Synthetic Reality

Rock'em Sock'em Robots

Mox sat across the table cursing the situation under his breath. He should've stayed on the ship and not bothered to set foot on this moon. It was definitely a dicey idea.

The multisystem conglomerate Profitus Maximus Transstellar Broadcasting System, LLC had purchased the only moon of Grandor 6 for an unimaginable amount of money and bribes. Half the moon was a series of interconnected hotels, casinos, and colossal arenas. The dark side was one gigantic broadcasting dish. It was the epicenter of galactic competitive sports. 

Smarmy, vapid, and gauche to no end, a plastic fantastic playground destination for interstellar couch potatoes from worlds in that sweet spot of development where their populations had nothing better to do than watch meaningless happenings and bet on their outcomes. One might call them Romes ready to fall.

The moon's only planetary law: Honor Thy Bets. 

Galactic mob bosses loved the place and enforced the one rule with a more than vicious death penalty.

Zandar Vandar Blunt had requested the stop because of its reputation for advanced deep space transceiver equipment. The Brick was badly in need of an upgrade as its current transponder had tipped the thousand-year-old mark. It was going to cost almost everything they had. Not just credits, but valuable artifacts, the entire supply of Varan ice lobsters, all the diamond ore, and half the best weapons. Which is why Mox decided to talk with Harvey.

Harvey P. Splector was a Robot Death Fighting™ promoter and owned 57% of the current champion. He'd been begging, groveling, and making offers for the last half hour. He wanted Mox's Sentinel droid to get in the ring.

"Look, Harvey, I don't want the entire universe to know about my robot. Everyone will want to take a crack at it."

Harvey reassured they could hide its identity. It would only be a one-time fight.

"What makes you think it's so tough anyway?" Mox asked.

Standing behind Mox looking like a decaying chunk of metal was the Sentinel, a one of a kind robot of an ancient design. In thousands of years of space travel, he had never seen its like.

It was constructed of an impenetrable ever rusting alloy. A red electric orb of an eye sparked at the center of its square head, which sat on meter wide shoulders. Blocky arms with chunky clamp-like fingers hung off its square torso. Rectangular legs met the floor like stumps.

"Ok, I'll pick up your new transmitter cost, on the house." Harvey's golden teeth glimmered in the dim light of the casino bar.

"That's not the only issue, what if I win?" Mox had no desire to get sucked into rematches.

"If you win, you'll make a fortune! You'll have the most famous robot in the quadrant!" Harvey leaned in, his twitchy third eye giving him away. "You won't win though, no one beats The Obliterator."

"But if I do and your droid gets wrecked, you won't hold it against me? Nor any of your fellow investors?" Another major concern.

"Of course not, we know the risks." Harvey leaned back. "One top of the line galactic transceiver cube and ten million Grandor credits. And a written guarantee of no reprisal from every investor. They'll hold us to that here and you know it."

He could tell by the look on the lizard's face he was closing the deal.

"And I want a transport to take my ship and whatever's left of my robot out of the system the second the fight is over," said Mox.

"Done."

"One more thing."

"Name it."

"What does the P stand for?" Possibly his closest guarded secret.