A Hard Reckoning: The System Integration Chronicles Book 3, page 4
We all knew our jobs without anyone saying anything. Brian arranged his potions and salves with the same focus he probably had stitching up car crash victims at three in the morning. Emily checked her rapier's balance, movements smooth and automatic. Tommy wasn't just loading his pack—he ran his hands down each horse's legs, checking shoes, checking tendons. The kind of thing you only think about if you've had a horse go lame twenty miles from anywhere.
Made me feel better about bringing him instead of pushing harder for Hanna.
Jayden, though. Jayden was being himself.
"Seriously, Cade?" He hefted a sack of iron rations onto his horse with a groan you could probably hear in Tyler. "Iron rations? Again? I've got gold from running those kids through the mansion. We could've bought actual food. Food that doesn't taste like disappointment and leather."
I didn't look up from tightening my saddle cinch. "How much would a week of fresh food for five people weigh? How fast would it spoil? Iron rations are light, don't go bad, and keep you from starving." I pulled the strap tight. "Save your gold for repairs. Or flowers for Audrey."
The look he shot me could've melted steel, but he didn't have a comeback. He knew I was right. Didn't mean he had to like it.
Emily drifted over while I was checking the Sharps for the third time. Not because it needed checking—because my hands needed something to do.
"You okay?" Her voice was quiet, just for me. "You're doing that thing where you check the same gear over and over."
I looked up, met her eyes. "Just... lot of variables on this one. Lot of ways it could go sideways."
"We'll handle them." She put her hand on my arm, and my brain did that stupid thing where it forgot what it was worried about for half a second. "We always do. Just—be smart out there. Not heroic. Smart."
"You too."
It wasn't romantic. It was practical. Two people who'd seen enough together that we didn't need speeches.
We mounted up, horses shifting under us. Near the gate, Wesley stood waiting. Not with guards or advisors. Just him and his kids. Joshua, nine years old, staring at our horses with that wide-eyed look kids get around anything dangerous. Ruth, six, half-hiding behind her dad's leg.
Wesley's face had that careful neutral expression leaders wear when they can't show what they're really thinking. But his eyes were all parent.
"You have the authority to make whatever tactical decisions are necessary," he said, voice carrying that Baron weight even at dawn. "Your only objective is to get your people—and Thompson's, if you can—home safe." His gaze swept over all of us. "Be careful out there."
I gave him a nod. We clicked our reins and rode out through the West Gate as the sun started painting the horizon orange.
Columbia's sounds faded behind us. The morning calls, a guard’s distant exchange, the life of a place with walls and safety. Ahead was just the quiet of a world that had eaten most of humanity and was still hungry.
Twenty miles out from Columbia, the world had gone feral.
State Highway 19 was just a ghost now—cracked asphalt disappearing under grass and vines. We'd pushed the horses hard all day, and my ass was informing me in detail about every mile. The Barony's safety was long gone, replaced by that constant itch between your shoulder blades that meant you were being watched. Maybe by deer. Maybe by something with more teeth and stats.
As dusk crept in, Tommy found us a spot near the old highway—a cracked slab that used to be a gas station. The pumps had long since dissolved into black sludge and iron flakes, but the raised foundation gave us a few feet of solid elevation. It was barely shelter, but the concrete lip offered cover and sight lines. Better than camping in the open like a buffet advertisement.
Setting up camp should've been routine. It wasn't.
The silence around our small fire felt heavy that first night. Tommy was quiet because that's who he was. Brian was quiet because he was probably mentally optimizing his healing spells. Which left Jayden trying to fill the space with a goblin fight story we’d all heard a dozen times. We’d fought back-to-back for months, but without Hanna’s sharp commentary, Sarah’s mothering, or Wesley’s steady presence, the balance was off. Like a band trying to play a set with half the instruments missing.
"Alright, listen up." I kicked a rock away from the fire, needing to move, needing to do something leader-shaped. "Watch schedule. Two-hour shifts. Jayden and I take first. Emily and Tommy, second. Brian, you've got last watch." I looked at each of them. "We're in the deep woods now. Everything out here is hungry, and we probably smell like dinner."
Quiet agreements all around. Jayden moved toward a pile of rubble that probably used to be the station's back wall, hand already on his sword. I was about to follow when—
Crack.
A twig. Close. Way too close.
We moved like we'd rehearsed it, even though we hadn't. Five people, five weapons, zero hesitation. Emily's rapier caught the firelight. Tommy had an arrow nocked before I could blink. My thumb was already cocking the Remington's hammer, pulse hammering so hard I could hear it.
"Identify yourself." My voice came out harder than intended. "Now."
A figure stumbled into our firelight, hands up, breathing like he'd run a marathon.
Randy Littrell.
My brain just... stopped. Then it crashed back online with about fifteen different reactions, none of them good.
Randy looked from me to the others, his face a mess of dirt, fear, and that particular teenage stubbornness that makes you want to shake someone until sense falls out.
"You... you left without me." He was trying to catch his breath, trying to stand tall. "I'm not a kid anymore, Cade. I can fight. I can help."
He'd disobeyed a direct order. Followed us twenty miles through hostile territory. Alone. At fourteen. He wasn't backup—he was a liability. A walking, talking complication I didn't have the bandwidth to manage.
What was I supposed to do? Send him back alone? Death sentence. Keep him here? Maybe death sentence for all of us. The wilderness pressed in around us, darker now, more dangerous with this new problem dropped in our laps.
What the hell do I do now?
Chapter 4: UDS Day 182
The fire crackled, and my stomach did that elevator-drop thing when you realize something's about to go horribly wrong. For maybe three seconds, nobody moved. We were frozen—me, Emily, Jayden, Tommy, Brian—like someone had hit pause on the worst possible moment. Randy stood at the edge of the firelight, chest heaving, looking exactly like what he was: a fourteen-year-old kid who'd just done something monumentally stupid and was waiting to see if he'd get away with it.
My brain went through about five different reactions at once. Shock, definitely. Fury—God, so much fury it felt like my chest might crack from holding it in. And underneath all that, cold calculation. The part of me that was already running the tactical math: fourteen-year-old kid, Level 2, zero real field experience, twenty miles of hostile territory between us and Columbia. Twenty miles he'd somehow survived. Alone.
Shit.
I pushed myself to my feet. Slow. Deliberate. Like when you're trying not to spook a deer, except the deer was my temper and if it bolted, I might do something I'd regret. I could feel everyone watching—waiting to see how the Junior Commander would handle his first real breakdown in discipline. Because that's what this was. Not Randy being brave or determined or whatever story he was telling himself. This was insubordination that could get us all killed.
I walked toward him until I was close enough to see his eyes clearly in the firelight. Defiant terror—that specific combination that meant he knew he'd screwed up but was going to double down anyway. I'd seen it before, back in those first weeks after the System arrived, when Tommy tried to solo those goblins near the creek. Right before they almost tore his leg off.
My voice came out low, stripped down to ice. "What the hell are you doing here, Randy?"
He flinched—good, he should be scared—but his chin jutted out like he was gearing up for a fight. "I—I had to, Cade." The words caught in his throat at first, then tumbled out faster, desperate. "You were leaving me behind! Again! I'm not a kid anymore. I'm Level 2. I can fight." He sucked in a ragged breath. "I know I screwed up back in the mansion, I know I wasn't ready then. But I can do this. I want to be part of the real team, not just some trainee you have to babysit."
I stared at him, and the fury in my chest went cold and hard. Behind me, I could hear the subtle shift of bodies—Jayden trying and failing to hide a grin (because of course he was), Tommy and Brian staying carefully neutral. Emily's expression was unreadable, but I knew that look. She was already recalculating everything.
I needed my core team. This wasn't a group discussion—it was a leadership call.
"Stay put," I told Randy, putting enough command into it that he actually stepped back. "Don't move. Don't even breathe loud."
I turned to Emily and Jayden. "Walk with me."
We moved maybe twenty yards from the fire, just far enough that Randy couldn't hear us. The firelight painted everything gold and shadow.
"You can't send him back, Cade." Jayden's voice was low, urgent, all heart. "He'll get webbed by those giant spiders we saw near mile marker twelve. Or worse. The kid's got guts, you have to give him that. He's one of us."
Classic Jayden. He saw a kid trying to prove himself, someone showing loyalty and determination. What he didn't see—or didn't want to see—was how Randy being here could get us all killed.
Emily cut through Jayden's plea. "He's a liability, and this mission has zero room for error. He disobeyed orders, put himself at risk, put this whole team at risk." She paused, her gaze flicking back toward the fire where Randy stood silhouetted. "But Jayden's right about one thing. Sending him back alone is a death sentence. We're stuck with him. The question is how we manage the risk."
She was right. Both of them were. And that was the problem.
My head felt like a battlefield. The commander knew exactly what Randy represented: untrained, impulsive, a weak link in a chain already stretched too thin. This mission was supposed to be reconnaissance, maybe light combat. Now we had someone who could panic at the worst possible moment.
But the person part of me—the part that remembered being Randy's roommate, remembered the look in his eyes when he talked about wanting to be a real adventurer—couldn't send a fourteen-year-old kid to die alone in the wilderness. That wasn't leadership. That was murder with extra steps.
Wesley's voice echoed in my head, something he'd said after the fight against Armadon: "Command means choosing between bad options and worse ones."
I let out a breath that felt like it had been stuck in my chest since Randy appeared. The decision settled in my gut like a stone.
We walked back to the fire. Randy hadn't moved, but somehow he looked smaller now, like the defiance was leaking out of him.
"Alright," I said, and the anger was gone from my voice, replaced by something colder. Authority. "Here's how this is going to work. You are not a member of this team. You are a liability. You are a risk I didn't plan for and a problem I now have to solve."
The hurt that flashed across his face made something twist in my chest, but I didn't soften. He needed to hear this.
"You will do exactly what I say, when I say it. You will stay at the back of the formation with Brian. You will not engage, you will not speak unless spoken to, and you will not, under any circumstances, do anything heroic or stupid. Your only job is to stay alive and not get anyone else killed. Is that clear?"
He swallowed hard. "Yeah," he whispered. "Clear."
I gave him one last hard look, then turned away. The conversation was over.
Behind me, I heard Brian's quiet voice: "Come on, kid. Let's get you sorted."
The weight of it settled back onto my shoulders, heavier than before. One more life I hadn't planned for. One more way this could all go wrong.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, a treacherous little voice whispered: You would have done exactly the same thing at his age.
Which was stupid, because "at his age" was literally last year.
But in System time? It felt like a lifetime ago.
Yeah. That was the worst part.
I would have.
* * *
Randy was cleaning the cooking pot like he wanted to murder it, and that's how I knew last night's ass-chewing had landed exactly where I'd aimed it. Dawn had barely cracked through the trees—that miserable gray light that made everything look like shit—and the kid was already up doing every chore I'd assigned him with aggressive precision. Somehow worse than if he'd just told me to fuck off.
I sat on a log, nursing water that tasted like metal canteen and defeat, watching him move around camp. Banking the fire, packing rations, securing gear. All of it perfect. All of it radiating sullen fury.
Good. Let him hate me. Long as he didn't get himself killed.
The hot anger from last night had settled into something that sat in my chest like a rock—heavy and sharp-edged. My jaw kept doing that clenching thing Dad used to warn me about. You'll crack a tooth, son.
The others were taking their cues from me, staying quiet. Jayden kept testing his sword's edge—all that usual energy compressed into something watchful. He'd open his mouth like he wanted to crack a joke, then think better of it. Smart.
Emily caught my eye from across the dead fire pit. She didn't smile, didn't judge. Just gave me this look—calm, questioning. How are you going to handle this? Not the tactical part. The human part.
I held her gaze for maybe a second—long enough to feel my chest do that stupid flutter thing—then turned away. Back to Randy. Back to being the commander.
We broke camp and mounted up, the horses picking up on our mood and getting twitchy about it. The remains of Highway 19 stretched ahead, broken asphalt that nature was slowly reclaiming. The further we rode from Columbia, the more everything felt wrong-empty. Like the world was holding its breath.
My thoughts kept churning as we rode. The part of me that had to keep everyone alive said Randy was a risk we couldn't afford. A distraction. A weakness enemies could exploit.
But the other part, the part that remembered Randy following me around Columbia like a lost puppy, asking about every weapon, every tactic, every story from our runs... that part felt like I'd kicked a dog. A really annoying dog that had followed us for twenty miles through monster-infested territory because he wanted to help.
Emily nudged her horse up alongside mine. She didn't say anything at first, just rode close enough that our legs occasionally bumped.
"He's scared, you know," she said finally, quiet enough that only I could hear. "And trying way too hard."
"He should be scared." The words came out flat. "He pulled a stupid stunt that could get us all killed. Actions have consequences."
Christ, I sounded like my dad. Or worse, like Wesley in full sermon mode.
Emily was quiet for a long moment. "I'm not questioning the decision, Cade. You're right. But you're allowed to be angry without turning him into just another variable. He's still a person. A scared kid who looks up to you."
I didn't answer. Just stared at the road while my jaw did that clenching thing again. She was right. She was always right. But admitting that meant letting the anger crack, and I wasn't ready for what might leak out underneath.
We'd been riding maybe two hours when Tommy threw up his hand. His horse stopped, ears swiveling like radar dishes. The rest of us pulled up, and suddenly the only sounds were leather creaking and my heart doing double-time.
"What is it?" I kept my voice low, nudging my horse forward.
Tommy didn't look back. Just pointed toward a low rise maybe a hundred yards off the road. "Up there. Something's catching the sun. And..." His face went grim. "Birds."
I followed where he was pointing. Metal glinting, unnatural against the brown December landscape. And above it, buzzards circling.
My stomach did that cold flip it did when things were about to get bad.
"We investigate." My voice came out steady, even though my brain was screaming that we should just keep riding. "Dismount. Weapons ready. Move slow."
We left the horses and spread out, moving up the rise in what was almost a proper formation. I had the Sharps up and ready—hammer at half-cock, finger alongside the trigger guard like Dad taught me. My hands were doing that thing where they felt both sweaty and cold at the same time.
To my left, Jayden had one hand on that ridiculous sword of his. He was trying to move quiet, but the thing was so massive it kept catching on bushes. Emily ghosted along to my right, hand never leaving her rapier's hilt. Tommy had an arrow nocked but not drawn. Brian stayed center with his mace out, other hand doing that nervous pat-check on his medical pack. And Randy—Jesus, Randy was trying so hard to copy Tommy's movements it would've been funny if we weren't walking toward what was probably a massacre.
The smell hit first—copper and rot, sweet-sick in the cold air. My throat tried to close up, but I forced myself to keep moving. To look. To process.
It had been a camp. Small one. Canvas tents shredded like tissue paper, fire pit scattered, bedrolls torn open with their guts spread like dirty snow. A mining pick with its handle snapped clean through. Survey equipment smashed and scattered.
And the bodies. Three of them. Or... pieces that used to be three people.
First time I'd seen anyone crazy enough to work this far from settlement walls. Prospectors, maybe. Surveyors. People who thought they could handle the wilderness because they had tools and a plan and probably a Level or two.
They'd been wrong.
The violence wasn't a clean kill, wasn't even regular brutal. This was personal. Like whatever did this had been offended by their existence. I'd seen what goblins did to people. I'd seen what orcs could do. This was worse.
My stomach wanted to turn itself inside out, but I forced myself to look. To catalog.
