BIFIELD - SONS OF WAR HQ - DISTRICT III - DREAM CITY
Eighteen hours had passed since the war games began.
The urban battlefield stretched endlessly, almost indistinguishable from a real city in decay. The competitors fought with savage precision, taking out one another and the drones scattered across the field.
From the original 26 teams, only 16 remained.
The ranking board flickered:
1st - Team Fox: A brutally synchronized team of five, boasting 21 confirmed kills.
2nd - Black Hound: 15 kills, ruthless and methodical.
3rd - Sakarah: 11 kills — though technically unnamed, her squad defaulted to Team Sakarah.
The board wasn't doing her any favors. Teams like Magnet had already marked her for elimination. But against the odds, Sakarah, Jimbo, and Goro had worked effectively, pushing themselves further than they thought possible.
Even now—
"Three o'clock, I see something…" Jimbo's voice crackled in her earpiece, his drone feeding live updates.
"Got it." Goro answered, locking onto the moving target. From his sniper nest on a half-collapsed skyscraper eight stories up, he took the shot. A clean kill.
He chuckled into the comms. "Hey, what do you think?"
Sakarah didn't respond. Her focus was already elsewhere — two reckless opponents unloading rounds without precision. In a blur, she moved: flipping, rotating midair to adjust, pausing just long enough to fire off two clean headshots.
In the control room, Midas watched from behind the glass. A twinge of jealousy twisted inside him.
He had bet heavily against her — 5,000 credits riding on her failure.
And she was proving him wrong.
"Feline updated her win probability to 64%," someone murmured nearby.
Midas ground his teeth. He hated losing money. But he wasn't helpless.
With a casual grin, he sauntered toward the Suit Observation Approval Desk.
"I need a coffee. Now," he ordered the junior officer manning the systems.
As the officer rushed off, Midas got to work, his fingers flying across the controls.
"Sorry girl," he muttered under his breath, grinning as he sabotaged her chances.
Meanwhile, in District Zero...
The hovertruck rattled to a stop in front of a decaying three-story building.
Inside, a teenage boy — Shakes — hauled six offline Manuals out of the truck bed, grunting with each heavy lift.
"One... Two... Three... Four... Five..."
He paused, staring at the sixth. The strange one. The one he had nearly refused to take.
"This isn't a Model 1," he had argued earlier. "It's got a memory disc slot — Models didn't have that until Model 3. Plus, the design's weird, what's the word on his chest? R. O. L. O what is that? There is nothing else I can find on it."
But at 50 credits, it had been too good to pass up — at worst, spare parts for another.
He loaded the last unit into the elevator, which creaked and groaned under the weight.
The whole building reeked of mildew, metal, and despair, just like the rest of District Zero.
But it was home.
Kids played in the hallways. Neighbors called greetings. Shakes dodged a dinner invite and nearly collided with someone, laughing it off.
Home meant Cindy.
Cindy Maroon opened the door — petite, frail, her silver hair tied in a messy bun. Her house overflowed with discarded synthetic lifeforms: androids, Manuals, machines. All repaired, repurposed, given a second chance at life. Just like Shakes himself.
"Oh dear, Shakes, did you get them?" she beamed.
"All originals, plus a bonus. Got ourselves a whole bucket list," he said proudly, setting the Manuals down.
The strange one booted up first.
"Tea?! Must serve tea?!" it chirped.
Shakes groaned. "That's T-E-A, or... R.O.L.O. Not sure what the hell that means yet."
Cindy's face lit up with delight. "Oh, he's adorable! Extraordinary!"
Shakes scratched his head, confused.
"Really? I thought he was junk. Weird junk. I mean, I can't even scan him properly. He's got a memory disc space — Model 1s didn't have those. I was thinking of scrapping him."
Cindy gasped, horrified. "You will do no such thing to poor Tea!"
"Tea?! Must serve tea?!" R.O.L.O repeated enthusiastically.
Both humans exchanged a look.
"Yeah, I still have to fix his language drivers before he drives us insane," Shakes muttered.
Cindy, ever gentle, disagreed. "Nonsense. He's special. He reminds me of Harry..."
Shakes's heart twinged at the mention.
Harry — Cindy's late son. The hero she spoke of with endless warmth and pride.
He had died a young, brave police officer. But Cindy had never given up on saving whatever — whoever — she could. The manuals, synthetics, himself and now, it seemed, that mission had extended to R.O.L.O too.
Back at the war games — 31 hours in.
Everyone's comms buzzed up.
Geolocation signals lit up. Three targets in view.
Goro took another competitor down. His special Bineth ability, Devil's Eye, allowed him to see through anything. Unlike Jimbo who hadn't yet activated is as do many others, he had mastered his skill quite well. It was a good time to show it off.
He lined up the shot—two piercing rounds.
Sakarah caught a glimpse of the fallen target off to the side. She smiled.
Her team was really going all out. They weren't half bad, she thought.
She turned her mind back to the field—
just as a rocket blast threw her off her feet.
She barely escaped the impact, tumbling and scrambling for cover. But there was none. Blades sliced through the air toward her. Bullets weaved deadly patterns around her.
Her comms crackled:
> "They got Goro! He's down!"
> "Can you move, if you can, then listen closely to what I am about to tell you"
Seconds later The comm went dead.
Sakarah froze.
Four teams. Fifteen players.
All on her.
She checked her magazine.
"Not enough," she muttered.
A mocking voice echoed across the ruined buildings:
> "Come out! We've got you surrounded!"
Another chimed in, laughing:
> "On your knees! Execution style! Gotta get it on camera, it's not every day we get to team up and take someone out!"
Sakarah calmly stepped out.
Her voice was cold and even:
> "Bineth—engaged."
"Damn you!" Someone cursed.
They knew what that meant, she wasn't going to surrender—and fired all at once.
Bullets. Blades. Rockets. Projectiles from every direction. A storm of death.
Back at the control room, Midas smiled smugly.
His plan had worked.
It was over.
The bullets tore into the scene—body suits shredded, helmets cracked, the whole field wrecked by the assault.
As the dust and shells settled...
Only Sakarah stood.
Heavily breathing.
Alive.
> "What the hell?!" Midas roared, rising to his feet.
"Zero Space Shift," someone muttered.
"Her Ability is top classified even Bineth isn't certain how it works, it is one of kind really, It is theorized that her Bineths allows her to manipulate the direction of objects within a tight one-foot radius field around her body,"
Cox explained, now standing quietly at the back of the control room, her sharp eyes locked on Midas.
"It's very complicated but that she can redirect the trajectory, speed, and even the angle of incoming attacks—like bullets and blades and those ignorant swinies just served her a buffet."
Midas turned, ready to bluster something—
but instead, he smirked.
"Still got an ace," he said lowly.
"That kid's gonna make us look old and stupid. You agree, don't you?"
He turned toward the simulation control doors, leaving Cox watching him silently.
She smiled slightly but said nothing.
On the screen, Sakarah win ratio climbed up to 89% just 3% shy of team fox the table leaders.