Bald New World

by Peter Tieryas Liu

  Dan laughed.

  “How long’s it been?”

  “Almost a decade,” I answered, having forgotten how much mental discipline it required.

  “Your first fight is tonight.”

  “What? I’m not ready.”

  “Then get ready.”

  Crickets had to spend their lives finding a home to attract a mate. Once their territory was claimed, they sang every minute using their wings. I wondered what it would be like if people to had to sing for their lives. Just as each human had a unique voice, so did the crickets. Some had talent, others didn’t. It was like one of those reality shows. Only, your survival and the next generation depended on it. The worst part was they only had a short time to fulfill their genetic destiny and the females were really picky.

  Would a female cricket who wanted a male with the best house and voice be considered superficial? I felt Linda deserved better than what we had, living in cheap rental units, moving with every lease expiration as the property agencies jacked up rates 25%. I couldn’t afford the new prices and constantly worried about being laid off from SolTech. I had quit Larry’s movies after marriage because the hours had been so rigorous and I wanted to spend more time with Linda. But going back to SolTech didn’t help things as the hours were equally long. Maybe cricket songs were lamentations, working all day and night for what? An impossible cycle that, depending on the species, could end up with their being devoured like cannibalized katydids. Was it better to be a dragonfly? Live underwater as a nymph for almost three years to emerge, undergo metamorphosis, and fly for a few weeks before dying. At least they could fly.

  Clear your mind! I thought to myself.

  “I brought you some peanuts,” Dan said, dropping me a bag.

  Peanuts helped clear the mind, rich in vitamin B6 and protein. The tricky part of interfacing had to do with the shock. It wasn’t hard linking with a cricket as their brain patterns were so simple. Survive, eat, mate, survive. It was their relationship with the world that was tough. They were completely oblivious to humans who were as alive to them as a hurricane would be to us. Their perceptions were limited and trying to inject them with new thoughts was impossible. It was like trying to do calculus using only 1 through 10. I didn’t have direct control over Crick’s muscles. Only impulses like attack, run, or mate. I once went through the mating process with one of the crickets during the war. Worst mistake I made. From the cricket’s perspective, sex was a mechanical process, devoid of any pleasure, as routine as eating, though it stirred up a strong sense of protectionism over my mate. Being so near the cricket and feeling her intimately left me nauseous and viscerally disturbed. Bugs scared me when I looked down on them from above. Copulating with one left mental scars. I hated bug sex. We normally mated the male with as many females as possible before the fight to arouse his hormones and his combativeness.

  I dived back into Crick, focused only on enduring as long as I could. I didn’t try to control or affect his movements. I just tried to stay along for the ride. I lasted seven minutes before a splitting headache caused me to get out.

  “I have to take a nap,” I told Dan.

  Dan was reading news on his phone and ignored me. He was never the talkative type and I knew almost nothing about him, probably because he didn’t have much to tell. I ate a few peanuts before I went to sleep, using a tooth in the back of my mouth that could bite down without too much pain.

  I dreamt about bughood and woke up to a bloody nose. Wiped it clean, ate more peanuts, took a piss, washed my face, and dived back into my interlink. My brain was still exhausted and I jumped out within three minutes. Achieving synchronicity was proving difficult, especially with my back aching.

  “You should have let Heidi do her thing,” Dan said. “She’s a pro. Plus she’s clean. Believe me. I call her all the time.”

  “Why don’t you pilot?” I asked.

  “Causes seizures in me,” he replied. “I’ve tried. So have the others. I’ll be the first to admit it’s not as easy as it looks. You’re doing way better than any of us did. You want me to call you another girl?”

  “How about a real nurse?”

  “Too expensive. After you win, you can get one. In the meantime, there’s plenty of Asian women that are cheap too, if that’s your thing.”

  What I needed now was rest in the form of a long sleep.

  “No thanks.”

  “C’mon. Ain’t nothing like a good lay to rev up the engines.” Was he treating me like a cricket?

  IV.

  My first match was in Cricket Alley. There were long rows of cricket bouts. Most were smalltime fights used as practice arenas to warm up stronger crickets. Wagers were limited and gamblers came to scout crickets to bet on. Dan accompanied me in plain clothes and I carried Crick along. He told me to lose the fight. Not that I needed encouraging. Even if I tried, my brain would have had a hard time holding on.

  “That’s Tolstoy,” Dan whispered.

  Tolstoy had pale skin. But it was his wig that caught my attention. It was white, but it flowed naturally with thick strands, better than any imitation I’d seen. Did he have them grafted onto his scalp? He was a short teen, wearing a gray coat that went down to his knees. His limbs were wiry and he had a caustic snicker curved into his lips. His light hazel eyes methodically watched everything, less out of caution, and more, curiosity, as though everything were new to him. We were both surprised when he approached me.

  “You look familiar,” he addressed me.

  I would have recognized someone with as distinctive a look as he did. “I think you’re mistaking me for someone else.”

  “How many fights have you had?”

  “This is my first.”

  Tolstoy stared at me, even after Dan led me to my seat.

  Maybe he’d seen me on some of the behind-the-scenes footage with Larry? “Looks like the champ’s taken a fancy to you,” Dan said.

  Tolstoy was watching my fight.

  My mind was focused on my opponent who was also a young fellow, a paunchy male with freckles and a wig of curly choppy hair. He shook my hand but seemed disdainfully sure of himself. “I’m Nick,” I introduced myself.

  “That’s nice,” he answered with an arrogant air that suggested he’d already dismissed me as a competitor.

  The table had a glass cage separated by a partition. Cameras were hooked to either side and connected to the gambling decks in case anyone wanted to wager. I softly dropped Crick in while my opponent selected from his gallery of ten crickets. Although he didn’t say, I knew he probably picked one of his weaker fighters in an attempt to boost their confidence. As a final insult, when one of his compatriots asked, “Do you want us to bring dinner back to you?” he answered, “I won’t be long.”

  “Three rounds, five minutes each,” the computerized referee informed us.

  I took a seat, grabbed the arm rests, and interfaced with Crick. Mental metamorphosis commenced. I pushed off with my legs and saw an ugly cricket ahead of me. Hesitation would be the worst mistake now. I rammed him and bit his head with my jaws. In my human body, my lungs swelled and a cold sweat broke out. I hated the taste of cricket, hated biting their heads. My opponent finally fought back, pushing hard against me. But it was too late. I had the advantage and felt a rush of adrenaline. He was mine and I wanted to wipe the smirk off the pilot’s face. But then my head throbbed and his cricket leapt on top of me. Before I could respond, he bit onto one of my antennae. I tried to feel him out, but I started smelling peanuts in my breath. Or was it me, the pilot? I was already losing track of who I was. It was a good time to surrender. Except I couldn’t stand the pilot’s look and the way he dismissed me. I rammed him again and kicked off my feet. My whole life was a long bug-hood, surviving by any means necessary. Even if I was supposed to lose the match, I wouldn’t surrender. Not yet at least. The fight continued as our crickets locked heads, neither side giving in. If only I had more endurance, if only I wasn’t so out of shape, I would have destr
oyed him. Now, I was barely keeping up. The good thing was, he’d severely underestimated me. I saw an opening because of an injury and flipped his cricket, about to pounce. Suddenly, the match ended. I’d been forcibly disconnected.

  “You looked like you were—” Dan was saying, but before he finished, I vomited on the ground next to him, coughing up peanuts.

  The other pilot said, “That’s disgusting man. You shouldn’t be here.”

  I stared at Dan. “Why’d you disconnect me?”

  He didn’t answer but I knew it was part of his plan.

  I shook my head. Noticed Tolstoy watching me.

  Then looked at both competing crickets. They’d been brutally beaten. Before interfacing, cricket fights were rarely mortal. Now, they almost always were. In this case, we’d thrown a white flag and spared both. But as I looked at the two fighters, battered and bruised, it was apparent they would never fight again. I knew exactly how they felt.

  V.

  Back at the room, Dan seemed ecstatic. “I knew you were good. Less than a day and you were fighting like a pro.”

  “Barely.”

  “In a week, you’ll be in good shape. I got you some good crickets. I’ll bring them by tomorrow. Get yourself a long sleep.”

  I went to the shower, wanting to clean myself. Several roaches scurried along the bath. The water was too cold and had a brown streak in it that smelled like rust. I was afraid to brush my broken teeth, though I rinsed with water to try to get the smell of peanuts and blood out. Dan was asleep when I emerged from the bathroom and I wondered how he dealt with the bed bugs. The scars on my back hurt and the migraine intensified. I was mixing up smells with sounds and sights with tastes. The ceiling was blurrily fractured and I tried to move a third pair of legs I didn’t have, fumbling awkwardly to the ground as a result. It was only one day and I was already a mental mess. The partition between cricket-hood and humanity would come with time. Just as I was about to go to sleep, I felt something crawling on my leg. I looked down and saw three roaches which I brushed off.

  What the hell am I doing here? I should be tracking down your killers, Larry, not trying to win a cricket match against some dumb kids.

  I looked over at Dan, then at the knives on the wall. Almost three decades later, I was reliving my childhood again. A violent desperation filled me. Despite our facade of civility, we always had too many roaches in our home, a physical manifestation of the rot my biological family suffered. Would I be able to endure this again? I took a deep breath, tried to think about something else. My eyes kept on creeping back to those knives. Would I murder a man while he slept so I could escape? Even though I couldn’t stand the smell of food, I was starving, having been unable to keep anything down. I reminded myself that I was no longer a cricket, driven by hormones. I was a human being with reasoning.

  I’d have to reason with Dan in the morning. Ask him for a day off so I could recover. Maybe ask if I could stay in a room without roaches. That wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?

  VI.

  “I need you today,” Dan insisted. “I’ve scheduled two matches for you.”

  My voice was raspy and my eyes felt swollen. He was sharpening his knives. “I need to get some food in me.”

  “I brought you peanuts.”

  “I need porridge and ice cream.”

  “I’ll get it for you after the match. The first fight, I want you to lose in the third round. For the second one, fourth round.” He repeated it several times.

  That was a total of 35 minutes linked. I didn’t know if I could even handle a minute.

  “Look,” he said. “Toughen up. I spent good money getting you these crickets and buying what you needed. Don’t make me regret my decision.”

  “I need more time to recover, man.”

  “You don’t got time,” Dan replied. And from his menacing glower and the way he held his knife, I knew he meant business. So much for reason.

  VII.

  The first fight wasn’t too bad. While I hadn’t got enough sleep, the 12-hour break allowed me to recuperate enough to the point where I could dive without immediately feeling exhausted. It wasn’t a good fight by any means and I spent most of it either on defense or running away while pretending to be positioning myself. Fortunately, my rival, a mid-aged woman, wasn’t an aggressive type and fought askance, not sure why I was running when most men pounced. She was so focused on the match, she probably didn’t notice my sickly hue or the fact that my neck muscles were cramping. Getting to the third round was a tough stretch, but I managed. When her cricket flung me into the corner, I signaled my surrender.

  It was the second fight that really screwed me up. Dan got me a decent fighter with a big head, in turn meaning bigger mouth. This one had sprightly thick legs which were essential for kicking. He might not have been top of the class, but he was still a damn good fighter. Both crickets were weighed in. My head started to spin. My toe fingers shook uncontrollably.

  “I’m not feeling so good,” I said to Dan.

  “You’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

  I had good reason to worry. My brain was fried. Within ten seconds of diving, I knew I couldn’t handle it anymore. I smelled the other cricket’s hormones, his face bulgingly big. Electrical currents rushed through my nerves. Every sound was a thousand times louder. Humans were storm fronts passing by. I took off the interface, stumped to the ground. It felt like my head was in a vise and someone was squeezing. Was my head on my neck? I tried to spring, tried to shake my wings, warn other crickets away. But they were missing. What happened to my wings? I was naked and exposed. Chomp, chomp, sing out your warning! They would come upon me at any minute. Even if I wasn’t much of a singer, I still had to shake them. I used my hands and rubbed them rapidly together. There wasn’t any sound. I shrieked, cried out loud.

  “He’s still synced,” someone sang.

  “How long has he been interfaced?”

  “Only a few minutes.”

  “What are you doing bringing amateurs here?”

  Why couldn’t I fly? Why couldn’t I move? My thorax was cemented to the floor. I tried to sense out with my antennae but they’d been chopped off. The earlier fight had—

  “Nick! Nick!”

  VIII.

  “You humiliated me out there,” I heard someone say. “It was perfect. Now they think you’re a joke. When you beat Tolstoy, we are going to rake in the cash. Aw, man, I can’t believe how well it played out. Yeah, I lost a couple bucks today, but we ended up ahead ’cause I bet more on that first match. I had a feeling you wouldn’t last that second fight.” A chiming sound.

  I could smell a woman. She hovered near me. I had to prepare my song, beat my wings together to impress her. But I couldn’t feel my wings and had no idea if she was just going to move on without me.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He thinks he’s a cricket.”

  “Will he keep on shaking like this?”

  “It’ll pass.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Ignore him and come over here.”

  She made a song back. I didn’t recognize the music, but I knew I had to reply. Damn the wings. I’d have to use my legs to kick the ground. There was someone else after her. I’d have to get louder, make more sound to warn him off. This was my mate!

  “That’s really annoying,” she sang.

  “Just ignore it.”

  “It’s hard to get in the mood when he’s making all this ruckus.”

  “That’s what I’m paying you for.”

  “Can’t you send him out of the room?”

  “Will you just shut up and get back down here?”

  Her song was getting louder. I would have to get even louder. I could smell her. She wasn’t ready for mating. There was something sickly in her. It made me pause. Maybe it was better to let this one go, better to focus on other mates. Needed to scavenge for food. Find some shrubs and fungus to eat.

  “Why’s he digging under the b
ed?”

  “He thinks he can find food down there.”

  “This is really creepy.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “You’ve seen this before?”

  “His brainwaves are meshing with the cricket. It’ll pass. Now, can you shut up please and get to work?”

  “I’m not the one making all the noise!”

  Just needed some food, hungry, felt weak. She was singing louder and I could smell her hormones, but there was something terribly wrong.

  “I’m not feeling it.”

  “What do you mean you’re not feeling it?”

  “He’s burrowing under our bed!”

  “You’ve never seen a pilot get wired?”

  “No. You have?”

  “I lived through it. Mine was way worse than him.”

  “You were a pilot?”

  “Tried to be.”

  “You never told me that,” she cooed.

  “Yeah, I wanted to be a pilot so badly, it was sad. This guy used to be one of my heroes in the army.”

  “He was a pilot?”

  “A damn good one, long time ago. I was envious of him. After the war, I came out here to try to make my way as a cricket pilot. But I couldn’t stay interlinked longer than a minute without getting seizures. I had a defect in my brain lobes that prevented it.”

  “Why didn’t you go back home?”

  “And let everyone know I’d failed? No way. I made my living out here any way I could. It’s been eight years since I first came out.”