The Combat Codes (34 page)

Cego nodded slowly in agreement.

“Joba, what do you think?” Cego asked. He wanted everyone to have their say before the team made a decision.

Joba smiled good-naturedly and shrugged his big shoulders. Cego looked to Abel for translation.

“Joba say he in for whatever,” Abel replied quickly, smiling up at his huge friend.

Cego nodded. “OK, then, let’s take it to a vote. I don’t want to make the decision for everybody else. We’re part of a team here. We need to make decisions as a team.”

“Wait,” Sol said, eyeing Cego suspiciously. “You haven’t said what you thought yet. Don’t think we can take a vote before hearing what
everyone
thinks.”

“I don’t know if people want to hear what I think,” Cego replied softly.

“Well, I do,” Sol said emphatically. “In fact, I’m not voting until I hear it.”

“Ee too!” Dozer yelled.

“Now we’re in for it…” Mateus sighed.

Cego took a deep breath. “I think what you’ve said is completely true. Our goal was to get Knees back and accept the Jackals’ challenge. And it’s true that if we decline the first two challenges, we take far less risk—we’ll be in better shape for our challenge against the Jackals and we also won’t risk last place and getting held back.

“But if we decline the first two challenges, we’ve lost it all anyways,” Cego said. “Yes, we might get Knees back onto our team—but what sort of team will it be? We’ll have that mark on our back forever—backing down from those challenges. Without honor. Knees will be forced on a team of cowards. If it were me in Knees’s place, I’d rather stay where I was, despite the horrible company.”

“But—but,” Mateus started to interject, but Cego continued, his voice strong and steady.

“From where I stand, that’s what separates us from them. From Shiar and the Jackals. From the Daimyos. From everyone trying to use the Grievar for their own selfish purposes.” Cego thought about the many innocent kids, just like Weep, still fighting for their life in the Deep.

“From where I stand, it’s not even about winning. It’s about following the Codes. The other teams think we’re cowering and ready to be crushed. If we decline their challenges, we’re agreeing with them. We’re telling them that we’re afraid, that we don’t have what it takes to stand in front of them. We’re telling them that we have no choice but to concede.”

Cego was silent for a moment as his team waited for his conclusion.

“If it were my choice alone—and I know it isn’t—I’d accept all three challenges. I’d have us decisively win the first two, then I’d stare Shiar in the eyes and watch
him
cower as we take the third challenge. I’d have Knees back on a team with honor. A team in first place.” Cego finished, his eyes burning.

Dozer bellowed, “Ats what I’ve been sayin’ da ole time! I’m in!”

Sol stared into Cego’s eyes. He did not avert his gaze this time. Cego meant everything he’d said. Farmer would do the same. Murray would do the same.

“I’m in,” Sol said quietly.

“Oh, blasted lacklights,” Mateus screamed. “I can’t believe you fools are actually—”

“In Keeroth, we Grievar say something,” Abel interrupted the furious purelight boy. “If you need to cross field, and step in arnyx dung, no use in trying to clean off. Better to continue to step in dung until you cross field. Clean off later.”

The team looked at Abel with wide yes. “I in too,” Abel said as he looked up to Joba, who was smiling as usual and nodding his head. “And Joba in. Joba likes Cego’s plan.”

14

Into the Darkness

A Grievar shall not burden themselves with the society around them. Whether the squawks of merchants, the goading of politicians or the coos of sirens, a Grievar must stand apart. In doing so, one can enter the Circle with a clear
mind.

Sixteenth Precept of the Combat Codes

M
urray always got
stares when he entered the Daimyo districts. He hated it.

Not only was he at least two heads taller than most Daimyos, which naturally drew their gaze to him, but some still recognized Murray from his fighting days. Though combat was a Grievar lightpath, spectating fights was a Daimyo pastime—cheering and jeering, betting, criticizing, sitting idly and watching SystemView.

Already today, two of them had stopped Murray on the street, one trying to hire him for merc work and the other berating him for a fight he’d lost twenty years ago.

Murray walked beneath the shadows of a clump of towering skyscrapers in Mercuri’s Tendrum District—Daimyo territory. Not many traveled the lower street levels anymore, mostly Grunts and sweepers set on picking up refuse. The Daimyos preferred mech transport—having forgone walking or any sort of physical activity long ago.

Murray glanced up as one of the mechs briefly hovered above him. Images flashed across the pod’s translucent windshield, giving the operator access to various information feeds, probably displaying Murray’s complete history on the translucent surface.

Murray shook his head in disgust.

Mechs sped back and forth between the tall buildings that surrounded Murray, crisscrossing lanes of aerial traffic and merging with docks set along each floor of the skyscrapers. The Daimyos were always speeding from one place to another to do so-called business, making things: goods, products, and tools to enhance their lives. They were never happy with what they already had.

Another Daimyo broke from the aerial traffic to get a better look at Murray, gazing down from its mech like a floating deity. It was rare for a Grievar to enter the Tendrum, dangerous even—but Murray had business to handle.

Murray stopped at an intersection as a wide-mouthed sweeper mech methodically sucked up the debris on the street, picking up piles of refuse cast down from the pod traffic above.

Daimyos weren’t all bad folk, naturally—Murray knew that. Coach had taught him to keep an open mind. The Codes called for it.

They sometimes approached him with good intentions, wanting to reminisce about one of his fights that they recalled from their childhood. It always ended with them wanting something, though. They were always trying to use a Grievar to get ahead in their petty games.

Murray crossed the intersection just as an enforcement unit appeared from around the corner. Three egg-shaped solo pods, floating with purpose toward Murray. Of course they would know he was here—a Grievar couldn’t walk into a Daimyo district without having enforcement called on him.

They were imposing coming from a distance, but as they closed in, Murray could see that they were small like most of their kind. Even within their mechs, they appeared to be fragile creatures.

Each of the enforcers wore a helmet with a light visor that fell across his face. Even with the layer of glass and the helmet between them, Murray suspected he could easily crush the creature’s skull with his fist. They were armed, though—stunners planted at the exterior of the mech and the men carrying auralite rods on the inside—that was all that mattered.

“Grievar, state your purpose in Mercuri Tendrum, designated Daimyo housing and mercantile district,” the little man said with authority, though his voice wavered when Murray’s hard yellow eyes locked onto him.

Murray brought out his Citadel badge. Though it certainly didn’t give him free rein in the Daimyo district, it would at least ensure the man he was here on official business.

“Citadel Scout, Murray Pearson,” Murray growled under his breath.

“Scout, you say? Aren’t you a bit far from the Lift?” the enforcer asked suspiciously.

“I’m not heading Deep today. I have a meeting at the Codex.”

The enforcer lifted his eyebrow. “A Grievar with a meeting at the Codex? What business do you have with the bit-minders?”

“What darkin’ business is it of yours?” Murray growled.

“You’re no longer within the Citadel’s walls or in one of your slums, beast,” the enforcer spat. “It is my business to ask you whatever I want.”

Murray felt his blood vessels constricting and expanding, the adrenaline pumping into his veins. How easy it would be to put all three of these creatures down. They believed themselves to be protected with these layers that they put in front of them. Steel and glass and cloth. A mere illusion that Murray could dispel with a well-placed fist.

That’s not what he was here for, though. He was here for Cego. Murray exhaled quickly to steady himself.

“Citadel Commander Callen gave me direct orders to report to the Codex,” Murray said. “If you want to check back with him, go ahead. Course, I’ll need to tell him you’ve held me back here.”

At the mention of Callen, the enforcer backed down. The Scout Commander had a direct line to Mercuri’s Daimyo governor.

“Uh, no need for that,” the enforcer said. “Just make sure you stay off these main streets. You’re making the citizens uneasy.”

Murray nodded. “I’ll be sure to do that. Wouldn’t want the citizens to get uneasy,” he said.

Murray continued on his way, cutting off the main thoroughfare into a side alley between two of the massive buildings. He passed several neon signs with stairs that led to lower-level establishments—stores hawking goods and products of some sort, more useless items that these creatures collected.

Though Murray had only come this way once before, he remembered the path to Mercuri’s Codex clearly. He’d visited the place when he was under Coach’s tutelage. Out on a learning mission, as Coach called them—exploring the city with his team to see what and who they were fighting for.

As a young Grievar Knight, fresh out of the Lyceum, Murray had tried to keep an open mind. Seeing the makers at ArkTech, the hawkers in the mercantile districts, the clerics in the medwards—Murray could rationalize how those Daimyos had a place in the world. They made medicines, sold goods, created foods. Even if he didn’t agree with how the Daimyos lived their lives, he had a basic understanding of why they were necessary in society.

When Coach had the team visit the Codex, though, Murray hadn’t been able to fathom why they needed those… things.

Though bit-minders were Daimyos by breed, they were the farthest on the spectrum from the Grievar. Which is why Murray despised them.

To a Grievar, a body should be a sacred tool, a sword to be sharpened throughout life. A Grievar’s physical prowess was their link to the world around them—how they communicated with it, how they stacked up in society. Bit-minders didn’t even use their bodies. They were nearly mechs.

How could bit-minders be trusted if they had no physical stake, no roots planted in the earth? The bit-minders had no alligences to any nation. They sold their technology to the highest bidder, feeding off of the ongoing Grievar arms race. They had a Codex planted in nearly every major city around the world, where they programmed the pods, the sweepers, the spectrals, biometrics, lightboards, SystemView. And the Sim. The bit-minders had created the Sim.

Murray emerged from the alley and crossed another major intersection, keeping his hood down. There it was across the street—a short, flat steel building, out of place in comparison to the towering skyscrapers around it. The Codex looked like a building that had been chopped down to a stump.

In a sense, the Codex was as tall as the surrounding skyscrapers, but most of its floors were belowground. A network of System nodes growing beneath the earth like a maze of roots.

Murray shivered as he walked into the Codex through the steel sliding doors, emerging into a square, sterile room of polished black-metal walls. The room clearly was not built for a Grievar—Murray needed to duck his head to avoid brushing against the ceiling.

In fact, the room didn’t seem like it was made to welcome any sort of visitor. It was empty, as if he’d walked into an abandoned building. No receptionist for greeting or even security forces—just a large lightboard up against the wall in front of him, staring at him in silence. He knew they were watching him.

Murray took a deep breath and walked up to the board, placing his head in front of the display panel to let it scan him.

The spectral light flashed in front of Murray’s eyes, flickering back and forth. The light faded and a beep sounded. A previously invisible elliptical door swished open across the room from him.

Murray entered a brightly lit hallway with no doors or windows, made up of the same obsidian metal. With no direction, he began to walk down the corridor, listen to the echoing of his own footsteps.

Murray realized he was sweating. He’d barely broken a sweat before his fight at Lampai—and yet here, with no discernible threat, Murray could feel his heart rate increasing, his palms getting clammy.

Another previously invisible door swished open to Murray’s right as if it had been ready for him. He was being herded, like some rat in a maze. Murray ducked into the doorway, entering a tiny room, the ceiling so low that he needed to crouch inside of it.

The room suddenly dropped, Murray’s stomach dropping along with it as he braced his hands against the ceiling to steady himself. He could feel the transporter twisting rapidly in different directions, moving through the intricate network of the Codex. He imagined himself like a piece of food being digested, sent through the inner tract of some gargantuan beast.

Finally, the transporter stopped and the door swished open. He exited to another unmarked, sterile hallway, completely silent. Sweat was pouring off of his brow. Murray stopped and steadied himself, trying to take a few breaths.

Murray walked for several minutes down the blank hallway before another little door opened to his right, goading him to enter. There was nowhere else to go.

Murray ducked into a small, circular room, this one with no perceptible light beyond a soft glow at one end.

“Murray Pearson, Grievar brood,” a monotone voice said. “Controlled birth, year eight twenty-one, Underground, Zone Three Medward. Purelight heritage, father Mikros Pearson, mother Samelia,” the voice continued.

Murray walked into the dark room toward the glowing light.

“Age, fifty-two. Height, six feet ten inches. Weight, three hundred seventy pounds. Heart rate, one hundred ninety-seven beats per minute. Blood pressure—”

“STOP!” Murray yelled. “Stop with this darkin’ blather.”

The voice stopped.

“Blather? I merely speak the truth, Murray Pearson. Data. Every moment we live in this world, the data reveal the truth.”

Murray shivered as the creature came into view. It floated within a glowing tube, staring out at him with two tiny purple eyes.

It looked like a deformed baby, with tiny vestigial arms and legs and a massive bald head. The creature’s head made up the majority of its body mass, a pulsing bundle of veins and nerves.

“Blood pressure, two hundred over one hundred fifty-two… Do I scare you, Grievar?” the bit-minder asked Murray, its mouth not moving but its voice reverberating through audio boxes planted around the room. “I am so small compared to you. Three hundred seventy pounds of muscle, built to rend limbs and crush bones. Why would
you
be scared of
me
?”

“Not scared. I just don’t… can’t believe something like you actually exists,” Murray admitted.

“Exists. What a strange word,” the bit-minder said. “Do you exist more than me because you have a body that does as you tell it? You tell your body to walk around, to punch, to kick, to eat, to defecate, and you think, with your simple mind, that you have control. That you are free to do as you wish. And yet I, floating here, trapped in this space, who cannot walk the ground that you walk, have no control, no freedom to follow a lightpath. Is that what you think, Grievar?”

“I don’t think any of that,” Murray said. “I’m here because Aon Farstead told me you could help.”

“Yes. I know this already, of course. Help. You, with your fine-tuned body and your fists, you need help from me—floating here so helplessly. Why is that?” the bit-minder asked. “Perhaps what you think of as control is not really so. Perhaps your actions, where and when you move your body, are not entirely your own idea. After all, like everyone on this planet, you follow the light. And where does that light come from—who determines where that light shines?”

“I control my own actions,” Murray growled, knowing what the creature was suggesting. “Just like how I can decide to plant my fist through this tube of yours.”

“The path is already set for you, Murray Pearson,” the thing said. “You might think of me as small—helpless, even. But you are the ant, following a trail of crumbs that we’ve set for you. You won’t deviate from that path; you won’t harm me as your kind typically threatens to do. You need to follow your path, eat up your little crumbs, and keep moving forward. Isn’t that so?”

Murray wanted to prove the bit-minder wrong. He needed to forcefully steady his hand.

“You’re right,” Murray said. “Whatever you say.”

“As long as we know which side of the glass each of us is on, Murray Pearson, I can help you,” the bit-minder said. “We are not so different, as strange as it seems for me to say so. I know your kind thinks of all bit-minders as the same, one indistinguishable from another, but just like you, we have designations. My real name is a list of numbers too complicated for your simple Grievar brain… but you can refer to as me Zero.”

“Zero it is,” Murray said.

“Aon Farstead has informed me that we are interested in a particular point of System activity within the Citadel, is that so? That is why you are in the Codex, where I can see you are clearly uncomfortable, as you’ve already lost seven point three ounces of water weight since entering our doors,” Zero said with precision.