by Fonda Lee
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 can 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 works.”
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.”
TWENTY-FIVE
The police lieutenant identified herself as Officer Jin. A no-nonsense, middle-aged Martian woman who towered a head taller than Carr, she ushered him into one of the hotel’s small conference rooms while the other two Surya cops handcuffed and carried Rhystok, still unconscious, out to the waiting police car.
The lieutenant tapped her cuff. “I have to make you aware that your responses are being recorded. Do you understand?”
Carr nodded.
“I need you to say yes,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You testify that the man who entered your hotel room this evening confessed to killing a government agent?”
“Detective Van,” said Carr. “He worked for Genepol. His cuff is in the man’s jacket pocket.”
Jin looked disturbed. “The detective was last heard from nineteen hours ago. He informed us he had a civilian agent on Surya with an authorized police alert code. I assume that was you.”
“Yes.”
“The man we just arrested—did you know him?”
“Kaan Rhystok. Yes.”
“Did you know he’s a fugitive? The Terrans want him on charges of genetic crimes, fraud, and extortion.”
“I know.”
Jin tilted her chin, eyebrows rising under the fringe of her short, severely cut hair. “Why would Genepol involve you—a celebrity zeroboxer—as a civilian agent?”
Carr ignored the whiff of condescension. “Rhystok is a … fan of mine. He comes to a lot of my fights. The detective was sure he’d be here on Surya to watch the tournament.”
Jin kept looking at Carr in a way that made him suspect she’d seen his face on a promotional holovid banner and was comparing him unfavorably to a more idealized image, one without the puffy bruises, shadow of stubble, or dark circles under the eyes. “What is the nature of your relationship to Kaan Rhystok, Mr. Luka?” she asked. “Why would he put himself at risk by using a police cuff to enter your room and confess his crimes?”
“I think,” Carr said slowly, “that anything else I say should be to Genepol, with a lawyer in the room.”
The lieutenant’s expression grew tight. “I’ll remind you that you are under Martian jurisdiction right now, Mr. Luka. If a foreign policeman was killed on Surya, it is entirely our concern, and we expect your full cooperation.”
The door opened and Bax Gant strode in with Uncle Polly. Carr’s insides contorted, heart leaping and stomach dropping. Uncle Polly had the look of a man jolted from sleep by the apocalypse—wild-eyed and blank-faced as he tried to decide if what was happening was real. Seeing Carr gave him his answer; he stopped as if he’d walked into a wall. His cheeks and shoulders sagged as if air had been let out of them.
Gant planted his fists and leaned his weight on the top of the small table. He turned his head from the policewoman to Carr and back again. “Is one of my athletes under arrest?”
Officer Jin stiffened at the accusatory tone. “No, but—”
“Then that’s all the questioning you’re going to be doing tonight, officer.”
“Under what authority—” The policewoman drew herself up and said something sharp and affronted to Gant in a Tharsian regional dialect. To Carr, it sounded like a pidgin of two or three Terran languages, and he guessed, from the way Gant’s eyes narrowed, that it wasn’t flattering.
“Check with your superiors,” Gant said, unmoved. “Everyone from the ZGFA is here under special visiting-athlete status. If you intend to question Carr Luka in connection to a crime—which you haven’t established yet, by the way—you’ll need to clear it with the Terran embassy on Mars, and he has the right to a consular lawyer.”
Jin glared. “None of you are permitted to leave Surya Station in the meantime.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The lieutenant jabbed her cuff’s recording off, turned sharply, and left the room.
Gant made sure the door was firmly closed before he rounded on Carr, thrusting an accusing finger. “Of all the guys on the team, you were the last one I expected to have to bail from the cops. What sort of mess have you gotten yourself into, Luka?”
“Bax,” Uncle Polly said at once, stepping forward, “this isn’t his fault.”
“It’s all right, coach,” Carr said, putting a hand on Uncle Polly’s shoulder and tugging him back. He faced Gant, not allowing himself to hesitate. “The man the cops took is named Kaan Rhystok. He’s a criminal on the run from Terran law, and he killed the Genepol detective who followed him here. When I got to my room this evening, he was waiting inside to tell me about it.”
Gant grimaced. “A crazy stalker fan?”
“Kind of. He’s a splice dealer. Not the tabloid kind; he’s got a high-end, organized gig that’s been going on for a while. I’m a custom job of his, and as payout, he’s been taking a cut of my winnings.”
Carr had not dared to look at Uncle Polly, afraid doing so would make him lose his nerve completely, but now he heard his coach’s soft, hissing intake of breath. It took a couple of additional seconds for Bax Gant’s face to pale with understanding.
“You’re enhanced.” The Martian’s throat bulged. He gripped the back of a chair. “In what way?”
“Reflexes, stamina, temperament, a little of this, a little of that,” Carr said. “Nothing so crazy that it’d be suspicious.”
“Just a notch better in everything,” said Gant. “A perfect athlete.”
Carr felt as though his words were falling from him like pebbles into a deep, dark crevasse. “When he told me, I was already on contract. You and Risha had sent me to Earth on tour. I was a title contender. I couldn’t bring myself to throw everything away, and he knew it.” He paused. “It’s not an excuse, but it is what it is.”
A long, silent minute passed. Then, voice shaded with irony and wonder, Gant said, “Earth’s favorite athlete, the hero of Terran zeroboxing, is a custom splice job.” A low chuckle escaped his lips. He tilted his head back and began to laugh, mirthlessly. Carr stood silent and stoic, but he felt hot and ill, his toes curling in shame. The Martian only shook his head and laughed louder.
“Are you out of your warped domie mind?” Uncle Polly’s rough voice trembled. “How can you laugh at this?”
Gant wiped his eyes with the knuckles of his thumbs. “Warped? I’ll tell you what’s warped. If that crook had come to me with whatever gene recipe he used to make you”—he pointed at Carr—“I’d have ordered up another four or five zeroboxers from him. If it wasn’t so goddamn illegal.”
Carr risked a glance at his coach. A muscle in Uncle Polly’s cheek was twitching. “I knew, Bax. I’ve known for a long time. If you’re going to pin the blame for this on someone, pin it on me. It’s ten times more my fault than it is Carr’s.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass in space about your guilt right now, Polly.” Gant spun and started pacing across the small room. “I’ve got millions of people, dozens of sponsors, and an ungodly amount of money hanging on a tournament that’s supposed to finish tomorrow. The media is already going to town over the Macha fight. I’ve got politicians on both Earth and Mars calling me. People are rioting. Rioting.” Flecks of white spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth. “Can you imagine what’s going to happen when you don’t show up to fight tomorrow, and this comes to light instead? Can you?”
A nauseating weight sank into Carr’s gut. Come morning, on the heels of the semifinal fiasco, Gant would announce that the ZGFA’s star zeroboxer and War of the Worlds finalist had been suspended pending an investigation into his genetic legitimacy.
Everything would go absolutely fusion. Terrans would scream Martian conspiracy. Martians would seize upon Carr to prove the hypocrisy and underhandedness of Earth. Everyone in the solar system would be
cheated out of the most highly anticipated tournament final in the history of zeroboxing, and pissed-off enough to make the previous twenty-four hours seem like a polite garden party.
Gant’s eyes were wide and bright with the same awful premonitions. He stopped pacing and leaned his hands back on the table, his frame slumping. “This won’t just ruin us, it’ll ruin the ZGFA. Ruin the sport.”
Carr opened his mouth, not even sure what he was going to say. Something about how he would do what he could to help, take all the blame and punishment needed, cooperate with Genepol and the Surya police. Before he could choke out the miserable words, the door slid open and all three of them turned toward it. Risha stepped into the room.
Something inside of Carr broke, melted into a relief so great he felt as though the room tilted.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, as if apologizing for being late to a business meeting, but with a somberness that let the two words encompass far more. She shut the door behind her. She was in the clothes he’d last seen her in, and her beautiful face was tired and grave. For a second their eyes met, and he read in them something raw and tentative, enough to make his insides writhe with ache and his heart skip with hope.
Risha turned to Gant and Polly. “I found out myself yesterday. I got upset, and didn’t think … ” Her voice wavered and steadied. “Well, I’m here now.”
“Fantastic,” said Gant, with an unsympathetic glance. “You can help us figure out what to do about this disaster.”
Risha pulled in a deep breath. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Uncle Polly’s sharp tone made it clear he was not about to forgive her so quickly. “That’s a strategy?”
Risha’s lips were pressed tightly together, but the gaze she turned on Gant was strong and certain. “Don’t say anything. In fact, you don’t know anything.”
Gant’s mouth twisted. “Nice try, but I won’t get away with that line. This story is coming out, one way or another. A Terran cop was killed in Martian airspace, by a renegade gene splicer, who was just carried unconscious from Carr Luka’s hotel room. You don’t think Genepol, the Martian authorities, and the media are going to descend like a Category Seven dust storm?”
