Slingers (4 page)

LEAVING BABYLON

The next morning Pondy does his best to patch up Kem and cover the mess the shock cops made of his face. He doesn’t say much while he works. He doesn’t try to talk Kem out of anything.

He just does his job.

When Kem asks why the brawl last night isn’t all over the city and the news Pondy looks at him like he’s insane.

When he’s worked the magic he can, Pondy claps Kem on the back, calls him a drunken greaser asshole, and takes his leave.

Kem is thankful for that, and for everything else the old bulldog has done for him.

His face isn’t any worse than it usually is, his occupation taken into consideration. Kem dons his best suit and makes it to the transport gate on time. Xenia and Coach London are already there. Their earthbound flight is ready to board.

They’re not the only ones, of course. Throngs of fans are choking the narrow pathway to the gate to catch even a single glimpse of them.

News of Kem’s possible retirement has spread like galactic wildfire.

There are no secrets in Sling City.

At least, there are none that we know of.

He hears the boy before he sees him, which is odd with so many people yelling and chanting Kem’s name.

He sees the shock cops first. For one absurd second Kem thinks they’re coming for him, coming for revenge, the way they’re cutting through the crowd with murder in their eyes.

But they’re not after him.

They’re after the boy.

“Kem! Kem! Hey, Kem! Hey!”

He slips the barrier deftly and suddenly he’s at Kem’s side, a scrawny, raggedly clothed nothing of a thing with dried caramel streaks on his face, thrusting a facecard into Kem’s hand.

It’s one of Kem’s facecards, a series that came out years ago, this one featuring a looping image of him executing an inside leg-trip on the deadway. It’s creased and worn, as if it’s been handled constantly and lived in someone’s pocket for a long time.

Kem knows those creases well. He carried his own heroes in his pocket as a kid.

They are marks of the true fan.

“Kem, take it! Please! Please!”

On instinct more than anything Kem’s fingers clamp down on the card. He can’t remember the last time a kid wanted his autograph this desperately. The thought strikes him that it’s appropriate, seeing as how it will be the last auograph he gives.

Before he can oblige the gusty little gatecrasher, however, the kid is gone. He’s ducked back into the crowd, the shockers hot on his tail.

And he’s left what is obviously his treasured card behind.

Kem tucks it in his pocket without really thinking and turns away from the mob scene.

Xenia is lingering at the transport gate, watching him.

Kem drops his gaze and walks past her, leaving Sling City, the arena, the deadway, and The Reapers behind.

BACK ON EARTH

On the orbital ship Kem sits three rows behind Xenia and feels as if the back of her head is staring bloody daggers at him the whole time, but her imagined anger is better than dealing with her face-to-face.

Their descent is smooth and uninterrupted. Kem can see their escort drones outside his window, deathly metallic triangles with razor-sharp edges and each with enough firepower to pacify a small town on its own.

He knows there’s an entire protective perimeter far off in the distance surrounding them at all times that he’ll never see.

There’s no question as to whether or not they’ll be fired upon before they land, the only question is how close the shots will come. Billions of dollars in technology will assure it is never close enough to disturb the orbital shuttle’s beverage service.

There’s a fine line between terrorists and revolutionaries, and on both sides of that line they want Kem and every slinger like him dead and to see Sling City and the arena themselves drifting aimlessly in scorched pieces through space. They see the games as a global distraction from the wars that have been raging for close to a decade now. The wrong side is winning, as it often does. The corporations and governments are lying to the people, as they often do.

Kem never involved or invested himself in politics. Since the age of thirteen he’s cared about three things: his team, winning, and being the best.

You can call it selfish, or you can call it a reduced worldview.

The ceremony seems minimalist despite the fact it’s being broadcast all over the world.

The Slingers Crypt is concealed in an undisclosed location (it’s in New Zealand, about an hour from Christchurch). Its walls are rough stone. Electronic torches line the ground. In the center of the bare space twenty-six monoliths are embedded in the ground.

Today a black and white slab bearing The Reapers’ logo stands tall among them.

Nico has no blood relations. His grandfather in Venezuela raised him. The old man died before Nico’s eighteenth birthday.

The only ones to stand for him are his coach, his lover, and his best friend.

Games Authority Commissioner Yi Sang, a thousand-year-old-looking Chinese national, places a small cylinder in the monolith among dozens of others. The cylinder is pure, gleaming silver and is also embossed with The Reapers’ logo, as well as a plate stamped with Nico’s name.

An identical cylinder is presented to Kem as team captain, to take back to Sling City so a part of Nico will always reside in the arena.

The rest of Nico’s remains are in a lacquered casket the size of an ice chest. They’re generally given to the family to bury as they see fit, usually near the slinger’s home.

Nico’s home was Sling City, with his team.

Kem gives a speech. He neither knows what he’s saying or will remember it later. He watches as Xen and Coach London do the same.

He feels nothing.

It’s past midnight when Xen shows up at the door to his hotel suite.

Kem knew she would, even if he hoped she wouldn’t.

Her arms are folded across her chest. Her eyes are hard. She’s wearing a hotel robe and fuzzy slippers.

Somehow tragedy makes her look even more beautiful.

“So are we ever going to talk?” she asks.

Kem was half-asleep when the door chimed. “Yeah. I don’t know. I was hoping it would be when we’re both old and tired and fuckin’ whatever. I don’t know.”

“Just move out of the way,” Xenia instructs him, practically pushing him aside herself.

They sit on the couch in the suite’s living room and stare at each other for a while in silence.

Xen knows it’s up to her, but that doesn’t mean she likes it.

“So are you avoiding me out of shame, or are you avoiding me because you have something you don’t want to tell me.”

A part of Kem doesn’t want to do this at all, but another parts thinks she’s making it easy on him.

“I’m not coming back. I’m staying here. I’m out.”

Xenia nods. She’s not surprised, not now. His silence, his absence told her all she needed to know over the last few days.

“You’re a fucking pussy, you know that? Not a whiny fucking pussy, but that’s not much better.”

“Thanks for that.”

“Your life can’t end because his did. Mine can’t either. That’s exactly what he would tell you.”

“How do I face you in the arena? How do you trust me? I let him die.”

“It wasn’t your job to save him. It was his. This isn’t about any of that shit and we both know it.”

There is no part of Kem that wants to have this conversation, however.
             

“I know how much you loved him,” is all he says.

“I know how much you loved him, and I know how much us being together hurt you.”

Some psychologically coded time lock in Kem finally expires. It’s no more complicated than that.

The tears come, finally.

A few moments later he’s sobbing into her lap.

“I loved him so goddamn much, Xen.”

She strokes the bristles of his hair, her own eyes welling up. She’ll have her time to lose her shit, but right now it’s his turn.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers softly. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

She means it. She genuinely loved Nico, but she would always love Kem more, would always care about his happiness more than her own or their dead compatriot’s. She wishes Kem could’ve been with Nico the way he wanted, just as she wishes she could be with Kem the way she wants.

She’s been in love with Kem for years.

She settled for Nico.

But he was the only one Kem ever wanted.

She understands his pain because it’s hers, too.

“Listen,” she says firmly, pulling his head up to look into his raw, red, soaked eyes. “It was fucked up, all right? And now it’s fucked up forever. It’s a situation where no one gets what they want. It’s life.  It’s the game. We all let the two get tangled up and ass-backwards, but that doesn’t mean you have to quit.”

“I can’t go back, Xen. I’m sorry.”

That cuts her deeper than anything, deeper than Nico’s death.

“You do what you have to do.”

She kisses his forehead.

“You will both always be my boys.”

Those could be the last words she’ll ever say to him.

They’re as good as any.

Kem doesn’t start drinking after she leaves his suite because he knows if he starts he won’t stop.

Instead he gets dressed, thinking he’ll take a walk or go to the gym or do anything but sit in this room with his thoughts.

As Kem is pulling on his jacket a worn-through facecard slips out and flutters to the ground.

Kem’s own faded image stares up at him from the marble floor.

The facecard with its creases and dog-ears that can only mean he’s that boy’s hero.

It hits him then. He was too wrapped up in his own shit to see it in the moment.

The kid. The little boy who rushed him at the transport gate.

He didn’t want an autograph.

It wasn’t awe in his eyes.

It was fear.

Kem crouches down, his curiosity beginning to curdle on some preternatural level. He picks up the card.

It landed on its back, on the side Kem didn’t see when the kid shoved it in his hand.

Scrawled on the back of the facecard in what is obviously a child’s hand are these words:

“Please help us Kem they are killing us”

MEDIA BLITZ

Sling City.

The press conference to announce The Reapers’ newest starting slinger.

The entire team is seated on a dais in front of a corps of reporters speaking every language found on the face of the Earth. A banner hung behind them bears the standard of every team, while their own typhoon of scythe blades takes center stage, blown-up five times as large as the rest.

Xen is seated to the right of the podium, wearing the clothes she wore to Nico’s earthly ceremony. They were rushed from the transport straight to the press conference.

There’s an empty chair where Kem should be sitting, soon to be filled by her newest teammate.

Benny London, clad in his familiar Reapers jacket, steps to the podium and calls for silence before addressing the press corps.

“I know I say this every time, but I’m not a big talker, so let’s get to it. As you all know in our last match The Reapers lost two slingers, and in my opinion two finer gladiators never stepped onto a Sling City deadway. But the world and the games move on, and my people here have to meet the Gravity again one month from today. To do that a new gladiator has to don the black and white, the scythe blades, and take up the battle.”

Benny pauses as he often does during these addresses and fishes a mint from his jacket pocket, popping it into his mouth and sucking with a complete lack of decorum or etiquette.

“After careful consideration I’ve elected a man I feel is unequaled for the job, and I think you’ll agree.”

Xen bites her lip and drops her head, trying not to betray her coach’s next words before they come.

“Because that man is Kem Carbassa!” Benny announces with as much grandeur as the old man can muster. “And ladies and gentlemen, he’s back!”

Everyone in the audience is on their feet by the time Kem emerges from behind the banner and walks across the stage. They blast questions no one will ever answer. Cameras would flash if they still did such an archaic thing as that.

He and Benny clasp forearms like old warriors.

The Coach smiles.

Kem does not.

Benny relinquishes the podium and Kem grasps its edges, leaning over the mic. He may be a man about to deliver a eulogy.

Everyone in the room feels the weight of it. Every pair of Reaper eyes are on their head slinger.

All except one. Xenia doesn’t look up at him.

“I’m going to keep this short. I don’t have a lot to say about anything that’s happened in past few weeks. But I came back to Sling City for two reasons, both personal. Only one of those reasons matters to the fans, and it sure as shit matters to the Gravity.”

Every reporter in the room and the whole of the world far, far below them is hanging on his words like a slinger dangling for dear life from the arena deadway.

“I’m going to kill Tondo Vasile. I’m going to do it in the arena, with honor. Then I’m done. Consider me retired after that.”

Kem turns and leaves the podium, the dais, the room, practically before the echo of his final word has died.

Calling the press corps a “circus” at this point would be an affront to professional clowns all over the world.

His team can’t believe what they’ve just heard. Jackie looks worried. Wade looks ready for war. Al and Maggie look confused and seek each other’s eyes for comfort.

Xen’s face is a mask carved from the most indifferent of stone. She wasn’t surprised when he walked out, but inside she’s as surprised as the rest of them now.