The Great Destroyers

by Caroline Tung Richmond

  “Seven fighters total have been eliminated so far, and we haven’t yet hit the five-minute mark!” the announcer says.

  I’m determined not to become the eighth one out of here, but it’s tricky when I have Lukas and the twins hot on my heels. Since it will be pointless to take them all at once, I employ a dodge-and-run tactic. As long as I’m on the move, they can’t eliminate me, and maybe someone else might knock them down along the way.

  I zigzag through the arena, jumping from the ground and up the side of the cage, then leaping to the other side before I hit the floor again, doing a quick roll to avoid crashing into Team Mexico, and then I’m soaring into the air again. I use my legs as much as possible to save the strength in my arms for later, but the trio of Communists chasing me is speedy so I have to get creative.

  Pushing off the ground, I grab on to the cage’s ceiling and swing across it like I’m eight years old again but with much higher stakes. When I was a kid, I spent hours on the monkey bars. I’d race across them as fast as I could; I’d practice skipping over every other rung; I’d hang on them, timing myself until my muscles burned and my palms calloused. I use all of that now. I reach the middle of the cage and wait. My arms start to ache, but I can handle it. One of the twins is the first to reach me, and I’m ready for him. I swing my legs in his direction, hooking them around his hips and yanking hard until he loses his grip. His limbs flail while he tumbles toward the floor, landing right by Sam and our allies, who’ve formed a classic defensive posture, standing shoulder to shoulder in a circle, facing out. I spot Team UK there along with Team Australia and Team Canada. Giselle’s partner Auguste has been eliminated, but she’s shouting orders to the rest of the group, asking them to cover for her while she slams her mecha on top of the Bulgarian twin who has fallen. As soon as he’s finished off, her eyes flicker up to me, and she gives a thumbs-up.

  “Team Bulgaria is down a fighter! The same goes for Team Sweden with Vilgot Karlsson eliminated by Zoya Federova of the USSR,” the announcer says.

  Lukas and the remaining Bulgarian twin come at me next, one on each side, but the twin doesn’t last for long. I plant a kick on her shoulder, knocking one of her hands loose, and within seconds, she can’t keep her grip. Lukas, however, proves harder to get rid of. He somehow dodges most of my kicks, and even when I do get in a hit, he doesn’t flinch. By now, my arm muscles are tightening up, so I pick a landing spot and aim for it. When I hit the ground, I can feel the shock ringing in my teeth, but I hoist myself up again because I’m sure Lukas is on my tail.

  “Looks like we’ve got a real chase happening at center court! There’s Lukas Sauer of East Germany tracking down Josephine Linden of the US,” the announcer says. Ugh. Didn’t anyone send him the memo that I go by Jo? “Will he catch her? Not this time! She dodges his grab and there she goes again, but there’s traffic up ahead.”

  Sure enough, I’m about to run smack dab into Rushi, who’s fending off the Austrians. It’s a two-on-one fight, but she’s giving it her all, launching a high kick into one of their chins while spinning around to punch the other one in the chest. But when she ducks down and tries to somersault out of their grasp, they manage to catch her by the ankle.

  I’m closing in on them, with Lukas only a few steps behind. Do I spin to my left and hope Lukas goes right? Or should I jump up and leap over the fray? I don’t know if I have the momentum. Whatever I decide I better do it now because I’m about to plow into the others and then Lukas will have me trapped.

  An idea hits me and I run with it—literally.

  The Austrians are too distracted wrangling up Rushi to see me coming. I’m ten yards away. Now five. But I don’t slow down; I speed up instead. With my velocity building, I hold my breath and launch into the air. The Goliath flies upward, but I get it even higher by using the Austrians as stepping stones, planting one of my feet on one of their backs and then the other on one of their heads, knocking them sideways in the process. Rushi scrambles free while Lukas gets tangled up in the pileup.

  “What a move by Linden!” the announcer says to the screams of the crowd. “She survives that collision, but not Ludvig Milch of Austria. Now we’re down to twenty-eight fighters, folks. No, make that twenty-six, and the action doesn’t stop!”

  I scuttle up the south wall of the cage to catch my breath for a few seconds. As our numbers have thinned out, the pit floor grows littered with broken-down mechas. The chaos that kicked off the match has faded, but now the battle lines have sharpened—and outliers like me are more vulnerable than ever.

  I survey the arena and wipe the sweat off my forehead. I see that Lukas has found his way back to the other Communists. The Reds are hunting like a wolf pack now, picking off a Colombian and then a Turk. Then I spy Sam and the other NATO fighters on the other side of the cage, squaring off against the remnants of the Swiss-Swedish-Danish alliance that has already lost half their members. Sam and Giselle lead the charge, and I hate to admit it, but he’s beautiful to watch. Every punch and swing perfectly textbook. Every grab perfectly executed. Irritatingly so. Malcolm must be pleased, but he has to be happy with my performance too, considering I’ve done what he has asked and led the Reds’ charge away from Sam. And I’ve survived this far to boot. He better send at least three endorsements my way at the rate I’m going.

  “Down goes Ambrogi of Italy, and that marks the halfway point! Twenty-five fighters have been eliminated and nine more have to go before we reach our final sixteen.”

  I try to save up as much strength as I can since I won’t be able to lurk in the corners much longer. Across the way, Giselle chases after Rushi, but Rushi reaches the nearest wall and begins scaling it. She’s about halfway up when she pushes herself off the rung like an Olympic diver, arching her back and executing a perfect midair flip before landing cleaning on her feet.

  “Would you look at that! We’ve never seen these sort of moves in the arena before,” the announcer marvels.

  While the crowd oohs and aahs, a rush of movement catches my eye, and I tell myself it’s time to scram. The Federovas have me in their sights.

  Lidiya shouts an order to her comrades. There are more than ten of them, and it’s Lukas who leads the charge at me, like he’s Lidiya’s loyal watchdog. He might as well be frothing at the mouth while I’m a slab of fresh meat.

  Stay one step ahead of them, I tell myself.

  I rely on my speed to shake them off. Despite the aching in my arms, I climb up the rungs once again, but the Soviets fan out like a real pack of wolves, nearly surrounding me. Before I can think, my vision flashes white. Lidiya has somehow launched herself into the air and clocked me in the head with the sole of her boot, sending me tumbling to the ground. I’m not sure how far I fall. Twenty feet? More? I land hard on my back, and the Reds really have me now.

  Dread fills my stomach. This could be it. My mind goes to Dad and Peter back home. I can see Dad pacing, murmuring to himself, while Peter is pressed to the screen.

  Come on, Jo, he’s saying. Get up.

  Get up.

  Right. I’m not down for the count yet.

  Clenching my teeth, I shake off the dizziness in my head and lurch up before the Reds can descend upon me. I’m sprinting again, which buys me a few seconds to figure out what to do, but my thoughts are blank. How am I supposed to get ten of the best fighters in the world off my tail? Now’s the time when a shield could come in mighty handy.

  A thought clicks together in my mind. A shield.

  I spot Sam, Giselle, and the rest of the NATO fighters on the arena floor, and I point myself in a new direction—straight toward them. They’re finishing off the last Dane standing when I slot myself right next to Sam.

  He barely has time to look up at me when I yell to him, “Incoming!”

  “You led them straight to us!” Giselle shouts to me on my left. It’s obvious that she isn’t pleased at all by this development, but it isn’t like there are that many fighters left standing. The two factions—NATO v
ersus Warsaw Pact—were bound to clash. I only sped the process along a little.

  Sam calls out a defensive stance to the others, forming another circle to absorb the Commie attack.

  “Nice of you to finally join us,” Sam yells.

  “You’re welcome,” I yell back. I crouch low in between him and Giselle, watching as Lidiya takes the charge and commands her fighters to fan out again.

  The entire stadium is on its feet, and the announcer sounds like he’s losing his mind. “Here it comes, the finale! We’ve got nineteen fighters left. Only three need to be eliminated … no, make that two! There goes Fitz-Lloyd Foster Hughes of the UK.”

  “Tighten the circle!” Sam says, stepping over Fitz’s mecha to close the empty gap that he has left.

  There are seven of us NATO allies still standing: Sam and me, Giselle and Albie, the Ogler from West Germany, and a fighter each from Canada and Australia. We’re up against nine from the Warsaw Pact. Both Federovas, both the Romanians and the Czechs, along with Lukas and a couple others. Lidiya screams a new command, and they all sweep forward at once.

  “Giselle Boucher of Team France has eliminated Dieter Albrecht of East Germany!” the announcer says. “Only one more fighter to go!”

  Almost there.

  Suddenly Zoya lunges at me, and we grapple for a moment, standing so close that I can see the blue of her eyes. Sweat runs down her face, and she’s breathing heavily. She lacks her sister’s stamina, but she still has some juice in the tank and she uses it to butt me in the head, sending a shock through my mecha’s frame and down to my toes. I butt her right back and add in an elbow jab, and Sam is there on cleanup duty to fling her off me. Both of us move to hold her down, but Zoya rolls away. Lukas jumps in to spar with Sam while someone grabs me from behind, probably Lidiya or one of her goons.

  I use a judo move to throw them off, something called a kani basami, which is forbidden in formal competition because you could break your opponent’s leg with it. But there are no rules against that in the pit, and I wouldn’t be snapping their calf bone apart, just their mecha’s.

  I hear a grunt, and when I spin around, I expect to find a Communist on the floor, but it isn’t. I honestly gasp I’m so surprised.

  It’s Giselle.

  She pushes herself up and comes at me in a blur of jabs.

  “What are you doing?” I shout because we’re supposed to work together in Purgatory, but she doesn’t answer me. She keeps attacking, and it quickly dawns on me that we’re not allies in her eyes. Not anymore. Maybe not ever.

  So much for Franco-American relations.

  Giselle puts in everything to eliminate me. More punches. A roundhouse kick. I dodge one, only to parry another. Even now, she’s breathtakingly fast.

  When she starts to slow, when her punches don’t come as sharply as before, I go all in. I sweep out my right leg and knock her off balance, but she twists away before I can pounce.

  The final buzzer sounds.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have our final sixteen competitors!”

  I look around in a daze while Giselle does the same.

  The match is over.

  I made it through.

  The crowd is cheering and clapping and waving thousands of little flags. Giselle shrugs me off with a glare, but I don’t care. I lift my arms up, hoping that Peter can see me back home. Here I am, one of the darkest horses in the race and yet I’m on my way to Round 2.

  Sam is grinning, and his fans—there have to be hundreds of them in the stands—are going wild. So he must’ve made it through too, which floods me with relief that I kept my side of the deal with Malcolm. I hold out hope that Sam might’ve KO’d one of the Federovas while he was at it, but they’re both standing as well.

  Suddenly I’m nearly knocked over. Lukas Sauer has careened into the side of my Goliath, and I almost go tumbling down, but I manage to keep upright.

  “Watch it!” I shout, and I’m about to push him right back.

  But Lukas doesn’t seem to be joking around. He collapses onto the pit floor, and I think his eyes flutter to a close. Did he faint or something? Too much excitement? None of the other fighters seems to notice; they’re too busy celebrating.

  I bend over to look closer when Lukas starts convulsing inside his mecha, causing its limbs to jerk haphazardly. An alarm bell goes off in my head. Something is wrong.

  Very wrong.

  “Medic!” I scream. “We need a medic!”

  Nobody hears me. As soon as my words leave my lips, they get lost in my own mecha. I have to get out of this thing.

  I wrestle my arms and legs free from their straps and scramble out of the Goliath to kneel next to Lukas. He’s still inside his Kriegsmaschine, and he’s still convulsing but worse than before. A seizure, by the looks of it. I yank open his cockpit door and try to unstrap him.

  “Medic!” I cry out again. Where are they?

  Lukas’s face is turning purple, and it sounds like he’s choking. I know some basic first aid due to my years in mecha fighting—how to treat a sprain or how to staunch a cut—but nothing like this. Should I turn him onto his side? Or pull his tongue out?

  I’m about to jam my fingers into his mouth, when somebody pushes me aside. It must be the paramedic team, but when I jerk my head back, I realize that it’s Lidiya Federova, fresh out of her Vostok with her face covered in sweat. She doesn’t bother wiping her forehead though; she’s focused on one thing and one thing only.

  “Lukas!” she shouts, pressing her hands against his face. She’s slapping his cheeks, which I doubt will help very much, but she looks desperate.

  “I think we need to lay him on one side. Here—” I start to reach over, and she elbows me away.

  “Do not touch him,” she warns me in accented English.

  I know that her boyfriend is in bad shape, but she’s being ridiculous. Lukas’s lips are starting to look blue. “I don’t care if you do it yourself, but turn him over already!”

  I don’t think she understands me, and I doubt she wants to either. It doesn’t matter because that’s when the medics arrive. By then, the stadium has hushed. I can still hear some people singing loudly, probably drunk, but soon even they have quieted down. More fighters have gathered around Lukas, mostly his Warsaw Pact allies, but I spot a few others in the throng. Giselle is openly staring while Rushi looks more than a little green and has to look away.

  The medics instruct everyone to move back, but Lidiya refuses until one of her coaches rushes in to intervene. Meanwhile the announcer tells the crowd to please find their exit and thanks them for coming, obviously trying to end the event.

  A shadow crosses over me, and I look up to find Sam in his Goliath. “The refs are asking us to clear out of the cage.” He crouches down and holds out the palm of his mecha. “Need a lift?”

  I shake my head and walk back to my own Goliath because I can’t leave it here on the arena floor. I glance at Lukas a couple of times, but the medics have surrounded him, blocking my view. I can’t say that my opinion of Lukas has improved at all since he’s still an idiot stick in my book, but no fighter wants to go down this way.

  Sam waits for me at the gate to exit together, and as soon as we step out, the Americans in the crowd—of which there are thousands upon thousands—start clapping for us. Then they’re tossing flowers by our feet and a few teddy bears too. As well as a pair of women’s underwear that’s undoubtedly for Sam.

  Sam laughs and gives me a wink. “Why are you standing there all limp-armed? We just got through Purgatory at the Games!”

  The corners of my mouth twitch up. The scoreboard reveals that the whole thing lasted barely forty-five minutes, but we’ve survived every single second. I beat the odds, even with the Reds breathing down my neck.

  I start waving up to the stands like Sam, and I get so carried away that I might have blown a few kisses to some handsome boys who are whistling at me. It all comes to an abrupt stop though when Malcolm retrieves us and escorts us dow
n the elevator, where we leave our Goliaths to the engineers. I finally get the chance to towel off my sweaty hair and gulp down a few cups of water while Malcolm gives his victory speech that consists of patting our backs and saying, “You did it. You got through Purgatory today.”

  I can hear the slight surprise in his voice that he’s saying this to both of us and not Sam alone.

  He goes on to say, “But keep in mind that there are four more rounds left and your individual matches can start as soon as Monday morning, less than forty-eight hours from now. We’ll start training bright and early tomorrow at eight, but rest up this evening. And I mean that. No partying or staying up late. I’ll come around to make sure that you’re in bed by ten thirty.”

  “Aw, Coach,” Sam starts to say. He even pouts out his lower lip like he’s five years old.

  “In bed at ten thirty sharp,” Malcolm replies. It’s all business and no play with him. No exceptions. “Now go get showered.”

  It’s like he’s dismissing us after an ordinary practice session instead of the Purgatory round at the Pax Games, but I guess there’s no clocking out for him. He has one goal for the next week—win that title and clinch his legacy—and nothing will sideline him.

  It makes me wonder if he’s secretly a bot pretending to be human.

  Only after I head inside the locker room do I realize he didn’t really congratulate me.

  By the time I return to the Pavilion, I’m ready to grab something to eat and take Malcolm’s advice to rest for once, but the other fighters have a different idea in mind. Music booms from the quad; I hear the pounding drums from the Surfaris’s new song “Wipe Out.” Someone has dragged out a record-playing bot and hooked it up to a couple of speakers. Everyone is eager for a drink too—some to celebrate and some to drown the pain of losing. Albie of Team UK cajoles the dining hall staff to give up a few crates of wine, and soon enough people aren’t bothering to pour the stuff into cups anymore. They pass the bottles around.

  Albie tries to get me to join in when he spots me heading up to my dorm, waving a bottle at me and saying that it has my name on it, but I beg off when I see that he’s drinking with Giselle. She tried to eliminate me in Purgatory not even two hours ago, but she doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed by what she did. Nope, she’s sipping chardonnay and lifts a single shoulder and says, “You should celebrate, Josephine.”