Smarting from the predictable dressing down, I kicked off my maiden infiltration by stepping into a dangling metal cage. A few metres below it, radiating enough heat to give me eventual second-hand burns, lay a pit of lava complemented by the fresh scent of burning flesh.

Encouraging start.

An unambiguously dead body lay curled at the bottom of the cage, which I stepped on to protect my boots from melting into my feet. Testing the walls seemed like a bad plan.

Two minutes remaining, a mechanised voice announced from a speaker somewhere in the vicinity of my feet.

Around me hung ten or so other cages, each containing a single person. All but mine were alive. Half were quietly sobbing, while others gazed stoically past the thin mesh lining. There were no bars to hold onto. One optimistic figure was occupied swinging their cage back and forth, trying to make it to the edge of the chamber. The chain clearly wasn’t going to reach.

“Hey,” a voice called over to her. I glanced to the cage to my left. The occupant in it had taken off his jacket and placed it over the floor of his cage. “You’ll never escape that way! Just put on the collar.”

“Don’t tell her that, dumbass,” a woman’s voice called from the other side of the chamber. “She’s our competition.”

Ninety seconds remaining, said the voice at my feet. It was echoed at various points around the chamber.

In the cage to my right, a different man was staring at me. In distressed silence, he pointed to my feet.

The corpse below me wasn’t burnt to death, although it was burning. A kinetic gunshot had torn through its chest. The weapon responsible had slid to the opposite end of the cage, caught by the mesh. A conspicuous bullet-shaped dent in the side of the cage completed the picture: shooting one’s way out was a bad idea.

I picked up the gun and searched for a pocket, prepared to tie it into my sash if needed. To my surprise, my new outfit had many. Probably where the cupholders went.

Sixty seconds remaining, the voice echoed.

“Not that!” my neighbour rasped hoarsely. He shook his finger at me, then thought better of it and rattled something at his neck. “The collar!”

The swinging woman was still swinging, her grunts of exertion continuing to grow louder. I ducked to a crouch and searched through the body in my cage. It wasn’t wearing a collar. I rifled through its coat and pockets, coming up with a translucent card and what looked like a comms relay, but found nothing else. It was only when I stepped off the body and pulled it aside that I found the culprit underneath: a thick choker of metal, unclasped and far too hot to be touched.

Thirty seconds remaining, the collar said.

“Put it on!” ordered the hoarse man. “Hurry!”

They were all wearing one. All except the swinging woman.

A loud ‘clunk’ sounded above the rocking cage as the chain’s fastening loosened. The woman shouted in wordless triumph and redoubled her efforts even as her prison wobbled. I saw what she was trying to do: not break open the cage, but fling it out of the rim of the lava pit. As a plan, it came down to stupid luck, dependent entirely on what point in the swing the chain decided to break.

Near Miss could probably have made it work.

“You won’t make it!” the man on my left screamed at her. “You need to put on the collar! Please!”

Hurriedly, I scooped up the metal band with my sash and wound it thickly around my own brutalist necklace. It was still too hot for comfort around my neck, sitting close against the skin, and the fabric got in the way of the clasp.

Five seconds remaining, its speaker announced.

Cursing, I pulled the fabric out of the clasp and suffered the burn. It snapped shut a moment later, and I stuffed the sash back in. The hoarse man sagged in relief.

The swinging woman roared in fury, dropped off the side of her cage, and in a single swift sleight of hand, snapped a collar around her neck.

Time complete, the voice announced in my ear. Welcome, Participant Five.

The floor of the cages dropped open, sending the corpse below me hurtling into the lava.

I didn’t drop. Nor did anyone else. Instead, I hovered in place, buoyed in a distinctive bubble of antigravity. Cries of horror and shock rose up from elsewhere around the room, with the hoarse man breaking into hyperventilation.

All twelve participants have chosen to proceed to Round One, the collar announced, and I felt a sharp prick in the side of my neck.

Clearly one of the universes in need of saving. My vision swam. The infiltration had better be worth it.

I roused to find myself on cold metal floor stripped and changed, the sash removed from my neck with everything but the collar. On their unconscious backs around me lay the other eleven participants from the cage ordeal; five men and six women in identical flimsy grey jumpsuits closed with adhesive fabric. I searched my suit for the gun, the relay or anything at all and found nothing.

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Each jumpsuit marked its wearer with a number. The hoarse man was Four, the man on my left Six. Swinging Woman was Eight; the psychopath who wanted to let her die, Eleven.

Shaking off a faint trace of nausea, I crawled to my feet and circled the small chamber. Every surface was smooth, with only a few small holes for air vents. I searched for a recording device, but found nothing obvious. They might have been built into the collars.

Based on preliminary evidence, we were in a high-technology universe; likely low-to-zero magic. With nothing to do but wait, I scanned the remaining contestants’ faces. One, Two and Three were all men, with the remainder being women, and –

I swung back to Participant Two.

There was no way.

Male, black hair, pale skin, unspeakable blandness – I stopped myself before I could jump to something unfair. The multiverse was full of ordinary people who looked like Reins. If I hadn’t spent over a decade hunting them down, I wouldn’t even have considered the possibility.

But something about the unconscious man in front of me made me stop; a familiarity I couldn’t put into words pushing me far enough into doubt. Especially after the run of Machine jobs and Near Misses slinging me at them in cahoots.

If this was a Rein, chances were high I’d followed the wrong target. Flinpen and I had argued about what to do back at the Chapel, culminating in the obvious solution: we’d both go. Technically, Flinpen hadn’t been ordered not to. Fool’s Gold would allow her to pass as normal assuming no one looked too closely, and she’d already been unassigned from all other conflicting missions.

If Flinpen was on the infiltration route, then I’d Near Missed again. What was I supposed to do with all these Reins? Rescue them again? Was this one another post-death, or pre?

I looked around at the obvious death game and shook my head. Post-death, no contest. It had to be.

No doors were currently available for a quick exit, but Reins were supposed to get themselves out of these situations. I’d watch closely and see how things went.

Other contestants were finally stirring, groaning and holding their heads. Enhanced physiology had given me an edge. Hustling back to my spot, I waited for the round to commence.

“Hey,” a voice distracted me. Eleven, the psychopath. “Blue-hair. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I’m not?” I asked innocently.

“We all saw you replace Number Five. How’d you do it?”

She was a tall woman like Flinpen; skinny and lean. Mean eyes. The kind of person who gave assassins a bad name. There was a good chance she’d killed someone, and if not, wouldn’t balk at the chance.

Everyone was watching me now. So much for a low profile.

I shrugged. “He disqualified himself by smuggling a weapon in and shooting himself with it, so I guess I was next in line.”

“You ‘guess’,” sneered Eleven. “You don’t ‘guess’. What are you doing here, anyway, with your fancy dyes and fancy voice? You a fix?” She tilted her chin back and smirked. “A fix, or being put in your place. Someone hates you either way.”

“I’ll live,” I said, before regretting my choice of words.

“I bet you will. Fix.”

The fewer enemies I could make in this place, the better, though I suspected it wouldn’t make much difference. Once I had a door, I could get out and report to Flinpen. If the Rein was a Rein, I could take him with me. Otherwise, I had to be careful. I didn’t know what form Gear Shift would take in this universe yet, which made it a risky proposition. Also not something I wanted to use before having access to a door.

The mechanical voice cut into my thoughts as every collar in the room spoke as one.

Welcome to the Consolidation Initiative, it said in a buoyant tone. It received the attention of every prisoner in the room. Each of you have been randomly selected to pave a brighter future for our planet.

“Random, my arse,” said Number Six, wiping at his eyes. “It took my son. It took my husband –”

Population containment is vital to our sustainable future, the collar continued over him. We are deeply committed to making sure no contribution goes to waste. Today’s challenge will determine which of you will offer most to a productive society. The selected participant will return home. The rest will –

“Fucking fuel,” Eight muttered. Evidence from her exercise with the cage burnt in raised red welts across her hands.

– be responsibly recycled. Together, we build –

“A brighter future,” Eleven joined in in a mocking sing-song. “Well, that makes it all peachy-poo.”

By accepting your collars, the voice proceeded without her, you have agreed to transfer your temporary rights and data to the Initiative until such time as the challenge is complete. In line with the Geo-International Accord on Privacy, all identifying information will be anonymised. At any time during the challenge, you may remove your collar to signal your intent to withdraw, resulting in immediate recycling.

Quiet sobbing filled the subsequent pause. I glanced at the possible Rein to find him simmering in clear anger. Personality not disproving my suspicion so far.

I braced for incoming danger.

Round One begins now, said the collars, on cue. Your opinion matters to us; thus Round One is determined by your vote. You will shortly be presented with a list of each challenger’s primary contribution to society. From this list you may choose the occupation of least societal value, adding a point to the relevant participant. You have ten minutes to make a selection. When the timer ends, the participant with the most points will be recycled, their value distributed evenly among the remaining challengers. Challengers in a tie will undergo the same. Finally, a casual reminder that violence towards other participants during the Round or attempts to remove your collars will result in immediate recycling.

My collar beeped, emitting a spread of downwards light beams forming a holographic display in front of my chest. Around me, everyone else’s was doing the same.

Twelve buttons shone back at me in a vertical green array.

Time begins now.

Despite my misgivings, turrets or gas dispensers failed to appear from the walls. Nothing else happened. Still the empty room with its crowd of terrified people, some already browsing the list. The Rein was ahead of them all.

I stopped watching people and checked mine.

[Artist, Programmer, Shopkeeper, Farmer,] I read in consecutive order, then paused even as concerned noises filtered back at me from around the room. [Assassin.]

Blood rushed from my face. The game knew, just like the system on Final Super Dokki World. That was it, then. Round already over.

I scanned the rest of the list just in case. [Theocrat, Fighter, Engineer, Recruiter, Truck Driver, Nurse, Politician.] That was all.

‘Truck Driver’ caught my eye, but it couldn’t have been me. Not unless there were two assassins in the group, and one scenario was vastly more likely than the other.

I was doomed.