TR: 5

Chapter Five: May Require Supervision

“Jandros Crusp! How many floors are in this place?” Kade cursed under his breath.

He poked his head out the stairwell exit, surveying the area. He had learned his lesson about barging around blind corners indiscriminately; two floors down he had nearly run into a mountain of a man as he came flying out of a change room, the door slamming against the wall so hard it cracked the tiling.
Luckily, Kade managed to dive behind a recycling receptacle before the man noticed him, though the brute appeared to be so blind with rage that Kade figured he might not have seen him even if had been standing straight in his path. Given the kind of language he was blurting out, Kade was glad that he hadn’t been. He thought he recognized the towering behemoth but Kade couldn’t place where he had seen him before. He looked like he was a wrestler of some kind, given the uniform he was wearing. Kade wondered if perhaps he had seen him on the Holovision back home. Regardless, Kade wasn’t about to expose himself to ask if they’d made acquaintances; instead, he waited until the man’s final bellows were out of earshot and then he continued on, making his way gingerly up to the main level as he followed the distant din of a crowd. He couldn’t be sure where it was coming from but the sound was unmistakable: chanting. And by the sound of it, there were a lot of people. An arena maybe? Whatever the case, Kade knew an exit (or entrance) couldn’t be far off so he followed his intuition and followed the sounds.

Several floors up and sometime later, Kade came upon what appeared to be the main entrance to the building, a massive lobby packed with people coming and going from concession stands, gaming booths and Link Nodes of varying descriptions–those stations where anyone with the appropriate mods could upload their consciousness into the Neural Net to experience whatever sim the proprietor had come up with. Usually, all of the flashing holograms and paraphernalia around the node gave the theme away, as if it were one giant, overt advertisement. While Hollow had nothing even close to the sort, Kade knew all about them as they weren’t uncommon sights in cities or large facilities like the one he was in. Overhead, a series of holographic feeds zipped around in the air, expounding current deals and promotionals in various languages, most of which Kade didn’t recognize. There were constant references to a place called Falkner’s. Is that where he was? Was it some kind of…sports arena or something? As he pondered the mounting questions in his mind, he watched the light filtering in from above through a translucent geodesic dome, the glass panels rippling with the telltale blue lustre of Glo solar sheeting. This told him he was definitely in some kind of commercial facility since only a large organization could afford such tech. Seeing the light made Kade realize that it was daytime. His eyes panned back down to the foyer and his gaze tracked across the sea of moving heads to the other side of the mezzanine. A wall of automatic, sliding glass panels with holographic ads playing on their surfaces let people in and out of the foyer. One panel opened and Kade could see that just beyond the outside world was visible. Kade took a step toward them but he stopped suddenly as a small metallic orb hovered past his face.

Sentr-eye.

Kade watched the little machine as it wound nonchalantly through the panoply of people, its optical sensor panning back and forth as it scanned its surroundings, small lights blinking at the end of three small antennas atop its head, telling Kade it was gathering all kinds of data. People didn’t seem to pay any special attention to it, though they got out of its way almost automatically, instinctively. Kade watched it disappear into the sea of passersby and his eye caught a similar motion: another Sentr-eye. And then another. After a moment, Kade was flummoxed that he hadn’t seen them upon first glance; they were everywhere. Worse, Kade could make out some heavily-armed security-bots as well as a handful of fierce looking servo drones–both fully capable of immobilizing their targets. The place was guarded.

Heavily.

Though Hollow had nothing even close to that level of robotics (Kade’s personal mechs were probably among the only of their kind in his hometown), Kade knew all about them since it was something of a hobby of his–building mechs. In fact, he had a monthly subscription which was delivered to him via hard copy–somewhat of an oddity in that day and age since nearly everything was linked direct. But Kade preferred to stay disconnected and so he received his monthly magazines via the Nova Corp. convoy which came weekly. And if there was one thing Kade had learned, while the difference between mechs and bots was akin to comparing a puddle to a lake, it was all water, in a sense. Though he couldn’t build a bot, he knew what they could do, and seeing them there, patrolling and hovering within the throng, made Kade’s heart sink. This was not his way out, lest he sought the metaphorical kind of ‘out’ that one only did when their life wasn’t worth living. Kade didn’t quite feel like laying his future to rest quite yet. And whoever had brought him there may have had something in specific in mind, which made him a possible target. It was then that Kade realized he may have been lucky that he had avoided detection as long as he had. The fact that he now stood before a swarm of lethal bots gave Kade the chills. There was no way he would take the gamble and just gallivant out into the open, have his specs get pinged by one of the hundred sentr-eyes with nothing better to do, and then get apprehended.

Or worse.

Overwhelmed by his current situation, coupled with all of the electronic glitz and glam, Kade found himself receding back into the corridor where he had come from. As he stepped back he accidentally bumped into a woman and child, nearly knocking over the small girl. The lady scorned him loudly and Kade apologized profusely, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t drawn any unwanted attention. To his relief, with the cacophony of various conversations and the plangent ringing and beeping of the kiosks and booths, it appeared that he had gone unheard. He sighed and made his way back down the hall, looking for another way out.

***

The rest of the main level proved to be just as unhelpful to his cause, a security door barring his way down virtually every hall he tried. On a positive note, Kade confirmed his earlier suspicion of the building being an arena, having passed by a holo feed playing out on a wall which showed a live fighting match taking place somewhere in the building–a stadium by the look of it. So it was a wrestling arena then. Well, after having watched the match for about ten seconds, Kade realized it would be better classified as street fighting, based on the brutality of the little that he had seen. Kade abhorred violence, so a little was enough for him. But at least he had figured out where he was, even if he didn’t know exactly where that was. The little victories, right? Kade plodded on, growing more dispirited with every secured checkpoint he came across. In addition to the manifold locked doors in the building, Kade began to notice another disturbing pattern: ‘Missing’ ads were posted all over the place. After about the third one, he stopped and looked at the flashing holo as it changed from one face to another, all with the same headline: MISSING, REWARD IF FOUND. PLEASE CALL YOUR LOCAL AUTHORITIES. This one particular ad happened to scroll through at least a dozen different people before Kade pulled himself away from the flashing screen, his anxiety level growing uncomfortable. But they didn’t stop. In fact, Kade was sure there was at least one in ever major hall and corridor, to the point that it felt like he was surrounded by some kind of conspiracy. Whoever these missing men and women were, Falkner’s wanted people to know about them. But why was there so many? With the kind of tech that existed, murderers and human-traffickers had to be more than industrious to get away with their crimes. Clearly, something was off and someone at Falkner’s knew about it.

More the reason to get out of there, fast.

And then Kade saw how he might do so: a door, finally, without a security checkpoint. While the sign above it wasn’t ‘EXIT’ (which would have been ideal), the ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’ was a welcoming gesture. Especially since there was no biometric console. Kade attempted the handle. Locked.

Kade grunted. “Figures. Would have been too easy.”

He reached into his jacket pocket to see what he had on him. He pulled out a few bottle caps and threw them on to the ground. He dug deeper and felt something squishy against his skin. He pulled out his hand to find old chewing gum stuck to it, forming a webbing between his fingers. As great as the enzyme-enhanced, ever-fresh stuff was, it made for a disgusting pocket piece. He grimaced and wiped it off on his jeans. He reached into his other pocket and found what he was looking for. He pulled out a small metallic kit and opened it up. It was a small set of electrical drivers and other small tools for doing circuit repair work.

“Aha! This should do the trick.”

Kade withdrew an oblong tool with a malleable end and inserted it into the keyhole. He jimmied it around and the soft end began to work its way in as it conformed to the keyhole. Once it was sufficiently deep, Kade pressed a button on the side of the device and the end became rigid. He turned the device and he heard the mechanism release as the door unlocked with a small click. Kade smiled and put the toolkit back into his pocket. He slowly opened the door, peering through the space between the door and the frame. The light was on in the room but there didn’t appear to be anyone in it. He looked back down the hall and quickly entered the room, shutting the door silently behind him. From the look of it, Kade guessed he was in some kind of break room or lounge; there was a small kitchenette with a round table that could seat four, as well as a common area with two sofas facing each other on either side of a coffee table piled with boring-looking magazines–things that Kade would never catch himself reading. He leaned over and picked one up, leafing through the first couple of pages.

“Tired of bringing in every Addra with a cluttered, mismanaged living room?” Kade read aloud.  “Well, sleepless nights begone! You’ll impress all of your guests with your newfound connection to simplicity, while at the same time embracing modernity. Little will they know that you are embracing ancient Koishayan wisdom, practising…”

Kade stopped, making a face.

“What the heck is that word? Shbla…shbladag…shagabladdan…”

He groaned and tossed the magazine back on the pile.

“What a bunch of garbage. Who reads this crap?”

Kade plopped down on one of the couches and glanced around the room. He looked over at the kitchen and noticed there was a micro-glo, the standard Glo-powered microwave oven found in most households. Seeing the cooking instrument made Kade realize how hungry he was. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten, just the time he upchucked all over the floor about an hour prior. And how could he ever forget that? His stomach certainly wouldn’t let him. He mosied over toward the kitchen and, after checking the fridge–which was barer than the Bravis wastelands– he began rifling through the cupboards. To his dismay, there wasn’t much in them other than a pack of sugar cubes, some cheap coffee, stir sticks, some dry crackers that even a dud-dud would turn away from, and…

“What do we have here?”

Kade pulled out a colourful box labelled Slam Jams and examined the packaging. He shrugged and opened the box, pulling out a palm-sized wafer. He smelled it and took a large bite.

“Mmm. Whoa! It’s filled with jam? Slam Jams, I get it now. Awesome!” He exclaimed with a mouthful of food.

He examined the exposed interior of the cookie before promptly shoving the rest into his mouth. After downing several more he shoved the box into his backpack and resumed rifling through the rest of cupboards for other hidden treasures. As he did, he heard a couple of voices from outside the room and he jerked his attention toward the door. Sure enough, he could make out footsteps coming down the hall toward his location. He scanned the room frantically, looking for a place to hide. Other than the table in the kitchen–which wasn’t a hiding place at all–there was nowhere that would safely conceal him. His eyes came upon a vent on the wall across the room. It was his only choice. Kade bolted toward the vent and began reefing on it. There were two screws holding it in place.

“Crap, crap, crappity crap!” Kade cursed as he dug his toolkit back out.

He pulled out a small driver and inserted it into the screw. He pushed a button on the end of the driver and it rapidly spun around, pulling the screw out with it. He put the driver in the other screw and as he did he heard a key being inserted into the door behind him.

“…well that’s what I told her, but you know that she never listens. It’s like she’s always somewhere else, off in space…” the voice of the woman trailed off as the two figures entered the room.

Kade watched from behind the grate, crouched within the ventilation shaft, as two people walked into the room–security guards by the look of their attire–glancing around with annoyed expressions. Kade gripped the grate firmly, holding it against the wall so that it didn’t fall to the ground and expose his presence. He hoped they didn’t notice his fingers poking out between the slats.

“What the hell?” Said the male security guard.

He walked over to the cabinets and, after a cursory examination of their contents, slammed them closed.

“Looks like Murray’s been here again. What a lazy ass, always leaving a mess behind him for others to clean up.”

The man swiped a hand across the counter, knocking the Slam Jam crumbs into the sink.

The woman shrugged, looking around the room. “Wouldn’t be the first time. So, what’s on the menu today?”

The man opened the fridge and grunted. “Surprise, nothing. Does anyone ever even use this thing? Other than that science experiment that Jim left in there for two months, I don’t recall ever seeing anyone stock it up. Maybe we should put in a pinball machine. It would be a better use of space, methinks.”

The woman crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Can you even find those things anymore? And who actually says ‘methinks’? You’re such a nerd.”

“Yeah, I’m sure any Tinker would have one. If not, you could always ask those rabbit-things out in the valley if they’d build you one. Creator knows they have enough junk kicking around to build a damn reactor if they wanted to.”

“Mm. Well, I’m not too interested in building anything right now, nor talking to animals. Just eating. Guess it’s Rosie’s again, huh?”

The man made a disapproving sound. “How exciting. Who doesn’t love chicken noodle botulism?”

The woman snorted. “Goes perfectly with the soggy salmonella rolls, methinks. Come on whiner, I’ll buy you lunch if it that’s what it takes to shut you up.”

The two of them left the room.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were both hitting on and making fun of me at the same time.” said the man.

“I did call you a nerd. Thought that part was obvious. Don’t get your hopes up on the former, though.”

“You’re such a charmer, Liza. Nerds have feelings too. So tell me about the…”

The door closed behind them and once Kade heard the key re-lock the door he sighed with relief. Once their voices disappeared he carefully dropped the grate to the floor and shifted his position so that he sat on the edge of the shaft. He kicked his dangling legs restlessly as he pondered his next move. His thoughts were interrupted when he heard something from behind him, a sound coming from far off, resonating through the ventilation system. Kade turned his head toward the shaft and listened, curiously. After a moment he heard it again, too faint to make out any details. He placed his ear against the cold steel of the duct and continued to listen intently. There it was again, this time amplified by the metal. Shouts. No, cheering. It was the sound of the stadium again–that same distant drone that had drawn him to the upper level. Maybe the shaft would lead him there? If so, there had to be another way out of the building from within. Arenas always had direct exits to the outside, in case of fires or other emergencies. Definitely, something he could take advantage of. Kade turned himself around and crawled through the shaft on all fours, making his way through the capillaries of Falkner’s.

***

Kade fumbled through the darkness of the shafts, his heart beating rapidly as the reality of his situation began to settle into him. He hadn’t thought about the darkness until it was an undeniable fact. Along with the facts came the one about his Holomate being dead, which was his only hope for light. Funny thing was, Kade knew he wasn’t claustrophobic, but it was surprising how quickly one reassessed their fears when they were shoved in their face. Kade knew that the possibility that he was lost within the shafts with no way out was very real, and that terrified him. He began to imagine he was in a crypt. For all that he could see, he very well could have been since there was no way to tell the difference. The irony was that, if he didn’t do something soon, it could become a crypt–his. But there was only one option when one was lost: stay in the same direction. He’d been lost in the forest back home enough times to know that was always the best option. Eventually, you got somewhere where help wasn’t far off. The hope was that the ‘eventually’ part was shorter than the time it took to starve, freeze, or be eaten. Kade realized his current situation wasn’t nearly as dire, and that he’d find his way out if he just kept going. That part was easy since there was, generally, only one way to go and that was the way the shafts took him. So he continued on, ambling through the darkness with nothing but hope to light his way. It was a small consolation to him that the sound of the arena had grown significantly louder. That, at least, told him he was going in the right direction.

As he felt his way through the darkness, he wondered what his mother would have thought if she knew where he was. Thinking about her blowing her top did nothing to assuage his anxiety so he shifted his thoughts toward Up. As he imagined himself flying through the air with the beet tucked comfortably in the nook of his arm, his thinking meandered toward the Wrifts–his team. Or at least it had been his team. Ruminating on how he had missed the trials brought a wall of depression down on him, also doing little to help his mood. Kade sighed and decided it was best to clear his mind and just focus on the task at hand. He had read somewhere once that, in certain cultures, people paid good money to put themselves in silence and/or darkness. Of course, there were the usual sensory deprivation chambers but this was entirely different: these were actual cells where one had the option to remove extraneous stimulation, i.e. light, sound, and even touch by forming a semi-vacuum in their room. Sure, it would have the same effect as being in a pod, but the mind had to know the difference; one was a relaxing, spa-like bath, the other akin to solitary confinement. Why anyone would pay to go to prison was beyond Kade. Then again, thinking about all of the flashing lights and obnoxious sounds he had witnessed in the main entryway, and how millions of people lived in cities constantly surrounded by such distractions every waking day, Kade began to reason that darkness wasn’t such a horrible alternative.

A warm light broke out of the black somewhere up ahead. Kade’s heart jumped with joy and he hastened toward the dim spot. As he shuffled along on his hands and knees, the mellow drone of people began to suddenly grow in intensity, as if some imaginary hand was slowly turning up a volume knob. As he came up to the light, he could see that it was another grate, the light pouring through the louvers. The chanting became almost deafening as sound washed over him and the chagrining electricity of holograms returned in full force.  Kade’s jaw dropped in awe at the sight before him.

The stadium was the largest single room he had ever seen. The building itself was cylindrical with countless staircases connecting multiple tiers of balconies which stretched up nearly to the rafters. Kade figured there had to be tens of thousands of people gathered there, all intent on the show which took place in a ring set at the ground level in the center of the stadium. As before, there were flashing holograms zipping through the air around the periphery of the room, popping up randomly all over the place as if they were thoughts. Advertisements mostly but some appeared to be video feeds. Whenever one popped up in front of someone’s face and they weren’t interested in what it had to offer they just swatted it away and it disappeared instantly. On the contrary, if a spectator wanted to order something, it looked like they could call up the holograms and place their order right there, though Kade couldn’t make out how they were operating the tech. It looked like the orders were filled by an army of little service bots who were floating about in the crowd like frantic ants, delivering popcorn, drinks and other trinkets to guests who paid with a quick scan of their optics. There were also performers among the audience; dancers, musicians, magicians and more. Kade smiled as he watched a girl in a multicolored dress, holding colorful banners, dancing atop the back of a lizard the size of a mountain lion, at the same time guiding it down the stairs by reigns attached to her hips. With each step, the reptile forked out its tongue, its beady eyes blinking, head swiveling back and forth, taking in the people all around it. At one point, the dancer reigned her lizard back to collect a tip from a passing audience member and during the pause her scaly companion decided to lap up a man’s cotton candy with its long tongue, starting quite a stir with the lot. Kade laughed and his gaze wandered to the stage area. High above there was a massive jumbo-tron with live feeds playing on all sides. He watched the magnified image as two fighters went madly at each other, both bloody from their extended bout. One of them managed a wide hook and knocked the other onto his face, a play-by-play replay of the fist connecting showing on all four screens. As if the slow-motion replay wasn’t degrading enough, they even replayed the scene through a live MRI filter, showing all the internal damages done, in case anyone was in question to how many bones and blood vessels the man had broken in his face and neck. The short answer was that the man wasn’t moving. The crowd went wild as the victor screamed back at the audience, raising his fists above his head. He spat out a mouthful of blood along with his mouth guard and began to pace around the fallen body, pumping his arms into the air as the wave of applause continued to fuel his exultation.

Kade made a face at the scene and averted his attention to the upper levels. Several floors above he could make out a network of steel girders and catwalks which seemed to house lighting equipment, among other contraptions he didn’t recognize. Extending down from the ceiling there were large, faceted plates–sound diffuser clouds–interspersed between the lights and support braces. Some of the clouds had massive banners strung between them, cascading down toward the audience below, displaying various fighters in poised positions. After several seconds, the banners would somehow shift and another fighter in a campy pose would appear.

“Cool!” Kade exclaimed. “Hmm, wonder how they do that? Static discharge maybe…”

Amidst all of the flashing lights overhead, a very specific glow caught Kade’s eye–a door opening. The square of light was unmistakable as a figure exited the building to the outside on the upper level, his or her silhouette disappearing into the square as it vanished behind them. He watched the location intently and, sure enough, several minutes later another person came and went through the door.

“Aha! There’s one of the exits. I knew it!”

Except…The exit was on the other side of the arena.

Kade groaned and pressed his face against the grate, peering around to get a lay of the land. It looked like there was a catwalk at his level which ran the span of the wall, though it appeared to terminate somewhere outside of his periphery, so it wasn’t likely going to be his way across. He looked back up at the ceiling and suddenly an idea came to him: the clouds hung low enough and their spacing was such that he may be able to use them to hop across to the other side. The question was whether or not they were stable enough to bear his weight.

“Well, never know unless I try.”

Kade pushed against the grate and, not surprisingly, it didn’t budge. He examined it to find it was fastened by two screws in the same fashion as the last, except this time they were fastened from the other side. This wasn’t an issue; using his toolkit once more, he withdrew a pair of cutters and clipped off the ends of the two screws protruding through to his side. Using the butt-end of the cutters he tapped out the remaining nubs and the grate fell off the wall, clanging noisily against the catwalk below. Luckily, the crowd went into an uproar at the same time and nobody was the wiser. Kade sighed with relief and let himself out onto the ramp. He took in his surroundings, discovering that one end of the ramp led to a door labelled MAINT while the other terminated some distance down the other end of the arena. He made his way along the rampart, glancing down through the steel grating at all of the distant heads far below. So far no one seemed to have noticed him, likely because he was stories above even the nosebleeds. That and everyone’s attention was locked on to the main event. Regardless, Kade kept a low profile and did his best to stay obscured behind the railings. He came upon a steel ladder which appeared to lead to a bridge area several stories up, likely only ever used by the technical crew. Or so he hoped. Kade began climbing, a growing sense of vertigo overtaking him as he glimpsed the massive fall below him. He swallowed and continued on, letting out a sigh of relief as he came to the upper level. The catwalk appeared to be suspended by a series of rigging, tethered to a gridiron network which formed a complex with the rafters and struts above. He made his way by several monstrous spotlights, feeling the heat radiate off of them. He didn’t want to know how much power one of those things consumed.

He came to the other side of the level and, as he suspected, he was nowhere close to reaching the other side. The ramp only extended perhaps halfway across the diameter of the arena, though his position afforded him a better view across to where he needed to be. It looked like a similar catwalk ran around the perimeter of the adjacent wall, so all he needed to do was make up the distance. And as it happened, the clouds did just that. Kade could see that they circumscribed the entire stadium, laid out in a circular array around the room. The only problem was that they were a significant drop below his current level and Kade had no idea if they would bear his weight. His eyes panned from cloud to cloud as he charted his course across the arena. To the best that he could tell, they seemed to take him all the way, or at least close enough that he could ad lib something if needed. He took a deep breath.

“Well, there are worse ways to die, I guess.”

With that, he jumped off of the platform and grabbed a hold of the rod extending down from the gridirons and slid down toward the cloud. He landed solidly on the platform and cracks emanated from the bracket fastened to the cloud. Kade clung to the pole for dear life and closed his eyes, expecting the bottom to let go at any moment. Several seconds passed and he remained steadfastly suspended in the air. Opening his eyes, he let out a large sigh of relief and shifted his weight side to side gently to test the fortitude of the platform. Despite the stress fracture, it seemed to be holding with no issues. He leaned out over the edge and gasped as he saw the crowd far, far below him. He snatched back to the pole, his heart racing, and he took a moment to collect himself. When his pulse slowed he looked over at the other clouds and readied himself.

“Here goes nothing.”

He launched himself off of the cloud, landing on the nearest adjacent to it. The platform barely registered the force and Kade found himself laughing out loud. He hopped to the next and then the next, laughing merrily as he found himself jouncing across hundreds of blades of open space like a suicidal frog. He came to the last cloud in the series and, looking down at the catwalk below him, his levity faded away as quickly as it had come. He had grossly misjudged the distance to the catwalk below; the fall would surely break his legs. He looked around for any other means of connecting to the ramp but there were none. Worse, he wouldn’t be able to scale back up the support rods.

He was literally stranded in mid-air.

Kade slumped against the rod and slid down it until he was seated. He frowned down at the catwalk and tried to fend off the wave of emotions that rolled up from within, tears building in his eyes.

“Good move, Kade. Sure bungled that one up.”

He buried his face between his knees and began to sob. He wasn’t ready to die. The thought of dying was terrifying enough, but dying and never being found–dying without purpose–that was a weight Kade couldn’t bear. Surely most died in some purposeless fashion, but the hope was you didn’t break too many hearts in the process. His mother would never know what happened to him, nor would his friends, his coach, his team… They would never forgive him. He began thinking of all the people in his life, how he had let them down, how he hadn’t really accomplished anything in his short twelve years of life. He thought of his mechs at home–which he considered his greatest achievements–and what they would have thought about his predicament. He could almost hear Tobor’s voice in his head then:

Master Kade, I am quite concerned with your risk analysis as of late. I fear you may have overstated your acrobatic abilities in this matter.

Before Kade could formulate an imaginary response, a loud cheer erupted from the audience below, jarring him out of his commiseration. He leaned over and glared down at the thousands of heads transfixed on the fight before them. Two new fighters had taken to the stage and one of them appeared to have gained the upper hand, cornering his foe, delivering a series of fast, pummeling blows which, unsurprisingly, were looped back in all their hyperbolic glory on the jumbo-tron.

“Glad you’re all having a good time.” Kade snapped.

As he pulled back, he stopped part way as a something caught his eye.

Telemechs. 

A typical service mech, telemechs were designed with one purpose in mind: capturing live video feeds. Kade could see them floating around the arena lazily like silver, bloated bumblebees as they captured multiple angles of the event, many of which were televised on the jumbo-tron when highlights weren’t dominating its screen. Kade watched them hovering about at varying levels, noticing that they would often rise up several stories to capture fleeting glimpses of the audience from afar. Several of them passed by his level, mere blades away. He watched intently as he ran some basic math in his head, attempting to figure out the weight-bearing capacity of the mechs. Clearly, they were designed to carry heavy camera equipment, which he guessed had to be at least half of his weight.

It was his only shot.

Kade waited patiently until another telemech passed close to his position and, when the time was right, he let himself drop off the platform, screaming as he fell through the air toward the floating metallic hunk. Kade landed atop the mech, managing to grasp on to some cables protruding out of the top of the frame. The force from Kade’s weight caused the mech to plummet downward, jarring the mech into a chaotic spiral. Kade hung on for dear life as the two of them sailed toward the lower levels, doing his best not to vomit from all of the spinning. The telemech engaged its backup thrusters, allowing it to straighten out some. Kade’s added weight proved too much even with the extra thrust and they continued to sink, faster than Kade was comfortable with, heading straight towards a balcony full of unsuspecting audience members. Suddenly there were shouts of surprise and concern erupting from around the stadium. As he spun around, Kade glimpsed a spinning video feed on the jumbo-tron as his mech synced its camera into the main video link, a blur of colors and thousands of fleeting, stunned expressions displayed for all to see. The other telemechs were quick to divert their attention toward Kade’s daredevil stunt and, as Kade rotated around into view again, he could see himself as viewed from afar, spinning around through the air as he plummeted downward. One camera even managed to zoom in enough that he could make out the terrified expression on his own face, shown in such detail that, in the event that Kade survived the mess, he knew he would no longer be an anonymous patron at Falkner’s. But he had more urgent matters than dealing with being public enemy number one, such as not careening into the incoming concrete wall.

Kade braced himself against the mech and got his knees under his chest as he struggled to get his feet planted in a viable position. As the audience grew large in his field of vision, Kade made a quick assessment of his rapidly approaching destination: he would have to land in the audience–there were no two ways about it–unless he wanted to be pasted against the retaining wall of the balcony. As Kade span back around to face the incoming audience, many of which had already begun to flee from their seats, Kade could make out an exceptionally large man in a bright purple shirt two sizes too small, sitting stunned in his chair with a bag of popcorn suspended halfway from his face in the air.

He would have to do.

The man screamed and attempted to get out of his seat but his unwieldy girth disallowed him to get up. He dropped his popcorn, spilling food all over his lap and he began prying himself out from between the chair arms to no avail. The telemech flew into the concrete, smashing into a thousand pieces and Kade threw himself off at the last minute, sailing straight at the fat man. Kade covered his head and collided with the man’s robust midsection, bouncing off of him and causing the man to vomit up all of the junk he had just been shoving in his face for the last hour. Kade flopped onto a row of empty seats and rolled on to the cement floor at the head of the balcony. He felt a pang in his shoulder–the same arm that he had damaged previously–and he knew then that he had re-injured it. He slowly got to his feet, nearly everyone else on his side of the stadium standing and pointing at him as they squawked among each other. Before Kade could fire off a snappy remark at them, he saw a flash of metal and turned to see a handful of armed sentry bots storming down the aisle toward him with several servo drones in tow. Kade yelped and took off across the balcony, the fat man’s admonishments cutting above the ensuing din. Apparently, he hadn’t managed to free himself from the clutches of his chair.

Kade hopped over a railing and landed on the lower level, rolling along the concrete to distribute the force. A pain shot up his left side as his arm reminded him that he should be playing nice. He popped up to his feet and took off down a walkway, pushing people out of his way as he made his way down a massive staircase, reentering the main building.

***

He came out into a rotunda with diverging hallways in every direction. Having no time to think, he took a random one and bee-lined down the hall, passing by a series of washrooms and janitorial closets. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the contingent emerge from the stairwell, the servo drones zipping past the bots as their metallic boots went clank clank clank on the concrete floor. Kade realized there was no way he could outrun the drones as they moved almost twice as fast him, which left him one option if he didn’t want to get caught. He stopped in the hallway and looked around frantically. He saw a door labelled LAUNDRY and he ran up to it. He tried the handle and it was locked.

“Damnit!” He shouted, looking down the hall to see the drones zooming toward him.

He took several steps back and then ran at the door, throwing his weight into his shoulder. Luckily, the door wasn’t reinforced and he felt it budge from the force, though his already injured arm continued to protest. Kade rebounded and tried again. On his third attempt, the door burst off the frame and he stumbled into the laundry room. He quickly got his footing and turned back, slamming the door closed behind him. The drones wouldn’t be able to open the door but the bots wouldn’t have the same problem, so that didn’t give him long until they would be bursting through the door. Kade saw a laundry cart filled with dirty linens and he ran over to it, pushing it against the door to buy him some time. Kade did a quick survey of the room and considered hiding in one of the bins until he realized that the drones had infrared sensors and that he would stick out like a leper in a nursery. That also ruled out cabinets and anything else that wasn’t shielded–which was everything in the room. And then he saw it–his way out: a chute in the wall across the room, used for waste disposal–for linens that were beyond saving in a washing machine. As disgusting as the thought of being among potentially bio-hazardous waste was, Kade preferred the idea over being a puddle of melted flesh, which the bots’ plasma rifles would surely make him. He ran over to the chute, opened it, took a deep breath and jumped in.

***

Once again, Kade found himself surrounded by darkness, though this time he could feel himself falling through the air. He imagined for a moment that he was free-falling through outer space and how both exhilarating and terrifying that would be. But there were no stars, just pitch blackness and the sound of rushing air as it whirred by. He was jarred back to reality when he felt hard metal against his body as the shaft curved out from under him, sending him tumbling towards a dim, yellow light.

He emerged into a large chamber, sailing through the air towards heaps of dirty laundry and other waste below. He landed in a pile of plastic bags which, to his fortune, were filled with soiled linens, cushioning his fall. He dug himself out of the mess and spat out some grime which had gotten in his mouth. He shoved the dirty bags away from him and climbed over the refuse until he found equal footing. He looked around the room and saw that he was in some kind of waste disposal area, heaps of garbage of all kinds everywhere. At the top of the wall near the ceiling, there were openings at regular intervals, like the one he had come through, which told him that it was probably a central disposal plant for multiple facilities throughout the arena. Judging by the variety of junk that he saw around him, it was a fair guess. There were also a series of large conduits in the roof, glass panes revealing a moving liquid of some sort inside. The conduits fed into a network of piping that converged in the middle of the room into some kind of large metallic dome. Bright yellow light shone from within the dome, emanating out of circular glass portholes on every side–the only source of light for the room. The light was so bright, in fact, that Kade had to avert his gaze. The smell in the room, too, was overbearing. Likely, it was all the garbage that had collected there, causing an obnoxious stench to settle. As he turned away from the light, his eyes focused down at his feet and he frowned as he noticed something strange. He bent down and brushed aside some refuse, revealing a rubber matting with regular grooves in it. It almost looked like…

Suddenly everything shifted around Kade, as if the whole room had moved. Kade looked up at the wall for reference and, sure enough, the wall was moving away from him. He heard a sound behind him and turned to watch a grate on the central dome slide open, revealing an infernal fire, into which all of the refuse in the room fed. That was when Kade realized it wasn’t the room that was moving: he was moving. On a conveyor belt. He wasn’t just in a waste disposal facility…

…He was in an incinerator.