by M. D. Cooper
Rika followed the directions without pause. She had received two additional mental shocks from the compliance chip for responding too slowly, and she wasn’t about to let that happen again.
“Hmmm,” Jack muttered. “A bit of slippage when you arch backwards; but I suppose you won’t do that much, and your skin underneath can still stop a bullet.”
He turned to grab one more thing from the rack.
“And now, for the mech’s grand finale!” He turned and showed Rika a featureless black oval, which he deftly split in two. “Your helmet.”
Rika twitched backward. The helmet looked like it belonged on a robot. It would take away the last appearance of her humanity, and make her nothing more than a machine.
“Don’t move,” Jack said sternly, and Rika found herself paralyzed once more. She blinked rapidly, the only movement she could make, as Jack placed the back, then the front of the oval around her head. It was dark inside, and her breathing was loud in her ears—until something snaked into her ear canals and all sound ceased. She felt something wrap around her neck, and knew she was now completely entombed in her matte grey shell.
Rika realized that with the Link, she had access to basic information like the date and time. She saw that her sentence had only been commuted three days prior. Three days…it felt like a lifetime had passed, like the Rika then was another person.
All that remained now was Mech A71F.
The black interior of the helmet was replaced with a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the room. If Rika hadn’t been locked stock-still by Jack’s order, she would have fallen to the ground as waves of dizziness came over her.
She watched, with startling clarity in the dimly lit room, as Jack disconnected the power cables that had been attached to her limbs, and placed a small, oval battery pack on her back. A readout appeared on her HUD showing that the external battery was 98% charged, and would last fourteen days at its current drain. Estimates appeared beneath that data showing that under strenuous activity, the battery would only last five days.
There was a brief snapping sound in her ears, and Mech A71F realized she could hear sounds in the room again, but not with her ears. The sounds were fed directly from the helmet’s sensor array into her brain.
“Can you hear me?” Jack asked.
“Good,” Jack replied. “Run full diagnostics.”
She wasn’t sure how to, at first; but suddenly she knew exactly what to do, and she ran the diagnostic routine on her armor. It showed green across the board, and she reported that to Jack.
“Good. Mech A71F, you are ready for combat. You will receive final subliminal training en route to the front. Exit this room and follow the route highlighted on your HUD. It will take you to your transport.”
* * * * *
Author’s Note:
If you haven’t read the Rika Prequel, Rika Mechanized, you may want to do so at this point. It tells a story of Rika’s time in the Genevian military, and paints a picture of what she had to go through to survive the war that her people ultimately lost.
Pick up Rika Mechanized for $0.99
However, it is not necessary, and you may read on to see what is in store for Rika next…
DEKAR’S DREGS
STELLAR DATE: 07.02.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Dekar Station, Merchant Docking Ring
REGION: Outer Rim of Parsons System, Nietzschean Empire
“Hey, Rika, you have a ship to load! Get your tinhead out of the stars and get that shit loaded, or I’ll dock your pay!” Bay-Chief Hal yelled at Rika from two berths over.
“Not a tinhead anymore,” she muttered in response.
“You’ll always be a tinhead to me,” he called back.
“Damn, Chief Hal has good hearing,” Chase said from across the stack of pallets. “Guy can hear a mouse across the bay.”
Rika let out a long, silent breath, resisting the urge to walk over to Chief Hal and slap him clear across the bay.
Rika stepped up to the cargo stack, and slid the rods protruding from her forearms into the slots on the top of the crate, hefting its three hundred kilos with ease.
She noted that the crate was stamped with a Nietzschean logo, indicating that it was confiscated material, seized as the spoils of war.
The war her people had lost.
‘Her people’.
Rika no longer considered the Genevians ‘her people’ any more than she did their Nietzschean conquerors. The Genevians had taken her body from her, thrown her into desperate battle after desperate battle, and made her kill thousands of enemy troops.
All for an unwinnable war, where the high command squandered the lives of the mechs—and the soldiers fighting alongside them—until there was nothing left.
When the Genevians finally surrendered, the peace turned out to be no better than the fighting.
That the Nietzscheans despised the Genevians was no secret; their actions during the war did not belie their hatred in any way. Rika had believed that the only thing they hated more than Genevians were their mechanized warriors. As one such warrior, Rika had expected to be executed when the change of masters had occurred.
Some of the mechs had been killed, but they were ones who had gone insane with rage and hatred, and could never be integrated into any society again.
The rest—Rika included—had spent some time in internment camps, but eventually had their compliance chips and military hardware removed, and were set free.
‘Free’.
Whatever freedom was, Rika was certain it was not present where she had ended up.
What Rika had learned in the five years since the end of the war was that though the Nietzscheans hated the Genevian mechs because of the destruction they wreaked during the war, they respected them as warriors for rising above their circumstances. That respect had translated into their release back into society.
However, the Genevians felt great shame for what they had done to their own citizens. Unfortunately, that shame did not include any form of respect, acceptance, or financial aid to help rebuild the mechanized warriors’ organic bodies.
Those conditions made for scarce work. Rika had moved from one manual labor job to another, until she finally ended up at Dekar station on the outskirts of the Parsons System.
It was surreal to be here, slinging cargo in a system where she had fought so many battles—many of them victorious.
But every hard-won ground battle was balanced by a loss in space, and Rika still remembered boarding one of the last ships that had evacuated the Parsons System, when the Genevian fleet retreated and abandoned it altogether.
An abandonment that had not hurt Dekar Station in any way.
Though the G
enevians had lost the fight in the Parsons System, Dekar had prospered. The station was on the fringes of the system, and when the Nietzscheans had attacked seven years ago—just over two years before the end of the war—Dekar had surrendered without a fight.
There was no profit in fighting against a superior enemy—especially when your own space force ran from almost any conflict—and the owners of the station were far more interested in profit from war than actually fighting a war.
Fleecing refugees had also become a substantial business on Dekar as the years passed.
It sickened Rika to be here in their company. But where the denizens of Dekar were cowardly, they were also pragmatic. It hadn’t taken long for Bay-Chief Hal to realize that, with her mechanized body, Rika was stronger than ten fully organic humans, and far more versatile than a bot.
The icing on the cake was that, unlike with a bot, he didn’t have to pay for repairs when her robotic components suffered damage. She was responsible for that.
Which was the reason Rika was so deep in debt.
Well, part of the reason.
Rika had spent most of her initial earnings on getting her face reconstructed after what the Genevians had done to it. It was no small expense, but well worth it.
From the neck down, she was still covered in her matte-grey skin—no longer sheathed in armor—but her head looked as it had before that fateful night when she’d been sentenced and ended up in the Genevian military’s human chop shop.
She allowed her thoughts to continue to wander, and it helped pass the time as she and Chase loaded the freighter. He worked the loader, pulling the crates off the bay’s grav conveyers, and Rika carried them into the ship’s main cargo bay, stacking them according to the Supercargo’s directions.
Even with her slow start, Rika finished the job just under the ten-minute deadline set by Bay-Chief Hal. Without a word of thanks, he assigned her three more ships to load; and when that work was complete, another two.
The workload wasn’t unexpected; they didn’t call Bay 1217 ‘Hal’s Hell’ for nothing. He ran it with a ruthless efficiency, and many discerning captains requested berths in Bay 1217, keeping it busy at all hours—much to the dismay of his dockworkers.
Chase wrapped up his shift seven hours later, and passed Rika a message as he left,
They both knew she wouldn’t show up.
Chase had always been kind to her, but he had grown even friendlier since her facial reconstruction surgery, asking her to join him for drinks nearly every night.
Rika didn’t fault him for not finding her attractive when her head was just a faceless orb with two eyes and not even a nose; but the fact that he had only asked her out after her surgery hurt more than she cared to admit.
“Pining after a real boy?” Hal’s voice sounded nearby, and Rika looked back, staring down at him from her 2.3-meter height—towering over him.
“Haven’t seen one,” Rika replied. “Just talking assholes around here.”
Hal snorted. “Have it your way, Rika. Another ship just came in. Needs to be cleared out, and then loaded back up in two hours. You just bought yourself that job.”
Rika bit her tongue and nodded as she walked to the ship that Hal pointed at, examining the work order he passed her over the Link.
Getting it done in two hours by herself was going to take a miracle.
A DANCE WITH DENNY
STELLAR DATE: 07.02.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Merchant Docking Ring, Dekar Station
REGION: Outer Rim of Parsons System, Nietzschean Empire
Rika walked slowly through the warrens of Deck 741, one hundred levels down from Hal’s Hell, and just three away from her quarters. The wide corridor was crowded with other workers heading home, or up to the docks to begin their shifts. Refugees, long-since turned to beggars, huddled along the bulkheads; the poor and unfortunate who had fled the fall of the Parsons System, only to make it to Dekar and no further.
She felt pity for them, but not so much that she could afford to share any of her spare credits—were she to have such a thing. The war had taken everything from her, too. These beggars may think they lived in a hellish afterlife, but Rika knew that even their blighted existence was far more desirable than hers.
An indicator flashed on her visual overlay reminding Rika that her internal batteries were down to ten percent. Back when they were new, the batteries could hold a charge for far longer, under a lot more strain, but now they were showing their age. Just a few hours of overtime, and she was running on her last joules.
Maybe it would go better if I didn’t antagonize Hal so much, Rika thought, shaking her head with a rueful smile on her lips.
A dozen meters down the corridor stood her favorite food stall—well, her favorite stall that served any food she could afford. Jessie, the owner, would also let her plug in for a quick charge while she ate.
As Rika approached the stall, she saw a few members of Pinky’s gang further down the wide passageway, alternately mocking and extorting refugees and passersby.
Rika did her best to ignore them, hoping they wouldn’t spot her. No small number of local gang leaders were constantly pressuring her to join their ranks. They promised parts and power, but little respect.
“Long shift,” Jessie commented, as Rika approached and leaned an elbow on the counter.
Rika smiled at the pink-haired proprietor. The fact that Jessie never mentioned Rika’s mechanized body, and always looked her in the eyes—even before her surgery—was the other reason why Rika frequented her stand.
“You too,” Rika replied. “You were here when I left for my shift this morning.”
Jessie shrugged. “Yeah, Annie ditched me again today; said that she had some sort of ache or pain. I kinda don’t mind, though. She’s a shit worker, and if I don’t have to pay her ass, it’s a win for me.”
“Yeah, she can’t flip a burger for the life of her,” Rika replied. “And now that I can eat burgers again, I hate having to settle for what she can produce.”
“Never fear, Rika—your favorite mystery meat delight is coming right up. Maybe someday, both you and I can get off this shit station, and I’ll cook you up a real burger.”
“I’d like that very much,” Rika said as she spooled out her charge cable and handed it to Jessie, who plugged it in behind the stand’s counter.
Rika felt a sense of relief as her charge meter showed the power trickling back in. Running out of power in the warrens was one of her worst fears. She harbored no illusions about what would become of her should that happen down here.
With power, she was one of the most formidable people on the station. Without it, she was scrap metal waiting to be picked clean.
A memory of being racked for transport came back to her; how the military removed her limbs and left her helpless, little more than a piece of equipment stored on a shelf.
She would never let that happen to her again.
If there was one thing she was thankful to the Nietzscheans for, it was the removal of her compliance chip. Her future was grim, but at least she was in control of herself again.
Jessie poured Rika a cup of black coffee and she inhaled the aroma, savoring the eight ounces of joy that was waiting for her.
“I still don’t know how you get coffee here,” Rika said after she took her first sip.
“Everything comes through Dekar,” Jessie shrugged. “Just have to know the right people.”
“Those have to be some people,” Rika chuckled. “Even Hal bitches that he can hardly get coffee.”
“Well, I wasn’t always running a food stand down in the warrens,” Jessie replied with a sardonic laugh.
“You’ve mentioned that before,” Rika said. “What was it that you used to do?”
Jessie gave Rika a sad smile as she slid a p
late holding a burger and fries onto the counter. “Maybe I’ll tell you sometime, Rika. Not today, but sometime.”
Rika picked up the burger and took a bite, enjoying the savory flavor as it hit her tongue.
“Mmmm…tastes better every day,” Rika said.
“You’re crazy,” Jessie laughed. “But I’ll take the compliment.”
Rika swallowed her bite and picked up a fry. “Best oatmeal fries this side of Parsons, too,” she said before popping it into her mouth.
As she ate, a loud bang sounded down the corridor, and she turned her head to see one of Pinky’s gang members holding a gun on a refugee. No one appeared to be harmed, so Rika surmised that the first shot must have been fired as a warning.
“Fuckers,” Jessie swore. “Can’t rise to your feet around here without someone trying to push you back down.”
“They bother you at all lately?” Rika asked.
Jessie smiled broadly and shook her head. “Nope, not since you caved Begee’s face in last month. They give me hella dirty looks, but everyone knows that if they mess with me, they’re gonna get a visit from you.
“Good,” Rika said around a mouthful of burger.
“Not that I need it,” Jessie said with worried eyes. “I have enough connections that Pinky may mess with me, but he’s not going to do anything too stupid. You, on the other hand…your bleeding heart shows too often. One of these days, someone’s going to take advantage of that and cut it out.”
Rika sighed. She did her best not to give a damn, but it didn’t always work. Jessie was right, though. One of these days, it was going to bite her in the ass.
“I’ll have one of your fine cups of coffee, Jessie,” a voice said to Rika’s right, and she turned to see the sneering face of Denny, one of Pinky’s lieutenants.
“Oh, hey, Rika. Thought you were just some dirty parts someone had dumped in front of Jessie’s stall…well, I guess I wasn’t really that wrong.”
“Fuck off, Denny,” Rika growled.