From a decrepit rooftop, I looked down at the streets below me.

The pavement was cracked and shattered, and covered in the debris of collapsed buildings, rusted vehicles and other junk. This place had likely once been a commercial or business district, with large windows adorning the fronts of many buildings. But now there was no trace left of the glass – it had shattered long ago and been ground to nothing but fine dust – and the smaller buildings that lined the streets laid their plundered interiors bare. Up ahead, the steel and concrete scaffolds of tall skyscrapers stretched into the hazy, yellow sky. Here and there, architectural features made from more durable materials had prevailed, giving them the look of half-eaten remains rotting in the desert sun.

Farther towards the horizon, I could see the enormous dunes that slowly crept toward the heart of this city, after having swallowed the suburbs already. That was the true horror of the Wastelands – not irradiated sand, or the lush and overgrown forests where the air was full of toxic spores. Not the torrential rainfall that came down in some places and could flood everything in minutes, nor the radioactive thunder storms. Not even the ravenous predatory mutants that roamed the world. No, the most terrifying aspect about the aftermath of the nuclear holocaust was to witness how nature now encroached on any former signs of human civilization and ingenuity, to devour them and grind them down, spitting out only rubble and dust. It was slow but unstoppable, this fascinating feast in which the marks we had once left on the world succumbed to the ravages of time.

The sunlight pierced through the haze in the sky for a moment and bathed the scenery in a golden glow. I felt the hair at the back of my neck stand up as a pleasant shiver of anticipation and excitement rolled through my body. There was nothing but desolation, danger and death around us, and yet, it all was breathtakingly beautiful. And it looked so real that only the familiar feeling of the harness of a sim rig on my body reminded me of the fact that I was in class, and all of this was only a simulation.

I took a deep breath and collected my thoughts. Today's mission was fairly simple. Retrieve salvage from the ruins and bring it back to the relay station. The usual stuff. But I couldn't allow myself to become complacent and inattentive. The mission in itself may have been easy, but there was something unusual about this, and it made me wary of what was to come.

Lieutenant Steel, our teacher, had put us in squads of five this time, rather than the usual four or six. I had been assigned command, and was piloting an EVA-type suit, an agile, humanoid-shaped recon and combat unit. They were my specialty, and my favorite to operate, because due to their shape and size, my body's movements in the sim rig translated almost perfectly to the robot, thus feeling the most lifelike and natural out of all the unit types.

The rest of my squad today consisted of a group of people I had never worked with before in this combination. Steel rarely put the best students in a mission together, but this time he had grouped the top five students in the same squad. And each of us had been assigned the roles that we were known to perform best as. I had a hunch why – this was not just practice to hone our skills and work on flaws in our performance in preparation for our finals. This was going to be a test to see how far we would get when we were at our best.

The squad consisted of a second EVA, two ADM tanks and a drone. The other EVA was piloted by Blaze. He had a fairly good mission record, but was infamous for rash and reckless decisions when in command that often put his team mates in danger. Perhaps that was why Steel had put me in charge today instead. Ray had taken control of a drone. She was an excellent data analyst and knew how to coax information out of the scanners on those things like no other, so the decision to assign her to aerial recon came of no surprise. The two pilots of the ADMs were Flash and Lily. Both were known as impeccable marksmen with any kind of weaponry, and without a doubt it took a lot of skill to operate the heavy guns on the tanks with precision and efficiency. Still, I didn't particularly like those things. At four meters high and two meters wide, thehulking robots were bulky and slow, and in many missions, more of a liabilitythan an asset. I'd never have said that out loud, but to me, they were glorified cargo drones, only useful to retrieve particularly large salvage that the smaller units couldn't carry.

But as the commander, my own mission was just as much about keeping everyone safe and getting them back to the relay station as it was about retrieving the salvage at our target point. In the real world, it would do no good to sacrifice a unit just to secure some material – that would be a zero-sum game that with the limited resources we had left, we couldn't afford playing. And within a sim, that all contributed to the mission score, and I intended to keep my record the way it was: perfect.

Time was another factor at play, and I wished we didn't have the ADMs slowing us down right now. They could pick up significant speed on an open field, but there just wasn't enough space in the debris littered streets. Watching the huge tanks from above as they moved between piles of rubble with their slightly staggered, heavy gait put me on edge. And everything was made just so much worse by the constant stream of complaints coming from Lily via the intercom.

"I really don't understand why Steel didn't put me in charge." She used the open com channel, even though she was undoubtedly directing her complaints at me. "I have proven time and time again that my leadership skills are excellent, my grades are on top of the class too and besides, I am just, you know, a people person. A natural born leader."

"Yeah, an absolute charmer," Flash remarked drily.

"I wish my interface had a mute button," Ray commented on my private channel.

I tried to ignore their chatter and looked to the west for a moment. I was able to see across the ruins all the way to the horizon, where the dusty ground met the hazy sky in a blur. The sun was about to set, in a flurry of orange and red light. Somewhere in that direction was the relay station where we had started our mission.

I turned east, and the interface hovering in my field of view showed me a location marker for our goal somewhere in the distance. According to Ray, from here on out the streets were supposed to be less narrow and cluttered. That meant we could move faster, but it also meant less cover in case of an attack. And at that point, I was just counting the seconds – there was going to be an attack, or something unexpected would happen. It was the whole point of our simulation training after all.

The only question was when. The anticipation and expectation could sometimes grind you down and wear you out, leaving that sense of attentiveness dulled. The easier the mission, the higher the risk of being taken by surprise when the routine work took an unexpected turn. That was how even after years of training, Steel still managed to take us by surprise on occasion. That, and the fact that he possessed a terrifyingly creative mind when it came to coming up with new ways to see us struggle and make us suffer. In the real Wastelands, nature may have reigned supreme, but in Steel's sims, pretty much anything was possible. This world had no rules, except for the ones he had bothered to program into it.

"Careful now," I warned the others with that thought in mind. "Stay sharp."

From the corner of my field of view, I saw that that Blaze had climbed up on the roof top. The sun stood low in the yellow-tinted sky, and we cast long shadows on the ground before us. The rich, golden light reflected off the sleek black body of the other robot as Blaze moved it to my side and crouched down next to me to survey the streets.

"So, what's up?" he asked.

"There's that stretch of road ahead that Ray told us about. Two kilometers in that direction is the target site. You can see it from here," I pointed at the skeleton of a sky scraper that towered over the other ruins. "No sightings of enemies, but there's several dead angles from here, and some of Ray's scanners are partially jammed. Knowing Steel, we could be walking into an ambush."

Some creatures of the wastes were smart enough to put up traps for unsuspecting intruders, and aggressive enough to defend their territory even against large, man-made robots that were armed to the teeth. And all that was doubly true for the creatures that Steel pitted us against in his simulations.

"Actually, I meant... what's up with you?" Blaze asked.

Baffled, I realized that he had switched to the private com channel now.

"Uh... What?"

I stared at the other EVA unit, as if by looking long and hard enough, I could perhaps make out its pilot's face through the reflective black front panel on its head. But of course that was impossible, as in reality, said pilot was hanging suspended in a rig right next to me.

"I mean, after that accident yesterday, are you really alright?"

"Oh. Well, there is no need for concern," I replied politely, "I'm fine."

I wondered if he was questioning my skill to lead the mission, or if it was an attempt at small talk. Either way, it was bad timing, not to mention somewhat inappropriate. Using the private channel may have kept our conversation inaudible from our team members, but not everybody else in the class room who might just happen to pass by.

Focus, Sky. Focus.

I shook my head slightly, the motion translating to the unit, as I turned back to watch the street below.

"You sure?" he went on. "That crash looked pretty bad from afar, and I was wondering-"

A low, whirring sound came from above us, as Ray passed just overhead and interrupted the conversation, to my great relief. I followed the sleek, silver drone with my gaze for a moment, as it glistened in the simulated sunlight. It was shaped like an arrowhead with the wings curving back in towards the back, reminiscent of a heart. She flew in a wide arc over the two ADMs and then turned back towards Blaze and me.

From the corner of my field of view, I saw that the other EVA unit seemed to look at mine for another moment, before it turned away and towards our goal again.

"Well. All looks good so far," Blaze commented, now on the public channel again.

Ray turned around and brought the drone up to hover in mid-air before us. Some of the data she acquired and analyzed was fed directly back to me, and I could now see a stream of information pass through the lower left corner of my interface as she scanned the area once more.

"Yeah, but... something's wrong around here," Ray said pensively, "I ramped up the sensors as much as I could, but it's as if there's absolutely no signs of life around us. I can't believe this is right. There's always something."

"I know. We'll be on our guard," I reassured her.

A quick burst from small jet packs helped the two ADM units down below to make their way over a heap of rubble and debris. Lily had finally shut up, but I could tell that she was pouting. But at least it was easier to focus on the mission without having to listen to her constant complains.

On the other side of the obstacle, the street was a wide and mostly open field. Even the ADMs could pick up some speed now, so Blaze and I joined them on the ground. We crossed about half of the distance toward the tower in no time, but all the while, I could hear Ray's frustrated groans as she tried to make sense of her sensor readings.

"Something's wrong here," she finally said. "I wonder if-"

We never learned what she was wondering about. A loud rumbling sound emanated from the ground below our feet, and suddenly, the earth began to shake so hard that I almost got knocked off my feet. Waving my arms to keep my balance, I caught a glimpse of the other units. The ADMs were swerving unsteadily, but seemed stable - until Lily cried out in surprise. A sinkhole opened up right beneath her, and the ground swallowed one of the unit's legs completely. She immediately fired her jetpack, but to no avail.

"Shit. Flash, help her out of there!" I ordered.

"Understood."

"We have to move," Blaze noted, "Before everything collapses completely."

"Why thank you," Lily snapped at him. "I would have never thought of that. But I'm fucking stuck over here, if you hadn't noticed. Oh, this mission couldn't possibly get any worse."

"Builders be damned." Ray suddenly cursed, and a wave of data flooded the corner of my interface. "It's from below, something's coming from below!"

Of course it could get worse. It always could.

____
A.N.
This chapter was one where I really didn't know where to split. The next one will be a bit longer because I just didn't know how else to do it. Also, I'm not quite happy with the flow of that scene overall, but I'm putting it out there to get some feedback, because I've rewritten it countless times now and I could really use some external input if it is too dull, too long, too... anything.