Chapter 6 — The Arena

Saphilium, the tenth.

"Last day," Will said. "Due to technical difficulties on my side, the project closes today. Training continues, just not this way."

They were in Greenland. The simulated one, warm and green, the Earth One island rendered in accurate, specific detail and filled with things that didn't exist anywhere else and wanted to hurt you. A sweet breeze moved through the high mountains. The grass was the kind of green that Earth One produced and that 374n didn't, because they were different planets with different mineral compositions and different histories, and both of those things showed up in the grass.

"Since it's our last day," Akio said, "want to see something?"

He didn't wait. His shoulders stiffened. His knuckles made a sound that made Sam wince, not discomfort but reflex. Then a flash. Very bright, close to blinding. When it faded there was a handle in his hand, black with white lettering that looked familiar without being legible. No visible blade.

He looked at it. Then at Marcus.

"Albert?"

Marcus looked back at him. "Nakayama?"

"Well?" Akio held it up. The breeze moved through the grass around them.

Sam's knuckles met his shoulder before he finished the sentence. He cringed, rubbing it.

"Sorry," he said.

She grinned. "I need a pneumatic. And something to shoot at."

An elegant handgun appeared in her hand. Classic frame, compact. She turned it over. Ran her thumb along the barrel.

"Elsher's Sage73," she said. "Semiautomatic, nine millimeter." She looked at it for a moment longer. "You did your research, Will."

"The target will be that box." A tiny red box appeared in the distance, moving in quick, irregular patterns, making a sound that was unreasonably irritating in a way that seemed calculated to be so.

Concentrate. Focus. Breathe in. Breathe out. Eevi, you are a genius.

She pressed the trigger. The sound stopped. A squeal. Then nothing.

"Air bullets," she said, quietly. Looking at the gun.

"She concentrates the air in one space," Chrys said. "Makes it solid. Hardened air, fired like a round."

"No borrowed physics from the Tesseract," Sam said, and laughed. In the same motion she drew and fired at Akio, who had been standing there not paying attention.

He moved. Not dramatically. He simply wasn't where the needle went.

"Did the punch not cover it?" His mouth twitched.

"Initiate arena," Chrys said. "For the last time."

The elevator cabin smelled like burnt meat.

Smells like Samantha's cooking.

Akio thought this and received a look from Sam that could have prosecuted him for it. He grinned. She turned to stand by Marcus, who was doing something with his fingers at the big door — a fidget she recognized, which meant he was running scenarios.

"Scary," Akio whispered, at the space where Sam had been.

The hologram changed. L5. L20. L100. L200. L930.

The doors opened.

Fight club. The word arrived with the smell.

A strong hand on Marcus's shoulder.

"My boy!" Villgor's high-five would have knocked a smaller person sideways. Eight feet of green scales, a tail he used as a fourth limb, the permanent expression of someone who is having an excellent time. "Hope you trained."

"Naturally," Marcus said.

"Someone's getting destroyed today." Villgor made a snoring sound. "And it is not me."

"Believe what you want."

The announcer's voice filled the arena — two biggest and boldest, the quickest, the most powerful— and the crowd went to full noise as they were transported to the center floor. White, slippery, the kind of surface that eliminated any advantage that relied on grip. The chanting was mostly for Villgor. Most of them hadn't seen Marcus fight.

That was a mistake they were correcting.

"Axe," Marcus said.

It appeared in his hand.

"Wait–" Villgor looked at his own hands. "Axe." Two axes appeared. His tail swung and caught a third. He grinned. "How generous of you to give me a fourth."

Marcus threw his axe.

No time to think — he's fast.

Villgor caught it with his right hand. "Since I don't need this many–" He threw two back. Marcus ducked under both, already moving, covering the distance in four steps, landing a kick to the hip that sent Villgor sideways, opening the face for three clean shots he didn't protect.

He tried the tail grab. Marcus released before it closed. Villgor hit the floor.

Marcus offered his hand.

"That," he said, "is how you defeat a lizard."

"Tell no one," Villgor said, taking the hand. He was grinning.

New record, the announcer said, for the quickest fight ever set in this arena.

Sam versus Eevi.

Marcus watched from the stands with his chin in his hand. This one he couldn't predict.

Eevi wanted close range. Sam had the Sage73.

"Begin."

They jumped back simultaneously, the same instinct, neither following the other. Then Sam was moving. She was inside the tubes before Eevi finished her first assessment. Moving through the pipes, using the angles, finding the one gap in the tube arrangement that gave her both concealment and a clean line.

The gun appeared. She leveled it through the gap, found Eevi's face through the sights, and pressed the trigger without hesitation.

Eevi didn't move.

Something's off.

A presence behind her. She spun, already throwing the punch — caught something in the head, precisely. She grabbed the arm and sent it into the tube. It shattered.

A copy.

Everything went quiet.

White room. Empty. Lit from no visible source.

A silhouette in the corner. Very large, very still. Knees pulled up. Large and somehow small at the same time.

"Dad."

She ran. The floor had the quality of floors in dreams, frictionless, the kind you can't run on. She fell and got up and kept going and the tears came without a decision to let them, they simply arrived. No matter how fast she went the distance didn't close. His shape stayed the same distance. She ran harder and the room stretched — not the floor, the space itself, elastic, accommodating — and his shape got smaller while she ran toward it and she ran until she couldn't see him and everything went dark.

"Please," she heard herself say. "Come back."

Her own voice arriving before she was fully awake.

"Hey." Akio's voice, somewhere close. "You're okay."

She was on a round forest-green couch in the watching room. She didn't know how she'd gotten there. The couch smelled like a room that has had a lot of people in it — familiar, warm, the residue of everyone who'd ever sat in this exact spot.

"You were saying something," he said. "So I brought you here."

She looked at the ceiling.

"What'd I miss."

"Nothing to worry about." He smiled, and she noticed that he didn't quite believe what he was saying but was saying it because he'd decided she needed it right now more than she needed the truth. "Chrys is about to fight Alvis. Never seen it."

She sat up. Put her hands in her pockets. Looked at the screen covering the entire wall: the arena floor, white and slippery, and an android in the center of it still doing something to his own chest cavity, and Chrys across from him with a tool belt at his hip.

"Who brings a tool belt to a fight?" she said.

"He has something planned," Akio said.

They both leaned forward.

"Begin," the announcer said.