“Oh, son of a bitch.” Kaiden scowled, holding Debonair up “This is losing its charm.”
“I think we know what the console is for now.” Chiyo held up her Scorpio as Genos drew his rifle.
“You think we’ll be lucky and it’s just a maze?” the ace asked before several Guardian droids appeared in front of them. “Why do I still have hope at this point?”
They fired at the mechanicals as gunfights erupted all around the room. After dispatching the droids, Kaiden holstered Debonair and took out his Raptor. “Let’s get to that console and finish this quickly,” he ordered, taking a few steps forward before Genos grabbed his shoulder and held him back.
“Careful, Kaiden,” he warned, pointing down. The ace looked down to see an immolation trap on the ground.
“Thanks, Genos. That would have been embarrassing. Wulfson has had me deal with those things since I first met him. Chief, fly up there and find us a path.”
“I’m not liking that this is becoming my thing.” The EI sulked as he appeared and flew up. He stopped about fifteen feet in the air and collided with an invisible wall, bouncing off it and falling on the floor. “Ow.”
“I didn’t even realize you could be hit physically,” Kaiden said, surprised.
“It looks like some sort of barrier. I haven’t seen one of that type before,” Genos remarked.
“The Director adapts, correct?” Chiyo suggested, “Looks like it’s adapting to Chief.”
“Well, don’t I feel special,” Chief grumbled as he floated up off the floor.
“Well, thanks for trying, partner. Just keep a look out for traps for us, all right?”
“I can certainly do that unless this ‘Director’ decides to piss in my eye or something,” Chief mumbled as he vanished and reappeared in Kaiden’s HUD.
“Let’s get to the center,” Kaiden declared. “Show this thing we aren’t taking its shit anymore.”
The three made slow progress through the maze, taking on various droids and dancing around traps as they continued to try to find the right path.
“Watch out, Genos,” Chiyo shouted as she raised her pistol and shot down a duo of flying droids.
“I notice they aren’t getting slapped out of the air,” Chief grunted.
“No, just shot down in explosive blazes,” Kaiden retorted. “Keep a lookout, I feel like we’re getting close.”
“You’ve said that every three minutes for the last twenty minutes,” Chief muttered.
“And I still believe it. Be a team mascot and start cheering.” Kaiden snickered, turned, and blasted back a trio of Assault droids with a ballistic shot.
“Yeah, I’ll do a little dance and then lead the ‘wave.’” The EI snickered.
“You could do a twirl,” he suggested, shooting another drone out of the sky.
“I’ll do a helluva twirl when we get done with this. Six o’clock, Assassin droid.”
The ace spun and fell to a knee as an Assassin droid tried to stab him. He unholstered Debonair and fired straight up into its exposed chest, then slid to the side as it deactivated and fell to the floor. Kaiden put away his pistol and smiled but felt the ground shake again. He stood up as he felt himself moving. The ground beneath him was separating, creating a gap between him and his teammates. “Chiyo! Genos! Get over here.”
They looked back, then jumped across. Chiyo barely made it, but Genos collided with the edge. Kaiden and Chiyo reached out and grabbed his arms to pull him up. Two more Assault droids fired on them, hitting Kaiden in his shoulder and cracking his armor.
“We’re doing something, assholes,” Kaiden yelled. He handed Genos’ other arm to the infiltrator, picked up his Raptor, and shot their heads to pieces.
“You all right, Genos?” Chiyo asked as she dragged the Tsuna up.
The mechanist looked back into the pit. “Certainly better than I could have been.”
The ace chuckled as he stood. “Hey, partner, might wanna take a look back at the perimeter,” Chief suggested.
He looked up and saw a large circular grid around the maze which began to slowly move inward, burning through the walls as it contracted.
“You know what? I’m not even going to get mad.” He heard the metallic thump of a droid behind him. Without looking back, he fired and heard it drop. “We’re getting out of this, and I’m taking out the rest of my frustrations on every damn droid that’s left.” He vented his rifle and looked at his team. “Let’s run with pep in our step, shall we?”
They dashed down the corridor, and more Assault and Guardian droids appeared. “Don’t stop for a damn thing!” Kaiden ordered as he leaped over a static trap and fired ballistic shots at the feet of the droids, blowing them up or knocking them back.
They turned left at a fork in the maze to find at least a dozen more robots waiting. “Genos, seeker grenade,” he ordered.
The Tsuna threw one, and it burst and took control of seven of the droids. They immediately began to fight amongst themselves as the team weaved their way through.
They turned around the corner and saw the console in the distance. “There it is,” Genos shouted.
Another team was already there, their technician working on it. “Chiyo, when we get there, deactivate this maze as quick as you can,” the ace demanded.
“If that technician is already plugged in and using their personal commands, we might be in conflict,” she protested.
“Won’t be a problem,” he assured her. They made it out of the maze and Kaiden past the two other initiates and confronted the technician at the console. “You, get off.”
“Do what? I’m under the gun as it is,” the technician complained. “I don’t have the time to listen to you trying to play alpha.”
“What’s your class?” the soldier demanded.
“I’m a translator.”
“That means you work on decryption and ciphers. Hacking isn’t your forte,” Kaiden pointed out.
“I’m working with what I’ve got.”
“Our tech is an infiltrator. She’ll get this done quicker.” Kaiden tried to be reasonable, but his tone was curt.
“You see those lasers? They’re going to dice us in a couple minutes,” the translator yelled. The ace could feel his patience wearing thin. “I unplug now, and we have to start over. There’s no way she’s good enough to—gah!” The translator hit the floor from the force of Kaiden’s punch.
“What the hell?” one of the translator’s teammates roared and raised his machine gun as his demolitionist teammate readied his cannon.
“Chiyo, get on there,” Kaiden stated and raised his rifle as Genos stood beside him with his cannon ready. She nodded and set to work.
“You would risk all our lives to get some extra Data points?” the demolitionist growled.
“You think I’m that pedantic?” he sneered before cocking his head. “Well, honestly, I might be. But my team’s infiltrator is one of the best in our year. Hell, maybe in the entire school. I don’t wanna risk my neck so your translator can get over his feelings of technician inadequacy.”
“We’re only a minute and change from getting seared. There’s no way she can get it done in—”
“Finished,” Chiyo declared. The laser grid disappeared, and the walls retracted. Kaiden peered to the side to see the remaining bots disappear.
“You were saying?” he asked cockily.
The two of them looked at each other and lowered their weapons. The one with the machine gun went over to help the translator up.
“You’re lucky this didn’t come to blows,” the demolitionist snarled. “It would have been a quick ending to the test for you.”
“I doubt that. In these close quarters, that cannon you keep stroking like a phallus would blow you and your buddies up if you tried to shoot me.” Kaiden sneered.
“Smartass. I’ve already run into plenty of scrubs like you. All bluster because we can’t actually fight right now. If Honor was actually on, you would be nothing but fried guts,
” he threatened.
“Attention, remaining squad test participants.” Head Monitor Zhang’s voice echoed throughout the room, his face appearing on a holomonitor. “Congratulations on getting this far into the test. From this point on, Honor is active and friendly fire is enabled. Choose your targets carefully, and best of luck to those who remain.” The monitor disappeared, and silence filled the air.
“Wait, w-what happened?” the demolitionist stammered. He felt something against his head and turned slowly to see the ace pressing the barrel of his rifle against his helmet.
“You were just talking that good shit,” Kaiden goaded, hitting the switch for ballistic rounds. “Wanna follow it up?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The demolitionist was silent, sweat forming under his helmet. Kaiden tapped the trigger of his rifle threateningly and heard the metallic clink of rustling armor and a gun being primed. He looked over to see the man’s teammates aiming their weapons at him. Genos pointed his cannon at the duo as Chiyo walked calmly between them and Kaiden with her Scorpio in her hand.
“All of you need to calm down,” she ordered, looking at the opposing team and then at Kaiden. “Honor may be in play now, but that is no reason to immediately start killing one another. There is still a lot of time remaining in the test, and we just unlocked all the passages again. We can agree to lay down our arms for now and leave—”
“Or, we can take all of you out now and grab some extra points while we’re here,” a voice declared. Chiyo looked back to see a raider holding a hand cannon pointed at her. “This is a deathmatch, right? I’m just playing by the rules.” Kaiden spun to fire at the raider as he began to pull the trigger, but a shot rang out and the cannon whipped out of the man’s hand. The raider cried out in pain and raised a now-bloody hand with a metal spike through it.
“You forgetting about everyone else in here?” Flynn asked, his sniper rifle still at the ready. “Unfortunately for you, I happen to like them more than you.”
Marlo walked up, his cannon in his grasp. “Same here. I suggest you all listen to Chiyo’s suggestion and simply turn around and walk the hell back to where you came from.”
The intensity in the room continued to build. All the initiates looked nervously at one another, waiting for someone to make a decisive move.
“You forgetting how many people are in here? Even if you two teams are buddy-buddy, that still leaves eighteen others. You think you can take them all?” the raider growled as he yanked the spike out of his hand.
“I would be worried more if I were facing a group of soldiers. But I spy plenty of guys and girls here from the medical, logistics, and technician divisions. Nothing too frightening, really.” Flynn paused for a moment before looking at Chiyo. “Except you, Chi. You’ve proven yourself to be just fine with a weapon.”
“I appreciate the compliment, but I’m still trying to not make it come to that,” she stated solemnly.
“How many of you— Oh no, you don’t,” Kaiden warned, holding his Raptor in one hand while he grabbed Debonair and placed it under the demolitionist’s chin. The man had tried to inch his hand toward his hand cannon, but he now froze. “As I was saying, how many of you think you have enough points to pass? We’ve been in here a few hours, so maybe most or all of you do, but I’m guessing you’ll be on the bottom rungs of the rankings. Piss-sad way to end the year, don’t you think?”
“You keep talking like you’re trying to stop a fight from breaking out, but you look like the one most likely to pull something,” another voice in the room challenged.
“To be fair, that is pretty accurate, Kaiden,” Amber pointed out.
“Normally, yes, but we’re trying to do a thing, and as much I would enjoy a good brawl with lasers and explosions, that wouldn’t really help at the moment.” He paused. “Hey, Flynn, what floor are we on?”
The marksman shook his head slightly, not lowering his rifle. “You lose count on the way here?”
“The short story is we fell through a teleporter, so I don’t know where we ended up.”
“We’re in the sub-levels,” another initiate yelled. “Six floors down from the ground level.”
“Oh, so we only went up one floor,” Genos noted. “Fortuitous.”
“At least there’s another rando in here who’s helpful.” The ace grinned. “All right, so we all good? Everyone willing to just put away the weapons and leave here nice and—”
“Kaiden!” Chief exclaimed.
He grunted, stopping his negotiations. “I’m kinda busy if you haven’t noticed.” He growled his annoyance under his breath.
“Kinda important. I’m picking up an energy reading. It’s the same one that corresponds to a hologram field.”
“Which means what? It’s left over from the maze, probably.”
“No, it’s small and moving. There’s a doppel-bot in here.”
Kaiden froze for a moment, looking at Chiyo who opened her holoscreen. Apparently, Kaitō had discovered it too. “Can you pinpoint it?”
“No, the trail is faint and I only detected it just now. Usually the emissions are too small to notice without upgrades or specific equipment. That means it’s been in here long enough for it to be noticeable. The best I can give you is a general direction—northeast.”
Kaiden gazed in that direction and saw eight other initiates either staring at him or looking at the others. He took a deep breath and lowered his weapon slowly. “Let’s let bygones be bygones, all right?” he asked the demolitionist as he placed his rifle on his back. “Name’s Kaiden Jericho, an ace in the soldier division. If you’re looking to settle the score some other time, just come and find me.”
The demolitionist seemed taken aback for a moment, as if recognizing the name. The ace walked over to Chiyo, and Genos put his cannon away and followed behind him.
The infiltrator looked up from her screen. “There appears to be a—”
“Doppel-bot, yeah. Chief told me. Said he doesn’t know exactly where it is, but he mentioned it might be over there.” Kaiden nodded in the direction of the potential threat. “Should we warn the others?”
“Honestly, I don’t know if that will help or hurt the situation,” she admitted and continued to type.
“The other technicians and engineers should pick up on it soon enough. Maybe it’s best that we allow them to discover it on their own, otherwise they may think it’s a ruse on our part,” Genos reasoned.
“Unless the bot makes a move before everyone else clues in. That’s probably why it’s here,” Kaiden countered, keeping a hand on Debonair as he holstered it under his coat. He motioned behind his back for Flynn and his team to join them. “We need to either find it and take it out or get the hell out of Dodge.”
“What going on, mates?” the marksman asked as he joined the trio.
“We have a bit of a problem.”
“I think we’ve picked up on that.” Amber scanned the room as a few initiates began to back away from the center to the doors as others still fidgeted, tapping fingers on their guns.
“It’s more than that. This powder keg might blow without any action on our part,” Kaiden stated.
“Why?”
“Kaiden, there’s more,” Chiyo interjected.
The ace grimaced. “What now?”
“I’m detecting multiple emissions—same type. There’s more than one bot in here,” she revealed as she closed her screen and held up her pistol. “They are going to take action soon. We need to—”
She stopped speaking as a weapon fired twice and a body fell to the floor. The six of them turned to see the translator who had worked on the console before lying on the ground, unmoving. Behind him stood an initiate in light armor still pointing a pistol at his body. It fired again, and the translator vanished in white light.
“What the hell did you do that for?” his teammate snapped and aimed his machine gun at him. Another shot came from the west and the initiate stumbled to the side for a moment, droppin
g his gun. He turned to reveal a smoking hole in his helmet. The man toppled to the floor but disappeared before he made impact.
“Mario,” the demolitionist shouted and pointed his cannon in the direction of the shot. “You’ll pay for that, you coward. You bitch,” he roared as he fired a half-charged blast from his weapon. Although it was only partially charged, it would be enough to kill anyone in medium or light armor. Two initiates dove out of the way of the blast as it sailed at a marksman in faded gray armor. He turned invisible as he activated a stealth generator. The blast hit nothing but a wall and left a crater in its wake.
As the demolitionist looked angrily around for the attacker, he switched his attention to the initiate who killed the translator. But before he could fire, there was an explosion behind him. They all looked back to see three initiates on the floor, knocked down by a thermal grenade. Two of them quickly scrambled up, turning to check up on their teammate who was slowly getting to her feet. But as she stood, a blade erupted from her chest. Another soldier behind her ripped the knife out as she was de-synced.
More sniper shots rang out, followed by another explosion. Initiates dodged the attacks or fired back, and the room erupted into chaos.
“Dammit,” the ace snarled, replacing Debonair with his Raptor and firing into the madness. “So much for settling this peacefully.”
“We need to leave,” Chiyo shouted, covering Kaiden’s side and firing into the crowd. “We’re too exposed in here. We’re in just as much danger of falling to stray fire as focused fire.”
Genos took his rifle from his back and covered their other flank. “We are still in a position to continue with our original plan, but I agree that we need to make our way out of this room.”
Kaiden spotted a marksman taking aim from the far end of the room. He switched to ballistics and fired three rounds, one hitting him in the chest as the others impacted the wall behind him. The body fell out of the smoke, and the armor faded away as it revealed the slim mechanical body of the doppel-bot.
Animus Boxed Set 1 (Books 1-4): Initiate, Co-Op, Death Match, Advance Page 86
