“I have received some information about a mech pilot being picked up by General Hansen’s people,” Magdalena said finally. “It is almost certainly the pilot who belongs to the battle mech we just took possession of.”

  “That would be a logical conclusion,” the Mister said. “Is the man or woman alive?”

  “It is a man, and he was alive as of this morning,” Magdalena said. “But he has escaped the General and is out on the range somewhere. Should we perhaps go look for him?”

  “That would be a logical conclusion as well, Magdalena,” the Mister responded. “So why are you hesitant?”

  “Because General Hansen will be looking for him as well, and I would hate for our search parties to cross paths and for there to be any incident or incidents,” Magdalena said. “We are within the all-out truce window, and if one of our men even spits at one of the General’s men then she will have the right to retaliate without consequence from us. The other territory landowners will back her up, even if they hate her as much as we do.”

  “Good point, my dear,” the Mister said. He thought about it for a couple of minutes and Magdalena waited patiently, the sound of her breathing a small comfort in the Mister’s ear. “We let her have her fun with the pilot. We have the mech, and that is all that matters.”

  “Very well, sir,” Magdalena said.

  “But keep me informed,” the Mister said. “I want to know if he is found or if he is not. Can our source handle that?”

  “Without issue,” Magdalena said.

  “Good, good,” the Mister replied as the mechs began to lumber across the ground and out into the wide-open range that spread as far as the Mister’s eyes could see.

  “I am sorry to cut this short, but I need to concentrate on piloting now,” Magdalena said.

  “Very well, my dear,” the Mister said. “You can send the list of expectations to the other leaders after the fights. No need for me to double-check them. I trust you completely.”

  “I will update you as to the other landowners’ responses once I hear back from them,” Magdalena replied. “Good day, sir.”

  “Good day, my dear,” the Mister said as his eyes focused on one specific mech. Her mech.

  He snapped his fingers and a small roller was by his side in less than ten seconds. He climbed into the passenger seat as Right and Left climbed into the cramped backseat. The driver looked over at the Mister.

  “Follow the mechs, boy,” the Mister said. “I refuse to miss a second of this.”

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said and took off after the stomping mechs, keeping enough distance so that the impacts of the battle machines’ footfalls didn’t rock the roller too hard.

  12

  The mech pilot checked her controls, making sure each limb was fully responsive to her motions and movements. While the machine could be worked just as any roller, with simple forward-and-back, left-to-right commands, it was a mech, so it was designed to mimic the movements of humans. Specifically, the movements of the pilot inside the cockpit.

  Once satisfied that the controls were in working order, the pilot stood up from her seat and plugged a cable into receptors on each of her limbs, as well as the base of the helmet she wore. With the special integration control suit connected to the mech’s directional systems, the pilot lifted each leg, checked that the response time was immeasurable, as it should be, then swung her arms left and right and confirmed that they reacted in less than a tenth of a millisecond.

  The mech’s piloting system was designed to be a complete and full extension of the pilot. If the pilot threw a punch in the cockpit, then the mech threw a punch in the exact same way without even a hint of a lag between actions.

  The system was simplified from what it had been when the mechs were part of cavalry divisions. Then the mechs had weapons systems, defensive shields, long-range sensors, full coms, and scanners that could tell the pilot every last detail of their opponent. But with the Bloody Conflict long over, the mechs had been stripped of everything that wasn’t essential to a good, old-fashioned brawl.

  They were fifty-foot-tall bruisers and meant to throw punches, lash out with wicked kicks, grab, tackle, crush, smash, break. No longer did they fire a thousand bullets a second or launch rocket-propelled grenades from their shoulders. The mechs didn’t fire up plasma cannons, they didn’t scan their opponents’ defenses, they didn’t run intricate algorithms to see where an opponent might have structural stress points. No, the mechs hit until the other mech fell down and didn’t get up.

  Which was exactly what the mech pilot planned on doing as she secured her body inside the cockpit and made sure her fists were the mech’s fists and her feet were the mech’s feet. A few warm-up jabs, a low-kick, mid-kick, high-kick, an uppercut, a few bounces on her toes, and the mech pilot knew her machine was hers and would react as she reacted, act as she acted, attack, destroy, kill, as she attacked, destroyed, and killed.

  The eleven other mechs were in the throes of their own warm-ups when the Mister’s roller came into view and stopped well outside the field of combat. The mech pilot saw him and turned her machine to the roller, executing a stiff bow at the waist. The others quickly followed.

  The Mister’s face appeared on the screens in every cockpit, and the mech pilot concentrated on the old man’s face as her com screen came to life.

  “Eight and four,” the Mister said.

  It was a simple command, letting the mechs know which of them would be up first. The winner of the fight would step aside and wait for the first round of battles to be done while preparing for the second round. The second round was simply for bragging rights, as was the third and final round. It was the first round that determined who would go to the tournament and who would commit ritualized suicide in order to avoid an eternity of shame.

  Dead or alive, as the Mister always said, shame followed a soul everywhere.

  The mech pilot, Magdalena Bunting, snapped her mech to attention when the number eight was called. That was her. That was her mech. She and it were number eight. She stepped out of the line of metal giants and waited for number four to present itself. That mech stepped out, the two faced each other, gave short bows, then stomped out into the range so they had plenty of space to fight without encroaching on the observing mechs.

  Or encroaching upon the Mister and his roller.

  Bunting’s com crackled to life and she heard the distinct, cocky voice of mech number four’s pilot, Huong.

  “It’s all too bad,” Huong laughed. “I am going to miss seeing your tight ass wriggle into that uniform each morning, Bunting.”

  “I know,” Bunting replied as she directed extra energy into her leg pistons. “But maybe there will be some other asses you can stare at when you get to the afterlife.”

  “Ha ha,” Huong said. “Like I’m the one who’s going to go down.”

  “Oh, it’s exactly like that,” Bunting said.

  The two mechs reached the combat zone and again they bowed. Then the machines straightened up and both spread their arms and legs in battle stances.

  “Begin,” the Mister called calmly over the com.

  No hesitation, no waiting to see what the other would do, the mechs attacked each other with full force. Bunting had been prepping her legs for an intricate move that involved bunching the pistons until they were at full strain then releasing them so she could get another twenty meters of height out of her first attack jump. It appeared that was exactly what Huong had planned as well.

  The two mechs launched into the air, each with a fist back and a fist extended, like they were statues of gods from a long-forgotten civilization. Huong’s back fist came forward first, its metal knuckles aimed right at Bunting’s cockpit. Bunting brought up her extended fist, bending the arm at the elbow, and blocked the punch before any damage could be done.

  Both mechs landed hard, facing away from each other, their metal bodies kicking up a sixty-foot cloud of red dust. Huong was the first to turn, but Bunting was the first to strike and land a blow.

  As Huong’s mech twisted around for another attack, Bunting simply kicked backward, extending the mech’s left leg straight out, sending the huge foot colliding with the heavily armored area at the small of Huong’s mech’s back. It was a spot that contained a junction of gears, rotors, servos, motors, pistons, and a ton (literally) of important parts that attached the lower half of the mech to the torso. Without the armor, Huong’s mech would have been crippled instantly and Bunting’s job would have been all but done.

  But the spot was armored, for obvious reasons, and heavily enough that instead of incapacitating the mech, it only sent it flying forward. Huong was a decent enough mech pilot that he was able to turn the momentum from the blow into a forward roll. He ducked his right shoulder, let his legs tumble over him, then twisted and came up fast, fists ready.

  Bunting executed her own forward roll, putting some space between her mech and Huong’s. Unlike Huong, Bunting kept her mech down low, crouched close to the ground, fists held up in front of her cockpit. She waited for Huong to come at her, but he held his ground, his mech towering over her, shoulders squared.

  The two battle machines waited, the dry, scorching heat of the day turning the surfaces of their metal monsters into blinding reflectors.

  Huong proved to be the least patient of the two pilots. He quickly demonstrated that by charging Bunting’s crouched mech, a head-on attack that looked suicidal at first glance. But Bunting knew Huong, had fought by his side in the tournaments for years, fought by his side as the Mister sent out mechs into the range to intimidate and keep the locals, and weaker landowners, in line. She knew how the man thought, she knew how he fought, she knew how he tried to be deceptive.

  He was total shit at deception.

  Bunting waited for him to make his move, which he did with almost prefect predictability. Huong sent a kick toward Bunting’s left side, but it was a feint. It was always a feint. She knew the real attack was coming from the right, and she wasn’t disappointed when she saw his right shoulder begin to swivel as he prepared to launch an overhand right punch down at her. Huong expected her to dodge the left attack and go right. She did the opposite.

  Instead of dodging right away from the kick, Bunting threw herself into the attack and grabbed Huong’s leg, pushing upright out of her crouch, bringing his mech with her. Off-balance and bent at an awkward angle, Huong tried a desperate move and changed the trajectory of his righthand punch so it became a sweeping haymaker aimed at Bunting’s midsection.

  Bunting knew he would do that also. The man had aggression and bloodlust as his main skills, not intelligence and strategy. She spun her mech’s bulk inside the haymaker, letting the arm wrap around her as she bent the still-held leg at an even more awkward angle, then sent a flying elbow into his midsection as she put her mech’s back to Huong’s front.

  The crunch of metal was ear-splitting. Gears began to whine and servos overheated and burnt to a crisp as Bunting shattered the armor plating protecting Huong’s middle. One hard twist and Huong’s mech had a mangled leg and was seriously messed up in the belly. Pistons popped and hydraulic fluid spurted out in stuttered, broken geysers, blackening the red dirt at the mechs’ feet.

  Bunting heard Huong cursing over the com. She ignored his threats of sexual violence and jammed her left fist into the soft spot she’d created in Huong’s midsection. She didn’t yank any of the mechanics out, which she could easily have done, but instead kept pressing her fist inside until she found the main support struts of what could be considered the mech’s spine. She gripped them hard in her fist, then lifted.

  A warning claxon rang out in Bunting’s cockpit as the strain on her mech’s arm was reported to her by the automatic sensors and safety systems. The strain of lifting another mech by one arm was considerable, and half of the console in front of her eyes was nothing but red warning lights flashing again and again. But just as she knew how Huong fought, she also knew how much of a beating her mech could take. She continued to lift Huong’s mech off the ground until the arm was at a forty-five-degree angle.

  Then with one quick jab, she sent the damaged machine flying across the desert. Its middle basically destroyed, the mech collapsed in around itself as it flew through the air. Huong continued to curse and threaten Bunting, but she cut the com and watched in silence as the mech hit the ground on its ass and half a ton of metal went flying in all directions.

  There was a long, high whistle, and Bunting switched her com back on in time to hear the Mister clapping. She also heard Huong screaming that he was still in it, that his mech was operational and the fight wasn’t over. The Mister laughed, but agreed and ordered the fight to continue. Bunting sighed in irritation, since it was obvious to anyone with two eyes that Huong wasn’t getting up anytime soon.

  Except he surprised her, the first time in a long time, and somehow managed to get his mech to stand on two feet. It was a wobbly, weak stance, and Bunting would have laid good money that a not very strong wind would send the machine toppling to the ground. But Huong was up, the Mister had given his ascent, and Bunting still had work to do. She would have to put her irritation aside and end things quickly.

  “You don’t have the balls, Bunting,” Huong taunted. “You’re just a pair of tits that needs metal around her to feel strong and tough. Out in the real world, on the ground without mechs, I’d stomp you into dust. You’d be a bloody puddle of pussy and—”

  He never got to finish as Bunting sent a roundhouse kick into his cockpit. Huong’s mech was too damaged to even attempt to avoid the hit. There was a short scream and then the mech collapsed to the ground, sparks and flames issuing out of the cockpit before it had settled into the red dirt.

  Bunting laughed as she approached the burning mech and stood over it, subconsciously putting her hands on her hips, her mech mirroring the movement. Huong had disengaged all safety protocols in his mech. That was how he’d been able to get it to stand back up. How he thought he could get away with that move, Bunting had no idea. The Mister strictly forbade that type of action, since it led to the needless destruction of a perfectly good mech.

  Which was what was happening as Bunting stood and watched. The mech below her burned, some of the flames white with heat that surpassed the surface of the sun. Every bit of geothermal energy stored in the mech’s power cells was igniting and releasing at once. Bunting had seen it before and knew the machine wasn’t in danger of exploding. It was in danger of fusing with the sand and dirt and turning the combat field into glass.

  But that was the other mechs’ problem, the ones still waiting to fight. Her fight was done.

  Huong’s screams filled the com system, but Bunting couldn’t cut them off that time. The Mister had forced an override so the rest of the pilots could hear the dying man’s agony. The Mister wanted them to be very aware of what failure sounded like.

  Bunting was used to that. She’d seen plenty of failure. After all, she’d been the tournament champion five years running.

  Slowly, she checked her systems, seeing what damage Huong had caused. Nothing too major. Easy repairs.

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t destroy my property, Magdalena,” the Mister said over the com. “But a job well done. I expected nothing less.”

  “My apologies for wasting a good mech, sir,” Bunting said as she piloted her mech off the field and back in line with the rest.

  “The cost of doing battle,” the Mister said. “Now… five and six. Get out there and show me who is hungry for the win.”

  13

  Gibbons was fuming pissed off.

  Left alone by his pilot, the power cells dangerously low. No word or anything from Clay for hours turning into days. Forced to hide the mech in some dirty ravine like he was a fugitive. Set upon by a bunch of range trash looking to scavenge the mech, forcing him to flee to the safety of the stealth decks.

  Why? So Clay could make his trek across the Northeast MexiCali desert to get to NorthAm. And what was in NorthAm? Nothing better than what they had found in the Brazilian Empire or in Southwest MexiCali. Clay just wouldn’t listen. Grass was always greener to that guy. Always.

  Gibbons fumed.

  He checked the systems using a backdoor router the stealth decks had access to. Everything was shut down except for navigation. Whoever the range trash was, they were pumping geothermal into the power cells, bringing them up to full while they searched the mech system by system.

  Gibbons risked a little eavesdropping and activated the internal coms. The power surge was minimal and shouldn’t alert anyone to his presence. Especially since the two techs in the cockpit were so focused on what the navigation system had to say.

  “This thing has been up and down the Ams,” Tech One said. “Look at these pictures. Where the bloody hell is that?”

  “Fuego something,” Tech Two replied. “Tip of Argentina.”

  “Argentina?” Tech One cried, jumping at the name. “Is this thing hot? Is it?”

  “Relax, relax,” Tech Two said. “No residual radiation is detected. Able was smart enough to check that before he and his crew brought this thing back here. Can you imagine what the Mister would do if Able’d brought a hot mech cooking with rads into the garage? We’d be seeing a man get the skin whipped off his balls. The Mister would do it himself. Contaminate the whole place and ruin any chance at winning the tournament this year.”

  “The Mister wants this mech for the tournament?” Tech One asked.

  “What? No. I don’t know. Maybe,” Tech Two replied. “Doesn’t matter what he wants to do with it. Not our job to question. We’re here to see what systems work and what don’t. We get the ones that don’t back online and then let the Mister sort out what he wants to do with this beauty.”