Maybe other murderers counted their dead. Althea could not say for certain. But she refused to. She knew that she could ask Pontikos for the totals with a thought. And that fact kept her from talking to Pontikos much during the week of her confinement.

  Her new CC-0-lite Persona served Althea’s purposes as she designed. Waiting alone in the casket now felt more like a short, enforced vacation than a prison. But the times they let her out to wreck havoc through her foes, that felt like bliss.

  Just like working her old technician job, her focus faded into the background as Althea watched the video of herself slaughtering her way through every challenger Walt and his gladiators could throw her way.

  Aside from her first murder, the Mutilator, the others felt fuzzy and indistinct. One seemed to yap at her like a dog in her memory. Upon review of that fight, the short man had begged for his life as Althea snapped his neck by spinning his head clear around his shoulders. In her recollection, the begging turned into the pathetic squeaks of a small animal.

  Pontikos spoke to her daily. After the second day, Althea chose to ignore the AI assistant. Despite the AI’s assurances, Althea felt as though nothing would cleanse her hands of the blood on them. She had not chosen this for herself, but perhaps forcing death onto others to sate the bloodlusts of strangers made the perfect punishment for Althea’s crimes, for her very existence.

  Nothing Pontikos said could alleviate Althea’s guilt.

  After seven full days of fighting, her casket popped open of its own accord and released her temporarily.

  Althea emerged from the casket looking like an ancient Olympic champion. Her twin chrome arms had been left untouched. But the rest of her had received the benison of proper armor. She idly wondered if they could read her thoughts somehow when they brought her the partially assembled set of plate.

  Though the armor would likely do nothing to stop an energy weapon, those sorts of guns never made appearances in the arena. That made sense to Althea, no need to tempt the gladiators by handing them ranged weapons powerful enough to kill the spectators.

  Those thoughts consumed her as a mechanical voice spoke over the intercom,

  “Remove your armor, warriors. Now is the time for weekly showers.”

  The plural made her stop wandering the confines of her prison and take notice of her environs. Small noises reached her ears, the drip drip of water from some leaky pipe, the sound of rodents shuffling through the darkness, and nothing else. Althea raised her nose to the air and sniffed away. The usual stenches greeted her: her own unwashed body, stale food, and mildew comprised the main notes of the air around her.

  Nothing new appeared as she strained her senses for potential attacks. Then she realized: she was the only female gladiator these people possessed. Maybe if they held other women, Althea might have had company.

  She proceeded to remove her breastplate and greaves using care as she did so. Her handlers still refused to provide her with a weapon, but the armor more than made up for that lack. And she wanted to keep it in the best condition possible. It kept her soft fleshy bits intact after all.

  When the last piece of her armor hit the dirt with a clang, Althea thought she heard a different metallic thunk. This sounded heavier to her and resonated through the floor of her chamber as if something heavy had fallen.

  Then the water burst from overhead.

  It smelled faintly of chemicals; a fake floral aroma with a biting edge to it covered her with the water. Other than the vague taint, the water felt clean and good. The pitter pat of the spray cloaked all other sounds in the room.

  SLIDE prodded Althea constantly. She shifted her position in the room as if dancing around. The protocol made constant threat assessments based off of prevailing light conditions and shifting terrain. Althea moved like a ballerina without music as she rinsed herself down with the water. When a shadow shifted across the opposite wall, her awareness shot from “potential threat” to “active threat.”

  When her attacker tried to grab the back of her head, his presence amidst the spray of water changed the acoustics of the room. Althea rolled forward feeling only slightly paranoid from her SEP.

  The curse behind her and shuffling spray of the water told her that her paranoia had been justified. Holding an implant jammer in the hand, the man had tried to shove the neural shunt over her implant. Althea did not care if that plan had worked. She could not think of any legitimate reason for someone to try and spike her Persona Implant, handler or not.

  The man slipped on the water underfoot as he tried to retreat from Althea. Part of her found amusement at the man’s failed attack. This was one of those “better succeed the first time” attacks in that he would have been completely safe had he placed the shunt on her implant and utterly dead if he failed.

  Althea moved like vengeance. The domain of what the man could have done to her while she was disabled and shunted looked darker and darker the longer she thought about it. Her body divorced itself from her thoughts while she regarded her brush with tortured abuse.

  The first connecting punch broke the man’s jaw.

  Althea was not finished yet.

  By the time she took control of her body, she had stomped the handler’s face into the concrete. What little remained of his face merged with the draining water and flushed itself down into the sewers. Despite the force of her strikes against her jailor, her foot appeared to be undamaged.

  Water washed off bits of brain and bone as Althea heaved under the spray. As if they had been watching the video the whole time, the moment the last parts of the man’s head washed off her skin, the water stopped and Althea heard a distant door roll open.

  She walked over to her casket while drones cleaned up the remains of the handler and the others roughly shoved her into her prison, now without her new suit of armor. The moment her head fell into position in the casket, she heard a voice in her mind. It bore down on her skull with a sickening reverberation.

  “Althea, can you hear me? Fuck! Did we aim this thing right kids?”

  “Erie?”

  Althea’s own voice sounded distant and alien, like the voice from the loudspeakers that called her to bathe.

  “Oh holy shit I found you! Damn that is awesome!”

  Erie sounded excited, thrilled even. But Althea knew that nothing the young girl did would result in her freedom, even if she managed to drag Althea out of this room and onto a different planet controlled by a different corporate conglomerate.

  “Yeah, great.”

  “Was it Walt? You sound strange, can you talk safely?”

  Althea felt tired as she spoke,

  “Look, you’ve been awesome. And I really appreciate the new arms. But I think I paid you. And my account is locked, so I can’t give you anything else. It’s probably best for you to give up on me now.”

  Erie laughed in response, Althea could hear the sound pounded into her skull.

  “I lost my whole shop for helping you. You better believe I am getting you out of there. And I need to repay Walt for his hospitality.”

  Althea sighed, knowing that nothing she said would dissuade Erie based on her tone and the excited way she talked about getting revenge on Walt.

  Revenge.

  That was a thought Althea could get behind. What Walt had already done to her was unacceptable for Althea. Tonight’s attempted rape or assault crystallized her need for vengeance, her need to escape this place for no other reason than the people who put her here needed to have their priorities adjusted.

  The new Persona running her mind agreed with most of her reasoning.

  “What do you need?”

  They spent the next hour or so with Althea feeding Erie information about the contents of her cells, the fighting pits, and Walt’s place in general. Now that Erie had cracked the problem of communicating with Althea, she picked the next night’s entertainment to initiate her escape plan.

  She withheld the details from Althea, claiming that what the other woman did not know, she could not accidentally let slip.

  That night Althea slept for a few short hours and resumed her habit of day dreaming her life away. At least safe in her casket with no one else to disturb her, she could find a small measure of peace.

  When Althea’s casket opened that morning, she felt the hunger and killing urge deep in her belly. As usual, she received top billing. That had been the pattern since her initial victory against the Mutilator.

  She had stopped listening to the names of her opponents days ago. The lack of her armor or other clothing before the assembled masses made her feel worse than naked: vulnerable. But she had learned to twist such feelings into a weapon. In the middle of her mental gymnastics, the announcer declared a third fighter, Arnie Smashbringer, then a fourth fighter: Rata-tat-tat, and then a fifth: the Viper.

  The words broke through the even calm of her warrior protocols. She strained her ears to pick out the words over the buzzing in her head.

  Althea queued a list of songs in her head, mostly Classical instrumental to prepare for her fight against four opponents during today’s battle. A part of her wondered whether Walt or his people had picked up on Erie’s hushed conversation from the night before. If they did, this response was idiotic. The better response would have been to pretend nothing different had happened and plan to take Erie out the moment she tried to rescue Althea.

  In light of her analysis, Althea decided that her bevy of foes represented nothing more exotic than the natural progression of Walt’s fighting pits. Most likely, she had simply done too well. Althea could see how throwing off the odds far enough could make Walk dispose of her. It just made business sense.

  Liszt rose in her ears as she strode from her casket into the pit. She owed no loyalty to Walt or his bottom line, and the fact he underestimated her strength by only sending four men offended her. The music pumped her up, made the transition of handing her body over to Pontikos and a series of combat algorithms much easier.

  Target number one emerged from the wall opposite Althea first. He wore a full tac suit and held a long staff in his hands that seemed to buzz as Althea watched it. The second man, Arnie, looked almost like a metallic twin of Althea. His arms and most of his torso were covered by chrome plating, as well as his legs. Rata-tat-tat held a curved sword made from a dull metal. He wore the most normal-looking clothing: a duster and dark suit. The last man through the opposing door was the Viper. Like enemy number one, the Viper held a long staff, but his had a small blade on the end. He wore no armor other than dark pants and possessed no obvious cybernetics.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Althea rolled her shoulders and neck as the four men spread out around the pit preparing their attacks. They exchanged glances between each other as they advanced and Althea groaned inwardly. Not only did she have to fight multiple opponents, but they seemed to be coordinated in some way.

  Rather than let them finish positioning, Althea rushed Viper, who looked to be the weakest of the four. As her powerful strides brought her close to the man, he swept his pole arm out in an arc before him, missing Althea and sending a sour, citrusy scent her way. Pontkos appeared and identified the scent as belonging to a class of highly toxic contact poisons.

  At the same time, Rata-tat-tat vanished like a rogue from an AR game. Knowing she could not see him or hear him lead Althea into a dangerous gambit. Viper’s pole arm swung down toward her shoulder. Instead of dodging the blow, she caught the blade in the twisted rolls of metal actuators on her arm.

  Vibration from the impact made her teeth ache. The screeching from the metal on metal contact played nicely against the backdrop of one of Liszt’s studies. Althea felt the wind pressure at her back as she grabbed Viper’s spear by the haft and fell backwards, shoving the head of the pole arm up and over her, connecting with the soft parts of Rata-tat-tat’s skin.

  Smoke rose and blood dripped from a spot midair, hanging just a bit above and behind Althea’s head. The man’s screamed once and then stopped as if his throat constricted. Whatever implant he used to disguise his position remained active after he died.

  Viper reclaimed his weapon and stabbed at Althea with the tip. She rolled to the right, kicking at Viper’s at the same time. He missed her sending sparks flying from the concrete as she moved. Kicking the man’s legs seemed to have no effect on Viper.

  The failed strike hardly mattered. Althea kipped up from her prone position as target number 1 hit her in the back with his buzzing staff.

  Her own scream came out ragged and angry. But then her legs and arms failed her for a moment. She crumpled to the ground before target 1 as he laughed at her. Viper and Target 2 circled her for longer than they should have.

  Pontikos managed to unscramble whatever Target 1 did to Althea as Viper tried to deliver a coup de grace. Nothing but pure luck saved her as Target 1 struck at the same time, fouling Viper’s own attack. Instead of waiting, the two grunted at each other as they held their weapons back.

  When Althea grabbed Target 1’s leg, he tried to kick her with the other before he tried to hit her with his staff. The reflex doomed him as Althea crushed his ankle and brought the man down by ramming her shoulder into his knee.

  Liszt continued to hide the sounds, but could not hide the tremors from Target 1’s bones as they snapped. His staff flew from his hands as Viper tried a third time to impale Althea. He struck his own ally again when Althea dodged, this time the head of his spear lodged itself in his victim’s body.

  Target 1 seized as Althea pushed off the ground and spun. Viper released the staff a half-second too slow. Grabbing his exposed hand, Althea planted her feet and jerked him toward her. Target 2 abandoned his strike rather than hit Viper. For his part in the little dance, Viper flew ass over head into the concrete three meters away.

  Althea kicked at Target 2, barely paying attention to him as she grabbed the pole arm from Target 1’s corpse. Her swing in Target 2’s direction missed, but she had only intended to keep him away. Viper crouched on all fours, trying to recover his wind. His head came off and rolled across the floor when Althea decapitated him.

  Swirling the spear like an artist, Althea turned to face Target 2. His chrome upper body reflected the swinging overhead lights as he faced off with Althea. He held no weapons in hand, but unlike his comrades seemed to know what he was doing in a fight.

  Pontikos appeared and said,

  “Mistress, I detect a CQC-1 stance. This opponent has combat upgrades.”

  Althea nodded as much to Pontikos as to herself. When the AI spoke, it cut off her orchestral power rhythms.

  When he charged her, Althea backed up almost to the wall. Where her own bionics only encompassed her arms and upper chest, Arnie’s covered his whole body. As much as Althea wanted to remain human, she envied the other man’s combat efficiency as he tried to kill her.

  Each impact and strike they exchanged left them at a stalemate. Neither Arnie nor Althea could breach the other’s defenses. Althea had a reach and speed advantage over the other man, but he was bigger and lacked obvious weaknesses she could exploit for victory.

  Within the confines of her mind, Althea paused her music and addressed Pontikos,

  “We have to tune my upgrade to win, don’t we?”

  The pixie form of Pontikos brightened when Althea addressed her directly. Her wings shifted against non-existent winds as she said,

  “You mean activate CC-0, sure! I am so glad you’re talking to m…”

  “Just do it, 10 second time limit. Go.”

  Althea shifted her awareness back to the fight where her combat upgrades had continued to defend while she directed her attention elsewhere. Red and orange warnings flashed as CC-0 took her over.

  Once she stopped her music and activated her own emergency measures, she could hear buzzing as if from a swarm of wasps and a tune struggling to reach her ears through the mechanical white noise.

  That sounds like Ride of the Valkyries…

  Then the detached state of perfect killing associated with CC-0 kicked in. Arnie seemed to hover in slow motion while Althea’s perceptions expanded. She stepped into his guard and took a glancing blow across the face that nearly snapped her neck. But as she reached the other man, her own arms snaked through his guards and grabbed something behind him.

  Althea felt the crunch and twisting metal like the sound of a dentist regenerating teeth. As she twirled away from Arnie, he took two steps toward her and fell face down. She could see marks from her fingers across his back where she had crushed something… important?

  Her battle awareness froze with eight seconds left of CC-0. She could feel a part of her mind hard at work, interacting with Pontikos and the intricate connections between Althea and her implant. For a second, Pontikos shimmered and fuzzed in Althea’s view.

  Three seconds elapsed and Pontikos returned to normal.

  Althea ran to Rata-tat-tat’s fallen body and grabbed his sword, keeping Viper’s poisoned spear in hand. With only two seconds left of CC-0, she tossed the poison spear through the bars overhead and into the panicking crowd.

  Odd, why would they have started panicking already?

  Her body moved under the force of her survival protocol to cover near a lip of the fighting arena as the CC-0 timer expired.

  “What happened after Arnie died? Did I do something to you?”

  Pontikos turned her head at Althea’s question and said,

  “You mean like hurt or damage me? That’s not possible.”

  Althea intended to ask more, but a hooded face lowered itself between the bars of the pit.

  “Hey Althea! You want out of there?”

  “What is happening? And how will you get me out?”

  Ride of the Valkyries grew much louder as a pair of flying drones crested the lip next to Erie and started cutting through the hardened metal.

  Erie pointed and said,

  “My kids are getting you out. Do you need anything?”

  Althea looked around and pulled the coat and jeans off of Arnie. Black on black was not really her style. Or had not been her style before. But maybe it was time she redefined herself.

  Sword attached to a sheath on her back, Althea leaped from the pit once Erie’s drones finished cutting the bars away. Dozens of small flying drones chased handlers and toughs through the upper levels of the fighting arena.

  “What did you do?”

  Erie laughed and said,

  “You still look horrified, like a rookie. I love it!”

  Althea frowned at the girl who bobbled her back back and forth and answered Althea’s original question.

  “I brought the goddamned cavalry is what I did. Wanna get out of here or find Walt first?”

  Althea paused. The word, “revenge” floated through her head. A small promise of vengeance made her speak through clenched teeth,

  “Let’s find Walt.”

  Erie’s drones came in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Most of them looked like junk cobbled together and motorized. But some of them looked sleek, as if designed by a Corps for stylish destruction. One such drone lead the way on a series of articulating tentacles. It looked like a silver octopus crawling ahead of them on nightmare legs.

  It stopped at a blank wall and waved its appendages at the wall. Althea squared off in the direction the drone indicated, but Erie held up her hand and said,

  “Wait a second, Ms Impatient. My kids aren’t slow, they’re just busy right now.”

  A few seconds later, a quartet of flying drones zoomed into the hallway and hovered above the sleek, professional looking drone. The fliers swarmed the wall for a moment before one of them shuddered and emitted a short laser burst.

  The hidden door popped open as the flying drone listed left, sparked and then exploded in a tiny puff of light and smoke. Erie clapped and whispered, “Yay fireworks!” while the other three flying drones collected the remains of their partner.

  The land-bound drone rolled ahead of them down a short hallway. As soon as she stepped into the hallway, Althea could hear someone at the end. Muffled sounds of papers shuffling and furniture screeching as it moved confirmed the presence of a person within.

  Bursting through the door as if it were made from tin foil, Althea found Walt trying to push a cabinet out of his way so he could fit into a hidden tunnel. He lifted a handler’s EM wand in her direction, which proved to be a mistake.

  Althea removed the offending limb so smoothly that for a second she wondered if she missed his wrist. Then Walt started screaming as the wand toppled from his fingers and his hand fell from the stump at his wrist.

  No one screamed like Walt, at least no one Althea had met so far. More an animal caught in a trap and less a barbaric attempt at self confidence, Althea nearly punched him just to shut him up.

  Erie rolled her eyes at Althea as she spotted Walt and gestured to the sleek octopus drone on the floor. Walt rolled and howled as the little drone injected him with something and crawled over to his stump and began administering first aid.

  Thirty seconds later, Walt stopped screaming. His eyes looked glazed and unfocused. Pontikos answered Althea’s unasked question,

  “The drone gave him a morphine derivative.”

  She nodded and punched him once in the nose. He seemed to focus on her and still pulled away. Althea smiled and said,

  “It turns out, Mice have their own ways of escaping traps.”

  His mouth moved, but no sound came forth. The smaller drone treating him crawled away from Walt with a series of small chips locked in its tentacles.

  Erie smiled and bent down to pick one up. Walt’s remaining hand moves slowly as he pointed at the chips and said,

  “Hey, those are mine, man.”

  Erie flipped one of them around in her hand and said,

  “I knew you were old fashioned, but I never expected this Walt. Thanks, buddy.”

  Erie looked over his office as if checking for other items of interest. She nodded and looked back to Althea,

  “Okay, you can kill him if you want.”

  Althea looked down over Walt. He dreamily nodded at Erie, not really understanding her. Then his eyes widened, he shook his head, and mouthed, “no” when he appeared to understand. Despite meeting his pathetic eyes, Althea could not shake the memory of her week spent in Walt’s clutches.

  She wanted to murder him.

  When she put her hand on his throat, he yelped,

  “I know how to save you!”

  Althea’s actuators froze with inhuman speed. Less than a tenth of a second and she could have snapped his neck as she crushed his throat. But her ability to halt the progress of her weapons was as effective as their ability to kill.

  “What do you mean?”

  Walt took a breath as Althea relaxed her grip. His mouth blew out as he tried to form words and seemed to forget what he was saying. Althea turned to Erie who shrugged and motioned to her drone again. It injected him again, though Althea could not see how more sedative would help. Then she heard his pulse pick up thunder as his body started to shake.

  Sweat dripped from his temple as he panted and hissed,

  “I know… you need… more implants…” Walt’s head listed against the cabinet for a moment as he gathered his breath and said, “or you will die. In a week? Maybe less?”

  Erie and Althea exchanged glances and Erie said,

  “How can you help us?”

  Walt wagged his finger, shaking his head at Erie’s question.

  “Nuh uh. You’ll just kill me if I tell.”

  Althea grabbed his finger and bent it back right to the breaking point and said,

  “Or we cut pieces off of you until you tell us.”

  Erie grabbed her arm and shook her head. Walt winced at the pain Althea inflicted on his hand and said,

  “She knows. Tell her, Erie.”

  Erie said,

  “The bastard is right. If you torture him, he’ll segregate the data in his implant. We’ll never get to it that way.”

  Althea stared at Walt and grabbed his injured arm.

  “Tell me again. Tell me that you know how to save me.”

  Walt nodded and said,

  “I know where to get the implants you need, I promise! If you let me live, I will tell you! I swear!”

  Althea queried Pontikos who said,

  “He believes the first of his claims. Walt knows where to find the implants you need. And he does not intend to tell you where to get them if you let him go.”

  Althea nodded and said,

  “If you knock his ass out with your drugs, will the interaction kill him?”

  Erie chewed her lip a moment and shrugged,

  “Probably not?”

  “Good, then do it.”

  Walt’s begging faded seconds after the third injection.

  Another five drones, some of these larger than the sleek octopus drone, lifted Walt’s unconscious body into the air and carried him behind Erie and Althea as they left Walt’s secret underground pit fighting ring. Above the basements and out among the streets, Althea saw the facade and lost her senses laughing at the realization.

  The secret base where she had been tortured and forced to kill sat below a children’s arcade. Granted, the building had seen better days. Concrete poked out from under peeling and chipped paint. Multiple hues of paint had been applied over the years, and Althea could see most of them in various states of decay. No sane parent would ever bring their child to such a facility, which probably contributed to making it an ideal front for Walt’s activities.