Then came the heavy work. I put my hands on the fender of a wrecked SWAT van and shoved. The three-ton vehicle groaned, metal scraping against asphalt as it moved. It wasn’t a struggle. It was easy. I could feel the muscles in my back and shoulders bulge against the strained fabric of my uniform, a deep, cellular hum of raw power that was utterly intoxicating. I shoved again, and the van slid a full ten feet. I stared at my hands, at the effortless strength they now possessed.

  Was I even human anymore? The question was a cold whisper, lost in the exhilarating, terrifying thrill of the power surging through me.

  We muscled the vehicles into a jagged V, its point aimed away from the shimmering blue portal. It was a classic kill funnel. The Players would be the anvil at the wide end, stopping whatever charged out. The gunners, tucked into the V’s arms, would be the hammer, pouring fire into the trap.

  As we finished, Ryker approached. The SWAT leader’s face was a roadmap of exhaustion, but his eyes held a new flicker of respect.

  “That’s a hell of a setup,” he said, his voice a low gravel. “You ex-military?”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “No.” I stretched my arms and back, feeling the abused seams of my shirt give way some more. “But my Chief was. Dobson. He used to say, ‘Control the terrain, control the fight.’ We all thought he was a paranoid old bastard.” I glanced at the gate, its blue light pulsing like a diseased heart. “Turns out he wasn’t paranoid enough.” I met his gaze.

  “You?”

  “Yeah.” A shadow fell across his face. “Three tours. One in Afghanistan, two in Iraq.” His eyes drifted to the edge of the woods, where silver thermal blankets covered the forms of his fallen teammates. His voice dropped, becoming flat, each word a heavy stone. “I lost more people today than in all three of those tours combined.”

  The silence that followed was a physical thing. I opened my mouth to offer some useless platitude from the old world, but the words caught in my throat. I thought of the dead Player, the wet, crunching sound as jaws closed on his head, the other monster shearing his arm off in a spray of red. He’s not exaggerating.

  “This is a different kind of war, Ryker,” I finally said. “New enemy, new rules. If we don’t stop them here, this fire will burn through both our cities.”

  He gave a slow, grim nod, his eyes still locked on his dead. We’d lost a Player, one of the super-powered few, as easily as any other soldier. The System made us stronger, but it didn’t make us immortal. If the next wave was bigger, our desperate little fortress wouldn’t be a shield. It would be a tomb.

  We have to get stronger.

  It wasn’t a thought. It was a promise.