Machine Instinct

For those disposed to base tendencies, the stench of Motorball was an intoxicant. Singed rubber and perishing fuel recalled days of racing long lost to history. The shearing of steel produced an acerbic aroma, tinged with a whisper of electricity, while machine lubricants were slick and pleasing to the sense, hints of fruit, or perhaps only to those so disposed. Above it all was the blood, blue like sapphire and cut with cold sterility. Most would believe cyberblood to be scentless in the din, and leave the stadium sufficiently entertained as a child by a bauble; they would live and die never knowing the game's more subtle pleasures. But a few could sense it, that strange narcotic — it was there dancing through the mixture.

Alita could sense it better than most, and on that night the air was thick. From her perch high atop the stadium canopy she allowed herself a moment of self, breathing, in and out, muscles tensing, relaxing, twitching at turns, hand to the blade, thoughts of death; the precursors to a hunt. How much of this ritual was desire and how much design was a question for another time; the evening's business was of a violent nature, and if the ancient machinations of Martian engineers would help settle it, then that alone would suffice.

The mark crested bold into the final corner before crashing down like thunder upon her opponent. The explosion of appendages was difficult for Alita to discern from so far away, but the pistongun's whipcrack report was not. It was a fearsome weapon that would remain with the mark's competition body after the match and play no further factor. Alita couldn't deny her disappointment, always craving a challenge, but there was no way around it.

There were but a few complications. The first had to do with simple Factory procedure, known to all Hunter-Warriors and obeyed by all Hunter-Warriors: trouble was not to start at the Motorball stadium unless someone with an ear to Zalem said otherwise. Consequences for breaching this procedure were presumed to be severe for the simple reason they had to be presumed at all. Compliance was a simple enough matter: wait for the mark to leave the stadium, at which time they could be eliminated at leisure.

A pair of further complications, less banal than the first: the marker had gone out during the race, and the bounty was set at fifty-five thousand credits — an issuance that may come but a half-dozen times a year. Every Hunter-Warrior in Iron City knew beyond doubt where the mark was and at what time they would be there — a bare nape for the richest prize of the month.

Arbalest was her name, and she couldn't imagine how many in the crowd were plotting her death. In ignorance she continued on, winning a roar of approval for the dismemberment but otherwise remaining well out of the running. First league was the domain of heavy-hitters with high aspirations and household names — Broadside, Serrasalmus, Rome, Jejunum. For a newly-promoted Motorballer with average skill and sub-average hardware, survival was the game, and Arbalest had been proving herself quite a deft player.

The particulars of the race were irrelevant provided Arbalest didn't end up dead, so Alita resisted the urge to invest herself in the climactic clash taking place between Serrasalmus and Rome. Sparks flew and the crowd frenzied as she began her descent unseen.

***

Arbalest returned to her pit stall content with another thoroughly adequate performance, having claimed the scalp of Baccarat while only losing a few cheap fingers in the exchange. The best way to get ahead in first league was to build a reputation, and the best way to build a reputation was to claim scalps, in as violent and extravagant a fashion as possible. She raised her left arm and regarded her weapon with a smug satisfaction; hot smoke still billowed from the pistongun's machine housing, while rivulets of cyberblood painted the cylindrical core hammer in cerulean hues. She, too, coveted that strange narcotic.

The sound of bracing metal accompanied Arbalest's descent into the assemblage as her pit crew began the process of cyber core transfer. Lithe manipulators snapped into place at all the critical points, removing structural support plugs and loosening ceramic paneling up and down the armature. It was a painful procedure going both ways, but the added sense of vulnerability engendered by the loss of the pistongun ran Arbalest's blood cold. She dreamed of the day she could afford a street body capable of wielding it. A sharp crack like the breaking of bone accompanied final disassembly of the Motorball body, wet steam and agony sheathing the retracted cyber core as a control arm lifted it above the assemblage for transfer.

A wince of pain robbed Arbalest of her vision for what felt like a second, but may well have been twenty. When her eyes next opened, her pit crew was gone and she was still held aloft, helpless as a newborn. Amid the hustle and bustle of the lane outside the stall, a lone figure stood motionless, wrapped in a beige coat and sporting telltale silver streaks under the eyes. Arbalest hailed with all the excitement of a street urchin crossing paths with their childhood idol. Circumstances called for panic, but she knew nothing of the circumstances.

Alita approached the assemblage control panel without response. Flashing her Hunter-Warrior badge and issuing a stiff command was enough to clear the crew, but now she had to be quick — Arbalest in her Motorball body was dangerous, but Arbalest in her street body was mobile, and neither one would do. Alita had already marked a pair of Hunter-Warriors prowling around the pits, and a good many more would be waiting outside the stadium to take their puncher's chance. A touch of duplicity would be required to prevent a melee from breaking out, where any low rookie could end up stealing away with the prize. Alita wasn't much for duplicity, but her trade wasn't much for scruples.

Fear, or something near enough like it, crossed Arbalest's features as the control arm lowered her cyber core. She chattered without pause.

"Hey, what's the idea here? I appreciate the help, if that's what this is, but could you please go find my crew and tell them to get back here and plug me in? I'm sure they ran off to watch Jashugan's introduction or something like that. He's racing tonight, right? Well, I'm sure you know how it is working with the skimps. Can't expect much. Alita?"

A fistful of rags silenced her. Alita caught the cyber core as it decoupled from the assemblage and, in one motion, stuffed it inside a black Motorball gear bag. Crude as it was, she could see no better way.

As Alita turned to leave, she saw the Hunter-Warrior pair from earlier standing on either side of the stall entrance. They made no move to impede, but Alita knew she would have to deal with them before long. One, a woman with an over-sized khukuri hanging slack at the hip, made a chopping gesture with her hands and twisted her face up into something meant to be a scowl of intimidation. Veterans usually knew better than to put on a show among peers. Alita promised herself not to brutalize the greenhorn too much — everyone had to learn the trade somehow.

The other figure was unremarkable to the eye and of a great deal more interest. Middle-aged and casually-dressed, Alita only knew him to be a Hunter-Warrior by the salt-and-pepper mustache on his lip and the subtle protrusion of bahg nahk in his sleeves, tailored long enough to conceal them and not a thread longer than that. To anyone else he may have seemed out of place at worst, a bit foppish even with his greased bristles and sharp navy vest adrift in a sea of sloppy Motorball fanatics. But Alita knew better. She knew the getup was meant to disarm. She knew the man's name was Vigoro. She knew he was a cyborg martial artist of surpassing skill, and she knew he was going to be a problem.

Alita led the way down the lane with a vice grip on the bag, Arbalest's muffled cries from within suffocated by stadium cacophony. Greenhorn followed close behind, still putting on the big and tough act as if she knew no other way to grapple with nerves. Vigoro lazed around further back, whistling a tune and exchanging pleasantries with the pit hounds but never straying far. The three killers made for a strange caravan.

From the pits, the quickest way out of the stadium was a service tunnel used to move the heavier Motorball bodies in and out. The surface-level exit lay opposite the main entryway where most of the Hunter-Warriors had surely gathered. Clandestine was good, but even better was the exit's proximity to an old underground rail depot, cut like a scar near the northside thoroughfare. From there Alita would lose the trailers by whatever means she saw fit, make the kill, and set off for the Factory to pick up a deserved reward. That was the plan, as it had been from the start. She wondered when the complication would crop up, as it had a tendency to do when things were going well.

Sickly sweet machine scents hung thick in the confines as broken and bloodied bodies crossed paths with ones not yet touched by battle. It was enough to make anyone of a normal disposition nauseous, but Alita reveled in it; the tunnel exit was in sight and the ecstasy of violence would soon follow. A strange sort of quiet settled in then, the kind not measured by sound.

"You two know the story?"

Crisp delivery, like a man who made his living with words instead of blades. Alita crossed the threshold without paying Vigoro's question any mind at all. Only the blades need speak now.

"Hmph. Cold world."

***

Alita was the best, though few knew it at the time — most who could attest to her skill kept themselves awful quiet. Panzer Kunst, Berserker frame, instincts and intuitions of battle carved deep in the psyche — all heirlooms of the past that served her well in a Hunter-Warrior's work.

But she wasn't the craftiest. No sooner had she stepped out of the tunnel when a blow like cannonball hit the small of her back and sent her reeling. Flame quickly followed, making tinder out of the beige coat she was so partial to. It had to have been an incendiary device, one of those thuggish little weapons the jackers loved to employ. She had an eye on Vigoro the entire time and would never quite figure out how he did it. Knowing wouldn't do her any damn good anyway. The coat was gone, and so was the bag, slung across Vigoro's shoulder as he broke off in a sprint. Still sporting that annoying forced grin, Greenhorn took a low swing with the khukuri as she passed by — her play at crafty. Alita sidestepped without any apparent effort, still dusting embers from her hair. She could have a fearsome temper when someone was fool enough to stoke it. It was proper stoked now.

Vigoro and Alita had been thinking along the same track — the path he was cutting through barren streets led straight to the rail depot, and it wasn't in anyone's interest to stop him before he got there. Three Hunter-Warriors barreling down the thoroughfare was going to draw attention, and the exhaust pop from behind Alita told her they had already drawn too much. The Motorballer Jejunum, himself a Hunter-Warrior, had followed the trio out of the stadium without swapping bodies and was closing in fast. An amateur's khukuri and a pair of bahg nahks was one thing; a white-hot motorized chainwhip attached to a two-ton death machine was another.

Soon they arrived at the scar, running half a block in length and rimmed with tangles of steel and rebar. One by one they descended to the railyard below, unrecognizable beneath the rubble of a dozen collapses. There were no prying eyes now to report a brain murder, no rules or laws or codes of any kind to spoil the fun. Only danger, death, blood, and instinct, the way it ought to be. The Damascus erupted. Alita was alive.

The air sizzled as Jejunum's chainwhip snapped stiff an inch outside Alita's ear, cracking loud enough to rouse the dust nearby. It billowed and twirled with some strange form of grace as the metal rig stormed through, much too fast on pricey Motorball wheels. Alita knew he would have to be dealt with first, but a moment off Vigoro's trail could mean losing him — and the mark — in the iron labyrinth. Always a complication.

Again the whip cracked, this time out in front where it sheared a mass of concrete clean off the wall. Alita batted it aside and kept running as rage began to wash over sense. Jejunum had speed over all but was wisely keeping his distance. From more regulated battles on the track Alita knew his weapon to have yards of reserve so as to render its severance little more than an inconvenience. Alita sent a length of it flying with a flick of the Damascus anyway, if only to satisfy her frustration. She didn't need the rapid clink of extension to know it was a wasted effort.

Vigoro ran smooth and controlled further ahead, ducking into an arterial passage where the light from the scar began to fade. Greenhorn was closer now than before and seemed set on catching him before long. A scuffle between the two could be the opening Alita needed. The thought only occupied her mind for the briefest of moments, and that was long enough for Jejunum to strike true. The whip caught Alita flush on the shoulder where it left a deep, bloodied impression in the violet musculature. She howled in pain as the bloodlust boiled over. In that instant she forgot about Vigoro, about Arbalest, about the mark and the mission and the fifty-five thousand credits that may as well have been flecks of scrap in the pile beneath Zalem for all the interest she had in it. Sparks illuminated the dark rail corridor as Alita skidded to a stop and turned to face the behemoth.

"A less honorable man than I would have taken your arm clean with that strike, Berserker." Jejunum looked quite pleased with himself to have scored a point on Alita without so much as a bead of sweat dressing his brow. "These quarters hardly suit you. What is that odd style of war you employ, Panzer something-or-the-other, yes?"

"I will show you."

"This I doubt."

The bulk of Jejunum's armature stood silhouetted against the sunken railyard beyond, last rays of light peeking through what little space there was between him and the tunnel's curved concrete. No room to maneuver. Though his knowledge of terminology may have been lacking, Jejunum was right to think himself advantaged. His face showed every bit of it as he brought the ceiling down behind him with a tremendous lash of the chainwhip, casting a sheet of darkness over the corridor. In the same motion he brought the whip before him where it hung gold with friction, a lone thread in the black. Alita responded with fresh sapphire upon the blade. Silence then but for the fading footfalls and the crackle of superheated steel.

"A contest, then, of will and guile!" He bellowed the words as if heralding a gladiatorial event; proud and grandiose and a shade apprehensive, though the subtlety of that coloring was lost on Alita, herself running red with thoughts of death. Again the chainwhip sprung to life, and what had been a gold thread of some warped beauty transformed into a whirling white disc before Jejunum, occluding him from Alita's eyes. The links cut a molten line along the tunnel circumference, casting a fount of sparks and dust into the space between Alita and that nightmarish vortex.

And then he began to advance. There would be no point in running even if Alita had any inclination to do so; she had no such inclination and could have no such inclination. The training made sure of it, yes, but part of that spirit was hers alone, borne from a place deep within the soul where no manipulations could reach. So she charged straight towards Jejunum without a hint of hesitation — straight towards that grinding maw that would surely rend her beyond repair. On a night of well-laid plans, she now had none. Perhaps it was better that way.

Jejunum roared behind his curtain of death, accelerating as fast as the armature's treads would permit. Alita bounded forward in silence with a look of purest ecstasy pulling taut every last muscle in her face. Without breaking stride, she cast her blade straight and true at the disc's central point, from which the steel blossomed. No nerves or fear to send it astray, the blade found its mark, severing the chainwhip and wedging deep within the reserve housing. Jejunum called upon his body as he had before, but this time it failed him. The chain came spilling out slack and cool. It would take hours for his crew to fix the weapon back in the stadium pits; here he had no crew and no time.

Alita's arm ignited a brilliant blue, burning away the last remains of the coat's sleeve. With a shout to split the sky, she launched herself. Jejunum braced his remaining appendage in defense, and it was promptly shattered like porcelain, splashing against the rubble as a mixture of blood and steel. The maneuver shunted Alita's blow away from his head, but the fight was now over and he knew it dreadfully. Alita landed light upon the ground and wasted no time in turning about to make for the killing blow. Jejunum raised the mangled wreck of an arm in a gesture of resignation, voice wavering, fear of the plainest language written in his eyes.

"Mercy!"

There would be none. Alita leaped upon the armature's shoulders and squeezed Jejunum's neck in headlock with arm aflame. His organic skin sizzled and sloughed, emitting a nauseating scent that recurred in the confines, doubling back off the walls with ever increasing potency. Cries of agony at first caught in the throat, and then the throat was gone as Alita burned straight through to the spine before releasing her grip, drenched in a sweat of joy and exertion. The chainwhip writhed at strange angles, driven mad by the tensions of a dying man.

He did die then, and not well, either — one last hideous rattle from the bare windpipe signaled Jejunum's end; another honest enough man consumed by circumstance. Alita retrieved the Damascus Blade and set off at a sprint down the corridor, returning to her pursuit as if nothing had taken her from it in the first place.