City of Slow Dreams: Chapter 6 (by Elliot Bowers)
Nice try, robot, thought Coach after watching Van's performance, a defeat down there in the Fighting ring. For such a pretty thing, you put up a pretty good fight... What make..? Oh yeah, a servant model. Some kinda Eurasian gynoid, not locally manufactured…
Ah well. He regarded the two newbies in here: the little metal-bodied blonde girl at the left-side monitors and the weird curly-haired, caped man at the right-side monitors. Both of those two were shock-still in staring at their respective monitors—watching the transmitted view of their ruined party member being picked up from the ring.
And outside this high-up viewing office of the Arena, out among the thousands in the Arena's crowd, they did enjoy the show. All the men and women, from dark-haired to gray-haired, they loved that surprise match. The exotically beautiful girl-robot fought that immense beast. The crowd saw her run and punch. And they saw her endure the damage done to herself. Truly bitter fighting to her end. How beautiful! There was a general buzz—an immense constant roar of thousands of conversations happening. Conversations, about the oddity and novelty of that fight.
Conversations, like the conversation between shapely, red-haired Sue Graham and big, handsome Bob Rafferty, seated near the front row—both dressed up, like so many of Fusion City's inhabitants. Bob brought Sue here on a different kind of date. Bob came here all the time before courting Sue, but stopped for a while after getting her. He let slip how he liked going to the Arena, and she admitted to him that he did, too. So here they were.
Sue slowly shook her lovely head while, down there in the ring, janitors swept up bits of debris from that last fight. "That has to be one of the coolest surprise matches I ever saw," she said. "That gynoid really fought all she could, and better."
Bob nodded and grinned at this girl. "Yeah, I agree. Most gynoids are tossed in there for fighting fodder. I remember a match where they put three gynoids up against
L-Timmy GS. You know, the blue boxing robot?" Sue nodded. He continued,
"L-Timmy GS still managed to smash all of them. A few punches each, and they went down. You know, it's all part of the shows. Typical gynoids go down, and they stay down. But that last gynoid, she didn't stay down. Must've been given hyped-up mobility systems or something."
Sue looked at him. "I don't know about that. She looked just about as weak as the typical gynoid. And she was knocked down just as easily, if not permanently."
Their conversation went into a silent pause as both thought of that—the loud sound of the rest of the crowd filling the space. Bob knew Sue was right; that gynoid lost her balance as easily as any other gynoid during matches. Why did that gynoid get back up, when she knew that she was going to be destroyed? Most gynoids, once put into the Fighting ring, knew that they were doomed to destruction, so they stayed down and damaged after the first knock down. Not that last one, though, as if the gynoid thought she—it—had chance enough to win. Weird…
Conversations, like the conversations held by tastefully clothed, skinny Mike and equally stylish—and equally bony—Beckie. A conversation held while their three freshly adopted kids ranted in the seats immediately before them. Both Mike and Beckie looked as young and as beautiful as they did when they were first married, thanks to the many types of cosmetic surgeries available to all citizens. But Mike and Beckie were somewhat more mature than their very youthful physical appearance—because of their current experience as parents. In fact, the experience of child-rearing was the very reason why Mike and Beckie adopted the three children.
"…Incredible!" exclaimed Mike again to Beckie as he wiped his wavy blonde hair with one of his skeletally thin hands. "I simply cannot believe it. I never, never saw a gynoid stand again after an initial knock-down. Never. That was too weird."
"Never underestimate the power of women, Mike, real or synthetic," said his bony wife, her professionally made-up thin face serious. "Real fighters—the cyborgs—can be male and female, but note that typically masculine tendency to use girl robots for fodder. Gynoids, just for fodder, because female robots are generally more cooperative. But one of these days, I said, they were going to put in a gynoid that would not easily cooperate—just to be different." She waved her left hand at the Fighting ring, hand as bony as the rest of her. "All the same, the gynoid played her role and was destroyed. Very cooperative in the end, really. Noble and cooperative, as females are. If there were a male gynoid in there, uncooperative, the crowd would not have loved the match as much."
"Of course, my dear. That last gynoid was worth pity, though," answered Mike, also checking the white buttons of his polo-style shirt and the cleanliness of his chinos, not wanting to immediately meet his wife's piercingly blue stare. "Maybe we should expect more of the same in the future. I think Mr. Coach will probably meet with Mr. Janx and plan to put more modified gynoids into the ring. That would make for more surprise matches like that in the future."
Beckie thought, future matches... She looked down at their three tastefully slender children, all dressed in new tee shirts and tan shorts, eating Mother Nature™ (vat-grown) peanuts and drinking All Natural™ (distilled) mineral water. How did the kids react to that show of female strength being shown in the ring?
Beckie saw them chattering. They were talking their own way, shouting Awesome! and That was so groovy! The children just liked physical action: how the gynoid ran and struck, how she got up, how that gynoid managed to dent a gigantic… What do they call them? Oh yes… How that gynoid managed to dent an ABD before being destroyed.
Beckie would try to instill some of the pertinent lessons of what just passed. The three children, two girls and one boy, would have to be told the importance of cooperation in society. Even if one must be destroyed, people must perform their roles. As for future Arena matches, Beckie hoped that gynoids would not be as rebellious and atypical. She thought, and she listened to the loud crowd all around. Cooperative people that all stayed in their seats and behaved as people in a crowd should…
Conversations, also like the talk that casually dressed buddies Joe, Sam and Kirk were having—beers in their hands, babbling excitement on their faces. All three were roving bachelors taking unofficial breaks of their advanced hyno-education courses for today: i.e. playing that ageless game of hooky. They all did what they normally did when taking breaks from their expensive schooling: They came here to the Arena.
And, today was a really great day; that fight was too sweet. Probably, a fight for the records. That fucking gynoid stood up after a knock-down! Un-fucking-believable! Brown-haired Joe took a pull of his beer, then looked right at blond-haired Sam and dark-haired Kirk—all three buddies always in that order whenever they sat here in the Arena. Though the crowd din was not so loud as to require shouting, Joe spoke loudly, anyway. "Oh, man! That had to be the best match I ever saw. A fucking gynoid put up a damned decent fight."
"Decent? Come on! By Thunderhorse, what are you ranting about?" responded Sam, seated between his buddies and nearly done with his second bottle of beer. "They finally give us a surprise match where a gynoid finally gets up to damage an ABD, and you call that fucking decent? Hell, I want a gynoid that can fight as good as a cyborg. Gynoidscan't all be weak. They're supposed to be over two hundred percent stronger than people, right? It's about time we got to see one fight at all." He leaned right, talking to dark-haired Kirk. "You believe this guy? Joe said decent." That said, Sam then took a drink from his steadily warming bottle of beer.
The dark-haired guy on Sam's right had his own answer for the other two. "Sam is right—for once, Joe. That can't have been the best fight a gynoid could put up. Remember the articles about the petite Japanesque gynoid, Ada? Petite and pale-skinned, dressed in sleeveless blouse, and jeans? Really dark hair? Yeah, that Arena Fighter won matches for years before she was finally defeated." Kirk ended that information bit with a drink from his own beer, making for exactly half of his beer being left. He drank partially for the sake of gesture, partially to bolster himself a bit for the oncoming bit of consternation he so loved to make sometimes. Here we go…
Both Joe and Sam had looks of shock on their faces, their eyebrows going high up, their eyes wide. Joe and Sam knew—that Kirk knew—that the Arena champion Ada was just rumored to have an electronic brain; she was officially registered as a synthetic-bodied human being when she fought. Registered by Coach himself. No way was that champion a gynoid. Anyway, humanoid robots didn't have simulated sentience back in the days when Ada was champion.
"Are you fuckin' crazy, Kirk?" said Joe, verbally firing back at Kirk's controversy comment. "You know the official story. Ada wasn't a gynoid. That's just crazy conspiracy talk. You know, like that talk about ancient colonies on Mars, or there being mermaids."
Sam added. "Anyway, what you're saying goes against Coach. Coach is responsible for everything that goes on in the Arena. He's always been honest, always. He's so damned good and clean a guy that he helps run Administrative Control itself! No way would Coach lie and try to play off a robot as a human being. Robots? They're nothing but fancy toys for us to play with."
Kirk smirked and eyed his bottle of beer. "Odd, how you should just consider robots just 'machines' and 'toys.' Did you ever consider if they have feelings? They are programmed with personality emulation. Robots, as with gynoids, also have simulated emotions.
"Also, what is being human?" continued Kirk in looking up from his bottle of beer. "With all the cosmetic surgery citizens undergo when growing up, who is to say that we aren't robots after a certain point?"
Sam threw up his right hand, beer still in his left. "Great, a fucking argument! Just trying to go for one of those afternoons again, right Kirk? You really know how to get us sometimes, bringing up crazy talk out of philosophy classes." He gave a glimpse to the ring as the janitors finished up preparation for the next match. "If your philosophy is so damned good, then tell us why in thunder and Hell that gynoid was able to get up again and fight, while every other gynoid that ever fought in the ring was beat three times quicker…?"
They argued on. Kirk used historical anecdotes and textbook arguments. Sam stuck with anecdotes. Joe went with commonplace reason. And from there, the conversation between the three buddies decayed into other talk about gynoids, as with the possible advantages a well-designed gynoid could have in the Fighting ring—and in bed.
Other conversations nearby passed about there possibly being more surprise matches like that last one, with gynoids that put up fights like that. In fact, more than a few were about bringing back that same gynoid. Put her in a vat; let a batch of fresh nanobots repair her. Why not make more of her tougher type for future matches? Maybe, using gynoids for Arena fodder was something beginning to go out of fashion.
But none of those conversations addressed Van as a person. The crowd's talking was just about Van the robot-machine, not Van the person. This was as those of Fusion City set clear and deep distinctions between human beings and robots. Humans are humans. Robots are robots—artificial beings with computers for brains. As for cyborgs… They are just a type of people with synthetic bodies. Maybe—in the founding days of Fusion City—people with synthetic bodies were once considered human beings, but no longer; that is just too inconvenient nowadays. Best to just classify cyborgs next to robots. The synthetic-bodied races are not as human as those of the crowd!
In the viewing office, one person especially saw Van as a person. Sitting before the left-side monitors up in the viewing office, Alia felt injured herself. She saw her friend killed. And, all immediately after that, she had heard the crowd roar in approval as her friend and ally was defeated and mutilated. The crowd loved pain. They loved pain caused to others, the pain of her friend.
That was very wrong. That should not at all have happened. How did any of this happen at all? Why was this Arena here? Should it exist, a place where innocents were beaten and killed for the happiness of the crowd?
Her large dark eyes, reflecting the bright image on the monitor, became darker with darkened thoughts. A sort of rage began to fill her mind. Without her fully conscious of it, her armor-solid hands clenched and heated. She turned her face and eyes down from the monitor, loose strands of her pale silken hair coming over her synthetic face.
Her emotional state was beginning to interfere with her body's electromechanical processes. The anger began to slightly darken her peripheral vision as her visual systems misinterpreted signals from her brain. Her small artificial lungs took in deeper breaths. And, her body's life support systems began to overreact. Alia was becoming sickened with her own contained anger. Feeling so, she stood up from her seat.
"Hey, kid, did I say that youse two could stand up?" commented Coach. "I'm talkin' to ya! Didn't ya hear me? Huh?" He saw a look of burning anger in the elfin cyborg's eyes, and her small metal body was rigid, fists clenched. But, ha ha ha…! She was so petite and cute a figure—even if metal-bodied—that that he had an urge to pat her on the head and tell her to calm down. Cute little cyborg was mad at him!
Then again, given her recorded fighting ability, maybe he would not go patting that little thing on the head. He could get himself a fist-shaped hole through the chest. "Kid," he finally said, forced seriousness, "calm down, or I'll have some of my boys put ya in a corner."
Alia let out a low growl, low and feral. She knelt, then raised her right fist—crouching and dangerous. Coach saw what Alia wanted to do, then he clicked the fingers of his left hand—his metal one. Five giant e-cops moved to surround the little cyborg. She would mutilate and murder them all!
"Don't do it!" shouted The Cloaked Man, shouting to that sudden crowd against the left side of the room. "You're trying your best to get us all killed, Alia? Bad enough that our robot was smashed up and cut down. But, we can always buy another one and another one, then another one. You can't really buy extra lives, Alia."
Alia stood up from her kneeling position—while being very carefully watched by the e-cops. She spoke, answering, "Cloaked Man, I fight and kill for a superior cause! A cause superior to mutilation and murder for broad fun! This entire scenario is shit."
The Cloaked Man, seated and looking in the petite cyborg's direction, slowly put his hands to his mouth. Such language from such a little person! She must be loosing control of herself, and if she did not regain her sense of calm—creepy as it was—then she would eventually get them all killed, their mangled synthetic bodies tossed into this town's version of disposal pits.
The Cloaked Man spoke again. "Listen up. Do you think you can kill all of these town's inhabitants? Each and every one? There must be thousands of citizens in Fusion City. Thousands, Alia. And we just have trouble with just a dozen e-cops." He looked at Coach. "And, I get the impression that Coach pretty much runs this town. I mean, him being so busy over at that Administrative Control place so often must mean something, legal or otherwise…"
Coach smiled and turned away from the team of e-cops that crowded out and surrounded that little cyborg over there. He looked to the right side of the room, looked at the man in the cape. Damn that jerk's mouth, he thought, but he smiled a smile with his big chubby face.
The Cloaked Man looked that fat man in the eyes—both his metal eye and his real one. But he addressed Alia. "Anyway, Alia, with Coach running town, how could we be allowed to buy another gynoid if we made him angry? We can't just ride on back to Brunswick and get ourselves another Eurasian model—one that exactly fits our…destiny."
Still steeply surrounded, but still feeling anger-heated, Alia took in The Cloaked Man's reasoning. Yes, Alia wanted to fight to kill. She wanted to sink her fists and feet into the bodies of her enemies. Then, when they were knocked down, she wanted to beat and beat and beat their chests until the life support systems in their chests ruptured—and the circulatory fluids came out. Oh yes, she wanted the warm and deeply delicious taste of human blood.
And yet, choosing to fight here and now would—logically—mean her death. It would mean the end of their quest. It would be the end of her people, as well. As if the War had not already killed all of them, save her alone.
Fighting here was suicide. She sat in the chair again. Still feeling darkened by anger, words were difficult to form. "I yield for now. For now, not forever." And give me chance enough to kill something, Coach.
The Cloaked Man crossed his arms. "All right now, Coach-man, what do you think you want from us? We're just three people passing through and by, trying to get somewhere out there. But your over-sized cyber-thugs chose to attack us, and you come by in your thug-mobile and kidnap us. Then, you execute one of our party members just to keep your people happy. This is all wrong… I think it is very wrong." The Cloaked Man's tone of voice darkened, his face did as well—showing a type of low anger Alia never saw before in that member of her party. "Very, deeply and seriously…wrong…" he finally said.
As The Cloaked Man said this, there were slight signs of things not feeling right. First, Coach could feel the hair on his real arm beginning to go on end and tingle all over, before he began to feel slight tingles over the rest of himself. The room felt slightly hotter along with that slight tingling sensation. The biggest bit of oddness was the breeze that blew throughout the room, a breeze that smelled sulfur-tinged.
But the windows were all closed! And the air filtration systems were flawless, always filtering out airborne impurities. There should not have been a breeze at all, especially not a sulfur-tinged one. That eerie breeze through this closed (Closed, damn it!) room made everyone in the room feel as if they were outside and very vulnerable.
Coach's smile faded as The Cloaked Man's smile widened. The Cloaked Man knew something about that breeze. And now, The Cloaked Man leaned forward, pulled his cape out from where he sat on it—draped the length of the red cloth behind his seat. When he did that, there was an increased feeling of that wrongness in the air. Whatever The Cloaked Man was doing, Coach wanted him to stop. Otherwise, Coach would drop sick with an inexplicable and very irrational sense of fear.
Forcing his mouth to stretch, Coach put his hands on his wide gut and said, "Hey hey! Waddaya want? Huh? Nobody wants troublemakers in this town! Nobody! Never! Everybody in Fusion City just wants everything to be nice and neat, everything pretty and beautiful.
"When troublemakers and ruckus-makers like yaselves come on in here, makin' a damned public fuss, the law says to fix'em. That's what the people want, so that's what the people get."
Alia spoke, her voice wind-soft. "Would some e-cop take steps to the side? You standing in the way hinders speech…" Two e-cops moved to the side, and they no longer blocked Alia's view of Coach. Gray knees together, clenched metal hands in her solid lap, she said, "Then, what of just what passed? For a mass of citizenry obsessed with peace and beauty, their attitudes regarding entertainment remain base—and ugly. Why destroy people for pleasure, if this society seeks extremes in decency? Self-contradiction. Contradiction exemplified with the person destroyed just now."
Coach shook his head. "Person? Did ya say, person? Are ya whacked or something, kid? The only thing that got destroyed was a gynoid. Pshaw, that was just a toy, kid. Get over it."
"Van was friend, not possession," said the small blonde cyborg, her small sharp face very serious. "Friends have worth for who they are, not what they are. Should it matter what type of body contains her spirit? What bigotry sets it as so synthetic people become non-people?
"No, I answer for you, answer through your own hateful ideology: Your bigotry sets an answer for you. You distinguish personhood for humans, not for robots. Perhaps, you have difficulty classing cyborgs." She tilted her head to the side—the length of her pale hair spreading as so the machinery of her slender neck was exposed.
Coach had to struggle a bit to talk, feeling some after-results of whatever The Cloaked Man temporarily induced. "I gotta tell ya, in plain talk: That's the way things are. Imagine somethin' different. What would happen if we let robots be people in Fusion City? A robot ain't even a real person. How's somethin' that came out of a fabrication plant gonna be a person? Robots like gynoids ain't nothin' but appliances done up to look like really pretty girls."
Leaning relaxed in his chair, The Cloaked Man spoke. "But Coach, you don't get it. We need one of those appliances. We need one, a Eurasian one because…" The Cloaked Man thought of those dreams, thought of the three cards he saw in them. Would he tell that fat jerk about it? No freaking way!
Coach began to say something. The Cloaked Man gave him a look. Sweat again began to build on Coach's brow.
The Cloaked Man spoke on. "Thought so. Now look, we just need a gynoid as part of our plan to get to where we're going. So let us buy another one—or at least let us salvage the thought processors. Then we'll be out of your city, and we'll never come back. That, or I'll have to… Heh, heh, heh…"
That was when The Cloaked Man decided to shake everyone up just a bit. He…reached back and brushed his cape, and there was then a frightful and nauseating thrill throughout the room that had everyone suddenly very uneasy. It was something, not quite electricity. No, what The Cloaked Man radiated felt like a kind of intense and probably deadly nuclear radiation on an emotional level: warming, sickening and intense.
Coach, intensely feeling The Cloaked Man's partially revealed true presence, was in a bind of his own doing. If he replaced their gynoid and let the troublemakers off, then that wouldn't be right. Fusion City was his city, and nobody stages fights outside of the Arena—nobody. He had to make an example of one of them, so he had their robot smashed and cut up in the ring. Big deal!
Big deal with this scary and creepy guy with the weird cape. Coach knew that there was something beyond just that cape-and-casual-wear; there was something very wrong with that man. Deep-placed human feelings—the same feelings that made primitive humanity and modern little children afraid of the dark—made Coach plenty wary of The Cloaked Man.
What to do? Yield to demands and get a kink in his power over the inhabitants of his city? Or, try to punish those two and face whatever trouble that the man with the cape would do? Did he want to find out? There had to be a way out of this, between breaking down and letting the troublemakers have their way, or not breaking down and watching that caped guy do…things.
He had an answer, hoped it would work. Then, conscious of the still-harder effort to talk, he talked anyway. "Tell ya what, folks. Ya want yerselves a new robot-girl. I want you three to pay for breakin' one of my city's prime laws. So let's deal." He turned away from everyone in the room, looking out at the vast crowded Arena—where the next scheduled match was going to happen, then continued. "Youse two agree to fight two opponents, win, and I'll get the disposal folks to fix up that robot of yours instead of dumping it. Damned troublesome to do, refurbishing a trashed gynoid, but they'll do it." He said that and tried not to vomit.
Alia crossed her arms and legs—sounds of metal across metal. She looked at Coach. "I agree to terms presented. As for my other present party member, his will is certainly his own."
The Cloaked Man grinned. He did that, and…the feeling of oddness and wrongness in the room…went away. No more odd and sickening feeling. Everyone breathed better, especially Coach. But, The Cloaked Man went on breathing as he always was.
He said, "If Alia agrees to that scheme, Coach, then I guess I'd better do so, too." He looked at Alia, then winked. Alia saw and felt that peculiar something in that wink.
As Coach sealed the deal with The Cloaked Man (and wanted him to be the first put at risk), The Cloaked Man would be the first one in the Fighting ring. He came down in the elevator and was taken through a gated aisle. That immense and dark crowd was all around. At least, the crowd seemed dark; the roof sealed away the sky, and there was little real lighting save the now-harsh halogen-arc lamps glaring into the ring.
Finally, The Cloaked Man's escorts—two mid-sized pasty-pale men in coveralls—brought him to the open entrance of the ring. He stared. If their gynoid could be beaten there, then what about him?
One of the men in coveralls slowly shook his head, seeing The Cloaked Man's hesitation. "Well, go on in. The crowd's waiting! Don't make them wait for the rest of the day. People have to work tomorrow. They can't stay here overnight!"
"Besides, guy," said the second man in coveralls, "It's too late to turn chicken." He saw The Cloaked Man turn around to give a look. "You know, guy, one of those extinct food-species? Now just foul vat-grown meat?"
"I know that!" sputtered The Cloaked Man. "Heck, I was there when chickens were still grown in factories. 'Chicken,' used as a metaphor, means 'cowardly.' Like, yellow-bellied. Weak-in-the-knees. Sissy-like."
"Whatever," chorused both the men in coveralls as they simultaneously pushed The Cloaked Man into the walled-off circular ring, then pressed the button that sealed him in. Then there he was, walled in.
He stood, heard the crowd all about him. Their talking had increased at the fumbling entrance of the casually dressed man in red cape. Feet slowly working, he slowly rotated, eyes looking, as he looked around, around…
Thwunk! He felt the steel floor quiver; something shook the ring, nearly knocked him off his black-shoed feet. What in tarnation…? Recovering, The Cloaked Man saw what in tarnation had dropped into the ring.
It was a boxer of average height. Six feet tall. Seven feet, if one counted the black hair combed straight up in a radically extended crew-cut. Muscular-shaped chest and arms, waist and thighs covered by gray boxing shorts—purple shoes. It looked like an ordinary prizefighter… Well, ordinary if one overlooked the fact that its "skin" was blue-painted metal, and the eyes were plain white ceramic receptors. His name was painted on his back: L-Timmy GS.
The blue robotic boxer brought its gloved fists close to its chest, then did a sort of dancing hop over to The Cloaked Man—who since raised his own fists. Closer, one could see its plain and pupilless eyes.
They can't be serious, said The Cloaked Man. The thing looks like an oversized kid's toy! No wait, they must be serious; why else was it in the ring with him—for oatmeal preparation? "Hey robot, I can't be sure if I can take you seriously! You look pretty cheap! In that you look inexpensive, what if I just bought you outright?"
"I will knock your head off," said L-Timmy GS, his voice surprisingly high-pitched. That voice seemed more fitting a 21st century animated cartoon character instead of a fighting machine.
The Cloaked Man spread his arms, his face sneering with contempt. "Knock my block off with what, those big-and-fluffy boxing mitts of yours? You wind-up factory-made bastard, I'll blast you so hard that even packets of oatmeal will want to be near your broken ass!" answered The Cloaked Man. "So don't count on oatmeal. It is notoriously unreliable, anyway. Like leather belts, uninsulated wire, and bicycle locks exposed to rain."
L-Timmy GS truly tried to process those remarks; his limited artificial intelligence—primarily limited to boxing routines—could not quite extract meaning from those statements. So, the blue boxing robot gave the default answer to anything he could not compute. "Shut up."
The Cloaked Man grinned. "What? 'Shut up'? That the best comeback you have programmed? Hee hee hee! Hmph. En guarde, tete de merde!"
As soon as he said that, that robot dashed at The Cloaked Man, swung a big right fist. Just barely, The Cloaked Man brought up both forearms—and was knocked five yards to the right. He thudded onto his back, then managed to get up again.
"Didn't hurt! Didn't hurt! Nyaah nyaah!" he said, now way over there. Then, up and ready again, The Cloaked Man took a powered stride forward and bent his feet downward in mid-stride. The result was him sliding along on tip-toes, his cape fluttering behind him.
It was such a graceful and prolonged movement that it seemed The Cloaked Man was gliding. At the end of the graceful slide, he swung with his right fist—sparks exploding from the punch to L-Timmy GS's face. A fierce and sparking hit!
The robot spun, then thunked to the ground. Lying there for some seconds, it then put its fists to the metal floor. It shoved with its arms, bringing it up to a standing position again. The Cloaked Man chortled.
In a flash, it turned to The Cloaked Man. "Shut up," said L-Timmy GS. To drive in the statement, its fists moved very quickly—two blur-speed jabs to this synth-fleshed cyborg's tee-shirted chest. The Cloaked Man staggered back, struggling to take a breath into his artificial lungs.
Swaying slightly on his feet, he shook his head. Everything was becoming…dreamy. The lights above were white smears—bright blobs that wobbled gently all around. And this whole ring seemed a smear. It was like being on a big, soft, white plate. Everything becoming soft and warm. A tall blue blob with gray at its center was coming to greet him.
The Cloaked Man fully exhaled, then yanked in a breath. All came…back into focus. All into focus, even the blue robot that smacked him in the chest. Another blow like that could take him out of the game!
Not going to put me to sleep today, thought The Cloaked Man. He re-tightened his fists, and his cape fluttered—and crackled. Crackled for minutes more, small jagged florescent blue streaks moving along his cape. Charging up…
L-Timmy GS did a one-two punch combination, both punches thumping into The Cloaked Man's chest—feeling his own titanium sternum and ribs flexing to withstand the blows. But with cape still rippling and crackling with building static charge, managed to rigidly withstand the blows.
The Cloaked Man put his right fist in his left hand, making for a double fist. Cape crackling, he swung straight up. On impact with the opponent, The Cloaked Man's double fist became hidden in an explosion of blue sparks.
L-Timmy GS flew up and away from the impact with its blue chest blasted open—the shiny gray shorts flapping. When it landed against the far side of the circular ring, smoke hissed from its jagged body, the words shut up no longer coming out of his mouth tonight.
The Cloaked Man brought down his fists from that attack. Hands numb and weak, cape calmed again, he next made slow steps over to his fallen opponent. Yes, the robot was downed. Its chest components blasted—energy systems fried. The match was over.
The wall opened, and six janitors came in. They quickly and efficiently used push brooms to sweep up the bits of metal and debris from the blasted robot. Hands on the broken blue robot's ankles and under the hard armpits, they carried it out of the ring. And then they were gone—the ring closed again.
The people of the crowd raised their right fists in the air. They lowered the fists, then raised their fists again—again. Beating the air. Thousands of people beat the air, making for an immense sound of an Arena-sized heart. It was a filling and sound. It made The Cloaked Man feel strengthened just a bit.
He nearly felt that slightly gained strength leave him as they lowered his next opponent into the ring. Coach, that jerk! He said that he and Alia had to fight two matches. But, he didn't say that they each had to fight one after another! The Cloaked Man needed rest and recovery, needed time for his autorepair systems to do him some needed healing!
Too bad, because he wasn't going to get any recovery time. His next opponent was readied and being brought into the ring: the nine-foot, immense-bodied metal
beast-monster that destroyed Van. Lowered on a metal cable, The Cloaked Man could see that the chest area was shinier than the rest of the thing's body; they must have used nanobot solution to quick-repair it from the surface damage the gynoid caused before…
The ABD's wide feet came down with a thunk, and it spread its pole-sized machine-arms: three-tined metal claw for the right arm, massive hammer for the left hand. Around, the crowd noticeably silenced. Though, they did not have to quiet down much for The Cloaked Man to hear the ABD then clomping in his direction.
Sure, beat that thing, and he could ride away. Ride out and away from this city. Never come back. Alia, The Cloaked Man, and their replaced gynoid could just ride out.
Not now! The ABD was just three yards from him. At eye level, The Cloaked Man could see its now-shiny chest. And now, he could hear that thing powering up for a finishing blow. Maybe he could stop it?
He clenched his left hand, some sparks dancing along the fist. Then he punched, his fist rebounding from the metal monster's chest with a clunk. That made the troll-like machine shake just a bit.
But the return-attack was vicious. The metal monster's machine-hammer whooshed, heavily thumping into The Cloaked Man's chest—knocking him knocked off of his black-shoed feet. He crash-landed onto his back, his chest already taking plenty of trouble tonight…
Still lying, he now knew that his artificial lungs were no longer working—and he suspected his heart-pump failed. Then he knew his heart-pump failed all he saw and knew became coated in a warm darkness that overtook him, everything going soft and nice while a gentle breeze blew across the scene, then…
Coach had to radio the janitors, declaring the defeat of that particular caped competitor. Then the coverall-wearing janitors came hustling into the Fighting ring amidst the bustling sound of the talking crowd all around. The hook came down from the high ceiling to take out the powered-down ABD. Some janitors did the customary sweeping for debris, though there really was none. Others helped position the hook into the ABD's back to get it out of here and into the repair pit.
They would have carried out The Cloaked Man's broken self, but they couldn't. After the ABD was taken out, all six of the pale men in coveralls came over to where that weird guy fell, his life-support systems shut down. Where he fell, and never got up again.
"Indeedy-roo, damnedest thing!" said one janitor. "Almost never happened around here before!" He looked at his colleagues. "Never in the history of the Arena, I'd say! What do you all think of this?"
"I'm guessing and all, but I'd say his autorepair systems backfired. He was probably eaten up by his body's own malfunctioning supply of nanobots," said another janitor. "All of that dangerous energy he blasted around with, and somethin' had to go wrong.
"Guess we'll tell Coach that," said the third. He looked down at where The Cloaked Man fell. Now, there was just a faint outline of singed grayness. Where the Hell did that weird guy in the cape go? Did he just up and leave? The third janitor shrugged, then he walked out of the Fighting ring with the other five. They would repaint that part of the ring later—after this afternoon's final match.
And what was up with the big air currents? Something wrong with the air vents? They'd have to handle that after close-up, too.
Alia's dark eyes were wide, her small mouth just as open. She watched all that passed on the monitor. He vanished away, she thought. The Cloaked Man, so defeated that even his body faded. Her small mouth was also wide open. Yet, noble to the end of his fight.
Coach came up behind Alia. He put a hand on the back of her chair. "Sorry 'bout that, kid. Guess your big buddy vaporized, or somethin'. But what a way to go! Never seen anything like that. Sure had a lot of energy, an awful lot." His voice went quieter, more serious. "Probably, that much energy caused'em to go out like that. Not even his ashes are left."
Coach saw the petite cyborg's head tilt downward, ash-blonde hair falling to the sides of her face. She breathed heavily. He lifted his hand from the chair's back, then reached both hands to touch her small gray shoulders… "You touch me at risk, murderous showman."
He jerked back. Whoo, touchy little thing! "Murderous? Now, now! No need to be nasty. Just tryin' to be friendly, that's all," he said. "Ya lost ya friend and ya robot. And you're upset. I can see that. But remember, youse all were the ones that started this in the first place. Nobody forced ya to come into my city. Ya could've kept goin' to wherever you were goin', travelers. Ya could have stayed away and not have broken my city's laws—which got ya into this trouble."
Alia went silent. Admittedly, she had similar thoughts earlier. Didn't tell anyone, though. What had brought them to this too-beautiful but too-strange city, to begin? Just seeing another settlement on the horizon—another city other than Brunswick—was enough to draw her here. That this other city existed at all out here in the plains meant something to her; she had to come here with her other party members.
One of the e-cops in here looked through the windows Coach looked through earlier. "Coach, the crowd'll get restless soon. We need to get the next match started."
"Yeah, yeah. I know, I know," he said. "Tell the boys to start lowerin' the ABD into the ring." The e-cop went out of this room. Coach turned back to Alia. "Okay, little girl, showtime. Time for ya to finish what yer friend and toy robot-girl done started. Unless ya wanna quit the deal. And then, I guess we'll have to reform ya after all. Can ya dig it?"
Alia slowly took in a breath, as much breath as her artificial lungs could take. Then slowly and hissingly let it out. There was truly nothing else for her to do. Quitting would get her nothing—nothing but that brain mutilation and modification called reform reform. Her brain would be sliced, electrocuted, forced hypno-reeducation…
Not only would that be the end of her, but the end of so much more. Her brain was the only thing left real about her, all she had left of her biological heritage. The rest of her was absolutely replaced with well-shaped and well-engineered polymers, and metal. If her brain was altered by machines, then the last authentic vestige of her—and also people—were finally dead, forever. The last elfin being dying in this place.
She stood, standing before the video monitors. She then turned from those monitors, the monitors that showed both of her party members being defeated. Head down, she said, "I will do what must be done." Then, turning her head up, she gave Coach an extremely intense look. Such a look that he thought that something must be burning deep within her dark ceramic eyes.
On ground-level, two janitors—janitors with large electromechanical hands—walked Alia through the gated aisle and to the Fighting ring. And this being the last match for today, the crowd shouted and cheered with loudness. The citizens closest to the gated aisle saw who, or what, was being escorted into the ring; they cheered even louder: That looked like an authentic War antique being moved to the ring! A metal-type cyborg! Pretty small, but still damned exciting. A War antique, right here in the Arena! First a gynoid that put up a real fight, then a guy with overcharged energy systems, now a real metal-type cyborg!
The ABD was already in the ring, immobile, when Alia came in. And the crowd became very quiet. They seldom saw competitors so small. Four feet tall, the petite metal-bodied competitor with pale-blonde hair and a small, round face. She was so small that she was barely seen by those in the and further back seats.
Too bad, it was probably the last time they would get to see her—unless the network was recording this match. The ABD had beaten two unusual opponents in surprise matches. Its programmers were that good.
Alia did not care for the crowd. She did not care for their cheering, or their condemnation, or their extremely intense and burning scrutiny of her, intense under the bright lights from overhead.
Her darkened eyes were solely on the gigantic metal troll-beast across the ring. This was to be the match. The so-far undefeated ABD over on the far side of the ring, powering up and ready. Alia alone on this side of the ring, preparing herself.
Alia stood, looking at the ABD and judging weak points. It was probably doing the same to her, looking her over for places to strike. She felt a slight air current play with loose strands of her neck-length hair—brush across the warm "skin" of her face. Such was a time to begin the conflict.
She pulled back her right fist, held it close to her right ear. Leaned forward, then she ran. There were slight and rapid sounds as her armor bootlets pattered. Very quickly, without stopping, she did a long leap—then struck the ABD with momentum to compound her attack, hitting the ABD in the center of its abdomen. There she stayed, in fact, attached to the thing. Her fist was actually sunk into the metal monster's body; she stayed attacked to the ABD with her body above the floor.
That was exactly where Van had struck the ABD earlier that day. Now, Alia closed her left hand—charging for a powered blow. She heard the sounds of the ABD powering up, but she continued to charge her left arm, letting her anger build and preparing for a murderous strike.
Then, the ABD began to react. It raised its right arm—long carbon-alloy claws gleaming. It brought the claw down very quickly, and the petite cyborg on its chest tried to leap away, but the critical blow still struck her forehead.
She went down, fallen on her side. Beneath her splayed and almost inhumanly pale hair, her damaged forehead showed. An exposed inch-wide diagonal strip of gleaming gray skull beneath.
Indeed, the actual titanium skull beneath was actually undamaged! All the same, the blow put her in a daze that she just now recovered from. After she realized that she was still alive, she heard machine-whirring sounds as the left metal foot of the machine-monster came up, above her, ready to stomp her into nothingness…
Alia rolled away. And her left arm was still charged. In a single movement, Alia was up again and to the side of the ABD's raised left foot. With an immense feeling of strength and release, she finally lashed out with her charged left arm… Clunk! Then everything seemed to stop.
The crowd was quiet. They were all very, very quiet. Short of breathing and the very distant sounds of the air-circulating vents, no one spoke. Even those in the backmost seats could see what happened. They saw that that little cyborg actually had her left fist sunk into the abdomen of an ABD. And, those closer could see the look of pale serenity on her deeply cut face as she held her leaned-forward position.
There were slight grinding sounds as she pulled her fist from within the body of the tremendous ABD. When she did, a plume of dark gray smoke gushed from the resultant cracked hole. It was a rigid machine—a broken one. And yet more smoke came from that hole.
She heard a sound of fluttering cloth from above. There were quick movements of air and cloth. Everything exploded, and she saw a rippling flow of dark red when she flew back from the violent blast. The very next thing she knew, she was on her back—seeing nothing but the distant lights through deep redness…
Whoo-hoo! That was so-o-o-o cool! she thought she heard from the right. Damn, almost didn't make that that one, she also thought she heard. Alia suspected that her wounded brain must be giving auditory hallucinations to ease her into her oncoming death, final words and random thoughts of comfort—even if the hallucination was brash and obnoxious. What a blast…. Hee hee hee… continued the voice.
"A blast! Okay, tou can get your titanium butt up now," said the voice that was really there. Then the covering redness went away from her vision, and she saw the high up lights of the Arena. "You can sleep later!" She then saw The Cloaked Man stand up and above her. He smiled as he shoved the length of his cape to his back, then reached down to her, using his right hand.
Belief is enough trust, she thought. She put her hand in his, then he pulled her—helping her to her feet. It truly was The Cloaked Man. And, somehow, he came back from wherever he was…
"Yeah, I had to come back from the breeze to shield you with my cape!" he said to her. He tousled her silken polymer hair, and she ducked away, then carefully stroked it back into place with her solid fingers. "Guess you're damned lucky, kiddo!"
