In my dreams, there was screaming. My own. There was an alley, a body on the ground. A dark, unrecognizable shape. I looked at it, and then suddenly I was looking at shining metal walls. I wanted to turn around, but I couldn't. "You are reckless. You need to be here." The Matriarch's iron voice was saying. Need to be here, need to be here, need to be here.....It rang in my ears, over and over again.
I jerked awake in a cold sweat. I was ashamed, and I didn't know why. Maybe it's because of Mark, my guilty conscience reminded me. To quiet my thoughts, I got up and began dividing up some food for breakfast. I had already shaken the others awake when I bothered to glance at my Connect. It was three in the morning. I hadn't noticed. Oops. Adrian glared at me, but Sierra said "Well, now that we're awake, we might as well decide what we're doing today." Adrian, grumpy as he was, agreed.
We were at a loss for what to do, really. Though we dared not speak of it, what we'd found yesterday had shaken us up. If the others were anything like me, they were scared that the next challenge we ran into would leave us so desperate that we, too, would feel the need to climb into the ceiling. For all the Matriarch seemed to enjoy our suffering, we were valuable to her. I couldn't imagine what she would do that drive someone to that.
"Maybe we should just stay here today." I suggested nervously. "We already have three flags, if we have more flags than everyone else we'll win anyways." Adrian readily agreed. "You're right. No need to put more effort into it than we have to." Sierra looked uneasy. "I don't know that that's such a good idea this late in the game." She said. But eventually, we convinced her.
We passed a good day that way, the trees hiding us from others as we slept and swapped stories of our teams and our old mentors. Every story I told of Kayla had a bit of a bitter ring to it, since her team had attacked us. I reminded myself of the mantra everyone here lived by during fights: It's only business. That made it a bit easier to forgive her, but I still couldn't bring myself to forgive myself for what happened to Mark.
We couldn't find any motivation the next day either. It was just so easy to hide there and wait for things to go back to what passed for normal around here. Which, in retrospect, is exactly why it was too good to last. We'd just eaten lunch when our Connects all chimed in unison. We looked warily at each other and then at the screens. It was, of course, a message from the Matriarch. This laziness on your part is unacceptable. You have no serious injuries, all of the supplies you need, and you're very close to victory. Get back to work, and soon, or not only will you get five strikes, I will deal with you personally. Leave for the challenge on the practice court immediately and all will be forgiven.
The threat jolted us all to our feet. We started shoving things back into the pack with one accord. If there was one thing the Matriarch despised, we all knew, it was laziness. We had no wish to incite her wrath. "I guess you were right, then." Adrian said bitterly to Sierra. She shrugged. "Cheer up, two more and it's over." She pointed out. All was quiet as we made our way to the practice court. The others, too, must be hiding. No wonder the Matriarch had gotten bored. We carefully avoided the stepping stones challenge that had gotten in our way the first time we tried to go this way.
We all prepared our weapons as we approached the door in the newly-built wall. I had nothing left to make a shield with but my desire for all of this to end, but it seemed strong enough. It didn't flicker, at least. We all put our hands to the gate, and it swung open. At first, there was nothing but an empty field in front of us, cleared of all the training equipment it had once contained. There was a humming sound, and three androids rose from the dirt, one facing each of us. When the android in front of Sierra was revealed, she made a strangled yelping noise.
In a second, I saw why. The android facing me had a familiar face. Mine. I stumbled backwards, confused, and the android did the same. Was this only meant to disturb us? I could handle that. I tried sending a simple shot of energy at the android, only to find one coming at my own face. I quickly raised a shield and ducked, crouching on the ground to get a better look at my adversary. Across from me, an identical face did the same, different only in the blank, dull, android eyes. Slowly, I raised my left hand. The AI in front of me did the same. How was I supposed to defeat an enemy that mirrored my every move. I crouched in the dirt and thought, blocking out the sounds of Adrian and Sierra's fights not far away.
I threw a small, harmless bolt of energy at it, to see what it would do. It instantly summoned a shield, and the energy bounced off. So not only did it have my abilities, it reacted as I would. That meant that I would have to find an attack that I knew I couldn't have countered, and hope that it worked so that it wouldn't have time to send the same at me. So what could I do? If I were the one being attacked, as I wasn't so far, what was the one attack I would never expect? The first thing that came to mind was something so crazy that it had to work.
I took a moment to hope that the android had synthetic flesh, not pure metal, and punched the android in the face. I felt a bright burst of pain as my fist connected, but the android fell back. I didn't wait to see what it would do next, I simply knelt on top of it and punched it again and again and again, until a tear appeared in the machine-girl's face. My face. "I yield." It rasped. I sat back, gasping with horror as much as the effort and the pain of it. I couldn't look at the prone body that looked so much like mine, or the bloody, broken pulp of my hand, so I looked to my teammates.
Sierra had wrapped her opponent in a whirlwind of dirt, so thick and fast moving that it couldn't see to move as she drove it slowly but surely into the dirt. Adrian was taking the much less artful approach of simply trading explosive blows with his opponent. They both appeared to have things well under control. Their strategies were certainly much less stupid than mine were. I just sat back and waited for them to finish. Eventually, all three androids lay in a heap, and beyond them there was a canister containing a golden flag. I glanced at Sierra. "You should get it. I don't think I should be holding things." I said. "Wh- OH. Yeah. Good thing there's only one more day." She said as she noticed my hand.
"One more to go!" Adrian cheered as we left. We had no idea how close we really were. As soon as we stepped outside of the gates, there was another team waiting. Kayla's team. Great. "Thanks for collecting the last flag for us, Hannah." Kayla said, smiling. "You've got nowhere to chase us now. Just hand them over. It doesn't have to be hard." She said. I wasn't listening. I could see a gleam of golf sticking out of one of her teammate's packs. The last flag! I didn't even think. I just reached out for it, and it flew into my right hand, my good hand. Luckily for me, Sierra and Adrian were watching, and they were more skilled than I was.
Twenty minutes later, there were unconscious bodies all around us, and it was over. I wanted to cry with relief. We had won! I don't remember much after that. A celebratory message from the Matriarch ended the competition, and I stumbled first to the medbay to have my hand seen- points weren't a worry for me anymore, after all; I could afford expensive injuries- and then to my dorm to pass out. Had I known what was coming, I would have stayed up. I would have put much more thought into the one question I had just earned.
