Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(3)
Truth was, a part of her even enjoyed it.
Still, despite her bravado, Cricket’s warning buzzed in her head as she took the Goliath’s measure. It was easily the biggest bot she’d rocked with, tipping the scales at eighty tons. She chewed her lip, trying to shush her butterflies. Her optical implant whirred as she scowled. The artificial skin at her temple was the only part of her that wasn’t slick with sweat.
If I didn’t need this fight purse so bad …
“Now, for the uninitiated,” crowed the EmCee, “Dome bouts are true simple. The convicted logika fights until it’s OOC—that’s ‘out of commission,’ for the newmeat among us. If the first batter gets OOC’ed instead, another batter steps up to the floor. You beautiful peeps have sixty seconds until betting closes. We remind you, tonight’s execution is sponsored by the stylish crews at BioMaas Incorporated and the visionaries at Daedalus Technologies.” The EmCee pointed to her two-tone optical implants with a flirtatious smile. “Building tomorrow, today.”
Logos danced on the monitors above the EmCee’s head. Eve watched the big bot on her screens, calculating her best opening move against it. The tinny voice in her ear spoke again—a girl’s tones, crackling with feedback.
“I got a bookie here running four-to-one odds against you, Riotgrrl.”
Eve tapped her mic. “Four to one? Fizzy as hell. Hook us up, Lemon.”
“How much you wanna drop out them too-tight pockets, sugar-pants?”
“Five hundred.”
“Are you smoked? That’s our whole bank. If you lose—”
“I’ve won eight straight, Lemon. Not about to start losing now. And we need this scratch. Unless you got a better way to conjure Grandpa’s meds?”
“I got a way, true cert.”
“A way that doesn’t involve me getting up close and sticky with some middle-aged wageslave?”
“… Yeah, then I got nuthin’.”
“Make the bet. Five hundred.”
“Zzzzzz,” came the reply. “You the boss.”
“And remember to get a receipt, yeah?”
“Hey, that happened one time… .”
“Thirty seconds, your bets!” cried the EmCee.
Eve turned to her readouts, spoke into her headset. “Cricket, you reading me?”
“Well, not reading you, no,” came the crackling reply. “I can hear you, though, if that’s what you mean.”
“Oh, hilarity. Grandpa been adjusting your humor software again?”
“I’m a work in progress.”
“I’ll tell him to keep working.” She squinted at the Goliath looming on her monitors. “I’m gonna fight southpaw and go for the optics, feel that?”
“Right in my shiny metal man parts.”
“You got no man parts, Crick.”
“I am as my maker intended.” A metallic sigh. “He’s such a bastard… .”
Lemon’s voice crackled in Eve’s ear. “Okay, we good to go. Can you see my fine caboose? I’m over by the Neo-Meat? stand.”
Eve scanned the crowd. Scavvers and locals, mostly, letting off steam after a hard week’s grind. She saw a Brotherhood posse, six of them in those oldskool red cassocks, preaching loud over the Dome’s noise about genetic purity and the evils of cybernetics. Their scarlet banner was daubed with a big black X—the kind of X they nailed people to when the Law wasn’t looking.
Down by the arena’s edge, Eve glimpsed a tiny girl in an ancient, oversized leather jacket. A jagged bob of cherry-red hair. A spattering of freckles. Goggles on her brow and a choker around her throat. A small hand in a fingerless glove waved at her through the WarDome bars.
“I got you,” Eve replied.
The inimitable Miss Lemon Fresh jumped on the spot, threw up the horns.
“’Kay, bet is onnnnnnn, my bestest,” she reported. “Five hundo at four to one. Let’s hope you didn’t leave your mojo in your other pants.”
“You got the receipt?”
“That happened one time, Evie… .”
Eve turned her attention back to her opponent, fingers flitting over the enviro controls inside her gloves. She’d heard a rumor that the Domefighter rigs in the big mainland arenas were all virtual, but here in Dregs, WarDome bouts were strictly oldskool: recycled, repackaged, repurposed. Just like everything else on the island. A confirmation message flickered on Eve’s display, signaling environmental control had been transferred to her console. She tilted the deck beneath the Goliath a fraction, just to test.
The big bot stumbled as the panels beneath its feet shifted. Eve wondered what was going on inside its computerized brain. Whether it knew it was going to die tonight. Whether it would have cared if it wasn’t programmed to.
The crowd bellowed as the floor moved, the interlocking steel plates that made up the WarDome floor rippling as Eve’s fingers flexed. The EmCee had retired to the observation booth above the killing floor, her voice still ringing over the PA.
“As you can see, environmental controls have been passed to the first batter. Under standard WarDome rules, she’ll have five wrecking balls to throw, plus surface modulation. For the newmeat out there, this means … Aww, hells, ask your daddy what it means when I send him home in the morning. Ten seconds to full hostile!”