by Fonda Lee
Corners. They had never been a problem for Carr, not until his last fight, when “Death” Ray Jackson had flown him hard for two rounds, then trapped him in a corner in the third and ground it out to win in a split decision. Carr did not take losing well (who did?), especially since he was certain he could have won and had only his own overconfidence and ill-preparedness to blame.
Uncle Polly had given him hell, and he’d deserved it. He could barely look at his coach after the fight. For days, he’d felt so low he couldn’t bring himself to leave his apartment. Uncle Polly had shown up on the fifth day. His face had been severe, but his voice had been kind. “It’s good for you to know what it feels like on the other side, for once. Now you know. It’s shit. So—you planning on whimpering back to Earth for a planet-rat job, or are you going to get off your ass?”
He’d gotten off his ass. It had taken time, though—weeks—to shake off the malaise, and he suspected the loss would stay with him forever, like a benign cyst under the skin.
Carr clambered back out to the warm-up area, shaking his head to clear away the unpleasant memory and refocus on the present. He had another chance—that was what mattered. DK helped him pull on and bind his gripper shoes. Carr wiggled each of his enclosed toes and gave a thumbs-up. He took off his cuff-link and handed it to his friend. Keeping a fighter’s cuff for him during a match was an important job for the cornerman and symbolic of trust; DK put it on next to his own. Carr’s gloves went on, over his wrapped hands, bound securely several inches up his forearm, leaving the wrists fully mobile. Some zeroboxers opted for the heavier gloves with more wrist support, but Carr didn’t think it was worth sacrificing climbing agility.
“Thirty minutes,” the official in the hallway called.
“Terran or Martian?” DK retorted, cheeky. Zeroboxing rounds were always measured in the fractionally longer Martian minutes, so it was an ongoing joke that zeroboxers had no sense of standard Terran time.
“Get moving,” Uncle Polly said. “You know the drill—five times around the room, then wall-bounces.”
Carr swung into the square warm-up room and jogged the walls, up, down, and around, exerting himself just enough to raise his heart rate. There was a lumpy target dummy secured to the center of the room with cable wiring; he launched off a wall, somersaulted to strike the target with both feet, and rebounded to another wall. He worked the dummy from each wall and corner, and in the last five minutes, Uncle Polly called him back down for a brief recovery. Carr was warm now, just beginning to feel a sweat. Uncle Polly drifted in front of him and did a final check on his gloves and shoes. He clapped his fists down over Carr’s. “Let’s do this.”
The official’s voice called down the hallway, “Luka, you’re up!”
A deep thrill of nervous energy raced through Carr’s veins. He faced the hall, drew in a long, uneven breath, then let it hiss out slowly. “We’re right behind you,” DK reassured him.
Carr gripped the rungs and climbed. At the stadium entrance, the rumble of the crowd suddenly faded as the music and lights dimmed and blue spotlights began sweeping back and forth. The announcer’s bass voice bellowed, “Fighting out of the red corner, with a mass of seventy kilograms and a record of four wins, one loss, CAAARRR … ‘THE RAPTOR’ … . LUKAAA!”
TWO
Carr kicked off the final hallway rung and through the entrance. He somersaulted tightly, then uncoiled, reached, and landed in a dramatic crouch on the deck, gripping it easily with the balls of feet and fingertips. The crowd roared its approval, and as he straightened, Carr saw close-ups of himself on the huge screens hanging around the stadium.
Great stars, there were a lot of people. They filled the tiered stands that stretched in all directions, blurred into shadow beyond the stark, glaring lights. Carr’s pulse sped up, beating in his palms and the soles of his feet. Zeroboxing was the sort of thing people watched on screens at home; most planet rats couldn’t afford to travel beyond atmosphere very often, and even those that could generally liked their artificial gravity. These spectators were the really hard-core fans, the ones who would rather be strapped into seats, drinking beer from squeeze bottles and brushing away floating globs of spilled orange soda and candy wrappers in order to see the fight live. Tonight, there were thousands of them, some still pulling themselves along the guide-rails to their seats.
Below the deck hung the Cube, empty, like an enormous minimalist ice sculpture. The sweeping spotlight beams distorted on its transparent surface, tingeing its edges and corners with cool blue light. Even experienced zeroboxers got shivers looking at the thing. To willingly enter it was to be completely imprisoned and utterly exposed. It was the prism of truth. There was no hiding in the Cube, no angle from which you could not be seen, and no way out until you had been proven victor or vanquished.
The announcer, Hal Greese, had a thick neck and a gut that, without gravity, migrated upward from the region of his waist to fill out his torso in a kind of general bulbousness. He turned in a slow circle in the center of the deck, one arm raised in anticipation. “Fighting out of the blue corner, with a mass of seventy-one kilograms and a record of nine wins, three losses, JAY … ‘DRACULA’ … FERRRANNOO!”
Jay Ferrano shot through the entrance, twisting like a corkscrew, and caught the landing deck neatly. A wave of enthusiastic noise vibrated the Cube beneath his feet. Carr looked across at his opponent. He seemed larger than he had in the videos Carr had studied. “Dracula” had gotten his nickname after an early fight when he’d let loose a bellow and accidentally swallowed a floating bubble of his opponent’s blood. The fans had loved it and the clip had gone viral. Ferrano had apparently taken to his name, because the suspended screens zoomed in for a close-up of the liquid tattoo stretched across the back of his neck: a bat flapping its wings.
They met in the center of the deck, both of them ignoring the rails and walking steadily on gripper shoes alone. The referee said a bunch of the usual stuff about wanting a good, hard, clean fight and so on. Carr didn’t hear any of it. He watched Ferrano. Sometimes you could tell what kind of a fighter a man was by looking at his face in the seconds before a match. Some guys looked cool as ice and fought the same way, patient and technical. Those who didn’t even look you in the eyes were either too nervous or, in their hearts, nice fellas who would rather not think of their opponents as human beings they would have to hurt. The ones who growled and glowered as if they wanted to rip your limbs off—they fought because they were angry people.
Ferrano sniffed and cricked his neck from side to side. He looked strong, and mean, and here to play.
The referee told them to touch gloves. They did, and retreated to opposite sides of the deck. Carr was tingling from fingertips to toes. Uncle Polly was murmuring, “You’re ready, you’re ready. I’ll be in your ear the whole time.” DK put Carr’s mouth guard in, then spread coagulant gel on his face; it lessened the chance he’d get cut, and in the event he did, it would keep most of his blood on him instead of mucking up the air.
The attendant technician held an activation penlight up to his eyes and told Carr to look at a point straight ahead while he fixed the beam on each eye in turn. After a couple of seconds, he said, “Connection’s good,” and one of the screens above flickered and shifted into the view from Carr’s optic cameras, now being fed live to his subscribers.
The deck, which took up one entire outside surface of the Cube, had two entry hatches set into it. The border of Carr’s hatch flashed red and slid open. He went to the edge of it and stood like a man with his toes on the lip of a cliff, staring down into two hundred cubic meters of empty space. Then he dove through the opening like a swimmer into water. He piked his body backward and flipped, catching the wall behind him, hands first, feet second, finding spread-fingered purchase on the textured surface, the magnetic pull on his gripper gloves, shoes, and the waistband of his shorts holding him against the wall.
On th
e other side of the Cube, Jay Ferrano shot through his hatch. Both entrances flashed once more—Ferrano’s blue, Carr’s red—before sealing off. The bell rang loudly outside the Cube for the benefit of the audience, more quietly in his ear. The fight was on.
Ferrano opened with a straight launch, propelling himself across the Cube with both legs, hands up in a guard. Carr judged the man’s path and leapt for an adjacent wall, kicking out at his passing opponent. His foot connected, not with enough power to do damage, but that wasn’t the point. It pushed the man in one direction and accelerated Carr’s travel in the other, setting up his rebound.
Ferrano turned off the wall and shot straight back. Carr tucked his legs, powered off the surface, and sailed just out of reach. He shot a hand out for the wall, grabbed it, and climbed; for a calculated moment he was directly above Ferrano’s head, and he swung down, fists flying for his opponent’s face. He nailed a right hook and followed the momentum of his weightless spin with a left elbow, but Ferrano wrapped a leg around his, halting both their rotations and creating a coveted opening to grab and to land punches.
“Cover! Cover and break!” Uncle Polly shouted, his voice tinny in Carr’s receiver.
Carr tucked his head between his forearms as Ferrano’s right fist started raining down blows. The man’s other hand was cupped behind Carr’s neck, right leg anchored tight around Carr’s thigh. He had to move before Ferrano could lock him up further. He drove his right knee up against his opponent’s chest and surged back. They came apart, Carr kicking out to speed up their separation.
“Stick to the plan,” Polly urged. “Stay out of his grab zone! Make him fly!”
All planet-born people instinctively had a sense of up and down; it took years of zero gravity training to develop a good space ear, to navigate 360 degrees of movement comfortably without nausea or disorientation. Carr was a natural. He twisted in the air, stretching for the wall with the balls of his feet. His left shoe found a magnetic grip while the rest of him kept traveling; he arched his back and shot his arm out, bracing himself into one of the Cube’s right angles. Ferrano was coming after him, but too slowly; he hadn’t gotten off a strong push. Carr scrambled across the corner and attacked from behind, punching both heels into his opponent’s back, slamming the man into the wall and sending himself flying again.
Ferrano’s broad back tensed with frustration and he began chasing the younger fighter around the Cube. They traded blows but Carr kept moving, kept Ferrano coming after him. Uncle Polly’s voice was a chant in his ear: “That’s it, make him climb, you’re good, you’re good.”
The bell sounded on six Martian minutes. The hatches flashed and slid open; Carr climbed sideways toward the glowing red square outline and pulled himself onto the deck.
He sat, ankles hooked under the stabilizing bar as DK took his mouth guard and squeezed water into his mouth. Uncle Polly appeared in front of him, and for a couple of seconds his voice had a weird double timbre as Carr picked it up from his receiver. Polly stabbed his cuff to mute it and squatted down on his gripper shoes, talking fast and excited. “You’re pissing him off and wearing him out. That’s exactly what you want. Pick your places. You can fly circles around him; he’ll tire long before you do.”
Carr felt good—slicked with sweat, but his energy still high. Long before he was given his Cube name “the Raptor,” his nickname around the gym had been “Last Man Standing” because of his staying power. Uncle Polly was certain that Carr’s cardiovascular endurance and uncanny space ear were the key to him winning against more seasoned fighters.
Carr sloshed water in his mouth and spit it out, the spray breaking into wobbly bubbles that DK swiped away with a towel. “It looks like I’m playing it too safe,” he said. “Like I’m not taking it to him enough.”
“You look great, kid,” DK reassured him, pressing an ice pack to the back of his neck.
Two scantily clad Cube girls drifted above the deck, taut bodies undulating like mermaids as they circled a big, spinning holovid of the number two. Carr bit back down on his mouth guard, unhooked his feet from the bar, and dove back through the hatch just as the bell sounded on the second round.
Ferrano had adjusted his game plan. No immediate power launch and energy-expending chase this time; he wasn’t going to be drawn into trying to out-fly Carr. He stuck to the walls, looking for an opening, fighting tight and deliberate. It didn’t take long for Carr to start feeling like a crow harassing a porcupine. He was landing hits, but Ferrano had good, swift defense and the blows didn’t do a lot of damage.
Carr gritted his teeth, his gut surging with anxiety. He couldn’t be sure of winning, not if the rest of the round went like this. The judges might tilt in his favor, but he couldn’t count on that. Not for this fight. He needed this fight.
He ran up the corner, bouncing off the right angles on the balls of his feet, then leapt back down at his opponent, legs scissoring for Ferrano’s neck. The man evaded by less than a hand’s width and grabbed Carr’s leg. They both spun. Ferrano went for a leg lock. Carr twisted out of it, but the move gave Ferrano a brief opening. He threw his legs around Carr’s waist, taking rear control and flinging his arm around Carr’s neck.
Carr tucked his chin in time to avoid being immediately choked out. Ferrano had him around the jaw instead of the throat; the man’s forearm began sawing back and forth.
Uncle Polly was shouting, “You have legs! Legs on a wall!”
He was being ridden and choked piggyback, but in the Cube, up and down were easily reversed. Carr kept his head down, braced his legs and kicked hard off the wall, sending them both shooting backward.
Ferrano’s back slammed into the opposite wall, and they bounced. The impact knocked some of the wind out of Ferrano; he didn’t let go, but his grip slipped enough for Carr to pull the stranglehold loose, twist his body a little sideways, and start nailing his opponent in the ribs with the tip of his elbow. Ferrano grunted but held on, tried to maneuver back into the choke with his other arm. They turned in space, locked together, everything barrel-rolling by slowly as they fought for advantage. With his free hand, Ferrano started hitting Carr in the head, forcing him to give up his elbow strikes to protect himself. Uncle Polly was yelling something but Carr couldn’t hear it; his head was ringing with each blow.
Watching the video of the fight later, Carr would hear Xeth Stone exclaiming at this point, “It looks like Luka is in trouble now—they’re drifting and Ferrano is not going to let go! He’s just pounding him! This is not looking good for Carr Luka!”
“This is exactly how Ferrano wins,” Jeroan said. “He may not look as nimble in the Cube, but you can’t underestimate his tenacity.”
Everything began to blur and swim. The wall advanced slowly in the column of vision between Carr’s raised forearms. Desperate clarity pierced through the roar of blood in his ears and the tinny incomprehensible noise from his implanted receiver. His body began to slacken; Ferrano dug in the choke and started to squeeze.
“Oh … oh, this is it!” Xeth Stone yelled. “Ferrano’s got it! He just wore Luka down with those punches.”
Jeroan said, “Luka is going to have to tap any second now.”
Blood and air were no longer reaching Carr’s brain. Pain and blackness closed in. Ferrano growled with effort, completely focused on impending victory. Just tap and it’ll stop, his meaty, sweaty forearm seemed to promise with each additional millimeter of pressure.
They reached the wall. Carr shot out hands and feet, catching the surface with all four magnetic grippers, and launched himself straight up with every remaining ounce of power in his limbs, as if shooting up the vertical side of a swimming pool toward air. The crown of Ferrano’s head, higher than his by a couple inches, slammed into the Cube wall above them.
The impact jarred Carr as well, his tenuous hold on consciousness nearly giving out, darkness scudding across his eyes. But Ferrano’s
arm fell away and the flood of returning oxygen was like a slap of cold water in Carr’s face. His body responded with a wave of sudden energy. He broke free and turned the corner like a spider crouching in its hollow. The walls, though solid, were designed to partially cushion impact; Ferrano was more dazed than injured, his eyes unfocused as he reached out clumsy hands to steady himself. Carr came at him from above, fist connecting square across the chin. Ferrano’s head spun first, his body followed, and he went limp as a drifting rag doll.
Peripheral sounds and sensations returned. Outside the Cube, lights strobed and the crowd roared—one giant incoherent mass of noise.
“DID I JUST SEE THAT?” Xeth Stone squealed.
“We have a floater!” Jeroan’s usually unflappable voice held a note of awe. “Carr Luka just floated the third best zeroboxer in the lowmass division, in the second round, when it looked like he was done for.”
“What a stunning reversal! Ferrano did not see that coming at all! None of us did! I don’t know how Luka could take those hits and hang on through that choke, and still have enough left in him to pull that off! What an opener! That might be the fight of the night, Jeroan!”
The referee and a doctor navigated over to Ferrano and examined him, then took hold of his arms and carried him back over to his side of the Cube, propelling themselves with handheld mini-thrusters. Residual adrenaline pulsed through Carr’s body with each heartbeat; he felt as jittery as a bug as he jogged, on hands and feet, back to his hatch and out onto the deck. As the referee took his arm, Hal Greese’s voice boomed, “At four minutes, thirty-eight seconds in the second round, the winner, by knockout—CARRRRR LUKAAA!”
The sweet high of victory swept over Carr, dizzying him more than any gymnastic feat in the Cube. He saw his own face on the suspended screens—red, puffy, and bruised, shiny with pebbly sweat clinging to a layer of gel—and broke into a grin he felt would never stop. The shadowy tiers of spectators rippled with movement, chanting their approval. He was surrounded by people: DK and Uncle Polly hugging him, the doctor coming to check on him, the technician disconnecting his optic cameras and telling him that his cochlear receiver had been jolted and he’d need to get it fixed—that was why in the last seconds of the match he hadn’t heard Polly’s voice, only a high, distant whining. Sports journalists materialized out of nowhere, their tethers crowding the rails, raising their cuff-links above each other to catch his words. Carr scrabbled distractedly for what he was supposed to say right now.
