Inhale. One. Two. Three. Four. Hold. One. Two. Three. Four. Exhale. One. Two. Three. Four. Hold. One. Two. Three. Four. Exhale Steady breathing is key. One step at a time. I move my head around slowly. Backwards, forward, side-to-side, trying to keep some sensation. The water is freezing, and my limbs are numb. I can barely move my fingers.

  Pain is not something I’m used to when it comes to simulations. I wondered what real-world effects it would have on my body. Neuro interfaces on VR tech have had the ability to build pleasure and other sensations into sims for a long time now. Pain, on the other hand, is almost always entirely removed, or at least dampened to the lowest possible ebb. Real pain sims are either heavily regulated or only found on the dark web. I guess Winsford was rich enough not to need to worry about any of that, because this was definitely crossing boundaries.

  Regardless of the shady ethics here, we had consented, and the benefits of this training were obvious. There’s nothing quite like enduring pain for building mental fortitude. Developing the ability to hone that fortitude into the strength of our constructs, well, there were no shortcuts. Everett and Winsford’s plan was working.

  It had been seven minutes in the ice bath so far, and I was approaching two hours all together in the dark room. The bath was the last hurdle. One more minute to go. I couldn’t see anything with my blindfold on, but I knew what was coming next. This way my fourth attempt for the day, but I’d lost count of how many days I’d been trying. Twenty? Forty? Not sure anymore. At any rate, this would be my last attempt for the day before logging out. If I failed, it would be blessed relief, and then start again tomorrow.

  I heard the muffled voices just outside the door. Almost time. I slumped down, my head only just above water level. Completely relaxing, I let my body go limp. This only worked when you were right at the end of the first two hours, which had taken a bit of experimenting to work out. Apparently it was only at this point that it became believable to the guards that you might just have passed out. It was also the first point at which two guards instead of four would be entering the room.

  We weren’t allowed to manipulate the environment, but access to Everett’s own level of military training was within the parameters for this sim. It wasn’t like we were trying to escape as complete civvies. We’d all attempted the sim a few times unaided at the start, completely and utterly failing of course. Thankfully, in spite of Everett’s reluctance, Winsford had insisted on introducing the new rule of giving us access to the basic skill set and standard combat abilities of a Navy Seal Officer. There was no way you’d be able to do it otherwise.

  SKREE-BANG!

  The door bursts open, and their heavy boots thud across the concrete floor. I gauge the sound of their feet, and they pause when they notice that I look unconscious. I keep my breathing slow, steady, and shallow. I hear them mutter , and then one of them shouts at me in a language I don’t understand.

  I don’t respond.

  SLAP!

  He backhands me across the face. It took a fair while to learn how not to flinch when you’re expecting a backhand, but I’m pretty good at it now. Here comes number two. SLAP! Again I’m unresponsive, unmoving. I let my face half dip in to the water for effect.

  They talk again, and then their boots are thudding around each side of the bathtub. I feel their arms under mine, and they heave, lifting me up out of the water. I keep my body completely unresponsive, my head slumping down into my chest. I’m a dead weight, and it takes a lot of work to get me out.

  The zip ties around my wrist bite with the movement. I can still feel it, which is good. THUD. They drop me on the floor. That always hurts. A kick to my side, I don’t flinch. And they push my head around with their boots. Again, I don’t flinch, letting my head roll with their shoving. One of them speaks, the other laughs, and they turn to walk away. I know from experience that they’re going to get their boss now. This is my moment.

  In a single movement I roll to my side, just as they’re level with my legs, and with a scissor kick I sweep out the feet from both men. They’re caught completely unprepared. One of them thuds to the ground, the other catches his head on the bath and is out cold instantly. I’m still blindfolded, but I know exactly where the second guard is. I continue my roll and bring my elbow down with savage momentum straight onto his face. WHUMP! That move never ceases to be satisfying. I always listen out for the broken nose. Both guards are down for the count.

  I grab the second guard’s knife, cut my ties, and take off my blindfold. Standing up, I’m shaking and rubbing my limbs, trying to get some feeling back. Both of them have holstered pistols, which I also take. So far so good, but I’m well practiced to this point in the scenario. It’s not the hard bit yet.

  I move quietly to the door. I don’t need to look out, I know that in one minute and thirty two seconds, a guard will come strolling down the corridor, notice the open door, pull out his gun, and approach cautiously. I know the exact second when I will need to spin halfway out of the door, grab his forearms, and pull his weight headfirst into the door frame, which will knock him out for the foreseeable future.

  There are 45 seconds of silence in the corridor, and then I hear the slow, steady sound of his footsteps echoing down the stone floor.

  The footsteps come soft and even, then there’s a pause. He sees the open door, can’t hear anything, and suspects that something is wrong. I hear him draw his pistol, and wait as he steps closer.

  “?? ???? ???”

  I’d translate, but it breaks the parameters. Not that I need to know anyway. All I need to do is KO him on the door frame.

  thump… tap… thump… tap…

  As he’s just about to move through the door, I move in low inside his reach before he can react. With one fluid motion I stand up, take hold of his wrists, pivot…. and slam him face first into the door frame with the momentum. CRACK. His body crumples to the floor. He’s going to be out cold for a while. I drag his unconscious body into the room, and zip tie his wrists like the others.

  I move quickly, taking his key card and the combat blade in his boots. So far so good. I’m thinking ahead again now, rehearsing my next moves. Four corridors, one maintenance tunnel, two checkpoints, and twenty-six active hostiles on patrol all together. There’s no way to fake being a guard, I’ve already tried it multiple times. Stealth and timing is key.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  I move down the corridor, take a left, and wait for the cleaning crew to pass. Creak..creak..creak..creak... they trundle by, and at a safe distance I follow after them. I pause and wait for them to take the next right. I give them 20 seconds to keep moving, knowing that in twenty more seconds a guard will stroll out from behind me. By then, though, I’ll be where the janitors are now.

  As I move forward, I source my nav-map of the facility – at least, the parts of the facility that I’m familiar with so far. It’s just revision to re-assure myself at this point. The map shows a narrow passage moving toward a west wing. I find the air duct, as usual, behind a rusted metal door near the end of a chemical storage hall. The lock is always broken, and I slide my knife between the hinges and wedge the door open as quietly as I can.

  I get in, pull the door back in to position, and climb inside the air duct. It’s tight inside, barely shoulder wide, and it takes a minute to get the cover back on to the duct. I move forward slowly to avoid making any noise, my fingers slipping on grease and old grime, but I keep moving. Better to be silent and filthy than fast and dead. Or at least, restarted.

  Ten minutes later I emerge behind a supply crate into another service corridor. There were two guards fifty feet ahead from my entry point into the tunnel. I was past them now.

  I brush myself off and wait for the power generator to cycle. In three minutes’ time it will hum to full charge, and the whole wing will be filled with white noise. I’ll move during the surge, three seconds to cross the main corridor opposite my service corridor, and 10 more seconds to incapacitate the guard inside the check point. Five seconds to spare. Then it’s going to get hectic.

  Thhhhrrrrrrr…..THHHHRRRRUUUUUUMMMMMMM.

  I move quickly, quietly. I’ve pistol-whipped the guard before he even realised I was there. He’s out cold, and I roll him under his own desk. I take a swig from his half-drunk coffee, before giving my attention to the security cam console. This is where it gets tricky.

  I already know the security cams are on a 90 second sweep of the next segment of the complex, and I know that I need to time my moves to follow the sweep so that the other security point guard doesn’t see me. To this point, I haven’t worked out how to do that and avoid a run in with one of the two patrols in the sweep area. I also know I only have about two minutes left before I need to move, because someone will notice that this guard point is vacant soon as well.

  I watch the sweep cycle two more times, and it’s on the second time that I notice it. Camera four is lagging just a touch! It stretches to nearly two full seconds of frozen feed before camera five picks it up. That two seconds may be all I need to cross the corridor into the blind spot of camera four, and avoid the two guards who have – so far – got me every time. No more time to think, I’ve got to move now.

  I slip out of the guard point, and press myself flat against the cinderblock wall of the corridor. I’m moving beneath camera one, slightly behind it’s sweep. It gets to the end of its circuit, and starts swinging back. I slide across to the other side of the corridor, just at the edge of it’s vision, and move up beneath the second camera. I pause to allow number two to swing around a little further. Back against the wall, I glide forward seven more steps and turn the corner – just as two guards enter the corridor I’ve just left. It’ll take them 15 seconds to stroll down to the length to the corridor I’m now in – but I also have to pause for three seconds to let camera three give me a blank spot. One. Two. Three. Twelve seconds left, I move silently down the wall, directly under camera three now.

  Here we go.

  Camera four is just around the corner. I cross the corridor and take a left with two seconds to spare, the two guards have just turned on to the corridor behind me. I move steadily towards camera four, directly beneath it, and now I need to move quickly and use that two second lag.

  I move as fast as I can in the opposite direction to the sweep of camera four, taking a right and stepping directly into the field of vision for camera five – but now I know it’s not going to catch me for another two seconds. At that point I’m already directly beneath it, and I’ve managed to avoid getting caught by the two guards who have been following my pathway.

  I start to sweat, from this point forward, I’m flying blind.

  I’m guessing my two guys will turn on to my current corridor in about six seconds. There’s a t-intersection at the end of this corridor, so I need to decide whether to take a left or a right and get moving Three seconds left. Gotta make a call. I slide down the corridor, on the edge of camera five, and take a left at the intersection.

  There’s a deep alcove with a door three metres further down, I move quickly and slide in, hoping that no security camera has made me, as I look for some cover. The footsteps are getting closer. If they turn left like I did, I’m done. If they turn right I’ll have a few more seconds to plan my next move.

  I breathe quietly, waiting as I hear their footsteps approaching. They’re closer… closer… and then they start fading. Phew. They turned right. Should I go further down this corridor? Double back and follow them down the right corridor towards the next known guard point? Or check out what’s behind this door? Better check the door.

  I move slowly, further in to the alcove towards the door. I keep my shoulders relax and listen for anything behind the door. No sound I can make out. Let’s hope it doesn’t need oiling. I open it as quietly as possible.

  SSKKKREEEEK.

  Damn.

  I take in the room for a second. A table with maps and weapons, four men, and all of them looking right at me. My SEAL instincts take over. No exits except my entry point, and if I run now, I’ll be swarmed within one minute.

  I pull the door closed and draw a pistol in one fluid movement.

  BANG. First one down.

  BANGKLANGBANGKLANGBANGBKLANGANG.

  Their bullets hit the filing cabinet that I’ve just taken cover behind. I get low, and swing out with as little visibility as possible, the room is dark which helps.

  BANG. I take the second one down, and move back to my cover.

  The last two start to panic, I hear them diving behind the table for cover. I rise and spin in one second. BAM. Third guy is down. Hostile four drops his gun and puts his hands up, shouting in words I don’t understand. I know I should just cap him, he’s just a sim, but I can’t bring myself to shoot a guy in cold blood. Damn.

  SKREE- BANG!!

  The door explodes and four more hostiles come in, too close to take aim. Damn! I spin and crack one in the face with an elbow. One of them takes my legs, and I go down hard. I offer a bit of a fight, but at this point I know it’s all over. Damn! Looks like turning left was the wrong call.

  Note to self: double back and try the right-hand corridor next time.