Free Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman

her wrist, working my superior reach, but she spins away and slips behind me. My fingers brush the trailing edge of her blouse; then something glances hard off my skull plate. I turn but she’s already out of reach, rubbing her knuckles where they hit metal.
    Cheering from the sidelines. Elphin twirls that spear, looking like she’d appreciate a little more support.
    She dances clockwise, keeping her eye on me. If I could close and grapple with her, it would be over in an instant. The truth is, I really do want to beat her. I want to beat one of the Champions. I try to remember anything I can about fairies. I wonder if she’s allergic to iron, or is it silver? My databanks don’t have anything, but there should be something back in my biological brain at least—superhero lore, or some tidbit from a college English class. What is a fairy, anyway? Am I fighting Tinker Bell? Or am I the foolish knight who follows a woman into the forest, doomed to wake up hundreds of years later.
La belle dame sans merci.
    I check the sidelines. They’re taking it all in avidly. And I don’t know why in hell I should hold back against this waif-chick, with her anachronistically chic hair. I’ve got sonics. I’ve got a grappling hook. I’ve got tear gas. And I have a gun. I always have a gun.
    In the big leagues, you’re supposed to be able to eat a couple of bullets and not worry about it, and anyway I have rubber bullets loaded today. The barrel comes down out of my left forearm, which is why it’s so thick. I let her think I want to close again, then spray her with a two-second burst, easy as thinking it. Welcome to the twenty-first century, girlie. In the closed gym, the report is shockingly loud. More applause, I think, but I’m half-deafened by the sound.
    In a blink she’s gone, faster than even I can track. Most of that burst hit the safety glass behind her. Where the hell is she? The close air stinks of gunpowder. I start to backpedal, and the computer is flashing an arrow to show where she went, where I’m supposed to be looking. There she is up by the ceiling, rubbing a welt on her thigh, an angry, pouting fairy now. Touché. Scattered applause from my teammates. Leisurely, I raise my arm for another shot. No way to miss at this range.
    She flips forward in the air, and when she comes out of it, she’s not holding her spear—too late, I perceive it as a throwing motion. And I’m realizing this on my back, because that’s where I suddenly am, and I’m trying to get up but I’m pinned somewhere. I’ve got a screen flashing static, and Blackwolf’s hand is on my shoulder, warning me not to stand. Behind me there’s applause, and it isn’t for me.
    “Let me get it out,” he’s saying over fairy laughter, and I realize what’s happened, although it’s a throw she couldn’t possibly have made.
    The spear did only nominal damage—I could patch it myself. It passed straight through me at the midsection, just a cut in what no one’s supposed to know is fake skin and insulation. Titania’s Moon-forged weapon didn’t bother to notice the armor plate, rated to withstand depleted uranium. There’s no way she could have aimed it like that, not unless she knew what she was doing. And she can’t have known that anyway, because she doesn’t even understand what I am, what a cyborg is.
    I try to pull myself up the shaft, face red. Everybody is laughing at the rookie. The blade is stuck through the mat, standing out from the concrete flooring underneath. I pull it out and heft its heavy length. The blade is cold and seems to reflect a cold light that isn’t in the room. Close up, it has writing, but just before I can make it out, it gets yanked out of my hand, and Elphin’s walking away with it, laughing her silvery laugh. Feral slaps me on the shoulder with a fuzzy, clawed hand.
    “Welcome to the show, primate!” he barks, out of his psychotic-looking tiger face.
             
    And just then the red lights