Ella's head was spinning as she followed Ben and Sangeet back to the shuttle. No one was trying to kill her. Sangeet had simply been looking to make some money, and Ella's paranoid ass had started a wild goose chase. Worse yet, she'd let Marvin believe they were going after his killer.
Ella eyed the scavenger, hands stuck in his pockets, head craned forward like he was shy of taking up too much space. She almost felt bad that she'd chased him off at the mecha pod, but then again, he had been trying to steal.
Then she eyed Ben. He had offered to escort her back, as Caroline and Renee had more to say on the mech side of things. Lightbreaker and Ninth Gen. It was ludicrous, like a nightmare Ella could have had. She might have been able to beat Lightbreaker with her melt-drills, but Ninth Gen was a different story. The number-one mech had won nine Mecha Realms and had been undefeated for the past seven regular seasons. That duel was a guaranteed loss.
When they got to the shuttle, Ben locked all the doors, sat everyone down in the cabin booths, and asked Sangeet, "So Ella is completely safe?"
"Yes."
"So she can freely walk around this camp?" Ben said.
"Well…" Everyone followed Sangeet's gaze to Immortal Ignition, folded up in the back of the shuttle. "If the scavs see her, it won't be long before they find that."
Best mech in the world, prime for stealing.
"Alright, so I'll go home," Ella said. She was invested in the three-round duel, but outside of a few tips against Centium Prime, she wouldn't be of much use to Ishaan's team.
"Um…" Sangeet stammered. "Maybe not yet."
Ella rolled her eyes. "What now?"
"Can I ask a favor?"
As frustrated as she was, Ella shrugged. Sangeet was a kid who didn't know much about megacity life, and although he'd given Ella a scare, he hadn't had any malicious intent.
"You beat Centium Prime in Mecha Realm last year, right?" Sangeet asked.
"Yeah." It was one of her major fights in the battle royale, lasting twenty minutes.
"Do you think you could do it again?"
Ella raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Each team only has to register the mech," Sangeet said. "There are no rules saying who pilots it."
Ben widened his eyes in realization. "And Sabersong is a lot like your old mech," he said.
Ella couldn't believe her ears. First of all, Sabersong's swords needed to be at least six inches shorter for that comparison to hold. Second of all, they wanted her to pilot instead of their own teammate?
She understood where they were coming from: the only way for them to win two out of three duels was if Sienna won against Lightbreaker, and if either Ishaan or Marvin won against Centium Prime. Ninth Gen would beat whoever it faced.
"So what, I'm just gonna go up to Marvin and tell him I'm gonna pilot him?" Ella said.
"If you're willing," Sangeet said.
Marvin will think I'm jealous.
But she did want to help. She couldn't care less about who got what territory, but she didn't want Renee—and Ben, she supposed—to get sucked back into Centium. Who knew how much trauma they'd faced getting out.
How much of that is me being nice, and how much of it is my ego talking? Maybe this generosity was a trick, and at her core, she was as selfish as ever.
"I don't know if I can do it," Ella said.
"You got a better chance than Marvin," Ben said to her surprise. "I dunno who's the better pilot, but you've got more experience. More than Ishaan, too—he's never fought Centium Prime as far as I know. I'd pick you if I were a betting man."
"A betting man?" Ella said, laughing.
"I dunno," Ben muttered.
Ella couldn't help but feel a little gratified.
Ego, just feeding and feeding.
No, she snapped at herself. If everything else was fake, she at least owed Marvin for protecting her in the woods last week. Every time she revisited that memory, it got more surreal. She'd been ready for the pain, her adrenaline so high that she could barely think of the future. But the pain had never come.
If she could win this for Marvin and his teammates, then they might be closer to even.
-----
Ben wasn't surprised when Ella agreed, but he felt a weight lift off his shoulders. Unfortunately, he and Sangeet were not the most well-versed in mech-fighting, and their belief that Ella had a better chance might just be dumb hope. They'd consult Caroline, Renee, and Marvin after.
They waited in the shuttle for an hour or so, making sure no scavengers got close. Ben talked to Ella and Sangeet—it was mostly small talk, nothing particularly interesting. At the end of the hour, an itch began to grow in the back of his mind. Renee and Diana were both out there, maybe even in the same room if they were negotiating the matchups. Was Renee safe?
The itch grew until, after another hour, Ben asked Ella and Sangeet if they were okay with him leaving. Sangeet took this opportunity to announce that he would also leave to talk to his fellow scavengers.
"I'll try to keep them away from this area," he told Ella.
"Thanks," Ella said. "I'll hop into Immortal Ignition if stuff happens." They'd hauled a Bessmer chair into the shuttle so Ella could sync at a moment's notice.
And so Ben and Sangeet stepped off the shuttle, made sure the doors locked behind them, and made their way into the campsite.
"Why did you want Ella's help?" Ben asked the scavenger. He had only caught on after Sangeet's suggestion.
"I don't want Centium to win," Sangeet said. "They'll be worse than the Manhunters for Nagatown."
"They'll be harder to steal from," Ben remarked.
Sangeet laughed. "I'm not stealing from gangs anymore."
"Oh right, you're a university guy now," Ben said. "I bet the college kids flock to you." They took a left turn around a tall lamp post. "But that's it? No other reason you want us to win?"
"Well, there's also the kidnapping thing," Sangeet said with a sigh. "I'll never truly make up for that."
Ben had to admit it was a little satisfying to hear Sangeet apologize; sure, things had turned out alright, but those two days had been some of the most terrifying moments of his life.
"It's fine." He understood why Sangeet had run.
They stopped at the team tent first—the one with the big empty space and the holo-display table—and Ben peeked inside. Caroline, Ishaan, Sienna, and even Grayson Wright and Gianna Kang—Lightbreaker's pilot—were gathered around the table. Marvin was tucked away in a metal-bunker-turned-mech-storage, so that was fine. But what worried Ben was the lack of Diana and Renee.
Ben tapped his chin, thinking of where they could be. Since they were meeting in the Ishaan's team's tent, they'd probably be in the black section of the camp.
"I'll head inwards," Sangeet said, pointing to the Hopper casting its shadow over them. "Make sure they know not to steal Immortal Ignition."
"Alright, good luck," Ben said.
The two of them parted ways. Ben walked through the gravel paths, scouting the interior of each tent he passed through any crack he could find. He probably looked like a creep, but if the Hosaka agents patrolling the streets were judging him, he could not tell behind their cold iron masks. He found himself going uphill after a while, towards a low cliff. A lone boulder stood at the top, sunlight refracting off its jagged surface.
When he reached the edge of the cliff, he scanned the expanse of tents and bunkers and lamp posts around him. It wasn't a great view, but he thought he saw Sangeet speed-walking down a narrow street.
Okay, let's say our plan fails, or it's just terrible to begin with. We end up going with Marvin. Could Marvin beat Centium Prime? Statistically, no—Centium's mech was top fifty and Marvin was barely in the top three-hundred. But Marvin was a rookie and had not had the time to build his stats. Even so, Diana Kane's fighting prowess dwarfed Marvin's. Ben remembered the woman cutting through those two Manhunters like butter, then slitting Cam's throat shortly after. The image of that plasma blade and spray of blood was burned in his brain.
I can't go back, Ben thought. Ella not only could win, but she had to.
Just then, he heard a voice directly below him. He peeled his ears and recognized it to be Diana. There was no second voice, meaning the leader of Centium was either on call, or…
She's talking to Renee.
Ben hurried down the incline, circling around to the face of the cliff. How can you like that monster, Renee? But at the same time, a wave of shame washed over him. He'd never told her that Diana killed Cam. He'd never really asked if she wanted to leave Centium. He'd simply done it to keep both of them alive, to keep Renee's innocence, and maybe her happiness was a necessary sacrifice.
As he passed the street that gave a clear view of the cliff's underside, he stopped, turned, and noted the singular woman engulfed in its shadow. Diana leaned against a boulder, her human hand pressed against her earpiece. She was talking softly, but there was no familiarity, no friendliness in her expression. She was just giving orders.
So where is Renee?
-----
Before Renee had met Diana, the older girl had been like a deity. The untouchable sister of one of the most powerful men in the megacity, poised to take his mantle. Renee daydreamed about her sometimes, but never expected to actually meet her.
Then came the Rain Festival. Every year, the weather-controllers of Megacity 14 summoned a storm for the masses—it was the only time they got to see rain. The festival was held in Sector 58's farmlands, where hundreds of stands and carnival games had been set up along the river. Drones carrying bright lanterns circled the air, illuminating the water droplets as they materialized out of thin air and fell to earth.
Renee had been there with Ben and Cam. It felt strange, not carrying out any job from Centium. She felt restless, and the rain was getting annoying. It would blur her tablet, making it difficult to type, and if she tried to speak, she had to raise her voice to an uncomfortable degree. Cam, Ben, and the other festival-goers held their hands out and let the water wash over them, while Renee just wanted it to end.
When Ben and Cam stopped to play a ring-tossing game, Renee drifted away to find an awning to hide under. However, a particular game caught her eye: a hexagonal tower, at least three stories tall, each side having identical ledges and poles for climbing. Six players competed at a time to see who could get to the top first. An inflatable mattress surrounded the tower to break peoples' falls.
Renee smiled and entered the line for the game. She was agile and soft on her feet from all those thefts Centium asked her to do—she figured she had a good chance of winning. Three minutes later, she was in front of the wall, shaking herself loose and getting ready to climb.
She started slow at first. The wet handholds were hard to get used to, but soon she found a rhythm. She slowly overtook the first competitor, then the second, then the third. One person fell. Then another. Renee imagined herself like the wind, hitting this tower and having nowhere to go but up.
Soon, she had passed the three remaining players. As she neared the top, she paused briefly to look down at her progress. Heights had never scared her. Seeing all those small figures gathered below and those lagging players reaching for her, she only felt a sense of accomplishment.
Then a glint of metal caught her eye. It belonged to the arm of a young woman. She was climbing the wall on Renee's left, only a few feet from her, wearing a black rain jacket with the hood up, concealing her face.
I know someone with a metal arm, Renee thought curiously.
The woman must have sensed Renee staring at her, because she looked up and her hood fell backwards. Renee and Diana Kane locked eyes, and Renee was so startled that her foot slipped and she went into freefall. She hit the inflatable mattress, but at an angle where she slipped again and bounced into the hard stone ground.
Every bone in her body shuddered, but Renee might have been better off dead. She'd imagined her first meeting with Diana to go many ways, but not even her worst intrusive thoughts had conjured up this scenario.
A pair of white sneakers landed on the pavement and jogged towards Renee. Then, Diana's sideways face came into view.
"Are you okay?" she asked, voice quiet and strangely compassionate.
Renee nodded and tried to get up.
"Here," Diana said, squatting down and putting Renee's arm around her shoulder. Renee hoped the rain would hide her furious blush. "I'm gonna have a word with whoever organized this thing."
A pair of medics quickly arrived and brought Renee into an ambulance that unfolded to become a makeshift infirmary. None of her bones were broken, but her elbows and legs were scratched quite badly and her head might have been bleeding.
Diana called Ben and Cam upon Renee's request, and then they waited. Renee was convinced she was hallucinating at first, sure that Diana had walked away and she was seeing a mirage sitting beside her.
But then they started talking. Renee had to use her voice box, but it was a necessary sacrifice. Diana asked how she'd slipped, and Renee told her the truth—she was in Centium, too, and had gotten startled after recognizing the heir to its throne. Diana admitted to being impressed; she had never seen anyone so nimble.
"How come you're here?" Renee asked. "Don't you have…" She paused as Diana's eyes bore into hers, and then, to her horror, her mind went blank.
"Bodyguards?" Diana guessed.
Renee blinked and nodded.
"I wanted to get away for a bit," Diana said. She gestured to nothing in particular. "It's nice to be free of it all sometimes."
Renee widened her eyes. She's already opening up to me!
They talked some more about where they were from and the happenings in Nagatown. Nothing special, but Renee made sure to hang on to every word. Then Ben and Cam arrived, and Diana took her leave.
That should have been it. A one-time encounter, nothing more. But a week later, Renee found herself inviting Diana to her apartment. She gave two reasons: first, Centium did routine checks on its proxy-members; and second, she wanted to offer her skills for any stealth jobs. She'd been hoping to move on from pickpocketing for a while now.
It was pure coincidence that Ben and Cam were out for the few hours Diana was at the apartment. Not only was their talk productive, but it seemed, for reasons Renee couldn't comprehend, that Diana actually liked spending time with her. Later, she would explain that she had no one close to her age in Centium's inner circle.
From that point on, they became something like friends. Of course, Renee couldn't stop her heart from fluttering every time they were in proximity of each other, but she didn't dare overreach. Even when Diana let her lean on her shoulder or returned a playful nudge, Renee told herself it was a progression of friendship and nothing else.
Now here they were, sitting in the shade, catching up like two years hadn't just passed. Renee had never tried so hard in her life to act nonchalant.
"You haven't texted in a while," Diana said. "Is everything alright?"
Yes, I've just been busy with mech stuff lately, Renee wrote on her tablet. That was a lie. She'd stopped texting because she had thought maybe she was ready to move on from a stupid childhood crush.
Renee kept writing: Have you been okay?
"No," Diana admitted. "I've been stressed."
Renee gestured to the camp around them—was she stressed because of this three-round duel?—and Diana shook her head.
"There's some things going on with Hosaka," Diana said. "My people are saying my brother was murdered. I don't doubt it, but we don't even have a suspect and they're already demanding revenge." She turned her prosthetic hand over in her lap.
I'm sorry about your brother regardless, Renee wrote. She'd never met Darren Kane, but Diana always spoke highly of him. One month ago, the man had died in a shuttle accident, forcing his sister to take his place.
"Thanks," Diana said. "Three-round duel-wise, though… No offense, but I feel pretty good about this."
That was fair. How could anyone not think they'd win when they had Lightbreaker and Ninth Gen?
But Renee knew what that meant for Ishaan, and especially for Ben.
Renee wrote, Do you really need the land in Nagatown?
"It used to belong to us," Diana said. "And you and Ben, your debt will be cleared."
Diana still thought it was hopeless, that the threat of death would bring them back. But now, with Marvin, they had a real chance of making all that money in Mecha Realm.
Why can't you cancel the debt? Renee asked.
"A lot more people have a say in that," Diana said with a sigh. "I've already tried delaying it for you."
Renee widened her eyes. Half of her wanted to ask if Diana had asked the same for Ben. Half of her was scared to hear that she had not. And the tiniest part of her hoped Diana had only asked it for her.
"They shut it down, obviously," Diana said. Her eyes flicked upwards to meet Renee's. "Why don't you come back? Ben wanted out, but you never said anything."
Renee hesitated. She hadn't come back because she stood by Ben. She hadn't come back because she'd gotten caught up in Caroline's mech-fighting dream.
Or maybe she hadn't gone back because Ben said so.
"Would you like to come back?" Diana asked.
Renee's breath hitched. Yes, of course she did. No, Centium was too dangerous.
It didn't really matter—Centium was all but guaranteed to win the three-round duel. That left a sour taste in Renee's mouth, despite how enticing it was to be around Diana again.
"Or," Diana continued, grinning, "maybe you've lost it. You're scared of me finding out."
Renee laughed. She wasn't sure what to call it, her talent of sneaking around places, but she certainly had not regressed.
Is that a challenge? Renee asked with a tilt of her head.
A spark seemed to ignite in Diana's eyes. "Maybe."
Renee leaned forward. Go ahead.
"See that bunker? That's our mech storage," Diana said. Renee was aware—Ishaan's team had a similar one. The opposing team was not allowed to see the other's mechs until the duel.
"You'd have better odds if you knew our new designs," Diana said. "You need a handicap, anyways."
Renee's pulse quickened. Diana wanted her to infiltrate their mech storage and get intel for Ishaan. Was this a test, or was Diana genuinely giving them a chance to win? Did it matter?
Renee held her palms out—Why are you doing this?
"Makes things interesting," Diana said. "I don't want this to be a cakewalk."
It was just like her to sabotage herself for the challenge. Renee wrote, That's funny, because if I get caught, you'll win by default.
Diana grinned. "But you won't get caught."