Matador’s claim to fame was his billowing crimson cape, but it was more accurate to think of it as a gaseous substance that could rewrite reality inside of its area of effect. Perry’s Dimensional Tinker senses felt heaviness…potential, radiating off the cape like heat waves.

Maybe it was Matador living with the potential of having anything, while being devoid of an internal life that caused his nihilism. It was like being pressed up against a glass pane while the world passed you by outside.

Perry was pretty sure his congeniality and talkativeness was mostly for show, some subroutine in his programming written by his long-dead creator to make him more tolerable. Matador didn’t want anything.

Except maybe to kill me. Matador’s most powerful ability was that of controlling his surroundings, and he was currently strangling Perry with it.

“Tap out?” Matador asked, leaning against one of the train’s radio towers while the surrounding security detail cheered Perry on, their chits in hand.

“No, this is great practice,” Perry croaked through the asphyxiation, his focus on his hands where they tried to interact with the crimson mist tightening around his throat.

Normally, Matador’s crimson cape was a one-way interaction. It acted on the world, but not the other way around, a very difficult ability to counter. Perry’s hands were clawing through the mist, slipping off the true extradimensional force that was tightening around his throat.

Perry was focusing on his dimensional senses, trying to recreate what he’d done to the thing in the egg in Professor Replica’s lair. He didn’t want to eat the cape, but if he could just…touch it…

Perry’s vision began to dim, and he tapped out before he lost consciousness. Passing out was bad news.

“Awwww….” The crowd groaned before money began changing hands, sliding towards a few lucky individuals who’d predicted his tap-out time.

Perry took a minute to catch his breath and dispel the stars shooting across his vision.

Once everything was back to normal, Perry took a deep breath and crouched before blasting forward.

Electrowasps.EXE

Tiny disc-shaped drones detached themselves from Perry’s armor and surrounded Matador, channeling Static Shock between them to form a net of living lightning.

Matador’s physical body stepped through the lightning like it wasn’t there, his cape lunging toward Perry.

Tap out.

With fine control of his booster, Perry was able to play keep-away from Matador for a solid sixteen seconds, trying a variety of attacks before the Magnum Opus snagged one of Perry’s ankles.

Tap out.

Tap out.

Tap out…

This is really starting to piss me off.

The amount of time Perry was able to play keep away kept getting longer and longer, but only by tiny increments. One second here, one second there, and that still wasn’t an answer to how to actually score a hit on the elusive Magnum Opus. He literally controlled everything that happened inside his range. A bit like Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation, but constant, and weaponized.

The days went by as Perry tweaked his armor between sparring sessions, trying to recapture the otherworldly sense he’d gotten against the egg.

“Don’t be ashamed, you’re getting better faster than I’m getting better. Against a learning computer, that’s pretty solid,” Matador gave him unhelpful encouragement as a tendril of crimson smoke caught an arm.

Rather than tear off his hand, Perry allowed himself to be reeled in, where the powerful force embedded in reality just underneath the crimson smoke began choking him out again. This time the force wrapped around Perry’s arms as well, preventing him from reaching his own throat.

Let’s try this. Perry thought, instructing the dimensional defenses of his armor to fluctuate randomly, spiking his suit’s extradimensional permeability beyond its capacity to handle the strain, falling back on the suit’s self-healing properties to maintain functionality.

The grip on Perry briefly tightened as his suit’s defenses dipped to nothing, then seemingly evaporated as the carbon heated up to white-hot where it made contact with Matador’s cape.

“Ow!” Matador said as Perry slipped out of his grasp. “Ow?” The robot frowned in confusion, his body going momentarily stiff.

Ow? Perry thought as he dove forward, aiming to punch the robot in his face. Matador bobbed out of the way like his namesake, aiming a brutal strike at Perry with his cape that would bisect a normal human from head to crotch.

It cut a hairline gouge out of his armor before Perry jutted out a foot and blasted its thruster to change direction in midair, using it like an air-jump.

Now that I think about it…maybe Matador is more like a snail. Maybe his real body is the crimson smoke, and the humanoid shell simply houses the organ that produces more of it.

Somehow the picture of a nihilist snail cemented itself in Perry’s mind as he dodged around Matador’s grabs and make a feint for the robot shell’s head. He’d never tried attacking the cape seriously, until the snail analogy.

When the cape moved to intercept him, Perry slipped out of the way before blasting his jets to give himself momentum, treating his body like a spinning top to swing his foot around with blinding speeds.

If he’s a snail, let’s try stepping on his squishy bits, Perry thought, spiking his armor’s dimensional barriers as his foot caught the roiling edge of the cape, scattering it violently.

“Tap out,” Matador said, making a ‘T’ with his hands, his cape retracting into his towering silver body like it was cold outside.

The surrounding spectators fell silent. Nobody had bet on that.

“Really?” Perry asked.

“Lost a couple seconds of lifespan. My programming doesn’t allow me to prioritize my personality over survival. We’re done sparring.”

Matador stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“Although, we could continue if you declare your intent to destroy the train…” He said, glancing at Perry askance.

Which would also allow him to kill me. Perry wasn’t naïve enough to think that giving Matador a bruise meant he could actually win, especially not if the Magnum Opus didn’t have to restrain his lethality.

“Pass,” Perry said, waving a hand. “I’ll take the win.”

Paradox Vs Matador:

113 L 1 W

The next two days went by without incident. A few people grumbled at the lack of entertainment watching Perry get his ass kicked, but everyone was in agreement that boring was better than exciting on the Inter-City Train.

When they arrived in Washington, Perry, Chemestro and Sin-eater cleared the disembarking area first, making sure there weren’t any angry people with automatic weapons or explosives before signalling to the conductor.

Just hundreds of buses waiting to take the Androids to their new homes, and a few hundred staff members in uniform to take IDs, a dozen or so people beyond that.

There were three groups in particular that caught Perry’s attention, each of them a pairing of one supermodel woman in a professional dress, and one sickly individual with pale skin and a haunted expression. Two women and a man, all with average looks. A bit on the unhealthy side, even.

Odd.

The massive steel doors of the train opened up, and the civilian androids filed out, seemingly surprised at actually arriving in Washington alive. They were herded over to the tables, where the uniformed workers took their info, made them Washington I.D. cards and assigned them to buses, taking extra care to keep families together.

Perry’s attention was taken away from the logistics as the odd couplings approached where Perry, Chemestro and Sin-Eater were standing, led by a handsome male bureaucrat in an expensive suit.

At least half of them were probably androids ‘designed’ by Bio-master. It was reassuring that the Androids who already lived here had a hand in integrating the refugees. It was also reassuring that no angry civilians had shown up to try and mow down the androids.

Perry stepped forward and grasped the man’s hand as he approached.

The sickly woman in the middle looked at Perry, frowned, paled further, and flashed a hand-sign behind her back to her supermodel partner, only visible through the security cams Perry had tapped into – without permission – in order to better watch for trouble.

Interesting.

“Welcome to Washington City, Paradox, Chemestro, Sin-eater.” The man said, grinning with stunningly white teeth as he shook Perry’s hand. “It’s good to host you again, Paradox, and for the other two, I hope you find Washington City to be to your liking. We’re always looking for new talent.”

“I’m honored by the offer,” Chemestro said, taking his turn to shake the man’s hand. “But my family is in Franklin.”

“Understood, offer’s always open for you and your family,” the welcome committee said with another genuine-seeming grin.

Perry was watching the people behind him, who seemed to have stiffened a bit. Like something hadn’t gone to plan.

Perry had no idea what that might be without context though, so he set his suit to continue recording it’s own input along with the security cams from all directions. Maybe he could pick something up in review.

“Of course, Sin-Eater, we’ve heard great things about your powers. You’re always Welcome in Washington if you wish to make the switch.”

“Thanks, but he’s in Franklin, so I’ll pass.” Sin-eater said, gesturing towards the Catalyst.

The man’s smile faltered for a moment, but he proceeded with aplomb.

“Alright, let’s get you folks settled,” he said, rubbing his palms together before motioning to three limousines that rolled up beside them as if conjured by magic. Who knew, they might’ve been.

“We’ve got a five star hotel in the upper –“

“Thanks,” Perry interrupted. “But we’re going to be on the buses, and staying nearby” Perry said, pointing to the oversized transportation filling up with android civilians.

Like Solaris had said, he wasn’t there on Washington’s dime this time, so he’d decide where he went himself.

The man paused for a moment, clearly thrown off script as he thought of how to handle it.

“…I see, of course. Would you like a map of where the buses are going to help you decide? The nearby hotels aren’t the best, but if you’re amenable…”

“That would be great,” Perry said.

A nearby assistant seemingly apparated, handing the well-appointed underwear model a datapad with a color-coded map of the city, with three distinct areas highlighted, bus numbers stamped beside them.

“Alright, Perry murmured. “I’ll get this area, and you two can get these two areas,” Perry said motioning to the two places that were closer together. There was even a motel in between the two that Chemestro and Sin-eater could operate out of.

Not a great one, but none of them were particularly spoiled. Except maybe Perry.

“That’ll work.” Chemestro said.

“I’ll take one of the buses in the one hundreds, you two split up and take one of the buses going to these two.”

“Ugh, fine. We’re going to share a room at the motel, though.” Sin-Eater said.

“No, we are not.” Chemestro said, carefully scanning the city layout, probably memorizing escape routes through habit that had been trained into him.

Not a bad idea. Perry pulled up a map of Washington on his HUD and devoted it to memory.

“Booo,” Sin-Eater groused. “Wouldn’t it be safer if we bunk up together?”

“Not for me,” Chemestro said, prompting a guffaw from Perry. Thankfully, Perry turned off his speakers so nobody actually heard it.

He didn’t want to make them to seem any less professional than Sin-Eater already had.

Perry hopped onto bus #83, while Chemestro took #115, and Sin-eater took #240.

Moments after Perry was settled, the buses got underway.

Perry reviewed the footage as the bus rumbled down the streets of Washington, idly glancing up at the street signs to make sure they were going the direction the map had indicated.

So far so good.

Perry isolated the hand-signal the sickly woman had thrown in the grainy security cam footage and compared it against Washington city’s standard military signs.

Abort.

What were they aborting? Perry thought, his skin cold. As far as he knew, they directly represented Washington City, so what the hell was Washington City trying to do to Perry et. al. that required an Abort code?

This had happened before any dialogue had been exchanged, so…what was the trigger for it? What had gone wrong? Were they holding a food order, or cancelling some gimmick they’d arranged to entice them over to Washington City…or something more sinister?

That’s pretty suspicious.

Perry reviewed the footage of their greeter, pausing a moment to glance up at the street signs. Still going to the right place. All the other buses were with him too.

The guy was wearing an earpiece, Perry noticed when he received the datapad from the assistant. Just a tiny flash of flesh toned earpiece meant to be discrete when he turned his head.

Following a hunch, Perry reviewed the moment where the greeter had paused when they’d refused the limousines.

He isolated the man’s ears in his recording and turned up the audio a thousandfold, allowing him to hear bits and pieces of the orders he’d been receiving.

Give ~~~~~~~ map. ~~~~ separate themselves.

Well, now, that’s REALLY suspicious. Actionable, even. They were looking to isolate and exploit them for…something. Perry didn’t really care if it was as innocuous as selling them a timeshare. It still set off all his alarm bells.

Perry glanced up at the camera at the front of the bus watching all of them.

Now I just need to get us back together without moving from my seat and raising suspicion which would send these scumbags skittering back to their holes. Awesome.

This is gonna be a really funny story if they’re just trying to separate us to give us the hard sell on moving to Washington. Otherwise…I think I caught the scent of the ‘something rotten’ Solaris was looking for.

The heel of Perry’s armor constricted its thruster down to a pinhole and began carving a tiny hole through the floor.