way. But she had definitely been the one who sent me careening across the ground.
What the hell…?
The red Jacket crouched and charged. The axe blade was a gleaming razor’s edge. I surrendered my body to the battle. One hundred fifty-nine loops had trained it to move with ease, and it did. The first strike came from the side, missing me by a hair’s breadth. I deflected the second, a vicious overhand swing, with the haft of my axe. Before the third swing could come, I leapt out of harm’s way and put some distance between us.
I caught my breath and the reality of the situation sank in.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Rita walked slowly toward me, battle axe swinging low, almost brushing the ground. She stopped, and her voice crackled over the comm link. Her high, delicate voice, so out of place on the battlefield:
“What’s it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you’re trying to fucking kill me!”
“Humans perceive Mimic transmissions as dreams. Our brains are the antennas that receive those transmissions. But it’s not just one-way. Our brains adapt-we become the antennas. I’m not even looping anymore, but I’m still connected; I can still sense the server Mimic because I am still an antenna myself. The migraines are a side effect. You’ve had them, haven’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s why the loop repeated last time, even though you destroyed the backups. You didn’t destroy the antenna-that was me.”
“Rita, I don’t understand.”
“It works both ways. If you become an antenna, the Mimics will still be able to loop. I’m an antenna. You’re trapped in a loop. You kill me, the loop doesn’t propagate. I kill you, it’s for real. Forever. Only one of us can escape.”
None of it made any sense. I’d been a new recruit trapped in a time loop I didn’t understand. I’d prayed to become as strong as the Valkyrie I saw striding the battlefield. I’d gotten myself turned into a corpse countless times trying to follow in her footsteps, and after 160 tries, I’d finally earned the right to stand at her side. We’d fought together, laughed together, eaten lunch and talked bullshit together. I’d dragged myself through Hell to get near her, and now the world was going to tear us apart. It didn’t get much more fucked up than that. The same loop that had made me into the warrior I had become was going to kill me.
“If humanity is going to win, we need someone who can break the loop.” Rita’s voice was cool and level.
“Wait, there has to be-”
“Now we find out whether that someone is Rita Vrataski or Keiji Kiriya.”
Rita charged.
I threw down my rifle; the time needed to take aim and squeeze the trigger was time I didn’t have against the Full Metal Bitch. I gripped my battle axe with both hands.
Our fight unfolded across the entire base. We moved from the No. 3 Training Field to the field we’d used for PT, trampling the remains of the tent the general had used to take shelter from the scorching midday sun. We passed the smoldering remains of the 17th Company barracks and crossed axes in front of the hangar. Our blades slid past each other. I ducked to avoid the strike and kept running.
The other soldiers stopped and stared as we passed. Their helmets hid their expressions, but not their shock. And why not? I couldn’t believe this was happening either. My mind was in denial, but my body continued to function, oblivious, like the well-oiled machine it had become. With movements honed to perfection, I pressed the attack.
As we approached the U.S. troop line, a green light on my HUD winked on-incoming comm for Rita. The link between our Jackets relayed the transmission to me.
“Chief Breeder to Calamity Dog.” A man’s voice. Rita slowed almost imperceptibly. I took the opportunity to widen the space between us. The voice continued, “Enemy suppression near ops successful. You look a little busy, need a hand?”
“Negative.”
“Any orders?”
“Keep the Japanese out of this. I won’t be responsible for what happens if they get in my way.”
“Copy that. Good hunting. Chief Breeder out.”
The channel closed, and I screamed at Rita. “That all you got to say? Hello? What the fuck!” There was no reply. Rita’s red Jacket closed on me. No more time to talk. I was too busy fighting for my life.
I didn’t know whether Rita was really trying to kill me or only testing me. I was a precision fighting machine without processing cycles to spare on extraneous information. Rita and anything more complicated than run/parry/dodge would have to wait. Whatever her intentions, her attacks were deadly real.
The base’s main gate was to my right. We were on the path I’d taken all those times to sneak into the U.S. side of the base to steal one of Rita’s axes. The line U.S. Special Forces held extended right across the spot where the two beefy sentries had stood.
Rita swung her weapon with no regard for who or what it might hit. I didn’t see any reason to bring anyone else into this, so I started backing us away from the line. Cafeteria No. 2 was about one hundred meters ahead. The javelins had taken their toll on the structure, but against all odds, it was still standing. It was a good distance from the line-it would do. A heartbeat later I’d covered the hundred meters and was making my way inside through the door on the far side of the building.
It was a dim twilight inside, just light enough to see. Tables lay on their side, piled into a makeshift barricade in front of the entrance opposite the door I’d come through. Food and half-empty soy sauce bottles lay scattered on the concrete floor. There was no sign of anyone-dead or alive-in the entire room.
This was where I’d spent countless lunches watching Rita eat. Where I’d fought that overgrown ape from 4th Company and played culinary chicken with Rita and a tub full of umeboshi. What better place for Rita and me to decide our lives in a duel to the death?
Orange light shone through a hole in the west wall. When I glanced at the chronometer beside my display I could hardly believe eight hours had elapsed since the battle started. It was already dusk. No wonder I felt like my Jacket was lined with lead. I didn’t have the muscle for this. My batteries were drained and systems were about to start shutting down. I’d never been in a battle half this long.
Rita’s red Jacket crept into the cafeteria. I blocked a horizontal swing with my axe; my Jacket’s frame creaked. If I’d stopped it head on, the torque from the actuators would have torn my Jacket apart from the inside out. Fear of what Rita was capable of gripped me anew. Rita Vrataski was a prodigy in battle-and she had learned to read my every parry and feint.
Each move in battle happens at a subconscious level. This makes it doubly difficult to compensate when someone learns to read those moves. Rita was half a step ahead of me, already spinning to deliver a deadly blow to the space where I would be before I even got there.
It hit home. I instinctively stepped into the arc of her axe, narrowly avoiding the full brunt of the swing. My left shoulder plate went flying. A red warning light lit up on my display.
Rita kicked, and there was no way to avoid it. I sailed across the room. Sparks flew as my Jacket grated along the broken concrete floor. I spun once and crashed into the counter. A shower of chopsticks rained down on my head.
Rita was already moving. No time to rest. Head, check. Neck, check. Torso, right shoulder, right arm unit- everything but my left shoulder plate checked out. I could still fight. I let go of my axe. Digging my gloves into the counter’s edge, I vaulted up and over. Rita swung, shattering the counter and kicking up a spray of wood and metal.
I was in the kitchen. Before me stretched an enormous stainless steel sink and an industrial strength gas range. Frying pans and pots large enough to boil entire pigs hung along one wall. Piles of plastic cutlery reached to the ceiling. Neat rows of trays still held uneaten breakfasts, now long cold.
I backed up, knocking platters to the ground in an avalanche of food and molded plastic. Rita was still coming. I threw a pot at her and scored a direct hit. It sounded like a gong as it bounced off her cherry-red Jacket helmet. Apparently not enough to dissuade her. Maybe I should have tried the kitchen sink instead. With a swing of her axe, Rita destroyed half the counter and a steel-reinforced concrete pillar.
