Entering the sewers yet again, Mai’s heart felt as though it was going to break. Literally shatter in two. Breathing hurt. Thinking of Johnny’s betrayal and attempt to kill her hurt. Physically, mentally, and spiritually she was experiencing a pain she’d never thought possible.

Her best friend had betrayed her. Not only that, he had tried to kill her just because he was jealous of her. Because he didn’t like the way that she was earning more kills, more glory than he was.

Rumbles sounded from above her. She’d forgotten about the mines that she'd set before dropping into the sewers.

KILL!

CONTESTANT 202827 ELIMINATED

KILL!

CONTESTANT 357642 ELIMINATED

KILL!

CONTESTANT 102938 ELIMINATED

KILL ASSIST!

CONTESTANT 595381 ELIMINATED

His death, rather the way that she killed him, played over and over in her mind’s eye. Sliced him open. Cut him. Ended his life when he was at her mercy. It was as if it was being replayed on her retinal monitor.

And then she realised that it was.

“What the fuck?” she sobbed, as what she thought was her memory played on her retinal monitor in glorious high definition. The camera angle changed, making her stagger slightly as her inner eye tried to cope with the swift movement.

It was as if she was having an out-of-body experience. And in a way she was. The camera angle was now over her shoulder, replaying the whole of his betrayal for the viewers of the Culling.

Comment after comment scrolled in one of the side windows whilst hearts, smileys, claps and all manner of emojis popped into existence, dancing like stars before her eyes. Small digits at the bottom of the screen showed just how many people had been watching her kill. The number continued to climb. Thousands of viewers at a time.

News headlines also started to appear.

‘Long lost love betrayal!’

‘Best friend back-stabbed!’

‘Betrayal at its best!’

‘Betrayer loses his head in the excitement!’

She blink-clicked the news channel closed, sobbing as she tried to close the replay, but found she didn’t have the rights to do it. No matter what she tried to do, she was forced to watch it happen. Forced to see the comments. The joy and excitement at what she’d done and how she’d done it. It sickened her to the core.

CONGRATULATIONS CULLER

NEW TITLE DÉJÀ VU – MOST REPLAYED CULLING OF THE EVENT!

“Fuck you!” she screamed at the ceiling, not caring who or what might be near enough to hear her. She wanted to kill them all, viewers and Celestial Court.

How am I going to be able to face Li after this? She thought. There’s no way in all the Hells that she couldn’t have seen this!

That her sister might have seen her killing their mutual friend, slaughtering him, shook her. Staggering, she leant against the nearest wall, willing her legs to not give way as she didn’t know whether she would be able to stand again.

Mai didn’t know or care how long she stood there, wrapped in a cocoon of grief and guilt. She could have checked on her retinal monitor, but she didn’t have the inclination. It would have made no difference to how she felt then, or how she felt at that moment.

A blessing was that the killing of Johnny was no longer being broadcast, and people had stopped commenting. Blinking quickly, she sighed in relief as she closed down the feed.

She’d learned a valuable lesson, however. From now on she would try to distance herself from her kills, avoiding doing anything which would excite the viewers.

I never want to see my kills used like that again. Sick, voyeuristic fucks! She was honest enough to count herself in that. Afterall, she’d watched the Culling. Not like others, but even so she’d done it. She’d help it keep going by adding to the viewing numbers.

Having only seen BERSERKER! Used in the holomyths, she blinked her skills menu and did a search. It was a sub-skill applied to many combat professions, including gangers. It was like picking at a scab.

Seeing its title and glyph, she clicked on the description.

BERSERKER - Berserkers are feared the Empire over. Utterly immune to pain or any negative status effects whilst the skill is ACTIVE, berserkers will keep fighting when lesser humans would be rendered incapable of anything but breathing, and screaming. A combat skill, it is only ACTIVE for ten seconds, entering a RECHARGE of one minute. At the end of ACTIVATION, all negative status effects are immediately applied. Forlorn Hope troops are often given this skill in order to assist them with breaking through enemy attacks. Few survive using such a skill.

How true that is, she thought. Johnny had used it to gain an advantage over her. And yet all it had done was allow him to soak up more injuries until she killed him. Would he have survived those injuries if he’d managed to kill her? She didn’t know. She didn’t care. What she did know was that BERSERKER was not a skill she wanted to ever have to use.

Opening up her retinal monitor she blink-clicked on the map, using it to see where she was. In all of the Culling she hadn’t strayed too far from what she now viewed as her origins.

The sewers have become my home, she thought ruefully. Home. It seems to be getting further and further away the harder I try to return to it.

With that thought she zoomed out, leg jiggling as she made the map smaller and smaller until finally, she was able to see where she had once lived with Li and her parents.

It’s so far away! This time her legs did give way. Her former apartment was nearly a continent away. It made no sense. None of the journeys she’d made had seemed that long, not even her pod deploying into the Culling.

Another thing she couldn’t deal with at that moment. Zooming back in on the map she looked for Excretiaville. Although the sewers between her and it were blacked out, she could see a couple of edges to her known areas which looked as though they were sewer branches.

Zooming in a bit further, she took a closer look at the area she’d be entering. They looked benign enough, but bitter experience had taught her to take nothing for granted.

Pushing herself to her feet, she blanked her mind, concentrating only on the task ahead.

Much to her surprise, she managed to make the journey to Excretiaville without encountering any mogwai or fellow Cullers. It surprised her that she didn’t come across any sewer companies, but she took a look at the sewers around her and saw they were still in good condition, not much to maintain.

Probably concentrating on other areas, she thought as she blinked open her map. She needed to find somewhere to rest up, to get BIO-MASS boost and to try and feel normal.

“I can’t go to my old company,” she muttered to herself, more to hear a friendly voice than to actually help her think. “If anyone is looking for me, and knew I’d dropped down here, it would be too obvious.” And there was little chance that no-one would be unaware that one of their number was now a Culler. No doubt her face would be splashed over every entertainment screen available.

And it would put people she cared about into possible danger. Working in the sewers was dangerous enough, a Culling battle in their midst would be an absolute disaster.

Panning around the locations in Excretiaville, she came to the Scavenger Queen’s shop. It was a bitter-sweet pill. Memories of another friend, Andries, came out of the box she had unwittingly put them in.

“Still, best place to go. Old crone would probably get a thrill out of me being there.” Her voice sounded odd in the silence of the sewer. It felt unnatural. There was absolutely no background noise that she could discern.

Moving along the sewer she was in, she finally entered the part of the map she had already been in. It too was quiet, but this time she spotted globs of fat. They weren’t big enough to cause an issue, but if they were allowed to keep forming and gathering, the sewer would soon be blocked by a fat berg.

It was clear that no worker companies had been through here recently. Which was odd, as this area of the sewers was one of the most heavily travelled, the worker companies using it to get to the further reaches of Excretiaville’s area of influence. Even just passing through they’d have cleared up the globs.

Ignoring the ache in her legs, in her whole body if she was perfectly honest, Mai pushed on. Eyes and ears straining, she tried to discern if there was a threat in store for her, relying on her passive skills.

Nothing, it just felt odd that it would be so quiet.

Getting paranoid in my old age, she thought, a rueful smile on her face as she pushed on to the edge of her hometown.

Sticking to the shadows using her SNEAK and STEALTH skills on passive, she watched as groups of workers moved between the various buildings in the cavernous space that housed them.

Those sewers were too empty, it’s not normal. And the town’s not normally this quiet either.

And the more she thought about it, the more she saw the differences. Sewer Company barracks lights were still on depending on which shift that Company was supposed to be working, but there was none of the usual music blasting from them, and the lights which usually marked entertainment centres were also unlit on the whole. None of the life which had previously filled the city was present.

Each group moved differently to how she remembered. They were furtive. Shocked, she watched other groups moving about their daily basis. No-one walked on their own. Now she noticed it, no-one was walking around in a group of less than three. All of them carried fat cutters, or had nano-cutters. Some were also wearing heavily armoured work suits, some of which looked as though they’d been modified.

She stored that thought for another time. Modding armour wasn’t something she’d ever given a thought about, concentrating only on unlocking templates. I didn’t even realise that I could modify armour.

Opening up her skills menu, she blink-searched for FIX ARMOUR.

The description was how she remembered it. Totally, and utterly uninspiring.

FIX ARMOUR - Citizens with the FIX ARMOUR skill are able to repair armour or work suits that have been damaged in the course of their daily duties. It is a PASSIVE skill which improves with practice. +

Only now there was a plus sign in a small box at the end of the last sentence. Something she was sure she hadn’t seen before. Maybe that was because she hadn’t been looking for it. Or because she’d been too busy skim reading. She knew what it represented though, sub-skills, as she’d come those before, like DIVERSION, a ganger sub-skill Johnny had been able to use.

Blink-clicking it open, she ignored everything but the eye-catching CRAFT ARMOUR.

CRAFT ARMOUR - Citizens with the CRAFT ARMOUR skill are able to either fabricate armour, and armour templates, or modify existing armour. Most citizens can't afford such things, so CRAFTERS either learn the skill because they want to be safer whilst they work or set up shop to sell to those people who can afford their services.

“Why in Buddha’s left nut are they walking around their hometown tooled up?” Nerves on edge, she kept moving, still keeping to the shadows, not wanting to be spotted by any of the clearly nervous workers.

There wasn’t any danger that they’d attack her, it was forbidden, but she didn’t want to give them any more reason to be scared, or for a worker with a bet on a different Culler to let slip that she was in their midst.

Moving as carefully as she could, she activated SNEAK, STEALTH and LARCENY once the foot traffic started getting heavier. As it did so, there were more lights, and the three skills combined made her practically invisible as she slipped from shadow to shadow, using the people around her to conceal her movement. FREERUNNING, she flipped herself up onto a pile of crates. From there, she leaped through the air for a water pipe running across the alleyway.

Spinning over the pipe, a kick sent her through the air. Bounding, she threw herself up hands outstretched for the lip of the roof she was aiming for. Grunting with the effort, she pulled herself up onto the roof.

Twenty paces up in the air, she was now hidden from the majority of the people living in the town. Opening up her retinal map, she set a way marker. With more than a minute still running on her skills, she sprinted across the rooftops.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the scavenger,” cackled the Scavenger Queen as Mai walked into the shop. “And now a Culler. You’ve come far.”

Looking around, Mai shrugged. “More like I’ve gone full circle,” she said wryly.

“Once a sewer rat, always, a sewer rat,” chuckled the Queen, laying a gnarled hand gently on Mai’s arm. “Come in, you look like a mogwai chewed you up and spat you out.”

Allowing herself to be led into the depths of the shop, Mai gave a shrug.

“To be honest, I feel just like that’s what happened.”

After a few paces, they turned and went between two precarious looking shelves. Pausing, the Scavenger Queen turned to her.

“I’d like you to face away please. I don’t normally allow visitors this far in my shop.”

Mai did so, listening intently as a number of gentle beeps sounded. There was an even softer click, then a subtle change in the air. Pressure, air coming out of a room. She was impressed. Her passive SPOT HIDDEN had failed her.

Plus, unlike in the holodramas, there was no way she could use the tones of the keys pressed to guess the passcode. Especially as it was more than eight digits long.

“Follow me,” the hand was back on her arm and she opened her eyes as she followed the Queen into what Mai thought of as an inner sanctum.

Her breath caught at the contrast between the sanctum before her, and the chaos of the shop behind her.

“I know, surprising isn’t it?” said the Queen. Mai’s head snapped around to look at the owner of the voice. It was richer, younger, stronger than that of the woman she had known. She gasped.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” laughed the woman beside her. Gone was the old crone with the crooked back and gnarled fingers. Instead, a woman barely old enough to be her mother smiled at her. With perfect white teeth instead of the tobacco-stained teeth she was used to. “Nano-transformation. It’s essentially no different to the clothes you wear.”

“But how … why … what … I mean,” stammered Mai.

“You’re different Mai. Different from the other Cullers. Hells, you’re different to anyone I’ve ever met. Knew there was something special about you the first time I saw you. This disguise keeps me safe. There are those who would harm me if they could see me as I truly am.”

Mai could understand that. Shrugging, she decided she wouldn’t press any further.

“Why are you revealing yourself to me?”

“Because I need you to trust me. The sewers are my domain. The workers are my people. I try to keep them safe. Try to help them free themselves if they truly want to be. But now … not even I can help them.”

She indicated a comfortable-looking chair, besides which was a bowl of steaming lichen noodles, large pieces of protein sat on top. A glass of what looked like BIO-MASS BOOST stood beside the food.

Raising an eyebrow, Mai tilted her head towards the food. Nodding, the Queen gave a brief nod and a wave of her hand. Not needing any further excuse, Mai planted herself on the chair, reaching for the bowl, greedily sucking in the food without a second thought for the niceties of good table manners.

Groaning in pleasure at the flavour bursting over her tongue, she chewed as quickly as possible before swallowing.

“Are you talking about whatever’s got everyone in the town all jittery?” She asked before scooping more food into her mouth.

“Ha!” The Queen barked. “Jittery? Scared witless more like!”

Mai’s mouth was too full of food to answer. Stomach rumbling, it felt as if an age had passed since her last meal. With each bite however, her BIO-MASS increased. Each sip of the BOOST gave her a five per cent increase usually, but this food was far better than that, giving her a boost of five to ten per cent with each mouthful.

Her BIO-MASS finally showed as one hundred per cent, so she activated her TREAT LIGHT WOUNDS, sighing in relief as the nanites set to work. As she healed and her BIO-MASS depleted, she started eating again, the Scavenger Queen seemingly content to wait for her to respond.

“What are they frightened of?” she finally managed.

“Mogwai. There’s an infestation. Ever since poor Andries was killed, we’ve lost more and more people to the creatures. We’ve even lost people from inside the city,” the Queen snarled, slamming her hand down onto the table, making all of the crockery leap into the air. Mai followed suit, the sudden burst of anger completely out of character for the Queen, and the sudden noise startling her.

Food finished, fully healed, BIO-MASS backup to one hundred per cent, Mai looked at the Queen.

“And you want me to kill them?” Mai sighed as the Queen nodded before she’d even finished asking the question. “There were some Cullers after me. I think I got them with mines, but I can’t be sure.”

“We’ll try and keep you safe from other Cullers, report false sightings of you in other parts of the sewers. Odds are the viewers who saw that last tragedy have already moved on. There’s no way we can tell as to how many spectators you’ve got. If any. And the sewers are large. If they do try to report your location, it’ll be like trying to find a needle in a haystack made of needles.”

Mai rolled her neck. She’d barely started to relax before her muscles had knotted up. An image of a steam bath popped into her mind. She’d have given anything for such a thing. Sitting silently, the Queen let her work things through.

Muscles as relaxed as she was going to get them, Mai looked at the Queen, slowly nodding. She didn’t have a choice. Whilst some of the sewer workers were used to fighting mogwai as part of their daily duties, they were in the minority, and it wasn’t fair of her to expect people lacking the skills she had to go and face monsters that were killing their loved ones. Especially as they were most likely doing so because of her and Andries.

“I’m game. The people here are good, they don’t deserve to die like Andries does.”

Smiling, the Scavenger Queen waved a hand, and a quest prompt appeared.

DESTROY THE MOGWAI

DO YOU ACCEPT?

YES/NO

Reaching out, Mai pressed YES.