Being, as Star said, just an excuse to richer people kill Workers, there wasn’t a dress code to the tournament so the true stars of the event could shine the most, but I wasn’t really akin to die in a stream for the rich laugh while wearing a simple gray shirt, my simple face aside… so, I went to the shop that customized clothes in front of the hospital, dyed my overall, my uniform, black, and replaced my number by the word “HEAVY”, and put it over my gray shirt. To be honest, I thought about stamping a skull in it too, but got too shy to do it.

Of course, though, it wasn’t allowed to bring any tools, weapons, consumables nor anything that could be of help into the arena, and this was verified when the competitors crossed the gate of the enormous stadium, when our subscription was verified and a window at the corner of our eyes instructed us in how to proceed.

The competitors were entering the arena thru a gate separated from the public, a more elevated one that allowed us to see the line of people coming to their seats and to appreciate the killing. After crossing the entrance and guarantee that I wouldn’t become a slave, I stopped, turned around, and looked the audience. I knew that the Last Man Tournament wasn’t the most popular program out there, that most of its income came from upper classes that reserved a weekend in a month to kill a bunch of people, that the entire population of the City was in the googols in the mildest expectations, but, fuck, when you look at it, no, when they are looking at you, a hundred thousand people is a damn huge number!

“You’re in the way”, said the man wearing a (really) old-school camouflaged and sunglasses, not showing even a centimeter of his skin.

“Sorry”, I let him pass.

And, yet, when you have to kill them, a hundred people seem even more. I, then, turned to the competitors that were yet coming, men, women, young people, old people, all kinds of clothes, hairstyles, tattoos, and individualities, even though we were all Workers or Leaders, and ver similar. Some of them were saying farewell to others, some of them had depressed or sad or expressions full of fear. Everyone was there for a motive.

Everyone will die.

Finally, biting my lower lip, I proceeded like it was being instructed and walked to the end of the hallway and into a small room.

There were four lines of simple chairs facing a stage. Most of the seats were still empty, so I pick a random one and waited. As time went by and I had time to think about what I was doing, my anxiety just grew bigger and bigger.

One hour later and when 97 of the 100 seats were already properly being occupied; apparently two competitors had tried to escape and were, now, in jail, had been tracked down thru their Angels, waiting for their lifetime non paid service to begin, and the consecutive champion having no need to attend that reunion; a man… or woman… or, fuck, whatever it was, it was the pinnacle of beauty! Its skin had a pink tone, the same with its shoulder-length hair, but slightly darker, it had big black eyes, a slim body and even it’s provocative, sexy bored expression made me want to…!

No, fuck, what am I thinking about?! I shook my head from one side to another. Looking to the other participants, though, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one who got fascinated by the image of that person: men and women, all had their attention stolen by the newcomer, by that one that took the stage. A higher class, hu? I knew.

“Well, everyone’s here, then...”, the higher class said, messing with its hair, that almost shined. “Let’s start the presentation”, images of previous winners, the numbers in my bank account, the money, going up and cars, big houses and beautiful landscapes popped inside my eyes, and, I’m sure, the eyes of every other competitor. “Good morning, everyone, my name is Mercury Polae… Oh, yeah, my Registration Number is 18988723, but, please, uh...” it smiled. And I, shamefully, felt my heart beat a bit faster. “I never got really used to this culture of don’t have a name-”

“It’s not like anyone would call us by our names, anyway; banks, hospitals, the police, the politicians… So, why have the trouble of thinking remembering a name anyway?”, a woman, a participant with many tattoos in both arms said.

After coughing and retaking its public attention, the Mercury class continued:

“...As you already came to know when signed the contract, the Last Man Tournament is an event that happens every fifteen days, it’s a type of sport know as ‘survival game’; not to be confused with ‘VR survival game’ nor ‘cloning survivor game’; and it’s consisted of a hundred contributors, but, even if it’s a very physical sport, as you can see, we have no discrimination with age or sex, differently from our concurrent, what I personally think it’s a wonderful thing. We also are sponsored by very well known brands, like the energetic pills ‘Perfect Killer’, the app store ‘You, but Better!’, and many other, as you can see right now”, the sponsor's logos invaded my vision and listening senses as a wasps swarm. I had to close all of those dozens of windows advertising supplies, weapons, clothes, insurances, and even food one by one.

“Fuck, don’t invade my mind like this!”, complained a man wearing too many layers of cloth, as if it would guarantee some protection against the weapons we would come to use in the arena. “Why don’t you go direct to the point, hu?!”

“First of all: it’s not an invasion, you agreed that we would have some rights on your Guardian Angels, like verifying your position and showing a few adds during the tournament”, explained Mercury, still showing us its hollow and provocative smile. “But, well, once that we didn’t expect this many questions, we’re running short in time, so, you’re right; let’s skip a few details (like you’re rights) and talk about the rules already: first, the event takes place in a single day, so, by tomorrow, if you’re lucky, someone between you will be rich!”, no one laughed. “Second, to avoid problems with time, the area’s area gets smaller with time, and it’s better you stay inside of it, unless you’re really hot after all the exercise and want a cold breeze. Third, you can wear whatever the cloth you want, once that we are a pretty liberal company, but you can’t bring in nothing that will turn the match unbalanced; you can use your own programs, but the weapons have to be the ones inside the arena”, the guy with too many layers of cloth and the one in a set of camouflage rummage in their seats, for what Mercury laughed and added: “don’t worry, by ‘turn the match unbalanced’ I really mean your own weapons and armors, but this level of protection is at last allowed”, so, it’s not even a significant measure, hu? “Third: violence out of the arena won’t be allowed, but, we’re almost there, I know that you can endure just a few more minutes; and, finally, fourth: there can be only one survivor; because, who want to share our fortunes, right?” a new instruction, then, popped up, guiding me and the other competitors to a close door, when Mercury finally said: “the match is about to start”, he smiled again, but this time was different: when he looked to us, he was really enjoying it: “good luck, everyone”, he concluded in a much lower and colder tone.

When I got up and put myself to the said door, however, a pair stopped me, holding my shoulders. When I looked above my eyes, confused once that it was just said that violence out of the arena wouldn’t be tolerated, I felt shocked:

“See you in the arena, 46”, said Asshole

“...I warned you, 46. ‘Your luck won’t last forever’”, reiterated Douchbag.

Astonished, looking to the pair that vanished beyond the doors ahead, I hadn’t noticed that I was the last one in the room until Mercury pointed:

“Better don’t waste too much time: you’ll be tagged as a criminal”

“Ye- Yeah! Sorry”, Fuck, why did I stammered?!

Behind the door, a walkway full of guards led to a bright opening, a rectangle made of light. “Rapid Eyes Adjustment” being one of the programs that Aim gave me; along with “Think Faster: Thought Acceleration!”, “Certain kill methods 2000! Buy, now with 15% discount!”, “How to: shoot… But good!” and, least, “+40% Pain Resistance (Beware! You Can Still Die!)”; I identified the parking field way before getting out.

“Come on, laggard!”, a fat man spat on the ground before entering the luxury car, the beautiful black machine that he was leaning against. “We will be late!”

I entered the vehicle.

The car lifted from the ground without any noise nor heat and brought me; making a big circle around the entire stadium and the thousands that were jumping and screaming, getting excited with all the fireworks and famous bands and food and beer hawkers opening the show; to a, apparently, random position above the arena, and an area that looked like a generic container labyrinth, the arena this time being an entire inter-sector spaceship, the giant metallic flying machine at the center of the arena, right bellow the four screens attached to the ceiling (from outside, that entire place looking like just another gray block in an endless wall) that were showing the Number of the competitors while we jumped out of the cars.

“Hurry, laggard, or there will be no weapon left for you!”, the driver rushed me, opening the door.

The music was ending when I jumped out of the car and on a container. Immediately after it, the vehicle went away and I was left alone, the circular stadium and all its people staring in my direction; no, they aren’t looking to me. Actually, I doubt that any of them have enough money or the luck to be born with eyes good enough to see something at this distance. They must be watching some stream right now, following someone more interesting than me, someone who already entered in action or…

Then, the already deafening noise reached unimaginable levels, when a name but not a number was displayed at the screens above my head: “Buy This Products”. The former winner and a frequent participant had come; ah, so this is the purpose of these screens: it’s for us, I noticed that the inclination of the mentioned the exhibitor that contained our Numbers, an image of the ship that we were in and where we could go in it and a counter registering: 02/96. It wasn’t hard to connect the dots when almost all of the functions of our Angels were blocked.

No, now it’s not time to be spacing out! I said to myself, though, pretty aware that I was just trying to distract myself from the absolute pressure and fear. I just need to survive for around 6 hours! I mentioned the average time of a match of the Tournament. There’s no need to engage into combat, but having a gun increases my chances of surviving in a lot of times, I jumped onto a smaller pile of containers and, finally, to the ground.

“I can do this!” I heard. Coming right from behind me, just a second before my boots touched the floor.

“DOOOOM”, the metallic resonate echoed, the guy in full camouflage from before turning, from inside of the container, to my direction and we both staying there, none of us daring to make the first move.

“Diiie!”, he finally shouted, bringing me back to reality when pressing the trigger of the enormous light gray and blue gun he had while still moving its barrel, firing a pale light that froze and broke everything it touched, including the sides of the container.

Running the Thought Acceleration app, noticing that the laser was already too close of me, I quickly reached and closed the opened door, jumping away right before the heavy gate exploded in a thousand frozen fragments. No steps, breath nor any evidence of people ahead, I confirmed the absence of competitors in the direction I was running just before focus on the camouflaged guy behind me, listening to the nailing his feet into the ground to prepare to the next shot, aiming: I threw myself to the side just in time to see the pale light stealing the heat of the air where I was just a second ago.

A weapon! I saw, already running again and trying to get away from the camouflaged guy, mislead him in the container labyrinth.

“Yes!” a girl with big earrings that appeared from nowhere said, grabbing the machine gun from the ground, smiling. I couldn’t commit the same mistake twice, though: when she noticed me, letting an acute scream escape her mouth, I was already far away, having only glimpses of the absurd amount of light her weapon made, and, grabbing the edge of one of those metallic boxes, climbing it and jumping out of the labyrinth.

Yes, I can’t commit the same mistake twice! I thought, searching for danger; I shouldn’t have let me get so focused on the weapon! And, founded it. Not a weapon, but the danger, of course: the sounds of the two from before aside, I could smell the sweat bitterness brought by the wind from the left.

Being between a series of boxes and chests, I hide behind one that said “TOOLS”. Listening to the fast and heavy breathing of the person that just came into the same area as I was, I sneakily went for the box content, searching for something, anything, that I could use to defend myself. When my hand comes back, though, closed into a fist and holding it’s content firmly, loosening my grip close to my face I saw only a bunch of tubs of hyper glue. Fuck, I thought.

“Fuck” I said, seeing the camouflaged guy coming from the top of the same container I had just jumped from, all stained with blood and holding the machine gun from the previous girl; the heavy breather from before was still behind me and, then the two competitors new my position.

I jumped the toolbox and sprinted straight to the heavy breather, that revealed himself to be a pretty slim guy, as if just to go against my expectations, holding a pistol with the left hand, a submachine gun with the right one giant precision rifle, and carrying, yet, an entire arsenal in his back, waist and even boots.

“GRENADE!” I shouted when noticing that camouflage-man starting to fire, activating my Eyes Adjustment program, giving my back to the heavy breather, and throwing the glue to the first one.

The camouflaged guy jumped from the container and my “grenades”, but not before shooting and the blinding heavy breather for time enough for me… run away once again.

After all, I had been shot.

Seeing a ventilation duct sticking out of the ground, I kicked the fan-thing at its top and jumped inside of it, allowing myself to fall into the darkness and to the depths of the ship, controlling the descent with my back and legs.

If we were all brought here by those cars, this means that everyone is around the ship deck! Also, the best weapons must more distant from the initial positions! I thought, clenching my teeth.

Finally stopping and reaching a “T” intersection, I looked up and saw the blood trail that I left against the insides of the duct. Biting my lower lip, I thought “I don’t have any weapon, nor access to most of the functions of my Angel, so I don’t know how much time went by or people are alive... Everything went wrong already, hu?”. When, against the bright light up there, I saw a camouflaged face, even more stained with blood, showing up. Staring straight into my eyes, he said:

“Grenade”, he let a sphere fall. But, this time, I knew, it was a real explosive.

Immediately kicking the grid I was facing, I jumped out of the duct, and seeing a half-opened thick metal door, I invaded a random room and locked myself inside of it. The door almost closet, however, I could see clearly a man looking, confused, at the left end of the corridor, to my direction, wearing some kind of armor for the arms.

The “click!” listened, I retreated from the door and, seeing that I was inside a luxurious kitchen, to behind a balcony close. Soon after this, “BUM”, the grenade exploded, and an intense heatwave rapidly reached me at the same time that a white mist touched all the surfaces that weren’t uncovered. The effect persisted during only one second, and in a blink of an eye the light and mist had already vanished, but the metal touched by the white gas was emitting an unpleasant “shhh”, glowing incandescent, and everything else was in fire.

Even though I’m heat resistant by nature, if that mist had touched me, I probably would be in trouble now… I thought, ignoring the flames and walking thru the broken door and away from the room, just to see a perfect spherical empty space in the place of the ventilation duct, as if all the metal that was once there had been evaporated.

“Ugh…!” I heard. “Ugh…! Ugh…!” Looking to my left and to the end of the corridor, and saw the body of the man who I saw wearing armor for the arms earlier covered in liquid, burning metal, moving slowly, his heat resistance only meaning that he would suffer more before finally die, boiling, suffocating, the metal had invaded his lungs, putting him inside a dark world, blinded by the incandescent liquid that invaded all his orifices.

For a moment I asked myself if I should help him, put an ending to his suffering, but when I remembered myself that I didn’t have weapons to do this, I decided to let him aside and walk away. And felt relieved to don’t have to take responsibility, to kill him, and bear the weight of his life on my shoulders.

Had again searched the area for more competitors, I entered another room and locked the door behind me. Even before looking for weapons, I analyzed the wound at my left ribs: pushing the cloth aside, there was a bunch of red circles on my skin and, sticking out of then, pointy bones. I had shiverings when imagining what would happen to me if the firing had got me right, but, fortunately it wasn’t bleeding as much as I thought it was; I should have been dragging it against the duct walls, I explained to myself, almost crying out of the relief. Yet, it needed treatment anyway.

Looking around, I found black a submachine gun inside a cabinet, and a kitchen knife on a table, besides a bunch of chairs, tables, cups and plates.

“What kind of luck do I have?”, I said, laughing bitterly.

Taking the knife, I cut a piece of my overall and tied it to my side and wound, at the same time rethinking my plans: okay, I’m a little injured, but I have a gun now, so (I hope) this makes things equals: it’s not like nothing changed, I still don’t need to engage in combat. Actually, now that I can at least protect myself, I should start to look for a place to hide. Let me see, this ship have a “H” shape, with two big thrusters at its sides, its made all in metal with a deck full of cargo, tools and machines and ducts so air tanks can be saved when not in space. While the decks have plenty of objects pilling up, it’s not a great place to wait: it’s still too open and, if anyone climbed the tower at the center of the ship, it would have a clear vision of the entire surface of the vessel. On the other side, while the lower levels of the ship probably have fewer people, when the circle around the arena starts to contract, the ones deep there will have to come up and face people that already firmed better positions.

Verifying the ammunition of the submachine gun, a number that invaded my eyes when I took the weapon, alongside other information, like its heat and my heartbeats, I concluded:

Yes: this is the best place I could be right now. I will make barricade for me, keep my thought acceleration program running, watching for anything that get close, and wait!

Then, a map of the ship appeared in opposition to my ammunition and displayed the area of the arena getting smaller. And letting outside, including, of course, the area that I was in at that moment, of course…

“The arena is already shrinking?! And, why the center of the field isn’t the center of the ship but that tower?!”, I remembered what Star had talked about, the opening band, the fireworks, continuing: “for the show, right?” I bit my lower lip in frustration. Noticing how fast the allowed area was contracting, not knowing how close I was of a stair or elevator I shouted, everything going wrong once again, sprinting to the door I locked and corridor away: “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

The counter of my heartbeats that invaded my field of vision; and was showing alarming numbers, flashing in red, my mind failing in keeping concentrated in my surroundings; changed from the three digits to an entire message saying “SOLDIER IN RISK! MEDICATION NECESSARY!” once that, turning at the first intersection, I saw myself facing yet another competitor; the guy who was wearing too many layers of cloths. The stair was just after him, at his back when he turned to face me, and I had around three minutes move up around 2 floors. But the guy with too many layers of cloth was already shooting.

I retreated and hide behind the wall of the intersection and waited, hoping that the guy who was wearing too many clothes wold retreat; the messages continued, changing to “FORTIFICATION ARMOR SIGNAL LOST: CALLING FOR MEDIC... MEDIC SIGNAL LOST: CALLING FOR RETREAT ORDER… SUPERIORS SIGNAL LOST. SAVING SOLDIERS DATA FOR POSTERIOR IDENTIFICATION”.

Did he went away already...? I asked myself.

Peeping, I was quickly answered with a fast orange sphere as big as a fist that, touching the wall close to me and at the end of the corridor, it contracted and compressed the metal it had touched into a ball smaller than my (already healed by Aim’s fortification treatment) little finger’s nail.

Fuck, man, what are you waiting for?! Go away already! I looked to the ship 3d image that showed where I was and the allowed area getting smaller and smaller, and noticed that I had already lost around one-third of the time I had. One third?! I almost shouted. And he is still there; does he don’t know that, if we get behind, he will die? what do I do, what do I do, what do I do…?!

“Crushhhh” I heard cracking sounds getting closer, and knew that it was the arena’s border coming, freezing metal and flesh.

“...There’s no other choice, hu?”, I took a deep breath (it didn’t help), and stepped into the intersection seeing already a dozen new orange spheres coming fast in my direction.

“Gear, I’ll definitely save you!”.

Using my thought acceleration at it’s maximum, I started to run straight to my opponent, moving my head just the necessary to the right to avoid the strange bullet, my spinning to the left without stopping moving; concentrated always in the next second and action; jumping above one sphere and again between two of them, quickly getting up with a tumble. Still, there was yet a million of other spheres coming to me, filling the entire corridor, the guy wearing too many clothes screaming and pressing the trigger with all his might.

I threw my knife into the sphere closest to the ground and, seeing both projectiles vanishing into a tinny ball when contact was made, I slipped through the small opening in the wall of fire; when already at the other side of it, my senses at their peak, I listening to the guy wearing too many layers of cloth gasping, the sound of his trigger being repeatedly pulled, my body still sliding on the ground, I pushed my left hand against the floor, executed a somersault, nailed my feet firmly to the ground, pressed my gun’s barrel onto my opponent’s forehead. And pulled the trigger only once, looking him right into the eyes.

The machine gun emitted a vibrating sound in one second, and in the next moment the head that it was facing was undone in a warm pink soup, the body bellow it falling to the ground, its neck spilling blood everywhere with amazing pressure and painting the walls, floor, and ceiling with red.

Even though losing time, I stayed there, still, staring the same point where, just before, there was a pair of despaired eyes, a past, wills, dreams, a person. My right arm relaxed, going to my side once again. My fingers were losing their grip too, and my knees were trembling. Right before all my strength go away, though, I heard, from deep inside:

“...You will come back to me”

With a “thump!”, I almost pierced thru the stair’s first step with my boot.

“I can't give up now, right, Gear?” I said, giving my best to bury that overwhelming guilty. And saw the message at the corner of my eyes, the measurer of my heartbeats, go back to the three digits, then two red numbers, then stabilize in a pair of green ones.