said RTIFIS.

His HUD generated three highlighted arcs that moved in tandem with Player 77 across the battlefield, but one of the three was a thicker, brighter line, so Nic selected this one. He pulled a Grenade pin and chucked it as faithfully to the AI-curated path as possible. It exploded on the ground a couple meters behind its intended recipient, resulting in reduced damage.

PLAYER 77 [########-_]81%

Nic tried another one, but panicked at the last second—he didn’t know if Grenades could do damage to Upgrade Paks or render them unusable, so he overcorrected mid-throw, destroying his accuracy. This one didn’t even make contact.

Plan B, he thought. He raised his SMG as he ran, slowing his movement speed slightly.

Recoil, user motion, moving target—RTIFIS was designed to help account for all of these, depending on what Nic needed help with the most. Even still, not every shot in his magazine was a perfect hit. He reminded himself that RTIFIS was not an auto-aim; it responded to his input, and he couldn’t rely on it to score him an easy kill. RTIFIS was a sword, not a soldier in its own right.

Player 77 had so far avoided engaging, trading it for the increased movement speed. But Nic had had a head start, making their ETA to the prize roughly equivalent anyway. Nic could see this realization click in the head of the expressionless automaton—a second later, it drew its own SMG and returned fire.

PLAYER 77 [#####_____]50% PLAYER 443 [######-___]62%

Player 77 lobbed both their Grenades, one after another. Nic grabbed the first one off the ground and pitched it into the air. The second one sailed past his shoulder and, coupled with his movement speed, it put some distance between him and the explosion. The two combined blasts were still close enough to do moderate damage together.

PLAYER 443 [####-_____]46%

The opponent used this time to swap magazines and fire anew. Nic did the same, zigzagging and somersaulting to confuse their aim. With Nic’s main weapon spent of ammo, he drew his Pistol and focused on landing headshots with it. Most didn’t connect—but a few did, and those made all the difference.

PLAYER 443 [#-________]18% PLAYER 77 [##-_______]21%

By the time 77 drew their Pistol, their last-ditch effort at stopping Nic, the distance between them was already closing up like a stitched wound. Nic grabbed them by the wrist, twisting the firearm’s muzzle away from his simulated body. 77 fired several shots ineffectually into the ground. Not quite the same as Trigger Point, Nic thought. That sim, which depicted flesh-and-blood people, taught him disarming techniques that would not work on robots without the same tendons, ligaments, and nerves.

With his free hand, he bashed at his enemy’s arm, trying to find some weak spot to make them drop their gun. He’d disarmed a proxybot in the Arena before, but he’d had the element of surprise there. No such luck now. He realized that without a human arm to exploit, his only option was physically prying their finger off the trigger and their hand off the weapon—unlikely. I’m out of everything, he thought desperately. They still have a Pistol. I need an advantage of my own.

Then he made a decision that he knew could either cost him the entire Final Exam or win it for him.

He planted his weight on his left foot behind him, kicking Player 77 hard in the abdomen with his right foot. It was enough to knock them on their back temporarily, but they were already jumping to their feet by the time Nic spun around to retrieve the Upgrade Pak. This one would be a photo finish.

“Upgrade Activate!” he shouted. He didn’t even take the time to listen to RTIFIS describe the item for him.

Suddenly, a red tint flooded his HUD. He felt a simulated tingling in his arms and legs. In a split second, he noticed the Upgrade marker at the top of his HUD beneath his health bar.

PLAYER 443 [#-________]18% >>ACTIVE UPGRADE PAK: BERSERK<<

The snapping pop-pop-pop of the enemy’s Pistol rang in his ear as shots connected with his proxybot. He bolted for them and closed the short gap in seconds. His body felt heavier and yet more agile at the same time—not light and untouchable like Overclock had felt, but weightier, more dynamic.

He leaned all his mass into a punishing punch that landed with a metallic cracking noise on Player 77’s robotic face. Another. Again. The movements came so naturally to him, swinging his fists in a perfect rhythm. He knew that ordinarily, his proxy would never have this much punching power—Berserk was to melee damage output what Overclock was to speed.

It came down to the last hit and 77’s last bullet.

Pop. Nic swung one last time. Another Pistol round hit him in the jaw.

He hesitantly checked the health bars and tensed up in anticipation of his camera feed disconnecting in another death.

Then it happened.

PLAYER 443 [DEAD]

“No!” Nic cried out in his bunk. I’m done. For all I know, I just failed. I’m out.

His mind danced with visions of menial labor painted so vividly by Principal Ferenc on the day Nic’s mother left Ayrus forever. He pictured sleeping in a cold rover all alone on a world he didn’t know, far from any friends or familiar comforts. Or the inverse, the heat, the sweltering heat of atmosphere pumps, toiling in that sauna for hours at a time and living in a perpetual puddle of his own sweat.

It was going to happen to him. He reasoned that it had to happen to the majority of graduates to keep all cogs in the interstellar terraforming business turning, and he was about to become one of them.

Then his HUD chimed with a second, delayed notification.

PLAYER 77 [DEAD] KILL! | +100pts PLAYER 443: 1,000pts ~>>>*GAME OVER! YOU WIN!*<<<~

The engagement was a tie. But it was all he needed to win.

By the time three Final Exam facilitators greeted him at the door of his bunk a few minutes later, Nic still hadn’t stopped jumping and pounding the walls and ceiling in hyperactive joy. One of them had to ask him politely, with a smile, to compose himself. He managed to do so eventually, but he started to wonder if his jaw would be permanently frozen in this ear-to-ear grin forever.

I won, he beamed. I passed. I did it! Now I wonder what comes next...