A small bottle rose out of the ground beneath the flag. Snatching it up, she popped the cap and started to drink. It was surprisingly tasty, a bit like bacon noodle soup, and her retinal monitor started displaying nanite level boosts with each swallow.

By the time she had finished it her BIO-MASS was at one hundred per cent. The first thing she did was HEAL herself. Whilst her HEAL would have given her passive healing over time, it made no sense to not heal herself.

BIO-MASS LEVEL 95%

And now, all I have to do is get to the next flag point, and capture that, and then I’ll have started a chain. Hope I get more BIO-BOOST.

Checking her map she saw that the next flag capture point was up a few levels. From what she could see, it was going to have more people around as it was that level’s mid-day. Thus far, all the levels she’d been on had been on ‘night hours’. Going to need to be more careful up there. Can’t risk hurting anyone.

Before she left, she opened up her menu. Performing a quick search for mines, she found a whole list. Scrolling as fast as she could, she scanned the images of the mines.

That one, it was perfect. At only five per cent bio-mass it was near-as-dammit completely flat. From most angles it would be nigh-on impossible to spot, especially if the victim was moving quickly.

BIO-MASS LEVEL – 92%

Once crafted, it was no bigger than the size of her palm and felt remarkably flimsy. Placing it directly under the flag capture point. If anyone came blitzing through to snatch the flag and return it to its original point, they’d be blown to pieces. She took a moment to reflect on the fact that the pain level wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been during training. Mai thought maybe she was getting used to the pain after all.

It wasn’t the most honourable way to kill someone, but she’d suffered at the hands of Smith and had no wish to suffer that way again. If that meant being sneaky, then so be it.

***

Damn, didn’t expect it to be this busy, she thought roughly ten minutes later as she watched the free citizens of the city go about their normal lives. Screens and holos covering the Culling hung everywhere, groups of civilians cheering, laughing, jeering, or groaning as cullers slaughtered their way to another few seconds of life. It made her sick to her core.

Frustratingly, the next flag she needed to capture lay in the middle of a dining area. Families sat at the various tables, stuffing themselves with the finest food the restaurants had to offer.

Absolutely no chance I can make it across there without being spotted. And as soon as I’m spotted, I’m fucked.

She didn’t know of any citizen above the age of three that didn’t have some sort of portable device capable of capturing and transmitting holo footage of her or anyone for that matter.

There was nothing for it, she squared her shoulders, stepped forward and stopped mid-stride as a man bolted from across the square directly towards the flag.

Men, women, and children called out as he ploughed through them, knocking them and their tables flying.

He’s a fucking beast! She thought, noticing as he grew closer that his skin had a greyish tinge to it. Rhino, ex-soldier.

Like the Dragon Warriors and Gorillas, Rhinomen were specially bred for combat. As a young man was sent pinwheeling away through the air after taking a shoulder to the chest, Mai decided that discretion was the better part of valour and stepped back.

In no time at all the man reached the flag. As he did so, Mai opened up her map and quickly found the next point he needed to get to. Without a second thought she was off, using the time it would take him to clear the food court to give her a head start. It wasn’t much, but better than nothing.

***

I hope this is a good idea, I really hope this is a good idea, thought Mai as she tucked into the doorway of an antiques shop. There was just enough depth for her to keep herself out of sight whilst she tracked the progress of the flag runner on her map.

As she’d thought, the man had taken the most direct route possible. Rhinos weren’t known for their subtlety, and with their bulk going in a straight line was often far easier than taking round-about routes.

Now, what the hell do I use to stop him? Having seen what he’d done to the man he’d hit, Mai knew that getting in his way was suicidal. But how else would she be able to stop him otherwise. She could just step out and blast away, but there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t hit a civilian and be punished for it.

Opening up her menu, she kept one eye on his progress as she skimmed through the various options. Then, she stopped.

GRAPPLING PISTOL – 2%

Grappling Pistol

A grappling pistol fires a titanium tipped line into pretty much any surface with the nano-wire allowing up to one tonne of weight to be easily suspended.

Licking her lips with excitement, the Rhino only a hundred or so paces away, she quickly formed the pistol, grimacing at the pain. Maybe I’m not adjusting to the pain as well as I thought. Getting as low to the ground as possible, she lined up the sights of the pistol at the shop wall opposite and fired.

BIOMASS 90%

There was a sharp crack, the civilians around her recoiling in shock, quickly followed by another crack as the line buried itself in the wall.

As quickly as possible she accessed the CLIMBING menu, selected a piton, formed it, and then formed her hand into a hammer.

BIOMASS 88%

With three hard hits she drove the piton into the lintel of the shop door, hooked the line through it and drew it taut. Just in time.

Rhino came charging along, head down, arms pumping, civilians flying in all directions as he charged through them. It was one of the most impressive sights she’d seen in a while. Nothing seemed to slow him down.

Until he hit the line that was. At ankle height it was perfectly placed. There was a roar of confusion as his foot hit the wire, a split second where Mai thought he was going to rip the piton out of the floor, and then he slammed into the floor of the pedway.

Now! Forming a shotgun as she sprinted out of the doorway, she had the barrel to the back of his head before he’d even had time to draw breath.

BIOMASS 83%

CRITICAL HIT!

HEAD SHOT!

INSTAKILL!

CULLER 0039845 ELIMINATED!

Rhino’s brains covered a surprisingly large area as she blasted his head apart with her shotgun. Trying to ignore the gore as best she could, Mai stepped forward and claimed the flag for herself.

CAPTURE THE FLAG – TAKE IT TO THE POINT MARKED

DO YOU ACCEPT YES/NO?

“There! He’s down!” spinning at the sound of the shout, Mai cursed as she spotted a group of cullers charging towards her, melee weapons raised. Without a second thought she was off and running.

Looking at the guideline she could see that she was only fifty paces away from the capture point.

Surely once I plant the damn flag and move away from it I’ll be safe? She thought as she pumped her arms in a desperate attempt to run faster. Lungs aching she threw herself into a feet-forward slide as she reached the capture point. Sliding to a stop, she pushed herself to her feet to see how far away her pursuers were.

FLAG CAPTURED

REWARD – 1 BOTTLE OF BIO-BOOST

DO YOU ACCEPT YES/NO?

Fuck, they’re too close! There were too many for her to take on single-handed, and the one bottle of BIO-BOOST would do nothing to help. It took a split second to realise this, and another to formulate what could barely be called a plan.

Cursing, she ran, leaving the bottle in the hope that it would distract at least some of her pursuers, maybe even cause some conflict. At the very least, it might slow them down as they picked it up.

Risking a look over her shoulder she sighed as she saw the main group keep chasing after her whilst one of slower ones stopped to pick up the bottle.

Up ahead she spotted brightly-coloured stalls and what could only charitably be called a grin stretched itself across her face as she forced herself to run even faster.

***

Mai Xio sprinted through the market, shoppers and goods alike sent flying as she ploughed through them. They were so densely packed not even her passive FREERUNNING skill could help her. And she wasn’t going to activate it until she really needed to.

Cries of pain and anger chased her. Teeth gritted, head down and arms pounding she ignored them, as well as the odd shout of encouragement.

“I’ve got 60 credits on you! Don’t die until tomorrow!” shouted a shopper with an augmented voxbox, voice blasting along the tight confines of the pedway.

Mai was too tired, too terrified to even reply. A shuriken zipped passed her, its sharp teeth scoring a burning line across her skull.

DAMAGE @ 1%

BLEED @2% PER SECOND

HEALTH 97%

With a cry she threw herself down to the pedway’s hard floor, rolled under a stall and leapt back to her feet as soon as she was clear.

“Here! The bitch is here!” The stall keeper waved both of his hands in the air, his lank hair glistening even in the poor light of the light-drones.

Bastard! Even her brain was too tired to think in longer sentences.

She charged directly towards the stall keeper and he scurried out of the way with a shriek. The law was simple, you could aid The Culling players by helping them locate other players, give them weapons and medical aid, but you could never hinder them. To do so meant immediate inclusion in the game.

The crowd started to part as shoppers became aware of the game being played around them. An alley, nothing more than a maintenance walkway really appeared on her heads-up display, the beacon being placed directly on her retina.

With a blink she activated her FREERUNNING skill, taking it from a passive skill to a directly active skill. Immediately trajectories and paths were fed to her retina as the nanites coursing through her blood kicked her body and mind into overdrive.

With nothing to lose she left it until the very last second before turning into it, crying out as she barked her shin on one of the myriad of pipes filling the area.

DAMAGE @1%

HEALTH 96%

SPEED - 2%

There was no time to have the nanites heal her. Healing was never the best experience and doing so on the move would only slow her down.

Still in better shape than most cullers, she thought as she bounced along the walls. Flips, slides, pikes, and handsprings sent her speeding along the tight confines of the alley.

She could hear her pursuers shouting, their voices getting nearer. Unable to tag them because they’d attacked from behind, she couldn’t tell just how close they were and daren’t take a look back.

Gits have probably got me tagged nice and proper, she thought. Her palms were slick with sweat as she realized there was only one way out of this. Taking a branch alley to the left, she drew her officially issued Culling Knife and climbed up a section of pipes. There she waited, body shaking as she prepared to kill them.

Three raced below her, shouting, charging headlong. There was a gap, and then another two charged through the gap.

“Wait .. wait for me dammit!” Another culler, clearly struggling for breath came to a halt beneath her, bending over slightly as she tried to catch her breath.

Mai pushed off the pipe and dropped down, blade raised above her head.

“Wha …?” The culler’s surprised face turned to look up at her, just as she slammed her blade down. It was a clean strike, the blade punching through the woman’s forehead.

CRITICAL HIT!

INSTAKILL!

CONTESTANT 253958 ELIMINATED

KNIFE SKILL +5%

Yanking the blade out of the corpse’s skull, Mai cut through the alley, breathing hard, brushing at her face as the perma-drizzle ran down, mixing with the sweat beading on her forehead.

Shouts drifted through the mist, some seeming to be getting closer, whilst others seemed to be going further from her.

Fucking acoustics, she thought. The tight-packed alleys of the city caused sound to bounce around like a rubber ball.

Voices came from up ahead, clearly asking questions even though she couldn’t hear the actual words. Then they started to get closer once more.

Turning, she ran back to the culler she had just killed , then popped open her weapons inventory. Skimming through the close combat options, she jumped straight to the booby-traps and the only option she had.

Bouncing Betty

Landmines are terrible weapons designed to blast your victims to pieces. Bouncing Betties explode at waist height and are capable of cutting your enemies ‘clean in half’. As with all mines and booby traps they can only be triggered by cullers and enemies.

“Nice. Real ball buster,” she chuckled to herself as she selected the mine. Looking at her BIO-MASS levels she could see she had more than enough to create more mines than she’d need.

BIO-MASS 61%

Grimacing at the thought of the pain to come, she used her nanites to create three, producing them in one hand and catching them with the other. She was surprised once again with the pain not being what she expected.

Giving the area a quick scan, she decided to keep her skills passive. She was surprised at how quickly it was becoming second nature for her to know where to place mines and traps for best effect.

Thank the gods I paid attention to the lessons. Strangely, booby-traps had captured her imagination. Granted, as she’d already acknowledged earlier it wasn’t an honourable way to kill an opponent, but it was also a battle of minds. Anticipating how an enemy might move, or react, and then placing the weapons to kill them was a fine art that she was starting to appreciate.

She also liked the fact that they were designed to only kill Cullers and enemies, meaning that if a civilian came across one they wouldn’t be blasted into bloody gobbets. Quite how that worked she wasn’t sure, but it was something she was happy to accept and move on.

Placing one right at the entrance to the alley she was in, she moved to the midpoint, closer to where the other player had just died.

There were no windows into the building where they had died, so she moved as quickly as possible to the end of the alley and placed a second mine.

Rather than placing it on the ground just around the corner where it could catch someone as they came around, she placed it much higher on the wall at around navel height.

Should catch more than one of them and they hopefully won’t expect a mine that high up.

If it was one of the ex-soldiers, prisoners, or gangers rather than a normal person, odds were they would have pretty good skills up and running.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to try. Popping open the menu again, she selected a shotgun, THE SWEEPER as she liked the description.

The Sweeper

The Sweeper is a sawn-off pump action shotgun, perfect for sweeping a room clear in close quarter combat. Not so great if you're trying to fight anyone more than twenty paces away!

Shotguns were great for causing mayhem and death in confined spaces. This one had a magazine of ten rounds at nought point one per cent BIO-MASS per shell. And the shotgun itself only cost three per cent. All in all, four per cent BIO-MASS for a weapon

BIO-MASS – 57%

Negative effects such as SUPPRESSION, INTIMIDATION, and BLEED were also key factors in determining whether she’d survive what was to come.

Bracing herself, she gasped in agony as the nanobots within her started to alter her arm, changing into a flesh-ceramic hybrid.

As the shells started to form, she bit back a scream, tears blinding her, heart hammering in her chest as if it was going to burst.

Fucking cunts, I’m going to kill every single one of them! She’d never felt such hatred for the Court before. She’d been just going about her life like all of the other billions of citizens living in the city. There must be some way I can counter this!

And then it hit her, ENDURE PAIN. She activated it with a thought. And just like that the pain stopped just as quickly as it started, relief flooding over her. Taking cover between two bins that were overflowing with rubbish, she raised her arm into the air and fired a shot.

“Come to momma,” she whispered, trying to slow her breathing as adrenaline started to flow at the thought of what was to come. Every shot was marked on the minimap for all to see if they were within a fifty-metre radius.

Straining her ears, she tried to listen for any approaching enemies, metaphorically crossing her fingers that none of them had earned a stealth bonus.

With a mine at each end of the alley, she would have her back covered if more than one opponent took the bait. And with one spare, she could deter pursuit.

Feet slapping on the wet plasticrete sounded from her left. Shifting, she leaned slightly around the bin, just enough that her weapon was now trained in the right direction, the nano-scope painting crosshairs directly onto her retina. Though this was literally a point and shoot weapon.

There was the barest movement. If she hadn’t been looking for it, she wouldn’t have seen it. A head, popping around the corner. Her mouth dried, this player was more tactically aware than the others. Fucker probably has a TACOPS upgrade.

Biding her time, she braced the weight of her arm, unused to how heavy it was. The head popped out again, taking a longer look this time.

The other culler waited a few more heartbeats, then stepped into the alley, moving slowly. She was ex-army. Unit markings on her face and bare arms would have given that away if her skill at movement hadn’t. Just before she reached the trip line for the mine, Mai fired. Two quick shots, one to the chest, the other to the face.

Blood puffed from the other player’s chest, her face obliterated by the high-powered flechettes the sweeper fired, flensing the flesh from the bones. Her body dropped to the ground, falling into a folded position that no one alive would ever be able to achieve.

HEADSHOT!

INSTAKILL!

CONTESTANT 594303 ELIMINATED

She swept the notification away, not wanting the glowing text to block her view. Other players would be on their way, like flies to shit now that two kills have been awarded in the same area.

Cullers with more than one kill were worth more karma points, and karma points meant better upgrades, better skills and - most importantly - better weapons.

“Fucking here! It was fucking here!” Mai jumped at the sudden shout, not expecting someone to be so stupid as to announce their position. Still, the Culling was open to all sorts of people, and adrenalin often made people act in ways they wouldn’t normally behave. And she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Just wish every culler was this damned stupid.

The shouter came skidding around the entrance of the alleyway, closely followed by a second, then third player. Bouncing off the wall, the shouter staggered to the left, throwing off her aim. Before she could shoot, he triggered the mine.

There was a pish sound as the BETTY sprang into the air. Throwing herself back into cover, she opened her mouth to lessen the effect of the blast, her MINES skill making the act instinctive. Keeping her shotgun pointed over the cover and trained on the other players, she watched as they were blown to pieces by the explosion, and the ball bearings that followed.

MULTI-KILL!

CONTESTANT 564803 ELIMINATED

CONTESTANT 102948 ELIMINATED

CONTESTANT 638291 ELIMINATED

CULLER LEVEL UP - LEVEL 3!

She gasped at the huge jump in levels. She’d completely skipped level two.

Springing to her feet, she ran past the site of the explosion, dropping her last mine into position, then scurrying back to her position.

She winced at the sight of the bin. It was peppered with gaping wounds and covered in all kinds of bodily fluids as well as bits and pieces of things she couldn’t even begin to want to identify. She blanked the sight of the dead players from her mind, trying to force the bile that rose into her mouth back down.

Before she could tuck back into cover, the other mine further down the alley detonated. Screams rang out. Spinning, shotgun raised, she saw a man writhing in the clearing smoke, clutching at the guts spilling from his torn stomach.

Even in as much pain as he was, he tried to raise his own weapon, a submachine gun. She didn’t blink, firing a shot, killing him before he had a chance to draw a bead on her.

KILL!

CULLER 002865 ELIMINATED!

Even in death his finger still closed reflexively on the trigger though. Bullets sprayed through the air, catching her completely flat-footed. Pain exploded in her gut, as if someone had punched her with a red-hot knife.

CRITICAL HIT! 45% DAMAGE

BLEED @5% PER SECOND

HEALTH 51%

Raising a shaking hand she looked at the blood covering it. Even with the notification and the sight of her own blood-soaked hand she was struggling to accept the fact that she’d been shot. That right now there was a piece of another culler deep inside her flesh doing its best to try to kill her.

DAMAGE! 5%

BLEED @5% PER SECOND

HEALTH 49%

The pain was of an intensity she’d never experienced before and her fogged brain couldn’t work out if it was because she’d never been shot before, or because of the thought that a piece of another human body was inside her.

DAMAGE! 5%

BLEED @5% PER SECOND

HEALTH 44%

She activated her TREAT SERIOUS WOUNDS as a wave of dizziness washed over her. Legs giving way she collapsed into a sitting position on the dead culler.

Somehow she gathered her thoughts enough to concentrate on stopping the bleeding first. Without doing that, it wouldn’t matter if she was able to restore other HEALTH points. Some of the pain went as well, leaving her gasping in relief.

HEALTH 100%

BIOMASS 2%

Groaning at remembered pain she pushed herself to her feet, absentmindedly wiping her bloody hand on her clothing. Stumbling, still feeling the effects of the dizziness, she keyed her SWEEPER to reload, pushing the stabbing pain away. It was nothing compared to what she had just felt.

BIOMASS 1%

I need to find food, now!