. “The weapon. Not the points,” I said.

  At this stage, I wasn’t sure what the points did or where I should put them. Either way, I’d just spent a full minute standing here. I had to get my head in the game.

  Because this was a game. The alien takeover of my planet was a game.

  Done, FATE replied. However, I don’t recommend any more overrides before Setup Mode is complete. You could draw attention that I won’t be able to mitigate. Would you like me to resume the mute?

  “Wait,” I said. “The message I just got said that Setup Mode starts in ten minutes. I thought it was already happening?”

  There was a pause. That was an automated message that occurred because of the reset, FATE finally said. It should have been the same message you saw just before making planetfall. Setup Mode is currently ongoing.

  I swallowed. Right. I should have been able to figure that out.

  Crap. That probably made her suspicious.

  Time to be an asshole again.

  “Don’t talk back to me,” I snapped, before jumping out of the car and dropping the ten feet to the alleyway. “That’s all I need for now, FATE. You can scram.”

  Muted, FATE said again.

  Inside the helmet, a little microphone icon in the corner blinked out. She didn’t bother with a goodbye, but if she was an AI, that made sense.

  “What’s the difference between FATE and the sexy voice?” I asked.

  “Boobalicious is your headset’s AI,” Dave explained. “FATE is your Field-Advisor-slash-Technical-Entity. She handles everything but the suit, although she has access to that, too, if needed. But her line is monitored. It casts to the viewers.”

  Dave flew down and landed on a piece of sodiprene that had once been a part of a sports car, on account of the spoiler sticking out its far side. Now that I was looking, several cars on this level had been blown to bits. Another Hunter, maybe Stickbug, had been through here.

  “The reset went through?” Dave asked me.

  I nodded, but looked down at my hand. “I had her reset my weapon. Where is it?”

  Dave’s beak parted, but a sound like a car crash cut him off. The whine of twisting metal and the shatter of glass temporarily scattered my thoughts. The noise had come from several streets away, but it was still too close for my comfort.

  “I hate to be a nuisance,” Dave said, “but we really should blow this Popsicle stand.”

  He meant run, if I had to guess; that translation was nothing I’d ever heard before. It sounded millennial.

  Regardless, I had to agree with him. Another boom sounded in the distance, followed by a massive clank. Dust blasted down the alley, washing over us.

  As it did, I had an idea. I darted forward and snatched the parrot off his perch.

  “Hey!” Dave squawked. “What’s the big idea?”

  “You’re going to start explaining this shit,” I said, already starting to run. “What’s going on? And where should I run to? Where won’t there be other aliens?”

  Dave squirmed, and I remembered that the welcome message had said he was Level 90. If I was only Level 9, then he probably could escape me if he wanted to. Hell, maybe he could kill me outright.

  Yet he didn’t. He felt like a regular bird in my hand, albeit a fairly large one.

  “Fine,” he blurted as I leapt onto a fallen aircar and booked it toward the city wall, which was visible from pretty much anywhere, provided there weren’t too many towers in the way. “Let’s start with that last question. The Hunters start in cities. There’s always a population of Coreless in cities. Even better if there’s a tent city outside the city. That’s usually a gold mine.”

  “Coreless?” The welcome message had mentioned that. It had said that Setup Mode would end when all the Coreless in this zone were neutralized.

  “People without government-issue bio-identification. The means of ID is different in every world.”

  I raced past a fire escape, stopped, then retraced my steps. I scaled it like I was curb-stomping every step.

  “You mean these aliens are hunting people who don’t have citizenship?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think?”

  The snarky reply caught me off guard, but then again, I was pumping my arms while running, and the parrot was still in my fist. I was probably making him dizzy.

  I burst out onto an open level of the building, once again meant for parking aircars. I weighed my options. I could ascend higher and jump between buildings unimpeded, because all this shit was packed close together. Or, I could cross the parking level, where other aliens wouldn’t see me—but where they could potentially drop the building’s upper floors on my head.

  I settled for the parking lot, ducked low, and booked it across the expanse.

  “So you’re saying the aliens—the ones running this game—have a way of controlling people with IDs,” I huffed. “That’s why everyone went unconscious at once.”

  “Ding ding ding,” Dave sighed, before grousing quietly to himself, “At least he’s not a moron. I was starting to wonder.”

  I ignored that. “So these guys are hunting unchipped people because they can’t be brought down remotely?”

  “Should I just keep saying ‘ding’ when you state the obvious, or…?”

  And here I’d been so desperate to get a chip. I’d been seconds away—seconds—from being one of the unconscious bodies in that office. Was it a coincidence? It had to be, right?

  I stopped and ducked up against the low wall between the parking level and the next building over. There was only five feet of clearance, an easy jump, but I’d have to crash through a window, and I couldn’t tell if it was breakable glass or tempered aerogel or something. I looked around and found a fire extinguisher affixed to a wall.

  “Is this some kind of alien takeover?” I asked, darting to the extinguisher, pulling my fist into the sleeve of my suit coat, and punching the glass.

  As it shattered, Dave said, “Something like that.”

  I yanked out the extinguisher, spun once, and hurled it across the gap at the nearest window.

  Yep, that one was glass.

  As I clambered up onto the wall and crouched to jump, I glanced up at the sky. The alien I’d killed—Remnant—and that walking-stick-looking thing had been very, very different creatures. Were there more kinds of aliens, then? Could some fly? Could some turn invisible? Was there a laser trained on me right this second?

  “You said they go after non-citizens. Coreless,” I said. “So I should go the opposite direction of the highest concentration of those people, right? If I want to get somewhere safe?”

  I felt bad for my fellow leeches, I really did, but I was just one guy with a fancy helmet and no gun. What could I do against a city full of alien invaders? These guys weren’t backhoes. I couldn’t just hit them with a wrench and hope they got going.

  “Oh, my sweet summer child,” Dave said. “From now on, you’re only safe when you’re dead.”

  Then he bit my hand, and I let him go—and something pushed me hard from behind.