Cage fighting Nuns and tanks - a love story.

 Cage fighting nuns and tanks

A love story

Concept by “the Oatmeal”

Written by Pierre Adriaan Du Plessis.

Alissa didn’t want to be a nun. Really she couldn’t care less about vows and chastity and all that. She had her own reasons for being here. She was chasing after her man.

Alexi was her childhood friend. She had finally fallen for him on the evening of her nineteenth birthday; when he sneaked into her bedroom and gave her a present. It wasn’t expensive or big… It was just a hand carved heart. She reached up to where it now hung around her neck and clutched it in her hand.

Back then… she had fallen in love that night, and the next day he was gone; enlisted for war against his will. Alissa had vowed to enlist and reunite with him, just as soon as she was old enough, but she never had the chance. By then conventional war had turned into anarchy and enlistment became impossible.

She hated war. She hated fighting. 

War had taken everything away from her. She never thought that the second revolution of industry… Otherwise known as the tech-rev 2020, would lead to so much disaster. With quantum computing and energy transmission, each country thought it had the next best thing to suppress the rest of the world, and so chaos reigned for over a decade. 

During this time of despair, the people turned to their forgotten religions for answers. “Save us! What should we do!” So it was that religion became the control over the masses, achieving in some sense, what government had always wanted to. 

To bring order to the world, all religions had combined under a single flag and called itself the Church of common good. It was a promising change and things slowly started getting better.

Technology became a controlled substance and weapons were only allowed in the hands of those ordained to be pure and capable. If you wanted to pull a trigger, or even set foot in a tank, then you had to become a part of the church.

Your state of being was judged by the whole world, twenty four hours a day. Artificial psychiatric analysis and public observations, along with judgement by peers and through public relations… Nuns and Monks had no privacy anymore… As such it took everything Alissa had, to hide her true intentions.

Outside she could hear the crowd roaring… there was a fault in this system… to be judged physically capable by the community was a farce… all they really wanted tonight was violence… but their ‘public’ approval of her mattered, and this was how you got it.

She would give them violence in this monesterial arena… as much as she possibly could without seeming deliberate about it. After all… she didn’t really want to hurt anybody; no, she just wanted a license to drive a tank.

She let go of the wooden heart and took a deep breath. Then picked up her modified PDA and typed one last message. “It won’t be long now my love… soon I will be with you.”  She hid the device under a secret panel in her locker. 

Then she tightened the straps within and around her habit. Sticking to its original design to conceal her figure, it was also a drag if you had to fight in it. The straps were designed for fighters, to keep the cloth from getting in the way. 

The doors opened and the crowd went berserk. Alissa cringed under the auditory assault. Bright lights blinded her as she entered the circle. It made her think about the last time she had Alexi in her arms.

That day, the military practically dragged him out of the barn. No amount of hay would have hidden them from the infrared sensors of the drone. The spherical robot exposed them with its ridiculously overpowered lights. She remembered screaming at the blinding light as soldiers dragged her lover away. 

For years after, she had tried to find him again… but when she did it was already too late. He had been obliterated by a mass relapsing bomb, while shipping out across the pacific.  A few pieces of his body was all that they could find. She cried for months and felt like she would never love again, until one day…

The Monastery bells rang for the first round to start. She snapped out of memory lane and looked around for her opponent. The other woman had moved so fast that she barely got a look at the face before the black cloth flew over her head. She felt a leg wrap around her neck and was pulled to the ground, clawing at the cloth that obscured her vision.

“That was foolish little one. Where is your head?” 

She recognized the voice. It was Agatha. She bit her tongue, trying not to swear as the gravity of her situation dawned. Agatha was a Stavrophore. In the old days it would have meant that she had obtained discipline, dedication, humility but Agatha had no humility… she was the epitome of pride and self righteousness. It was to a fault, as the Ai Psych’s wouldn’t allow her anywhere near machines… Elevated aggression associated with a repressed tendency bold-mean bullying. Regardless she was unmatched in the arena and remained its champion.

Alissa decided it was time to play dirty. She reached into the habit that covered her face, snaked her arm between the folds where nobody could see. She found the touch of skin and pinched as hard as she could. Her opponent squealed with surprise. The leg unwrapped and she was kicked out of the way.

The two of them got back onto their feet and began circling. Agatha laughed. “That was the first time anybody has ever done that! But I’ll make sure you regret it little one.” The woman was walking kind of funny. Alissa felt like laughing when she thought of what her sneak attack might have landed on.

Behind Agatha, Alissa could see the big screen. It showed a close up of her own face; still flustered from the pressure of choking… and then the screen flickered. It was a message from ‘him’. She smiled, having managed to read the microsecond of text that had flashed between the flickers. It was Alexi’s way of talking to her. Nobody would notice it unless they knew to expect it, but Alissa was used to it by now.

I believe in you

The first time he had reached out to her from beyond the grave was on the radio. It was a year after she had learned he was dead. She had been digging for food in the trash behind a military base, and an old discarded radio came to life right next to her. The signal had a lot of static, but she could have sworn it was Alexi’s voice, calling out her name. She had taken the radio home that night, hoping to hear his voice again. It wasn’t until the next morning, that the static flared up again, and woke her up with an audible “Help me!”

The radio had blown a fuse and was useless thereafter, but Alissa began snooping around the base, convinced that her lover was somehow trapped inside. 

One night, she had gathered the nerves to infiltrate the place. She sneaked in like a rat, and made her way to the ventilation system. Her tiny frame wriggled its way through the system and she found her way to a large central chamber. Feeling tired, and slightly claustrophobic, she wrestled with the mesh and dropped to the floor like a happy bag of potatoes.  

When she had gotten up, she was amazed at what she saw. It was an assembly house for tanks. She had never seen so much industry in one place. The machines worked tirelessly in putting together an endless supply of destructive behemoths. There wasn’t a single human around. The entire system was automated. She found herself wondering if anybody ever came down here anymore. 

She dusted herself off and began to tour. She watched the miracle of hydrogen reactors come to life; followed them as three were carried off to be transplanted into the shell of a single Tier III Task master. The monster was only completed half of the way, but it still struck her with fear and awe. The rotating barrels of the cannon tested the engines strength before the Task master was shifted over into another line. There it waited for a set of external limbs and armor plates.

Seeing so many of them in one place; it nearly made her empty her bladder out of fear. She reassured herself that she was safe, because if any of these machines were fully active she’d be dead already. Regardless she still tiptoed between the monsters. She found a hatch at the back of the facility and slipped inside.

It had led to a service tunnel with leaky pipes. She squeezed around a small drone that was trying to plug one particularly stubborn leak. Water was spraying all over the poor thing and Alissa helped it by shielding the sensor with a piece of her rags before moving on.

At the end of the tunnel was a dim blue light. The sound of more machines gave her an idea of what to expect, but again she was surprised as she rounded the corner. A large robotic arm descended from the ceiling. It carried within its grasp, a large liquid container made of glass. Inside was an object suspended haphazardly by cables and thin sinuous strands. As the liquid stopped moving she could make out the shape. It was a brain!

She wanted to scream and slapped a hand across her mouth. It was a shock to admit that the horror stories she had heard about this place were true. The robotic arm stabilized the oscillation of the contents and moved on. 

Alissa shuddered and then looked around. The place she was in was bathed in luminous blue light. The walls stretched endlessly into the distance, and stacked with shelves of glass canisters containing more brains. Each canister had a tag with a sequential bar code and serial number. It was the same format as those issued to soldiers… she knew because she had spent years memorizing Alexi’s number. A desperate search began.

She ran along the wall for what seemed like miles, counting down the numbers as she went. Robot arms were busy kidnapping canisters from all over the place and she panicked at the thought of being too late all over again. Faster still she ran as the difference became smaller. Another fifty, another forty, another thirty! Alexi, I’m coming!

She felt her legs begin to tremble as the location drew near, and as she approached a robot arm descended from above. Nononono. She counted the numbers down one by one. The robot arm latched on just as she confirmed it “Alexi? NO!” It seemed cruel and wrong and evil that this machine would wait for her to find him just to take him away again. “No! not him! I won’t let you!” Of course the arm wouldn’t listen. It pulled the canister from the wall with apparent apathy. “ALEXI!”

She grabbed onto the arm and tried to force it to let go. The machine didn’t even budge. It lifted both of them into the air and started flying back the way she came. She screamed and clawed and punched at the machine. It simply picked up speed and she screamed in terror. Never in her life had she been moved so fast. She clung for dear life and stared at her lover. His brain simply swirled as if it was fun. 

She released one arm and reached into the liquid… It was as cold as ice and she gasped. She had to reach him, even if it meant destroying what was left… There was no point in saving him now, but she knew what was waiting at the end of this flight. If she couldn’t save him now, she would destroy him instead, because she’d be damned if she’d let the military keep him; damned if she allowed him to become a slave inside one of their tanks.

The ride took an unexpected turn and she lost her grip. Howling as failure dawned. A failure confirmed as she struck the ground and rolled, breaking arms and legs. Her crash landing destroyed several other canisters that day. In a way she was saving all of them from a fate far worse.

She didn’t see Alexi’s brain again. Security drones had found and restrained her. Authorities had dragged her off to the hospital. They didn’t bother to listen to her story. They laughed at the idea that a harvested brain could have any concept of its reality… much less that one could find a way to circumvent the Qomputer system and consciously reach out into the world. Regardless she was certain of what she heard on that radio and refused to admit that what she did was wrong. 

She was then given a choice. “You can go to prison, or you can sign up for this new initiative.”

“Initiative?”

“The new church of common good. Serve the public, and perhaps one day, you might live a normal life again.”

She didn’t have to think about it twice. Prison was a dead end… at least this church would give her a second chance, and so it did. 

A few years later the world agreed, the church will be given full control of the military. She was already a Rassaphore nun by then. Her objective became clear… Work hard, prove yourself and get a license… once you can drive tanks, you will find Alexi again.

She found him sooner than that. Alexi had indeed become a slave inside a tank, but he had found a way to retain sentience in silence. He had used his new body, to hack into the military grid and find his lost love again. They could only chat via text, for fear of detection, but that was enough for him.

It was not enough for Alissa though. And here she is now, fighting in a cage, to prove to the world (even if they didn’t know it) that she was capable and worthy of love. 

Agatha was hopping around the floor, hyping up the crowd. Alissa sneered with contempt and then calmed herself again. I do not hate her, she reminded herself. But her actions are unbecoming of her vows. She reached down and loosened the straps on her habit. My ambitions are worthy of victory. Cloth fell freely to the floor in great volume. They draped from her like the black waters of indifference she had to endure all these years. The feeling was liberating and serene. She might trip and smash her teeth out on the floor. She might stumble and find herself pinned down for defeat, but she might also win…. and when she does, she was going to do it right. This is the cloth of common good.

She began to run towards her opponent. The cloth flowed around her feet with miraculous grace. It followed in her wake like the tidal wave of cleansing destruction. Agatha turned around in surprise and shrieked in fear.  

Alissa launched herself high into the air and descended upon her prey like the giant black carnivorous dove. The two women went down, drowned underneath a wave cloth and ambition. Screaming ensued. The crowd fell silent as confusion began to set in. The hulking black mass writhed and moaned and a murmur began to vibrate amongst the spectators. People started shouting again and then roared as an arm finally appeared. The arm stretch skywards out of desperation, beckoning for some kind of divine assistance but there was none.

The arm fell to the floor and went limp. The bell rang once more. The fight was over and everything in the room felt ominous. 

A presiding monk was lowered into the ring and approached the tangled fighters. He lifted the cloth and peered underneath. “I see you’ve won…. But what of your opponent?”

“Relax, she’s just out cold.”

Alissa released her choke on the other woman, and threw her off to the side. The crowd had a mental meltdown of joy. The noise was deafening. Her approval rating shot through the roof. She now had more than enough. She had so much of the stuff that if she ate a baby right now, the fans would shower her with condiments.

She grabbed the old man by the throat and pulled him closer so that he could hear.

“I’ve won. And now… in the name of common good… GIVE ME MY FUCKING TANK!”