One of the servos in his back was fried, crushed beyond repair. The offending mech was instantly disqualified, but it had done its job better than if it had actually fought. It made it near impossible for Clay to turn his mech at the waist.

  The tournament representative tried to calm Clay down, but he was having none of it. He shouted curses through two fights before his voice went ragged and his throat was so raw he couldn’t do much more than squeak.

  “You can drop out now,” the tournament rep said to him. “It is your choice. You would forfeit your mech, but you would be alive. More than some of these pilots can say.”

  “Suck a Gila monster’s egg,” Clay said.

  “I believe Gila monsters are a live birth reptile,” the tournament rep said. “But I get your point. So, officially, you wish to continue with the tournament?”

  Clay squeaked out a couple of new curses and the tournament rep sighed.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” the tournament rep responded. “One more bracket fight in this round, then on to the next one. I have you down as active, so be ready to fight when your name is called.”

  “I’ll be ready,” Clay groaned then closed his eyes, taking the time left to get some rest.

  28

  Clay’s rest was short-lived. The last bracket in the round lasted barely a minute. One of the Mister’s mechs took out one of his other mechs, since that was how the bracket played out due to the numbers, destroying the machine in an explosion of metal shards that had the spectators not protected inside their rollers running for cover.

  Clay watched as Pilot Bunting exited the battlefield, her mech barely scratched from the last two fights it had been in.

  “Great,” Clay said as he powered his mech back up and started walking toward the battlefield. “Fingers crossed that she goes down before we meet up.”

  He waited, then sighed when there was no response.

  “I hate not having an AI co-pilot,” Clay said.

  He stepped onto the battlefield as his name was called. Having learned his lesson, he spun about right off to make sure the opposing mech didn’t get a cheap shot in. It was an awkward spin, all stiff and locked hips. Clay watched as a squat mech, one that would never have been used as a battle mech during the Bloody Conflict, waddled forward.

  Clay recognized the model as a Bento 2330 Demolition Mech. It had been originally designed to punch its way through mountains, either to create rough tunnels or passes for troops to get through so they could fight, fight, fight, for whatever side they were on. Clay was not cool with facing a demo mech. They had wicked strong legs and arms that, well, could literally punch through a goddamn mountain.

  The good thing was they were slow, as evidenced by the unbelievable amount of time it took the mech to get onto the battlefield, across the battlefield, and set itself for the fight.

  The tournament voice called the start and Clay started to circle the other mech. He quickly realized that was a bad idea, since circling an opponent required the ability to twist at the waist, something he could no longer do. So he switched to a sidestep movement which seemed to entertain the hell out of the spectators.

  Clay risked a glance at one of his vid screens that had the live feed of the fight on it. Yeah, his mech looked pretty ridiculous as it shuffled one foot, then the next, looking like a teenager learning to slow dance for the first time.

  The Bento pivoted on its massive legs, but that was all. It didn’t take a step forward, it didn’t raise its arms, it did nothing but pivot, pivot, pivot in time with Clay’s steps.

  Then it charged.

  Clay barely had time to leap to the side. He actually didn’t have time to leap to the side. His right foot was nailed by the charging mech, and Clay found himself spinning out of control across the desert dirt. He tumbled nearly to the white circle, but was able to dig the heels of his hands into the ground and stop himself before he was disqualified.

  He shoved his mech back up and turned about. The Bento was almost on him again. Clay instinctively jumped straight up. It was a rookie move, since a mech in the air was a mech making a target of itself. It was different when leaping to one side or the other, you covered ground that way. But straight up in the air? Might as well paint a bullseye on your mech’s crotch.

  But luck held for Clay, since the Bento was too short to reach him. Clay angled his mech so he fell forward into a roll that became a continuous tumble. He came up half the battlefield away and stayed down in a crouch. It wasn’t easy because of the damaged servo, but Clay knew what he was doing. He had a plan.

  The Bento pilot was relying on its bursts of speed to keep Clay on edge and off guard. That was fine by Clay. He stayed low and waited for the Bento to charge before leaping away, tumble rolling as far as possible, then coming up into a crouch, ready to start the pattern again.

  It didn’t take Clay long to realize the Bento’s pilot was a few circuits short of a full board. The guy kept coming and coming, never changing his strategy at all. It was probably a technique that worked eventually. Everyone screws up at some point. Repetition narrows the odds of a screw up considerably. But Clay knew that. He wasn’t trying to counter the mech’s fighting style.

  He was trying to outlast it.

  The spectators began to boo at about minute fifty-eight. Clay had been fighting the same mech for almost as long as all the previous fights’ times in that bracket combined. Trash and spoiled food were thrown out onto the battlefield. Not that it made much difference to the mechs. A rotten tomato wasn’t going to take down a machine that weighed a hundred tons. But it was the symbolism that mattered.

  The Bento charged, Clay leapt. The Bento charged, Clay leapt. The Bento charged, slowed, Clay still leapt. The Bento tried to charge, but its legs had begun to overheat and the pistons were sticking. Clay had known that would happen. He never expected the Bento to run out of power, but he knew mech mechanics. You couldn’t repeat the same move again and again without stressing the hardware.

  The Bento charged, then fell flat on its face, its legs completely seized.

  Clay walked over and stood above the mech. He nudged it with his foot, then jumped back as an arm shot out.

  The Bento pilot started using the thing’s arms to pull it along the battlefield.

  Clay sighed and opened his com channel.

  “Dude, stop,” Clay said. “Just tap out. I will totally let you walk away with your mech. I don’t want it, so why risk it being destroyed? Seized pistons are an easy fix, man.”

  “I refuse to let the Mister take my mech,” the pilot responded. “I would rather die.”

  “I get that,” Clay said. “But the Mister isn’t going to win this tournament, I am.”

  “You cannot beat Bunting,” the Bento pilot said. “So fight me, coward.”

  “Sheesus,” Clay said as he switched off the com.

  He lined his foot up, and as soon as the Bento pulled itself close enough, Clay let loose with a kick that caved in the thing’s entire top. Clay didn’t have to turn the com back on to ask the pilot if he was alright. The amount of blood that came pouring out of the smashed cockpit was answer enough.

  “Idiot,” Clay said.

  That had become his mantra for the day as he took down rookie after rookie after rookie. Yes, many had fought before, but up against him they were nothing, really. A couple good shots, some cheap shots, and maybe a trick or two, but not one of the mech pilots had much depth in their arsenal. At least not as much depth as was needed to sustain themselves during a tournament. They gave away all their moves in their first fights.

  Clay, on the other hand, still had a couple moves in his wheelhouse. He had zero plans to pull them out until he absolutely needed to.

  The need came during his next fight.

  The field had been whittled down to four: two of the Mister’s mechs, one of General Hansen’s, and Clay.

  He stood in the middle of the battlefield and waited for his opponent.

  The mech was a big one, easily four meters taller than Clay’s. It was a beast of a thing with double wrapped armor around each joint, fists the size of heavy rollers, and legs that looked like they were made of entire mechs themselves.

  The mech was General Hansen’s. Not one of her pilot’s, but her personal mech. Clay stared at the screen in front of him as the tournament voice announced the two combatants to the spectators. He stared at the face of a woman he considered pure evil. Damn, she was beautiful.

  “Knock it off, man,” Clay said to himself. “She messed with your head once. Don’t let it happen again.”

  “Due to an unfortunate accident,” the tournament voice said. “General Hansen will be substituting in for her team’s mech. She is listed as an official second, if there are any objections.”

  “None here,” Clay said as he gave Hansen a wave. She did not wave back.

  “Good,” the tournament voice said. “Three, two, one, fight!”

  The woman’s mech was so fast Clay barely had time to block her first punch and dive roll to the edge of the battlefield before she was on him again. He came up from his roll and crossed his arms as Hansen brought both fists down in a powerful hammer attack. Clay felt the servos in his mech’s shoulders strain and grind under the weight of the blow.

  “Wrong way to handle this, lady,” Clay said as he flipped onto his back and kicked out with both legs, nailing her mech in the right knee.

  Metal should have exploded everywhere. That knee should have been nothing but hanging struts and fizzling wires. But it remained intact and held strong. Clay had barely dented the armor.

  He opened his com.

  “You had this baby tucked away somewhere I couldn’t see,” Clay said to General Hansen. “Keeping it up your sleeve so I didn’t know what to expect.”

  “I had thought of letting you pilot this if your mech wasn’t up to my standards,” Hansen replied. “But this is much more enjoyable. The chance to rip you limb from limb is a dream come true for me, lover.”

  “Yeah, don’t call me that,” Clay said. “It makes me a little pukey. I mean, you’re a sexy lady, don’t get me wrong. Like, black mamba snake sexy though. All sleek and smooth, but pretty much pure death.”

  “I take that as a compliment,” Hansen replied. “And I promise to make your death as pure as I can.”

  Clay rolled his mech to the right, over and over, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the General. He rolled one last time and flipped up onto his feet. Well, he tried to. His seized hip servos made it a little hard, so he ended up just crashing his legs into the dirt. Clay sighed, rolled onto his front, and pushed up with his hands.

  “That was pitiful,” Hansen said. “A sad sight to see. To think I had admired your mech skills at one time. You have made it far in this tournament, we all knew you would, but now it comes to an end.”

  “Yeah, that’s the truth,” Clay said.

  He flipped two switches and his fists curled in on themselves, the fingers fused together by a series of locks and cables that slid into place. From underneath, straight out of the wrists, two long, sharpened bars extended, one from each wrist, both close to ten feet long.

  Clay held his arms up and made sure the General saw the sharpened bars.

  “Weaponry is not allowed,” Hansen snapped. “I call forfeit on my opponent!”

  “Not weaponry,” Clay said. “I have simply extended my forearm struts. We can pause the fight and have them examined if you are afraid I now have an advantage over you. Is that what you want, little lady? A break so you can cry to the judges?”

  “Go fuck yourself, Mr. MacAulay,” Hansen growled. “I will crush you no matter what you try. You do not have the will to beat me. I proved that in the bedroom.”

  “Bitch, we are a long way from the bedroom,” Clay said as he charged the General. “And this sure as shit ain’t foreplay!”

  The General did exactly what Clay thought she would do. She held her ground and prepared to block the sharpened bars with the armor plating on her mech’s forearms. It was a smart move. Deflect the bars, let Clay’s momentum carry him past her, then grab from behind and twist and bend until he was a broken pile of warped metal. Any competent pilot would have done the same.

  That was what he counted on. The General being only a competent pilot, not an exceptional one.

  Just before reaching her, he dove straight ahead, letting his arms lead. He ducked the front of his mech down, drove the bars into the dirt, let them catch and flip his legs up and over, then yanked his arms free as his momentum carried him not past the General’s mech, but directly on top.

  Clay hooked his legs across her mech’s shoulders and slammed his heels into her back as additional bars extended, sliding out of his heels, slicing right through the protective armor. The General tried to throw him clear, but Clay’s heel bars held him steady.

  “Give up?” Clay asked.

  He didn’t wait for an answer as he brought his arms down straight through the top of the General’s mech, sending the sharpened bars directly into the cockpit. Every system in the mech was stopped dead, severed from all power couplings. Hansen screamed over the com as a ton of metal ripped into her body, turning her into human jelly.

  The sound of her cut-off scream echoed across the battlefield. The tournament folks had decided to make the com conversation between Clay and Hansen public. Their mistake. The crowd was stunned into silence, letting the last refrain of the woman’s shriek fade into nothing without response.

  Clay withdrew the sharpened bars and unhooked his legs. He flipped himself backward and landed deftly on his feet as the General’s damaged mech swayed in the still desert air. Clay returned his fists to their original form and the bars slid back into their recessed spaces on each forearm.

  General Hansen’s mech still stood. Bits of flesh and a stream of blood hung from the shattered cockpit, letting the spectators and everyone know that the General didn’t have a miracle up her sleeve. She was long gone. Adios, diablo puta, adios.

  “Can we call it?” Clay asked over the com. “Hello? Anyone? I think I won the match. Hola? Come on, people, don’t leave me hanging here.”

  “Winner is Pilot MacAulay,” the tournament voice announced finally.

  “Might be easier to send out a pilot to walk the mech off the battlefield using manual mechanics,” Clay suggested. “That’s gonna be a son of a bitch for the rollers to deal with.”

  They took Clay’s advice and a nervous-looking man sprinted out onto the battlefield and started the long, arduous climb up General Hansen’s mech to the gore-filled cockpit.

  “I’ll be on the sidelines taking a nap,” Clay announced as he walked his mech off the battlefield. “Give me a shout when I’m up again.”

  No one answered him. He didn’t expect them to. The spectators were still stunned, silent as ghosts. Clay walked his mech back to his parking space, powered it down, and settled in to watch the last match.

  But the last match didn’t happen.

  As soon as the General’s mech was cleared from the battlefield, Clay saw Bunting walk out into the open area. A second mech, also one of the Mister’s, walked out to face Bunting. But instead of taking a fight pose, the mech bowed, then slowly retreated from the field. The second its foot stepped over the white line, a horn sounded and the tournament voice announced, “Disqualification. Match goes to Pilot Bunting.”

  “You sneaky son of a bitch,” Clay said. “Well, that’s one way to make sure your best pilot doesn’t get hurt.”

  “That is the end of the tournament for this day,” the tournament voiced announced. “The final championship match will be held at dawn tomorrow. We hope you have enjoyed your time today. Please drink responsibly and clean up any litter close to your rollers. Thank you and goodnight.”

  “What?” Clay cried as he looked at the horizon. “We still have at least an hour or two of sunlight!”

  No one responded. Clay shook his head and pounded a fist into his palm. He did not want to stay one more damn night in the territory. He wanted to kick Bunting’s ass and then get the hell gone.

  “Hey,” Gibbons whispered from the stealth decks. “You think I can come out now?”

  “Don’t see why not,” Clay said. “Looks like we are on hold until the morning.”

  “Good,” Gibbons said. “Because I want to talk to you about something. I’ve been reading the tournament rules, and I think I found a loophole that could really help us out.”

  “Do go on,” Clay said as he undid the cables and collapsed into his pilot’s chair. He stripped off the too-small suit and sighed with relief. “What you got, buddy?”

  The two talked for several hours, going over Gibbons’ findings again and again so there could be no mistake what they were looking at.

  It was one bitch of a loophole, if they were right.

  29

  Clay woke in the middle of the night, his body screaming at him, every muscle and tendon nothing but cold fire. His nerves were burning, his flesh was crawling, his head felt like it was swelling to the size of the moon.

  He fell out of his pilot’s seat and onto the cold floor of the cockpit. His cheek pressed against the metal, trying to find comfort from the fever that burned through him.

  “Gibbons,” he whispered. “Shit. Gibbons?”

  “I got ya, pal,” Gibbons said, and the temperature in the cockpit dropped twenty degrees in less than a second as Gibbons pumped the space with the frigid desert night air. “Just relax, Clay. Sensors show you have a fever of nearly one hundred and eight. I’m calling Nasta up here to help you out.”

  “No, don’t,” Clay said. “She’ll see the modifications.”

  “You don’t think you can trust her?” Gibbons asked.

  “I don’t think I can trust anyone,” Clay said. “We have to see this through on our own.”

  A tray slid out and Clay managed to push up onto his hands and knees and crawl over to it. He took the offered injector, put it to his neck, and hit the trigger. Eight hundred milligrams of a mixed cocktail of analgesics and anti-inflammatories coursed through his veins. He turned and laid on his back, letting the drugs work their magic and bring his fever down while also bringing the pain levels to something manageable.