by Ryan Tang
Alex smiled fiercely.
The stutter-step was one of her favorite moves.
She'd spent hours carefully calibrating the exact distance she needed to bait the opponent in while avoiding the explosion herself.
It was only another miss.
Her one-armed opponent waited until the very last second then took one perfect step to the left. The missiles exploded uselessly where Dr. X had been standing just a moment earlier, lured into each other by their own heat signatures.
This time it was Dr. X who used the smoke to their advantage. The black machine slid forwards. Alex drew her gun and fired, but the enemy avoided her blow with a precise jerk of their head. The blue gunfire chipped off half the commander's antenna, but that wouldn't do her any good. The gleaming ax-head whirled down. The strike was simultaneously savage and surgical. Her rifle was cleaved clean in two.
The curse wasn't even out of Alex's mouth before the jet black Eternium ax twirled in a ferocious backhanded blow. Alex yanked the controls backward in just the nick of time. The black streak missed her by what must have been inches, coming so close to her cockpit it seemed like the enormous blade was about to emerge from her screen.
Her pod jerked violently, and Alex let out a surprised yelp. She frantically pulled up her machine's statistics and stared at them in confusion.
The ax had cleanly missed her! Why had the pod rocked?
The pod shook again, jerking her violently out of her seat.
Alex scrambled back into the pilot's chair, completely dumbfounded.
It must have been some residual damage from the earlier ship's cannon blast. The pod must have jerked itself out of place trying to simulate it.
She hadn't taken any damage since.
Then the black machine was on her again, and she had no time to try and figure what was happening. Her fingers moved without conscious thought.
The ax came down again and again with malevolent speed and precision.
Even experienced pilots occasionally swung too far on their blows, exposing their machine to counterattacks. But Dr. X knew precisely how much strength to put into each strike. As soon as Alex dodged one, they were bringing their arm back for the next brutally economical slash.
Who the hell was this pilot?
Alex had never fought someone like this before, neither on Plenty nor on her home colony of Diligence.
She squinted furiously at the screen, but she had no opening for a counterattack.
Alex fiddled with the delicate controls. She had to try and get to the pilot's left-hand side. With no arm and no shield, Dr. X was vulnerable there. But the black machine whirled gracefully, effortlessly covering up their weak side at each exchange of blows.
Alex dodged and weaved, block and parried. The shrill ring of the simulator trying to mimic the sound of clashing Eternium rang endlessly in her cockpit. Her pod trembled with each clash between her cutlass and the ferocious ax. Dr. X's weapon was heavier. Each strike drove her back further and further.
Alex cursed again.
It was at times like this that she wished she had a fucking shield.
The ax continued smoothly raining down blows, a sharp black blur of death. Alex was driven back towards the island. The cliff face loomed over her head, and the ground lurked beneath her. Soon there would be nowhere else to run.
The enemy Paragon relentlessly advanced, doggedly boxing Alex into a corner. Alex lost every exchange. Dr. X pushed every advantage. They were forcing her down from the sky and away from the sea. They were pushing her back toward the islands, back toward land, where she was at her weakest.
The ax and cutlass clashed again and again.
Then Alex made the inevitable mistake, and the ax broke through her guard, streaking right at her cockpit.
Alex reacted instantly, jamming her disarmed rifle arm between the blade and her cockpit.
Sacrificing an arm would hurt, but it was better than getting her cockpit hacked in two.
And it would give her a chance to fight back.
Her exploding arm would jerk both their machines, but Alex was ready for it. She'd slip past Dr. X's careful guard and stab them right in the cockpit.
When the ax hit her machine, her pod shook like it was going to fall apart.
Alex's teeth rattled in her mouth. Sparks flew from the screens as the tremoring pod nearly jolted them out of their sockets. For one terrible moment, blood rushed to her pounding head as the pod flipped upside down before righting itself again.
What the hell was happening?
It was just a broken arm!
The violent shaking caused her counterattack to come just a beat too late.
Alex frantically swung her sword, but the black machine gently swiveled to the side. The blade missed Dr. X's cockpit by inches.
She fell back to avoid the vicious counter, and then her pod shook so hard that her head smacked the ceiling.
Alex cried out in surprise and pain.
What?
Dr. X hadn't touched her at all!
Jared shouted outside and pounded vigorously on her pod. They'd cut off their communications link and couldn't re-establish it until the fight was over. But her friend was clearly trying to say something very important.
The black ax blade came crashing down again, and Alex stopped paying attention to what was happening outside.
She had no time to pay attention to anything else.
She dodged the first blow, then the second. On the third strike, Alex caught the handle with the very edge of her sword. Eternium sang as she jerked the blade upwards, catching the edge of the ax head with the crossguard of her cutlass. This was her chance. She could wrench the unwieldy weapon away and leave Dr. X completely defenseless.
Her pod tilted completely upside down.
Blood rushed to her head, but Alex's battle-mind stood firm. The pounding in her skull faded into the background. She didn't even waste time wondering what was happening.
She gripped the awkward silver controls as tightly as she could.
She was on the attack. Dr. X backpedaled, but Alex wasn't going to let them get free.
Her pod randomly lurched to the right.
Alex screamed as her wrist slammed into the wall, banging against it so hard that she could hear her shattered bones rattling back and forth. Tears flew from her eyes.
Dr. X broke free and immediately continued bearing down on her.
She tried the same trick again, but it was useless.
Alex cursed and called up her machine's statistics.
Other than the blacked-out arm, her status was all clear.
What was happening?
Why was the pod shaking so badly?
Outside, Jared was shouting at her to get out. But ejecting from the pod was equivalent to surrendering.
She wasn't going to let a stupid glitch stop them from qualifying for the tournament.
Her friends were counting on her!
Hands continued pounding on the entrance, but she ignored them.
Alex stared at the screen until she could no longer hear the noise outside.
She couldn't afford a distraction, not now.
There was a dreadful wobbling noise as the pod slipped out of the stand.
The pod bounced off the ground, and she slid her hand just a little too far on the controls, moving her machine slightly further ahead than she'd meant to. Alex cursed as she realized her mistake. She hastily pulled the handle back. She couldn't make a false move, not against an opponent with such relentless pressure.
It was too late.
Dr. X instantly penalized her mistake with a precise strike to her cockpit. Her arm was still a little out of position. It was a carefully aimed attack, one that forced her to choose between two dreadful options.
Alex had no choice but to block, but her sword caught the ax head at a horrible angle. Her own tactic was promptly used against her. The enemy pilot shunted their weapon mercilessly forwards, grinding it against her sword
. A flick of the black machine's wrist and then her cutlass was spinning uselessly towards the ground.
The pod rattled so badly she could see Jared's living room through the seams.
The crazed simulator machine made it seem like it was even shaking outside.
Outside, Jared was screaming and screaming, but she couldn't hear what he was saying through the intensity of her battle-mind. It sounded like Jared was trying to hold the metal sphere in place.
Alex laughed.
The challenge made her feel alive.
She only had one round of missiles left. Their place in the tournament was on the line. And she had to win the fight before her faulty pod shook itself apart.
The cold fire in her stomach burned brighter than the sun.
The librarian's mind had never felt clearer.
She stared at the whole battlefield, looking past her unyielding opponent for the first time since she'd launched into battle.
The key to winning on Archipelago was using the whole map.
The cliff loomed above her, so tall that it blocked out the sun, and Alex suddenly realized what she had to do.
The ax whirled towards her.
Alex abruptly fell backward, crashing hard onto the ground.
Her pod trembled and trembled. Her chair fell entirely out of its railing. Alex scrambled out of it just in time, kicking the disconnected chair to the back of the pod as she desperately kept her hands steady on the controls. For a single perfect moment, the silver didn't matter. The handles felt like they were part of her hands, just like the plastic always did.
Behind her, the screens on the back of the pod shattered as the chair barreled into them. The panoramic view was broken, but Alex expected to look upwards for the rest of the fight. She knew the crushed earth was beneath her.
She kicked forward, and the missiles sprayed out of her flight pack. Dr. X raised their shield, but the missiles sailed straight past the black Paragon.
Dr. X was virtually perfect in technique, but they were seemingly unfamiliar with the thinking of the simulator.
Alex had gotten the better of them twice in this match. First, when she shot and destroyed their arm through the smoke. And second when she'd managed to hook her sword against their ax. After they'd seen it for the first time, Dr. X could emulate her techniques. They'd fired through the smoke shortly after she did. They'd flipped her sword away right after she tried using the same trick.
Alex grinned.
They wouldn't get the chance to copy this.
The cliff face exploded to pieces. Massive chunks of stone tumbled towards them. The jagged shadows darkened the sky, looming above both machines. It was too late for either of them to avoid the shrapnel, but the black Paragon was placed directly above her and would protect her from the worst of the damage. In real life, she might have gotten caught in the black machine's explosion. But a simulator battle ended the instant all of one team's units were destroyed.
Alex reached out and grabbed the black machine, locking it in place.
The rocks rained down, driving Dr. X's machine directly on top of her. The Eternium clanged endlessly as the rocks broke against it. The ringing went on and on as the cliff continued to crumble.
Finally, Dr. X's machine shattered into pieces. Eternium was the legendary metal, but nothing was built for getting hit by an entire cliff face.
The familiar victory screen appeared in front of her, and Alex let out a sigh of relief. She still had a lot of practice ahead of her. She didn't think she could beat Dr. X again. She'd only won this time because of what was essentially a technicality.
Alex took a deep breath. Just like a good book, a good fight always separated her a little from reality.
The pod opened.
Jared let out a gasp, happy, admiring, surprised, and angry all at once.
"Holy cow! You are the craziest person I've ever met."
Alex stared.
The gaming room was in complete shambles.
CHAPTER 8: THE BEWILDERED SURVIVOR
The tapestries of famous Old Earth pilots lay in a disheveled heap on the ground. The portrait of Director Stock had fared even worse. The stiff painting was lying shattered on the floor.
Jared's pod had fallen completely off of its stand before rolling into the far wall. More than the false color, it was the impact that proved the sphere wasn't made of Eternium. The circular machine was cracked clean in two. The pilot's chair jutted out at an awkward angle, looking exactly like the result of a real crash.
No wonder he'd been screaming for her to leave.
"Holy shit. What happened?"
Jared was pale as a ghost.
"The ground...the whole ground just started shaking."
Alex felt a vicious yank in her stomach. Her battle-mind was torn to shreds. The blood drained from her face.
"What?"
She couldn't believe it, but looking around the room, there was no other possible explanation.
Everyone, even people who'd never gone to the Spire in their lives, knew about the Disasters.
During the Paragon Wars, Old Earth became a violent wasteland. There were howling windstorms and vicious floods. Most frightening of all were the quakes – deadly incidents where the Earth itself shook beneath their feet. Alex remembered reading about them in Captain Ray's autobiography.
"After the first global quake, I knew we had no choice but to leave. Old Earth itself was telling us we were no longer welcome."
But it shouldn't have been possible, not on the colonies.
They'd been built to avoid the imperfections of Old Earth, which had been created from stone and water. The colonies were constructed on a perfect core of Eternium.
The ground let out another tremor, a sudden shake that went up and down before ending in a feeble side to side jolt. It was only a slight shake compared to the ones before. But now that she knew what was happening, it felt completely different.
Ice cold dread mushroomed through her stomach as Alex stared at the uneven ground beneath her feet. The floor panels were no longer aligned. The entire room was jarringly tilted to the right.
The floor could betray them at any moment.
She shot Jared a frightened look, but he was furiously typing at his tablet. Alex fumbled for her own, drawing it out of her pack with stiff fingers. She bumped her cast against the side of the bag, and tears flew to her eyes as the bones shifted back and forth. Alex dimly recalled banging her hand against the wall of the pod. It wasn't important anymore, not after the quakes.
She instinctively searched first for messages from her parents. When she didn't see anything, Alex's feared the worst, until she remembered that the disasters likely wouldn't spread through the colonies. They were all separate spheres in the sky. Diligence might still be safe.
She preemptively sent them a message explaining what happened, making sure to emphasize that she was safe. They'd been worried about her ever since their call last week when they saw her busted wrist and crumpled side.
Their response was an instant flood.
Nothing of the sort had happened on Diligence.
The quakes sounded horrifying.
She needed to check if the government had any recommendations.
She should return home at once.
Her tablet continued its incessant ringing as more and more messages poured in, this time from her co-workers at the Spire and her students. But before she could read them, Jared's father burst into the room, his face bright red from exertion. He gasped with relief when he saw them.
"Thank god! You're alright! Thank god!"
"Do you know what happened?"
Alex blurted out the question as soon as she saw him.
Jared's father would know what to do. He stood very high in Southern Robotics's leadership. He'd worked with the Stock family for decades.
The older man trembled as he shook his head.
Her fear somehow swelled even more.
If Jared's dad didn't know wh
at to do, who would?
Alex whirled towards her borrowed pod. Unlike Jared's devastated unit, it was still in one piece.
She still had access to the Forums. Even people who didn't actively play on the simulator used them to communicate. Surely someone would know what was going on.
She pointed. Jared and his dad hurried over.
"Let's see what everyone else is saying."
The Forum was in complete disarray. There was no more discussion about Paragon fights. A torrent of messages streamed endlessly across the large screen, flickering for only for a moment before zooming straight to the top, replaced by the next post in a never-ending queue.
Alex read very quickly, but she only caught a handful of the messages before they vanished.
"WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE."
"We need to get Director Stock working on this right now!"
"THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY PEOPLE. OUR WEIGHT IS CAUSING THE COLONY TO BREAK!"
"It was nice knowing everyone while it lasted. Thank you to everyone for being my friends."
"This is what we deserve. Plenty has been around for hundreds of years and we never figured out how to fix it! It's our own fault for being so DAMN dumb! We were given our chance, and we blew it!"
"This is an emergency. We need to turn everything over to Southern Robotics. Director Stock is the only person who can get us out of this!"
Alex squinted at the screen, her heart racing in her chest. The relentless flurry of new messages pounded her brain. She eventually realized people were trying to respond to each other, but the constant deluge of new posts made it impossible. New messages only appeared after the ones they were arguing with had vanished long ago.
"Too many people? Are you an idiot? The colony is built from Eternium!"
"We're not going to die. We'll figure it out, just like we figured out how to get off Old Earth!"
"Are you kidding me? Do you really want Stock working on this? He probably caused the problem! Am I the only one here who remembers what happened on Block 12?"
When she turned and asked Jared what happened on Block 12, he and his dad made the same dismissive snort.