by Tony Teora
The nearby crowd laughed, with someone yelling, “Stupid fuck, no one can beat Krill!” Most knew the odds were twenty to one against any human, even a tough Marine. Ace looked over at Ivan Putsky, his drunken Russian friend, and laughed, waving his hands in the air. Ivan was one of the few people Ace knew he could trust with his life. And if he could help with a month’s credits—well, what were friends for, anyhow?
“Okay fighters, the rules are simple,” shouted the stocky announcer, staring at Ace and then Krill. “There are no rules … except that that fight ends when a party is incapable of moving, taps out, cries for their mommy—or, as happens in some cases, just dies. Both of you got it?”
Krill uttered a deep, robotic voice box response: “Confirmed.”
Ace looked down at the robot’s feet and said, “Yeah, I got it— but is it okay for the fucking robot to be leaking fluid from its legs?”
Hiro, the engineer who had rebuilt the robot, sat outside the ring in a virtual suit, controlling Krill. He looked down to inspect Krill’s legs, and before realizing his mistake, Ace had swung the heavy, five-kilo hammer across Krill’s head, hitting it harder than anyone had ever managed before.
The right side of Krill’s sensor array was crushed in by the blow. The robot moved to the left, a little off balance, and then immediately activated auto-control and re-adjusted his head’s oscillating gyros. But by then, Ace had slid under the robot’s legs and gotten behind him. Ace clicked on the miniature, high-speed, diamond-tipped saw blade. The blade revved up just as Ace pressed it squarely in the middle of Krill’s back. Metal sparks flew as Ace started to cut into the robot.
Spectators began to hoot and holler—especially Ivan, who’d bet his whole month’s wages on Ace.
Hiro’s partner, Jim, yelled over at the referee, who was now relaxing in the safety of a nearby chair. “What the fuck! He hit Krill before you said the fight was on. That’s not fair!”
“Who said life was fair, son? I gave ’em both the rules, and they agreed.”
“I’m gonna appeal,” cried Hiro, turning on the robot’s manual control.
A stocky Marine with a spider tattoo laughed. He knew of Ace and his crazy theatrics “You assholes heard the referee. He said there were no rules, and you both agreed to them. The fight’s on!”
Ace quickly cut through the one inch of rubberized plasteel, struggling to hold on to the bucking bronco robot from behind. When the blade reached some internal parts, black and yellow fluid squirted out. The injury must have triggered some automatic self-preservation response in the robot because Krill immediately pushed back to do a backside body slam. Ace barely managed to pull out his circular saw and roll left and out of the way.
But the robot was quick. It sensed Ace’s movement and thrust out an arm as it rolled toward Ace. Although he just managed to escape Krill’s robotic grasp, the robot did make glancing contact with Ace’s face, slicing a half-inch wound. Blood started to drip down from Ace’s cheek as he stood in the corner, waiting.
Krill also stood up. Yellow fluid was now streaming down Krill’s back, and the robot had a softball-sized dent in his face from the earlier hammer blow.
Ace laughed, using his arm to fling some blood from his face. He waved his hammer and saw in the air. Then he began to stalk around the ring as if he’d just won the fight. His enhanced eyes left the crowd and tracked a target, zooming in for details: young, twenty-five or so, attractive, blond, smiling, no males nearby, just female friends. She was wearing a tight, white t-shirt, and her nipples were busting out. Ace tried not to stare at her tits. He focused instead on the hazel green eyes. He’d seen the girl before in one of the ship’s drinking lounges, but he hadn’t noticed she was this beautiful. Ace took a step toward the girl and yelled, “I’m gonna win this one for you, honey!”
The girl smiled back, curving her puffy, pink lips in a mischievous smirk that soon transformed to a look of horror as Krill swung his ball and chain. The weapon hit Ace squarely in jaw and knocked him over onto the ring floor, dazed. He spat out a tooth and some blood. Krill zeroed in and paced toward Ace for a final workover. His mechanical legs hissed with each slow, heavy, methodical step. Each step vibrated the ring and Ace’s dazed head.
Krill was a mechanical death train stepping in for some roadkill.
“Fuck!” cursed Ace as the cement block-sized robotic foot got close enough to stamp down at his legs. Ace narrowly escaped Krill’s stomping feet and scrambled away, shaking his head as he stood up in his corner. He clutched his head, which rang with pain. His jaw felt fractured.
The referee walked over to Ace. “Are you finished with the fight?”
“Finished? Hah! I’m just getting started with my little friend over there!” Ace rubbed his aching chin and pointed toward the robot. “I’m gonna take you apart and send you, piece by piece, to the ship’s space garbage disposal, you piece of shit!” Ace spat another mouthful of blood on the ground to emphasize his point.
Krill methodically swung his ball and chain. “Now we’re even,” said the robot in a monotone voice. Yellow, oily fluid continued to ooze onto the floor.
“We’ll never be even, because you’re a fuckin’ virtual warrior. Some pussy sitting on the sidelines is running this metallic junk heap. Even speaking for it. Hiro, you’re a chicken shit piece of crap hiding outside the ring. This robot’s a piece of crap, too!” Speaking those words hurt Ace’s jaw, which was now starting to swell.
“Yeah? Well this piece of crap is gonna kick your fuckin’ ass!” shouted Hiro, his voice echoing deeply, like some kind of monster. Hiro had set Krill’s voice circuits to a timbre he thought sounded frightening.
“You think so, asshole? Well, if you’re so sure about that, how about a-hundred-to-one odds for my friend’s rich man?” Ace glanced down at the bookie, waiting for an answer. The bookie looked at Hiro, who nodded his head in agreement.
“The payout is now a hundred to one,” announced the bookie.
The crowd cheered in excitement.
“Great. Now let’s get back to me kicking your big, fat, robot ass!” Ace jeered and the crowd roared some more. The robot continued to swing the chain connected to its grapefruit-sized metal ball. Ace knew that being hit with that again would immediately end the fight, so he stayed alert and tried not to look at the tits of the blond girl. Although the robot was not as quick as Ace, it was unbelievably strong—as strong as ten Marines. But Ace still had some tricks up his sleeve as he studied the metal monster.
Krill again swung the ball toward Ace’s legs. Ace quickly jumped, letting the ball swing by below him. The robot slowly pulled back the slack and whirled back the ball into his metallic hands. Watching the robot’s motions gave Ace an idea. He just needed to time the ball-throw properly—but he couldn’t read the robot. Ace had always been good at reading people. The Earth Command testing even claimed he had a high level of telepathic power. Ace didn’t believe in telepathy, though; he believed he could read people.
Ace stole a quick look at Hiro, who was wearing VR goggles and walking on a magnetic sim pad to control the robot. Ace tried to imagine Hiro instead of the robot in front of him. When he imagined Hiro whirling the ball, he could feel a throw coming. Right before the throw, Ace ran forward and jumped, avoiding the ball and chain. As soon as the ball landed, he brought his saw blade down on the chain, shredding the links. He then pulled the chain and ball, which now belonged to him. Krill retracted the loose, shortened chain, looking like child who’d lost a marble.
Ace smiled and whipped the ball around the robot’s legs, pulling the chain until they were secured. As he tugged on the chain, the robot fought to keep its balance. People laughed. Ace yanked harder until Krill fell to his side. Now, how do I get close enough to this thing? I’ve got to get it to stop moving or to cry mommy, and do it without getting sucker punched. I’ll have to use the saw.
Ace slowly approached Krill, who was now sitting on the floor with his arms pointing up, his hands clenched into fis
ts and ready to fight. The metallic legs struggled but couldn’t get loose enough to rise from the floor.
Ace started the hand held chain saw. “Do I have to start cutting you up like fish bait, Krill, or are you going to tap out?”
“Fuck you!” shouted Hiro, which echoed through the robot’s voice panel.
“Have it your way,” said Ace, cutting into Krill’s ankle section—if you could call the attachment an ankle. Krill flailed his four-foot arms, and Ace ducked when necessary.
It took about ten seconds to slice off one of the robot’s huge feet. Ace lifted it up as a trophy and presented it to the crowd. He paraded around the ring, laughing and smiling like a twelve-year-old kid who’d won a spitball contest. He smiled and stared a little longer at the blond girl, giving her a wink. People were laughing hysterically by the time he tossed the heavy metal foot next to Hiro, the owner of the robot.
While the crowd was laughing, the robot quietly dismantled one of his own arms and then attached it to the previously damaged chain. Ace was nearby, so the robot didn’t need a long throw. Krill swung the arm with the attached chain toward Ace’s legs. It whipped around, catching Ace, who fell to the ground next to the one-armed, one-footed robot. Krill slowly pulled Ace closer.
“Shit!” cursed Ace, as the robot reeled him in like a deep-sea tuna. He tried cutting the chain, but it was too late.
He was now face-to-face with Krill. The robot raised his remaining arm and Ace threw up his left arm to block the oncoming blow.
“The robot will break him in half!” called a man watching the fight from the front row. “Tap out, Ace!”
Ace didn’t tap out. The robot swung down hard, and Ace blocked. There was a metal-to-metal sound. To the amazement of the people watching—and to the astonishment of Hiro, who was controlling Krill—Ace’s arm locked in place like steel. Skin was peeled away by the blow, and blood splattered. The audience watching Ace’s arm saw gleaming metal. Someone yelled, “He’s got a metal arm!”
Ace’s arm stung like hell, but his Big Gun body enhancements were working as he’d expected. He twisted his arm, grabbed Krill’s metallic arm, and shoved it back onto the robot’s chest.
“He’s stronger than the robot!” yelled a man in the crowd.
Holding the robot’s right arm solidly against its chest, Ace used his other hand to start the circular saw and bring it near Krill’s rectangular head.
“Are we done, or does the doctor have some more surgery to do?”
Hiro pulled off his VR goggles and yelled, “I tap out under protest! He cheated! He’s had enhancements!”
“Son,” said the older man who worked as the bookie. “He’s fighting a robot. Like we said earlier, there are no rules in this fight. If there were rules, you’d never be allowed to have Krill in the ring against a human in the first place.”
Ace stood up, thrust his arms into the air, and walked casually over to the blond. Blood was still dripping from his lip and the terrible cuts on his left arm. “What are you doing tonight?” he asked, smiling like a wild man.
The blond laughed. “I think that once you’re out of the infirmary, you’ll probably need a drink. See me in Club Venus at eight tonight. I’m Janice.”
“Ace,” he replied, grinning. The crowd roared and cheered as Ace ran around the ring, milking the applause. The few who’d put money on Ace happily left to cash in their chips. His newly acquired friends on the Aurora had wagered money on him. It was not because they completely liked him or agreed with his insane attitude and life. They did it because, in some crazy way, they wished they had the balls Ace had—minus all the stitches.
***
“What the hell happened to you?” Doc Edwards eyed Ace’s swollen jaw and cut face before turning to his bloodied arm, which was hanging in a sling.
Ace slumped into the med chair and looked up at the grey-haired doc. “Got into a fight.”
“You’re a Big Gun. Who the hell screwed you up this bad?”
“A modified M10 robot.”
“A robot? What the hell? Don’t tell me you got involved in one of the ship’s stupid machine-to-machine fighting games. Jeez, Ace, the CO and the ship are counting on you to lead the expedition. You could have gotten killed! Only idiots fight those machines. No human can beat them.”
“I did.”
“What?”
“I thought it’d keep me fresh. You never know what you might encounter off-world. I wanted to make sure my enhancements were still working.”
“Dammit Ace, those Big Gun enhancements cost the taxpayers millions.” Doc Edwards slowly pulled off the sling. “But I have to admit, I didn’t know you’d be strong or fast enough to beat an M10.”
“I cheated,” said Ace. “I sucker punched him.”
Doc Edwards laughed. “Son, I don’t think you can cheat against an M10. I’m happy you won, but you gotta understand, Earth Command is counting on you. That damned robot could have damaged some of your systems.” Doc Edwards lifted Ace’s arm into a special glass tube connected to a machine. He adjusted some dials. The tube filled with a blue fluid that changed to green.
“That’s why I had to test out the equipment, Doc. To make sure it could perform in a real battle—not like that sim testing. I don’t know what’s going to be on that base out there.”
“We’re going to a simple research base,” the doctor replied, programming the nano-solution to cover the alloy steel arm with nano-tissue. The arm started to look new. Lights on a console monitored the tissue restoration rates.
“Yeah, well, if it’s a simple research base, why do we have a Class Alpha starship taking ten thousand Marines out to this base? I have a bad feeling about this, Doc. Everyone who seems to know anything about this mission is keeping real quiet.”
“That may be true, Ace. Okay, I finished repairing most of the tissue sensors and covered your arm up with some tef-skin. It’ll need three days to heal properly. No more fighting, or you could get an infection and it’ll take longer to heal. Got it?”
“Got it. I plan on seeing a girl tonight,” Ace said, grinning. “But I promise not to fight with her, Doc.”
“Funny, Ace. Don’t screw around. In five days, we’ll be at Kabbalah. I don’t have all the details, but I believe this might be the most important Earth mission ever. I heard a rumor that the research on GEN-6 could save the world from extinction.” He peered closely at Ace’s face. “Now, we’re gonna need to fix those teeth and that laceration. I’m gonna give you some local anesthesia to reduce the pain.” The doctor picked up a MedSpray gun and shot a hi-velocity stream of painkiller into Ace’s jaw.
“Ouch,” Ace exclaimed, grabbing his jaw.
“Don’t be a wimp. It’ll be numb in a second. I gave you enough so I can fix your teeth and micro-stitch that gash in your cheek. It’s got a hairline fracture.”
Doc Edwards spent a good thirty minutes fixing Ace up. When he was done, he said affectionately, “Git outta here. And don’t forget what I said.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Ace replied, standing up and checking himself out in the mirror. He quietly walked out of the infirmary and headed to his stateroom.
After a hot shower, he headed directly to the ship’s bar.
I like threesomes with two women, not because I'm a cynical sexual predator. Oh no! But because I'm a romantic. I'm looking for “The One”. And I'll find her more quickly if I audition two at a time. –Russell Brand
2
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Biological Inspection
Ace strolled down a long, narrow hallway toward the R&R section. He tapped his wrist, causing the tattoo time patch to glow red for three seconds, showing “19:50 AST”, which meant 7:50 pm Aurora Ship Time. He casually sauntered into the dimly lit drinking lounge, Club Venus, and sat down at the main bar. Behind the main bar were five private booths where couples or friends could privately drink. Each booth held maybe four or five guests. The walls of the lounge glowed in a light pinkish-orange hue, similar to a beach s
unset. The place reminded Ace of a club he’d been to in Ginza, the night club district in Tokyo.
Club Venus was a private bar used by those who were on the GEN-6 security list, so there’d be few guests—which was fine with Ace. All he really wanted to do was try to hook up with Janice and get a strong drink. His injured arm was starting to feel better, but the numbing medication was wearing off. Since Janice was nowhere to be found, the strong drink would come first. He looked over at the curvaceous, African American bartender and smiled, hoping for some service. If Janice blew him off, who knew? He might get lucky with the bartender. Ace had seen her in ship security, so this had to be a part-time gig.
“You’re that guy, Ace Archer, aren’t you?” asked the woman, inspecting the swollen jaw.
“Yep, that’s me.”
“My name’s Monica. Nice to meet you, Ace.” She extended her delicate hand and Ace gently shook it.
Monica shook her head. “Is it true that you actually beat an M10 robot on the fighting deck?”
“Yes it is—and Monica, I don’t mean to be rude, but I could sure use a drink to celebrate …” Ace rubbed his arm. “And kill some pain.”
Monica laughed. “I bet you do. What’ll it be, sailor?”
“A double shot of Jack, neat. And a cold mug of your best beer.”
“I don’t know about ‘best’ but we have a pale ale called ‘Blast Off.’ By the looks of you, I think that one just about fits your day.” Monica looked at the micro-stitches in his cheek and the purple bruise. “It’s a little dark, but good.”
“Dark is very good,” smiled Ace, looking at Monica’s tight ass and silicone-enhanced breasts.
Monica caught Ace’s interest and smiled back, showing pearly white teeth along with a cute, devilish look.