I’m on the train again.
After burning two of my rapidly diminishing supply of days and being forced to confront a frankly suspicious number of moral quandaries, I think it’s time to call a full halt and do something else. Take my mind off things, go talk to some real humans, get some perspective.
I don’t have many friends. I realize this may come as something of a shock to you. But even if I weren’t an aberration, as Mr. Corundum so emphatically put it, I still probably wouldn’t be what you’d call a social butterfly. I’ve just never been great at maintaining relationships. I was always kind of a shy kid, and my inherent aversion to work didn’t do anything but compound and interlock with that fear of others. And, of course, turning into a hulking pile of sin didn’t make matters easier either. I figure I’m doing people a service by not trying to box them into being friends with a creature that’s half metal and half scar tissue.
Humor me, alright? I’ve had a hard day.
I have a friend who works in Sector Eleven. She’s younger than me, but also way, way smarter than I am, so I seek her advice on the few occasions when I think my incomparable brainpower isn’t enough to see my own life clearly.
The train is taking me in the same direction as Lt. Deepwell’s precinct, but I’ll be stopping further south. There’s Eleven, looming ahead on the left right now as I speak. When I say looming, I mean it - the structures here are heavier and more monolithic than elsewhere. This is mostly because of the Gate, at the absolute southernmost part of the city wall. It’s the only gap in the Wall and the only entry point into the city, so Eleven had to have special treatment. The Gate informs everything about this place. This is where the city’s two sports stadiums are, in plain view of anyone entering. The roads are absolutely huge, in some places hundreds of feet across to allow enough room for traffic into and out of the largest city in the world. Colorful advertisements with neon lights and flashing billboards explode in all directions, up on poles planted even in the middle of the expansive thoroughfares. This is the first place anyone sees upon entering the city, so advertising space and mercantile property costs are at a massive premium.
Very military here, too. More Watch garrisons than anywhere else, their armored facades facing the open door to the desert just outside, as though daring anyone to be foolish enough to try and invade. Massive artillery cannons gather dust on high tiered platforms placed strategically throughout the sector, every single one aimed directly at the Gate. You’re more likely to see Neutralizers stalking around, creeping people out. This exact area has been invaded more times than maybe any other site in recorded history, and the Tribunal acts like we could go back to that any day now. Makes them feel safe, I guess. Wouldn’t want all the farmers and truckers out there getting any big ideas.
The people around here are a little bit different, too. Anyone with claustrophobic tendencies will try to live here - it’s the only place in the entire city where you can see outside. Immigrants tend to put down here too, if they can afford the limited space. It’s not uncommon for newcomers to be put off by the massive dark wall looming over them at all times, so many prefer to keep their faces to the outside, where they came from. The traffic, mixing of cultures, cutthroat mercantilism, constant bustle, and exposure to the outside world result in a subpopulace that’s more… eclectic than you’ll find anywhere else in the city.
An old joke has it like this: a thief is about to be hung in Spire Circle, with a crowd all around.
The man from Sector Two says, “I demand the city compensate my business for this man’s crimes!”
The Sector Six man is trying to interview the thief for his upcoming criminal psychology dissertation.
Sector Thirteen cries out, “I want his boots!”
Sectors Seventeen and Eighteen reply, “And then we get the body!”
No one from Nineteen or Fourteen could get time off of work to come watch.
The Sector Three man is the executioner, and says nothing.
Five yells, “Could you turn your head a bit to the right?” He’s at the back, painting a picture.
Twenty is reading the thief his last rites.
And the Sector Eleven man turns to Three, points at Thirteen, and says, “Hey! I think that guy’s trying to steal my boots!”
… Alright, I didn’t say it was a particularly funny joke, but you get the point.
The train stops, and I get off at the crowded station. Once again, people wrinkle their noses at me and back out of my way as I lumber my way down the steps toward more steps. Eleven is the only sector that rests on the bare earth rather than a raised foundation platform, so you have to descend a ways in order to reach most of it - an architectural decision that my knees do not agree with. I rush a little vitae into my joints to stifle the pain.
Off the platform and onto the ground, I take a moment to catch my breath and take the place in. Eleven even feels weird. There’s the Gate in the distance, and I’ll be honest, I’ve never liked the thing. When you’ve lived your entire life encased by buildings and metal walls, between the jaws of a city that goes up and down almost as much as out and about, a glimpse of that open expanse lurking just outside is enough to give me some agoraphobic willies. I’ve read about the Hot Plains - just warm grass, perfectly flat, for hundreds of miles, and people willingly live there. To uh, farm it, or something. I don’t know how they do it. I’d never be able to leave my hut with that massive sky pushing down on me all the time.
Eleven has a bit of that too, honestly, which is why I don’t love coming here. The massive aortic thoroughfares letting all the commerce in and out of the city result in huge stretches of open space with nothing but pavement, lamps, and vehicles, with no buildings to break up the view of the sky. Once you get away from the roads it’s fine, but walking across these exhaust-choked asphalt voids always rubs me the wrong way. I’d like to get back into the concrete shadows, please.
After about fifteen minutes of pushing my way east through sidewalk crowds and glaring distrustingly at the blank blue nothingness above me, I reach the side streets and sigh with a little relief. It feels nice to no longer be the tallest thing for hundreds of yards around. I’ve got business with one of the biggest buildings in town. Even back in the embrace of the shops and apartments, I can catch glimpses of the thing hulking on the horizon to the East.
The Automatic Combat League.
I could describe every single step I take through the cramped, greasy, crumbling and wire-strung back streets toward it, but that would probably be boring. You can imagine what these warrens look like. People leaning from sheet metal balconies to yell at one another about laundry or who gets to use the water pump next. Hawkers trying to drum up business for their clapboard knick knack stands. Groups of brave unattended urchins buzzing around me asking if they can ride on my shoulders like a domesticated cactox (which I oblige, because why not). Street toughs with knives and shock batons lurking in shadowy alleys, turning away once they see that 1) I’m giving shoulder rides to six children at a time and 2) my wallet belongs to a guy that weighs almost half a ton.
While the kids all scuttle over me like a bunch of skitters and leave dirty footprints all over the back and shoulders of my coat, I’ll tell you about the League.
Wellspring City has the biggest sports scene in the world, because everything in Wellspring City is the biggest in the world. People come from all over Almarest to see the games, and they’ve got two main attractions to pick from. First, you’ve got slaughterball. Like the name probably suggests, the game is basically a loosely-organized team fistfight to see who gets to carry a ball from one end of the arena to the other. Someone scores after about twenty minutes of bloodshed and broken bones, then the process repeats.
Every sector has a team or two, and the encouragement of genetic modification of the players and use of performance-enhancing or psychoactive drugs all but guarantees that every game is a breathtaking show of human violence that the whole family can enjoy. People especially like the part where the players from both teams pick up handfuls of their own dislodged teeth from the ground and toss them to the stands at the end of every match, as fun souvenirs for the kids. Some of those teeth fetch hefty prices in the collector’s market, too. Fun and lucrative!
I’ve never been much of a slaughterball fan, personally. I’ve been to a few games in my time and I wasn’t terribly impressed. I can see the same basic thing for free in any Outer Ring alley, without all the lines and crowds and occasional ball handling. Well, I guess there’s always the chance of some handling of balls in an alley gang fight, but it’s not really worth many points and they’re definitely not treated with as much reverence.
The second of the two stadiums is the Automatic Combat League arena. The ACL is slightly less popular than slaughterball, but it has its own legions of extremely dedicated followers. The ACL is less about being loyal to a team, and more about being a fan of one particular engineer (preferably one that’s from your neighborhood) and following their creations as they literally scrap and dismantle the competition (preferably an engineer from a neighborhood you don’t like very much).
I should probably provide a little bit of background. I know, yes, but before you log out in disgust, I swear this’ll only take a minute. The readers not in the know will appreciate your patience, I’m sure.
About fifty or sixty years ago, technology marched to the point where the first automech was invented. I don’t know who gets the credit for this one. I’m pretty sure the Brotherhood would like to say they were the first, but this is one of the few advancements where they were unable to plant the flag before someone else, and everyone knows it. The idea was something that the Brotherhood’s philosophy would never have let them reach. A machine in the shape of a man, with a computer brain and an amount of agency, that can move and do things when given a set of programmed orders. Once the word got out, the first question people asked themselves was “Why are we doing all the heavy lifting when we could buy one of these things and make it do the hard work?” They say that necessity is the mother of invention, but laziness is the father, and so automechs started appearing in factories and warehouses.
There was pushback, of course. Laborers didn’t like losing their jobs to machines that didn’t sleep or ask for wages, and the Brotherhood especially didn’t like a machine whose only apparent purpose was to replace man rather than elevate or enhance him. I don’t really understand the thought process behind that, but I’m not about to ask them why they feel so viscerally threatened by what is effectively just a forklift that can drive itself. In any case, there was no way to unring that bell, and after all the legislation and debates and squabbling, automechs gradually became part of daily life in Wellspring City. They lift boxes, turn valves at scheduled times, count things, all the jobs that your average idiot can do, and they even do it without taking a smoke break every nine seconds.
The second question people asked in the post-automech world was, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could make these things beat the crap out of one another?” The resounding answer from almost everyone was “Um, yes please?”, and so the Automatic Combat League was born, after a few years of crackdowns on illegal backstreet robot fighting rings and intense lobbying from moralistic interest groups led by, who else, the Brotherhood. They didn’t stand a chance. The public almost always get what they want, and they wanted to form crowds to watch automechs smash one another to literal pieces.
The arena was finished about forty years ago, and it’s been a massive cash cow ever since. People come from every corner of the continent to watch these matches, and it’s one of the only places a talented freelance engineer can hope to become rich and famous. Corporate sponsorships are always flying through the air, people on the street buzz excitedly about what their favorite engineers are going to be rolling out for this next season, fan publications make their living printing news about the various automech designs and speculating over who’s gonna take home the Emerald Wrench this year.
I disentangle myself from the intestinal side streets, cross the mostly-empty parking lot, and reach one of the rear utility entrances to the arena, which is now blocking out the sun eight stories above my head. There’s a security booth near the door, and I stride up to the guard inside while smiling as sunny as you please. I’m hard to miss, and the guard follows my approach with a raised eyebrow.
“Hi! Testing consult, here to see Tennima Earthboon.”
The security guard behind the glass, who has the sideburns of a macaque and the bored, apathetic facial expression of a security guard, looks up at me with the requisite amount of mild disdain. He looks down at his little desk, punches through a few screens on his computer, then looks back up at me.
“Ms. Earthboon doesn’t have a consult scheduled for today.”
Uh oh. We’ve got an overachiever on our hands. This guy wants to earn his paycheck. I don’t believe this man ever went through the Security Guard Academy - I’m pretty sure actually doing your job is frowned upon by the regulatory commission.
I can’t remember if I’ve seen this guard before. If I don’t recognize him, he doesn’t recognize me from all other times I’ve been through here. Time to improvise.
“Well, she only called me a couple hours ago. I might not be in there. You know how it is with these engineers - if it’s not circuit cards or setscrews, they’ll probably forget about it.”
This is what is known in the biz as a ‘lie’. In my frazzled mental state I completely forgot to call Tennima ahead of time. That would have made this a lot easier.
He squints at me, apparently not appreciating my attempt at good-natured solidarity. “ID?”
Crap.
“Yeah, sure.” I fish it out of my wallet and hand it to him under the glass. This is about to get a lot harder.
He doesn’t even have to look at the text on the card. The entire thing is bright purple, with “ARCANIST” in yellow block letters at the top. He beetles his brows at me in a combination of indignation and disbelief. It’s a shame that false IDs of any quality cost more than I make in six months.
He hands my ID back like it’s a hungry steam worm and grunts, “Get out of here before I call the Watch, freak.”
Admittedly, I probably could have thought this through a little more.
“C’mon, you can look me up in your logs, I was here on a call last month. Or call Tennima’s garage, she’ll vouch for me.”
“Fat chance. You’re not even the seventh weirdo this week to try and pull that one on me. I’m not gonna be the guy that let a deranged throwback like you walk in here to do who knows what. Go cast a spell somewhere else, or I’m calling for backup.”
While he’s saying this, I bring up Tennima’s tablet in my database and compose a quick message.
I’m outside at the gate. Wanted to surprise you, but the guy won’t let me in. Can you call the booth?
I send it, suppressing a shiver as my internal antenna hums the data out of my skull and into the air. Now I just have to stall for time. Hopefully she has her screen on her and isn’t busy with something.
I reply, “I don’t know any spells. They’re illegal. And I’m not deranged! Do I seem deranged? Look, I can even make complete sentences! See?”
The guard scowls. “Have you looked in a mirror lately? You look plenty deranged. Non-deranged people are smaller, and have way less scars and, uh… technology, on their faces. If deranged took out advertisements, it’d be your mug on the billboards, creep.”
It’s my turn to frown. “That’s not very funny.”
He scoffs. “Yeah, I quit the comedy circuit to be a security guard. ‘Cause I like the uniforms, see? And these boxes are nice and sweaty, just how I like it.”
I fix my lenses on him. “Okay, did you really quit comedy to be a rent-a-cop? You’re disproportionately witty.”
Two words flash at the corner of my vision.
hang on
Mr. Dedication replies, “Everyone wants to be talented and famous when they’re young, pal. Except you, apparently. Looking at you, I’m guessing you wanted to be a cargo train. Or a human petri dish. Now fuck off outta here before I get in-”
The phone in his little security box rings. He rolls his eyes very dramatically, then jabs his finger toward the parking lot at me while putting the receiver up to his ear.
“Gate 2C, this is Springberry.”
His eyes lock onto mine from behind the glass, and his face congeals into an expression somewhere between exasperation, disbelief, and resignation. I smile at him.
“Oh. Hello, Ms. Earthboon. Yes, there is. Uh… two stories tall, black hair, green clanker eyes. Oh yeah. Yeah, like if- yes, at least three gorillas’ worth. Yes. It’s alright, no problem, just… warn a guy next time. Okay. Have a nice day, Ms. Earthboon.”
He hangs up the phone, eyes not leaving mine for even a second. He leans forward.
“I like Ms. Earthboon. She’s a nice girl. And if I find out about anything freaky happening to her, I’ll make sure something happens to you about it, get me?”
I shrug. “You’d have to fight a lot of other people just to reach my corpse afterward, buddy. And I’ve been friends with her longer than you have, anyway.”
The guard puts his attention on his computer and gets ready to type. “What’s your name?”
“Baulric Featherlight.”
He gives me a look. “What, like from the story?”
Okay, this guy is definitely a faker. I’ve never met a security guard that didn’t collapse into myoclonic seizures when exposed to literature.
“Yep.”
A sarcastic chuckle. “And that last name is just poetry on a creep like you. Your parents must be so happy that they got their wish.”
“Nah, they’re dead.”
“Yeah? Join the club, pal.”
“Okay. Where do I sign up?”
He squints. “Where what now?”
“Where do I sign up? For the Dead Parents Club. That sounds like one of those ones with free coffee.”
He slides a clipboard and pen under the glass. “Bottom line right here, smartass.”
I pick up the form and look at it. “What’s this?”
Still typing, he says, “Never learned how to read, huh? Clearance badge form. If you’re a consult you shoulda got one the first time you came through, but every other guard here is a lazy piece of shit. Pretend to read all of it very thoroughly for the cameras, then sign so we don’t have to do this song and dance ever again.”
I glance at the paper, then run my text comparator program to get the gist in about a third of a second. Don’t lose the badge, don’t eat the badge, et cetera et cetera, just bureaucratic boilerplate. I sign and give it back to him. How’s that for reading, huh? Bet you wish you had one of these. Or… well, maybe not, because modern intracranial processors still have only about a 60% compatibility with normal human brain tissue and the list of post-implantation side effects is about as long as your spinal cord. Which uh, has a good chance of exovertebral herniation after getting one of these, incidentally. Look, basically what I’m saying is, don’t get a computer slotted in your head unless you want to use hallucinations as a replacement for the viewscreen you won’t be able to afford anymore, or you’re itching to add some real humdingers to your tumor collection.
The clipboard completes its pilgrimage back under the glass with my signature in tow, then Mr. Vigilance holds up an ancient-looking camera.
“Say ‘regret’!”
The flashbulb goes off before I even realize what’s happening. The badge comes out of the laminator and he hands it to me. In the picture I look like an overexposed, electronically-enhanced moron. I squint my shutters at him.
“That’s hysterical. No wonder they pay you the big bucks, you absolute winner, you.”
He smiles pleasantly and pushes a button. A buzzer sounds, and the door opens, showing me a passage leading into the arena.
“Have a great day, Mr. Featherlight. Do anything stupid in there and there’ll be so many shock batons up your ass you’ll try to take the next power transformer you see out on a date.”
Walking down the steps into the arena, I wave a hand and say without turning back, “Revisit that old dream of yours, Mr. Springberry. You’re in the wrong line of work.”
The door crashes shut behind me, leaving me surrounded by quiet, fluorescent-lit concrete.
I send Tennima another message. Thanks. Where are you?
After a minute, she replies, major league garage bay 89.
Major league? Wow. That’s new. I guess there’s some congratulations in order.
I slither my way through the utility tunnels toward the arena grounds. There’s no paint and no decorations - the fans aren’t allowed back here. Just anonymous gray-green concrete and the occasional door marked “MAINTENANCE” or “BOILER”, stuff like that. On my right are some high half-windows, where I can see the fight turf. This place on its own is bigger than most neighborhoods, so it’s going to take me a bit to work my way over to the garages.
I realize I have no idea where she actually is. This place is a labyrinth. I give up and find the nearest door to the pitch. The garage numbers are painted below the stands so the fans can identify their favorite engineers, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Back out in the sun, I scan the place for a bit. It’s not a fight day today, so it’s quiet, and the stands are mostly empty. Only some scouts, coaches, and diehard fans for whom even automech maintenance is something to cheer about. The pitch is just bare brown-orange desert earth, smoothed and compacted down by rolling machines at the end of every event. There are some automechs and engineers out here, sparring against one another, troubleshooting, practicing maneuvers, or just talking amongst themselves.
Tucked under the stands all the way around the perimeter of the pitch are the shadowy dugouts, where the engineers’ garages are kept. Alcoves numbered “1” through “200” for the minor leaguers on the east side, and one-hundred larger nooks for the majors on the west. I find the one with a big yellow “89” painted above it and just cut directly across the pitch, keeping a respectful distance from the gearheads and their fighting machines as I walk.
I pass by two contenders with minor league emblems on their jackets. One’s a shrimpy-looking mousey guy wearing welder’s goggles, with the number “174” on his back. He’s sweating a bit, and grimacing like he’s got a weasel in his work coveralls. His vitae is blue-red and wispy, like seaweed. The other’s a… distinctive-looking hefty lady with sky-blue lip paint, two-inch rainbow-colored artificial eyelashes, glittery eyeshadow, and not a single hair on her meaty head. She looks like a huge vanilla cupcake with rainbow sprinkles came to life and decided to start a career as a heavyweight wrestler. Her vitae is a big, blocky red-purple fortress around her body, with clouds of something like multicolored flower petals drifting around its ramparts. I’ve never seen someone so imposing in my entire life.
They’re standing across from one another on opposite ends of a white circle painted on the ground. Their mechs are in the ring, sparring.
Mouse’s machine is a sleek, headless, fast-looking thing with four arms and reverse-jointed legs. It’s painted red and orange, with two or three sponsorship decals on the shoulders. Two of its arms have hands, and the longer upper pair are equipped with a guttering flamethrower and a circular saw with glinting teeth. No engine - probably running entirely on an electrite reactor to cut down on weight.
Rainbow Suplex’s mech looks basically exactly like her - hulking, heavily-armored, and slow, with massive hydraulic pistons in the arms, a roaring engine in its chest, twin chrome exhaust pipes jutting from either side of its clavicle, and the most terrifying candy-coat of eye-bruising rainbow paint I’ve ever seen on anything ever. I don’t see any obvious weapons on it, or even cameras in its heavy head. Aside from its blinding paint job, of course, which in the sunlight is forcing me to turn down my eyes’ goddamn brightness setting.
Mouse punches a few keys on his wrist-mounted data relay, and Spider-Arms trains its flamethrower on the Oglitzerator. An angry jet of liquid fire sprays all over the giant’s body - I can feel the heat from where I’m standing. The massive mech just walks forward, which is honestly the most menacing thing it probably ever does. Each one of its footsteps brings a pneumatic tsss and an earth-rattling rumble. No matter how heavy its armor is, it can’t just stay in the fire - it’ll overheat.
The multicolored monster stomps forward, but Spider-Arms launches ahead and right on what looks like jet-powered rollerskates. In an impressive display of agility, it reaches the titan’s flank and swipes an arm left. Its buzzsaw screeches against its opponent’s armor plates - probably looking to sever a hydraulic line. A shower of sparks flies in all directions.
The much larger Oglitzerator turns and waves its own arm, like a bear trying to swat a bee. Spider-Arms ducks under the swing, then shoots another jet of fire right in the hulk’s back.
Rainbow Suplex, her face in a determined scowl, closes her sparkle-coated eyes and punches a button on her own wrist rig.
Then it becomes apparent why Mouse is wearing welding goggles.
A horrible blinding flash explodes from hidden photoplates on the Oglitzerator’s armor. I’m lucky I already turned my brightness down - the rainbow flare only lasts for a split second, but was bright enough to outdo the sun and cast shadows all the way up in the nosebleeds.
There must’ve been an extra little electromagnetic something in the flare. My implants are pretty well-shielded, but there’s a little static in my vision, and Spider-Arms suddenly looks a lot more confused. It tries to get out of range, but flounders, like it’s not sure which direction to go in. The Oglitzerator takes advantage of the momentary confusion, to gruesome effect. It lunges forward and grabs its opponent’s left two arms at the shoulder, plants its other hand around Spider-Arm’s middle, then pulls. The smaller mech’s left arms shriek briefly and then separate from their sockets. Oil and hydraulic fluid splatter the dry earth. The giant tosses the leaking limbs to one side, lifts up the rest of Spider-Arms, then throws the poor, defeated mech overhead about twenty yards through the air. It lands outside the ring with a metallic crunch, in a pitiful-looking heap of tangled scrap metal.
Mouse falls to his knees, hands on his head and mouth agape in despair.
Rainbow Suplex, arms crossed over her… regal bosom, yells to him, “You shoulda kept yer distance! The fire woulda worked if you’d just dodged around more, but you had to get cocky.”
Mouse doesn’t reply, eyes down, apparently still reeling from his 45-second defeat.
The Oglitzerator picks up the dismembered arms, then stomps over to gather up the whirring corpse of Spider-Arms. Rainbow Suplex, still scowling like a bull, crosses the ring to cast Mouse in her domineering shadow. She leans down, picks up her shell-shocked opponent, and slings the kid over her shoulder like a dejected sack of potatoes. She strides off with purpose, the Oglitzerator following behind.
“C’mon, Silverbell, it ain’t the end of the world. Let’s look at some pulse shielding, then I’ll buy ya a milkshake and one a’ them nice sausage sandwiches you like. Y’all gotta eat more. You’ll feel better in two shakes of a rattler’s tail.”
From somewhere between Rainbow Suplex’s shoulder blades with his butt in the air, Mouse sniffs and mumbles hopefully, “... Alright.”
The strange duo saunter off toward the garages. I can’t tell if what I just witnessed was a friendly training session or a kidnapping.
A lilting female voice somewhere around my left elbow says, “Kind of reminds you of the old days, huh?”
I turn and look down.
Coming up to just above my waist is a diminutive young woman with silvery blond hair bound in a messy bun. She’s wearing a tan tank top with goggles on her forehead, and the sleeves of her olive-green mechanic’s coveralls are tied around her waist. Tiny button nose and big green eyes that seem to scan everything around them. Kind of like mine, but without the need for any circuitry. She’s got a narrow frame and probably doesn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds, but her arms still show some muscle from working with power tools and metal all day.
Her vitae is very geometrical. Regular angular shapes, like a bunch of ghostly armor plates. They’re varying shades of gray and rust-red, and they orbit around her body interlocking and separating at random, forming new shapes or breaking up into smaller ones. The metallic assembly smells pretty much like you think it would - hot metal, grease, and exhaust.
I smile at her and say, “Yeah, a little. How are ya, shrimp?”
She gives my hip a hug (that’s all she can really reach), and I give her a careful pat on the back. My hand is wider than her shoulder blades. We separate. She crosses her arms and looks up at me.
“Probably better than you, fatty.”
“Yeah, probably.” I thumb at the sparring partners receding into the distance. “Who’s the cute couple?”
Tennima snorts. “Panlon Silverbell and Charla Longmarch. They’re very much not a couple. Pan’s too shy to get a girlfriend and Charla’s… well, you can probably put two and two together on that one.”
“You know them?”
She shrugs. “He’s new, just entered the league a few months ago. I don’t know much about him. He seems quiet, but he’s pretty talented for his age. Charla’s been here almost as long as the arena has. She looks… daunting, but she’s actually very nice once you get past the… intensity. Basically the minor league den mother. She shows all the new fighters the ropes.”
“I didn’t see her rank.”
“Number one, in the minors. She’s been there for the last ten years or so - her and Painbow are the last obstacle to the big leagues.”
I frown. “She’s been rank one in the minors for ten years?”
Ten nods. “She’s refused every major-league contract they’ve tried to give her. Honestly, she’s good enough that she could move up whenever she wanted, but I think she keeps her rank to force all her adopted children to exceed her if they want to move on. Cares more about being a coach than personal glory. That’s one reason why she has so few sponsorships. The other reason is that she refuses to ruin Painbow’s paint job with corporate decals.”
“Huh.”
“She’s a little weird, and loud, and pushy, but her heart’s even bigger than her biceps. I owe her a lot. I’m thirsty. You want a drink?”
“Hell yes I do, walking here was murder.”
“Follow me.” Tennima starts off to the left, toward the major league garages.
I slow my pace as we cross the expanse of hot dirt. Every one of my steps is worth about three of hers. We pass by some training equipment, and more mechs and engineers deep in their training.
“So you’re in the majors now, huh? When did that happen?”
“About a month ago. You’d know if you came out to see my damn matches.”
“I’m broke! Why don’t you use your dang prestige and get me some free tickets, huh?”
“Minors aren’t allowed to do that. But now I’m a bigshot, I’ll see about floating you some freebies in the nosebleeds. Hope you’re not prone to altitude sickness.”
“I guess we’ll find out. You and Crunchy must be on fire lately.”
“Yeah, we’ve been leaving a pretty terrifying wake of scrap behind us. I got picked up by Halfmoon, you know.”
I whistle. “No kidding? That’s gotta be the big bucks, right?”
She nods. “They treat their fighters pretty well. I’ve got a fancy new apartment in Sector Nine and everything.”
“You really are a bigshot. You should let me come over and stay for a few years.”
“I think you violate about seven different clauses in my lease. But sure, you should come visit sometime.”
All these garages are basically the same. Some have their doors open, some don’t, there are some subtle decorations depending on the engineer currently inhabiting it, but they all have standardized equipment. The fighters are always moving up and down depending on their rank, moving closer and closer to the coveted Champion’s Workshop, so if they’re performing well, they never get the chance to stay in their designated spot for long. Tennima’s garage is always identifiable, though, no matter what her rank is. From a distance.
Because none of the other fighters have Mr. Crunch.
Tennima crosses the threshold of her nook, under the awning and out of the sun. I stay a short distance away, for just a moment. That’s the thing about being around something bigger than you. No matter how big and strong you are, you’ll meet something bigger and stronger. And when you do, that little primeval part of your brain will activate and remind you that you could be prey. There’s that small instant where your instincts have to come to terms with the fact that you aren’t the big fish anymore. That’s the feeling that I wind up planting in most people’s heads when I’m around them, whether I want to or not. And Mr. Crunch does it to me.
I rest my hands on my hips and call to the thing in the garage’s loading bay, “Long time no see, Crunchy!”
The iron beast in the shadows raises its colossal left arm with a riot of clanks, ratchets, and hisses. It holds up its hand, opens it, and waggles it left and right on its wrist joint, making metallic tink tink tink sounds as it waves at me. A happy electric warble comes from somewhere in its chest, like a synthesizer crossed with a purring cat and a songbird. But loud enough to shudder my sternum.
I might have given you the wrong impression when I told you that Painbow, the colorful mech from earlier, was big. Now, that’s not technically incorrect. By my estimation, Painbow is probably a square ton and a half of metal, capable of tearing a man in half at the waist without so much as a rev of its engine. Mr. Crunch makes Painbow look like a plastic windup toy. Next to Mr. Crunch, everyone and everything is small.
It’s not a complex mech. Far from it - Tennima’s magnum opus is an exercise in proving the elegant simplicity of uncompromising brute force. Two legs, relatively small, only really there to absorb shock and carry the beast from one place to another. A small head with one glowing amber eye and not much else, resting in a high collar of armor plates. But the arms. The arms are what’s carried Tennima into the major leagues. These things are so massive that each of its shoulders has its own dedicated exhaust manifold and hydraulic booster engine just so they can move faster than a heavily concussed snail. They reach nearly down to the ground even when Mr. Crunch is standing fully upright, but it usually isn’t - it often moves on its knuckles for balance, like a brushed-steel gorilla. Either arm weighs more than my entire body, and Tennima can’t remove them without a hydraulic lift.
Strung across the creature’s back and shoulders are reels of high-test loading cable, which end at harpoon projectors in the wrists. These are the reason Mr. Crunch is able to dismantle the competition so efficiently. It’s too gigantic and slow to catch anyone, so it impales them with pneumatic spikes like a fisherman, and just reels them in before literally tearing them apart with its titanic hands.
Nine feet tall. Over eight thousand pounds of pure heavy metal might. And it’s waving and chirping at me like a small child.
I approach his loading rack and pat the humming colossus on the elbow. “And a hearty beep boop to you too, buddy.”
His other arm crosses his chest, and he mimics my gesture, patting me on my elbow with two fingers. Very gently. He makes a sound similar in tone to my “beep boop”, but distorted and electronic. He’s a copycat.
Mr. Crunch isn’t a person, but it’s hard not to think of him as a “he”. That’s what Tennima calls him, and it’s always felt somehow disrespectful to call him “it”.
And that’s kind of a problem. For both of them.
Crunchy makes a staticy “scoot over” noise and gives me a nudge with a finger. I get out of his way, and he disengages from his charging rack, apparently full. He takes a few booming steps on his boot-shaped feet, out into the sun. He shakes himself, kind of like a dog, rolling his huge shoulders and stamping the ground with his fists. Then he ducks back into the garage and starts rummaging through a pile of what looks like trash.
Tennima comes back over to me with two cans and two cigarettes. I take one of each.
We light our smokes and sip our fizz (Ten doesn’t like alcohol much), and Mr. Crunch pounds his way over to us on his undersized legs. He’s got his hands clasped together, like a kid that’s caught a cool bug.
He stops in front of us, blocking out the sun, and opens his palms. Inside is a partially-crushed bright red oil can. I look down at it, then to Ten.
She rolls her eyes. “He wants to play Hide the Can. I did it one time a couple weeks ago to calibrate his targeting system and he’s completely obsessed now. It’s his new favorite game. No, Crunchy, we’re not playing right now.”
Mr. Crunch holds the can out a little further and pleads, “Bwoowoop?”
Tennima sighs. “Alright, but only one. Give it to Uncle Baulric.”
Crunchy exclaims, “Fweebeep!” and offers me the can. I take it, and the four-ton steel toddler immediately covers his head with his hands.
Tennima shrugs in resignation. “Go ahead and hide it. It’s never taken him longer than five seconds to find it, but it’ll make him happy anyway.”
I scratch my chin contemplatively. “Hmmmmm. Where oh where should I hide the can, I wonder?” Mr. Crunch waggles a little at the waist and makes a few sing-songy notes in anticipation.
I walk into the garage, and pace around a bit, like I’m looking for a good place to hide it. But while I’m doing so, I slip the empty can into the back pocket of my trousers. I make some noise and rifle through a few containers to complete the illusion, give Ten a wink, then go back over to her.
“Okay Crunchy, find it!”
Mr. Crunch takes his hands off his head and gives a few contemplative bleeps. His eyes, simple steel ball cameras in sockets, light up yellow, then pan around his immediate environment. They stop on me. He takes two steps forward, leans over my shoulder, holds up the back of my coat like a curtain, and dexterously plucks the can out of my pocket. He pulls back, then holds up the recovered can with a very proud “Ba-bwaaarb!”
I raise my eyebrows and clap appreciatively. Tennima also joins me in the round of applause, but with a much less impressed look on her face.
“Alright, now go play with your other toys while we talk.”
Mr. Crunch tosses the can over his shoulder. It flies through the air and clatters precisely back in the pile of things where he found it. Then he turns about and goes back to the pile, inspecting different items and beeping happily.
I say to Tennima, “How did he do that?”
She scoffs. “He’s a big cheater. I installed a chemoreceptor module in his head and now he can smell with his eye. It doesn’t matter where you put it, he’ll be able to detect the oil residue in the can as long as it’s somewhere nearby. His adaptive behavioral subroutines are still figuring out how to make the best use of it, though, so for now, it’s a game. That he always wins.”
I nod. “And how does that uh… how do the rest of the fighters, uh…”
She knows what I’m angling toward. “He knows when people are watching, and I’ve taught him how to act when they’re around. It’s not perfect, but I wear a fake wrist rig when we’re in the ring and no one’s said anything yet.”
I sip my drink. The bubbly sugar is a godsend in this heat. “Aren’t you kind of a cheater? Isn’t all of this sort of… a formality?”
She huffs smoke and gives me a laser-cutting look. Tennima might be little, but she has an iron glare that’s on par with Emaphra’s.
“I’m the best engineer in this goddamn city, and I’ll prove it. Right here, regulations be damned.”
“And if you get found out?”
She jabs her smoke at me. “If you don’t dare to think the things that everyone else is too afraid to consider, you’re not an inventor, Baulric. You’re just another pair of arms, turning wrenches in the dark. No better than a maintenance automech, with a tech manual where your brain should be. If anyone thinks Mr. Crunch is a catastrophe waiting to happen, well… they can take it up with him.”
I look over at the massive machine and consider that. Yeah, she might have a point. Even the Brotherhood would have to think twice about how to confiscate a four-ton literal fighting machine that doesn’t want to be locked up.
Technology never stops marching. Even if the Brotherhood wants to tell it where to step and in what cadence, it’ll always move forward, whether they like it or not. Once the automech hit the scene, people asked questions about labor and entertainment. But a few strange people, people like Tennima, started asking more difficult questions. Questions like, What if we could make them act for themselves? What if they had their own essence? What if automechs not only looked like people, but started thinking like them too?
Animechs are even more illegal than I am. They’re so illegal that they don’t even exist. Not officially, anyway. All it took was the Brotherhood and the Tribunal to agree on this one point, and animechs went from intriguing scientific possibility to dangerous myth. A deeply ironic cautionary tale, meant to dissuade the hubris of innovators everywhere. If machines were alive, how would we control them? What would happen to poor old humanity? For all we know, we’d wind up with the cold metallic heel of a machine race on our necks before we even had the chance to heal from the bruises the magical one left. It’d be necromancer kings and elven empires all over again, except now they’d all be made out of metal.
The rare ones like Tennima think differently, though. They don’t acknowledge fear or taboo. They just gather up their genius and charge headlong into discovery, whether it means doom or a new golden age. Men like the Prime Controller think they can stop this train, but they can’t. They’re along for the ride like everyone else.
Now I’m not saying I live my life voiding my bowels every time I see an adding machine. But I’m also not saying that I completely let my guard down whenever Mr. Crunch is hulking in the corner of my vision, no matter how adorable he is. I give him the same respect I’d give any other thinking animal on the street. He’s the bigger killer, so my eyes aren’t coming off him.
I nod. “I know. I’m not saying you don’t know what you’re doing. You’ve always had a better grip on that than I ever have. I’m just… looking out.”
She slugs me on the arm. It actually hurts a little. She’s got a hell of an arm for someone smaller than some dogs.
Her bright green eyes lay on mine like a metal press. “I’m not an orphan anymore, Baulric. You said it yourself, I’m a bigshot now. I traded you in for a bigger bodyguard a long time ago, so you can give it a rest, huh? Go be caveman daddy for someone else.”
I frown and rub my arm. “Ow. Tiny fist, punch like bullet. Baulric arm hurt. Tenny hurt Baulric.”
Tennima snorts like a miniature bull. “And there’s more where that came from.”
I sigh. “I get your point. I’m not trying to be disrespectful. It’s just... hard to update your firmware sometimes.”
She hops up to sit on an oil drum. “Then install some new drivers, you overgrown sap. Is that why you came down here? Worried for the safety of my tiny fragile body?”
I snicker. “You said it yourself. If anyone thinks that’s all the body you’ve got, they’re in for a nasty surprise.” I nod toward Mr. Crunch, who is twanging a large shock absorber spring repeatedly in his enormous hands and burbling what sounds almost like synthesized laughter.
My hand goes up to my hair, scratching humbly. “No, uh… well, I did want to visit you just for the sake of it, but, uh… well. You know how you’re a lot smarter than me?”
She takes a smug drag off her smoke. “Yeah.”
“I’m in kind of a pickle. Maybe a big one. Alright, it’s a whole damn bowl of sour cabbage. I’m not sure what to do, so maybe you can use one of these very fancy power tools to bash some perspective into me.”
Tennima leans her back against the support stanchion. “Okay. Hit me with it.”
I hit her with it. The whole thing, from the crime scene to now.
At the end of the tale, she just raises an eyebrow at me. “You need me to tell you what to do here?”
I frown. “You say that like it’s obvious.”
“Because it is.”
“Elucidate me, bite-size sage.”
She groans in frustration. “Are you seriously considering taking the Brotherhood’s blood money? Seriously?”
“Uh… yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because I need it? In order to not die?”
Tennima wipes her face with her hands. “They’re playing you, Baulric. You said as much. They are an organization built out of every hateful, narrow-minded, despotic brick in all of Almarest, and you want to play directly into their hands? You want them to get their way?”
“No. I want money. So I can pay the angry zappy man, so he doesn’t zap me.”
“Is that so? That’s what you want?”
“... Is this a trick question?”
“No, but if you want to play games, I’m game. What do you want, Baulric? What do you really want?”
“To not get killed by the crazy electricity criminal, please.”
“And that’s it.”
“... Yes. Wait… no, yes, that’s it.”
She sighs. She won’t meet my eyes, looking away instead.
“If that’s all you want, then you’re not the same anymore, either. You’re not the same man that gave me food when he didn’t have any, and used his back as a roof to keep me dry when his own was too leaky. You’re not the giant that used his strength to scare away the men that wanted to turn me into something I didn’t want to be. If all you want is to stay alive, then you’re not a man at all anymore. You’re small. Smaller than I’ve ever been. I did replace you, but I didn’t think you’d ever become obsolete.”
I look down at my arm, covered in scars. “I never asked to be a giant. I’m not a bad man.”
“The only ones who do are the ones that don’t deserve it. And anyone can be not bad. It takes effort to be good. So tough. If all you want to do with your strength is sit there and take money from the same men that screw us both over every single day, if you want to take the easy way out, then you can fuck off. I don’t have any patience for outmoded little people that don’t have the backbone to try and solve their own problems. I don’t have sympathy for another redundant freeloader. You taught me that. You can either live it and do what’s right, or… do otherwise.”
It’s harsh, but go easy on her. I’ve known her since she was 9 and she’s been through things most of you can’t even imagine. It upsets her to see me like this, and ironically she doesn’t quite have the tools to express it gracefully. I glance at her, and I recognize a familiar cast to her eyes. She knows she’s overstepped, but doesn’t have the ability to admit it.
Her vitriol isn’t entirely without merit, though. How long has it been since I wanted something other than survival? How long have I been drifting on a raft made out of advantages that I never earned?
I think I used to be useful. I helped Tennima when she didn’t have anywhere to go. I’ve stepped between the weak and the predatory a few times, mostly to prove to myself that I didn’t have to be a predator either. To prove that I was better than that. Not a cheater or a monster like other powerful men. I used to hunt children. Not to hurt them, but to pull them out of gutters when they were lost, and take them somewhere safe. I used to use my unfair advantages to protect people who never got a fair shot, and I’d do it free of charge.
Now… well, what do I do all day now? Look at things on my computer. Read the books I’m allowed to have. Take naps. Stay inside. Stomp bugs and bad men when the food runs out, but even then, only sometimes, only if there’s money. Then repeat. I barely do anything at all. I can weave Life energy like the threads of a tapestry, and I use it to take the place of meals when I’m too lazy to buy a damn sandwich. There was a flame at one point, but it’s dulled as I’ve gotten older. Maybe that happens to everyone.
The only things I’ve ever been good at are hunting and loafing around, and I didn’t even have to earn the first. It was given to me, whether I wanted it or not, and all I’ve done with it is use it as an excuse to coast. Maybe it’s time to stop being a big animal and be a big man instead. No more drifting.
It’s time to hunt.
I huff a haughty breath, and take it in stride. “Well, Ten, it’s been good seeing you, and I hate to cut this short. But if you’ll excuse me, something important just came up, and I have to chase after it.”
I turn and walk away, pretending like I’m not concerned with her reaction. But behind me, she calls out from her barrel throne.
“Oh Tennima, I’m such a big dumb idiot, thank you so much for reminding me not to be stupid! Why, you’re welcome, Baulric, any time!”
I smile. It’s true that I’m usually too lazy and fearful to make friends. But the ones I do have are worth keeping.