Location: Sector 4 (Old Posta Ruins), Neo-Dar es Salaam.
Time: 18:00 EAT.
Status: Critical.
The first thing Juma felt was not pain. It was hunger.
A hollow, scraping emptiness in his gut that felt like he hadn't eaten in a week. Then came the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, followed by the smell—ozone, rotting seaweed, and the humid, salty decay of the Indian Ocean.
Where am I?
He tried to sit up, but his body felt wrong. Heavy. Dense. Like his bones had been replaced with lead pipes.
"Initialize," a synthetic voice buzzed directly against his auditory nerve. "Subject 7749. Neural handshake complete."
Juma retched, vomiting bile onto the cracked asphalt. He blinked, forcing his vision to clear through the static.
Above him, the sky wasn't blue. It was the color of a bruised plum, covered by the faint, hexagonal grid of the Sky-Mesh. The holographic dome that turned the ruins of Neo-Dar es Salaam into a cage.
The Red Zone.
Juma scrambled backward, his boots scraping loudly against the debris. He looked down at his hands.
They were massive. His fingers were thick, scarred, and trembling with an energy he didn't recognize. The veins in his forearms were bulging, glowing with a faint, bioluminescent blue light.
"Neema?" he croaked. His voice was a deep, gravelly rumble that vibrated in his own chest.
Memory hit him like a physical blow.
The apartment in Kariakoo. The debt collectors from M.M. Corp banging on the metal door. Neema crying in the kitchen, holding the injector gun.
"I'm sorry, Juma," she had whispered, her tears wet on his cheek. "They said it was you or me. And I want to live."
She didn't just leave him. She sold him. She sold him to Mwanzo Mpya Enterprise to clear her family's debt.
[SYSTEM BOOT SEQUENCE]
[Mwanzo Mpya Enterprise OS v9.0]
Bright red text burned across his retina, overlaid on the real world.
> WELCOME, ASSET #7749
> CRIME: Cyber-Terrorism (Class A) / Debt Default
> SENTENCE: Indefinite Participation.
>
"I'm a mechanic," Juma snarled, gripping a rusted rebar sticking out of a fallen pillar. "I fix cyber-limbs. I don't blow them up. Check the logs!"
The System ignored him. It was just code. Cold, unfeeling logic.
> ANALYZING BIOMETRICS...
> SUBJECT: Juma Mkwawa.
> FORMER OCCUPATION: Tech-Specialist.
> INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT: Top 1%.
> ...Processing Role Assignment...
> ...Error: High Cortisol/Adrenaline Detected...
> ...Optimization Protocol Active...
> ASSIGNED CLASS: BERSERKER
>
"No." Juma felt a cold sweat break out. "Berserker is a tank class. I'm a lightweight. Give me Hacker. Give me Scout. I can code!"
> INJECTING: STIM-PACK ALPHA (Myostatin Inhibitor)
>
The collar on his neck hissed.
Fire. Liquid fire poured into his veins.
Juma screamed. He fell to his knees, clawing at his chest. It felt like his heart was trying to punch its way out of his ribcage. His muscles spasmed, fibers tearing and knitting back together in seconds. The pain was absolute. It wasn't magic; it was biological torture. The tech was forcing his body to override its natural safety limits.
He looked at the rusted rebar in his hand. He squeezed. The steel groaned and crumpled like wet cardboard.
> INTELLIGENCE: LOCKED (Hardware Restriction)
> TECH-INTERFACE: DISABLED
> STRENGTH: S-RANK (Overdrive)
>
"You took my mind," Juma whispered, staring at his trembling, massive hands. Tears of pain mixed with the sweat on his face. "You took the only thing I had."
[LIVE FEED ESTABLISHED]
[Viewers: 4,000,002]
A drone descended from the sky. It was a sleek, black sphere with a single red camera lens, hovering just out of reach. It buzzed like an angry mosquito.
"Look at him!" The commentator's voice boomed from loudspeakers mounted on the ruined colonial buildings. It was DJ Kali, the voice of the suffering. "A fresh batch of meat for the grinder! Subject 7749 looks like he's ready to cry! Is this your 'Terrorist'? He looks like he needs his mama!"
Chat Feed (Scrolling in Juma's vision):
* User_Slayer69: Boring. Kill him already.
* User_MamaBear: Look at his eyes. He's scared.
* User_RichBoi_TZ: Betting 500 credits he dies in the first 5 mins.
Juma glared at the drone. He felt a surge of rage—not his own, but the chemicals flooding his brain. He wanted to smash the drone. He wanted to tear it apart.
Control it, he told himself. Neema sold you to die. Don't give her the satisfaction. Use your head, Juma. Even if they locked it.
"Attention, Sinners!" DJ Kali's voice echoed. "The game begins now! The Safe Zone is five kilometers north, at the Financial District. But getting there? Well, that's the fun part."
A rumble shook the ground.
Juma looked south, toward the ocean.
A massive wall of green light was advancing down Samora Avenue. It sizzled as it moved, vaporizing trash, cars, and the stray rats scurrying in the gutters. The Purge Wall. A high-intensity laser grid used for sterilization. Anything it touched was deleted.
"Move or melt!" Kali laughed.
Juma took a step and stumbled. His body was too heavy. He wasn't used to this mass. He felt like he was piloting a meat-mech that didn't fit.
VROOOM.
The sound of an engine cut through the static.
A Daladala bus drifted around the corner of the Clock Tower roundabout. It was a monstrosity of welded scrap metal. The windows were barred with rebar. The tires were solid rubber, studded with bolts. The front bumper was a snow-plow blade covered in dried blood. On the side, spray-painted in neon yellow, were the words: MWANZO MPYA EXPRESS.
It slowed down, the side door sliding open with a grinding screech.
Inside, Juma saw faces. Terrified faces. Other "Assets."
"Get in!" a woman screamed from the bus. "The wall is moving!"
Juma sprinted. Every step cracked the pavement. He was fast—unnaturally fast—but he had no grace. He was a cannonball with legs.
He reached the bus just as the driver gunned the engine. The driver wasn't human. It was a mannequin, a "Dummy" bot with a smiley face painted on its plastic head, hardwired into the steering column.
Juma jumped, grabbing the rear rail of the bus.
The metal groaned under his grip. He didn't just hold it; he crushed it. The pipe flattened like a plastic straw.
"Pull him in!" someone shouted.
Juma hauled himself onto the platform. He looked back.
A man was running behind him. A skinny kid, maybe twenty years old. He was crying, reaching out.
"Wait!" the kid screamed. "Please! My leg is broken! Wait!"
The Purge Wall was ten meters behind the kid. The heat from the lasers was already warping the air.
Juma looked at the kid. Then he looked at the terrified people inside the bus.
"Stop the bus!" Juma roared at the Dummy driver.
The Dummy didn't react. It just kept driving. The System wanted a show.
"He's not gonna make it," a large man inside the bus muttered. He was wearing a suit that was too small for him. "Let him go. If we stop, the Wall gets us all."
Juma looked at the kid again. The green light was illuminating the terror on his face.
Moral Grey.
If Juma was a hero, he would jump off and save the kid. He would risk it all. He would be the protagonist the movies talked about.
But Juma remembered Neema. He remembered the needle. He remembered that in this world, kindness was the currency of fools. If he jumped, he died. And he needed to live to find out why.
Juma tightened his grip on the railing until his knuckles turned white. He didn't jump.
He watched.
The kid tripped. The green wall washed over him. There was no scream, just a brief hiss of moisture evaporating, and then the kid was gone. Erased.
The bus hit a bump, and Juma turned away, his stomach twisting with guilt and nausea. He hadn't killed the kid. But he hadn't saved him either.
He climbed inside the cabin. The other passengers stared at him.
* The Suit: A sweaty man clutching a briefcase that wasn't there anymore.
* The Girl: Young, sharp eyes, holding a piece of sharpened glass. (Nia).
* The Old Man: Sitting quietly, praying with prayer beads.
* And three others, huddled together in the back.
They looked at Juma with fear. They didn't see a mechanic. They saw the glowing blue veins. They saw the crushed metal railing in his hand.
They saw a Berserker.
"Stay back," The Suit warned, kicking a loose pipe toward Juma. "You're one of the violent ones. The System marked you. I saw your stats on the feed."
Juma looked at the pipe on the floor.
[Berserker Instinct: WEAPON DETECTED.]
[Suggestion: KILL. ASSERT DOMINANCE.]
The text flashed red in his vision. The collar injected a micro-dose of rage. Juma's hand twitched. He wanted to pick up the pipe and smash The Suit's skull. The chemical urge was intoxicating. It felt... good. It felt like power.
Juma bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper. The sharp pain focused him.
I am not an animal, he repeated the mantra. I am Juma Mkwawa. I fix things. Hii ni hesabu, sio uchawi. (This is math, not magic).
He kicked the pipe away. It clattered loudly against the metal wall.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Juma said, his voice grating like gravel. "Unless you make me."
He sat heavily on the wheel well, isolating himself.
The girl with the glass was watching him. She wasn't looking at his muscles. She was looking at his eyes. She was analyzing.
"You're glitching," she said softly.
Juma looked up. "What?"
"Your eyes," she whispered, keeping her voice below the roar of the engine. "They're dilating. Fighting the Stim-Pack. Most Berserkers lose their minds in the first five minutes. You're still... thinking."
Juma looked at her collar. It was blinking yellow. Class: Assassin.
"Who are you?" Juma asked.
"Nia," she said. She didn't lower the glass shard. "And you need to hold on."
"Why?"
"Because," Nia nodded toward the front windshield. "The road ends."
Juma looked.
The bridge ahead—the Selander Bridge crossing—was gone. Collapsed into the ocean. There was only a ramp of twisted rebar and concrete pointing up into the sky.
The Dummy driver wasn't slowing down. It was speeding up.
[EVENT: THE JUMP]
[Success Rate: 12%]
[Viewers Hype: MAX]
"It's a scripted event!" Juma realized. "They want a crash! It's for the ratings!"
Author's Note:
Welcome to Red Zone Zero. The team is forming. Juma has the strength, Nia has the eyes. Next chapter, we meet the brain... and the hunger.