by Jake Bible
The Bento pivoted on its massive legs, but that was all. It didn’t take a step forward, it didn’t raise its arms, it did nothing but pivot, pivot, pivot in time with Clay’s steps.
Then it charged.
Clay barely had time to leap to the side. He actually didn’t have time to leap to the side. His right foot was nailed by the charging mech and Clay found himself spinning out of control across the desert dirt. He tumbled nearly to the white circle, but was able to dig the heels of his hands into the ground and stop himself before he was disqualified.
He shoved his mech back up and turned about. The Bento was almost on him again. Clay instinctively jumped straight up. It was a rookie move since a mech in the air was a mech making a target of itself. It was different when leaping to one side or the other, you covered ground that way. But straight up in the air? Might as well paint a bullseye on your mech’s crotch.
But luck held for Clay since the Bento was too short to reach him. Clay angled his mech so he fell forward into a roll that became a continuous tumble. He came up half the battlefield away and stayed down in a crouch. It wasn’t easy because of the damaged servo, but Clay knew what he was doing. He had a plan.
The Bento pilot was relying on its bursts of speed to keep Clay on edge and off guard. That was fine by Clay. He stayed low and waited for the Bento to charge before leaping away, tumble rolling as far as possible, then coming up into a crouch, ready to start the pattern again.
It didn’t take Clay long to realize the Bento’s pilot was a few circuits short of a full board. The guy kept coming and coming, never changing his strategy at all. It was probably a technique that worked eventually. Everyone screws up at some point. Repetition narrows the odds of a screw up considerably. But Clay knew that. He wasn’t trying to counter the mech’s fighting style.
He was trying to outlast it.
The spectators began to boo at about minute fifty-eight. Clay had been fighting the same mech for almost as long as all the previous fights’ times in that bracket combined. Trash and spoiled food were thrown out onto the battlefield. Not that it made much difference to the mechs. A rotten tomato wasn’t going to take down a machine that weighed a hundred tons. But it was the symbolism that mattered.
The Bento charged, Clay leapt. The Bento charged, Clay leapt. The Bento charged, slowed, Clay still leapt. The Bento tried to charge, but its legs had begun to overheat and the pistons were sticking. Clay had known that would happen. He never expected the Bento to run out of power, but he knew mech mechanics. You couldn’t repeat the same move again and again without stressing the hardware.
The Bento charged then fell flat on its face, its legs completely seized.
Clay walked over and stood above the mech. He nudged it with his foot then jumped back as an arm shot out.
The Bento pilot started using the thing’s arms to pull it along the battlefield.
Clay sighed and opened his com channel.
“Dude, stop,” Clay said. “Just tap out. I will totally let you walk away with your mech. I don’t want it, so why risk it being destroyed? Seized pistons are an easy fix, man.”
“I refuse to let the Mister take my mech,” the pilot responded. “I would rather die.”
“I get that,” Clay said. “But the Mister isn’t going to win this tournament, I am.”
“You cannot beat Bunting,” the Bento pilot said. “So fight me, coward.”
“Sheesus,” Clay said as he switched off the com.
He lined his foot up and as soon as the Bento pulled itself close enough, Clay let loose with a kick that caved in the thing’s entire top. Clay didn’t have to turn the com back on to ask the pilot if he was alright. The amount of blood that came pouring out of the smashed cockpit was answer enough.
“Idiot,” Clay said.
That had become his mantra for the day as he took down rookie after rookie after rookie. Yes, many had fought before, but up against him they were nothing, really. A couple good shots, some cheap shots, and maybe a trick or two, but not one of the mech pilots had much depth in their arsenal. At least not as much depth as was needed to sustain themselves during a tournament. They gave away all their moves in their first fights.
Clay, on the other hand, still had a couple moves in his wheelhouse. He had zero plans to pull them out until he absolutely needed to.
The time came to need to during his next fight.
The field had been whittled down to four: two of the Mister’s mechs, one of General Hansen’s, and Clay.
He stood in the middle of the battlefield and waited for his opponent.
The mech was a big one, easily four meters taller than Clay’s. It was a beast of a thing with double wrapped armor around each joint, fists the size of heavy rollers, and legs that looked like they were made of entire mechs themselves.
The mech was General Hansen’s. Not one of her pilot’s, but her personal mech. Clay stared at the screen in front of him as the tournament voice announced the two combatants to the spectators. He stared at the face of a woman he considered pure evil. Damn, she was beautiful.
“Knock it off, man,” Clay said to himself. “She messed with your head once. Don’t let it happen again.”
“Due to an unfortunate accident,” the tournament voice said. “General Hansen will be substituting in for her team’s mech. She is listed as an official second, if there are any objections.”
“None here,” Clay said as he gave Hansen a wave. She did not wave back.
“Good,” the tournament voice said. “Three, two, one, fight!”
The woman’s mech was so fast that Clay barely had time to block her first punch and dive roll to the edge of the battlefield before she was on him again. He came up from his roll and crossed his arms as Hansen brought both fists down in a powerful hammer attack. Clay felt the servos in his mech’s shoulders strain and grind under the weight of the blow.
“Wrong way to handle this, lady,” Clay said as he flipped onto his back and kicked out with both legs, nailing her mech in the right knee.
Metal should have exploded everywhere. That knee should have been nothing but hanging struts and fizzling wires. But it remained intact and held strong. Clay had barely dented the armor.
He opened his com.
“You had this baby tucked away somewhere I couldn’t see,” Clay said to General Hansen. “Keeping it up your sleeve so I didn’t know what to expect.”
“I had thought of letting you pilot this if your mech wasn’t up to my standards,” Hansen replied. “But this is much more enjoyable. The chance to rip you limb from limb is a dream come true for me, lover.”
“Yeah, don’t call me that,” Clay said. “It make me a little pukey. I mean, you’re a sexy lady, don’t get me wrong. Like, black mamba snake sexy, though. All sleek and smooth, but pretty much pure death.”
“I take that as a compliment,” Hansen replied. “And I promise to make your death as pure as I can.”
Clay rolled his mech to the right, over and over, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the General. He rolled one last time and flipped up onto his feet. Well, he tried to. His seized hip servos made it a little hard, so he ended up just crashing his legs into the dirt. Clay sighed, rolled onto his front, and pushed up with his hands.
“That was pitiful,” Hansen said. “A sad sight to see. To think I had admired your mech skills at one time. You have made it far in this tournament, we all knew you would, but now it comes to an end.”
“Yeah, that’s the truth,” Clay said.
He flipped two switches and his fists curled in on themselves, the fingers fused together by a series of locks and cables that slid into place. From underneath, straight out of the wrists, two long, sharpened bars extended, one from each wrist, both close to ten feet long.
Clay held his arms up and made sure the General saw the sharpened bars.
“Weaponry is not allowed,” Hansen snapped. “I call forfeit on my opponent!”
“Not weaponry,” Clay said.
“I have simply extended my forearm struts. We can pause the fight and have them examined if you are afraid I now have an advantage over you. Is that what you want, little lady? A break so you can cry to the judges?”
“Go fuck yourself, Mr. MacAulay,” Hansen growled. “I will crush you no matter what you try. You do not have the will to beat me. I proved that in the bedroom.”
“Bitch, we are a long way from the bedroom,” Clay said as he charged the General. “And this sure as shit ain’t foreplay!”
The General did exactly what Clay thought she would do. She held her ground and prepared to block the sharpened bars with the armor plating on her mech’s forearms. It was a smart move. Deflect the bars, let Clay’s momentum carry him past her, then grab from behind and twist and bend until he was a broken pile of warped metal. Any competent pilot would have done the same.
That was what he counted on. The General being only a competent pilot, not an exceptional one.
Just before reaching her he dove straight ahead, letting his arms lead. He ducked the front of his mech down, drove the bars into the dirt, let them catch and flip his legs up and over, then yanked his arms free as his momentum carried him not past the General’s mech, but directly on top.
Clay hooked his legs across her mech’s shoulders and slammed his heels into her back as additional bars extended, sliding out of his heels, slicing right through the protective armor. The General tried to throw him clear, but Clay’s heel bars held him steady.
“Give up?” Clay asked.
He didn’t wait for an answer as he brought his arms down straight through the top of the General’s mech, sending the sharpened bars directly into the cockpit. Every system in the mech was stopped dead, severed from all power couplings. Hansen screamed over the com as a ton of metal ripped into her body, turning her into human jelly.
The sound of her cut-off scream echoed across the battlefield. The tournament folks had decided to make the com conversation between Clay and Hansen public. Their mistake. The crowd was stunned into silence, letting the last refrain of the woman’s shriek fade into nothing without response.
Clay withdrew the sharpened bars and unhooked his legs. He flipped himself backwards and landed deftly on his feet as the General’s damaged mech swayed in the still desert air. Clay returned his fists to their original form and the bars slid back into their recessed spaces on each forearm.
General Hansen’s mech still stood. Bits of flesh and a stream of blood hung from the shattered cockpit, letting the spectators and everyone know that the General didn’t have a miracle up her sleeve. She was long gone. Adios, diablo puta, adios.
“Can we call it?” Clay asked over the com. “Hello? Anyone? I think I won the match. Hola? Come on, people, don’t leave me hanging here.”
“Winner is Pilot MacAulay,” the tournament voice announced finally.
“Might be easier to send out a pilot to walk the mech off the battlefield using manual mechanics,” Clay suggested. “That’s gonna be a son of a bitch for the rollers to deal with.”
They took Clay’s advice and a nervous-looking man sprinted out onto the battlefield and started the long, arduous climb up General Hansen’s mech to the gore-filled cockpit.
“I’ll be on the sidelines taking a nap,” Clay announced as he walked his mech off the battlefield. “Give me a shout when I’m up again.”
No one answered him. He didn’t expect them to. The spectators were still stunned, silent as ghosts. Clay walked his mech back to his parking space, powered it down, and settled in to watch the last match.
But the last match didn’t happen.
As soon as the General’s mech was cleared from the battlefield, Clay saw Bunting walk out into the open area. A second mech, also one of the Mister’s, walked out to face Bunting. But instead of taking a fight pose, the mech bowed then slowly retreated from the field. The second its foot stepped over the white line, a horn sounded and the tournament voice announced, “Disqualification. Match goes to Pilot Bunting.”
“You sneaky son of a bitch,” Clay said. “Well, that’s one way to make sure your best pilot doesn’t get hurt.”
“That is the end of the tournament for this day,” the tournament voiced announced. “The final championship match will be held at dawn tomorrow. We hope you have enjoyed your time today. Please drink responsibly and clean up any litter close to your rollers. Thank you and goodnight.”
“What?” Clay cried as he looked at the horizon. “We still have at least an hour or two of sunlight!”
No one responded to him. Clay shook his head and pounded a fist into his palm. He did not want to stay one more damn night in the territory. He wanted to kick Bunting’s ass and then get the hell gone.
“Hey,” Gibbons whispered from the stealth decks. “You think I can come out now?”
“Don’t see why not,” Clay said. “Looks like we are on hold until the morning.”
“Good,” Gibbons said. “Because I want to talk to you about something. I’ve been reading the tournament rules and I think I found a loophole that could really help us out.”
“Do go on,” Clay said as he undid the cables and collapsed into his pilot’s chair. He stripped off the too-small suit and sighed with relief. “What you got, buddy?”
The two talked for several hours, going over Gibbons’ findings again and again so there could be no mistake what they were looking at.
It was one bitch of a loophole, if they were right.
Twenty-Nine
Clay woke in the middle of the night, his body screaming at him, every muscle and tendon nothing but cold fire. His nerves were burning, his flesh was crawling, his head felt like it was swelling to the size of the moon.
He fell out of his pilot’s seat and onto the cold floor of the cockpit. His cheek pressed against the metal, trying to find comfort from the fever that burned through him.
“Gibbons,” he whispered. “Shit. Gibbons?”
“I got ya, pal,” Gibbons said and the temperature in the cockpit dropped twenty degrees in less than a second as Gibbons pumped the space with the frigid desert night air. “Just relax, Clay. Sensors show you have a fever of nearly one hundred and eight. I’m calling Nasta up here to help you out.”
“No, don’t,” Clay said. “She’ll see the modifications.”
“You don’t think you can trust her?” Gibbons asked.
“I don’t think I can trust anyone,” Clay said. “We have to see this through on our own.”
A tray slid out and Clay managed to push up onto his hands and knees and crawl over to it. He took the offered injector, put it to his neck, and hit the trigger. Eight hundred milligrams of a mixed cocktail of analgesics and anti-inflammatories coursed through his veins. He turned and laid on his back, letting the drugs work their magic and bring his fever down while also bringing the pain levels to something manageable.
“Good thing you found what you found,” Clay muttered as sleep started to take him. “I am pretty much done here, buddy. My body just can’t take anymore.”
“Sleep, man,” Gibbons replied. “I’ll wake you when it’s time. These people won’t know what hit them.”
Clay smiled as his eyes closed. “No, they sure as shit won’t.”
Dawn broke over the horizon and the bright pink light filtered into the cockpit much faster than Clay could have believed. Even with the injector’s cocktail in him, his sleep had been restless and far from comfortable.
“Good morning,” Gibbons said. “That night went fast.”
“Says the guy that doesn’t have to sleep,” Clay said.
“Ready to drop the bomb on the powers that be?” Gibbons asked.
“Ready,” Clay replied. He crawled up into what had been the pilot’s seat, but he and Gibbons had transformed into the co-pilot’s seat during their hours of plotting and planning.
Clay opened a com and cleared his sleep-gunked throat.
“Good morning, Tourney folks,” Clay said. “Got a little announcem
ent to make. Unfortunately, my body is not cooperating this morning. I took one hell of a beating yesterday, not to mention the beatings I’ve taken the past few weeks, and I don’t think I will be able to continue as pilot.”
“He forfeits!” the Mister’s voice yelled over the com. “I insist that I am declared the winner of the tournament for yet another year!”
“Hold your horses, Grampy Greedy Dick,” Clay said. “I did not forfeit. In fact, I intend to stay in this cockpit during the entire fight to come. It’s just that I am invoking Section 8, Subparagraph Y of the tournament rules and regulations that states if no other machine is available, I reserve the right to have an alternate pilot take my place. This is of course, if my sponsoring landowner agrees.”
There was silence. Everyone waited.
“Will someone go wake up the damn comunista woman?” the Mister snarled.
After a couple of minutes, Willow came on the com.
“What is happening? Clay? Are you quitting?” Willow asked.
Clay read the entire section and subparagraph. Willow didn’t respond. For a moment, Clay feared she wouldn’t agree and all of his and Gibbons’ planning would have been for nothing.
“Can he do that?” Willow asked finally.
“He can, according to the bylaws,” the tournament voice replied. “His right of replacement pilot is not even a question. It is the fact he is choosing his AI to take his place that I believe we should discuss.”
“Why don’t you all do that,” Clay said. “I have to pee something fierce. I’m going to take five and climb down out of here, stretch my shaky legs a bit, and wait for your answer.”
There was some fast shouting and several barked curse words from the Mister. Clay cut the com and stood up.
“I’ll lower you down,” Gibbons said. “Co-pilot MacAulay.”
“Ha freaking ha,” Clay said as he stumbled over to the hatch and popped it open.
He basically fell out of the cockpit and onto the extended palm that Gibbons had brought up to him. He rode the whole way down on his back, rolling off onto his feet only when Gibbons gave him a hard shake.
