CARNIVAL (The Spark Form Chronicles Book 2) (7 page)

              "I think we're making her nervous," Maria says, flashing Slade a wink and a cheeky smile.

              "The famous Starchaser? Nervous?" Slade booms in response with his customary belly laugh. "Surely such a paragon of verbal fearlessness could not be reduced to a quivering wreck by the mere presence of her nearest and dearest?"

              Maria giggles and I let myself relax into a smile. Or something close to one at least. The truth is, while I do believe that this thing with Dorian will be good for us, I don't really deal with change as well as I like to let on. No actually, that's not right. Change I can do, it's the risk taking that gets me with this. I never did like taking big risks, even when I was a Merc, but since Maria and I got together it's definitely gotten worse. I think that part of it is that I know how big a change it was for her to come on board Fenrir full time, and I don't like thinking that I'm putting her through too many other big changes. I like her feeling comfortable. Knights in shining armour don't hurt their fair maidens.

              "C'mon Slade, I'm hardly a quivering wreck," I reply and immediately kick myself for the doubt in my voice.

              "Compared to most people, no. By your standards though?" Slade answers his own question with a surprisingly controlled, quiet laugh.

              "Can you blame me?" I ask, then sigh and shake my head. "I have no idea how I'm supposed to do this."

              "You'll do fine," Maria replies. "Just do what you normally do. But different."

              "Gee, thanks."

              "Look at it like Fenrir," she says, crossing her arms just below her breasts and leaning back against the wall. "Remember how you told me that when you first got her you used to just go full on with everything? Really push her no matter what you were doing?" I nod and she continues, "Now though, you mix it up a bit. Sometimes you can ease her into things, other times you
need
to treat her rough like you used to. It all depends on what you're trying to do, right? And how do you know when to play nice with her and when to just give her a kick?"

              I blink, trying to think how to respond. In some ways, Fenrir is the equivalent of what a Colonist would call home. To an Offlander, their ship is more than that though, it's like an extension of themselves. That's the way it is for me with Fenrir. She's like that for Maria too I think. I mean, she's perfectly capable of getting her to do what we need. I guess we all just do what needs to be done. "It's instinctual," I say, finally. "I just ... I know how she feels and I run with it."

              "This is the same. You used to just bash away at the crowd with whatever you knew would get them to hate you, and now you need to ease them into something else."

              "I think I get what you mean," I reply, "But it's not as simple as that. I've got to make sure that I still put Starchaser out there but not push it so far that they don't respond the way we want when I do the thing with Dorian." I groan. "I can run on auto pilot with Fenrir. This though? I just can't get my head around it."

              "You sell yourself short Starchaser," Slade replies. "It may not be as close as the one you share with Fenrir, but you
do
have a link to the crowd. They respond how you want them to, they always have. Trust yourself and you'll succeed."

              Even when he's being calm, his voice still has a certain power to it. I doubt anyone could ever claim to not hear him speaking, even when he's conversing normally like this. "Neither of you have any doubts about this at all, do you?"

              "Of course not," Slade booms, "Of course not."

              "You know," Maria laughs, "Once in a while, you're just gonna have to accept that we know better than you."

              "Like when you accept when I know better than you?" I reply with a wink and Maria sticks her tongue out and giggles again. Before I can tease her some more, Robert Church comes dashing through the door, breathing heavily.

              "Sorry," he says, pausing to catch his breath. "I had to do some emergency editing on one of the online vids. Connor Ford legit tried to catch John Forester off guard. You should check it out. Oh, Sean said to let you know that everything's been approved and he'll have the papers for you in the next hour or so. Anyway, you ready to go?"

              "Yeah," I lie, dragging Starchaser kicking and screaming to the front. She doesn't like how unfamiliar this is. Maybe I'm not quite as OK with change as I thought.

              "Did you want me to flip the camera around and film you there?" Robert asks.

              "Nah," I say, getting to my feet. "I'll come over there."

              "OK, cool. Did you need me to say anything or are you going for a standalone one today?"

              "Standalone," I reply, stepping out in front of the camera. Starchaser hasn't let me down yet, so I'll just have to trust her with this assignment too, even if she does feel out of her depth. I wonder how she'll cope with the Civil Rights talks?

              The shot fades in on Fahrn Starchaser standing in front of a plain blue curtain, arms crossed against her chest. She stands in silence for a moment, then nods, seemingly deciding what to say.

              "There are a lot of rumours circulating about me right now," she begins. Her voice is slow, deliberate, but no less powerful than normal. "It's the same thing every year, it's the same thing at every event, it's the same damn thing everywhere I go. Everywhere."

              Fahrn tilts her head back and takes a deep breath, keeping her eyes focused on the ceiling as she concedes, "Part of that's my fault." She drops her head back down and fixes the camera with her eyes as she clarifies, "I
like
to get under people's skin. I like the reactions. I like them, good or bad, because they mean that I'm doing my job right. They mean that, whether you like it or not," she continues, stretching a hand out towards the camera, "I'm reaching out and making a connection with all of you."

              Fahrn pauses, dropping her hand back down, and letting her eyes drift to the floor for a moment before balling her fist and returning her gaze to the camera. "Maybe that's why everyone's always so convinced that I'll never win the title. I've spent my whole career focusing on giving you all what you want, and believe me, you wanted me to get to you just as much as I wanted to do it.
You
want me to give you a reason to shout and scream and swear.
You
want me to be the one that gets you angry then comes up short ... You want me to give you a target."

              Fahrn shakes her head. "I let myself be a victim. I made myself something I hate," she spits, biting out the last word. "My people are fighters," she continues proudly. "Survivors. And I am no different. I've taken everything that everyone has ever thrown at me and kept getting back up, kept coming back, year after year after year. Well, this year, I'm taking something back with me. And I'm not gonna run down Hong Chan and Laqueta, I'm not gonna say that Connor Ford's past it or that John Forrester won't beat me a third year running, because none of that matters. It's all just words,
meaningless
words."

              The camera zooms in and a dark smiles creeps across Fahrn's face. "I'm not here to get a rise out of people any more. I'm here to take home the title. It is what it is."

              We fade to black as Fahrn turns and walks off camera.

              The shot fades in on John Forrester sat on the sofa in his changing room, his hands drumming excitedly on his thighs. After a short 'drum roll', he throws himself back, extending his arms in the air with a triumphant "Whoo", then sits forward again with a huge grin on his face.

              "Connor, Connor, Connor, that was so, so awesome. I mean, I spent so much time watching you play when I was starting out, and I don't just mean in the qualifiers, I mean way back when I first started playing, when I was a little kid with no idea how to even build a deck, let alone what cards to play and when. I studied you, I paid attention, I hounded you at Conventions, you remember that, right? The scruffy kid with a ton of questions?"

              "Honestly Connor," he continues, hopping his legs up so that he's sitting cross-legged on the sofa. "You were, and still are my hero. I modelled my playing style on yours. And I don't mean that I copied what you did or anything, that would be such an obvious lie it's ridiculous. No, no, no, I mean I mimicked your thinking. Or how I thought you were thinking at the time. And how I think you're still thinking now.

              "And that," he says, playfully waggling his finger at the camera, "is how I know I'm gonna beat ya today. See, I know how you play. I know what cards you keep in almost every deck, I know what cards you're likely to favour, what sort of things you'll add to counter the cards that I tend to keep in most decks, I know which of Jariah's strengths you'll play to and how you'll build up Blood Lust so that you can finish things just like that," he says with a snap of his fingers. "I know you Connor, I always have, and storming in like you did was a dream come true for me not just because I got to face down my hero the way I always wanted to, but because it proved to me that you haven't changed at all and that's great, it's really, really great."

              John leans back again with a content sigh and crosses his arms behind his head, relaxing into a light grin. His fingers immediately start to tap rapidly on his elbows. "Ya know, I never wanted to beat the shadow of a former champ, I wanted to beat
the
man. I wanted to beat the malicious, foul mouthed, never backs down, rips you to shreds just because he can, legendary multi-time World Champion. After seeing you here today, I know that you're still him." John pauses for a moment and smiles at the camera. "You don't change because you know how good you are. After today though, you're gonna know how good I am."

              John gives a cheeky wink and finishes, "Game on, Connor Ford," and the shot fades to black.

"Will it be enough?" I ask.

"I think so," Sean nods, turning away from his laptop. "You basically fessed up to being intentionally antagonistic and then outright stated that, as of now, you're focused on the prize rather than winding everybody up. It was enough like normal to not affect you if anything goes wrong, but at the same time subtle enough that a lot of people won't realise that they're connecting you to a different set of ideals in their head until after it happens." He smiles. "You did well Fahrn."

Maria's hand hasn't left my own since the end of the interview, I've been shaking so much. That it wasn't Maria's touch but instead the praise from Sean that's finally stopped the nerves would worry me if she hadn't just given me a proud smile and a reassuring squeeze. Slade meanwhile bellows loudly, "You see Starchaser? Selling yourself short, just like I said," and gives me a hearty slap on the shoulder.

"I hope you don't mind," Sean continues, "but I took the liberty of consulting Dr Schaefer with regards to where to place the segment. Don't worry, no names or details were mentioned, it was just a basic 'what if we needed someone to appear a third time' conversation. His advice was that it would be better to prolong one match rather than add another appearance. The Djorkiev's agree."

"So you want to run it straight after my first match?"

"Yes. To ensure coherence, you'll need to stay plugged in too. Manually switching you to a wireless link up would mean risking The Surge at best remaining in force or at worst getting boosted when you try to speak."

"Won't staying hooked up be risky too though?" Maria asks.

"That depends," Sean replies, rubbing his chin, "on how long the match takes. We'll be keeping an eye on the live readings and can reduce the flow if needed though. If that fails, then we'll cut it and go into the angle cold. While hooked up would be preferable, I won't do anything to risk her health, you have my word on that." Maria nods gratefully and Sean turns to Slade. "While you're here, did you catch Lana De La Cruz's match with Connor Ford yesterday?"

"Of course," he booms. "A most entertaining battle indeed. Such a shame that the esteemed Mr Ford managed to rile her up so much, or she would have had a good shot at defeating him."

"The fans took to her as well. If you're fine with it, we want to run a speed tag with you two against the Delaneys in the bonus match."

Slade laughs. "The Beauty and the Beast battling against the odds to redeem themselves after hard fought losses."

"Something like that," Sean smiles.

"In that case, I shall take my leave. Miss De La Cruz will no doubt want to talk strategy before our epic encounter with destiny." He turns back to me and smiles widely. "My congratulations again Starchaser, Charla and I shall be watching closely whilst you conquer the demons of the Spark Forming world." Finally, he turns to Maria and says, "And to you Miss Grace I leave the task of ensuring that Starchaser's new found success does not go to her head."

"I haven't succeeded yet Slade," I say with a smile.

"But you will, Fahrn. Because unlike most, you have something more than simple fame to fight for. Until later my friends."

With that, Slade leaves with a barrage of laughter and a loud stomping of his feet as he marches up the hallway.

"Should I feel sorry for Lana?" I ask.

"Given that I haven't told her that she's tagging with him yet, probably," Sean replies with a wicked smile.

"You're not going to tell her before he finds her, are you?"

"After what she put me through yesterday? Nope."

Maria starts giggling and I realise that I really do like this side of Sean. Even after how he's been with me this year, I'm still not used to feeling anything other than resentment for anyone in authority, but if he can make Maria laugh like that, then he can't be that bad.