by Faith Hunter
Over the next year I got taken around to different cities throughout what was left of the grain belt and was put up against some of the best riders that the Scales had. I was their prize, their fighter, the one who could stand up to the invaders—but only to the limits of what the event organizers would allow.
Beyond that, I trained. I conditioned myself as best I could for each of the type of psychics I encountered. The Scale with the ability to light people on fire with his mind, that was the scariest one I saw out of all of them, as no mental resistance could keep your hair from going up like a torch with a single malevolent thought. But as the other people with me died, I figured out pretty quick he couldn’t burn what he couldn’t see. So I hid in the varrim patches and tore down a staff for a spear while he circled and set the outer ring alight. But when I chucked my stick right through his throat, I put an end to his danger in the blink of an eye.
We spent a year or more somewhere in snowy Canada, and a couple of years in the ruins of Vail. I was getting older, more scarred, more convinced that there was no way out. I had become a killer, able to kick and tear and rip my enemies apart in the arena. But in the endless string of suites I stayed in, I never really had the urge to kill my guardians. I figured I could escape at any time, but Rex and Juvie, the two guards that had been with me since the beginning, they didn’t deserve to die any more than I did.
Instead, I taught the aliens to play poker, drank Coke, went for laps in the pool, watched bad videos, and wondered what it would have been like to have sex, to get married, to have kids, to have grandkids, and all the other normal dreams that got crushed the day the Scales came.
It was a spring day when a Scale in a purple jumpsuit came into my room, and along with him the female back from before. She was dressed in human clothes, kid’s clothes off the rack from some boutique. As they sat down on the couch across from my chair, prim and proper as any human adults, she opened her mouth and spoke to me in English—the first words of my own people that I’d heard in as long, long time.
“You’ve done very well,” she said. “Dotti. With an I.”
“Thank you,” I said back to her. I was astonished. I waited for the other one to get in on the act, but he wasn’t talking. “This is important, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said. “The Master of Games here, he is very pleased, as you’re one of the best…workers he has. But we are both worried that there are elements who want to see you...” She struggled for the word. “To see you removed. They wish to see you investigated, scientifically, to see if we can determine what gives you your unique resistance.”
“So you can inoculate yourselves against it?”
She shook her head, then corrected herself, nodding, affirming. “They mean to dissect you. To remove the threat.”
“So what do I do?” I’d expected for years to die on the field. But being cut up in some surgical lab? It wasn’t right. I turned to the Master of Games, begging for my life. “I’ve fought for you people. I’ve given you everything you wanted. I’ve watched my friends die, killed the Scales that weren’t strong enough to beat me, turned your sport into something bigger than all of us.”
“Dough-tee, you must win one more time,” she said with that peculiar smile. “You will see an old enemy in three night’s time. You are the only one that ever beat him.”
“Blackhat.”
She shrugged a shoulder, not understanding the word. “The one who could not make you shoot.”
“And if I defeat him?”
“Then the Master of Games will make sure you run free. You have made him very rich, where before he was nothing.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” She stood, smoothing her skirt. “I will make the arrangements. You will have your freedom if you win. If you do not, then they will have their experiment.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But where the hell am I supposed to go?”
“I know a safe place,” she said with that same peculiar smile. “You will like it there.”
~*~
I exit the cracked concrete tunnel and stalk into the main arena, moving into a place dominated by bright lights and a thundering, screaming crowd. I don’t know the city or the stadium, but the place looks big enough to hold the Superbowl. The entire arena is packed with hundreds of thousands of Scales. Every seat, every row, it’s all full of aliens. As far as I can see, I’m the only human here.
Battle has happened on the field already, from the boot-heel scuffs in the dirt to the bloodstains spattered on one of the sides of the varrim stalk barrels. But this time there is just one cage. One cage for me and me alone. I take note of the six patches of plants that I could use to navigate my way downstream to the exit. There are more than enough tools lying on the ground for me to choose from, though these have silvery blades that reflect the light. The bright lights overhead are nearly blinding, and the loudspeakers thrum with the announcer’s growling voice. He says my name, Dough-tee, and the crowd surges to its feet, the entire stadium a living wall of noise. I tip my hat, knowing my place, then get in the cage and pull the gate shut behind me with both hands.
On cue, Blackhat rides out of the far side of the arena, dressed in the same kinds of kid’s cowboy clothes I saw him in last time. The crowd also goes wild for him; this must be a bout that is going to go down in history. While he has the standard lasso and bola, I can also see that he has his laser pistol holstered as well at his hip. On top of that, his mount doesn’t have green scales, but white, a shocking pearly white that vividly stands out against the arena background. It has more horns and spurs than the others of its kind, and scuttles from side to side faster as Blackhat guides it with his knees.
He rides up to the start point, to the line just outside the makeshift village, with close-up shots of his expressionless face for all to see on the Jumbotron overhead. I can see that his cheek is kind of deformed; the slap I’d given him years ago never healed right, which gives me a perverse satisfaction.
Blackhat salutes me with a tip of the hat. I do the same, baring my flat, wide teeth in a way that I know will make the crowd crazy. His hand rests on his bola; my hands clench into fists, ready to move, ready to sprint, ready to fight through whatever the rider throws at me.
A tone plays, vibrating the stadium floor—and the gate swings open. I start to move, only to feel Blackhat’s filthy psychic fingers slip into my brain. For a moment I’m afraid he’s got me, as I can’t move a muscle through the second tick. But then I force my way through it, letting my deadweight carry me forward so I stagger and belly flop to the dirt just outside of the gate, trying to get enough air to fill my frozen lungs.
When I get the ability to look up, Blackhat has already galloped his lizard right up in front of me, his mount covering the twenty yards in seconds. His bola is already swinging in hand and he isn’t going to waste any time. I can smell the sharp urine stench from his mount up close; the lizard’s flickering tongue is nearly close enough to reach up and grab.
But when Blackhat turns his mount to the side to get a better shot, for the moment when he can’t see me through his lizard’s head—I have control back, the magic spell broken. Raking up a big handful of dirt, I get up off my knees and hurl a cloud of dust at the Scale, blinding his wide, unblinking eyes.
Distracted, he screams and throws his bola wide—even as I punch his lizard in the nose, causing it to buck him off.
At the ninth tick he crashes to the dirt and I’m on him like a furious bucking bull, stomping him, kicking him, crushing him underfoot. The stadium is a riot of alien voices, noise like no human has ever heard before, part cheering, part horror, part bravado, part dismay.
When he fumbles for his holster, even as he tries to get his psychic hooks back into me again, I backhand him hard, knocking off his hat, disorienting him further. The back of my hand is covered in white blood; his face is probably ruined for good. I lift him up by his shirt collar, his little feet kicking off the ground. By the loo
k in his eyes, he already knows what’s coming next.
“Don’t,” he whispers in my language, but I’m too far gone to care. Spinning around, I chuck him like an oversized rag doll right through the cage door, where he racks up against the back bars. And just like that, the clock strikes fifteen.
The cage roars with lightning, right on cue, frying Blackhat to death right in front of the panicked crowd, symbolically burning the Scale champion alive in front of a universe of fans.
Now nobody is a fan of mine. The whole stadium wants me dead. Calmly, I brush the dust off of my jeans, then take his hat and put it on. It isn’t a great fit, but it shows the message. I tip a brim to the silent stadium, then walk down the middle of the aisle and out the exit gate to where a squad of armed Scales waits for me. They don’t wait for orders, but beat me to the ground with their rifle butts, hit me over and over again until one scores a lucky temple shot and puts me under.
When I come to, I’m with the female Scale in another vehicle. But this ship is flying, with blue skies outside of the windows. The doctor is there too, tending to my wounds, doing his best to mend my cuts and bruises. We don’t speak, as there are other Scales there, official-looking ones in black jumpsuits. But occasionally the female looks at me sideways and nods, just a little bit, as if to let me know that it’s just a little further. Just a little further still.
~*~
Two hours later we landed near the ruins of San Diego, the blue Pacific Ocean visible through the windows. From the hoverport they drove me down to Baha, through the now-abandoned border checkpoint at Tijuana. When we finally got to where we were going, down amongst the towering cliffs overlooking the beautiful blue sea, there was no trace of varrim. It was lush and warm and nothing was poisoned, with fruit trees and scuttling crabs on the beaches.
Just outside the front gates of a resort they dropped me off, sent me out into the bright sunlight, left me blinking against the glare.
“Where am I?” I asked her.
“Home,” she said, and then gestured for me to go on, to head on up the road. Not knowing what else to say, I nodded thanks, then limped my way along the broken concrete. That’s when I heard it. Laughter. A human child’s laughter, bright and sparkling. When I came around the bend there were people, dozens of real people sitting around the swimming pool over by the cabana building. As they came up to me, welcoming me, happy to see that another human made it to paradise, I looked back behind me and see the female Scale. She waved as she climbed back into the hovertruck, smiling full on like a human without a trace of shame.
That was seven years ago. My husband, Michael, a handsome third-year med student back when the world ended, he keeps track of the date on homemade calendars, to make sure we always know when Christmas is, the Fourth of July, even April Fool’s Day. We have to keep track of the small things up here, the last rituals we have left from before.
We have a house up on the edge of the hill, away from the crowded resort that seems to add another few people every month. Up here, in what was once a million-dollar paradise of sloping eaves and Spanish tile, we are alone with our five year-old daughter. Her name is Kary, named after my friend who fought beside me so long ago.
One night, as we all slept in the master bedroom, I had a very odd dream. I dreamt I was standing knee-deep in the ocean, the waters perfectly still, with the female Scale standing next to me. We were both looking out at the horizon, at the sun rising over the edge of the world. She turned to look at me, to say something, but then she saw what I was holding. I looked down at my hand, expecting to see smiling Kary, her hand folded into mine. But instead, I was holding a tomak blade, edges silvered in the early morning light.
“Soon...” the Scale said without speaking—and then I startle awake, soaked with sweat.
I spend the rest of the night pacing, thinking, and then deciding. The next morning, I draw a picture of a tomak in the dust with my finger for my daughter to see, beginning her training. Because when the Master of Games comes for her, she will be ready.
She is the one who is going to win.
Redemption Song
John G. Hartness
Time stopped when the man first showed up in the Golden Grin Saloon. It was one of those between-the-raindrops moments, when everything fell silent for an instant, and everyone’s attention landed on the same spot. Big Bob, the piano player who took an Ohlone arrow to the knee that ended his trapping days, finished one Stephen Foster tune and began leafing through a tattered Dan Rice songbook for another song to play. The man stood in the doorway, hat pulled down low over his eyes and a long leather duster hanging well past his knees. He looked like a man who had been rode hard and put away wet—thin almost to the point of gauntness, and so pale one could see the veins in the back of his hands if they let their eyes linger long enough, something not many were inclined to do.
He stood motionless, nothing about him even twitching except his eyes. Those chips of flint flickered back and forth across the room, taking in Leila and her dancing girls on the tiny stage in one corner near Bob, JR sitting at his faro table flipping cards and stacking chips, and Smilin’ Bill behind the bar polishing a glass in his eternal battle against the grime of the street. The man held the gaze of every soul in the Grin for a long heartbeat, then he stepped forward, and with the jingle of his spur the spell was broken. Big Bob launched into an old minstrel tune that had the girls high-kicking, JR flipped over a Queen to top the bettor’s nine and take his last chip, and Smilin’ Bill set the glass down on the bar and poured a slug of whiskey into it.
The stranger put one foot onto the bar rail and leaned on the polished oak. Smilin’ Bill gave him one of his trademarked grins, gold tooth sparkling on his lower jaw, and slid the whiskey into his hand. “First one’s on the house, friend. You look thirsty,” Bill said. “I’m Bill Evans, owner and proprietor of the Golden Grin Saloon, the finest drinking establishment for at least a hundred feet in any direction!” Bill laughed at his own joke, and a couple of the regulars at the bar joined him out of either manners or a hope for a free drink of their own.
“Thanks,” the man said. He slammed back his whiskey and dropped a golden eagle to spin on the bar. “Another.” His voice was more a rasp than speech, like the sound of two sheets of paper scraping across each other in the wind.
Bill poured another and slid two quarters across the wood. The man made a gesture to him, and Bill nodded his thanks as he slipped the four bits into his apron pocket. “Where you from, stranger?”
“East.”
“Well, son, we’re in San Francisco, ’bout everything’s east of here!” Bill laughed, but not quite as loud as the first time. There was something a little off about this stranger. Something about the way he talked, or didn’t talk, or maybe it was just those eyes, the way they never stopped moving. Either way, this fellow wasn’t quite right somehow, and Bill hoped he wasn’t planning on staying long.
Audrey Reese hadn’t taken her eyes off the stranger since he appeared in the doorway. And that was the right word for it—appeared. No one heard his boot clomp up the steps. Not a hint of a spur jingling announced his coming. There was no creak of a swinging saloon door to herald his arrival. One minute the doorway was empty, the next he was standing there, alabaster skin looking like it was carved from marble, not flesh. His perfectly black pants and coat seemed to absorb all the light from around him, as if a young gunfighter like him could just step sideways into his own shadow and disappear.
Audrey shuddered on the lap of Rich Spence, her current beau and the man sitting behind the biggest pile of bills, coins, and chips at the poker table in the far corner of the Double G, as the locals called it. Goose walked over my grave, Audrey thought as she tried to adjust her bustle so her movements wouldn’t distract Rich.
“You okay, darling?” Rich asked. His voice rumbled deep in his chest, like distant thunder. She liked to lay against him when he talked, feeling that thunder peal across her face as he talked aimlessly in his d
eep voice. But now that voice had an edge to it, and Audrey looked down at her man. He caught her gaze and jerked his chin at the stranger by the bar. “You know him?”
“No, baby. He just... looked like somebody I used to know for a minute. But I don’t know him at all.” Do I? He looks... But that can’t be...
“Maybe you need to go on over there and see what he looks like instead of squirming around on my lap like some little brat. I’m trying to work here.” Now Rich’s voice was hard, his words grating on one another like granite, and Audrey felt the fear blossom in her chest.
“No, Rich, baby. He’s nobody. I’ll just sit here and watch you take all these nice people’s money.” She flashed a smile at the two miners and one trapper who shared the table with Spence. The trapper had already lost most of his winter stake, and the miners were down to one small bag of gold dust between them. The bigger one, that Audrey had heard called Jeremiah, was fingering a stack of papers in his jacket pocket, and she hoped against hope he wasn’t about to wager his claim against Spence. Rich Spence was a good enough poker player to take most everything these men ever owned or ever would own without any help, but when he put Audrey to work distracting his opponents, he could cheat like an honest-to-God magician.
There was a flash of black in her vision, and when she looked up, the stranger was just there. She woulda sworn he hadn’t walked across the saloon to stand in front of the table. One minute he was at the bar, leaning over a whiskey like a respectable human being, the next he was right in front of her, standing there with a handful of five-dollar gold coins.
