The sound of glass breaking in the distance is my warning. The screams that immediately follow confirm that the impossible is happening: it's a cull, right in the middle of tax season, the busiest time of year when we need everybody - including the people whose work performance makes them eligible targets. My last performance review was comfortably above average so I should have nothing to worry about- but if they're breaking their own rules with an off-season cull, then nobody is safe. And it's not as if I don't already have a target on my back.
It was unheard of, what I tried to do. Drones are drones, soldiers are soldiers. That's just the way it is, and if everyone would just accept that then the world would be a happier place. That's what our betters keep telling us anyway, but they're all soldier stock themselves and for some reason the soliders just never seem to grasp why we drones have a harder time accepting the status quo than they do. I was always bigger and stronger than average. Faster, more aggresive too. I never felt like I fit in with my fellow drones, and nobody ever gave me a satisfactory answer to why I looked more like a soldier. Outlier. That's what they called me. Just an anomaly, waved away by the laws of statistics.
The politicians can blather on all they like about statistics and outliers and how rosy the big picture is, but they've never been good at putting their fingers on the important details like what everyday people think about their policies, or how folks really feel about living under the heel of their pet soldiers' boots. Don't get me wrong- they're smart enough to know that their slave caste outnumbers them five to one. That's where the culls come in. They provide an effective means of psychological domination, keep the population under control and give the soldiers a chance to practice their hunting skills.
You'll have figured out by now that I tried to become a soldier. Not so much because I wanted to spill blood; I just figured that as a soldier I had a better chance that any blood spilled wouldn't be mine. They don't exactly advertise for new recruits so I sneaked in with a stolen uniform and a vague plan to fake it 'til I made it. I lasted for two weeks until a blood test gave the game away. I got lucky- if they had found me out on the parade ground, I would most likely have been promoted to Bayonet Drill Dummy, First Class. Instead, since the medics are a bit less blood-thirsty than their armed brethren, and because there didn't seem to be any protocol for dealing with my actions, they just kicked me out of the barracks and back into the hive. Home, sweet home.
Now it seems likely that someone has decided that I got off too lightly. I close the door and thumb the lock. It won't hold them for long, but it might buy me a few seconds. I mount my desk, push up a panel and pull myself up above the false ceiling. I drop the panel back in place; as long as they don't check my computer, they might think I called in sick. But of course they'll check my computer. It's time to move.
The air duct that feeds into my office snakes past me to the main trunk which gives me a straight shot to an exterior wall. I've never seen a duct that a grown man could actually fit into, but I can crawl on top of this one and maybe it will provide two additional layers of protection against whatever weapons the soldiers have brought with them. Off to my left I hear a muted thud, followed immediately by a squisshhlpt and another round of screaming. I move in the opposite direction, toward the wall. Toward safety. Toward seeing tomorrow.
It turns out that I've never seen a duct that a grown man could actually crawl on, either. The struts give way without any warning and the duct collapses under me with a sudden shriek of crumpled steel. I can already hear the silenced bullets hissing through the ceiling panels in response but for now I am shielded by the distance and angle of the shooters. For an instant I lay on the crumpled duct, motionless, regrouping, considering my options, but the decision is made for me as the rest of the ceiling falls apart in a cloud of insulation and I crash to the floor.
I'm winded, but I must move, move. I roll and look up into the remains of the cubicle's former resident's face. I think her name was Darlene. Move! I grab the slender letter opener from her desk and dive across the hallway, trying not to hear the bullets shredding the carpet behind my feet. Hold my breath against the pain in my ribs as I jump, plant my foot on the desk, leap over the partition. Register the looks of surprise on the faces looking up at me. My fellow drones. One-two-three helmeted soldiers. Fourth soldier, directly below me, looking away but desperately trying to track around, trying to bring his sights to bear, but I am falling, my paper knife is twisting downwards and I skewer him clean through the neck. My momentum pulls him down and with a vicious burst of strength I tear out his throat.
His gun is in my hands and I'm fumbling, trying to remember what I learned in my two weeks as a soldier. My thumb finds the shot selection switch and flicks it to three-round burst. I fire blindly towards one end of my little hallway, stumble the opposite direction, bring my gun around, fire again into the face of the soldier coming towards me. Two down.
Time slows down and I am alone with my gun, looking down a tunnel, searching for my other two targets as if from a great distance, knowing that they are searching for me. Knowing that my death is heartbeats away.
The sounds of a violent struggle burst into my silent tunnel world. The tunnel collapses and the office floods back in. I round the corner and find a drone emptying a clip into the perforated body of the third soldier. Three down, but the woman in front of me is looking in terror at something behind me and I know my fourth hunter is there, his finger tightening on the trigger as he aims at my heart. But the bullets are wild, and there is more yelling but this time it sounds more like frustration than fear. The yelling stops with a crackle. There are no more shots. I turn around and see a drone dropping the last soldier on the floor, twisting a length of string in his hands. The soldier's neck has a floppy quality to it, like a garden hose the moment after the water is turned off. The cull is over. The next one may be minutes away, but now the hive is buzzing, angry.
More blood will be spilled and we drones are tired of it being ours.