by Ryan Tang
But Alex never wanted to stand when she could soar through the skies or surf through the seas.
She paused for a moment, then shook her head and deleted her message. Arguing in the lobby was a gigantic waste of time.
Her tablet buzzed.
"Hey! Hope you're feeling better. Still no luck. Don't worry. We'll find it together when you get back."
Her parents' copy of The Familiars was lost somewhere in the tunnels. Alex usually carried it with her when she was exploring alone. The book-corridors sometimes felt a little creepy, and having the book in her hand made her feel like her parents were walking alongside her. She couldn't believe she'd lost it. Her parents had just laughed it off and promised to send another copy, but a handmade treasure like that took a long time to create.
She hoped her friends could find it soon. She felt a little bad for asking; she knew they were busy.
But they'd been happy to help.
They knew how much the book meant to her.
Just hearing from them made her feel a little better.
"Thanks for looking! Can't wait to be back."
Margaret had generously given her two weeks off to recover from her injuries, time that Alex was spending practicing on the simulator. If they won, the Spire would never have to worry about funding again. The librarians would be able to explore the Spire to their heart's content, and they'd find her lost copy of The Familiars too. She must have dropped it before she fell.
Jared's joyful voice cut sharply through her thoughts.
"Guys! That team was ranked in the top 20! Look at how much we ranked up! Just one more win and we'll make the top 64!"
Alex grinned. Jared was endlessly positive. He cheered after every win and most of the losses too. He always found a bright spot, whether it was a tricky maneuver he managed to use for the first time or a clever strategy they'd all come up with.
Alex was so glad he put their team together.
"Let's get in another game or two before we go to bed?"
The two boys paused. After all, it was getting pretty late.
But Alex wanted to fight.
None of her worries mattered when she was inside the simulator. She could concentrate entirely on the enemy before her. In the simulator, a single hesitation meant death.
Jared half-sighed and half-laughed.
"Alright. Let's do it."
Duncan quickly agreed. Unlike Jared, he was still working at Southern Robotics, but Director Stock had made it very clear he cared about the simulator tournament more than anything else. Every employee's attendance at the event was mandatory, and they were praised for skipping work to train. Alex didn't understand why it was so important.
Part of her still couldn't believe the enormous prize.
To their mild surprise, they were instantly matched against a non-ranked opponent as soon as they queued for another game. Lopsided matches were more common during the late hours when few people were playing. It was just past 1 in the morning.
Duncan and Jared cheered.
Losing to a non-ranked team would set them back very far in the standings, but they were currently ranked at 66. Their next win would qualify them for the tournament no matter who they played. Against a non-ranked opponent, the match was likely to be quick and easy.
Stock's announcement had sent all sorts of weak players into the SuperAce queues. The three of them had even played a match against Jared's dad's team, a very one-sided affair that'd ended in less than two minutes.
Alex cleared her throat, then spoke the words.
"A woman pursues her greatest desire."
The talismanic words echoed through the cockpit, and Alex felt a respectful chill. In the simulator, the words were little more than a passcode, but she still felt their power.
The words were one of the few things they still remembered about the legendary Paragons. Both the rebels and the Mad Nobles had spoken the same phrase before the climactic battle that drove humanity off Old Earth.
The cockpit whirled to life, basking her in a warm and friendly blue glow.
The gate opened, revealing blue skies and blue seas. Alex smiled at the familiar sight. Archipelago was one of her favorite maps.
She waited to launch.
Duncan went up in front, followed by Jared.
As their long-range specialist, Alex brought up the rear.
Sizzling golden light flooded her screen.
Alex instinctively jerked the controls back, but there was nothing she could do. She was stuck tight in the narrow tunnel. Jared and Duncan were right in front of her. She had nowhere to go.
Her Paragon smashed against the top of their mothership. The pod twisted three times in rapid succession. Alex was jerked from her seat so abruptly that she nearly slammed into the screen before bouncing back into the pilot's chair, which was now awkwardly askew.
Red lights flashed throughout her pod.
There was a tremendous clanging outside, one so loud it broke through the sound dampeners. Jared's pod had been completely unmoored from its stand.
What the hell just happened?
____
Jared's Paragon lay in a broken heap. His shield was vaporized, and his left side was a tattered ruin. The blast had shredded completely through his once-proud Ladybug. Golden particles spewed haphazardly through the air. The dispersal pods were cracked and broken.
Duncan's Paragon was nowhere to be found.
The shocked boy's voice echoed in their headsets. In the simulator, defeated teammates could still talk after being shot down.
"She shot me down before I'd even launched!"
Alex swore loudly.
Duncan was still working on getting out of the hangar as soon as the fight started. He was always a second too slow, but an enemy team had never managed to exploit his weakness so aggressively. As a longtime veteran of the third spot, Alex had dealt with many slow launchers, but something like this had never before. She needed to see what kind of set-up the enemy team was running.
Duncan angrily pounded the dashboard.
"Shit guys. I'll keep working on that."
Jared panted as he fought back to his feet. From outside the simulation, Alex could hear his pod wobbling loudly.
On her screen, his Paragon looked horrible.
The yellow machine churned out tall plumes of black smoke from its devastated left side. The devastated machine staggered out of the hangar, giving Alex the glimmer of space she needed to launch.
Alex took one look at the enemy team and shook her head in disbelief. No wonder they'd been able to do so much damage with a single blast.
All three machines were unpainted. They were the plain color of raw Eternium, the same void black as the Spire. The pilots didn't even bother with proper screen names. The one on the left was called Mr. C, and the one on the right was called Ms. Z. The gunner in the middle was named Dr. X. Those were all randomly assigned names, the kind the simulator gave you if you skipped past the registration screen.
Two hunchbacked Snails stood on either side of the command unit in the middle. The unwieldy support machines' massive backpacks carried more ammunition and backup weapons than any other Paragon type, but the bulky packs unfortunately caused their appearance and performance to resemble that of an Old Earth creature infamous for its lack of speed. Even dedicated support pilots like Jared preferred to use more balanced machines. Once you destroyed their teammates, Snails were just sitting ducks. Only one player on the 64 teams currently qualified for the tournament featured a Snail pilot, and he was known as more of a cunning strategist than an individually skilled fighter.
The command unit was a generalized machine. The commander's antenna at the top was the enemy pilot's only concession to ornamentation. Bizarrely, there'd been no performance-based changes at all. Customization was the whole point of using a general frame instead of a pre-set design. Alex's signature legless design had once been a generalized model.
The weapon in its hand was so absurdly lon
g and flimsy it looked like it came straight from a comic book. Alex recognized it at once.
"Holy shit. That's a ship's cannon."
The enormous weapon was usually only selected by rookie pilots who didn't know any better. The massive recoil made it almost impossible to hit a shot, and the cannon's enormous size prevented its carrier from wielding any other armaments.
The other team's set-up told Alex everything she needed to know. Everything was banking on the middle unit's marksmanship.
After the initial shot, the enemy team had moved with ruthless efficiency. While Alex and Jared were still dealing with the surprise of the initial assault, the three black units had already entrenched themselves in their preferred position.
The Archipelago map depicted a series of islands from Old Earth. Typically, successful teams combined sea, land, and sky tactics in a balanced assault. The enemy team had very different ideas. They were tightly grouped up at the beach on Island 6. The tall cliff face firmly covered their backs. Alex and Jared had no chance whatsoever of flanking them. The prized location was generally considered the most defensible on the entire playing field.
The long needle-like barrel smoothly tracked them back and forth. The pilot was preparing to fire again as soon as their gun charged up another shot. At this range, Alex and Jared were nothing more than cannon fodder.
"We need to get in close. Hand me one of your canisters."
Jared tore off a leaking canister off his wing and threw it towards her.
The two of them streaked down towards the enemy machines at maximum speed, pushing a trail of golden light in front of them. Alex and Jared fired off a flurry of attacks, but the Snails eagerly stepped in to deflect them. Their packs flipped up, and the massive rotating shields knocked their gunfire away from the vulnerable commander. The Snails movements were hesitant and disjointed, but they made up for it with their enthusiasm. The support units leaped in front of Dr. X with no regard for their own safety.
And then the great cannon was ready.
The long needle wheeled up towards them and spat out a monstrous blast of scorching golden energy. Alex split to the bottom. Jared jerked upwards, and the shot passed harmlessly between them.
Alex bit her lip.
Dr. X was good.
The golden particles had forced them to fire manually, but the shot had come close enough for her to feel the searing heat. If it hadn't been for the speed of her flight pack, she might have taken a glancing blow.
Alex frowned.
Could they have predicted her?
It almost seemed like they'd guessed where she was going to fly only to be stymied by her unusually high speed.
The two of them returned fire, but the Snails got in the way again. By now, the bulky black machines were substantially damaged. One of them had been hit so many times that the weapons depot over the left shoulder was completely exposed. To Alex's surprise, it was stuffed to the brim with additional weapons. Snail pilots usually brought at least a few support items, but all Alex saw was row after row of ax handles and rifles.
Just how confident were they in Dr. X's abilities?
The needle fired again. Jared let out a yelp of surprise before pounding his cockpit in frustration. The damaged Ladybug exploded behind her.
Alex's heart skipped a beat.
Her hands tightened against the silver controls.
The second shot had been aimed and timed to perfection. Dr. X had brought their unwieldy weapon up and squeezed off a shot without a millisecond of hesitation.
They must have known exactly when and where they'd have to shoot.
Alex hovered just above the island floor. Duncan and Jared loudly cheered her on, but she heard the fear and anxiety underneath. If they lost to an unranked team, they'd fall back to the triple digits. It would be very difficult to qualify for the tournament on time.
She had no time to think about that right now.
"Stop talking and let me focus."
The two of them immediately disconnected from the communications link. They were used to that request.
Her cockpit instantly fell silent as cold fire built in her stomach.
She drew her rifle. The sights fell. The joystick twisted, and the trigger popped out. Clarity flooded through her body, surging from her mind down to her finger-tips.
She loved this feeling more than anything else.
____
She was firing before the smoke from Jared's defeat even cleared. Sky blue blasts streaked from her rifle, lighting a path through the smoke. With the half-trigger technique, she was able to squeeze off three shots in less than a second.
She heard the familiar hollow explosion that accompanied a destroyed cockpit followed by the high-pitched plink of her bullet being caught on an Eternium shield. The last shot was the most satisfying of all. There was a resonant clang then a black arm with a shield strapped to its side thudded loudly to the floor. There was a loud screech, and the cannon tumbled down with it. The thin but astonishingly dense barrel made the earth tremble when it landed.
A single arm couldn't support a ship's cannon.
Alex screamed with triumph.
Her gamble had paid off.
Shooting through the smoke made it very difficult for the other machine to see where her shots were going. Dr. X only had an instant to jerk their shield down and block Alex's shot to their cockpit. Destroying the Snail on the left meant Alex had a window of opportunity when the enemy ace's elbow was exposed.
Alex raised her rifle again. The surviving Snail's pack cracked open, revealing row after row of neatly packed spare weapons. Alex was expecting a gunslinger's duel for the ages. Dr. X's draw was incredible, and their aim was exquisite. They'd sniped Duncan before the match even began then punched a hole straight through Jared's machine when he was flying in the sky.
Dr. X drew a massive ax and charged forward, swift as lightning.
Alex squeezed off a flurry of half-triggered blasts, fanning her rifle side to side to maximize the chance of a hit. From this close, a single hit would cripple the other machine. Landing a shot was more important than aiming carefully.
Dr. X took a perfect step to the side. Alex's first blast missed by inches, coming so close that the black metal glowed with reflected blue fire. The ax slid elegantly back and forth, deflecting her next two shots. Alex fired again and again but only got the same frustrating results.
One of her missed shots flew towards the second Snail, which didn't even lift a shield to block. The unwieldy machine exploded to pieces, but Alex had no time to celebrate.
Dr. X pounced.
Alex wheeled back to avoid a precise cut of the ax then leaped upwards to try and escape, spraying away with her rifle. From up close, the shots should have quickly struck home. The black machine didn't even have a shield. But the enemy pilot moved with uncanny precision. They flew forward with repeated tiny movements, darting this way and that, twisting left and right to minimize the number of shots they had to take. When they had no choice, they caught the blasts on the flat of their ax. The thick Eternium weapon sang with each round it deflected.
The blue streaks of light flew uselessly into the island floor, sending up a spray of sand and rock. Her attacks hit the ground so hard that spurts of water flew into the air where she penetrated the island completely, but Dr. X's machine remained utterly unscathed. The enemy pilot flew higher and higher. Alex continued falling back. The thrusters in her crescent arc provided exceptional mobility, but her opponent's pursuit was relentless.
Alex fired and fired, her mouth bared in a tight snarl.
She couldn't hit them.
And they were moving faster than they had any right to be.
Dr. X came level to Alex.
The librarian unleashed another round of gunfire, but the enemy pilot elegantly deflected the bullets down toward the ground.
Alex gaped as she finally realized what was happening.
She'd never seen anything like it before.
Before long, it was Dr. X who loomed over her, putting her back to the island below. She'd fired over a hundred shots yet failed to land a single one.
Alex shook her head.
Dr. X was so damn good.
She managed to catch them off-guard earlier, but hitting the enemy pilot when they were prepared was a different matter entirely. Alex furiously gripped the silver controls. On some of those shots, she'd been just a millisecond too slow. If only she had her beloved plastic.
The black machine bore down on her.
Alex drew her sword and deliberately stabbed too far forward, hoping to bait the black machine into committing to an attack. Her vulnerable elbow joint was tantalizingly exposed. Dr. X eagerly moved to punish her seeming mistake. Alex waited just a moment longer than performed an elegant stutter-step. In the air, the move was easier without legs. She jerked slightly forwards to lure Dr. X just a little further before abruptly firing back and unleashing a stream of missiles.
Alex smiled fiercely.
The stutter-step was one of her favorite moves.
She'd spent hours carefully calibrating the exact distance she needed to bait the opponent in while avoiding the explosion herself.
It was only another miss.
Her one-armed opponent waited until the very last second then took one perfect step to the left. The missiles exploded uselessly where Dr. X had been standing just a moment earlier, lured into each other by their own heat signatures.
This time it was Dr. X who used the smoke to their advantage. The black machine slid forwards. Alex drew her gun and fired, but the enemy avoided her blow with a precise jerk of their head. The blue gunfire chipped off half the commander's antenna, but that wouldn't do her any good. The gleaming ax-head whirled down. The strike was simultaneously savage and surgical. Her rifle was cleaved clean in two.
