[00:49:33 | 3.9 km left | Slots remaining: 12]

  They climbed out of the maintenance tunnels, hauling themselves up a corroded ladder into a world of gray mist and whispering wind. The air smelled of ozone and old iron. The relative stability of the tunnels vanished, replaced by the familiar, nauseating tug of Limbo’s failing spin.

  Beatrix’s boots hit the sand. “Move. We lost time underground.”

  They ran. The terrain here was a shattered plaza of a dead station, all buckled concourses and heaving deck plates. The mist limited visibility to fifty meters, turning the world into a gray, shifting nightmare. Distant gunfire popped like static. Closer, the wet, final sounds of melee combat.

  Julius ran with a hitch that hadn’t been there before the tunnels. A subtle favor of his right leg. Virgil had been quietly logging the degradation since the explosion near the mechs: He was ignoring it.

  They were making good time, using the mist for cover, when they saw the wall.

  Not a literal wall. A wall of people.

  Ahead, the main route narrowed between two towering, leaning spires of wreckage, the only clear path forward for the next half-kilometer. And it was held.

  Beatrix’s enhanced vision, piercing the mist, saw it first. “Stop.”

  They crouched behind a gutted transport sled. Through the haze, they watched. It wasn’t a chaotic brawl. It was a turkey shoot.

  A team of eight, visibly coordinated, with matching clan markings, had fortified the choke. Two had taken high positions on the spires with long rifles. The other six formed a rotating kill-zone at ground level, cutting down anyone who tried to rush through. Bodies littered the approach.

  “We go around,” Electra whispered, her datapad glowing. “There’s a service crawlway to the east. Adds… thirteen minutes.”

  “Thirteen minutes is the difference between qualifying and watching the gate close,” Julius hissed, clutching his thigh.

  “Fighting through that is the difference between breathing and not,” Electra shot back.

  “We’re not fighting through it,” Beatrix said, her voice low and certain. Her eyes tracked the patterns. The high shooters covering the lanes. The ground team rotating fire. “Look at their rhythm. They’re not just blocking the path. They’re farming. They let a few runners get close, make them think they have a chance, then cut them down. They’re eliminating competition in bulk. Going around is what they want, it burns our time. Charging is what they’re built for.”

  “So we’re stuck,” Julius said, frustration bleeding into his voice.

  “No.” Beatrix looked at Saladin. He was already watching the kill-zone, his expression unreadable. “We need a diversion. Something big. Something that pulls every eye and every gun off that choke for ten seconds. We need a new, bigger problem.”

  Saladin slowly unslung his rifle. He didn’t look at them. His eyes were on the high shooters, calculating angles. “You need a detonation.”

  The word hung in the mist.

  “You have explosives?” Julius asked.

  “I am explosives,” Saladin said, his voice devoid of drama. He tapped a panel on his armored chest. “Calibrated shaped charge. Built for breaching. It’ll make a very loud, very bright argument right in their lap.” He finally looked at them, his gaze settling on Beatrix. “You get your ten seconds. You run like the hells are opening behind you. You do not stop. You do not look back.”

  “You’ll die,” Electra breathed, her face pale.

  “A distinct possibility.” He checked the charge on his weapon. “But not a certainty. And my contract was to get the team through the worst of it.” He nodded toward the choke. “That’s the worst of it.”

  Beatrix’s throat tightened. This wasn’t a debate. It was a transaction. A professional finishing his work.

  “Saladin…” she started.

  “There is another choice,” he said, cutting her off. His eyes were clear, peaceful. “The path behind us is clear. You can turn around. Go back. Survive the Culling without qualifying. There is no shame in choosing to live.”

  The offer hung in the air, more terrifying than the gunfire.

  Julius’s jaw worked. He looked at the gate, at his leg, at the impossible choke. “We didn’t come this far to quit.”

  “Then don’t waste it,” Saladin said. He looked at each of them, Julius, the furious believer; Electra, the trembling pragmatist; Beatrix, the desperate architect of this terrible plan. “When you run, you run for every slot. You make it mean something.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He moved, a shadow dissolving into the thicker mist to the west, circling to flank the choke.

  “Get ready,” Beatrix said, her voice a dry rasp. She focused on the choke, on the ten-second window that didn’t yet exist. Every muscle coiled.

  It started with a single, high-powered shot from the mist. One of the high-positioned shooters jerked and tumbled from his perch.

  Chaos.

  The entrenched team spun, firing into the mist. Their perfect formation broke as they scrambled to face the new threat.

  Then the world turned white and silent.

  The shaped charge detonated not at the choke, but behind the ground team, between them and their own escape route. The flash was a physical blow. The sound a second later was a deep, punching THUMP that vibrated in Beatrix’s teeth. Debris, smoke, and screams erupted.

  The choke was wide open, the defenders disoriented, facing the wrong way.

  “GO!” Beatrix screamed.

  They ran.

  They covered the open ground in a blur. Beatrix’s enhanced legs pumped, the Dreadnought Protocol shaving milliseconds off each stride. Julius was a half-step behind, a growl of pain and effort escaping his lips. Electra was there, sobbing with every breath, but keeping pace.

  They hit the choke. The air was thick with dust and the coppery smell of blood. A defender stumbled in front of them, clutching a bleeding ear. Beatrix didn’t break stride. She shoved him aside with a strength that sent him spinning into the wreckage.

  They were through.

  A secondary explosion rocked the ground behind them, a fuel cell cooking off. The shockwave was a physical shove between Beatrix’s shoulder blades. She stumbled, caught herself.

  Julius wasn’t as lucky.

  The blast-wave caught him mid-stride, just as his bad leg was bearing his full weight. Beatrix heard the sickening, wet crunch over the ringing in her ears.

  He went down with a choked-off cry, not a scream, but the sound of a man biting through his own tongue. He rolled, clutching his left leg. The angle was wrong. His augments glittered under torn fabric, the synthetic ligaments snapped, the bone beneath visibly deformed.

  “Julius!” Electra skidded to a halt, reaching for him.

  “Don’t stop!” Beatrix hauled Julius upright, his arm over her shoulders. He was heavy, a dead weight of pain and metal. “We’re not done!”

  “Leave me!” he gasped, his face gray. “I’ll crawl…”

  “Shut up and help me!” she snarled, dragging him forward. Every step was a battle against gravity and his agony.

  “Here.” She took the medikit, and placed it on the open wound, the automatic straps wrapped around the leg. The nanites would help Julius, for a while.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  [01:01:12 | 2.8 km left | Slots remaining: 10]

  The notification burned in her vision. They were losing slots with every second.

  Ahead, the mist thinned. The final stretch opened up, a long, shallow basin of sand leading to the distant, glowing arch of the finish gate. They could see other runners now, maybe a dozen, all strung out in a desperate, final sprint.

  Electra ran beside them, her face a mask of tears and soot. “His leg… we need to bind it…”

  “No time!” Beatrix snapped. “We have to move! Saladin bought us a path, not a vacation!”

  A laser beam seared the air by Beatrix’s head, close enough to singe her hair. One of the runners ahead, seeing easy prey, had turned back to shoot.

  “Go!” Julius tried to shove her away. “I’ll hold them…”

  “You’ll die!” Electra screamed.

  It was then that Electra’s boot found the concealed pit.

  It wasn’t deep, but it was lined with twisted, rusted rebar. Her ankle twisted with a sound like cracking celery. She fell with a short, sharp cry, grabbing her leg.

  Beatrix stood there, Julius sagging against her, Electra on the ground, the finish gate a shimmering dream a few kilometers away.

  [01:23:54 | 2.2 km left | Slots remaining: 9]

  Saladin’s voice echoed in her memory. You can turn around. There is no shame in choosing to live.

  Electra looked up, her eyes wide with pain and a terrible, clear understanding. “Go.” The word was quiet. Final. “Take him. Go.”

  “I’m not leaving you here,” Beatrix said, but the words were ash. She couldn’t carry them both.

  “You are.” Electra’s voice gained strength. She unclipped her datapad and thrust it at Beatrix. “The map. It has the final approach marked. The safe zones.” She pulled a small, cylindrical device from her belt, a personal signal jammer. “I’ll turn this on. It’ll mess with targeting systems for fifty meters. I’ll be a noisy, hard-to-hit rock. Now GO!”

  Julius was watching Electra, his face stripped of anger, leaving only a raw, stunned respect. He gave her a single, sharp nod.

  Beatrix’s heart felt like a stone. She took the datapad. “Stay low. Conserve the jammer battery.”

  “Don’t tell me my job,” Electra managed a weak, bloody smile. “Go win.”

  Beatrix turned. Julius was standing again, his injured leg finding a hobbling rhythm beside her. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t.

  She ran, leaving one friend in a cloud of electronic noise and another’s sacrifice in a cloud of smoke, carrying the weight of both.

  [01:31:54 | 1.8 km left | Slots remaining: 8]

  The race was now a simple, brutal equation: distance, pain, and slots.

  They made good progress in the last kilometers. The terrain shifted from sand to exposed superstructure, massive metal ribs that had once held Limbo's interior in place. The gravity was more stable here, but the gaps between structures were treacherous, requiring precise jumps that would have been impossible for baseline humans.

  Beatrix's enhanced reflexes handled them easily. Julius struggled more, his bulk making him less agile, but he managed. The medikit was holding on.

  [01:58:03 | 503 m left | Slots remaining: 5]

  The gate hung on the horizon like a miracle from a dead god, a colossal biomechanical torus half-buried in the gray sand. Big neon numerals burned across its inner rim, counting down the lives that would matter: 5.

  They weren’t alone. Three runners knifed along the extreme right flank, two hundred meters off. Dead center, a hundred meters away, ran two pairs, shoulder to shoulder, trading elbows and curses with every step.

  Julius didn’t wait. He broke into a full sprint, laser in hand, body moving like heavy-g freight freed into vacuum. Beatrix went with him. Glock at her hip. No plan. No thinking. Just air, heat, and the tearing sound of breath.

  [02:01:03 | 398 m left | Slots remaining: 5 | Operator: 10th]

  Sand hissed under their boots. Gravity hiccuped, then steadied. Julius’s muscle grafts sang, keeping pace with the cold precision of the Dreadnought module in Beatrix’s veins. She let the system open the throttle, stride lengthened, arms tight, head still.

  On the extreme right, someone panicked first. Red lances flicked from a laser, then three more. The shooters raked the center runners. One laser hit, he cried out and pinwheeled, skidding into the grit. Two runners in the center hid for a few seconds and fell behind, the other kept moving and went ahead.

  [02:04:01 | 277 m left | Slots remaining: 5 | Operator: 10th]

  New shots now, at them. Lines of light stitched close enough to feel the heat skate her cheek. Beatrix veered, hips low, feet fast. Julius slid the other way, a breath ahead of a beam that chewed a divot from the sand where his knee had been.

  One of the left shooters missed his footing and found a patch that wasn’t sand at all. The ground liquefied; he yelped and went under in a slow, sick spiral, fingers carving trenches that filled behind them. The course took him without comment.

  Ahead, a buzzing silhouette rose, someone in a battered flying exosuit, ducted fans screaming. He vectored over the melee like a gull over waves and arrowed for the gate.

  Julius snapped a shot. The blue bolt ripped past the exo’s calf and sizzled into the sky. The flyer didn’t even wobble. He tore through the torus. The neon dropped: 4.

  “Keep moving!” Julius barked, not looking back.

  Mech thunder rolled in behind them, heavy units advancing on wide legs, launchers spooling. Bombs arced overhead and blossomed ahead in dull pops that punched the air out of Beatrix’s lungs. Shrapnel rang off ribs of exposed structure. Bodies flinched. One of the right-flank runners vanished in a curtain of dust with a suffocated scream.

  [02:07:01 | 99 m left | Slots remaining: 4 | Operator: 10th]

  The torus was everything now, sand, breath, light, the cold promise of a number turning from 4 to 3 as the lone center-pack runner dove through. Julius pulled ahead, his gait just a shade longer. Beatrix pushed. Her calves burned like wire. Every nerve was a bright line.

  [02:09:01 | 35 m left | Slots remaining: 3 | Operator: 10th]

  Julius’s lego collapsed at full sprint.

  The metal buckled under his weight, not catastrophic, just enough give to shift his center wrong. His leg, already spiderwebbed with fractures from the hit, couldn't absorb the shock.

  Beatrix heard the crack from two meters away.

  Not a break. Structural failure, enhancement grafts tearing from bone, femur fragments grinding, a body pushed past limits finally giving up.

  Julius went down hard, rolling in the sand, his gun sliding into the sand near the finish line.

  He didn't scream. Just made a sound, sharp, bitten-off, somehow worse. His left leg folded at an angle that made Beatrix's stomach turn.

  "Fuck." Julius's voice was tight, controlled. "Fuck."

  "I see it." She was already moving back.

  The last survivor from the far-right group had crossed the line. It was only her, Julius, and the two runners from the center behind them.

  [02:12:21 | 29 m left | Slots remaining: 2 | Operator: 11th]

  Julius saw her calculation. "Go. I'll crawl…"

  "Shut up." Beatrix pulled him upright, his arm over her shoulders. He was heavy, dead weight.

  They started moving. Slow. Each step Julius tried to help, but mostly it was Beatrix's enhanced strength carrying him.

  "That's stupid…" Julius's voice was rough.

  "Shut up."

  At this pace, they'd fail. Both of them. She needed another option.

  [02:14:46 | 22 m left | Slots remaining: 2 | Operator: 11th]

  The couple behind them was visible now. Beatrix could see their faces, determination, desperation, the same expression she probably wore. They'd seen Julius go down. Seen her slow to help.

  They knew what it meant.

  Beatrix's hand went to the Glock at her hip.

  > RISK ASSESSMENT: 2 HOSTILES

  > THREAT LEVEL 3 - MODERATE

  She stopped walking. Julius nearly fell, caught himself on his good leg.

  "What are you…"

  "Getting us through." She pulled the Glock, let it hang at her side where they could see it. Waiting for the approaching couple. Ten meters. Five.

  They stopped.

  The man, tall, built like construction, cybernetic augments visible, raised his hands slowly. The woman, smaller but wire, didn't.

  "That's close enough," Beatrix said, pointing with the gun.

  "We're not looking for trouble," the man said. His eyes tracked the gun. "Just trying to qualify. Same as you."

  "Go back."

  "There is nothing there." The woman's voice was sharp.

  "So here's how this works," the man said, stepping forward. "You let us pass. We qualify. You help your friend after. You both live."

  The woman was moving, angling to flank. She had found Julius’s gun on the sand. Beatrix tracked her with the gun.

  "Stay where you are."

  She froze. "You going to shoot us both?"

  "I'll do what I have to," Beatrix said. Virgil was already offering non-lethal targets in her HUD.

  "Will you?" The man's eyes were hard. "Because you don't look like someone who shoots people for being in your way."

  He was reading her. Seeing the hesitation. And he was right.

  She raised the gun. Pointed it at his leg.

  "Last chance. Back off."

  Nobody moved. The gate's neon flickered: 2.

  Then the woman moved.

  Fast. Speed enhancements kicked in and she darted right, going wide, trying to sprint past.

  Beatrix saw it, the woman was snatching Julius's laser pistol from the sand.

  The world slowed.

  Virgil locked the shot. She pulled the trigger.

  The Glock kicked, harder than expected, recoil shocking through her wrist. The sound was enormous, chemical explosion, nothing like energy weapons.

  The woman screamed. The bullet took her in the shoulder. Not center mass.

  The woman spun, the laser flying from her grip, blood spraying. She went down hard, clutching her shoulder, speed enhancements twitching.

  "Vera!" The man was moving, diving for her.

  Beatrix's hands were shaking. The gun felt impossibly heavy. Gunpowder and blood made her want to vomit.

  She'd shot someone. Felt the kick. Watched the bullet tear through flesh.

  The man had his hands on Vera's shoulder, trying to stop bleeding. His face when he looked up was pure hatred.

  "You shot her. She wasn't… we were just.."

  Beatrix still felt like she was going to be sick.

  "The gate." Julius's voice. She looked. The neon still read 2.

  More runners visible in the distance. Maybe two hundred meters back.

  She hooked Julius above her shoulders and heaved. He was all mass and pain and surprise.

  [RAGE MODE ACTIVATED]

  The Dreadnought module dumped fire into her muscles. Tendons went bright, a hot silver scream up her forearms. She walked with an eye on the man, and rushed to the gate, Glock still in hand.

  [02:21:24 | 10 m left | Slots remaining: 2 | Operator: 11th]

  Julius was dead weight, breathing labored. But Beatrix's enhanced muscles were singing, burning through reserves she'd need later. Behind them, the man shouted something. Threat or curse or plea.

  She ran.

  The gun was still in her right hand. She hadn't holstered it. Couldn't.

  Her muscles were screaming. RAGE MODE burning out, cellular damage mounting.

  They crossed.

  Beatrix collapsed, Julius spilling from her grip, both hitting sand. The gun skittered away. The neon went dark. She lay face-down in gray sand, tasting blood and copper and victory and something that felt like ash.

  She'd done it. They'd both made it.

  And she'd shot someone to do it.

  Justified.

  Beatrix closed her eyes and tried not to see Vera's face when the bullet hit. Tried not to hear her scream. Tried not to remember the way the gun had kicked.

  Tried and failed.

  Julius's hand found hers in the sand. Squeezed once. No words.

  [02:24:21 | Slots remaining: 0 | Operator: 11th]