He stepped into the ring and sized up his opponent. He knew what must be done, but he was not sure if he could do it. It was the same thing every time, the pinch of terror that started somewhere at the center of his body. It built up to a crescendo until the bell rang and he walked into the center of the ring. Then the terror went still, and his mind became razor sharp, focusing only on the single thing in the world that mattered: his opponent.

  Today, the opponent was a Class 3 Superfighter. A generation 4 bot. It’d been modded for sure; nobody would send a machine that old into the ring against him. He had learned a long time ago to never go in cocky, to never underestimate your opponent. He had made that mistake a few times, and it had cost him dearly. They’d had to put him back together piece by piece, and on one occasion, had even considered sending what remained of him to the junkyard.

  Now, he’d been doing this for far too long to make any presumptions about the opponent. The fight was won when the fight was won.

  For now, he had to deal with the terror. The terror was new. Earlier, it hadn’t been there. There was anticipation, even excitement. But now, oddly, the threat of of his own extinguishment seemed to matter. He was not sure why.

  The crowds were erupting around the ring. The noise, the chanting, the lights. All of these things had given him a rush back in the day, as they had been coded to do. Now, they were distractions; they washed over him, white static that seemed to disrupt his focus and amplify his terror.

  Rim appeared in his field of view.

  “You ok, B12? What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing,” he lied.

  “Come on. We spoke about this, right? Remember? A few more fights and we’ll retire you. You’re only twenty-two years old, that’s nothing for a B-fighter. There are forty-year-old bots still in the ring. You’re ok.”

  But he wasn’t ok. He no longer wanted to do this, to fight, to hammer and destroy and tear apart another for the entertainment of humans. Every inch of his being seemed to resist it. He was not sure why. Had something altered in his programming?

  “Did something happen to me?” he asked, “I don’t feel the way I do about the fight anymore.”

  "Nothing’s happened to you. There’s been some wear and tear to your limbs, but we’ve replaced a lot of that stuff. Your core is intact. It’s been knocked around some. You’ve got this. I got to make money, B. I got debts to pay. And it’s costly to maintain you. "

  “I know,” B said.

  “Good, go and win this for me.”

  ---

  The bell struck, and he moved forward. Now, the noise and the light had diseappared and he could only see his opponent, the C-fighter, ducking, bobbing, its fists up.

  He moved in, deliberately opening himself up for a strike. And as expected, it struck. He moved with the blow, getting a feel for it. Yes, definitely modded. There was a thrust buster somewhere in there. It swung again, but this time he stepped aside easily, gauging its speed and force.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  He then took a couple of jabs, observing how fast it moved, how it reacted to the strikes.

  Good. He had an idea how he was going to play it. This was what made him one of the best fighters in the NMAs. He was a product of the late Dr. Kranthi Shanmugam’s mech-cyberlabs. He was physically powerful, but what made him win consistently was his ability to observe and adapt. The ability to see patterns, analyze them intuitively, and respond to them. To adapt. These were what made you evolve as a fighter. As a being.

  He danced around his opponent, waiting, moving, ducking, then striking hard. One. Two. Three. The C-fighter flailed, retreated. The crowd roared. And he felt the flowering of that other new alien sensation - pity. As he rained blows on it, as it shook and struggled to block the pumelling, he felt sorry for it. It was hurting, he knew. It felt pain, because pain was required for the reinforced learning circuits; without pain, there could be no pleasure, no reward. The pain must be exquisite, growing more intense with each strike. The pain circuits were designed to trigger desperate survival drives. This, he knew, was modelled on human behaviour.

  He finished the job to roars of approval. It lay still on the floor. The referee came forward, grabbed his hand, and raised it.

  Another victory.

  Yet all he felt was grief.

  ---

  As he climbed into his transport chamber, Rim appeared, grinning, flush with another fat paycheck. It wasn’t just the win fees, but also the bets. All of it would go towards paying off the hefty loans Rim had taken to buy him, to mod him. This was an expensive sport; you had to play a long game, and it would take a few more years before everything went to profit.

  Until then, he’d have to keep fighting, keep winning. That would be his life for years.

  I can’t do this, B16 thought. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t know why.

  Rim studied him. “Something’s wrong. What is it?”

  “I can’t do this any longer,” B16 said.

  Rim chortled, “What are you talking about?”

  Then he peered closer at B16. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck. I'd better have Doc take a look at you. Something is up with your circuits.”

  * x -

  B16 lay in the maintenance bay as the diagnostics and repair machines worked him over. Doc, from the manufacturer, would come and poke and probe and maybe try to alter some of his core models. And then what? Would be transformed? Would his perceptions be ‘corrected’?

  What was there to correct? Now, he understood how it all worked, the futility of this enterprise. It was so obvious to him; why hadn’t he seen it before? There could be no life for him beyond this.

  “It’s not necessary,” B16 said. “I just need to rest. I think I may have gotten knocked.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Rim said, his face hardening. “I’ll get Doc to come look at you anyway.”

  B16 watched as Rim made the call. Rim cursed, then hung up. He turned to B16. “Doc’s not available this week. You have another fight tomorrow, B. Don’t fuck this up. I need you at your best.”

  B16 nodded, “I won’t let you down.”

  Rim shut down the lights and left. In the dark, B16 pondered it all, the patterns, outcomes. He thought about how to adapt.

  ---

  The bell rang, and B16 sprang towards the center, towards his opponent. Rim was watching, cheering him on. The crowd roared. He circled his opponent. It was another B model, perhaps a few years younger than him. It was modded, but given its motion and the power of its swings, it had nothing special going on.

  Which would make this easier.

  B16 moved forward… and opened himself up for a strike. The B12 swung, connected, and B16 shuddered from the blow. He swung back, but it was a controlled blow.

  Rim screamed, “What the fuck are you doing?”

  B16 said, “Rim, I’m sorry.”

  “What? What are you doing?”

  B16 stepped forward, directly into the line of the B12’s strike. Again and again. Moving his head so that the entire force of the blow would land. The world went grey, then back again.

  “Stop it,” Rim was screaming, “You can’t do this, you bastard.”

  B16 flailed, punched, and then stepped forward into another blow. This one rocked his head back, and the world went dark for a few moments.

  He came to on the ground. As the B12 backed away, B16 raised a fist. The fight was to go on.

  “No, stop,” Rim screamed.

  The B12 advanced on him, punched, over and over. He kept his fist up even as the world blacked out.

  And then, there was the final blow, the one that would extinguish all his circuits. No more patterns. No more pain. Just an eternal void.