Prime Deceptions

by Valerie Valdes

  “Will you take a picture with us, Lady Masamune?” they asked, bowing politely. “Please? So we can have the whole group!”

  Pink looked at them, then at Eva, who couldn’t keep from grinning. With a sigh, Pink nodded.

  “Fine,” Pink said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “You can stand next to Kojuro,” they said, pointing at one of the others, who waved excitedly.

  The crowds parted around them as they set up their picture, all the people posing in what were presumably ways appropriate to their characters. Pink stood there, hand on her hip, as Kojuro flung a leg dramatically in front of her.

  “Say ‘samurai’!” the speaker yelled.

  “Samurai!” they all answered in unison, except Pink, who maintained her usual amused smirk.

  “Everyone give me your comms codes,” the speaker said. “I’ll send you the holos.”

  Pink raised a hand as she walked back to Eva. “I’m good, thanks. Enjoy yourselves.”

  The teenagers loitered a little longer, chattering excitedly amongst themselves. “Look at Masamune,” one of them said. “So stoic. She really knows her character.”

  “I love the eye patch,” another said. “So subtle.”

  Eva laughed. “I can’t believe you went along with that.”

  Pink shrugged. “It made them happy,” she said. “Sometimes you gotta do nice shit for no reason.”

  Eva returned her attention to the task at hand. “Sorry, Sue,” she said. “Looks like this might be a dead end. Hopefully my mom will have another lead for us.”

  Sue’s expression fell, even as her gaze kept getting drawn back to the parade of costumes. “At least we got to have a little fun,” she said, sounding guilty and sad at once. “Maybe we can go through the dealer’s room before we leave. Just for a little while.”

  “Or we can ask Leroy?” Min said suddenly.

  Eva’s brow furrowed. “Leroy? Is he here?”

  Min nodded. “There’s a big Crash Sisters thing going on right now. And unless the old event data is totally wrong, he was here six months ago.”

  A shiver went up Eva’s spine. “He was on Medoral, too. That’s a hell of a coincidence.”

  Pink nodded, crossing her arms. “It might be nothing, but it’s worth asking. And it would be nice to see him again.”

  It really would, Eva thought. She hadn’t gotten the chance, not after her old boss Tito Santiago had jammed her into that cryostasis pod for The Fridge. By the time she got out a year later, Leroy was well and truly gone, a big holovid star touring the universe to see all his adoring fans. He was housed in a special enclave, a sprawling series of themed sets in which different members of the standard roster would fight depending on the prevailing narrative of the season. Between battles, they were sequestered in a small central bunker, where their interpersonal conflicts and training montages could be captured in High Octane Total Experience Memory SensationTM. Subscriptions were available from several q-net streaming services or individual episodes could be purchased as desired.

  They’d chatted a few times, but he was always busy, and his comms code changed all the time to keep some semblance of his privacy intact.

  Min tapped Eva on her shoulder. “Uh, Cap, there might be a tiny little problem.”

  “What’s that?” Eva asked.

  “You need tickets to see him,” Min said, “and they’re all sold out.”

  Chapter 5

  Throne of Games

  Eva wasn’t one to give up over a simple thing like tickets being unavailable. There had to be other ways to get to Leroy, and she’d find them all and try them until one worked.

  “I know he’s busy, but there has to be a way he can sneak out for a minute to see us,” Eva said. “He sent us his latest comms code, right?”

  Pink wrinkled her nose. “Let me check.” She stared at the wall for a minute, then shook her head. “The one I have is unassigned. Either it changed recently or he forgot to tell us.”

  Mierda, mojón y porquería. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. “Where is his big event going to be?” Eva asked.

  Min checked the program. “Wow, the main ballroom in the Nebula Wing. Crash Sisters must be doing really well in a lot of fandoms.”

  Eva pulled up a map of the massive convention center, pinpointing the ballroom. “Let’s start walking,” she said. “It’s pretty far away.” She took off at a brisk pace, which Pink caught up to easily because her legs were longer and she didn’t have a still-healing leg.

  “And how are you planning to charm your way into this one?” Pink asked.

  “If there are tickets,” Eva said, “someone has to be scalping them. Min, check the local q-net.” She glanced back to be sure Sue and Min were keeping up, which they weren’t, because once again Sue kept stopping to admire costumes and whatnot, and Min was still holding her hand. With a sigh, Eva stopped and waited, ignoring the glares of the people forced to move around her.

  “Oh wow,” Min said. “These tickets are a lot. Like, a lot a lot.”

  “How much?” Eva asked.

  Min told her, and Eva threw her an incredulous look.

  “Me cago en diez,” Eva said. “What comemierda has that many credits to piss away on a cabrón celebrity?”

  “It’s a grudge match,” Min said, as if that explained it.

  Eva shook her head and once again got moving, Pink at her side. “We’ll scope out the security situation when we get there,” she said. “If it costs that much, there are probably going to be guards.”

  “No fighting,” Pink said. “And no throwing chairs.”

  That eliminated some possible options. “Fine. We figure out a way to sneak in, maybe disguise ourselves as staff somehow.”

  “Staff have commlink codes,” Sue said, idly swinging Min’s hand as they walked. “And special uniforms. I heard a couple of them talking about the codes getting switched again.”

  “So we get the codes, steal a uniform, and walk in like we own the place,” Eva said.

  Pink made a sour face. “That’s a lot, honey,” she said.

  “Do you have a better plan?” Eva retorted.

  “There’s one other thing you could try,” Min said. “The Challenge Room.”

  Eva stopped and turned, earning a face full of sequined bodice, followed by a nasty look from a person in a gorgeous ball gown as they moved past her.

  “What,” Eva asked, “is the Challenge Room?”

  The line of people snaked around and through the low building currently built out as the Challenge Room. They all competed against each other for limited spots for a special meet-and-greet with Leroy himself. Some, like Eva, sat with their backs against the wall and got up only to move forward. Others bounced on the balls of their feet, or did push-ups, or took selfies while flexing. Others stared up at Pluto overhead, and the sun and stars beyond, perhaps imagining themselves as characters in an epic story with destinies written in the glittering canvas of space.

  Eva had filled out a number of forms and medical waivers to try the challenge, because as Min had told her repeatedly, the room was “a super hard obstacle course, like, level ten thousand” used as an initial screening tool for contestants who would later compete to be added to the Crash Sisters roster. It also changed every time so people couldn’t practice for it, had “like, so many traps,” and had to be completed in under a minute.

  Eva regretted her decision not to buy overpriced food on the way there, or at least coffee, and also questioned whether this was worth the time she was wasting in line when she could be stealing a staff uniform. Well, she could always try that plan if this didn’t work. She also wondered idly where the exit was, since no one was leaving the building. Then again, it made sense; wouldn’t want anyone giving people in line the heads-up about what to expect.

  What felt like hours later, the doors in front of her slid open, revealing a wall with a small corridor that looped around it, obscuring whatever was on the other side. She stepped in and
the doors closed behind her, leaving her in darkness.

  “Welcome to the Challenge Room,” said a voice to her left. Soft, female, like an old human nav computer. “Please listen to the instructions carefully, as they will not be repeated. Your goals are to destroy all visible targets and reach the opposite side of the room, pressing the large green button to open the exit door before time runs out. You will have sixty seconds from the time you hear the starting bell. The room will be illuminated in three, two, one . . .”

  Eva threw her arm over her face just in time to avoid being blinded by the massive floodlights that blazed on. A bell jangled so loudly that she almost wished she’d covered her ears instead, but she had more pressing considerations.

  Sixty seconds, destroy targets, green button. Go.

  The room went deep into the ground, at least three stories down. A number of platforms were arranged in no apparent order, staggered parallel to each other at different heights in a way that created roughly three levels. Each level had walls blocking access at strategic locations, apparently to encourage jumping or dropping to lower platforms. There were a few ladders, spread so far apart as to be almost useless given the time limit.

  The green button was on the other side of the room, at the bottom. The targets she had to break were large floating orbs, glowing faintly red, possibly holographic. There were five of them, and she’d already wasted six seconds casing the joint. Time to move.

  She shot toward the first target at a run, vaulting a low wall and using her momentum to carry her across a gap between platforms. The target was about as high as her head, and after a moment of hesitation, she threw a punch at it. With a strange musical chime, it popped like a balloon and vanished. Definitely holograms.

  It was harder for her to see where all the targets were now, or where the platforms fell away. There was one more target on this level, but another one was closer, one level down with a ladder next to it. She vaulted another wall, a taller one, landing in a roll that took her a few steps from the ladder.

  An alarm jangled, and the floor beneath her shimmered and vanished.

  As she fell, she managed to grab a corner of the second level’s platform, wrenching her left shoulder. Swallowing a yell as pain lanced through her, she grabbed on with her other arm and jackknifed, pulling herself up. The target was just ahead, at waist level, so she kicked it. Poof it went, still with the goofy sound effect. Three more to go: one more on this level, one up top, and the last one at the bottom.

  “Thirty seconds remain,” said the soft female voice.

  Eva ran toward the next target on the same level. She dodged moving walls that slid into and out of her way, stumbling to keep her footing on platforms that did the same.

  That teeth-shaking alarm jangled and she rolled forward in time to avoid having the floor disappear under her again. The room wasn’t hot, but she was sweating, and the strong smell of ozone gave her a headache. She reached the other target, which she had to wall-jump to hit. The damn things weren’t even satisfying to destroy, insubstantial as they were.

  Now she had to climb back up, snarling at Past Eva for thinking hitting the lower level targets first was a good idea. One of the moving platforms was going up and down, so she ran over to that, watched it carefully, and leaped onto it as soon as it was within reach. It carried her back up, except at the last moment it made the horrible alarm sound, and she had to jump off before it vanished.

  She reached the fourth target just as the voice announced, “Fifteen seconds remain.”

  The last target was on the bottom floor, near the middle. She wasn’t going to make it. Then it occurred to her: the vanishing floors. If she were trying to obstruct someone as much as possible, where would she put those floors?

  The elevator floor was gone, so she grabbed the lip of the platform and swung herself to the next one down, rolling into the fall and landing near the edge of a lower platform. Sure enough, the alarm sounded and she was dropped. This time she was ready, turning on her gravboots so her fall went diagonal instead of straight down, which carried her within spitting distance of the target.

  “Ten seconds. Nine . . .”

  Eva gritted her teeth and ran, leaping into a flying back kick that burst the target apart.

  “Seven . . .”

  The green button to finish the course was a good six meters away. She grabbed the edge of the nearest platform and vaulted it, turning her gravboots on again, and shot toward the far wall.

  “Five, four, three . . .”

  Her boots hit the button.

  Without warning, all the lights went out, leaving her in darkness that would have been total but for the faint glow coming from the now-open exit door.

  She panted, waiting for some sign of what to do next. When none came, she climbed down to the floor and deactivated her gravboots, then walked out the door.

  Clinical yellow light greeted Eva in a narrow hallway, along with a buasyr wearing a loose shirt emblazoned with the Crash Sisters logo.

  “Congratulations, Little Sister,” he said, his excitement so artificial it made Eva’s teeth ache. “You have passed the Challenge Room and may now proceed to the visitors’ room to meet The King. Please enjoy some complimentary light refreshments while you wait.”

  Eva proceeded. At the end of the hallway, a surprisingly large number of people milled around a bare room trying to conceal their excitement with a veneer of toughness or apathy. A table along one wall contained the promised light refreshments: branded energy drinks and snack foods. Not the kind of stuff she’d normally associate with anyone who took physical fitness seriously.

  Eva, however, was too thirsty to care. She made a beeline for the table and grabbed a drink, making sure it was fit for human consumption, which it was. Unfortunately, it was also peach-flavored.

  “Nasty,” she muttered, holding her nose and chugging it. The rejuvenating power of electrolytes and sugar gave her the energy to control her desire to barf over the peachiness.

  Everyone was staring at her, so she burped and waved. As if insulted in unison, they turned their attention back to a holovid along the opposite wall.

  It was Crash Sisters, of course, probably from the most recent season. Leroy had been the big bad guy for the last few seasons, but word had somehow leaked about his relationship with another one of the fighters, and the writers had decided to go with it. He was still stomping around with his bright-orange hair and yellow costume, but now he got to fawn over his princess girlfriend while they teamed up to fight one of the new people. Min had told her the name, but Eva struggled to retain it. Something like Ultimate Dream?

  As she watched Leroy posture and roar in the holovid, a cloud of smoke signaled the dramatic entrance of the villain onto the stage. Eva chuckled to herself at the theatricality of it all; Min and Leroy had always insisted it was real, and certainly the fighting was athletically demanding—as the Challenge Room had proven—but this? This was extra.

  The smoke cleared, and Eva’s heart would have stopped if it wasn’t mechanical.

  The villain was a xana.

  Bipedal, almost two and a half meters tall, with a long prehensile tail and pinkish fur. His costume was white with a purple stripe down the chest to his crotch, and loose to accommodate the gliding membranes extending between his arms and legs. If he fought the way other xana did, in Eva’s experience, he would primarily use his height to his advantage, grabbing and grappling and throwing, occasionally lashing out with the tail for surprise strikes or trips. Then again, Eva had only fought a handful of them, and hadn’t seen a xana in years.

  Not since Garilia.

  Eva stumbled to the nearest wall and sank to the ground, memories cycling through her mind like a bad vid. The wind singing through leaves taller than her. Arms burning with fatigue as she climbed. Barest shifting of shadows above her warning of an imminent attack. Dozens of xana closing in. Her fingers went to the scar on her cheek, the one she got that cycle, when a simple resingado gun-running mi
ssion had turned into mass murder. She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears welling up in them, because she didn’t deserve to cry, as if she were the victim and not the one who had pulled the trigger.

  The Hero of Garilia. The Butcher. Savior. Arsonist. Which one of those would she be to the xana on the holovid?

  Why the fuck did it matter?

  Breathe, comemierda, she told herself. In and out. Your heart’s fake, but your lungs are still meat balloons. They need air.

  A door opened at the far end of the room and a buasyr entered, wearing a strangely human-looking beige suit, striped, with two sets of cufflinks. Actual, old-fashioned cufflinks. And a puffy white tie—no, a cravat, that’s what it was called. It complemented her dark fur and black spidery eyes, which were only half-focused on the room’s occupants, because some people could talk and send messages at the same time. Her whole look screamed “lawyer,” so Eva assumed this was Leroy’s agent, handler, whatever they were called.

  “Congratulations again to you all,” she said. “If you would, please form two lines, and we’ll begin the session. Autographed copies of your holographs with The King will be available for purchase outside.”

  Eva snorted and stood, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. She hoped Leroy was getting a big cut of all the credits people were throwing around for this stuff. Good to see he was so popular, though. He deserved it, after everything he’d been through.

  She deserved a machete to the back, but she was trying to deserve better.

  Swallowing the big lump of emotions gagging her, Eva went to the back of a line. She did a brief dance with a lady who looked like a sumo wrestler with shocking-pink hair, and who apparently wanted to be last for some reason, so Eva let her. She didn’t get what the big deal was.

  An ear-pounding blast of theme music started up, and an unseen announcer shouted, “Who’s ready to meet . . . The King?!”