by James Knapp
A nose breaks easily, and hers broke flat when I fired my palm down on the bridge. Blood sprayed down her chin, and a lot of strength went out of her all at once. I let go of the scissor lock and brought one leg up on the back of her neck and locked that ankle under the opposite knee while I clamped down on her head and left arm.
By the time she saw what was up, it was too late and she knew it. That lock was death, and as I closed the triangle, cutting off her air, she knew it was done, but she kept at it. Even when I squeezed blood out of her nose and her face went dark, she tried to get up.
Tap, you bitch….
The crowd went ape shit with cheers, boos, and feet stomping on the stands. A hand reached through the cage and grabbed my wrist. Where the hell was security? She bucked like a pig between my legs, and the hand that came through the cage didn’t want to let go, so I twisted it around. The middle finger snapped as I wrenched it back, and someone screamed, then jerked it away.
As she pushed me back down to the canvas like a blind bull, I saw blood was running thick, some from my head and some from her nose, and there was a ton of it. The bitch should have just tapped; they’d have called it anyway. They should have called it.
She pushed, and her free hand grabbed a fistful of skin on my bare thigh. She twisted it and dug her thumb into my crotch.
I don’t think she meant to. Later I thought that, at least. I didn’t mean to do what I did either, but that’s how it went down. The slow grind I had on the leg lock turned mean, and I pumped it closed all at once, just for a second, but that’s all it took. Her whole body jerked, and the hand that had me let go.
“Match!” a judge screamed. I kicked her off of me and rolled away, the sight in my right eye going red as blood ran in it. From both sides I could hear feet pound the canvas as the refs charged out.
“Match!” someone in the ring yelled. The crowd sounded as if they would rip the place apart, cheering and cursing and shaking the chain link as though they were trying to tear it down. When I tried to get up, a heavy hand came down on my shoulder and pushed me back so I was kneeling.
“Wait,” Eddie growled in my ear. I put my hands on my knees and tried to see as he pushed the blood clotter into the cut over my eye. Two guys from the other corner were with the man-girl as she wobbled on her hands and knees. She groped with one red hand as blood ran down her chin, trying to push at the guy who pinched her nose shut. Her eyes swam, and I thought maybe I broke her.
Refs and guys from both sides pointed and yelled at each other, trying to be heard over the crowd as the docs looked at her neck and talked in her ear. After almost a minute, she made a face, but she pushed them away. She needed a hand and she stood crooked, but she got up. Eddie clapped my shoulder.
“Up!”
“Winner!” the judge wailed on the amp. “Winner by submission: Calliope Flax!”
My face came up on the big board, and I saw that the whole right side was covered in blood with a big, open cut on a fat black-and-blue bulge over my eye.
My name is Cal, asshole….
I hated my name. If I ever got out of third tier, I swore the first thing I’d do would be to change it. They made me put my full name, and Eddie said he liked it because of some sales shit. Ironic, he said. Asshole.
I faced the crowd and watched them freak, half of them wanting to shake my hand and the rest wanting to kill me. Some guy up front was going nuts, screaming something. He whipped a brown bottle at me and it smashed on the fence, spraying glass.
“Fuck you!” I screamed, sticking out my finger at him.
“Flax, you bitch!” he yelled, grabbing the fence and pulling on it. I kicked it, and he got his fingers out just in time.
One of the refs helped the girl limp to the center of the ring with me. She was hurting, and I could tell her neck was jacked up. She glared at me over the bridge of her broken nose and there were tears in her eyes.
“Shake hands,” the ref said.
I held out my hand, and she took it, but her eyes showed how much she hated me. I pumped her hand twice, then looked at the crowd so I didn’t have to look at her. All through the stands they were going nuts. The guy who threw the bottle now threw a folded chair at the fence, his face red. Another bottle hit the chain link and sprayed onto the ring.
“Come on!” Eddie shouted, calling me over to the corner where the exit was. A bunch of big dudes were pushing back the crowd on both sides as some of them tried to get to the spot I’d come out of, while other guys went after them from the stands. Eddie opened the door in the fence.
“Straight back to the lockers and don’t stop!” he said as I went by.
I gave him the finger and hopped down in between the security guys, then stuck both fingers straight up in the air as I walked the line back to the lockers. Marko was up next and Jefe after him, so they were hanging near the door.
“You messed that bitch up,” Marko said.
“Good.”
I said it, but it still didn’t sit right, the way she popped and went limp like that. The way she stared me down afterward wasn’t like usual, and the look in her eyes was still on my mind.
“We’re hitting the Bucket after the fights,” Jefe said. “You in?”
“Yeah, I’m in.”
So that was that. When the whole thing got going, that’s where I was. Third tier, dirt-poor, beat to hell, and ready to drink. I didn’t know shit about any of it or that half of it could even happen in this life, but that’s that.
I guess you never know.
Zoe Ott—Pleasantview Apartments, Apartment 713
“Zoe?” a woman was asking. Through a window I could see the city was burning, the neon lights were dark, and cherry red cinders swirled in the cold night air.
“Yes?”
“Follow me.”
“Why?”
“Because you are the last piece of the puzzle,” she said, and she took my hand with her cold, dead one.
All I wanted, the only thing I wanted in the whole stupid world, was some peace. I would have been happy with a day, or even just one minute where someone or something wasn’t in my face or buzzing in my head, but it was never going to happen, because even when I shut myself inside for days, they still managed to find me. They hounded me until I slept, and then they followed me into my dreams.
This time it was the dead woman with the short dirty blond hair. I wasn’t sure who she was, but she had a look that made me think she’d been a professional of some kind. She wore a woman’s suit, but it wasn’t just that; it was her face, her hair, and the way she held herself. In the middle of her forehead, about the size of a quarter, the number 3 had been pressed into the skin with black ink.
She had been killed recently and looked a little disheveled, but even so, she managed to seem authoritative and sure. She had nice cheekbones, gorgeous eyes, and a strong jaw. She was a couple inches taller than me, with long legs and a good body. I hated her. I hated her for her looks, the way she dragged me around, and because she never left me alone.
“Why is the city burning?” I asked her, but she didn’t answer me. Her hand was cold on my wrist as she pulled me along after her, away from the window and down a dark hallway.
“Where are we going?” I asked. She looked over her shoulder and caught me staring at her free hand, which was covered in blood. It was clutched around what looked like a human heart, a big gash cut into the middle of it.
“It got split,” she said, like that explained it.
“This is a dream,” I told her.
She didn’t respond to that. She dragged me after her and pushed open a door that led into a green concrete room.
“Not this again,” I said. The room was rectangular, about eight feet side to side, twelve feet front to back, and eight feet again to the ceiling. The walls and floors were smooth concrete painted dark green, and whatever the place was for, it must have had some significance, because it wasn’t the first time I ended up there.
She let go of
my wrist and grabbed the power switch mounted on the wall, slamming it into the up position and causing the overhead lights to flicker on with an angry electric buzzing noise. There were two people standing at the far end of the room, staring forward. One was a man; the other I thought was a man at first, but it was a very butch woman. There was a space between them for a third person.
“Who are they?” I asked. A light came on over the man, illuminating him, so I could see him clearly. I recognized him; I’d seen him on TV a couple times, on the news.
“This one will need your help,” she said, pointing. “When he calls, go to him.”
He was a tall, handsome man with very blue eyes and short black hair. When I saw him on the news, I remembered he was wearing a suit. He carried a badge, the kind you kept in a leather wallet. He was somebody important, some kind of investigator or something. He wasn’t wearing his suit now, though; he was wearing a white sleeveless undershirt. In the middle of his forehead, pressed in black ink, was the number 4.
“Where did the scar come from?” I asked. There was a big white scar that started up beneath his jawline and got thicker as it moved down his neck, then behind the undershirt. There was more scar tissue across his right shoulder. The woman didn’t answer.
“Your chance of successfully navigating this relationship is fifty percent,” she said instead.
“What relationship?” I asked, but she was on to the next one. The light came on over the woman, letting me see her clearly.
“This one will help you,” she said, pointing. “When you call, she will go to you.”
She was about six inches shorter than the man, and thinner, but even more muscular. She looked like she was all muscle and bone, with broad shoulders, narrow hips, and a mean face. Her lips were painted black and peeled back in a wide frown, and her nose had been broken at some point. Her hair was cropped almost to stubble, and her prominent chin jutted forward. I had never seen her before in my life.
Her left hand was a pale gray that went up to the middle of her forearm, and black veins stood out under the skin. The number 2 was stamped on her forehead.
“Your chance of successfully navigating this relationship is ninety percent.”
“What about the middle spot?” I asked.
“That is where I stand,” she said.
“So we’re going to meet?”
“We will meet three times before this is all over.”
“And what are my chances of success with you?”
“Respectively, in percentages,” she said, “thirty, one hundred, and zero.”
“Those aren’t good odds.”
“Only the first one will occur at this time.”
She reached over and snapped the switch back down, cutting the lights. She looked down at her hand, still holding the wounded heart, and looked a little sad.
“Is it yours?” I asked. She ignored me.
The woman stepped back away from me, disappearing into the shadows, and then everything faded away. The green room dissolved around me, leaving nothing but blackness.
I opened my eyes. I was awake, or at least I thought I was. It seemed like I spent a lot of time wondering whether I was dreaming or not. I picked my head up off the couch and blinked until things stopped spinning, and strained to see out the window. It was still dark outside.
I felt a tickle on my neck and brushed at it. Something brown with feelers flicked onto the floor and scurried off. I turned my head and looked at the coffee table; the remote controls were spread out all over the place, along with some pens, a spiral notebook, an oil-stained paper plate, and a shot glass that was full to the brim. I sat up and looked at the TV, which was showing some cartoon with the sound down. I drank the shot, then grabbed the bottle of ouzo from the floor and refilled the glass as I burped up a pocket of air that tasted like cabbage, licorice, and soy sauce.
I poured more of the ouzo into the shot glass, which had kind of become a moving target, and spilled a little onto the floor. I wiped it up with the toe of my sock. I drank the shot and stared at the TV.
A green icon danced in the upper right-hand corner of the screen; the data miner was bouncing around, letting me know it had finished gathering information. I couldn’t remember what I had been looking for.
Fumbling for the remote, I turned the sound back on and brought up the data miner. All the categories had hits. The timer showed the miner had been collecting information for almost two hours…. I must have dozed off for a while there. There were multiple hits on a bunch of topics: movie stars, TV stars, musicians…. One jumped out at me.
WACHALOWSKI.
The dancing icon bounced next to the name. It had eleven hits.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked.
I brought up his listings and had a look; they were all news channels, all short segments. I cycled through the stills. Three of them were the same shot of him standing in what looked like a dark building lobby, facing the person taking the footage.
It was the man from the green room, the one with the scar. He was with the FBI, it looked like. The scar I’d seen in my dream was there, going from beneath his jaw to down under his shirt collar.
I clicked the remote to play the first segment. Agent Wachalowski took out his badge and showed it to the person filming.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Colin Patrick,” a young man’s voice, maybe dubbed in, said from offscreen, “freelance news. I received a tip that you uncovered a human-trafficking ring, right here in this office building. Can you tell me anything about what you found?”
“Sorry, I can’t,” Wachalowski said. The camera cut away to show the elevator door, where the numbers on the display indicated a car descending.
“I hear you’ve got some revivors upstairs,” Colin said.
“Be careful,” Wachalowski said, and the camera cut quickly a couple times as he pushed by, “the SWAT guys are on their way down.”
The camera cut back to the newsroom, where two anchors were sitting.
“While there were no witnesses to the actual removal of the revivors,” the woman anchor said, “a source at the FBI confirmed that a total of twenty-one revivors were recovered at the Goicoechea Building, which was, to all appearances, a hub for trafficking in bodies from outside the country, for distribution to the underground labor and sex trades.”
I shuddered.
“Sources also report that at least one of the smuggler’s clients was not apprehended,” the male anchor said, “and that, based on the records recovered, there may be twenty or more revivors still unaccounted for inside the city.”
The rest of the clip looked like the anchors going back and forth, so I flipped to the next one. Someone had managed to get some footage as the FBI came out of the building. One of them held a woman’s arm as she walked, naked except for a blanket, through the snow. Her skin was grayish, and her white eyes looked like they were staring right at the camera. It was a revivor.
Weird. I took another shot, looking into those freaky eyes over the rim of the glass. You almost never saw video of them. It sent a shiver down my spine.
“This is just one more example of the sick, twisted, and ultimately debasing effect this whole endeavor is having on our people, our country, and our world,” a man was saying. “Offering second- tier citizenship benefits to anyone volunteering for Posthumous Service is this administration’s most appalling—”
“So serve,” the woman countered. “Serve your country, is that so much to ask? Serve the obligatory two years and get first-tier benefits. Is that such a crime? Serve your country, and it will serve you.”
“They don’t even want that. They’d rather have a never-ending stream of cannon fodder they can buy on the cheap for second-tier benefits. The whole thing is—”
“Then don’t serve,” the woman snapped. “If you can’t handle either form of service, then don’t serve. No one is forced into it.”
“No, they can settle for life below the poverty lin
e. Less than one percent of third tiers ever make it to even lower-middle class. That’s the life you can expect for—”
I flipped through the rest of the clips and found they were all just variations on the first footage I saw. There weren’t any other revivor pictures, and there weren’t any good pictures of Wachalowski.
I did a freeze-frame on the shot of him from the hotel lobby, and zoomed in on his face. He looked kind of mad, but maybe something else too. I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes, but there was something about the set of them that seemed …distressed? Disturbed? They almost looked a little sad. He had really blue eyes. Light blue. I wondered where the scar came from.
What did you see in there? What did you see that made you look that way?
It didn’t sound as though they were going to offer any more information. I took another drink and yawned, when I heard a medium-loud thump from the apartment below me. Just like clockwork.
The ticker under Wachalowski’s picture said the office where the incident took place was right here in the city. He worked out of the local office. He was somewhere right in the city. Whatever was going on, it was happening out there, right now.
There was a loud crash from below. I heard glass break, and a man’s angry voice. Couldn’t they give it a rest for one night?
I stood up too quickly and stumbled into the couch a little before making my way to the front door. I shoved it open and knocked an old pizza box across the floor, then hurried down the hall, past the peeling wallpaper and the hole in the drywall to the stairwell. I pushed the heavy door open, then started down the stairs, holding on to the metal railing for support. The walls were covered in graffiti, and at the next landing something brown stained the grout between the grimy tiles. I pushed open the door and staggered out into the hallway.
