Futureland - Nine Stories of an Imminent World (6 page)

"RadFems?" Fera asked.

"I never knew and neither did Nosa." The hunching of his shoulders was deepened by a therapeutic shock. "All she knew were the sisters and a book full of charts and graphs that she was supposed to keep with her at all times.

"She was so scared that it infected me. She said that some of the other girls had disappeared. Nosa said that when her friend Titania had gone missing she decided to go out in the world and look for her. The teachers had taught them that the world was an evil place and that if a girlchild was lost out there the man-demons would destroy them. Men would break them open and bleed poisons into their guts. Then they would torture them with slavery, brutality, and brainwashing. The sisters told them that a girl tainted by the world would have to be put to sleep in order for another girl to come alive. She said that a few girls had disappeared and that they were always replaced by somebody new."

"What did you do?" asked Fera.

"Well that was twenty-one years ago, but even then the government of Massachusetts, especially out in the west, was dominated by the FemLeague. I didn't know what to think and so I drove us to New York City. I cashed all my accounts and drove away from every bit of security I had ever known. I was forty then and it was the dumbest thing by far I had ever done. I had an ex-wife. I had a family. But I left all that behind. We were married. Nosa had you and then she died."

"What did she die of?"

"The doctors thought it was natural causes. You see, Nosa was the product of genetic tinkering. She was grown in a laboratory."

"But the doctors who tested me said that I was normal," Fera protested.

"You are. One generation down and being coupled with natural DNA and you're fine. Better than fine. You're the most perfect woman in the world. You're my girl." A long thrumming shock went through Leon then, but he never lost his smile or his eye contact with the strongest woman in the world.
7

"My sources tell me that you are due to get ten billion dollars from tomorrow night's fight," Allison Laurie told Fera Jones.

Fera heard the words and understood them but there were too many other things on her mind.

"You know that I represent Randac Corporation. We aren't the largest company in the world, but on the island of Madagascar we're the big dog. We have five seats in the parliament and a place on the prime minister's advisory cabinet."

"So? Good for you."

Pell sat nervously at Fera's side. He had begged her to take this meeting even though she was due to fight Zeletski in less than six hours.

"Of course you've heard of our theme park."

"Uh-huh. Luna Land. Pipi and I wanna go one day."

"If I can get you to say that to the cameras after you win the fight tonight, we will give you another ten billion dollars."

Even the haunted images of her mother from the three small photographs that Leon had kept dimmed slightly at the mention of so much money.

"Ten billion?"

"Paid in Madagascar, where there are no personal income taxes."

"Why? I mean how can you? I mean . . ."

"It's advertising, Fera," Pell said. "Millions of people will plan their vacation hoping to see you or to be where you were. You'll make it look like something really important if you just say the word."

"That's right," Allison added. "Women and men all over the world look up to you. You're an example for everybody."

It wasn't until after the Luna Land rep left that Fera remembered.

"That's almost exactly what Lordess said."

"What, Fifi?"

"That stuff about people lookin' up to me. It's almost exactly what Lordess said."

"Only," Pell pointed out, "Randac will pay ten billion on the nail."

"You want me to do this, Pipi?"

"It's not for me, baby," the Backgrounder said. "I ain't nobody in this. It's you. You got the professor father, the strength, skills. I just figured if you made enough money you wouldn't have to fight and get brain damage, you wouldn't have to end up in a chair like your old man. You could be somebody."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Anybody you wanted to be. Somebody powerful. Somebody with clout."

"You really think that?"

Pell kissed her on the lips. It wasn't so much a passionate osculation as a careless acclaim, a declaration of something that had already come to pass.

8

"Well, we're finally here," Billy "the Eclipse" Bonner said to UBA boxing fans around the world. There was no blackout that night. Every seat in the stadium sold for a thousand dollars or more. Movie stars, political leaders, gangsters, Backgrounders, and thieves were present. More women than men filled the 120,000 seats; 750,000,000 people around the world had paid the one hundred dollar pay-per-view price.

"You better believe it, Champ," Chet Atkinson replied. "This is the most important night in the history of boxing. This is it. The battle of the sexes, the War of the Roses. Lady Macbeth and Don Corleone. D

Day. Tonight Fera Jones goes after Travis Zeletski's undisputed heavyweight crown in a fight they said could never happen."

"All the regulars are here tonight, Chet, but there are some who never come to these matches. Lana Lordess, governor of Massachusetts and head of the FemLeague, is in attendance, as is the secretary of state. Prince Peter of Great Britain and Premier Hernandez of Cuba are also in the audience. They might do better to have political analysts than two barkers like us."

"That may be, Champ, but we can worry about the world tomorrow. Tonight there's a fight we have to get through. What are the main strengths and weaknesses we should be looking for?"

"Well, the main thing is the body. Both of these boxers bang pretty hard to the ribs and liver. They're both good on the inside. Jones is the taller of the two but only by a quarter of an inch. Zeletski measures six eight and three-quarters. He's got a slight reach advantage at eighty-five inches and he's the heavier of the two by ten pounds. Moscow-born Zeletski has been fighting since he was ten. He has a good solid jab, a shuddering right cross, and a left hook that we haven't seen since the days of Joe Frazier. He's lean and fast and knows how to cut off the ring.

"Fera Jones is the boxer's boxer when she keeps her cool. She can dance and she can sting. Both gloves have knockout power. Her weaknesses are her tendency to cut and her temper. When Fera gets mad she throws caution to the wind, and that's a dangerous attitude when you're facing a wily opponent with knockout power."

"What are Zeletski's weaknesses?" Chet Atkinson asked.

"He's pretty good all around, but the one thing he has to watch out for is the mistake of treating Jones like a woman. She's a female, but so is the lady tiger. If he lets up at all it will be his downfall."

"How do you see the fight unfolding, Champ?"

The close-up of the boxer/announcer's face revealed the scars under his makeup, small mementos of his eighty-seven fights. There were blemishes on the whites of his eyes and one cheekbone appeared flatter than the other. He seemed to chew on each word before letting it go.

"This is going to be a tough fight for both boxers. Jones's new trainer, Pell Lightner, has no real experience in the game. He's a newcomer but he gives good advice. As you know, Fera's father is hovering between life and death at this moment at Staten Island's Neurological Institute, going through the preparations to receive a tissue transplant to reverse the effects of a decade of Pulse use."

"Will she be able to put it out of her mind and concentrate on the fight?"

"Only time will tell. But even if she can, it will still be a grueling twelve rounds." __________

The announcers talked for another forty minutes before the fighters were in the ring, and fifteen minutes more while a fight that broke out on the floor was being stopped. It was a full hour before the first bell rang.

In the years since, the first minute of that round has been discussed, watched over, and compared to other great fights in pugilism history. The only way to see it is in slow motion. Zeletski came out quickly with his hands up and his jab pumping. He hit Fera's nose seven times in less than five seconds. Each blow jolted her dirty blond hair. Each blow landed because Fera kept her hands down, not protecting herself. Zeletski gained confidence and threw a left hook into Jones's side. The blow could be heard at ringside.

Fera smiled and waved her hands for him to do it again.

He did.

Fera flinched and buckled some but her smile remained.

The referee was worried. The announcers were too.

Zeletski grinned and nailed Jones with a straight right hand. While she fell back he sent a roundhouse left. That was his mistake.

Or maybe the mistake was getting into the ring that evening. Maybe there was no beating Jones that night.

Fera moved gracefully under the looping left hand and then rose delivering a textbook right uppercut. Most analysts say that that was the end of the fight. The impact threw Zeletski back so violently that his left fist boomeranged, making his own glove the source of the second blow of the combination. The third, fourth, and fifth blows were left jabs, and even though Jones missed the following right cross, she followed with a left hook that Zeletski himself says caused the blindness in his right eye and the loss of hearing in that side's ear.

By that time the referee was jumping to save the Russian's life. Fera Jones's punches were so hard and fast that they kept the now unconscious Zeletski from falling. The referee had to wrestle Fera to the floor to stop her. Pell ran to his aid by sitting hard on his fighter's chest.

She threw them off, but by that time her bloodlust was waning. Zeletski lay on the canvas, surrounded by parmeds and bleeding from his ear and mouth. While he was carried from the ring on a stretcher, Fera's hand was being raised in victory.

And when the camera crews came to get her statement, to hear what was next for the invincible Fera Jones, millions around the world and some in the front row froze to hear her answer. Sweat was pouring down the twenty-one-year-old's face. She was breathing hard and smiling.

"First I want to thank Diana for my strength and Legba for my man . . ." Lana Lordess rose to leave.

". . . but this win is for my daddy," Fera said.

"I'll be the first to admit that I never thought I'd see this day," Billy Bonner said during the postfight interview. "Zeletski is the best we men have to offer, and you finished him in under a minute."

"It was meant to be," Fera said. She was looking into Pell Lightner's eyes.

"I know that your father is being operated on at this moment. You must be worried about him."

"I'm not worried. I'm a fighter. He is too."

"What's next for you, Fera Jones?"

"Luna Land. I'm going to Luna Land."

9

At three the next morning Fera and her boyfriend were the only ones in the waiting room outside the operating theater where Leon Jones was having brain tissue transplanted into his cortex. Pell had crawled under a row of chairs where he seemed to be sleeping.

"Pipi," Fera whispered.

The young man opened his eyes. "Yeah?"

Fera went to sit on the floor next to him. "I been thinkin'."

" 'Bout what?"

"About my mom and all those things Lordess said. About you."

"Me?"

"Daddy's always sayin' that boxing is just a metaphor."

"What's that?"

"It's when you call something one thing but really it's something else."

"Huh?"

"Like if I called somebody a worm or a germ or a dog. He's not really, but then again he is."

"I get ya."

"Me boxing is like that. They put me out there to stand for the poor girl who can't fight for herself, guy too."

"So I see you fighting and I feel like it's me out there?" Pell pulled out from under the chairs to sit by his lover.

"Yeah. And as soon as they see that the everyday prod and Backgrounder looks to me they start offerin'

me money and power. Lordess did it, Randac too. They make it seem like they're the ones helpin' me, makin' me rich. But really it's me that did it, me and the people who wanted me to beat Zeletski."

"But you took the money, babe," Pell said. "You said you were goin' to Luna Land."

" 'Cause I'm through with boxing. I figure the money they paid me to fight'll pay Daddy's med bills and the Randac money'll pay for our new fight."

"What's that?"

"People look at me to fight and win because I'm a woman and men think they're better. People wanna see the underdog win. Everything and everybody in my life is that. You--"

"Me?"

"Yeah. When you saw the chance to get outta Common Ground you made it strong. Daddy's fightin' right now against the Pulse. The government wants to make money off his addiction and let him die, but he won't.

"But most of all I think about my mother. All she ever was was a prisoner. Trapped with those other girls. Made in some laboratory. But she still got away and made a life for herself even though the whole world was against it."

Tears sprouted from Fera's eyes. Pell squatted down next to her and hugged her head to his chest.

"That's what I been thinkin', honey. When people see me fight they feel good, but it doesn't help 'em. I keep thinkin' that I should get out there and fight for real, like you and Daddy and my mom. I could use Randac's money and the FemLeague lovin' me so much to run for some office, to go against the people usin' me to keep people sufferin'."

"Be easier livin' on Madagascar," Pell said.

"You could go there, baby," Fera said. "I'd understand if you wanted to take it easy."

"No, Fera," Pell said, kissing the knuckles of her right hand. "I'm with you down to the nub, down to our last dollar and dime."

__________

She was the first woman to make a man bow down for sure,
Groucho T, the Internet philosopher, said.
He never got back up again.

Doctor Kismet

1

"Welcome, M Akwande," the monocled man said with a bow. He stood atop an enormous ornately carved dais made from a single block of pure green jade.