After disconnecting from the Bessmer chair, Ella went upstairs and found Renee sitting on the sofa, a hunched silhouette against the bright glass wall. Ella shuffled forwards and saw that the girl was frantically texting on her tablet. Talking to Caroline, no doubt.
Ella gingerly sat down on the sofa across from Renee. I took things too far. I was exhausted and not thinking straight. Had her drill been a little higher, she would have killed Marvin.
She had felt no gratification in the minutes after winning, sitting there in her chair, listening to the sounds of the workshop. She had no regrets about ending the fight so quickly—the melt-drills were designed as a one-shot kill, and Marvin had asked for it—but why had she proceeded to slice him to bits? That was an old version of her coming through, a stressed, angry version waiting for her moment to prove herself.
I don't have anything more to prove. Fourth place in Mecha Realm at nineteen years old. I'm already greater than he'll ever be.
Renee finished texting and looked up. Ella sat up straighter.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I got carried away."
"It's alright," Renee said. Her voice box dulled the words, so Ella couldn't discern how she actually felt. "It's primarily my fault. I encouraged the duel."
"Oh come on," Ella said, rolling her eyes. "Primarily?"
Renee sighed. "I respect that you take honesty as a double-edged sword."
She talks kinda weird, Ella noticed.
"We'll have your mech repaired in a few days," Ella said. "I don't know if you want to have a say in it…"
"I can oversee the repair," Renee said. "Caroline would like to as well."
Ella nodded. She felt bad wasting their time for something she had done, but better that than a flawed recovery.
The two of them looked awkwardly to the side. Despite her grudges against Marvin Yao, Ella had not wanted to start off like this with Renee. The girl was too wholesome for all the mech-fighting drama.
At least one weight had been lifted off Ella's shoulders: Sabersong was not a threat to her chances in Mecha Realm. Marvin knew it, too, and there was no point in continuing a rivalry.
"We haven't talked much about the murder since we got here," Renee said. "Luyan said we should search the university. Do you have any suspects in mind?"
Ella shifted hesitantly on the sofa. "Aria, our programmer. I think she wants me dead."
Renee tilted her head. "How does that have to do with Marvin?"
"She might've wanted to use his consciousness implant for some new code. I don't know. But she's been getting distant from me and Luyan. She never comes here anymore. After all my duels, she leaves early and takes off on her shuttle to who knows where. I tracked her once—she was going in the direction of my college."
Renee squinted at her. "What's her motive?"
"She might think I'm not good enough. She's been making deals with some other pilot and wants me gone."
Renee widened her eyes. "That's horrible!" Then she scratched her head. "If it's true. I think we need more evidence, and we need to find a better reason for why she wanted to kill Marvin. Did you tell her that Marvin was killed?"
"I only told Luyan," Ella replied. She'd debated that choice, as it would exponentially raise the risk of being found out by Hosaka, but she trusted Luyan more than her own parents to keep a secret.
Renee nodded and said, "Caroline and I made a ping-ping tracker last week that we can plant on Aria's shuttle. Then we can follow it—"
"A what tracker?"
"Ping-ping," Renee said. "We made up the word. It's like sonar—you have these two things that send signals to each other, but it only works in a certain radius."
"That seems risky," Ella remarked.
"It's much easier than phones and NIDs. It's essentially a piece of tape with a chip inside, and it gets by most scanners. We were originally going to use it to keep tabs on each other, but we realized there are apps for that."
"Uh huh," Ella said. "And then we just follow Aria to Hoxing?"
"We follow her there or wherever she lands at least three times," Renee said. "We need to confirm that this is a pattern. Then we go to said location to investigate."
Ella nodded slowly. "Are you a pro stalker or something?"
"I picked up the three times thing from Caroline." Renee glanced left and right, leaned forwards, and laid her palms out. "But also, I… I was a thief for Centium. When they found out I was good at my job, they had me plant bugs on rival gang members."
Ella widened her eyes. Never in a million years could she have imagined this kid working for the most powerful gang in the megacity. "You're out now, right?"
Renee nodded solemnly.
"Are you in debt or anything? Don't they have some shitty debt policy?"
Renee shrunk into the sofa, so Ella took it as a yes. She considered offering to help with the money, but she had no idea how much it would be, and asking felt wrong.
"We'll be fine," Renee said.
The offer to help was on the tip of Ella's tongue, but she barely knew Renee. She didn't want to get wrapped up in gang business, especially Centium's.
"Just stay safe," was all she ended up saying.
-----
Marvin replayed that moment in his head over and over, thinking about what he could've done differently. He replayed it as he got attached to his cyborg body, as Luyan came back and frantically checked him for injuries to his Core, as the four of them gathered around a spotless gold and glass table to eat dinner. After watching Luyan, Renee, and Ella munch their food for twenty minutes, Marvin finally came to the conclusion that there was nothing he could have done. Immortal Ignition was unstoppable, and how any mech could handle that melt-tech was beyond him.
The worst part was, he couldn't even put the blame on Ella. He had asked for the melt-drills out of hubris, and he had faced the consequences.
After dinner, Marvin and Renee sequestered themselves in Renee's room to discuss the repairing of Sabersong. They agreed that they could take advantage of this workshop and add a few improvements. Plasma blades would be a start, along with smoother joints. Another microchip would go a long way, too.
Marvin sat at Renee's desk, talking out loud, while Renee paced back and forth, texting. Even though Marvin did not know her as well as Caroline and Ben, there was something very comforting about this conversational setup. Renee's pauses between messages took the pressure off of him to think of what to say.
They talked about Aria, too. Marvin wasn't sure why Immortal Ignition's programmer would have gone after a rookie like him, but two pilot-killings four months apart was definitely suspicious. The tracking idea was a necessary start.
Afterwards, Luyan took Marvin down to the workshop to do another round of scans. Marvin sat upright this time on a chair in the turquoise room, still surrounded by monitors and giant glow sticks. Luyan asked him how he felt and apologized on Ella's behalf, then left to tinker with Sabersong's parts.
More time alone. Marvin wondered if he should get smart-eye augmentations so he could text in his head. He could converse with Renee easier and check up on Ben and Caroline.
I still have my uncle's NID. He'd never thought to reach out, and he wasn't stupid enough to do it now, but man would it be nice to get an update from Lindon Yao. Just a sign that Saberstar's founder and engineer was still alive.
Marvin felt a coldness creep up on him. Even though Luyan was two sections away, it was farther than Marvin had ever been from his uncle in their old workshop. That workshop had been cramped and messy, with the smell of gasoline heavy in the air. Marvin would have given anything to smell something again.
Footsteps sounded on his left. He turned his head and witnessed a familiar scene: Ella walking towards him. She didn't make a joke this time.
Come to apologize at last? Not like she needed to. Marvin should have known what he was signing up for.
"You okay?" Ella asked.
Marvin nodded.
"We can both agree it's settled, yeah?" Ella said. "You can't beat me in a fair fight. Mech fight, I mean. There's no point dragging this out."
Easy for you to say, Marvin thought bitterly. An apology would have been a godsend compared to this. It was honestly impressive how every word out of Ella's mouth managed to infuriate him.
"You started it," Marvin said.
"Sure, maybe." Ella crossed her arms. "Are you mad at me?"
Marvin narrowed his eyes. What do you think? You almost killed me!
"I mean, do you feel the emotion of anger? Do you process it in your implant?" Ella continued. "You seemed way too chill at dinner."
"You think I'm less than human?" Marvin asked.
Ella's mouth fell open. "I don't mean it like that." She was genuine.
"Yes, I feel anger."
"I know you're more human than robot, Marvin," Ella said. "I was just wondering if some things didn't… translate over completely."
A bit of Marvin's annoyance dissipated. It wasn't like she was wrong—he no longer had three of his five senses, and his thought process had gotten less heat-of-the-moment and more logic based.
Which didn't help at all in the duel.
"Do you wanna spar?" Ella asked.
Marvin's cameras refocused on her face in surprise. This was that same joke she'd made at the farm, wasn't it?
But Ella continued, "You'll obviously never beat me with a mech, so this is the only way we can have a fair fight."
"I'm made of metal," Marvin pointed out, waving his arm.
"But that's still a bot body," Ella said. "You're clumsier but stronger, and I'm weaker but more nimble. Evens out."
Does it work like that? Marvin wondered.
"I don't wanna fight," he said.
"So you accept I'm better than you?"
If you believed that, you wouldn't have asked for a duel. You are the most insecure person I've ever met. You constantly drag people down because you don't feel happy unless you're above them. I'm not going to fight you, Ella, because you don't deserve it.
But Marvin didn't say any of that. Maybe he didn't want to. Maybe what he actually wanted was a rematch.
"Fine, let's do it," Marvin said.
Ella grinned and walked away.
After Marvin's scans were finished, he followed Ella upstairs and outside to the "balcony", which was literally a minigolf course. The fake grass rose and fell in tiny hills, and little sticks of light protruded here and there. Marvin couldn't fathom the wealth you had to have to install one of these. He doubted it was used more than twice per year.
The city below them glowed its array of colors, tinting the sea of nanoparticles that made up the night sky. There were fewer skyscrapers in this Sector and the shuttles flew lower to the ground, so it felt like they were on a platform drifting through space. Far in the distance, giant holo-banners shot up into the sky, displaying Sector numbers, temperature readings, and top ranked mechs in the area.
"Why here?" Marvin had asked, and Ella had explained that the ground out here was softer in case she were to take a fall.
"If you land two hits, I'll forfeit," Ella said as they stood in the grassy plain. She was wearing a helmet, boxing gloves, and a shock-absorbing exoskeleton.
"How do you win?" Marvin asked.
"If I knock you down," Ella said.
"Alright." Marvin raised his fists. A new kind of adrenaline raced through his circuits; he rarely dueled outside the mech. Two hits sounded like a joke, but he needed to take Ella seriously. He was sure he was still the better fighter; he just needed to find an edge.
"Ready?" Ella asked.
Marvin nodded, and their second battle commenced. Ella didn't do anything fancy this time. She stayed low to the ground, shuffling her feet asynchronously. Marvin defended, reading his opponents moves and finding different tells. He couldn't beat her on reaction time; he needed something he could predict and punish.
Ella would surely try to trip him, as she couldn't bring him down with brute force. Thus, Marvin kept his feet grounded, sliding rather than taking steps. He dug up more dirt than he needed to, but Ella didn't seem to mind.
He got the first hit a minute in. Ella delivered a punch to the back of his knee, nearly crippling him, but he steeled his joints and swung to his left blindspot where Ella was emerging. She let out an "oof" and tumbled in the grass, her exoskeleton glowing orange as it absorbed the impact.
One more, Marvin thought. Regardless of the outcome, at least it looked like this would end quickly.
They went at each other again, Marvin, a pillar planted on the rolling hills and Ella, a shadow flitting around him. She was hard to catch, but Marvin made sure he didn't buckle either. It was a question of if Marvin would break concentration first or if Ella would get tired.
In the end, it was neither.
Ella closed the distance with two steps and Marvin angled to his right, preparing to catch her as she weaved sideways. However, to his surprise, she sprung up right in front of him and delivered an uppercut to his jaw.
Fine. Nothing he couldn't handle. He just took a step back and steadied himself. But in doing so, he rolled his other foot off the heel, exposing its front to the air. Ella jammed her own shoe in that space, tipping him further, and punched him in the chest.
And then he was falling. His mind didn't register that he was going to lose; it just shouted that he needed to do something. He instinctively grabbed Ella's wrist and pulled her down with him. In a millisecond, he brought his other arm up and tapped Ella in the ribs.
The two of them hit the grass with a muted thud. For a moment, all Marvin saw was the color-soaked night sky and wisps of red hair. Then Ella's face covered the canvas.
He couldn't help it. He started laughing.
"The hell is so funny?" Ella asked.
Marvin looked at her with the widest grin she would never see. "I hit you before we went down."
"No you didn't!" Ella recoiled in disgust. "I didn't feel anything!"
"I wasn't going to break your ribs."
"That's an awfully convenient amount of self control you have."
"I can't act this well," Marvin said.
Ella glared at him. "You can't grab someone anyways."
"Says who?"
"That's just how it is!" Ella suddenly stood up and glanced around, nervous almost. "Let's just call it a tie, okay?"
And she was gone.
Marvin got up and turned to follow her inside, when something made him pause.
Was she sitting on me that whole time?
He cringed and banished the image from his mind. She was just next to you, you idiot.