Mask of Humanity

As the woman with no eyes strode towards him, Nicolai dove onto the ground. He lay down with his body tight against it, and spread his arms and legs either side, dangling off the edge of the walkway and clinging tight to it.

His actions were calculated. If she thought he might be any kind of threat, she would kill him. If he was in any way an obstacle, she would kill him. But like this, he was neither. The time it would take to kill him would therefore be time wasted, and someone whose skull was full of artificial enhancements would always strive to avoid such inefficiencies.

He grunted as her foot pressed down on his back and she stepped over him. He felt the rage rise faintly within him, but it was a minor rise, easily pushed back down. Humiliation and shame had never really bothered him. He was alive, and that was all that mattered.

After a moment he rose to a sitting position, turning to watch as she paused for a brief moment before the row of columns and the blades. The blades swung across the path, and for a moment, there was a clear line between her and the end. She lunged forward, exploding into motion no unaugmented human was capable of, and cleared the whole thing with a series of rapid steps over the columns that sent her surging past it all before the blades could swing back.

Why was it that other humans all possessed their augments? Why had only Nicolai been returned to the baseline state? It was a matter that had been sitting at the back of his mind since his arrival in this place, a confusion. His only thought was that it must have something to do with the Tutorial Guides clear dislike of AI.

Rogue Artificial Life, it had called the Governor and the Modules. Perhaps the minor AI’s contained in the others humans didn’t count as true AI, or weren’t considered rogue? It had also mentioned that Zero-Twelve’s “artifical-to-biological mass was outside of the permitted ratio.” He’d assumed that ratio would be quite strict, but apparently that wasn’t quite the case. He supposed it made sense, as otherwise a significant percentage of humanity would be barred from this Great Game.

Nicolai put the thoughts from his mind as he returned to his feet and cast his gaze back to where he’d come from to see whether anyone else would soon be joining him. Seeing no one close he turned back to the blades.

They were a problem and one he wasn’t sure he could deal with. But there was nothing for it but to try, and when things inevitably went wrong he would do what he’d always done. The best he could.

‘I am not going to die here,’ he told the blades as they swung before him, then the moment came and he darted forward.

His world narrowed down to the pattern of the blades, the space between the columns, and his iron grip on the reins of his body as he monitored every move he made, waiting for the lapse.

Just as the first time it came a little after the halfway point, Nicolai at that moment needing to move forward because a blade was about to bisect him. But as he did so, everything felt weird and wrong and stupid, culminating in his leg flailing in an act of rebellion.

He let out a pathetic yelp as his foot scraped off the top of the next column and he toppled into the space between, grabbing at it with flailing arms and exploding with desperate strength as he crashed into it, arms and legs worming around it. Nicolai slid down and experienced a ripping blast of agony at every place his skin touched the column, splinters of stone tearing at his naked flesh and coming away to stick in him.

There was a silver lining to the dozens of puncture wounds he endured. The sharp stone tearing into him helped slow his fall, his slide coming to an abrupt stop.

Nicolai gripped the column with his legs then raised his arms, his hands interlinked on the far side. He began pulling himself up, crawling like a slug, and like a slug he left a trail. A slick trail of blood that coated the column below him.

His breath came heavy and his muscles ached. The heat was roasting his feet and legs and arse and most especially his unprotected genitals but he considered that a fitting punishment for the organs and the irritating lusts they inflicted upon him. He smiled grimly at the pain as he crept upwards. When high enough he started carefully inching around the column toward the other side.

His major problem now was how lightheaded he was beginning to feel as he struggled with the air, which seemed significantly hotter and drier at this lower level. His burning lungs forced him to pause when he found he couldn’t breathe, hacking some gritty phlegm through his grit teeth, ever worried about his Seed, then he forced himself onwards, his breaths turning into pained, animalistic gasps, each one a savage spasming of his lungs that wrenched in more molten air to burn his insides.

Nicolai found himself on the other side of the column and twisted his head to look at the one behind him, the blades snick-snicking above, his mind visualising what he knew he had to do as best it could through the pounding in his head and the tears in his eyes and the endless pain from everywhere.

While keeping his hands gripped tight to one another on the other side, he worked his legs up and up until they filled the space between him and the column, folded up with knees bent and feet pressed against it, muscles tensed as he prepared to shove off and launch himself towards the next.

Nicolai shoved with his legs and experienced a moment of reeling confusion when his hands didn’t let go as he’d instructed and his body jerked and flailed, sliding a few inches down before he clung back to the column.

It hurt to breath, it hurt to cling, his strained muscles ached, his scorched testicles were pits of angry, throbbing agony.

He could feel the lava below him, roiling in preparation for receiving him, and he sensed the yawning empty space between. It seemed this space had somehow moved into him and infected him and he realised then that he was afraid, or at least his body was, terrified of the impending and entirely necessary moment where he would launch himself across that space and attempt to latch onto the next column in line.

The knowledge that he was afraid made him give up on controlling the rage and it exploded through the rickety cage he’d built for it.

The pain disappeared and he sucked in a great big spiteful breath of air which felt merely warm. ‘What the fuck are you doing! What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing!’ he snarled through grit teeth, apparently at his hands which remained tightly gripped, ignoring him.

Growling madly he pulled at them and with a savage wrench got one free then immediately had to grab back at the column as he began to slip. This time he had one hand up and one down, not gripping each other, and he squeezed his legs between him and the column then shoved down with every iota of power in them while ripping his hands away from the column and launching himself through the air, turning as he went.

He crashed into the next in line and laughed maniacally as he gripped at it with scissoring arms and legs then threw himself around it and in moments he’d launched himself at the next, then the next, and then he was there, at the ledge to safety, grunting and squirming as his arms hauled him up and his legs kicked at the rock, feeling the blades slicing away behind him, the nearest only inches from his back as he crested the rise.

Nicolai stood on the ledge and turned to stare at what he’d been through. ‘That’s right!’ he howled with furious glee. ‘That’s fucking right, you stupid fucking bastard!’ As he said the last he saw something arc out from his jerking mouth, something faintly shining.

His hands shot out and groped for it and he seized it from the air then wobbled, extended over the lava which filled his vision, his balance tipping forwards. He threw his arms and twisted his chest and managed to bring himself back over the ledge where he collapsed, the rage dying to be replaced by worthless worming fear as he clung to the stone, eyes wide, vision darkening, gasping at the horrible burning air, struggling not to vomit. He raised his hand and found the Seed within it and sobbed with relief.

Everything hurt, most especially his stomach which bent him over as it cramped painfully.

‘Calm down, calm down,’ he rasped to himself, the words barely able to squeeze out of his burned throat. His mouth was full of sour, bloody saliva and he wanted to spit but forced himself to swallow, a painful, difficult movement, unwilling to let go of any moisture. He tongued at his lip and found it torn and bleeding. When had that happened?

He held the Seed up and spoke to it in a sandpapered croak, ‘sorry, normally I’m better at this sort of thing.’ It didn’t seem particularly reassured but he placed it back into the uncertain safety of his mouth anyway, forced his shaking legs into order, and stood.

Nicolai stared grimly at the next obstacle, which appeared to be monkey bars. Almost a dozen of them which like the blades simply hung suspended in mid-air, but unlike the blades they were still, and, apparently, solid. There was nothing clever about this one, no pattern, just a test of fitness and ones willingness to launch themselves bar-to-bar over the lava.

Nicolai wasn’t sure about his ability in either regard. He was exhausted already, the hot air doing as much work by rapidly dehydrating him as the physical obstacles themselves, and then there was the issue of his recalcitrant, traitorous body. But there was nothing to be done, and neither realm would be improved by standing there sucking in the burning air.

He needed to get moving. He took a moment to flex his arms and legs and found they all cramped horribly the moment he did so, as he struggled to even open his clenched fists. That would be the rapid dehydration beginning to sink its teeth into him.

He dragged himself forwards and stopped on the ledge, staring at the first bar. He gave himself no time to think, bending his knees and leaping.

Gravity dragged on him as he sailed towards it, fingers reaching, grasping, his lips drawn in a desperate grimace. He hadn’t leaped with as much force as he’d intended, hadn’t been able to. He was weak. He was beginning to drop. His whole body extended, arms straining to stretch a little further.

The ends of his fingers touched the bar and his hands snapped closed like a rusty bear-trap, wrapping spasming tight around the surprising cool metal as his momentum dragged his body forward. His arms and shoulders and core protested as he swung beneath it, gasping at the burning air.

Keep going.

Grunting, he moved his legs as though he were on a swing, gaining momentum, back and forward. The moment came and he tried to launch himself forwards but his fucking hands had already cramped up tight where they gripped the bars and instead his shoulders let out a painful crunch as his movement jerked to a stop.

Nicolai hung there, slowly rocking until he stopped, momentum spent. He could literally feel his lower body—most especially the soles of his feet—cooking as the burning air rose uninterrupted to roast him from below. His body begged him to do something, anything, to make the pain stop, and his legs curled up and back out reflexively, as though that might help, but it just exposed different parts of him to the heat.

He felt an urge to tilt his head back and scream-laugh at the pitiless blue sky above but he remembered the Seed and kept his mouth shut. What now? he thought, and let out a shrill giggle through gritted teeth.

There was a bubbling, shifting sound from below, and peering down Nicolai saw something emerging from the lava. He watched, mute, as the same statue as had been at the beginning of all this, the stern figure with a beard of tentacles and a third eye, rose up from the lava until its head was a few metres away from him. It animated and the face regarded him, tentacles writhing as though excited.

‘Would you like to stop?’ asked the statue, its stern expression turning kind, sympathetic.

Nicolai gaped at it.

‘You’ve done very well,’ it added. ‘There’s no shame in stopping here.’

‘No one said that was an option,’ he growled at it around the Seed.

‘Giving up is always an option.’ It smiled.

Nicolai thought about that and for a moment some worthless impulse made him almost consider it but that impulse ran into the implacable wall that was his utter refusal to lose and the rage swarmed back up. Give up? GIVE UP? and he started moving.

It frowned at him. ‘What are you trying to prove?’

‘Nothing! Fuck you!’ he seethed. ‘I’m not giving up, so go…’ his legs flailed as he kicked at it, ‘and fuck… yourself… to death!’ His feet caught nothing but air. It was too far away.

The statue laughed at him, then it froze, grinning, and with a great snapping sound cracks spider-webbed through it and it began to crumble.

Nicolai didn’t see its fall because he was busy, grunting and gasping furious gibberish, starting himself swinging again. This time when he swung he didn’t try to release his grip, he just threw his legs up and managed to hook his ankles on top of the next bar in line. He made his body as straight as he could until his knees were over the bar and he bent them around it, gripping it with his legs, and he used his thumb on one hand to peel a finger back, then another, and managed to rip his hand free before using it peel his other off.

Nicolai swung forwards, upside down, to hang by his knees beneath the next. He grunted as he forced his protesting body up and gripped the bar, and in an ungraceful, painful squirm he eventually got his hands—which immediately cramped—attached to it, and then in a series of difficult, spasmodic movements he got his legs free and fed them between his arms and then was hanging there, in the same position as before, eyeing the next bar in line.

As Nicolai moved time lost all meaning and his world became one of pain and suffering and endless fury, empty of any thought but one, the remembered need to keep his mouth closed and his Seed safe.