“Civilians?”
The Pitt had opened in the center of San Diego, a heavily populated area. The last time it had been near Johnson Valley in the Californian desert, with few inhabitants around. That had driven down the amount of civilian casualties.
This time we would not be so lucky.
The Guild had called in squads from the entire West Coast, but it would take time for them to arrive. During that time, those civilians inside were on their own. Some would try to make it to the portal, but the dungeon would shift, making travel difficult, and with the monsters that prowled the entrance?
Few would make it through without help.
“No survivors yet.”
We didn’t count civilians at this point as casualties, didn’t list injuries, because we both knew there would be too many to count. Instead, I could only say none had made it thus far.
Carter nodded, tightening a pair of gloves at the wrist, the leather faded as though he’d had them for years. I knew the rest of the squad as well, all of them like rock stars to the esper world.
Kenyon, the healer. Rumor was that he was the golden retriever of the group—quick to help but perhaps not quick at much else. His healing was second to none, though.
With his hair pushed back and the edge of tattoos showing at his throat, Ingram was their stealth specialist. He had the look of a man I wouldn’t want to run into elsewhere, but his connection to the shadows was a thing that researchers would no doubt debate and discuss for years to come.
Shear never seemed to speak, but something about his blue eyes—too bright to be natural—made it feel as though he crawled through my brain if we ever made eye contact. For that reason, I avoided it.
And lastly? Corsa Ray, a mentalist who had joined the squad a few months earlier. He was the only addition since they’d formed as teenagers, and rumor was that they hadn’t taken him on all that willingly.
Corsa’s father was a high-ranking military officer, and he’d all but dropped the mentalist in their laps. Nepotism was alive and well everywhere, it seemed. Whether it was supposed to be for training or something more long term, well, only people with a higher pay grade than mine would have any idea about that.
He seemed comfortable enough with the others, as though there wasn’t bad blood between them, but he certainly wasn’t accepted as one of them.
He offered me a smile and a wink, the sort of flirting new espers tended to do with guides, as though they thought they could win them over that easily. It might work with civilians,but guides were much harder to crack—especially ones who had been at it a long time like me.
I responded with a wink of my own, to which Ingram leaned in and whispered something to Corsa’s ear. After a moment, his eyes widened and he stared at me with a sort of horror.
Guess he’d just learned exactly how I preferred things, and he didn’t seem all that interested.
No shock there.
The group offered a polite nod my way before heading in, no doubt with strict orders of their own. That was how it all worked, though. We all had things we were supposed to do, and for squads like that, they had all the eyes on them.
Another squad arrived, and I took a deep breath. With more espers going in, things were about to get far more complicated.
Sure enough, within ten minutes, we had as many espers exiting as we did entering, though they looked nothing alike. Those who left the dungeon were covered in blood—both red and purple—and often screaming in pain. It took me back to the previous incident, to the damage it had done to the espers.
There were fewer civilian casualties that time, but the damage to our own had still been terrible.
I fell into the familiar motions, doing my job. I rushed from esper to esper, along with healers. I tried to keep them from turning corrupted, from rampaging, from losing them to the same energy that fueled them. The healers and I fought our own battles, and it seemed we lost as often as we won.
One squad wearing all black was stationed at the edge of the portal, their faces covered in masks. They had one job—to end an esper who was too far gone, one who lost the fight to corruption, before they could become a bigger problem. I’d never spoken to them and never wanted to.
They were needed, perhaps, but they were also just an example of my failure, brought in when I couldn’t do the job I’d been assigned.
My body hurt before I knew it. I just moved from one esper to the next, not even looking at their faces, going by instinct alone.
How many hours passed? How many espers passed? I had no idea. It got to the point where I stumbled rather than walked.
Others had tried to get me to leave the area, to rest. Guides couldn’t turn corrupted, but if they over-exerted themselves, it could still kill them. The strain could prove too much and their hearts could give out.
I refused to leave, though. Inside The Pitt, Espers still fought, and civilians suffered, trapped and alone. The least I could do was give everything I had to hang on as long as possible.
“They’re ignoring their orders.” The voice felt distant, coming from the radio of a soldier to my left. He’d come over to help me when my legs wouldn’t work anymore, to get me around to where I needed to go. “Squad S412 has gone rogue.”
