Chapter 384 — Five More II

Chapter 384: Chapter 384 — Five More II

Operations wrote it with them. It took three drafts and one of the comms staff saying "No" out loud at Cillian’s suggestion for a title.

It went out at two o’clock from Guild Zero’s channels. ℯℯ𝑙.

*Guild Zero is seeking five additional Challengers for a coordinated Floor 39 expedition. Floor 39 requires a larger coordinated team. Selection will be based on combat compatibility, not on fame or national ranking.*

*Applicants must be Floor 39 eligible by the expedition window, provide verified combat records, agree to closed joint training with Team Zero, and disclose relevant abilities to Guild Zero’s tactical staff.*

There was nothing in it about the gap, or the red, or Turiel. That stayed in the room.

It took about four minutes to be everywhere.

*TEAM ZERO SEEKS REINFORCEMENTS AFTER AMERICAN DEATH.*

*IRELAND PLANS TEN-PERSON FLOOR 39 RAID.*

*GUILD ZERO OPENS INTERNATIONAL RECRUITMENT.*

And from somewhere less careful: *IS JAMES GANNER SCARED?*

The comments came under every repost.

**@climbgod_99:** lmao they saw the american die and lost their nerve

**@saoirse_k:** or they saw the american die and decided not to die?? wild concept

**@raidlead_hq:** 10 people means the tower scales it up. they’re making it HARDER. so dumb

**@tower_facts_daily:** thats not how scaling works you dont know how scaling works

**@raidlead_hq:** neither do you

**@dub_zero_fan:** these lads cleared 30 when everyone said it couldnt be done. let them cook

**@starsnstripes_raid:** so they’re gonna use OUR guy’s death as a free scouting run. classy

**@kellyb_nyc:** honestly if I were them I’d do the same thing. he’d want someone to clear it

**@Usa_climbs:** the rest of the 38 team NEEDS to apply. america should be in the room when it gets cleared

**@bigbadbarry:** imagine ten famous challengers in one stream. IMAGINE. i’m taking the day off work

**@kpopraid:** korea clears 38 this week watch

**@climbgod_99:** still cowards

**@saoirse_k:** you’re on your sofa barry

**@climbgod_99:** im climbgod

**@saoirse_k:** you’re on your sofa climbgod

Nobody agreed with anybody, and it went on like that all afternoon.

---

By three the guild’s inbox had stopped being an inbox.

There were agents. There were representatives from guilds James had never heard of and from two he had. There were government Challenger bureaus, three of them in the first hour, writing in the careful language of people who did not want to be seen asking. There were individual Challengers. A few of them were actually eligible, and a great many more were not and had applied anyway.

James had his phone out to answer one when Maeve took it out of his hand.

"No."

"It’s a bureau."

"Then a bureau can wait for the process like everybody else."

The process took them another hour to build, round the long table with the chairs finally pushed back where they belonged.

Staff would verify eligibility and combat records first. Anyone who failed that never reached the founders. Everyone who passed got a file.

"Footage first," said Finn. "Real fights. Not interviews."

"Not highlights either," said Ronan. "Anyone looks good in highlights. I want to see what they do when the plan goes wrong. What happens when the person beside them goes down."

"And anybody can look disciplined in an edit," said Cillian. "You cut out the bit where they ignored their leader and kept swinging, and you’ve got a professional."

"Then full raid footage," said Maeve, writing it. "The whole run where we can get it. Unedited."

James agreed with all of it, and added one thing.

"I want to know if they follow calls. When it’s going badly and they’re scared. When somebody tells them to stop."

Maeve wrote that at the top.

---

By evening the story was bigger than any of them had expected, which James was beginning to think was just the normal size of things now.

Broadcasters had dream line-ups up on screen, though Guild Zero had not chosen a single person. Fans were making unofficial lists and arguing about them. National outlets were pushing their own top Challengers and saying in so many words that it would be an insult to leave them out. Two government offices had rung the guild to ask, politely, whether nationality would be a factor.

Maeve took both calls herself and gave both of them the same answer.

"Whoever gives us the best chance of coming back alive."

James went home at seven.

He could have stayed and watched the applications come in, refreshing the screen. The process did not need him to watch it, though, so he didn’t.

---

Dinner was chicken, in the new pan, which his mother now defended against all comers.

Nyra talked about a video she had seen of a dog that could open fridges. Alice ate slowly and said almost nothing, and nobody pushed her, which was the right thing. Nobody said Turiel. His mother did not know the name and James did not give it to her at the dinner table.

The television was on in the front room through the open door. Somewhere around the second helping it got to the Floor 39 story, and a panel of three people began arguing loudly about who Guild Zero should pick.

James got up and turned it down, and sat back down, and finished his dinner.

---

It was after eleven when he opened the list.

Maeve’s staff had sent the first preliminary file at ten past ten, with a note on it: *Eligibility verified. Unranked. Don’t read the press comments.*

It was shorter than the public would have believed.

There had been thousands of applications. Very few Challengers on Earth were Floor 39 eligible, or close enough to get there before the expedition, and once eligibility was applied the list fit on one screen with room to spare.

He did not sort it by ranking. He opened the footage.

The first file was a damage dealer from one of the top-ten countries, someone the dream line-ups had at the top of every list. James watched a full raid, forty minutes of it. The fighter was extraordinary. Twice in the first half the raid leader called a retreat, and twice they took one more swing before they went. The third time they did not go at all, and a teammate got hurt covering them.

James closed the file.

The next was somebody nobody had put on any list. There was nothing in their fighting you would cut into a highlight package. Halfway through a long fight, their leader called a withdrawal in the middle of an attack. They stopped dead, with the hit already started, and pulled it. Then they turned round without being asked and stood over somebody else’s retreat until the line had reset.

James watched that part twice. He marked the file to come back to.

The house went quiet round him. His mother’s door closed and Nyra’s music went off. The radiator in the hall knocked once and settled.

He kept going through the files.

Somewhere in the fourth or fifth he understood exactly what he was looking for, and it was simpler than any of the five lines on Maeve’s pad.

He was not looking for the five strongest Challengers on Earth. He was looking for the five strongest people who could look at Wrath when Wrath looked finished, every instinct in them screaming at them to take the kill, and stop when James told them to stop.