HUMAN RESOURCES Contd

PART 1: LUNCH BREAK

The pretty girl's smile flickered — part amused, part uncomfortable. "I... I don't think she'd take that as a compliment."

"Probably not. Still true."

Riku stood there for a moment, rubbing his shoulder where the punch had landed.

Around the cafeteria, Riku noticed things as he made his way toward the exit.

The dark-skinned guy with the open expression was grabbing his food, genuinely smiling at the cafeteria staff. Like they were actual people. It was bizarre. Nobody smiled at SACH staff. But he did it anyway, completely unbothered.

He caught Riku's eye for a second and raised his tray slightly, as if toasting him from across the room. Riku looked away immediately.

The sleeping girl remained slumped at Ice-Cold's now-abandoned table, completely oblivious that everyone had left. She hadn't moved an inch. Riku wasn't even sure she was breathing.

The pretty girl and the red-haired girl were near the exit now, the red-haired girl still looking angry about something. The pretty girl was saying something softly, probably trying to calm her down. It wasn't working.

Riku grabbed his tray, disposed of it, and headed toward Testing Chamber Seven.

"Final warning. All candidates report to Testing Chamber Seven immediately."

Riku was already walking.

PART TWO:

Testing Chamber Seven was massive.

Way bigger than the cognitive testing area. The ceiling stretched up into darkness. The floor was a vast open space with what looked like hundreds of small platforms scattered randomly across it. Holographic displays floated at various heights showing firing system readouts and zone maps. The details were too small to read from where the recruits stood.

An evaluator stood on a raised platform at the front of the chamber, masked and motionless.

The recruits filtered in slowly, still in that exhausted state where nothing quite felt real. Forty-eight of them now. Riku counted automatically. One girl had gotten incapacitated during the cognitive test and didn't make it to lunch.

"Welcome to the Node Stabilization Assessment," the evaluator said, his voice carrying clearly across the space.

Everyone quieted.

"This assessment will test your ability to function under sustained pressure, make tactical decisions, and coordinate with others."

Riku felt a small flutter of anxiety settle in his chest. Coordinate. That was a word that didn't apply to him.

"Your objective is to stabilize nodes scattered throughout the chamber. Each stabilized node grants points to your team. The team with the most points at the end wins. However—"

The evaluator paused.

"—nodes can only be stabilized by coordinated teams. Teams must be formed voluntarily. Teams may be any size you choose. There is no minimum or maximum."

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Some people looked relieved. Some looked uncertain.

"The chamber contains multiple hazard zones. Some are marked. Some are not. All zones contain active firing systems. Firing locations are not predictable. You will be shot at. You will get hit. Medical teams are standing by."

Standard SACH cheerfulness.

"You may enter the chamber whenever you wish. You may form teams before, during, or after entry. Entry begins now. You are dismissed."

The evaluator stepped back.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the dark-skinned guy from the cafeteria — the cheerful one — immediately started moving toward the emo girl and her group. "Hey! You guys seemed solid in the cognitive test. Want to—"

"No," the emo girl said flatly, not even looking at him.

The dark-skinned guy didn't look discouraged. He just smiled and moved on.

His eyes swept the crowd. They landed on Riku for a moment.

Riku braced himself.

Then someone called out from across the room — "Hey, you! The fast one!" — and the dark-skinned guy turned toward the voice, distracted. A bigger team was waving him over.

He glanced back at Riku briefly, almost apologetically, then headed toward the larger group.

Riku exhaled. Well. That settled that.

He watched the dark-skinned guy get absorbed into a team of six. They looked efficient. Organized. The kind of people who actually knew what they were doing.

Riku looked down at his own hands. Empty.

Well, it can't be that bad. Maybe I won't even need a team at all.

He turned away and walked toward the chamber entrance.

Alone was fine. Alone was familiar.

---

The Chamber Interior

The moment Riku stepped into the chamber, the weight of it hit him.

The firing systems were already moving. Soft mechanical sounds. Adjusting. Aiming. Ready.

He could see maybe twenty other recruits already inside, scattered across the open floor. Some were moving cautiously toward visible safe zones marked with blue holographic lines. Some were trying to figure out where the nodes were. Some were just... standing there, watching the chaos.

Riku picked a direction and started moving toward what looked like it might be a safe area. One of the blue-marked zones maybe forty meters away.

BOOM.

A projectile screamed past his head so close he felt the shockwave hit his face like a physical thing.

His entire body flinched.

He ran for the safe zone immediately.

Made it. Barely. His heart was hammering so hard he thought it might break his ribs.

Around him, other recruits were doing similar things—running, hiding, trying to figure out the pattern. Some were getting hit. Riku watched one guy take a round to the leg and collapse immediately, screaming. Medical teams rushed in with practised efficiency, scooped him up, applied pressure, and vanished.

One down. Forty-seven left.

He was sitting in the safe zone, trying to catch his breath, when someone else ran in.

The nervous guy with glasses — the one from the cafeteria.

He slammed into the safe zone and immediately looked like he wanted to disappear into the floor.

"Sorry," he gasped, not looking at Riku.

Riku didn't respond. Just watched the kid check his vitals like he was genuinely surprised to still be alive.

After maybe thirty seconds, the guy tried to move to another safe zone. Slower. More carefully.

He made it.

More time passed. Riku lost track. Everything was chaos and noise and the constant threat of being shot at.

Two more recruits entered the safe zone with him. A guy and a girl, both breathing hard. Nobody talked. Just sat there, hyper-aware of their heartbeats, waiting for the next barrage.

Eventually they left one by one, trying their luck at different safe zones.

Riku stayed.

---

The Struggle

After maybe ten minutes, Riku tried moving toward the center of the chamber, thinking maybe he could find a node there.

The firing intensified immediately.

Like the systems knew he was trying something stupid.

Projectiles came from three different angles simultaneously.

He dove sideways into what he thought was a safe zone.

It wasn't.

The holographic marking was old. Faded. Easy to miss if you were moving fast.

The zone was ACTIVE.

A projectile came from the right. Riku threw himself left.

Another came from above. He rolled forward.

A third came from the left, and he couldn't move fast enough.

It caught him in the ribs.

The impact felt like getting hit by a truck made of compressed metal. The air exploded out of his lungs. Pain shot through his entire side like lightning.

Riku gasped—couldn't breathe—fell hard against the floor.

Blood immediately started spreading across his uniform where the projectile had torn through fabric and skin.

He looked down at his side and saw actual blood. Actual wound. Deep enough that he could see exposed tissue beneath the fabric.

The reality of it hit him differently than the cognitive test. This wasn't simulation. This wasn't controlled. This was real damage to his actual body.

He pushed himself up with shaking hands and ran for actual safety, limping, pressing one hand against the wound.

Medical teams were there within seconds. They moved with professional efficiency, cutting away his uniform, applying pressure, stabilization foam spreading across the wound to stop the bleeding.

"You need to get out of the chamber," one of them said while working.

"No. No, I'm staying," Riku gasped.

"Your wound needs proper treatment—"

"I'm staying."

They exchanged a look but didn't argue. They just did what they could and let him go.

Riku walked back into the chamber limping, his side screaming with pain, blood soaking through the foam padding.

---

He tried moving toward another safe zone.

A rival team had claimed it.

There were four of them in there, and when they saw him approaching, they didn't budge.

"Find your own," one of them called out.

Riku pivoted and ran for another one.

Same thing happened. Three people in that zone, and they waved him away before he could even get close.

He was running out of safe zones.

Running out of time.

Running out of places to hide.

Riku ducked behind one of the scattered platforms, breathing hard, trying to think.

His side was bleeding again. The stabilization foam was holding but barely. Every movement hurt. Every breath hurt.

More recruits were being extracted. He'd lost count.

The announcements kept coming: "Medical extraction required. Sector 3. Medical extraction required. Sector 7."

It was constant.

Riku sat there, bleeding, exhausted, and felt something settle in his chest.

I could just drop out. Go home. Sleep for a week.

His side was a mess. The pain was extraordinary.

My other scores weren't great anyway. Just like school. Nothing special.

Probably won't get hired anyway.

This is way too much work for nothing.

He stared at the distant ceiling of the chamber.

Then he thought of his mother.

Lily. Working two jobs. Coming home exhausted. Never complaining. Never asking for help. Just... surviving. Day after day. Year after year.

That's not living. That's just not dying.

He'd promised himself — quietly, in the dark of his room, where no one could hear — that he'd change that. Somehow. Some way.

Not because he was heroic. Not because he wanted to save the world.

Because she deserved better than a life of just getting by.

And people like him — from the Common Zone, average at everything, no connections, no money — didn't get chances like this. Not ever.

This was the only maybe he had.

If I quit now, I'm not going back to anything. I'm going back to nothing.

And nothing isn't enough for her.

Riku pushed himself up slowly, testing his weight on his legs. They held, barely.

His side screamed. Blood was already seeping through the new stabilization foam the medics had applied.

He'd regenerate. Over time, his body would fix itself.

But time was something he didn't have.

He limped back into the chamber, moving carefully

PART 3:

Riku spotted what looked like a safe zone ahead.

Blue markings.

Clear boundaries.

Forty meters away through open floor.

He was bleeding from three places. His ribs felt like they were being held together by foam and spite. His leg was limping badly enough that each step sent lightning up his side.

He needed to rest.

Needed to sit down for five minutes.

He limped toward the zone.

The moment his foot crossed the threshold, red lights flashed across the holographic boundary.

WARNING: DEAD ZONE DETECTED

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The firing didn’t start slowly.

It started everywhere.

Rounds screamed in from three angles simultaneously. The sound was like metal tearing. Riku threw himself sideways, behind a low concrete barrier, gasping.

The barrier exploded.

Chunks of concrete sprayed across his back. Dust filled his lungs. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe.

The firing kept coming.

Relentless.

Methodical.

This wasn’t a safe zone.

Someone had painted over the old dead zone markings. Faked the safety.

Riku was pinned. Two firing systems had him locked. Every time he tried to move, rounds forced him back against the crumbling barrier.

His heart was hammering so hard he thought it might break through his ribs.

I’m going to die here.

Actually die.

Not extraction.

Death.

Then the wall beside him exploded.

A round came from the left.

Riku saw it coming but couldn’t move. His body wouldn’t respond. Too much damage. Too slow.

Then someone moved.

A blur of dark uniform. An arm hooked around his collar and yanked him sideways hard enough that his neck cracked. The round screamed past where his head had been a fraction of a second earlier.

Riku hit the ground, rolled, and came up against a concrete barrier.

The fast, emotionless guy from earlier stood over him, already scanning the firing systems.

“What the—” Riku gasped. “So… fast… what are you doing here? I didn’t ask for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” the guy said flatly, not looking at him. “If you’re in no condition to continue, just forfeit and don’t distract others.”

“Appreciate the concern, Ice-Cold, but I’m fine. Could have handled that just fine too.”

Ice-Cold finally glanced at him.

“Okay. Then I’m sure you’ve realized we are currently in a dead zone. In a matter of minutes, we’re going to be under heavy bombardment. And those things are motion-sensitive.”

He pointed at the firing systems.

“The moment we try to leave, we’ll be under more fire than you can possibly imagine.”

Riku’s stomach dropped.

“So… we’re stuck.”

“Precisely.”

Riku mumbled, “Could have just said that.”

“The only way out would be disabling enough of them and then escaping.”

Riku looked at the firing systems.

Then at Ice-Cold.

“Okay, so… why haven’t you done that yet?”

Ice-Cold’s eye twitched.

“I’m yet to fully comprehend the procedure for disabling them. The systems are… advanced.”

“Just admit you can’t do it. Why the big words?”

Riku sighed.

“Anyways, so this is it. I guess I’m going to get disqualified. And worse, I’m stuck with a robot. How could this get worse?”

Then someone crashed into the dead zone.

The red-haired girl.

She came in sliding, bleeding from her leg, cursing violently. Behind her, the pretty girl stumbled in, hands over her head, looking terrified.

“Move!” the red-haired girl shouted, shoving the pretty girl behind the same barrier.

A round exploded where they’d been standing.

Riku stared.

“You too?!”

“The markings looked clear,” the red-haired girl panted, pressing a hand to her leg. “I didn’t realize until—”

“Until what?”

“Until rounds started coming from everywhere.”

The pretty girl was trembling, cradling her arm. A round had caught her bicep—not deep enough to be critical, but deep enough that blood was running down her hand. She looked like she might throw up.

“Why did you follow her?” Riku asked.

“I couldn’t—” she gasped. “I couldn’t just watch her run in alone. She’s—”

She swallowed hard.

“—she’s my friend.”

The red-haired girl’s expression softened for a fraction of a second.

Then she looked away.

“I would’ve been fine,” she said, but her voice wasn’t convincing.

“You couldn’t even move,” the pretty girl said. “Your leg—”

Another round came from an unexpected angle.

Ice-Cold moved them all sideways, pressing them deeper into cover. The round hit the exact spot where the pretty girl had been standing.

That would have killed her.

“We have minutes,” Ice-Cold said, his voice clipped now. The wound in his shoulder was getting worse—blood was dripping steadily down his arm. “The firing patterns are cycling. When they overlap, this entire sector becomes unsurvivable.”

A fourth person appeared at the dead zone’s edge.

The dark-haired girl with the sharp posture—the one who never talked—moved with controlled precision, diving behind separate cover, her datapad already out.

She wasn’t panicking.

She was analyzing.

Then the sleepy girl walked in.

Not ran.

Walked.

She moved through incoming fire like she was taking a stroll, tilting her head slightly to let rounds pass, stepping sideways to avoid others.

She settled down beside the pretty girl and closed her eyes.

“Are you asleep?” Riku hissed.

“Resting,” the sleepy girl murmured.

“This is active combat—”

“It’s loud.”

More figures entered the dead zone.

The nervous guy with glasses scrambled over a barrier and nearly fell directly into the firing line. A round grazed his shoulder and he yelped, stumbling into their cover position.

“The systems—” he gasped. “The systems are linked. There’s a central node cluster controlling the whole zone. If we can access the maintenance panel—”

“Where?” the dark-haired girl asked.

“Forty-three meters. Northwest position. In the kill zone.”

A girl with short dark hair and glasses landed neatly beside the nervous guy, already studying the firing systems.

“The systems are networked,” she said calmly. “But the firing patterns suggest they’re linked to a central override.”

Then she looked around.

“I need to refer to you all for coordination. But I don’t know your designations.”

She pointed.

“The fast, emotionless one.”

Ice-Cold’s eye twitched.

“The aggressive one with the temper.”

The red-haired girl glared.

“The quiet anxious one.”

The pretty girl looked down.

“The dark-haired one who never talks.”

The dark-haired girl stared through her.

“The unconscious one.”

No reaction.

“The trembling one.”

The nervous guy whimpered.

“And the injured one with the bleeding side.”

Riku sighed.

“Okay, that’s enough. You’re terrible at this.”

“I’m being accurate.”

“You’re being offensive. Let me help.”

Riku pointed around.

“Ice-Cold.”

Ice-Cold looked unimpressed.

“Red.”

The red-haired girl rolled her eyes.

“Pretty Face.”

The pretty girl turned pink.

“Emo Girl.”

The dark-haired girl looked seconds away from leaving humanity entirely.

“Sleepy Girl.”

Still resting.

“Nervous Dude.”

The nervous guy looked emotionally damaged already.

“And Glasses.”

Glasses adjusted her glasses slowly.

Then she looked at Riku.

“And you?”

Before Riku answered, a voice muttered from another side of the barrier.

“Blue Eyes.”

Riku blinked.

“That’s… actually not bad.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

Glasses nodded.

“Noted. Ice-Cold, Red, Pretty Face, Emo Girl, Sleepy Girl, Nervous Dude, Glasses, and Blue Eyes.”

A beat.

“Let’s survive.”

Then another figure appeared at the edge of the dead zone.

The dark-skinned guy from the cafeteria.

But he wasn’t smiling now.

He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, his uniform torn, breathing harder than before. He dove into cover beside Riku just as rounds tore through the barrier behind them.

Riku blinked.

“…Where did you come from?”

The dark-skinned guy wiped blood from his brow.

“My team… they kinda betrayed me.”

Everyone looked at him.

“We had a group of six,” he said tiredly. “Seemed solid. Then we hit a dead zone and they used me as bait to escape.”

Silence.

“I got out,” he continued. “But they didn’t exactly look back.”

“So you’re alone now,” Emo Girl said.

“Alone and annoyed.”

Riku stared at him for a second.

“…You know what? I’m calling you Smiley.”

The guy raised an eyebrow.

“Smiley?”

“You look like the type.”

A weak grin appeared despite everything.

“…Fair enough.”

Glasses immediately pulled her datapad back up.

“Good. Then we have one additional mobile distraction source.”

Smiley blinked.

“…That’s my role?”

“You entered voluntarily,” Glasses replied. “Statistically, that suggests confidence under pressure.”

“Or stupidity,” Riku muttered.

“Those are not mutually exclusive.”

Smiley laughed weakly.

“Okay yeah, I like this group already.”

Another burst of rounds shredded part of the barrier above them.

Concrete rained down across the floor.

Ice-Cold glanced toward the maintenance panel.

“We’re wasting time.”

Nervous Dude swallowed hard.

“I-I can disable the firing systems temporarily but someone has to get me there first. The maintenance panel is inside the center lane.”

“How bad?” Red asked.

Nervous Dude looked pale.

“…Very.”

“That’s not helpful,” Riku said.

“The center lane has adaptive targeting,” Nervous Dude blurted out. “The other systems cycle on timing patterns but the center one changes trajectory based on movement prediction.”

Silence.

“…Meaning?” Pretty Face asked quietly.

“It learns.”

Nobody liked that answer.

Glasses zoomed the map on her datapad.

“The left and right systems can be disrupted manually. If enough pressure is applied to the housings, they temporarily desync.”

Red immediately grinned despite the blood soaking her leg.

“So we smash them.”

“You smash them,” Emo Girl corrected. “Some of us enjoy surviving.”

Red pointed at her.

“You talk like a serial killer.”

“You scream at turrets.”

“Because they deserve it.”

“Focus,” Ice-Cold cut in.

Everyone shut up instantly.

He pointed toward the maintenance panel.

“I take Nervous Dude through the center lane.”

“That lane literally predicts movement,” Riku said.

“I’m aware.”

“You say that a lot.”

“Because people keep telling me things I already know.”

Riku stared at him.

“I’m starting to understand why nobody likes you.”

“Emotionally irrelevant.”

“See? THAT. That right there.”

....................... T.B.C.......................