by David Ryker
I looked down, feet pumping, at the bulky Samson rifle in our arms. “So if we could have had anything, why are we stuck with this antique?”
“Because we did not possess our own arena-suitable weapons, it was provided to us, along with our prepper, Nak, so that we met the rules of the game. Had you not possessed a Mech of your own, you may have rented one. It seems that several of the units used in each week’s competition are rented from the arena. It nullifies the risk of losing your own, at the cost of customizability. It is a safer option for those new to the games.” That felt like a shot at me, but he didn’t let up there. “Many competitors have teams working on their Mech, refining and tailoring them for arena-bouts. It is a very popular sport.” Greg relayed the information dryly but it still felt like a knife in the guts.
I tried to laugh it off, but it sounded alien and forced. “Don’t worry, big guy — we’ve been through worse! We’ll make it out of this.”
“That is statistically unlikely, James. We have not yet faced off against other seasoned pilots, and certainly not in such a situation to which they are perfectly adapted. It is probable, that with our bulk and lack of experience, we will be one of the first to perish.” He said nothing more on the subject, and I didn’t want him to. I wanted his attention on what was out there — I needed it. I hardly felt my best, and he was right, we were facing professional pilots in rigs built to tangle in quarters like this. I’d never faced other Mech, at least not out of simulation, and I’d certainly never been in a holo-arena. And with Alice out there swimming around like a shark, claiming victims one after another, my blood was starting to feel cold in my veins.
I barely had time to register the streak of steel to my left before the pad on my shoulder exploded in a plume of bright white sparks. Smoke billowed into the air behind me and gunfire chased me down. Greg maxed our thrusters and boosted us into the next intersection before dipping right. “We have eleven sensors remaining. I would recommend being more cautious.”
I growled but didn’t retort. I knew he was right. I kept close to the wall and turned back on myself again.
“What are you doing, James?” Greg asked.
I made another right at the next corner, shouldering my rifle as I did. I expected an empty corridor, and then after taking another right, to come up behind whoever had laid into us, but they were there, waiting, crouched at the corner. The Mech was small and compact, slimmer than my F-Series, and decked out in tribal stripes. They unleashed a volley of fire from what looked like some sort of sub-machine gun. The muzzle chattered, the fire rate much higher than my Samson. I rolled left instinctively, but a plume of fire lanced out of my thigh before I could get behind the corner.
“Shit!” I grunted, my hip slamming into the side of the chair. “I was trying to come up behind him!”
“That is a predictable move, James.”
“Well, some fucking suggestions would be helpful!”
“It appears that the mechanized unit that just fired at us was a Covert Series Mech, a model that was discontinued nearly two hundred years ago.”
“And?” I panted, scrambling forward. I went left, and right, and then right, and left again, as randomly as I could. I could hear flurried of fire behind me, feet pounding on the ground.
“The Covert Series was first created for ground infiltration missions using a basic version of the cloaking technology currently in place on Pilot Sesstis’ unit.”
“Get to the point, Greg!” I yelled, spinning and shouldering my rifle, squeezing off a stream of fire. The muzzle spat plumes of flame into the air and the Covert Series danced through them, not a single one of its sensors popping. I swore and kicked off, my thrusters barely keeping me ahead of the much lighter C-Series.
“It doesn’t have any thrust capabilities.”
It dawned on me and I knew exactly what Greg was getting at. I turned sharply right, slid to a halt and twisted, pushing my toes down as I did. Greg pumped our legs and fired us into the air. One of my hands clamped around the corner of the roof, some ten meters up, and I swung into the wall, pointing the muzzle down. The C-Series appeared around the corner, still chasing me, and by the time it realized I was above it, it was too late. It scrambled forward, but it was nearly twenty meters to the next corner. I hammered it with fire and two of the sensors on its back popped. By the time it reached the corner, I’d gotten the other two and one of the shoulders. It couldn’t afford to turn and expose its chest too, so it ran for cover. I’d surprised it, but I didn’t think I’d get another opportunity. I thought about giving chase, but it’d be cautious from now on, and there were six others out there, all vying for blood, and I had a feeling that the day was far from over.
6
Time ticked by more slowly than usual. The air was continually punctuated by gunfire as the Mech began to find each other, and the ones who weren’t already engaged in fights then clustered towards the gunfire in order to find someone to shoot at, creating yet more gunfire.
I did the opposite, trying to keep my distance. I circled the outside, staying out of the tight streets, but with each passing minute, things got worse.
It wasn’t long before the first Mech was knocked out. Explosions rang through the arena and a klaxon sounded. The entire room went dark, and then a barely readable alien name flickered in the air just below the ceiling. It rotated, and then a red line lanced theatrically through it. The commentator spoke up again, butchering the name — as anyone who wasn’t from that planet would — and announced that they’d been knocked out — the first victim claimed by The Queen!
I shuddered and kept moving, the lights on my hull like pinpricks in the dark. I’d hoped that the ambient lighting would come back on, but they didn’t. It stayed dark, and it took me a few seconds to realize that it was supposed to happen. Luckily, I didn’t run into anyone before the second name flashed in the air. Another victim claimed by the queen. As soon as the name disappeared, rockets started flying. I dove for cover, thinking they were real. They weren’t, but despite being holograms, they looked so realistic it was scary. Buildings began to crumble and tracer rounds cut the air, flying from one wall to the next, simulating a war zone. With each passing name, the environment changed, the carnage worsening. Jets and vehicles appeared and plunged to the ground, exploding and flaming. Bullet holes riddled the walls. Chunks of rubble lay in corners and smoke filled the air. If I didn’t keep reminding myself it was all a hologram, I would have believed my own eyes, and assumed I was in a war zone on some distant planet, fighting for my life.
And though I wasn’t, with each passing name, I realized that Greg was edging closer to a probable demise. We’d managed to stay alive this long simply by keeping out of the firing line. But as the numbers began to thin, others would do the same. I was already two sensors down, and I’d been checking corners and my tail fastidiously to make sure no one was sneaking up behind me. It wasn’t an all-out firefight now. It was a waiting game. Greg had been emphatic in telling me that this was about patience and focus, and that it was about staying out of the firing line and making sure that it was you ambushing someone else, and not the other way around.
The lights hadn’t come back on since the first had been knocked out, and now there were just four other Mech left facing off in the arena. I had tried keeping track of how many pads had popped but there were just too many banging in the distance, and once the rockets and mortars had started flying, it was useless. All I knew was that with each contender that went out, the stakes got higher. I’d kept my ass intact so far, but I didn’t know how long that would last. I kept moving, and making sure that it was fast and sporadic enough that I couldn’t be tracked or fired at from a distance. But it was only a matter of time before I ran into someone randomly, and when that happened, I had no idea who it would be, or what they’d be shooting at me with.
I slowed to a light jog, my legs aching from such an extended period of running. Even though resistance was minimal inside the cockpit, the const
ant movement had my muscles burning, my skin tingling under my jeans. I was breathing hard, but Greg had stopped commenting on my heart and had resigned himself to a reasonably sullen silence. A corner loomed in front, beyond it a wide space. The large square with the structure in the middle, an ancient-looking enclosed fortress turret of sorts, was in the open. In either direction, two wide roadways ran to the opposite walls. I’d reached it three times now, once from each side, and I was about to make my third crossing. I’d kept the gunfire on the other side of the arena so far, but for the last five minutes, it had been deadly silent, and now, I was crossing a wide open space without any knowledge of who was out there, or where — and perhaps most importantly, what they were armed with. The second I stepped out, I could be sideswiped and hammered with a barrage, but doubling back seemed like a worse choice.
I stopped in the shadow of the wall and turned back. A long corridor stretched away, lit in patches by clusters of burning debris like lanterns in a cave. There was nothing for now — but if someone else was circling, I could be running into them. Straight into them. In an enclosed space. And I didn’t want that. Hell, I didn’t want to be there at all! I’d regretted opting for this stupid fucking battle arena from the second I’d found out what it was. What was wrong with a simulation? Now, that seemed perfectly adequate. I checked the corner of the HUD on my helmet. It was almost midday. The guys would all be up and moving around and wondering where the fuck I was. Everett would have been back from her run for hours. Mac and Fish would be together doing something, I suspected, their strange friendship impenetrable and definitely immune to one night of drinking. And Volchec? Where was she? Did she know? That thought twisted me up. What was she going to do when she found out? Confiscate Greg? Suspend me? Fire me? Kill me?
The last seemed extreme, but not out of the question. She had a temper. That much I was sure of. Now that we were out of the firing line, I was expendable again. She didn’t need me to corroborate the story, so my place wasn’t as secure as it had been just forty-eight hours ago. I was indispensable then, and now I was that twenty-year-old idiot who kept getting himself into trouble. This was a perfect example of that. With Kepler out of the gang, I was the most junior member by a decade or something — if I was guessing Everett’s age right, which I doubted I was. But now, if I fucked up, lost my Mech… Well, I didn’t think she had the pull to do anything about that, and even if she did, I doubted she would. I wouldn’t. I’d be glad to be rid of me.
I gritted my teeth. As if I needed another reason to stay in this stupid game. I had to do something. I had to start thinking about winning, and I needed to do it fast. I could hide and stay out of everyone’s way, but how long would my luck hold out?
The sound of footsteps in my peripheral hearing told me not very long at all.
I stepped sideways and pressed myself against the wall, doing what I could to hide Greg’s huge bulk in the shadow of the corner. I didn’t know where the other contender was, but their footsteps said close. They slowed down to a creep now. Had they heard me? Shit. What if they’d heard me? I carefully lifted the Samson and looked it over, wondering how it would fare against whatever I was about to come up against.
“Greg?” I whispered instinctively.
“There is no need to whisper, James,” he replied. “My cockpit is completely soundproof. You know that.”
“I know,” I said, swallowing what little spit was on my tongue. It was still furry and the dehydration was nagging at my throat. “Can you, uh — where is this guy?”
“My sonic sensors indicate that it is likely that there is a Mech one pathway over, between this building and the next.”
I pricked my ears, but it had gone silent. He was waiting to move across the gap, too. I looked at the wall opposite, across the tiny corridor I was in. There was nowhere for me to go. If he headed out into the open and didn’t see me, I’d be fine. But, if he went out there, turned back, and clocked me, hell, he’d light up the gap between the two buildings, and I’d be a sitting duck. There’d be no escape, and all I’d be able to do was fire back — and I didn’t really like the idea of that, not while I was a couple of pads down. And there was no telling what sort of weapon he was carrying — if it was another one of those sub-machine guns with a crazy rate of fire, my Samson might as well be a bolt action. Damage counted for nothing, and if they could shoot a hundred bullets to my one, then I wasn’t liking my odds.
“How confident are you that we can light this guy up before he knows what’s hit him?” I asked in between heartbeats, my voice shuddering.
“Confidence is not something that I am able to assess. I would say that we are more likely to succeed on the offensive than if we are returning fire.”
I sucked in a breath. “Good enough for me!” I flexed my finger on the grip of the Samson, turned, and then dug my toes in, blasting us forward into the open. I crossed my feet in the air and we twisted, flaps kicking us around more violently. I pulled the Samson to my shoulder and leveled it at the gap between the buildings.
It was shadowed, the flames from a burning rotor-driven ship in the middle of the roadway casting a dim light into the mouth of the opening. But I could see a shape, and that was good enough. Greg jacked the contrast up on my screen and I picked the outlines, reflecting the dim light of the fire, out of the darkness.
Muzzle flash strobed and lit up a battered old F-Series with a blacked-out hull. It was adorned with what looked like skulls, and two curled horns had been affixed to the shoulders so the whole body looked like some weird shamanic monster. It was terrifying to look at, but that didn’t matter.
Two of the pads exploded before it had time to react, bathing it in smoke. For a second it turned, ready to run, and I popped the pad on its shoulder, still firing. I landed hard and kicked backward, giving myself some distance from it. There was no way it was a stock build, and I didn’t want to be close to it when it pulled whatever shit it had in reserve..
I turned back into the fire and one of its stomach pads burst in a shot of white flame. Smoke poured out and engulfed it. I let off the trigger for an instant, thinking something was wrong, but it had let off a smokescreen. I focused on the wall of gray, grinding to a halt. The top of the gaseous bubble erupted and in the time it took me to pull my rifle higher, I felt the hull rumble, one of the pads on my chest detonating.
I swore and twisted away without thinking as the F-Series continued to rise, propelled by a modified thrust system. Greg flooded the ground with our own smokescreen, a lot thicker than his, thankfully, and we disappeared into a sea of fog.
He twisted me low and flicked over to infrared. The area lit up in a sea of greens and blues, the only thing glowing the hot muzzle of his rifle and the jets on his feet. Greg lit up some reticles for me and focused my shaking rifle.
I squeezed again, this time in controlled bursts. I don’t know if it was the adrenaline, or maybe just what was at stake — I’d gotten pretty attached to Greg — but something was guiding me. I could see my heart rate was steady, my blood pressure holding right where it should have. Maybe I was just getting more accustomed to these sorts of situations.
Either way, the F-Series was firing blindly at me, and we were skating sideways, circling and popping sensors like a well-practiced drill. I was a dead-shot in the simulated shooting galleries, and not half bad in the real ones. This was almost no different. Guess that whole muscle memory thing was finally starting to kick in. The thought flashed in my mind, and then it was gone as Greg put up one reticle after another. When it was totally shredded of all I could aim at, I pulled away. It was hovering there, above the smoke, chasing me with fire, but now, it was impervious to my attacks. I couldn’t see the back, and there wasn’t anything left to shoot for on the front, and the pilot knew it. He floated forward like a huge wasp, horns dragging wakes of smoke.
I tucked the butt of the Samson into my chest and twisted away. It wasn’t far to the nearest alley, and I had to make a run for it before it caugh
t up with me, or before the smoke cleared. The artificial drafts in the arena were already starting to swirl it around and the jet wash from those thrusters would clear it the moment they got over us.
I kicked forward at a hard run. Retreat and regroup. That was what I needed to do. I had to get behind it, but I couldn’t — not easily at least. No, I’d keep moving, stay sharp, stay alive. I nodded to myself in the cockpit and became suddenly aware that rock music was playing in the background. Greg knew it helped. I let myself grin for an instant, forgetting just what I was playing for. If I hadn’t known better, I’d almost have said I was enjoying myself. I sort of got why people did this — there was a thrill in it — it was just blunted by the fact that I hadn’t realized what I was signing up for before I entered. And the near-certain death-by-Volchec I was facing even if I did get out of it.
I got halfway to the alley before a rumble cut through the air. I slid forward reflexively and pivoted low, raising my rifle, but there wasn’t anyone chasing me.
I watched over the cloud of smoke as the advancing F-Series, hanging like a marionette, paused for an instant. There was a breath of stillness, like the space between the flash and the crunch of thunder, and then a shower of sparks rained down. An indigo blur filled my vision for a second and the bright spots of the F-Series’ thrusters were replaced by much larger, brighter ones. I cycled back to normal color and watched as the F-Series careened into the building it was hovering in front of. The reinforced structure didn’t move, but the hologram reacted and stuttered for a second before projected rubble rained to the ground. The F-Series slid down and settled on its side, and then all of its rear sensors burst like pimples, flames licking the air. Whoever was inside didn’t have a chance. I turned my head to whatever was lighting it up and froze. Alice was there, hovering in the F-Series’ place, one of her pistols raised. She’d flown in and shunted it from the side. It hadn’t even seen her coming.