POV: Mark Shephard

  Kenjiro looked at me with a confused look. "Mark, what are you talking about? What's a simulacrum?"

  I looked down at him with a confused look myself. "What are you talking about, Kenji? You know, a simulacrum. 7 feet tall transrobotic war machines."

  "Transrobotic?" he frowned. "You mean the battle droids? I mean, SIGS manufactures them, and they're uncommon, sure, but I'm pretty sure the IUC has a good number of them. They're quite effective, you know? Having a human control one of those droids from a safe space while substituting a human soldier helps save lives."

  "What? No!" It was my turn to frown. What the hell did he mean by a battle droid being controlled by a human from a safe space? Did he not know what simulacrums were? Hell, in this life I had never come face to face with one, but there is no doubt that I had seen them in games in my previous life.

  "Kenji, simulacrums aren't just some battle droids controlled by humans," I said. "They are the human themselves. A human consciousness turned into a chip to become a forever soldier or slave. How can you not know about them?"

  Kenjiro was stunned for a second before he burst out laughing. "Oh man, you almost had me. I could have sworn that with that look in your eyes, you were telling the truth. Oh man. Imagine that, a human consciousness... trapped in... a metal frame..."

  He trailed off as he stared up at me, noticing that I was dead serious about this.

  "Oh shit," he said. "You're not lying. Does that kind of thing actually exist? That's so fucking cruel and inhumane. Who would ever do something like that?"

  Hearing his response, realization dawned on me that simulacrums were an open secret. Everyone knew they existed, but there was a misconception about what they really were.

  "Kenji, I think we have to leave," I said, feeling the color drain from my face as I remembered what Sister Elara had warned me of. "Look, simulacrums are the perfect soldier and many times, expert assassins, and, from what Sister Elara told me of her experience with them years ago, they are quite unhinged. They would even go to the lengths of murdering innocent people, so long as they got their target in the end. Not only that, but both Sister Elara and now you confirmed that simulacrums are manufactured by SIGS. I just saw one exit the courtroom not five minutes ago. What do you think that means?"

  I saw Kenjiro's eyes slowly widen as his mind processed the implication of simulacrums being at the hearing. "You said they are expert assassins... then does that mean-"

  "That they are most likely here under the orders of their slave masters," I said, slowly nodding as I too processed my thoughts.

  "And those slave masters are SIGS," Kenjiro completed.

  "And would you guess who has recently jumped ship with the person who just shot up into the crosshairs of SIGS after making their stocks drop over 40 percent in a single day?" I asked.

  "Oh shit," Kenjiro said, starting to hyperventilate. "Oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit-"

  I saw Lysander approach us out of the corner of my eye and turned to look at him.

  "Well, everything's been going just peachy," Lysander said. "From the looks of it, they are going to crucify Thorne for his actions. The subordinates he dragged along to kill you would likely receive a similar sentence as well."

  Lysander tilted his head, noticing our lack of excitement at his words. "Hey, guys, what's wrong? This should be cause for celebration. It's a pretty open and shut case. So why do you guys look so gloomy?"

  I ignored his question and brushed right past him, beelining it straight towards Admiral Krane, who was making his way into a separate room with the Magistrate.

  "Admiral!" I shouted over the roudy courtroom.

  "Hey Mark, what are you doing?" I heard Lysander call out behind me. I ignored him and sped up my pace.

  "Admiral Krave!" I shouted once again, but before I could reach them, I was stopped by 2 IUC Marines in exoskeletons.

  "Hey, where do you think you're going?" one of them asked.

  I still towered over both men, even with their exoskeleton. "I need to talk with Admiral Krane."

  "Yeah, you can just wait until they are done deliberating," the one on the left said.

  "I don't think you understand-" I tried to argue my case, but I was interrupted by the Marine on the right.

  "No. It seems like you are the one who does not understand," the one on the right said. "Don't think that because you were able to deal with that rag-tag bunch, you will be able to do the same with us. Now turn back around and return to where you came from before we force you to."

  I contemplated for half a second, but there was no helping it. If something needed to be done, it had to be now. So I moved, shoving both the Marines with their exoskeletons aside and pushing past them toward Admiral Krane, who was just about to enter the room.

  "Admiral Krane-" I called out one last time as a commotion surged behind.

  I noticed Admiral Krane started to turn towards me when I was shoved to the ground from behind.

  "What the fuck do you think you're doing!?" I heard the voice of one of the two Marines I had just shoved aside shout from behind me and felt the barrel of his rifle pressed against the back of my head.

  The commotion was enough to send the entire room into a sudden and unnerving silence.

  "Get on your fucking knees and interlace your fingers behind your fucking head, or so help me God, I will put a hole through that thick fucking skull of yours," the Marine shouted again.

  "Stand down, Marine," I heard Admiral Krane order the man behind me.

  "But sir-"

  "Stand. Down." Admiral Krane ordered again.

  I felt the Marine hesitate behind me before the barrel of the rifle slowly left the back of my head. "Yes, Sir."

  I looked up to see that Admiral Krane had made his way towards me and held out his hand to help me up. I took it and stood back up, towering over that man.

  "What is it, son?" he asked. "What could you possibly want to talk about so urgently that you almost got yourself killed?"

  Now that I was up close to him, I noticed that the man was quite tall, only being about four or five inches shorter than me. I looked him dead in the eyes, and then glanced around us, noticing all eyes and cameras on me. I leaned in to him and whispered, "Sir, I have reason to believe that you and everybody in here is under serious threat of danger or death."

  "You do realize the severity of your claim, son?" Admiral Krane asked as he tilted his head and frowned. I nodded in response to his question. "Why do you think that?"

  I looked around again and whispered to him, "I just saw a simulacrum exit the courtroom."

  I saw his eyes widen at my words, meaning he clearly knew what simulacrums were and who they answered to.

  "How sure are you of what you just said?" he asked in a low voice. "How sure are you that it was a simulacrum?"

  "About 95 percent sure, Sir," I said. "But given the fact that there is not a single person in here wearing tattered rags to conceal their identity, I'd say I'm 99 percent sure it was a simulacrum."

  "I.. I see," he said hesitantly. He then glanced over to the Magistrate and the soldiers and to Thorne, then his eyes met mine again. "Where there is one, there is more... Do you think they are here to kill you?"

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  "I pray to God they are not," I hesitated for a second, thinking about what Sister Elara had told me. If they were here to kill me, then they were also here to kill Lyra and Kenji. "But given recent events..."

  "I understand," Admiral Krane nodded. He called over one of the Marines, seemingly a commanding officer amongst them. "Get everyone out of here in a calm and orderly fashion."

  "Sir?" the Marine asked.

  "Just do as I say," Admiral Krane ordered.

  "Yes, Si-" but the Marine never got to finish his sentence.

  I don't know what it was, but I felt all my senses spike, and my body reacted before my mind could process what I was doing. I shoved both the Marine and Admiral Krane and threw myself back as something whizzed past my head and buried itself into the floor.

  ---

  3rd Person POV

  "Hey Lee, this bastard's got eyes on the back of his head or something," Carl, or rather, Asset 0-96, called out over their closed comms after taking a shot at Mark through the glass roof of the courthouse. Strewn throughout the rooftop were the bodies of six Marines with exoskeletons. Every single one of them had a single bullet hole in the center of their heads, their faces calm and serene as if they never got the chance to notice that they were ever in danger.

  "Who are you talking about?" Lee asked over the comms.

  "The tall bastard," Carl responded while backing away from the glass edge as a ripple of gunfire shredded the edge he had just been peering over.

  "Look at this pendejo, always going for the secondary targets first," Tomas, Asset 1-97, said over the comms.

  "Oh yeah?" Carl said. "Your mother wasn't calling me a pendejo last night when she was sucking on robotic nutsack."

  "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you necrophilic fuck," Jalon, Asset 3-41, said over the comms as he finished jamming all signals from leaving the Judicial District. "All of our mothers have been dead for at least a hundred and fifty years."

  "Doesn't mean she still can't give head like a champ," Carl said while repositioning and taking shots at the Marines, killing three of them.

  "All of you stop bickering and focus on the mission," Lee stated as he burst through the door of the courtroom, opening fire on the Marines while Carl repositioned again.

  "We've got company," Tomas stated while opening fire on the station security guards as they approached the chaotic scene. Some of them dove for cover, others returned fire, and the more unfortunate ones were cut down by Tomas' shots.

  While a shitstorm was brewing, Mark pushed Admiral Krane and the Magistrate to the meeting room where they were going to deliberate. Kenjiro, Lysander, and the one reporter woman who had asked Mark of his past had all followed suit, along with a few others, and sought shelter in the room.

  They saw as Alistair Thorne was pushed aside by his own lawyers, who were also cut down by the gunfire. Alistair tried to stand up and hop his way into the room as well, but a single shot from what could only have been a handheld railgun went through his left leg as he was in the middle of a hop.

  The shot pulverised his bone and left a hole with nothing but meat in its place. When he landed from his hop, his body instantly leaned to his left, and, finding no bone to support his weight, dropped like a sack of potatoes.

  Mark instantly closed the thick metal door and locked it before looking around for an exit, but there was no other door in the room. He then knocked on one of the walls, its sound hollow.

  "Where does this wall lead to?" Mark asked Admiral Krane.

  "I- I- I don't know," the Admiral stuttered his response.

  "There should be a stairwell that leads to a service room and out to the hall," Lysander said.

  Mark looked at him with a raised eyebrow, wondering how he knew that.

  "What?" Lysander asked. "You never had to find a place away from everyone to have a quickie with another lawyer before?"

  Mark tilted his head and shrugged in a way that said "fair enough." He then backed up a bit and closed his eyes, hoping that what he wasn't wrong about what he was about to attempt to do. He then punched the metal wall, and to his and everyone's surprise, his fist went right through the metal.

  "Holy shit," Kenjiro said, his eyebrows raised and eyes wide.

  "What in the fuck..." the Magistrate said, awe spilling from her words.

  "We'll have plenty of time to gawk at things once we are free from danger," Admiral Krane said. "Mark, get us the fuck out of here!"

  Mark didn't need to be told twice. He had known that the changes Anahrin had made to him had resulted in a really enhanced physique, but holy shit, he didn't expect to be able to do what he was currently doing. He ripped through the metal wall like it was a piece of paper, making a hole big enough for everyone to climb through, though there was about a 5-foot drop to the stairwell.

  "Head down to the service room," he said. "We don't know how many attackers there are or where they are."

  He then felt his G-Comm vibrate in his pocket, which made him pause. He wanted to ignore it, but something told him to check it. So he did. It was a message from Marcos: "I'm on my way."

  Outside of the deliberation room, Lee walked through the carnage of dead IUC Marines, Station officers, and cowering news reporters. He ignored them all and walked towards Alistair Thorne, who was trying to drag himself to the deliberation room.

  Boom

  The room shook as Carl jumped down through the glass roof and into the floor, denting the floor's metal plating with his weight.

  Lee turned to him and immediately gave him an order. "The secondary targets are locked in that room. Get to work on opening it."

  "Hey, Jefe, station security is done for out here," Tomas said through their comms. "I'm coming in."

  "Roger," Lee said.

  "Hey, bossman," Jalon called out over the comms.

  "What is it?" Lee asked as he picked Throne off the ground by his collar. The man cried out in pain as Lee dropped him again. This time, he was facing up to the ceiling and looking at the simulacrum that had come to end his life.

  "Uh, comms are jammed, but there is a ship approaching my location," Jalon said. "I don't see any IUC markings anywhere."

  Lee felt like something was wrong in his circuits. "Jalon, get out of there!"

  Jalon, who was on the exterior of the Judicial District's ring, watched as a sleek and angular vessel with ten 40-meter-long railguns pretty much parked right next to where he was. He then saw how four plates slid back, and four autocannons slid out and started spinning.

  "Corporate is going to bitch about having to replace-"

  *BRRRRRTTTTTTTTTT*

  *BRRRRRTTTTTTTTTT*

  *BRRRRRTTTTTTTTTT*

  *BRRRRRTTTTTTTTTT*

  A single burst from four of the ship's autocannons was enough to shred Jalon's mechanical frame to pieces, causing a small explosion as the miniature reactor that powered him was hit and destroyed.

  The station shuddered slightly, and Lee, Carl, and Tomas immediately lost contact with Jalon.

  "Welp, the big boss is not going to be happy about having to spend the creds to rebuild him," Tomas quipped.

  "I don't like this," Lee said. "Jalon jammed all signals from leaving this ring, so why and how would a ship know what's going on here and come to help?"

  "Hey, what the fuck did you guys do?" Their handler sounded panicked.

  "Calm down, kid," Lee said. "Shit happens in operations. Even if we are destroyed, it's not like you all let us die."

  "Shit happens? Are you kidding me?" Their handler screamed over the comms. "The IUC fleets around Nova Celeste have just gone into high alert, and you guys have over 100 frigates from different fleets heading your way. You stupid clanker fucks! You have fucked up big time!"

  "Fuck..." Lee let out an internal sigh, or whatever could robotically pass for one. He looked down at the squirming form of Alistair Thorne below him and pulled his pistol out.

  "No, no, no," Thorne begged. "I can give you your freedom. I can delete all backups of your consciousness. You don't have to kill me. I can help you!"

  "Alistair Thorne, you're fired," Lee said and shot the squirming man between the eyes.

  "You corny fuck," Carl said as he finally managed to open the door. "All is done-"

  Carl's words were cut short as a single bright red shot knocked his robotic head off his chassis.

  "Fucking hell," Carl said through the comms. "I'm out of commish-"

  Three more shots quickly followed, hitting the exact weak spots in his chassis, ripping through its power cables. Lee quickly moved for cover by the wall of the room, and Tomas finally burst through the room, skidding and slamming into the door frame. He pushed off it only to realize that a male reporter who had been trying to flee got caught between his 1300-pound metal frame and the durasteel door frame.

  "Whoops, lo siento, hermano," Tomas said as the meat paste that was once the male reporter slid off of him. "Tough way to go out."

  "Tomas," Lee called out to him, making him snap back into attention. "Secondary targets are holed up in here. They have some sort of heavy energy rifle and took out Carl."

  "Leave it to me," Tomas said.

  Every simulacrum, though capable of doing many things, usually specializes in one, which leads to great teamwork on the field. Jalon had been their technical operator, Carl their sniper, Lee was their rifleman, and Tomas, well, Tomas was their heavy gunner, hence why he had been holding off any reinforcements. He grabbed an incendiary grenade from his belt and tossed it into the room.

  ---

  Mark had helped most of the people inside the room down the hole in the wall, and they had headed down the stairwell and into the service room. All, with the exception of the one female reporter, who had frozen in shock when the door had been breached.

  Mark, on the other hand, had taken his rifle out of his inventory, not caring if the female reporter noticed how he summoned a weapon out of thin air. He then realized one thing about the K-272 Energy rifle he had in his inventory. It wasn't a regular K-272 Energy Rifle, since this one had the option to shoot a supercharged round that was meant to take care of heavily armed enemies. However, there was a drawback. Every charged shot was worth 10 shots, and after using 40 of them on the Carl, he only had one magazine left in his inventory.

  He reloaded the energy rifle, knowing he only had about 4 more supercharged rounds since each magazine only held 45 rounds. He cursed himself for not buying more ammo for the energy rifle when he had the chance to. He looked at the female reporter who had her knees clutched tightly against her chest and dragged her by the arm.

  She let out a yelp of surprise and was snapped out of her stupor. Mark lowered her down the hole, holding her hand firmly so she wouldn't drop too far up from the stairwell below her. He let her go, and she hit the ground below, falling, but being ultimately uninjured.

  Just as Mark was about to go through the hole himself, he saw an incendiary grenade fly into the room. He dove backwards behind the cover of a heavy metal table just as the grenade landed. The floor he had been previously standing on immediately burst into white flames.

  He flipped the table for cover against the flames, and he heard the female reporter call out to him.

  "Mr. Shephard!" The female reporter called out as she saw flames burst through the hole, forcing her to move down the stairwell as some slipped through the hole and started burning on the stairwell.

  "Go to the others," Mark called out from the room. "Don't worry about me, I'll be alright."

  The female reporter didn't need to be told twice and quickly made her way down the stairs to the others.

  "Hopefully..." Mark muttered.

  Book 2 has wrapped up at Chapter 50, which is a short 13,400 words, and Book 3 has hit the ground running with new chapters! That means that you can read up to 27 Advanced Chapters on my Patreon at

  But listen closely now. I'm about to start writing Chapter 5 in honor of our new Admiral-tier Patron, so that number will naturally increase to 28 in a few hours.

  Crimson_Reapr is the name, and writing Sci-fi is the way.