by David Ryker
“It was at about three this morning,” he said, smiling at me oddly.
“Why are you knocking my door at three in the morning?”
“I was drunk,” he said defensively. “What were you doing out at three in the morning?”
I swallowed. “I wasn’t. I was sleeping.”
“In your room?” He arched an eyebrow.
“Like I said, I’m a heavy sleeper.” My voice was even now. I definitely wasn’t going to let Everett down like that. It was the only thing she’d asked me to do — keep my fucking mouth shut, and now here I was on the verge of spilling it to Mac of all people. As soon as he knew, everyone would, and considering Fish didn’t really get the concept of secrets and lying, he’d probably go and ask Everett where she was going to lay her eggs. I mean, I didn’t actually think Fish had that little knowledge of human anatomy, but it would probably be something just as bad.
Mac smirked at me. “Yeah, I bet.” His lip curled higher. “And I supposed you definitely weren’t off somewhere else, huh?” He shrugged a little. “With someone else?”
“What?” I said incredulously. “No.” I didn’t know if it was too much. “Of course not!” It definitely was too much.
He laughed outright now. “Don’t worry, Red,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “I saw it too. And your secret is safe with me.”
“Saw what?” I asked, my voice thin and quiet. I could hear my heart in my ears. Everett was going to clean my clock.
He closed down one eye and stared at me out of the corner of the other. “No need to be bashful — I remember my first time.”
“First time?” I swallowed hard. How’d he know?
“Yeah, well, you never had much chance before, did you?” He shook his head and put his hands on his hips. “Ah, I remember it well — the nerves, the excitement. The feeling that you were doing something that was just a little bit wrong.”
“Wrong?” I choked on the word. “What do you mean wrong? There’s no laws against it — rules — is there?”
“What? No!” He laughed heartily now and put his hands on my shoulders. I thought he was going to hug me. All the animosity of the night before was gone. He was looking at me like a big brother might. “If it was illegal they wouldn’t fucking have them.”
I stared at him blankly, feeling like I’d missed a beat. “Wait a second — have what?”
“Brothels.” He raised his eyebrows. “You can say the word — it’s not a bad one, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s one of the universe’s oldest professions,” he said like it was some sort of sociological observation, and that made it better. “And at least here they’re all regulated — you know everything’s safe and you’re not going to get jumped by some Polgarian with a knife hiding behind a velvet curtain for all the credits in your pocket.” He sighed and stared wistfully over my shoulder.
I could tell he was speaking from experience, but I still wasn’t following. “I don’t know what — I wasn’t…” I trailed off, seeing the look of sheer belief in his face. If I convinced him I hadn’t then what would his alternate conclusion be?
“Come on, Red,” he said with less joviality. “I walked past it too — downstairs. You can’t not have seen the signs. Hell — I thought about it as well. Hell — I even tried to go in. Turns out if you can’t stand straight they won’t let you.” He shrugged indifferently. “Oh well, you gotta try, right?”
I nodded slowly. “Right…”
“Like I said — nothing to be ashamed of. It’s been a long year, we all need to blow off some steam. Last night — tensions were running high — too much testosterone in the air.” He poked me playfully in the belly and I squirmed. “But not anymore, eh?” He grinned again, seemingly genuinely pleased at the thought that I’d headed to the brothel last night after leaving.
“You, uh, won’t say anything, will you?” I asked sincerely. I didn’t know which was worse — everyone knowing the truth, or them thinking the lie was the truth.
He held his hands up. “Hey, I’m not one to talk about what other guys do with their own time. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do — and that’s no one else's business. I won’t say anything, I promise.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Thanks, Mac.” If he was keeping his mouth shut, I could just let him think it.
He punched me in the arm and laughed again. “But next time you go, give me a call, okay? Nothing quells a bit of anger and builds bonds like a friendly visit to the—”
I held my hand up. “I get it, Mac. Thanks.”
He shook his head at me, still grinning like an idiot. “Our little Red, all grown up.”
I tried to stop myself scowling, and just then my communicator started buzzing. I pulled it out and looked down at it. It was a notification saying that Greg had just been delivered to the arena. I closed and pocketed it, looking back up at Mac, who looked on the verge of tears. Maybe he was still drunk.
I studied his face. He was definitely still a little drunk, and I could smell it on him. “Look, Mac — I gotta go,” I sighed, looking toward the elevator. “But this was… nice?”
He nodded. “Yeah — hey, I’m probably going to head down, later on, you know… If you want to join me?”
I swallowed and chuckled nervously, sliding off the rail and heading toward the elevator. “I’ll, uh, think about it,” I called over my shoulder.
Mac clapped. “Yes! You do that — you’ve got my number right, Red?”
But I was already in the elevator, jabbing furiously at the ground floor button, willing the doors to close before Mac chased me down for more guy talk. Mercifully, they did.
4
The elevator bottomed out and I got off quickly, turning and following the route that my communicator was displaying. I was thankful this one wasn’t beamed onto my eyeball like the automated assembly station where I’d gotten Greg’s new body.
I covered the ground quickly in case Mac wanted to get after me. I had a feeling that what was coming next was a speech that could be titled ‘Mac’s top tips for not contracting venereal disease’ and I didn’t think I was ready for that just then. Or maybe ever. The arena wasn’t too far — another elevator ride down to the lower decks, and then a quick jaunt through some huge corridors that had a painted line next to the wall with the word ‘pedestrians’ stenciled on it.
I tracked along it, passing huge doors to workshops and other machine-centric establishments. There were ship modification shops, armorers and scrappers, weapons tinkerers and gunsmiths, smelters and shapers, electronics shops and custom fabrication artisans. Mech lay on raised ramps and hung on chains, their innards spilled over the floors like metal entrails as the workers welded and screwed, clad in grubby overalls and visored masks. For all his brothel talk, I knew Mac was a gear-head at heart, and I made a note to mention it to him when I got back.
I rounded a corner and came to a dead-end. It was a half raised roller door big enough to fit any Mech, with the words ‘FSS Athena Battle Arena’ projected off the wall above it in green. To the side was a smaller door made for humanoids, and I let myself through it.
Inside was a small corridor that had once been white, but was now smeared with oil and engine grease. At the end of it was a windowed box with an elderly lady behind the glass, a second door next to her. I approached slowly, looking around. The communicator said I was in the right place, but honestly, I wasn’t so sure because I didn’t really know what to expect.
The woman spoke when I got in earshot, her voice rasping and smoke-charred. “Competing or spectating?” she asked, the boredom oozing out of her lined face. Her thin painted red lips moved like worms as she chewed the gum in her mouth.
I cleared my throat. “Competing?”
“You tell me, kid,” she said, sighing.
I nodded. “Competing.”
“Category?” She beckoned me to the window.
“Sorry?”
She sighed again and tapped something into a k
eyboard. On the glass, a couple of options flashed up and flickered a few times before settling — Mech, Vehicle, Infantry, Aerial.
I stared at them. “Mech.”
“Rental requisition form,” she said almost immediately, pushing a pad through the slot at the bottom of the window onto the small counter there. “It’ll be a thousand for the hour.”
I looked at it and shook my head. “I don’t need a rental — I’ve got my own rig.”
She raised a drawn-on eyebrow, her tired eyes measuring me. “You? You must be what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty, actually,” I said quietly. For some reason, I felt ashamed of that fact.
She raised the other eyebrow now. “And you got your own chunk of steel?” She scoffed to herself and shook her head. “Well, now I’ve seen it all. That unmarked custom F-Series they just dropped off is yours?” Her eyes narrowed all of a sudden and moved across my chest — over the Federation logo, and up to my shoulder, to the arrows there. “Your CO know you’re down here?”
I furrowed my brow. Why did that matter? “Yes,” I lied.
She sucked on near-gray teeth. “You know you’re not allowed to compete in Federation-owned steel, right? The Athena Battle Arena is a private establishment. Our insurance doesn’t cover Federation property.”
I swallowed. “Of course it’s mine.” Because of our status as FSC — Federation Special Corps — our Federation codes, if scanned, told anyone who cared to scan them that we weren’t employed by the Federation, and especially not by their militarized arms. That way, if we were undercover and got captured, if they looked us up, they’d see that we were unemployed, as most mercs and criminals would be listed as. Our mech were registered to us, too, as the legal owners, for the same reason. It was standard protocol, and though our rigs didn’t actually belong to us, on paper, they sure as hell did.
She chewed her gum slowly, weighing it all up before she pulled the pad back toward her through the glass. She swiped through some pages and then gave it back to me. “Sign here. Standard waiver and Battle Arena contract. You know what you’re getting yourself into? Is this your first time at a Battle Arena?”
“Pfft, no,” I said, feigning a laugh. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Mm,” was all she said in reply. She didn’t expand on it, and I didn’t ask.
I scanned through the document quickly and then signed my name at the bottom. She typed some things in behind the glass and a piece of the counter slid sideways to reveal an arm-shaped hole. I knew the drill and pulled my sleeve up, shoving in my coded arm. It was scanned and then my Federation ID came up on the glass. My face, a year and a half younger, pale and scared, a bruise on my left cheek, stared out at me. I remembered being called down to an office on the Falmouth two days after I’d arrived, just after Alice had given me that shiner. The woman looked at it, and then at me, and then smirked to herself. “Alright,” she said, pushing a button to activate the door. A buzzer sounded and it slid open with a creak, the stench of motor oil wafting through. I could hear cheering, crashing, gunfire, and all the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“Head in, keep left, look for Zargo. You’ll know him when you see him.” She closed the options on the screen and then leaned sideways, looking over my shoulder as if there was a line forming. There wasn’t.
I nodded in thanks, which she didn’t acknowledge, and then made my way through the door. The noise of hundreds of stamping feet shook the ground under me as I walked down the widening corridor. It turned right, then left, huge red arrows on the wall pointing the way — even though it was the only way. A row of ten turnstiles sprayed black and worn down to bare metal barred the way, with the word ‘Spectators’ stenciled on the concrete lintel above. To the left of it was another corridor, the word ‘Competitors’ stenciled above it.
I took it, the sound of cheering and gunfire dying away. It was replaced with jacks cranking, steel grinding, and rivets being slammed into panels. I came to a stairway and headed down, spotting a huge curtain of blue plastic strips. I went through and entered what I can only describe as a staging area, but that wouldn’t do it justice. The room was long, running away in an endless right-curve. The ceiling was low, and the floor was concrete, gouged and stained.
On the left, bays ran into the distance, each equipped with a hydraulic lift and tool station, as well as a mechanical droid. Most of them were empty, but the ones that weren’t had various vehicles and Mech laying on them, or hanging above on chains. Teams of people worked on them, tinkering and affixing various components. Each bay had a white number painted in front of it, and opposite was a roller door. I could faintly hear the noise of the arena beyond — gunfire and cheering. I swallowed — I thought this was a holographic battle.
I was standing like an idiot, staring at the doors when a Gojer sidled up to me. He was about eight feet tall, very stout, and very furry. His long matted facial hair had been plaited into an elaborate beard adorned with little pendants and trinkets, and his wide nose was ringed, the huge black nostrils billowing with every chugging breath. Huge horns curled backward over its head in spirals, and its little brown eyes looked me up and down ruthlessly. He scratched at whatever was hanging under the little scrap of cloth clinging to the bottom of his huge belly, and then hacked and spat on the ground. “You James Maddox?” he asked gruffly. In his hand was a pad covered in a scratched up rubberized protective case, a necessity down here, it seemed.
“Red,” I replied. I guessed this had to be Zargo. The woman was right; he was hard to miss.
“What?” he retorted.
“Red. That’s what people call me.”
He made a strange growling noise. “Good for them. Bay thirty-two,” he said, and then turned away. “We’ll call you when it’s time. You’ll be up in a bit. Good luck.”
I watched him go and tore my eyes away from the loin cloth that barely did anything to cover his fat hairy ass, before turning back to the room, and making a beeline for my bay. I spotted Greg standing in bay thirty-two from a hundred meters and practically ran the last stretch.
“Man, am I glad to see you,” I said, laughing as I reached him.
“Hello, James,” he replied, his tone dulcet as ever. “How are you?”
“Yeah, good — they treat you okay coming up here?”
“As well as can be expected. Porter droids don’t talk much.”
I grinned and pulled myself up his body to the pad, where I laid my hand. His hatch popped open and I hauled myself over the lip, twisting and slotting down into the seat like a glove. I flicked on the ignition and lit him up. While he was on standby, he could still communicate with me in close proximity, but without a pilot manually turning on the power source, he wasn’t able to move. No Mech were — it was one of the Federation’s fail-safes to stop them trotting off on their own accord. Similarly, each Mech had a special ‘kill code’ that could be beamed into them at any time to shut them down. It was all encrypted, so that it wasn’t as easy as broadcasting and taking offline a whole fleet — that would have been a design oversight — but it meant that if the Federation needed to shut down any of their Mech, they could do so.
I was bringing all of Greg’s systems online when a face appeared over the top of the hatch. I looked up and jolted in the seat, seeing a pair of bulbous slitted yellow eyes staring over the steel rim.
“Jesus!” I half yelled, putting my hand on my chest. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
The face rose up until a pair of wide amphibious lips appeared under it. “My apologies,” came the half strangulated voice ringing inside my head, courtesy of the translator chip in my ear. “My name Oonakararasik, and I your assigned prepper,” it said, bobbing in and out of view. “You first time here, yes?”
I craned my neck to get a better look at the weird little thing, and saw it to only be about three feet tall, with long back legs, a tiny body, and four thin arms, all equipped with suction cup fingers. It’d crawled right up Greg’s hull.
I tried to mouth its name to introduce myself, but I’d already forgotten it. “Er — Oo… Oohna — you got a nickname?”
“The others call me Nak.”
“Nak is good.” I held up my hand to shake but it just cowered backward, hiding behind the edge of the hatch.
“Hey, it’s alright — what’s wrong?” I stood up on the step under the seat and leaned over to watch the creature climb back down the hull, staring up at me with fluorescent eyes.
“You try and hit Nak,” it said, glancing at me furtively.
“What?” I climbed up higher, standing on my seat. “No I didn’t.”
“Everyone try and hit Nak. It not funny to hit Nak.”
“What?” I was shocked. “I didn’t — I wouldn’t!” I almost yelled it. This thing was far from adorable, but I don’t think I could ever bring myself to hit it — no matter how annoying it might be. Right now, it just seemed sort of pathetic.
“You no hit Nak?” It looked up at me, eyes shining in the glare of the work lights above.
“No, of course not.” I sighed and then smiled. I knew what being a punching bag was like — I’d grown up as one myself. I never had any desire to inflict that on anyone else.
Nak’s quivering lips suddenly broke into a wide grin, though it didn’t have any teeth. I looked down at it, stuck to Greg’s thigh, at the dirty overalls it was wearing. “Okay, Nak come up.” It scrambled quickly up the hull and held itself in view as I sat back. I couldn’t believe anyone could be cruel enough to hit such a defenseless little thing.
“You live here, Nak?” I asked, looking around. “On the Athena?”
“Nak lives in the workshop,” it said.
“Oh — uh, how? Why?”
It mimicked a shrug. “Nak’s home — Meckos don’t grow up to be monkeys — that what my people call your people,” it said, dropping to a whisper. “They say all this metal and engine stuff not our way. ‘Specially not girl Mecko’s job.”
“You’re a girl?” I asked, wondering if I was doing a good job of keeping the surprise out of my voice.