Chapter 5: Chapter Four: Seven out of Ten
The climb out of the Sepulveda Pass was worse than the descent. A hundred thousand years of aggressive botanical reclamation had turned the canyon walls into a vertical maze of slick moss, rotting root systems, and jagged, fossilized rebar that threatened to snap ankles with every step.
??Will led the way, his fractured rib grinding a relentless, white-hot rhythm against his sternum. He had stopped wincing at the pain; he just adapted his posture, keeping his right arm locked tight against his side to brace the bone.
??Behind him, the group’s stamina was fraying, but the silence was worse. The absence of their frantic complaints ant the adrenaline was finally bottoming out.
??Allison had drifted to his side sowhere in the last ten minutes. Nothing obvious. She just stayed close, using her improvised spear as a walking stick to keep weight off her bruised ankle, asking about the trail ahead with her voice pitched slightly lower than the wind required.
??The dark-haired one, Khan said privately, the ancient conqueror’s presence sliding smoothly across their synaptic bridge. She positions herself with intention.
??She’s just walking, Will thought back, stepping carefully over a massive, fossilized root system.
??n who believe won are just walking spend a great deal of ti confused about their lives.
??Allison asked whether his ribs were broken or bruised, tilting her head toward his right side. It was a perfectly practical, legitimate question.
??She already knows the answer, Khan noted, the Sovereign’s resonance thrumming with absolute certainty. She is not asking about your ribs.
??Will told her they were probably just bruised. She nodded like this was vital tactical data and stayed exactly where she was.
??Maddie started the interrogation ten minutes later. Maddie used small talk the way a scout uses binoculars. It was just information gathering with better manners.
??"What zone were you in when the Tutorial ended?" Maddie asked, using her scavenged blade to hack a thick vine out of their path.
??Will told her. Zone Seven. A corridor system that dumped into an open arena for the final wave. She had been in Zone Four, sothing that used to be a forest. Curtis volunteered his own details imdiately, slightly too eager—the actor in him recognizing a scene he could play a part in. Don confird Curtis’s story with the automatic loyalty of a guy who had spent years acting as a human echo chamber.
??"Sa structure, though," Will said, his boots squelching in the wet loam. "Wave one manageable. Wave two harder. Final wave designed to make sure not everyone—"
??"Ca out," Maddie finished, her voice flat. "Seventeen went into ours," she said, her eyes locked dead ahead on the trail. "Eleven ca out."
??Will looked at the dense canopy of ancient oaks. "Eleven went into ours. Seven ca out."
??"Nobody over twenty in ours," Allison noted, her grip tightening on her spear.
??"Sa," Curtis agreed, wiping a permanent sar of ash from his forehead.
??"Nobody under fifteen, either," Will added. "I checked."
??"Old enough to fight," Allison said softly. "Young enough to still think it might be worth it."
??"Young enough to be stupid about it," Maddie corrected, stepping over a rusted piece of tal that might have once been a street sign.
??"We’re all still alive," Will said.
??Maddie glanced back at him, evaluating his battered, dirt-caked appearance. "Seven out of ten."
??Even Curtis laughed at that, the sound sharp and desperate in the quiet jungle.
??The trail narrowed where two ancient oaks had grown together, forcing them into single file. Allison went first. Will followed.
??She glanced back over her shoulder. A routine trail check, completely legitimate. But her eyes found his and held a half-second longer than the terrain required.
??Ah, Khan rumbled across the telepathic tether.
??Don’t start.
??I said nothing.
??You said ’Ah.’ From you, that’s a full paragraph.
??I am a general. I survey the full landscape. It would be irresponsible not to.
??The trail widened, and Allison dropped back into that ambiguous zone—not quite beside him, not quite behind. She asked about his Luck stat. She wanted to know if it felt like anything from the inside, or if it just showed up in the results.
??Will answered more thoroughly than he intended to. There was sothing about the absolute quality of her attention that pulled the words out of him. He was entirely aware she was doing it, and he kept talking anyway.
??"Honestly," Will said, pushing a low-hanging branch out of the way, "mostly it just shows up in the math. Things land strangely. Timing breaks my way. Half the ti I don’t know whether I did sothing smart, or if the world just tripped over itself trying to help."
??Allison looked at him a little differently after that.
??Maddie, walking four feet to Will’s left with her eyes constantly scanning the hills, said absolutely nothing. She just filed it all away.
??The blonde noticed, Khan said quietly.
??I know.
??Good.
??They had spread into a loose, comfortable cluster, the adrenaline of the ambush finally wearing off. Allison waited for exactly the right lull in the conversation to strike.
??"Curtis had the biggest crush on Maddie before all this," Allison said conversationally, as if they were sitting in a coffee shop instead of a prehistoric at-grinder. "Like, genuinely embarrassing levels."
??Maddie didn’t react. She didn’t even break stride.
??"Allison," Curtis warned, his face flushing violently under the layer of dirt. "We are in a jungle."
??"A hundred-thousand-year-old jungle," Allison countered, entirely unbothered. "Which ans society’s rules are dead, and I can finally talk about how you tried to trade three food rations for a plastic comb in the Tutorial just in case you ran into her."
??Don couldn’t help himself. "It was a really high-quality comb. And he talked about her literally every day. Every. Single. Day."
??"Don!" Curtis snapped, looking wildly between his friend and Maddie’s back.
??"What? Everyone knew."
??"Everyone knew," Maddie agreed, eyes still forward. "And for the record, Curtis, my investnt strategy does not include hygiene products. I haven’t brushed my hair in a week."
??Curtis stared fixedly at his ruined boots.
??He ran from her, Khan noted, analyzing the social dynamic with cold precision over the telepathic tether. Now he follows her. This is the oldest story.
??Does it end well? Will asked privately.
??That depends entirely on what he does next.
??Curtis stared at the back of Maddie’s head like a man running math, desperately hoping the numbers would change.
??They crested a ridge, and the basin opened below them. The grid of the old city was still there, faint but readable beneath the sprawling apocalypse. The 405 river caught the morning light and threw it back silver, rushing violently through a canyon of fossilized concrete. Farther out, whole sections of the basin had drowned under the weight of ti. Entire city blocks were swallowed by dense forest, leaving long, straight corridors of old streets cutting sharply through the green canopy.
??Maddie stopped walking.
??"This is Hollywood," she said quietly. Not really to anyone.
??"Was," Allison corrected.
??"Is." Maddie didn’t look away. "It just got a renovation nobody asked for."
??Will looked at the distant hillside. The iconic white sign was still there, though three letters were missing, the jagged remaining white tal choked by thick vines. He filed the thought away next to the other things he couldn’t afford to process yet.
??"My agent’s office was down there sowhere," Curtis said quietly, pointing vaguely toward a cluster of drowned skyscrapers. "I was an actor. Before."
??"That explains everything," Maddie said, adjusting her grip on her blade.
??Don’s loyal reflex kicked in imdiately. "He had a callback for a Marvel thing right before—"
??"Don," Maddie interrupted, turning to look at him fully. "Has there ever been a single mont in your life where your first opinion wasn’t just Curtis’s opinion on a slight delay?"
??Don slumped slightly against a petrified tree trunk, his legs trembling from the sheer exhaustion of the hike.
??"He’s my brother," Curtis said, surprising everyone. His voice was defensive, but hard. "He gets to."
??The banter died. Maddie just gave Curtis a single, appraising nod before turning back to the trail.
??As the trail sloped downward and widened, the group spread out naturally.
??Allison drifted close again. "Do you always listen when he talks to you?"
??Will glanced at her. "Are you asking whether I take advice from the voice in my chest, or whether I answer him out loud in front of people?"
??She almost smiled. "Either."
??"Not always," Will said. "Just when he’s right. Which is, unfortunately, often."
??"Unfortunate for you, or everyone else?"
??"Still gathering data."
??"Eyes on the trail, both of you," Maddie called out without turning around.
??Behind them, just below confident audibility, Curtis and Don walked with their heads together. Their voices had dropped low, carrying a hushed question shaped exactly like what do we do about... without the noun attached.
??Don’t get comfortable, Khan warned through the synaptic bridge.
??I’m not.
??You saved their lives. They have already finished being grateful and have started being strategic. Gratitude is brief, boy. Ambition is patient.
??Will glanced back over his shoulder. Curtis and Don looked up at precisely the right mont, their casual smiles perfectly calibrated.
??I know how these stories go, Will thought quietly.
??Then you know the man who stops watching always finds out too late.
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