The southern fence was already gone by the ti they got there.
Not damaged. Not bent. Gone. A twenty ter section of it simply absent, like it had been erased, the concrete posts still standing on either end with nothing between them, the ground where the fence had been scoured clean down to bare earth.
Sade stopped dead beside Tobi. "What the hell did that."
Nobody answered because nobody knew.
The gate was visible past the gap. Bigger than the morning’s sites. Much bigger. The light at its edges was deep red and it was throwing heat, actual heat, Tobi could feel it on his face from thirty ters away like standing too close to a fire. Through it he could see movent, multiple shapes, and the sounds coming through were layered over each other in a way that made the back of his neck go cold.
There were six of them this ti. Tobi, Sade, Ayo, Festus, and two others the Colonel had added after the morning report. A young man nad Remi who could compress air into short range concussive bursts and a woman nad Taiwo who had spent the morning discovering that she could harden her skin to sothing approaching stone. She’d been testing it against a piece of rebar when Tobi arrived and the rebar had lost.
Remi looked at the gap in the fence. At the gate beyond it. His face was doing the thing faces do when the brain is receiving information it doesn’t want.
"There’s a lot of movent in there," he said. "Right? I’m not imagining that."
"You’re not imagining it," Ayo said.
"Okay." Remi nodded several tis. "Okay. Cool. That’s. Yeah."
"Hold it together," Festus said, not unkindly.
"I’m holding it. I’m completely holding it." He looked at his hands. "I might be holding it a little loudly in my head but externally I’m fine."
The first creature ca through before anyone finished a sentence.
Bipedal class, sa as the morning, but larger than the ones Tobi had encountered before and moving faster, that jerking puppet motion at higher speed, and it ca through the gate and oriented imdiately and covered twenty ters in about two seconds.
It hit Taiwo.
She’d hardened in ti, just barely, and the impact was still enough to knock her three ters sideways. She hit the ground and ca up imdiately which was the most impressive thing Tobi had seen since the apocalypse started.
"Son of a bitch that’s strong," she shouted.
Two more ca through.
"Remi," Tobi said sharply.
Remi compressed both hands and released and the burst caught the second creature mid-stride and threw it sideways into the concrete post hard enough that the post cracked. The creature hit the ground and got back up which was the wrong answer.
"Why isn’t it staying down," Remi said loudly. "Why are they not staying down, what the hell—"
"Again," Tobi said.
"I heard you the first—"
"Remi. Again."
Another burst. This one harder, better aid, and the creature went into the post again and this ti the post ca down on top of it.
It stayed down.
"Okay," Remi said breathlessly. "Okay we’re doing this."
The third one had gone for Sade and Sade was handling it in the specific way of soone moving too fast for it to track properly, staying at the edges of its reach, hitting it twice for every ti it swung at her. But it wasn’t going down and she was burning energy she’d need later and her breathing was already audible.
"Sade, left!" Tobi called.
She went left and he ca in from the right with the machete and hit it across the back of the joint where the too-long arm connected to the body. The creature made a sound that was sowhere between a shriek and feedback from a broken speaker and went down on one knee.
Sade hit it twice more from the left.
It stopped moving.
She stood over it with her hands on her knees, breathing hard and fast. "I hate these ones," she said. "I genuinely hate these specific ones so much."
"Four more in the gate," Festus said from the rear. His voice was flat and steady and Tobi was grateful for it. "Maybe more behind those."
Tobi looked at the gate.
The heat coming off it had increased. The red light was deeper, the movent beyond it more frantic, and he could now hear sothing he hadn’t identified before, a sound behind the gate sounds, rhythmic and low and getting louder.
His system pulsed.
[WARNING: GATE SURGE DETECTED]
[MULTIPLE ENTITIES PREPARING TO BREACH]
[ESTIMATED COUNT: UNKNOWN — HIGH]
[RECOMNDATION: ESTABLISH CHOKEPOINT OR WITHDRAW]
Unknown. High.
"Fall back to the corridor between the engineering block and the science building," Tobi said imdiately. "Thirty ters, now, move."
"There are still things in the gate—" Ayo started.
"Which is exactly why we’re moving now before they’re out of it. Go."
They went.
They made the corridor with about four seconds to spare.
The gate surged.
Tobi had been positioned at the corridor entrance and he saw it happen, saw the red light flare white for a mont and then everything that had been building behind it ca through at once. Not four. Not six. More than he could count in the first second, creatures pouring through the gap in the fence, bipedal class and smaller ones mixed together, the clicking of the small ones layering under the shrieking of the larger ones into a wall of sound.
"Oh my god," soone behind him said.
"Don’t look at the number," Tobi said sharply. "Focus on the entrance. Nothing gets past the entrance."
Ayo was already at the corridor mouth, both forearms raised, the force barrier up and solid. Taiwo was beside him, hardened, planted. Remi was behind them with his hands ready.
The first wave hit the barrier.
The sound of it was enormous, like a car crash sustained, and Ayo grunted with the impact and his feet slid back ten centiters in the dirt.
"Holding," he said through his teeth. "I’m holding, I’m—"
A second impact. His feet slid again.
"Ayo—"
"I said I’m holding, shut up, let concentrate—"
The barrier cracked.
Not broke. Cracked, a fracture line appearing across the surface of it, the force bleeding through in a way that Tobi could feel even three ters back.
"Remi," Tobi said.
Remi stepped up beside Ayo and sent a burst through the crack and they heard the scatter of creatures being thrown back and the pressure on the barrier dropped for two seconds.
Two seconds.
"This isn’t sustainable," Sade said from behind Tobi. Her voice was controlled but the control was costing her sothing. "We cannot hold this. There are too many of them."
"I know."
"So what’s the plan? What is the actual plan right now Tobi because I would really love to know—"
"Working on it."
"Work faster, please, because Ayo looks like he’s about to—"
"I’m fine," Ayo said in the voice of soone who was not fine.
Tobi looked at Musa.
Musa was at the back of the corridor, pressed against the wall, the dark ability above his palm at its current maximum size, roughly a fist. His face was pale and his jaw was set and he was looking at Tobi with eyes that said he already knew what was coming.
"How big can you make it," Tobi said.
"I don’t know."
"What’s the biggest you’ve tried."
"This."
"So try bigger."
"If I push it and it doesn’t work—"
"Musa." Tobi crossed to him in three steps. He put both hands on the boy’s shoulders and looked directly at him. Outside the barrier sothing massive hit the corridor entrance and everyone staggered and dust rained from the walls above them. "Listen to . Every person on this campus is behind us right now. My mother is behind us. Folake and Ada are behind us. Four hundred people." He held Musa’s gaze. "How big can you make it."
Musa looked at the dark ability spinning above his palm.
He breathed in slowly.
"I have no idea," he said. "But let’s find out."
He pushed.
Tobi stepped back and watched it happen. The dark ability expanded suddenly, not gradually, lurching outward in pulses, doubling, tripling, Musa’s face going white with the effort of it, his whole arm shaking, the disc growing until it was a ter across and still expanding, edges blurring and folding back on themselves.
"Musa—"
"Don’t talk to right now," Musa said through his teeth.
The barrier cracked fully.
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