A Life Lost

The "extended-family dinner" turned out to be alright, despite Ishaan's sudden request, but with one major complication. At the end of it, Sangeet asked very innocently, "So is Steve's real name Marvin?"

Apparently, Ishaan had let the name slip and no one had noticed. So they explained to Sangeet that yes, Steve was an alter ego and Marvin was actually a consciousness implant. Sangeet didn't seem to know about Marvin Yao's murder, though, and they intended to keep it that way.

Marvin and Ella left for Hoxing University on a Tuesday morning. They'd hang around the campus the whole day, while Renee would keep watch on the outskirts and warn them if Aria got there early.

Marvin wasn't keen on spending a whole day with Ella, but he had to agree that this was the best split. He could fight their way out of a pinch, and Renee was better as recon.

Hoxing was located in the heart of Sector 88, surrounded by a dense, luminescent forest that cut it off from the city proper. Half of the campus was modern, made of glass and steel, while the other half boasted the archaic architecture of the rest of the city. It was completely for aesthetics, as all of the university had been built at the same time.

Marvin and Ella parked in the more modern half, which Ella explained was the engineering quad. The parking lot was a three-story, cylindrical building at the edge of the quad. From where they'd landed on the roof, Marvin could see dozens of students milling about, their colorful clothes and backpacks peppering the green and ivory landscape. The sight gave him a pang of sadness. This was a life he would never experience; he'd chosen not to go to university to pursue mech-fighting.

They sat in the shuttle for a moment, just staring outside. Due to their pact of not speaking, they had not discussed what they would be doing for twelve-plus hours.

"I'm gonna go to my classes," Ella said at length.

Marvin was taken aback. Classes and Ella did not make sense together.

"Do you usually go to them?" Marvin asked.

"No, I pay money to chill here," Ella said dryly. "Come on. You should sit in."

People are gonna stare at me, Marvin wanted to protest. But that was pathetic. They were here chasing a potential killer, and he was too scared to attend some classes?

Their first stop was the Signals and Systems lecture inside a giant glass ball of a building. Ella explained that she was an Electrical and Computer Engineering major, which she wasn't particularly interested in, but it helped with repairing the mech. The lecture hall was an ever mobile array of hovering desks and chairs, all facing three vast screens. Desks came together and separated based on who people wanted to sit with and how much side-work they wanted to do. Some kids in the back activated sound-cancelling force fields around their desks, choosing to do homework with an AI replica of the professor. Ainsel AI had made those models. Revolutionary stuff.

Marvin asked Ella why these kids didn't just do their homework elsewhere, and she explained that every professor's AI mimic required a lot of energy to run, and thus they were only activated during their lecture times.

Marvin expected Ella to seclude them in the back of the hall, but to his horror, she led him all the way to the front, one row of desks away from the screens. Worse yet, she sat with a group of classmates who seemed more like paparazzi than friends.

"This is my cousin," Ella said, pointing to Marvin. "He's a cyborg. He's touring."

Marvin didn't say anything. He just turned on his tablet and looked for messages from his teammates. Anything to save him from talking to these strangers.

When Ella's entourage stopped preening her, Marvin asked, "Why would you not do your homework during lectures?"

"I gotta take notes in person," Ella replied. "I can't focus on a recording."

"Interesting," Marvin said.

To his confusion, Ella let out a laugh.

"What?" he asked.

"It is interesting, isn't it?"

"Shut up." Marvin felt a jolt of embarrassment; it was so easy to be spontaneously mean around her.

For the next hour and fifteen minutes, Marvin tried his best to pay attention. He knew this stuff would help him with mech-fighting, but he could not fathom how people learned from these glorified textbook-reading sessions. To his left, Ella frantically scribbled notes as the professor talked about operational amplifiers.

When that class was done, they headed to another lecture in the same building. After that, Ella proclaimed that she was done with classes for the day. Marvin checked his internal clock. It wasn't even noon.

Marvin accompanied Ella to the packed food hall, getting more than a few looks while waiting in line behind her. Fortunately, they left after she picked up her food and headed to the mecha pod. As they walked, the foliage around the road grew denser until they were walking in a forest with no beginning and end in sight, surrounded by tree bulbs that glowed dimly from the sunlight. They entered a glass tunnel and passed by a Hosaka Inspector wearing a black trench coat and mask. It wasn't uncommon for Inspectors to be surveying a university.

At the pod, Ella walked Marvin through her murder attempt. He followed her to the alloy molder, then the piloting room. The hole Ella had melted in the wall had been patched up. They couldn't go into the training arena since some students were using it, but Ella pointed out the emergency desync button on the side of the wall.

"You reported the break-in, right?" Marvin asked.

Ella nodded. "The security footage doesn't help at all. You can't even tell if it's a guy or girl."

Marvin walked to the front door. The killer would have had to run through that glass tunnel before disappearing into the forest.

"Do you think they dropped something when they were running away?" Marvin said, pointing to the trees.

"Security already searched the forest," Ella said. "The killer wasn't carrying anything small on him."

Which means he broke in and hacked the emergency desync with his tablet. That needed some high-end software.

Just then, Ella scoffed. She was looking at a Newcast video on her tablet, showing her and Marvin walking down the campus sidewalk. There was a caption Marvin couldn't make out.

"Do you like people taking videos of you?" Marvin asked. It seemed a common struggle for pilots.

"It's nice when people know who you are," Ella said, shrugging. Then, to Marvin's horror, she saved the video to her tablet.

"Wait, what does it say about me?" Marvin asked.

"They think you're my bodyguard." Ella jabbed a thumb at the doors. "Let's go. I need to catch up on some work."

Marvin supposed if university security couldn't track the killer, they didn't have much hope. They could only wait till Aria showed up.

They took a hovertram to the other side of campus, where the buildings were made of marble and decorated with graffiti. There were more students here, and the wide streets hosted four bike lanes. Had Marvin been none the wiser, he would have thought this was a small town.

The coffee shop sat in the shadow of several massive structures. They reached it through a narrow alley that brought them into a clearing with quaint string lights and several picnic tables. One of them was occupied by two students.

Marvin observed Ella as they walked into the coffee shop. She didn't seem like the type of person who would study here. He wasn't, either; this was a little too artsy for him.

They sat in the corner by the window. Ella pulled out a tablet extension from her backpack, attached it, and set up the laptop-like device on the table. Marvin looked around, trying to act nonchalant. The shop consisted of a silver bar, a row of ceiling lamps that had some sort of luminescent liquid in them, and a dozen tables of different sizes. Everything was some shade of brown with bits of color dabbled in. There was another guy sitting in the opposite corner who not-so-subtly took a picture of them.

As Ella began clacking on her virtual keyboard, Marvin decided to read some Newcast blogs on his tablet. He hoped he wouldn't see anything about him and Ella.

They sat there without talking for some time, Marvin on his tablet, Ella doing her homework. A soft lofi song played over the shop's speakers. It all felt alien to Marvin, yet a part of him longed for this. In another life, if he hadn't made it big as a pilot, he would not have been murdered, and he would've been a normal college student.

At some point, Ella swiped to her messages and let out an exhausted sigh. In any other scenario, Marvin would have ignored her, but he was getting bored of looking at his tablet.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Eh," Ella said. "Parents are pissed."

"Why?"

"They're saying I should call them more," Ella said. "It is my fault—I just get caught up in all my other stuff and I forget."

Must be nice to have people care about you that much, Marvin thought.

"Are your parents around?" Ella asked.

Marvin shook his head. "I grew up with my uncle."

"Lindon."

"Yeah." Marvin's uncle had been Saberstar's engineer years before Marvin had stepped in as pilot, so his name was familiar to the most avid mech fans.

"He wasn't married?" Ella asked.

"No." For the eighteen years Marvin had known his uncle, the man had never mentioned if he ever had or would find a partner. And Marvin, being the awkward introvert he was, had never asked.

"Where'd you guys live?" Ella asked.

Nosy, are we? "His workshop is in Nagatown. It's below the skyscrapers, so it was really noisy. There was a kebab stand right next to it, though."

"That's the most I've ever heard you talk," Ella remarked.

"Really?" Marvin said.

"See? This is what I usually hear," Ella said with a grin.

Wow, I hate you.

Since he couldn't do comebacks, Marvin instead decided to make Ella feel bad about herself.

"What's it like having parents?"

However, from the pitying look he got from Ella, he wondered if he'd gone too far. It didn't seem like she got that it was a jab.

"I have my opinions, but I've also taken it for granted," Ella said. "I mean, I feel like I'm in a good place right now, and that's thanks to them. But recently they've been wanting me to be more normal. They don't care about my piloting as much as my grades or my social life, which is weird because they made me train to be a pilot in the first place."

Marvin tilted his head. Lindon had always been laser-focused on mech-fighting, and thus Marvin had as well. No one close to him had ever tried holding him back.

"Do you think there's a balance?" Marvin asked. "Mech-fighting and being normal."

Ella shook her head. "Life's too short. You've gotta sacrifice a bit of one to have the other, don't you think?"

Marvin had cut out the majority of his future by not going to college, and it had undeniably made him a better pilot last season. Yes, he could agree with that.

He didn't say anything, though, for this was at risk of turning into a full-blown conversation. Ella probably got the same feeling, as she went back to doing her work. More students entered the coffeeshop, then some left. Ella remote-ordered dinner, which was delivered by a drone. As she ate, Marvin noticed a man enter the clearing outside the shop who looked too old to be a college student. He wore a black beanie and a blue suit, and was holding a blocky, quality camera. He paused and looked around, then headed for the door.

The door chime rang as he stepped in. He tossed his camera up where it hovered above his shoulder, pulled out a mini microphone, and made a beeline for Marvin and Ella.

Oh shit.

"Hey, I'm Jim, freelance reporter for Newcast," he said. No handshake, no wave. "Do you mind if I quickly interview you, Ms. Hall?" Then the microphone was in Ella's face. She shot Marvin a smug glance that said, I'm used to this, and turned to the reporter.

"Make it quick," she said, nodding to her unfinished meal.

"Of course." The reporter cleared his throat. "Is it true that your boyfriend is a cyborg?"

Ella blinked. "Who?"

"Your boyfriend," Jim repeated. He turned to Marvin. "At least I assume that's who you are?"

"No!" Ella said. "Is this 'cause of that one video?"

"Oh, it's all over the internet," Jim said, grinning. Back to Marvin, he said, "If you're not her boyfriend, then who are you?"

"I'm, uh, Steve," Marvin said, his facial circuits heating up.

"And what exactly is your relation to your companion here?" Jim pointed extravagantly at Ella.

Marvin stumbled for words. He knew he could say he was a bodyguard, but that felt so stupid, and he was already being made a fool of. Was there something funny or more disarming he could say?

"Hey," Ella snapped. "I said you could interview me, not him."

For once, Marvin was grateful for her ego. Unfortunately, it did not help as Jim kept his microphone and camera on Marvin.

"You don't mind this, do you?" he pried.

I definitely mind. Marvin could do press conferences with his teammates, but this? He hated being put on the spot. His nerves were firing on all cylinders, alarms going off in his head.

"Jim, this is my bodyguard," Ella said. "He's not supposed to talk, and if you keep trying to interview him, he'll kill you."

Jim let out a hearty laugh that grated Marvin's ears. "Oh, 'bodyguard' huh? I see, I see."

Out of the corner of his eye, Marvin saw two more people holding cameras standing in the plaza. A shadow moved through the alleyway until a third reporter came into view.

"Do you have any more questions, Jim?" Ella asked.

"Well, if you don't mind—"

"Aw, my stomach," Ella said, completely monotone. "I have to use the bathroom."

Marvin let out a sigh of relief as they stood up and exited the shop, even though there was a restroom inside. They passed by the other reporters in the plaza, who scampered to get a word in before being shoved aside. They passed through the alley and entered the campus with no sign of slowing down.

Although Marvin was glad to be away from the reporters, he was at a loss to why Ella wanted to leave.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Somewhere with some privacy," Ella replied.

"I thought you liked fame," Marvin said.

"It's weird when there's two of us."

"Are you jealous?" After all, this was another case of Marvin stealing the spotlight.

Ella stopped and turned around. "Did you like being interviewed back there? Did it make you feel good?"

Marvin slowly shook his head.

"Then I deserve a thank you, don't I?"

"You did that for yourself." You were mad you didn't have all the attention so you stormed out.

They boarded the hovertram again and made their way to the engineering quad. The horizon border light was dimming, though not on the verge of a sunset yet.

They passed by dorms and research labs, greenhouses and skating rinks. They returned to the forest path leading to the mecha pod, but took a detour halfway and headed deeper into the woods. Most signs of civilization faded away, replaced by fluffy trees and their luminescent outgrowths.

Eventually, they arrived at a rectangular glass building. It was hollowed out, walls unpainted, old construction equipment and beams lying around. The university was tearing it down, Ella explained, but had gotten lazy over the past few years.

Marvin followed her up the stairs. The blankness around him made him uneasy, like he was in a dream. He hadn't dreamt since becoming a robot.

"I study here a lot," Ella said. "It's nice."

"Here?" Marvin said, making a face.

"The roof," Ella said. "There's a garden up there."

They reached the uppermost level and stopped at an unlatched emergency door. Marvin looked down the staircase at the empty interior, the shell of a vision. This did not seem at all the place where Ella would study. Then again, it was weird to imagine her studying at all.

"Is this legal?" Marvin asked.

"I haven't gotten in trouble yet," Ella said. She pushed open the door and held it for Marvin. "You know, I illegally use our alloy molder, too."

Of course you do.

Marvin stepped through the door, his cameras adjusting to the light, and he froze.

The sky was a shade of sunset he had never seen before. Orange, pink, and yellow infused with royal blue. The university and city that sprawled before them seemed stiller than before, as if time had come to a stop. The colors clung to the buildings, tethering them to the artificial sky. Shuttle streams were little more than silver lines between the gleaming monoliths.

Ella was taken aback, too, as the door slipped from her fingers and shut. She walked to the railing at the edge of the roof, and Marvin followed as if in a trance. They stood there for a moment.

"Does it always look like this?" Marvin asked.

"No, never."

Marvin supposed the horizon borders were putting on their own flair today, or maybe the nanoparticles in the air were tainted with something.

He heard the sleeve of Ella's hoodie brush against his arm. He wondered how it felt. Wondered if, somehow, he'd stepped into an alternate reality where he'd never been a professional pilot. Today had been so normal—no mech fighting, no scheduling duels, barely any talk about his murder. Just two kids attending classes and going places to study.

A sudden happiness washed over Marvin. Even if it was for a day, he was glad he had experienced this. And, despite all their differences, he was glad this fellow pilot, this kindred spirit, was here with him.