Portal Group’s headquarters was the sleekest, tallest building in the city—a facade of mirrored glass and white marble cutting ruthlessly through the dreary sky like a ceramic blade.

Atlas hated its overly-modern architecture nearly as much as he hated the people inside of it.

He slunk through the usual crowd gathered outside and pushed through the glass door with his shoulder, hands tucked deep in his pockets.

No one would recognize him—at least, not out front. These receptionists and the other front-facing staff were all too new to clock his face. He hadn't been someone noteworthy in a long time.

But the old-school Hunters, the ones who’d mocked him ruthlessly for the better part of a decade, would know better. So would the entire team up in Acquisitions.

Best to keep a low profile, just in case.

Atlas bowed his head, boarded one of the rear elevators, and scanned his handprint when no one was looking. With a cheerful beep!, the doors slid closed and locked shut. The Acquisitions Department was on the second floor from the top, just beneath Last Bastion’s home base.

Last Bastion was made up of the most valuable assets Portal Group had, so they got the penthouse. The team consisted of a set of six of the highest-ranked Hunters in the nation, three S-Classes and three A-Classes, dispatched regularly on the highest-priority Portal breaches to protect civilian life and retrieve valuable materials.

They hated Atlas, their ill-fated former colleague, almost as much as he hated them.

Last Bastion may have lived up top, but Acquisitions was nearly as important. They shared the floor just below the penthouse with the administrative heads, occupying the largest section of it.

The Acquisitions Department was in charge of signing and managing new Hunters on the roster. It was the place they brought all the new recruits to show off—polished within an inch of its life and bursting at the seams with the latest tech. They promised the world to the kids referred their way, and they left the pitfalls conveniently unspoken.

To the newbies who awakened, the team at Acquisitions felt like gods.

To Atlas, they were more like captors.

He arrived faster than he’d hoped, slouching through the corridor and slipping like a shadow through the textured glass doors.

Everything about the place was familiar in the worst ways—the antiseptic smell, the marble floor, the geometric furniture, and the jewel-toned pottery. It was as impersonal as an office could be, designed strictly for form and never function.

“Atlas.”

Atlas would know Izar’s voice anywhere.

He hated it.

Izar spoke low and quiet, with the rasping curiosity of a scientist. It felt devoid of any of the personality of his younger brother, Zig. He was just an empty husk in a suit, winding up Hunters like toys to watch them go.

“Did you really need to stress Zig out?” Atlas grunted, automatically following Izar through the neatly spaced crowds of employees and contractors. He could hear their hushed murmurs as he went, recognition flitting across their expressions in all of the worst ways.

“You would not respond if not for him.”

Atlas pulled his dark hat down lower, wishing he’d worn sunglasses even though it was raining. “You know nothing is going to change.”

“We are responsible for you.” It was like Izar was reciting lines. He was nothing like he used to be. “Circumstances aside, as you are an S-Class. We are required to do a certain amount of monitoring in case you awaken.”

“What a diplomatic way to say, ‘We think it’s funny to drag you in here.’”

Izar didn’t respond. He never did when Atlas tried to provoke him. Instead, he opened the testing center with a wave of his key card and a scan of his iris.

“You know how this goes,” he told Atlas, gesturing to the machine in the center of the room.

It was a tall and slender thing, with big, flexible screens and a transparent glass bottom. On the far side, a black panel would read his palm and issue its verdict for Izar to read and add to his file.

He knew what it would say. Atlas read the same evaluation every night when he pulled up his status window.

The ghost of a future he could never have, haunting him, refusing to leave.

“Let’s get this over with, then,” Atlas said, scowling.

He swung the door open and stepped inside.

It felt like it always did: cold and barren, lifeless. He pressed his hand immediately to the sensor.

“S-Class,” he knew it would say, in the same droning, robotic voice it had been programmed with almost a decade ago.

Except, it didn’t.

Not this time.

The front-facing screen began to surge and flicker and pulse. A bright, flashing light he’d never encountered sent yellow beams of color dancing around the room.

“What the hell—?” he started, before the glass sides of the device vibrated and vibrated and vibrated.

With an extraordinary sound, all of the air left the room, and the glass blew out into a cascade of powdery white dust. The voice Atlas had come to hate so ardently was silent. In its place, an alarm began to sound.

Izar, for all of his flat affect, widened his eyes. Atlas drew a sharp breath.

It’s never done that before.

Not even for the other S-Classes.

But there wasn’t time to think about what it might mean.

“Director!”

A tall woman with a high ponytail came crashing into the room, her face twisted and tight with panic. Her badge marked her as a B-Class researcher on Izar’s ancillary team. She didn’t even spare Atlas a glance. “There’s been an S-Grade Portal spotted in the center of the city. It’s already begun to swallow the roadway.”

“S-Grade?” Izar murmured, swinging his gaze to Atlas. Atlas blinked back.

There hasn’t been an S-Grade since the Vast World Collapse.

S-Grade Portals were cataclysmic. They were at risk of breach almost immediately, and were nearly impossible to close. They behaved not entirely unlike weak black holes until a team entered to clear them—freezing their progression in time.

The first S-Grade had only been conquered thanks to the sacrifice of the world’s first and most powerful S-Class. It was a miracle made possible by blood and luck alone.

Izar paused, then reached into his deep white coat pocket to grab his phone. “Get Last Bastion together, and any nearby Hunters B-Class and above. We’ll need all hands on deck.”

Atlas stared at them.

“Atlas,” Izar said, and beckoned him forward. His face had grown dire and serious. “Come with me. I don’t know what’s going on, but if you’ve finally awakened after all of this time, you’re on the roster, too.”

Atlas raised a brow and hopped over the broken glass. He could still hear a few pieces crackle and spit beneath his sneakers. “I have no combat experience. You want me to come along and get killed?”

“We need everyone,” Izar told him, face grim. “You’ll be with our strongest for protection, but we don’t know what your Skill entails, and it could be useful. You don’t have a choice.”

***

Atlas hadn’t been in the penthouse for years.

It had been redone since the last time. The fixtures were more opulent, shining with the kind of polish only exorbitant amounts of money could accomplish.

It was as spacious as ever, though— huge, open space broken up only by the occasional pillar. Half a floor up were the living quarters for the team, en suites with their own bathrooms and enormous closets for gear and lavish wardrobes. He’d been promised one, once upon a time.

He’d never gotten far enough in the process to see them. Like the rest of the world, he’d had to find out in magazines and interviews about the life he should have had.

“Last Bastion will already be on scene,” Izar told him. He pressed a switch protruding from the wall, sending a rotating selection of accessories shooting out from behind a bookshelf. “Grab artifacts fifteen and sixty-six. They’re defense-oriented. I’ll get the rest for the group.”

“We don’t even know that anything has changed,” Atlas said, with a grumble.

His chest was hollow with the sick feeling of hope. Atlas hated it, hated knowing this was all just so he could get let down again.

“As I said, it’s irrelevant. We need everyone.”

“Isn’t it more likely that your stupid machine just broke?”

Izar hummed. “There are only four S-Classes on hand for the portal, Atlas. One of them is you. It’s worth the risk.”

Atlas approached the artifacts and ran his fingers over the rows and rows of them. They were high-level items, the sorts of things that would go for hundreds of thousands at auction.

He knew they were likely the result of thousands of B- and A-Grade Portal closures. Blood had been shed to get them here. But lined up like this, they looked like claw machine prizes, cheap and plentiful.

Atlas pocketed the artifacts Izar had commanded—one that would conceal his mana, and another that increased his defense substantially. They were tiny and weightless, fitting neatly against his thigh.

He paused.

At the end of the shelf, so small that he could barely make it out, there was a pin.

It was so unassuming that he almost ignored it. It was made of shiny, holographic metal without ornamentation. He nearly left it, but his status screen flickered in the corner of his eye, casting a blue glow perfectly over it.

Pick it up, it seemed to be saying. It will be important.

Atlas reached out and pocketed the pin before he could think better of it, nearly crushing it in his fist.

Izar had never said he couldn’t take more artifacts.

“You’ll need to wear what you have on,” Izar murmured, shucking his jacket onto the couch and rolling up his sleeves. “We have a C-Class downstairs with a decent teleportation Skill. Follow me.”

An S-Grade Portal.

Atlas kept his expression neutral as they went, the sick, terrible feeling that this was the end of something lingering in the back of his mind.