I backed up further-into a wall. I dropped to the ground as a vicious horizontal swing sliced toward me. The bodybuilder’s face, still grinning mindlessly down over the kitchen, took the hit in my place. I dove for Rita’s legs. She sprang out of the way. I let the momentum carry me back to the ruins of the cafeteria counter. My axe was right where I’d left it.
Picking up a weapon you’d already thrown away could only mean one thing: you were ready to fight back; no one picked up a weapon they didn’t plan on using. It was clear I couldn’t keep running forever. If Rita really wanted to kill me-and I was starting to think she just might-there would be no running. Fending off one attack after another had left my Jacket running on empty. It was time to make up my mind.
There was one thing I couldn’t let myself forget. Something I’d promised myself a long time ago when I resolved to fight my way out of this loop. Hidden beneath the gauntlet on my left hand was the number 160. Back when that number was only 5, I had made a decision to take all I could learn with me into the next day. I’d never shared the secret of those numbers with anyone. Not Rita, not Yonabaru, not even Ferrell who I’d trained with so many times. Only I knew what it meant.
That number was my closest friend, and so long as it was there, I had no fear of dying. It didn’t matter if Rita killed me. I would never have made it this far without her anyway. What could be more fitting than redeeming my savior with my own death?
But if I gave up now, everything would be gone. The guts I’d spilled on that crater-blasted island. The blood I’d choked on. The arm I’d left lying on the ground. The whole fucking loop. It would vanish like the smoke out of a gun barrel. The 159 battles that didn’t exist anywhere but in my head would be gone forever, meaningless.
If I gave it all I had and lost, that was one thing. But I wasn’t going to die without a fight. Rita and I were probably thinking the same thing. I understood what she was going through. Hell, she and I were the only two people on the whole damn planet who could understand. I’d crawled over every inch of Kotoiushi Island trying to find a way to survive, just as Rita had done on some battlefield back in America.
If I lived, she’d die, and I’d never find someone like her again. If she lived, I would have to die. No matter how many different ways I ran it through my head, there didn’t seem to be another way out. One of us had to die, and Rita didn’t want to talk it through. She was going to let our skill decide. She’d chosen to speak with steel, and I had to give her an answer.
I picked up my axe.
I ran to the middle of the cafeteria and tested its weight. I found myself standing almost exactly where Rita and I had gone through the umeboshi. Ain’t life funny? It was only a day ago, but it felt like a lifetime. Rita had beaten me at that, too. I think it was fair to say she had a gift for competition.
Rita’s crimson Jacket advanced one step at a time, sizing me up. She stopped just outside of axe range, her gleaming weapon gripped tightly in her hand.
The sounds of the fighting outside intruded on the quiet of the cafeteria. Explosions were the beat of distant drums. Shells tearing through the sky were the high notes of flutes. Automatic rifles played a staccato percussion. Rita and I brought together raucous cymbals of tungsten carbide.
There were no cheering onlookers in the crumbling ruins of the cafeteria. Piles of tables and overturned chairs were our only spectators, silent observers to the deadly dance of our crimson and sand Jackets. We moved in a spiral, as Rita always did, tracing a pattern in the concrete floor. We were dancing a war ballet, wrapped in the pinnacle of mankind’s technology, our crude weapons singing a thousand-year-old dirge.
My axe blade was notched and dull. My Jacket was covered in scars, its battery all but depleted. My muscles moved by sheer willpower alone.
A tremendous explosion shook the cafeteria. We jumped at the sound.
I knew her next strike would be a killing blow. There would be no avoiding it. No time to think-thinking was for training. Battle was all about action. The experience etched into my body through 159 battles would guide my movements.
Rita pulled her axe back for the swing. My axe would answer from below. The two giant blades crossed, shredding plates of armor.
There was only one real difference between Rita and me. Rita had learned to fight the Mimics alone. I had learned to fight the Mimics watching Rita. The precise moment she would swing, the next step she would take-my operating system had recorded it all. I knew what her next move would be. That’s why Rita’s swing only grazed me, and my swing tore open her Jacket.
A hole gaped in Rita’s crimson armor.
“Rita!”
Her battle axe trembled in her hands. Rita’s Jacket was doing its best to filter the unintended commands triggered by the convulsions in her muscles. The axe’s tungsten carbide handle clattered noisily against her gauntlets. Blood, oil, and some unidentifiable fluids oozed from the newly opened split in her armor. The scene was eerily familiar to me, and I felt a renewed sense of terror. She extended her arm and fumbled for the jack on my shoulder plate. A contact comm. Rita’s voice was clear in my helmet.
“You win, Keiji Kiriya.” The crimson Jacket leaned hard against me. Rita’s voice was dry and laced with pain.
“Rita-why?”
“I’ve known for a long time. Ever since I first got the Mimic signal. The battle always ends.”
“What? I don’t-”
“You’re the one who makes it out of this loop.” Rita coughed, a mechanical sputtering sound through the link.
I finally understood. When I met Rita yesterday, she had decided that she was going to die. I didn’t recognize it for what it was at the time. I thought I’d accidentally tripped some sort of flag. I should have been trying to find a way to save her, but I let the day slip through my fingers.
“I’m sorry, Rita. I-I didn’t know.”
“Don’t apologize. You won.”
“Won? Can’t we just… just keep repeating this? We may never leave the loop, but we’ll be together. Forever. We can be together longer than a lifetime. Every day will be a battle, but we can handle battle. If I have to kill a thousand Mimics, a million, I will. We’ll do it together.”
“Every morning you’ll wake up to a Rita Vrataski who doesn’t know you exist.”
“I don’t care.”
Rita shook her head. “You don’t have a choice. You have to break out of the loop before what happened to me happens to you. End this goddamn thing while you still can.”
“I can’t sacrifice you to do it.”
“The Keiji Kiriya I know wouldn’t sacrifice the human race for himself.”
“Rita-”
“There isn’t much time. If there’s something you want to say, say it now.” The crimson Jacket slumped.
“I’ll stay with you until you die. I-I love you.”
“Good. I don’t want to die alone.”
Her face was hidden beneath her helmet, and I was grateful. If I’d been able to see her tears, I never could have ended the loop and left her forever. Light from the setting sun, red and low in the western sky, played across Rita’s crimson Jacket, enveloping her in a brilliant ruby glow.
“Long fight, Keiji. It’s already sunset.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Sentimental bastard.” There was a smile in her voice. “I hate red skies.”
It was the last thing she ever said.
6
The sky was bright.
Rita Vrataski was dead. After I killed the Mimic server and mopped up the stragglers, they threw me in the brig. They said it was for dereliction of duty. By recklessly ignoring the orders of a superior officer, I had placed my
