The Killer in the Smoke

11

A HUD appears before your face and thankfully the suit has air conditioning, so the smell clears off quickly. "All right, I'm releasing the suit's lock-down," you hear Edgar's voice tell you, and you turn to look at him. The big guy nods, grinning at you. "Oh, and don't mind the smell," he says belatedly. "We've got about forty other recruits in before you, and I think some of them were training when I sent for them."

"All right then, looks like the suit fits you fine, probably just have to make a few fine adjustments here and there. Now, practice moving around in that thing, will ya?" he says, and you take a cautious step forward. Amazingly, it feels quite natural, like you're only wearing your normal set of clothes instead of a half-ton suit of powered armor. Within moments, you're jumping and running around with the greatest of ease.

"You're a natural at this," Edgar compliments you once the exercise is done and you're out of the unit. "All right. Tomorrow, you'll start training in a Magikiras unit."

Six months later…

October 1st, 2050

You wince a little when you hear a splattering sound on the wall in front of you. You peer up over the wall and duck quickly as something red flies over your head, splashing paint on the wall behind you. You heave a breath of relief. Today, you're having a combat simulation training in your Magikiras suit, and the participants have been separated into two teams. The objective is to capture the other team's flag without getting eliminated by either three shots from an opponent's rifle or being struck once with a shock rod. The first team to remove the other team's flag from its post wins.

Sounds simple enough, you thought at first, but Morgan is on the other side (codenamed Blue Team; the team you're on is codenamed Red Team). With her in command, your team has already lost three members, one of whom was the elected team leader. To make things worse, you're currently pinned down by rifle fire. The rest of your team is nearby, behind cover, defending the flag.

The rifle fire stops after a while, and you think you can hear the sound of reloading. Taking a deep breath, you take this lull in firing to…