Zeroboxer (24 page)

“Macha can rot,” Adri agreed. “But that ref looked the other way. The officials, did they really check his gloves? What about the judges, calling it a draw? What a joke.” She smacked the side of a locker with the flat of her hand. The sound rang through the room. “The domies think they're better than all of us from the old planet. They're all engineered, full of ‘new world leading humanity into the future' crap. They agreed to this tournament just to show us up, and they can't stand to see a Terran win in the Cube. Half the crowd was on Macha's side, yelling ‘cut him!' and ‘bleed, worm.'”

The locker room riffled with angry agreement. Carr was surprised to hear Scull speak up. “Wait until the broadcast reaches Earth,” he said. “When people see what happened, a whole planet is going to come down on your side.”

That was the last thing Carr wanted, but he left the thought unsaid.

The room shushed as Gant came back in. “Okay,” he said. “There's going to be an investigation into whether Macha did anything illegal, but in the meantime, the draw stands.” Gant held up his hands to silence the outburst. “Normally, that would mean a rematch.”

“Carr isn't going back into the Cube with that domie psycho,” Uncle Polly said.

“There's no time for that anyways,” Gant said, “and it would turn this place into a war zone. Security is having a hard enough time getting all the spectators out without more fights or property damage. But someone has to go up against Soard tomorrow, and that's been determined by record. Including this fight, Macha's pro record is 11-6-1, and Carr's is 13-1-1.” Gant brought a hand down on Carr's shoulder. “Congratulations, Luka. You're in the finals.”

He gave Carr's shoulder a squeeze, though to Carr it felt more like sympathy than celebration. There was a round of muted applause from his teammates, but he sensed and shared their uncertainty. The Martians weren't doing him any favors with this verdict. Fight tomorrow? He wasn't sure he could
walk
tomorrow. After today's fiasco, he might be a wronged hero; after getting pummeled by Soard tomorrow, he would be a disappointment and a loser. Was that the plan all along? For Macha to tenderize him so Soard could take an easy victory?

Uncle Polly peeled Carr's sweat-drenched gloves from his hands. “Carr,” he said, “There's not a person on any planet that could fault you if we decide not—”

“There's a clinic not far from the hotel,” Carr said. He pushed off the bench and grabbed his clothes off the magnetic pegs.

He took in a little food and a lot of liquids on the way there. The vehicle's AI kept taking them in strange directions to avoid the disorder streaming from the gravity zone terminal. Several streets were blocked by drunk and infuriated fans. Carr saw a pack of Terrans vandalizing a zeroboxing fan shop, smashing the fixtures, tearing apart the WCC-badged clothes and merchandise and dumping it in the street. They were set upon by a mob of angry Martians. Security droids appeared and both sides recklessly attacked them, too, until a dozen people lay on the ground, stunned into paralysis.

Disbelief layered onto Carr's injuries. “Is this really because of my fight?”

Uncle Polly turned away from the window with a swift jerk of his head. “Not a chance. But you're the excuse they've been waiting for.”

His coach was right, of course, but Carr didn't feel reassured. He of all people had reasons to feel enraged, to want to scream and destroy things. Part of him did. But it was one thing to own that feeling, selfishly, and quite another to watch others lay claim to it, ostensibly on his behalf. It was grotesque, obscene, he thought, like watching someone else impersonate you naked with your girlfriend.

There his traitorous mind went again. Risha was somewhere safely away
from this mess, he hoped.

At the clinic, the medics sealed up his gashes and brought the swelling and bruising down. Carr agreed to have nano quick-repair patches placed over his ribs after being assured that the topical stuff didn't stay in his bloodstream and was legal before competition. He couldn't believe he was worried about something like that. “Wouldn't want any rules to get broken now, would we?” He laughed. It hurt. Uncle Polly didn't laugh with him.

He'd retrieved his cuff from Scull before sending the kid back to the hotel, and as he waited at the clinic, the display lit up with a deluge of activity. Thousands of people were pouring onto his feed and other zeroboxing feeds. His name was popping up all over the Systemnet. He'd been messaged so many times by so many fans that he pictured his cuff overloading, bursting into flames on his arm. The only ones he bothered to pick up were from Enzo. There were three of them.

“Holy shit, Carr, I just saw the whole thing,” the boy's breathless voice said in his receiver. “I can't believe it. Everyone here is
pissed pissed pissed
. God, I hope you're okay?”

Enzo's next call had been sixteen Terran minutes later. “I just posted this on my feed and it's already been reposted twenty-five thousand times.” Carr's cuff pulled up the embedded image: a profile shot of him right after the fight with
Macha. He barely recognized himself. His head was slightly bowed. Blood clung to his skin like rainwater on leaves. Perhaps he'd just heard the judges' decision, because his lips were slightly parted, his eyes lifted and burning with intensity. In thick white letters underneath, Enzo
had added the word
UNBROKEN.

Enzo's third and final message, thirty-eight minutes afterward, was two short sentences. “Just heard you're going to the final. Check this out.” He'd sent Carr a short clip from his optic feed. Enzo was standing on a street in Toronto. The corner of Queen an
d Jarvis, Carr guessed. The light was muted; it was either early morning or early evening. There was a lot of city noise in the background along with people shouting. On the sides of buildings, holovid banners were blinking out, then coming back to life all with the same image.
UNBROKEN.
Enzo turned in a circle. It was all around him, from small storefront banners to the enormous ones gracing the tallest towers.
UNBROKEN. UNBROKEN. UNBROKEN.

Carr swiped the video off his cuff and leaned his head into his hands, his stomach clenching with humility, gratitude, dismay, and dread.

Two long Martian hours later they were back at the hotel. There were security droids outside. The rest of the team was sitting or standing in the lobby, watching one of the wallscreens. The footage was cutting between scenes of arrests being made as Martian and Terran fans clashed on Surya, and snippets of news from Earth, where angry crowds had taken to the streets, attacking Martian businesses. A commentator was saying “political ramifications” a lot, while images played of unconscious figures being dragged away from the three blackened, smoking security droids that had been lit on fire outside Toronto's Martian consulate.

Adri whispered, “Things are going to hell.”

“Turn this shit off,” Danyo said, though he made no move to do so.

Carr felt the shift as he came up to them, faces and bodies moving fractionally so that the weight of many gazes pooled around him as he looked at the screen. A sp
okesperson for the Martian Council was making a televised statement from Ares City: For the safety of their staffs, all Martian embassies were officially on lockdown. All Martian citizens were advised to stay inside the secured expat sectors or leave the planet.

Carr turned away from the talking head. “Nice fight today, Adri. Good luck tomorrow,” he said. “You too, Danyo.” He walked away, silent stares following him. He heard, after a moment, the rest of them begin to disperse back to their rooms.

Uncle Polly walked with him, but he paused at the hallway junction where one corridor led to his room, the other to Carr's. “Tell me the truth.” His grizzled face was long and solemn, his eyes scanning Carr's with interrogative ferocity. “Forget what anyone else wants or thinks of you. Screw the fans, the press, Gant, the team, screw
me
most of all. Do you really want to fight tomorrow? Tell me the truth. Because if the answer is no, I will go to bat with whoever I have to for you on this. What you want matters. You're not a martyr. You don't have to be.”

Carr didn't know what to say. Did his coach know what an impossible question he'd asked? Maybe there had once been a time when he would have been able to do what Uncle Polly suggested—separate himself from all the expectations that surrounded him. But they had long since fused together, grown into each other; it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. He'd had aspirations attached to him since the moment his genes had been so fatefully spliced. What defined him, if not that? He didn't want this weight he carried, but he couldn't bear to lose it either. He didn't want to go into the fight with Soard feeling the way he did now—wounded, anxious, and hurt—but pulling out was unthinkable.

“I want to do it, coach.”

Uncle Polly's face slackened. Carr read acceptance, resignation, even pride. His coach let out a soft breath. “Get some sleep.”

Carr watched Polly walk down the hall and into his room. He went to his own room, setting his cuff against the entry reader and pushing the door open. Before he stepped through, he felt a second of ridiculous optimism that Risha would be there, sitting on the bed, working on her thinscreen and waiting for him.

She wasn't. Instead, sitting in the armchair next to the bed, was Mr. R.

“Hello, Carr,” he said. “It's nice to see you.”

TWENTY-FOUR

T
he door shut behind Carr. He stared without speaking. Finally, he said, “How did you get in here?”

Rhystok made a dismissive,
no matter
motion with his fingers. His other hand held a scotch on the rocks that he'd helped himself to from the mini-bar. The small bottle was sitting on the table along with another glass of ice. Rhystok poured liquor into the glass and set it down on the edge of the table nearest to Carr. “Sit down. Have a drink with me.”

Carr sat down slowly. Rhystok seemed a little different. His voice and movements were quicker, harsher, stripped of their practiced languidness. Despite the cool air, a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his taut brow. He was a hunted man now. Carr fingered the edge of his cuff under the table, thinking of the alert code Van had given him. Rhystok raised his glass and held it in place expectantly. Warily, Carr picked up the one he'd been offered. “What are we drinking to?”

“To victory.”

Carr's lip curled. “Yours or mine?”

Rhystok drank and set his glass down. “They're the same thing. They always have been.”

Carr's grip tightened around his glass. He set it back down. “I don't drink before fights.”

“Just as well. Martian whiskey is made from corn-barley hybrids. Tastes all wrong.” Rhystok leaned back in the chair. His face looked stark and weirdly ageless, deeply shadowed under the room's orange-hued light. “I take it you've seen the latest news-feeds from Earth. Quite something, isn't it?”

Carr shook his head. “I didn't want anything like this to happen.”

“You're a hero, Carr. Millions of people are watching you. Remember that.” His words hung in the air, threaded through with an undercurrent of warning. “You've been speaking to a detective from Genepol.”

The man's flat, matter-of-fact affect made Carr flinch inside. “As if I wanted to,” he said shortly. “He tracked me down. He knows all about you, and about me.”

“I suppose he asked you to cooperate with him, in exchange for leniency for your mother and your coach.”

“Something like that.” Carr's eyes flicked down for a split second, then returned. He wondered if could find and send the code without Rhystok noticing. “I know you're on the run. Some music prodigy of yours ratted you out. Others too, maybe.”

The man's nostrils flared in a sigh of disappointment. “The genetic constellation for artistic genius can be so emotionally unstable. Not resilient like yours.” A cold smile cracked his sculpted face in an expression of paternal knowing. “You were something to behold today. Fierce and indomitable.
You
wouldn't be intimidated into throwing yourself on the mercy of the authorities.”

Carr had his face slightly lowered, as if accepting his creator's praise. He found the police code on his cuff. His finger hovered over it as he raised his eyes. “I didn't win today. I beat Macha, but I didn't win. You can keep fighting all you want, but you can't win if they've got your number. Genepol will hunt you down and have me sequenced sooner or later.”

Rhystok
tsked
. “Ah, Carr, Carr, Carr.” Each use of his name jabbed Carr's ears like a toothpick. “You have nothing to worry about from Detective Ruart Van.” The splice dealer reached into an inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a crumpled, palm-size object. He held it up, then dropped it onto the table between them.

Carr froze. The display and components were smashed, so that nothing could be sent or retrieved from it, but he still recognized it. It must have been how Rhystok got the security system to grant him access to the hotel room: a green, government-issued cuff with an ID stamp on the underside.

Carr's blood chilled to the roots of his teeth. A personal cuff could only be removed by its owner. “What … what did you do to him?”

“I imagine he's making his way through Surya station's dematerializing system by now.”

“You killed a cop.”

“Lives ca
n be bought or sold just like anything else. Especially off-planet, where a Terran government ID doesn't mean anything. Stupid of him to leave Earth's airspace, but he simply couldn't resist coming after me himself.” Rhystok's lips twitched into a smug shape. “You know, it was almost as if we were trapped in a box together. Only one of us could emerge in the end. You understand how that w
orks.”

Carr felt welded to his seat, horrified, fascinated, and morbidly impressed by the man's cavalier tone. Did he think of himself as some sort of god? Capable of designing, granting, and taking life with impunity?

Rhystok's papery eyelids hooded. “You didn't think I would let him ruin you, did you? It's a shame you even had to put up with his threats. Well, no matter now. Delete that silly code he gave you and put it all behind you.”

Involuntarily, Carr's hand drew away from his cuff. “You're completely vaccked if you think this will end it.” His voice sounded too fast. “You're a wanted man. Genepol
will still come after you. And me.”

“I suppose I'll have to disappear for a while,” Rhystok conceded. “But as for you … I suspect that Detective Van kept his knowledge of you to himself.” He finished his drink and set down his glass with an appreciative smack of his thin lips. He picked up the ruined green cuff and pocketed it. Carr wasn't sure if he imagined the dark stains on its surface. “Go back to doing what you're good at, what you're meant to do. I'm watching out for you. You and I will always be on the same side.”

Sudden, fierce hope climbed into Carr's throat. It tasted sickeningly sweet, like rotten fruit. If Rhystok was right, if Van had been the only one who'd known … and he was now dead … then Carr was safe.
He was safe.
He recoiled from his own guilty relief.

“Good luck tomorrow. Show everyone just what Terrans are capable of.” Rhystok stood. He tilted his head just a bit, pitching his voice conspiratorially. “You know, Carr, you're one of my favorites.” He turned toward the door.

Carr knew he ought to do something—press his finger down to send the alert, move to stop the man—but he felt paralyzed by his own awful, racing optimism. In three seconds, Rhystok would be gone. At worst, he would fade back into haunting the periphery of Carr's existence. At best, he'd disappear to some far-flung space outpost. Tomorrow … tomorrow Carr would go up against Kye Soard. If he won, he'd be a hero. A legend. He'd find Risha and convince her to return. Life would continue, upward and onward, as it was meant to.

As he walked past, Rhystok paused as if a thought had just occurred to him. He set a hand on Carr's shoulder. “By the way, I take it you had a falling-out with your Martian girlfriend?”

Carr stiffened, his flesh prickling under the man's touch. “What makes you say that?”

“
Your personal feed. It's normally very well maintained. Hardly a day goes by without a fan or media engagement of some sort. The last two days have been unusual. Where is Ms. Risha Ponn?”

Carr was abruptly thankful he could answer this question honestly. “I don't know.”

“A shame. She was an excellent brandhelm. Replacing a girlfriend is easy, but good brandhelms … ” He made a clucking noise. “Those are truly valuable.” Another pause. “She knows everything, doesn't she?”

The man's voice didn't change, but a finger of frost crept down Carr's neck. He turned his head slowly, looking at the man's white fingers on his shoulder and the deceptively placid inquisitiveness of his face. Something told him Rhystok would see right through a lie. “She won't tell anyone.”

“You're too young to appreciate that there is nothing more unpredictable than a disappointed woman.” Rhystok leaned down
and put his face near Carr's, his voice taking on the quality of a neighbor offering friendly advice. “I'm going to do you a second favor tonight. She's at the Solstice Hotel, in the beta quadrant of the inner ring. You ought to pay her a visit after your match tomorrow. Try to patch things up. If you can't, I'm counting on you to make sure she knows to keep quiet. For her own good.” The hand on Carr's shoulder gave a final, firm pat, and was gone.

Carr closed his eyes. A thousand thoughts hurricaned through his mind, but only one rose clearly over the others.
This murderer knew where Risha was. Had known, all this time Carr hadn't.

His hands gripped the edge of the table so hard they shook. Then he turned and rose from his seat in one motion.

Rhystok had just started to open the door when Carr slammed into him. There was no rebound like in the Cube; they crashed into the door together and fell against it like a sack of rocks. Carr rolled on top of the man, pinning him, seeing Rhystok's eyes fly wide with disbelief as he coiled his fist and swung it into the man's jaw.

A knockout blow, right on the button. Rhystok's head lolled back on the floor, mouth slack, body limp under
Carr's legs.

Carr stood up. His heart was hammering, but he felt, oddly enough, shaky relief and mild disappointment. Sprawled unconscious on the ground, Rhystok had lost his strange, weighty presence. He was not an architect of fate. He was just a man like any other. Carr had beaten men before.

He found the alert code, still called up on the display of his cuff. He sent it. Then he made a call.

“Luka,” said Gant, irate, as soon as he picked up. “Is this about Risha? Because I can't reach her. Sure picked a fine time for a lover's spat, I tell you! If you weren't fighting tomorrow, I'd have called to give you hell.”

Carr breathed in, then out. “In a few minutes, Martian police will be at my hotel room door,” he said. “We need to talk.”