Chapter 2 #2
Despite the bright purple-and-pink hair, pink glitter cane, and wardrobe in varied shades of the rainbow across my unapologetically fat body, I try not to draw a ton of attention to myself.
People take me less seriously when they take a moment to examine me.
If I keep my temper in check and my head down, I can usually get away with doing what I want and need.
I’m not toning myself down for the approval of others, but sometimes I think it would be easier to do so.
If I had, maybe I wouldn’t be at Circuit Smack almost a decade later than I’d planned.
I force a smile and wave as I walk over. Luckily, many people go back to their work when they realize the shouting isn’t interesting. Several still stare, however, so I keep my focus locked straight ahead.
“It’s Mari,” a familiar face corrects. Fatimah Zamani stands beside Joel and four other vaguely familiar-looking people.
“Right, Mari. Meet the crew! Sounds like you know Fatimah,” he says.
“Yes, we know each other from the Twin Cities robotics scene,” Fatimah says.
We’re not exactly close friends, but we get along well.
The stunning woman lives in Manitoba but often attends events in the Twin Cities.
She looks more like a plus-size model you’d see on a red carpet than someone you'd regularly find in a warehouse full of geeks with soldering irons. We’ve fought beetleweight bots a few times.
We follow each other on social media. Her dog, Roger, is super cute.
We send each other sales we see at our favorite plus-size clothing stores.
That’s about the extent of our friendship, but it’s more than I have with most people.
“Great! Look at that, team spirit already. We also have Chris Hopkins.” A thin, sandy-blond man with thick glasses waves at me.
“Sonny.” Joel points to an attractive man with deep olive skin and delightfully unruly curls threaded with gray but pauses, clearly searching the archives of his mind for Sonny’s last name.
“Sonny Ayala,” Sonny says, holding out a warm hand for me to shake.
“Yeah, Ayala,” Joel says, waving his hand. “And my man, Travis Blair,” he finishes and high-fives a redheaded man with a beard and a smarmy expression. “Team Jaxon, yeah!” he cheers too loudly. Once again, the other builders are staring. Our team gives a half-hearted clap.
For the first time, I see our bot. While most people disassemble their robots for transport, they have already built them, tested them, and have a completed design.
Unease settles in my gut. ZetaMax lies in pieces on one table, and its weapons lie in a row on another.
This robot is a pile of random parts, nowhere near a completed bot, waiting to be put together.
They sent me very little information outside of the knowledge that it’s a modular bot—we’ll be able to swap our weapons out between vertical and horizontal spinners, giving us more versatility.
“We’re familiarizing ourselves with the robot,” says Sonny. “We’re at a bit of a disadvantage since Joel just finished acquiring all the pieces.” That’s the nice way of putting it. The correct way is: we’re fucked.
Joel doesn’t notice Sonny’s annoyance. “Cool, right?” he says. “Travis works in my Electrical Engineering Department. He suggested we—what was the term you used, Travis?”
“Kit bash,” Travis says with rapt attention to Joel, like a dog waiting for the treat in his master’s pocket.
“Kit bash two bots together. I bought some decommissioned bots cheaply. Travis and some of my research and development guys ordered the extra parts. Say hello to ZetaMax! Some assembly required,” he says with a self-satisfied laugh.
Great. The start is in two and a half days, and all we have is a pile of parts.
Kit bashing plastic models and putting together a robot are two very different things.
While there are plenty of pre-made, plug-and-play robot kits, this doesn’t seem to be any of them.
The parts are cheap and outdated, and there’s a wide mix of materials.
While Circuit Smack is unique in letting contestants upgrade and make major changes to their bots during competition, I don’t think they ever imagined anyone building one mostly from scratch days before the qualifiers start.
I put my hands in my pockets to stop from massaging my temples.
“You should get started on the build right away,” Joel says. “We only have a couple days! I’ll check in on progress later.” He strolls out of our workspace before anyone has a chance to ask questions.
We collectively examine the pile of parts laid out next to the chassis. Sonny sighs as he picks up the batteries. Fatimah finds an errant clipboard and starts writing a checklist. I go to check out the weapons.
“Mari?” Chris says, hushed.
“Hi,” I say, and hold my hand out to shake.
“Hi! It’s nice to meet you in person. I’m Christotron239 on the US Bot Builder message boards!” His wire-frame glasses shift with his huge smile as he shakes my hand. My rings pinch against each other with the pressure of his excitement.
The recognition hits me. We’ve interacted online more than a few times. He’s always nice. He reminds me of Dave with his silly but sincere bots. “Oh! Hey!”
It’s nice to have friendly faces between him and Fatimah. While I hardly know Chris, and Fatimah and I are casual friends at best, knowing I’m not alone with total strangers soothes a part of me I didn’t realize was quivering like a Chihuahua in a blizzard.
Fatimah clicks her pen. “I’ve created a list of to-dos for each of us. We should be able to familiarize ourselves today, maybe do some of the electronics work, and get into building properly tomorrow.”
Chris and I review the clipboard before handing it to Sonny and Travis.
Over Travis’s shoulder, I see Jacob Moore at his station, one column over and three workstations down, glaring at me like I took a baseball bat to one of his computers.
All of my nerves are suddenly replaced with simmering anger.
“Let’s get to work,” I mutter as I turn back to the pile of scraps.