Fictions

by Nancy Kress

  “What kind of cash are we talking about here, gentlemen? And prize money with or without signing sweeteners and bonuses?”

  “All the good things, Jerry,” Solkonov said, pulling a paper from his pocket. “Here’s our offer.”

  Jerry took the paper, which had printing large enough for Zack to read it over Jerry’s shoulder. Zack felt his mouth fall open.

  “Listen,” Solkonov said earnestly, “we know that our potential fighters are taking enormous risks. We’re looking for risk takers, because those are the guys who don’t surrender, not even when the situation is dangerous. Those are the guys with courage and balls, am I right? Those are the guys we want, and our backer knows that to get them, he’s got to pay well.”

  Jerry managed to get out, “Who is the backer?”

  “I’m not at liberty to tell you that. All I can say is that he’s not American, he’s a fan of true courage, and he thinks it should be adequately rewarded.”

  Bullshit. But the money wasn’t. Zack tried to stop his mind from racing ahead to the life he could have with that kind of money. My God, the life he could have . . . .

  Jerry said, “We need to talk it over, of course. Where can we reach you?”

  “The Plantagenet Hotel. Our number’s on the bottom of the offer, which of course is not a contract—that comes from our lawyer. But we need to know by tonight, gentlemen. We’re talking to other fighters who are close to signing.”

  He wasn’t lying, Zack knew. There were other candidates. Zack was not at the top of their list.

  Jerry said, “We’ll call by tonight.”

  “Great.”

  When they’d left, Jerry turned to Zack. Jerry said nothing; he didn’t have to. His old, paunchy body had become a young kid’s yearning toward a pony.

  Zack said, “I don’t know yet. Don’t crowd me. I need to think.”

  “About what?”

  Zack didn’t answer. He went out, tossing over his shoulder, “Back by six o’clock. Plenty of time.”

  “Zack—”

  “Six o’clock.”

  On the sidewalk, the dog was gone.

  The non-voices were stronger now. His own mind, warning him about self-preservation? His ancestors, doing the same damn thing? That explanation was one of the crackpot hits he’d gotten when he’d googled “voices in the head.” Another was “schizophrenia.” Zack stopped googling.

  He headed to the nearest bar, a blessedly dim Irish pub. Three men sat at the bar, spaced well away from each other, drinking away their troubles at two in the afternoon. Zack downed three double Scotches in quick succession, which shut up the non-voices. Then he took out his phone and played with it while he tried to think.

  Good money—really good—just for signing. And if he won fights, more money than he’d ever dreamed of.

  No rules, with all the viciousness that implied.

  His Gift—that was how he thought of it now—which would always tell him what his opponents were about to do.

  Going against fighters who were trained in mixed martial arts, because Solkonov had been lying when he’d said the owners weren’t “looking for fancy moves.”

  More money than he’d ever dreamed of.

  No rules.

  All at once he wanted to talk this over with somebody. Not Jerry, who always followed the money. Not Anne, who would be horrified and would lecture. Not Anthony or Lou, who both had started acting so jealous and huffy that Zack had moved into his own place. His fingers moved almost by themselves to call Jazzy.

  The call went straight to voice mail. He left a message. “Hi, it’s Zack. Will you call me?” And then the thing that, he’d learned as young as fifteen, always worked with women: “I really need you.”

  “You can’t,” Jazzy said. “It’s way too dangerous.”

  They sat on either side of a campfire somewhere way the hell up in the mountains. Jazzy was at an off-season ski lodge with, of all things, a bunch of middle-school kids, some sort of volunteer work in a community center. Jazzy did that kind of do-good shit. When Zack had been in middle school, nobody had ever organized a weekend field trip to any damn ski lodge.

  But he’d been able to persuade Jazzy to leave her charges with the other counselors for a few hours. He’d called Jerry and said he’d give him an answer by eight o’clock. He’d borrowed Anthony’s wheezy old Chevy and followed Jazzy’s directions up winding roads, through dark woods that crowded each side of the road, to the ass-end of the world, and then he’d let her lead him away from the lighted lodge to this clearing where they’d have some privacy. He had muck on his shoes and damp on his ass from sitting on the ground, and his side closest to Jazzy’s fire was too hot while his other side was too cold, and after all that, Jazzy said the same thing Anne would have. Although without Anne’s nurse-list of injuries he could get plus all the reasons he didn’t want them.

  But damn, Jazzy looked good, hugging her knees in tight jeans, the firelight playing on her warm brown skin. He’d been startled by the intensity of his pleasure at seeing her again.

  He said, “It’s a lot of money, Jazzy.”

  “You only got one body. Which already gets pounded enough as it is.”

  He stayed quiet. Right now, he didn’t have to do anything. Every line of her, every movement, said she wanted him, no matter how grim she tried to keep her face. His erection was so hard it hurt. And he’d been practicing on controlling the Gift, so if he shut out everything but the sex the way he did with hookers, the way he shut out the non-voices . . . If only he’d had a few drinks! But he hadn’t brought anything, and anyway, only a moron would drive down those dark mountain roads half-sloshed. So if he just focused on the sex . . . .

  She’s going to move toward me.

  She moved toward him, and her lips were as soft and sweet as he remembered. His arms went around her and then he’d eased her onto the ground and it didn’t matter which side of him was by the hot fire because he was hot all over, they both were, and—

  It happened again. He anticipated what she wanted and he gave it to her, and then he was her but he couldn’t stop, his own need was too great, and when it was over she lay purring in his arms and he lay wanting to be somewhere else, anywhere else, away from her and the fucking perversion that turned fucking into something that fucked him over by robbing him of himself.

  “I love you,” Jazzy murmured, and there it was, the golden rope. Just like always. Women!

  This time she was the one who sensed what he was feeling. She sat up. “Zack?”

  “This was a mistake.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want this!” It came out harsher than he intended, out of his own anger and bewilderment and fear. She was going to jump up and leave—

  “Fuck you,” Jazzy said, and stalked off. Zack didn’t try to stop her, didn’t even watch her as she disappeared into the trees. But there was a big black hole when she’d gone.

  He kicked dirt onto the fire and started back toward the lodge, where he’d left Anthony’s car. Five minutes into the woods and he was lost.

  “Jazzy!” he called. “Jazzy! Hey, anybody? I’m lost!”

  An owl hooted someplace.

  There was a moon but under the trees it was still dim. His cell phone flashed NO SERVICE—he was too far from a tower, or blocked by the hills, or something. Zack stumbled on. Nothing looked familiar—all the damn trees looked like trees!

  Eventually he came to a place he knew he hadn’t been before, a sort of mini-meadow, thick with weeds and brush but at least moonlight could shine down. The air was growing colder, and he shivered. Where the hell was he? And what if he couldn’t find his way back? People died lost in the mountains, didn’t they? But maybe not in September. He hoped not in September.

  A shape stepped out of the woods into the moonlight.

  A city boy, Zack could nonetheless recognize a wolf. Dimly, he remembered Anne saying something about a pack having come down from Canada and killing chickens or sheep or somet
hing. Did wolves attack people? Zack had no idea, but his hands curled into fists. Which probably wouldn’t be of any use anyway—

  He and the wolf stared at each other.

  All at once an idea came into Zack’s head, from wherever ideas started. A wolf was just a kind of dog, right? Zack took a step toward the wolf and moved his body, without thinking about it, the way he had with the dog on the sidewalk. Commanding. In charge.

  The wolf snarled softly.

  Zack kept staring, in challenge.

  The wolf hesitated, then lay down on the brush and lowered its head.

  My God, I can dominate a wolf.

  Not that he really wanted to. After a long, wholly satisfying moment, Zack turned and walked away. Twenty minutes later he glimpsed light through the woods and came to the lodge. His cell phone worked again. He got into the car and started the engine and the heater. It was two minutes to nine.

  “Jerry? Call Solkonov. I’m in.”

  II

  Zack stepped out onto the fourth, highest level of the huge stage. Immediately, the crowd shouted and stamped. Zack couldn’t see them; everything beyond the stage was in darkness. But the stage itself was bright, and he easily spotted the other three fighters, one on each level, where they couldn’t get at each other until the bell rang. Zack looked past the edge of the rough wooden board at the three men arrayed near the front edges of the levels below.

  It’s a long way to fall, Zack.

  He pushed Anne’s voice out of his head and concentrated. The stage, covered in canvas printed with a pattern of rocks, was supposed to look like some sort of cliff with four staggered ledges that overlapped in the center.

  At the overlap, the ledges were only three and a half feet above each other, which meant not only that you had to crouch if you were idiot enough to move up or down that way, but also that you could jump, or throw a man, from levels four to two or three to one. Each ledge was set back a few feet from the one above. At each of the ends were fake palm trees of concrete with green plastic fronds; in the middle of each ledge was a hole. Zack wore shorts printed in leopard (Donavan had won on that), with a jockstrap but no cup. Ramon Romero had zebra, Julian Browne tiger, Serge Luchenko, who spoke almost no English, snakeskin. Nobody wore shoes or gloves. Everybody had shaved their heads.

  The announcer introduced the fighters and spent a few minutes excitedly explaining what everyone there already knew: No rules! Raw and primitive! A brand new sport! The first match ever! Zack took deep breaths and looked down at Romero, on the broad and deep level one. All four fighters were welterweights, but Romero had the long, muscled legs of a jumper. Zack had checked them all out on the Internet, and he hadn’t liked what he’d read. Romero had almost qualified for the Olympics in gymnastics. Browne was a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Luchenko, who Solkonov had dug up somewhere in Russia, was a mystery, with almost no web presence. But he had more muscles than Zack had known it was possible to pack onto a human body. If the blond Russian caught you in any kind of grip, you wouldn’t leave conscious, or possibly alive. Zack was insane to be here.

  The bell rang.

  The men on the lower three levels faded back under the ledges above, to avoid being jumped on. Zack moved back, too, and waited. At the highest level, drawn by lottery, he had the advantage. Seconds passed, which seemed like hours. Then shouts erupted from the audience and grunts from below Zack, on the left edge of the stage.

  He ran to the center and leapt onto the third level, far enough out that if anyone were crouching there to grab his feet, they wouldn’t get him. No one crouched. The third level was empty, and Zack peered through its hole to the first. Luchenko advanced on Romero while Browne rushed toward them from the other side. Zack caught the quick glance between Romero and Browne.

  They had formed an alliance. No rules. Together take down Luchenko, then Zack, and only then fight each other.

  Luchenko is going to feint left and trip Romero, but Romero’s already seen it . . . .

  Browne is going to come at Luchenko with some fancy martial-arts move that throws him . . . .

  Another second and the Russian was on the ground. Romero and Browne began kicking him and then dancing away. Luchenko wasn’t as fast as they were. He put up his arms to protect his head, but not soon enough. Still, he got one good grab, which Zack anticipated, and caught Romero’s ankle. Browne bent and elbow-jabbed Luchenko in his now exposed face. The Russian couldn’t handle them both at once and he was too vulnerable on the ground. A few more vicious kicks and murderous jabs, and he went still.

  Half the crowd shouted, the other half booed at how quickly one fighter was out.

  Browne had a clear shot at Romero while Romero was freeing his ankle, but he’s not going to take it. They were still in alliance, and Zack knew the moment before that they were going to turn toward him.

  He shimmied up the palm tree to level three. Romero, the jumper, leapt easily onto recessed level two and then three, but by that time Zack had dropped back through the level-three hole to level one, jumping down the seven feet to face Browne, whom Zack had known was going to move back under the overhang of level two.

  This was risky. Browne was the one trained in martial arts, and Zack had only seconds before Romero leapt back down to join his ally. But if Zack let them corner him on a higher level, Browne could fancy-move throw him off a ledge, which might break his back. Zack had to face him here, and fast.

  He rushed Browne, who sidestepped easily . . . but Zack had known he was going to. He counter-feinted, grabbed Browne in a choke hold, and began to batter him in the head. Browne shifted his weight to try for advantage, but Zack sensed every move he would make and counter-shifted—clumsily, maybe, but Browne didn’t get out of the hold. He was trained in graceful kicks and chops, not brutal battering. In a few moments he screamed and stopped trying to fight. Zack didn’t know if the scream was a feint, too, so he kept punching at the face, head, chin. It felt terrible, but Zack was afraid for his life, and that made him afraid to stop. Fear fueled rage—he hated feeling afraid!—and he kept on punching as his knuckles bled and throbbed. Browne went slack in his arms.

  Romero rushed up. Zack threw Browne’s body on him and climbed to the third level.

  For three minutes, they chased each other up and down and around. Romero was more agile but Zack more tireless; he’d spent months training to build up his stamina. In a proper boxing match, the bout would have ended at five minutes, with a one-minute rest between bouts. Not here. Zack caught Romero’s puzzlement; he couldn’t understand how Zack kept escaping him. Zack knew every move Romero would make.

  The crowd loved it. They roared wordlessly, a beast without language. My non-voices have no words either and they’re not beasts—

  The thought distracted him for a fraction of a second, and Romero caught him.

  But the jumper was tired. Zack broke away with less trouble than he’d expected and climbed a palm tree. It had real coconuts wired to its plastic fronds. Zack tore one free; it was surprisingly heavy. He hurled it at Romero. Put on a show. The coconut missed, but now the crowd screamed a real word: Murphy! Murphy! Murphy! Zack threw more coconuts.

  It took him another two minutes to confuse Romero enough for Romero to lose track of him. Zack dropped through the fourth-level hole, on top of Romero, and started punching. The man’s training in boxing was minimal. He fell to his knees. Zack let him get up and then crashed a left hook to his head. Romero went down and stayed down.

  Zack stepped to the edge of the second level and held up his arms. All at once they felt too light without gloves. Blood streamed into one eye; he’d been hit in the head. His left knee, which he hadn’t even noticed before, was ready to buckle. His hands were scraped raw.

  “Murphy! Murphy! Murphy!”

  “And the winner is . . . Zack Murphy!”

  His corner man—or at least that’s what he would have been if this stage had corners—brought Zack a robe and led him away. Pretty girls wearing almost nothing li
ned up across the front of level one to dance to raucous music. Men with mops appeared behind them to clean the stage of blood and pick up the shattered coconuts. A doctor bent over Romero, said, “Okay,” then moved swiftly to Browne. As Zack and the corner man passed by them, Zack just caught the doctor’s words over the music and the crowd:

  “This one’s dead.”

  Julian Browne had been beaten so badly around the head and neck that he had choked on blood and broken teeth and other assorted body bits. That had taken five or six minutes. If the doctor had gotten to him—had been permitted to interrupt the drama on stage—while Zack was throwing coconuts at Romero, Browne might have lived.

  The prize money, a percentage of the gate plus the broadcast pay-per-view plus a variable bonus, was supposed to be substantial. Zack didn’t ask if it was. He walked past Jerry, past the backstage reporters, past the doctor and his dressing room. No fans stood by the back entrance, not yet: There were two more fights to go tonight.

  “Zack! Zack! Where are you going? You can’t just leave, kid!” Jerry, sputtering and worried. Zack didn’t answer.

  “You feeling dizzy? Wait, I’ll get the doc!”

  Zack didn’t wait. In his leopard-printed shorts and bare chest he raised his hand, bloody still, and a cab stopped. It never would have stopped in the States. He was not in the States. He was on a tropical island someplace—he didn’t even know which island—and he had just killed a man.

  “Yeah, mon?” the cabbie said.

  Zack mumbled the name of the hotel and the cabbie drove through the warm, flower-scented tropical night. Zack had no money with him. The cabbie went with him through the lobby, where guests turned and stared, up to Zack’s room. Zack paid him. Then he stood under a shower as hot as he could get it, which wasn’t very hot, for as long as the water held out, which wasn’t very long. His phone buzzed insistently. As soon as it stopped, pounding started on his door.

  “Go away, Jerry,” Zack said. “That’s it. I’m not fighting anymore. Break the contract.”

  “Zack—”