2400 AD

Callum’s helmet burst into life.

Crosshairs appeared for accurate aiming. Heat sensors indicated blue for cold inanimate objects and red for organic, living objects. Real time images of the scene appeared in the far left upper corner of the helmet. A green light indicated the helmet was recording every detail of the observer’s mission.

A message appeared in front of him.

“Press button below left ear of helmet to reveal.”

That wasn’t an option.

Twelve team members ran down the street, weapons ready to shoot at anything that moved. The observation team was not visible, but they knew each other’s position.

He found himself on a familiar street.

Too familiar.

They were on the street where he lived.

And it resembled a war zone, like a tornado had hit the place. Huge holes in the tarmac. Signs scattered and bent. Cars in the middle of the road, doors open, windscreens smashed.

Callum’s house stood half intact, the other half just a gaping hole where walls once stood.

He’d lived there six years. Blissfully unaware of the reality around him. He had kept to himself since the breakup with Jason. Didn’t even know his neighbors. Every once in a while he’d meander through his garden just to get some fresh air.

At least the house still had part of a ceiling and walls; the neighbor’s house didn’t exist.

“Foreign Legion, can you hear me?”

Callum responded immediately. “What is it, Lakshit?”

“I am coming up behind you, but there is danger up ahead.”

“There’s no danger here. The damage has already been done.”

“Not so. There are twenty, maybe twenty-five people ahead. They are coming. They have deadly deadly weapons too ghastly to even contemplate.”

“Stay behind me, Lakshit. Don’t reveal yourself whatever you do.”

Suddenly the heat sensor turned from blue to red.

People.

Armed and gathering up the road about 200 meters in front of him.

He settled behind a tree for protection. The AIO team seemed not to be perturbed by this gathering.

Something catapulted through the air and exploded in the air above the team. A second projectile came from a man kneeling with a weapon resting on his shoulder. With a deafening bang it hit the street and blew a 2-meter hole in the tarmac.

Behind him, Andranil broke into a chant. “Aum! Let the Studies that we together undertake be effulgent; Let there be no Animosity amongst us; Aum! Peace, Peace, Peace.”

“Lakshit,” Callum whispered loudly.

“Aum - May Mitra be blissful to us. May Varuna be blissful to us. May Aryaman be blissful to us. May Indra and Brihaspati be blissful to us. May Vishnu, of long strides, be blissful to us...”

“Lakshit!”

“Foreign Legion, yes, I am behind you I will not desert you.”

“Lakshit, shut the fuck up!”

The group slowly approached, using trees and shrubbery for protection.

The AIO contingent split into two teams just before passing Callum’s house. One team of six headed straight for his house.

What the fuck? What the fuck do they want in my house?

The other team of six took strategic positions on both sides of the road and began firing.

Not just ordinary firepower.

Laser power.

Two humans died instantly. It looked as if they had roasted to death; smoke belched out from their bodies as the atoms from the lasers hit them.

Inside Callum’s helmet, a light flickered.

Reveal. Reveal. Reveal.

Then went quiet for a few seconds.

He brought his hand up to his helmet and just before he was about to press, he remembered the rule.

Do not reveal yourself.

He hated that people were dying by the hand of Androids. He wanted to stop the killing, it was all so unnecessary, but they had been warned – do not interfere at any cost.

An object exploded ten feet from Callum. The shockwave blew him from behind his cover and he landed two feet away. Slightly dazed but unhurt, he scrambled behind a bush.

He wondered how the other observers were doing. Were they safe? No one had revealed themselves up to now. So far so good. The mission was intact.

The AIO team continued to fire their lasers at the human barricade down the road and then

the team that entered Callum’s house, re- appeared.

They fled across the gardens of the neighbors’ and down the street. The two middle Androids carried something.

The human’s firepower couldn’t reach them this far, or so Callum thought, but he was wrong. As the AIO team fled, a projectile hit the last Android. He fell to the ground and with a few jerks, died on the spot.

The fire cover team backed up and fled up the road, out of range of the human’s firepower.

One of the Androids came to a standstill, turned to face the humans, and aimed a strange looking weapon at them. He fired, and the sound was deafening.

An explosion of air killed all of them instantly. They were flung in all directions, and if that didn’t kill them, the fall did.

“Threat destroyed.” A message blinked in Callum’s helmet and the leader of the AIO team said, “Mission complete. We have the prize.”

A voice that sounded like the man in the control room said, “Great. Congratulations, Terces. Counting down from five…four…three…two…one”

And suddenly Callum was back in his cubicle in the anti-simulation lab.

Safe. But traumatized.