Spearing a wonton with a chopstick, Mai dabbed it into some sweet chilli sauce and then popped it into her mouth. It was perfectly cooked. Crispy, but full of a juicy filling that was melt-in-the-mouth. Far better than anything she’d ever eaten before. Like ever.
“This is seriously good food!” she exclaimed as she speared another won ton. It wasn’t really something done in polite company, but she was past caring. Spearing was quicker, easier, and strangely satisfying.
“Thanks, that’s honey-mogwai, I CRAFTED the recipe. I was a chef when I used to live up there” The girl smiled timidly at her and jerked her eyes and head upwards. From her accent she was a six-miler.
Mai’s mouth stopped mid-chew. All of a sudden the flavour-filled mush in her mouth tasted of sand. Her throat worked, trying to swallow, but the won-ton stayed firmly where it was.
“They’re all over the place, so we farm them. It’s good for developing skills and titles like MOGWAI BANE, TUNNEL HUNTER and such like. We’re skilling up as we eat.”
Grabbing hold of her drink so quickly it slopped over her hand, Mai took a large gulp and swallowed hard. Now it literally felt like the mogwai was trying to claw its way back out of her throat and the memory of the one which killed Andries was at the forefront.
“Think I’ve had enough won ton,” Mai pushed the bowl away from herself. “Back to the lichen noodles it is,” She said as the girl laughed. She then noticed meat floated in the broth that the girl was eating. She looked over at her guard, raising an eyebrow.
“Rat, good old rat,” the girl smiled at Mai’s unspoken question. Then gently pushed the bowl towards her, taking Mai’s won ton.
“Excellent,” Mai set to with gusto, firmly pushing away the thought of mogwai. If anything the broth tasted even better than the won ton.
“Glad you approve,” Anna remarked as she stepped from behind Mai. Trying not to choke on her broth as she was startled. Mai had to hand it to her, Anna was nothing if not sneaky. “You wanted to know how you could prove you’re trustworthy. I need you to take this message chip to another cell.”
Mai looked at the chip Anna was holding. It was a simple card, no longer or wider than a finger, and no thicker than a hair. Standard fare for people who liked a hard backup of their data.
“Why not just transmit it?” Despite the question, Mai’s curiosity was piqued, and given what she’d seen so far of the setup she was keen to learn more about Anna and her mysterious group.
And no matter what sort of a bitch she is, she must be doing something good if all these people are sticking with her. Despite her feelings, Mai decided to give Anna the benefit of the doubt. For now at least.
“Because this is much more secure. People don’t like what we’re doing. Communications can be easily intercepted. Chips not so. The fact that you’re still a Culler, and not listed as missing makes it all the more secure.”
“What? You’ve got Cullers listed as missing?” Mai couldn’t hide her surprise. She’d never heard of Cullers going missing. But then, the Celestial Court wouldn’t want its Cullers to know that there was actually a way of surviving the Culling which didn’t involve Ascension.
Anna’s face twisted for a brief second, so quickly that Mai almost thought she’d imagined it. The anger in Anna’s eyes confirmed she hadn’t. It was clear that Anna was struggling with more than a few anger issues.
“Enough with the questions. Deliver this chip and you can ask any question you like.”
Doesn’t mean you’ll answer them though, Mai thought as she took the chip and tucked it away. But at least I might be able to work out how they’ve stopped the drones from moving me … and the other Cullers on.
“Directions?”
“No need,” smirked Anna, scar twisting her face. Mai had to bite down on a smart-mouthed answer.
DELIVER THE MESSAGE TO CELL ONE-NINER
DO YOU ACCEPT YES/NO?
“How the fuck did you manage that?” Gasped Mai. She’d been surprised when Billy had given her the mission, but in the end had settled on the reasoning that since Fat John had been taken, Billy had become the boss, and so was able to create and issue missions.
But Anna? She was a nobody living in the sewers. Wasn’t she? Although she was a manager of sorts given that she was running some sort of secret fugitives cell. Or bandits perhaps. No, Mai decided. They were fugitives. Bandits would have just robbed her of everything she had, slit her through, and left her body for the scavengers to eat.
“Deliver the message. Ask the questions later. Maybe you’ll get some answers.”
Mai nodded, pinching her mouth shut tight as she selected YES and compared the path of the guideline to her minimap.
“That’s a bloody long way,” Mai said. Whilst the guideline gave her the optimal path it was far further than she had expected. And the further she had to travel, the more risk of coming up against Cullers.
“Sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be back,” Anna said in a ‘take it or leave it’ manner.
Whilst it might have been counterproductive, Mai wanted nothing more than to smash her fist repeatedly into Anna’s face. There was just something about the woman that rubbed Mai up the wrong way. She’d never met someone like that before. Not even Smith had made her stomach so knotted in such a short time. At least it wasn’t one-sided; Anna seemed to dislike her as much as she disliked Anna.
Fists balled, she turned and stalked off. She definitely didn’t flounce.
*
The guideline not only led away from the rebel base, it also led up. Pausing in the sewer to recover the bio-mass bottles she’d hidden, she also took the time to look at the journey she was going to have to take. Having eaten the rat broth and honey mogwai, her bio-mass levels were back to one hundred per cent. Despite her reservations, she was going to have to try to get hold of the recipe if she could.
I’m going to have to go back into the habs. People are going to see me. This is going to be bloody hard.
And that was an understatement. Having dropped off the Culling’s viewing cams for the time she was in the secret base, Mai knew that a lot of people would already think she was dead. Whilst others would have just moved on to the next Culler who caught their eye.
She was under no disillusion that those watching her truly supported her. Only those that Ascended were truly remembered by Emperor-worshipping civilians, and even then they were mostly forgotten by the time of the next Culling.
Popping back up well and truly not dead was going to cause people to ask questions. And there was always the fact that people who had bet money on other Cullers would be more than happy to see her well and truly dead.
She still hadn’t worked out how the rebels had managed to keep themselves hidden for so long and how they had prevented the drones from finding her and forcing her out of the cover provided by the secret base.
Nothing I can do about it; she gave a mental shrug. Deliver the chip, get the answers.
Not that she knew what she was going to do once she had the answers. Whether she was going to stay with the rebels, if they’d have her, still wasn’t certain.
Not sure I could take orders from that snooty bitch, and there it was. Yet again her rebellious nature was going to spoil a potentially good thing because she’d had her nose put out of joint.
Following the guideline, she stayed close to the wall the base was situated behind. Now that she’d actually been inside the base, her minimap was adding any bits it could reach.
All too soon she reached the edges of the base and was forced to concentrate on the task ahead. Popping open the bottle of bio-mass she drank heavily, watching as it increased her bio-mass to one hundred and fifty percent her normal level. From what she could see it wasn’t decreasing over time. That didn’t mean that it wouldn’t suddenly plummet after a set period, however.
It was a risk to use bio-mass like that when she didn’t need to, but things had been so strange recently, she figured that she might as well experiment when she had the time. Besides, she could always top back up once she was back at the base.
She followed the guide line up a ladder and then into an elevator. Her destination was 6-439. Six Mile – Level Four Three Two. Even though the elevator was a high-speed one, it was still going to take a good few minutes to arrive, so she sat down and started to work her way through her nano-menu, creating more shortcuts and quick choices.
*
When the elevator finally stopped, she took a moment before she exited. She was about to enter the real world once more. A world packed with people going about their normal lives and not trying to murder each other.
The would come soon though once other Cullers discovered that she was in the area. And if there were any civilians watching her again, comms channels would be awash with chatter and sightings.
It took much more to step out of that elevator than she thought possible. Mai had been sent to a back-end elevator, one which wasn’t used that often because it was off the main concourses. A blessing in disguise, as otherwise she’d have been swamped by people wanting to use it.
Stepping out she found herself on a main concourse, packed full of civilians. Chest tight, she forced herself to slow down, not wanting to call attention to herself, her passive STEALTH skill kicking in, allowing her to blend in to the crowd rather than actually hiding her.
“Good kills, Xio! Keep it up!” So much for her passive skills, and if the failures kept up like that, she’d be old and toothless before she ranked up. The woman who had called out was a spotter for a local gang though, so maybe she’d had her own skills activated and spotted Mai that way. Mai’s STEALTH rank must have been lower than the ganger’s.
Whatever had happened it didn’t bode well for what should have been a simple delivery job. Lips tight, she gave a wave, knowing she couldn’t piss off a supporter and turn them into an enemy.
“Xio’s back!” shouted another man. Her supporter must have put out a shout on social media. Perhaps she wasn’t a supporter after all. Or was just too keen to let everyone know that she’d seen her favourite Culler.
Mai kept walking, calling up her own social media apps on her retinal monitor. Performing a fast search she saw that she was starting to trend.
The most common trend was ^backfromthedead. Clearly she’d been marked as Culled when she dropped out of public view in Anna’s secret base.
Brilliant, they’re even giving my damned location, she thought bitterly as messages such as ^Mai Xio – 6-439! Shopping for clothes? Popped up. Within two seconds, there were over three thousand results, and it continued to grow.
Her destination was still another twenty minutes of walking away. More if the crowd didn’t thin out at some point. She was on a main merch-strand, so it was full of people dawdling as they window shopped.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Activating her STREET SMARTS she used it to scan the people around her. Most were completely unaware of who she was, but more and more were either logging themselves as supporters, or rivals on her social feed.
There were more rivals than supporters. Her social feed showed that most of her rivals were thinking that she’d cheated somehow. Which, when she came to think about, she indirectly had.
Shouts of anger sounded out behind her. She kept walking but took a casual turn about as she did. Something, or someone, was forcing its way through the crowd and not caring about being polite in the process.
Cullers, her heart sank at the thought. They were surrounded by hundreds of civilians going about their daily business. A Culler battle in the middle of the crowd would cause untold casualties, something she didn’t want on her conscience.
She activated FREE RUNNING and sprinted as best as she could. More shouts followed her as she inevitably knocked into people. And those shouts were going to draw the Cullers to her.
As soon as she saw an alleyway she took it. It was an old thoroughfare which had fallen into disuse. Whereas people would have once walked through it to get to another pedway on the other side of the hab-block, it was now filled with rubbish.
Twenty paces in she started to set mines, costing her fifteen per cent BIOMASS. They were far enough in that they wouldn’t hurt any civilians. Or at least that was what she hoped.
I can’t keep trying to dodge these guys, she thought. Already she’d deviated from the best path to complete her mission. And they would only keep driving her off course. Every switch and turn she took, the guideline tried to reroute.
That and I doubt the rebels I’m delivering this chip to, will appreciate me arriving with a horde of Cullers on my heels.
The thought of the look on the rebel’s faces as she handed over the chip whilst fighting off an army of Cullers made her chuckle. Gallows humour, as she certainly didn’t find anything remotely amusing about her current situation.
Moving further in, she formed a pistol for one per cent BIOMASS and fired a series of shots into the air, emptying the magazine for another one per cent BIOMASS. Any Culler with half a brain would be checking their minimap and the sound of the shots would appear on it straight away.
Tucking in behind a pile of scrap, she absorbed the pistol and formed a suppressed SMG for three per cent BIOMASS, with a full magazine of thirty rounds for another three BIOMASS. She didn’t have to wait long. A group of Cullers, clearly a team, came barrelling into the alleyway.
They were bunched up, so eager to Cull her that all thought of tactics had gone out of the window. None of them were members of the factions though.
Just normal people who made stupid decisions. People like me. Sadness and guilt washed over her as the first mine detonated, blowing both legs and an arm off the Culler who stepped on it.
KILL!
CONTESTANT 165474 ELIMINATED
Her enemies scattered, diving into cover to the left and right of the alley, tucking in behind piles of rubbish and the odd piece of large detritus. The other mines detonated, blowing chunks of rubbish and human debris in a wide radius.
KILL!
CONTESTANT 465476 ELIMINATED
KILL!
CONTESTANT 193867 ELIMINATED
CRITICAL HIT! 37%
STUNNED
BLINDED
BLEED @17%
CRITICAL HIT! 35%
BLINDED
STUNNED
BLEED @33% PER SECOND
The close confines of the alley, no more than two paces at its widest and far narrower than any of the sewers, coupled with the large amount of rubbish, had turned the already deadly mines into apocalyptically effective weapons. Small fires started to fill the alleyway with smoke, and cries of alarm from civilians at both ends of the alley all but drowned out the screams of the dying Cullers.
Not waiting to see what else happened, Mai was up and running for the far end of the alleyway, her guideline adjusting the route she would need to take in order to reach the rebels.
Reaching the end of the alleyway she slowed, pausing to catch her breath. There was no sound of pursuit and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself by sprinting out of an alleyway.
Any further attention, that is, what with the social feeds and those mines going off, it’s not as if anyone can claim they didn’t know something was going on!
She was also tired. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept properly and despite the meal she’d eaten less than an hour ago in the base, she was hungry.
Neon flashed further on down advertising a sushi-burger joint. Strolling, activating STEALTH and SNEAK, she made her way to the entrance, breathing the smell of raw fish protein and fresh-baked lichen bread as she got closer. Mouth-watering, she tried to remember the last time she had eaten. Just the thought of eating made her stomach growl, cramping enough to tell her she needed to get some fuel for the nano-bots.
Despite having the bio-mass liquid, she’d rather save that for when she really needed it. And another good, cooked meal would do wonders for her morale as well. She’d been genuinely surprised at how good it had felt to eat the rebel’s food.
“Well, at least I won’t have to pay for it,” she muttered, keeping her head down as she entered the eatery. It was nearly empty, a few tables needing clearing, a tired-looking waitress dabbing ineffectively at one of them with a cloth that looked as though it should have been retired in the last century.
Cullers didn’t have to pay for anything. Not only did they have an unlimited credit amount they could draw on, they could also take what they needed, so long as they didn’t hurt anyone doing so. Although the lines were somewhat blurred when it came to civilians being caught in the crossfire.
Makes all those bounties for killing mogwai pretty pointless, and it’s not like I’ll need money once I’ve Ascended either. Maybe I can gift it to someone?
Sliding into the nearest booth, she called up the eatery’s sub-menu, selected the biggest meal she could and blink-paid using her Culler’s credit account.
A timer appeared, showing her that it would take roughly three minutes for the meal to be prepared. Unfortunately it was a waitress-only business, which meant that the woman giving her sour looks whilst seeming to only spread muck across the counter with that Emperor-cursed rags, would be serving her the food.
Guess this place doesn’t use nanos, she thought, entirely unsurprised considering the décor of the place. She hadn’t spent much time on this level but, even though it was nearly one mile higher than hers, it still wasn’t anything special.
It was also a good time to have a look at how she had progressed. She hadn’t really thought much about Ranking up her skills. The only time she could remember doing so was when she entered the DOMINATION EVENT, and she’d failed miserably at that.
However, considering the amount of fighting she’d had to do these past few days, she’d have been surprised if her combat skills at least hadn’t ranked up considerably.
Opening her SASS, she took note of the skills that had improved recently then, calling up her skills menu, she selected her USE MINES skill.
SASS HERE
It was one of her favourite skills as it meant that she didn’t have to directly kill fellow Cullers. It was a strange distinction to make, but it made things easier for her to believe that she hadn’t directly caused her enemy’s deaths.
And I’ve done more than my bloody fair share of up close and personal.
She was the max rank she could be, five. All those mogwai kills had helped her Rank up her skill faster than she thought possible. Staying in the sewers would have given her a massive advantage over the Cullers who were having to rely on killing their fellow humans.
Not only did rank five mean she had a twenty-five per cent chance of a CRITICAL HIT each time some poor unwitting fool stepped on a mine, but she also paid twenty-five per cent less BIOMASS per mine.
The cooker’s countdown still hadn’t reached a minute, so she moved into the general skills section.
TUNNEL FIGHTER, SEWER COMBAT, KNIFE FIGHTING, USE SMG, USE LIGHT MACHINE GUN, TREAT LIGHT INJURIES, TREAT SERIOUS INJURIES, SNEAK, STEALTH, and FREE RUNNING had all ranked up as well.
I guess I like SMGs so much because I want to lay down as much fire as possible, and whilst her opponents were pinned, she could either make her escape, or close with them and use her close quarter weapons to Cull them.
That gave her pause for thought. Thus far she’d been using knives, random swords, and a tomahawk. But she hadn’t settled on one particular weapon. Scrolling through the close-quarter weapons, she added a quick select to the tomahawk, skipped past the knives and then entered into the swords menu.
Knives are good because they’re nice and fast. But they have to be used at such close ranges. And, they’re light, which is another plus.
But swords gave extra weight to her blows, and offered a longer reach. What she needed was a sword which was light like a knife, but which had extra reach and hitting power.
And is easy to use in tight confines, like the bloody sewers.
One caught her eye. Something called a Gladius. An ancient weapon from a time so far in the past that it might well have been a fantasy.
Gladius are two-edged swords designed for cutting with a tapered point for stabbing during thrusting. A knobbed hilt, with finger grips, provides a solid grip, as does a specially textured nanoweave to prevent slippage when the user’s hand is covered in the blood of their opponents. The owner's name is often engraved or punched on the blade for no additional BIOMASS cost.
Stabbing with a gladius is particularly effective, especially when the weapon is thrust into the enemy’s abdominal area. Aside from causing excruciating pain, a critical hit with a gladius causes BLEED @15% per second. Whilst short, at only four or five hand lengths, it is still an efficient chopping and slashing weapon.
And at a BIOMASS cost of only three per cent, that made it a very efficient close-quarters weapon. Without a second thought she blink-clicked it to her favourites menu.
There was a ping as the cooker’s countdown reached zero, and the waitress slapped a plate piled high with food onto the table. Aubergine fries spilled onto the less-than-clean tabletop. Without a word, the waitress turned and walked back to wherever she had come from.
Shitty service aside, Mai couldn’t fault the look of the food, nor the size of the portion. Stomach growling, in anticipation she grabbed the burger and took a deep bite. Proteins, salts and fats oozed into her mouth from the hot fake meat and she closed her eyes in virtual ecstasy as her jaws chomped through the soft flesh of the first, and the airy bread of the bun.
Maybe I should have just found the best restaurants in the city and stuffed my face, rather than actually trying to survive the Culling, she thought wryly. Perhaps, if she hadn’t had Li to worry about, that would have been a viable option. Afterall, the odds of surviving the Culling were so low, it made sense to make use of the unlimited funds available and live the best life you could before dying at the hands of your fellow competitors. Wouldn’t surprise me if I found out that was actually happening.
Putting that down, she grabbed a handful of fries and shoved them into her mouth before grabbing hold of her drink and drawing deeply. It was a yak-milkshake, the most expensive item on the menu, supposedly the restaurant’s speciality. It felt as if her taste buds had exploded.
“Is everything good?” asked a woman beside her. Probably the waitress trying to see if she could earn a couple of extra credits by actually doing the job she was being paid to do.
She opened her mouth to reply, then choked as a hand closed around her throat with an iron-tight grip. Stars immediately appeared as she opened her eyes in alarm. The woman was white, a clear sign of her low caste, most likely a one-miler. Teeth bared; she added her other hand to the stranglehold.
DAMAGE! 1%
DAMAGE! 3%
CHOKING!
Mai knew she had bare seconds to act. Scrabbling to loosen the grip she selected the gladius, having already set up a quick choice. She ignored the pain as the nanos set to work, punching repeatedly at the woman’s ribs to break the grip, knowing that the tip of the blade would be the first thing to form.
HIT! 1%
HIT! 1%
HIT! 2%
Whilst her punches weren’t the most powerful in the world, they at least caused her attacker some discomfort, loosening the death grip around her throat somewhat, allowing precious air into her lungs.
HIT! 6%
BLEED@5% PER SECOND
With a gasp, and an “o” shape to her lips, the woman let go, dropping to her knees so suddenly that Mai’s next punch drove her blade into the side of the other Culler’s neck.
Twisting, she opened a gaping wound in her opponent’s neck, then pulled the blade free. Gasping, clutching at her throat, the woman collapsed to the floor, feet kicking as she bled out on the floor. Blood showered over the nearby diners who, somewhat predictably, reacted by utterly freaking out.
KILL!
CULLER 209048 ELIMINATED
Rasping for breath, Mai massaged her own throat. Grabbing another handful of fries, she rammed them into her mouth before grabbing the burger. Looking up, she met the shocked eyes of the waitress.
“Mumblefum?” She asked, spraying fries as she spoke.
The waitress shrugged, “What?”
Throat feeling as though it was on fire, Mai forced the fries down, then grabbed the burger. She’d been raised to not waste food and ‘waste not, want not’ had taken on a new meaning now that she was mostly dependent on food for bio-mass. It would help her passive HEAL skill and keep her BIOMASS at one hundred per cent.
“Back door?” She managed to choke out after forcing the food down her still-bruised throat. What had been mere seconds before been an enjoyable moment now felt like she was trying to force a plasticrete brick down her throat.
The waitress jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, spitting on the floor at the same time. “You just cost me twenty, fucking bitch.”
Mai didn’t bother replying, there was no point. She didn’t have time to chat, Cullers would be homing in on the kill marker. And she had no doubt that the waitress had popped her location onto the social feeds.
As quickly as she could she made her way through to the back, cramming the burger into her mouth so fast that she was almost to the point of choking. Pushing past the shocked chef, she stepped into the alley beyond and made her escape.