The Great Destroyers

by Caroline Tung Richmond

  But it’s not like I have anything to lose.

  Right before I make my entrance, I curl my hands into fists and keep my eyes forward. No looking back.

  Under my breath, I say to myself, “Let’s go pound some metal.”

  I’ve gotten used to hearing boos and jeers when I walk out for my varsity matches. It comes with the territory when you’re the only female fighter in the school district.

  You lost, sweetheart? the hecklers like to say. The kitchen’s out back.

  You’re outta your league, little lady.

  This ain’t no place for a girl.

  But as I enter the main floor today, some of the spectators whistle and clap at my arrival. I’m confused for a moment and glance over my shoulder because they must be cheering for someone else. Then I remember that, outside of Old Wen, none of them know that I’m a little lady underneath this helmet, and I better keep it that way. The type of people who flock to an underground fighting ring are the exact same kind that my father has warned me about. Gamblers. Alcoholics. Men with a little too much time on their hands and not enough sense in their brains. I can handle myself just fine in a match, but the ones through school are regulated and, well, legal.

  “Welcome to another night inside the pit!” the announcer calls out. About forty men have gathered around the cage with a hazy cloud of cigarette smoke hovering above their heads. The crowd is a blend of ages and races, mostly white and Chinese, but they don’t mix together. The white men have gathered on one side of the pit while the Chinese take the other, and I notice a few Black attendees on the far end of the room. Even in California, even in San Francisco, there’s segregation wherever you look.

  A few chairs remain empty, but it’s still early in the evening. Give it another hour, and the place will be standing room only.

  “First things first, drinks are half off until six o’clock, so get your orders in before then,” says the announcer. “Second, as you all have heard, the Pax Games are starting up in a week. We’ll be playing the matches live upstairs at the Jade Lily—on our new Zenith color TV, mind you—so mark your calendars, gentlemen.”

  None of us need the reminder. We’ve all been counting down the days because the Games only roll around once every four years. They’re the pinnacle of the sport—think the Olympics but bigger, bloodier, and deadlier. It all started in 1919, back when a charity tournament was held in London to raise money for WWI veterans, pitting fighters from competing nations in a round-robin competition. The organizers called it the Pax Games to honor the end of the war, and the turnout was so big that more mecha matches were soon planned. They cropped up in Paris and Rome and hopped overseas to New York, and that was how the sport of mecha fighting was born.

  I watched my very first match in ’51, when I was only four years old and not too long after my mother died. Dad had coped with the death by smoking and drinking and plunking baby Peter and me in front of our tiny Teletone television set, letting us watch whatever I picked out, which happened to be the Pax Games in Brussels. When the USA versus Sweden match came on, I couldn’t take my eyes off that seven-inch screen. I’ve been hooked ever since.

  The announcer grins. “So come join us for the opening match and tell all your friends, but maybe skip out on telling your wives.”

  The audience chuckles until one of the men sitting up front says, “Get on with it already!”

  “Yeah, yeah, I hear you, buddy,” the announcer says. More laughs. “You all ready for a fight?”

  A cheer rings out, and he eggs them on.

  “I said, are you ready for a fight?”

  The crowd gets louder as I start my way toward the pit.

  “Making their debut at the Jade Lily, we have …” The announcer holds a dramatic pause while pointing at me. “The Rookie!”

  I sigh at the stage name, which Old Wen picked out without consulting me. It doesn’t sound intimidating at all, like the Ravager or the Bone Crusher, but he said it was fitting. Except it isn’t true.

  I’m no rookie. I’ve been fighting since I was eight years old, starting out with lessons that Dad gave me inside our workshop. When I turned nine, I joined our neighborhood’s chapter of the Little Fighters League, where I lost so many matches that my own teammates called me “Lose ’Em All Jo,” but I got better game after game, season after season, thanks to Dad’s guidance as well as the karate lessons that Mrs. Watters’s son Michael taught me, which gave my technique a unique edge. By the time I got to high school, I became the first freshman ever, boy or girl, to make it on the varsity team.

  Old Wen shuffles ahead of me to raise the gate to the pit. The pit itself forms a perfect square, fifteen meters on each side. There are no bases or goal posts or painted lines, just a patch of packed dirt and a metal cage that encloses it. I step inside and take my place on the north wall, my back facing the solid steel bars that are placed wide enough for the onlookers to watch all the action.

  “Next up, coming to the south end of the pit, with a 16–6 record, we have … the Ravager!”

  The crowd starts stomping and hollering. It’s obvious most of them have placed bets on my opponent, and why wouldn’t they? With a record like his, I’d be tempted to put a dollar or two down myself, but then again my own record is better. 19–1 this past season, including schools across northern California and a tristate tournament up in Oregon. The varsity season might’ve ended two months ago, but that one loss still eats at me.

  The Ravager strides toward the pit. He’s controlling a 301C model too, and he’s strutting with his chin tipped high like he’s ready to take a victory lap. He’s confident all right, and I consider how I might use that to my advantage. A cocky fighter might have the skills to back up his arrogance, but it’s that same sort of pride that can make him overlook a weak spot—if I can suss it out. Luckily, Old Wen has already done that for me this time around. I zero in on the Ravager’s right leg, and sure enough, he’s limping. It’s slight, but it’s there.

  “You two know the rules,” the referee says to the Ravager and me. To be honest, I’m not sure why he’s here since he isn’t going to enforce any of the usual regulations, but I nod anyway. “You fight until knockout. A KO counts as five full seconds lying flat.”

  The ref scuttles out of the pit and counts down from ten. “Ten … nine … eight!”

  At my school matches, we’re expected to shake hands with our opponents before a fight, but etiquette isn’t a priority here. Instead, the Ravager lifts his arms up and down, getting his fans worked up.

  “Seven … six … five!”

  I jump in the air, testing how high I can go and how well the shocks absorb the descent. The top half of the cockpit rattles when I land, which makes me frown and wonder if the screws joining the two halves need tightening.

  “Four … three … two!”

  I crouch down, knees bent, and glance at the Ravager’s ankle. I need to aggravate the existing injury somehow. Get him to twist it more. Let it weaken him. Then go in for the KO.

  “One!”

  At the blow of the whistle, the Ravager hurtles toward me, fast as a rocket. He wants me to quake in my boots and make a mistake. And if I were a real rookie, I probably would do just that because it’s natural human instinct to run away screaming when there’s a twelve-foot-tall robot coming at you like a revved-up Jaguar E-type. But I know to breathe in slowly and wait, letting him get closer and closer, until I can see his face inside his cockpit. Our eyes lock, and his mouth twitches, like he can almost taste an easy win.

  That’s when I spin to my left and just in time. His Goliath rams its shoulder against the pit’s bars, hard enough that they vibrate. The Ravager stumbles backward, and I use these precious seconds to strike. I sweep out a leg to trip him and stick an elbow into his gut to send him careening back. They’re not sophisticated moves by any stretch, but I wouldn’t describe my dad’s fighting style as sophisticated and he’s the one who taught me. Some people would call his fighting style crude a
nd underhanded, but Dad would probably tell them to look at his record (122–31) and go eat a pile of rocks.

  I grab the Ravager’s right foot and yank it up to knock him off-kilter. He falls hard onto his back and tries to shake me off, jerking his leg side to side, but that only makes me hold on tighter. I want him to keep using that right foot. Maybe tear a few ligaments. Snap a tendon or two. He calls me some colorful names that would make even Old Wen raise an eyebrow, but I’ve heard worse from some of the high school boys I’ve beaten at matches.

  When the Ravager cries out in pain, I figure that I’ve done my job. He’s hurt and he’s angry, two qualities that make him vulnerable. I readjust my grip to flip him onto his stomach so I can pin him and get this finished. But he’s mad as a wet cat, snarling and swinging punches. The first few are easy enough to dodge, but then one of them clocks my cockpit, right along the seam that divides the shell in half. As far as hits go, it’s nothing to write home about, but then something happens that makes the crowd go silent.

  The top half of my cockpit comes straight off its hinges and rolls onto the floor like a decapitated head. My entire upper body is left exposed, out in the open air, and for a second, both the Ravager and I look at each other slack-jawed. Then I hear my father’s voice in my head, his voice like gravel as usual.

  Always inspect your mecha before a fight, he’s told me more times than I can count. That’s rule number one, and if you can’t even remember that little piece of advice, then you’ll get what you deserve inside the pit.

  I might’ve rolled my eyes at him whenever he said that, but I’d stuck to the rule because it was plain common sense. I’ve always been diligent to follow it.

  But not today of all days.

  The crowd starts hooting and hollering again. They’ve come here for a fight, and now they’re really getting a show, before they’ve even finished their first round of drinks. From the corner of my eye, I catch sight of Old Wen. His face has paled, and he’s motioning for me to come out. To cut my losses and quit.

  The Ravager smirks at me. “You gonna forfeit, Rookie? You’ve got three seconds to walk outta the gate.” He smashes his fists together to make his point, and I can’t help but wince at the sound since I don’t have the protection of my cockpit anymore.

  I glance at the gate. I know what the smart thing is to do. No match is worth losing your life over.

  But who said anything about me losing? I’ve faced cocky scuzz buckets like the Ravager my entire career. I know their moves, and I know how to beat them. That sort of thinking might teeter on the line of arrogance, but I can’t repeat enough how much we need this money.

  I crouch down into a fighting stance, sending a clear message to the Ravager and everyone watching that I’m not going anywhere.

  He grins at me, showing off a glinting gold incisor. The audience roars, ready for a fight they hadn’t been expecting.

  “Rip off that helmet!” someone yells from the crowd.

  “Let’s see his face!” somebody else adds.

  Hmm, maybe now I’m being a cocky scuzz bucket, but the thought scatters as soon as the Ravager starts hurtling toward me, his Goliath’s arms outstretched.

  Don’t you dare start panicking, I remind myself. The Ravager is halfway toward me. The good news is that I’ve clearly aggravated his ankle injury because he’s visibly hobbling. The bad news? There are various ways that he can maim or kill me since my cockpit is lying on the ground instead of protecting me like it was built to do. I’m about to kick it aside because I don’t want to trip over it, but then I get an idea.

  Just before the Ravager reaches me, I grab the shell of the cockpit and hoist it in front of me like a shield. He slams into me hard, making me stumble back a couple paces, but I’ve definitely caught him by surprise. He’s gone a little cross-eyed, and I swear he must be seeing cartoon birdies flying around his head.

  As he shakes off the dizziness, I’m already on the attack, using the cockpit like a weapon and swinging it at his head, at his chest, at his wounded leg. It’s not exactly fair since he doesn’t have one in turn, but I don’t let up. I play to win. I’ve got bills to pay.

  When the Ravager is well and truly dazed, I flip him onto his stomach and pin him there, counting down the seconds until the ref blows the whistle to call the match.

  “The game goes to the Rookie!” he cries.

  I lift an arm into the air, panting hard, not quite believing that I won this game with half my cockpit sheared off. The audience is going nuts, and the announcer eggs them on.

  “You sure don’t see moves like that at the Pax Games, now do you? So stick around because the night is just getting started!”

  The Ravager spits at me before stalking out of the cage, probably to go sulk. Honestly, it doesn’t even bother me because the crowd is shouting so loudly. They’re chanting my name now—“Roo-kie! Roo-kie! Roo-kie!”—and some of them might be slurring their words a little, but to my ears it sounds like the Hallelujah chorus. Maybe I’m letting myself get a little bit prideful, but I punch my fists into the air to the beat. This is why I can’t quit fighting, despite the bruises and torn ligaments, despite all the jeers and little ladys. It’s the rush of a win, the adrenaline pumping through my blood. Outside the pit, I’m just another city kid with a C-plus average at school, just another girl who’s supposed to get hitched and get pregnant as soon as she gets her diploma.

  But in here, I feel like the sun.

  And that’s the exact moment when it all comes tumbling down. There’s a crash through one of the small boarded-up windows that look out to the street. Bits of plywood and glass go spraying all over, and a voice blares via a megaphone, “Under the laws of the state of California, you are under arrest—”

  The bartender yells out, “It’s the cops! It’s the cops!”

  I blink out of my haze and bug out of here fast.

  Chaos breaks out. Through the broken window, the police toss in a small black box, which bounces twice on the floor before it lights up. It must be a bot. Within seconds, a set of wheels pop out from its bottom side while two pipes emerge from its top, spewing out a white steam.

  Tear gas.

  The crowd scatters away from the stuff, but a few unlucky ones are coughing and clutching at their sides. They crawl on all fours toward the exit, but there’s already a pileup of people there, rushing to get out.

  I race out of the cage, still inside the Goliath. Worst-case scenarios are flashing in my mind—getting arrested and waving goodbye to my athletic eligibility, not to mention the look on Dad’s face when he has to bail me out of jail. Who am I kidding though? There’s no extra cash to pay for my bond.

  I start thinking up an escape plan when I glimpse Old Wen from the corner of my eye. He’s grabbed the money box and is heading the way that we came in, through the hallway with the prep rooms. I take off after him.

  As soon as we’ve scaled the steps, I climb out of the mecha and leave it behind. I wouldn’t mind using its speed to get me far away from the Jade Lily, but I might as well wear a target on my chest for the police to spot me since a runaway Goliath doesn’t exactly blend into a crowd.

  Old Wen navigates the maze of alleyways like he has a road map in front of him. We zigzag over cracked concrete and puddles of who-knows-what muck until he stumbles and hits the ground. I yank him to his feet, but he’s gasping for air and won’t budge.

  “We gotta keep going!” I say, impatient.

  “Let an old man catch his breath,” he wheezes.

  I sweep my eyes around us for any sign of the pigs, but I don’t see them for now. “How’d the cops find us?”

  “Someone must’ve tipped them off,” he says in between breaths. “Blame Appleby.”

  He’s probably right. After the first Senator Appleby died of a stroke a few months ago, his widow was appointed to fill his vacancy. Most people figured that June Appleby would simply keep his political seat warm until a special election could be held this fall, but she’
s making herself real comfortable and using her late husband’s clout to tackle her own initiatives, like pushing mayors across California to crack down on illegal fighting rings. And now I’m feeling the hit on my wallet because this lady senator has eliminated my income stream.

  Which reminds me.

  “How about my cut?” I say to Old Wen, looking straight at the money box. I know it’s rude, but I stick out my hand toward him, palm facing up. “We agreed on seventy bucks.”

  Old Wen stares at my hand for a long second before he laughs. “You really aren’t like your mother at all, are you?”

  “She was no saint,” I say sharply.

  He tuts at me. “Don’t be so hard on her. She was only a kid when she had you, and it wasn’t easy when your dad shipped off to Korea.”

  I frown. I never said that my mom had it easy. She grew up in some no-name farm town in central California, the seventh of nine kids. As soon as she’d hoarded enough pennies from picking oranges, she booked it north to San Francisco and never looked back. Mom got a job waitressing at the Jade Lily and that was how my parents met. My dad came in for the fried dumplings and stuck around for the young, pretty waitress assigned to his table, who was saving up her money again but this time to take piloting classes. It didn’t matter that he was white and she was Chinese; they were smitten. He’d even proposed after their third date, although it was illegal back then for them to get hitched. It all sounds rather romantic until you hear how it ended.

  Old Wen might carry around a rosy picture of my mother, but I don’t know this lady he keeps raving about. Sure, she was barely eighteen when I was born, but my dad was only a year older. Besides, what does Old Wen know? He wasn’t there when Mom would let Peter cry and cry when he was only a baby. Dad had deployed by then, so it was up to me to climb into the crib and rub Peter’s back until he fell asleep. And then even after Dad had returned home, Mom didn’t seem that happy about it. One night their fighting got real bad and she had shouted, You’d promised me that I could have this one thing, but I guess your promises mean nothing, huh? Whatever that meant.