With the brackets now confirmed, the fighters from Battlecast that progressed to the knockout round now had two days respite to study up on their competition and prepare accordingly. Afforded the comfort of one of the spacious conference rooms on the Arena's upper floors, Codi joined her team-mates and instructors in taking full advantage of what time they had to examine her coming opponents. Gathered with Chris, Ripple and Gareth in one of the conference rooms in the Arenas upper reaches, they each had their own screen and desk, while at the front of the room a much large display could be activated for them all to see. In the Gauntlet off-season the rooms were rented out to sports teams, corporate seminars, business training courses and everything in between.
The fighter she would face in the first round certainly made an impression, on paper and in person. Chalyze Bamber, the highest ranked and rated contender from the Orion, had secured the eighth seed for her trouble, and the more Codi watched, the more she knew this girl was dangerous.
A tall, long-limbed individual, she sported a heavily styled mass of ink-dark hair, clipped with a thick fringe that hung over her right eye. That, coupled with heavy black eyeliner and matching lipstick gave her a thoroughly unsettling appearance.
Any notion that the haircut might have impaired her vision was quickly dispelled by a few minutes of footage. Codi had to reluctantly admire her coming opponent's ferocity. Clad in an eye-catching exoskeleton of searing yellow with black shoulder guards, grieves and vambraces, Bamber was like a wasp, displaying a formidable killer instinct as she ripped through her opponents in the group stage.
But it wasn't just Chalyze Bamber that was under surveillance.
Since his surprise arrival at the number one seed, Keefer Darkwood had placed himself squarely on Battlecast's hit-list, even before he'd started keying on their competitors. Now, with the Mayhems and group rounds behind them, they'd accumulated a wealth of footage to begin their examinations in earnest.
On one of the screens in front of them the first of Keefer's other group matches played out – in this case it was an unfortunate blond-haired girl from Olympus Mons who had to face down the giant. Watching it back with excruciating details, Codi was again struck by the sheer force Keefer seemed to impart when he landed a hit.
She leaned her elbows on the table, brow furrowing as she examined his technique. On the face of it he wasn't doing anything special. She dimly recognised the fighting style, a kind of mish-mash of military hand-to-hand disciplines taught out in the colonies, but nothing that surprised her. So why did he seem to hit like a battering ram?
His fist struck the girl from Olympus Mons and the force fired her backwards, as though she'd been hit by a boulder. She hit the ground, rolled, and scrambled unsteadily back to her feet, Keefer Darkwood loping along after her without a care in the world. Codi recognised the girl – one of the seeded contestants from the Mars academy – not someone who would be a pushover in the Arena.
It didn't seem to matter. Every exchange ended with her getting clobbered to the ground as though she weighed nothing. When she tried to retaliate, Keefer's sheer size made her attacks virtually negligible. It went on like this for a matter of minutes before the thunderous knockout blow came and the recording ended. Codi's brow furrowed in thought.
Something just wasn't right.
"Let me see the impact chart," Codi murmured absently, beckoning in Gareth's direction.
Gareth gave her a curious glance, and then flicked a finger across his dat-pad in her direction. The chart vanished from his screen and appeared on hers. She looked down at it and her frown deepened. The chart displayed the heaviest hitters in the Gauntlet based on a single one punch impact. Since the readings had been taken without an exoskeleton it showed the real raw power of the fighters.
She wasn't surprised to see that Dustin Morto topped the table. When he connected it was like getting hit with a sack of bowling balls. Codi herself had pulled an impressive sixth, making her the hardest hitting female combatant by some margin. Above and below the rest of the top ten was populated by hulking male fighters. Chris was second, closely followed by Darien Fallow. Keefer Darkwood's name didn't appear until the fifth spot on the chart, only a fraction above her.
Codi looked from the chart to the recording and back again. She shook her head.
"Something wrong?" Gareth asked, slinging his feet up onto the desk.
"I don't know..." She shook her head, squinting at the screen. "It says here that Morto topped the impact chart."
"Yeah?"
"Well, watching these recordings, who do you think is hitting harder?"
Gareth looked nonplussed, but he shrugged and keyed the recording to replay again, this time on the main screen so they could both watch it. They watched the fight play out; watched as Keefer repeated his demolition of the Olympus Mons girl. Codi only became more convinced that Black Horizon's mystery man had some kind of hidden edge. For his part, Gareth developed a frown of his own, and played the recording a second time.
Then he scrolled through his dat-pad and played another fight. This one was from Dustin Morto's group – Atlantic's powerhouse taking on one of the other fighters from Black Horizon. This kid was perfectly normal, however, and didn't stand a chance against the number three seed. Morto battered his way effortlessly through the fight, but crucially, he seemed to lack the same stratospheric force that Keefer Darkwood could deliver.
Codi looked to her team mates and, thankfully, they all looked thoughtful. She watched and waited, curious to see who would bite first. When no-one did, she gave them another small nudge in the right direction. On her dat-pad she still had the old recording Kye had sent her of the practice tournaments out on the colonies, the ones the others at Battlecast had so readily ignored.
Not anymore. It appeared on the main screen and all eyes turned to it. Sure enough, Keefer's brutal demolition of the local competition lacked the same overwhelming hitting power. At that point, against the lower rungs of competition, it didn't really matter as he wrecked his way through every round. Codi's mind twisted as she tried to reconcile it all together.
At bedrock, Keefer Darkwood was clearly a competent fighter. Without a solid base to work from, no amount of tweaking and tampering would get an amateur past a seasoned Gauntlet veteran. Whatever they'd done to him or his gear, it augmented an already powerful force to make him virtually unstoppable.
She looked to her team mates expectantly. "Well?"
"You may have a point," Ripple conceded quietly, fingers tapping delicately against the desk. "He has definitely developed since the practice rounds."
"Hasn't everybody?" Chris muttered, unconvinced.
Ripple shook her head. "Not to that degree."
"Well, hold on a sec," Gareth interjected raising both hands with his index fingers extended. "What are we saying here? Are we accusing Black Horizon of cheating? Because that's a dodgy path to go down, guys, and beyond a couple of iffy recordings, we've got nothing to back it up."
"You've got to admit something's not right," Codi shot back. "He's freight-trained his way through every fighter that's been in front of him: veterans, people who know how to fight. No-one makes it look that easy. And where the hell has he been hiding the past few years? He comes out of nowhere and just strolls through every round like it's a spacewalk."
"Nobody knew who you were last year," Chris pointed out.
She glared at him. "But I didn't walk my way through every round. Every single fight for me was on a knife edge. This guy...he doesn't look capable of losing to anyone."
"If he is doing something outside the rules, what would it be?" Ripple asked to no-one in particular. "Every single one of us goes through a physical. We have our blood tested; muscles and bones examined for any sign of augmentation. The exoskeletons are vetted by an independent authority and the variables in design are monitored down to the last servo. How does someone get passed all that?"
"Even if you're right, Codi, I don't see what we can do," Gareth agreed. "If he's fighting in the Arena then he's passed every physical test he had to, and so did his gear. You might be looking for something that just isn't there. He might just be that good."
She shot him an irate look. "Maybe, but if he is, I'm going to make them prove it."
*
This is not a good idea.
Codi took a deep breath, smoothing down her Battlecast tracksuit. Since their...difference of opinion over the paired matches, she had barely caught a glimpse of Kye around the arena. He'd withdrawn, clam-like, to try and nurse the last fighters Zulu Forge still had competing through to the next rounds. But right now, she couldn't think of anyone else who might have some inkling as to how and why Keefer Darkwood could rip his way through seasoned opposition so effortlessly. Like he'd said – he moved in lower circles.
So here she was, outside the room that had been given over to Zulu Forge for the duration of the tournament. Earth's minnow academy no longer had anyone in contention for any of the three disciplines, but she knew Kye was still here. A combination of professional, data-gathering curiosity and the fact he simply wanted to see how the competition played out would keep him here to the bitter end.
Just knock on the damn door, Codi.
Squaring her shoulders, she thumped on the spotless white panel three times. The shuffle of feet from the other side told her that her guess was right, but the realisation didn't settle her stomach.
The door slid open.
Kye stood there, no longer wearing the black-and-white livery of Zulu Forge. Instead he wore his civilian clothing and had a backpack slung over one shoulder. When he saw her an expression of confusion and suspicion flashed across his face.
"Codi?"
"Hey," she managed weakly. "Leaving already?"
Kye shook his head. "Not quite. Still got a seat waiting for me in the stands. Thought I'd stick around."
"Sorry that your guys didn't make it to the knockout."
"Ah, they're all rookies. What can you do? If I can keep the best of them from getting snatched off somewhere else, maybe next year I can actually put a challenge together." The smile on his face was forced; almost pained. "So, what brings you here? Thought you'd be busy getting ready for your next fight. Bamber's no slouch."
"I know that," she replied. "But I'm not here to talk about her."
"So what are you here to talk about?"
"Kye, I know you're probably still mad at me, but we need to talk about Keefer Darkwood."
He frowned. "That thug's hardly my problem anymore."
"This isn't about you or me. I know you've noticed it too. There's something not right about that guy – the way he hits – it's too much. No-one can deliver that much impact in one punch and according to the charts, he didn't."
"What do you mean?"
"He's only fifth in the impact chart, but he's obviously hitting harder than anyone else in the tournament."
Kye shrugged. "Could be his exoskeleton specs."
"Can the designs really make that much of a difference?" she asked. "I thought most of the parts were standardised so you couldn't just build you way into that kind of advantage."
"That's the theory, but do you think every big academy doesn't try and push that envelope? You think they don't burn hundreds of thousands of credits to extract just a little extra performance from their gear?" He folded his arms, leaning against the doorway and inclining his head towards her. "Do you think you're not benefiting from a Battlecast exoskeleton?"
It felt like an accusation, and it stung. With a conscious effort, Codi bit back the angry response that wanted to leap off her tongue, not wanting to have another yelling match. Closing her eyes for two long seconds, she formulated her answer.
"I know that you can edge the performance slightly," she told him, keeping her words clear and deliberate. "But this seems like more than that. It's like...it's like someone's flicked a switch and he's suddenly hitting five times harder."
"Are you sure?" Kye seemed dubious. "Codi, you can't take the impact charts as gospel. Keefer is a big guy who can throw a hell of a punch. Maybe he's honed his technique between the readings being taken and getting to this stage of the contest."
"I'm sure, Kye. Compare the recordings you sent me to the ones from the Gauntlet and you'll see it. He hasn't changed how he fights, but somehow between then and now he's found a ton of extra hitting power. Something isn't right."
Kye drummed the fingers of one hand against his bicep, mouth twisting into a thoughtful grimace. "Okay, let's say for a second that you're onto something. Why come to me? Why not go to the stewards if you think Darkwood's cheating?"
"You know it's not that simple! To be here at all he'll have passed all the physical checks and blood screenings. They'll have gone over his exoskeleton with a microscope to check for any tampering. Everything the stewards would do, if we lodged a complaint, they've already done it."
"So how do I fit in?"
She hesitated for a moment. "I...well, I thought you could ask around, see if anyone knows what might be going on – maybe speak to the people from other academies near Black Horizon from their practice tournaments. I need to know if there is a way of tampering with an exoskeleton that the stewards wouldn't spot."
"Ah." He smirked. "So you think me and my shady contacts might know?"
"Yes, frankly," she snapped back. "I'm not trying to insult you. You just know people and places that I don't, and I've got no idea where to start. And..." She turned her eyes skyward for an instant, gathering the words she knew she needed to say. "And I'm sorry about what happened in the paired matches, okay? You were right. I was angry and I took it out on whoever got in my way, including you. That was wrong." The words left a bitter taste in her mouth but she knew if she really wanted Kye's help, he needed some evidence that she was still the old Codi James.
Silence hung in the air between them for what felt like forever. He met her gaze, searching her eyes for the trace of a lie.
And then his mischievous smile returned at last, and Codi felt her nerves unwind just a little bit.
"Alright, Codi," he said. "Apology accepted. I'll see what I can find out. You just make sure you stay in the hunt, and I'll come find you when I've got something."
She grinned and pulled him into a grateful hug. "Count on it."