I have no weapons save for the ones programmed into my DNA. I’ve been able to fight them off with my bare hands up until now but the simulation is changing, adapting to my skills, increasing in difficulty the more poachers I disarm. I hear a crackling around me. They are encroaching from all sides. A swift glance gives me an estimate of twenty. No, thirty. I can’t take on thirty. Not at the same time. I look up, my perfect vision observing a canopy of leaves above me. Five poachers dive toward me at once, their machetes slashing inches from my face. Thinking fast, I leap into the air, grabbing on to a tree branch and wresting it free. As it snaps, I start to fall to the ground, holding the newly forged weapon in my hands. I land deftly on two feet and begin swinging. The first three go down instantly. I watch their fatality meters in the corner of my vision as they tick down to zero. But more arrive instantly. I swing my branch, catching one in the neck. His vein bursts, sending a splatter of blood toward me.
