When I was seventeen, I spent a summer living in the outskirts Inapithe. While there, I hardly went a day without hearing someone talk about the most recent match, and after being dragged along to a match by a friend, it was not hard to see why. Sentineling fosters a level of self-expression, ingenuity, and physical prowess in its competitors that is almost unheard of in conventional competitions.

It is also the most dangerous sport ever invented.

– Sentineling, An Inside Look, originally published in the Inapithe Daily

Drew leads Astrid out of the turret and along the steps beside it, which descend into murky, brackish seawater that slaps against the concrete with a repetitive smacking noise. A cool breeze floats off the sea, sending the hair on her skinny arms standing on end and filling her nose with the smell of brine. The water is murky enough that it is difficult to make out what lies beneath, but Astrid spies a rusty handrail, and an illegible octangular sign. Remains of the old world, before the days of the Retributive War.

“So, where are we going, exactly?” she asks, stepping out of the way of an errant wave that laps over the lip of the steps, threatening to soak her shoes.

Drew points down the shoreline, indicating a tall, half-finished building about a mile off, The building is half-finished; in fact it looks like more a stack of exposed masonry and support beams than anything else. “In there. It's easier to show you what we do than explain, and this old tower is the best vantage point for miles around.”

“All the way over there?” Astrid glances at the buildings around them, which grow more dilapidated with each passing block. “That's in the Jungle, isn't it?”

Before arriving in Inapithe, Astrid had spent her childhood in the Heights. Due to its relatively nearby location, she had only had to pass over a small piece of the Jungle during her travel to Inapithe, but she remembers it all too well. A messy urban sprawl made up entirely of abandoned buildings, none of them touched since the Retributive War. Astrid still remembers the eerie, perfect silence as her transport passed over the Jungle, like being deep in a cave, rather than high in the air.

Drew nods and lets out a sympathetic grunt. “First time? You're taking it better than I did. Sylva practically had to drag me in there the first time.” He gives her a fleeting smile and shrugs his shoulders. “Trust me, there's nothing to be scared of. The only things out there are insects, squatters, and people like us.”

“That's it? No...” Astrid searches her brain for something to be scared of in the Jungle, and only manages to come up with a half-remembered from Pell. “No androids?” She smiles and watches Drew carefully, hoping that he will appreciate the joke.

To her dismay, Drew does not laugh. The smile disappears from his face, and a shadow passes over his eyes. “If there were any this close, we wouldn't be leaving the house.”

They continue in silence until they reach the building. Drew leads her around a rusted chain link fence and to a side door, the door to which lies on the ground several feet away. He gestures to the dark aperture.

“After you.”

With some hesitation, Astrid enters. She hopes that Pell's recommendation will not get her mugged. She and Drew travel through the darkened halls, Drew helping her over rubble and fallen support beams. They climb so many flights of stairs that Astrid's head spins and her legs ache, and just as she is about to ask Drew for a break, they arrive at the top floor. After so many minutes in semidarkness, the sunlight stings Astrid's eyes, and she throws up a hand to cover her face.

“Watch your step,” Drew says, putting a hand on her shoulder and pulling her back into the doorway, though not with any undue roughness. Astrid opens her eyes and gasps.

They are at a dizzying height, the whole of the Jungle spread out before them, in all of its overcrowded glory. It is not entirely gray, as Astrid supposed, but speckled with swaths of green, where vines and ivy have overtaken masonry and stone. Sunlight glints off broken windows and hot pavement. It is not as quiet as Astrid expected either: Off in the distance, she can hear the irregular crashes of metal impacting metal, although try as she might, she cannot pick out a source.

The two of them sit down on a pile of bricks that have been stacked into a sort of makeshift bench. Drew grins down at the landscape before them. “What a mess, right? Imagine how it must have been in the old days: Countries separated by ocean and imaginary borders, instead of miles of emptiness.” He fishes in his pocket and pulls out a pair of binoculars, which he hands to Astrid. “Look down there, in the empty area by the building with the dome.”

Astrid gingerly takes the binoculars. “What am I going to see?” She asks Drew, already sure it is something deeply illegal.

A tiny, almost imperceptible smile creases Drew's face. “The world's weirdest passion project.”

Astrid presses the binoculars to her face and looks through the computerized viewfinder, which tints the whole world a slight blue. It takes her a few moments to orient herself and find the area where Drew indicated. It is a flat place between the buildings in which grass and dirt have managed to outcompete concrete. At first, she isn't sure what she is supposed to be looking at. Then she sees the thing at the center of the field, and her mouth falls open.

“It's called a sentinel,” Drew whispers.

In the center of the field is a hulking mass of metal, vaguely humanoid in shape. Enormous arms and legs branch off a central cockpit, large enough for a human to sit inside. Astrid does a few quick calculations in her head, based on the size of the nearby buildings. The machine must be around thirty feet tall, far too big to be able to move. Yet it does move. As Astrid watches, it raises an arm and flexes its fingers as easily as someone of her size might.

“Sentinels were originally intended as a means of engaging in combat in the city streets during the retributive war. Totally doomed to fail, of course; They were too heavy and their center of gravity was too high to have any sort of locomotion whatsoever. You know how it is, though; A politician gets an idea in their head, throws some funding at a special interest group, and one thing leads to another. Sentinels were abandoned, and the governments moved on to using crawlers to fight their wars. Then, years later, people exploring the jungle stumbled onto them, started making modifications, and one thing led to another.”

Astrid continues to watch as the sentinel lumbers about the grassy field, its impossibly light footsteps leaving only a slight trace in the ground. Even miles away and hundreds of feet off the ground, it makes her feel tiny. Nothing that big should be able to move that quickly.

“This is just an exhibition match, so don't expect anything special,” Drew says, a note of apology in his voice.

“An exhibition match of what?” Astrid says blankly.

Another mech enters the field. This one's frame is slighter, and it is painted a lush, vibrant green. Drew lets out a low whistle.

“Shit, I didn't think Zed would be warming up their team so early. Forget what I said, you might be in for a treat.”

“Zed?” Astrid says, trying to keep up with all of the new names, and feeling distinctly like she has crossed into a completely separate reality.

“A friend. They're the mechanic for the green sentinel, and the team leader. Absolutely brilliant. That's them right there, see?”

Astrid focuses her binoculars on the green sentinel, and her heart skips a beat. A tiny figure is clambering their way up the side of the mech. They reach the top of the cockpit and crouch low, linking themselves to the frame by way of a cable. Through the viewfinder, Astrid sees them flash a tiny thumbs up at the opposing sentinel, upon which another figure is crouched.

“Drew,” Astrid says, dropping the binoculars from her face. “What am I looking at right now?”

Drew does not look up at her. The color of his irises flicker as he stares intently down at the field, and Astrid realizes that he must have bionics installed. “Sentineling,” he whispers. “The strangest and most dangerous sport known to man.” He holds up two fingers. “Sentinels are manned by two people at once: A pilot and a mechanic. The pilot controls the sentinel from the cockpit. It's an intense job that requires quick decision making and the ability to improvise on the fly. Wendy is our pilot.”

Astrid thinks back to the strange, violent woman who saved her, who Sylva is currently talking to. She supposes that makes sense.

“The second is the mechanic. That's what your role would be, if you choose to sign up with us. I've been watching you since you arrived, and I think you've got what it takes. Aside from overseeing the repairs and construction of the sentinel, the mechanic is intimately involved in competition. They repair things on the fly, mid-combat. Being a mechanic requires skill, bravery, and athleticism.

Astrid glances down at her far too-skinny arms. She's not sure she matches up with that description at all.

“The goal of sentineling is simple. Disable your opponent's sentinel, and you win. Generally, we try not to cause any sort of irreparable damage, but accidents do happen.”

The crunch of metal on metal sends Astrid back to looking through her binoculars. The sentinels are engaged in combat, alternately swinging at each other like boxers and grappling in a sort of vertical wrestling match. The mechanics perched on top of the mechs struggle for balance, occasional throwing themselves flat to the metal to avoid a wayward mechanical fist. Each time the robots strike one another, the ring of metal on metal echoes through the Jungle.

Drew's muttered commentary fades into the background as she becomes fully absorbed in what she is watching. The left arm of the green robot goes slack at the elbow, and the sentinel's mechanic spring into action. Astrid's heart leaps to her throat as the mechanic rappels their way down the robot, narrowly avoiding being crushed. They plunge their hands into a gap in the sentinel's armor, and a few moments later the inactive arm springs to life again. The mechanic scrambles back to the top of the sentinel, waiting for the next mishap.

The entire thing is frantic, and insane in ten different ways, but Astrid finds that she cannot look away. There is something mesmerizing and exhilarating about it, though the thought of being personally involved also makes her feel slightly sick.

“So. What do you think?” Drew says.

Astrid removes the binoculars from her face. “Look. Drew, right? Can I be honest with you?”

“Absolutely. I'd prefer it if you were, in fact.”

“Right.” Astrid struggles for a few moments with finding a polite way to put things, but before she can stop herself the words are tumbling out of her mouth.

“This is by far the stupidest and most dangerous thing I have ever seen. I literally cannot comprehend what would drive someone to participate in a sport like this, and I fear for the health of everyone involved, both mental and physical. Why would anyone in their right mind choose to do this?”

To her surprise, Drew throws back his head and laughs, as if Astrid has just made the funniest joke in the world.

“What?” Astrid says, utterly confused.

Drew's laughter subsides, and he wipes his eyes before returning to his usual serious demeanor. “You're just being so much nicer about it than I was when Sylva first brought me here. I said some pretty choice things to her when she showed me what she had gotten herself into.” He shakes his head. “I'm not disagreeing with you either,” he says quietly. “Sentineling is everything you say it is. Everything and more.”

“So why do you do it?”

Drew sighs, and although he continues to stare at the distant sentineling competition, his eyes are distant. “I didn't grow up here, like Sylva did. I've never fit in very well in Inapithe. I don't understand this city, and I'm not always the easiest person to get along with. The thing is, though, no one here has ever judged me for that. Not my competitors, and certainly not my teammates. I'm free to be myself.”

He glances at Astrid. “I'm not saying it's always one big happy family. There are assholes anywhere you go, and sentineling is no exception. No one here has ever asked me to change who I am, though, and in my book that counts for a lot.”

An almighty crash cuts through the air, and Astrid turns her attention back to the city. The competition has ended; the green sentinel stands tall, while the other lies on its back. As she watches, the pilots of both robots scramble out of their cockpits, and the mechanics rappel down to solid ground. The opposing teams run up to one another and embrace, laughing.

Friends. The word comes unbidden to Astrid's mind.

“There you have it. The pay isn't great, but we can give you a place to sleep, and I promise it'll be an unforgettable experience.” Drew says, standing up an putting his hand out. “Astrid, are you in?”