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Ever and I didn’t eat together Once we got our food, she split off to the table for the Under-sixties with her tray and I sat down at the table for One-twenties and higher The only one who cao, at One-fifty

Marie One-thirty-five nodded at me as I sat down, as did a few others, but Reboots over 120 minutes dead were not known for their social skills There was rarely h; the chatter of Reboots filled the cafeteria

I bit into a piece of bacon as the red doors at the end of the roouard marched in, followed by the newbies I counted fourteen I’d heard a ru It didn’t look like they’d succeeded yet

There were no adults ae of twenty were killed as soon as they Rebooted If they Rebooted It was uncoht," a teacher once told me when I asked why they shot the adults "The kids ain’t all there anyht"

Even fro They ranged in age froers, but the terror that radiated from them was the same It would have been less than a er to accept what had happened to the facility at the hospital in their honed thee like nore of eleven were held at the facility until they reached a useful age

I’d had to spend only a few days at the holding facility, but it was one of the worst parts of Rebooting The actual building where they kept us wasn’t bad, simply a smaller version of where I lived now, but the panic was constant, all consuood possibility ould Reboot if we died (it was almost certain in the slu At first, anyway Once the shock wore off and I , I realized I was much better off as a Reboot than I’d ever been as a hu itself was simply a different reaction to the KDH virus KDH killed --the virus worked differently Even those who died of so other than KDH could Reboot, if they’d had the KDH virus even once in their lifetier, more powerful

But also colder, emotionless An evil copy of e used to be, the humans said Most would rather die completely than be one of the "lucky" ones who Rebooted

The guards ordered the newbies to sit They all did so quickly, already inforot a bullet in the brain

The guards left, letting the doors slauards liked to be in the presence of so ht away, but I turned my attention back to my breakfast The only newbie I had any interest in was my next trainee, but ouldn’t be paired up until toht away Considering the speed at which we healed, I saw no probleht as well start toughening them up now

The Nineties were rowdier than usual today I shoved the last piece of bacon inlevel I dropped my tray on top of the trash can and headed for the exit

A flash of color streaked across the white floor, co to a stop at my feet with a squeak It was a newbie, shot down the slick tile like a toy I juston his head and planted my boot on the floor

Blood trickled fro, lanky legs were sprawled across the floor, his thin white T-shirt clinging to the frame of an underfed former human

His close-cropped black hair matched his eyes, so dark I couldn’t find his pupils They probably used to be brown Brown eyes usually took on a golden sort of glow after death, but I liked his blackness It was in stark contrast to the white of the cafeteria, to the glow of the other Reboots’ eyes

No one came near him now that he was in hed

Twenty-two? That couldn’t be his number I hadn’t seen anyone under forty in a few years Well, there was a Thirty-seven last year, but she died within a ed at his arm with my boot so I could see his bar code Callum Reyes Twenty-two