B4.

Lazaro stared out across the barren stretch of sand, the landmark scanner in clear view, taunting them from a distance. "This is crazy, man," he muttered.

Jude shrugged, pulling flags from the trunk and tossing his shirt aside. "It is what it is."

Lazaro’s frustration was about to bubble over. "You’re not seriously thinking of walking straight through that, are you? The ground's probably full of—"

"Land mines," Jude finished calmly, though his hands trembled as he hefted the flags. "Yeah. I know."

Lazaro stared at him, incredulous. "How do you know that?"

Jude walked toward him and Lucy, red flags tucked under his arm. The consequence of his plan was evident in the tension of his jaw. "Albert," he started, "was their main test subject. He probably hit every mine from here to the scanner." He gestured with one of the red flags, the irony of the colour not lost on him.

Lazaro’s eyes darted from the flags to the stretch of sand. "And you’re just going to… what, follow in his footsteps?"

“That’s the plan.” Jude nodded, trying to project confidence even as the slight tremor in his voice gave him away. "I’ll retrace his path. Step by step." He paused, adjusting the flags under his arm like they were the lifeline to his plan. "I’ll plant a flag at every safe spot, and Lucy follows after. Easy peasy."

Lazaro's eyes narrowed. "And if you explode?"

Jude shrugged, a forced grin tugging at his lips. "Then I wake up, have dinner with my wife, and probably get it written up in my record. Probably with no promotion or raise this year." Jude chuckled. "Yeah, it’ll suck, but hey, it is what it is."

"I could use my metal detector," Lucy offered.

Jude shook his head, glancing down at her. "I thought about that, Princess, but the mines are packed in too close. That thing would beep like crazy, giving us nothing but false alarms." He smirked, trying to lighten the mood. "You guys need to cheer the fuck up. You look like you’ve already picked out my headstone. It’s just a simulation, remember? Nobody is actually dying."

Lucy opened her mouth to correct him, "Well—" but caught herself, biting her lip.

Jude knelt down, bringing himself to Lucy's eye level, his half-smile strained but warm. "Don’t worry, kid. It’s just a game. Nothing bad can actually happen—it’s just a really unpleasant experience. I’ve died before in these simulations, and it’s like waking up from a bad dream. You come back a little shaken, but you recover. So don’t worry."

Lucy hesitated, her lips parting to speak, but the words seemed to get stuck. Her gaze was uncertain, searching Jude’s face for something more.

Sensing her fear, Jude softened. "Look, princess," he said gently, "I don’t know where you are or if you even know yourself where you are. That’s why I’m being extra careful, okay? I don’t know how dangerous it is for you to wake up. As for me..." He shrugged, trying to make light of it. "Well, my boss is the one keeping me hooked up. If I get blown to pieces, I’ll just wake up, go home, and have dinner waiting for me. And to be honest, just between us, I really miss my bed and my beautiful coffee machine."

“What about your wife?”

“I’m trying to keep this conversation PG.” He smiled, a bit more genuine this time, trying to make her feel safe in a situation that felt anything but.

Jude straightened up, turning his back to her as he stood. His shoulders tensed slightly, though he tried to keep his movements casual. He couldn’t bring himself to say what lingered at the back of his mind. It didn’t matter that this was just a simulation, it didn’t matter that logic told him he was safe, lying in a pod far from danger. The truth was that survival instinct had a power that overruled everything else.

Even in the game, where the worst outcome was waking up to reality, the fear clung to him. It was something they still hadn’t figured out how to shut off, that gnawing primal panic in the face of danger.

Albert was proof of that—of how real fear could feel, how it could twist the mind. Jude knew, deep down, that no matter what he told Lucy, that fear would grip him when the moment came.

He didn’t need to explain that to her. She didn’t need to know that no matter what the scientists promised, the fear of death was always there, lurking, ready to make him fight for every breath—even if it was all just part of the game. Fear made no distinction between an algorithm and reality.

Jude walked to the edge of the vast expanse of sand, his mind trying to grasp the sheer scale of his makeshift mission. He could feel the tension in his muscles as he visualised the grid in his head.

“Barbara, break down the distance from my position to the landmark scanner,” he said, his voice steady, even though his pulse was anything but.

“The area is approximately 90.1 meters by 86.3 meters," Barbara's voice responded, emotionless as ever. "Dividing the terrain into cells, each one representing the average size of a human foot—0.3 meters by 0.1 meters—you’ll have 259,188 cells, labelled SR-509 in total.”

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Jude blinked, feeling drowning under the weight of the numbers sinking in. That was...a lot more than he'd expected.

"Right," he muttered, exhaling slowly. "What cell am I in now?"

“BS1,” Barbara answered.

Jude swallowed and turned his gaze toward the scanner in the distance, barely visible across the endless stretch of sand. "And the cell where the landmark is?"

"BQ506," Barbara confirmed.

The distance ahead seemed endless, the sand shifting like a deceptive, barren sea. Jude’s eyes traced the path to the scanner.

“It’s like a walk in the park," he muttered under his breath. But each step felt heavier. The weight of the flags under his arm made him realise that he didn’t have enough to mark every step of the way.

Still, he pressed on, knowing he'd have to deal with the problem when he reached it.

"Jude, this is madness. Let's just go back and figure something else out." Lazaro shouted.

Jude barely glanced at him, gripping the first flag tight in his hand. His heart raced, but his face was calm, almost too calm. "It's fine," he muttered, jabbing the flag into the ground right before his sneakers. "One step done."

He took another step, then another, each time planting a flag into the sand, trying not to think about the explosives buried beneath the surface. His mind raced through Albert's memories—each explosion, each step, each death. Those were his markers, his guide through this deadly maze.

The heat from the desert bore down on him, making the sweat on his back trickle faster, but he ignored it. Step, flag, step.

But then he paused, holding the final flag in his hand, staring at the empty stretch ahead. His breath hitched.

His stomach sank. He’d used up all 20 flags already. Ahead stretched more barren land, the scanner still distant, mocking him with its unreachable proximity.

His instincts screamed at him to turn back, to retrace his steps and try another way. But with only 20 flags, he'd need hundreds more to finish the job. That wasn’t realistic. His thoughts raced, heart pounding against his chest.

"Think," he muttered, eyes narrowing against the blinding sun. He couldn’t stop now, not after coming this far. Why wasn’t he following the plan?

Jude froze, the sound of muffled footsteps crunching on the sand pulling him from his frantic thoughts. His heart skipped as he cautiously glanced over his shoulder, and there she was—Lucy. She stood just behind him, gripping the flags in her hands.

"It's easier like this," she said, holding out a flag to him. "You walk forward, place them, and I take them back. We move together."

It was a solid plan, smart even. A wave of guilt washed over him. He’d designed this strategy to keep her safe, to keep her far away from the danger beneath their feet. The back-and-forth with the flags had been the safest route. But Lucy had found the fastest one.

His fingers twitched as he took the flag from her, planting it in the sand ahead. He’d been thinking like a soldier, strategising safety above all. With her quick wit and lack of fear, she had chosen efficiency.

Too late to turn back now.

With a quiet exhale, Jude accepted the next flag from Lucy’s outstretched hand, planting it firmly on the ground.

By the time they reached BU-269, Lucy's breaths were coming out in short, huffing gasps.

Jude, still focused on the shifting sand beneath his feet, called back, "You okay, kiddo?" He couldn’t see her without risking a step outside his designated safe cell.

“Yeah, just thirsty,” she muttered.

“Think you can hold on a bit?” Jude asked, glancing down at the next flag, preparing himself for another step.

Lucy paused before answering, “I’ve got my backpack. We’ve got what we need.”

Jude froze mid-motion, eyes wide as the realisation hit him like a punch to the gut. “Wait—how are you going to get stuff out of your backpack if you can't turn?”

There was a brief silence before Lucy’s small voice piped up, “I, uh... I already turned it.”

Jude squeezed his eyes shut, suppressing a groan. "Alright, let’s try not to do that again, okay?"

Without waiting for her reply, he carefully took another step forward, placing the next flag in the sand. Time crawled, each second dragging into what felt like an eternity. The sweat trickled down his temple, nerves on edge with every shift of his foot. It wasn't just the heat. It was the gnawing awareness of the dangers lurking beneath.

Lucy’s voice broke his concentration, “Gimme your hand.”

Jude frowned, still trying to keep focus on the next move. “For what?”

“Water,” she replied simply.

He sighed, shifting the weight of the flags in his hands. “Lucy, you know I’m holding the flags.”

“So? You don’t want water?”

"I don’t have free hands. One holds flags already, and the other will hold a bottle. I don’t have a third hand to keep planting these things. You see the problem, right?" He knew he sounded frustrated. "And then, what am I supposed to do with the bottle once I drink it? I can’t just set it down—what if the wind blows and it rolls and hits a mine?"

Lucy thought for a moment before offering a solution. “What if you bury it?”

Jude hesitated, her suggestion surprisingly practical. He glanced down at the shifting sands and was haunted by the image of the bottle rolling off, detonating a mine beneath their feet. But burying it might actually work. He closed his eyes, considering his next move.

Lucy’s idea wasn’t bad, but his plan had already strayed so far from what he originally intended. Adding more risk felt like gambling with their safety. His throat burned, lips chapped from the dry heat, practically begging for water.

"Did you already take the bottles out?" he asked.

"Yeah."

That was a problem. He couldn’t turn, couldn’t risk the flags slipping from his hand or an awkward movement sending them over hidden danger. But he was thirsty, and burying the bottle in the sand, as suggested by Lucy, seemed like the only solution—easier, safer, and less prone to error.

"Okay, pass it on," Jude muttered, placing his hand behind his back, fingers outstretched.

Lucy gently placed the bottle into his hand, her small fingers brushing against his.

He reached behind him, feeling the cool weight of the water bottle settle gently into his palm. He gripped it tightly, careful not to drop it, and swung it around to the front. The first gulp hit his dry throat like pure relief, the liquid slipping down faster than he realised. He hadn't known just how thirsty he was until that moment.

As the bottle emptied, Jude felt the harsh sun beating down, the sand beneath his fingers rough as he crouched to bury it. His fingers brushed against something solid beneath the surface—a click. His stomach dropped. The realisation hit him hard, faster than his next breath.

Albert hadn’t stepped on BS-403.

Jude made a mistake.

His muscles stiffened as the situation bore down on him. Lucy had already collected the flags behind him, leaving them with no way to backtrack, no clear path to safety.

“Why aren’t you moving?” Lucy asked.

Jude swallowed, his mind racing. “I, uh... I stepped on a mine.”

“What do we do?”

"I don’t know, Princess," Jude whispered, his heart pounding against his chest. "I’m thinking."

image [https://i.imgur.com/ikKfP6V.png]