With that done, this stage of the pilot selection process was over and done. Matt was the odd man out. A couple of armed guards came in and dragged him out the room by the arms. He was a bloody mess and barely conscious when they came for him. I did not know where they were going to take him, but I did not want to think about it too much. It would just upset me. John looked upset and tried to protect his comrade by holding onto him. However, the threat of being shot was too great. He was forced to let Matt go. Mark brushed it off and said "He didn't have what it takes. Let him go." He was certainly callous about it. Goldie and Clara hi-fived each other when they got out of the practice machine. As they were celebrating together, Henry and Oliver were talking about something in the corner. It looked pretty serious. My team was fine and another guard came to take us back to the holding area. There would probably be another stage in the process that would whittle us down from 40 to 20. As their program continued, we were only going to get stronger and stronger. We all would use it.
Everyone slept well that night. Then a week of more intense training happened. We leveled up further. I was Level 14 now. Lots of us were going around just doing what we could to get by. I told the members of my group to be very careful around others. Other pairs could try to attack us. We already knew that the people that were running this did not care whether we lived or died. Only 3 days later, there was a mass murder in the holding area. I was awake, so I saw the whole thing. Mark and John went around and slit the throats of several piloting candidates. 9 people died that night. Goldie was alerted apparently from the smell of blood and sprung up. He grabbed the young Clara up and began running around. She began screaming when she saw the red blood on the floor. People began waking up in earnest then. We knew that Mark and John did this and were guilty, but no one was willing to risk their lives to take the pair of murderers on to disarm and restrain them. Time passed us by, and the lights eventually came back. "32 of you left. We're coming to the home stretch." the voice said.
Mark and John were clearly enemies that could not be ignored. Felix had a partner that was a really girly boy. Felix did not look pleased with this match, but they helped each other get through the last stage. The effeminate guy was the natural Bottom of the pair. It seemed that he had no problem with it. They had a Synchronization Rate of 79%. That was pretty good. Felix still felt the need to try and flirt with Kira and I. That seemed to really annoy his partner. However, it changed when the boy started to chat up Shane. Shane was of the nervous sort. He did not realize he was being flirted with until 10 minutes into the conversation. Paul mocked them and said it was gross. It started a big fight. Felix just groaned and looked at me. "He's gay. I'll take him away now. Sorry for bothering you." he said. I did not care. I just looked at him and said "That's fine. You were the one who tried to leave him behind when you know there are murderers on the loose." Kira nodded and said "He isn't bothering me." There was a beat of silence. The boy just smiled and dragged Felix off. "Get off of me, Charlie."
