Crimson banners flared across overhead screens, repeating the alert: [Emergency Scenario commencing. Objective: Purge the Cheater.] Shouts converged on Kavi as boots pounded the flagstones. Miri clenched fistfuls of his tunic, her chin tucked tight against his ribs. The band clamped around his wrist hummed cold, and the air sheared away. The steel trusses and angry faces dissolved into a kaleidoscope of colors, replaced by the acrid scent of dust and ozone. They dropped onto fractured asphalt where wet stone and rusted iron choked the air. Around them, the skeletal remains of high-rise buildings clawed at a bruised sky, their windows shattered eyes. Rusty rebar jutted from sheared brickwork along the gulch, flanked by gutted towers whose hollow windows framed an ash-tinted sky. Miri stumbled, the soles of her boots crunching over ground glass. “Kavi, where…?” Her voice was thin, reedy. “[Target: Kavi. Elimination imminent. Remaining participants: 37. Time remaining: 00:29:58. Begin preparations.]” Thirty seconds. Kavi knelt, pressing calloused palms into the grit. He needed stock. A rusted steel sphere rested half-buried in the tar. Heat prickled his fingertips as the prompt answered his focus: [Object Duplication: Ball Bearing (Rusted, Small)]. He triggered the skill in rapid pulses, spawning identical pellets until dozens clustered beside his knee. He snagged a strand of snare wire, cloned it lengthwise into coils, and repeated the process with slivers of bottle glass and shredded plastic straps. “Miri,” he said, keeping his tone level, “stay close. Watch my back. I need to work.” He moved with a focused intensity, his eyes scanning the debris-strewn street, the collapsed storefronts, the dark alleys. This wasn't a jungle, but it was just as hostile. A toymaker's habits took over, piecing tension and release from scrap. He knotted fine wire across curb corners, spilled slick steel spheres down a tilted access ramp, and lined low ledges with jagged glass. The glass shards became rudimentary caltrops. Stripping flexible conduit bands, he multiplied the spring catches and lashed them low against exposed curb irons. He worked like a man possessed, his hands a blur. Each placement settled into a broader snare. He backed Miri into the hollow beneath a tipped bus chassis, out of direct line of sight. The countdown reached zero, and the voice chimed without inflection. “[Scenario commencing. Eliminate the target.]” Footsteps clattered from the north alley. Kavi eased deeper into the alcove. Two pursuers, arm-bands glowing pale blue, hit the taut lead line. The foremost skater lost traction on the loose spheres, pitching sideways down a slope of crushed masonry. The second, distracted, found their boot caught in a wire snare, yanking them off balance with a surprised shout. “Watch the ground!” one shouted, rolling clear of the ledge. “He rigged the lane!” Kavi held his breath. More boots approached, stepping carefully through the rubble while muttering threats. Above an arched doorframe, Kavi had slung a jagged masonry block from doubled wire. As the lead stalker eased beneath the lintel, Kavi yanked the release string. The block dropped in a tight arc, slamming into the pursuer's shoulder guard. The blow spun the fighter onto a bed of glass shards, tearing through split boot soles. Shouts curdled into cautious curses as the squad halted. A dust-coated strip of glossy film dropped another pursuer sprawling into rusted scaffolding. A cleverly positioned wire, mimicking a loose cable, sprang taut when stepped on, sending a shower of glass shards raining down from a broken window frame, stinging exposed skin and forcing a hasty retreat. Back in the hub courtyard, Aisun sat on an iron bench, arms folded. The idea of hounding a man desperate to protect his sister, after what he’d learned about the Seeds of Reversal, sickened him. He kept his eyes on the central terminal, tracking the dropping participant tally. Suddenly, a bright flash erupted near the Hub’s central teleportation pad. A gaunt fighter rematerialized mid-stumble, hitting the tiles before his interface turned red. [Participant Joric decommissioned.] As the man's shape dissolved into drifting motes, a palm-sized slate clattered against the paving stones. It pulsed with a faint, internal light. Aisun, ever pragmatic, picked it up. The screen glowed, displaying a fragmented text log. Most of it was encrypted, but a few lines were visible, highlighted in urgent red: “...critical breach… System Core vulnerable… Failsafe Key deployment advised… final gambit initiation…” Aisun pocketed the tablet, watching the hub board tick down to twenty active trackers. Kavi was resourceful, but against so many… Out in the Gulch, twelve pursuers remained, creeping through the alleys with weapons drawn low. Above them, a broad-shouldered man carrying an iron maul bypassed the trip-lines entirely, scrambling up an exterior fire escape onto a second-story ledge directly above the bus. “Found the litter,” the man barked, sighting Miri huddled beneath the chassis. “Come out and take your medicine!” Kavi braced himself behind a buckled metal sign, his fingers locking onto the final cord. The man dropped from the sill, boots hitting the asphalt four paces from Miri as he swung the maul back. Miri let out a small, terrified sound, trying to shrink further into herself. His lead heel snagged. Braided strands of duplicated cord, concealed beneath road dust, snapped taut across his shins. The line tripped a counterweight, hoisting a knotted mesh upward that pinned his arms to his ribs. The maul bounced across the tar as he slammed down tangled in cords. Kavi stepped out from the billboard. The remaining trackers halted at the sight of their vanguard pinned flat; one by one, their interface lights dimmed as they abandoned the chase. The broadcast chimed again through the canyon of empty towers. [Emergency Scenario: Purge the Cheater. Cleared by target. Objective complete.] Kavi did not move as the fallen fighter thrashed uselessly in the webbing. The Architect’s voice resonated one last time, cutting through the silence of the ruin, imbued with a new, unfamiliar annoyance. “Your exploits have been noted, Carver.”

A Cradle of Traps