The guard put a bullet in the head of the man who was complaining about the air conditioning.
Above the shoulders, he was a stump now.
A pool of blood spread from what was left of the neck.
All guards in the Program carried a Grauer-Mak 7, a short-barreled rifle chambered in 14.5mm anti-materiel rounds. The weapon had been designed for disabling light armor at range, especially goblin armor at that.
"Please be advised: you may not speak, you may not step out of line, you may not do any of the above in any particular order," a voice over the intercom boomed.
Tyger stood fifth in a line of eight, seven now that he subtracted the headless corpse.
The hallway was concrete on all sides, fluorescent lights overhead, half of them burned out. Typical government architecture; go cheap on the small stuff but overboard on the things that produce results.
Every facility he'd been through looked like this:
Holding centers, courthouses, processing wings, the basic stuff. They all smelled the same, even. Cigars and stale coffee, except now the air reeked of ionized meat.
A man in a grey suit walked the line with a tablet, paused at the dead convict, and kicked the hand away with a scoff.
"I am your processor. You do not speak to me." He cleared his throat. "Eyes forward. Don't look me in the eye."
He tapped his screen and moved down the line, eyes glued to the list.
"Oda, Daniel. Armed robbery, two counts aggravated assault. Sentenced to fourteen years." The processor looked back at the body. "Now deceased."
The second inmate stood three spots ahead of Tyger.
"Miyamoto, Celeste. Second-degree murder. Sentenced to twenty-five to life."
Short and fidgety, she kept her head down to avoid the man's gaze. That, or it was the blood making her queasy.
"Shimizu, James. Wire fraud, embezzlement, six counts of identity theft. Sentenced to thirty-two years."
The lean man behind Celeste let out a single breath through his nose. It was obvious he wanted to say something, but the guard walking alongside the processor was daring him to.
Even the barrel on the rifle he was carrying was still glowing white, eager for more.
"Aogawa, Mina. First-degree murder. Originally sentenced to death by firing squad... shame. Life sentence in solitary confinement instead." The processor looked up from his tablet for the first time. "You killed your mother, is that right?"
Mina met his gaze and held. Her arms were working through the straightjacket.
"See? She's a monster," the processor said to the guard, eyes back on his tablet.
The guard snickered to himself. "Careful she might spit on you." The three convicts ahead hadn't moved a muscle since the exchange.
Mina least of all.
The guard went rigid when he walked up to Tyger.
"Akahoshi," the processor said, quieter than before. "Akahoshi, Tyger."
Tyger kept his eyes forward, past the guard, past the processor, past the corpse and at the metal gate.
"Domestic terrorism. Bombing of the Helios Corporate Tower. Three-hundred thousand confirmed dead and/or missing. Sentenced to death." He cleared his throat. "Effective immediately."
Tyger licked around a molar in his mouth and looked up at the taller man.
"I prefer Ty," he said, not even blinking when the guard raised the rifle at his chin. "Only my sister calls me Tyger."
"This motherfucker..." the guard muttered.
The processor brought his hand up. "Hold. It'd be a shame for it to have an easy way out."
The three convicts looked back in the same beat. Behind Ty, the rest of the convicts' stares drilled into his back. They'd all shared cafeteria tables with people who'd done fucked up shit.
Nobody imagined they'd shared it with the Helios terrorist.
The guard's rifle was still aimed at Ty's chin. His finger was nearly curled around the trigger, but the processor's hand was still raised.
He put the barrel down when the charge reached max and mumbled something under his breath.
The processor moved on to the sixth name, and the line shifted forward. The headless corpse stayed where it had slumped, and Ty kicked the hand away from his path.
He didn't bother to step over the blood puddle.
Behind him, the blood followed his footprints on the concrete floor.
Step one, done.
Now they know my name, and nobody wants an easy execution.
✦✦✦
The briefing room was too large for seven people. It had been built for maybe forty, rows of bolted-down chairs facing a podium and a screen. The empty seats stretched out on both sides.
Six more grey suits lined the wall, each one accompanied by their own guard. Every one of them held the same rifle, primed and finger on trigger.
A woman stood at the podium. Mid-forties probably, blonde hair pulled tight enough to stretch the skin at her temples. She'd given this briefing before.
Many times, in fact.
"You have been selected for the Vanguard Restoration Program," she said, her tone flat. The screen lit up behind her with aerial footage of an overflowing rift from five months ago. "As per your signed agreements, you will be deployed through Rift Seven into what we have designated the Oasis."
She pressed a button and the screen turned off.
"Your sentences are suspended for the duration of your service. Complete a twenty-four-month tour and your records will be expunged, as per the clauses."
Ty's paperwork had arrived in his cell at 3 in the morning: a man with no name badge, eleven pages, four minutes to read and sign. The lighting was bad enough that the fine print blurred at any angle.
He signed on page two.
Whether he read what was on there or not, the result was much the same.
Death.
The Program was just a nicer word for it.
"Each of you will be given a fairy before crossing," the woman continued. "It will awaken you once you connect it to your jumpsuit. As such, you are all Awakenless."
30-percent chance was never in my favor. But everyone bleeds the same.
That's what matters most.
"Your fairy will monitor your vitals and catalogue threats." She flipped through papers. "Compliance with its operational directives is mandatory. You will get them in the loading bay."
Her brown eyes found Ty. "I take it some of you are here for redemption. Some, obviously power." She faced the oldest convict now. "Others, for meaningless death."
She paused for a moment and waved her hand forward.
The automatic door slid open and a Synth stepped in. Human for the most part, the only noticeable difference was her four-fingered hands.
"Attempts to damage, disable, or destroy your assigned fairy will be treated as a capital violation." She glanced at the Synth. "The Program maintains active Shepherd units outside of the Oasis, ready for deployment at any second. If your fairy goes dark, they will find you."
The Synth stood at attention, and the arms below her elbows reconfigured into rifle barrels. The same caliber as the guards'. The 14.5mm barrels alone probably weighed more than her frame.
She was attractive and deliberately so.
Easier to patent personal companions than cyborg assassins. She had brown eyes and black shoulder-length hair and that was about it.
"What is the success rate of the Shepherd Directive program?"
"One-hundred percent, madam," the Synth said, her tone and cadence indistinguishable from human. "Over one-hundred and four out of one-hundred and four."
"At ease," the woman said, and the Synth retracted the barrels. "Any questions?"
Everyone was quiet.
Everyone but Ty.
He stepped forward and the blood under his shoes squeaked against the marble floor.
Ty raised a hand, and the woman actually looked shocked. Even the Synth looked in his direction.
"I have one." He kept his hand raised. "You don't know what's out there, do you?"
The woman looked him up and down.
"Corpses don't speak."
The room held still for a second. Nobody dared move, not with eight barrels charging to max. The Synth's head was still turned in Ty's direction, her brown eyes fixed on him.
She even had a smile on her face.
Ty lowered his hand.
Either their intel is shit, or the truth's classified above this room.
The woman turned back to the room. Her face was paler than when she'd first started. "Deployment in thirty minutes. You will be escorted to the loading bay in single file. Remove your restraints in the adjacent room and change into your issued gear. Don't throw up on the floor while you're at it."
She stepped away from the podium without another word, the screen behind her turning back on to military propaganda. The suits peeled off the wall and filed out through the side doors, their guards at their heels.
The Synth was last to leave.
She walked past the row of convicts toward the exit, four-fingered hands at her sides, her stride smooth and measured, efficient for her frame.
At the door, she paused and looked back at Ty.
Then she was gone.
The voice over the intercom boomed again:
"Be advised: loitering is punishable by death. Please make your way down to the loading bay."