“The Shadow People don’t need weapons,” Shane said. “They’re dangerous enough without them.”

“Precisely,” Malone said. “It will be best to take them on individually. If they’re working closely together, we’ll need to separate the Gotoros from the Shadow People, and we’ll need to do it quickly before they can send back up.”

“How do we do that?” Alex asked.

“We’ll need to make sure we draw the Shadow army away from the Gotoro base. That’s where we’ll attack first. Eliminate as many as we can and block off their access to weapons, vehicles, and any radio communication.”

“Maru and I could hack into their system,” Sebastian said. Maru jumped slightly at her name. She blinked a few times and yawned.

“Mhm,” she said as she drifted back off to sleep.

“Cut off their communication,” Sebastian continued. “Disarm any alarms, disable locks, you name it.”

“Ideally, that should be done before we make any other move,” Malone said. “Take out anything that could fuck up our plans. Could you and Maru sneak in?”

“I’ll go in with ‘em,” Gil volunteered.

Malone nodded. “The three of you can infiltrate their base. You’ll need to pull this off without them seeing you. As soon as they’re alerted, this all goes down the shitter.”

Sebastian nodded in understanding, but did not speak further.

Malone continued. “Assuming that goes off without any issue, we’ll be able to move forward and send a team to distract the Shadow People.” Malone pointed at a place on the map, in the area of the desert. “Najia, you said they had some kind of base here?”

Najia met Malone’s gaze. “Something like that,” she said.

“That’s where we found Morris,” Shane confirmed.

“We’ll send a team in there,” Malone said. “We need to avoid the sewers at all costs at this point. The sewers are likely where they thrive, and right now we only need a distraction. My team will make some noise. I want tanks, guns, you name it. The bigger of an attack this looks like, the better. Make them think we’re here to end it all, and they’ll likely send in their best brutes, leaving the Gotoro without their aid.”

Marlon rubbed his bearded chin as Malone continued.

“With the Shadow People distracted, we can move in on the Gotoro camp and, ideally, eliminate them from the game once and for all. With them out of the picture, that only leaves one player left.”

“Sounds like Maru and I got the hardest part,” Sebastian said with a grunt.

“Are you up for it?” Malone asked. “We’ll be prepared with back up should anything go wrong.”

Sebastian elbowed Maru, waking her once more.

“What’s going on?” she asked, still groggy.

“We’re sneaking in to the Gotoro camp and fucking shit up. You in?”

“Uh huh, sure. After I sleep for a week…” She leaned back into the chair and closed her eyes.

“Maru can send a drone over the camp before we go in,” Sebastian said, turning back to Malone. “Get a rough idea of the layout of their camp. It should be able to give us an idea of the buildings, the alarm systems, everything we need so we’re not going on blind.”