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grinning as he went through other pods, seeing varying results, fast forwarding the footage to the fights.
     
    His grin faded as he watched the humans becoming as the first Kuruvians had, a group turned on itself. There were quite a few throwing punches, light ones, but desperation and anger filled these young ones. The Sarenmenti would make it so that the only thing that the humans could affect would be the damage that they did to another human. It would either pull them together or rip them apart based on their societal practices.
     
    He came back to the squad with the boy with long tied back hair. He seemed to be making rules, and the others were listening to him. He watched as the fighting didn’t have the viciousness of the other fights. It was more controlled and if Eddie was to guess their faces displayed concentration, instead of anger and desperation. Then a fight broke out as a boy that was pointing and poking at the long haired boy found himself on the floor with a broken nose. Eddie backed up and re watched the video a few times.
     
    “Seems they know how to throw down. Well, some of ‘em.” He nodded to himself.
     
    “You’ve been watching westerns again.” Resilient sighed.
     
    “Yeah, but what’s a guy like me supposed to do with his free time doll?” He grinned as he imagined Res rolling her virtual eyes. He watched until the man that had been talking about breaking out got punched in the face.
     
    Eddie ended the video before it got to the kill switches. He’d seen one feed earlier, the look of shock and fear that filled the faces of the humans made Eddie’s heart clench.
     
    “Hold onto hope Humans.” He said solemnly as he turned away from the console as it changed back to readout out of an air purification filter.
     
    “Alright Resilient my girl, let’s see about those plasma conduits, and could you be a doll and see about getting some more of those cowboy movies?”
     
    “I see you’re already getting a vacuum sealed hat, and retractable boots to match the movies.” A female voice came from the screen.
     
    “Well, it is rather stylish.” He said, clicking his two major arms and smaller manipulators in excitement at his new pieces of clothing.
     
    “You are one of the oddest engineering chiefs I’ve had working on me.”
     
    “Why thank you Resilient, and you’re the only AI in known syndicate hands. Hopefully we can show these pirates what happens when they lie and try to turn people into their unknowing slaves.” His levity from before gone as his manipulators cracked from being gripped so tight.
     
    ***

Chapter Training
     
    I was being woken up before I had even realized that I had fallen asleep. With it came the odd lighting that seemed to be always too intense, even when I closed my eyes, the terrible air and the feeling as if my body was heavier than it had any right to be.
     
    After the implantation we’d run for what had felt like days, then we had been pushed through exercise. There was no going back, no dropping out. If we fell behind or weren’t doing something to Taleels standard, then we beaten and cuffed into obedience.
     
    We forgot who, where and what we were. The physical torment turned us into obedient zombies doing anything so as to not be beaten or have our pain implants activated. We were continually treated as if our existence was a perpetual nuisance to Taleel.
     
    Concept of time disappeared as we trained. The lights were on all the time, and meals were taken randomly. We slept not knowing when we were supposed to. Then we were told to form up for some kind of training.
     
    “Lecture.” Taleel said simply as we followed him. The first days we had quickly learned to obey. We were turning into zombies. Following orders in a rush, but not caring.
     
    We began the lecture on the Kuruvians. They looked like insects. They looked hunched with their carapace. They had eight limbs, two legs, two arms and four manipulators. Their legs and arms