Entering the sewers felt like putting on a comfortable old coat, something she would never have thought possible. Looking back at the girl she used to be, she was shocked by the girl – woman – she had now become.

Mai would never have thought she would find poorly lit tunnels filled with her fellow citizen’s bodily waste comforting, but she felt she knew them better than her old hangouts in the city.

But down here, she was clear on the dangers, and she’d actually felt as though she belonged in the sewer company.

Once I’d stopped sulking so much about being indentured, she thought ruefully. And that had surprised her. She’d been reluctant to admit it, but for a period, before she’d lost Andries, she had found people she liked and respected. And who returned those feelings.

Up in the city, she had tried to fit in with her neighbours, but they had always been awkward around the orphan girls. Viewed them as bad luck, and the more small-minded of them had questioned why two children warranted such a nice apartment. Conveniently forgetting the circumstances of their death.

Even when she had been running with Johnny, she hadn’t fit in with his crew. At the time she hadn’t quite understood, but now it was clear. Mai still owed her FREERUNNING skills to that group of not-quite-friends, however.

And she wasn’t even going to think about her schooling. That was one thing she knew was mostly down to her inability to play nice and follow the rules. Which had obviously led to the situation she was in now.

But hey, I can read and write, right?

Including the sign and glyph just ahead which warned her of toxic gases, acid, and a potentially very painful but relatively quick death. With a thought she created her hazmat suit, unlimbered her staff and walked into the depths of the tunnel.

*

Mai had only been walking for five minutes before she heard voices echoing down the tunnel after her. The stream here was low, barely a trickle and so voices weren’t as muted as they might me.

One lesson that Mai did remember from her lessons was that sound travelled quicker over water. In the sewers, where the liquid wasn’t quite as fluid as water, sound was muffled. Conversations, even shouts were often muted. Had the level been higher in this tunnel, her pursuers might have caught up without her knowing.

Another quick blink and she hissed slightly as she formed a mine. It was a bouncing Betty, and she placed it under some debris, taking little care of time to hide it well.

Let’s see what sort of Culler I’m up against, she thought as she carried on down the sewer, dragging her feet where she could in order to leave more of a trail. Then twenty or so paces down she picked her footing more carefully. Stepping only on areas where there was no waste, she gingerly made her way for another twenty paces before forming another mine. Stepping back into the flow, she created more tracks before placing the bomb.

Moving to the side of the tunnel, she took her staff and deliberately knocked it against the side of the tunnel. The clatter it created echoed down the tunnel. Within seconds it was immediately answered with excited voices.

And the hunt is on.

*

Pausing for breath, Mai listened to the screams chasing her down the tunnel. Either the Cullers chasing her were stupid, too eager, or a combination of both for they had run blindly into her first mine.

She’d got one kill notification, and six others had been injured. Even though she knew they were injured and bleeding, none of them had died, so she had assumed that they’d healed themselves, or others in their group had healed them.

Of more concern was the fact that she was being chased by at least seven other Cullers. They’d proceeded more cautiously after that, and whilst she’d heard the second mine detonate, there had been no further injuries.

Need to keep their blood up, keep them coming, she thought as she smacked the side of the tunnel again, scraping the staff along the wall. They didn’t raise so much of a hullabaloo that time. Bastards are learning.

Blinking open her map, she checked that she was still leading them in the correct direction. Rather than having to create more of her mines, or turn to face them, she’d decided to let someone, actually some things, do her work for her.

This part of the Deadzone hadn’t seen much action in the way of workers going on hunts, so she expected the Mogwai population to be larger. Whilst they might not be as impressive as the evolved mogwai she’d experienced when rescuing Fat John, they should be more than enough of a challenge for the inexperienced Cullers.

Activating her SPOT HIDDEN, she started to hunt for signs of mogwai. A scrape here, a scale there. Spoor hidden amongst human waste. Once she had sign, Mai knew where she needed to go.

*

Unwrapping a lichen protein bar, Mai quickly bit off half, chewing as quickly as she could. As soon as she had it suitably mushed, she spat it into her hand before launching it down the tunnel.

She’d been doing this for nearly thirty minutes after having found an air vent blowing towards her destination. Seeding the bars after she’d passed the vent, she had continued to lead her pursuers along the tracks left by the mogwai.

Mai’s plan was simple. Mogwai had a sense of smell millions of times better than that of humans. By chewing up the food she was releasing more of its flavour as well as adding her own scent to it. And with the fan blowing the combined scent towards the mogwai, she was expecting a whole host of mogwai to descend upon them.

Not knowing when they might appear, or how many, she’d left way markers on every ladder and side tunnel she’d passed.

I’m going to run faster than I’ve ever run before, she thought as she paused to listen for any sign that Mogwai were approaching. The flow in the sewer was still low, so she wouldn’t be able to use disturbances in the flow to know when mogwai were approaching, so she was stopping every fifty or so paces to just listen and look out of the corner of her eye.

Some thing shifted just ahead of her. In the blink of an eye she was crouching, lowering her profile so that she wasn’t backlit by any of the few still-working lights behind her. It was silly to think that they might not be able to see her, considering that mogwai could also see on a number of different spectrums including heat and ultraviolet, but she wouldn’t risk her life on a gamble that she was facing a mogwai, and not a Culler.

Keeping an eye on her retinal monitor, she watched the seconds go by as she controlled her breathing, opening her mouth to make it as silent as possible. It also helped her control the adrenaline dump the noise had flooded her system with.

Whilst there was no further noise from ahead of her, she could hear the Cullers behind her drawing closer. For the last two hours she’d made sure she was always roughly five hundred paces ahead of them. Far enough away that they wouldn’t be able to get close without warning her, but close enough that they felt they were gaining on her.

Treat them mean, keep them keen, fucking arseholes, she thought with a mental and physical sneer.

Setting off once more, Mai’s thoughts turned to how she could actually survive the Culling. It wasn’t about winning for her, since technically being in the last one hundred could be deemed as ‘winning’, but about surviving.

Thus far, she’d done okay on her own, but at the same time she had to admit that she hadn’t truly been on her own for much of her Culling. She’d had assistance from people ranging from friends, she bit down a sob at the thought of Fat John, former friends, and even members of the public.

So whilst the scoreboard might show her as being ‘solo’, as it was now, she realised that she had got this far only because others had helped her in some way or other. It was a sobering thought.

No doubt there were those Cullers out there who were truly on their own, with no former friends to help them, and no civilians willing to give a word of advice. But were those the ones whose deaths were constantly being announced?

She’d got so used to the announcements that they were nothing but background noise now. And as she thought about it, all of her encounters had largely been groups of Cullers who had banded together.

How robust those alliances were, she didn’t know. It was perfectly reasonable to expect that the Cullers were only banding together for short periods of time to remove others like her. But there might be alliances that were actually built upon trust and which would stand the test of time.

I would love for such a thing, she thought with a silent sigh. If only Johnny hadn’t turned on me. She truly believed that if she hadn’t been forced to kill him that they would have had a much better chance of surviving.

Out of all the people in her former cadre, the only person who she might even come close to trusting with her life – and in fact actually had – was Dakota. And in a city this large, the chances of them finding each other were astronomically small.

Still, she offered a prayer to the Six Priestesses of Love, Friendship and Fraternity, and tried to tilt the odds in her favour through positive thought and manifestation. Mai hadn’t had much time for philosophies such as that before, but right now she’d turn anti-clockwise five times and knock on wood if it meant she had a chance of surviving.

Hairs standing up on the back of her neck, Mai paused mid-stride as she heard the unmistakable sound of scales scraping against the tunnel wall. Hardly daring to breathe, Mai cocked an ear, listening for the approaching Cullers, trying to gauge how distant they were.

Three hundred paces and closing, still not being anywhere near quiet enough, she thought with a smile. Forming a small paring knife for the measly cost of a quarter of a per cent of BIO-MASS, she drew the blade quickly across her palm, hissing as the flesh parted.

Absorbing the knife, she pressed the thumb of her other hand into the cut, forcing more blood out. As soon as she thought she had enough she flung it in a wide arc before her before turning around and sprinting back towards the Cullers.

There was no need for her to make any noise, the smell of her blood as she flung it into the stream would bring the mogwai after her like sharkranhas after an injured swimmer. Chewed up protein bars had attracted their attention, bringing them sniffing. But now they had the scent of blood in their noses, nothing would stop them.

Baying, howling, hissing, and any number of other animalistic sounds bellowed out behind her as she sprinted. Retinal minimap up, she looked at the position of the Cullers and the various cut-off tunnels and ladders she’d marked previously.

A quick bit of thinking, and she narrowed her options down to a ladder leading up five levels, and a side tunnel which led to another, broader sewer four hundred paces away. Neither were ideal, but if her plan worked, she wasn’t expecting any pursuit.

As she drew closer to the Cullers, she started dragging her staff, panting more than she needed to do, and generally making far more noise than she had before. Grinning as they responded, their voices getting more excited, sounds of their footsteps getting louder as they ceased trying to sneak but instead started moving towards her with less caution, Mai felt hope swelling as her plan started coming together.