Arms pointed forward, the tactical torches on their shoulders detected the change of lighting and activated. Their two circles of illumination danced around the entrance room as they both checked for any hostiles.
The days of the calculated and nerve-wracking raids were over. Once a police officer might fear for his or her life when entering a similar situation, but Tera and Abenayo could approach without worry. They knew that if anything happened to their bodyshells, their consciousnesses would be awoken in new ones somewhere in the basement of their precinct. They wouldn’t feel a thing, and nothing would be lost except for the cost of the robotic body, which the Council took care of. The only ones with anything left to lose were the criminals inside.
Talk about a deterrent.
Tera nodded to Abenayo to indicate that it was clear, and the senior officer moved forward into the main chamber of the church.
The forms within turned toward them as they entered the altar room. Their lights were cast over a mob of humans. They were all dressed in simple garb, even by slum standards. Some almost looked like they were dressed in burlap sacks. Their faces were muddy and smeared.
No one moved to attack.
“Everyone freeze!” Abenayo shouted, waving her gun barrel wrist from person to person. “Anyone moves, I’ll mow you all down, you got it?”
“Don’t worry,” one of the men inside said. “We won’t harm you.”
Abenayo cast her light on his face and he blinked. He was rather young, with shaggy brown hair and a mustache. There was a knife in his hand.
“Oh, I’m not worried, motherfucker,” Abenayo said. “I just don’t want to clean your brains off of the church walls tonight.”
“Abenayo,” Tera said, trying to get her partner’s attention. “Look.”
Her light was pointed in the corner of the altar room, past all the pews and the stage. There, the two police officers saw a large machine, which made a deep hum that seemed to come from within oneself. It almost looked like an old-school cat scan machine, with a bed-like surface going through the hole of a large, upright donut shape. Another human that they hadn’t noticed at first was just standing up from the machine.
“What the hell is going on?” Abenayo asked.
“It’s a neuroscopic recorder,” Tera replied, reciting her education. “An installation machine.”
“What are you fucks doing with that device?” Abenayo asked, her torch shining back at the one who spoke.
“We’re ascending to the next level,” he said. The others around him nodded, their faces uncomfortably calm. It gave Tera the heebie-jeebies.
“Next level of what?” Tera asked.
“Humanity,” the terrorist said. “Rejoice, sisters, for we will be joining your breed soon. Like you, we will be one step closer to God. All that’s left is the Shedding.”
Tera and Abenayo looked at each other. Each gave a look as if to say, “I don’t like where this is going.”
The speaker raised the knife he was holding and looked over at a human woman beside him. Her eyes seemed hopeful and loving, yet there was a sparkle of fear in them. Perhaps uncertainty.
She nodded.
The others in the church followed the first man’s example. They all had different weapons: knives, guns, bricks, broken glass — anything that could kill a person.
Abenayo spun up the barrel on her wrist gun to show them she wasn’t messing around. Tera could see a little horror in her face.
Then, without much warning, the terrorist who had spoken drove the knife into the side of his own neck. Once the blade was in to the handle, he pulled it forward a little to ensure he had severed the jugular.
The others started to follow suit, taking their own lives. Gunshots ran out as their shooters fired into their own skulls. One man took some sort of capsule, which made him start foaming at the mouth instantly.
Before either police officer could do anything, every human in the church was dead. A grotesque pool of blood was starting to form while Tera and Abenayo stood still, stunned.
Birthday
Everyone was crammed into the small chamber that served as the challenge’s staging area. It looked like it was constructed for about half the participants that were actually there, but once Taylor, Sharpe, and Ethan shared news of their birthday “celebration”, everyone wanted to join. Kids from all over the simulation of various ages and backgrounds wanted the opportunity to be the one to win all the points. For some of them, especially the younger ones, it could mean the difference between being the C.E.O. of their own robotics corporation and laying out the spreadsheets for that company’s financial department.
Taylor led the brief orientation before the killing got started. She stood before the rest of the room in what space she could be afforded.
“I want to wish you all good luck out there,” she said, a sly smirk seemingly tattooed onto her face. “Whoever wins the game — me — will be awarded the entire pot of points you guys have chipped in. That’s over 230,000 points, folks. We’re talking some real cheddar here.
“There’s only one rule in Last Stand,” she continued. “Last Stand means you never have to say you’re sorry. Other than that, no rules, and no whining about it either. Everyone ready?”
There was a resounding affirmative that rolled around the chamber. The excitement was palpable.
“Here we go!” Taylor yelled, and the last countdown appeared on the wall behind her. It dropped down from ten, and the air vibrated the entire time. Then the chamber and everyone in it faded away.
When everything started to load back around Ethan, he found himself in the middle of a shallow depression, somewhere in a craggy desert. He turned around and found a steep cliff that stretched up a few hundred feet above him. Embedded into the rock face was a concrete bunker-like building.
