Lifel1k3

by Jay Kristoff

  “I’ve won eight straight, Lemon. Not about to start losing now. And we need this scratch. Unless you got a better way to conjure Grandpa’s meds?”

  “I got a way, true cert.”

  “A way that doesn’t involve me getting up close and sticky with some middle-aged wageslave?”

  “. . . Yeah, then I got nuthin’.”

  “Make the bet. Five hundred.”

  “Zzzzzz,” came the reply. “You the boss.”

  “And remember to get a receipt, yeah?”

  “Hey, that happened one time. . . .”

  “Thirty seconds, your bets!” cried the EmCee.

  Eve turned to her readouts, spoke into her headset. “Cricket, you reading me?”

  “Well, not reading you, no,” came the crackling reply. “I can hear you, though, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Oh, hilarity. Grandpa been adjusting your humor software again?”

  “I’m a work in progress.”

  “I’ll tell him to keep working.” She squinted at the Goliath looming on her monitors. “I’m gonna fight southpaw and go for the optics, feel that?”

  “Right in my shiny metal man parts.”

  “You got no man parts, Crick.”

  “I am as my maker intended.” A metallic sigh. “He’s such a bastard. . . .”

  Lemon’s voice crackled in Eve’s ear. “Okay, we good to go. Can you see my fine caboose? I’m over by the Neo-Meat™ stand.”

  Eve scanned the crowd. Scavvers and locals, mostly, letting off steam after a hard week’s grind. She saw a Brotherhood posse, six of them in those oldskool red cassocks, preaching loud over the Dome’s noise about genetic purity and the evils of cybernetics. Their scarlet banner was daubed with a big black X—the kind of X they nailed people to when the Law wasn’t looking.

  Down by the arena’s edge, Eve glimpsed a tiny girl in an ancient, oversized leather jacket. A jagged bob of cherry-red hair. A spattering of freckles. Goggles on her brow and a choker around her throat. A small hand in a fingerless glove waved at her through the WarDome bars.

  “I got you,” Eve replied.

  The inimitable Miss Lemon Fresh jumped on the spot, threw up the horns.

  “’Kay, bet is onnnnnnn, my bestest,” she reported. “Five hundo at four to one. Let’s hope you didn’t leave your mojo in your other pants.”

  “You got the receipt?”

  “That happened one time, Evie. . . .”

  Eve turned her attention back to her opponent, fingers flitting over the enviro controls inside her gloves. She’d heard a rumor that the Domefighter rigs in the big mainland arenas were all virtual, but here in Dregs, WarDome bouts were strictly oldskool: recycled, repackaged, repurposed. Just like everything else on the island. A confirmation message flickered on Eve’s display, signaling environmental control had been transferred to her console. She tilted the deck beneath the Goliath a fraction, just to test.

  The big bot stumbled as the panels beneath its feet shifted. Eve wondered what was going on inside its computerized brain. Whether it knew it was going to die tonight. Whether it would have cared if it wasn’t programmed to.

  The crowd bellowed as the floor moved, the interlocking steel plates that made up the WarDome floor rippling as Eve’s fingers flexed. The EmCee had retired to the observation booth above the killing floor, her voice still ringing over the PA.

  “As you can see, environmental controls have been passed to the first batter. Under standard WarDome rules, she’ll have five wrecking balls to throw, plus surface modulation. For the newmeat out there, this means . . . Aww, hells, ask your daddy what it means when I send him home in the morning. Ten seconds to full hostile!”

  A countdown appeared on the monitors, Daedalus Tech and BioMaas Inc. logos spinning in the corners. The mob joined in with the count, palms sweaty on rusted bars.

  “Five . . .”

  Eve narrowed her eyes, a razor-blade smile at her lips.

  “Four . . .”

  Miss Combobulation coiled like a sprinter on the blocks.

  “Three . . .”

  The Goliath stood, still as stone.

  “Two . . .”

  “Stronger together,” Lemon whispered.

  “One . . .”

  “Together forever,” Eve replied.

  “WAR!”

  Eve lunged, her Locust leaping off its skids and sprinting across the Dome. The floor beneath her tilted into a ramp as she thumbed the enviro controls, her machina sailing into the air with a four-thousand-horsepower roar. The Goliath raised one three-ton fist to smash the Locust to pieces, but at Eve’s command, the floor beneath it shifted. The big logika stumbled, feet skidding on the deck as Miss Combobulation landed on its shoulder. Boosters fired as Eve thumbed the controls, her pickax punching through the Goliath’s right optic and clean out the back of its skull.

  “First strike to Miss Combobulation!” cried the EmCee. “Death from aboooove!”

  A roar from the crowd. Eve’s smile widened as the sympathetic impact rolled up her arm. She was tearing her pick from the Goliath’s skull when the big logika’s fist closed around Miss Combobulation’s forearm, crushing the armor like paper.

  “It’s got you!” Cricket yelled. “Get loose!”

  Eve felt the pressure through her control sleeve, the auto-dampeners cutting in before the pain registered. She lashed out with her claws, tearing up the Goliath’s shoulder, and with a squeal of metal, Eve and her Locust were slung clear across the Dome. Miss Combobulation crashed into the bars, pulping a few fingers not pulled away quickly enough. Eve bit down on her tongue, head slamming against the pilot’s seat. Rolling with the worst of it, she twisted back to her feet as the Goliath charged.

  “You fizzy in there?” Lemon asked.

  “All puppies and sunshine . . .” She winced.

  “Use your environmentals!” Cricket yelled.

  Eve’s monitors were filled with damage reports, scrolling a hundred digits per second. She kept the floor moving to break up the Goliath’s attack, thumbed her controls to unleash the first of her five allotted wrecking balls. An enormous sphere of rusted iron swung down from the ceiling, the big bot skidding to a stop to avoid it. Miss Combobulation was back on her feet, skirting the Dome’s edge as Eve dropped another ball on the Goliath’s blind side. The rusty sphere clipped its shoulder, spanging off the case-hardened armor, to the crowd’s delight. The big logika crouched low, sidestepped a third ball. Eve tasted blood in her mouth as her fingers danced inside the control glove, herding the Goliath back to give herself enough room to play.

  She kicked Miss Combobulation’s stirrups, weaving into strike range. Shifting the floor again, she wrong-footed the big logika and raked her claws across its damaged shoulder. The Goliath’s counterpunch went wide as the floor shifted again, and Eve melted away between the wrecking balls like smoke.

  “Still got some war in her, folks!” the EmCee declared.

  A red bellow rose from the mob. The Goliath’s right arm hung limply at its side, a quick scan showing its shoulder hydraulics had been torn to scrap.

  “Nice shot,” Lemon’s voice crackled in Eve’s ear. “I’m all tingly in my pantaloons.”

  “Learned that one watching old kickboxing virtch,” Eve replied.

  “I thought you watched those for the abs and short shorts?”

  “I mean, I wasn’t complaining. . . .”

  “Evie, don’t get cocky!” Cricket warned. “You need to press while you can! That Goliath will get a read on you soon!”

  Eve wiped her brow across her shoulder, all adrenaline and smiles.

  “Easy on the take it, Crick. I got this fug’s ident number now.”

  The Goliath had retreated to take stock, a barrier of crumpled metal between itself and Miss Combobulation. Its right arm bled coolant, the hole in its eye socket spewed bright blue sparks. With three wrecking balls now swinging across the Dome and only one working optic, Eve knew the big bot would have a hard time tr
acking targets. All she needed to do was strike from its blind side and never stay still long enough to eat a straight shot.

  “Right, let’s send this badbot to the recyc.”

  With a twitch of her fingers, Eve sent her last two wrecking balls arcing down from the ceiling, scything right toward the Goliath’s head. But to the crowd’s bewildered gasps, the big bot lumbered up onto a barricade and snatched up one of the swinging chains. Tearing the wrecking ball from its mooring in the Dome’s ceiling, the bot crunched back onto the deck, rusted iron links looped around its knuckles. It drew back one massive arm, ready to throw.

  “Sideways moves on this Goliath, folks! Looks like it’s a street fighter!”

  “Watch out!” shouted Cricket.

  Ten tons of spherical iron flew right at her—enough to pulp her Locust into scrap. Rolling aside, Eve tilted the floor, springing into the air with claws outstretched. She seized a wrecking ball swaying overhead, sailing over the Goliath’s swing, falling into a perfect dive right at the big logika’s head. Time shattered into fragments, each second ticking by like days. The crowd’s roar. That glowing optic fixed on her as the Goliath drew back one massive fist. Lemon’s war cry in her ear. Cricket’s crackling warning. The thought of two thousand clean credits in her greasy hands, and all the happy a prize like that could buy.

  Eve raised her pickax with a roar, veins pounding with the thrill of the kill as she stabbed the enviro controls to tilt the floor and stumble the Goliath into her deathblow.

  Except nothing happened.

  The plates beneath the Goliath didn’t shudder an inch. Eve’s roar became a scream as she stabbed the controls again, bringing her pick down in a futile swing as the Goliath punched her clean out of the sky.

  The impact was deafening, smashing Eve forward in her harness, teeth rattling inside her skull. Her machina was sent sailing back across the Dome, raining broken parts and blinding sparks. Miss Combobulation crashed on the WarDome floor, squealing and shrieking as it skidded across the deck.

  “Oh, Combobulation is OOC!” the EmCee cried. “Batter up!”

  Smoke in the cockpit. Choking and black. Eve’s readouts were all dead, everything was dead. Thin spears of light pierced the broken seams in her machina’s armor. Every inch of skin felt bruised. Every bone felt broken.

  “Riotgrrl, get up!” came Lemon’s voice in her ear. “Badbot’s coming for you!”

  Eve heard heavy footsteps, coming closer. She stabbed the EJECT button, hydraulics shuddering as the cockpit burst open. Gasping, spitting blood, she tried to claw free of the wreckage, tried to ignore the sound of the incoming Goliath. Impact ringing in her skull. Coolant, fried electrics, blood. The logika stalked toward her, hand outstretched.

  What the hells was it thinking? Second batter was on its way up. The Goliath should’ve been turning to deal with its next opponent. But the bot was bearing down on her, raising its fist. Like it wanted . . .

  “Get out of there, Riotgrrl!” Lemon cried.

  Like it wanted.

  Eve tried to drag herself free, but her foot was trapped in her control boot. Lemon was screaming. The crowd baying. She looked up into the crystal clear blue optic looming overhead and saw death staring back at her, eighty tons of it, fear and anger rising inside her chest and boiling in the back of her throat.

  She refused to flinch. To turn away. She’d met death before, after all. Spat right in its face. Clawed and bit and kicked her way back from the quiet black to this.

  This is not the end of me.

  This is just one more enemy.

  Static dancing on her skin. Denial building inside her, violence pulsing in her temples as the Goliath’s fist descended. Rage bubbling up and spilling over her lips as she raised her hand and screamed. And screamed.

  AND SCREAMED.

  And the Goliath staggered.

  Clutched its head as if somehow pained.

  Sparks burst from its eye sockets, cascading down its chest. The big bot shuddered. And with an awful metallic groan, the hiss of frying relays and the snapcracklepop of burning circuits, it tottered backward and crashed dead and still onto the deck.

  Eve winced as it hit the ground, the stink of burned plastic mixing with the taste of blood on her tongue. The crowd was hushed, looking on in shock at the skinny, grease-stained girl still trapped inside her machina. Hand still outstretched. Fingers still trembling.

  Were they seeing things? Were they smoked? Or had that juvette just knocked an eighty-ton logika on its tailpipe with a simple wave of her hand?

  “Evie,” came Lemon’s voice in her ear. “Evie, are you okay?”

  Eve stared at the hushed crowd all around her.

  The Goliath’s smoking remains.

  Her outstretched fingers.

  “Think I’m a few miles from okay, Lem. . . .”

  1.2

  DEMOCRACY

  The blond man looms above me. Tall as heaven. Twice as beautiful. He steps closer and I wonder why his boots squeak like frightened mice. And then I look down, and I see the floor is red. And I remember.

  On my face. On my hands. None of it is mine. All of it is.

  Father.

  Mother.

  I . . .

  My brother, Alex, is just ten years old. He makes things, just like our father. Breathes life where there was none. For my fifteenth birthday, he made me butterflies. There are no such things as butterflies anymore, and yet he made them for me all the same.

  And he could always make me smile.

  The beautiful man raises his pistol, and Alex looks down the barrel into forever.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asks.

  The beautiful man does not answer.

  And I am not smiling anymore.

  I am screaming.

  They used to call it Kalifornya, but now they called it Dregs.

  Grandpa had told Eve this place wasn’t even an island before the Quake. That you could motor from Dregs to Zona and never touch the water. A long time ago, this was just another part of the Grande Ol’ Yousay. Before the country got bombed into deserts of black glass and Saint Andreas tore his fault line open and invited the ocean in for drinks. Before the Corporations fought War 4.0 for what was left of the country and carved out their citystates beneath a cigarette sky.

  Eve checked that the coast was clear, stole out from the WarDome’s innards, Lemon in tow. A boom echoed in the arena’s belly, accompanied by a trembling roar. Another bout had started, and Eve could hear iron giants colliding inside, rumbling applause. Her mouth tasted of copper and her belly felt full of ice. The memory of her outstretched hand and the collapsing Goliath burned bright in her mind.

  As if things hadn’t been bad enough already . . .

  The Dome’s meatdoc had given her a fistful of pain meds and offered a bioscan, but she’d just wanted to get out of there. She’d seen those Brotherhood boys at the bout tonight, and after what she’d done, they’d surely be gunning for her. Time to get home while the getting was good.

  An old billboard, faded with time, stood near the Dome’s rear exit. Kaiser lay in the gloom beside it, eyes burning softly, his tail starting to wag as he caught sight of her.

  “How’s my handsome boy?” Eve smiled. “How’s my good dog?”

  Kaiser wuffed and rolled over so Eve could scratch his belly. Lemon knelt beside her, fussing over the blitzhund and stroking his rib cage. Kaiser’s hind leg began kicking as they found his sweet spot, his pistons hissing, the heat sink that served as his tongue lolling from his mouth. After a few minutes of glorious torture, the girls finally let him up, and the blitzhund shook himself like a real dog would have, shivering the dust from his hull.

  Kaiser wasn’t a logika, like Cricket. He was technically a cyborg, but his only organic part was a chunk of cloned Rottweiler brain and six inches of spinal cord plugged into an armored combat chassis. He’d looked almost real once, but his fur had started wearing off a year back, so Eve had stripped him to the metal and spray
-painted him with an urban-camo color scheme instead. He looked skeletal now, all plasteel plates and hydraulics. She liked him better this way. It seemed more honest than pretending he was a real dog. Grandpa said it’s always better to be shot at for who you are than hugged for who you aren’t. Most days in Dregs, someone was bound to be shooting at you, anyway.

  Eve heard smashing glass, a drunken yell out in the night. She and Lemon hunkered in the shadows of the Dome, waiting to see if the Brotherhood or some other flavor of trouble had found them. Minutes ticked by as they crouched there in the dark.

  Lemon brushed her long cherry-red bangs from her eyes. The girl wore a choker set with a small silver five-leafed clover, toying with the charm as she whispered.

  “Maybe we better jet, Riotgrrl.”

  “We lost our whole roll on that bet,” Eve replied. “Got no creds for a ride.”

  “We should set Kaiser on that bookie’s hind parts. True cert.”

  “Technically, Miss Combobulation did go down first. ’Sides, you really wanna stick around here and argue over creds with the Brotherhood on the prowl?”

  Lemon chewed her lip and sighed. “Lovely night for a walk?”

  And so they began the trek back to Tire Valley. Kaiser stalked out front, his eyes lit up like headlights in the dark. Cricket rode in Eve’s backpack, the little bot’s oversized head wobbling atop his shoulders. They cut off-road, into a forest of towering wind turbines and rusted cranes and metal shells. Lemon’s eyes were on the shadows around them, her electric baseball bat slung over one shoulder. She clearly knew this was no time for a pop quiz, but the questions were backing up behind her teeth.

  “So,” she finally said, stumbling through the trash.

  “So,” Eve replied.

  “You wanna talk about what happened in there?”

  “You mean the part where my enviro controls fritzed or the part where I fried every circuit inside that Goliath just by yelling at it?”

  “I couldn’t hear over the crowd. But it must have been a very naughty word.”

  Eve engaged the low-light setting in her optic, her vision shifting to tones of black and green. She could see the shapes of the scrap piles around them, the distant warmth of the sun beyond the horizon. That Goliath, crashing to the deck over and over in her mind.