“Wait, what?” Botis asked, his demeanor changing once again.

“It’s true,” Donut said. “They just told us in our messages. They said they’ve been trying to tell you all about it because you control the tunnels or whatever they’re called, but you’ve been leaving them on read.”

The line of goats all started to make braying noises. All the spotlights turned on at once, showing the caprids descending into panic. Across from me, the door back to the greenroom opened, and Lexis stepped into the studio, eyes huge.

“The Epicure,” one of the goats said. “We shall manifest the Epicure.”

“The True Judgment,” another said. “She has fulfilled her bargain.”

“Stampede,” another shouted. “The great stampede comes.”

“The beautiful place,” said yet another, followed by a screaming bleat.

Prime Minister Victory: Carl, that was reckless, even for you.

Carl: Please. You knew exactly what was going to happen when you asked me.

Orren: You’re not wrong. We knew it was a possibility. We had no other choice.

Carl: If the AI didn’t want this getting out now, he wouldn’t have allowed it. And based on the way these nutjobs are acting, it looks like you haven’t been trying too hard to speak with them. They clearly didn’t know.

Prime Minister Victory: You don’t understand anything, Carl.

Carl: I understand that you’re as in the dark as I am. The only difference is I’m not pretending like I know what is happening.

One of the goats, Bathin with the jowly face, just started screaming. This wasn’t like a Prepotente scream but a humanlike wail, and I couldn’t tell if it was joyful or panicked. Two of the goats had fallen right off their chairs and were on their backs, stiff as boards, arms and legs raised in the air, almost like they were dead.

Donut: YOU KNOW WHAT THIS REMINDS ME OF? THOSE CITY ELVES ON THE THIRD FLOOR WHEN THEY WERE LOOKING AT MY BUTT.

Carl: I was just thinking the same thing.

Donut: THE MIDNIGHT EPICURE. ISN’T THAT THE GOD PREPOTENTE WORSHIPS?

Carl: Yes. And I have his patch on my jacket.

Donut: AND ARE THEY EXCITED BECAUSE THEY THINK THE GOD IS REAL NOW? I’M SO CONFUSED.

Carl: Yeah . . . I have no clue.

We sat there as the goats, including Botis the host, continued to slide into panic.

I’d seen this before, but with real goats. When one freaked out, they all did. It would escalate and escalate until it came to a head, and they’d scatter.

One of the goats was not reacting. This was a female Harbinger-style goat still sitting on her chair, glaring at me. This was the one who’d cleared her throat when Bathin was explaining the Justice Light trap to me.

“It’s my turn to judge you,” she said once we met eyes.

Lexis: Carl, Donut, just be aware that we are still live.

Zev: What the heck is going on? I was too busy to watch, and now the entire board is lit up. Carl, what did you do?

Donut: THIS WASN’T CARL’S FAULT. NOT THIS TIME.

Lexis: It’s a little bit his fault.

Donut: WELL, IT’S ALWAYS A LITTLE BIT HIS FAULT.

I examined the goat glaring at me. This one was pretty evil-looking. Honestly, I couldn’t tell these things apart, though this one wore a strangely ornate belt around her waist, cinching her robes.

This is Gamori. She was the lead engineer of the Plenty Tunnel Project and is the current Matriarch of the Plenty. In other words, she’s the boss. She looks mad. Probably because she just got caught out not relaying vital information to the rest of her herd.

All around us, the other goats devolved into full-blown panic. Suddenly, as one, they all bolted to the left, stampeding out of the room and through the wall, their holos flickering as they disappeared. Botis ran right through us. And it wasn’t just the ones who’d been sitting in a circle, but multiple other goats who’d been invisible until just that moment. These were techs and assistants, all scattering away, leaving Gamori and the two that had fainted on the floor as the only caprids in the room.

The goat spoke after a moment. Her strange eyes bored into mine.

“You are rash. You are impulsive. You are loud. You make sudden movements. You are a troublemaker. You startle us, and you attract attention. When we sponsored you, it was at the behest of our partner. I worried against it, but we thought perhaps it was for the best. I was waiting to respond to this new predator in the forest, to study its movements and its implications. Your declaration has removed the ability for thoughtful reaction. You have invoked a stampede, and we will not stop running until we are safe.”

“None of those are questions,” I said.

“No, they are not. This is judgment. I ask no questions of you. I do not consider you an enemy. But you are too dangerous to walk amongst the herd.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Why are you even here if you didn’t want this to come up?”

The goat jumped to her feet.

“How dare you ask questions of me when you weren’t invited! How. Dare. You?”

“Well, that was a question, so I’ll ask again. Clearly you guys aren’t normally on this show. So why are you even here?”

She burst into tears.

“Now you’ve done it,” Donut muttered.

The goat started making loud, snot-filled gasps as she went from a stoic leader to a blubbering mess. I hadn’t realized this sort of reaction was a caprid-specific thing and not just a Prepotente thing.

She blubbered, literally shaking as she talked.

“We wanted to do something special for you because you’re doing such a good job and you’re best friends with our champion. And the council really wanted to meet Princess Donut because she’s so wonderful and beautiful and sassy. The kids all love you both. I’ve been too scared to tell everyone about what’s happening because I just knew they’d take it as a sign that the end-times are here. We can’t startle my people with information like that, or they react. I was going to go slow. I didn’t think.” She started smacking herself in the head with her hand. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

“Err,” I said.

One of the two fainted goats jumped to his feet, looked about the room, let out a yelp, and promptly fainted again, arms and legs once again stiff.

I met eyes with Lexis as the goat continued to smack herself. Lexis mouthed, What the fuck?

“Okay” I said after a minute. “Stop. Just stop. Listen, I⁠—”

Crack!

“Mother,” a new voice said.

“Oh, fuck,” I said, jumping out of my chair. I tried to step away, and I stumbled because of the damn suit.

Harbinger. The giant goat liaison had teleported into the room right behind me. He was really here standing right behind us. I could smell the heavy, animal musk of his presence. The giant caprid had an enormous pulse rifle. He wasn’t looking at me, but at Gamori, who stopped hitting herself and stared up at the newcomer.

Donut yowled in surprise and jumped to my shoulder, her claws out, digging dangerously into me.

“I told you of my suspicions,” Harbinger rumbled. “I warned you what was going to happen. You did not listen. And now you have not prepared the herd for the truth.”

“Did he just call her ‘mother’?” Donut whispered.

“You have been judged unworthy of the herd. You have been expelled,” Gamori hissed at Harbinger as she wiped her snotty nose and eyes on her own fur. “You know you can’t be here. You know you can’t speak to me.”

“Yet I protect the herd, and you do not,” he growled.

She pointed a finger at the goat. “You have no right. No right to even speak to me. Begone!”

I eyed the gun warily. I made a little hop backward. We were in the production facility, not the dungeon. I only had limited ability to respond. My tech shield would work, but I’d never seen that sort of pulse rifle before. It was huge. At this range, two or three shots would probably melt me.

The second fainting goat awakened, got to his feet, and bolted.

“I have sacrificed everything to protect the herd,” Harbinger barked. The bass of his voice rattled my teeth. “The moment I saw how many Residuals were in the dungeon, the moment I learned how unstable the AI was, and how it favored this predator, I feared this exact thing would happen. I told you. I warned you. I warned you all. You didn’t respond. Nobody helped me. I have been alone in this. I am so lonely. But I have not forgotten my duty, Mother. You asked me once why I didn’t exert myself at the end of our circles. Exertion is supposed to be an expression of joy and of comfort. Well, Mother, I will exert myself now. I will protect the herd. I will protect the universe. I will do what should have been done from the very start.”

He turned to me and raised the gun.

And that’s when, finally, the AI intervened.

Harbinger exploded.

More accurately, everything on the inside of his goat body was suddenly on the outside of his goat body.

There was a sucking, sludgy sound, not loud. More like the sound of a stuck boot being yanked out of mud. Harbinger sprayed outward, the consistency of his innards like warm jam being sprayed out of an excited showerhead.

The gun clattered to the ground, splotching into the thick gore.

Nobody moved or said a thing for several moments.

Donut, Lexis, and I were just covered in dead goat.

The entire room was covered with the gore. It plopped and dripped from the ceiling in thick, hairy clumps. Donut started hacking.

The holo of Gamori lowered her head. “All stampedes have their casualties,” she said sadly before she disappeared with a blink.

Zev: Holy fucking shit. Did that really just happen? Is everyone okay?

From my shoulder, Donut continued to hack.

Lexis’s tablet was on the floor, and she had something in her hand. A gun. She hadn’t fired it. She returned it to a hidden holster on her back. She slowly reached down and picked up the dropped computer. She shook it a few times, gore and blood spraying from it. She used her sleeve to clean the screen.

She’d gotten covered worse than we had. She looked as if she’d been dipped in a river of gore. She pressed a button.

Lexis looked up at us, smiling grimly, her teeth shockingly white against the carnage.

“The good news is,” she said as liquefied innards dripped from her nose, “that the viewer ratings on this episode are the highest they’ve ever been.”