The Razor's Edge

by Seanan McGuire

  It didn’t really matter at all.

  It had been a long year. They had been busy since then, he and Sola and Shaw and Azul. Getting the island, coming up with some kind of basic philosophy and operations they planned to turn into the order. Staying off the Confed’s Doppler. That last part was important. They’d be easy to squash.

  More than a few times, he had wondered what the hell he was doing here …

  Heads up, Mourn Back to the biz at hand. “How did you find me?”

  “Not important. You got a blade?”

  He did, of course, in the curlnose case on his belt—two, in fact—twin kerambits, nasty little talon-shaped ring-ended knives whose cutting edges were no longer than his curved little finger. But he had no intention of using them to slice this kid. “Yep. But if you were challenging me—not that you can, since I’m a civilian—I would get to choose.”

  The kid nodded. Of course he knew that.

  Mourn said, “What’s your rank?”

  “I’m Primero.”

  “Bullshit you are!”

  Again, the kid smiled. “You really haven’t been following the flow, have you?”

  “Like I said. I walked away, I didn’t look back.” He paused. That put a little different spin on things if it was the truth. “You got a name?”

  “Navarro.”

  Mourn assessed the kid’s physique, the way he stood, his set.

  Yeah, he had something, balance, poise, you could see that. But—Primero? Even if it were true …

  Easy enough to check, dial it out of the net, but so what? Didn’t fix the problem.

  “Okay, say you are Number One. You’re as high as it gets. Best in the galaxy. This wouldn’t make any sense.” He waved his hand back and forth, to indicate the two of them. “If you are Primero, you know how things go. I’m out—I’m not a player, you have nothing to gain by this—and something to lose.”

  That would explain how the kid had found him—a lot of people were willing to do favors for the guy at the top of the Musashi Flex’s fighting pyramid. Gamblers, fans who might also be Confed planetary reps, holoproj stars. People liked to stand next to violence and pretend they had a right to be there. Mourn had tried to keep an invisible profile since he’d quit the game, but apparently he hadn’t turned altogether transparent. Good to know that. They’d have to start taking precautions. What with people looking for the four of them for different reasons, Azul’s idea about wearing hoods and cowls and such was starting to make more sense: here was a child who’d found them—albeit one with sharp milk teeth.

  Navarro shifted a step to his left. Good balance. He said, “I’m who I say I am. A year ago, I hadn’t joined the game.”

  “You came a long way in record time. Never heard of anybody moving up so fast. Or reaching the top so young.”

  “Yeah. But, here’s the thing: everywhere I go, I hear about you. Yeah, they say, you’re good—but—you know about Mourn? There was a fighter. A player for twenty-five years, pretty good, but not spectacular, Teens, maybe a Tenth or Ninth. Then pow! All of a sudden one day, Mourn up and runs the fuck over everybody and takes the top slot, defends it one time right after he did—beating a guy amped on an illegal metabolic enhancer, and then just strolls away. Poof!”

  “It wasn’t illegal at the time, the drug.”

  “But you beat him anyhow. And Weems, who was the best for a long time.”

  “So? That was then, this is now. You’re the Prime, you don’t have anything to prove.” Even as he said it, Mourn knew better. He had been this kid, once upon a time. Not as good, because it had taken him twenty-five years to get to the top, and by then, it hadn’t mattered. Strange, how life did things like that.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Mourn shook his head. “Well, I don’t have anything to prove. Taking a beating to make you feel better? Not interested. Kicking your ass? Same thing. Doesn’t buy me happiness either way.”

  Navarro laughed. “Kicking my ass isn’t going to happen. I am Primero. I have to do this. I have to know.”

  Yeah. Even if you thought you were really good, you could never be sure how it would go. And a man this young, who had come up so fast? It would have seemed too easy; he couldn’t trust it. He would have to be adept, probably more so than he believed. But there would always be the doubt …

  For just a couple seconds, he felt the old competitive spirit flare in him. All the years of facing all the opponents, some empty-handed, some with blades or slap-caps, Weems with his fucking cane. Any of them could have hurt him bad—some of whom had. Or they could have killed him, like he had killed others. He had walked away because he had found something more important, but it had been his life before Navarro had been born and as long as the kid had been alive. Old habits were hard to break. Teach the child some manners …

  But—no. He shook his head. Beat this one, word would get around. They’d start lining up to try him even though he was out of the game. That was the bane of the retired gunslinger in the old entcom vids. You wanted to be a samurai who died in bed? You kept your katana hidden away. He didn’t need this. Couldn’t afford it now.

  “I got things to do, M. Navarro. I’m not interested in playing any more. Go away.”

  “You can fight back or I can pound you into the dirt—either one works for me.”

  “You want bragging rights? Fine. Say what you want, anybody asks, I’ll agree—you thumped me good.”

  Navarro shook his head.

  “I’ll sign a notarized statement.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  No. Mourn knew exactly what the point was. The kid had to know, just as Shaw had had to know, when he’d offered to let him have the title. This was something in Navarro’s favor. Beat all comers? Why keep working to get better? How much better did you need to be? Why risk your whole career on something like this?

  Because knowing was sometimes better than winning.

  Mourn shook his head, too. Yeah. Give the kid his due for that.

  They had a couple of free-standing Healy units already installed at the school. He could let the kid knock him down, crack a rib or two, raise a few bruises, then go home, climb into the machine, and come out good as new in a couple hours. The kid would be able to say he’d beaten Mourn and that would be the end of it. Cheap price to keep from being bothered again. Not like he hadn’t spent plenty of quality time in the medical units before. One more session would be just a drop in the bucket.

  What the hell. A cheap fix.

  Mourn sighed. “All right. But we do it bare,” he said.

  The kid grinned. “Fine.”

  “Want to stretch? Warm up?”

  “Not necessary.”

  Mourn took a deep breath. Well, he had that much right. If you had a match and the time, warming up was good, but in a real fight that suddenly popped out of nowhere, best be able to move cold. The kid was young and fit, he could probably drop into a full split and bounce up like a spring first thing out of bed in the morning.

  Mourn shook his head. Youth was wasted on the young. He knew that, too—he’d wasted plenty of his own.

  He sighed.

  * * *

  Navarro turned to a forty-five degree angle and edged in. It wasn’t a stance you saw much of in dueling, that angle.

  “Pentjak silat?” Mourn said. He hadn’t moved yet, still held a neutral stance.

  “Among others.” He slid his boots along the ground easily, moving with a smooth precision.

  Mourn nodded to himself as Navarro stopped just outside knife range, a hair short of step-and-a-half. The kid new his distance.

  Mourn still stood there relaxed, feet shoulder-width apart, hands hanging down at his sides. “Let me guess. Your… father? mother? was a Flex player, decent, but never in the top ranks. You started studying when you were… four? five? You trained every day, three, five, six hours, at least. You studied seven or eight different arts, worked against the best, but held off until you could go back and fight y
our previous teacher’s top student and beat him. Eventually, you beat ‘em all.”

  “I thought you didn’t follow the game anymore.”

  “I don’t. It’s the most reasonable explanation for how somebody your age got to where you are. You’re a light-heavy, you have the speed and mass, and this has been your life as long as you can remember. You were a real player before you joined. That one-year biz is flack for the ent- and newscom feeds.”

  “Good guess.” He extended his right arm toward Mourn, and when he pulled it back and switched high-low with his left, he stole a half-step, crossing his left foot behind his right. It was a silat move, well-executed. Somebody not paying attention would be drawn by the motion of Navarro’s hand, and since his body didn’t move forward, they wouldn’t realize he had gotten within range.

  Been a long time since Mourn had been fooled by that one.

  He grinned and took a half step back. “I’m not quite that old and stupid yet. Show me another one.”

  “You don’t appear to be taking this seriously, Mourn.”

  “As seriously as it merits, son. I’m not in any danger here. I’m not worried about beating you, just deciding where I want you to fall.”

  Navarro grinned. “I’m immune to trash-talk.”

  Mourn nodded. He would have to be if he was Primero. Only in this case, it wasn’t trash-talk.

  Navarro moved, fast, jinked a bit to his left, and charged. He changed levels, dropped low, and fired a head punch, changed levels again, came up and threw his right elbow as he got in, very good—

  Mourn had plenty of time. An eon.

  What he should have done was eat the punch, let it stagger him, and allow the elbow to knock him down. A quarter-beat slow, that would be it, game over, and the kid could walk away feeling like all the crap he’d heard about Mourn was just that. End of the legend, AMF.

  That’s what he should have done.

  The art he had created and learned and had practiced every day for hours until he could do it without thinking, in the dark, in a pouring rainstorm, kicked in like an involuntary reflex, far below his conscious intent.

  It made him move—

  He danced the strikes a hair to his left, ducked, parried, and snapped a backfist at Navarro’s face—

  The kid was fast, but when he’d been pumping Reflex, Shaw had been a lot faster. If you had the position? Speed wasn’t enough—

  The backfist connected with Navarro’s temple. It wasn’t a power shot, but it was enough to deflect him—

  Mourn followed the backfist in, fired his right elbow to the ribs, swept his left foot along the ground in a sapu as the elbow connected. Navarro’s foot came up as his upper body titled the opposite way, and, overbalanced, he fell onto his back—

  He twisted catlike in the air, hit on a shoulder, rolled, and came up, more than a little surprised.

  Mourn could have ended it there if he’d continued in, but he allowed the kid to reset.

  Navarro knew it.

  He shook his head, angry.

  Crap! Way to go, Mourn!

  If he let Navarro slip a punch in now, the kid would know he was allowing that, too. Stupid. Now the boy was pissed-off, wary, and well-trained. A bad combination. Slack off, the kid might do something worse than he’d intended.

  How ironic would that be—to know the nastiest, most efficient martial art around and get beaten to death because you wouldn’t use it?

  Mourn glanced at his chronometer, then back at Navarro.

  That really ticked the kid off. He could almost read his mind: who the fuck was this guy, to be looking at his goddamned watch while he was in a fight with Primero?!

  The kid made another run, a smooth and practiced series of punches, knees, elbows, his balance right, his stance low. A good fighter had to know how to grapple and have a decent ground-game, and you didn’t get to be the champ unless you were better than good, so Mourn danced that. He stayed low enough to sprawl if he needed, and batted the attacks away as he sidestepped and angled in. He needed to be a matador facing a bull, and that’s what his art focused on. He didn’t try to hurt Navarro, just gave him enough to keep him busy.

  Kid had the moves, but Mourn’s were better. He had tested them against the best and honed them to razor sharpness. He didn’t have anything to prove—to himself or anybody else. He knew what he knew—

  Navarro leaped away, frustrated, and, Mourn saw, worried. Just a little crack in the granite facade.

  As he gathered himself for his third pass, Mourn stole a few centimeters and advanced his timing, taking the short step first, then the long. He was ahead by a hair, just enough, so as Navarro fired his punch, Mourn was able to cross arms and cut the line, deflect the strike, and land his own fist square on Navarro’s temple—

  It was all in the position and timing—

  Navarro collapsed, knocked unconscious.

  Well. There you go …

  * * *

  When he came to a few seconds later, Mourn squatted next to him. “You okay?”

  “Vision’s a little blurry.” He sat up.

  “We’ve got a Healy at the compound.”

  Navarro waved that off. “I’ll be fine.” He looked at Mourn. “How did you do that? I never saw anybody move like that before! You just danced around and beat me like it was nothing!”

  “Something I came up with,” he said. “More efficient patterns. Not so much new as … recombined differently.”

  “No shit.”

  Mourn thought about the situation. He had erred by fighting, then made it worse by beating the kid, and worse still by doing it with such apparent ease.

  Maybe Navarro wouldn’t go off and tell anybody. Maybe he’d be embarrassed about it. At his age, Mourn would have been.

  Or maybe he would get drunk in the first pub he found and blurt the story out to a nice, friendly newscom reporter looking for something to sell to the nets: FLEX CHAMP BEATEN BY OLD MAN—and here are the directions to where Mourn—remember him?—lives …

  “It’s freaky. I couldn’t—it—” He stopped.

  Mourn considered his problem. And, of a moment, thought of a solution. Not the best, maybe, but it was gonna have to be make-do at this point.

  “I’m not the only person who knows it.”

  That got his attention. Navarro stared at him.

  “Besides me, there are three others. They’ve been learning for a year, since I finished it.”

  “How would they do in a match against a good fighter?”

  Here was the pitch. And it was almost true. “Any of them could take you.”

  Navarro looked as if he wanted to scream, throw up, or both.

  “I’m the top-ranked player in the Musashi Flex and you’re telling me there are three other guys besides you, with a year of training, one year, who can beat me?!”

  “One guy,” Mourn said. “The other two are women.”

  “Aw, shit! You’re serious?”

  “Afraid so. Sorry.”

  Navarro came to his feet. He swayed a little but kept his balance. “So it isn’t just you, it’s the system.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I can learn it.”

  Got you.

  He couldn’t make it too easy. “We’re not ready to open shop yet.”

  “I just got my ass handed to me by an old man, a guy older than my father, somebody who hasn’t fought anybody ranked in forever! You’re covered with rust and you still thumped me! I thought I was the best player out there. It’s who I am, it’s what I do. I can’t walk away. You have to teach me!”

  Exactly what I would have said at your age.

  Mourn held his grin in. He knew. Navarro was sold, but he had to finish the pitch to solve his problem.

  “You can’t use it to play in the Flex anymore.”

  “Who gives a fuck? I’m already the best player there and look what good it did me! I need to learn this. You have to show me!”

  “You can’t talk about what we’re doi
ng here. You can’t offer what you learn anywhere except here.”

  “Whatever it takes!”

  Mourn smiled. “We’re going to be laying out other stuff besides the fighting skill. Philosophy, politics, sociology. We have something in mind. A … revolution.”

  “Mourn. Please. You want me to walk on broken glass barefoot?”

  Mourn looked at him. The kid would stick around, at least long enough for them to build something. And he had enough drive, he might stay for the long haul. “Okay. Welcome to the Siblings of the Shroud. Come on, let’s go put you in the Healy. You won’t be much good to anybody if you’re brain-damaged.”

  Navarro smiled like a kid with a new toy.

  And so did Mourn …

  Rise Up, Rise Up,

  You Children of the Moon

  Seanan McGuire

  Night has fallen. The city, secure under the all-encompassing blanket of the mandatory curfew, sleeps. Municipal lights glare from every corner, illuminate every alley and park. The occasional raccoon or rat squints up at the frustrating brightness, unable to understand why their comforting dark has disappeared, whisked away by creatures they have no desire to know more about. Most of them are gone, skittered away to the country or snatched up and peacefully euthanized by animal control. They’re vermin, after all. There’s no place for them here, in this bright and shining city of the future, in this place where shadows have been forbidden and the night has been denied.

  Shades are drawn on private homes, locking out the twilight-bright world outside, allowing the residents to convert their living spaces into whatever facsimile of night their hearts desire. The regulations, which make the city safer by forbidding concealing shadows from taking root, have yet to expand into private homes. They will soon enough. The writing, as the people say, is on the wall, encoded in a hundred tiny rules, a thousand comments on citywide bulletin boards and forums. People feel safer when they can see their surroundings. People want to know what’s happening around them. Lighting up the world is a public service, nothing more and nothing less, and it must be done if the world is to move into the next, more civilized age.