LIFEL1K3 (LIFELIKE). Jay Kristoff
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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