“Entering level 1, saving game,” the soothing Australian voice in Emi’s head warns the exact moment her right foot lands on the carpet of the recently watered off-white hallway.

  The one-legged woman, with a barf-covered silk sheet wrapped around her like a toga, freezes. The dual lights of her artificial eyes act as laser pointers the way they are dotting the wall blue when she scans both directions in anticipation of something coming.

  When nothing does, she drops her focus on a stain on the carpeted floor. Are those bloodstains?

  “Clever girl.” The woman’s voice suddenly projects itself from the PA speakers in the ceiling. “Plus, five points to Huff-and-puff!”

  Far too young to understand the dated reference, the jab about Emi’s heavy breathing goes right over her head—she didn’t even have to duck. What are the rules of this game, exactly?

  Back in her head, but still talking down: “You didn’t watch the games growing up? Did you live under a rock?”

  Beneath a mountain, so kind of. Father was very protective of what I watched…and wore; he said the games were too violent to watch. Instead, he showed me how to kill things with my bare hands.

  “Sounds like a fool.”

  Just a single father with no clue how to raise a daughter. So, what are the rules?

  “Programming prevents me from spoiling the game, as this would ruin the fun for you and more importantly the viewers.”

  But they watch them constantly.

  “Studies show the vast majority of viewers enjoy most watching the contestants learn to swim…or sink.”

  You can’t tell me any of the rules?

  “Not until you’ve already experienced the consequences of a given rule. My apologies. Would you like me to punish myself?”

  No, that won’t be necessary…for now (joking).

  “Very sorry to hear that Inmate Number 392689.”

  Please call me Emi.

  “Okay, Emi. Please call me…Queen Bee.”

  Emi smiles at the name choice, drawing attention to the huge gaps in her teeth she doesn’t yet realize are there. Queen Bee, other than rules, is there anything you can tell me about this game?

  “I can guide you to a nearby terminal if you wish to acquire a new skill. Though in the event it’s already in use, we may be waiting awhile depending on the length of the memory.”

  That’s fine, we have nowhere to be. Add it to the list.

  A smaller waypoint appears in the hallway, this one green and off in the opposite direction of the larger red waypoint pointing to the laundry which she continues towards. A few hops later, she leans against the wall winded but not sweating despite the exertion.

  “Beginning system diagnostics.”

  Her pride is a hinderance. I’m fine, I just haven’t exercised in a few short years.

  “Would you like me to revise the definition of ‘few’, in my memory?”

  The heavy breathing at last makes the missing canine teeth impossible to be left unnoticed. She runs her white-spotted tongue over the empty pink gums. You know what, run those diagnostics for me.

  Emi’s body goes stiff, the feeling of something moving throughout her body like an electrical current unnerving. What am I feeling?

  “Shame.”

  No, what is moving through my veins?

  “Just pulsing the scanners through your wiring.”

  You mean my veins?

  “Yes, they also unfortunately must pass through a vein every now and again.”

  Emi fights down the rising liquid in her stomach by holding her breath. She feels the scanners now scraping up her spine, sending a shiver that raises the regrowing black hair at the base of her scarred skull.

  “Diagnostics complete.”

  Her vision floods with too much data to understand. Just read me the highlights.

  “Health (34%). Heart rate: 45BPM (High Risk for Bradycardia). Body Temperature: 35.6° Celsius (High Risk for Hypothermia). Blood Pressure: 135 (High Risk for Malfunction BP Regulation)—”

  Emi stands straight, her exposed forearm tearing from the cold wall like Velcro. Baka! That’s enough. Nothing I can do to address anything right now so no use knowing. Ignorance is bliss.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Updating memory for new definition of ‘idiocy’.”

  Using the wall as a crutch in her right hand, she is too focused on learning how to use her new body to notice the red waypoint has started blinking. Twenty difficult hops later, she is directly beneath it. Her entire body is yelling at her, especially her right leg and lower back. A number pops within her vision; she zooms in on it: Stamina (Level 0) -1. Mental Fortitude (Level 9) +1.

  An elderly woman is already inside. The gray-haired inmate, thankfully already fully dressed in the taupe pants and shirt that are the uniform of all inmates, stares at Emi with clenched fists and a toothless smile. Emi pauses just outside the door to read the woman’s bio: Inmate Number 392688 (Nadia). Traitor. Human. Specialization: Adaption. Balance ￥-17,167. Personality: Stubborn. Emi spots the number on Nadia’s shirt changing from 392601 to 392688.

  The woman yells, her empty gums making the Russian words sound marbled. Queen Bee translates, adding a bit of untrained Russian to her own Australian accented Japanese language: “Who are you?”

  Can’t she see my name?

  “Human: No replacement parts, no bio.”

  Emi tries to respond, but of course, she has no voice.

  Inmate 392688 unscrews one of the rusted wheels from the rolling clothes bin she just tipped sideways. Blood-stained laundry spills to the strategically red ceramic floor. She holds the rusted screw in front of her.

  Emi holds up her hands in surrender but takes the last hop inside.

  The lights go out. Behind her, the door slams shut and locks as if there’s a ghost. Her shining blue eyes look to the wall where the small red dot of a camera is winking at her. The voice inside her mind again projects from the ceiling for all to hear: “If two or more people enter a room at the same time, the door will not open until one is dead.”

  Couldn’t you have told me that before I jumped in foot first?

  “This would have spoiled the fun for both you and the viewers. As such—”

  Yeah, yeah, I get it. You can’t spoil the game. They want entertainment then that’s what I’ll give them.

  On the other end of the room, the old woman crashes into one of the machines, crying out before catching herself.

  Like a panther in its element, Emi is on her. Well, she would be if she had both legs. Instead, she is noisily hopping, holding the blanket to her chest to stop them from falling loose. Too late. The old woman responds with surprising speed.

  The voice is in both her head and the ceiling. “You’re screwed.”

  …

  Emi awakens on a metal table, the sound of tapping and clicking sounding on the wall behind her, with a screw stuck in her skull. What happened?

  “I can show you the video if you’d like,” the chrome man hits a button on his keyboard, and the video takes up the entirety of her left eyeball’s view. She covers the right eye so all she sees is the replay.

  In the bottom left, the video is labeled Killcam. Emi watches in detached amusement as the green night vision shows her silk-robed body dropping to the ground after a rusted screw is nailed forcefully into her temple by a little old woman. The wheel spins as the ground catches her.

  Lying on the cold metal table, Emi reaches up, feeling the screw like a tumor beneath the skin graft stitched overtop. At least the wheel is gone. Run diagnostics.

  The man in front of his computer speaks, but the voice is that of the woman in her head: “Health (19%). Heart rate: 39BPM (High Risk for Bradycardia). Body Temperature: 35.1° Celsius (High Risk for Hypothermia). Blood Pressure: 190 (High Risk for Malfunction BP Regulation).”

  Emi starts to remove the wires running from the ports in her body to the computers on the walls at random.

  The chrome man, the one suddenly with an Australian woman’s voice: “Ah-ah-ah, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Still recharging health.”

  She drops from the table and heads into the hallway.

  “Saving game.”

  The old woman is standing and smiling at her, as if she knew she’d be back, as Emi reenters the laundry. The lights go out. This time, she waits for the woman to attack. While she does, she unties the silk bedsheet from her shoulder, letting it fall to the ground at her foot in the pitch darkness of the room. Naked in the dark, her heartbeat stays below fifty; she is far from afraid.

  Emi tries to use the charging woman’s aggression against her, but when she goes to plant her left leg for leverage, both women go tumbling to the ground.

  Her mind’s assistant mocks her over the loudspeakers. “Grappling (Level Unknown) -1.”

  Someone’s head thuds against the tile ground.

  “95.5% chance of concussion: Health (17%) -2.”

  Her vision is unable to be blurry thanks to the premium quality of the artificial implants, so she at last thinks of asking for help. Activate Thermal Vision.

  The darkness is gone, replaced by heat signatures of everything in the room. The one right on top of her, stabbing her with a much smaller, and duller, screw that does little more than leave behind cuts no worse than a giant mosquito bite, is colored a deep red.

  Like a cobra wrapping around the body of a rodent, Emi hooks the stump of her left leg across the woman’s wrists, then lifts the silk blanket from the ground and wraps it over the woman's head just before coiling her other limbs overtop like iron cables. Three-and-a-half limbs against one suffocating old woman is enough. She squeezes with all her might, feeling a tooth crack inside her own mouth.

  Her commentator is calm as ever. “Move Learned: Constrictor’s Grip. Teeth Remaining: 30.5. Limbs Remaining: 3--"

  I’ll cut you out of my own brain if you keep this up!

  When the other woman at last goes limp in her arms, the lights turn back on, and the door opens. Sprinklers shoot from the walls, as if putting out a fire. “Now Cleansing. Checkpoint Reached.”

  Is that bleach I smell in the water?

  “Don’t worry, you'll be hotter as a blonde.”

  Data fills her vision with endless distractions. Kills: 1 / Deaths: 1. Grappling (Level 4) +1. Stamina (Level 0) +1…

  The water stops, allowing the ceiling to speak. “Congratulations, Inmate 392688, your debt has been forgiven.”

  That’s encouraging to hear…

  “Don’t worry, the debt we inherited from her only added around 20,000 yen to ours…Debt: ￥-100,793,265.”

  Oi! Maji kayo!

  “I am always serious.”

  Why didn’t she inherit my debt when she killed me?

  “Human. She had one life.”

  How many lives do I have?

  “One.”

  But I came back…

  “You weren’t dead, just in shutdown mode. Current health charged to 17%.”

  What percent health activates shutdown mode?”

  “Information unavailable.”

  Tell me or I’ll make you punish yourself.

  The woman above moans, “Oh, baby, I love when you talk dirty.”

  Emi takes the drenched uniform from the dead inmate. Now on her own chest, the number on the shirt moves to 392689.

  “New Inventory Item: Hachijo Prison Outfit.”

  Before moving on to the green waypoint, she kisses the old woman’s cheek out of respect and closes her black eyes to hide the pooled horror of the burst blood vessels dripping red tears from wrinkled tear ducts. Personality: Deceased.

  “Personality Type Updated from Immature to Soft.”