Chapter 34
title: "Six Hours to Midnight" wordCount: 2389
The first ingot cracks in half before I even strike it, and I know my hands are too unsteady to craft anything that won't kill me.
The metal splits with a sound like breaking teeth. Hairline fractures spider across the surface, glowing orange where the forge heat bleeds through. I drop the hammer. It clangs against the concrete floor of my workshop, the echo swallowing itself in the cluttered space.
Thirteen minutes, forty-two seconds.
My interface updates every five seconds now, like the System wants me to feel each moment slipping away. The transport coordinates pulse in the corner of my vision—two miles through the industrial district, past Marcus's gutted workshop, to whatever fresh hell is waiting.
I reach for another ingot. My right hand—the one with the burn scars laddering up the forearm—won't stop shaking.
"Come on." The words scrape out. "Good enough gets you killed."
The second ingot goes into the forge. I pump the bellows with my left hand, watching the metal heat from cherry red to orange to yellow-white. The familiar rhythm should calm me. It doesn't. My father's oversized leather gloves feel like someone else's hands, too big, too clumsy, too—
The ingot warps. Heat distribution all wrong. I pull it out too fast and the tongs slip and the metal hits the floor in a spray of sparks that singe the leg of my workbench.
Twelve minutes, eighteen seconds.
I'm breathing too fast. The workshop tilts. Not actually tilting, just my vision going sideways the way it did in the alley when the countdown froze and Marcus's gray face filled my interface and—
Focus. Third ingot. I can do this. I've been doing this since I was eight years old, since my father first let me hold the hammer, since before the System turned crafting into a death sentence and Marcus into whatever he is now.
The metal heats. I pull it out at the right moment, place it on the anvil, raise the hammer.
My hand locks.
Just stops. Frozen mid-swing like someone cut the strings. The hammer hangs there, trembling, while the ingot cools from yellow to orange to useless.
"Fuck." I drop the hammer again. "Fuck fuck fuck."
Eleven minutes, three seconds.
The workshop door slams open.
I spin, reaching for the crowbar I keep next to the forge, but it's Kess. She's carrying a data tablet and breathing hard like she ran the whole way. Her hair's escaped its usual neat braid, wild around her face.
"Don't." She holds up one hand. "Just don't, okay? I know you don't want to see me and I know you probably want to throw me out but I have something you need and we have, like, eleven minutes, so can we skip the part where you tell me to leave?"
"How did you—"
"Griz told me where you'd be." She crosses the workshop in four strides, sets the tablet on my workbench. "And before you get mad at him, he didn't want to, but I told him I had intel and he decided you being alive was more important than you being pissed at me."
The tablet screen shows a three-dimensional map. Massive. Layered. Color-coded zones marked with symbols I don't recognize.
"What is this?"
"Proving Ground layout." Kess taps the screen, rotating the view. "Ironclad reconnaissance from the last three events. Environmental hazards here, here, and here—acid pools, collapsing platforms, something they're calling 'gravity wells' that I don't fully understand but sounds super bad."
I stare at the map. At the forced PvP zones marked in red. At the safe zones that aren't really safe, just less immediately lethal. At the scale of it.
"This is real?"
"Stolen from a senior analyst's personal files." Her laugh comes out shaky. "Which means if they find out I took it, I'm not getting demoted, I'm getting disappeared, so yeah, it's real."
Ten minutes, forty-one seconds.
"Why?" The word tastes like rust. "Why would you risk that?"
Kess meets my eyes. Hers are red-rimmed, exhausted. "Because I already betrayed you once and I can't—" She stops. Starts again. "Because Marcus is in there and you're going in there and I can't just let you walk into a two percent survival rate without at least trying to help."
"Trying to help." I hear my voice go flat. "Like you helped by feeding information to Ironclad?"
"I know." She doesn't look away. "I know, and I'm not asking you to forgive me or trust me or anything except listen for, like, two minutes, because there's a loophole."
"A loophole."
"Support class." The words tumble out fast, excited despite everything. "Every crafter participant can designate one support class to accompany them—it's supposed to be for crafters who work in teams, but the System doesn't verify the relationship, it just requires the designation before transport, so I can register as your support and go with you."
The workshop goes silent except for the forge fire crackling. I process what she just said. Process the implications.
"Support classes die too."
"Zero point three percent survival rate, actually, which is worse than crafters, but—"
"No." I turn back to the forge. "Absolutely not."
"Remy—"
"I said no." My hands find another ingot. "You want to help? Fine. Leave the tablet. Get out. Go back to your life."
"I don't have a life to go back to." Her voice cracks. "I stole classified intelligence and I'm pretty sure they already know because my access codes stopped working an hour ago and my apartment's been flagged for search, so actually, going into the Proving Ground might be safer than staying here."
I turn. She's not lying. I can see it in the way she's standing—weight forward, ready to run, like she's been ready to run for hours.
"That's not my problem."
"No, it's not." She picks up the tablet. "But Marcus is, and you can't craft right now, I can see your hands shaking from here, and you need someone who can watch your back while you figure out how to save him."
Nine minutes, seventeen seconds.
"Here's the thing." I pull off my father's gloves. Set them on the workbench. "I don't know if I can trust you."
"You can't." She says it simply. "I lied to you. I used you. I chose my career over your safety. Those are facts."
"So why would I—"
"Because you can't do this alone." She cuts me off. "And I know that's, like, the worst possible thing to say to someone who's spent his whole life working alone, but it's true. The Proving Ground isn't a workshop. You can't just put your head down and craft your way through it."
My jaw clenches. "You don't know what I can do."
"I know you've failed three times in the last ten minutes." She gestures at the cracked ingots, the warped metal. "I know your hands won't stop shaking. I know you're terrified and trying to hide it and it's not working."
"Get out."
"No." She sets the tablet down. Crosses her arms. "Register me as your support or don't, but I'm not leaving."
Eight minutes, fifty-three seconds.
We stare at each other. The forge fire pops. Somewhere outside, a transport drone hums past, probably carrying someone else to their own personal nightmare.
"The thermal dynamics are off," I say finally.
"What?"
"The forge. Temperature distribution. That's why the ingots keep failing." I'm using technical jargon as a shield and I know it and I can't stop. "The refractory lining needs replacement and the air intake valve is partially blocked and I haven't had time to fix it because I've been too busy trying not to die."
Kess's expression shifts. Softens. "Okay. So let's fix it."
"We don't have time."
"We have eight minutes." She's already moving toward the forge. "Tell me what to do."
"You don't know anything about—"
"So teach me." She looks back. "Isn't that what support classes do? Support?"
Seven minutes later, the forge is running clean. Kess followed my instructions exactly—adjusted the air intake, redistributed the coals, even spotted a crack in the bellows housing I'd missed. Her hands didn't shake once.
The fourth ingot heats evenly. I pull it out, place it on the anvil, raise the hammer.
"Breathe," Kess says quietly.
I breathe. Bring the hammer down. The metal rings true, no cracks, no warping. I strike again. Again. The rhythm finds me, or I find it, and my hands steady and the ingot takes shape under the hammer blows.
"What are you making?" Kess asks.
"Don't know yet." Strike. Strike. "Won't know until it's done."
"That's not how crafting works."
"It's how I work." Strike. "My father used to say that... yeah."
I trail off. Kess doesn't push. She just watches, and somehow that helps. Having someone there. Bearing witness. Not trying to fix me or save me or make it better, just present.
The metal cools. I quench it in oil, and the System interface flares.
[ITEM CREATED: UNKNOWN CLASSIFICATION] [ANALYSIS PENDING] [PROPERTIES: LOCKED UNTIL FIELD DEPLOYMENT]
"That's new," Kess says.
"Yeah." I stare at the item in my hands. It's small, fits in my palm, warm to the touch. "I've never seen the System lock properties before."
"Maybe it's good?"
"Maybe it'll explode." I wrap it in cloth, tuck it into my jacket pocket. "Good enough gets you killed, but we're out of time."
Four minutes, twelve seconds.
"Remy." Kess touches my arm. "I need you to register me. As your support. Right now."
I look at her hand on my sleeve. At her face, exhausted and determined and scared. At the data tablet with its stolen intelligence that might keep us alive or might be another manipulation I'm too desperate to see through.
"Zero point three percent," I say.
"I know."
"You'll probably die."
"So will you." She squeezes my arm. "But maybe we'll both get lucky. Bet you a sandwich."
Despite everything, I almost laugh. Almost. "That's a stupid bet."
"All my bets are stupid." She pulls up her interface. "Come on. We have four minutes."
I open my System menu. Navigate to the Proving Ground section. Find the support class designation option buried in a submenu I've never looked at before.
[DESIGNATE SUPPORT CLASS] [WARNING: Support class participants accept all risks associated with Proving Ground entry] [WARNING: Support class survival rate: 0.3%] [WARNING: This action cannot be undone]
My finger hovers over Kess's name.
"I don't know if I can forgive you," I say.
"I'm not asking you to." Her voice is steady. "I'm asking you to let me help."
I select her name. The System confirms with a pulse of light that makes us both flinch.
[SUPPORT CLASS REGISTERED: KESS ORINAI] [TRANSPORT UPDATED: TWO PARTICIPANTS] [TIME REMAINING: 3 MINUTES, 47 SECONDS]
"Okay." Kess exhales. "Okay. Now we need to—"
The workshop door opens again. Griz and Yuki, both carrying packs.
"Contingency plan," Griz says without preamble. "You don't come back in seventy-two hours, I take everything we know about the System's crafter draft to the independent settlements. Yuki infiltrates the second Spire construction site."
"That's suicide," I say.
"So is the Proving Ground." Yuki's voice is quiet. "But someone needs to find out what they're building."
Kess looks between them. "You guys are serious."
"Dead serious." Griz sets his pack on the workbench. "Evidence is all here. Encrypted. Backed up. If the System wants to disappear crafters, we're going to make sure everyone knows why."
Three minutes, nine seconds.
I want to argue. Want to tell them it's pointless, that the System will crush any resistance, that they should just run and hide and survive. But looking at their faces—Griz's grim determination, Yuki's calm acceptance—I realize they've already made their choice.
"Thank you," I say instead.
Griz nods. Yuki steps forward, hugs me quickly. She smells like machine oil and jasmine tea.
"Bring Marcus back," she whispers.
"I'll try."
She pulls away. Her eyes are wet. "I don't think any of us are coming back."
The words hang there. No one contradicts her.
Two minutes, forty-one seconds.
Kess picks up the data tablet. "We should go. The transport coordinates are—"
"Wait." I grab my father's gloves from the workbench. Slide them on. They're still too big, still clumsy, but they're his and I need that right now. "Okay. Now we go."
We head for the door. Griz and Yuki follow us out into the alley. The sun's setting, painting the industrial district in shades of orange and red that look too much like forge fire.
"One more thing," Griz says. "The Ironclad analyst whose files Kess stole? He's been reassigned to Proving Ground oversight."
Kess goes pale. "Thorne?"
"Thorne Malchek." Griz's expression darkens. "Thought you should know."
"Who's Thorne Malchek?" I ask.
"My former supervisor." Kess's voice is tight. "And the person who's going to make sure I don't survive this."
One minute, fifty-three seconds.
We start walking. Fast. The transport coordinates pull us forward like a compass needle, through alleys I know by heart, past Marcus's gutted workshop with its burned-out windows and collapsed roof. I don't look at it. Can't.
"Tell me about the map," I say. "The red zones."
Kess pulls up the tablet, walking and talking. "Forced PvP. The System herds participants into them at intervals. You can avoid them for a while but eventually—"
"Eventually we have to fight."
"Yeah." She swipes to another view. "But there are neutral zones too, places where combat's disabled. If we can reach one before—"
The System interface flares red.
[PRIORITY OVERRIDE] [TRANSPORT ACCELERATED] [NEW DEPARTURE TIME: IMMEDIATE] [REASON: CRITICAL PARTICIPANT STATUS DETERIORATING]
"No," Kess says. "No, we still have a minute—"
Light erupts around us. Blinding. The alley disappears. Griz and Yuki disappear. The whole world disappears into white noise and static and the sensation of falling up instead of down.
I reach for Kess. Her hand finds mine. We're still holding the data tablet between us, still mid-step, still trying to say something that gets cut off by the transport activation.
The last thing I see before everything goes white is Griz's face, frozen in the moment of realization that we're gone four hours early and there's nothing he can do about it.
Then the workshop, the alley, the city—all of it vanishes, and we're somewhere else entirely.