The announcer’s voice rang out over all communications systems and loudspeakers on base: “The squad games finals for the year 2079 will be starting momentarily. All teams please take to the field”.

Esmeralda, Jessica’s former squad leader sat and watched on a wide screen T.V. in her own room. She, just as everyone else who was aware, was surprised at the roster for the finals. She wrapped herself in a blanket and sat stuffing her face with cheese balls while listening to the commentators:

“Well Jeff, this is most certainly interesting. We have two of our normal competitors, team Nu, the internal security division, as well as team Rho, who are the equipment maintenance team. Their skill sets as a team afford them the balance to perform evenly across events. However, surprise number one is the participation of team Omega, which usually takes no interest in such things, managing to somehow make it to the finals. Conrad has been showing just enough skill time and again to gather points for his team, earning them a spot in the finals”.

“That’s right Bill. But even more of a surprise, for reasons that essentially everyone should be aware of, is the presence of team Lambda. Obviously the subject of much scorn and contempt, the team has been involved in a series of bizarre and inexplicable events. The team has been under nearly constant surveillance for the last couple of weeks, yet still continue to fall victim to various attacks, and even more remarkably, survive”!

“Well, that’s not to say they were unscathed. In the attacks in the nearby city three days ago, there were moderate injuries sustained by one of the team members. After everything that’s happened, it seems they decided to leave one person to keep an eye on their team mate, so the dysfunctional team will have the additional hurdle of being down two of its people”

“Let us not forget the rivalry between Jesse, formerly of team Omega, and Conrad, the current captain of team Omega. Though it’s not quite clear why these individuals have such a strong degree of hatred for each other, it is clear that anywhere the pair means, sparks fly, or more often than not, explosions and gunfire. The pair may even find a way to harm each other with training weapons and non-lethal ammunition”.

“Not gonna lie, I’m terribly interested to see this. Team lambda was almost not allowed to compete in the midst of the friendly-fire incident a couple of weeks back as well. Some good detective work on the part of a few parties proved the team’s innocence, but yielded no results as to who the actual culprit was. It is a fortune among misfortunes that the team is able to stand in the finals today”.

“Hell, I wanna give ‘em a trophy for making it this far, but the agency doesn’t do participation and consolation prizes! That’s enough about the teams, let’s get down to it. The participants should be done setting up and the timer is counting down. The squad games finals begins in 30 seconds”!
 
Michelle turned off her comm-link just before the team split up, signaling the others to do the same. The remaining 6 present members did so and Michelle said “Remember the plan, both of them. We’re already here, so going for the win would be awesome, but there’s a target on our asses, survival above all. You have your orders and know your jobs. Let’s get a move on maggots”!

At those words, Michelle dropped a smoke canister, and threw several more in various directions. The team split up under the cover of a smoke screen.

Aaron and Mark took to ruins of a building on the edge of the arena. There, they set up a small mobile command station to keep an eye on everything. Michelle and Allison moved ahead with Emilia moving slightly behind them as cover. Javon hid himself in the trees, covering the trio from above.

Jesse broke off to the right, dual-pistols at the ready. There were multiple objectives.

Task one, obviously would be to enter the building. Task two was to retrieve information located on a certain server, and another piece of information located on a disconnected drive. Task three was the destruction of all original information and data stores. Part four of the overall mission was to rescue a certain hostage. Task five was “assassination” of another target. In this case, merely getting to them and shooting them with paintballs would suffice. The last part of the task was escaping, as it would utterly pointless if you couldn’t get out alive.

Needless to say, this was all easier said than done. The defenses were impressive, even for a training styled competition:

First, there was the facility at the center of the several square mile arena. This relatively small building was guarded with a laser grid array, and its systems heavily encrypted with several layers of defense and a secondary system to launch a counter attack.

Second, there were anti-air emplacements on the roof as well as auto-turrets armed guards patrolling. Additionally, there was a small, yet relatively deep trench around the building that would stop vehicles from being able to plow into the walls.

Lastly, but certainly not least, were the patrol teams. Those not interested in watching the finals, or who wanted the chance to test their skills against the finalists, were members from various teams across the agency. Participating in the finals was effectively the same as going against nearly every team in their own specialties. Some teams such as the surveillance team were not included, as it was their job to televise the event, and in the case watch team lambda and the surroundings.

It could be said that in order to conquer such a challenge, it was necessary to work with the other finalists, while still working against them. This kind of inter-team play was not emphasized throughout the agency, and thus, most teams had problems with dealing with each other in general, let alone coming up with strategies which maximized their potential. This also played to the advantage of the participating teams though, as that meant the guards and those manning the event team would also lack coordination to a certain degree.

Mark began his attack from his hidden location, pulling out a small, yet powerful laptop to trigger an alarm on the cyber security systems.

Checking her terminal, Emilia got a signal from Mark to begin the next step. She attempted to do the same thing Mark did, triggering a response from the secondary server. As expected, the counter-attack began as Emilia’s arm-terminal began to be affected by all sorts of nasty digital things. In her last moment of control of her arm, she enabled address forwarding, back to the main server. Afterwards, she swiftly removed her arm and put it into a small backpack she was wearing, shortly after pulling out another model and proceeding to catch up to Michelle and Allison.

With the defense system occupied by itself, Mark began a separate attack, launching a virus of his own creation into the data stream. Within minutes, the defense system was fried, leaving everything else relatively vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

Mark sighed in relief as his plan worked. Aaron took to listening on the communication channels, intercepting transmissions of the participants. He finally spoke, opening a secure channel to Michelle. “Phase 1 done. Standing by”.

Michelle replied simply “confirmed” and stopped her advance, halting Allison and Emilia in the process. She whispered “and now, we wait”. Switching her comm-link channel, she spoke one phase to Jesse. “That’s what she said”.

Allison’s jaw dropped “what the fuck?! That supposed to be some kind of secret code or something. Who the fuck would make that a passphrase… never mind…”

“It’s not so much what I said in this case as the fact that I said anything at all. If I’m gonna say something, I’d might as well give a reason to grin, right”?

“You are you and what have you done with Michelle and her potty mouth”?

“I’m her and I haven’t done a damn thing with my potty mouth, I just don’t curse all the fucking time. You don’t have to give me shit over it”. Michelle grinned and stuck out her tongue. Allison grinned while Emilia finished replacing and calibrating the new piece of equipment. She set up her right arm its rifle configuration and checked her ammo.
~

Jesse halted his advance, also hiding in the forest, after hearing Michelle’s message. He readied various grenades and minor explosives, then pulled out binoculars and surveyed the compound. As expected, Teams Rho and Nu waited for the guards to show a heightened state of alert before moving, as that was a sign that something changed.

Michelle guessed during their strategy meeting earlier that the teams would be waiting on team Lambda to make a move first, either to self-destruct and remove themselves from the competition, or to set up for another team to make a move. In this case, it was the latter as team Nu, which was decent in most categories as the internal security team, began to advance against the event team. Burs of paralyzing and tranquilizer rounds, as well as smoke grenades and tear gas flew. Paint grenades flew shortly afterwards. The paint covered combatants stopped there fighting after their momentary confusion and took their leave of the field as they would be quite dead in the event that the grenade was a live one.

Jesse put down his binoculars as footsteps could be heard in the distance. He once again drew his pistols and took a combat stance. He rolled to his left, entering a nearby bush. As he did so, shots were fired at where he once stood. Having confirmed that it was an enemy, he fired at the source of the disturbance. After a moment and the sounds of groans could be heard, Jesse cautiously approached. He spotted a member of his former team Omega, who called out to him quietly.

“Sup Jesse, long time no see. I don’t think we’ll win this, cuz for some reason, Conrad has most of the team on another task, but be careful none the less, though I don’t think I have to tell you that”.

“Thanks Joseph, I’ll keep that in mind.” Jesse quickly bit his old team mate farewell and moved on, since the small skirmish would most assuredly have attracted attention.

Jesse then stopped and opened a bag, pulling out a sniper rifle. Aaron’s voice could be heard over the comm-link, the team channel had been reactivated. “Having fun Jesse, or you scratching your balls out there”?

“Eat a fat one A-hole. Wow, that fits better than I thought it did, since your name is Aaron. Hell, I bet the fat one would fit too”!

“Mutha fucka, I will kill you”!

“Come at me bro”! Jesse continued taunting Aaron over the radio, all the while changing locations, only stopping to snipe people from afar.

Allison jumped on the radio. “Are you fucking retarded? Why are you starting this now”?

Jesse replied “C’mon Allison, I’m only teasing him”.

“Now, you really have to tease now? Friendly fire is bad, but you’re drawing attention to us”!

“I just wanted to have a little fun, but if you’re gonna whine about it, I guess I’ll stop” Jesse teased some more.

“You…” Allison was noticeably distressed, just short of angry. Michelle and Emilia took combat stances around her, picking off people who carelessly approached them, expecting an easy elimination. After five people fell to the attacks by Michelle and Emilia, the trio moved toward the main objectives.

There were forty-two people participating in the squad games on the side of the finalists, seven of which belonged to team lambda. Five were just eliminated by Michelle and Emilia, three by Jesse, and another four by Javon. Nineteen of the forty-two participants were accounted with team lambda and their eliminations alone. This took into no consideration the “kills” by other teams and the defense force.

This was remedied when an update came over the terminal which was provided to all teams. Exactly one quarter of the original finalists remained, meaning team lambda, who stayed back and picked off enemies, was exactly half of the remaining force. That said nothing of the defense teams though, as it was still possible that everyone could be eliminated.

With so few participants remaining, team Lambda continued its approach, making their way to already passed points, advancing into the facility as required.

Jessica watched the events unfold with a smile as she sat beside David. She was interrupted as David woke up from a several hour nap.

“What’d I miss”? He questioned.

“Well, surprisingly, we’re actually doing very well. We have half of the remaining participants, and haven’t actually lost a single member”.

David’s eyes widened as the news woke him up. “You’re shitting me”!

“I can’t say I’d have nothing to gain from joking about it, since that reaction was priceless, but I’m really not kidding”.

“Ok then. So, did they tell you when I can go yet”?

“They told you yesterday that you could leave today if no complications arose. I could go check, but I’m not leaving”.

“You can at least go check and walk around or something. From what I’ve heard, you really haven’t left my side for more than a few minutes to use the bathroom”.

“…and even that was after much debate…”

“Really, I’ll be fine, I think I can manage for a couple of minutes. I’m just bruised to high hell is all” David sighed. “Oh, you said we still had all of our team, which I’m assuming to be seven since we’re obviously not there. What about the other teams? How many did they send in the first place? Team Omega is actually kinda large. It’s a surprise that there are so few left…”

Jessica nodded and paused. “Wait… team Omega does have about three-dozen members. As are as I know, they only sent nine”.

“Then what the hell are the other twenty-seven or so doing? Wouldn’t they have a far better chance if they sent more people”?

Jessica looked out the window of the infirmary room. “Maybe since they are all so destructive, it was best to not send so many. They could still be disqualified you know”.

David nodded “you have a point”. Just as he finished speaking, he saw two Team Omega members run past the open door. They glanced in his direction and continued running upon sight of Jessica. “Well, they were in a hurry”

“Not quite, they’ve stopped running”. Jessica took a combat stance as the footsteps stopped, then lightly approached the door. The two agents stopped at the door and raised their hands, clearly not planning to fight. “What is it? Just so you know, curtsey of Jesse and Conrad, our teams aren’t on the best of terms, usually violence ensues”.

One of the Omega agents, named Francisco, replied “yeah, we know. We’re gonna skip the violence this time. We know what happened a couple of days ago, sorry to hear. Anyways, we need to tell you the deal with this year’s squad games, cuz even we think it’s not OK”.

Jessica never let her guard down, and motioned him to continue speaking. Francisco continued speaking. “Well, see…”

~

Emilia proceeded ahead of Allison and Michelle, eventually meeting up with Jesse. They cautiously moved through the small base, towards the nearly now forgotten objective. As Emilia walked, she felt as if her hair was standing on end, part of her sense of incoming lethal danger, a trait specific to her, who could survive many variations of otherwise crippling encounters.

Emilia raised her right arm above her head as the sound of a gunshot resonated throughout the room. The bullet hit her arm, which didn’t exactly hurt, however it was more than enough reason for her and the members following her to withdraw. The damage report was displayed on the terminal on her left wrist. The light armor on her right arm was pierced. Emilia’s eyes widened as she activated her comm-link. “We got a code orange guys”.

Michelle was next to act, also activating her comm-link “Aaron, send up the flare, we’ve got a situation”!

Emilia quickly switched her left arm terminal for another piece of equipment, and released the right arm, replacing it as well. She briefly inspected her left arm before deploying a small round shield which was embedded into it.

Emilia charged forward, covering her head as she ran through the room ahead. Gunfire from multiple weapons rained down on her, most of which was either blocked by her shield, or absorbed by her mechanical appendages. After making it through the room, she readied her right arm equip, a rifle/sword variable type, effectively considered to be a gunblade. “Well, looks like we’re gonna have to get a little rough. I don’t think I was able to change ammo on this new piece. Oh well” Emilia shrugged as she continued moving forward. If she fired a single round from this weapon, it would disqualify the entire team, however, it would be a small price to pay if it meant her team would walk out alive.