[…LOADING ALTERNATIVE FEEDS FOR INMATE 392689 (EMI) WHILE MAIN FEED REPAIRS TAKE PLACE…]

  Watching from the monocular he only half remembers having hired someone at AkuTaga’s—probably Taga based on the precise placement—to hammer halfway into his agent’s left eye, Jashi scans the thermal scope of his rifle over the tree line in search of any movement or red-tinged light. Smoke from the bullet hole in the downed drone—last assigned to providing Emi’s feed to the hundred or so viewers watching at home—continues to rise. His partner, the Assassin, uses this provided temporary cover to continue digging her way beneath his open field.

  …

  Unseen at the other end of Jashi’s rifle, Matsu stands unafraid at the well-defined line where the trees end and the field begins. His well-polished mask secured in place, the beaked leader of Unit 731 knows his cooling systems are working as intended—camouflaging his thermal signature to match perfectly with the surrounding environment.

  He takes a step from the forest as if the smoke coming from the downed drone is his waypoint, embracing the fog like an old friend who is a little too comfortable with showing affection. The polished mask acts like a mirror, reflecting the fog so even as he moves through it in his cloud-colored cloak, nothing appears to move.

  …

  From the roof of Warehouse Sixteen, Jashi continues to scan, looking for anything out of place within the smoke and surrounding fog. Other than Emi’s body throwing dirt across his field like a dog digging for a mole, he sees nothing to shoot at other than the occasional crow. Returning his investigation to the trees, he holds his breath and dials-in on a small dot of red, careful not to land a kill shot. Jashi pulls the trigger.

  …

  Matsu speeds his movement when the second crack of Jashi’s rifle slams overhead. Behind his mask, he almost certainly smirks; already unseen, the sound provides the perfect cover for him to pick up his pace unheard.

  …

  With a twist, the scope of Jashi’s weapon zooms in further on the fallen body. He taps his monocular two times, revealing the details of the lump of red leaking heat that slowly cools on the ground: Inmate Number 301485 (Liam). Disorderly Conduct. Cyborg. Specialization: Fighting. Balance: ￥0. Personality: Hot-Headed.

  [Jashi: Decoy down. They’re close.]

  [Bee: Why don’t you do something useful and turn the sprinklers back on like a good little scarecrow?]

  …

  As water moves through the overhead pipelines, Matsu pauses to pull on the hood of his made-for-mist cloak, hearing the rain coming before he can feel it. He messages his team after surveying the area around the fallen drone:

  [Matsu: She’s gone. No tracks.]

  [Matviy: Nothing near the house.]

  [Ha-Yun: Main street is clear other than the sniper on the roof.]

  [Camila: Where is all this water coming from?]

  Matsu’s mask muffles his, “Fuck,” when he stumbles over the recently dug hole revealing the underground tunnel system that was just emptied of water when it was recycled up into the pipes.

  …

  Having jumped from his roof and sprinted past several warehouses, Jashi opens the door to warehouse number eleven, wasting no time to bother closing the massive steel door. His long coat trails behind him as he hustles past the corrals of silent, but alert, human cattle: “We have intruders: you know the rules.” The rule is: anyone who aids in stopping the unwelcome intruders won’t be butchered for at least one more season.

  …

  Matsu crouches as he moves against the nearly imperceptible water current running above the rice paddy’s buried tunnels leading from the rice paddy to the water source at the heart of Jashi Farms. His level fifty hearing amplifier catches the sound of an avalanche. He squints his hawkish eyes, spotting the approaching mob clearer than any bird could.

  …

  Jashi watches as the herd of human cattle heads across the field, noting the natural parting of the sea of people when they run into an immovable object. He looks for the rock in their way and fires.

  …

  Due to the masks elongated design, Matsu takes the bullet on the chin rather than the chest. He grunts in moderate pain, though the polished beak deflects it with ease just as he does with the nearest human attacker just before hitting the dirt and starting to dig in.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  [Matsu: Sniper in the window of Warehouse Eleven. I’m headed underground.]

  [Ha-Yun: I’ll smoke him out.]

  …

  Back in Warehouse Eleven, flamethrower now in hand, Jashi has already dropped into the underground tunnel system that was developed to recycle and transport water to and from the fields...and sometimes doubles as an underground maze in the event of intruders. Ha-Yun suspects as much, but she is too excited about trying out her new toy to care.

  [Ha-Yun: No sign of him. Deploying bioweapons in case he returns. Stay clear of Warehouse Eleven.]

  In other words, she is using this opportunity as an excuse to test out her latest scientific breakthrough. Through the open door, she rolls the canister inside and closes the door. Moving over the gravel road to the nearest window, she stares at the device and snaps her fingers. Blackened steam rises, spreading chemicals until they spread out and fill the room in a light haze that’d be easily missed by a human eye; there, a fate worse than death waits for the cattle to return.

  At her back, the unexpected sound of a child’s laughter pulls her attention from her work. The small child sprints straight for her: Inmate Number 384544 (N/A). None. Cyborg. Specialization: Chaos. Balance: N/A. Personality: Chaotic Neutral.

  Ha-Yun squats down prepared to catch the specimen in the same way she has done with similar escapees from her lab for years, “Hey there little man. Where’s your mommy?”

  He points at the open folding doors at the top of the farmhouse steps.

  [Ha-Yun: She’s in the house.]

  [Matviy: Moving in.]

  Just as she hits send on the message with her mind, the child launches into the crouched woman’s chest like he’s a starving animal who thinks he’ll find food there. The titanium strength from his non-growing bones sends her stumbling through the window at her back like she’s just been blown back by a tornado. On her few remaining non-artificial parts, her chemical weapon takes effect within seconds—she’s on the island’s Top Ten Scientists list for a reason.

  The child laughs harder until an onslaught of hiccups stops his fun; nonetheless, he watches the woman’s own medicine melt each part of her that is still human. Ha-Yun screams as she watches her most precious surgical tools—her arms and hands—disappear as if they were never there. When she finally accepts her fate, she looks at the laughing child, grits her teeth, and heads for him.

  The hiccupping boy turns and sprints for the house where a large man—Matviy—just entered.

  …

  Matviy turns sideways to fit his naturally broad frame through the narrow hallway. He doesn’t have space to look up and spot the shining blue eyes of the creature that has been awaiting him. But he still feels the drop of mud when it slaps into his bald scalp. Emi, a muddy mess from her crawl through the tunnels, has him right where she wants him; she drops from the crossbeam in the ceiling, using her cast to crush his thick skull. In the same movement, she wraps the kimono—the one Jashi set out for her weeks ago, but she never used…until now—tight over his face and locks her arms into place.

  The man, with no room to maneuver, bangs the woman into the walls with all the force several centimeters of space allow for. At her back, the black coat that seems to have become the uniform of all Jashi Farms partners hangs loose like the wings of a bat. After a short struggle, the large man is asleep in a mostly standing position, the nearest facing wall and a thin kimono his only pillows.

  Emi leaves the kimono over his face as if doing him a favor, when she drops to her knees and starts to crawl away with her now significantly regrown hair bobbing with her head.

  The child arrives just in time for the trail of Emi’s coat to disappear into the kitchen. He takes a moment to jump on the man’s protruding stomach before proclaiming, “I hungry,” as he hops after her.

  When he turns the corner, Emi hands him a jagged kitchen knife. He takes it and heads back to the place Matviy sleeps with a smile and a hiccup.

  …

  Soaked from the artificial rain, Camila pauses at the sound of a second unsheathed kitchen knife on the other side of the farmhouse’s back door: “That you Devil’s Daughter? Never took you as the type to play housewife…but then again, history says there’s nothing you won’t do.”

  A bullet rips through Camila’s hand before she hears it, causing her to drop her pistol and leak all over Liam’s brass knuckles. Emi throws open the door just long enough to send her meticulously sharpened knife spinning straight into the woman’s left eye—and grab a pistol off the steps—like she is trying to create business for AkuTagas—the nearest monocular maker.

  By the time Camila pries the knife free from her shattered ocular implant, Ha-Yun appears. The two women of Unit 731 ask in unison, “Where is she?”

  From inside the house, a voice calls: “Dinner is set. Can we call a truce and talk this over with a meal?”

  Ha-Yun waits for Camila to open the door, the point of the greasy knife leading the way into the kitchen where Emi is in fact sitting at the table with Camila’s recently dropped pistol placed neatly before her. In the center of the table, a slab of hastily cooked meat and glasses of pinkish liquid await.

  In his booster seat, the child is already digging in.

  “I let him get started without us,” Emi says, “only way to get him to calm down.”

  Camila and Ha-Yun glance at one another. The only one of the two who has arms sniffs the air and says calmly, “Is that burnt flesh I smell? Nice touch.”

  Camila takes her seat, not bothering to help Ha-Yun despite her noisy struggle to pull back her chair.

  Emi asks with a tone of authority that hangs over the room as if it echoed, “Mind messaging Matsu and telling him it’s time for dinner?”

  “What about Matviy?” Ha-Yun asks while eying the burnt meat on the table currently being sliced and placed on her plate by Camila because of a point from the open end of the pistol now in Emi’s hand.

  “Oh, he’s here with us, don’t you worry,” Emi’s voice is different now, almost playful, because it’s Bee speaking. She uses a large dishcloth to lift the slab of meat, waving it in the air to reveal the charred and tattooed hand that is so large it can only be Matviy’s.

  [Camila: We’re in a Mexican standoff. She wants you to join us.]

  [Matsu: Get out of there—smoke is coming from our compound!]

  Ha-Yun is the first to stand as if her seat is the thing on fire, concern for her uninsured and irreplaceable research sending her chair slamming to the floor.

  “Ah-ah-ah!” Emi yells, motioning with her gun like it’s her finger. “Sit. No one is leaving until we make peace.”

  Bee speaks from the same body, laughing as she does, “Like the Americans and the Indians.”