“When I was coming through the rim, I heard some stories,” said Wayne. He gestured for her to keep moving. “Some of the other freelancers at the hospitals and the Light recruiters talked about Raiders in the central hub. I thought at the time it was just something that was said to sow paranoia. I might have been wrong.”

“Raiders?,” asked Sara. She kept her attention forward, but she had an eye on the sides for an ambush from the people they had just saved.

“They’re freelancers who kill other freelancers for their equipment,” said Wayne. “Have you ever noticed that most freelancers have only one weapon.”

“Not really,” said Sara. “I must look like a raider too.”

“Maybe if you were here before I was,” said Wayne. “But we got here at the same time. That’s why we were pulled to Starting Point with Bob and the lovebirds. We all hit the wall at the same time at our gates.”

“So this group could have been waiting for others to come out of Starting Point to take their stuff,” said Sara. “What’s the point?”

“Some of our weapons are invaluable,” said Wayne. “Take Nasser’s helmet. It gives him an overlay of another personality that allows him to access how the underworld works. He can literally crash part of the hub with what he has if he didn’t care about the attention it would draw.”

“So he could knock down everything between us and the wall,” said Sara.

“It also means that every Dark lord that knew he was active would hunt him until he couldn’t go on,” said Wayne. “He can do a lot, but no one is unbeatable.”

“But Raiders would see that, and use it to stop people from getting through just to amass a small amount of power,” said Sara.

“Better to rule in Hell than serve the living,” said Wayne. There was a moment where his voice had become harder before lightening again. “So there was some things going on that I didn’t like so I’m giving our new friends a chance to prove they’rearen’t totally disreputable.”

“You think they’re going to come at us with whatever they’ve already taken from other freelancers,” said Sara. She frowned as she checked the draw on her gun.

“If they do, it will be a bad mistake for them,” said Wayne.

Sara nodded. Nasser wasn’t wearing his helmet, so he wasn’t ready to use his magic, but Sheira had done something to the air around them. She didn’t know what the woman with the gem had done, but she seemed to be checking on things in front of them somehow.

And Wayne walked at the rear of the line, glanced to one side every now and then. If the other group was running parallel to them, they weren’t totally silent about it.

“Very few people carry more than one weapon?,” asked Sara. “I just grabbed

everything I could reach in the time I was allowed.”

“Dark lord hospital?,” asked Wayne.

“Yes,” said Sara.

“The hospitals are neutral and the local powers are supposed to give you time and show you the weapons at your disposal, and allow you to pick the one that you think is going to help you the most,” said Wayne. “Dark lords are notoriously known to not brief new freelancers, and try to kill them immediately with some indirect means that supposed to be a natural hazard.”

“Zombies are a natural hazard?,” asked Sara.

“Were they mindless?,” asked Wayne.

“I think so,” said Sara. She thought of her first few moments fighting for her life. “Yes, they were mindless.”

“Natural hazard,” said Wayne.

“And that’s not against the rules?,” said Sara.

“Can you prove the Dark lord allowed a natural hazard of his domain to try to stop you?,” asked Wayne.

“No,” said Sara.

“Did this natural hazard impede on the Light in any way?,” asked Wayne.

“No,” said Sara. “It’s still grossly unfair.”

“This place isn’t set up to be fair,” said Wayne. “It’s set up to weed out people who want to go back to being alive and building something solid that doesn’t change because a rock moved from people who want to stay in a version of Valhalla because they got tired of trying to change the material universe with a spoon.”

“Which group do you belong to?,” asked Sara. She knew she was being unfair. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“To be honest, I haven’t made up my mind,” said Wayne. He smiled. “Either side of the coin is fine with me at this point. Making things better doesn’t seem that bad wherever you happen to be.”

Sara nodded. Getting home seemed like a good goal to have when she started, but was it the only one worth having? Standing up against problems seemed to be universally needed. If some wanted to stay in this otherverse and try to fix it so others could get back to what they wanted to do rather than spending their afterlife on some black beach, it wasn’t up to her to say don’t do that.

Sheira called a halt in their advance. She waved for the group to gather in the shadow of an alley. Bob created a small dust cloud around them as cover. Wayne and Sara had the mouth of the cleft in case someone showed up.

“There’s something moving ahead that’s bigger than what we have seen so far,” said Sheira. “I can feel the air against it. If it has any protection against Nasser, I don’t think we can win.”

“We can win,” said Wayne. “We just need a look at the ground, then set up a plan. And we have Bob as a secret weapon.”

“And I’m good looking too,” said Bob. “She’s right. Whatever it is, it’s hitting the ground pretty hard. I can’t really tell the distance from the vibration, just direction.”

“Crossing in front of us, do you think?,” asked Wayne.

“I would be surprised if it wasn’t,” said Sheira.

“We’ll hold up and wait for it to pass,” said Wayne. “We don’t have to run out in the open and attract attention. Let someone else do that.”

“The buildings are starting to move,” said Bob. “Do we move with them, or wait in place?”

“In the street so we don’t get crushed,” said Wayne. “We might need to get in the air for a short hop if things come at us higher than ground level.”

Sara stepped out of the cloud first. She looked around. She saw the other freelancers on the other side of the street. One of them had energy running up and down her arms. They all looked surprised to see her coming back at them.

“Run!,” Sara shouted. She waved her arm to give them a warning. She knew that she had caught them trying to kill her group.

And they knew it too. What were they going to do?

Sara thought for a moment they would rethink the plan. She would have if she had considered trying to backstab someone deep in enemy territory. She assumed that she was the rule, and not the exception. The woman with the energy arm fired at her anyway.

Maybe she was the exception.

Sara took the bolt in the shoulder. She fell down. She blinked as the buildings moved past her to their new position. Sheira’s alley was the perfect place to wait out the transition.

She didn’t see the others. She wondered if they had used her for bait. She decided that they hadn’t, but since she was down, they were going to handle things. She thought Nasser was a match for any other freelancer they might run into. She could be wrong about that.

“We need to find the others so we can deal with them,” said a man stepping into Sara’s view. “That helmet could allow us to take down anyone in the hub.”

Sara pulled the blaster from its holster with rabbit speed. She pulled the trigger and shot the leader in the leg. Most of him fell one way, while the rest of his leg fell the other.

“Case!,” shouted someone.

Sara didn’t care about Case. He had made his choice when his group had decided to try to rob hers of their weapons. She had her eye on the other three who were prepping their weapons to deal with her.

She sat up, deciding to fire at the one guy who didn’t seem to have energy powers. She didn’t want to be blocked while trying to put someone in the ground. He went down before she could pull the trigger.

The lady with the energy arm started to turn to fire at the new force on the ground. Stone spikes struck her in the legs from behind. She went down on her stomach with a cry.

The last of the group, a man with a mohawk, found himself surrounded by flying swords pointing at him. He raised his hands to keep from being skewered.

“Not exactly what I would call a display of gratitude,” said Wayne.

“You okay, Sara?,” asked Bob. “Try anything, lady, and you’ll have less legs than your boyfriend.”

“I’m fine,” said Sara. She looked down to examine her shirt. “This is the second new shirt to be holed by an idiot.”

“I can fix that in a minute, Sara,” said Sheira. “I think we should decide what we should do with these ungrateful curs before we do anything else.”

“At the very least we should put those weapons back in the armory,” said Wayne.

“You can’t do that to us,” said the woman.

“Go to sleep,” said Wayne. He touched her face and she fell over. “Better take the spears out, Bob. We should fix them up so they have a chance instead of leaving them.”

Sara got to her feet as Bob pulled the stone spikes out of his victim. She winced. He could have liquified the spears but he just yanked them out and left them floating in the air.

Sheira touched the wounded and commanded things to return to normal. Wounds closed, bones became unbroken, an amputated leg grew back with the rest of the charred stump that burned flesh rapidly flaked off, holes in clothes sewed back together. She checked her work before she nodded.

“Weapons,” said Wayne. He held out his hands. A circle made of the same blades pinning their unhurt prisoner dropped a pile of loot in his arms. “It looks like you never needed our help at all. So the run-in with the monsters was a trap that didn’t work.”

The tone was mild, but his eyes had a look of controlled anger.

“What are you going to do?,” said the prisoner. He looked at the rest of the group. Nasser’s helm already made him look angry. Sheira had her arms crossed. Bob still had his spears floating around him.

Sara wasn’t for cold blooded murder, but she wasn’t willing to let these four hurt others for necessary tools they needed to punch through to get back to the living. If you met people who wanted to see their loved ones again, taking away that hope was just as bad as a Dark lord making you into a zombie to eat others, or being turned into slime and kept in a vat.

“Pick one,” said Wayne. He gestured with his arms. “Think about which one you want.”

The man with the mohawk frowned. He examined the pile. He pointed at an item in the middle of the weapons.

“The yellow belt,” he said.

Wayne pulled the belt out and dropped it on the ground. He handed the pile to Sheira.

“Scatter these across the hub and rim, please,” he said.

“You can’t do that,” said the man with the mohawk. The swords of light poking him said they could.

“Go to those who need you the most,” said Sheira. The weapons flew into the air one by one as they sought out owners who needed their abilities. Trails of ruby light followed them as they arced out of sight.

“We’re going to leave,” said Wayne. “You can use that belt to protect the others, or yourself. If you come at us again, it will be the last thing you do.”

He led the way into the dark city.