The Versk team shares a communal dinner on the night before the start of the competition. For one brief hour, the terminals that surround Hex are gently pushed to the side, along with the coils of cables and tools. Sander and his team haul in the trestle tables from the attached kitchen area along with every spare chair and overturned box they can find, until the suit bay has been made into an impromptu dining area.

  Looking around at the twenty-nine other members of the Versk team, Lanis is surprised to realize that she knows each of their names, from Sammy, a rail-thin AI tech, to Cole, one of the Versk sec-unit members who’s even bigger than Booker. Ether joins too, in a way, as Hex’s cortex is put into a stand-by mode; Lanis can see one of the suit’s targeting pupils rotate and dilate, and over the hum of conversation she can hear the suit’s monotone vocalization join in a conversation with a few of the AI technicians.

  “She’s come a long way,” Ash says, following Lanis’ gaze as she joins Lanis, Mirem, and a few of the Suit techs at their end of a table.

  “Remember when you first met her? She would hardly work with Fornis at all,” Ash continues as she considers the hulking Suit. “Then again, she still might not, he was kind of an asshole. But her general agreeableness has really improved. Even if the competition doesn’t work out, the strides we’ve made with Ether alone should be worth it for the Versk board.”

  Lanis makes yet another mental note to ask Mirem just how much having a high Hinton-scale AI will add to Versk’s market capitalization, or how showing off Ether publicly will affect said value. Murkata-Heisen’s behind-the-scenes wrangling to get Versk included in the Cauldron, along with their substantial holdings in Versk, click firmly into place.

  Before she can begin to feel too jaded about the whole enterprise, Ash leans over and gives her an awkward half hug.

  “Anyway. Thanks,” she says, pulling away with a slight blush on her pale cheeks.

  Lanis opens her mouth to respond, but a low shushing ensues, and she sees Sander rise, a glass of raised apple juice taking the place of as-yet forbidden alcohol, at least until the competition is over.

  “Ah, I’m not so good at these things, but I felt the moment called for a few words,” Sander begins, his bushy eyebrows furrowed. “Let me say that it has been an honor to work with you all. Two weeks ago we didn’t even know we’d be here. And now…” he gestures with his large, calloused hands. “Look what we’ve done. But it couldn’t have happened without each and every one of you. To all of you, and to Ether and Lanis, who will be in the thick of it tomorrow, I raise my glass.”

  A cheer goes up, and the Versk team members raise their own juices and sparkling waters in a toast.

  “Now, would our illustrious pilot care to say anything?” Sander asks, his black beard nearly hiding a smile.

  Lanis nearly chokes on her sparkling water as twenty nine pairs of eyes and one glittering optics array swing toward her. Despite having a mind strong enough to tear through Warp space, Lanis has always dreaded public speaking. She takes a deep breath, rises and gives a sheepish smile.

  “Thanks Sander. I guess if you didn’t know I hated public speaking, now you do.” A few chuckles meet this, and Lanis holds up her glass, the gaze of the Versk team no longer feeling quite so oppressive. After all, she knows them. Many of them have essentially seen within her mind, or watched as she’s peeled out of the sim pod, sweat drenched and trembling; in fact, most of the AI techs were there on the first day she met Ether, when she screamed and spasmed like some newborn lamb.

  A team. My team, Lanis thinks, and allows herself a moment approaching contentment as she meets their expectant faces.

  “I guess, I just want to say thanks,” her voice cracking but growing firmer as she goes on. “It was just a few months ago that I didn’t really feel like my life meant anything. I didn’t know that I’d ever have any… purpose, again. It was… pretty dark there. So, no matter what happens. Thank you all.” She looks at Mirem, who smiles back at her. “Thank you for giving me a reason.”

  She raises her glass, and her eyes meet the shining optics of the hulking suit.

  “We’ll do our best.”

  The morning of the competition arrives, and an expectant hush seems to fall across the staging ground. Lanis can’t help but feel the adrenaline jitters of anticipation as she dons her pilot Suit, both for what the competition holds, and for what might come after. She says as much to Mirem.

  “I know, I feel the same way,” Mirem says, giving Lanis a firm hug. “We’ll figure it out when this is done. In the meantime, just…” Mirem hesitates, pulling back from the hug and looking Lanis up and down. Have some fun? Lanis thinks, as she watches Mirem clearly search for the right words.

  “Just kick some ass,” Mirem finishes, pulling Lanis back in for a second embrace.

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  It’s a sentiment echoed repeatedly with thumbs-ups and nods from each team member Lanis meets on her way to entering the Suit pod, from the nervous smiles of the AI techs to the Sec team members who give her encouraging nods. It’s a relief when she’s finally situated in the pod-couch, Ash running through the final checklists in a monotone chatter as she cinches down the pod harness and lowers the neural net across Lanis’ head. Finally, she feels the cool glide of the neural shunt entering her temple, and the flickering on-boarding of Ether’s AI consciousness brushing against hers.

  About time! Ether says, the shadow of her existence taking form as the AI integration firms into place.

  “What are you wearing?” Lanis asks, her pupils dilating as she observes Ether’s own self-construct in the moments before they fully integrate.

  What, this? Ether says, looking down at herself. She’s wearing her newly-standard Versk pilot suit, but she’s also sporting a tight leather jacket and sunglasses. She looks like a pilot out of some low-budget antique action film. She gives a twirl, and then a flex, the leather jacket creaking.

  “You know what, whatever makes you feel strong,” Lanis says, laughing in her mind and grinning in reality.

  The pilot pod remains open, and Sander’s voice booms out: “All right, let’s review the pre-launch order of events again.” He stalks around the Versk Suit like an ant queen’s most diligent guard, touching each leg in turn.

  “In ten minutes, those bay doors will open.” He jerks a hand at the looming wall through which the suit first entered. “All team members will move to the opposite end of the bay. Lanis, at signal from Cauldron Oversight, will exit the bay to the pick-up zone right outside. At this point, communication will be shut off. Lanis and Ether are fully on their own. The bay will close, competition footage will commence, and all Suits will await mag-lev pickup and transport, which the comp has assured me will take less than an hour, all told. Should give us just enough time to get out the popcorn. Are we all clear?”

  A chorus of “all clear” echoes back, and Lanis feels her heart skip a beat.

  “You ready?” Ash says, brushing her hands up and down Lanis' suit in a final once over, pulling at straps and making sure that no cable, electrolyte drink, or gel pack is out of place.

  “You tell me,” Lanis answers, giving Ash a lopsided smile.

  Ash squeezes Lanis’ leg.

  “You’re ready.” She turns back to the others on her team.

  “Pilot pod shutting!” she yells.

  “Pod shutting!” they echo back, words that are also echoed into Lanis’ ear by the scratchy voice of Heinrich.

  Ash heaves the door of the pilot pod shut, and the HUD of the pod glows to life. In her mind, Lanis watches as Ether suddenly hefts a weighty pillow in her hand.

  Sleepover time.

  At the appointed moment, the Versk team’s bay door shifts open, and a deep monotone voice buzzes in Lanis’ mind.

  “This is Cauldron Oversight to all pilots, drone footage has commenced. Please move to your designated pickup zones.”

  Lanis feels the restrained power of the suit coursing through her body and the hexapod picks up one weighty leg after another. Through the Suit’s sensors she can hear the Versk team clapping and whooping as Hex lumbers outside like a giant tarantula finally coming out of hibernation.

  Her pickup zone, marked with white fluttering flags, is only a hundred meters away. In a long semi-circle nearly two kilometers long she can see other suits emerging from their respective bays, like so many beasts emerging from their lairs. To either side of her are bipedal mechs: one, a tall, angular-looking suit in dusky blue, has Howett brushed across its torso in scarlet red, while the other is more compact—the words “lumpy” and “thick” spring to mind—and sports the Amcross logo in silky letters. Ether is busy absorbing as much data as possible from every Suit they can see, and then cross-referencing their logos to the companies and their imagined specialties. It’s only a few precious seconds before Hex is in its pickup zone, and the voice of Oversight buzzes once again.

  “Pilots, prepare for Suit standby mode and transportation, and await further instructions.”

  Lanis grimaces as Hex is remotely accessed by Oversight and nearly all of its systems are put into standby. The HUD flickers and fades, and all Lanis is left with is the red glow of the pod’s auxiliary power and the weighty presence of Ether.

  Lanis reaches beside her and tears open a reassuringly familiar Murkata-Heisen packet, this one more carbs than protein. Her brain is about to consume a whole lot of glucose over the next twenty-four hours, and she’ll need to stay ahead of the curve. Hydration too, though she isn’t particularly thrilled about her pilot suit’s waste functionality; it’s certainly one area where corp tech still lags far behind Fleet’s. Still, I’d rather be here than in a Navigation pod, support gel or no, she thinks.

  I am SO glad I don’t have that problem, Ether replies.

  She savors the gel pack for a few long minutes, imagining what’s happening beyond the reinforced hull of Hex. She imagines the Cauldron announcers zooming in on each Suit in turn, the flash of each pilot’s portrait along with a brief summary of the corp the suit represents. She imagines Sander, Mirem, and the rest of the team pulling their chairs around their holo-casts, the way Heinrich pushes up his glasses in a nervous habit, and how Mirem’s teeth flash when she laughs.

  The minutes drag on, and Lanis lets herself settle deeper into her integration with Ether, until the strawberry taste of the gel pack is nearly the only thing tethering her to her physical self. Ether’s mind becomes quiet too, and they linger in a space of near-complete shared consciousness.

  Lanis takes a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and pulls herself back from the point of having her own ego completely subsumed by Ether’s, along with her neural pathways.

  She finishes the last dregs of the gel pack and is stuffing it into the pod’s waste packet when she feels the shuddering groan of one of the Cauldron’s mag-levs attaching to Hex, then the slight drop in her stomach as they leave the ground.

  She closes her eyes, and adjusts herself deeper into the pilot couch.

  “Ok. Let’s review the suits we just saw.”