The disappointment at being blown out of the circle was crushing. Five per cent on all skills and all she had to do was stay in the circle. Even worse was that it wasn’t even her fault. A pace further into the designated area and she might well have stayed in and got her points.
She cried all the way down. For what she didn’t really know. Everything and nothing. It didn’t really matter apart from when it felt like the sobs were going to tear her apart. She was just so sick and tired of all the killing. And of being kicked down time and time again.
No matter how many times she was put down, she got back up again. But each time it got more and more difficult. It was exhausting mentally, physically and spiritually. Bruising too.
And yet it was the only way she could get back to her sister and give her the life she deserved. It didn’t even matter if Mai Ascended any more. She could hit the top one hundred and die. She just didn’t care. She didn’t even know how she was going to deal with everything she’d seen and done so far.
Completely unbidden, Chow Yun Fat’s face popped into her mind’s eye. She forced it away, tried to press down the fear and revulsion that sprang into her mind with that. Smith’s face quickly followed, as did flashes of the fight they’d had. Johnny’s smiling face appeared, only to be replaced just as quickly with his dead face.
Last was Fat John fighting Grimtooth. She tried to close her eyes, knowing what was coming next. It didn’t help. Her killing of Grimtooth played out, seemingly in real-time. It was as if a highlight reel of her most impactful kills was being played by the powers that be for the benefit of the viewers.
Mai’s father had always told her that life was a series of lessons. Or lessons helped with the journey through life. Or was it that every lesson learned led to another? She shook her head in frustration. But all she’d really learnt from this was that bucking the system was a really stupid thing to do. Which she’d already known. She’d also learnt that killing people was physically easy, and that the act seemed to get easier each time. Each time there was greater and greater justification.
The familiar stench of hazardous chemicals from the sewers started to reach her nostrils, so she formed a nanite-mask and changed her clothes to something more suitable for dealing with the noxious effluent.
Fully-suited, with heavily lined clothing designed to keep out chemicals which would strip the flesh from her bones in the blink of an eye, Mai found the climb becoming harder and harder, and she was dripping with sweat by the time she finally kicked out a grate and dropped into the flow below.
Opening her minimap she scanned it to see if there was anything obvious. Nothing obvious anyway. Hazard warnings showed just how bad this area of the sewer was. It was the worst she’d ever come across.
Sighing, she looked to her right and then the left. Right was upstream. Muscles aching, she decided that she’d go down stream and hope to find a chamber off the main tunnel she could use to rest in.
Her whole life felt as though she’d been walking upstream, metaphorically that was, and having to do more of it literally was more than she was capable of. Relief flooded her whole system as she turned downstream, using the flow to help push her along.
After an hour she was ready to tear her hair out. She’d had to battle a handful of especially determined mogwai and her entire body ached from the effort required to wade through the thick muck as the flow had ceased. It was like trying to walk through a pond.
I’ll give it another ten minutes and then just hole up wherever I am, she thought, finally giving in to the part of her that had been suggesting she stop and rest.
Decision made she pushed forward, keeping one eye on the sewer and another on her minimap. Kill markers hadn’t appeared in her area for a while now, but she could see that the Water Park was still a kill-fest.
A discoloration on the wall just in front of her made her pause. Whether it was her passive LARCENY, SPOT HIDDEN, STREET SMARTS or just her gut she wasn’t sure, but there was something off about the wall.
Looking around to make sure she wasn’t going to be ambushed, and careful that there weren’t any mines lying in wait, Mai made her way up to the wall. Every step she paused to listen and feel with her foot as to where she was going to place her foot next.
Running her hands over it, she was sure she could feel a seam. Activating her LARCENY and looking at it once more she was utterly convinced that she could feel a seam. Looking at the base of the door, she was able to see the scuffs where feet had brushed against the lip of the doorframe.
Another secret door, just like the one near to the Water Park, she thought, hoping that this time she wasn’t going to be ambushed and might actually be able to find somewhere to rest up. And I’ll be able to clear up the scuffs so no one else finds me.
Even if it was for only a couple of hours as per the Culling rules, she felt relief wash over her at the thought of being able to lay low. Maybe I can use this as a base. Move away far enough for long enough, then come back here and crash.
But then, according to the holomyths she had watched, secret doors were either a curse or a blessing. She hadn’t had a chance to find out about the first one. Depending on the type of myth they either led to treasure or a gruesome death.
Judging by the way things are going, I’m probably going to walk into a hail of bullets. Or be dropped into an acid pool. Or die horribly some other way.
She pushed fatalism to the back of her mind. Whilst it helped to be paranoid, especially as it seemed the entire world was out to kill her, it didn’t help to be too paranoid. Fear could sow doubt, and doubt could cause double-guessing and hesitation. And hesitation could be just as deadly.
Sticking her metaphorical middle finger up at the thoughts, she decided to push forward. Now that she knew the shape of the door, she could try to work out which way it opened. Outwards would have pushed anyone in front of it off of the walkway and into the sewage.
She swore under her breath when she was unable to find any hinges. That could have indicated it opened inwards, but there were no scrapes so she couldn’t tell whether that meant it opened inwards, slid downwards, upwards or slid to the left or right, she couldn’t tell. Her minimap was no use either. Whereas it should have shown what was beyond the door as with other rooms she had discovered, there was nothing beyond on her map. Just like with the previous room behind the door.
It made sense that secret doors would lead to rooms which were themselves secret, but she couldn’t work out how the rooms actually stayed off the minimap. She’d not had too much time to think about it before at the previous secret room.
Mai had never come across secret rooms in her past life, so she didn’t know whether they were or weren’t supposed to display on the minimap. None of the rooms featured in holomyths had shown up on the hero’s minimaps either. She’d thought that was just because it made for a better story, but now she thought they might have been based on truth.
How many secret rooms have I gone past before? And what the Blue Heavens of Five Hells do I do now? Do I enter blind?
Her ears pricked. She couldn’t tell if it was a change in the tunnel’s air pressure, a slight increase in the sewage flow, but something had changed. Then, she heard voices, distant but coming closer. Her mind flashed to the ambush she and Johnny had carried out. The thought of having to face another child Culler was too horrible to bear.
I’d rather die, and this time she actually believed it. Even if it meant that she wouldn’t get back to her sister, she’d rather die than be involved in the death of another child.
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Creating another snorkel mask she jumped into the sewerage. She figured that since it had worked once before, it would again.
BIOMASS NOTIFICATION
It didn’t take long for the voices to get closer. As she watched from the camera, she could tell these people were different. Nothing marked them out as either normal Cullers or members of the different factions she’d seen.
She couldn’t place why they were different. Perhaps it was the way they spoke. Or the fact that they seemed to have a mix of gangers, urbexers, soldiers, prisoners and civilians.
They’re all working together, she couldn’t tell whether they were part of some strange team. But even if they were, it made her teeth itch that they already had a secret base.
None of this makes sense, there’s no way they could have formed a team and built a secret base in the time since the Culling started. And since when did people from all of the factions mix like this?
“… make the attack soon?”
She zoomed her snorkel’s camera in on the speaker. The woman had a strange mix of tattoos and a formidable scar across her face reaching from the top right of her hairline diagonally down left across her nose and ending at her top lip. Where it bared a couple of teeth.
She could have had that fixed judging by her clothes, who the fuck would want to leave such an injury unhealed?
Still, it was definitely intimidating. Which perhaps was the purpose. No-one with baby smooth skin would get the respect of the sort of people she was hanging around with, so perhaps the scar made sense.
“Yes, Anna. Cullers on 3-324, 1-987, 5-879, all holed up. Drones will be pushing them out. It’s clear they don’t want to move on. They’re dug in like ticks sucking on a mogwai’s arse.”
“Good. I reckon that if we get there first we can get some of them to join us.”
What the hell? You can’t choose to leave the Culling, thought Mai. But the way that Anna’s people were talking, and the fact that they seemed to be from each of the factions made her doubt everything she’d been told.
The leader, Anna, tapped a number of different points around the door. Mai didn’t bother trying to work out where she touched precisely, she could always play it back on her camera.
What really interested her was that these people were trying to not only break the rules, but to get Cullers to join them in their secret base, to join their group.
It’s like the plot from a bad holomyth, or one of those games that Li’s always playing, Mai thought. There was no way that anyone could fight the Empire, it was simply too powerful.
In a world where everything was monitored, how were these people managing to not only create secret bases but also manage to walk around without drones and the Imperial army wiping them out?
They also had a strange mixture of weapons. Some had nanite weapons, whereas others were holding physical versions. Either they didn’t have the skill to form such weapons, or they were seriously down on their level of BIOMASS. But the chest rigs they carried were packed full with magazines. Did that mean that those of their group who did have the skill or sufficient nanites had crafted them for them, or that they had a factory somewhere which carried out that function?
And if they were Cullers, they’d have had the ability unlocked in training. Which meant that those people with the hardcopy weapons were either plain civilians or Cullers. But if they were normal civilians, why were they getting themselves involved with the Culling when the punishment for doing so, if anything went wrong, was so harsh?
Were they like her, Fat John, and the other sewer workers? Civilians that had known the Cullers previously and were working with them? She’d secretly thought that her relationship with the sewer workers was something special. But now that she thought about it, it was logical that some of the other one million Cullers in the Culling would have previous relationships they could call on for help.
Makes no sense that they would be going out to find other Cullers to add them to their group though. What in Five Vaginas of the Virgin Nuns is going on? It felt as though her head was spinning. Everything she had thought she had known about the Culling was being turned completely onto its head.
As soon as the door slid open, the strange group started to file through it into the darkness beyond. Mai could see nothing beyond where the light of the sewers ended. One-by-one the people faded into the darkness as if they were ghosts. For a moment she almost doubted she’d seen and heard them.
Mai stayed where she was. The group looked far too threatening for her to just pop up out of the noxious sludge with a friendly ‘hello’. They were more likely to gun her down out of surprise than ask her in for green tea and steamed buns.
Her stomach rumbled at the thought of steamed buns. Pork was her favourite and she salivated as an image of steamed buns popped into her head. She and Li had once eaten a thirty-two pack in one sitting.
They’d puked for the rest of the day, but it was still one of the best memories and Li shared. It had been a banquet fit for the Emperor. Every bite, even the very last where she was sure that she was going to burst, had been utterly glorious. Her taste buds had enjoyed every single juicy morsel. When they went down that was. Coming back up it had been less pleasant, but they had talked about it for weeks after.
BIO-MASS BOOST was all well and good, but it didn’t satisfy any of the body’s natural urges. Yes, it was food, and she would never starve whilst she had the bottles, but at the same time it didn’t fill her. There was no chewing involved so the body didn’t really acknowledge that it was getting what it needed, and whilst her stomach was getting full, the psychological need to chew wasn’t being fulfilled.
Thankfully, it didn’t act the same way as water. BIO-MASS BOOST was completely absorbed by the body, well the nanites. If it wasn’t, she and the rest of the Cullers would no doubt be spending precious time pissing.
As soon as the door closed, just as silently as it had opened, she was up and out of the sewage. Commanding the nanites to clean her hazmat suit, she stood impatiently until they confirmed that there was no goop still on her.
Opening up a small screen on her retinal monitor, she played back how Anna had opened the door. Fingers outstretched, she paused before pressing the first point.
No knowing if they’ve trapped the door now that they’re back, or if the door only opens to Anna’s DNA. No knowing if they’re watching me and getting ready to kill me as soon as I open the door either.
Still, the memory of the sewer dwellers discussing how they wanted to bring Cullers into their base meant that she seriously doubted they would be waiting on the other side to kill her.
“Fuck it,” she pressed the locations as quickly as she could. It was better to get it over and done with rather than drag it out.
The door popped away from her and then slid open so suddenly that she squeaked. Heart hammering, she looked into the darkness beyond. Her minimap was now registering a corridor that stretched beyond its detection capabilities.
Forming a torch on her shoulder she slowly panned the light across the floor and walls. Whilst she could use LARCENY in its PASSIVE mode, she ACTIVATED it. Not doing so made no sense as it wasn’t a skill she would constantly need to hand. SPOT HIDDEN was the other skill she activated.
No traps that I can see. Doesn’t mean there aren’t any, she thought before stepping slowly onto the floor beyond. As soon as she was fully in, the door slid shut behind her.
“Well, that’s not sinister in any way,” she chuckled, speaking out loud more to feel less alone than for any other reason.
Walking along the corridor, she continued to actively search for traps. To her surprise there didn’t seem to be any, nor any to activate as she finally came to the end of the corridor and a very large armoured door.
“Damn, no chance I’m going to be able to open this one on my own. Not without blowing it open.” And that certainly wasn’t an option. Not if she wanted to find out who these people were.
With no other option, she raised her hand and knocked firmly on the door.
Nothing. Apart from a heart which felt it was going to burst out of her chest and a trickle of sweat that started running down the middle of her back.
She knocked again, harder this time. It felt as though she was knocking on an iron pillow, the door so dense that it was soaking up her attempts to get attention. She tried again. Harder. No change apart from the fact she hurt her knuckles.
“Nothing for it,” she stepped back and formed a large nanite hammer. This time, when she knocked, the door rang like a bell.
Absorbing the hammer she stepped back slightly, arms outspread and hands open.
Please don’t bloody kill me, she thought.
The door started to swing outward just as silently as the secret door had. It was both ominous and slightly reassuring as it indicated that the people were professional in their approach to maintaining their base. Squeaky hinges would also have somewhat ruined the effect.
Or just psychopathically paranoid, the thought made her mouth quirk in a faint smile as the first of the sewer dwellers stepped out. They weren’t smiling.
“Get on your motherfucking knees before I blow your fucking brains out!”