Bright City - The Tournament Arena
I’m sitting rather uncomfortably next to Willard watching a bunch of d-bots wail on each other. It’s the third qualifying battle royale of the day. A dozen d-bots and their handlers duking it out for the right to be murdered by Champion. It’s extremely violent and the crowd loves it. Half of Bright City is here to cheer, and gamble, and drink. It’d be pretty fun if I wasn’t sitting next to a psychopath.
“These guys suck.” says Willard.
That feels overly critical. The hunters and tanks duel at a blistering pace. Bullets and explosions weaving in a frantic dance. These are very smart, deadly d-bots. Sure, it’s stupid to join a tournament sponsored by a deranged assassin, but that’s more of an operator error than a technical failure.
The organizers are smart to stage these battle royales. The final fights aren’t that fun to watch. They’re over in seconds and Champion always wins. These preliminary fights give us something to bet on. I was looking forward to them, until Willard decided we were gonna have the worst first date ever.
“Fucking amateur hour.”
Today started okay. With weird dreams of stalking people and a quick bang with Volt in an alley. Then Willard messaged us. Meet him at the preliminaries. I thought we’d be planning to bushwack Champion, but all he’s done is bitch.
“Come on, son. Git gud.”
“Why the fuck are we here?”
Willard glares at me. Maybe. Or maybe that’s just his fucking face.
“We’re looking for a contender. The guy who’s gonna meet Big Cheddar when Champion gets got. But these casuals all suck equally. You’ll have to get down there.”
“Uhh. What?”
“Go win a battle royale.”
“What? Why? I thought we were gonna lean on whoever won?”
“We are. It’s gonna be you.” Willard frowns. “Listen, it’s potluck down there. We can’t lean on 60 different try-hards. That’s no way to run a conspiracy. We need a clear contender. I thought you were smart or something?”
“I am. Kinda. Why don’t you do it?”
Willard scoffs. “Big Cheddar ain’t meeting me. Get your ass down there.”
Volt glares at Willard. So do I. “I’m out of hunters.”
“Not a problem.”
A couple dozen hunters pepper the stands, surrounding us like highly explosive quills. Hmm. Feels like there’s a subtle message here. I pry a few out and load them into my drone gun. Volt snags the rest. I’m now armed, but still don’t want to join the tournament. A thought occurs.
I pause, and Willard smiles. Could be his first smile. I don’t like it. Would these hunters explode if fired at their creator? Could I even draw on him without getting a dart to the cranium? Fuck. Looks like I’m joining the tournament.
Volt and I wend down to the administrative section. Sign up for the next battle royale. A destructive test of a dozen d-bots and their operators. If we survive it, we’ll get to fight the winners of other battles, until we’re eventually murdered by Champion. Or, that’s what usually happens. I glare up at Willard. Mother fucker.
“Hey Volt, how much of our crypto did you bring?”
“All of it.”
“Cool. Place a bet on us facing Champion.”
Volt gives me a leery look. “Is that what we’re planning to do?”
“No.” I say. “But place the bet anyway.”
The remains of the last fight are bulldozed from the fight ring. A maze of concrete barriers are erected. They’ll be shot to shit in minutes. Volt and I are led to a random location by an usher-bot. We can see the stands of spectators, but not any of our opponents. The sole purpose of these temporary barriers is to slow down the slaughter. It’s what makes this a sport.
“Remember what I said about fair fights?” I ask Volt.
“Don’t get in one.”
“The other thing.”
“Shoot first and ask questions never.”
“That’s it.”
I ponder our predicament while the ushers secretly place our opponents. Sure is tempting to fire a few hunters over the walls. Volt would be able to spot and splat our adversaries. Sadly that’s not allowed. As always, the third dimension belongs firmly to Big Cheddar. Attack over the wall and skydrones ruthlessly retaliate.
Or will they? I haven’t seen any fireworks since Willard blew the skydrone plant. Maybe they’re all gone? Or conserving their strength. Either way, they were never good at seeing Willard’s drones.
I casually fire a dozen hunters into the sky. “Can you see our opponents?”
“Yes.” says Volt.
“Hit them as soon as the bell rings. Fire at us too, but a bit out of range.”
The opening horn sputters for a millisecond before it’s drowned out by twelve simultaneous explosions. It’s loud. I hit the deck. The crowd is dumbfounded. This isn’t how it usually goes.
A few moments later, I groggily get to my feet. There’s a thunderous hollering from the arena. It’s not exactly cheering, but I’ll take it. I’m still alive. If they didn’t bet on me, that’s their problem.
And so goes the day. Remains are bulldozed away. Barriers are set up. The fighters detonate. I miraculously survive. The bulldozer returns for another round of industrial scale last rites.
By my third resurrection, some of the hollers have turned to cheers. I’m not exactly popular, but I’m a known element. My battles are obvious fuckery, but maybe they’ll see a decent fight against Champion for once.
Theories on my persistent survival run the gamut from “I’ve rigged the arena” to “I’m cheating”. Which is pretty much the same theory. It’s a rare unitary gamut. My incipient opponents get agitated. I don’t know why. Champion was going to kill them anyway. You’d think they’d have their affairs in order.
Just before my 6th battle, I’m jumped by a dozen pilots in hasty, handmade, dazzle suits. Volt makes short work of them.
“Well done. Your visual algorithms have come a long way.”
Volt makes a face. “I did that mostly on sound. They were talking about killing you as they walked up.”
Huh. I ponder that as we walk to the ring. No other fighters appear. The crowd is losing their shit. I guess we’ve won the preliminaries by lack of suicidal opponents. My tummy doesn’t feel good. I forgot what a good listener Volt was. Champion said he had a panopticon. Opticon implies visuals, right? Willard and I have been gadding around because he couldn’t possibly see us.
I think we fucked up.
When I look to Willard in the stands, he’s in two pieces. The Champion drone is lounging amongst his gore, cheering like he’s part of the rapidly fleeing crowd.
Well shit.
He skitters down the stands like a stop motion spider. Volt calls down hunters, but he’s too erratic, never where he’s supposed to be. Spectators are fleeing the stands in Champion’s path, but crowding closer everywhere else. This is the action they came to see.
Champion lands in the fight ring just as Volt loses her patience. “Fuck you.” She stops trying to hit him and simply powerwashes the west side of the ring in shrapnel.
Nothing can survive that, and nothing does. When the smoke clears, Champion's pulverized chassis is revealed. I should take some anti-radiation pills.
Volt and I share a quick smug look before her magnetron is carved from her chest and I’m picked up by my head.
It super hurts. Fuck you Champion, and your second sneaky body.
The second, off-kilter, nuclear powered, Champion drone paces the fight ring while stress flexing Volt’s magnetron and my dumbass skull.
“Well done, you little fucking pissant. You destroyed one of my drones, and dealt a blow to my public image. Now everyone knows I have back-ups. Well, my strategic loss is your tactical gain. What shall you do with your victory?”
The pressure on my skull is immense. I do believe he’s upset. I’d love to antagonize him further, but it’s hard to troll when your head’s about to pop. I’m a victim of my own success.
“Hmm, what’s that? No immediate plans?” He gives me a little shake that nearly tears my head from my body. “Lovely. Means you're free to rebuild my back up panopticon. I seem to recall you owe me one.”
The pressure on my skull lessens and I’m able to croak out a few words. “Don’t work for free…”
“Ah yes, you and your crypto. I’ve heard what happens when you get paid, and I’m thinking no. Looks like you’re working for… Yes? Hello? What the fuck do you want?”
A little usher-bot has trundled through the wreckage to present us with two buzzing briefcases. “Oh, don’t mind me. Just dropping off Mr. Xan’s winnings.”
Champion looks at the crypto jackpot, then back at me.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I smile. “Git gud, son.”
The arena’s main doors are blown asunder and an eye-watering mess bleeds into the fight ring. A dire warning booms out.
“The enemy has won!”
The crowd hits sound levels normally reserved for interstellar rocketry.
Champion sighs, then shrugs. “You know what, this is fine.” He hands me Volt’s magnetron and sets me down. “Let’s get everything done today. Next year’s preliminaries will sell out.”
The two calamities stride towards each other. A mob of strobing drones messily orbit Harkon. The stands glint as dozens of Champion bots reveal themselves, crouched like chrome gargoyles. I pass Volt’s magnetron into her metallic slime and encourage her to get it together. We gotta back up.
Harkon seems smaller next to Champion, but his angry ultraviolet vee is bright as ever.
“Run, die, or take the oath.”
Champion slinks forward, limbs twitching, claws flexing, looming crookedly over Harkon. “I don’t run. And I’m done taking oaths.”
Harkon gives a single tight nod. “Very well.”
Champion pounces and Harkon meets him with a kick that crushes his chest. Dozens of Champion-bots leap from the stands. Some are battered by Harkon’s drones, but most get to him. For all the good they do. Harkon crushes them with efficient brutality, casually rending them to a growing pile of nuclear waste.
That’s not good. I back away, but Volt stops and points to the stands. The crowd is tearing itself apart. Gone fucking nuts. Some in anger, but most are ecstatic. They wail and scream and chant. It starts low, but gets stronger as more lunatics join in.
Fight or hide but never run!
Left behind when they have won!
POISON, SALT, ASHES, DEATH!!
TOTAL RESISTANCE!!!
TOTAL RESISTANCE!!!
TOTAL RESISTANCE!!!
It’s a bloodbath. Not a great escape route. Volt and the usher-bot stand awkwardly, waiting for me to choose our fate. Shall we be ripped apart by the mob? Or succumb to radiation burns?
I’m spared the decision when a small hover cycle lands next to us. The pilot has the meticulous business attire and greasy flop sweat I associate with expendable corporate try-hards. He validates my bias with a stuttered invitation.
“Big Cheddar would like to see you!”
“No shit? He wants me to pilot the Champion-bots?”
“No, he wants your threat algorithms!”
I frown. I’m being underestimated. Again. Whatever. “Fine, let’s go!”
There’s a small disagreement over who’s going on the two-seater bike. Apparently the vice president of asset acquisition doesn’t want to give his spot to Volt. And we can’t fly the bike without him. The usher-bot is technically already home, so he’s probably fine.
In the end, I hop on carrying Volt’s magnetron. We’ll get her more slime later. I leave the usher-bot with some final encouraging orders.
“Get that crypto to me somehow! If Harkon survives, tell him I’m meeting Big Cheddar in six hours!”
We chug out of the arena, flying almost sideways to thread the needle between drones and flying body parts. The rest of the city is quite peaceful. It’s a nice day. I suggest stopping for a cheezy coffee, but the VP demures.
“Big Cheddar expects us now. We can get coffee there.”
“Okay, but we have to get metallic slime for Volt.”
“No. We don’t have time. And the skycycle can’t handle the weight.”
“Let’s make the time.” I tap my last hunter on his hip.
As suspected, the corporate stooge who refused to walk from a nuclear death trap is also adverse to aerial self immolation. A foolish consistency that makes him easily manipulated. We stop at our old apartment so Volt can magnetically coax her old body from the rubble.
I estimate it will take three hours for Volt suck out a decent body, but we’re done in 40 minutes. Because that’s when a flying tank drops a dozen heavy gun drones on our position. Little Mozzarella sneers at us. “Big Cheddar will see you now.”
“Fair enough.” I scoop up Volt’s magnetron. “Let’s fly.”
My last hunter and drone gun are taken from me, then we’re off to the Cheddardrome. I’m impressed by this sky tank. I’ve never seen anything like it. Though, I guess I wouldn’t. Unseen flying weaponry is Big Cheddar’s specialty. That and cheezy coffee. I want one of each.
The arena is billowing smoke as we fly past. The violence has spread to the surrounding streets. Homes and businesses are being destroyed. Which might bother me if I had either.
We land on the roof of the Cheddardrome - which is another thing I’ve never seen - and are led down a level to the penthouse. It’s fancy. Granite, hardwood, long diagonal views. Nobody here though.
Little Mozzarella slips behind a large desk. “Give us the threat algorithms.”
A heavy gun drone slips behind us. “I thought Big Cheddar wanted to see me?”
Little Mozzarella smirks, points to several cameras around the room. “He can see you.” Then he taps a data port on the desk. “Make with the algorithm.”
Typical. I plunk Volt on the desk. She rolls over and mates with the data port. Pumps it full of sketchy math.
“So… what’s our role here?” I ask. “How are we getting paid?”
Little Mozzarella ignores me. Speaks into a phone. “Send in the nerds.”
A pair of dudes in lab coats enter. One thin and bald, the other round and hairy, like a small bear. They’re poking away on tablets, scanning through reams of data.
“Well?” prompts Mozz. “Do these ‘threat detectors’ work?”
Slim shrugs. “They ace the simulations.”
“Mind you, our threat detectors also ace the simulations.” says Bear. “It’s only in real life that they suck.”
“Their code has a hundred times more variables than our threat detectors.” says Slim. “That suggests complexity.”
“But there are still less variables than expected.” says Bear. “Which suggests the illusion of complexity.”
Mozz looks sharply at the two nerds. “Willard’s dead, but the skies are still clogged with his hunters. Can we use these detectors to regain control?”
Slim shrugs. “They can’t do worse than what we’re using now.”
“Strongly disagree.” says Bear. “There are many ways they could do worse.”
“Like how? Have they been pretending to kick our ass?”
“No, but maybe they’re pretending to be universal threat detectors. Think about it - our detectors target anomalies for pilots to fire on. Having pilots squeeze the trigger slows everything down, but without them our drones shoot the shit out of butterflies and shadows until they’re out of ammo.
“Willard’s hunters zero in on our skydrones, and kill without asking a pilot for fire authority. Which is much faster, and kicks our ass. But what if we load these threat detectors into our skydrones? Will they understand that they’ve switched sides? That Willard’s hunters are now the threats? Or will they continue to fire on our skydrones?
“That’s what I mean by the illusion of complexity. These detectors don’t have enough variables to rank threats relative to their host in situ. Xan’s a known huckster. He probably knew the Will’s Brothers had it out for Big Cheddar, and just trained the algorithm on skydrones and baristas. The threat detectors worked for Will’s, because they were tailor made for their enemies. Loading them into our drones could be a friendly fire apocalypse.”
Mozz looks tiredly over at Slim.
“It’s possible.” says Slim. “It’s also possible that they do understand relative threats to their current host and are the solution to all our problems.”
Mozz sighs and rubs his temples. “Fuck’s sake guys. Harkon’s started a riot and the Champion-bots can’t stop it. We need control of the skies or we could lose the city. How the fuck do we do that?”
Bear shrugs. “We should prepare to lose the city. Leave town and change our names. Ground our remaining drones and retool their profile. Maybe paint them pink. Once they look different, we come back, gank the hunters who trained on our old look, and retake the city.”
Slim shakes his head. “A lot can go wrong between fleeing the city and taking it back. Especially if these threat detectors work as advertised. Hell, even if they are fakes they could still destroy us. We may change our visual profile only to find they’re hunting by sound. Or smell. Or electromagnetic waves. Who the fuck knows what they were trained on? We should at least test them before we abandon the city.”
This snaps Little Mozzarella out of his fugue state. He glares hate at me. “Okay. Update a barista bot with the threat detectors. Let’s run a test.”
So I get my drone gun back and am set up facing a barista-bot. They have the same stylings as a Champion-bot. Just smaller, weaker, and less expressive. Really reminds me of the Dark City stalker-bot. I wish my gun was loaded.
“Point the gun at the barista.” orders Mozz.
“Is this smart?” asks Slim. “We may need this guy later.”
“Not if the test works.” Mozz nods and the gun drone behind me clicks ominously. “Point the gun at the barista.”
I pause for a second - wondering what will happen - then raise the gun. The barista snaps forward and punches Little Mozzarella's nose through his brain.
It happens fast. The corpse takes a comparatively long time to hit the ground. No one else moves. Which is normal for a pair of nerds, but the gun drone was supposed to stop stuff like this. I wonder if the barista’s aggression confused its algorithm or its human pilot? I suppose it’s a training failure either way. I chuck my gun into one of its rotors and it simply flies away.
“Well, that was interesting. Now let’s update the rest of your fleet. I wanna see that test.”
There’s a low rumble through the building. I imagine more gun drones are on route. Slim remains frozen, but Bear is quicker on the uptake. He grabs the thumb drive with the threat detector and plugs it into a terminal. Slim shuffles after him whisper-hissing “What are you doing? Lock down the system!”
“And then what?” Bear hisses back. “Flee the city, two steps ahead of Harkon?”
“You idiot! He’s trying to steal the drones!”
“I know.” The rumbling of the gun drones intensifies.
“Big Cheddar is going to kill us!”
“With what?” Bear hits enter, backs away from the terminal. The drone rumble evens out. They’ve stopped advancing.
I rub my hands together. “How are we doing, Volt?”
Between Big Cheddar’s fleet and the Wills Brother’s drones, I’m loaded into 60% of the combat drones in Bright City.
“Excellent. Initiate the System Destruction Protocol.”
Parameters?
“Kleptopia.”
Around the city, thousands of drones get a strong ping from their threat detectors. A small percentage of their decision bot voting group has found a pattern that trips a hard trigger. Because the rest of the voting group can’t see a pattern, they allow the trigger. It’s just how decision bots work - one loud voice drowns out the silence of thousands.
The triggered command is quite simple. Fire authority is transferred from Human-Pilot.link to Volt.exe
Criminal. Fucking. Mastermind.
“Is Harkon still on the field?”
No.
“Hilarious. Encourage the rioters to go home.”
Okey-dokey!
Thousands of barely visible drones stream towards the arena. I turn to the nerds.
“I need to find someone in a sleep pod. Can you do that?”
Bear nods. “Sure, what’s their name?”
“I don’t know that. Can’t you identify them by their biometrics? Doesn’t everyone have a unique heart rhythm or something?”
“Sure, I could figure that out. What’s their unique heart rhythm?”
I pause. Frown. “Nevermind all that. Can we lock the sleep pods? Trap people inside them?”
“No.” says Bear. “That would be a bad idea.”
“We could keep them asleep.” says Slim, a now enthusiastic collaborator. “Keep them under so they can’t leave.”
I nod. “Good enough. Do that.”
The nerds busy themselves at a terminal. They’re still whisper-hissing, but I can no longer give a fuck. Volt is showing me statistics of my total dominance. Numbers are going up. Very satisfying.
Things are looking good. Generally. Why are we trapping people in sleep pods?
“I figured out why no one could find Harkon or Big Cheddar. They were hiding where we were hiding.”
Cool. We’ve stolen armies and locked our most dangerous enemies in an endless slumber. What now?
“I dunno? Order a pizza?”