Gate 1 was quiet.
Too quiet, Barry thought, and then mentally apologized to whatever cliché spirit he'd offended.
No event banners. No special notes. Just:
FIELD 3 — ROUND 233EXTRACT WINDOWS: 15:15 / 15:30 / 15:45HARD CLOSE: 16:00
Standard. That was the point.
Light load test whispers were everywhere now. People said NEXUS was "warming up." Barry didn't want his first reaction to be a panic sprint.
So today, they were doing something even dumber:
Running smart on purpose.
Lena appeared first, hood down, med bag tighter, expression set.
"Your rat friend tagged another corner near Gate 3," she said, by way of hello.
"I'm avoiding his art," Barry said.
"Good. He's boring," she said. "You ready to do this properly?"
"Define properly," Barry said.
"Without you panicking at every footstep," she said.
"Low bar," he admitted.
Kade arrived like a shadow getting bored of being a shadow.
Plain armor. Rifle. Same unreadable calm.
"You still anomalous?" he asked.
"Apparently," Barry said.
"Try not to do it on purpose," Kade said. "Let's go."
They stepped into the queue together but not clumped: a half-meter gap between each, the shape of people who worked together but didn't want to advertise it.
"You know the rules," Lena said, low. "Say it."
Barry ticked them off.
"No shooting each other. No forced heroics. We share eyes, not spines. First one to bail calls it and goes—no guilt."
"Payout split by who carries what," Kade added. "No drama over scraps."
"If Riggs shows?" Lena asked.
"We treat him like a real threat or we leave," Barry said. "No half-measures."
They both nodded.
Collars buzzed.
FIELD MODE: ENGAGED
Gate 1 rolled up. Field air slid in: that familiar tang of dust, metal, and old alien ghosts.
They crossed the yellow together and then spread: Kade drifting right and a step back, Lena left, Barry center. Three points of a triangle that never fully closed.
Field 3 welcomed them with its shattered avenues and leaning towers. Afternoon light slanted through broken glass.
HUD:
T+00:02
"Route?" Kade asked.
"Office block with the twin stairwells, then mid-lot stash, then we decide," Barry said. "Keep off main."
"Good call," Lena said. "Lot's been hot."
They moved.
It shouldn't have felt this natural—and it really, really did.
Barry led on footwork: hugging cover, choosing angles that gave Kade lines and Lena lanes to duck into. His audio band piped in layered sound: distant rifle, spider clank, someone yelling two blocks away.
Kade barely spoke, just:
"Window left, clear."
"Roofline, empty."
"Two idiots mid-lane, no interest."
Lena's comments came only when needed:
"Don't step there, broken glass'll sing."
"Door's wired, go one down."
Inside the first office block, they split without splintering.
Barry went for filing rooms: found half a crate of canned meals some Local idiot had cached and never reclaimed.
Lena hit the med cabinets: scored proper strips and a sealed trauma pack.
Kade took the upper floor and covered the street, occasionally sending a shot at a scavver bot nosing too close.
They regrouped by the stairwell without calling it.
"Three meals, some filters," Barry said.
"Med goods," Lena showed. "Client-friendly."
"Quiet," Kade said. "Too quiet."
"Don't," Barry said.
Kade almost smiled. Almost.
T+06:39
Next: mid-lot stash.
It was an old overturned delivery truck in a side lot—locals on the Stacks boards swore it had a good spawn rate. Easy bait for murderhobos.
Barry didn't walk up to it.
He pointed.
"Eyes," he said.
Kade circled to a rusted car husk, scoped.
"Two watching from the barber's," he said. "Guns on laps. Waiting for stupid."
"We're not stupid," Lena said. "Smoke or skip."
Barry slipped the cheap smoke from his rig. "I throw right, we go left. Grab quick, stay low. Kade, if they try to farm us—"
"They don't get a second try," Kade said.
"On three," Barry said.
He lobbed the smoke right. It popped and billowed, gray curling into the street.
The watchers in the barber's twitched, stood, guns up, attention drifting that direction like clockwork.
Barry and Lena went left, fast.
Barry ripped the truck door higher, Lena covered.
Inside: a couple of half-rotten boxes, one crate with NEXUS tape, still sealed.
He yanked it, sliced tape.
Inside: ration pouches, basic meds, a small box of clean 9mm.
"Bless," Barry said.
He grabbed the ammo, passed it to Lena to dump in her rig; she handed him two pouches and a medband back without comment.
Kade's voice: "They're aiming wrong way. Move."
They were already moving, cutting behind a line of cars, avoiding a fight they didn't need.
Clean. Efficient.
No speeches.
T+10:14
"First or second?" Lena asked.
"Second," Barry said. "We're set for first, but second pays a touch more, and it's not cooking yet."
"Agreed," Kade said.
"Check one more spot," Lena said. "Short detour. If it's hot, we bail."
They slid into a mid-rise that used to be apartments. Stale air, dust, someone's old shoes.
On the third floor, Barry heard the click of a bot before he saw it.
"Right," he hissed.
Blue-Eye spider on the ceiling, lens blue, legs spread. It rotated down, scanned.
Three collars in view.
Lens flickered.
Barry felt that now-familiar collar buzz.
ANOMALY: B-RANER-3 // STATUS: OBSERVE
The spider hesitated. A judder in its stance.
Then it snapped its lens to a doorway further down, ignoring the three of them, and scuttled away.
"That isn't normal," Lena said mildly.
"No," Kade agreed.
"Later," Barry said, forcing his voice steady. "Room on the left has bathroom cabinets. Quick."
Lena gave him a long look, but moved.
The bathroom had:
Two sealed disinfectant bottles.
A roll of bandages.
A single injector of something expired-but-salvageable.
She pocketed it all.
T+13:02
"Now we go," Barry said.
No one argued.
Extract 2 was down in an old subway access: a wide stairwell, green shimmer at the bottom, a pair of Blue-Eye pods hovering like bored wasps.
A handful of runners were there already, checking corners, hands close to weapons.
Barry, Lena, and Kade came in staggered, never quite aligned, never quite not.
"Window opens in twenty," Lena murmured.
"Riggs?" Kade asked.
Barry scanned. No shaved head, no too-wide grin. No rat tags.
"Not here," Barry said.
"Good," Kade said.
Green brightened.
EXTRACT 2 — ACTIVESYNCING…
The hum washed over them.
Barry watched everyone's hands. No one moved dumb.
SYNC COMPLETEROUND STATUS: SURVIVED
White.
Stack air rushed back in.
On the other side, they peeled off to the edge, into a half-lit corridor where runners reassembled themselves.
Barry checked his pack: food, meds, ammo. Solid.
Collar ping:
PERSONAL CREDIT: +21
Lena checked hers, did the math. "Worth my time."
Kade nodded once, satisfied.
Jay's repeater slate—back in the workshop—would be showing:
CLUSTER ANALYSIS: RUNNER IDs [B-RANER-3 / L-VOSS / KADE-IMANI]SURVIVAL RATE: HIGHEFFICIENCY: ABOVE BASELINE
But for now it was just three people who'd survived, not hating each other.
"Same rules next time," Lena said. "If there is a next time."
"No promises," Barry said.
She smirked. "Good."
Kade slung his rifle.
"You call when the math's bad enough to be interesting," he said to Barry. "Not before."
"Deal," Barry said.
They split.
Barry headed for the workshop, feeling something dangerous: confidence.
Not invincibility. Not plot armor.
Just the sense that, for the first time, he wasn't the only sane target on the board.
Jay listened, hands busy stripping an old mag, as Barry recapped.
"Textbook," Jay said. "I hate it."
"Why?" Barry asked.
"Because textbook runs get noticed in data sets," Jay said, flipping the slate around.
Barry saw the new line:
NOTE: HIGH-EFFICIENCY FIELD CLUSTER DETECTEDOBJECTS: B-RANER-3 / L-VOSS / KADE-IMANIFLAG: MONITOR
"Monitor," Barry read. "That better or worse than 'observe'?"
"Means they like the pattern," Jay said. "Means if Riggs is the loud kid drawing dicks on desks, you three are the honors project."
"Great," Barry muttered. "Always wanted to be teacher's pet."
"The pet with a 'non-terminal' label," Jay said. "That's why this works. That's why it's dangerous."
Barry sat down hard.
"So what, we don't run together again?" he asked.
"Oh, you do," Jay said. "You just do it when it hurts them, not when it entertains them."
He tapped the incoming notice again:
UPCOMING: FIELD NETWORK LOAD TEST — DETAILS TBA
"Stress test is coming," Jay said. "Riggs is circling. NEXUS is watching. Now they know who shows them up on a normal day."
Barry flexed his hand, thinking of Lena's easy aim, Kade's calm shots, the spider that walked away.
"We beat him," Barry said quietly. "When it comes. Riggs."
"Yeah," Jay said. "Then we see what your machine fan club does about it."
After they lost, it wasn't the lone hero that scared the system—it was three broken people who'd figured out how not to waste each other.
Now the system had noticed.
Next time, it wouldn't send just a spider.