“Thank you,” said Number Ten, and shuddered into gulping tears.

Eleven stared at me and her screen for a moment, then sighed. “So damned close,” she said, capping it off with another laugh. “Of course it would be you. It’s always the fucking house that wins. Just for that, I change my vote, too. Now you all lose.”

A point removed itself from the Nurse and moved back to the Programmer. Wiping her eyes with her hands, Ten hadn’t noticed. Four let out a ratcheting breath and buried his face in his palms.

Eleven hadn’t been bluffing, I realised belatedly. Like everyone else, she thought she was the Assassin. Aside from Ten, everyone – myself included – had been too cynical and paranoid to be open about who we were. If we hadn’t, things might have gone differently.

“Wait,” I said in a probably futile move, jumping to my feet. “I’m the Assassin.”

Too late.

Numbers changed on the interface in front of me, adding to my total score.

Time compl –

I triggered Gear Shift, feeling the collar and its inner workings shatter around me. Clear liquid splattered harmlessly over my casing, spilling onto a small puddle on the floor.

I had motors and used them, catching myself before imminent collision with the floor. A small flying drone, I possessed an inbuilt camera and variety of fine working tools packed efficiently into my structure, along with a few fine darts containing what I suspected was the same clear liquid. Several suspiciously cupholder-shaped indents adorned my back.

Some things did carry across.

Avoiding the pool of liquid, I transformed back and shook the rest of the fluid off my jumpsuit, now minus a collar.

Eleven mostly-astonished faces gaped back at me over the projected light from their screens. The buttons had vanished, displaying only the final static list.

“We’re all still alive,” Seven observed weakly.

No one looked more shocked than Eleven. The wiry woman continued to stare before pulling herself back together, obviously shaken. “I knew it,” she said after a moment. “It’s rigged. Government whores sent to fix the game, make sure we all die.”

“I just saved you,” I pointed out angrily. The sooner I could leave this crapsack of a universe, the better. Flinpen’s marker in the back of my awareness hadn’t moved, which I hoped meant she was having more luck on her end.

“No,” said Eight from her spot leaning against the far wall. Her fists were clenched. “They’ll punish us for this. We weren’t all meant to survive.”

“No they won’t. We’ve already been punished,” countered Two. “Now we enter the next round without a single additional skill to aid us. But the question is –” he folded his arms and stepped forward to face me, “– what are you?”

Rein or no Rein, there was always a chance I had landed on the Machine’s infiltration route, in which case I’d already botched the assignment not to reveal my augments. I’d have a hard time playing it down after this. Still, I probably ought to try. This didn’t seem like the kind of universe where it would be easy to excuse myself out of a full transformation.

“An assassin, obviously,” I evaded. “I don’t work for the government. It’s fairly safe to assume we're not friendly.”

“I’m the same,” One jumped in hastily. “I was part of the opposition. My party voted against this.”

The group ignored him.

“So you did replace Number Five,” uttered Nine. She pursed her lips. “Why in all the hells would you voluntarily choose to be here?”

I prepared to make up a hastily-scrounged tale about underground freedom fighting when Ten answered for me.

“He’s been through the Initiative already,” she stated, raising her eyes to me. “Haven’t you?”

I didn’t have time to work through all the implications in my head. With everyone’s eyes on me, I hesitated.

That seemed to be enough of an answer.

“May I?” Four asked. He stepped up with a hand held out, and reached out to touch my hand. “Not a hologram. I don’t understand.”

Ten swallowed. “This program is designed never to select the same person twice. For one thing, it’s beyond cruel. For another, no one in their right mind would want to come back. We assumed it would never happen, and because of this, didn’t build in a cap. Theoretically, someone could run it multiple times and continue accumulating skills.”

“That doesn’t explain what we all just saw,” said Three. He raised one of the lenses on his glasses and peered at me through the remainder, than tested a different combination.

“Actually, it could,” said Ten. “It’s inefficient to run small groups of twelve. Ask yourself why we would build many times the facilities and oversight to process a thousand-ish people when we could put the same group in a single batch. Set the parameters to allow for the same survivorship ratio, we’d save a lot of time and money. But we ran into issues.”

I had a feeling I knew where this was going.

“Enough consolidated extractions, and outputs start becoming… strange,” Ten said. “We don’t know why. None of us fully understand the technology; anyone who claims to has an ego or is lying. We shut down those test groups fast.”

Two was listening to the explanation with an uncomfortable intensity, and I could imagine exactly how his life goals had just shifted.

“Stop skirting around it and say what you mean,” Eight demanded from the wall.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

“Tell me again how to explain something that defies explanation,” Ten shot back. “We set out to build a system to create fewer, superior humans; the population our planet needs. Somewhere along the way, we got more than we bargained for. Changes at the DNA level, reactive responses in the brain, whatever the cause; we don’t know. It's emergent behaviour. We may as well have invented magic. But obviously we can't put that in a press release.”

A stunned silence met her words. “And that’s what he is?” Three asked, pulling off his glasses to reveal a pair of raised eyebrows. “Magic?”

Ten threw up her hands. “Fuelled on the deaths of dozens of people. Sure. That’s why he’s flagged an assassin. And he’s here to do it again.”

With that, the weave of my effortless excuse collapsed into broken threads. “I don’t want to kill anyone I don’t have to,” I reiterated firmly. “If I could get us all out of here without dying, I would.”

“No, you’re happy to let the Initiative do it for you,” said Six, looking up. He hadn’t left his original position on the floor. “How many times have you been through it? How many lives snuffed out and families ruined? How many chances for survival have you stolen?”

None of it was remotely true, but the accusation affected me nonetheless. I found myself battling genuine anger. Dwelling on the families of the lives I took was something I went out of my way to avoid; it was easier to pretend they didn’t exist. “You understand there are causes bigger than yourself, don’t you? The Initiative is too entrenched to be fought with sticks. The lives of many justify the sacrifice of a few. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Two eying me approvingly and wondered how it had come to this. I hadn’t meant it that way. I’d have said nothing if surviving the first challenge hadn’t outed me. Frustrated and not to be trusted in my own defence, I broke the circle and retreated to the edge of the wall.

“I say we band together and kill him,” said Eleven after a moment had passed. “You heard Ten. It’s Five or us. And we’re between rounds. No rules now.”

“Speaking of, what’s taking it so long?” Nine asked, nudging Ten with her elbow. “Shouldn’t we be moving into a new round? Shouldn’t there be some kind of announcement?”

“It’s encountered a situation it doesn’t know how to handle,” Two proposed. “Looking for a skill to extract it’s unable to find.”

Ten shook her head. “It should account for that. Disabling or blocking collars is the first thing many people try. Usually it doesn’t work, but some are bound to succeed. I’m not sure what’s going on.”

As if summoned into being, a voice sounded from the remaining collars. All twelve participants will proceed to Round Two.

Sharp mechanical whirrs sounded and the group clasped at their necks, staggering to the floor. Two was the last to go, holding out through sheer force of will. A second whirr followed the first, and then he too was gone.

I looked from the ten victims sprawled on the floor to Number Twelve, whose standard-issue flats clicked uninterrupted across the metal surface.

“Is it true?”

They were the first words she’d spoken for the duration of the program. For an unassuming woman, her voice was surprisingly strong. Her face bore none of the cosmetics of the other challengers, her tresses mousy, less styled and arrayed.

“Which answer lets me keep living?” I returned, narrowing my eyes.

“Don’t try to be funny,” my interrogator ordered. “I’m not so attached to you I’ll lose sleep either way. I asked if it was true.”

“It is,” I lied. “I take it you’re quality control?”

“I’m the Recruiter,” she said, surprising me with an easy answer. “You learn a lot about people when they think they’re about to die. What they value, how they crack; their resilience under pressure. Such environments make for revealing interviews. Normally I’d give it a few more rounds before making a decision, but I hadn’t planned on a dropout from the system.”

So I was on the infiltration track, despite the presence of the Rein. Coincidence couldn’t have played into it – unless it was the Reins’ general unconscious ability to warp the universe around them. But whatever was going on was even bigger than them; scaling beyond the universe into the wider multiverse and its spaces between, and there was every chance I was currently looking at the answer.

“Who are you recruiting for?” I asked, not attributing any further assumptions.

Twelve raised her chin slightly. “Not the government, if that’s your concern. The Geo-International Accord is brutal and cold; on that we agree. It’s also insignificant in the grand scheme.” She paused. “The answer to your question is: for the only people that matter. It’s not ego, but fact. This world is but one insignificant drop in an enormous ocean, and we patrol it.”

I tried to react how a local might; hints going over my head. Few universes were aware of the multiverse; hopefully this wasn’t among them. “And you’re recruiting me?”

“I didn’t come here for you. You already have a goal. I came here for people seeking a better chance,” Twelve said. “For themselves and something bigger.”

I didn’t miss the obvious callback, but played wilfully ignorant. “People like Two,” I suggested, testing the waters.

“Sharp eye. Also, no.”

I blinked in surprise.

“Two is a leader and a rogue, emotionally crippled and incapable of nuance. Someone like him would never be happy to follow.”

Hmm. Perhaps she didn’t know who he was. But no arguments on the appraisal. “Then what do you want from me?” I asked the Recruiter. “To stay out of your way while we both run the challenge?”

“I didn’t come here for you,” Twelve repeated. “But you’re what I found, and what you have has value. Not the skills you gained from the program. But integrity. Resilience. Drive. I'd extend you an offer, but it would involve giving up everything you earnt from the Initiative. Gone like it never existed.”

I could guess why. Local magic – which meant it must have been some form of prototypical magic – failing to carry over between universes. That and the trappings of a life; its people and belongings. I frowned, trying to look disbelieving. “Why would I ever do that?”

The Recruiter smiled. “Because we’d teach you more. Far more, and faster than siphoning attributes from a twisted game. And when you did eventually make your way back here, you’d be capable of more than taking down a few cruel facilities. You’d be able to change the world.” She paused again. “But that would require you to make an initial sacrifice I’m not convinced you can. Unlike the rest of these doomed fodder, you have a lot to lose.”

“Maybe if I could see some proof.”

“I can arrange that. Do you have any other questions?”

“If I hadn’t disrupted your plans, who would you choose?”

“Hmm. It’s early for a decision. Ten is promising, but callous. Six and Eight have conviction, but would need to adjust their ideals. One, Three, Seven and Nine are motivated by self-interest and fear and thus can’t be relied on, and Eleven is a disgrace to humanity.”

There was only one number left from that pool. “You’d pick Four? The Nurse?” I stared down at his curled body. Like Twelve herself, he wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Under the makeup this universe preferred, he was about fifty years old, moderately overweight, and already starting to bald. No extraordinary intelligence – at least not that he’d shown – no unusual strength of will or personality; just a reasonably decent person thrown into a situation out of his control, where out of his control it remained.

The Chapel would never have considered someone so ordinary.

“That surprises you.”

“I suppose for something apparently so world-changing, I’d expect more,” I answered the implied question.

“Knowledge and skills can be taught, Assassin. Personality is far easier to get wrong and far harder to change.”

“Then why me over Four?”

“Because,” she answered, “I think you’d want it more. You don’t accomplish what you have without drive. As for your proof –”

She held out a soft, uncalloused hand.

I checked for signs of a device up her sleeve or mechanisms embedded in the walls, and found nothing. Surrounded by the bodies of my fellow challengers, I took it.

And jumped back with a start, letting go immediately.

There was no door. No transition. No trigger.

I’d simply landed in the Interstice – or something mistlessly similar – with the Recruiter, not even a formless smear, in an act I’d believed impossible.