The blonde giant screamed and stabbed Samar in the gut.

And then was surprised as the blade bounced of the armor under Samar's uniform. Samar punched him in the side of his neck, but human ox shrugged off the blow like it was nothing. There were loud war cries around him as dozens of men rushed into the clearing, waving rifles with wickedly sharp bayonets and old fashioned machine guns. Samar scampered back and send a mental command to his nanocluster.

“Activate Boost”

With a mighty lurch, Samar felt the world slow down.

He felt ice running down his spine as all the nerves in his body felt like they have been stretched like a rubber and then his mind was running at three times the speed it normally did. Samar observed his attacker whose brutual expression seem to contort slowly and decided to fall back - the giant in front of him seemed to be move almost leisurely. Samar's mind was racing as he looked around and tried to make sense of what the hell was going on.

OK. Analyze the situation. Don't panic.

Dozens of humans?

What are they doing in this zone when the nearest Citadel is more than six hundred miles away?

Why are all of them armed with firearms?

Why are they attacking us? Don’t they know that attacking another human was a crime punished with immediate termination followed by rendering of culprit into organic matter for the labs?

What language is that giant speaking? Only languages spoken are Hindi and English, the others became dead languages after their native population died off.

OK, lets try to connect with him through the hyperweb, maybe this is just a misunderstanding?

Samar willed his nanocluster to connect with the giant fool in front of him. To his shock, there was nothing there.

Impossible!

Every human alive (not that there were more than fifty thousand at the last census) had a nanocluster. It’s what still kept them alive from the deadly viruses running rampant on earth, and survival had finally brought humanity together in a way that nothing ever could.

Samar did all of this analyzing and connecting in a little less than a second. What do I do? Why the hell did I volunteer for this anyway. For a fucking commendation!

He still had four seconds of his boost left. He felt the presence in his mind flare and surrendered himself to the Spirit as it took over. It went through all his recent memories in a nanosecond, calculated a thousand scenarios in another nanosecond, and then it let Samar know the next objective. Seriously, what would he every do without it?

“Eliminate all but four. Bring them.”

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He looked around and saw that the giant had almost reached him, swinging his rifle like a club right at his face. Behind him he could see another three soldiers aiming their guns at me. He knew that his squad had received the same objective from their Machine Spirit, so all he had to do was pick who was to live and who had to die. And there were exactly four future prisoners in front of him.

“PI-M, PI-G, Neutralize all except the four in front of me”

“Yes Sir,” Samar saw their messages form slowly in front of him because of his inhuman perception.

The giant swung his rifle at his face, trying to bash Samar's face. The giant swung back the rifle as he missed Samar's face, and tried to stab him in the face instead.

This fucking guy!

Samar ducked under the blade, then tripped the giant attacking him. The giant whipped out a knife and threw it at Samar's leg. Samar dodged wildly and dove behind a tree on his left.

"Close your eyes, Sir!" one of the scouts voice hissed in Samar's implant. He quickly squeezed them shut.

The scout threw a Flash Orb towards him. There was a blinding white light as the enemy led out cries of pain and shock. Samar's boost finally ran out.

He blinked away tears from his eyes as everything sped up, and the three soldiers opened fire. The bullets whizzed by Samar and hit the giant in the back and the legs. He fell down on his face and started twitching. The soldiers cursed and spread out, looking for Samar. One of the soldiers went over to where the giant lay and took up position near his body. He had an old Submacine gun which he aimed at the nearby bushes and started spraying everything with bullets. Behind him Samar could hear loud yells as Grenadier and Heavy Machine Gunner cut loose with their weapons, shooting down several enemies with precisely aimed shots.

They mowed down everything they pointed their railguns at. Samar saw chunks of flesh fly around in the air, he felt bile rising and ducked even further down. He had seen dead bodies and animals in the lab before, but this scene was out of a nightmare. The enemy soldiers in front of him seemed equally stunned by the fury Samar’s squad had unleashed. The grenadier launched a concussion bomb at a group of soldiers which vaporized everything in a five metre radius by its force, leaving everybody's ears ringing and a red colored crater where the bomb landed. The three remaining soldiers near Samar had white faces and were gibbering like idiots.

“SUBDUE THEM”

"Affirmative." Samar forced his horror down at the carnage and moved ahead, finally remembering to draw his sidearm as he pointed it towards them. "Get down on your knees. Throw down your we..."

A spike of white-hot pain went through his head.

He fell down to his knees. What happened? Why can't I feel my legs?

Samar saw his team writhing down on the ground, bleeding from their eyes and ears. Their screams of pain were so loud that he could never imagine a human could be capable of it. After a while it sounded like it was just one undulating sound of agony.

What was happening? Samar thought furiously as he struggled to make sense. He needed more time!

“AS&7(&^&*()((@”

Instead of English, Samar just saw gibberish as he activated his Boost. He knew that he would pay the next morning for activating it again so soon. His world slowed down. Activating his boost was a mistake.

He was in agony; his world was on fire.

It stretched out it an impossible, never ending crescendo of torment like he could never believe. He watched his squad members writhe around in slow motion; their tormented gazes burned in his mind.

He looked away as he heard a groan from his side, then a curse which was oddly distorted due to the time dilation. Samar saw the giant who had been shot before get up and walk towards him. He looked up at the giant’s face and saw a small grin. He saw the bullet wounds on his body looking like months old scars. The giant said something, looking at Samar with interest. Did he ask him a question? The giant looked around the clearing, let out a slow whistle as he walked up to Samar. He lifted his leg to kick him in the head.

Samar felt like the boot took ages before it hit him in the face with incredible force, and then there was blessed darkness.