I Can See Evolution Paths

Chapter 65: Final Round (3)

Athy’s screech cut through the ambient noise of the city before Arthur had finished thinking about the next route.

She circled twice and stopped, hovering with both wings extended in different directions.

Arthur followed the left wing.

An orphanage, two streets over, smoke pouring from the second- and third-floor windows, thick enough to mean the fire was already established inside rather than just starting. Children’s voices carried even at this distance.

He followed the right wing.

A hospital with its front entrance partially collapsed, patients visible through the ground-floor windows, still and waiting, unable to move themselves.

The fire from the central district was spreading toward the hospital along the eastern side of the street. Athena had already worked out the timeline.

"We don’t have enough time," she said.

"Correct."

A voice from the smoke.

...

The man who walked out was older, carrying the look of someone who’d been in hard situations often enough that the experience showed in his body instead of his face. Worn expedition armor. His eyes had the settled look of someone who’d decided long ago what he was going to see, and had found confirmation ever since.

"The people in the hospital can still be saved. Those in the fire are doomed; it will be foolish to try and save them."

A woman near the back of the group made a sound. "M-My son is in that building," she said.

The Captain didn’t look at her. "We don’t have time," he said.

Arthur hadn’t responded to any of this.

Athena watched him. "Arthur?"

He walked past a collapsed wall and crouched beside a length of rope, part of a loading mechanism above a merchant’s entrance before the collapse tore it loose. He tested its length. He looked at the partial watchtower one block over, the section still standing, still anchored, still at height.

His eyes moved to a pile of heavy support beams near the far side of the intersection.

Arthur looked up. "...Got it." He pointed toward the orphanage. "I’m going there." Then toward the hospital. "You guys take them."

Silence.

Sun blinked. "...Both?"

Arthur nodded. "Both."

Athena frowned. "...Arthur. The timing doesn’t work."

Arthur nodded. "I know."

Sun pointed slowly at the burning street. "...So how exactly are you planning to get over there?"

Arthur pointed toward the rope. "Vedas throws me."

Sun blinked. "What?"

Arthur looked at him. "Across to the kids."

One civilian looked around like he was waiting for the real plan. "...Excuse me?"

"I’ll grab a few children." Arthur tied the rope around his waist. "Vedas pulls me back to drop them off here, and then throw me again."

One of the fathers stared. "...You’re serious."

Arthur looked up. "I usually am."

The Captain frowned. "That won’t work."

Arthur blinked. "...You already tried it?"

The captain paused. "No..."

Arthur shrugged. "Then we don’t know yet. How can you say it will fail without trying?"

Sun covered his face. "...I really wish that didn’t make sense."

Even the civilians looked uncertain.

An old man muttered, "...Is this boy insane?"

Another answered, "...Maybe."

The woman whose son was trapped clenched her hands together. "...Please."

Arthur looked at her. "I’ll bring them back."

The answer came so naturally that she just nodded.

Athena, used to Arthur’s plans by now, had already run the trajectory twice. "It’s still insane though."

"I agree, but we can’t be picky without rescue plans."

"Fine, should the rest of us head for the civilians?" Sun asked.

Arthur nodded. "Mithra. See those buildings over there?"

She looked over instantly. "Oh? Want me to make them fall to help slow the flames?"

"You always catch on fast." Arthur grinned. "They’re already falling; let’s use them."

Mithra smiled slowly. "I like that."

Arthur turned. "Sun—"

"You want me and Kong to find shortcuts they can use to get here, right?"

"Find me a road."

Sun looked around. "...There isn’t one."

Arthur pointed. "So make one."

Sun blinked. "...You want us to turn the collapsed city into roads?"

"Exactly." Arthur looked at Athena. "You tell us where."

Athena looked up. "...You’re using the collapse."

Arthur nodded. "It was already happening."

She started redrawing the map. "I’ll redirect everyone."

Arthur looked at Melo. "Melo, I need you to help the injured people. They won’t move if they’re panicking."

Melo nodded immediately.

The Captain watched all of this without interrupting.

Every order sounded impossible. Nobody questioned a single one. That... Was somehow even stranger. By now, Arthur had already convinced them that impossible ideas were usually worth trying.

Only then did Arthur turn back to Vedas.

"Alright. Throw me, buddy."

Vedas sighed, but his eyes carried full trust as he planted his feet on the cobblestone. The rope ran from Arthur’s waist to his hands, and he took up the slack in one motion.

Arthur gripped the line.

"Ready," he said.

Vedas swung once, building momentum, and released.

Arthur crossed the burning street in an arc that was neither comfortable nor graceful, just functional, exactly as he’d assessed. He hit the upper-story window with his shoulder, the glass giving less resistance than expected, and then there was smoke and the disorientation of a room with ruined air.

Children’s voices. Closer now.

Seconds later, Arthur appeared at the window with three children against his chest. He raised one hand.

"Pull!"

Vedas pulled.

The rope snapped taut, and Arthur and the three children flew back across the burning street in reverse, the landing more absorbed than managed. Arthur tumbled twice and came to rest on his back on the cobblestone.

The three children ran straight for Mithra. The mother whose son had been in the building moved before they even reached her.

Arthur grabbed the rope, but his hand slipped this time. Blood was starting to show across both palms.

He looked at them. "...Huh."

Then wrapped the rope around his forearm instead.

"Again."

Vedas frowned. "Stop scraping your hands."

"Oh? Did I worry my partner?"

"I-It’s not me worrying—"

"I know, alright. I’ll focus on protecting myself too." Arthur grinned.

Vedas snorted, then threw him again.

The second crossing matched the first in every way that mattered. Third-floor window this time. Two more children. Arthur’s "Pull!" came out with slightly less reserve than before.

The rhythm set itself: cross, enter, gather, call, cross back. The first throw had been desperation. The second became a plan. By the third, everyone already knew what to do.

...

Mithra hadn’t been watching the rope.

She’d been studying the buildings flanking the path between the orphanage and the hospital, the load-bearing structure of their lower floors, the relationship between their position and the fire’s spread.

"Cut those supports," she said, pointing at two specific spots on two buildings.

The civilians nearby looked at each other.

"If those sections come down first," Mithra said, "the collapse creates a wall. The fire can’t cross its own debris easily. It slows down."

Three of the rescued men, looking for something to do, jumped on it immediately. The cutting took two minutes. The collapse took thirty seconds. Mithra had been right: the fire’s eastern advance hit the debris line and lost momentum.

Athena looked at it. "Good idea," she said.

...

Kong had been on the rooftops since Arthur’s second throw, moving between positions and relaying information to Sun in the pattern they’d built over weeks of the tournament.

Sun translated without pause. "The alley behind the carpenter’s shop goes straight through to the hospital entrance. Athy confirmed no collapse risk. Kong says the passage under the fallen beam on the east side has enough clearance if people go low."

Broken buildings had become the map instead of the obstacle.

Athena rewrote routes as fast as Kong fed her information, redirecting the civilians before the old route stopped existing, staying one decision ahead of the city constantly rearranging itself.

Melo had been at the back of the group, and then she wasn’t.

She’d moved toward the hospital in her larger form, the one she didn’t use casually, the full fox instead of the small, comfortable presence she kept around the team. Her three tails moved with deliberate purpose. The illusions she spread inside the hospital were different from the ones she’d used on the civilians: interior, targeted at pain signals directly, dulling them enough that patients who’d been immobile from agony found the threshold manageable.

The screaming inside the hospital stopped.

In the quiet that followed, patients who could move on their own found that they could.

The two patients nearest the entrance who couldn’t move at all found Melo could lift them, one under each forepaw, with a care shaped by real understanding of how fragile they were.

...

Arthur made the last crossing and came back with the final child. He set the child down and collapsed to the ground the moment he let go. He lay on the cobblestone and breathed.

The Captain had been watching since the first throw.

He stood now at the edge of the cleared section, looking at the hospital, where the last patients were being carried out with Melo’s help and a chain of rescued civilians working in the pattern the nurse had set up.

He looked at the orphanage, empty now of children. He looked at the group, eleven people forty minutes ago, now closer to a small expedition.

Nobody had been left.

For a heartbeat, nobody moved.

Then applause broke out, exhausted citizens staring at Arthur with tears rolling down their smiling faces.

Arthur blinked. "...Did we do something?"

"I suppose we did," Sun said with a chuckle.

Kong proudly pounded his chest. Melo puffed her chest up. Athy raised her head. Vedas chuckled.

The applause spread as the civilians turned toward each member of the team.

A father bowed deeply. "Thank you."

Then another civilian, and another. Soon the whole group was bowing.

Mithra smiled softly.

Athena looked slightly overwhelmed.

Sun rubbed his nose awkwardly.

Melo wagged her tail so hard she nearly knocked over two children.

Vedas tightened his grip on his spear quietly.

Arthur smiled and tried standing, but his legs gave out.

Before he hit the ground, the rescued father caught him. "...Easy."

The nurse knelt beside him immediately.

"Rope burns."

"Bruised ribs."

"You pushed too hard."

Arthur scratched his cheek. "...Worth it."

The father laughed. "...Yeah."

It was.

After a few more checks and some words, only the little girl remained, giving him a worried look. Arthur chuckled, ran a hand through her hair, took a deep breath, and stood back up.

On his feet again, he started wiping the ash off himself.

The little girl looked up. "...Were you scared?"

Arthur blinked. "A little."

She tilted her head. "...Then why did you keep coming back?"

Arthur smiled. "Because you were still inside."

Her eyes widened at how simple the answer was, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He looked at the Captain. "See?" he said. "There was always another way. We just had to find it."

The Captain looked toward the orphanage. Then the hospital. "...Maybe."

It was the first time... He’d questioned his own answer.

"Good!"

Arthur stood up and started walking.

The Captain chuckled, then turned to the civilians. "You four." He pointed at the strongest men. "Carry the injured." Then to the nurse. "Stay in the center."

Only then did he start walking after Arthur.

This time, not to replace his decision.

But to support it.