We have the fortune of having Doctor Caldwin from the Institute for Supergene Research here with Channel 55 News today. Alright what are we looking at here, Doctor?

Well I’ve always maintained that stuff like this is akin to gladiatorial combat! It’s extremely regressive and glorifies violence in people taxpayers are funding to protect us.

Only the winners, Doctor. The highest ranked among this cohort will be admitted to M.A.G.E’s frontline defense. The rest will serve supporting roles, no less important of course.

Wait, ranks? When did we start-?

Boy are we glad we got you out of your lab, you need some fresh air, Doctor. Anyways, as our cameraman draws close to the practicum city we see that M.A.G.E has put that hundred billion dollar expansion contract to good use. The testing area is bigger than ever, and we have an insider hint that they’re using next generation machines.

They were given that much?

Tell me what you foresee for this year’s applicants, Doctor.

Well, M.A.G.E has taken in more people than ever. Way beyond our initial projections for Supe birth rate and category distribution.

English, if you would.

The higher the category rating for a gift, the rarer it is. The more gifted babies are born, the more powerful gifts we might get. But this year M.A.G.E has recruited way more than what we estimated here at the Institute.

Why do you think that is?

Maybe our numbers are wrong.

We’ll see, doc, we’ll see.

---

What was this calm? A weekly quiz was usually enough to send Lyssa into an anxious mess. But this was no normal test, and she felt nothing. Zilch. Her mind was empty for once. She turned her head. Carrie was behind her, pretending not to look.

The applicants had lined up. All one thousand of them in a block like some Roman formation. A man with a clipboard stood on a raised platform. He tapped the microphone. People grimaced from the feedback.

“As you all know,” he said, “our fatality rate is zero.”

“You’re starting with that line?” Someone shouted.

“But that’s because every cohort we’ve had listened carefully,” he continued. “These machines were designed to be non-lethal. To gifted enhanciles. They will hurt. We’ve had plenty of close calls. So if you think you’re at your limit, don’t push it. There’s always next year. Our team of healers consists of ten cat-4’s and five cat-3 teleporters. If any of you don’t happen to have stats like that memorized, a cat-3 tele’s range is about half a kilometer. Keep an eye on where the medical VTOLs are. It may take seconds to get to you if you go down.

“There are objectives throughout the city. Androids we’ve programmed to be non-gifted victims. Assets of interest even. Every single one you escort to an extraction zone scores you a point. If they are relatively unharmed, two points. Every cat-2 machine you disable is half a point. Cat-3, a full point. Cat-4, two. Cat-5, ten points.”

There was murmuring at that last one.

“There’s a category 5 machine?” Someone said.

“That’s a bit much,” Another said.

“How do they control collateral with a cat-5?”

An applicant next to Lyssa leaned in.

“It’s kind of messed up they make this like a video game,” he said.

“I guess,” she said.

“I’m Johnny.” He extended a hand.

Lyssa took it after taking the hint.

“Lyssa.”

“Let’s meet up at the finish line.”

“Any questions?” The clipboard man said.

A hand shot up.

“Why weren’t we briefed on this earlier?”

“Do you honestly think a terrorist lets you know beforehand? Or a fire? Or a car accident? Any more stupid questions?”

Another hand.

“How are we supposed to take down a cat-5?”

“Make your own decisions in the field,” clipboard man said.

More murmurs. The answer was unclear. One final hand shot up.

“Time’s up,” clipboard man said. “The gates are fully open.”

The applicants began to walk towards the entrance. Lyssa’s eyes travelled upward. The walls were easily two hundred meters tall. They were made up of replaceable tiles. The architecture of the city grew in perspective as she walked closer. It was a cut-out of New Langshir itself.

In the distance, an attenuated orchestra played. Giant blimps carried massive screens overhead, no doubt in preparation for real-time clips and moments. For now, they played words from sponsors, and trailers for unrelated content.

None of it could be heard from the entrance. It felt weird to be among people again. Lyssa had gotten used to living alone. That had been loud enough. Despite being one of a thousand people walking together, it was oddly quiet.

The atmosphere palpably changed upon entering the city. Some of the applicants took flight. Some broke into a run, sprinting as fast as an automobile. A few formed groups and began to talk about strategies. How to take down a skirmisher bot. How to deal with the cat-5 bot.

Aaand they’re off! An announcer’s voice boomed.

A thousand applicants thinned in minutes. They knew exactly where to go, what to do, leaving Lyssa in the dust.

She had been driven by a whim she couldn’t define, and as a shameless ploy to not pay living expenses. These were young men and women who have had nothing on their minds but entering M.A.G.E., probably since they were a kid themselves.

A whim was a part of it. The cityscape was horribly familiar, even with all the uncanny emptiness, and the strange feeling that things weren’t in the right place. She saw a shell of Central Library, full of empty shelves. Shops with the lights turned off, advertising nothing at all. Apartments with no doors or furniture. The testing grounds looked like an eerie Cold-War era nuke town.

Down the road, the Redmason Constructor Group’s Tower jutted into the sky. Lyssa was used to seeing great balls of fire colliding through it as if it was not there. It was hard to believe Rachminau was only six years ago. She could still smell the rebar dust, shattered brick, and melted steel. The days of darkness stuck under a mountain of rubble. It seemed like yesterday.

Lyssa realized why some small part of her wanted to be a hero. She held onto the feeling and broke into a run.

All around her abilities against metal. A nearby hall collapsed as a four armed machine was thrown through it. She ducked, avoiding the blast of debris. The machine wasn’t dead. It tried to get back up, but was pummeled back to the earth by a twenty-foot tall woman.

“Hell yeah!” The giant exclaimed before returning to some other fight. The ground shook with every step of her exit. The machine sparked and died with a whining decrescendo.

There was another voice underneath the hollering and shaking. It came from the building the giant had just barreled through. Lyssa ran to it.

“Help!”

Not the first floor. She tried the second. In an unfurnished room, a generic-looking girl huddled. Her face flickered on occasion, but when it wasn’t, it resembled a reasonably scared human being. For a moment Lyssa saw herself curled up there.

“Come here,” she said.

“Help!”

“Right.” She walked forward and picked the android up. On closer inspection, the holographic face wasn’t very convincing.

“Happen to know where the muster points are?” Lyssa asked.

The android had no response.

“Of course.”

She returned to the street and looked around. In the distance, a trail of orange smoke ascended into the clouds.

“Take a guess,” Lyssa said to herself.

She made it three steps away before the ground rumbled, and the machine the giant had felled thrust itself back upright. The giant had not confirmed the kill. The machine’s actuators whined as it flexed its arms. Warhorns in its throat blew, as if to shout out in anger. For a second the sensor cluster on top of its neck shook, brushing the dust off its lenses. Then it turned, its many eyes focusing on Lyssa.