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Seven
Night came quickly to Perdition. Seconds after the planet’s host star disappeared over the horizon, gigantic LED lights switched on. They were mounted to discontinued freighters, ruined scows, and crashed ore haulers by magnetic clamps, and flooded the arena with a cold, white light in stark contrast to Perdition’s usual hellish red glow.
Thunderous music issued from somewhere, the cacaphonous tumult so loud it threatened to shake the stacked ships loose to topple over and crush everyone in the arena.
Razor banged his head in time to the beat. Socket smiled, her metallic teeth glinting in the cold light shining down on them from above.
Spots blazed to life near the fighters entrance and then swiveled to illuminate it. Beetle-browed guards in matte black riot polymer slapped truncheons in their palms, daring any spectators to try and get too close to the action.
A small metallic, red disk-shaped object flew out of the distant sky to hover over the battlefield. Hologram emitters underneath flickered to life, and a thirty foot-tall hologram coalesced in the center of the arena.
Everyone gasped. Even Alice was taken aback. It was her. Her real name was Octavia Pi, but everyone in the Multiplicity knew her as the Red Queen.
She floated before them, a titanic, crimson ghost, swathed in a glowing red gown. The enormous skirts were diaphanous, the bodice covered in rubies. From her blood-colored lips to her fiery hair, she was the epitome of her name. Only her eyes broke from the theme; they were an icy blue. Alice had never seen the Red Queen before—and truth be told, she wasn’t seeing her now—but there was something familiar about her.
Socket leaned in close to Alice. “You could be sisters,” she said.
Alice stared back at her, unsure of what to say. They did look similar she reasoned. But not enough to be sisters.
“Hello citizens of the planet Perdition,” the Red Queen said in a booming voice. Her holo-projecting drone had somehow commandeered the arena’s sound system, and the Red Queen’s musical voice now boomed from the junked spaceship walls.
“I am pleased to inform you that your system has won the planet lottery this solar cycle. You will be getting your own Looking Glass portal. My people will be in touch with your people regarding the details. Toodles.”
She raised her hand and blew everyone in the arena a kiss before vanishing, her red drone zipping away from the site and moving on to another enclave a few miles away to begin the messaging process anew.
The assembled throng cheered even more than they were already.
“That’s great news,” said Razor. “Really gonna improve trade in this sector.”
“We need to tell Callisto,” said Plex.
Socket laughed. “You really don’t think he heard it? Shut up and enjoy the fights.”
The main event was anticlimactic after the Red Queen’s grand news, but everyone settled in for the coming battle. Alice was still thinking about the Red Queen and her Looking Glass. No one knew who the Red Queen was, beyond her name and chosen title, or how the Looking Glasses came to be. But she was the only one who had the technology, and that made her a major player all over the Multiplicity. Since she alone held the key to instantaneous travel across millions of light years of space, she could do whatever she wanted. No one knew how the Looking Glass technology worked, and the Red Queen wasn’t telling. Planets with a Looking Glass became instant tourist destinations and important centers of trade, but that meant the Red Queen ruled them with an iron fist. She had been called wunderkind, entrepreneur, opportunist and zealot, often in the same breath. Alice had never heard anyone speak entirely kind of her. She often wondered if the Red Queen was real at all, even now. Perhaps she was just a computer generated hoax, or an artificial intelligence masquerading as a human being.
They brought out the mechs first, two big, lumbering twenty foot-tall behemoths that had both seen better days. They lumbered through the fighters gate, their pilots obscured by scratched, spun diamond cockpits. The two metal monsters walked into the center of the arena and started circling each other, the whine of shot servos audible even over the roar of the gathered crowd. Vendors moved through the throng selling what looked like honeyed insects on sticks, sour-smelling alcoholic beverages and other substances that were illegal all over the Multiplicity.
Alice stood huddled between the Reavers, watching the match with great interest, the Red Queen’s announcement all but forgotten. She didn’t know where the Jabberwock was being housed, and it was possible it wouldn’t even fight tonight, though doubtful. The caterpillar would want to recoup his investment as soon as possible.
The mechs slammed into each other, sending pieces of themselves flying. Alice watched as a half ring of metal impaled itself in the barricade directly in front of her. Plex barked phlegmylaughter. He had bought a libation from a vendor and drunkenly sloshed some of it on himself as he laughed.
One of the mechs had pile drivers for fists, and it pumped them back and forth against its opponent’s cockpit, which cracked and shattered under the assault. The crippled mech’s bald, haggard-looking pilot spat blood at his opponent and fired a rocket-propelled fist into his assailant, sending the mech flying backward and landing on its back. The rocket fist was still attached to its mech by a monofilament cable which its pilot quickly used to reel it in before marching toward the downed mech triumphantly.
“They’re going to kill each other,” Alice said.
The Reavers laughed. “That’s the idea, dearie,” said Razor, howling for blood.
Alice smelled blood and leaking hydraulic fluid. The mingling odors made her queasy. Where the hell is Dodgson?
She checked her wrist display. A blue holographic screen projected above it, giving her the local time.
“Got somewhere you need to be?” asked Socket.
Alice turned off the display and continued watching the battle. The helpless mech flailed around on its back like an overturned insect while the other one stomped up and down on its legs, rending titanium plate and rupturing key components necessary to its continued operation. The makeshift stadium went nuts, some cheering, others booing based on whom they had placed their bets.
For its final move, the mech bent and lifted the mech over its head, one of its legs shorting out as it did so. It teetered, dropping the downed mech instead of slamming it into the ground like he had apparently intended. But the result was the same. The match was over. Medics ran out onto the field dragging a mag-lev stretcher and pulled the pilot from his berth while the winner climbed down from his now motionless machine. A big makeshift crane mechanism on a mag-lev platform came out to retrieve the ruined mechs, grabbing them with magnetic clamps and dragging them unceremoniously from the field.
“How’d you like that, girlie?” said Razor, elbowing Alice in the ribs.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Socket. “Big Red’s next.”
“Big Red never loses,” said Plex, slurring his words. “I got three hundred on Big Red. Go Big Red!” He raised his paper cup in a toast and downed the rest of it, coughing and sputtering.
Big Red was indeed next. A mech twice the size of the previous combatants lumbered into the arena, looking as pristine as the day it walked off the assembly line.
“That’s an Ares Titan,” said Alice.
“You know your hardware, girlie,” said Socket. “I’m impressed.”
Alice stared at the giant mech. She had spent two days a week for a standard month learning how to disable one with her bare hands while it did its level best to kill her. That one was controlled by Wonderland’s demented AI. This particular model had a human pilot obscured behind smoked spun diamond.
“Come on, Big Red,” slurred Plex. “Make me some money!”
“And now,” said the disembodied voice of an announcer through the speakers. “Big Red’s opponent. Straight from the wilds of Crispin’s Menagerie. The one. The only. The infamous. Jabberwock!”
The creature lumbered into view, goaded along by armored attendants carrying long electric prods. It blinked in the harsh light and roared mournfully at the crowd. Alice once again felt sorry for it.
It had a dull metal band around its neck, apparently some remote restraint. It pawed at it before eying the red mech standing opposite it near the center of the field. It roared at Big Red, showing a mouthful of razor sharp needle teeth before bounding toward it. Big Red took a defensive stance, moving its legs farther apart so it could take the coming impact.
Just before the Jabberwock reach it, however, it flickered and vanished from view to the awe of the crowd.
Big Red swung around, titanium fists raised. Only the beast’s restraint collar remained visible, but Big Red’s pilot didn’t notice until it was too late. The red titan was knocked off its feet, its right arm crumpled from being chewed on by invisible teeth. The Jabberwock made itself visible again and backed away, licking its chops with a black forked tongue. It had never bit into anything that wasn’t flesh and blood before, and didn’t know what to make of the big mech.
Jump jets in the mech’s back fired, shooting it to a standing position once more. It rushed the beast, punching it hard across the jaw. The Jabberwock staggered sideways, shaking its head, dazed. It’s useless wings fluttered as it pounced once more, enveloping the top half of Big Red in its jaws. The mech pounded it with its metal fists, but this only angered the Jabberwock, and it ran forward, carrying its metallic morsel with it. Big Red struggled to maintain its footing on the charred red earth. It countered its backward momentum with a puff of its jump jets, sending the Jabberwock scrambling as it was forced backwards.
Alice leaned against the barricade, chewing her bottom lip.
“Come on,” she said, her voice barely a whisper above the din of the cheering crowd. “You can do it.”
Her implant chimed.
“I’m here,” said the ship, Dodgson’s voice ringing loudly inside her skull. “But you will have to come to me. I have your location, and I’ve sent my coordinates to your armor.”
Alice glanced down at her left wrist, where a blue dot was flashing.
“Please hurry. There are some shady characters about, and I fear they might try to steal me once they discover I am unmanned. Forgive me. Un-womaned.”
Alice reached for her comm, but a hand wrapped tightly around her wrist with strength like a vise. “Who are you talking to?”
Socket glared at her.
Alice stepped on her foot, causing her to release her grip.
“What is it?” asked Razor. “This was just getting good!”
“She’s talking to someone.”
Razor reached for one of his many knives. “That’s it, girlie. Shoulda tossed you from the airlock when we had the chance.”
What happened next took place in mere seconds. Alice swung around behind Razor, kicking him in the back of his right knee. As he went down she kicked him in the back of the head, sending him face first into the barricade. Blood spurted from his nose as he toppled to the red dirt unconscious.
Next Alice spun on Plex, taking the drunken Reaver down with a roundhouse kick. He bounced off the barricade and lay still.
Socket had her pulser out by this time, but Alice was ready, her vorpal sword in hand and extended. She sliced cleanly through the weapon’s business end before giving Socket a high kick to the chin. She didn’t stick around to watch her fall, instead leaping up and over the barricade, Perdition’s lighter gravity assisting her in reaching almost to the center of the arena. Big Red and the Jabberwock still fought, oblivious to what was going on in the stands.
The lights picked out Alice easily as she ran along the perimeter of the battlefield, vorpal blade in hand. The crowd pointed at her and yelled, wondering what she was doing there. Alice knew they expected the worst, that she was somehow trying to even the odds between Big Red and the Jabberwock. A few arena enforcers ran out to meet her brandishing stun wands, but Alice changed course, circling around the combatants. She retracted and stowed her sword.
The Jabberwock caught sight of Alice as she moved into its field of view. It looked up from where it had been gnawing on Big Red’s titanium-reinforced carapace and bellowed at her, its tongue tasting the air, and went back to ravaging Big Red.
“Good luck, big fella,” Alice murmured as she ran past. “I’ll be back for you. Somehow.”
Alice sliced through a stun wand that got too close, punching its owner in the face and sending him sprawling before leaping over the barrier at the opposite end of the fighting arena and bounding up the wall of scrap metal and junked space ships. The spectators seated there got out of her way as they watched her ascend the pile of refuse and disappear over the side.
Her armor, as well as Perdition’s lesser gravity protected her from the thirty foot drop. She rolled with the impact, retracted her vorpal blade and kept running.
She heard the whir of surveillance drones overhead, and angry shouts coming from behind. She ducked down a side street lined with plastic habitat modules. Insects danced in the LEDs arrayed at intervals. She needed off this rock.
“Dodgson.”
“Alice? Where are you? I am detected a large amount of human activity near your location. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Alice said. “Consider that my signal.”
“I can’t get to you,” said Dodgson. “For a planet ran by scofflaws they have some draconian air traffic regulations.”
“No worries,” said Alice. “I’ll come to you.”
“Not by going that way,” said Dodgson.”
Damn. Alice looked around. She had become lost in the maze of nearly identical hab modules.
“Take your next right,” said the ship.
Alice did as instructed, entering a narrow, shadow-filled passage between rows of junked land vehicles. Somewhere a dog barked at her as she passed.
“Now turn left.”
Alice moved through the maze, trusting Dodgson’s tracking algorithms to steer her in the right direction.
“Left. Right.”
Alice moved as instructed, the sounds of booted feet chasing her growing faint in the distance.
“Take your next right, then come straight on to the spaceport,” said Dodgson. “I will help you avoid port authority personnel as best as I can.”
Alice couldn’t stop thinking about the Jabberwock. Did he survive against Big Red? Would he survive his next fight? How would he be treated between battles? She had vowed to free him and bring him home, and she had failed once again.
As the path branched to the right, Alice followed the path directly into a pile of junk.
“There’s no road here,” Alice said.
“I can’t help that,” said the ship. “That’s the closest path between you and the spaceport.”
“Fine.”
She ducked behind a piece of scrap as a drone whirred overhead. When it was gone she emerged from her hiding place and hopped up onto the junk pile, testing its stability. As she lept onto a hunk of old deck plating, it opened beneath her, causing her to fall into a circular opening. Alice slid down a narrow pipe into darkness.
