"This looks..."

Malik had lost his words for seven and a half seconds, eyes constantly taking in the structure of the room. For a second there, he looked inspired. Like deployable rooms were something he’d spent the last few years studying and had finally seen how one worked in real life.

"...beautiful."

Frankly, it did. Dangerously beautiful at that. It almost seemed like a direct replica from trap rooms I’d seen in action movies. Small projectile guns mounted in recessed slots. A bunch of armoured dummies with spit gun tubes in their mouths — although something told me those things didn’t shoot just spit balls.

The floor had separated into puzzle segments that probably did something unpleasant if you stood on the wrong one. And the smell, cold metal and fresh lubricant, the specific combination of something that had been packed away for a while and was very pleased to be out again.

Then down to the most beautiful thing in the room — firearms. Solid, shiny skin. Whirring movements. They almost looked too good to be true. The kind of thing that belonged behind glass in a military museum, not on the upper wall panels of a BHA training camp.

Well, that was until one firearm on the right corner wall spun slowly and eventually settled its aim on us.

Am I tripping or is that thing gonna shoot at us?

"Alright Malik, we got our confirmation." I said, still keeping my eyes on the gun. "Turn it off."

"Oh, right." A pause. The kind of pause that meant bad news was incoming. "It’s no longer here."

"What?"

"The switch."

I glanced at the wall where the switch was supposed to be. It wasn’t there. Not the switch, not the fake panel, not any indication that either of those things had ever existed. Apparently, the wall had also moved when the whole deployment thing came to life. Rearranged itself. Sealed the access point as part of the activation sequence.

That was already enough reason to panic. Coincidentally, the training room still wasn’t done.

The lights began to flicker aggressively until they blinked to full life— white and blinding, the same lights that had been stealing sleep since day one, now doing it in a much more immediately dangerous context. Somewhere amid all that, a digital voice echoed through the room.

[Training Mode Activated. Level: Advanced. Timer: 30 Minutes. Task: Rescue The Civilian.]

Training mode? Now I’m getting system tasks in real life too?

Malik looked like he’d just seen a ghost, a second ghost, and possibly a third one immediately after. "Man, I think we’re gonna die."

Before either of us could process the details further, the firearmthat had been aiming at us began making its whirring sound again. I didn’t think through it twice.

"Watch out!" I grabbed Malik by the shoulder and drove him past the spot we’d been standing.

A loud BANG echoed through the room. The sound of a gun actually firing. I knew I wasn’t tripping when I saw an actual bullet clatter against the floor.

Fuck.

The gun fired again — this time a repeated cluster that followed every movement we made with the patient accuracy of something that had been calibrated for exactly this purpose. Malik and I took cover behind a barricade at the rear end of the room, a heavy structure that looked like it had been fixed there on purpose.

For a full minute, neither of us could compose actual words. I could practically hear my own heartbeat from the inside. Mostly because I genuinely had not expected the turnout of things.

"You see, I told you this was a bad idea." I forced the words out from behind the barricade. "We have to get out of here. ASAP."

"We can’t." Malik’s tone was as blank and petrified as his expression. He pointed toward where the exit door was supposed to be. "Apparently, the deployment also includes a full scale lockdown. The walls are being reinforced by steel, so there’s no way we can break through even if we tried. Which means—"

"Oh, please don’t say it."

"We can’t get out. And no one can come in."

"Goddamn you, I told you not to say it." I cursed underneath my breath. Then, after a brief moment of genuine consideration: "Then we just sit it out until the timer ends, right?"

It was as if the training hall had been listening.

[Timer: 26 Minutes. Task: Rescue The Civilian.]

A short, intended pause.

[Penalty For Failure: Unavoidable Elimination.]

I had so many questions about that last line. They mostly ranged from why a BHA camp designed for high school students had actual killing equipment hidden behind its walls.

But the questions could wait. Survival was the more pressing item on the agenda. I didn’t know about Malik, but I personally still wanted to live — long enough to decipher whether or not I actually had feelings for Aria.

Priorities.

"Alright dude, snap out of it." I was literally snapping my fingers in Malik’s right ear, trying to pull him out of whatever petrification state he’d landed in. "We have to complete the task."

"Oh no no no..." He had his hands wrapped around his head, eyes fully wide. "No no no no no—"

"Yes yes yes!" I cut him off. "It’s either that or we wait here and die eventually." I raised my head just slightly above the barricade. "We just have to figure out who or what we’re supposed to rescue—"

BANG. A shot responded immediately, bouncing off the edge of the debris an inch from my face. I dove back down and caught my breath.

Close call.

"Alright, here’s the plan." I said, once I’d gathered enough mental purchase to form one. "Someone has to draw the guns while the other person gets to the civilian. I don’t know exactly where the civilian is yet, but—" I started to gesture at him. "I suggest that—"

"I’ll get the civilian." He opted for that role before I could finish the sentence. The obvious safer option, but at least he was jerking off from panic mode. "So where is he?"

"End of the room, I’m guessing." I said, stroking a non-existent moustache. "I can’t see that far. But it has to be."

"Okay, one more time." He said. "Your job is to make sure none of those guns come railing towards me while I focus on reaching the civilian, right?"

I nodded.

"Alright then." He breathed in. Long and slow. "Go."

I didn’t bother waiting to build momentum. I moved with a side roll, past three bullets that struck the floor loudly behind me. A jump to the footing, and then — sprint mode.

"Your turn!"

Malik dashed out from behind the barricade, keeping an adequate distance behind me. Close enough not to be left behind, far enough to register as a separate target and stay mostly unnoticed by the guns.

The span of the training hall was roughly equivalent to a two minute jog at full pace. I’d been running for a minute and two seconds, avoiding bullets by split seconds. For a moment there, it almost felt like I was Keanu Reeves in his own movie — living out way more than I’d bargained for and somehow still moving.

The plan had been going smoothly. The supposed ’civilian’ came into sight — which turned out to be the dummy of a naked man tied with ropes to a chair. That was the mission. That was the thing that had nearly killed us both tonight.

I didn’t reach the dummy. A few metres out I turned back, gesturing hard at Malik to move toward the save point while I kept the guns occupied. A faster firearm had me doing french taps and lower movements just to keep breathing. I spotted a projectile launcher pointed directly at me, yanked it off its mechanism mid-run, and threw it into the nearest automated gun.

The gun clattered to the floor. One down. The remaining guns redistributed. Time was being bought. I just needed Malik to work those ropes faster.

"Can you hurry up, please?"

"I’m trying!"

Then I saw it. Something moving across his back — slowly, deliberately. A small red dot tracking up from the floor, finding the shoulder, stopping.

"Malik, move!"

The shot happened before I finished the word. Louder than anything else in the room— a different register entirely, the unmistakable report of a sniper. It went into his flesh with a wet crunch, and blood found its way out through his back. Malik’s eyes met mine for half a second.

Then his knees gave out.

"Malik!!"