Zeroboxer (22 page)

TWENTY-TWO

C
arr was silent for so long that Detective Van said, “Mr. Luka, did you hear me?”

“What are you doing here?” It was all Carr could think to say. His voice sounded like sandpaper.

“I will explain if you meet me in person.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“It's the middle of the night. I have … ” Carr stopped himself. Was Van here to arrest him? Was that why he was being awakened, to be dragged off before he could fight in tomorrow's match? He sat up fast, his mind sprinting in all directions, considering ludicrous options for escape.

“
The timing could be better,” the detective conceded, “but I just arrived.” As if reading Carr's racing thoughts, he added, “I'm here to talk, nothing more. But it's important that you meet m
e.”

Carr hesitated. “Do I have a choice?”

“I can use my police identification to have the security system give me access to your room, so I would say, no, yo
u don't.”

Carr cursed under his breath. “Okay,” he said. “Okay … just wait.”

He threw on his clothes and made his way through the halls to the lobby of the hotel. It was brightly lit, austere and functional, having more in common with the entrance of a docking hub or a laboratory than with the opulent foyers of Valtego's ritziest hotels. The walls were the color of red clay and all the furniture was matte steel. Very Martian. Detective Van was standing in the middle of it, looking utterly out of place in his sun-faded leather jacket and scuffed black boots. He was alone; that must be a good sign, Carr thought. Surely, if he were being taken into custody there would be more people, wouldn't there? Detective Van motioned him over to one of the small workspace/meeting booths on the far side of the lobby. “Have a seat.”

Carr sat. Van sat down across from him. The man leaned his forearms on the table and pulled a small tin from his pocket. “Min
t?”

“What do you want from me?” Carr asked.

Van popped a mint into his mouth and stowed the tin. His beard lo
oked as if it could use a trim, and his eyes had the brightness of someone who'd been running on caffeine instead of sleep for a long time. “Kaan Rhystok has fled Earth. He's charged with numerous violations of genetics laws, as well as fraud and extortion. We have enough evidence now, from all the years his ‘seed and farm' ring has been operating, to make the case against him stick for good.”

“Congratulations,” Carr said.

The detective snorted. “Congratulate me after we've caught him. He's left Terran space, and getting the Martian authorities to cooperate with us on anything right now is difficult given the political situation. Fortunately, I'm sure he's here. On Surya.”

Carr's mouth went uncomfortably dry. “Why would he be here?”

“To watch you fight in
War of the Worlds.
I would put money on him being at the semifinals tomorrow.”

He wished he hadn't agreed to meet Van after all. When he managed to speak, each word came out flat. “What makes you s
o certain?”

Detective Van let out a long sigh that smelled of spearmint. “Come now, Mr. Luka, we both know what you are.”

When Carr didn't answer, Van shifted forward and fixed him with a no-bullshit gaze. “Last month, a teenage music prodigy came clean on being enhanced, told us everything he knew about the scheme his parents were part of, which wasn't all that much we didn't suspect already. He volunteered for a full sequencing, which proved that his official genetic profile was fake. We traced the geneticist's license number on the fake profile and discovered that it doesn't exist; it's on a list that Genepol has now compiled of expired and rescinded license numbers that were cleverly and fraudulently used during a five-year period, right around the time you were born. I pulled up your public profile and sure enough, your geneticist's license number is one of the ones on our blacklist. Your genetic profile is as fake as wood on Mars.” Van tapped his green government cuff. “In the hour it takes to get a message to Earth and back, I could have a court order for you to be sequenced.”

Carr felt vaguely ill. He was watching his future evaporate with every word out of Van's mouth. How was it possible, he wondered, to lose everything in such a short period of time?

Quietly, he said, “Why do we have these chats, detective?” He was amazed at how calm he sounded. “If you're here to arrest me, why don't you just do it?”

“I'm not going to arrest you. You need to fight tomorrow as if nothing is different.”

Carr choked back a laugh. “So you can ruin me more publicly afterward?”

The skin around the detective's eyes wrinkled, his expression incredulous, impatient, and slightly pitying all at once. “This isn't all about
you
, Mr. Luka, though it may seem that way, to someone with the ego of a celebrity athlete. My first priority is bringing Kaan Rhystok to justice. My second is not setting off a political and media firestorm to get it done. The story of a Genepol manhunt is barely a blip on the news-feeds, but half of Earth is watching you fight. You think I'm going to spook Rhystok and throw the entire carefully conducted investigation into the public eye on
the eve of a huge Terran-Martian sporting event?” Van shook his head. “My two boys, they're ten and twelve years old. They have no idea what I do, but they sure as heck know what you do. They've watched all your fights, and all three parts of that cheesy documentary. They have your posters on their walls and your Skinnwear line in their closets. Illegally enhanced or not, you're on our side, you're one of us, you're Terran. You may be alone in that Cube, but combat has always been tribal. You have to finish this tournament.”

Carr was silent.

“I'm sending you an authorized police alert code. Fight your match. Rhystok will show himself to you at some point tomorrow. When he does, try to get close to him, speak to him, delay him if you can, and send the coded alert from your cuff-link. It will go straight to me, and to the Surya station police.”

“He might not show up,” Carr said.

“He'll show. He's an extremely meticulous and careful man, but he has a weakness, a kind of pathological interest in the people he's designed. He thinks of them as his creations. His children, in a way. He attends their performances, follows their feeds, keeps tabs on them. I think he's particularly fond of you.”

A shudder of distaste ran through Carr, along with a strange and immense fatigue. Why was all this happening to him? There was a time, not that long ago, when things were a lot simpler. When he knew who he was, and what he wanted, and the world seemed like the sort of place that would reward him if he worked hard enough, and each step he took went forward, toward something better.

He studied his hands. They were slightly curled, permanently so, from countless hours spent climbing the Cube. A couple knuckles were misshapen. The skin was pale and soft from being marinated in sweat under gauze and gloves. What good were these hands for, if not zeroboxing?

“If I do what you ask,” he said, slowly raising his eyes to the detective's, “is there anything you can do for me? Or am I done? Is this tournament the last time I'll fight?”

The detective's chin tilted; he'd expected the question. His brown eyes were not without sympathy. “I can't make you any promises. The law isn't clear about how to handle a case like yours. And Genepol has no say in how the ZGFA decides to deal with you.” He paused, tugging his beard. “I
can
keep the nature of your involvement under wraps until well after the tournament. It'll give you time to come to grips with what you are before the rest of the world has to.”

“My coach,” Carr said. “And my mom?”

Van gazed at him, solemn. “Help us tomorrow, and I can make sure they get off quietly.”

Slowly, Carr nodded. That was the important thing now. His heart felt as heavy as a lump of ore in the center of his chest. He wanted to hate the man, this country farmer cop who was ruining his life, but he was too numb.

A group of people staggered through the hotel lobby, bantering loudly. The booth shielded them from view, but Carr recognized the voices. His fellow zeroboxers, the ones who'd lost in the elimination rounds earlier today—or was it yesterday, now?—were returning from a night of revelry, having drowned their defeat in drink and camaraderie. One of them exclaimed, “Shitty domie food, what does it take to find a cheeseburger around here?” and the others laughed.

Burning envy skewered him. Those guys didn't know how good they had it. They'd lost today, but there would be other days, other matches, whole careers still ahead for them. He was nineteen years old and staring at what felt like the end of his world.

Detective Van rose from his seat. “I'm sorry to have to do this right before your big match. It couldn't be avoided. You understand why.” He truly did look sorry. Unmovable as rock, but still sorry. “Even knowing what you are, maybe even because of it … I'll be cheering for you tomorrow.”

TWENTY-THREE

O
nly
sheer emotional exhaustion enabled Carr to catch a couple more hours of fitful sleep before he was on his way back to the Dr. Drew Ming Athletic Mall. Normally, the morning of a fight day brought with it a crystalline mental focus. Not so this morning. As he stared out the window of the private car, Carr's thoughts were sluggish and jumbled; whenever he started to dwell on any one of them, it threatened to swell to psychologically unmanageable dimensio
ns.

Th
e vehicle drove them past the mass of people waiting in line for the shuttle buses that ran a doubled schedule to the stadium. Mixed in with the sea of tall Martians were rowdy clusters of die-hard Terran fans, their faces painted, carrying signs, shouting, and jostling for space. They were jostled back, and not in a friendly way. Heavy li
nes of security droids enforced orderly entry onto the loading platform, and watchful Surya policemen were everywhere.

They made it to the athletes' lounge without incident, where they waited for the draw to be determined. Scull kept patting down his drifting hair and checking and rechecking all their supplies, which, Carr wanted to tell him, did nothing to ease anyone's nerves. Uncle Polly was a lot quieter than he usually was on a fight day and kept stealing concerned glances over at Carr, who did his best to act as if nothing was out of the ordinary. If his coach thought what had happened with Risha yesterday would compromise his ability in the Cube, the man certainly did not need a whole additional level of worry.

Risha. She hadn't come back at all last night. She hadn't called or messaged, and she'd blocked her cuff signal so he couldn't track it. Was she even still on Surya? Was she watching?

The WCC official came in and had each of the four lowmass semifinalists reach into a metal container and pull out a small magnetic ball. “Blue goes first, red second,” he said. The two Martians chose first; Soard wiggled his fingers dramatically as if choosing a piece of candy from a jar. He reached in and pulled out a blue metal sphere. Macha drew red.

The marb
les were replaced. Carr put his hand through the cut-out rubber lid and his fingers touched the cold round marbles stuck to the bottom of the box. He pulled one off and it floated free before he closed his hand around it and brought it out. It was red. Macha nodded, fixing Carr with a pleased, predatory expres
sion.

“Soard and Kabitain, you're up,” the official said.

DK started for the locker room. Carr called after him. “Hey, DK … good luck.” He pulled himself over so they were face to face. He had no anger left for DK, not with everything else that had happened yesterday. He regretted losing their friendship, for ignoring him and leaving him behind, and he couldn't even fault the man's jealousy and resentment. “Let's make it a Terran final.”

The corners of DK's mouth twitched up. He was older and more jaded than the DK of a few years ago, but his voice held a touch of familiar good humor. “I never figured I'd have to get through the Martians for a shot at you.” He kicked off down the hall.

It was hard to pinpoint how a man could swagger without gravity, but Yugo Macha pulled it off. He nodded after DK. “I know how it feels to always be in another man's shadow. I get sick of Soard taking all the glory.” His mouth curved in a smirk. “But today,
I
get to be the one to break Terran hearts.” He turned and made his way in the opposite direction, toward the locker room on the other side of the stadium.

“I don't like him,” Uncle Polly muttered. “He's got a desperate look.” Carr frowned after Macha in silent agreement. A man like that, all sharp edges and bitterness, could be wild and illogical in the Cube.

The entire zero gravity center seemed to be vibrating with energy. Above them, through the thick floors and walls, he could hear the throbbing noise of the crowd as the bell rang, ending the midmass semifinal. On the nearest wallscreen, Danyo “Fear Factor” Fukiyama swayed in stunned relief as the referee raised his arm, announcing a split decision victory th
at advanced
him to the final. The Terrans in the stands screamed in excitement. The cameras zoomed in to capture one of them unhooking his tether in clear violation of the posted signs. His friends threw him clear and he went soaring upward, cycling his arms all the way to the clear netting above the seats. A couple of security guards with mini-thrusters retrieved him and pulled him from the stadium.

A few minutes later, the interlude of hypnotically deep bass Martian trench music faded out. Over the hubbub of the crowd, a taller, skinnier, Martian version of Hal Greese announced the first lowmass semifinal match.

“What are you waiting for?” Uncle Polly snapped Carr back to himself. “Go get dressed and warmed up!”

They made it to the locker room in time to see the opening launch of the fight. On the screen, DK propelled himself up and around the corner like a shot, punching his heels toward Soard in a signature double kick. Soard twisted his long body nimbly and let DK's momentum carry him past, then landed a well-braced body blow that sent the shorter man spinning. Captain Pain tucked and found the wall, rebounded, and came back at the Martian without a hitch.

“Come on, DK,” Carr found himself urging under his breath as he changed into his shorts. He kept an eye on the screen while Scull taped his hands and helped him pull on his grippers. “You've got to cut angles around his reach,” he muttered.

After the first round, the camera cut to Xeth Stone and Jeroan Culver, their heads bent close together to hear each other. Xeth's animated voice filled the locker room. “I'm impressed! Kabitain put on several kilos expressly for
War of the Worlds,
but it hasn't slowed him down. He looked strong in this first round, against a very tough opponent.” The camera shifted to focus on a knot of about twenty Terrans in the stands, all of them with DK's big ears and bronze skin, waving signs:
WE LOVE OUR CAPTAIN!
“There's Kabitain's cheering section,” Xeth exclaimed. “Quite a family turnout!”

“You've heard me say this before,” said Jeroan Culver, scolding, “but Danilo Kabitain is one of the most underrated zeroboxers in the ZGFA, and at age twenty-three, he still has a promising career ahead of him. In fact, people forget that he was an up-and-coming star in the feathermass division before Carr Luka became a h
ousehold name.”

“Wouldn't that be something, to see him versus Luka in the final here on Surya station!” Xeth exclaimed. “There's a match-up that would make Terran fans in this crowd and back on Earth very, very happy.”

The first half of the second round went well for DK. He landed plenty of technical blows, bracing and climbing well and attacking from all angles, minimizing Soard's advantage of reach.

Carr stretched and jogged the walls of the warm-up area. It was bigger and brighter than the one back home, but he was careful to start out more slowly. The cool air stung as he drew it in, warmed it with his lungs, pushed it back out. He knew he ought to be concentrating on his own upcoming match, but he kept drifting over to the wallscreen.

The third time he did so, Uncle Polly threatened, “I'm going to turn this off.”

Carr motioned for him not to. “I want him to win. He deserves it.”
Terran fans should have a champion. One that won't let them down.

With a minute left in the second round, Kye Soard shifted into high gear. From a crouch, he spun up into a kick that sent DK into an airborne head-over-heels spin. DK tried to stop his dizzying rotation, but as soon as his reaching fingers found traction, Soard's power-launch plowed him in the other direction and sent the side of his head into the wall with a smack that made the entire stadium suck in a collective breath. For the rest of the excruciatingly long Martian minute, DK fought just to hold off Soard until the bell. When it rang, the cameras zoomed in for a shot of the competitors' faces. DK looked dazed as he went to his corner. Soard drifted through his hatch lazily, took some water, and bounced on the balls of his grippers.

“What happened?” moaned Xeth. “Captain Pain was doing so well, but Soard just clobbered him in the final minute.”

“Unfortunately, Xeth, this is where you see Martian physique become an advantage,” Jeroan mused. “Soar
d relied on his endurance. He waited until he saw Kabitain start to tire, then just closed in and swarmed him.”

As the two commentators kept talking, the camera panned across the stands, zooming in on sections of the crowd. Carr picked up his pace but kept watching the screen with a queasy apprehension. Every time he saw a Terran man, he half expected it to be Rhystok. Whenever the camera settled on a Martian woman, he felt the sting of it not being Risha.

Thirty seconds into the final round, Carr could see DK was outgunned. Soard keep pummeling his lower body, his thighs and shins, which didn't end the fight but wore DK down and crippled his ability to launch or climb, or do anything, really.

Carr sliced his hand across the front of the screen angrily, shutting it off. “Time me.”

“Three minutes,” said Polly. “No more than that.”

Carr ripped across the training space, ping-ponging from wall to corner, up, down, and around, throwing himself into fast launches that gave him only a second to execute full turns and changes of direction as he pummeled each of the suspended targets. When Uncle Polly called time, he'd started to break a comfortable sweat and the warmth had reached his fingertips. As he pulled himself over to the bench, he heard the muffled roar of the mostly Martian crowd and knew that DK had lost.

Uncle Polly helped him out of his thermal top, then checked his gloves and grippers, refastening them more out of habit than necessity. “What do you remember from watching Macha in the videos?”

“He runs his mouth off in the Cube, tries to mess with people's heads, gets them to make stupid mistakes.”

Polly nodded. “Are you going to let him do that to you?”

“I'm not, coach.”

“No matter what he says or does. Don't let him get to you, don't get drawn into his game. What else?”

“He takes risks, opens himself up to try and land big moves.”

“That's right. Stay steady and patient in there; sooner or later, he'll get twitchy or cocky and leave himself open.”

The same official who'd done the drawing thrust his upper body into the locker room. “Luka, you're on in five.”

“Things could get crazy out there,” Uncle Polly said. “This crowd, it won't be like on Valtego. They won't be on your side. You're going to have to block all that out. Stay focused.”

“I'll be fine, coach.”

Uncle Polly clapped his fists down over Carr's, but there was still a worried set to his mouth. Carr wondered at what point in the last year the shift had happened between them. Before every fight in his childhood, Uncle Polly had been the one pumped up with boundless energy and optimism, completely confident of winning. Was it that he'd never worried back then, or that Carr had never noticed?

Before he reached the entrance to the deck, DK came through, his coach and cornerman supporting him on either side. He saw Carr but looked away quickly, his expression shattered. Carr swallowed whatever lame words of sympathy had started to form in his mouth. A loss this bad and this fresh was something a zeroboxer needed to be alone with for a while. It would take months, maybe a year or more, to find out if Danilo Kabitain could come back from it.

“And now … the second semifinal match of the expanded lowmass division,” boomed the announcer's voice. “In the blue corner, at seventy-four kilograms, hailing from New
Nanjing, Elysium Minor, and representing the WCC … YUGO ‘THE MANIAC' MAACHAAA!”

Macha landed on the deck in a dramatic crouch, then stood and thrust his arms up, screaming something unintelligible as he exhorted the crowd to get crazy. The Maniac, Carr had heard it said, lived for three things: fighting, fucking, and fame. He'd once offered up, as a stunt, a zero gravity combat match between himself and two Elysian Rottweilers. His antics on the deck now were met with a wild cacophony of cheering and booing. Even in a mostly Martian crowd, it seemed he had about equal numbers of fans and haters.

“In the red corner, at seventy-three and a half kilograms, all the way from Valtego station, and hailing from Toronto, Earth, representing the ZGFA … CARR ‘THE RAPTOR' LUUKAAA!

As Carr flew out onto the deck, sections of the stadium erupted in wild cheering and others with deep boos, so the two sounds melded together into an indistinguishable slurry of no
ise. He saw the multiple screens cut between him and the crowd, landing on a cluster of enthusiastic Terrans in the stands. It was the group of teens he'd met on the terminal platform yesterday. Had it really been just yesterday? They'd nearly had seizures when he'd returned to the terminal platform that evening with tickets for them. The girl with the curly hair in ringlets held up a sign:
VIDA TERRA, VIDA LUKA
.

Risha, are you out there?

The first round went pretty much as Carr had expected. Macha was a lot of bluster and dangerous energy, like a piece of sharp machinery set on too high a setting, jittering and spitting bits of shrapnel. “Come on, earthworm,” he shouted. “Hit me. Come on, try to hit me, wormie!” When this didn't get a rise out of Carr, Macha got creative. “Hey, wormie, I hear you have a Martian girlfriend. You like to be fucked by Martians? I'll fuck you! Come on, then!”

I can't believe this guy,
Carr thought.
I'm going to beat the piss out of him.
He held his ground while Macha bounced around, daring him. When the man slipped into range, Carr feinted a strike, then dove in close to clinch. Macha leaped and sprawled his limbs in defense, but Carr adjusted and went for Macha's leg instead. He threw it hard, forcing his opponent into an uncontrolled spin. Carr sank his hands into the wall and shot both legs out, punching the man in the back with his heels and sending him flying to the other side of the Cube.