Who do you think you’re talking to?

  Michael had the door to the baly slid open and the noise of downtown droned up twenty stories. He could see the highway through the gss balustrade, a strip of silver crete winding through a mass of bd scattered streetlight. Celeste was sitting outside curled up under a cardigan in a woven deck chair, hot toddy in hand, the small fire pit crag with blue fame. They smiled at each other and he went back to work.

  Sitting on the bed with a ptop on his thighs, he was at war. EP had gotten into the distributioer’s systems, and every other work of any importaniles. He skimmed the youts, the blueprints, the spreadsheets and tables. Reag out, he pushed here and there. He guided Philip in his trailer down a route his Self had used to avoid the police, helped EP get access to the more upper echelon systems, sent her leaked software it was a crime to even know about, but most importantly, he looked for the telltale signs of Hardworlders.

  He started on the cops, the ones on leave from the first shooting, who had turned up at the admin building during the sed. Phone calls, GPS pings, credit a card purchases, all stopped a few ho. Taken uhe wing of some more experienced operators. From one phone number, he found a whole of them. Ex-military, underground es, protected assets of w enfort. Their lives the past few days followed a familiar pattern.

  The drop, the sharp shift between the Self’s life, and the life they started to live after a Hardworlder took up residence, was easy to spot, clear as day, three days ago. It was marked by sileno more phone calls to friends, Instagram stories with their training panies or tactical gear tracts, or replies to tagged posts. The rage-tinged paranoia of their underworld associates, triggered by their sudden absence, came through in frantic texts and calls.

  But the best Hardworlders were near invisible, and Michael had to look for ns, things too subtle for EP to pick up on, at least not yet, but that for Michael felt like waking up at a friend’s house and sensing them moving around in the room, fortable, the way they could only be in their own home.

  The hospitalization of a few pilots had left the local police with only one chopper fielded, and its uptime was cut in half. A warehouse fire, barely reported on, its tents suspiciously absent from the news reports. Ransomware attack at a bank a few weeks ago. And other things that could easily be normal happenstance, but for Michael screamed activity by higher level Hardworlders, which were now surely reinforced with other splinter units.

  With a general idea of the kind of fighters the team would be fag ohe location of the reached the buzz, Michael started setting up a pn of a, coordinating with Philip for specific ons, with EP for more detailed and up-to-date photos of the DC (employee social media posts, camera feeds, etc), ran through it over and over, casting himself as each member of the team, and as the enemy, from door kicker to gun runner, spotting moves and ter moves. It made him want to be there, gun in hand, but he kept himself from reminisg about his own warehouse shootouts, if only just barely.

  “Hey, have you seen this?” EP sent him a s cap on the messenger. She had multiple monitors pulled up in different windows. Luke’s self’s cell phone home s, Celeste’s smart TV in her apartment, two of the puter ss at Cooper’s work, the lock s of a puter in the homicide unit. They all showed the same thing. A message, typed in a blocky sans serif, white on a bck background:

  “Call us about the : 1-800-376-7688”

  “I checked the li’s bounced around pretty good. Tried calling it. Lady es on, asks for a name, clicks off. What do you think?”

  “I’m calling it now. Try a a fix on the voice.” Michael took out his phone and dialed the number. A woman answered.

  “Dreamnd, I get a name?”

  “No.” Michael waited. After a moment, the woman chuckled.

  “One sed.” A few beeps, then a man answered.

  “Well, it’s been quite the cluster fuck, but there’s no ating for deaking in this business. I must say you’ve ha quite well.”

  “Mhm.” Michael pulled a gummy worm out of the bag in his pocket. It was the st one.

  “There were about five other teams on this one, if you believe it, and yours is the st oanding. You really should be proud.”

  Michael popped the worm in his mouth and exhaled into the phohe man oher end pretended not to hear.

  “To get right to it, I want to make a deal with you, save us both some trouble.”

  “I’m not in any trouble.” Teeth smacked on sugared getin.

  “Oh yes you are. Look, I tell you’re a veteran. What you’ve mao do with the ma your disposal is impressive to say the least.”

  God, Michael missed the old days. Back then, if you got the other side's number, it was nothing but prank calls and “If you mao so much as graze one of my guys, I’ll buy you a round in the Allclub.”

  Now here he was, listening to the most corporate Hardworlder he had ever heard, if he could even be called that.

  “However,” the guy tinued as Michael smacked. “This job is beyond you now. It’s nothing against you. To be ho, it’s a shame they drug you into this. The idea, I believe, was to hire a bunch of lower-rung outfits, no offense, a back without attrag too much attention from the big pyers. Have you all eat each other alive and muddle the story at the same time. But wot around, and here I am.”

  “Gee. Guess you’re like a big shot, huh?”

  There ause, then a scoff.

  “Don’t be childish. I might as well tell you, I’m with GSK.”

  Michael smiled but quickly wiped it away so it wouldn’t e through in his voice. Instead, he did his best to i his words with an awed respect.

  “All right. So what’s that deal?”

  “Thought that would get your attention. Here it is. You tell us where he stashed the , we collect it, and you get half the payout. No more pointless shootouts. No more colteral. You’re a realitist, aren’t you?”

  Michael said nothing, but he tinued anyway.

  “We tell from your work. Very . I’m sympathetic myself. Unfortunately, my associates don’t feel the same. Solipsists, all of them.” He affected a tired tone, as if fiding a secret pain to an ally of the faith. Michael opened his Dr. Pepper with a hiss.

  “Gon pretty messy then, if I don’t py ball?”

  “That’s a fair assumption. Oher hand, being the st team standing is a fine aplishment. Your reputation will already far exceed your status.”

  “Are we the st team standing?”

  A pause. Celeste moved inside during the silend loaded more ito the shaker.

  “As close as you be. As close as yoing to get.”

  “So, the deal is, we give up, and as a reward, we get half of what we’ve already got?”

  “You’ve gotten nothing. You think yetting paid for shooting some methhead with his back to you? Every operator on the job will cim they did it, and who’s to say? As for the , you’ll never eve.”

  “Well, everyone’s entitled to their opinion.”

  Ice ked ie’s gss and she shifted her weight spectacurly.

  “Suit yourself. If you ge your mind, call us back, but be warhe offer evaporates the moment the first shot is fired. And after that, your people will die.” The call ehe timer on the s fshed 02:28.

  “You get any kind of a trace?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right. Let me know if his voies up on the buzz.”

  “Ok. Did you see my alert?”

  Michael tabbed over to it. Philip's safehouses and the homes of many of his underground es had been raided. FBI swarming Coopers POE. Highlighted emails about anonymous tips and informaimonies.

  Little te in the game boys. It’s getting close to high noon.

  “Cute,” he said. EP beeped off.

  He smiled and tried to enjoy it. That greasy sack of shit had no idea who he was talking to, and his men had no idea who they were fug with.

  But, as his thoughts returo the team, his team, speeding towards a sheet metal death trap, a voi the back of his head reminded him,

  Now that was an awfully long time ago, wasn’t it?

  Have you ever seen something you loved ruined? What would you give to ge it back? Is Michael fighting to save something, or is he just an old man deluded by nostalgia? ime, the final battlefield presents itself. episode, Arrival.