That night in the clinic numbered among one of the most nerve-wracking in my life. And I’d spent a lot of cold nights in the back alleys of Cornell City as a brat growing up, believe me. It was either that or the couch of whatever skeeze-bag my mom was sleeping with at the time; cold concrete offered more shelter than the hands of the beaters.

Doctor Crass came in every hour to administer some kind of bluish-green injection into my forearms and thighs. When I protested the first time around, images of underground labs and genetic experimentation floating in my head, he pushed my arm aside.

“It’s a damn biological accelerant. Makes you heal faster. Ain’t gonna melt your brains or your balls, nothing like that. Put your damn hand down.” The doctor so tenderly reassured me.

The mix didn’t appear to alter my body in any noticeable way. It gave me an appetite like a starving hound, though. Doctor Crass was prepared for this and brought lukewarm slop by the bowl-full every hour. It didn’t warm the heart but it numbed the pangs.

Oh and to top it all off, there’s no such thing as sleep in the BIOS system. Terrence pretended to sleep to ignore my attempts at conversation, but I felt no compulsion to drift off into slumber. After what I calculated to be about five days in the BIOS system I hadn’t slept once; it should not have been a problem to drift off. Even when I laid down and forced my eyes shut for a full feeding cycle I couldn’t manage to so much as doze.

It was impossible to tell day or night in the cloistered sickbay, but I counted twelve feeding cycles and figured it had to have reached morning. The pasty woman had been dismissed several hours prior and Terrence not long after. I suppose his gunshot wounds really were superficial.

Either way, it made my final hours quite lonesome. When Doctor Crass came in with his clipboard to inform me my time was up, I jumped at the chance to vacate the dusty place. Another hour there and I would've gone stir crazy and started bashing my head against the drab paneling. I was halfway out the door before he stopped me.

“That will be 15,000 credits.”

I whipped around, eyebrows raised.

“15,000 credits? To be stuck and fed like a pig?”

“Of course. It’ll be charged directly to your account. No action on your part. Carry on.” The mustachioed man waved me along and buried his face back into his clipboard.

Bold-faced thieves, the lot of ‘em. Every damn part of LimeLight seemed to squeeze every last penny out of you. It’s not like it cost anything to nurse me back to health with artificial supplies!

I checked my total after the last rounds winnings and my unexpected medical bill:

120,000 Credits

Still a tidy sum. I didn’t have much of a shopping plan to blow it all on. It might be a good opportunity to pay off more of my debt. 15 million felt like an insurmountable summit but every little payment would help.

As I strode down the cracked pavement streets, passing by cheap vendor storefronts of mismatched metals and derelict boarded up buildings, I noticed marginally less passerby. There were still several hundred in my eyeshot alone, but it didn’t seem nearly as packed as it had been after the first round. Perhaps there were still many left to complete the preceding round?

I doubted it. It had been a full day already - at least in LimeLight time. It seemed they had done a good job of culling the numbers and limiting the pool to only the most cunning and brutal. I mentally patted myself among the back. I somehow had managed to slip in with the best of them.

Turning a corner along the route from the clinic, I found the southern entrance of the familiar urban courtyard. It had notably expanded in size since my last visit, however, and risen several stories to tower over the slums I found myself in. A whole second floor rose in an octagonal shape within the surrounding first layer of vendors, kiosks, and public seating, with the ivory fountain as its focal summit.

Eight staircases spread equidistantly around the plaza led up to this new “tier” of storefronts. The buildings were a straight upgrade from their feeble vendor counterparts. While the vendor stalls were essentially countertops encased with three walls of sheet metal and refined plastic casing, the upper layer buildings reminded me more of general stores or small pawn shops.

I decided not to waste my time with the deprecated layer 1 vendors and headed for the nearest staircase. As I ascended the staircase by the jumbled row of dealers, though, something caught my eye. A widescreen projected in above the central fountain of the plaza, showcasing what appeared to be contestants in real-time.

No. No that wasn’t it. These must be the highlights that Dolos had mentioned in our pre-round brief. I found a deserted bench nestled between a consumable items store and munitions vending machine and took a load off to watch the flickering blue screen.

The first recording showed a figure wrapped in linen from head to toe hunting down his opponent in what looked like a massive carnival tent. I couldn’t tell the figure’s gender or species on account of the black mask that obscured his entire face. In place of eyes, he sported two bionic lenses of differing sizes that constantly shifted to focus on his surroundings. The point-of-view contestant wielded what looked like a harpoon gun, except the shimmering harpoon bolt nested in the crook of the weapon had a blue, laser-like wire attached to its butt.

The harpoon man spotted his opponent, a panicked looking swarthy fellow with a common ballistic pistol clung tightly to chest, he brought the harpoon to bear and fired it across the length of the tent.

Now when I said this tent was massive, I meant it. I’m talking as large as the Hub courtyard, possibly a whole kilometer in length. On top of that, the stands were populated with AI just like my own instance to obscure the identity of the two contestants. There was even a live show going on in the sandy pit of the pavilion. A suited man under a tophat coaxed a white lion through a series of flaming hoops, tuna in hand.

The energized harpoon sailed over the spectacle and embedded itself in the neck of the other contestant. The barbed tip ripped through the other side of the man’s neck, and the electric wire fried him until smoke rose from the edges of his hair - just for good measure.

When his body crumpled to the floor, another reel took place of the carnival slaughter. This one showed what appeared to be a cargo ship under the cover of night. A tempest hurled buckets of rain and sleet on the deck of the vessel. Branches of lightning formed on the inky horizon, offering brief illumination of the scene. It took me a moment to focus in on our hero, a gray-skinned Undu Shadow who had pressed himself between two shipping containers to avoid the prying flashlights of several roving sentries.

When the two lights passed by in the darkness, the Undu made his move. He slithered over to the light closest to mid-deck and slit the guard’s throat. The light extinguished. Our scaly friend dumped the body where he had just been hiding and carried on toward the life-boats on the side of the vessel.

He had just laid a clawed hand on the hoisting ropes of his escape dinghy when another flashlight emerged from behind a maze of cargo crates.

Thinking quickly, the reptilian balanced his blade between two crooked fingers and sent it sailing through the darkness. It met its target’s cranium, and the light spilled to the floor before rolling over the side of the ship. The Undu hopped into his victory boat and lowered himself before the feed cut.

“Brilliant! Another stunning play! I wouldn’t challenge Contestant #14,609 to a game of darts, that’s for sure. We’ll be right back folks, after these sponsored messages.” The voice of Dolos projected over the loudspeakers in the courtyard.

I left as a commercial for some household cleaning bot named Aunt Maury appeared on the screen. I scanned my new and improved options.

From the signs I could tell there was a weapon’s shop, an armor shop, and what appeared to be a repair station. Nothing very distinct from the bottom layer. That is until a bright blue sign with the image of a gear and lightning bolt caught my eye. Some kind of tech store? The silvery exterior had no windows to peer through, so it was difficult to evaluate from the outside.

My curiosity brought me through the sliding door out front and into the shop’s lobby. Several workstations outfitted with computer monitors and soldering benches lined the chrome walls of the building. There was no specific countertop or salesman to ply his wares, only a robot sporting two chainsaw arms and shoulder-mounted light machine guns to monitor the merchandise. How welcoming.

Glancing nervously over at the guard bot, I made my way to the nearest workstation. It booted to life as I stood in front of the monitor and ATHENA’s voice kicked on.

“Welcome to the Technic’s Guild! Here you can upgrade your cybernetics with some ingenuity and elbow grease - no fees applied! Be careful as you tinker with your equipment, LimeLight is not liable for any malfunctions that may occur from unsanctioned modifications.”

It had been so long since I heard her voice, I almost missed the eerily cheery AI woman. Almost.

While I could try to mess with the programming of my chip, another idea popped into my head. I still had the Falconer’s watch but had not yet the chance to take a look at its guts. I plopped the sleek black device on the workbench and the computer screen populated with information.

Level II Synchronization Watch

Current Status:

Operational

Features:

Touch-screen commands

Livestream surveillance

Weapon module access

Strategy setting overlay

Bot vitals monitor

Currently Synchronized Bot:

None

Sweet. A fully functional device for managing a combat drone. Too bad I didn’t have one and had no idea where to get one. It didn’t appear that the robot guard would have any on hand, so I gave him a wistful nod and departed the store. I would certainly make a return in the future.

“You have another meeting request from your agent! This is not optional. You will be transported immediately.”

Yeah. Didn’t miss that voice.

“If it’s a request, why isn’t it optional?”

ATHENA didn’t respond. Instead, she took the liberty of teleporting me back to the dreadfully decorated room I had met Tyrus in.

Before my eyes could adjust to the sudden decrease in light, my agent issued his first command.

“Sit. Let’s get this over with.”

“Not excited to see me, Tyrus? I figured that surviving Round 2 would come as a delightful surprise to you.”

I blindly stumbled forward until I groped the backing of my chair. The familiar coolness of the metal seat caught my rear.

“Do not get friendly with me, Mallory. While it is indeed fortuitous you managed to win another round, I am anything but ‘delighted’ to see you.”

Oh that Tyrus, playing coy.

“Alright, alright. So what does that bring my standing debt to?”

“Not enough to go free.”

My vision focused on the tawny face of my agent. His brows furrowed to cast his chiseled face in a more serious expression than last time if that were possible.

“I have not brought you here to discuss your financial situation - I am not your banker. Instead, I have for you a gift from the Organization that, in my opinion, you do not deserve.”

A gift? From a shadowy interstellar syndicate? What could go wrong?

“It is not only information on the next type of round that will take place, but a device that will aid you in its completion. Since you have succeeded in two combative rounds already the Organization has deemed it necessary to invest minimally in your continued success.”

“I’m truly honored.” I raised my eyebrows in mock astonishment and nodded my head solemnly.

“I would very much like to crush your skull one day, Mallory.”

Irritation, in a spectrum ranging from minor to major aggression, seemed to be the only emotion Tyrus could portray.

“But you still have use to us yet. I will make this brief. The next round will be a Labyrinth Round. In a Labyrinth Round, you are placed in a randomly generated maze of indeterminate size. Each contestant has their own instance to solve. The Labyrinths are not safe, however; they are home to any number of traps, hostile creatures, and robotic sentinels. You are expected to be able to handle these marginal threats with ease, and thus the second half of your investment.”

My agent produced a black chip the size of a grain of rice from his pocket.

“This is an exit beacon tracker. Hold it in your hand like a compass and follow the yellow flash on its tip to gain the general locus of the exit node. It is not a very complex technology, but this is all that can be smuggled into a round of LimeLight without immediate detection.”

“You can smuggle contraband into a virtualized instance?”

“Don’t get so excited, Mallory - I know cheating is your aphrodisiac. You will do exactly as I say and ask for nothing more. Load this grain into the chamber of your Saker 55 and nowhere else. When a person is virtualized in the BIOS system, every atom is scanned and filtered. When that person’s weapons are virtualized upon travel in the BIOS system, however, a hash code associated with the weapon is checked for authenticity and not its entire structure. This is to limit processor stress on the system. That is what we are exploiting to get this device into the labyrinth.”

Fascinating. A way to bypass the stringent detection systems of BIOS. I figured it was all but impossible.

“How do you know so much about how BIOS works?” I tried the surly agent.

“I told you not to ask me anything. Listen to my complete instructions. When you reach the exit node you will destroy this device, do you understand?” The towering man leaned forward expectantly.

I nodded my head.

“Good. I have nothing further to say to you besides do not lose, and do not get caught with this. Carry on.” He plopped the device on the white plastic table. As soon as I grabbed it, light flooded from the corners of my vision.

I plopped back down on the street outside of the Technic’s Guild. There were too many people walking around the avenue for me to safely proceed with hiding the beacon. A nearby alley between two gray-brick store buildings beckoned me to its cover.

As I leaned against the wall, my back to the traffic passing by the mouth of the alley, I propped back the bolt of my Saker. I deposited my contraband inside and slammed it shut. If I were caught with this thing, what would happen? Would it be an instant disqualification and sentencing to the testing labs?

That lanky bitch had gotten in my head too much. For all I knew she had just given me a couple of ghost stories to rile me up. LimeLight couldn’t actually be running a genetic testing lab on failed contestants, right? I needed to get my hands on a copy of my contract.

With the deed done I hurried back to the main walkway to blend in with the passing bodies. A homely looking gray-brick cottage that sagged a bit under the weight of its carbon paneled roof bore the name “Wally’s Emporium” in a rainbow of neon. A relation to Dally, perhaps?

The point-eared robot inside certainly reminded me of the cheery fellow down below. This one was a rusty shade of yellow instead of the light crimson of his brother.

“Welcome to Wally’s Emporium! From shocks to shells, and brass to bows we’ve got it all!”

“Heard it before. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

And seen it before too. Everything appeared identical except for a few uncommon tier automatics that didn’t fit my fighting style. At the bottom of the list though, I found a new category of weaponry: Thrown Explosives.

With my round 2 win contingent on the devastating power of a couple of hand-held plasma grenades, I decided to scoop a few for myself. I bought three more plasma grenades for the total price of 30,000 credits. I wasn’t sure what kind of monsters and death-bots I’d be facing in the labyrinth, but a sufficient amount of plasma could deal with just about anything.

“Thanks, Wally!” I said, depositing the three spheres carefully into my belt.

90,000 Credits

“Come back anytime!”

The adjacent storefront had no name but bore a shield logo flashing overhead.

The coral-colored Retan at the counter inside accosted me as soon as I entered.

“Leather crap won’t block anything! Come over here and let Daryak sort you out!”

“Whaddya got Daryak?”

“Real armor. Thick carbon-fiber, reflective plasteel, good old dragonskin plating, what do you need?”

“Nothing that heavy, I’m afraid.” I worried about what the burden of such cumbersome armor would feel like on my frame. It would lend to a better sense of security but would leave me immobile on the battlefield.

“Bah! I knew it. Humans powerful enough to carry Daryak’s craft are rarer and rarer these days.” The Retan grumbled, stroking at the thin tendrils of a gray beard.

I apologized and made my way out of the store. It seemed like this was an armory for heavy-warrior types. Nothing for me here.

“All contestants report to the fountain for the next round in… 30 minutes! Make all final purchases and prepare for battle!”

That same falsetto voice broke in over the intercom system outside. Why couldn’t any of these LimeLight people just talk normally for once? It was giving me a damn migraine.

30 minutes left. I trusted the word of Tyrus. Odd to trust a member of the organization that sold you to intergalactic gladiatorial combat, I know. He just had one of those faces you could rely on I guess. He was a man to do what he said. Given the threat he had leveled at me earlier, this wasn’t always a comforting thing I suppose.

With nothing else to do I meandered back to the staircase and down into the general plaza. A contraband chip and insider knowledge into the round to come. Despite my edge, I couldn’t shake the growing butterflies in my stomach. Cheating didn’t bother me one bit - hell I made a living off of it.

What bothered me was the notion of my deceit being discovered by the BIOS system and waking up again in my cell, this time with a pair of guards ready to haul me off into the belly of the beast.