From their hiding place, Adrian and Inny could see everything happening in the small glade. On one side, it was ringed with trees where they were sitting. On the other, a steep slope in which a camouflaged door could barely be made out. On the third and fourth sides, a sheer drop led down about fifteen meters to the sharp bare branches of trees, bristling like pikes. They had reached this spot in roughly an hour, moving through dangerous undergrowth on the slope and trying to avoid the anomalies. The terrain was wild, but mostly safe: while scouting the land, Adrian hadn’t even seen traces of mutant dogs and blind hounds.

  The truck stood not far off, concealed by thickets. Abdellah, the man in coveralls, shaved like most therizers and covered in numerous clearly military tattoos, was smoking, leaning on the open hood. They could see him fairly clearly, but before they had a chance to move closer, the door in the slope creaked and opened, and Dr. Salzman climbed out, bent over.

  Inny almost rushed to him, but Adrian squeezed her hand and whispered hurriedly in her ear, “Wait…”

  “What’s wrong?” she murmured.

  “Let’s wait. We need to be sure we’re really alone here. Otherwise, why would Salzman have used the emergency exit?”

  “Abdellah!” Salzman called to the driver as he approached. Adrian noticed him adjust the Uzi at his side. “Where are the others?”

  “They haven’t shown up yet.”

  “They should have come,” the scientist muttered. “The Zone doesn’t joke… Silvester, get out, it’s clear,” he added, turning. Montellini crawled out of the hidden hatch filthy, smeared with blood, wearing a bulletproof vest and military clothing; a few guards came with him, just as grimy as he was.

  “What about Crates?” Abdellah asked.

  “Killed. Edward, too.”

  “We should have left sooner.”

  “We should have… I don’t like subjunctives.” Salzman walked to the vehicle and tossed a sack of artifacts into the cabin. “Take care of this like the apple of your eye. We have to get at least these to the Frontier.”

  “Not to the Eagle’s Rock?”

  “There will be no chopper, Abdellah.”

  The driver slowly dragged and only nodded in response.

  The enemies appeared swiftly, like shadows. Adrian tightened his grip on Inny’s hand, but she seemed not to feel it. Both of them crouched and froze, afraid to give themselves away with the slightest suspicious rustle. Five people came onto the glade, raising their rifles. One of them was a towering grey-headed one-eyed man with the Colonel’s epaulettes. The other four were men in black cloaks.

  Adrian felt his heart hammering in his chest, a few chills ran down his back, and he stood motionless, afraid to move or even breathe, when one of the men in a mask ran his gaze across the bushes where they were hiding… But no, they were spared. The attackers’ guns were trained on Abdellah, Salzman, and Montellini, who slowly raised their hands. The other soldiers followed suit.

  “I warned you, Albert,” the Colonel said in a low voice. “I told you it would be like this. You didn’t have the slightest chance—what were you hoping for? Well, never mind, that’s your affair. Where are Inny and Thorne?”

  Salzman did not answer at once. Despite being armed and wearing a protective suit, he looked somehow small and stooped beside the two-meter-tall Colonel. He raised his head, sighed heavily, and rasped, tiredly:

  “Fuck you, Aquilles.”

  “You’re wasting your breath. Think I won’t find them? I will. I’ll turn the whole forest inside out, scour the Zone—they won’t hide! Make it easy for them now. If you tell us, they won’t be run through with dogs, they won’t be lured into traps and snares, they won’t be transported bound hand and foot to the other side of the Zone… Your Inny’s seventeen already, a prime picking for the horny bastards on special service in the barracks. Can you imagine what they could do to her, what she might become? And Adrian? There are people who take real physical pleasure in watching other people suffer. Men from my units are among them—that’s why they work here… So? Have you not changed your mind?”

  “I said, go to hell.” Salzman spat.

  “You’re wasting your efforts too,” he added. He spoke quietly, hoarsely, and with a kind of hardened resolve, looking Aquilles straight in the eye without averting his gaze. “First, I’d prefer death somewhere in the Zone’s marshes over a life at a special military facility beyond the Perimeter… And I don’t want that fate for Adrian or Inny. You brought the Worms with you? Then let them go to hell if they want Inanna for their rituals… Second, and this is the most important, I don’t know where they are. But I hope they’ll be smart enough, if they do come here and notice our situation, to turn and run with all their might down to the highway and the village.”

  Adrian suddenly realized that Salzman had seen them from the very beginning and knew exactly where they were. The scientist hadn’t looked in their direction, and Adrian felt a fear like nothing he’d ever felt, not even in the tunnel beyond the creek. Above all, he was afraid the Colonel would turn and order the bushes searched. He looked at his knees. They were shaking. Inny trembled as well, pressing against him.

  Then Adrian suddenly felt the warmth of the holster at his waist, the pistol there.

  “Run,” he mouthed. “Try to get down quietly… And if a fight starts, run down. It’s not far… You know how to walk around anomalies, do you?”

  “I won’t leave you.”

  “You don’t understand. I’ll try to get them out… You can’t help. You must not fall into their hands. I won’t allow them to die, and I won’t allow you to fall into that man’s hands. Do you understand?”

  She nodded slowly. He squeezed her hand.

  “Run.”

  Inny moved back slowly, almost crawling. One step, then another. Adrian watched her; his heart stopped, and he waited for the sound of a cracking twig, the rustle of needles or leaves—and then it would all be over.

  The wet needles did not rustle. Inny slipped down the final stretch on the damp clay and vanished into the bushes. The steep descent led down. Adrian mentally wished her luck, clenched his teeth, turned, and slowly drew the pistol.

  “…poor choice,” Aquilles was saying in the meantime. “You can’t imagine how far my power reaches in the Zone… Even if those kids—and don’t forget, they’re only children—end up here and manage to get to the village, we’ll find them there too. We’ll call in forces from across the Zone and drag the factions into war over this… the Frontier won’t have enough strength to defend them. Simply won’t.”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “You also don’t know a lot,” Salzman said with a sour smile. “And you never will, simply because of your attitude toward the Zone and everything connected with it. There are many things you will never understand. Believe me, believe the word of an old four-eyed who, in any case, is already pledged to the Zone. Forever. Like hundreds of others who managed to survive here and understand why they can live nowhere else, why only in the Zone—in this hell—do they find true peace… Try to understand that.”

  “Philosophy, and a foolish one,” the Colonel answered calmly. “But, I repeat, you’ve made your choice. I said I would kill you if you refused to cooperate. I dreamed of doing it for eighteen years. And I will do it now. With great pleasure.”

  He raised the pistol. Adrian snapped his hand up, caught his sights on the Colonel’s head. He aimed as carefully as possible. He stole a quick glance at Salzman and saw that the scientist, without taking his eyes off the barrel pointing at him, was barely shaking his head.

  Adrian didn’t understand. He aimed even more carefully. He clenched his right hand so it wouldn’t tremble.

  Then he fired.

  He fired point-blank, and the force of the shot was such that the Colonel staggered to the side, almost falling. The Worms reacted instantly. Shots tore through the bushes, and Adrian dropped to the ground, hearing bullets whip through leaves and twigs above his head. He didn’t see Salzman, taking advantage of the momentary confusion, swing up his Uzi; didn’t see Montellini draw his pistol and fire from the hip; or Abdellah, leaping like a tiger under the cover of the truck, and shooting from there, aiming only at the Worms. Shooting without missing.

  The fight around Aquilles erupted into chaos. Adrian curled up in his bushes. He still didn’t understand what was happening. The pistol trembled in his hand, and the young man asked himself for the hundredth time—could I have missed? Point-blank, from barely ten meters away—and missed?

  But the Colonel crouched, hunched over, and suddenly turned, ignoring the two bullets that had struck him, his predatory gaze sweeping straight toward the thicket where Adrian was hiding. He raised his weapon. Adrian saw that he was aiming directly—and would not miss.

  Salzman roared and lunged forward, knocking Aquilles off his feet. One of the Worms was already dead; another kept firing wildly into the trees, trying to hit Montellini and Abdellah, even though his body was riddled with bullets. Adrian saw him, in a kind of trance, change his magazine, sway under a hail of bursts, and finally fall as well… The third one, darting back, crouched and, before one of the Institute’s soldiers could hit him, killed two outright. Montellini barely dodged the Worm’s burst and fired back. Hit the cultist’s arm. The Worm didn’t even flinch and kept shooting. The bullets ricocheted off his cloak, under which armor was clearly hidden.

  Adrian sprang up from the bushes, no longer aiming at the Colonel, but emptying one round after another into the third Worm. Another Institute guard let out a muffled cry and fell… Abdellah fired another precise burst, and together they finally forced the third zealot down. He twitched for a long time while Montellini finished him off, still not believing he was dead.

  Adrian, sweating after the brief skirmish, caught his breath and turned around.

  Salzman and Aquilles, tangled like hissing pythons, were rolling on the ground, striking each other savagely wherever they could reach. But though Salzman was younger, the Colonel was stronger. For several seconds, they beat each other with their fists, blood spraying from their noses; the Colonel hissed, veins bulging, and with a sharp blow slammed Salzman into the ground. He struck the scientist in the face, raised the edge of his hand, preparing to smash the scientist’s throat, then staggered slightly from a shot to the head fired by Montellini. Salzman wheezed, struggling to break free of the iron grip.

  “Don’t shoot… You can’t kill him… with ordinary weapons…” he gasped.

  Adrian shot anyway—not at the head, but at the Colonel’s raised right hand above Salzman’s head. Two fingers flew off. Aquilles faltered, turned. Adrian lunged at him, knocking him down, kicking wildly wherever he could reach. Salzman crawled aside, got to his feet, and drew a knife from his belt. Adrian kept hitting, refusing to surrender. Aquilles seemed to feel no pain at all. He slowly managed to rise, flung Adrian off with a violent shove that made his vision go black. And while Salzman spat blood, struggling to stand, and Adrian fought off the dizziness, Aquilles snarled with rage, spun around, and fired point-blank at Montellini.

  The director of the Institute died instantly, thrown backward and collapsing into the grass beside the truck. The pistol thundered twice more, and the surviving guards fell flat beside the half-open secret door. Abdellah ducked behind the truck’s fender. Salzman got to his feet, but too late. Aquilles stood, aiming his pistol at him.

  “Execution,” he rasped, his eye burning with madness. “By the laws of the Zone… by the laws of the jungle, I sentence you to death. For… disobeying the order of the Zone’s commander-in-chief. Then it will be your turn, boy.”

  Adrian lifted his head. Blood streamed over his face; he swayed and nearly fell. Everything spun, the world twisted, and he didn’t notice the sky above changing color. Or maybe he did, but thought it only the delirium of his fevered mind…

  Salzman, however, saw it clearly. Standing at the very edge, he said quietly:

  “The Quake is coming, Aquilles. What the Zone gave you, it will take back.”

  The Colonel bared his teeth.

  “Maybe so… But before I die, I’ll enjoy my revenge. Small—but oh, so sweet.”

  The sky flared brighter and brighter. Adrian raised his head and spat thick brown saliva. His head spun… or perhaps the world spun around him? Everything was changing. Everything.

  And at the center of these terrible transformations was a small gray sphere in his pocket. The sphere, under the influence of the approaching Quake, was changing most of all. Shedding the shell one could touch and hold, the shell that gave it material form. It was becoming pure energy. Adrian no longer looked at the Colonel’s raised hand or the finger trembling on the trigger. For him, time had stopped. He felt the Zone pouring its strength into him—enough to overcome another force, another power granted by the Zone to someone else, perhaps for its own amusement, to pit two of its creations against each other. To prove to mankind that it was not to be trifled with…

  Let it rain.

  The heavens flared. The world shuddered, tearing apart like a sheet of paper. Adrian thought he was going mad when he suddenly found the strength to rise and hurl himself at Aquilles. The sphere in his pocket burned, searing him, driving his fist upward to smash into the Colonel’s cheekbone. Bones cracked. A gunshot rang out, but Salzman stepped aside, and the bullet went nowhere—toward the Frontier settlement, toward the first Perimeter, and then toward the swamps and radioactive forests and fields leading to the heart of hell.

  Aquilles staggered. Adrian swooped on him like a hawk, knowing his only chance was to knock his enemy down. He succeeded. They grappled and rolled toward the edge of the cliff. Salzman shouted. Aquilles twisted and struck Adrian so hard that sparks burst before his eyes, then kicked him with the heavy toe of his army boot. Adrian managed to get up faster than he expected—but the Colonel was even faster, raising his pistol and firing from the hip, point-blank.

  He missed.

  Adrian roared with the last of his strength and slammed his head into Aquilles’s stomach. They fell again, rolling closer to the cliff’s brink. Aquilles fought back, kicking Adrian in the face, then twisted, grabbed him by the hair so hard that tears burst from Adrian’s eyes. The Colonel flung him down, staggered to his feet at the very edge, swaying.

  Adrian groaned. He had never felt such pain. It burned inside, as if acid were eating him from within, growing stronger and stronger. Aquilles loomed over him, and above the two of them, only the crimson sky, blazing with the glow of the approaching Quake…

  Adrian found strength.

  He leapt up like lightning and dove at Aquilles’s legs. Both men fell to the ground for the third time. Salzman was shouting something, but Adrian no longer heard him. Clutching Aquilles with one hand, he pulled himself closer to the edge with the other, groaned with effort, and managed, heaving the massive Colonel over himself, simply to shove him.

  For several seconds, Aquilles clawed at the earth, raking the dirt with his fingers, flailing, howling, kicking, clutching at Adrian. And then he slipped. Dragging Adrian down with him.

  Salzman screamed in despair as he saw the two figures, locked together in a furious struggle, tumble over the edge of the slope and vanish below.