Gene. Sys. by Aaron Denius (best ereader for comics txt) 📕

better shot.” I stand firm. I can see Titan smile from the corner of my eye.

Sodi looks at K for support. K shakes her head. “Atom’s right.”

Sodi lets out a frustrated huff and slams her gun into my chest. I wince at the quick jolt of pain but then hand the gun to Titan. “One shot. Don’t miss.”

Titan lies on the ground close to the boulder and sets the gun on the floor. He looks through the viewfinder and, after a deep inhale, pulls the trigger.

“Got him!” Titan stands in triumph. He steps out from the cover of the boulder and throws his arms up in celebration. Just as soon as his hands go up, he flies back and has been knocked out.

“Titan!” Sodi yells after him.

I look around the boulder, and my jaw drops in shock. The one red light has been replaced with hundreds of red lights. Within a blink, the red lights begin marching toward us. Once clear of the darkness from the forest, I can tell that the lights are laser sights attached to guns carried by outsiders.

At the next boulder, Ev and Sil are both looking around their boulder. Ev looks at me and communicates, as quietly as she can, “What do we do?”

I shrug. It’s probably not the answer Ev wants from me, but I am not prepared for this type of simulation. That’s when I remember that it is a simulation, so I can take some risks. I don’t think we have much of a chance against the sheer number of outsiders coming at us. Then again, 80 and I were outnumbered, and we survived.

I scan my surroundings and notice that there are two more boulders in our immediate vicinity. I wave to get Ev’s attention.

“How many?” I ask, pointing to the boulder behind them.

She checks and looks back at me. “Two.”

That means that Fe, Mag, or Hydro have been taken out. I figure that our best plan of attack will be to have two people per boulder shooting on either side. Hopefully, the cover will protect us as long as possible.

I turn back to Sodi and K. “You two stay here. Each of you take a side of the boulder and shoot as many as you can.”

“Gotcha,” K obliges. Sodi just stares defiantly at me and picks up Titan’s old gun.

I look back at Ev and point to her and then a boulder about twenty-five feet in front of us. She nods her head, and I count down from three with my fingers.

The second I reach zero, I run. When I look over toward Ev, I see Sil push her out of the way and run up to the boulder with me. I reach it and look back just as Ev is getting to her feet. She’s immediately hit with a bullet and is taken out.

I push Sil against the boulder. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“I… I…” Sil stumbles over his words. Fear glazes his eyes.

“You cost us a life!” I scream.

“What about Titan?” he shouts back.

I grit my teeth. Sil’s right, I did hang Titan out to dry, but he also got cocky. I take a deep breath. “Just take that side and start shooting.”

He lies on the ground to the boulder’s right, and I lie on the ground to the left. I steady my rifle and look down the crosshairs. There are easily a hundred outsiders marching toward the seven of us who remain.

“Fire!” I yell. I pull my trigger, and the Genesys around me follow suit. Bullets fly past my head in both directions as the outsiders return fire.

I hear a couple of grunts and screams behind me that tell me a couple more of the Genesys have been taken out. Still, we are definitely causing a dent in the outsiders. About half of the outsiders are down.

“Ow,” Sil says next to me, and when I look, I see that he has been taken out.

I roll off the ground and sit with my back to the boulder. This feels like an insurmountable challenge. I look at the other boulders and see that only three of us are left, Sodi behind my original boulder and, surprisingly, Mag behind the farthest boulder. She may be quiet, but she never fails to surprise me.

Just before I can get back into position to resume shooting, two outsiders pop around Sil’s side of the boulder and shoot me. The shock spreads from my chest to the rest of my body. I really hate this feeling. Not only is the pain uncomfortable, but I will always associate this shock with failure.

As I lie on the ground, with the faint sound of Mag and Sodi’s bullets flying by, I think about what I could have done differently in this simulation. I wasn’t ready, and if I am supposed to lead them, I need to be prepared for all situations that might come up. Everyone is most likely going to be taken out in this one but if we had to deal with something like this for real, we can’t afford to lose a single one of us.

One stream of bullets remains and based on the direction they are coming from, Sodi is the only one left. Perhaps I should have let her take the shot with the sniper rifle. She has proven herself capable with a gun otherwise.

The simulation room goes black, and I know that we failed. I failed. A loss for any of the Genesys is a failure on my part. I realize that now. Though the pressure I was already under is multiplied now, I also feel a sense of pride. We will succeed. I will make sure of it.

When the lights come back on, everyone gets up, rubbing their aching bodies. I walk to the control panel to be able to see them all and address the defeat. Right before I get there, chaos erupts.

Ev runs up to Sil and pushes him. “Why did you do that?”

“Don’t push me,