Mask of Humanity

Nicolai imagined how someone might normally react, then managed to twist his features into one of upset embarrassment, and put a degree of defensiveness into his voice as he spoke. ‘I told you, my communications implant is malfunctioning at the moment.’ He let out an angry little snort and added, ‘it happened when I accepted the invite, to come to this place, I thought it happened to everyone.’

It was an excuse he expected he would be giving many more times. He turned his eyes back to the course, uncertain whether his act had worked. He was still struggling to control his face and voice as he’d used to.

He spotted an older man trailing behind the girl in the lead, slower but with dogged determination, stumbling at times but pulling himself up.

Nicolai nodded slowly to himself, his understanding of the course growing. Despite the pillars of smoke rising into the sky from burning corpses, the course wasn’t as difficult as it seemed. With basic fitness and either patience and focus, or an average level of athleticism, anyone could theoretically make it through.

The course was fundamentally no more than a twisted mirror of the ever-popular obstacle course, like those he’d seen in various medias over the years. If this same course had been recreated on Earth with water instead of lava, poles instead of blades and typical health-and-safety rubberization of rough edges, he suspected the average person would be able to complete it first try.

But it was the difference between walking on top of a wall only a few feet high, the ground a short, safe hop below, compared to walking on a wall hundreds of metres high where any fall, any mistake, would be fatal. With all factors made equal but for the height, most would easily walk on the first, and struggle greatly on the second. It had always struck Nicolai as deeply ironic that fear of death so often resulted in death itself, but that fear was what this course preyed upon.

On top of that those attempting were given constant pressure, unable to simply take their time. The heat rising from below should be enough to cook anyone running over it before they went far at all, so it was clear the shimmering field of air around those on the course provided some protection. But from how those further ahead slowed and struggled, Nicolai could tell that some of the heat was able to pass through this shield. Such heat would quickly dehydrate and exhaust people, while inflicting continuous pain as their skin began to slowly cook.

Nicolai looked to the bird again. None had dared to approach it, and he was starting to think none would. He heard a great thump and saw another bird descend not far from the first, landing with a crunch he felt through the stone beneath him. Its beak arced down at something he couldn’t see and he heard a scream, saw blood fly as it killed someone lurking in a hole just like the one Nicolai and his hanger-on hid within.

The newly arrived bird’s eyes settled on the pile of corpses beneath the guard, and it started forwards hungrily. In response the guarding bird screamed and raised its wings, taking a few aggressive steps forwards.

The two birds postured, screaming and shrieking at one another, wings raised. For a moment it looked like they might fight, then there was movement from near to the challenging bird. A woman which it had almost stepped on, deciding it was best to get away while it was distracted. Unfortunately, the bird caught the movement and immediately turned away from the fight, darting after her, catching her in only moments and ripping her apart. It stalked onwards, realising it did not need to challenge the other, instead looking for more hiding humans to kill.

Nicolai scanned the sky and saw that it was mostly empty now. The birds were on the island, a few blocking the starting points for the courses, the rest stalking and killing. Which meant Nicolai couldn’t just sit and wait for someone else to distract the bird as he’d originally planned, as the more time that passed the fewer humans there would be.

The fewer humans, the fewer targets for the birds, the more likely they would come for him. He raised the hand holding the Seed and considered it. He would need his hands free for what was to come. He opened his mouth and dropped the shining worm inside, felt it as a coolness on his tongue, wriggling around curiously. He felt some worry that he might accidentally swallow it.

Nicolai saw another bird, not far from him, stomping towards him and the woman. He made a decision and was about to rise when he remembered his companion, and his act. The knowledge that he was at last going to leave her cheered him, and he decided to use this parting moment to improve his image in her eyes.

‘Shtay here,’ he said, twisting his features into an expression of pious nobility as he turned to look at her, doing his best vocal impression of determination and heroism, ‘and wait for your chance. I will dishtract them.’ His words were a little garbled as he found it hard to speak around the Seed, and they came out flecked with spit.

She flinched slightly as his spittle rained on her face, staring at him with wide, confused eyes. She raised a hand to wipe her face and opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to ask him to repeat himself, but he gave her no time and rose from where he’d hidden. The nearby hawk’s head whipped towards him, drawn by his movement. Its yellow eyes settled on him and it let out a piercing cry, then it started running, charging right at him.

He fled, and it followed. He didn’t need to look over his shoulder to judge how far it was, because he could feel the distance through the ground as its weight shook the earth. His eyes were on another hawk. The one guarding the starting point. It wasn’t looking at him, not yet, busy eating the dead beneath it.

Nicolai slowed his steps slightly, his mind focusing on the distances. The distance between his pursuing hawk and himself, then from him to the guarding hawk. He needed to manage those distances and ensure that at the proper moment they matched up. A smile danced over his face as the thrill of it rose within him, then that smile became a grimace as he stumbled, his legs misbehaving, a random loss of control that stabbed him in the back. His breath hissed from between grit teeth as he shoved himself forward, regaining his balance.

The guarding hawk’s head snapped around to look at him, then it raised its wings in warning and shrieked. Nicolai felt the other one coming up close behind him. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder, tracking the bob of its head, sensing what was coming, a cold anger rising within him. If his body chose to misbehave now, he would be finished.

He twitched to the left in time to barely avoid its beak as it lanced forward in a snap. The other one was screaming and starting towards him, too, now, and he found himself stumbling again, struggling to stay on course, his mind increasingly focused on controlling his unruly flesh as his body resisted his commands.

At the same time he tried to remain aware of himself, the ground, and the hawks as he judged what they would do, what would happen. He could see it all easily enough, his mind worked fine. The issue was his body.

The birds barrelled towards each other, closer and closer, Nicolai in between. He regained full control of himself at the last moment and grinned madly as he dodged sideways at the perfect moment to avoid another lunging beak then found himself falling, his legs jerking in mutiny again, and he almost crashed into the ground but managed to catch and push at it to turn his fall into a forwards roll as he slid and tumbled between the guarding hawk’s legs then scrambled to his feet and dashed towards the nearest walkway. He was safe.

In the end, he survived only because the guarding hawk wasn’t really interested in stopping or killing him. It was much more concerned with defending its pile of corpses from its true rival, the other bird. This knowledge caused a flare of irritation. If a gun had materialised in his hands at that moment, he would have turned and killed them both, and delighted in doing so.

He heard the screams of the birds and felt the ground tremble beneath with the battle from behind. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed them pecking with beaks and beating at one another with their wings, their fight carrying them away from the corpse-pile. He saw a few people, seeing the opportunity, sprint out from hiding and towards him, including his erstwhile companion.

He turned his gaze forwards to the newest challenge, the stone walkway extending before him, seeing more to the sides. They all seemed pretty similar so he’d not seen any point in deliberating over which one to choose. The heat was intense and growing thicker and hotter, burning at his lungs. But as he moved forward the air twisted around him and his Mark shimmered, words appearing above it.

You have been granted a heat shield. It provides some protection from heat and will last for ten minutes.

Heat shield timer: 10:00

Heat shield timer: 09:59…

The centre of his Mark shifted, with the timer appearing in the middle, replacing the city in the cloud, counting down where he could see it at a glance.

The heat had decreased significantly after the vague, insubstantial shield appeared around him. It was still far too hot as he headed out onto the walkway over the lava, but it wasn’t going to set him on fire.

Nicolai started to jog, not too fast, not too slow, his focus as much on controlling himself as on the walkway before him. He pounded down the stone towards the first obstacle, the line of columns, and began to speed up. Then he leaped. His extended foot planted onto the first column and he smoothly bent then pushed off, launching himself to the next.

They were spaced so that he could simply run across it, which ended up being the easiest and safest way. But as he flew across the gaps between he felt the heat from the lava intensifying even through the shield, rising and pressing into him from directly below in the moments he was in the air between the columns, the skin of his lower body beginning to ache as though he had been sunburned.

He was halfway across when it happened. His foot, which he had aimed to land at the middle of the next column, didn’t go where he’d told it to. Instead he found the front of his foot landing on the back edge, his calf straining as it bore the weight of his body. His momentum drove him forward but now he was out of control, struggling to push off the column, badly positioned.

There was a spike of pain from his leg, muscle and tendon used badly, as he shoved down with all his strength and launched himself onwards. Now he wasn’t heading towards the next neatly and easily, but in a flailing mass, lips twisted into a snarl as he experienced a spike of rage at his pathetic inability to control himself, the anger turning from cold to hot. He might have struggled against this rage and tried to control it, but there was no time.

He was too low to land on the next column with his feet and instead crashed into it chest first. The air burst out of his lungs and spittle flew from between teeth he kept tightly clenched out of fear for his Seed, his arms scrabbling around to grab tight as he began to slip off, his feet jerking and shoving against the column below.

Nicolai wanted nothing more than to hang there a moment and catch his breath, but the air rising from below was dry and painful, the heat pressing painfully into his lower body, and more important still, the rage wouldn’t let him. It drove him upwards back onto the column, even as he began at last to fight against it, seeing it as another loss of control, another failure. Paradoxically, the knowledge of this failure only worsened it, more fuel for the rage.

In an ungainly, scrabbling blur, an endlessly hot and painful moment blurred by animalistic fury, he drove his protesting body over the remaining columns to the far side, landing on the waiting ledge and falling to his hands and knees. He panted for breath with teeth clenched, churning and shaking and aching with a sick mixture of rage at his body and hate for himself and a deep and total loathing of everything.

The air was dry and hot, causing his lungs to ache. His skin felt red and raw already. His eyes were tearing up, his nose and throat burned. His fingertips were bloody, nails torn, and saliva dripped from his mouth to the stone.

Nicolai screamed through grit teeth into the rock then his hands clenched into fists and he pounded at the stone before realising he was only hurting himself more, that the animal within him was in control, and abruptly he froze, still but for his rasping breath. His tongue squirmed in his mouth, seized by worry until he felt the Seed there, still safe, still fine.

Not like this, I refuse. This is my body, my mind. I am in control. You are nothing but an animal. He realised he was hissing the words between his teeth, saying the quiet out loud, but it helped nonetheless.

He took a deep, shaking breath of the burning air and shoved the rage back down, telling himself once more that he was in control, and he rose slowly back to his feet. He felt his body tremble and saw how his limbs didn’t obey him and the rage tried to rise again but he clenched his hands and grit his teeth, breath hissing between them, and he forced it back down.

As he eyed the next obstacle and started forwards he felt it boiling in his gut, waiting for the next lapse, for its chance to return. He forced himself to consider the next steps, trying to ignore both the rage and the disgust that twined alongside it because he knew it would not be easy, that his control was lacking.

The next obstacle began where the walkway ramped upwards, ending with a big empty gap then the next chunk of walkway lower down. He’d seen a few of those who’d gone before attempt this one. It was pretty simple. You ran, and jumped, and prayed.

Nicolai sped up, but not too much, wary of a repeat loss of control as he climbed the walkway. The gap came closer and closer and then it was there and he launched off, plummeting towards the lower part.

He prepared himself mid air, forcing himself into position, knees a little bent, arms extended and also bent. He landed and immediately toppled forwards, rolling in a straight line to safely disperse the force of his landing. He rose to his feet and paused, finding himself vaguely surprised, vaguely pleased. Nothing had gone wrong, his body had behaved itself. An uncertain smile found itself back on his face. I’m doing better, he told himself, and hoped it was true. But his paranoia whispered otherwise, that his body was merely plotting its next betrayal.

He heard a whisking-whooshing as he approached the next section where heavy blades swung back and forth between columns just like those in the first obstacle. The blades were attached to nothing, apparently animated by some invisible force.

He noted that between each column, a blade swung. But for every second column there was an additional blade that swung right over it, bisecting the place where one standing atop it would occupy. Every blade swung at a different speed, the whole thing a mesmerising dance of flashing metal.

Nicolai slowed his steps as he approached, gauging the gap between the first two, then the next, then the next, and taking in the rhythm of the blades. Threat Analysis and Observation would have found the pattern in an instant, but he felt they would have been, if not proud, then at least grudgingly satisfied with him when he managed to recognise it after about twenty seconds.

Nicolai smiled, thinking of them. Then he frowned. By understanding the pattern, he saw that he could simply wait for the right moment then hop across at a steady speed, and so long as he maintained that speed the blades would never hit him. If he was in control of himself, he could easily get through this.

But he wasn’t. How then, to approach—

Nicolai heard a fleshy thump and spun around, seeing a muscular woman with a shaved head and pale skin covered in angular tattooed lines rising smoothly to her feet behind him. He recognised those tattoos, it was the pattern that members of the BloodCyber gangsters adopted.

She settled her gaze onto him and she had no eyes, only two spherical orbs set into her orbital sockets, bulging with camera lenses. Despite the lack of human eyes to meet and understand, he sensed what she thought as she looked at him.

She saw nothing but an obstacle in her way. His quick scan of her body had noted dozens of little metal studs emerging from various places, and oddly square ridges deforming the skin of her arms and legs.

All of this told him that she was heavily augmented, completely lacking in empathy, and would likely kick him off the walkway just to get him out of her way the moment she was close enough. Much like he would have done, when he was in a similar state so long ago. Much like he might have done even now.

‘Move,’ she barked, and started forwards. But there was nowhere for Nicolai to go. The walkway was barely large enough for one.

He stood no chance in a fight against her. She would be significantly stronger and faster than him, legs and arms bulging with artificial muscle. Paried with that would be a suite of reflex enhancements and combat assisters throughout her brain and nervous system.

With no other choice, Nicolai moved quickly, and did the only thing he could.