Chapter 47
My head is clearer in the morning, especially after I’m woken with kisses that go lower and lower until there’s no room left for anything else in my head than Jacob’s name.
Despite our history, Jacob has explained and made up for it, time and time again.
He stayed when I basically slept for two days straight.
He helped me without asking. Neil has no reason to lie to me.
Still, I’m hyper-aware of all the cracks opened and all the poison I haven’t been able to purge.
I can’t help but wonder if I’m lying to myself, trying to rationalize things in a desperate hope to hold on to the one thing that makes me feel good.
Do I have blinders on to the warning signs?
I throw myself into fixing ZetaMax, both with and without Jacob’s help. Working the way I need to, at my own pace, and with the modifications I need, makes the days way less tedious. The day passes in a blur, and suddenly, it’s over, and a new one has begun.
I blinked yesterday morning, and now I’m standing in line for the weigh-in check, an hour before I fight in the quarterfinals of the Circuit Smack championship.
I click my rings together as my bot goes on the industrial scale. It’s a formality, but it always makes me nervous.
“What did you change on your bot?” the attendant asks, frowning at his clipboard, then the scale read out.
“Nothing.” I hop over on my crutches and see the display.
ZetaMax is 260 pounds—ten pounds over the maximum weight limit. As of this second, I’m out of the competition.
There’s a robot-sized lump in my throat. “That can’t be right.”
I didn’t change anything. Everything is the same.
I go over each step in my brain. I would notice if a part weighed more when I put it in.
A chunk of my screwdriver handle fell off, and I could tell the weight change in my hand before I even saw what happened.
I don’t miss things like that. Everything was in order before I closed it up.
But I didn’t close it up.
Jacob did.
When I got here this morning, Zeta’s body was already closed.
The only thing left was to put on wheels and do a systems check.
Jacob had come last night and finished it after I fell asleep.
Jacob, whose primary focus for years has been winning Circuit Smack.
Until I got here and distracted him. Jacob, who has a team to pay and sponsors to impress by winning a championship. Jacob, who lied to everyone.
“Ms. Williams, your bot is overweight. You cannot compete.” The weigh-in attendant’s voice is void of emotion, like my dreams aren’t being ripped away.
My voice is shrill in disbelief. “That can’t be right.”
This is it. This is the other shoe dropping. The real truth of the “too good to be true.” This is the moment where it all goes to shit. I knew this was coming.
“I calibrated the scale this morning,” he says flatly.
“It’s not right,” I beg the universe. “I-I need—” I choke on the words. “I need my screwdriver. I need to open Zeta up.”
“What’s going on here?” a familiar voice says. I can’t tell if it’s panic or relief that floods me when Jacob appears in my periphery.
“Her bot is overweight.”
“I need my screwdriver. I need to check if there’s anything inside.” I pat my pockets, looking for one when I don’t see anyone holding one in the immediate vicinity.
“What would be inside?” the attendant asks.
My gaze meets Jacob’s cold, gray stare. My hands were not the last to touch the robot. We both know who would be at fault if something were wrong with Zeta: Jacob.
“I don’t know. I didn’t close it,” I say.
Jacob crosses his arms, nostrils flaring. “Unbelievable,” he mutters. “Take it off the scale and weigh it again,” he says to the attendant, voice as hard and rough as gravel.
“I just calibrated it.”
“Then calibrate it again, and weigh the robot again,” he growls.
The attendant looks both terrified of and annoyed with the man looming over him, an impressive combination, but he relents.
Jacob is a glacier beside me as we wait, watching each step of the process.
I put weight on my bad leg to feel anything but sheer terror when Zeta is rolled back onto the scale.
248 pounds.
“Oh, thank god.” The relief hits me so hard, I wobble on my feet. It’s within its standard variation and within regulation. I can fight.
I look to Jacob, hoping to see relief on his face, but I’m met with a hard jaw and narrowed eyes when he meets my gaze.
A small shake of his head tells me all I need to know; this time, I’m the one delivering the fatal blow.
There are no equipment malfunctions, only my own monumental fuck up.
There are 248 pounds of guilt grinding me into dust.
“Recalibrating and reweighing is standard procedure,” Jacob bites out at the attendant. “We almost had to redo the whole fight schedule because of your mistake.” He stomps away without looking at me.
Oh.
The guilt lessens a degree under the realization that this wasn’t about me getting to compete. There was no “Mari almost lost her chance” from him. No, the inconvenience of having to redo the fight schedule took precedence over me. It’d fuck up his analysis on the brackets and potential outcomes.
Maybe it’s my fault for blaming him, though. This time, it isn’t a series of inescapable, shitty circumstances ruining my life. This time, I was the catalyst, obliterating any progress we’ve made and pushing us right back where we started. My fears were right. Everything is falling apart.
I was wrong about one thing, though. I don’t need Jacob to win.
I try to blot out the disappointment, anger, and pain throbbing through my leg. The only thing that matters is my next fight.
Captain Spork has pinned me. The sharp claws on its hammer dig into my top armor as my wheels spin. It would look like we were dancing if smoke weren’t pouring from the top of my robot. Its battery is fire-white, a bad sign that has me as pale as its color.
“RELEASE!” the referee calls. It’s been ten seconds, so the other team has to release me, but the damage is done.
Battery fires are a common hazard. I’ve stacked the two batteries that power everything, and it seems like only the first one was hit. Zeta, miraculously, still moves. She’s slower, but she’s still moving.
Spork’s toothed hammer comes down again, aiming to dig further into my top armor, but I move backwards right in time, its weapon catching on my spinning disk.
The weapon tears free and goes flying across the arena to cheers.
Without a weapon, it’s a game of cat and mouse.
It’s my turn to hit them. While they’re faster, they have a hard time turning quickly.
I chase them in ways that only leave them with hard turns to escape and catch them there.
A perfectly placed hit sends them flying, rolling in the air before landing on their back. Normally, their hammer arm can help tip them back over, but my earlier hit must have ruined it. They tap out, rather than waiting for the knockout countdown.
I’m thrilled that I’m advancing. And something inside of me is hollow. I smile and wave, but it’s a mimicry of what I should be feeling. Guilt and disappointment have smothered everything else.
Jacob is not in the stands cheering for me. He is not in the Builder Bay waiting for me. And after he wins his match, he does not come to my room.