Chapter 35 of 35 · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Epilogue — Epilogue: the Walk-On List

Book: The Gate of the Feral Gods · Previous: Chapter 34 — Seeding the pond · Floor: Floor 5 — The Bubbles · Series: the series

Opening

“How much money, exactly, have we spent so far?

Summary

Three scenes without Carl. First, two voices: a woman asking how a small NFC affords all this, and Dr. Hu — whom she calls Porthus — 'going all in on him.' She lists the universe's troubles: the AI going primal, the Valtay into everything, a kua-tin underground about to start a civil war, King Rust's children murdering each other, Princess D'nadia about to do something stupid; and Carl wasted half the yam saving another crawler because they sent no instructions. 'They sign up for his cause. Not ours.' 'It's the same cause.' 'He's going to die, Porthus.' 'That's what you said about the fifth floor.'

Second, Seattle in freezing rain: Sadir, a grey 'Roswell' null, and Gennrik, a saccathian pirate, are illegal trackers working the season's Walk-On List. The producers want specific Natives — survivors who neither were Collected nor became Crawlers — kidnapped into the dungeon, which the rules forbid, so corporations hire crews to do it. Their A-tier target is a cat named Gravy Boat; other crews hunt a woman and 'that little girl's father'; Sadir would rather chase a goat, and their captain plans to send them after 'that dead crawler's twin'. They remember a Valtay season in which Crawler Hoon found his five children repurposed as hunter-killers guarding the twelfth-floor elevator and shot himself, after which collected children and pregnant women were banned. Their search leads to New Queen Anne, a camp of seventy-four humans under a bridge.

Third, Brad, in a tent: Bea cries herself to sleep every night with a large orange stray. They were in an airport parking garage when the world went; the dungeon entrance was close, but Bea screamed, and Brad stayed, and regrets it. At the hole where her apartment was she found her neighbour's cat, Gravy Boat, whom she called Ferdinand, and she sings to him each night: 'I'm sorry, Ferdinand. I should have let you in.' A knife through the tarp; the saccathian's chest explodes; the null sees Bea and stammers 'Beatrice?'; a woman with a shotgun steps in: 'My name is Lexis […] You are being hunted. I am here to take you to safety.' Brad goes for the pistol. Lexis reports to Odette: the pirate dead, the null captured, Brad shot and left to bleed out. Odette orders the scene staged as a fight over the cat, the null's warrant bought out, and the cat cubed and smuggled over to Borant — 'Let him collect the walk-on bounty' — while Bea is cubed and not for sale: 'we have a much better use for her.' 'We can't all have happy endings. Now get to work.'

Characters

• Bea — Alive in New Queen Anne, singing to a stray she calls Ferdinand; taken by Odette's people.
• Brad — Bea's Bahamas man, filming the arrest, dreaming of the dungeon; shot and left to bleed.
• Odette — Runs the operation; a better use for Beatrice; Gravy Boat to Borant.
• Lexis — A shotgun and a translator; kills a pirate, cubes a woman and a cat.
• Porthus — Dr. P. Hu, called Porthus by his colleague: the 2nd edition's author, all in on Carl; 'He knows what it's really for.'
• Sadir — A null tracker with children in the Filt system; captured and framed.
• Gennrik — A saccathian pirate; dead in a tent.
• Ferdinand — The orange cat; an A-tier Walk-On target; bound for Borant.
• Agatha — Not in the epilogue; its homeless man in the airport garage goes unnamed.
• Princess D'nadia — A woman talking to Dr. Hu, of her: 'Probably going to do something stupid, too.'
• The Popov brothers — Fifth on the final board, both alive; not the unnamed 'dead crawler's twin' hunted in a jungle.

Locations

• New Queen Anne — Seventy-four survivors under a bridge in the rain; holes where buildings were; a head on the ground.

Motifs

• The Walk-On List — Natives kidnapped for the show; Collected, Crawlers, Natives.
• The collapse dead — Crawler Hoon's children; children and pregnant women banned since.
• Sponsorship — Dr. P. Hu is Porthus; the cause; the yam's real purpose.
• Borant — A kua-tin underground; a civil war coming; started the crawl early.
• The Valtay Corporation — 'The cruelest of them all.'
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Its second author alive outside, funding its twenty-fifth.
• The System AI — 'going primal'