Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
The voice coming through Lila's external speakers wasn't possible.
I knew that voice. Remy Kaska. Dead two years, neural burnout in a qualifying round I'd watched from the stands because I was too wrecked to coach that day. They'd pulled him out seizing, foam at his mouth, eyes rolled back. He'd flatlined before the med-transport cleared the bay.
But there it was. Remy's laugh. That same ugly wheeze he'd always had after a dirty hit.
"Come on, rookie," the dead man's mech said through the arena PA. "Show me what Cole's been teaching you."
Lila's rig jerked left. Too slow. She was hearing it too. I could see the hesitation in her movement pattern, the quarter-second delay that meant her brain was trying to process instead of react.
"Lila." I punched my link open. "It's playback. Ignore it."
She didn't answer. Her mech took a hit to the shoulder joint, sparks spraying across the rust-stained floor. The crowd in the basement stands screamed. This wasn't a legal ring. No refs, no safety rails, no neural cutoff if someone's sync started cooking their brain. Just concrete, old rebar, and whatever the fighters brought in.
And I'd brought her here because Victor Thorne owned my debts and this was the deal.
The enemy mech—some Reaper-class knockoff with illegal torque mods—closed in. Remy's voice kept pouring out of it, taunting, calling combinations I'd taught both of them back when I still had a license. Whoever was piloting that thing had access to old training footage. Which meant Thorne. Which meant this whole fight was a setup.
"He's in your head," I said into the link. "Drop your sync rate. You don't need to feel every move to win this."
"I'm not dropping anything." Lila's voice came back clipped, tight. She was angry. Good. Anger I could use.
Her rig pivoted, ducked under a hook that would've taken her head assembly off, and drove an elbow strike into the Reaper's hip actuator. The impact echoed like a car crash. The Reaper staggered. Remy's recorded laugh cut out mid-loop, replaced by static and the real pilot's grunt of pain.
I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.
"There you go," I said. "He's just meat in a can. You're faster."
"I know." She sounded steadier now. Her mech's stance widened, weight shifting forward. She was reading the opponent's balance, looking for the tell. I'd drilled her on this for three weeks. Watch the knee joints. They always show the next move.
The Reaper lunged. Lila sidestepped, smooth as water, and hammered a fist into its left knee. Metal shrieked. The joint buckled. The Reaper went down on one side, and Lila didn't wait. She grabbed its head assembly with both hands and wrenched.
The Reaper's cockpit hatch blew. Emergency eject. The pilot tumbled out onto the concrete, rolled twice, and lay still. Probably alive. Probably.
Lila's mech straightened. Her breathing came through the open link, ragged and too fast. High sync rate. She'd pushed it.
"Get out of the seat," I said. "Right now."
"I'm fine."
"You're not. I can hear your heart rate. Drop sync and get out."
She cut the link.
I swore and shoved my way down through the crowd. The basement ring was packed, bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, everyone screaming or shoving cash at the bookies. The air stank of sweat, oil, and something burnt I didn't want to identify. A few people recognized me. Shoulders turned. Space opened up. I didn't slow down.
By the time I reached the floor, Lila's cockpit was already open. She sat on the edge of the hatch, legs dangling, head tipped back, eyes closed. Sweat soaked through her shirt. Her hands were shaking.
I grabbed the ladder and climbed up. "You deaf?"
She opened her eyes. They were bloodshot, pupils blown wide. "I won."
"You spiked your sync past eighty. You want to end up like Remy?"
She flinched. Good. Maybe she'd actually listen.
"I had to," she said. "He was faster than you said he'd be."
"Because it wasn't a fair match. Thorne set you up." I crouched next to her, checked her pulse. Too fast. "How's your vision?"
"Blurry on the left."
I swore again. Neural edema. Not bad yet, but it would be if she kept this up. "You're done for tonight. Maybe for the week."
"We need the money."
"I need you not brain-dead."
She turned her head, looked at me. Her jaw was set, that stubborn line I'd started to recognize. "You threw me your band. You don't get to take it back now."
I looked down. The champion band was still on her wrist, dull metal catching the overhead lights. I'd worn that thing for two years at the top. It didn't mean anything anymore. Except maybe it did, because I'd given it to her and she'd walked into this pit wearing it like armor.
"Fine," I said. "But you listen to me next time. Sync rate caps at seventy or you're off my roster."
"You don't have a roster. You have me."
She wasn't wrong.
Someone shouted my name from across the ring. I turned. Victor Thorne stood at the edge of the crowd, hands in his coat pockets, looking relaxed. He had two of his guys with him. One I recognized. The other I didn't.
I climbed down off the mech. Lila followed, slower, gripping the ladder too hard.
Thorne walked over. He didn't look at Lila. Just me. "Good fight."
"That wasn't the deal," I said. "You said a baseline match. That was a psyop."
"The deal was she fights and you get paid." He pulled an envelope from his coat, held it out. "She won. Here's your cut."
I didn't take it. "Remy's voice. That was you."
Thorne smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "Old footage. Public domain. Anyone could've used it."
"Except anyone didn't. You did."
He shrugged. "Call it a stress test. I wanted to see how she handles pressure. Turns out she handles it fine." He looked past me, finally, at Lila. "Better than fine."
Lila stared back at him. She didn't say anything. Smart.
Thorne tucked the envelope into my jacket pocket. I felt the weight of it. Enough to cover two months of interest. Not enough to get me clear. It was never enough.
"There's another fight next week," Thorne said. "Double the payout. Interested?"
"No."
"Cole—" Lila started.
I cut her off with a look. "No. She needs recovery time."
Thorne tilted his head. "That's not really your call. She's the one in the cockpit."
"She's twenty-one."
"And you were sixteen when you went pro. Don't pretend you care about her age. You care about your investment." He stepped closer. I could smell his cologne, something expensive and wrong for a place like this. "One more fight, Cole. Then we talk about your debt. Real talk. The kind that ends with you walking away clean."
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to grab Lila and get out of this basement and never come back. I wanted a lot of things I wasn't going to get.
"I'll think about it," I said.
Thorne's smile widened. "You do that."
He turned and walked away. His guys followed. The crowd swallowed them up.
Lila touched my arm. "We should take the fight."
"You can't even see straight."
"I'll be fine by next week."
"You don't know that."
"Neither do you." She pulled her hand back, crossed her arms. Her voice dropped. "I'm not your charity case. I can handle this."
I looked at her. Twenty-one. Too thin. Too angry. Too much like me.
"We'll see," I said.
We walked out through the crowd. No one stopped us. Outside, the night air was cold, sharp with the smell of rain coming. The street was empty except for a few parked trucks and a stray dog nosing through trash.
Lila leaned against the alley wall, tipped her head back. "That voice," she said. "Remy. You knew him."
"Yeah."
"What happened to him?"
"He pushed his sync too high. His brain couldn't take it."
She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Is that what happened to you?"
I didn't answer.
She pushed off the wall, looked at me. "You didn't just quit, did you? You couldn't pilot anymore."
I met her eyes. "Get some sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."
I started walking. She didn't follow right away. I heard her footsteps a few seconds later, soft on the wet pavement.
We were halfway to the transport station when my link buzzed. Incoming message. Unknown sender.
I opened it.
Text only. No voice. No ID.
The message said: *Bring the girl to Thorne. He wants to make a real offer. No more basement fights. The big leagues. She's ready. You know she is.*
I stopped walking. Lila looked back at me. "What?"
I stared at the message. The sender tag was corrupted, but the metadata was still there. Transmission origin: the Reaper's cockpit. The mech Lila had just fought.
The pilot had been unconscious when we left the ring.
I looked at the timestamp. Sent four minutes ago.
The wreck had talked one more time.
I deleted the message and kept walking.
Lila caught up. "Cole. What was that?"
"Nothing," I said.
But we both knew I was lying.