《Last Man Standing》


 At Wits End

    "Spare change, mister? No? Okay then, have a nice day. Missy, would you be so kind as to spare me your change? You have a boyfriend? Well congrats, hope your date goes well I guess."


    Such has been the life of Edwin Sung for the past 5 years, a lifestyle forced upon him ever since his partnership with his college friend ended in...Less than favorableterms. They were in the midst of perhaps revolutionizing the medical field - a clone bay capable of regenerating entire bodies as long as a backup copy of the patient''s consciousness is present.


    It would make any terminal disease treatable by simply generating an identical, healthy body in a lab and transferring the patient''s consciousness to there, aging could be reversed by implanting the mind of an old man into the body of a younger man, any physical change to the body would be instantly doable instead of requiring complex, lengthy surgeries.


    With this technology, Sung and his partner would''ve been instant Nobel Prize laureates.


    That is, had the research been made public. Instead, when Sung finished the last touches of the clone pod in the wee hours of the morning and went to sleep, his partner saw the opportunity, took the clone bay out for "demonstration and clinical trials", and left without a trace.


    Debt that was supposed to be paid after they commercialized their clone pod were now right outside his lab door demanding instant payment. All of the money went into the pod, and there was but a couple of cents inside Sung''s bank account. It was all in or nothing, and now, there is nothing.


    Sung''s lab was foreclosed and his assets seized, and without a job nor a place willing to hire him, he was forced to make the streets his new home.


    Sung hasn''t heard from his former lab partner ever since. Not his research, nor his pod. Gone, like the wind. He was one step away from global recognition, but now he''s just another hobo on the streets begging for money. It''s as if Sung''s life''s gone full circle.


    In a world where hardware and low level programming was done by AI, he - an expert specifically and only on those two subjects - was someone the world didn''t need. But for a moment, when his former lab partner reached out for his help with logic chips and low-level code no other AI could make work, he thought that his time finally came.


    And where did that lead him? Back to nothingness.


    As usual, after trying the bare minimum to beg for change, he slumped back into the shadows behind a dumpster in a dark, damp alley. Despite connected to a vibrant, bustling main street, this monochromatic, quiet alleyway and its decrepit hermit provide a stark contrast to the busy neon streets filled with lively teenagers with esoteric implants followed by adults with eye or brain augments and elders with hip and spine replacements.


    Despite advances in medical technology such as cybernetic implants and even nanomachines, mortality continues to be an inconvenience that plagues humanity. Sure, modern healthcare can extend one''s life to 200, maybe 300 years, but the quality of life would be so low they''d rather be dead already.


    If only he didn''t steal all of the research.


    Oh well. There''s no point thinking about that now. What''s done is done, that''s what they all say right? Stop being so stuck in the past and look towards the bright future.


    Let''s hear them say that again after they got their past 10 or so years of research stolen from right under their noses.


    I wouldn''t be here if moving on is so easy. I''m past my prime already, while young and upstarting researchers get poached by companies the instant they step out of college, old men like me gets the cold shoulder treatment.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    That was what ran though Sung''s mind every day. Despite newfound biomedical technologies and lengthened lifespans, people in their 40s and a huge resume gap of 15 years are usually not even worth a consideration by recruiters - ironically the majority of which are well over 90 years old - who favor the younger people over them.


    Out on the main street, an unusually large amount of couples are out and about. There were high school couples madly in love with each other, flirting in public like it''s nobody''s business. Even elderly couples who usually just stay in their homes and do whatever old people do came out to have a little walk, reminiscing about their own teenage days while looking at the youngsters smooch and hug.


    It''s Christmas, after all.


    Love do be in the air, and by contrast Sung''s shadow became ever the more lonely. Not that he cares, Christmas or not.


    Sung rummaged through the neighboring dumpster for leftover food, change, and other trash that might come in handy for him as per usual. Winter winds are harsh, and his usual coat got stolen by a drunken hobo last year.


    Half eaten rotisserie chicken, nice.


    Wrapping paper, seems a bit early isn''t it?


    Dead corpse of a robot dog, it probably had a nice run.


    While he was going through the reeking pile of garbage though, a strangely intact and clean leaflet caught his eye.


    "Are YOU incapable of finding a job?" The leaflet read, in a tone obviously mocking whoever the reader was. In this case, Sung, who got hit by it like a truck.


    For a moment, Sung understood what women felt when being called flat.


    "This can''t be anything good anyways." Sung muttered to himself as he balled up the leaflet. He dived into the dumpster once again, only to find another one.


    "A deadbeat hindrance to society that lives off of others'' tax- " The second line read, but Sung tore it apart before he read the entire sentence. "Must''ve been some kid''s idea of a prank." He wondered out loud.


    Though the writing style gave him a feeling of deja vu, Sung shrugged it off. It''s just got a hint of mesugaki to it, there are lots of them around the world.


    Third time''s the charm, as he dove into the dumpster one last time, and finally, after all the effort he''s put into, found a third identical leaflet. "-with our INNOVATIVE mind-cloning technology-" read the third line.


    Cloning... cloning? Nobody else in the world had even come close to cloning technology when Sung and his lab partner were trailblazing down this entirely new field of bioengineering, and yet just 5 short years later this unknown scientist is claiming to have the means of cloning the consciousness of a human?


    No, nobody could do what Sung was about to finish after 10 years of gruelling overtime and investment seeking.


    Nobody.


    Except, perhaps...


    That realization was the final straw that broke the camel''s back, the final peanut to lay a severely allergic person 6 foot under. At this moment, veins popping out of his temple, Sung didn''t need a coat anymore.


    After 5 years, this son of a female canine finally decided to resurface. The origin of all of his current woes, the bane of his life, is now "cordially inviting you to our test facility". Sung just couldn''t pass this up.


    Finally, he is one step closer to the truth behind his partner''s disappearance, once he infiltrates the facility, he''ll work his way up, get back his research, and ride into the sunset, that''s what he''ll do.


    He rummaged around his pockets and his bags that''re strewn all over the roadside territory he''s been occupying for the past half a decade, and managed to just barely pull out enough coins for an envelope and some stamps.


    He wettened the glue with his spit (something the pedestrians looked at with utter disgust), and with a pen he picked up on the curb he wrote down his name- actually no, scratch that - a made-up name, his address, and his gender, before slotting it down the rusty mailbox at a run down post office just around the corner.


    Barely anyone comes to send and receive mail nowadays, and the entire place was run by a single baggy old man with a spectacular handlebar mustache. "Tough times eh, young man?" The old man croaked as Sung was about to slide in his letter, "I''m sure you''ll get through this, I''ve been through countless ups and downs but I''m still alive and kicking! Heh, heh."


    "Anywho, Merry Christmas!" The old man tried to flex his withered biceps, but all that amounted to was showing more baggy skin. A long and awkward silence ensued.


    With the letter sent, Sung dragged his feet back to his usual canopy. He thought about the leaflet again. For all he knew it could be just some random scientist''s experiment, or it might just be fake altogether, and when he counted his odds of actually meeting his lab partner once again, he realized the assumption was a bit too far fetched.


    Still, the form is in, the letter will be on its way shortly, there''s no turning back already. He flipped to the other side and tried to sleep.


    It has to be that guy.


    It has to be.

 Throwing Everything Away

    "Morning there, welcome to The Hexagone, please show me your ID and birth certificate so we can get the registration process going."


    The other day, Sung woke up in a huge white room. He had no memory of how he got here, one moment he tried to get some shut-eye, the other he woke up in this confusing room.


    The pearl white floor stretched indefinitely, or maybe they''re walls. Was he even standing on anything? There weren''t any shadows to tell. Everything''s the same color, blindingly white with a tint of more white.


    Sung looked around, still groggy and disorientated. Truly, it was as if there were no up and down, directions felt pointless.


    Sung spun around a dozen times, yet everything remained the same no matter which angle he looked at it. Eerily, on his thirteenth spin, a white kiosk appeared out of nowhere. A humanoid sat behind the desk, beckoning him to go over there.


    "Hey sir! Get over here and start your registration procedure now, we don''t have all day you know!" The humanoid said. He- uhm... She? Anywho, the person behind the desk looked very peculiar, they had neither male nor female characteristics. One could describe them as the very template of what a human looks like. They looked as if babies never developed primary sex characteristics in the womb.


    Their disembodied voice somehow echoed through the infinite space. Sung tried to walk forward, yet it felt as though for every step he stepped forward, the floor moved backwards, and his position never changed, no work done.


    They let out a sigh. With a snap of their fingers, Sung suddenly found himself right in front of the kiosk. Sung stumbled a bit, he frantically waved his arms to try and regain balance-


    But balance in relation to what? No matter how he bobbed and leaned, the kiosk was still in front of him. Directly, in front of him. He felt like he''s losing balance, but nothing indicated that he wasn''t standing comfortably on the ground already.


    All the while the humanoid continued to watch with slight amusement. It never gets old, how newcomers always get confused by this room. How did they themself adjust to this room? Eh, minor details.


    The humanoid passed a lengthy form to Sung. "When you finish falling over yourself, please pick up a pen and fill out this form." Sung eventually straightened himself, forked over his documents (who carries their birth certificate around? Sung thought, but then he found his in his trouser pocket - his trousers never had pockets) and took a look at the form.


    The form was deliberately as generic as possible, with no additional information as to what he''s going to be participating in, where he is, et cetera. Most of the form''s just asking for your basic information - your biological sex, your name, your nationality, the usual.


    At the end though were two checkboxes, first of which confirms that you accept their terms and conditions (There was a leather-covered book the size of an encyclopedia on the countertop of the kiosk. When Sung took a quick look at it, he found out that at least 99% of the book''s blank. The book was made that way to intimidate people against reading it, Sung supposed that to be the case), the other was painfully straightforward, the facility made no effort in encapsulating it in something more palatable.


    "I understand that I will no longer exist as far as the government is concerned," it read in bold letters, "and that I will no longer be applicable to any human rights."


    "What if I don''t check this box?" Sung questioned the humanoid with his pen poking at the uncharacteristically raw statement. "I don''t know." they replied, "everyone checks it. You do have the freedom to not check that checkbox, we will not force your hand."


    Sung stared at them some more, visibly dissatisfied by their answer. The humanoid, in a panic, added, "I guess we''ll just return you to where we found you? It''s not exactly legal for us to trap you here anyways, is it? That would be false imprisonment. I mean, if you have somewhere to return to anyways."


    Sung checked the box. It''s true, he has nothing to lose. Where''d he return to? The same old cardboard den he built himself for what little shelter some flimsy old cardboard can provide? Revenge is there, one checkbox away. Worst case scenario, he''s wrong about his ex-partner''s involvement in this and he just signed away his life to some gruesome illegal human experimentation laboratory.


    That''s... actually horrifying.


    But is it deal breaking?


    No.


    The slim offchance that Sung''d be able to meet and beat the living crap out of his ex-partner was good enough of a justification for him. He firmly handed the form over to the humanoid, who stowed it away into a drawer.


    Next to them, a laser printer hummed and spat out a very formal looking piece of paper. A receipt printer above the laser printer then also whirred and out came a tiny label, "Laboratory A-3".


    "Thank you, take back your ID and birth certificate, and here''s your death certificate and your clone bay number. Go to the third room on the right for your brain imaging. Remember that after the cloning process, you will slowly cease to be Navis Wan. Next!" Sung barely had time to collect his stuff before the kiosk before him disappeared, his environment slowly morphing into that of a long, winding corridor lined with sliding doors.


    "A - 103" The sign read. Further along the corridor, another sign read "A - 104", wrong direction. Sung turned around and broke into a sprint. The sprint quickly turned into much panting and hobbling. He was never the athletic one, after all.


    It took him long before reaching laboratory A-3, though the humanoid in there greeted him as if he arrived right on time. Same androgynous look, except this one was wearing a lab coat while the humanoid behind the kiosk wore a rather smart suit. In the middle of the room sat a huge glowing tub of bubbling liquid with tentacles of brain electrodes floating and flailing about.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Sung was all too familiar with this tub - it was his design, an exact replica. They didn''t even bother changing the dimensions... Sung thought to himself, as he slid into the vat obediently, which fitted him like a glove. Of course, the vat was originally designed just for both of them, who weren''t exactly the tallest people on the planet. Needles stabbed into his skull as the liquid slowly but painlessly dissolved his body.


    "You''ll feel your consciousness fading, but you''ll soon wake up in your designated bedroom." The doctor said. Sung knew that, after all he designed the procedure. His body was already the thirteenth cloning attempt.


    The first few were far too gruesome to mention, only after the fifth attempt did Sung regain basic human functionalities, and only the last time did Sung''s original appearance get ported over to the basic humanoid template, a feature he wasn''t able to commit and push onto the shared servers from his computer before, well, that happened.


    Sung couldn''t quite remember what the twelfth attempt looked like though, and prayed that it at least had everything a normal human body would before his vision blurred and his mind faded. His body, now a puddle of red fishy kool aid, was drained alongside the rest of the fluids. The drain gargled disgustingly.


    Gargles, more gargles.


    Gargles filled Sung''s ears, as for the second time in this day he woke up in an unfamiliar environment, this time in a blue tube. The gel-like oxygenated fluids drained nastily down a pipe, leaving Sung slimy and slightly pukish.


    Just as Sung was about to complain about the gel that''s stuck to his new body, the tube doused Sung with icy yellow solvents, completely washing the gel away before finally opening up to let him out. Dazed once again, Sung stumbled out of the pod and into this new room he now finds himself in.


    Immediately left to the tube was a white plastic minimalistic desk. Embedded in the desktop was a run-of-the-mill hologram projector. There also seemed to be a note stuck on top of the desk with tape. To the right of the desk laid a bed, similarly white and minimalistic.


    Upon closer inspection, the bed seemed to be one of those foldable cardboard beds they use for quick camps and deployments. Not comfortable, not at all, but it does the job just well enough to not be considered a human rights violation - not that Sung had any rights right now anyway.


    Sung turned his head to the right, the cold steel door sealed his quarters shut from the rest of the compound, with not even a peephole to look outside. The door lock seemed to be card-activated, not unlike the ones they''ve got in hotels.


    A gray bookshelf stood next to the door, though except for the plastic potted plant on the second shelf, the rest felt unwelcomingly empty. Opposite to the bookshelf, similarly next to the door, a sliding door revealed itself to be part of a wardrobe. Hangars hung evenly spaced, too evenly.


    The entire room had no windows, there were curtains above the bed and desk, but Sung opened them to reveal what seemed to be more cold walls.


    Sung patted himself down, thankfully most human features seem to be intact. He turned his attention to the mirror across the room, and like the receptionist, like the doctor, Sung now has the same human template of a body.


    Slightly disgruntled, Sung walked over to the desk and tore the note off the desk. "Welcome to your bedroom." Said the note. "This will be where you rest and respawn should you die on the test fields.


    "You may use the provided facilities within this room however you like. Though you are reminded that any replacements to damaged facilities will be coming out of your bank account. You may also purchase furniture and appliances for your room via the Hypernet. You may access the Hypernet market via the hologram projector installed in your desk or via the smart phone provided.


    "We have already set up your bank account for you, and transferred funds originally in your previous bank account into your new facility bank account. All transactions are to be made with the facility''s currency. Item trades are allowed, but the use of any fiat and cryptocurrency for the purpose of transactions is strictly forbidden. You are also hereby warned that any attempts to circumvent the facility''s supervision over your transactions are not allowed. You may read the Clone Handbook within your projector''s hard drive to learn about the consequences.


    "Everything you need can be found within the confines of this complex. From restaurants, to clinics, to morgues. You are forbidden from interacting with services outside of the facility.


    "Experiments are recruited online. If you wish to participate in experiments, you may petition to enroll your group via the recruitment platform KlonedIn. Payment from participation will be decided by the ranking of your group within the experiment. Lack of participation will not result in any punishments, though the system will send over a counsellor should there be extended absences. Sabotaging the experiments will result in disciplinary actions, and multiple offenses may result in permanent neural rewiring.


    "We understand it may be stressful for such a drastic change in life, and we are committed to ensuring all subjects under us are in good health, both mentally and physically. Free therapy is available as long as you seek for it. Please do not hesitate to reach out.


    "All of your memories are flawlessly stored within your projector. You may review them freely whenever. Your stored memories will be used by the facility to solve disputes, as such any attempts at modifying, erasing, or forging memories are strictly prohibited.


    "Finally, your door key is at the back of this note. Please carry your key with you at all times, as it doubles as your new ID card. You may request for a new one at the General Office should you lose it.


    "We hope you can get used to your new life and make yourself useful to society."


    Sure enough, stuck to the back of the note was a card, with "Navis Wan, E-035698" laser engraved on top of the metallic card.


    Right, he used a fake name.


    Sung took the card and tapped it on top of the door knob, the door clicked and slowly slid open to reveal a bustling common room. Figures similar to the receptionist and the doctor populated the room, though much more expressive and rowdy. They seem to be arguing about something.


    Sung slid the door close, and silence instantly returned. The door is very sound proof, Sung thought. He tapped his card on the knob again and walked out into the common room.


    "Ope, out comes the last of us!" Hollered the one on the sofa. "Name''s Miguel, Miguel Smith. Texas."


    "Ed- Navis Wan, Hong Kong, nice to meet you." Sung replied, still wary of the strangers in front of him.


    "Don''t be shy now, boy. We ain''t a bad crowd!" Miguel grinned.


    "Jones Wilson, London." Said the guy standing behind Miguel. "Pleased to meet you."


    "Same here."


    "Suzuki, Yoko." The one beside Jones bowed. "Let''s get along well."


    "Let''s" Sung bowed with her.


    "What about hi- them?" Sung quickly corrected himself. He pointed at the one leaning on the table, engrossed in their game.


    "Oh them? No idea, they never bothered to introduce themselves. Mannerisms look tomboyish though, I''ll assume they''re a girl." Miguel replied with a slight hint of annoyance. "Alright then, that about all of us."


    "So, from the top. I''m Miguel, I worked as a janitor before I accidentally knocked up a chick and went flat broke from paying child support. I ain''t the most trustworthy dude in here but I hope we can get along."


    Miguel started off his monologue about trust and teamwork and so on, all the while Sung looked around some more. Jones was shuffling and fidgeting around on the sofa, almost like a kid waiting for his parents to finish scolding him. Yoko meanwhile appeared to be listening attentively, but her fingertapping was a rather dead givaway that she, too, wanted Miguel to end his pointless ramblings early.


    Yet, oblivious was Miguel to this general consensus.

 Further Out, Deeper In

    "Since we''ve been assigned into the same condo, let''s just assume the organization wants us to be together as a group." Thus proposed Miguel. It''s not a flawed assumption, Sung thought to himself.


    Yoko tried to sneak back to her room, but her conscience seems to have gotten the better of her, and she sits back down.


    Jones slumped deeper into the sofa.


    The girl, now leaning against the wall, just beat her high score. She fisted the air before starting another new game.


    Miguel looked at Sung, Sung shrugged. He didn''t really mind being in a group with them, and even though the walls seem a bit thick between them right now, that''s how groups usually start out, Sung reasoned.


    Everyone will eventually get along together.


    Miguel eventually elected himself leader of this group with technically no oppositions - no support either, though.


    Silence ensued.


    "Well if there''s nothing left to be done here, I''ll be going back. Cya." Yoko finally mustered up the courage to get up and leave the common room, with the girl who was leaning against the wall tailing her. The door slid shut behind them.


    Sung was instantly reminded of the times the boys and girls just separated into their own respective groups at the start of every new semester. With Miguel, Jones and himself left in the room, Sung glanced at Miguel, maybe hoping that this self-appointed leader would think of something to narrow this gap before it becomes too wide to put back together.


    But Miguel just sat there, slouched forward while twiddling his thumbs. Clearly, he too hoped someone else would just fish them out of these still waters. So much for being the de facto captain of this group.


    It''s up to Sung now, then. Being the only other adult left in the room (Sung assumed that Jones was probably just a child.), the responsibility of trying to break the ice naturally shifted from Miguel to him.


    "So..." Sung started. All eyes are on him now. "What say we go on a stroll around the compound?"


    "What for?" Asked Jones.


    "Well- no reason in particular." Sung glanced at Miguel again, hoping to see at least some resemblance of wanting to help. Yet again was Miguel fiddling with his hands. "I just thought it''d be nice to go familiarize ourselves with this compound, since we''re going to be spending the rest of our days here."


    Jones hesitated for a bit, before reluctantly agreeing. He hopped off the sofa, straightened himself, and walked over to the main door.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    "You coming Miguel?" Sung hollered over at the doorway.


    "Wha- I- N- Sigh... sure."


    The corridors outside of the doorway were bustling with activity. Housekeepers ran around with their carts filled with bedsheets and detergent and whatnot, late clones rushed by them, weary but ecstatic parties recounted their encounters out there in the battlefields. They stood out like a sore thumb.


    "So... Jones, was it? What brings you here?" Sung tried to go with the atmosphere. Jones just stared back at him. No luck, I guess. Sung shrugged, no point to push further I suppose. Just as Sung was about to change topics though, Jones blurted his answer out, "shit dad."


    "Must''ve been tough, I know how it''s like to live with bad parents." Miguel let out a long sigh. "They drag you down, belittle you, make you feel worthless, until one day you stumble out of their household and, whaddya know, you''re worthless." He chuckled painfully. "I''m sorry you had to deal with that."


    Miguel and Jones turned to stare at Sung in unison.


    "What?" Sung made an attempt to ignore their intense stares, but he eventually caved.


    "You ain''t seriously keeping your mouth shut about yourself after asking us about ourselves, are ya?" Miguel taunted, Jones nodded in agreement.


    "I don''t remember asking you though." Sung retorted, but seeing how Jones and Miguel aren''t letting it go, he had no choice but to comply.


    Not the whole truth though, just to be safe.


    "I lived on the streets, and one day I just had enough. Satisfied?" Miguel definitely wasn''t, as he let out an audible "tsk" before backing down. Jones though, continued to stare daggers at Sung.


    "Liar! Liar liar pants on fire~" Jones teased Sung while pulling a face. Kids... Sung sighed. Then again, a little more can''t hurt.


    "Alright, I was a researcher, but my partner bailed on me and left with my stuff, so I turned to the streets for 5 years." Sung had hoped that this would quell the kid''s curiosity, but it seemed to have the opposite effect instead. Even Miguel was visibly more interested. "I''m not saying anything more." Sung defended himself.


    Their walk was subsequently plagued with Miguel and Jones egging on Sung tor reveal more about himself.


    As the trio walked over to the food stalls (everything you need can be found within the complex), Jones darted off towards the hot dog stand. Sung, being the 30-something year old man he is, thought that he''d pretend to be cool for once and told Jones that food''s on him.


    But when he checked his bank balance - 6 cents. He ain''t paying for nothing with that amount. Sung sheepishly minimized the bank balance window. A job, he will be needing a job around here.


    "Das ist nicht gut." Said Miguel over his shoulder, in a terrible German accent. "Wouldn''ta promised anything if I were you." Sung thought that there''d be some starting cash thrown into all their accounts, evidently not.


    Once again, the past comes back to bite Sung. Even in a different environment, he is still flat broke. He''d almost forgotten that, just yesterday, he was sleeping under some cardboard, rummaging through dumpsters while scraping pennies together for stamps.


    And what a long day this is. New bedroom, new surroundings, new people to have to bond with, none of which Sung had the spare time to actually take in and process. All he did was to go with the flow, now he''s got the dudes together already. Maybe this isn''t so bad after all.


    "We can go and enroll ourselves into a field experiment later I guess, but we''ll have to get through the lassies first." Right, the lads might''ve gotten closer right now, but the girls''ve still locked themselves in their own rooms. That is something they have to solve when they get back to the common room. Nonetheless, Sung sent Yoko a message to notify them.


    But, right now, let''s just put it on the back burner and enjoy it a bit.


    Sung watched as Jones burnt his mouth on a hot dog fresh off the grill.


    For the first time in 5 years, he''s spending Christmas with someone.

 Meanwhile, Behind The Steel Door

    The steel door slid shut behind them, giving them some privacy at last. Yoko threw herself onto the hard cardboard bed and stuffed her face into the equally hard pillow, letting out a long and loud groan. The girl, meanwhile, finally put their game down on the desk, and went on a tirade.


    "I don''t get it, all of them are useless!" they ranted. "Two of them are deadbeat adults, one of them''s a kid. None of them''s surviving in the fields for more than 3 minutes, none!"


    "You''re one to talk, Rin, when you didn''t even bother to talk to any of them. What, are you trying to be the Em*nence in Sh*dow? What''s with all the excessive pretentious posing in the shades?"


    "A character''s first appearance must be cool as hell." Said Rin with a smirk.


    "Yeah yeah, thanks to that nobody knows you. Doesn''t that defeat the entire purpose of the first appearance?"


    "The audience yearns to know me more." Said Rin with their hand on their face, their head tilted upwards as if gazing at something only cringe chuunibyous can see. The mysterious ace in the team, all eyes on them, yet they remain a secret to all the observers. That''s who Rin thinks they are.


    "Like hell they do." Snapped Yoko. She just can''t stand her brother''s cringey poses and words of self-imposed grandeur. "Whelp, I wasn''t expecting myself to be the only girl in here."


    "Oh, can''t I be counted as one of the girls as well?" Rin leaned backwards with a wide grin. "You''re a boy, come on." Yoko rejected the idea instantly.


    "They don''t know, that janitor Miguel even said he assumes I''m a tomboyish girl no? We get mistaken for sisters at school a lot anyways." Rin''s grin grew wider, entertaining the idea in his head. "Well whose stupid chuuni ass decided to stand around instead of properly introducing themselves?"


    "They don''t need to know what they don''t have to know."


    "There you go with your cryptic circular sentences again."


    "Cool, right?"


    "You rehearse that much?"


    "Every night in front of the mirror before bedtime."


    "I can''t with you." Said Yoko with a sigh. "Listen, you''re going to properly introduce yourself to them right now, okay?"


    "But that would break this entire kuudere character I''m trying to build up! Do I really have to?" Rin did not forget to "collapse" onto the floor with doggy begging eyes directed straight at Yoko, which, given his current body, looks absolutely revolting.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    "Enough with your characters already! Can''t you just be yourself in front of others for once? What is up with your obsession to be the cool mysterious dude in the room?" Yoko asked, exasperated by Rin.


    "Like you''re one to talk, Miss Stereotypical Meek Japanese Girl." Retorted Rin. "We all make up characters to show to the public, don''t go lecturing me when you do the exact same thing."


    "That''s- You''re introducing yourself to them, right now!" Yoko swiped her card on the door and shoved Rin out of the room. To their surprise, the common room is empty. "Have they gone off somewhere? Without telling us, their precious team mates? How cruel." Rin said with a fake sob. "Oh shut up."


    "Oh well. Ah, right," Rin straightened himself, "have you checked your bank account, Yoko? The note said something along the lines of transferring all the money we had in our real bank accounts into the account the complex made for us?"


    "Oh, right, yeah." Yoko scrambled to turn on the holographic projector on her desk. "We should have at least a couple hundred dollars from what we''ve saved in our piggy banks..." "Piggy bank? Didn''t Dad deposit our money in the bank that he works in?" Rin asked, confused. "Uhh... right... I forgot you didn''t know that..."


    Zero, zilch, nada. Their bank account is completely empty, mostly because they never had one to begin with. "Well, that''s a mighty shame." Rin shook his head. "We need to find a way to get some money then. Did the note say anything about making money in here?"


    "No, but it did mention enrolling into experiments. I wonder if that''s paid?" Yoko turned back to her holographic projector, and opened up the "Recruitments" page. Sure enough, recruiting experiments lined up into a list, with their rewards shown in the bottom right corner of each listing.


    "That sum''s pretty dank, we should totally enroll into one as soon as possible." Rin peered over Yoko''s shoulder, the rewards for the experiments ranged anywhere from 10 to 200 Clone Assignment Tokens (CAT, for reference Jones'' grilled hot dog cost 0.5 tokens.).


    Feeling too good to be true, Yoko pulled up the help page. The reward, as it turns out, gets distributed among the members of the group, with the team leader deciding on how to split it. Instead of 10 tokens per participant, it might be 2 tokens instead, assuming even distribution.


    Worst case scenario, the leader may embezzle all the tokens and leave his team mates with nothing. But Yoko figured that as shady as Miguel is, he shouldn''t be the greedy type.


    "We''ll have to talk with Miguel, Jones and... Shit what was their name again? Navis? Weird name. Anyways, we''ll have to talk with them about this. After all, Miguel''s the only one who can put our names in." Said Rin. He plopped himself down onto Yoko''s bed and spread his arms and legs out for a good long stretch.


    Right on cue, a sharp "Ping!" came from the speakers. Yoko had received Sung''s message.


    "Meet y''all in 15 minutes, we need money. Fast. ~Navis"


    "What was that?!" Rin got startled by the ping and fell off the bed. "Ow..."


    "This might just go smoother than I thought." Said Yoko, deliberately ignoring the loud thud right after the message ping.


    "And you just told me to stop using cryptic circular sentences... I''m literally shaking my head now dear hypocrite sister." Rin followed that up with a pout.


    "Oh just shut up." Yoko hit Rin with another chop to the head.


    "Ow!"


    "And you''re going to introduce yourself to them before we start the meeting!"


    "''Kayyyy..."

 Calm Before The Storm

    "By the way..." Miguel and Jones were too busy zig-zagging through the food stalls that they didn''t really realize how far they''ve walked. Sung was tailing behind them while scrolling through experiment recruitment listings, but by the time he turned his attention away from the list, he''s found themselves in the middle of a sprawling labyrinth of food stalls, with no recollection of how they got to where they are now, nor how to get themselves back out.


    "How do we get out of here?" The collective realization of the situation they''ve wandered themselves into struck hard. Turn around, more stalls. Turn again, even more stalls. Between the three of them, only one word came to mind.


    "Shit."


    It took them two hours to find their way out.


    Eventually, when they crawled their way back to their condo, Miguel hovered his card over the sensor to unlock the door. As the door slid open, standing right behind it was Rin, with cuts and bruises all over his body, and his hands bound together with nylon rope. Yoko, in equally bad shape, held Rin firmly by the shoulders with a rather menacing aura.


    "I- I see you two got close with each other..." Jones laughed awkwardly. "He''s my brother." Growled Yoko. "Now, introduce yourself." Yoko tightened the rope further. "Ay ay ay AY OK FINE. I''m Rin, Suzuki Rin, Yoko''s twin brother. Er- Yoko''s a girl, I''m a boy." Rin clarified after seeing Jones'' confused face.


    The five of them moved back to the sofas, Sung brewed some tea for all of them, As he sat down, Miguel pulled up the applications window. "Quick raise of hands, who here came in with a bank account that''s worth half a damn?" Miguel started off bluntly. Awkward silence. "We need money, ASAP." "How many of us can actually fight though? All of these are combat experiments." Asked Yoko. She and Rin were students, Jones'' just a child, Miguel was a janitor, Sung was a researcher, none of them exactly knew how to fight.


    "They do have a minimum pay, so long as we don''t get absolutely folded we should be able to get at least something out of this." Said Rin. "We could try out melee experiments first," he pointed to the ones with a fist icon, "rather than those with actual guns," he moved his finger to the ones with a bullet icon.


    "They pay less though, and besides aren''t guns easier to use?" Questioned Jones. "They''re only easier when you already have experience with them, or else the recoil will throw you off. Besides, none of us have actual combat experience, we''d be dead before we found cover against any attacks." Rin answered.


    "We could probably earn more if we survive longer in melee experiments." Sung wondered out loud. "Then again we''d probably be running and hiding rather than actually killing anyone."


    "''Cording to the FAQ here," Miguel pointed at the wall of text on his screen, "the amount of money paid will be scaled according to how long ye survive. The amount of people yeh''ve killed will act more or less a bonus to individuals. I''ll be puttin our names into this one then."


    With the application form filled and sent, everyone simultaneously got a notification from their phones. "Experiment starts in: 2 Days, 15 Hours, 24 Minutes. Get ready."


    "Whelp, with that done, I''m turnin'' in for the night." Miguel stood up, stretched, slightly stumbled a bit, before wobbling over to his room, the steel door slid firmly shut behind him. Only now did Sung realize there aren''t any windows in the common room, as he looked left and right for one to confirm that it is indeed nighttime - there isn''t one.


    The large digital clock mounted on the wall can happily attest to the fact that it is midnight though. Everyone eventually returned to their own rooms, as the common room lights switched off on their own.


    Sung carefully climbed onto the cardboard bed and tried to sleep in it. The first few whiles seemed fine, the firmness is not unlike the pavement Sung''s used to sleep on. Afterwards though, Sung had to move himself down onto the floor. The cardboard bed just lacks a certain... solidness to it.


    It just did not spark joy, there need not be a lengthier explanation.


    The other day, a couple of workers came to take Sung''s bed with them. Sung had sold his bed for a tiny amount of cash, and although the room seemed even less accommodating now with the bed gone, at least he has more free space for something else.


    He''s going to have to fight... When was the last time he ever fought? Sung pondered. Oh, right, that time another hobo stole his jacket and he tried to fight him for it back. Emphasis on "tried", Sung was quickly overpowered and slammed onto the ground.


    Sung turned his attention to the cloning vat sitting lifelessly next to his bedroom wall, he nitpicked at all the different places that he would''ve tinkered with back in his lab, but again his partner stole the blueprints of an immature vat and did not even bother to iterate on it.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    Most notably, one of the major flaws of this particular revision of the clone vat, was that the consciousness transfer process was slightly lossy, causing the personality and memories of a cloned individual to slowly be altered, or even lost, after every clone attempt.


    He can fix it.


    The solution would be to just swap out the copper wires for silver wires, best if he could get his hands on some superconducting wires, but they''re prohibitively expensive for the budget he has on hand right now - about 20 CAT, superconducting wires on the hypernet cost at least 100 CAT per foot.


    While artificially coding in stronger muscles into his clone save may be a quick and valid solution, orders on the hypernet take at least 3 business days to deliver, too late.


    With no other choice, Sung begrudgingly looked up the nearest gym. He figured he needed a gym buddy, but neither Jones nor Miguel were too stoked on the idea. "I don''t like it when my legs hurt." "The hell you tryna accomplish within 2 days anyways?"


    Rin surprisingly agreed, "maybe there''ll be pretty women to hit on." He said. Sung cared not to inform him that everyone looked exactly the same here. "...yeah," he agreed hesitantly, "sure."


    As they made their way down to the gym, Rin suddenly asked if Sung had a family. "I mean, you''re an adult, right?" "Not all adults end up with a family." Replied Sung. Most of his time was either spent on research or on books, he had no time nor interest in chasing girls. He was fine with being a virgin forever, but something about Rin''s tone irked him anyways.


    "Not all adults deserve a family." Added Rin. The duo fell quiet again. That remark came out of the left field, but as intrusive memories of Sung''s childhood surfaced, he couldn''t help but agree.


    "Must be tough." "Yeah."


    Arrays of machines loomed into view as they approached the gym. It''s not the world''s most extraordinary gym by any means, but it has what any gym should have, common equipment like steppers and treadmills and squat machines. The map did mention that it was a "beginner''s gym", the better gyms probably have more exotic equipment.


    Rin was very disappointed when loomed into view along with the machines weren''t sexy girls he probably came to expect watching movies and magazines, but just bald, androgynous figures. Not unlike himself, not unlike Sung.


    His disappointment was immeasurable and, though still early it was, his day was pretty much already ruined. He turned around and tried to go back to the condo, but he could not for the life of him remember the way back. Lost, he reluctantly threw himself on the treadmills with Sung.


    The two days went by without much fanfare, while Sung and Rin continued to torture themselves on the treadmills and benches, the rest of the group were trying to dig up archives of previous experiments.


    They do say "know thy enemies and know thyself, find naught in fear for 100 battles" after all.


    There were quite a number of libraries in the compound, with books hailing from a variety of different cultures and languages, telling stories of people from all walks of life, or information of all sorts of topics, opinions of all kinds of issues. Despite the gigantic archive though, there are only a scant few records of the complex''s own experiments.


    The ones they did find, although clad in heavy files, were brief and undescriptive, almost as if they''re intentionally redacting information out of these public reports. "What''s with these reports? All of them just write the same thing, ''Performance satisfactory.'' No introduction, no details on the experiment, they didn''t even care to put quantitative results on these!" Yoko shouted frustratingly.


    They''ve been rummaging through libraries for the second day now, and still the only pieces of information they got about the experiments were that the performances were often satisfactory. The briefness of the records made it seem like the experiments had no objective at all, almost like they were hosted for the sole purpose of cruel entertainment. Overcome with frustration, they retreated into the common room.


    With little time left before this unknown ordeal starts, the five of them sat on the sofas, staring at their phone screens as the timer ticked down. That''s all they could do - they knew absolutely nothing about what was to come. Fear paralyzed the room, they sat as still as statues, as if spellbound, a deafening pin-drop silence enveloped them.


    Five minutes. Do any of them know how to fight? They had chosen to do melee instead because of their lack of experience, but on second thought maybe guns were the newbie''s best chance at performing good enough.


    Four minutes. Pain pains, even if they technically couldn''t die, a sucker punch is still going to entail a world of suffering, and none of them like pain. Should they just run and hide at every turn? Would doing that earn them money? They don''t know.


    Three minutes. What if they die? They get cloned back, but they did still die. Does dying hurt? From a stab, maybe. What about mental damage? Would it be traumatizing to experience death? Maybe not, everyone in this facility seems to be to some degree in their right minds anyway.


    Two minutes. Are they ready to kill? It seemed like such a trivial thing, to just put a hole into someone and let them bleed to death, but now that they think about it, it seems quite a bit more nuanced than just hole and death. Where should they stab? The heart, of course, but how are they going to get there? They have little to no martial arts experience, a little backstabbing will do, literally.


    One minute on the clock, is there anything else to think about? There must be, but Sung couldn''t think of more. He''s too preoccupied with the ticking time bomb in front of him to think of anything else. He climbed back into his clone bay for the teleportation, his head submerged into the pod fluid, a wave of artificial calmness took over his brain. Right, the fluid had tranquilizing properties.


    Sung remembered the first few cloning attempts he did without the tranquilizing pod fluid, every time felt like a new traumatizing experience''d been etched into his very soul. It was his partner who later on threw tranquilizers into the fluid mix, when Sung was still trying to figure out what caused the trauma.


    Under the effects of the tranquilizer, Sung quickly dozed off, right as the timer reached zero. The clone bay quickly dissolved the body, before opening up the drain and letting all the goop out nastily.


    On the fields, the clone bays reopened. Drafts of icy air crashed into Sung, forcibly waking him up.

 Touch Grass, Kick Ass?

    As Sung, Miguel, Jones, Rin and Yoko woke up one by one, they found themselves in a building made of stone, very mossy stone. The floor was overgrown with a carpet of damp moss, which Jones did not take well, as he walked precariously over the moss, slipped and fell into the moss, his face distorted with disgust.


    "I want a shower already..." Jones wailed.


    "Don''t be such a crybaby lol." Rin teased him, before getting tripped by Yoko, and he too fell into the moss. "Eww, yeah I see what you mean now, this is disgusting."


    "Righty, stop messin'' round before one of y''all hit your head the wrong way and die." Warned Miguel. They turned their attention to the table across the room. An out of place, pristinely wooden table, on it were nunchucks, baseball bats, brass knuckles, even daggers and all sorts of swords.


    "That is quite the collection..." Sung marvelled. "Though it kind of made me remember those BDSM scenes- nevermind." He forgot Jones was a child. Jones stared at him, puzzled.


    "Lemme get the nunchucks!" Rin eagerly snatched them off the table. "Do you even know how to use them?" Questioned Yoko. "Sure I can! Just watch." Rin flailed aroun a bit before hitting himself squarely in the forehead. An extra latch sprung from the end of the nunchuck, which flicked Rin right when it hit him.


    While Sung pondered at the table of melee weapons, the others quickly got what they wanted. Yoko got herself a few stacks of shuriken, which all have built in capacitors for a quick stun; Miguel got himself a long spear, which doubles as a trident; Jones got himself a couple of daggers, which blades can either heat themselves or cool themselves to extreme temperatures; Rin got himself crowbars, bog standard steel crowbars.


    "You done yet? We ain''t got all day, our timer only starts when we get outta here!" Miguel impatiently asked. Sung randomly picked up a pair of brass knuckles before they went out of the building through the stairs at the opposite side of the room.


    They ascended up the stairs, the air only growing more frigid by the step. It did not help that both Rin and Jones got wet from the moss, both of them shivered intensely whenever the slightest gust of wind blew into them. By the time they climbed out of the exit, they were practically icicles.


    It''s snowing outside. Inches of snow buried the withering grass underneath, and capped the towering pine trees surrounding the stone building. Looking back, Sung thought that the building resembled something of an ancient temple. Whichever religion it''s built by, though, Sung just hoped their god can bring them some warmer clothes. They''re still clad in the basic green t-shirt, blue shorts, and generic sneakers - not the best set for snowy terrain.


    Sung absentmindedly waved his hand, and a holographic menu popped up out of nowhere, which mildly startled him. On the menu were several options - "Fabricate", "Region Map", "Inventory", "Settings"... - as if it came straight from an RPG.


    Miguel watched Sung as he navigated through all the different menu options. "What''re you signing?" Asked Miguel, to him Sung was just doing random hand gestures at nothing. "Do you not see this screen in front of me?" Sung replied, confused. Miguel shook his head. "Try waving your hand." A menu popped up just as Miguel did that, startling Miguel. "Like a video game!" Rin was almost brimming with excitement. "We should probably try and make something first, we''re still in the freezing cold." Yoko scrolled through the fabrication recipes, a peculiar material stood out to her.


    "Nanites... and we need a few hundred of them for a simple jacket? How''re we going to get that in the first place?" Yoko complained. A dialogue box popped up in front of her right when she finished her sentence. "Everything." It said, before disappearing as abruptly as it appeared. Confused, she took a fistful of snow from the ground, and reopened the fabrication menu. To her delight, a new entry popped up. "Water -> Nanite", and it seems like a fistful of snow is equivalent to... a singular unit of nanite. Disappointed, she threw it at Rin before picking up a pebble. Another entry popped up, "Stone -> Nanite". This time the pebble''s equal to 10 nanites. "Seems like different objects have different conversion rates, then." Yoko yelled out to the rest of the group.


    Given the abundance of trees around them, and the relative lack of pebbles, snow and all, they came to the conclusion that it''d be best if they just felled a portion of this forest to build up a nice nanite stash, seeing how it''s practically required for every recipe. "We don''t even have a saw though?" Jones asked. "I think I saw a couple of saw chains on the table," Sung replied, "I''ll go get them." He disappeared back down into the temple before reappearing with two chains. He gave one to Miguel, and the both of them went and started sawing some trees.


    Miguel quickly got winded though and gave the chains to Rin instead. "Guess the two days of exercise ain''t for nuffin'' after all!" Miguel bent down and panted. Even Sung''s a bit surprised, though he shrugged and continued to fell trees. "The rest of us''ll go do some exploring then, it seems like we''ll be here for a while." Yoko suggested, which Sung nodded in agreement. "Just come back before the sun sets, if it does."


    As the sawing grew distant, the forest became blissfully silent, their trudging echoed throughout the woods indefinitely. The trio had no idea what they''re supposed to be looking for, perhaps some wild animals for food? A white rabbit brushed past them, which Jones tried to chase, but it quickly disappeared into the snow. They couldn''t catch any birds, either, and didn''t even bother to try and hunt the larger animals, which they knew''d be impossible to kill by three pairs of inexperienced hands. All the chasing and catching though led them to a tiny wooden canopy, with a burning torch lit in the middle of a wall made of logs, and a strange hexagonal steel canister.


    The canister had glowing red lights, a telltale sign of it being locked. Curious, Jones approached it with gusto. The red lights immediately turned blue, some motors whirred, and the canister unscrewed its ends to reveal some sheets of paper, 3 syringes, and some cans. An info pop up revealed those papers to be blueprint shards, small jigsaw pieces of components to a larger full blueprint of an item.


    "No way they''ve got heroin jabs in here..." Miguel sighed. "These aren''t heroin," Jones read off another info pop up, "these are apparently for healing minor injuries and numb small amounts of pain. They call it ''Noxiblock'' here." "Oh so painkillers? That''s going to be pretty useful then." Miguel stopped being skeptical of the syringes and took one into his own inventory, Yoko and Jones each took one into storage as well.


    With the can looted, the trio took the torch on the wall and moved on. They waddled their way deeper into the icy forest, with the snow now at ankle depth, their socks got soaked because of it. The trio were more than willing to call it quits, if not for the towering, deathly mesmerizing icy tree in the distance, bald because of the winter then clad in a coating of drippy ice, the compartively tiny icicles replaced the original leaves.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    In a sense, it is a symbol of life valiantly standing strong, perhaps somewhat alone, against the harshest of conditions. Yet who is to say that the icy shell isn''t a cage, forcefully keeping the tree standing, even though it has long since wilted?


    The giant icy tree glistened under the sun, as if to tell everyone and everything under it that hope still persists in this world, as if to flaunt their life force, as if to ward off the unknown forces of evil.


    The torch proved to come in handy, as not long after did the sun start to rapidly set. The sky glowed a brilliant orange before the moon and the stars took over, the frosty land now basked in the ethereal fog of moonlight, rendering the forest with an extra layer of sinisterness.


    Trailing their footsteps in the snow, and with the giant tree as their compass, the trio tried their best to get back to the camp, before Sung and Rin starts worrying about them. The silence of the forest turned from being soothing to offputting, the woods went from calming to menacing. Jones could not help but hide behind Miguel, while Yoko''s knees tried their absolute best to not give out. The first night, as it turns out, is often frightening. They glanced at the tree again for directions, perhaps to get a sense of reassurance from it as well.


    Refractions of the moonlight encased the giant icy tree with a ghastly white glow, by contrast with its pompous, dazzling self in the morning, it now feels truly like it''s well past its prime, as if it''s biding its time, waiting for the icy shackles to melt away, by then it shall have its deathly release.


    Either way, either dazzling or mysterious, it is still majestic, ever the more mesmerizing.


    Putting the glorious tree aside, the trio turned their attention instead to some faint clashing sounds from afar. Groups are nearby, they collectively thought to themselves. It would be foolhardy to stay while clear signs of aggression are nearby, but then again, their job is to collect information and explore, what kind of intel gatherers would they be if they give up on an obvious chance to see for themselves the abilities of other groups?


    They pulled their weapons out from their inventories, just in case they had to get into combat themselves. With Miguel in the lead, the three of them slowly crept their way behind a bush, right outside a small circular bald patch, where two groups were violently clashing against each other, fist against fist, sword against sword.


    On one side of the patch, a swordsman lunged forward with their red katana, which another brawler narrowly dodged, and too dived in to try and land a punch square in the swordsman''s face, which the swordsman blocked with their hilt. Flurries of attacks were made by the duo, each haphazardly blocked by the opponent, neither really gaining much of an upper hand.


    On the other side of the patch, a rogue-like tried their hardest to keep their distance against a lancer, yet the lance kept finding its way near them no matter how much they''ve retreated back. It''s a miracle that none of the thrusts''ve hit them yet, possibly because the lancer too is just an amateur.


    It didn''t seem like both teams were entirely there. The lancer eventually impaled the rouge-like in the chest, killing them immediately, before joining the brawler in defeating the swordsman.


    The commotion died down, as the lancer and the brawler put their weapons back into their inventories and prepared to leave. "Well, there''s nothing much left to see, I guess?" Miguel whispered, Jones and Yoko nodded in return. It''s well past nighttime already, Sung and Rin must be worried sick. "We''re coming back. Big scoop." Jones messaged Sung in the group chat before turning around to leave.


    Crack! Dread flooded the trio, as they slowly turned their heads to the source of the loud crack, beneath Miguel''s feet was a snapped twig. Despite their best efforts, as they raise their heads again to see two pairs of glaring eyes and crackling knuckles, it seems like they''ve been found out at the very end.


    Yoko quickly fled, leaving Miguel and Jones behind. Before Miguel could turn around and complain though, from the corner of his eye, hr barely noticed a lance charging his way. Out of pure instinct, he swiftly blocked the lance with his own spear, the tip of the lance just barely deflected from his gut, Miguel broke out a cold sweat, that was close.


    While not trained for combat, Miguel fortunately had enough run-ins with drunken men during his janitor days to pick up a thing or two about defending himself with a stick. The lancer randomly poked and prodded, each strike deflected within a hair''s breadth. Miguel smirked, his opponent seems to be inexperienced.


    Forgoing the usual spearholding technique he copied off of fighting games, he instead held it as if it''s his usual mop, parrying the lancer''s amateurish attacks with his own set of slightly less inexperienced moves, slowly pushing the lancer back. With each step, Miguel could feel the trembling of the lance grow more intense, but he can''t afford to be confident just yet. The thrusts may not be accurate, but Miguel wasn''t willing to stay around and find out if the lance hurts or not when it eventually does hit him.


    With a twist of the spear''s handlebar, the blade split into 3 spikes - a trident. Miguel used the trident to fork the lance to the ground, which caused the lancer to lose their balance and stumble forwards. Miguel took advantage, and landed a clean right jab right at their head, rendering them unconscious.


    Jones meanwhile had a hard time stopping the brawler, bruises and cuts now scattered and stamped all over his body. Daggers, as it turned out, were not suitable for blocking punches. With a swift uppercut, Jones was thrown off balance, tripped himself up, and fell onto the damp snowy grass. Back against a tree, Jones nearly pissed his pants in fear


    With a smirk on their face, the brawler cracked their knuckles again, as they winded up their fists in preparation of dealing the final blow. "Any last words, lil'' punk?" growled the brawler. Just as they held their fist up high, ready to pound it down hard onto Jones, a sudden projectile flew through the woods, hit and paralyzed the brawler with electric currents.


    A few more finally rendered them unconcious, as they instead crashed onto Jones. Jones frantically looked around, expecting to see a third party hidden somewhere waiting to vulture from their fight, just to see Yoko hid behind some thicker bushes some couple yards away from the confrontation.


    After a deep guttural grunt and much effort, Jones managed to flip the unconscious brawler off him and sit upright - just for the electrocuting shurikens to touch the damp floor and send a small shock to Jones, sending him back to the snow, now dyed golden yellow.


    Miguel pulled the trident off from the ground, turned it back into a spear, and stabbed the lancer right in the throat, killing them instantly. Still gasping for breath, he hobbled over and did the same to the brawler, much to Jones'' disgust when blood spilled all over the ground and stained the snow crimson red. They had killed two people. They will be revived, but they were killed nonetheless.


    Miguel fell back onto the ground, while Yoko returned from the bushes. The collective realization that they''ve just slain people hit harder than either of their opponents could, a line was just crossed. "You okay, Jones?" Miguel tried to console him. He''s just a kid, after all.


    Jones simply nodded. His eyes still fixated on the two corpses laid in front of him, daggers left buried in the snow. Dazed, he could not help but imagine the pain of getting his throat brutally slit.


    "And you, missy?" Miguel turned to Yoko. She did not respond, yet she too seems to be holding back tears, as if in her mind she''s trying to convince herself. "It''s okay, I''ve only paralyzed them, I did nothing else. I''m not a bad person." was what seemed to be running in a loop in her head. She held forth her hand and converted the two corpses into considerable amounts of nanites.


    Miguel could see they were very much shaken, "It''s what we gotta do here... We''s in a battlefield here... It''s killed or be killed." The trio fell silent. What''s left on the field are stains of red and yellow, and some leftover weapons.


    "Wh- what about the weapons?" Asked Jones shakily, "th- they might have sp- special powers, d- d- don''t they?" Miguel picked up the lance and took a hard look. "...No, they seem to just be normal weapons." He instructed Yoko to convert them into nanites as well, they got blueprint shards for the lance in the process.


    "Right, let''s actually head back this time." Miguel straightened himself up. Still traumatized from the action, the three begrudgingly made their way through the thick forest back to the camp, where Sung and Rin had already set up tents and a campfire, lazily roasting some skewered fish.

 Housekeeping

    As Yoko, Miguel and Jones disappeared into the thick of the forest one by one, Sung and Rin meanwhile continued to slowly row their chainsaws back and forth


    "It feels weird." Rin said all of a sudden. "That nanites exist, but we don''t use them more often outside of here. Like it''s a versatile material, anyone could materialize anything with this goop."


    "It''s a lot harder than you think." Sung replied. The cloning machines use nanites, and there''s no word in Sung''s vocabulary that can even begin to describe how much of a pain it was to create the scaffoldings and sub-recipes for each type of cell a human body has.


    "How hard could it be?" Rin dismissed Sung, it truly is bliss to be ignorant.


    One by one the trees fell, several almost on top of them had they not gotten out of the way in time. From the fallen trees, however, a new problem grew. A problem that Sung and Rin should''ve seen coming ages ago.


    Entire trees, as it turns out, are quite heavy. Even with the combined strength of both Sung and Rin, none of the trees they fell would budge. They thought about rolling them on the ground, but all the branches they didn''t bother to trim beforehand meant that the logs were firmly anchored into the snowy dirt ground.


    Log by log, they had to trim out the branches, cut the bark into more manageable pieces, and move them one by one into a neat pile. To add insult to injury, by the time they were done with all that, the total amount of wood they now have isn''t even enough to make a warm coat, let alone 5 of them.


    Disgruntled, they went back to sawing trees down. Sung did try to turn upright trees into nanites directly, but the interface doesn''t seem to allow for that. Materials do have to be "harvested" in order to be converted, how the system defines "harvested" materials though remains to be found via trial and error.


    Fortunately for them, though, simply sawing the trees was enough to count as being harvested. Entire logs convert into less nanites than it otherwise would''ve had they neatly divided them into chunks, but at this point they agreed that it wasn''t worth the extra effort.


    With their morale improved and their workflow established, it did not take very long for the nanites to start piling up in their inventory. They''ve originally set an arbitrary goal of 3 thousand nanites, but by the end they''ve managed to accumulate a grand total of 20 thousand.


    By the time they were done, the sun''s already slowly starting to set. With the forest thinned out, the two could see the giant icy tree over yonder, its majestic dazzle temporarily blinding both of them. They got two pieces of logs they just collected and used them like stools, letting out a long fatigued sigh while dropping themselves onto these makeshift chairs.


    "They should be coming back by now," Sung checked the clock on the interface, "should we prepare some food?" "Can''t we just materialize them with the nanites?" Rin scrolled through the menus trying to find a recipe for food, but after listings of furniture, plates, and whatnot, food was the only thing absent from the extensive collection of crafting recipes.


    "God, we''ll have to hunt then... In the dark, even." Rin complained. It was another oversight they should''ve considered, before spending the entire afternoon turning trees into nanites. "How will we even find animals, when we can barely see?"Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "I think I saw a frozen lake nearby, we could catch some fish there I suppose? We''d need fishing rods though." Sung suggested. "I guess that''s better than chasing animals around." They crafted two basic rods and headed off to the lake.


    Sung smashed out a hole in the icy surface with his brass knuckles, before they sat on the log pieces they cut up earlier as stools and waited. Neither of them had fished before, but they tried their best to imitate how people fished in wildlife survival documentaries.


    They sat until their butts were sore, yet no fish came to bite. Rin was visibly agitated, "Where are they?!" Rin exploded in anger. Ah, to be an angsty young teenager, Sung reminisced shortly of his school days. He would always be baited into a fight when the delinquents at his school taunted him about his redundant skills.


    Bait... Wait... Oh... Right, they forgot about the bait. With soil this cold they''d be hard pressed to find worms for bait, and of course they aren''t on the crafting menu. Their efforts were futile, their asses sore for nothing.


    Desperate, Sung shoved his hands into the icy water. There are definitely a good amount of fishes in there, not all hope was lost. Shortly after, Sung felt something slimy brush past the back of his hand. He quickly grabbed hold of it and yanked it out of the water before it could escape, it flew out of his hands, landed on the snow, and flopped around for a bit, before Rin whacked it dead with his crowbars.


    Seeing their success, they quickly caught and whacked a few more before heading back, fish basketed with their shirts. They skewered the fish from the mouth with branches from the trees earlier, lit up a fire with flint they picked along the lake, and patiently waited for the three of them to return.


    By this point, the sun''s fully set. The fish, now roasted to a golden, crispy texture, looked ready to eat. Yet, Yoko and co. were nowhere to be found. Rin took the opportunity to snatch one from the fireplace and gnawed on it, before quickly spitting it out - They forgot to remove the scales off the fish''s skin.


    Sung, meanwhile, crafted a coat hanger and 5 coats for each of them. When he tried one on, he was immediately basked in a warm embrace. The coat blocked the brisk gusts while keeping him well ventilated still, as if spring came early.


    He threw one to Rin. The both of them now sat cozily around the fireplace, steamy hot roasted fish in hand, freshly skewered fish hung on top of the fire. The fish''s a bit dry, unseasoned and quite fishy, but it''s not entirely inedible.


    "They really are taking their sweet time, I wonder where they''ve gone?" Sung glanced at the digital clock again, it''s nearing 9pm, and they''re still not back. From a distance they can hear violent rustlings, some cries and thuds, before the commotion ended.


    Both Sung and Rin equipped their weapons, ready to battle to the death with whoever''s behind that ruckus. Out of the forest came 3 figures, all three of them somewhat battered and bruised. It looks to be an easy fight, their opponents being rather fatigued.


    "Relax, it''s us." Miguel reassured them while he walked over to the fireplace. "These ready? I''m starvin''." Sung put away his knuckles back into his inventory and instead pulled out a few coats for the rest of them.


    Miguel and Yoko recounted their encounters with Sung and Rin while Jones took a chance at the fish - and immediately spat it right back out, he never really liked fish to begin with.


    Miguel handed the blueprint fragments to Sung. "We found this in a can, see if you can make head or tails out of this, will ya?" Sung took a look at them individually, they seem to be different parts for a larger thing. "Plasma Amplifier... Magnetic Field Stabilizer... Ferro-ceramic alloys..." Parts for what seemed to be a plasma-based weapon.


    "Might as well keep a lookout on it." Sung concluded. Miguel then handed both Sung and Rin a Noxiblock each, to which Rin got excited over its appearance ("Cool, a heroin jab!" He said. "Kids these days..." Miguel shook his head.) while Sung instantly recognized it as just some watered down clone pod tranquilizers with biofluorescent dye.

 The Invisible Man

    Outside Sung''s camp, up a few treetops, hid three figures. One had a pair of binoculars in their hands, the other stared intently at their holographic interface, the third just tiptoed around the tips of the forest of pine trees as if they''re playing on flat ground.


    "Looks like they got teamed on." Said Dieu, two health bars on her interface quickly receded to red, before finally completely depleted, their profile pictures replaced with two glowing skull emojis.


    "Interesting... Dieu, do you have their coordinates?" Asked Crecket. "Of course, we didn''t make all of us bring along GPS tags for nothing." Dieu showed off a few clipping tags in her hands, blue lights blinking out of sync that indicated they were working perfectly fine.


    "I just love how people never fail to fall for this. How many teams have we killed this way? 4? 5?" Mignon wondered with a giggle. Crecket pointed at his canines, mocking Dio''s "How many loaves of bread have you eaten?" picture from forever ago. Dieu and Mignon burst into laughter, before quickly stifling it to prevent being found out.


    "To be fair, we didn''t spend 480 CAT on each person for these stealth implants for no reason! It took us ages to grind up that sum, and now we can just farm these sons of bitches of clones." Crecket shuddered when he recalled the countless hours they had to spend, painstakingly saving up each dollar. Just to save costs on food, they''d occasionally "reset themselves" - as they like to call it between themselves now - to skip out on the hunger. Freshly cloned clones, as it turned out, do not feel hungry for another couple of days.


    They did not die, but death is still a type of trauma, and they''ve experienced it a dozen times, perhaps a couple dozen, all for the set of stealth implants they now have installed in them. Sure, they''ve made back the cost several folds through massacreing and looting dead teams, but every time they close their eyes, their souls would feel as if it''s getting forcefully yanked out through the tip of their heads, their hearts would plunge and freeze over.


    They could feel the scythe on their necks cut just ever so slightly deeper, Death''s yearning for them, pulling their soul just that tiny bit closer to his Gates. And as Death slowly edges his scythe inwards, a bit of their souls fragment off into the abyssal depths.


    Even when they were awake, a wave of amnesia they couldn''t exactly pinpoint a cause would creep up occasionally. Vaguely, it felt like they were missing something core to them, like an interest they should''ve remembered but for some reason could never recall what it is. Or a relative that''s close to them, yet their face they could never remember.


    As if those memories were thrown into the void, never to be recovered.


    Dieu, Mignon and Crecket continued to stay up on the treetops until twilight befell upon them, and as the sun set, as the night took over, did their target slowly reveal themselves - A faint glow, followed by white smoke. Cricket''s heart did a small celebration, his assumptions were spot on, the enemy group was now within sight. To top it all off, now is when they have absolute advantage over any other plebian group.


    <<Lurker''s Cloak>> was a variant of stealth technomagic Crecket and his group found during an experiment involving the Lurkers, a faction consisting of supposedly humans who''ve been hidden underneath the bustling cities and countries of 22nd century Earth since the Nuclear World War. By generating a light refracting coat of high density air around its user, it can render its user completely invisible during the night. Though, during the day, the user would instead look like a fuzzy blob.


    Crecket took out some pale blue crystals, all of them the size of small pebbles, and handed two of them to Dieu and Mignon. They slotted them into their magicrystal readers - an implant embedded just below the nape. The readers closed up, took a small while to read the magicrystals, and after a while all three of them''re cloaked in a uncomfortable skintight coat of air.


    "God, this spell in particular drains my nanites so quickly..." mumbled Dieu. For the magicrystal to be executed in reality, nanites are used to either materialize its effects, or alter the environment around it to mimic the effect. In this case, tiny air pumps were built on top of their skin to pressurize and push the air, while more nanites formed a thin molecular membrane around to trap the air. The membrane in particular required constant repairing and rebuilding to maintain its integrity, which makes up for the bulk of the spell''s nanite usage.


    With <<Lurker''s Cloak>> activated, the trio carefully climbed down the tree and crept their way towards the faraway light - Sung''s camp, making sure to trace each other''s footsteps. After all, the cloak does not help them erase their footprints in the snow. If they can''t entirely erase their presence, they might as well deceive their enemy into thinking there''s only one of them, was their train of thought.


    As they neared Sung''s camp, they chose to instead hide themselves behind a berry bush, and go over their plans now that they have an idea of the number of people they''re facing against. 5 is not a lot for them. Their worst fight was against a mixed team of 20, against the 3 of them plus their brawler and lancer, and had to resort to sniping their enemies with throwaway spears.


    Meanwhile, unaware of guests, Sung was flipping over more fish. Miguel was clumsily setting up tents, Rin, Yoko and Jones meanwhile were having a heated argument over which anime was the peakest of peak fiction.


    Crecket peeked out of the bush, and pointed at Jones. "That dude, he acts like a kid. I should start with him." He whispered to Dieu. "Ain''t lettin'' kids off the hook? That''s cold." Joked Dieu. Crecket then pointed at Rin and Yoko, "Those two are probably girls, you two go take care of them." Finally, he shifted his focus over to Sung and Miguel. "Those two are definitely adults. They might be a bit harder to deal with, let''s regroup and kill those two together afterwards."This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    "Look at you, barking orders and everything. Getting comfortable as our leader?" Mignon asked with a sly grin. Just months ago, when they first arrived at the complex, Crecket was easily the most cowardly of them all, refusing to even hunt chicken as he feared their pecks would hurt.


    Looking at him now, it is hard to believe that this is the same Crecket as the one a few months back. Perhaps the atmosphere of the complex''s grown onto him, or perhaps the cloak''s given him a few extra points in confidence. Either way, his trembling eyes before are now filled with firmness and determination.


    "Shut up or I''ll yank your implant out and throw you at them." Crecket hissed at Mignon. "Let''s pounce when they go in their tents to sleep."


    They continued to wait. Now that the sun is down, what little warmth left dissipated from the land, as they sat shivering on the snow. Air''s a good insulator, but when the air for their cloak''s already freezing to begin with, there''s hardly any use for insulation.


    Ironically, despite the warm glow from behind their berry bush, they weren''t feeling any of the warmth from it. It seems, that although the insulating properties of air didn''t protect them from the brisk night gusts, it did instead block them from receiving the campfire''s warmth. Any survivalist would agree that, while humans can make use of nature to their own advantage, nature will always be out to kill humans. Despite being useful, nature is not an ally.


    In spite of Sung''s camp''s joyous atmosphere, with Jones burning his tongue on some toasted marshmallows while Miguel, now finished with the tents, helping himself to some smores and fireside horror stories from Rin, Crecket''s heart instead became even more hollow. A few more days, and it''s a new year again, Crecket pursed his lips to try and hold back his tears. Tears not of sorrow, but of loneliness, as tape reels of unbearable memories started to play in his head.


    His elder sister was the only family he had left. It was suffocating to be in school, nobody would try to even talk to him, nor did he make any attempts to fix that. To his class, to his school, it''s as if he was invisible. And he left it to be that way. He preferred the loneliness, he was one with the shadows. He liked it when everyone left him alone.


    He and his elder sister were alone with each other ever since he could remember. She would go uncharacteristically mum whenever he asked about their parents, while she would share every detail of her research with him, down to the supposedly confidential details.


    To get funding for her project with another guy called "Edwin Sung", she met up and got together with a Japanese banker. Crecket did not know his name - she would not tell him, yet she would go on tirades about Sung. Her eyes glimmered as she gushed on how he cracked every impossible circuitry puzzle, extolled on their latest breakthroughs, which apparently would not have been possible without Sung''s extraordinary machine coding knowledge.


    Yet, she fell silent whenever the banker was around, her eyes dulled whenever he suggested corners that could be cut so he could pocket the difference. She looked as dry as an ancient Egyptian mummy whenever he complained about Sung, how his place could be replaced by an inexpensive AI that would''ve only costed them pennies for the electricity and dollars for the cloud servers.


    She went out one night, Sung had figured out how to transfer appearances to the clones as well, apparently. The clone pod - The Cradle as they would call it - was ready for release. Yet, at the last second, the banker wanted it for himself. It was, after all, a device that would revolutionize the medical field - and absolutely destroy his insurance side-business.


    Neither Sung nor the banker would budge, so the banker had ordered her to scrape the lab clean, and leave Hong Kong with him for Japan instead, where they would create an underground facility with these pods.


    She never came back, neither was a note left behind. Crecket would pick up part time jobs to cover the rent, going as far as skipping school just to get extra shifts in, yet the money was never enough, and he was kicked onto the streets.


    Christmas was especially tough to swallow down, families gathered in broad daylight, couples flirted without a care in the world, whereas he sat in the shadows of the vibrant city, cold, damp, stinky. He did not care, however, for the shadows make up his family. He wasn''t alone, the dark side of the city provided for him company.


    Depressed, and wanting a break from the scenery, Crecket went to the dumpster he frequented for leftover food, yet there stood a man in his 40s, a step quicker than him, now rummaging through his bin. He saw as the man fished out a half-eaten rotisserie chicken, a robot pet dog, and fliers after fliers of something, something that made the man hopping mad.


    The man left the chicken behind, took the fliers, and rushed back to his spot, coincidentally just round the corner from Crecket''s cardboard fort. Delighted, he snatched the chicken, and went back while knawing at the neck of the chicken. That night, his shadow connected with the weird man''s, he felt, strangely, as if he''s finally not alone anymore, that he''s got someone to be with, at long last.


    The next morning, though, he was already nowhere to be seen. Everyone eventually leaves him behind, Crecket thought, this is nothing new. He could not, however, shake of the lingering regret, as a new wave of loneliness, with intensity he had never experienced up until then, crashed onto his shores.


    He could not remember why, but he grabbed the flyers the weird man had left behind, filled in his name and such, before using his own savings to mail it over. It felt like it was something he should be doing, as if a strange connection was nagging at him, pulling his strings. As if, he wouldn''t be lonely anymore in this weird complex.


    Crecket looked at Mignon, then he turned to Dieu. Are they companions? They follow his orders, they work together as a team to murk new players off the map, but can he really rely on them? Did they not also neglect him the first time they met, until he showed his skills at hunting players?


    His gaze shifted over once again to Sung''s camp. How he longed for companions like that, just chilling, caring, a big family of unrelated people. His heart ached as if it''s got frostbite, a chill which no warmth can thaw.


    He would give up everything to feel the warmth of that warm, glowing campfire.


    "Oi! They''ve been sleeping for a while already? Let''s go in already!" Bemoaned Mignon.


    He looked at them with bloodshot eyes, which they did not seem to have cared enough to notice. He may be able to use them for kills, but at the end of the day, the three of them only cared about themselves.


    They may be beneficial, but they aren''t allies. That''s fine, he''s used to this. After all, nobody''s stayed with him, they all leave eventually. At least, for now, they can be used. With a heavy sigh, Crecket stood up and rubbed a frozen bead off his face.


    "Let''s go."

 From The Shadows

    Jones could''ve sworn he''d heard a rustle near the bushes, he''s even gone and took a torch to light up that general distance. There didn''t seem to be anything, the others continued to gnaw (and complain) on slightly burnt fish without a care in the world. So, with an uneasy shrug, he managed to convince himself that he imagined it. The hair on his back continued to tingle nervously, whether it be the chills or the chills.


    The tents were set, and with the campfire extinguished, the five of them went in their separate tents. Yoko and Rin were first to sleep, the latter''s snores could be clearly heard while the former apparently had a tendency to talk in her sleep, according to Rin. She was mumbling on and on, nonstop in the pitch black midnight, something about their father''s infidelity.


    Jones wasn''t having any of it, the ruckus made it impossible for him to sleep, that and the strange unease he just couldn''t shake off no matter how hard he tried to gaslight himself. He tried counting sheep, which counterproductively ended up making him more awake. He tried every corner of his sleeping bag, but none could hit quite right. He tried counting spiders in his tent, he did go up to around twelve before the fact that there are a horde of spiders dawned on him. Terrified, he sprang out of the sleeping bag and lunged out of the tent.


    The hair on his back were all still stood up, it had spread to his arms and the back of his neck as well. The air seemed off, the way that patch of grass looked seemed off, the way that the god rays of moonlight seemed to have missed a sizable patch seemed off. He had never slept in the wilderness before, maybe it was just him being nervous about an unfamiliar environment. He slid into Sung''s tent.


    "Navis, it''s me, Jones." Sung was already drifting off, so he only gave a half-audible grunt before flipping over to the other side. Jones explained how his tent''s infested with arachnids, and he''s fled to Sung''s tent to sleep. Sung gave another unempathetic grunt, and Jones took that as a yes. The tent''s really only designed for one person, although it got rather cramped, Jones still managed to find some extra space to sit.


    Having company''s eased him a bit, a wave of drowsiness crashed over his mind as the butterflies in his stomach slowly faded out. Just as Jones was on the verge of dozing off, though, crisp, continuous sounds of rustling grass startled him awake again. He dreaded for the worst - an enemy attack of unknown size - as he stretched out his trembling hand and slowly pushed the flaps of the tent aside.


    There was nothing out of the ordinary, there wasn''t really much to be seen in the dark to be fair. Howling winter gusts slapped onto Jones''s outstretched head, tears gushing out of his eyes in response to the irritating, freezing air. He already had to squint because of the wind, the extra tears rendered his vision extremely blurry. It was so cold outside, that it was starting to hurt a bit. Jones was about to retreat back into the warmer tent, when a smooth, almost alluring voice slipped into his ears from the right.


    "Gotcha~"


    His heart froze - he didn''t recognize the voice. The panic that this voice triggered had almost congealed his blood, as he slowly turned his gaze rightwards, the grinning face of a very arrogant, borderline manic clone loomed into view. Dieu savored every bit of the dread etched on Jones''s face, as he turned his focus to the stab wound Dieu had put in him. The etches contorted into horror, that only pleased Dieu more.


    But Dieu knew, this wasn''t the end of it. She had stabbed him in the abdomen, not comfortable, but easily survivable. This was, without a doubt, intentional. A deliberate act, not to inflict a deadly blow, not to finish the objective, but a selfish move just to extort a bit more fun out of her victims. Dying is such a fleeting moment, it barely gives any joy to the audience. What comes before, the realization, the anguish, the anger, the helpless bargaining, the dread, before bitterly coming to terms, that''s the real show. Absolute cinema.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Dieu pounced on Jones, causing him to topple over forwards and fall onto the ground, outside of the tent. The dagger dug deeper into his guts, its guard crushed his liver and ripped apart arteries as it got forcefully shoved into Jones by the fall. The tip grazed his spine, protruding ouf ot Jones''s back just so slightly to the left, nearly impaling Dieu as well.


    Jones couldn''t scream, he couldn''t fight back, the pain rushing to his brain''s overloaded his nerves and wiped his mind clear of any sort of natural fight-or-flight instinct. He could barely even see what''s in front of him. Disorientated, he could only feel his crushed liver spilling hot body fluids all over the frozen dirt ground.


    It didn''t take long for the first emotion to return to his mind - fear. As his mind slipped back into place, the excruciating pain from his bowels rushed in to take front row seats in his consciousness. His vision cleared up a bit, possibly due to the adrenaline, it felt like reality was unfolding in slow motion. Under the debilitating pain, he couldn''t keep a single thought straight, let alone keep track of time.


    The pain eventually mellowed out, or he''s simply gotten used to it. Jones consciousness had half returned by then, finally did the thought of fleeing kick in - but by then it was too late. No matter how desperately tried to squirm, to Jones'' utter horror, he couldn''t move nor feel his lower body at all. The dagger just so happened to paralyze him, that and the dagger''s hilt had firmly implanted itself into the ground, Jones felt like a patty in a burger with a toothpick stabbed right in the middle - dead meat, trapped in a sandwich.


    And like cattle, like livestock, there was simply no reason, nor any use, to escape the inevitable.


    Dieu was disappointed to see Jones resign to his fate so easily. She had hoped for a bit more struggle, but he''s already laying there motionless, as if he''s actually dead. With a frustrated, firm grip, she grabbed hold of Jones'' head and forcefully turned it towards her. "What, are you just going to stare at me?" Dieu demanded. "You''re actually just going to let me kill you like this? Have you got no pride? At least squirm a little you brat!" Jones didn''t reply whatsoever, he did not show anger, he did not show anguish. Nothing.


    Denied of any entertainment, she furiously slit Jones'' neck with her knife. Jones slowly bled out on the ground, his body recovered by Dieu for the extra nanites and what little equipment he had.


    From a short distance came the shrieks of a girl, a delectable, soothing shriek that somewhat filled Dieu''s appetite for despair. It didn''t take long before the mufflied cries died down, and out from the furthest tent came Mignon. Unlike Dieu, Mignon''s modus operandi is to just do it swiftly and collect all the loot. She couldn''t care less about the process, killing''s always just been a means to an end. Some perverts do it to satisfy themselves, some do it for survival, she does it for the extra materials, it''s not that different.


    With a slight flick, Mignon shed the blood on her own dagger onto the snow, before she carefully sheathed it and put it back in her inventory. "God, another broken dagger?" Mignon took a look at the dagger stuck onto the floor. "Ehehe..." Dieu sheepishly laughed. "We''re gonna run out of resources from all the daggers you break... Didn''t I tell you to be more careful with them? Just last time you broke several whilst trying to hack off bone segments one by one... SEVERAL!" Mignon bickered on.


    They continued to argue, their backs turned against the tents. "Oh cut it out, will you, there''s still two tents left unchecked. Your bitching''s going to wake them all up." Crecket scolded the two, as he climbed out of Jones'' tent. "This one''s empty." He pointed at the tent he came out of. "There''s three of them left."


    "Don''t be so tense now, they can''t even put up a fight. Noobs~" Dieu said mockingly. "They were surprisingly easy to kill, maybe they just aren''t expecting anyone to attack them at night." Mignon agreed. "Still, we can''t afford to let our guards down. With how our clones are configured, we will die the instant they attack." He beckoned Mignon to the farthest tent on the other side, as he himself walked over to the next tent, leaving Dieu in charge of assassinating Sung.


    "Crecket, while I love how much effort you''re putting into this, we gotta have fun ourselves too." Dieu whispered. "Just do as you''re told, we don''t have the leeway for any more than that." Crecket whispered back disapprovingly.


    With a sigh, Dieu turned around to enter Sung''s tent. As she pushed away the flaps slowly and carefully in compliance with Crecket''s borderline carebear-ish standards, what met her was instead a straight decisive punch squarely in her face, causing her nose, and the better part of her skull, to crumble in and collapse. Her grin was instantly wiped off, both figuratively an quite literally. It was at this moment she knew, she screwed up royally.

 Home Defense and Necessary Evils

    It was too late by the time Sung picked up on what was happening and jolted awake, Jones was already dead then. There wasn''t even a corpse to be found, Dieu had recovered it, converted it back to nanites. Jones was probably waking up back at the complex, perhaps a bit traumatized. What remained of Jones'' struggle were the blood stains on the snow, those small, oval spots scattered across the front of his tent and a giant ugly blotch just feets away.


    Standing outside his tent right now was a party of unknown strength and size. The most he could gather from the scene outside, was that Jones got heavily overpowered and killed by a single one of them. If only a single member of this party went for Jones, then he couldn''t rule out the possibility that several of his team members were dead already. He''s neither got the strength, nor the numbers, to take on these unwelcome guests.


    If only, there was a convenient weak spot to exploit. For now, the most he could do was to try and get as much info on them as he could, that was what Sung decided.


    Dieu and Mignon were too loud when they were bickering, they inadvertently covered up Sung''s footsteps. In the dead of the night, compared to their infighting, Sung''s movements barely made a noise, he was barely even trying to sneak, Dieu and Mignon were just simply that loud.


    Sung hid behind the tent flaps, his knuckle dusters wrapped firmly around his fingers. He heard two distinct voices... Is this a party of two? No... A third voice came from the right. The voice wasn''t able to find a target, perhaps they just so happened to have found Jones'' tent. The voices blabbed on, from which Sung could gleam that they had quite a stockpile of daggers, and that they had stealth capabilities, something Sung hadn''t heard of in a very long time.


    He could still hear his heart racing, the odds weren''t in his favor. He was outnumbered three to one, he''s got almost no experience with fighting, and he''s got little to no equipment, while his enemies were fully kitted out with implants and weaponry. Even a PvP veteran would get the shakes under these conditions.


    He tried to calm himself down by fidgeting with his knuckle dusters in the darkness of his tent, when he felt some sort of button between his pointing finger and thumb. He couldn''t tell what it did, but he made a mental note to test it on whoever''s coming into his tent.


    Dieu pushed open the tent flaps, she stared right at Sung, but perhaps the strong moonlight behind her made it difficult for her to see him. Sung got startled at the sudden pair of eyes, and instinctively threw a clean punch squarely in her face. Sung could feel her nose crumble and break under his fist, blood came gushing out of her pulverized nose.


    Sung haphazardly pressed the button on his knuckle dusters, and all of a sudden a tiny bubble of air spawned between Sung''s fist and Dieu''s face, now a dozen inches apart thanks to recoil. The bubble of air quickly ballooned to cover the distance, before the vacuum within caused an instant implosion, shockwaves sent tearing about the tent. Sung managed to get away from that with a shoulder dislocation, but Dieu''s face was totaled. It, very much like her nose, caved in as her skull crumbled from the shockwave.


    Sung recognized the distinct brittleness of her body as a side effect of having too many implants and augmentations within the clone. During his time at the lab, Sung and his lab partner had tried to put augmentations into the clone body in an attempt to give it more functions than normal. The augmentations, however, turned out to severely compromise the machine''s ability to build and form tissues during the clone materialization phase. Tiny implants like heart valves and pacemakers were fine, but augmentations like entire limbs replaced with guns would just reduce the integrity of the clone to the point where a single flick would turn the surrounding tissue into dry crumbles.


    They couldn''t figure out why that happened, nor did they have the budget to iron out the issue. Augmentations, particularly integrating stealth implants, was one of the reasons why the Chinese Revolutionary Army was heavily invested in Sung''s human clone project. Though, the heavy durability drawbacks were far too unsatisfactory for the military, and they pulled back from the project, cutting all funding as a result. The idea was quickly scrapped, though it seemed like it''s made a comeback after the clone bay was stolen.


    Sung eased up a little bit. "Augmentations, eh?" Sung muttered under his breath. He let out a small grin, the odds are starting to turn in his favor, it might not be as grim of a situation as he thought. Dieu laid on the ground, any facial expression was beyond painful for her, she watched helplessly as Sung, now regaining confidence, slowly walked next to her body.


    She tried to look as innocent and pleading as she could, but Sung in return only scowled, nothing but disdain in his eyes, his previous grin nowhere to be seen. She watched with terror as he raised his foot, so much so she bore through the pain just to try and speak her way out.


    "H- Hpawe E! A I''i''t ''een ''o kiwh hor heen! Hihe! (Spare me! I didn''t mean to kill your friend! Please!)" She tried to plead, a far cry from her cruel, sadistic self just moments ago. As if he''s showing mercy, Sung lowered his leg, which made Dieu cry a bit from the relief. "You didn''t mean to?" Sung paused for a while, before abruptly stomping right on Dieu''s chest, crushing her heart and killing her in the process. "Yeah. Right."Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    Sung stood amidst the puddle of blood and dry crumbles of flesh, he was extraordinarily composed during the confrontation, but now that the adrenaline''s worn off, the shakes were coming back to him. His heart rate spiked, and he started to pant. He wasn''t well versed in battle, so the victory came as quite the shock.


    Nevertheless, there were two more to deal with, he couldn''t just dawdle there forever. Sung let out a deep breath, and looked up to find his tent severely battered. The shockwave from earlier had ricocheted around the tent, wrecking havoc wherever it went.


    From a gash in the tent, Sung saw two shadows projected onto the side of Miguel''s tent. One knelt from the pressure the other was pushing down onto them with a long rod, barely holding up against it with their dagger. Immediately, Sung came to the realization that Miguel was fighting another attacker. And without a second thought, Sung hastily rushed to his aid.


    Moments prior, Miguel was sat upright in his tent. He, too, couldn''t sleep after fighting the couple of clones. This was hardly his first fight, yet it was the first time he felt as if he had an actual chance of dying. Toilet-hogging drunkards could only do so much, but getting killed wasn''t on the table.


    It wasn''t exactly a hard fight against the lancer, but every thrust of his lance felt like the rushing of death towards him. Nay, he could see it, the reaper rushing towards him with his scythe, ready to harvest his wretched soul down to the abyssal depths of Dante''s hell. It''s almost comedic, how cowardly he is.


    Back at the complex, he inadvertently became the leader of the five, but has he done anything worth being called a leader for since? He just went with the flow, Sung''s flow, he just followed around without making any major calls himself. Even this experiment they''re grazing death in, he only chose to enter a melee experiment because Jones said it''d be easier than a firearm experiment.


    On these fields, it wasn''t him who took the initiative to split work and assign roles, Yoko did that. He couldn''t even do the only thing he volunteered to do then, he had to give the chains over to Rin while he pathetically ran out of breath.


    The only time he really stood at the forefront was when they spied on the small fight that broke out in the woods. Did he volunteer to lead the way? No, it once again only happened because fate willed it so, and he merely let it happen. When fight broke out between them and the couple, he couldn''t command the fight, they just did stuff out of instinct and it somehow, miraculously worked.


    Yet he is the leader. Through pure happenstance, he''s now expected to lead 4 other people, all of them he''s met for a mere 72 or so hours. Absolutely different people with different nationalities, different personalities, different goals, different cultures, different ideals, different skills. It''s already a miracle that all of them know English.


    It''s impossible, it''s already hard to tell 4 of his co-workers what to do, co-workers who he''s spent a decade with, they still see and treat him as a joke. Anything he said, they''ll laugh it off and act on their own. Stuff eventually gets done on time, but it''s still tiring to have to keep nagging at them.


    He''s never had the initiative, he''s never had the drive. He was never the commanding type of person, what he would give to sit back, and never have to lead another person again. But he knew that, once he''s gone, nothing''s going to be done. If it wasn''t for his constant nagging, they would just slack off, chit chat, and leave the cleaning work for tomorrow, day after day, until someone eventually complains about it and they all get sacked.


    Because of that, he can''t stop nagging, he can''t stop barking. Even if he looks like a dog, even if Sung, Rin, Yoko and Rin think he''s annoying, even if everyone comes to hate him, it''s a necessary evil. Because then, nobody would be doing anything, and nothing would get done. Someone has to step up, even if that someone''s just a cowardly, incompetent idiot.


    And it''s high time he step up. Who cares what he wants? Nobody, the world doesn''t care, the universe is indifferent to his whims. If the script calls for a predictable antagonist to push the plot, then he will be that antagonist. The antagonist nobody likes, but the antagonist that ends up forcing everyone to improve.


    After all, who is he, a lowly human, to go against the threads of life? However it is spun, however it is woven, he is only one to trace, to be the needle which sets in the thread to the likings of the higher being, from the first stitch, to the last knot. Even if the end product''s one for show, or one that ends up discarded, the needle must move.


    While deep in thought, Miguel thought he heard some rustling outside. Was it an animal? The forests are frosty, but it''s not impossible for perhaps snow foxes or bears to exist and live here. Then again, he doesn''t even know if this forest is natural, he''s never heard of a forest with such a large crystalline tree in the middle. Fishes exist though. To what extent had they created this forest?


    The rustling grew louder, meanwhile a thump was heard, then a muffled cry. This wasn''t a bear attack or anything like that, no. This is a coordinated hit by other people in this forest. How they were found doesn''t matter, what matters more''s how they proceed.


    The rustling stopped right outside his tent, Miguel''s instinct told him so. With shaky hands, Miguel reached inside his inventory for his spear. Strong or not, he won''t go down without a fight. And if he''s going to nag the others, he''s gotta be alive to do that.


    His heart was palpitating, his palms sweating profusely. His instincts are telling him, behind the entrance lies the reaper, once again knocking on his door. Every fibre of his being could tell him that these will perhaps be his final moments. He tried to stand up, but his legs gave out.


    If his opponent is working under the premise of stealth, then there''s really only one thing he could do for now. Maybe he wouldn''t have to fight at all, maybe he could just solve this like how he''s always approached stuff.


    "I know you''re there." He shouted at the entrance. "Come out, let''s have a talk."

 Forgiving, And Holding A Grudge

    Mignon slowly walked into the tent, where she saw Miguel sitting legs crossed in the middle of the tent, his spear so tightly held in his hands that his knuckles were turning white. His hands were visibly shaking, but he still stared adamantly at Mignon.


    "So? You''re just going to sit there?" Questioned Mignon.


    "How did you find us?" Miguel asked.


    "Don''t tell me you actually expect us to tell you our secrets... Whatever, considering that you''re going to die anyways. Remember the two dummies you ran into? We were plotting a hit against another team at first. They were so bad though they couldn''t even kill the two idiots we sent after them, so we couldn''t get a sense of where their base were." Mignon said while she played with her dagger with her left hand. "But then you guys-" She pointed it right at Miguel''s nose, and smirked a bit when Miguel didn''t even flinch. She withdrew her dagger. "You guys came along. Good courage, or maybe you''re scared solid? "


    "The lancer and the brawler we fought?"


    "Those two idiots, yep. We then camped about around where they died until around night, when your campfire smoke conveniently marked your exact location."


    "There''s nothing we could''ve done to prevent this then."


    "Unless you want to freeze to death, no."


    With a heavy sigh, Miguel stabbed his spear into the ground and stood up. "I''m also guessing that this fight''s inevitable, then." He grunted. "Neither is your death." Said Mignon. "We''ll see about that." Miguel tried to send his spearhead right at Mignon, which she easily avoided and followed up with a slash to Miguel''s abdomen.


    Miguel barely smacked Mignon''s arm away with the tail end of his spear, but the collision was enough to break the bones in her forearm. "Tsk, I told Crecket not to use such a glass cannon build." She muttered under her breath as she lept back from Miguel''s spear.


    "That was surprisingly easy." Miguel thought, surprised at the damage Mignon suffered from his haphazard block. "That definitely took less force to break than the lancer earlier."


    Mignon took out a Noxiblock from her inventory and quickly injected it in her other arm, the pain gone the instant the last drop was pumped into her veins. It didn''t fix the fact that her arm was still broken, though.


    The Noxiblock syringe vanished into thin air. Mignon begrudgingly switched the dagger over to her right hand, she''s much weaker with her right, she just hoped that it''s still enough to defeat Miguel.


    Suddenly, a spearhead swung below her arm from the left. She used her already broken arm to block it, before sidestepping further away from Miguel to get away from his spear. This isn''t good. She panicked. Miguel now held absolute range superiority - She had no hope of reaching him with her dagger, yet he could cover the range easily with his spear.


    Miguel lunged forward and tried to stab her again with his spear, which Mignon evaded again by leaping over to the left. Now''s my chance, she thought to herself, before rushing in right at Miguel. Miguel nearly lost balance because of the lunge, an opening which Mignon used to her full advantage.


    To Miguel''s surprise, Mignon had already closed the distance within the seconds he was trying to balance himself, and stabbed him in his sides. Blood quickly stained his t-shirt, but Miguel had no time to stagger in pain, Mignon was already behind him, about to stab him cleanly in the back. He was able to narrowly parry the attempt, before swinging the spear at her again, causing her to topple and fall onto the ground.


    As a last resort, Mignon tried to thrust her dagger at Miguel, who was now towering over her. He once again stopped her dagger with his spear held sideways. "And you said my death was inevitable?" Miguel said.


    "I underestimated you... You were surprisingly skilled."


    "I got lucky."


    "You have the instincts of a warrior. What did you do before you came here?"


    "A janitor."


    "Really? You didn''t have a side career as some Shaolin monk?"


    "No."


    "So it really was luck... Oh well, consider me damned. I will get your throat next we meet though."


    "We''ll see about that."


    Just then, footsteps came from outside the tent. "Another one of yours?" Miguel asked Mignon. "Probably? Maybe Dieu''s finished off another one of yours and is coming to save me- ah."


    It was Sung who had barged into the tent. "I take it Dieu died then." Mignon said, disappointed. "Pitifully." Sung replied. "Go see if there''s more out there Navis, I got her pinned." Miguel said. "You sure? You don''t look very good yourself." Sung replied. "I''m fine, go." Miguel reassured him, yet his wound betrayed him, as it sputtered more blood onto the ground.


    Sung walked in and, as he did with Dieu, stomped Mignon''s chest in, instantly killing her. "I was about to kill her." Said Miguel, angrily. "Yeah, yeah. Take this syringe and lets get going, there''s one more of them."Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Miguel reluctantly accepted the syringe of gray goo from Sung, which turned out to have a body-repairing ability (It was called the Nanorep). It felt weird, with his wounds mostly fixed, yet pain still lingering from where Mignon slashed him.


    "Her body was exceptionally brittle." Miguel told Sung. "Same with the one I fought against, they had implants in them." Sung replied. He had to then explain it from top to bottom to Miguel while they strode over to Rin''s tent.


    By the time they got to Rin''s tent, Crecket was already pinned down to the ground by him. "Blud couldn''t even kill a sleeping dude." Rin sniggered. Miguel and Sung looked down to see Rin''s left hand pressing over his abdomen, presumably where Crecket stabbed him while he was asleep.


    "Do you need...?" Sung pointed at Rin''s wound. "Later, kill him first." Rin replied. "You sure? You look like you''re nearly bleeding out. He ain''t goin'' nowhere anyways." Miguel insisted. "I''m fine~" A dizzy spell hit Rin. "Alright maybe not." "Thought so." Miguel walked over and injected two syringes of Nanorep into Rin.


    Crecket watched as the three of them bickered for a while, they seemed to care for each other. He wouldn''t see this type of interaction with his own teammates, not while they''re in this top-down sort of structure with Crecket somehow at the top, and the rest acting more like rivals than allies.


    His teammates weren''t dependable, far from it. Anyone could easily tell that they were only listening to Crecket''s orders because Crecket was, so far, able to lead them to kills and victories.It''s been immense pressure every time they enrol in these experiments, Crecket''s never been confident he can guarantee victory. They really only got lucky, that and the stealth implants perhaps gave them too much confidence this time.


    He couldn''t even begin to imagine what kind of terrible things they''ll say to him when he inevitably respawn back in the compound. They already weren''t especially easy to lead, it''s going to be even harder from now on.


    If, by whatever miracle, he can delay the time until he face the music and his teammates, he''d take it.


    His future depended entirely on the three people in front of him. If he wanted to survive, he''s got to negotiate with them.


    "Uh... Hey..." Crecket tried to get their attention.


    "Oh, right, we were supposed to kill you. I forgot, lol." Rin said.


    "Yeah about that..." Crecket steeled his resolve, no matter how stupid he''s going to sound next, there''s no going back now. "I was wondering if you could... spare me, perhaps?"


    Rin had never heard of such bullshit in his life. "You must be joking. Spare you? What, can you resurrect Yoko and Jones back to life?"


    "Yoko''s dead?" Miguel asked, surprised.


    "Yeah... Her scream woke me up. She was dead by the time I could go check up on her, her tent''s entirely empty. I ran into this idiot when I went back to my tent." Rin pointed at Crecket angrily.


    "I didn''t kill anyone in your team, let me be clear." Crecket hastily added. "One of the tents was empty."


    "Must''ve been Jones'' tent you went into then..." Sung said. "No matter, you''ve yet to tell us why we should be sparing you."


    "Well... This is your first time, is it not?" Crecket asked, Sung nodded. "Then you need someone who''s played these games before. I can help you guys set up shop here, I''ve never lost in an experiment."


    "And you think your perfect K/D''s going to atone for our dead members? I really, really want whatever you''re on." Rin snapped.


    "They''re going to respawn back at the complex anyway, it''s not like they''re dead forever."


    "You--- You know what, I''m actually going to kill you, right now." Rin furiously reached for his dagger.


    "Wait, Rin. Don''t kill him, despite what he''s done, none of us can really deny that we need his knowledge." Miguel stepped in.


    "He''s. Killed. My. Sister. I ain''t just gonna let that slide." Rin growled.


    "I understand your pain, but still, don''t just focus on what''s happened right now." Miguel tried to reason with Rin. "Think about it, we''re going to run into countless other teams, they''re going to be massive work to defeat, especially when we have two dead already-"


    "What do you understand? Jones'' not your son or brother, what do you know?" Rin yelled. "Whatever happens afterwards, I''m not relying on this piece of shit!" Rin raised his dagger above Crecket''s forehead.


    "Rin, you kill him now, and I will run my spear through you. You are not killing him, this is an order!" Miguel finally raised his voice, his spear pointed directly at Rin. Reluctantly, Rin put his dagger back into his inventory and lowered his arms.


    "Well then... I guess we''ll have to welcome Mr- uhm..." "Crecket. Crecket Siu." Crecket replied to Sung. "Mr Siu, then." Sung finished his sentence. The surname''s quite familiar to Sung, quite an infuriating surname, really, but he''ll have to wait until they''re alone before he can ask Crecket anything. "Please, call me Crecket. If it''s possible for your leader to set up the alliance between our teams..."


    "That''ll be me. Name''s Miguel, Miguel Smith" Miguel stepped forward. "So you just send me an invite?" He asked. "Yeah, one moment... There."


    With the alliance formalized, and the attack thwarted, Sung and Miguel could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Rin was still not convinced that they should''ve kept Crecket alive, but Miguel seemed to be very certain, he didn''t have a choice but to try and trust his decision.


    While Miguel went back to his tent to sleep, Sung beckoned Crecket to follow him into his tent. With the door flaps zippered shut, both of them sat down in the middle. Sung tried not to get his hopes up, but Crecket''s surname, Siu, is an important piece in his puzzle of revenge.


    "Crecket Siu... Was it? You have a sister?" Sung couldn''t be bothered to beat around the bush.


    "Navis Wan, was it? How''d you know? I have an older sister, her name''s Navis Siu. Hey, you two share the same name!"


    Sung had hit the jackpot. "Navis Wan is a made-up name. Real name''s Edwin Sung. I suppose you''ve heard of me from Navis before."


    "You''re her research partner!" Crecket exclaimed. "Was. She had the audacity to steal our research." Sung said with gritted teeth.


    "No way, my sister''s not that sort of person." Crecket denied. Then again, she''d left him to wander on the streets for 5 years, can he really trust his sister anymore?


    "I sure hope she isn''t. That''s what I''m here for, to try and track her down and get an explanation from her." Sung said. "What''re you here for? If I remember, her brother - you - should be quite young."


    "I wanted to find her too. I came after a hobo near the dumpsters disappeared with flyers for this place strewn all over his spot." Crecket recounted.


    "Wait, Whitty Street?"


    "Yeah. That hobo, is that you?"


    "Yeah... the world can be small sometimes. You said you came after I did? How come you''ve got battle experience then?"


    "I don''t know, when I came to, the date on my holographic projector read April 24th. You?"


    Sung took a look at the date today. December 28th. Assuming what Crecket said was true, then Sung had somehow skipped at least an entire year. Did they put him in suspended animation for a year? Why would they be doing such a thing?


    "I probably came to at around Christmas." Sung replied. This place, he thought, what is its purpose? All these strange weapons, the experiments, suspending me for an entire year before reanimating me, they wouldn''t be doing this if they needed as many people to experiment on as possible... Unless...


    He couldn''t think of a plausible answer. Frustrated, he told Crecket to pick whichever vacant tent to sleep in, before he turned in for the night himself.

 Extra 1: Epilogue - An Old Aquaintance

    I tidied up her ID, birth certificate and printed out her death certificate. She looked desperate for it, as if her life depended on it - not that she''s going to have any afterwards.


    "Alright, here''s your ID, your death certificate and your clone bay number, go to the second room on the left for your brain imaging. Remember that after the cloning process, you will slowly cease to be Noelle Peters. Next!"


    A washed up seedy adult materialized in the void. For a moment, memories flashed through my eyes, memories of us running through snow, through deserts, through marshes, dodging gunfire while dishing some back. Building a base for the squad, eliminating aliens...


    Yet, I do not remember ever seeing you before. Hallucinations? Perhaps I''m falling asleep, I haven''t gotten a wink of sleep since a week ago, as applications continued to pile onwards.


    We have a lot of reception rooms, so why is it that applicants keep overwhelming us?


    Unlike most newcomers, you strode through the void with great confidence. Pleasantly surprised, I repeated the same protocol all over again. "Morning there, welcome to The Hexagone, please show me your ID and birth certificate so we can get the registration process going."


    "Miguel? You''re Miguel, aren''t you? What are you doing, working for those psychopaths?" You asked with much dread in your voice, as if I''m serving you a tomahawk steak when you already went out of your way to tell me you''re vegetarian, and would like to have a bowl of salad.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    Yet, I am not Miguel. I am E-032224, a kiosk staff member working for The Hexagone. We test experimental weapons to ensure humanity''s safety, and I don''t see how that would make our researchers psychopaths.


    "ID and birth certificate, please." I repeated myself, "there are people after you, please don''t make this process longer than it should be." With a furrowed brow, you reached into your pockets and pulled out the documents.


    "Miguel, listen to me, these people ain''t saints, they''re filthy demons who get off of clones dying for their entertainment. It''s the Colosseum all over again, but instead of Julius Caesar it''s a jerk-off ring of sadistic scientists. You''re not testing experimental weaponry over here, these guns are specifically engineered for this, never to be made public. You''re just providing entertainment to pseudo-gods."


    "Thank you for your insightful advice and speculation, take back your ID and birth certificate, and here''s your death certificate and your clone bay number. Go to the third room on the right for your brain imaging. Remember that after the cloning process, you will slowly cease to be Edwin Sung. Next!" Maybe you realized that you were just wasting everybody''s time, you took your documents and left for the third room without bringing up your arguments again.


    I brushed off the incident as just another crazed man''s rambling. After all, the Hexagone is a particularly strong magnet for nutjobs and hobos.Yet, your words echoed inside my head over and over, as if trying to resonate some sort of memory inside my soul.


    I am not made to question my makers, my neural pathways were rerouted specifically to ensure absolute obedience.


    Besides, your words are fundamentally wrong, this is a research compound specifically made to repurpose deadbeats of society, who would otherwise be an ever-growing liability to the world. Weapons that are tested here eventually get released to the military, and humanity is therefore safe from the ongoing war with the invading aliens.


    And I am not Miguel. I was never Miguel. I never fought aliens.


    I am E-032224. My job is to screen applicants.