POV Seth

Seth nudged Hope awake, freeing his numb arm. “Equipment check,” he commanded his team.

Erick cursed at him for waking him for such a mundane chore.

Seth repeated himself firmly. No one was exempt from the rule. The screen next to Seth held the bully’s gaze, egging on his impatient furry. The opposition was primed and ready to get the game started. Erick didn’t want to give his enemies a second more prep time.

Seth knew from experience that the opposing squad’s screen read ‘Pending’ as the system waited for the lead team’s permission to begin. Controlling the initiation of the game was one of the many perks of the team holding the high score.

When the team didn’t rally behind Erick’s indignity, he folded his arms and glared at the transport doors.

Erick’s resistance didn’t matter in this game. Seth’s plan was simple. Make the opposition wait. Distracting his team with routine checks and double checking kept their minds occupied and focused on the game ahead. Their opposition, who had already signaled their readiness, would likely spiral from impatience to full on rage, much like Erick. Squad IX would start the game compromised, where Squad VII would maintain clear and focused control over their emotional state. Win-Win.

Ready reports came in one after the other as members re-secured their ill-fitted gear. Everyone except for Erick, who presented the middle finger in response.

Exhausting Erick’s near endless supply of tantrums was Seth’s second priority. Erick was angry all the time. Even when he was happy, which came at the consequence of a fleeting vengeance-based serotonin boost. He couldn’t keep him on the squad, not for another year, but he was too dangerous to let loose. Erick needed to be managed until he could be defanged and declawed.

This year’s rumor was that he intended to make a move on Seth during the game. Truth be told, Seth feared for his life. It was the one game out of the year where murder was par for the course. There’d be consequences, but nothing on the level that Erick wouldn’t be able to get away with thanks to his family’s deep pockets. Erick wasn’t his only problem.

Seth’s critical gaze fell over each member of his team, searching for the tale-tell signs of juicing. Juicing was an illegal performance enhancer often used on the Killing Fields to give their troops a surviving edge. Against demons, not their fellow man. The juice promoted near Enhanced level supernatural talents. Seth didn’t need someone capable of hurling fireballs from their fingertips. They didn’t need someone capable of pulling down the sky onto their enemy. Juicing for something as trivial as the games was overkill. Yet, it was common knowledge that a huge portion of the competing teams juiced, especially when up against Seth’s team.

The problem was that though he suspected certain members of his team of Juicing; he had no way to prove it. Even if he could, he’d want to handle the issue internally. He didn’t want to lose a victory because of someone else’s poor life choices. It disappointed him. Deeply.

He searched for scratch marks that might reveal patches of dried and gradually scaling skin. The first signs of Enhanced scarring. He hoped to glimpse shades of unfounded paranoia, but was relieved to find confidence. An unquenchable thirst and ravenous hunger were among the symptoms, but often showed as the drug wore off. The body needed to repair itself quickly by consuming as much sustenance as possible. These periods of extreme feeding were followed by days of deep sleep. In the early stages, the symptoms are not unusual in of themselves. It’s only after years of dependence, that Juicing symptoms grew more extreme.

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Seth was not a Juicer himself. He needed to win through hard work, dedication, and constant improvement. On the battlefield, he didn’t want to rely on enhancers unless he absolutely had to. He hoped that his perseverance meant that he might gain a bigger performance boost compared to those who had developed a reliance early on. After the games were done, what was there to gain in destroying their minds and bodies? All for a few cheap wins. He struggled to understand their motives.

Seth activated the panel. The mission objectives appeared on his arm console. A fifteen-minute timer appeared in the corner of his visor.

Seth stared at the words scrolling up on the small screen. His throat ran dry, and the dull throb behind his eyes grew persistent.

Dread was how he’d describe the feeling that had overcome him. He couldn’t run. That meant forfeiting, and that could never happen. He felt like he was walking into a surprise exam, the topic unknown, for which he never studied, but somehow knew was coming.

Seth reiterated their orders, hoping that speaking them out loud might dispel his dread. “The objective is the retrieval of a data-pack stored on site and its safe retrieval to the transport.” He repeated the orders, focusing on each word as he searched for which term had triggered him.

“Remember where we parked!” Hope interjected. She didn’t know any better. It was her first year in the games. Having not been a fan prior, she had joined at Seth’s insistence. In his second year, his team had to hold their defensive positions until reinforcements arrived. The first team who presented themselves at the evacuation site won. Odds were high that once they were active in the game, the transports would leave the site.

Seth nodded. It might help, however unlikely. Attention to detail can go a long way. He continued, “Once retrieved, the data-pack cannot be downloaded from the source, which means there won’t be any duplicates. However, we can collect the pack from the opposition.”

“That means only one of us is going to carry the load,” Regina said, considering a strategy. “Might be a physical asset.”

Hope cocked her head. “Sounds like whatever this data is, it wants out.”

Seth felt her words resonate. The tension in his body worsened.

“Data’s not a living thing, honey,” Regina smiled at Hope, humor touching her eyes.

“Uh, huh! A.I. IS alive,” Hope countered.

“We don’t have the time to debate this,” Seth shouted over his squad.

“Easy, get to the data-pack before the other team does. And if we come across the little assholes, we kick the shit out of them.” Erick smashed his fist into the palm of his hand. His friends chuckled with practiced ease at his non-joke. Seth thought he heard the subtle chords of discord in that false laughter.

“I’d like to avoid contact as a personal challenge,” Seth stated, monitoring the radar.

“Fuck your personal challenge,” Erick spat. “We’re not losing this because you’re some pussy pacifist.”

Confrontation was ultimately unavoidable. He didn’t expect his team to not fight back. In a game with such loose moral grounds, expectations like that might get his team killed. “I want them to do all the heavy lifting,” Seth said, his tone firm. “We stay out of sight. We lay traps. We force them to use up their resources. If their gear is like ours, they have a limited energy supply. Once they’re empty, we strike. In the meantime, we use our heads.” He tapped the side of his head. The headache behind his eyes throbbed. “We’ll take the data-pack from them. It will be easier than getting locked down in a firefight while one of theirs makes a run for it.” If they found Squad IX, they could keep their eyes on them. In the meantime, they’d have to hunt down the data-pack for themselves.

Erick crossed his arms as he considered the plan before spitting at his feet. “Pussy,” he mumbled. That was as much approval as he was going to get from Erick.

“Our problem is their problem, too. We have no food, no water, and we don’t know if or when there’s going to be a resource drop,” Seth said.

“We’re assuming they have no food,” Elle interjected.

Seth nodded. She was right. It was a possibility that the kits were not evenly distributed. How did the saying go? Plan for the worst, hope for the best. “A little scouting and thievery might settle that mystery for us.” He continued, “We have an Open scenario. That means we can use whatever we find on site.”

“We have the advantage,” Seth told his team, who roared their approval. Hope scowled, having worked out that the odds were the same for both teams, assuming that food rations were nil for both parties, but was soon caught up in her team's wave of emotion.

The time in Seth’s visor vanished, having ticked to zero. Above Seth, the red lock light switched to green. Behind him, the transport door unsealed and opened, revealing that they were parked at the foot of a mid twenty-first century skyscraper.