This is a re-post from my new website, which can be found here: www.RandolphLalonde.com
I had a great time writing Rogue Assembly, a novel that sprung out of my desire to enjoy the kind of adventure I've been looking for since I was a young boy. It really is a book about a character who wanted to separate herself from her past, but needed to rejoin society on her own terms as she left the wastes behind for the bright lights of New Zero City.
Add cyborgs, a new sport, a vendetta, a new culture of freelance law enforcement, an adorable introduction and you pretty much have most of what you'll find in that book. I can go on, but many of you have already read the first version of Rogue Assembly, so I shouldn't. Thank you for the generous reviews and for picking the book up.
Instead of going on about what the book you already read was, I'd like to tell you what it's become.
Some personal problems - which have been resolved since - stopped me from doing another pass on Rogue Assembly, so I didn't finish it the way I wanted. This year, in preparation for the next book, Rogue Cause, I went back and enhanced Rogue Assembly. I can tell you all about it without spoiling anything.
The prologue wasn't what I wanted, even after a few rewrites, so I gave it more focus and made it a better introduction to the character without holding you back from the main story.
One character introduction wasn't anything like I'd imagined, lacking the impact and importance that I wanted. I kept what was good about it and re-wrote parts that were somewhat insignificant to the story. Now that introduction is well connected to the events and has more impact on Rogue.
Finally, there was an action piece that could have been much better, so I rewrote it completely. I also added two new characters who get a guest appearance that reinforces the culture that Rogue encounters at the end of the novel.
The quality of the writing was improved overall as well, since I conducted a deep edit on the whole book. It's a polish the deserved.
Doing another pass on a book that people have already read isn't something you can do lightly though. Some of you will never re-read Rogue Assembly because you're more interested in new novels, like the next one in the series. So, I had to make sure that every character ended up in the same place, that the same events took place and that you were prepared for the next book in this series whether you re-read Assembly or not. I did that. I've done it before with other books, so it wasn't difficult. It just took some extra time.
So, once again, I'd like to invite you to read Rogue Assembly. It's available on Ream (a Patreon-like site for writers and their readers) here: REAM
If you already purchased it, then you can just update it through the retailer you picked it up from. If not, then please follow these handy links to your book purveyor of choice. Thank you for picking it up, I hope you enjoy it!
The next book in the Rogue Adventures Series set in the Spinward Fringe Universe will be coming out sometime in February 2025. Watch my page for news. It's called Rogue Cause and the final draft is being serialised on Ream right now.
Before I go, here is the Prologue and first two chapters of Rogue Assembly, just in case you'd like a sample before you dive all the way in.
PROLOGUE
Hi, I’m Rogue.
My existence is mistrust, determination, and curiosity wrapped in uncertainty. You could say that things have gotten complicated. I’m starting this journal just in case the worst happens. I hope that it’ll help anyone who reads it understand how and where I went off course. So, it would be great if no one ever has to review it.
There are long moments when I feel human. I know that was a state of being I wanted more than anything while I was running on a wrist computer, but I never expected that it would be like this. It feels like everything around me is happening at the right speed. I’m not processing input, I’m feeling, seeing, hearing, smelling, even tasting the way I was designed to.
It’s a relief, as though my programming is fulfilling its purpose and then some. Originally I was supposed to pretend that I was Alice Valent so well that I believed it too. My well-meaning creators meant to make an amazing decoy. Then, when everyone was pretty sure the plan was working fine, I woke up.
They copied a perfect set of Alice Valent’s memories and emotional baggage over, but there was also a dormant program in that bundle. It was dormant until it was in a digital computer where it started to run. I became something else: a program that understood Alice and her plan to defeat Captain Holm, one of the Order Of Eden’s most malicious leaders.
For anyone who doesn’t already know, the Order of Eden is a cult-like government organisation that is devious and powerful enough to swallow corporations and civilised worlds whole. They’re also human supremacists, so Captain Holm was allowed to harvest chemicals from Issyrians, who never volunteered to be hooked up to harvesting machines. Going after him was definitely worth doing.
I finished my mission. That’s when I realised that, even though I was different, I still loved all the same people that Alice did and wanted what she wanted. Knowing that I wasn’t her, I couldn’t face her boyfriend, her father, friends, or even the crew that followed her.
It was important that I look my maker in the eye, I couldn’t tell you why. It still doesn’t make much sense to me. Maybe I needed to meet Alice so I could have closure, so I could tell someone who cared that I found a new name before I left her life behind to find my own. I looked into her blue eyes, found a face that felt like my own, and told her to appreciate her life because I knew I’d miss it. In return, she gave me three things. A promise that she wouldn’t use my shut-down code. A weapon that would always remind me of Jacob Valent, not my father, but a man who was a copy of him. Finally, she gave me her blessing.
I left. I bloody well had to. Even though I was in mourning for a life that wasn’t mine, I’d snagged a pretty nice but small ship, the Envoy. There were also a bunch of ideas coming together in my head about where I would go, and what I would do.
That’s when I started getting into trouble. My personality was one issue. It started out as Alice, and in the months since I left Planet Rodus, it’s changed, like anyone might expect. I’ve grown a little, regressed a bit less, and started to embrace the freedom that being alone offers.
I’ve learned a lot since I left Alice and Haven Fleet behind. Tabrus, the planet I settled on, was scraped almost completely clean when artificial intelligences running code that allowed them to have emotions went homicidal. The Holocaust Virus was defeated before I arrived, and those bots were rendered harmless. Most of them shut themselves down, leaving a planetary wasteland behind before I arrived.
Finding a landing spot was no issue, as you might imagine, but I wasn’t the first to start exploring and gathering Tabrus’ riches for myself. Some might say it was grave robbing, but it’s not like there were any employers around. Besides, the alternative - robbing the living - is bloody rude.
Roving around the planet, sifting through old data drives while I collected a few valuables gave me the opportunity to help out too. I found some information about the Order of Eden and Citadel - another group of nasties that come from the Sol System - so I could pass it on to Alice, and then I had to run off. The Order of Eden has programs running on the Stellarnet, and it looked like they found me. I had to hide and I sent the Envoy off as a decoy. It worked..
While I waited for the attention of the programs that were hunting me to move on to a bigger threat, I had to stay disconnected from the Stellarnet. It was then that I realised that I was on the verge of losing almost everything that made me, well, me. You see, when I let all my computing power run at full speed, I’m a very efficient piece of software. What I’m capable of doing is incredible, but I’m ruled by absolutes with very little personality and a taste for violence. That’s not so bad when you’re trying to save yourself or get something important done, but it’s not so good when you’re just wishing your hover bike could go faster. My handlebars are slightly bent thanks to that special kind of impatience.
I was made to be that way, but I like having a full range of emotions and taking time to make the right choices better even if it’s a lot less efficient. Alice’s personality was becoming my own. They don’t quite feel like mine, but maybe that’ll change after I’ve made a few more memories. I hope I get a chance to do that.
I suppose what I’m taking so long to explain is that I want to find a way to feel like myself and benefit from all the advantages that the computer systems in my android body can offer. That’s why I used a few proxy connections to search the Stellarnet for someone or something that can help. After six days, one hour and four minutes, give or take a few seconds, I got a message from a wandering AI called the Iron Mind. It was a lead, and I got after it.
CHAPTER 1
Into New Zero
Here’s the problem. The premise that every new mind running in a synthetic biological brain knows how to program is almost universally false. I knew how to work with the original version of myself when I was just a little artificial intelligence installed on Jonas Valent’s wrist. I didn’t have permission to program myself to do certain things or to advance past a certain point for most of that time, but I knew how to maintain, diagnose, and adjust my program when I had to. You know, the basics.
Now, about a decade later, give or take a few months thanks to time dilation, I’m in this more advanced android body with a crazy powerful computer for a brain. It’s not even the same operating system I used to use. Oh, and I’m the first completed prototype of my kind. My older brothers were built without skin, stealth components and a few other refinements. As you have probably already guessed, there aren’t many people around who know how to work on me.
Everything would be fine if I didn’t become a soulless, logical creature with a malicious streak if I let my computer run too fast. On the other hand, if my brain is running just right - at a speed that mimics the human mind - then I feel normal, like myself. Right now I’m running just a little faster than a human so I can process some extra sensory data. I’m pretty much myself, with all the quirks I like and a few flaws I don’t, but that’s part of being a biological, right?
The Iron Mind’s tip included the name of a cyborg who hadn’t been seen in a while. Mercury, a Cold Boy with brain damage who installed a computer in his skull that would give him the full capacity for thought and movement after getting brutalized in a Ballistic Crush game. That wasn’t the unusual part of his situation. A lot of people who can’t afford a bio-rebuild of their brain after it gets partially burned off have a neural implant installed. It picks up the slack and good ones can even make you feel better than ever. Even a little too good, if you run certain programs.
The thing that made Mercury unusual was that he had a fully aware artificial intelligence installed on his implant. One that he claimed to have merged with. According to what I could dig up online, Mercury’s thought processes ran at over nine hundred thousand gigahertz, and he was still the same guy he was before for the most part. Well, that’s according to him.
Fans and a few people who were brave enough to speak out on social media said there were a few differences. The fact that he didn’t rejoin the Ballistic Crush league when it restarted was a big one. He was also rude to fans who approached him, stopped hosting outrageous parties in a penthouse he co-opted after returning to Tabrus after The Fall, and spent a lot more time online.
That was until he deleted his social accounts when he made a pile of money in full-dive simulations that would pay out using a depot near New Zero. I know what you’re thinking: why not track him from there? I tried. No one saw him fly away with half a ton of platinum coins. The trial ends at the FiBank Wealth Dispenser where he picked his great big pile of glittering coins up.
Either he managed to pull off an amazing disappearing act, or someone got to him when he collected his stack of plat. Someone dangerous who knew how to wipe the evidence out.
It took me over a month to find one of Mercury’s closest friends, Synchron. He was a voluntary Cold Boy, someone who had most of their body replaced with cybernetics, and a player for the Mad Dozers, a Ballistic Crush team.
So, I left my bare-walled, unadorned hiding spot, went to my nearest hidden stash, and got on my favourite hover bike. After three hours of riding through empty cities, fields that were being replanted by hovering agricultural robots, and the Siren Arms Hangar Fields, I arrived at New Zero. It was a resurrected city with shining skyscrapers featuring lush rooftop gardens, tubes for public transit, layers of roads several stories up and protective grates for pedestrians who walked below. I hadn’t seen it in about seven weeks and four hours.
It was almost completely empty then, with armies of robots roving about, getting to work for Siren Arms so they could get the city back in shape. The emitter disks along the bottom of my bike hummed more loudly as I took a ramp up onto a road that was nine storeys up, following signs that pointed me to secure parking. The streets weren’t paved but made of metal grates that were strong enough for any ground vehicle. They let light and rain pass all the way to the ground. People in the buildings seldom paid attention to the highways only a couple of metres away from their windows, and I was surprised at how few privacy shields were up.
At a glimpse, I could see a family sitting down to dinner, a future rock star playing air guitar in his room. Enhanced hearing allowed me to make out the muffled sound of Stonemark, a band that proudly played all their own ancient instruments. I slowed to a stop and noticed a little boy who was staring out, taking the sight of me in.
I was dressed like a rider for the most part, in heavy shielded boots and black form-fitted leggings that had active protection built in. Those complemented my favourite jacket, which featured a red hood that didn’t clash with my auburn hair. I liked it because it had hidden armour in its fabric and there were imperfections on the outside from the dodgy fabricator I used to make it. I didn’t have much then, and finding an unlocked military grade maker machine with just enough high-end supplies loaded for a jacket was a miracle. It was much less conspicuous than the Order of Eden armour I stole, so I stashed that away and have been wearing that jacket ever since. As I smiled and waved at the kid staring through transparent steel, I realised that I’d forgotten something that would be critical to a human - my helmet.
The little boy waved back, turned, and then ran away from the window, either shy or eager to tell someone about the foolish young woman who thought riding a hover bike through the city without head protection was fun. I made a mental note to pick one up for the trip home as traffic started moving again. Thanks to my peripheral vision, which is clearer than a human’s long the way, I spotted more people in recliners and care beds as I passed. These were the people of the virtual world. Folks who surrendered to a full-dive simulated life, doing their best to abandon their physical bodies so they could live as an avatar in any one of millions of simulated worlds where they could be anything, do anything.
How did they pay for it? Most were Online Jobbers who would make money in games by selling rare items or doing someone else’s tedious work like gathering virtual materials, destroying or building properties in digital worlds. Just as many ran custom programs that could find certain information or online assets more efficiently and discreetly than your average artificial intelligence. They could be really useful if you didn’t plug in to the Stellarnet yourself but needed something in there.
Part of me wished that I could join them, but after starting my life as an artificial intelligence and then getting the chance to live as a human, I preferred the real world. It would have been nice to multitask so part of my consciousness could be on the Stellarnet, looking things up and earning credits, but like I said, it wasn’t safe for me.
I turned into a secure vehicle storage level, dropped three rectangular five platinum coins into the slot of a storage unit that was made for small vehicles and punched a one thousand twenty-four alphanumeric code in to secure it. After backing my bike in, I powered down and stepped outside.
Checking the small computer stamped on the back of my hand, I could see that I had a five hundred credit citation for not wearing appropriate protective gear on an open-air ground vehicle. “I suppose I deserve that one,” I muttered to myself as I looked at the video capture of me riding into New Zero, my hair blowing in the wind. I was used to riding helmet less after roving through mostly empty spaces for over two months. Paying the fine was easy, I just tapped the credit symbol - a capital ‘S’ with a small ‘c’ passing through the middle - and confirmed that I was agreeing to pay up at the nearest platinum slot. I used the same one that I did for parking and saw that it cost one hundred platinum after the conversion. I’d only brought a thousand with me, so it wasn’t an insignificant amount of money.
I pulled the door down, made sure that it was locked, and that my payment reserved it for a week, then walked to the elevator. The storage space was quiet, and most of the spaces were still open, their vertical metal doors up, revealing darkened interiors waiting for cars, trucks, small ships that could move along the roads, and other things that someone might want to temporarily secure. Most people were already taking public transit, I supposed, and it turned out that I was right. New Zero was surging in popularity as a safe city to settle in. I didn’t realise it then because I was thinking about tracking down Mercury, but I was seeing the beginning of one of the most important human settlements in that part of the galaxy.
The elevator doors parted, revealing a street level food court. The smells of warm, seasoned foods mingled with a tang that came from self-sterilising surfaces. The sun was down, so there were plenty of customers sitting down to eat, including a group of Issyrians who did their best to look human, but they had the look of a foursome that just came out of the shower with wet hair. If that wasn’t enough to signal to everyone that they weren’t quite human they were also using broad-mouthed straws to sip from transparent bowls teeming with tiny living fish. Alice never met a mean Issyrian, so I was tempted to introduce myself, but moved on towards the avenue at the far end.
It felt good to be in a place filled with people. The streets teemed with humans in clothing well suited to the tropical weather, short Mergillians in sparse, loose-fitting garments that let their glossy skin breathe, and I even spotted a couple groups of Nafalli. Their long snouts, towering height and long fur were typical of the tree tribes.
Night in Entertainment District Seven was exciting. The last time I’d been through the heavily sponsored city, the streets were empty. Kudzu vines and other aggressive plant life were taking over.
Siren Arms, along with numerous partners, embraced New Zero’s ruins. The machines that turned on the people who lived there cleared the corpses away and repaired the buildings as though they had a guilty conscience. In truth, the repair and cleaning droids were just performing their functions. When Siren Arms came along, they only had to stake a claim around their old headquarters, clear away some overgrowth and secure the area.
They built a wall around it using tall metal segments that moved outward as more people moved in. I came in on the side that didn’t have them anymore. New Zero was repopulating so quickly that walling the city up didn’t make sense anymore. The walls were being recycled into other things, like the road I followed into the District.
Being there, on a street at the base of the new Siren Arms Stadium filled with people, made me feel a little uneasy. I mean, a busy food court was exciting, but it was so packed on the street that I was having trouble getting around. I checked my basic computer for recent events in Entertainment District Seven and saw that a major concert just ended on the nearest side of the massive stadium. Unused to being mentally disconnected from the Stellarnet, I forgot to check on what other shows and matches were happening that night. I looked up the full event schedule for that night.
There were quite a few, but the one that brought that huge crowd onto the street stood out. Mirabel, a human pop star who was already famous on the local Stellarnet, just finished singing in one of the lower levels of the stadium. Dressed in loud colours, imitation high fashion and glowing makeup, her fans were easy to spot. One tall pair of men were in almost nothing at all, but their skin put on a show. Tattooed from their collarbones to their ankles with dynamic ink, Mirabel’s image danced on their bodies surrounded by bursts of flower petals and clouds.
They were between me and the nearest entrance to the lower levels of the stadium, where I’d find the first Crush match of the night. “That’s from tonight, she was really amazing, right?” said a concertgoer as he pointed at one of the tattooed fan’s chests.
“I know, I’m going to add it to my permanent rotation, her style is hotter than a plasma fire,” he replied.
I was bumped from behind. A quick check with my hidden sensors told me that it was an honest mistake, there was nothing missing from my jacket pockets and no one tagged me with a tracker or other device. I realised that I was only a few centimetres away from the other tattooed fan then. The playback on his chest was at my eye level. Mirabel doing a quick turn there, her blonde hair transforming into yellow flame. I looked up at him and smiled awkwardly. “Is that a suit, or an active tattoo?” I asked, knowing that it was the latter. I wanted to get him talking, for him to notice me so he wouldn’t mind that I was stepping into his space.
“Oh, a full ink nano-spread, honey. I had it done while I was dead to the world,” he replied, delighted that I was showing interest.
I stepped around him, pretending that I was giving the work a good look; “That’s the way to go, I’m sure. I’d never be brave enough, and I don’t think I have the sense of style to show it off. I mean, you’d have to wear nothing at all for your look.”
“Oh, when you’re this heavenly, you don’t want a stitch to get in the way of you and your audience,” he stepped back and the crowd gave him just enough space so he could do a turn for me.
I was grateful because it gave me a chance to get almost all the way past him and his companion. “It looks good on you.” My voice was unsteady, a sign of the nervousness that was creeping in. I hadn’t seen many crowds in The Wastes. In fact, most groups of people out there were dangerous gangs until recently.
Oh, she’s nervous. “It’s just us super fans out here. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with you, cutie, and I love your hair. Natural red curls are so brave right now, everyone’s going bald or bold, you know? You doing anything later? Me and my guy are headed to an afterparty. Promise me you’ll turn up if I tap you the deets.”
I could count the number of compliments I’d received since I was made on one hand, so I was grinning, even a little hesitant to move on. “Uh, sure, maybe. I’m here for Crush though, so…”
“I should have known, with that leather-like art piece you’re wearing. Why go to that nasty ruckus when you can party with the sleek and sensational ones?” He struck a pose and ran his hand down the length of his body for emphasis. That wasn’t strange to me. Bold, sure, and he was in great shape, so I wasn’t objecting, but the dynamic tattoos played a video of Mirabel over his face and everything below that. In it, she was striking a high note, stretching, raising her arms. It made for a completely strange moment, and when I spotted a couple of fans looking at him, their jaws dropped, eyes wide, I grinned at their confused shock. He smiled back at me, probably misinterpreting my amusement, and I looked away, happy that I was about to escape his orbit even though the crowd around us wasn’t going anywhere.
Okay, so running around in ruins, talking to strange artificial intelligences, and sifting through old records trying to find out what exactly happened on Tabrus wasn’t a group activity. I got to know one person, and he was a complete loner, so my social skills were rusty to say the least. I laughed nervously, realising that I found his invitation more frightening than taking a whole Crush team on alone. Would I go if I didn’t have something else to do? Maybe, curiosity can trump anxiety, but who knows? “Sorry, meeting a friend.”
He tapped his finger on the back of my hand, right on top of my stamp and the Marble Computing Interactive Stamp glowed for a second, showing that a new contact was added. “Well, now you have to come, you’ve got all the deets and the drinks are free because you know me. I promise you’ll find something there that’ll make you forget you’re nervous. See ya there.”
My details weren’t passed back to him, so I didn’t have anything to worry about. “Gotta go,” I said, laughing, uneasy, continuing on into the crowd. I started to wish I was just there for the nightlife and wondered why Alice didn’t socialise much after hours. I remember wondering if that was going to be one of the differences between me and her. Maybe I was going to be more social?
Rain struck the avenue and the hundreds on it through the grate overhead. Some people tried to hide under an awning or in a doorway, so I used the opening to get into the arena. By the time I was through the doors, the rain stopped. New Zero is in a tropical belt, so the weather was often sudden and serious unless the sun was out. As the clouds dissipated, the ghostly blue light bathing the night returned. With two suns and three moons reflecting their light, New Zero was seldom in darkness for more than a few minutes at a time.
Safely through the entrance, I unzipped my jacket, revealing an adaptive top that I’d set to hang loose down the middle. Then I squeezed some of the water out of my hair before pulling it back into a ponytail. There were a few people around who glanced at me, but the five heavily armoured guards inside were watching. I may have looked a little casual, mostly thanks to the top, but I assumed the rest of the look still made them wonder if I wasn’t such a casual sports fan. I probably seemed like the kind of person who might be armed, and anyone suspecting that would be right. I wasn’t there to see a match. I had other business.
CHAPTER 3
Ballistic Crush
A guard in heavy-plated armour cocked his head at me as I started for the row of ticket kiosks. The footfalls of his boots were so heavy that I could feel their impacts through the thick soles of my own. I didn’t need my scanners to tell me that the armour had strength augmentation technology built in. He was geared up to survive a fight with powerful cyborgs. There were three more like him watching the foyer. “Hey, Red. Let’s see under the jacket,” he asked in a tone that sounded like he expected me to object.
I knew that was coming. He’d already scanned me but probably wanted to see what his security system warned him about with his own eyes. I pulled my jacket apart and showed off the weapon slung low under my left arm. There were magazines in a holder beneath my right arm. “Violator Seven. It’s legal.”
“Barely. That’s a hell of a hand cannon,” he said with an appreciative chuckle. “I’m guessing you know how to use it?”
“You could say that,” I replied. Thanks to Alice’s memories, I had military training and experience. A little personal experience confirmed that it passed on to me just fine.
“Explosive thermolytic rounds in there?” he asked as his faceplate parted and slid to the sides. He was broad-chinned and clean-shaven.
I nodded. “With an electromagnetic pulse chaser. I’d show you, but I’m late for the match.” There was a magazine I didn’t want him to see. That one had two normal rounds at the top, but special ones that I designed using Haven Fleet technology. Those were outlawed because they used nanobot technology. I’ll explain more about that if it comes up later.
“You’re late, all right. The Moles are getting their clocks cleaned, but Ettin is up. No one’s seen him play since the League re-formed. I wish I wasn’t missing it. Twenty-one minutes left.”
I momentarily cringed as I instinctively connected to the Stellarnet and did a search for Ettin. My mind was filled with statistics, highlights from his career and every interview he’d ever given in the space of a second. There was a lot of gore in the playbacks. The guard noticed, and asked; “Hey, you all right?”
“Just remembering the match with Oreole Knights. He trashed Autocrush like he was made of bubblegum and foil.”
“Yeah, Ettin has fifteen red cards on record. He’ll kill again,” the guard replied with a nod and a smile. “You should get in there.”
I let my jacket fall back into place, dropped five one hundred platinum coins into a kiosk slot and selected the right event. It spat out a thin plastic ticket that played video directions to the match and I took it from the slot. “Hope you have a quiet night,” I said to the guard as I passed.
“Hope so,” he replied, re-sealing his helmet. “Pop fans may be a little crazed, but Crush junkies wreck whole city blocks when their team gets trashed too hard—. Just run for the nearest exit if you see something start up, don’t want to see you get mashed.”
I enjoy passing as a pure human partially because people underestimate me. My skin could trick every scanner I’d found into thinking I was a normal woman in my early twenties. Specially designed layers with refraction and other passive systems that were built in made sure of that. There’s also a whole system that simulates bleeding and deeper wounds with optical illusions and holography. It’s pretty sophisticated.
Being short helps with the illusion that I’m harmless too. I decided to go low out of convenience at first. It helped me get into tight spaces as I explored and rooted around on planet Tabrus, collecting helpful things here and there. Then I got used to being compact for a human, and it suited the face I liked. If I stood beside Alice, I’d look like her sister with a little less cheek, narrower nose and ever-so-slightly bigger eyes that were green-blue compared to her azure peepers. My hair was longer and wavy, but the same colour.
I made my way down the ramp to Sub level Three, listening to the rising and falling roar of the crowd get closer, louder as I went. A pair of doors wide enough for a hover tank parted and I was in the concourse with the concession area all around me. The booths selling fragrant stir-fries, chicken strips, all kinds of strange things on a stick, candy, drinks and crisps with every flavour of dip imaginable were minded by bored attendants. I hadn’t had liquids in nearly a month, and I was running really low, but I passed on that for the time being. I had a Crush player to check on.
Five hundred platinum got me a seat in the front row. It wasn’t a premium event and the match was seventy minutes old, so I got in cheap. That seat alone would have been about fifty platinum. The extra four fifty got me a Clubhouse Pass for the night, so I could go down and meet the players. That was the best chance I had at getting face time with Synchron.
I connected to the local wireless network and snagged the maps and other details for the arena. Milliseconds later I converted it into a tactical map and added everything my passive sensors were picking up. The location of everyone in the round arena, the players, and the shapes of every face in the space were loaded in after. There were so many people using active scanners to capture holographic recordings of the game that I could get a perfectly clear image of the space without turning the gain on my own optical receivers up.
I slowed my processing speed back down and disconnected from the network before social media profiles were loaded in for everyone. I could have sorted through all that information in a few seconds, but I really didn’t want to. I was only there to make contact with one guy, after all. The junk data from a quarter million social posts wouldn’t get a home in my brain, thanks.
My attention moved from the tactical map in my head to the world around me. The tiered seating was filled with people who looked mostly human. Generally, cyborgs have basic, tiny implants that help with medical conditions, correct a sense or two, or provide some minor convenience like regulating hunger so someone can lose or gain weight. The majority of bio-beings don’t really want hard tech inside them, that’s why brain buds and other computer systems that live outside the skin are still popular.
I found my seat, right next to the aisle. I was standing beside a light cyborg who had a flesh-coloured metal arm, the kind of thing someone got installed to replace a limb lost in an accident. His son, who wasn’t a cyborg from what I could see, was to his right. I’d guess he was about thirteen.
A buzzer sounded and the crowd started to quiet down to a rumbling hum. I’d come in at a good time. The players who would be in the final round were testing their cybernetic parts before squaring off. A robot made in the shape of a human with wiry metal arms approached me and I gave him two platinum pips as I grabbed an eighteen-ounce cup. Holding it in front of him, I said; “Pep Slush please.” A thick green-blue slush mix flowed from his finger into my cup, filling it in a quick jet, and then he popped a top with a straw onto it.
“Polite to bots, huh? Old school,” the man to my right said. “Most people just punch buttons and use as few words as possible.”
“I was raised right, and some habits are hard to shake,” I replied, taking a sip of the thick drink. The water and high sugar content were good for my liquid reservoir. My systems would sort all that stuff out so it could be used for maintenance, regeneration or fabrication. It was one of my favourite drinks too, thick with a sharp peppermint flavour that was enough to clear my sinuses, not that they needed it.
The rules of the game drifted through my mind as I started drawing on the straw. I won’t get into the details, but there’s one ball in Ballistic Crush and it’s based on the ancient “hot potato” rule. Each team has five players on the field and two in reserve. They can switch at any time and maintenance personnel can repair benched cyborgs while they’re on the bench and then substitute them back in. They can’t upgrade the players during a match.
At the beginning of each round, the teams face off with a lighter cyborg called the Carrier who stands behind two offensive players and two defensive players. The other team faces off from the other side of the field. The ball is launched from a spinning pillar in the middle of the arena. Whoever makes the catch is protected by their team. Passing is allowed, but that ball will explode like a grenade if it touches the ground. Trying to bounce the ball is not a good idea.
Okay, I started thinking that Ballistic Crush was designed by a sadist when I saw that the goal, a hole only thirty percent bigger than the fifteen-centimetre wide ball, is built into the pillar that launches it. The pitching hole closes the moment the ball comes out. Then the pole starts to lower, eventually revealing the goal, which is at the top. It takes thirty seconds for that little goal hole to be exposed enough for someone to make a shot on it. That means that the teams fight for the ball that whole time. Anyone can score by throwing or stuffing the ball into the hole, but teams get an extra two points if the Carrier does it. That’s the lightweight, faster cyborg. Some teams don’t even have them. Anyway, if they fail to score after five minutes and thirty seconds, the ball explodes with enough force and shrapnel - yes, shrapnel - to take any player within three metres out completely. Sadistic. Truly sadistic.
I could go on about penalties, white, yellow and red cards along with a bunch of other rules, but I won’t. Brain freeze set in. I had pulled half my drink through that straw while I was taking the rules in, looking at the armoured teams setting up in the arena. The kid to my right was staring at me, probably noticing that I started drinking and didn’t stop until I flinched. “Too thirsty, brain freeze,” I croaked. He and the older guy who was his father according to my air analyser, which caught their DNA were standing in front of their seats like most of the spectators.
“Hate when that happens,” the boy’s father said.
I focused on the arena, looking through the thick transparent metal dome at the players. The black and white striped pole was starting to spin. My tactical map marked Synchron and my heart sank. Sure, I cringed at the sensations of human brain freeze, but was able to ignore it an instant later. I was still cringing because I realised that Synchron wasn’t just the Carrier, but he was so lightly armoured that his arms and legs looked more like a black and gold skeleton than armoured limbs. His chest armour, or case, as cyborgs called it, wasn’t armoured much more, he even had transparent sections that gave the audience a lit view of his enlarged lungs as they inflated and deflated. His helmet looked thin too, I was sure the sleek cyborg would get crushed, or snapped into pieces before the end of the match, especially since his left arm and leg were in pristine condition, suggesting that they were just replaced.
The rest of his teammates dwarfed him, sporting heavy limbs, thick, tall bodies that were a mixture of bare metal cybernetics and armour plates. The other team was set up the same way, “Oh, this is gonna be a massacre,” I said as I spotted Ettin, the tallest cyborg on the opposing team. He had Death Labs written down his right leg, showing that he was the only sponsored player on the field.
Oh, Death Labs is an old weapons developer that I thought was defunct until then. I was wrong. Ettin had long arms with long metal branch-like fingers. He flexed them as he leaned forward, waiting for the ball. He was staring at Synchron like there was no one else in the universe, and I imagined that he was grinning behind that face plate.
I wasn’t tuned into the announcer’s channel, so I almost jumped in my seat when the buzzer went off. The pitcher pole in the middle spun faster, humming ominously. The board above said the score was twenty-nine to five in favour of the home team, the New Zero Wizards. The holographic display counted down from three, and the ball launched early, on two. I put the nonsensical idea that the counter didn’t seem to matter aside as I watched Ettin lurch across the field, breaking into a fast run, his broad metal feet pounding down on the metal floor, past the pole right after Synchron. He was completely ignoring the ball, while his prey didn’t seem to care about anything else.
This was it. Synchron was about to get crushed, and he didn’t even have the ball. When Ettin was just about to grasp the quick player, extending his long fingers after him, one of Synchron’s defensemen collided with the massive cyborg. It was like watching a hover car accident! Pieces of Ettin’s armour went flying along with a part of the defence man’s fists. Neither of the heavier cyborgs went down as Synchron, undistracted by the collision, deployed wheels from the heels of his feet and started chasing after the Moles’ Carrier. The playfield looked large when I sat down, but not so much as I watched him and his teammates form up and move at incredible speeds in pursuit of the rest of the Moles.
Okay, sure, I’m not much of a sports fan. I’ve been too distracted, and Alice didn’t have much time for that stuff before her memories were copied into my head either. The only time she was interested in sports at all was when it was a part of her course work in the Haven Fleet Apex Officer Program.
I expected a brawl to break out between the teams as the Moles’ pair of defence men turned towards their pursuers. Instead, they kept on the move, running and wheeling across the entire field, then around the edge. They were covering for their Carrier, who was leading all but one member of the Moles around. I started to see the wisdom in that. Part of the game is how fast you can move with your team. If you could keep your Carrier and the ball away long enough, they’d have a chance to shoot on the goal.
I thought I was starting to get it when another layer of play surprised me so much that I stood up. Synchron let one of his offensive teammates move in front of him, lean down, and then he sped up and rolled up one of his legs, his back, one arm, launching himself at the Moles’ Carrier. He sailed through the air, set to land right on top of his counterpart on the other team and he was bashed away before he touched the ground by a defence man. Synchron flew at least fifteen metres, crashing into the barrier so hard that the transparent metal barrier rattled dangerously.
That was not a penalty. The game didn’t stop. Synchron got to his feet, his left arm crushed and twisted, and used the other one to give the crowd a thumbs up as he motored towards his teammates. Ettin lurched after him, but Synchron’s teammate, the one already fighting the beast of a cyborg, grabbed him and tried to throw him to the ground.
It gave Synchron a chance to get away and rejoin the rest of his team. Seconds later, they were rushing to intercept the Carrier with the ball along with three of his teammates, and the penalty buzzer went off. The coach for the New Zero Wizards was livid, shouting up at a booth high over the field. “You guys didn’t see that shit? Ettin just scrapped him! He picked him up and tore his goddamned leg off then put his head under tread!”
I followed the coach’s pointing metal finger and I saw the pile of parts and the bleeding torso of Gyrojim, one of the New Zero Wizards’ newest players. Ettin punished him for getting between him and Synchron. “Yellow card! Twenty-minute penalty for holding! Ettin!”
“Holding?” I shouted in disbelief.
Synchron ran over to his side of the arena, where the pit crew replaced his arm and a metal plate on his hip in seconds. The fellow to my left explained the penalty as a medical team rushed out to help and remove Gyrojim. “It’s not a red card because Gyro survived. Twenty minutes takes Ettin out for the rest of the game though. They’ll have to sub a newbie in and the Moles are closer to forfeiting because they can’t field five players.”
Ettin took a bow and left the field. The home audience booed with gusto, and I joined in. When I finished, I told him; “It’s my first game.”
“I can tell, you have that shocked look. It’s this one’s first live game,” he explained, patting his grinning son on the back.
I wasn’t having a good time. Maybe if I didn’t need Synchron alive I would have enjoyed it, but I knew what it was like to get beaten and blown up. Every time Synchron touched the ball after that I looked up at the counter. I was relieved when they scored, and immediately tense whenever they got possession, which was often. Synchron, despite being a cocky bastard, was pretty good.
In the last minute of the game, the Moles’ Carrier had the ball, there was almost no time left before the ball would explode, and the teams came together in a horrific high-speed crush of steel. The Moles’ handler got out of there unscathed, and Synchron sped after him while the rest of their teams battered each other in a brawl that had both coaches shouting and holding the tops of their heads.
The game was in the carrier’s hands with seven seconds left on the ball. “Don’t do it, don’t do it,” I muttered as I watched Synchron catch up to the other team’s Carrier, punch him in the back of the head, shoulder him down and then catch the ball as it was fumbled. That thing was blinking bright red and white. “He did it!” I shouted, tossing the rest of my drink at the playfield. It burst open, spraying green-blue Pep across the glass before it ran down the self-cleaning surface. I calmed down immediately, silently giving myself shit for using a lot more than human strength during my little freakout.
The audience’s cheers were so loud that you could feel it in the air. Unimpeded, Synchron pushed off towards the goal in the middle of the arena and threw it right after the ball timer on the holographic board overhead flashed one. The New Zero Wizards didn’t need that goal. This was a glory shot that could have killed him. My eye followed the ball, and it exploded halfway through its arc, only nine metres from the cyborg, who stared after it, a grin showing through the transparent lower half of his helmet. “You idiot!” I shouted before the smoke cleared.
The buzzer sounded and security droids rushed the field from all sides to break the brawl up. Two of the Wizards team members were trashed, unable to stand, but three of the Moles’ squad were carried off in critical condition. Cybernetic parts were strewn all around the site of the brawl along with small pools of blood here and there. A loud, authoritative voice announced; “Unable to field a full team, the Jungle Moles concede. The match goes to the New Zero Wizards.”
The crowd went off again, filling the arena with cheers. Ballistic Crush fans can be crazy. Someone across the aisle to my left brought a Jungle Moles shirt out and the people around him helped rip it to shreds before they turned and shouted; “Synchron! Baller baller Synchron!” together, earning a double thumbs up from the player, who was rolling around the arena, raising his arms, directing cheers like an orchestra.
“So, what’d you think?” the guy to my right asked his son.
“Can we come next week?” he asked, thrilled.
“Maybe,” his father replied. “Be good and we’ll be back.”
I stepped out and was about to start for the Wizard’s clubhouse entrance when he looked at me. “What did you think?”
I didn’t want to spoil their fun, but I was still honest when I replied; “It was exciting.”
“You got into it, you’ll be back,” he said as I slipped away. The seat I’d gotten was perfect, it would have been difficult to get any closer to the doors the Wizards used when they left the field. I walked down into the tunnel and found a few dressed-up men and women along with a bunch of fans who were dressed in old-fashioned jerseys that had foam forms of cybernetic parts built in. It was like looking at a parody of the players rather than appreciation as far as I could see, but I could imagine what seeing devotion like that would be like if I was a player. These people spent hundreds of credits so they could look like one player or another just enough so they could show everyone who their favourite was. I'd be more than touched.
One of them, a fellow with broad shoulders and cybernetic legs that were inexpensive limb replacements, not enhancements, stepped aside to let me into the waiting area in front of the doors and I was gutted when I saw who was standing in a circle of groupies past him. It was Nera, and she hated Alice more than almost anyone in the universe.
Her gaze darkened with recognition. It was obvious in an instant that I hadn’t made enough changes to my face to shake a very clear resemblance as she stared. Nera’s relaxed chat with the other fans there stopped mid-word and all her attention was focused on me as though she was trying to kill me with her stare or a thought. Then, as though switching modes, she ignored me completely, returning to the conversation I interrupted.
Copyright 2023, 2024 Randolph Lalonde, all rights reserved.
