A Visitor to the Future - 114 - A Rock and a Hard Face
My Proxy's face buried in the asteroid, the centaur's forearm applying pressure, it seemed like a decisive blow was only a second away, and elimination from the round soon to follow. But no - Tungsten had gone on the offensive and gave me the opening I needed to pry myself from the rock and slip from the grip of the centaur. One of my optics sparked and failed, and my right arm suddenly seemed less powerful than it should have been. Something had definitely given way.
"I could use some assistance!" said Tungsten, ducking and weaving to avoid strikes from the centaur, which was now advancing on him. He cleverly strafed backwards around one of the asteroids, forcing the larger centaur to take a wider angle and allow himself some breathing space. There was a large dent in one of the centaur's shoulder plates now - presumably where Tungsten had managed to land his strike earlier.
I glanced to one side and saw Gatecrash struggling with the two wolves. A split-second decision needed to be made - Tungsten was closer, but-
"Help Tungsten!" said Gatecrash, deciding for me, "I'll manage for now!"
I gave Gatecrash a nod and ran after the centaur, which was now facing away from me as it chased Tungsten. Had it just left me an opening? I moved to leap onto it's back, my aim being to strike the weak spot that Sarkona had mentioned earlier, or to try and pry at the neck armour if that didn't work - but I never made it that far.
It kicked at me with one of it's rear legs, exactly like a horse, and I flew backwards, skidding across the ground a short distance, dust rising up in my wake. The centaur spun around suddenly, one long arm outstretched, it advanced towards me, ready to seize one of my limbs.
Tungsten approached it from behind, and I feared he would also be sent flying - but instead, it seemed he had learned from my mistake. As the leg lashed out to strike at him, he made his own strike downwards and at an angle, hitting the leg itself and shattering armour in the blow. The momentary distraction was all I needed to roll out of the way and get myself back upright.
Something had been off, though. I'd rolled further than anticipated, the motion assisted by motion that wasn't my own. I glanced around, seeing the tops of the asteroids in the distance, checking my footing, and put two and two together.
"The arena is tilting!" I said, "It's slow but it's happening!" The arena floor was now at a five degree angle, placing me slightly downhill of the centaur and Tungsten. Gatecrash and the wolves were further downhill of me.
"That's not good!" said Gatecrash, landing a punch on a pouncing wolf, and side-stepping the other, "Inclines favour quadrupeds - more traction!"
There wasn't enough time to waste, then. We'd need to take out the centaur as quickly as possible.
_
You could ask the Consortium about almost anything in the solar system.
The Consortium could provide an audit log of all construction activity within the Resiliency stadium. It could break down, step by step, how the walls for the arena in round three were assembled. If you asked it to show you the blueprints for the beetle-beasts, it would do so without difficulty and even offer to put you into contact with their designer. If you were curious about how the the flooding system for the foggy shores arena system worked, it could talk you through the basic principles and refer you to a detailed Infranet article for the rest.
It could tell you how the arena announcer had arrived five minutes later than he had initially anticipated because he had tripped over his cat and fallen down the stairs. Both the cat and person were a little shocked, but unharmed.
_
As Tungsten harried the centaur, I decided to try a different approach. If I came in at the centaur from the side instead of the rear, it's hindlegs wouldn't be able to reach me, and reaching backwards with it's long arms would be difficult. I went for a shoulder-tackle, hoping to cause some damage and knock it off-balance. At the very least I could get it to shift it's attention to me, and perhaps give Tungsten an opening to strike at the head or disable a limb.
As I approached, Tungsten ran forward to punch the centaur in the chest, giving the impression of a reckless strike. It took the bait, trying to grab at his extended limb, and land a simultaneous strike at the exposed Tungsten with it's other arm. Tungsten's timing was perfect - I landed my tackle at exactly the right time to disrupt the angle of it's intended strike, and it keeled over to one side as Tungsten hit his actually intended target - the head. The lens of the yellow optic cracked and shattered, exposing the innards, which Tungsten promptly ripped from the head with a shower of sparks. He leapt backwards before the now-tipped centaur could adjust and throw another punch.
Sadly, I wasn't so lucky. I'd reasoned that it would be difficult for the centaur to reach behind itself, in much the same way that I might find it difficult to grab something behind me with ease.
The centaur's arms were not so limited, and I was suddenly reminded of our discussions about non-humanoid joint structures.
The incoming punch directly impacted my right shoulder with more force than I thought possible, sending me spinning off it's side and towards it's rear, where a follow-up kick was waiting for me. For the second time in mere moments, I once again slid to a halt on the slowly tilting ground. If I'd noticed a weakness in my right arm earlier, it seemed almost paralyzed now.
_
The Consortium could tell you the lifecycle of each of the individual rocks within the arena. The designer of the tilting arena had grown up in the asteroid belt, near Ceres, and in a bout of nostalgia for home, had thought it a wonderful idea to make his design asteroid-themed. The Consortium had taken the designer's request for asteroid-like rocks, and following a few sustainability risk assessments had made the determination that these rocks could be sourced from actual orbital reserves. After all, space-based mining resources were ready to use, and obtaining them would not disturb anyone, nor uproot plants or scare animals from their natural habitats. Moving objects down from orbit took only little more than energy, and the Consortium had plenty of that to spare. And so, the Consortium identified asteroid C-type asteroid A-18-C-31.
_
I stood upright, cradling my right arm briefly before realizing that the instinctual response wasn't necessary. The motion did reveal the issue, however - there was a large indent and gash of metal just below the shoulder. I took a precious moment to look around - the arena's tilt had increased to at least ten degrees. I looked downhill, and noticed that where the arena's wall had once met the floor, there was now a space between the floor and the wall - some sort of gap had opened, a dark crevasse, the contents of which I couldn't make out.
"Tungsten," I shouted, "I can keep distracting, making openings - does that work for you?"
"Yes!" said Tungsten simply, fully concentrating on staying back out of the centaur's range.
I tucked the hand of my damaged arm into my left armpit, gritted my teeth, and went to charge the centaur again.