Hours later, Mara observed the group of Virals picking their way out of the many dangers of the Unknown Woods. She glanced up at the sky. The sun had long since set. She drew a dagger from her thigh, the metallic ring barely audible. Her assignment would be harder than most, but as of yet, no one who faced her ever breathed again.

Mara watched, studying the patterns of the Viral movement. Seth and Athena kept their weapons up front, wary of any oncoming danger. Mara smirked. Guess they’d gotten lost in the Hazards. Cooper typed on his digital pad, navigating them through the forest towards the Viral HQ. She would need access to that pad, and then, maybe then, Mother might forgive her. Might allow her to remain awake. Jess and Evan conversed quietly, and Gavin brought up the rear, colossal nunchucks on his shoulder.

Mara’s fingers went to her temples as a splitting headache threatened to drown her in pain. Memories, captured moments in time so vivid they seemed to belong to someone else, swallowed her alive. A side effect of her condition, Mother called it. A condition only curable with the destruction of the Viral HQ and the discovery of the ESC Key. Until then, Mother forced her to sleep to keep the tortuous pain at bay. At most, she could remain awake forty-eight hours, and already twelve had passed.

Her grip on the knife tightened. Not this time. She wouldn’t let her condition rule her life like this. No, she needed to find the ESC Key, and to get there, she needed the pad in Cooper’s hands. To get the pad, she would have to attack the weak link. Scanning the group once more as they paused to rest, her steely gaze fell on Evan. Of course. The bratty, defiant Keystroke with undecided loyalties, a bitter past, and no weapons. Yet they need him. Why is that?

---

“Can we take a quick rest?” Gavin grumbled. “My foot is killing me.”

“Just the one foot?” Jess asked, annoyed.

“Yeah, the one you stomped on in the crash room,” Gavin muttered. “I think you bruised it.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” Jess said, her words dripping with sarcasm.

Evan panted. “I could use a few minutes’ respite. That valley was terrifying.”

The group paused in a glen.

Athena nodded. “We’re lucky Seth has the Sword of Juugaval, or we might not have made it out alive.”

Seth grimly flourished his blade. “No idea why it chose me, but I bear it with great humility and honor.”

“Greeeeat!” Gavin muttered. “Not sure I buy all this mythical temple prophecy stuff, but I do buy into a good night’s sleep.”

Cooper glanced up, the blue light from his pad reflecting off his face. “You know good and well we can’t sleep until we leave this forest behind. We’re not safe here. And the Commander is depending on us.”

Evan shrugged, wiping his forehead. “Well, we–” A rock soared from the forest and smacked him on the head. He sunk to the soft ground, out cold. Cooper knelt down and examined the Keystroke. The rest of the Resurgents formed a circle around him, aiming their weapons into the thickening darkness of the surrounding forest.

“Cooper, assessment, now!” Seth ordered.

“Alive and stable. Bruise on his right temple suggests an eight-ounce rock thrown at sixty-three miles per hour with a heading of north-east-east at an elevation of thirteen feet,” Cooper spouted off instantly.

“You got all that from a little bruise??!!” Gavin rumbled, swirling the nunchucks over his head.

Athena adjusted the aim of her gun, following Cooper’s lead. “I’ve learned to trust him.”

Seth shouted into the darkness. “Show yourself. We’ve got you covered.”

“Oh, do you?” a voice sounded behind them.

The Resurgents whipped around. A dark silhouette of an assassin had her arm wrapped around Jess’s chest, knife blade pressed to her throat. A few droplets of blood trickle down Jess’s neck, but Jess was fuming with silent rage.

“Hand over the Keystroke,” the assassin snarled in a female robotic voice, “or she dies.”

“Easy now,” Seth says, lowering his sword. “You can have him. Just let her go.”

“Wait, what?” Gavin muttered. “We did all that mission for nothing?”

The assassin glanced at Gavin. “Not the brightest, is he?”

Seth shook his head. “Let her go. You can have Evan.”

“Keystroke first, then we’ll talk!”

Jess’s fuse ran out. “Leave him be!” In one deft movement, she catapulted herself backwards, knocking her assailant off balance. The assassin drove her knife into Jess, but Jess’s hands found her own knife and pressed it against her captor’s throat.

“Stalemate,” Jess breathed, assailant’s knife on her own neck. “I go, you go.”

“Jess…” Athena cautioned, stepping closer. “Think this one through. She might not be the only one here.”

“Then where are the others?” Jess taunted, her eyes ablaze. “No, she singled me out, so I will finish this myself.”

Seth groaned. “Stand down, Jess. That’s an order.”

The assassin raised her other hand, detonator ready to go. “Back off, and let us finish this.” As if on cue, red lights blinked from every tree. “Or we all go down.”

Gavin stared at the winking bombs. “I, for one, would like to live.”

“Shut up, Gavin!!” Athena snapped, gun still trained on the assassin.

The assassin depressed some of the detonator, and Jess’s heart broke. She wouldn’t let the only family she had left be murdered in cold blood. “Lower your weapons.”

“But Jess…” Cooper muttered, hand still on Evan’s head.

“Lower them” she voiced past the angry lump in her throat. “Now.”

Reluctantly, the Resurgents lowered their weapons.

The assassin chuckled, robotic voice grating on Jess’s nerves. “To the death or til called. Winner keeps Keystroke.”

“Has to be Snake and Shard only,” Jess demanded.

Athena’s eyes widened in horror. Jess had never successfully mastered the Snake or Shard forms.

“Deal.”