Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(2)
This was going to be a fight… .
“This is going to be a massacre,” said a tinny voice in Eve’s left ear.
Ignoring the warning, she finished her welding, her dark goggles held up to what she thought of as her good eye. Talking true, the glossy black optical implant that replaced her right peeper saw better than her real one—it had flare compensation, a telescopic zoom, low-light and thermal imaging. But it always gave her headaches. Whirred when she blinked. Itched when her nightmares woke her crying.
“How’s that, Cricket?” she shouted.
“Targeting only shows a 13.7 percent improvement.”
Cricket peered out at her from the pilot’s chair with his mismatched eyes. The little robot’s face couldn’t show expressions, but he wiggled the metal slivers that passed for his eyebrows to show his agitation. He was a homunculus of spare parts, forty centimeters tall, the color of rust. There was no symmetry to him at all. His optics were too big for his head, and his head was too big for his body. The heat sinks on his back and across his scalp looked like the spines of an animal from old history virtch. Porcupines, they used to call ’em.
“Well, it’s showtime, so it’ll have to do,” Eve replied. “That Goliath is big as a house, so it’s not like it’s gonna be tricky to hit.”
“This might sound stupid, but you could always back out of this, Evie.”
“Okay, now why would you think that’d sound stupid, Crick?”
“You know better than this.” Cricket scrambled down to the floor. “Shouldn’t even be throwing down in the Dome. Grandpa would blow a head gasket if he found out.”
“Who do you think taught me how to build bots in the first place?”
“You’re punching too far above your weight on this one. Acting a damn jackass.”
“Grandpa’s gonna wipe you if he hears you swear like that.”
Cricket placed one hand on his chest with mock solemnity. “I am as my maker intended.”
Eve laughed and scaled across to the cockpit. The fit was snug; her machina stood only six meters high, and there was barely enough room for her beside the viewscreens and control sleeves. Most of the machina competing in Dome bouts were salvaged infantry models, but Eve’s baby was Locust-class, built for lightning-quick assaults on fortified positions during the CorpState Wars. Humanoid in shape, what it lacked in bulk, it made up for in speed, and it was customized for bot wrecking—serrated claws on its left hand, a jet-boosted pickax on its right. Its armor was painted in a violent camo of black and luminous pink. Eve dropped into the pilot’s chair and shouted down to Cricket.
“Does my butt look big in this?”
“Do you want the truth?” the little bot replied.
“Do you want me to disable your voice box again?”
“Seriously, Evie, you shouldn’t go up there.”
“It’s an opening spot, Crick. We need the scratch. Badly.”
“Ever wonder why you got offered first swing against a bot that big?”
“Ever wonder why I keep calling you paranoid?”
Cricket placed his hand back on his chest. “I am as my maker—”
“Right, right.” Eve smiled lopsided, running through the start-up sequence. “Jump on the monitors, will you? I’ll need your eyes when we throw down.”
Eve was always amazed at how well the little robot sighed, given he didn’t have any lungs to exhale with.
“Never fear, Crick.” She slapped her machina’s hide. “No way a bot this beautiful is getting bricked by some fritzer. Not while I’m flying it.”
The voice piped up through the speaker in Eve’s ear. “Right. Have some faith, you little fug.”
“Aw, thanks, Lem.” Eve smiled.
“No problem. I can have all your stuff when you die, right?”
The engines shuddered to life, and the four thousand horsepower under her machina’s chassis set Eve’s grin creeping wider. She strapped herself in as the EmCee’s voice rang out through the WarDome above.
“And now, in the red zone!” A roar rose from the spectators. “A fistful of hardcore, homebuilt right here in Dregs. Undefeated in eight heavy bouts and swinging first bat for Lady Justice here tonight, get yourselves hoarse for Miss Combobulation!”
The ceiling over Eve’s head yawned wide. Winking at Cricket, she spat out her screwdriver and slammed the cockpit closed. A dozen screens lit up as she slipped her limbs into the control sleeves and boots. Hydraulics hissing, engines thrumming through the cockpit walls as she stepped onto the loading platform for the WarDome arena.
As she rose into view, the crowd bellowed in approval. Eve shifted her legs, her machina striding out onto the killing floor. Gyros hummed around her, static electricity crackling up her arms. She raised her hand inside her control sleeve, and Miss Combobulation gave a soldierboy salute. As the mob howled in response, Eve pointed to the two words sprayed in stylized script across her machina’s posterior: KISS THIS.
Eve’s opponent stood silently, the microsolars in its camo paint job giving it a ghostly sheen. Unlike her machina, the Goliath was a logika—a bot driven by an internal intelligence rather than human control. If all were well in the world, the First Law of Robotics would’ve prevented any bot raising a finger against a human. Trouble was, this Goliath had fritzed somewhere along the line, ghosted a bunch of settlers out near the Glass. Wasn’t the first time it’d happened, either. More and more bots seemed to be malfunctioning out in the wastelands. Maybe it was the radiation. The isolation. Who knew? But bot fights were serious biz now, and execution bouts always drew the biggest crowds. Eve didn’t have a problem beating down some fritzer if it meant scoring more creds.