Chapter Two
"I don't understand. Why bring on three pilots at all?"
Renwick quirked an eyebrow at Dawn's question, as if unsure what to do with it. She let it hang in the air for several dozen seconds, mingling with the smoke from her cigarette.
Portia had received a contract so soon after calling that it made her nauseous. She was startled by how standard it was; she had expected Renwick to swindle her. The woman had, in Portia's mind, infinite leverage. She was something of a mogul on 077: after her mercenary crew spun out, she had decided that revitalizing the colony was her new project. Besides the Dogpen (her MCS team), she also owned the Mars View Casino, and had bankrolled developments all over the city.
But her terms were simple: fifty percent of tournament winnings, and a seventy percent share of sponsorships, over which she had full discretion. Portia only skimmed the entire contract once before signing.
It was the only chance she was going to get, she had reasoned to herself, and besides—this was Shana fucking Renwick. She wasn't going to play fair regardless. The house always wins, right? Might as well squeeze out what you could from her. It would be enough.
Now, she was seated next to Renwick's desk like she was back in school, being introduced to a small crowd that filled the manager's office to its breaking point. Her two new teammates sat opposite her: one face she recognized (belonging to Dawn Whitlock) and one face she didn't, each staring at her with a slightly different flavor of ire. Two other strangers lurked in the corner by the door—a withering, pallid old woman wearing the same old UEF overcoat that Renwick had, standing at attention as if she might be fired if she couldn't keep her spine perfectly straight; and a girl who could not have more obviously been a mechanic. She was a compact little thing with arms as thick as Arsonist's pistons, covered in blotchy grease stains that dyed her olive skin in shades of orange and purple. (Portia thought they were bruises at first.) She was fascinated by her, in the way one was fascinated by a small, unfamiliar and potentially rabid stray dog.
"We're trying a new approach," Renwick declared, once she had put on a sufficient show with her cigarette, drawing in long breaths and dribbling them out in slow trails of grey. "Two of the three of you will be promoted next season, as a new duo in the Solar League."
Silence filled the room as everyone but Portia absorbed this news. Portia felt her cheeks and ears getting hot. The faces of the two women seated across from her twisted from contempt to confusion to disgust, and back again.
"And the third?" the unfamiliar pilot asked, when it was clear that nobody else would.
"Well, that depends on her contract, Anita," said Renwick, after another over-acted demonstration of the many ways she could smoke a cigarette. "Either she stays with me or she's a free agent. Of course—" she interrupted herself, to take another puff, "I could always trade her before then, too."
The message was clear, at least to Portia: this woman—Anita—was, by most metrics, dead weight. It was unlikely any other team would sign her as a free agent, and a trade would land her on a bench somewhere, forgotten until her contract fizzled out.
Dawn either hadn't picked up on this, or chose to ignore it. She stood up and leaned over Renwick's desk. "What about Corynn and Irene?"
This question Renwick was prepared for. "Oh, they're getting traded."
"What?!" Dawn looked like she had plenty more to say, but Renwick swiftly raised her palm, cigarette nestled between her fingers, and the pilot went silent.
"I appreciate your concern," said Renwick, "but we're getting off topic. I just hoped to get you all acquainted. Our new approach also comes with a change in how we're scheduling events, in order to accommodate three pilots."
She clicked a button on her desk and a holographic solar system sprung up from its surface, overlaid with a charted course from Mars to Mercury and back again. Surrounding each planet were several brightly-colored dots. As Renwick pointed to every one with the lit end of her cigarette—said one or more of the pilots' names, a solar date, a place—it dawned on Portia what a schedule so rigorous would demand.
The mechanic in the corner realized it at the same time. "We're doing a tour?" she groaned, pushing off from the wall to stand next to Dawn.
Renwick paused in the middle of her blurb about the EMCA Regional Classic. "Yes," she said, looking bored. "A short one. Only six months."
Dawn, who had largely been ignoring Portia since hearing that she would likely be promoted, turned her contempt back toward the pilot of Arsonist for Hire. "Six months in a tiny cruiser with this psycho?" Portia hoped the chair would swallow her.
"I'm trusting you won't make any trouble, Whitlock," Renwick was saying. "And frankly, I take offense to tiny cruiser—I put you up in some nice spots. Separate rooms and everything."
"Me make trouble?" Dawn refused to look away from Portia. "You saw what she did to Rhea's machine, didn't you?"
From her chair, Anita said, "You know what she meant, Whitlock," but Portia had heard enough.
"That's rich coming from you," she said, "considering you're the reason Arsonist was dismembered."
"Hah!" Now the mechanic turned her attention on Portia, too. "I wouldn't give Whitlock so much credit. That poor girl was toast regardless. And speaking of," she said to Renwick, with sudden intensity, "if I'm gonna have to deal with that sloppy shit in the ring—on tour—then I need that budget increase yesterday. I'm already running tight from the upgrades to the Torque."
Portia was getting sick of being spoken around. "The hell do you mean, 'sloppy shit?' I just know how to play to my frame's strengths."
The mechanic laughed again, and this time Dawn joined her. "Do you?" the smaller girl asked. "Arsonist's strengths are speed, maneuverability, and firepower. None of that matters when she's lugging around weight and damage from hits that you shouldn't have taken."
"Keira's right," Renwick interrupted, before Portia could call the girl a pervert for gendering her machine. "You're resilient, and you've got speed, but you're predictable; you telegraph. We can use all that, but it needs to… fit together differently." She took another long drag from her dwindling cigarette, before blotting it out amongst several others in an ashtray on her desk. Even with the purifier running at full blast, tobacco smoke was woven deep into the entire surface area of the office. The unpainted walls took on a gangrene yellow, and there was a pervasive stench of rot. "We need a machine that can properly leverage you," Renwick continued, lighting yet another cig, "along with more coaching. It's a bit out of the scope of this meeting," she shot a glare at the mechanic, and continued, "but I understand Keira has some ideas already."
"Oh, I wouldn't let that degenerate anywhere near your machine." Dawn sat back down, an awful grin forming on her face, and kicked Keira in the shin with her boot. "I think I know where your new budget went. Did Renwick tell you the other big news?"
"Tell me—?"
"Dawn is bringing on her own crew for the Pitch this season," said Renwick, tersely.
"What?!"
"Must've slipped my mind."
"So, what," Keira said to Dawn, "you suddenly don't care about the new scanning suite? The accuracy improvements you've been bitching about?"
"I care that you aren't getting your grubby hands and gods only know what else all over my frame anymore!"
"Never mind, I forgot that you're a child." Keira rounded on Renwick, who was leant back in her chair, letting her cigarette burn away between her fingers. "You promised me a budget increase this season. It's in my contract."
"Contingent on a third pilot's signing." Keira gestured to Portia and Renwick waved her hand dismissively, sending a small cloud of ash falling to her desk. "Circumstances have changed. We'll be renegotiating—I believe that's also in your contract."
"Bullshit. I'll walk away right now."
"No you won't."
"You always sound so sure," said Keira, with a sigh. "Listen to me: it's gonna take a shit ton more cash to fix up that pile of scrap." She jerked her head at Portia. "Forget the budget. I want in on sponsors. Hell, I want veto power on sponsors. I'm not putting crap products in my machines."
"You mean my machine," Portia snapped.
Keira waved a hand at her without looking. "Sure, princess, whatever you say."
"A sponsorship cut for an Association tech is unprecedented," said Renwick, with slightly-above-minimal interest.
"You know I'm worth it. You were ready to make me head mechanic on three machines." Keira held up a hand with her thumb and forefinger tucked, and her middle, ring, and little fingers extended for emphasis. Portia noticed that the first knuckle of her index was missing.
Renwick thought it over, still keeping her cigarette separate from her mouth, letting it dwindle down unused. "If I promise you a five percent budget increase, will you drop it?"
Keira opened her mouth to answer when the old lady at the door cleared her throat—it sounded like a malfunctioned reactor engine hacking up grease—and Portia jumped in her seat. Renwick looked at her watch and switched off the holo-map.
"Ah, yes—well, we'll have to pick this up later, ladies," she said, giving Keira another heavy glare. "I believe I'm cutting into Coach Bishop's time."
Conditioning was a grueling affair for Portia, who until now had yet to fully comprehend the rigor of a complete season as a professional mecha-combat duelist. It turned out Coach Merril Bishop was forever reliving her life as a drill instructor—after Portia puked for the first time, halfway through a warmup set of wind-sprints, Coach Bishop heaved her up off the ground by her armpits and told her to run twice the amount. Puke number two earned her a full five minutes of planks, during which she collapsed eight times, each one eliciting a piercing scream of "Back up!" from the old woman.
It did little to help Portia's mood just how badly she was shown up by her teammates—she was especially bitter to be outdone by Anita. Portia knew she couldn't be that old—no MCS duelist could reasonably last far beyond thirty-five in the sport—and yet, even compared against Renwick's wizened features and those of Coach Bishop, the pilot seemed comparably ancient. She was a wisp of a woman who looked as though everything substantial had been sucked out of her through a straw; limbs as knobby as the stalks on The Queen's Lady and a narrow, pointed face that reminded Portia of the hungry birds that swarmed the parks on the colony. Stipples of deep black hair poked out from her head in neat rows that traced over her skull, ending in a pair of knots at the base of her neck.
(She had learned her last name was Sabates, when Bishop began doggedly comparing the two, with comments like: "See how Sabates doesn't even shake?" or: "Watch Sabates do this before you even think about it!" or even simply: "Beautiful work, Sabates. Zayas, quit slouching.")
Sprawled on her back to recover from puke three, Portia watched an upside-down Anita slide through set after set of chin-ups with robotic precision. The exercise had eventually coaxed her muscle out of hiding; Portia was surprised to see her tree-branch arms shifting and straining with effort and faint beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Her eyes were closed—her eyebrows knit together, occasionally twitching in tandem with her shoulders—and her dark skin glowed faintly in the harsh, blue-tinted overhead lighting, as though she were being spotlit. Portia was so entranced that she didn't notice Bishop approaching until she was suddenly jabbed in the stomach by her boot, prompting puke four.
The decrepit coach stormed out of the gym well before Portia's cooldown mile ended, after twelve grueling minutes, in puke number five. Anita dragged a half-conscious Portia to the showers and left the younger pilot still clothed and curled in the fetal position underneath a stream of lukewarm water.
"Thank... you..." Portia choked out.
Anita whipped back around and, without hesitation, spat in Portia's face. Then came puke number six.
This general routine repeated five days a week for the next month, with varying levels of vomit. With profound regret, she stopped walking past the street pita stall run by the freckled girl who always sweet-talked her into buying one—they would churn in her stomach as she exercised, before deciding they'd had enough and reemerging, tasting rancid. She also had to severely cut down her visits to Teri's bar. Her hangovers had become unmanageable. The only way to ensure most of her food stayed in her stomach was to subsist on plain rice and beans. At once, Portia understood where Anita's stature came from.
Dawn's physique, on the other hand, was a mystery. She had the stereotypical pilot's build: height just under six feet, and overflowing with muscle—Portia could only guess how she found enough protein out here to maintain it all. Whenever she was training, Portia would drink up the handsome shoulders bulging from her tank-top as though she had spent all her life in a traumatic shoulder drought. Her arms cascaded into beige hills of taut skin over taut muscle, sweat reflecting the light in shifting waves while she worked. Bishop didn't bother comparing Portia to her. The difference was obvious.
Practical training was equally frustrating. Portia hadn't spoken to Dawn since that first meeting, and Anita was aloof at best; both refused to scrimmage with her in the simulator, leaving her to fight the pitiful computer-controlled opponents. Winning against them wasn't exactly a challenge, and her confidence was already hampered since the simulated model of Arsonist was well out of date with Keira's work on it. She had imported her schematics, but the real Arsonist was going way off-script. She had stripped Portia's poor mech down to the proverbial bone: she tore off every piece of plating, gutted the wiring, and replaced the hydraulics with ones of her own design. Portia caught a glimpse of it before the new plating went on, and it had looked like the muscular system of an oversized insect. Tendrils of segmented flesh twisted through its arms and legs; ingratiated themselves into the machinery. To take off some of the operating strain, Keira had explained, for better pilot stamina.
All anyone seemed interested in was her stamina. Coach Bishop had a never-ending stream of profanities on the subject of her distressing lack of it. Nearly every upgrade to her frame—each one described to her in condescending tones by Keira—was in the name of harnessing what little she had. Once every few days, Renwick would stand in the entrance of the gym, watching Portia struggle through her routines, occasionally shouting, approvingly, "Stamina's really improving!"
And her stamina did start improving, though Bishop was loath to say so. After four weeks of hellish effort, she got her mile down to eight minutes, could hold a plank for three minutes, and was deadlifting one-and-a-quarter times her mass, all without having to see the contents of her stomach.
By the time Arsonist for Hire was complete enough to begin piloting tests, it was, for all intents and purposes, a different machine. Char-black panels of brushed metal interlocked into a solid sheet that draped around the machine—clung to it, almost—and seemed to ripple like an oil mirage when she looked away. Keira called it the CLOAk (an acronym whose meaning had vanished from Portia's mind without a trace), a combination mobility tool and adaptable shield. Its feet were chunkier, to allow for the improved boosters. But the best part was the new weapons system for which Keira had bullied Renwick into taking a sponsorship: two miniature electric arc launchers (courtesy of Furrax Dynamics, inc.), nestled in its palms. How she afforded all this, she wouldn't say. Portia could only wonder how her negotiations had ended.
Keira was quick to warn Portia that there were still tweaks on the way, but even in its not-quite-finished state—even out in the zero-g testing field—piloting the new Arsonist was a dream. It no longer felt lopsided and asymmetric, requiring constant adjustment. Without solid ground to leverage the hydraulics, its speed and motion were somewhat limited, but she could feel its potential.
She spread the cloak into a pair of wings and soared above her old home; she watched the way the sun caught its dusty surface from so many millions of miles away, yet still seemed able to kick up particles with its light. Being on a team was far lonelier than Portia had expected. Of course, she knew Dawn and Anita weren't exactly her teammates; starting in only a couple short weeks they would be competing at some of the same events. But she had expected more… camaraderie? Instead, the two of them had closed rank, leaving Portia to her own devices. The best she could do was ogle at them from across the gym, keeping her distance so she wouldn't make waves. Their upcoming scrimmage—their only real one before setting off for half a year of non-stop tournaments—loomed higher over Portia than the buildings of 077.
It wasn't that she was scared of losing to Dawn again. Having a working machine at all was enough to buoy her confidence, even after weeks of relentless verbal abuse from Bishop. Piloting this frame? Whitlock was toast. What scared her was the familiar feeling in her gut. The bottomless pit of dread that had followed her for years now: the knowledge that things could only get worse from here.
The Dogpen training camp and front offices were a hodgepodge of hangars and warehouses and sterile office buildings situated on the outer ring of T4-077. Portia approached the airlock and peered up at the jumble of mismatched shapes that made even her thirty-foot metal body feel like a toy.
It was rare to see the place so empty—Portia had stayed late while Keira welded the final pieces onto Arsonist so that she could squeeze in her test flight, then drifted through space for hours, losing herself in her steel—but once she docked her frame inside the shuttle they would be taking the next morning, as she strolled through the maze of hallways that led out to street level, she was accompanied by only the flickering low-elec lights and the hiss of the air purifiers. She was almost out the door when she remembered her wallet, with her tram pass and apartment keys, was still in her locker.
She dashed back toward the locker room, and was on its threshold when she heard a pair of voices from the other side, near the entrance to the showers. She crept toward the noise, careful to stay behind the single row of lockers separating the two doors.
"…takes you off my shit list." Portia recognized Dawn's nasally voice immediately, speaking in a quick, measured whisper.
"You don't have to tell me." Anita's voice was also measured, albeit in a different way. She spoke slowly, letting each word settle before moving to the next one. "I know I've been on your shit list since day one."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Don't play dumb. I know your type too well. You claim not to fit in around here, but you do. When the chips are down, you're all the goddamn same."
"What, and you aren't?"
Anita laughed—more of a scoff, though still clearly taking some humor in Dawn's question—and said, "Y'know, I can't fucking wait to get out of here. Six months on a cruiser away from retirement. Then I can leave this cesspool of a sport behind."
Portia heard one of them take a step further into the locker room, followed by the other, and she leapt backward to stay hidden. Her shoes slicked on the tile and made a faint squeak; she froze in terror, but if either of them heard her, they didn't react.
"You should be more careful, bragging about that," Dawn was saying, "I haven't forgotten about your situation. One word to Renwick and I can make your life a permanent hell."
"It would take more than that to—"
"Would it? Do you seriously think, of all people—" Another shuffle forward. Portia backed up into the entryway, far enough that she missed the rest of Dawn's sentence.
"—fucking hypocrite!" Anita was losing control over her voice, and hitched into something close to a scream. Portia was trying to picture what her face must look like, scrunched so tightly that she'd have wrinkles to rival Coach Bishop's.
Dawn's voice was much closer now, and barely above a whisper. "Call me whatever you want. I'm just watching my own back. You should do a better job watching yours."
Portia decided to call her eavesdropping session quits there. She bolted away from the locker room, down a hallway she had never taken, and into the first open door she saw. She waited for what felt like even longer than she had spent out in space—until she heard a pair of booted footsteps echo far into the distance—then jogged back to the lockers.
She was looking over her shoulder with such frequency that she very nearly tripped over a hunched Sabates, huddled outside the locker room and sobbing silently. She didn't react as Portia tiptoed around her, but when she emerged a moment later, wallet in hand, the older pilot was gone.