A Pilot's Curse

It was done, the first match was over, and Harrison had pulled through. The match timer ended as the hologram began to disappear revealing the stadium once again. The ground maintained its structure, the waterfall still ran but it wouldn’t be long before they disappeared as well. Harrison made the Pilgrim saunter back through the tree line, walking through the path of destruction they made to move unimpeded to his pedestal. As he moved the trees and rocks began to fall away as a blue light moved around them tearing them down, like an invisible swarm of locusts was descending eating everything it it’s path. Extremities could be taken care of quite easily, but for obvious safety purposes the square wasn’t allowed to destroy the ground of the hologram until both participants, if able, were standing on their pedestals.

Reaching his pedestal, a small notification appeared saying one of two individuals had arrived and deconstruction would start soon. Harrison tuned into the arena feed and switched to the arenas drone. One camera was focusing on him, while the other viewed Adeline. She dragged her detached arm behind her as she walked clamoring past boulders and trees trying not stumble. As she reached her pedestal the deconstruction sequence began fully as the blue light tore through everything resetting the square back to it’s original light top. The pedestals lowered from their respective heights and Harrison stepped off walking back to his home square for quick maintenance before the matched continued. He began running a systems diagnostic during his triumphant march home to analyze the damage, not coming across anything too bad. No lasting damage but some armor plates needed to be replaced and some pivoting joints needed to be realigned.

Harrison communications bored started to light up as other team members presumably wanted to congratulate him on his win. He didn’t pay them much mind until he saw Florence’s connection come online, immediately answering. “You did good kid, but I have to say what was that mess at the beginning? You and me both know you could’ve pulled the good stuff out of the gate from the get so why take that long to act?” Harrison glided past Xavier the Knight in C3 who shot him a thumbs up through his mech as he passed. He shot one back. “I don’t know Florence I wanted to be sure I wasn’t running into any traps. If I let her move first, she shows me her hand y’know.” Harrison reached the center of his home square stopping on top of his freight elevator, lining up his feet with the glowing placement icons before a small alarm went off in The Pilgrim and the lift began to descend.

“Bull Roar boy I know how you are. Give them a show, give them something to remember and all. That’s all fine and good but don’t do it to the point you risk winning. Understand?” Harrison didn’t appreciate his flash lecture, but he wouldn’t speak against the King. “I understand Florence. I’ll make quicker work of it next time.” The lift had passed the surface as the bay doors closed overhead, for a moment Harrison was in darkness before the floor passed the ceiling threshold letting the hard fluorescent light seep in below. All below him the crew was scurrying left and right. They didn’t have long for repairs and massive machines were standing by like a spider hovering over a fly ready to descend on the Pilgrim.

Once the lift landed Harrison opened the cockpit and almost climbed out until he realized the busted ladder hadn’t reached up to him yet, and he waited the painstaking 30 seconds it took for it to adjust to meet at his level, listening to it grinding and shrieking the entire time. Once down on the hangar floor the cockpit closed and ladder descended, sending the swarm of mechanical arms onto the Pilgrim. Metal plates came off and service hatches were opened and accessed. Sparks flew every which way and weapons were processed and catalogued. It was quite mesmerizing to watch, but he was on a timer. Harrison turned towards his cabin and dodged the sea of crew members moving about trying to finish their own tasks. Harrison scanned the hangar finding who he was looking for standing on one of the upper catwalks looking down at him. She gestured to her ear and Harrison taking the hint put down his flipper on his headset.

“You did good kid, I was honestly kind of rooting for er’ to knock you down on your butt, teach you some humility. But your fight was good too.” Harrison shot her a thumbs up while double stepping his way up to his office. “Thanks for the support Cleo, what’s the damage?” Harrison glanced at the whirlwind around the Pilgrim, several arms held pieces of it out in the open like a body world’s display realigning wires and flash welding bent pieces into alignment. A series of cables were inserted into the back of the Pilgrims head recalibrating and uploading the information from the fight. How many moves did he make, how many points did he receive? All that information would feed into some super nerds’ draft portfolio of Harrison one day but for now it was just all raw data. “Nothing major, mostly cosmetic damage and some bent armor. I can replace the armor but for longevity’s sake we’re going to flash repair several areas in case you get challenged again. Something tells me that D5 is going to be a hotspot for the rest of the match.” Cleo said, looking over her tablet accessing the storage bay of the square sending arms and the like out to retrieve replacement parts from storage.

Harrison reached the catwalk leading to his Office and quickly opened the door. He placed his helmet on his desk and sat down in his chair. “Thanks again Cleo, I’ll be out for launch in a jiff. Don’t let my mom in here I’ll talk to her once the round is over. We both have our jobs to do.” Harrison knew that after that win his mom would be the first person to contact him. And since she hadn’t contacted him, she must be on her way down or already at the door. As much as he loved her, he needed to keep his head in the game, so she had to take the bench for now. Harrison went into his computer and brought up the Pilgrim’s records that were uploaded mere moment ago. He pressed a button on his desk and a different headset descended from the ceiling. A much more skeletal wired headset compared to his crew headset and helmet. It was like an early prototype of bot hit the two had been combined, but this one served only one specific purpose. Reviewing fights.

Most sports would provide a live review feed of the action that players could use to review their performance. But the league had something greater, more powerful, and direct. The headset allowed for a full-scale review almost as if he was in the fight again. Just without all the physical effort. The feelings of the match could be simulated, and the time could be paused, rewound, and edited to study and review. Harrison sat back in his chair fixing the head strap to the back of his head and moving the viewer of his eyes. A small light band running on the side of his head lit up as the sync started. A sinking feeling filled his head as the headset paired with his mind. Slowly regaining his steadiness Harrison now viewed a series of files that he had saved from previous practices and fights with his parents, neighbors, college, and high school. All dated and catalogued for easy access with titles like “03/26/2050-Spar with Dad-Kingston University Field, Chicago IL.” Every file had a name like this that followed the exact same naming format.

Harrison rifled through the files accessing the newest upload and renaming it from its number chain code to “09/15/2056-Fight against Pawn, Adeline Eisle-Sentinel Arena, Chicago IL.” Once satisfied he opened the file, and a bright white light took over his vision. Eventually placing him back where he was on his pedestal right as the siren accessing the match began. Harrison couldn’t feel his body sitting in his chair in the office. He could feel it in his harness. The only difference was that he couldn’t move either on his own free will until he took off the headset. Like everything with piloting, it took some getting used to but to improve you had to be willing to get uncomfortable. Harrison could smell his cockpit, the scent of freshly polished metal mixing with the light aroma of pine. He was back in his match.

Harrison thought to play the video and it did, and shortly after he heard Adeline rushing at him once again and again stopping short behind the tree line. Harrison thought to pause the video and he looked around the camera array. He looked over an area of the tree line and enhanced the image feed. Adeline’s drone was emerging from the tree line hiding in the oncoming sun rays so Harrison didn’t notice it until Adeline wanted him to. Harrison thought about saving the clip and renamed it “Drone Strategy, Distract Launch Exp.2”, saving it afterward. Harrison fast forwarded the recording until the rushing noise from Adeline stopped, pausing it. Harrison now with all the time in the world began scanning the tree line and noticed Adeline standing behind several trees further into the tree line between a boulder and several fat trees. A blink and you miss it reveal. If Harrison was more observant Adeline could’ve easily been noticed, but the drone assisted in splitting his focus. Harrison saved this clip as well naming it something along the lines of “Observance Fault Exp.- Split Focus Consequence”.

Harrison fast forwarded again to the point where he turned to engage the drone, stabbing it, and creating the smoke cloud. He watched the video of blindly trying to navigate the smoke with a prolonged ringing in his audio that was just as unpleasant to hear now as it was when it happened, but he paused when he heard what sounded like an explosion. Harrison rewound the clip and played it again back and forth a couple times until he was sure that was when Adeline launched herself for the engage. He played the rest of her onslaught in real time until the waterfall, pausing again and saving the clip. Harrison opened an audio file and began to speak “Adeline Eisle is an aggressive opponent, careful and calculating, she laid out her plan thoroughly enough to get the jump on myself but not to finish me. If she continues her progress no doubt one day, she could prove to be a formidable opponent. But until more research is acquired an official call has yet to be made on her long game.”

Harrison started to review his attack, disappearing into the fog once he fell into the lake and attacking Adeline by wailing on her in the waterfall. Blinding her, striking, deflecting. Rinse repeat rinse repeat. Predict, act, counter. With all these processes Harrison was more then capable with dishing out some real punishment when his opponent wasn’t creative. And despite how creative Adeline had been at the beginning of the match she should have known better then to follow an opponent down into blind territory. He only won because he seized the window that she gave him. Harrison continued to review his footage capturing the missile launch and the duds, you’d be surprised with how old these units are how much they can fail if not properly upkept. But with a little “jumpstart” even dud explosives could still be useful. Harrison began to fast forward to stabbing the missile into Adeline’s arm when he passed a blip of an event that wasn’t there. Mountains. Mountains with snow.

Harrison stopped the feed and began to rewind looking for the sliver of difference hoping it was a onetime thing. A misconception at best. But he crossed over several more tears of snowy mountains overlaid over his fight with Adeline. An ache started to manifest in his head as more and more of these tears appeared until the footage was only half of what it once was replaced by a foreign recording. The ache became splitting, and Harrison wished to grab his head but couldn’t. He thought about logging off to escape but his thoughts weren’t being registered by his headset. Harrison felt the chill in the air and the smell of tar between gusts of wind. A vicious blizzard tore all around him as he stood frantically looking back and forth. What was he looking for, he couldn’t recall? But this recording wasn’t his. It couldn’t be. The false feed now clipped with high points of his own match. A punch or a hit was enough to take him back to reality but then just back into the storm. Explosions cried out in the distance echoing through the snow illuminating several large figures walking alongside the unknown unit through the storm. Harrison began to lose consciousness desperately trying to hold on but the pain felt like an iron hot hand was closing it’s hand around his brain applying more and more pressure.

In the snow everything fell silent as the ground began to shake as a wave of black ash shot through the snow mixing the environment into a beautiful flurry of burning black ash ad pristine white snow. A red mass illuminated the sky as chunks of molten rock began raining down all around him, Units came in and out of view as the storm opened enough to see them then just as quickly closing around them again. Through the chaos the sound was overwhelming but the familiar sound of metal feet in the snow approached from behind. The mystery unit turned viewing another unit in shadow until it approached close enough to be seen in the units’ floods. The mech was massive, easily eight to nine stories tall. The mech he was in must have been the same to meet its eye level. Harrison in tremendous pain desperately wanted this to end, however his curiosity had peaked. Why was he seeing this? Whose fight was this? Where was he?

The figure stood in silhouette as clips from his match against Adeline grew in frequency as his own recording began to overtake the corruption. The pain began to subside slightly as an explosion shook the ground and the unit in front of him disappeared, his own unit bending down on its knees throwing its gun to its side. The unit bent down peering through the snow into a massive crack in the earth underneath the snow. The unit that had been standing in front of him now desperately clung to the side of the freshly made ravine as the unknown unit looked around desperately for anything to use to grab a hold of it. After coming up empty the ground shook again, the other wall of the ravine tumbling down as several more units fell into the crevice. Falling out of sight into the orange glow below. Harrison was truly involved, the pain no longer bothering him as he focused on the results. The units that had fallen were a different color. The enemy. Could this have been a recording from the war? So many questions raced through his mind, but they all stopped when the unit he was peering out of reached the unit stuck in the ravine. Hoisting it up the floods briefly focused on unit ID number across its chest before falling out of the light again.

Harrison went to rewind the footage when he was met with an inexplicable disorienting punch from his real body across his face. The headset peeling off his head as he flew out of his chair crashing to the floor. As visions of his office slowly came back into view the last frame of the recording he saw was now seared into his eyes. Slowly fading as he noticed several people in his office. His jaw began to hurt as the image faded in flashes as his eyes began to adjust to the room lighting but he struggled to see any of the ID he could before the image disappeared entirely. The mech itself was black as night, the letters of the ID were hard to pick out from the snow sweeping into the ravine, but he was able to read out a few letters as he felt someone grab his collar and pull him up. “A-007.5.” Harrison said out loud making sure to remember it, even if it was only a partial. “What does that have to do with anything!? Answer my question you clown who’s going to pay for my mech huh?”

The words were fuzzy and distant despite being spoken mere inches from his face. Another voice rushed closer brushing away the other person saying things about synaptic damage and disorientation before a light shined in both of his eyes. A swift slap came across each cheek and his vision came back almost entirely. Cleo stood above him breathing a sigh of relief as Harrison’s eyes focused on her. Behind her being held by security was a woman with black braids in a plug suit trying to bend her way out of their grasp to no avail. Several other crew members watched on through the door as Cleo began to speak again. “Hey kid can you hear me? How many fingers am I holding up?” Harrison looked at her hand as she brought up. One finger in the middle of her hand stood straight up in Harrison’s face.

“You know technically I am your boss, and I can fire you.” Harrison replied trying to get his bearings sitting up on his own. “Answer the question and we’ll see if your word carries weight.” Cleo replied. Harrison looked around the room for the headset and found it tossed haphazardly across the room, the lights tripping out all over it. No doubt it was busted. “One finger Cleo, just one.” Harrison said getting to his feet. Cleo stood up to and with loss of breath from the quick run up the stairs told Harrison what had happened. “This woman ran into the hangar when I let your mom in. She took the opportunity to slip in through the door and was crafty enough to get all the way up here before we caught up to her. Not fast enough to stop her but at least she didn’t kill you”.

Harrison looked over at the girl, fighting like a kitten that was being held up by one hand by the belly. Nowhere to run and nothing to fight with but still all the guts and sass. Her eyes brushed past his own locking with fury and hatred bringing her body to a standstill. Like all the scrap in her went from her struggling to her stare. “My unit, I bought it with my own money. I scrounged and I saved for nearly two years for it and you come along and just RIP the ARM OFF!” Harrison now realizing that she was Adeline waved at the guards to let her go. They quickly looked at him with disbelief over releasing someone trying to attack him but with a repeated wave they let her go taking several steps back in the process. “It’s the nature of the fight Ms. Eisle. You fight me and I fight you. What happens in the mix as long as it doesn’t harm the pilots doesn’t matter.” Harrison replied. Adeline went to speak but was cut off by Harrison asking Cleo a question about the time until the match resumed as he found his helmet and threw it under his arm.

As he resumed Amy Andross out of breath entered the room pushing past the crew before she could get through the door, being as polite as you can when shoving your way through a crowd of people. “OH, MY DARLING BOY YOU DID IT I’M SO PROUD!!!” she yelled as she ran towards her son arms wide. Like a train about to hit a car on a bridge Harrison couldn’t jump out of the way on this one so he waited for the embrace from his mother. The crew quickly dispersed unwilling to absorb secondhand embarrassment but Cleo, Adeline, and the security on Adeline stayed behind. “OH, my boy I knew you could do it oh you really had her going at the end their didn’t you!” Amy punched his arm playfully and though being out of service for so long it still hurt being as direct as it was. Amy Andross turned around the room just noticing Adeline, her eyes beaming. “OH MY you must be HER!” IN stark contrast to how she was before Adeline was now standing up straight with her hands to her sides, any animosity that had been in her had either dug deep to his or disappeared entirely as she began to sweat, her eyes darting from Amy to the ground to Amy again.

“Ye..Yes. That’s me.” Adeline bowed much to everyone’s surprise except Amy who was still pleasantly beaming completely unfazed. “It is an honor to meet you Mrs. Andross. I am a big fan of you work. Thank you for your service.” Harrison felt an uneasy feeling fall on his shoulders as he glanced over at his mother. His father wasn’t to keen on praise but his mother on the other hand ate it up. Just as he expected, her pleasant grin had turned into a bright toothy grin as she squealed and hugged Adeline. “OH THIS IS JUST FANTASTIC, OH MY BOYS FIRST RIVAL!” Adeline’s hands hovered around Amy’s back as her face flushed, and her eyes darted around the room as if looking for an answer. Her eyes eventually met Harrison’s and he nodded his head. Adeline returned the hug fully as everyone else looked awkwardly onward waiting for whatever this situation was to end.

“I have to get a picture of you two.” Harrison hid his opposition as he looked at Cleo’s stupid grin as she more than happily entertained the notion. Harrison walked over to Adeline who took a defensive step away before he reached around her shoulder pulling her close rather abruptly. He knelt to Adeline’s level as Amy fiddled with the settings and whispered into her ear. “I don’t care that you hate me, don’t let my mom down and we’ll figure something out.” Adeline’s tension shifted to a relaxed poise as she said exactly what she wanted through a fake smile. “I need a new arm, and not just an arm a better one then the one I had. You get it and I won’t throw a fit and ruin your mom’s fun”. Adeline knew she wouldn’t do it anyway. She really did admire Mrs. Andross. But she knew Harrison wouldn’t take that risk. “Deal” he replied.

“Alright we all ready?” Amy said aiming the camera. Harrison and Adeline let out heir fakest smiles. Cleo would swear it almost felt like they were each holding a knife to the other’s back. Several flashes went off and the two ‘rivals’ relaxed. Cleo looked at Harrison and tapped her wrist, launch time was approaching. “Well mom as much as I’d love to stay, I’m STILL IN THE GAME, so I must be going now.” The mid to latter half of that statement not directed at his mother but another person in the room. “I suggest you should head back too being the announcer and all.” Harrison turned to everyone and waved his arms as a gesture of ‘get out of my office’ and everyone complied except one. “Oh honey just let me freshen up a bit I’ll be out of your hair soon.” Harrison now feeling the time constraint allowed her and rushed out of the office and down the stairs.

The Pilgrim looked fresh and new as the terrible ladder re-emerged from the ground. “Ms. Eisle.” Harrison said yelling over the sound of the ladder. “I would like to meet with you to discuss our arrangement in further detail later. Once the match is over, please come back to meet me at my square before launch.” Adeline sneered and nodded in agreement turning to him on her walk out and pulling a bras d’honneur at him. Harrison role his eyes putting on his helmet and climbing the ladder. The ladder descended in its noisy manner as a familiar voice rang out through the hangar. “WHOOH GO GET HIM HONEY!” Harrison looked up at his office to see his mother frantically waving both arms at him. Harrison half-heartedly waved back and shot a look at Cleo activating his coms. ‘Hey, what happened to not letting her in here like I said?” Cleo shook her head and gave a shrug. “A girl likes a good show just as much as anyone does. Also, she’s your mom don’t be a jerk.” Harrison let out a deep sigh as he sealed his cockpit. As the lift began, he now had to think of a way to get Adeline her arm. What a bum rap he thought. Then the partial ID entered his mind. “A-007.1” Harrison said under his breath. “I wonder what all that was.”