The third time someone yelled "Friendly!" at Barry, he almost believed it.
Almost.
FIELD 3 — ROUND 225EXTRACT WINDOWS: 17:20 / 17:35 / 17:50HARD CLOSE: 18:00
Afternoon light smeared through the cracked glass of Gate 3's tunnel. Barry rolled his shoulders, feeling the brace snug on his thigh, the better plates spreading the weight on his chest.
Gear check:
Rust pistol, cleaned.
One good mag, one trash.
Two medbands.
One cheap frag Jay had begrudgingly secured.
Stim.
Half-decent rig.
He scanned the other runners. No Jay, obviously. No familiar murderhobo masks—
"Hey, limper."
Lena.
She slid into the queue beside him like she'd been there the whole time. Same compact rig. New scuffs.
"You lived," Barry said.
"You didn't explode," she said. "Trend I'd keep."
Gate alarms started their pre-open growl. Collars buzzed.
FIELD MODE: ENGAGED
Lena jerked her chin toward the map holo.
"Left block. Offices. Short path to first extract," she said. "I'm running it. You can be parallel or you can be dumb. Up to you."
"Parallel," Barry said. It came fast.
"Rules?" she said.
"No shooting each other. No hard carry," Barry replied. "First one to extract doesn't wait."
"And if someone screams friendly?" Lena added.
"Depends where," Barry said.
She gave a small approving grunt. "Good goblin."
The blast door rose. Murderhobos screeched forward mid-lane. Barry and Lena slid out together, then drifted a meter apart like magnets with rules.
They cut left into a side street beneath sagging banners. Broken offices loomed.
The first building coughed up:
One can.
Two waters.
Some loose rounds of a caliber Barry couldn't use but could trade.
They moved smooth. Not a squad. But when Barry went in a door, Lena watched the street. When Lena crossed open ground, Barry naturally checked angles.
Tension came from him, not the walls. He kept waiting for the spider sound. The beeping. The purple flicker.
Nothing.
T+06:12.
"Mid building?" Lena asked, low.
"One more," Barry said.
They cut into a narrow alley, then into a second office block whose lobby was a scatter of busted terminals.
Barry went right; Lena went left, both within sight.
First room: stripped.
Second: overturned desks. Filing cabinets.
He opened drawers, methodical.
Staples. Useless files. At the bottom: a sealed ration bar.
Pack.
"Friendly! Hey, friendly!"
The shout punched down the hallway.
Barry's shoulders locked. The voice was too loud. Too bright.
"Friendly here!" it called again, closer. "Solo, solo! Chill, man!"
Lena looked over from her doorway, eyes flat. "Ignore it," she mouthed.
"Yeah," Barry whispered.
The footsteps came quick—confidence, not caution.
A guy swung around the corner into view: mid-20s, shaved head, patchwork armor, rifle slung low, hands open. No mask. Easy grin.
Collar blue.
"Whoa, whoa." He lifted his palms higher. "Relax, I'm chill. Seen you around. You run quiet for a limper."
Barry's grip tightened on his pistol.
"Don't call me that," he said.
"Just saying, man," the stranger chuckled. "You move smart. We're on the same route. No beef, yeah?"
He stopped a few meters away. Not too close. Not too far. The sweet spot where people thought they could talk.
Lena stayed half in her doorway, gun low but not holstered.
"Run your line," she said. "We run ours."
"Cool, cool." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Name's Riggs. Couple boys of mine went mid, got wiped by some Local freak. I'm just trying to live."
He kept talking. Too smooth. Too easy.
Barry's skin crawled.
Riggs' gaze flicked briefly to Lena, to Barry's pack, to the positions.
"Look," Riggs said, scratching his neck. "Extract's gonna be hot. Hobo crew took one of the towers. You two go first, I'll take your backs, yeah?"
That was the tell.
Nobody smart offered to watch your back first time you met.
Barry shook his head. "We're good."
Riggs' smile thinned. "Come on, man. You think you're the only ones don't like campers?"
Lena shifted half a step, putting herself at a better angle. "Last chance. Run your own route."
For a second, they were all still.
Then Riggs' eyes went flat.
"Yeah," he said softly. "Thought so."
He turned away like he'd dropped it.
Barry exhaled.
Then Riggs snapped his rifle up, one fluid motion, pivoting back, muzzle toward Barry's chest.
Barry saw it late.
He yanked his pistol up, but his arms were behind.
Gunfire cracked.
But it wasn't Riggs'.
A single shot took Riggs high in the shoulder from down the hall. He spun, cursing, shot going wild into the doorframe where Barry's head had been.
"Down," Lena snapped.
Barry dropped as a second shot from her—clean, controlled—hit Riggs' rifle, knocking it sideways.
"Bitch!" Riggs snarled, stumbling back, clutching his shoulder. "You fucking—"
He ducked behind the wall, boots scraping.
Barry scrambled behind a desk, heart trying to break out of his ribs.
Footsteps pounded away.
Lena advanced two paces, not chasing, pistol steady in case he swung back.
He didn't.
Silence.
Barry's collar rang loud in his ears.
"You saw that, right?" he said, because his brain had to check.
"Act like you're debriefing NEXUS and I'll shoot you myself," Lena said, eyes still on the corner. "You hesitated. That's fine. Once."
"He yelled friendly," Barry said.
"He was loud," Lena said. "Loud is bait. You see his eyes go dead before he turned?"
Barry replayed it. The switch. The way Riggs' body language shifted before the fake exit.
"Yeah," Barry said.
Lena finally lowered her gun and looked at him.
"Friendly is something people say," she said. "Not something they are."
"…Thanks," Barry said.
"Don't make me do it twice," she replied. But there was no heat in it. "Check yourself. You tagged?"
He patted his plates, ribs, legs. No blood, just adrenaline.
"I'm good," he said.
"Then move," Lena said. "Shooter like that doesn't work alone."
They did.
No moral speech. No chasing Riggs for revenge. Just two people who didn't die, going back to work.
They cleared two more rooms—fast, efficient. A couple more cans, some loose ammo. Good enough.
HUD tick:
T+14:02
"First?" Barry asked.
"First," Lena agreed.
They cut toward Extract 1 together, but not shoulder-to-shoulder—staggered, covering angles. Near the subway ramp, they saw Riggs far off with two others, gesturing angrily, pointed in their direction.
"Eyes," Lena murmured.
"Yeah," Barry said.
They dropped into the extract zone with thirty seconds to spare. Three other runners lingered there, watching everyone's hands.
Barry's collar hummed.
SYNCING…
Riggs and his buddies didn't push. Too many guns. Too many blues.
SYNC COMPLETEROUND STATUS: SURVIVED
White.
Stack air.
Lena was already stepping off the pad when Barry caught her eye.
"Guess I owe you," he said.
"You owe me not dying stupid," she said. "You see him again, you shoot first if he's inside twenty meters. That's the lesson."
"Thought we weren't friendly," Barry said.
"We still aren't," Lena said. "We're just not dumb. Next time might be different."
She melted into the crowd.
Barry adjusted his pack straps, feeling the weight of loot and the ghost of a bullet that hadn't punched his chest.
His collar pinged with new credits.
Riggs' "friendly" echoed in his head, tangled with Jay's rule.
Steps aren't friendly. Screams aren't either.
But some people—singular, specific, unreliable people—might be worth listening to.
After we lost, trust was as rare as clean air. You didn't give it away.
You just marked the ones who didn't shoot you when they could have…and kept your gun ready anyway.