Chapter Text
‘Dogfighting’ was the tongue-in-cheek term for it.
It was gladiatorial at best, and a viciously gory torture show at worst. Different people had different tastes— some liked to throw a few dime-a-dozen scrappers into the ring and watch them tear each other to bits. Some liked to build up one android into a killing machine and unleash it on scrappers just to see how wild it could get.
Some preferred high stakes, real fun, the best androids pitted against each other tournament style to see which came out on top. Thousands of dollars could be gambled— this season, a strange model Gavin didn’t recognize seemed to have taken everyone by surprise.
It was a mean looking motherfucker, tall and muscular but still lean enough to be quick. He might’ve called it handsome if he didn’t know better.
He jabbed the ‘friend’ who’d brought him along— a man by the name of Ethan Shearer— in the ribs with his elbow. “Why’s that one got that thing on its face?”
“It’s a dog muzzle. Last time it got a little too excited and bit someone, so they’re trying to control it.” He grinned. “I won three hundred bucks betting on it last week. Real nasty fighter— sometimes you can catch it smiling if you look close.”
“Christ.” Gavin shook his head and sat back in the makeshift bleachers. “What model is it? Never seen one like it before.”
Shearer frowned and hummed, thinking hard about the answer. “It’s a unique one, I know that. Someone stole it. RK something.”
“Never heard of the RK line.”
“Me neither. Let’s hope there’s more where this one came from, though. It isn’t gonna last forever.”
“What, you think it’ll lose?”
Shearer shrugged and offered Gavin a beer, which he gladly took. “It doesn’t have to lose to get fucked up. Eventually it’s gonna fall apart.”
“...Huh.” Gavin thought about it for a long moment, staring at the strange android as it was herded into the fenced area to start the fight.
Something felt wrong.
The android was unlike any other Gavin had ever seen before.
Of course, the blankness was commonplace, an expected trait for an android— but this one took it further. This one was borderline frightening just to watch.
An RK900, according to one of the ‘officials’ orchestrating the illegal tournament.
Its eyes were an unnatural gray, almost silver, and had a sort of dead look to them— it didn’t blink as often as it should have. Its skin was pallid in the ugly lighting, looking to be almost a sickly pale, but it was perfectly smooth and unmarred, creating an uncomfortable contrast.
It was incredibly still, but its blue LED blinked yellow when the muzzle was removed from its face and its wrists were unbound.
“Go on.” Someone on the other side kicked a big industrial model android in and locked the gate— intimidating in stature, but nowhere near as eerily calm as the RK900.
“Keep your eyes on it.” Shearer nudged Gavin to get his attention. “Won’t be a long round.”
A fourteen second fatality with nothing but its bare hands.
He was right. It didn’t take long at all. “What’d I tell you?” Shearer grinned wickedly. “It’s a real fuckin’ showstopper.”
Gavin stared at the RK900 as it straddled the unmoving form of the mangled android beneath it. In the dirt behind it lay a crushed thirium pump regulator, tossed aside without a care.
It had pulled out the other android’s regulator, reached into the empty port to further expose the internal structure, and torn the thick thirium-circulating tubing open with its fucking teeth.
Didn’t take long for the big industrial android to ‘bleed’ to ‘death,’ or at least to reach a nonfunctional state.
“I, uh...” Gavin stood up. “I need a cigarette. I’ll be right back.”