The tactical van hit eighty miles per hour on the empty highway.
Marcus drove with one hand, the other pressed against his bandaged ribs. His face was pale, covered in sweat, but his eyes were sharp and focused. Jin sat in the passenger seat, checking her weapons with mechanical precision. I was in the back with Eli's laptop setup, watching the drone feed from Portland.
Three Rifters. Not one. Three.
And they were doing something Rifters had never done before.
"They're staying together," Eli's voice came through the speakers, his fingers typing frantically back at headquarters. "Look at the movement pattern. They're not wandering randomly. They're moving as a group. Coordinating."
On the screen, thermal imaging showed three large shapes moving through an abandoned warehouse district. They moved in formation—one in front, two flanking behind. Like wolves hunting.
"How is that possible?" Jin asked. "Every report says Rifters are mindless. They just kill whatever's closest."
"Every report was wrong," Marcus said, his voice tight with pain. "Or they're evolving faster than we thought. Either way, we're walking into something new."
My phone buzzed with an update from Diana:
Diana: Three-hunter pack formation. Unprecedented. Recommend abort and wait for backup.
I showed it to Marcus.
"Backup's four hours away minimum," he said. "Seattle team is dealing with their own rift. San Francisco team is down two members. We're it."
"So we abort," Jin said.
"And let three Rifters wander into a city of 650,000 people?" Marcus shook his head. "No. We go in smart. We adapt. That's what we do."
The van screeched to a stop three blocks from the target zone. We grabbed our gear and moved out.
Portland's industrial district looked dead. Empty buildings, broken windows, graffiti covering everything. The perfect place for a rift to open where nobody would notice.
Except the rift hadn't closed.
I could see it from two blocks away—a tear in the air itself, hovering ten feet off the ground between two warehouses. It looked like someone had cut reality open with a knife. Through the tear, I could see... something else. Darkness. Movement. Wrong colors that hurt to look at.
"Rift's still active," Marcus said into his comm. "Eli, you seeing this?"
"Yeah. That's bad. Really bad." More typing sounds. "Rifts aren't supposed to stay open this long. Something's keeping it from closing. Maybe the Rifters themselves? Maybe something on the other side? I don't know."
"Can more Rifters come through?" I asked.
Pause. "Yes. Possibly. Probably."
"Great," Jin muttered. "Just great."
Marcus checked his shotgun. "New plan. We kill the three Rifters fast, then destroy the rift before anything else comes through. Kane, you're on rift duty. Jin and I handle the Rifters."
"I can fight—"
"You're Level 6. We're Level 9 and 10. You're our insurance policy." He handed me three cylindrical devices. "Rift charges. Throw them into the tear, press the detonator. They'll collapse the rift from the inside. But you only get one shot—if you miss, we're screwed."
I took the charges. They were heavier than they looked, cold metal with blinking red lights.
"And if more Rifters come through while I'm closing it?"
Marcus smiled grimly. "Then you run really, really fast."
We moved toward the warehouses in tactical formation. Elena's training kicked in—stay low, use cover, watch all angles. My heart hammered against my ribs. My hands were sweating inside my gloves.
The three Rifters came into view.
They were bigger than the one in Chicago. Eight feet tall instead of seven. Their gray skin looked thicker, almost armored. And they weren't just standing around.
They were building something.
"What the hell?" Jin whispered.
The Rifters were stacking debris—broken concrete, metal beams, pieces of cars—creating some kind of barrier or structure around the rift. Working together. Using tools. Showing intelligence.
"They're protecting the rift," Marcus breathed. "They're keeping it open on purpose."
My phone buzzed. The Architect:
The Architect: Do NOT engage. This is beyond your capability. Backup is coming. Hold position and observe.
Marcus's phone buzzed with the same message.
He looked at it. Then at the rift. Then at the three Rifters building their protective wall.
"How long until backup?" he asked Eli.
"Three and a half hours. Maybe four."
"How long until that rift is completely stabilized?"
Pause. "Based on what I'm seeing? Thirty minutes. Maybe less. Once it's stable, the tear becomes permanent. Can't be closed without military-grade explosives."
Marcus looked at Jin. Then at me. "We can't wait three hours."
"The Architect said—" I started.
"The Architect isn't here." He chambered a round. "We take them now. Fast and brutal. Kane, the second we engage, you run for that rift. Throw the charges. Detonate. Don't wait for us. Understood?"
"What if you need help?"
"Then we die and you close the rift anyway." His voice was cold. Final. "That's the job. That's what heroes do."
Jin nodded. "He's right. The rift is the priority. Always."
They moved into position before I could argue. I circled wide right, keeping to the shadows, heading for the rift. The charges felt like lead weights in my pack.
Marcus's voice crackled in my earpiece: "On three. One... two..."
The first shotgun blast echoed across the empty district.
The lead Rifter's head exploded. It collapsed, gray liquid spraying across concrete.
The other two Rifters didn't panic. Didn't scatter.
They attacked as a unit.
One went for Marcus. The other went for Jin. Coordinated. Planned.
I ran.
My legs pumped as hard as they could. Fifty feet to the rift. Forty. Thirty.
Behind me, gunfire and screaming. The sound of Marcus's shotgun. Jin's rifle on full auto. The horrible screeching of Rifters.
Twenty feet.
Something landed in front of me.
A fourth Rifter.
It had been hiding. Waiting. Watching.
It was smaller than the others but faster. It moved like liquid, impossibly quick.
My Combat Awareness skill flared. The world slowed down. I saw its attack pattern. Saw the opening.
I dove left. Its claws missed my head by inches.
I rolled, came up, fired my rifle. The rift round hit its shoulder. Gray flesh exploded.
It didn't slow down.
It backhanded me across the face. I flew six feet and hit a concrete wall hard enough to see stars.
DAMAGE TAKEN: 35 HP
CURRENT HP: 65/100
WARNING: MAJOR INJURY
Blood filled my mouth. My vision doubled. The Rifter advanced slowly, those horrible jaws opening wide.
Then Jin was there.
She appeared from nowhere, her knife flashing. She slammed it into the Rifter's throat, twisted, pulled it out. Gray blood fountained.
The Rifter grabbed her by the arm and threw her like a doll. She hit the ground twenty feet away and didn't move.
"JIN!" Marcus's voice, desperate.
The Rifter turned back to me. Started walking again.
I grabbed one of the rift charges. Pulled the pin. Threw it as hard as I could.
Not at the Rifter.
At the rift itself.
The charge sailed through the air in slow motion. Passed through the tear in reality. Disappeared into that impossible darkness.
I pressed the detonator.
The explosion was silent. No sound. No fire. Just a sudden collapse of space itself.
The rift folded inward like paper being crumpled. The tear sealed shut. The wrongness in the air vanished.
And the Rifter in front of me started screaming.
Its body began to break apart. Cracks appeared in its gray skin, glowing with impossible light. It was losing stability, losing connection to whatever place it came from.
It lunged at me one last time.
Marcus's shotgun roared.
The Rifter's head disintegrated. Its body collapsed into ash.
Silence.
I lay against the wall, breathing hard, tasting blood. Marcus limped over, his bandages soaked red. Jin was crawling to her feet, one arm hanging useless.
"Rift?" Marcus asked.
"Closed," I gasped. "Got it."
"Good." He collapsed next to me. "Good job, kid."
My phone buzzed:
MISSION COMPLETE: PORTLAND CONTAINMENT
RIFTERS ELIMINATED: 4
RIFT CLOSED: SUCCESSFUL
+8,000 CREDITS
+4 STRENGTH
+3 AGILITY
+2 INTELLIGENCE
LEVEL UP! YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 7
NEW ACHIEVEMENT: PACK HUNTER
NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: TACTICAL COORDINATION (BASIC)
SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT: AGAINST ORDERS
Completed mission despite direct command to abort. Results: SUCCESS. Judgment: PENDING.
That last line made my stomach drop.
Eli's voice crackled through the damaged earpiece: "Extraction team is ten minutes out. Medical is standing by. The Architect wants to see all three of you the second you're back."
"Is that good or bad?" I asked.
"With her? Could go either way."
Marcus laughed, then groaned and held his ribs. "Worth it though. We stopped four Rifters and closed a stabilizing rift. Saved the whole damn city."
"And disobeyed a direct order," Jin said, cradling her broken arm.
"Details." Marcus smiled. "We're alive. They're dead. I call that a win."
But as I sat there, bleeding and exhausted, I couldn't shake the feeling that something had changed.
The Rifters were coordinating. Using tactics. Protecting their rifts. Learning.
And if they could learn to hunt in packs, what else could they learn?
The extraction van arrived. Medics rushed out. They patched us up with quick efficiency, loaded us in, and we were moving before I could process what had just happened.
My phone buzzed one more time. Unknown number:
Unknown: Congratulations. You survived the pack. But they're learning from every encounter. Every hero they fight teaches them something new. Eventually, they'll learn how to win.
Unknown: Question is: will you learn fast enough to stop them?
The message deleted itself.
I stared at the blank screen as the van raced back toward headquarters. Toward The Architect. Toward judgment.
We'd won today. Killed four Rifters. Saved a city.
But it felt like we'd just shown the enemy our playbook.
And somewhere, on the other side of reality, something was taking notes.