"Thirty seconds."


The last few moments before a match were always tense. Something eery hung in the air, ran through the players' bones. A promise of victory. Gratitude. Fame. Isaac felt it, everyone did. At their level, there was no place for rookie mistakes. With the amount of people watching, his every move were being scrutinised.


"Fifteen seconds."


The computer generated voice blasted through invisible speakers in the same automated tone as he had heard so many times before. He inhaled and exhaled quickly. His index finger resting against the side of his photon rifle, he machinally went over the settings one last time, tapping the tip of his combat boots on the ground behind him. Then, he extended a leg back and braced himself.


"Five seconds. Four. Three. Ready. Set..."


The old and compressed sound clip of an antique firearm went off and Isaac bolted through the holographic gate, making sure to keep his head down until he reached the first cover. At his sides, his teammates were doing the same, their spawn rooms embedded at regular intervals in the walls of the arena. The opposing team had been setting up a few minutes prior to them, which meant that he needed to expect resistance behind every corner.

Coming from a surprising height at the far reaches of the map, a narrow beam of light hit someone to his right. At this distance, the snipers were practically invisible. A grunt, the sound of an armor hitting the ground behind him. There was no time for rescuing here, they were way too exposed. Tough luck.

He crouched behind the rusted carcass of a car and looked around him. He knew the layout of The Crumbling City like the back of his hand, and he had been spawned in the worst possible place : the middle of the main boulevard. He would be at the mercy of any onlooking snipers until he could reach the entrance of a few beat-up shops, which was no more than a few dozen meters, but still. Rolling out of his cover, he dashed to a nearby wall and flattened himself against it. A few energy beams whistled past his ears without doing him harm, but he knew he had been lucky. He couldn't stay in the open so early in the game. 

He jogged to his right where a few stairs lead to a narrow alley, slightly below ground, passed under a simple archway and turned left into an old bistro. Holes had been blasted through the walls on either ends and he knew he could make good progress from here. Careful not to step on shards of broken glass, he made his way through it and into another empty shop, a book store, and climbed up the toppled shelves to a second level. Here, he stopped to look around. Three doors lead to three different paths, all reaching the Objective, but all not quite as fast. From two of them, stillness still hung in the air. But he could see dust twirling around in the air through the third door, the remains of recent movement. He would have to go this way to make sure he wouldn't be shot from behind while progressing in the other paths.

Sneaking to the side of the door, he made sure the entrance was safe and peeked inside. A bar, obliterated first by combats, then by looters. On the wooden countertop itself, most bottles laid in pieces, their previous liquids long gone, either spilled or drunk. He quietly entered the room, readying his rifle. He glanced to his right expecting someone hiding behind a toppled table, but found them flipped upside down. He rolled back.

The fired shot flashed before his eyes before leaving a scorch mark in the plastered wall behind him. He crouched behind an unstable pile of books and the shots followed his moves, but still missed their target. He was in a terrible position, and they both knew it. Judging by the size of this room, his attacker would probably rush and try to disable Isaac before he could recover, but he wasn't sure. At this point, it depended on the other's play style. He risked it.

Camping his feet against the wall, he waited for half a second. When he heard the sound of the other's boot hitting the ground twice in quick succession, he propelled himself away from the wall as his enemy erupted in front of him. As yet another shot went through where his head had been a second ago, Isaac knew his wouldn't. Firing from under, he shot twice. Once in the knee, and once towards their rifle, the beam passing directly through his opponent's left hand. The other's gun fell to the ground under the impact and a feminine groan of pain rose from behind the black visor of her helmet. Falling to the ground herself, she grasped her wrist with her other hand while he collected himself and stood up again.

He stared at her as the nanofibers of her adjusted suit reacted to his shots, first emitting pulsating rings of light on her wrist and knee before starting to undulate, as if insects were swarming across her skin. Shooting her in the back or the stomach would've only stunned her for a second or two, but this would disable her for the rest of the match. The fingers of her glove quickly receded inside her suit all at once along with most of her hand, leaving her left arm ending in a stump. The same happened to her left leg up to the knee, her combat boot laying empty on the ground at Isaac's feet. The whole process took only a few seconds. Her remaining hand reached for the side of her helmet and her visor became clear. He did the same.


"Nice shooting mon ami." Jeanne said with a thick french accent. She was slightly out of breath. "Are you going to stay here and comfort me for ze rest of ze match?"

"No." He answered. "I'm not blind, you know. I can see you." She was slowly moving her hand towards her rifle but he kicked it across the room. "I'm just making sure you won't be following me." 


While shooting in the diamond centred on her chest would cause her four limbs to disappear, he wasn't such a fan of this feature. He thought it made for too many lucky random disables when exchanging shots. Instead, he fired two other shots in her intact shoulder and hip. As the initial shock traversed her body, she arched her back and reached for her shoulder with the stump of her wrist. She pushed herself away from the wall right as her foot vanished and her boot fell off her shrinking leg. Isaac had read about the technology inside of these suits. An inventive mix of instant-cure hormone supplements and a strong gravitational pull woven directly into the nanofibers precisely tore their bodies apart according to where they were hit. This was found to be a much more efficient way of disabling opponents than electricity-based stuns, paralysing shots, and even color changing pads that showed where you were hit.


"Tu es trop gentil." She looked back at him when the pain had died down again. She stretched her back, her empty shoulder calling out for her vanished limb. Her combat suit had adjusted to her new anatomy perfectly. "If you don't mind, I'm going to wait here for a while."


She extended her remaining arm and turned herself over to grab a nearby book, simultaneously laying on her elbow and flipping the burned pages with her stump.

Isaac darkened his visor and stepped through the next door, arriving into yet another room where walls had been blasted down. Advancing through the city, he reunited with another teammate and they advanced together. They had no way of knowing how many people remained abled on either sides for now, so they simply pressed forward. To win the match, they needed to take control of the Objective, which was about one kilometer away from their spawn room. For the defending team to win, they could either run the clock down or disable the entire attacking team. The Crumbling City was one of the oldest maps of the arena, and one of Isaac's favorite. Compared to The Tower or The Forge, there were no elevators, automatic doors, or buckets of molten metal (actually water containing high concentrations of disabling enzymes). Just old desolated buildings. It was based around individual skills rather than coordinated team plays or tricks using the map itself.

As a duo, they quickly made their way up the map, disabling a few enemy players as they went on. Another team member joined them before being gunned down a short while after. As they came into view of the Objective, they glanced at the giant scoreboard that floated above it.


Time remaining : 6 minutes 23 seconds.

Players remaining : 
Attackers : 3
Defenders : 13


Isaac scoffed. They didn't have any chance. Plus, he and his mate weren't particularly good. Above average at best, but they were far from being top players, even in their team. With this amount of defenders left, the snipers would probably still be in position. Even if they were lucky and managed to stay abled, they wouldn't have time to sneak around to disable even half of them, let alone walk back down to the Objective. They were screwed. Beside him, his teammate reached for a numpad on the side of his rifle and a holographic interface appeared. 


Surrender ?


He tapped yes. Then, the same question materialised above Isaac's gun. He sighed. As he looked down to his mate, who had already sat down in the dirt, he noticed the third remaining member of his team. He recognised her purple eyes immediately when she cleared her visor. She stood across the street from him hiding behind the remains of a hot dog stand. He watched her tap no on the vote, grasp her rifle with a single hand, and look strait at Isaac. Her left arm had been shot off midway through the bicep but she still wanted to fight until the end. Dismissing the surrender vote with a flick of the hand, he gestured a few simple commands and together, they watched the timer go down on the clock. With only a minute left on the board, they both came out of their cover and sprinted towards the Objective. If by any luck the entire defending team was distracted or already busy celebrating their win and their post-game drinks and games, they had a chance of making it and save their honor, maybe even by capturing part of it before being disabled.

But the odds weren't in their favor this day. Enemies stepped out of the shadows and hit him in the thighs, sending him on the ground head first. Jolts of electricity ran through his legs as they disappeared and he raised his hands over his head, pushing his rifle away from him. For a moment, he thought his friend might have a chance, but he was wrong again. A single beam struck her in the middle of the chest, right in the center of the one-hit diamond, and her legs gave way. While she was only a few meters away from the edge of the Objective, there was no use in even trying to get on it. But she still tried. Under the attentive eye of the crowd, and most of the abled players, she crawled. First on her hand, then on her elbow and knees, her calves and forearm receding at blinding speeds, wheezing and cussing along the way as she dragged herself in the dust. When her suit had consumed her knees, her progress stopped, what little legs and arm she had left simply waggled at her sides several inches off the ground and rapidly vanished from sight, leaving her completely limbless. The whole process took no longer than 5 seconds, but it made for a good show while it lasted.

The lights in the arena turned blue and the logo of the defending team, the head of a mammoth, filled the sky. Cheers resonated inside the arena as the dome opened and let the players see the assistance, here to watch the best team of the circuit wipe away one of the worst. The Mammoth's 15 victories and 0 defeat set them at the top of the standings, while Isaac sat with the Rangers in 11th place, before last, with a mere 2 victories and 13 losses. The remaining defending players stepped out and turned around to wave at the crowd. From the top of a tilted telephone tower, one of their star players was climbing down with the help of a grappling hook, a golden Single Chamber Energy Sniper Rifle angled over his shoulder. He tore his helmet off and grinned back at the crowd.

On the ground, Ava was still squirming from side to side. She grunted and arched to no avail.


"Good try, Isaac. Maybe next time." She turned her head towards him and grunted.


Isaac recognised his friend Paul on the opposing team. He was one of the defenders that had shot him. They were about the same level skill-wise, but the Mammoths often had better strategies... and one or two elite players.


"Yeah, yeah. Maybe."


Paul lowered his gun as the simulation faded. All the buildings, cars, crumbling walls and public fountains lost their texture and evaporated, leaving them on an checkered grey floor. All around them, disabled players lay on the ground. While some people were completely limbless, the most common technique was simply to shoot off an arm and a leg, preferably from opposing sides. This assured a less steady aim in the event one could get back to its rifle as well as very limited movements for the disabled, although a player had made himself famous for hopping back into combat with a single leg left to headbutt people down. This was one of the reasons Isaac was such a fan of triple disables.


"Combat suit reset."


The computer-generated voice reverberated inside the arena again. When the match was over, the combat suits were rebooted back to their original shapes and players got their limbs back. Then ensued an almost religious session of stretching any regrowing limbs to shake out the tingling feeling of newly reconstructed flesh. Isaac was no exception. He bent his knees and squatted a few times before standing up again and looking around him. Another loss. He was starting to get used to them. He pressed a button on his rifle and it dematerialised.


"Putain mais what is ze problème?"


It was Jeanne. She was several hundred meters back, but her attitude often carried her voice further than one would expect. She still laid on the ground while everyone around her was already back on their feet. At this distance, however, it was impossible for Isaac to tell what was happening.


"Isaac, would you mind calling technical support?"


He turned around to find Ava exactly where he had last seen her, on the ground. Her suit hadn't reverted back, she was still helplessly laying on her stomach. He kneeled beside her and gently flipped her on her back, reaching for a button on her helmet before removing it from her head. Her braided purple hair, which were the same deep color as her irises, unrolled on the ground beside her. A technician quickly trotted to them holding a translucent tablet.


"What seems to be the... Oh yes of course." He quickly realised the nature of the problem once he glanced at Ava's body. "Let me check the organic neuro-network of your combat suit."


He hovered his tablet over her and frowned, tapping insistently in the top right corner.


"This is the new CS-45 full body combat suit is this correct?"

"Yes, yes it is." She answered.

"Well it seems like it's having a few internal problems. Even with.." Shouting at full force, Jeanne interrupted him and startled them three. "Even with my interface I can't force the relimbing process." He tapped on his screen repeatedly, but the suit didn't budge. 

"What do you mean you can't force the relimbing process?" Her eyes grew wider, her shoulders moving nervously. 

He coughed. "Okay, let me see. The gravitational weave is in place, so are the nano-injection tubes of hormones, and the.... Hmmm."

Isaac, who was now supporting Ava's head, joined in. "Care to tell us what is it?"

The technician clicked his tongue. "There seems to be a faulty connection between the combat suit and our network. We can monitor it but somehow certain commands are blocked. Give me a second."


As he reached for his earpiece and spoke a few words, Isaac helped Ava up. Since they often practised Differently-Abled-Combat-Strategies in their freetime, Ava had no problem keeping herself standing on her legless hips. Hovering a hand behind her neck, Isaac pinched the suit where it covered her armless shoulders, almost hoping it would magically debug the system and reactivate the relimbing process. He tapped on the diamond and scoffed. The technician spoke in his earpiece again and switched his attention back to Ava.


"We're going to have to take both suits down to the server room and start the whole network imprinting process over again."

"Suits? There are more than one?" She seemed equally scared for herself than concerned about any potential other victims.

"Well, there's one more, our current hypothesis is that there's a genetic incompatibility the suit didn't expect which would cause these interferences. We'll have to take her suit, too."

"Who is sh..." Ava began.

"I think I know exactly who it is." Isaac looked up.


On a hovering stretcher laid Jeanne, out of her mind and still missing the entirety of her right arm and leg. On the other side of her body, her leg stopped right above her knee while she seemed to retain the base of the palm of her hand. As she passed by Isaac, Ava, and their technician, her stretcher stopped moving and the employee she had been blasting with insults in the last few minutes came to talk with Ava's support tech.


"What is ze big idea, dumbfock? Shoot me in here next time, at least I'll be properly disabled. Now I am stuck with... cette merde!" She waved her arm around, showing off what was left of her hand. "Shooting me in the hand, I didn't expect less from a sharpshooter like you."

"Sorry, I didn't know this would happen." Isaac simply replied. 

"I bet you didn't, or else you wouldn't have sent your little gurlfriend out into the action, right?"

Ava and Isaac spoke simultaneously. "S/He's not my..."

"Oui, oui, exact. Everyone know zat." She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Well what are we waiting for? Let's move! I ave other things to do this week. Non mais putain..."


She floated away along with her technician and I looked back at Ava. She was set on a similar floating device and I followed her heading towards bio-mechanical technical support.


"Do you think this.... I.." She began.

"Without a doubt," said the technician, "you shouldn't have anything to fear. This isn't the first incident of this kind we've had with suits like this. Plus, we're not in the First Age anymore. This technology isn't as primitive as it once was."

"Will I have my limbs back for tonight?" She asked, frowning. "I don't think I can.... Do much in this condition."

"I'd say probably more in a few days, a week max. We'll need to debug the genetic association algorithms, which probably means decoding your entire genome again, which will take a... bit."



Arrived inside a brightly lit room, he set Ava on top of a workstation and reached at the back of her neck for the deactivation button of her suit. As it peeled off her body like the skin of a fruit, Isaac studied her friend's new temporary anatomy. Of course, he was used to the concept. He's seen it in every match he's played and during practice, especially with Ava since she was pretty much the closest thing to a best friend he could have here. but seeing it like this out of the suit was something else entirely. Reaching for a injection pen, the technician inserted a microchip beneath the skin where her left thigh should've been, and another in her right shoulder. He then set her on another hovering plateform, a disk so thin it seemed two-dimensional. 


"Here. Think about moving towards me." After a brief moment of concentration, Ava started gently drifting towards him. She managed to crack a smile, even in these circumstances, and rotated to come back towards Isaac. "There. I have linked some of your pelvic muscles to the control scheme of this carrier. It should be of use during the next few days. As for these," he produced a synthetic hand from under the table and powered it on. As he removed his hands from under it, it started floating mid-air as well. Before he could say anything, the fingers started twitching. "Exactly. This one is linked to residual muscles in your right shoulder. I recommend getting used only to this one and coming back tomorrow if you'd like me to setup a second one."


Ava blinked several times as she tried to comprehend how to control it. She moved her shoulder to and fro, in vain, as the hand stood still where it began flying. Now focusing her attention to the robotic appendage, she shakily closed her new fist and opened it again, rotating it on itself a full 360°. Shifting her focus to her hand had caused her to start drifting unconsciously on her carrier, to which she turned her attention again, which caused her hand to plummet towards the ground. Isaac caught it before it hit the floor and was surprised to feel a strong drag when he lifted it, as if it were submerged in water. 


"Hey don't do that," Ava said, looking at Isaac. He felt Ava's efforts against his when he tried to bring it back up.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you." He said preventively.

"It's ok, it's just.... really weird."


She took control over the hand again and brought it to her face. She studied every move she ordered to it, watching it somehow follow and understand her commands. Isaac's attention turned to her degraded body once more. Not as mobile as earlier, her shoulder still jerked as she was gaining control of her new accessories and over a period of only ten minutes, she had gained enough confidence and precision for the technician to dismiss her. 


Isaac and Ava walked passed Jeanne on the way to the dorms. Stubborn as she always was, she had refused any kind of adaptation software offered by the support team and was meticulously dragging herself along one of the side corridors. When she saw Isaac, she presented the stump of her hand to him.


"I'm flipping you off right now, of course it's not really clear without any fingers don't you tink?"
 
Isaac sighed. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? Does apologising make you feel any better?" She started waddling again without looking back. "You're too hard on yourself. Look at Ava, she's doing... okay, under these circumstances, so why didn't you get any implants while they're working on this?"

"I'm stuck like zis because of them, I am not putting any more of my body in their incapable hands until I can strangle them wiz my own."


Soon enough, Jeanne fell behind the two friends as they progressed towards their dorms. Ava had requested an aid for