by Matt Doyle
The first time that she joined me in battle, she came back pretty bloody, way more than she did tonight. I was distraught. It’s one of the only times I’ve really let my guard down around her like that. I was certain that she’d been genuinely hurt and that I wouldn’t be able to fix her without having to put her through a reload, so I kinda forgot myself and hit the panic button. As it turns out, her pain threshold is a fair bit higher than a few aesthetic injuries. Fatigue, pained expressions, even the blood. They’re all part of the programming, just like her breathing patterns.
That doesn’t mean that it’s all fake though. She may not be affected by it so much, but she does feel pain and neither one of us is entirely certain how far she can push herself before she starts taking some real damage. The thing is, Spark Forming is risky for us like that, but it’s how I make a living so we kinda have to keep at it. I could use another Wick but that would feel too much like betraying Carnival, especially as she wants to be out there with me. Nope, my best option is to make sure I never lose. Tonight’s win makes it fifteen times in a row that I’ve succeeded at that.
For her part, playing like this is Carnival’s way of letting me know that she’s OK and that she’s not really hurt. It helps me relax a little and gives her a way to look out for me without it being obvious that that’s what she’s doing, so it’s good for both of us. Of course, it always ends the same way: I give in.
“OK, OK, I’m sorry,” I say, throwing my arms up in surrender as I walk over to the sofa. “I hereby promise to be even more careful than I already am in the next round. I know what to expect with Connor Ford anyway, so it’ll be a bit easier to plan than it was tonight. He’ll probably land a few good hits though, so you may want to give some serious thought to play-glitching. Either that or wearing some reinforced-slash-slash-proof underwear. That way, if it happens again you could pretend to be a lingerie model for people with built in fluffy onesies.”
Carnival gives a satisfied grunt and clicks her fingers. Her wounds and clothing tears repair themselves pretty quickly, the animation that ran to show the damage happening essentially playing backwards as she puts her image back together. It’s a fascinating, if slightly weird, process to watch. You can almost see the binary data re-knitting itself as it goes. No idea why she programmed it to run with a click of her fingers though. I think she just thinks it’s cool. If we’d been against another anthro type, she’d probably be practicing now too. The more damage she takes, the more the fight interests her and the more it interests her, the more likely she is to start trying out any moves that her opponent used that she isn’t familiar with. As it was a beast type tonight though, that’s mostly off the books. Instead, she looks back towards me and realises that I’ve been watching her heal herself up. She raises her eyebrows for a moment, then bares her teeth in what would be an absolutely terrifying smile if it wasn’t for how happily her tail was swishing.
In one smooth movement, she turns so that she’s facing me and gives a relaxed yawn, stretching her arms up above her head as she does so, accidentally causing her top to lift slightly in the process and giving away that she’s taken my advice and added a fluorescent looking sports bra under her attire. She stops at the top of the stretch to make sure I’m still watching then, without taking her eyes off me, starts to walk slowly towards the sofa, exaggerating the sway of her hips as she goes.
Carnival comes to a stop just behind me, a low ‘murr’ creeping out of her grinning muzzle. Just as I start to wonder what she’s up to, she shoves me off the sofa and almost onto the coffee table in front of me. I look up from the floor just in time to see a furry ball of victory dive over the back of the sofa with a triumphant grunt and land reclining across the entire thing, intentionally stretching out her haunches to make sure that she takes up as much space as possible. With a grin that says ‘I am very happy with myself’, she reaches casually over her head and grabs at the tournament programme but fumbles it and instinctively rolls over on the spot, trying and failing to catch the defiant book as she flails in a beautifully exasperated manner.
After briefly flumping her face in her hands, she snatches the book up from the floor and rolls back over, resting her head in one hand and holding the book open with the other. She’s trying to pretend that she didn’t just make herself look silly, but the visible struggle to keep the annoyance off her face is just too cute and I burst out laughing.
The next thing I know, the programme whumps me across the top of the head and there’s an empty beer bottle being shaken in front of my face. Where did she even get that? Ah well, the Doc did say to grab a drink.
“Hey Carnival, would ya like a beer?” I ask, pushing myself to my feet and taking the empty bottle. She flashes me a playful grin, winks and returns to her reading, leaving me to trot merrily across the room to the bin before heading to the fridge to grab two bottles. I’m a little over halfway back across the room, having narrowly avoiding the trip hazard that I’ve only just decided to call the ‘loose-floorboard-placed-in-the-prime-position-to-trip-those-who-would-walk-unsuspectingly-across-the-room-bearing-gifts-of-an-alcoholic-nature’, or ‘Gavin’ for short, when Carnival scoots back into a sitting position, glaring at the page that she’s on. She looks over and beckons me to hurry up with a huff and flick of her head, then moves the programme to her other hand as she reaches out to take the beer with her closer hand. She takes a quick swig then puts the bottle down beside the sofa, tapping a picture in the middle of the page.
“Yeah,” I say, looking down at a shot of Finn McCourt. “We’ll have to head back to the hotel room soon. We’ve got a few things to get set up.”
Carnival nods and chucks the book onto the coffee table, then grabs her beer and takes another big mouthful.
“So,” I say, bringing my own drink up to my mouth. “You ready for tonight?”
In a sudden flash of movement, Carnival’s already empty bottle flies across the room, narrowly missing my face on its way into the bin over the by the kitchen area. I look down at her just she brings her right hand up to push the corresponding ear out of its current position just in front of her face, revealing a pair of very determined eyes and a wide, malicious grin.
FAHRN - 19:40
The hallways in the hotel are really plain. Every single wall has the same cream wallpaper with a plain black skirting board and matching carpet, all immaculately cleaned. It all feels so clinical, like no one has ever lived here, even for a day or two. They must have to clean the whole thing every day to strip the life out of the place like this.
“It’s not like Fenrir,” I say. “I don’t get how people can stay in places like this. There’s no life here, it doesn’t feel like a home.” And suddenly I’m wishing I was back home already. This is one of the few hotels that allow Offlanders to dock their ships out back, so I should be grateful for that. It means we can access the town, the hotel restaurant, the tournament, pretty much everything without having to actually stay somewhere unfamiliar. We even get to refuel. I’m usually really impressed by it all, but right now, it’s hard to be excited by it.
“It’s a hotel,” Maria replies with a shrug, “I don’t think that people expect the same feel in places like this. It’s more of a stop-off point than anything else, a temporary thing.”
“It just feels odd is all. With Fenrir, every single part of her tells a story, right down to the nuts and bolts. I mean, I know what you mean about this place not really being somewhere that people view as a home, but I don’t think that needs to matter. Do you remember when Fenrir blew her engines and we had to stay on Constantine for a week? That was a stop-off point, but she still felt like … I don’t know, it’s just different.”
“It’s just not what you’re used to. For the people that do stay here long term, like the live-in staff, this place probably feels just the same to them as Fenrir does to us. They’d probably also think that Fenrir feels funny if they tried staying on her.”
“I guess you’re right,” I nod.
“Am I really that transparent?”
“Silence doesn’t normally bother you. Tonight, you can’t seem to say enough.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“Does the silence ever bother you? I know I’m not always the most talkative person.”
“Of course it doesn’t. There were other people it did bother me with, but that was a different sort of silence, awkward. With you, you enjoy the quiet, so it never has an atmosphere. It’s like I don’t need to be talking to you every second to know that things are alright.”
We walk in silence for a few steps, but my mind starts drifting again. It’s like my head’s regressed to how it was before I met Maria. “Do you ever miss places like this? You said that for the people that live here, Fenrir would be weird. Was she weird for you?”
“Not weird, no,” she says. “Different maybe, but not weird.” She knows that we’ve discussed this before, she’s just going along with it because she knows that I need to keep talking right now. “I wasn’t sure how easily I’d adapt when I moved in. It was a big jump going from a large town filled with strangers that pass you by every day to a single ship with one other person and no one else until you happen to come across them.”
“I remember you saying that it was probably the same number of people out among the stars, but that the distance between each one was different.”
“Yeah,” she smiles. “Like they stretched the street out with everyone still standing in the middle of the same section. I think that I’d have struggled on my own. You made it easy.”
“I’m still glad they allow docking here,” I say. “I don’t think I’d ever get used to somewhere like this. Even shopping trips to the Colonies don’t feel right. There’s freedom up there, but it’s not the same down here.”
“It is for some. If more people were more welcoming to Offlanders, you’d probably feel different. Maybe we should try visiting some different places and see how you feel?”
“Maybe.” The halls seem to be stretching on forever. “I just feel so helpless,” I blurt out, unable to stop everything else following. “After everything that happened, I thought that I wouldn’t get another chance to put things right, and now that I can do something about it, I don’t know what to do, I just …”
“Hey,” Maria cuts in, her voice gentle as she pulls me into her. “It’s OK to be scared Fahrn.”
“Not for me,” I cry. “Not for me. I’m not … I’m supposed to be your Knight in Shining Armour.”
“You’re human Fahrn, you can’t shoulder everything on your own. Even knights need help sometimes.”
I let my head drop into her shoulder, closing my eyes and holding her tighter. I can feel her body tense against the crutch. “Sorry,” I say again, letting her go and holding the crutch up. “I forgot I had it.”
“It’s fine,” she says with smile. She has a look at the room numbers around us, then looks back to me and offers her hand. “Their room’s just around the corner. Come on,” she says, nodding her head in the direction of the turning, “let’s go slay a dragon.”
JOHN FORRESTER - 19:55
“Well aren’t you a suddenly incredibly quiet hotel room?” I ask one of the walls. It doesn’t have to be the wall I’m facing, they’re all giving me the same response at the moment. From their utter silence, I’m guessing they’re not fans of mine. Ah well, you’ll never please all of the inanimate objects, fixtures and fittings all of the time, or so they say.
I have a quick look around the room to make sure that there’s nothing laying around to give the game away. I had considered leaving the disused Data Wick shell in the middle of the floor, but it wouldn’t really serve any purpose other than to draw Finn’s attention to it and given the way he played tonight, he’s obviously quite a smart little Spark Form, so he’d probably just put two and two together. Plus, Carnival can do some pretty cool stuff that other Spark Forms can’t. Who’s to say that Finn doesn’t have some hidden abilities too and can scan Wicks or something like that?
Nope, being too obvious would be a mistake right now. Good job that subtlety is my middle name. If you squint. And can’t read. Anyway, the Data Wick is packed neatly in its bag and leant casually against the fridge. This, I explained to Carnival, was because it would seem odd to not have a Data Wick hogging all the alcohol. That, as she explained to me, was worthy of a slap up the side of my head.
Knock, knock says the part of my brain interpreting the vibrations in the air emanating from the door. “Now,” I whisper, turning on the spot and pointing to each wall in turn so that they know I’m talking to all of them. “None of you give the game away.”
“Two strides, one grab, one twist, open up, Hello Finn McCourt,” I sing to the tune of some old punk rock song from the pre-Colonial days.
“Good evening Mr Forrester,” he replies in a near monotone, obviously not interested in joining in with the sing-song. Actually, do Spark Forms listen to punk? Depending how things go tonight, I’ll have to ask Carnival later.
“Is your …” he continues, pausing only long enough to find the right words, “… companion not joining us?”
“Nah,” I smile. “I switched her off for the evening. After that beating you gave her, she’ll need plenty of rest before tomorrow.”
“How curious,” he replies, looking up and down the corridors outside the room. “Our scanners indicated that it was still in operation.”
I shrug. “She is a trickety little beasty.”
“I apologise Mr Forrester, but your meaning is unclear. Is that a confession that it is still in operation or are you insinuating that it could have tricked you and escaped?”
“Oh Finn,” I laugh. “Neither. I switched her off myself, so my guess would be that either your scanners are faulty and or picking up residual signals, or you’re lying and you don’t actually have any scanners at all.”
He stares at me for a moment, face blank, then shakes his head and replies, “You are quite right Mr Forrester, we do not actually have any scanners. I simply wished to ascertain the lay of the land so to speak.”
“Unless you’re lying now.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you’re lying now, then you really do have scanners which may or may not be broken.”
“Tell me Mr Forrester,” he says, removing his sunglasses and placing them in his suit pocket, “Are you always this infuriating?”
“Yes. Unless I’m lying too. Or if you’re not lying, then yes, unless I’m lying on my own and not accompanied by you.”
He pauses and tilts his head slightly. His eyes don’t glow the same way Carnival’s do actually. They seem a bit empty. That could just be me though. “I feel that perhaps my associate would be best suited to conversing with you. With that in mind, shall we depart?”
“Sure thing,” I say, grabbing my favourite jacket and stepping through into the hall. It’s not cold or anything, the hotel is pretty well heated, I just like the jacket. And hey, if you’re off to war, wear you’re armour, right? “So,” I say, as I close the door, “how is Meera?”
“Meera?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Meera Thorne. Laqueta. The other Spark Form wandering about, other than Carnival and yourself.”
“Ah, I see. You are under the impression that Meera is my aforementioned associate.”
I nod, realising that he’s probably about to tell me that I’m wrong.
“I am afraid that you are mistaken in that regard. My associate is Lana De La Cruz. I am curious as to how you came to know that Meera Thorne and I are Spark Forms though.”
“Huh, well whadda ya know,” I say, ignoring Finn’s prompt. “I had no idea that Lana was a Spark Form too. That said, I didn’t really meet her, she had to leave the arena early didn’t she?”
He pauses again, looking me up and down. “Yes,” he replies fin
ally. “It had to return here to retrieve its deck. Mr Ford was not best pleased with the turn of events.”
I burst out laughing. “That’s an understatement. I tell you what Finn, I will tell you exactly how I knew about you and Meera, but not until we’re in your hotel room. I’m sure Lana will want to know too, right? Plus, out here, you never know who’s listening.”
“You are quite right,” he says with a nod. “Very well Mr Forrester, if you could walk this way.”
And with that he starts to walk ahead, his pace fairly casual. I wonder if he realised that I really was lying that time. I know exactly who’s listening.
MEERA THORNE - 20:01
She’s here. Fahrn is actually here.
“I …” I swallow. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where to begin.”
“It’s OK,” says Hong Chan, giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze as he delivers the drinks. “Take your time.”
“He’s right,” says Fahrn. “Take as much time as you need.” She seems sad. Or maybe uncertain. I can’t tell which.
Come on Meera. This is what you’ve been working so hard for. Remember what Hong Chan said, take the first step and the next one will follow by itself.
“OK,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I was born on a ship called …”
“… The Wandering Halo,” Fahrn cuts in, a mild panic flaring up in her voice. Maria takes her hand and you can see the worry subside a little. “Sorry. Sorry, I won’t interrupt again.”
“The Wandering Halo,” I reiterate. “I don’t really remember much of it now. I think my parents worked … I think they did something in one of the engine rooms. I can sort of see my Dad in overalls talking about engine parts and Mum dressed the same and saying something about … I asked if I could have a sandwich,” I say, the words just slipping out and the tears coming with them. Fahrn and Maria hold each other close on the sofa opposite me and wait while I rub my eyes on my sweater.
