“I never knew you had your dreams crushed.”
“Some people have what it takes, some don’t. I didn’t. But I’m gonna win big this time. No one’ll laugh at me after my pay day.”
“Come over here.”
“I am here.”
“Closer.”
The singing got louder.
IX.
It was two hours later when my senses returned to me. Dan was sleeping naked with Heidi. Both were snoring. I knew my body condition. If I went through another day of this, I’d either die, or worse, get permanently wired. That was another way of saying I’d get lost inside the mind of a cricket forever. Many pilots had been locked away in one of those convention centers similar to where my brother-in-law was. Spending too much time under or not having enough breaks between the fights was the most common cause. My eyes returned to the knives on Dan’s wall. I didn’t know if I even had the strength to stab them. But if I failed, he’d probably kill me anyways which was a better fate than living out the rest of my days as a human thinking he was a cricket. During the war, Dan had been the quiet type. He was always meticulously cleaning his knives and Larry joked, “Don’t be surprised if he’s secretly a serial killer.”
I’d never killed a man. Even during the wars, most of the killing was done by drones and machines. In Los Angeles, where gun fights were common, gun groups had gotten the government to change laws so that if you fired at people wearing armor, it was considered aggravated assault rather than attempted murder. Many of my acquaintances had been brought up on aggravated assault charges, but I didn’t have a mark. Murdering someone was against everything I believed. But at this point, it was a matter of kill or be killed. As sick as I was, I started shaking.
He brought this on himself, I kept on telling myself. But I still had a hard time justifying it. I was more than a cricket, wasn’t I? Didn’t know anymore, couldn’t tell the difference. I was about to get up and head towards the shelf of knives when there was a knock on our door followed by several more.
Dan, groggy and tired, answered. I lay on the carpet and pretended to be asleep. He opened, talked with the guest at the door, then came back to me with a confused look. “Nick. Nick! Get up.”
“What is it?”
“Tolstoy wants to meet you.”
“The champion?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But he wants to see you right away.”
“Is that all right?”
“No one refuses the champ,” Dan replied.
I went to the door and saw a young lady that had white hair similar to the champ. She had an aquiline nose, brown eyes, and wan cheeks. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her skin was so perfectly crafted and unblemished, it looked like porcelain. She wore a lacy black dress and carried an umbrella by her side.
“My brother would like to speak with you,” she said, presumably making her Tolstoy’s sister. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Sure,” I said.
She grabbed me by the arm and led me out without waiting for Dan’s approval. Next to her were two blocky bodyguards. They looked the same as bodyguards I’d seen everywhere else in the world; human golems that specialized in inflicting pain.
“What’s he want to see me for?” I asked.
“He wanted to say hello.”
“Why?”
“You can ask him.”
The champ’s hotel was two buildings over and it was much nicer than Dan’s.
“Do you like cricket fighting?” she asked me on the way.
“Do you?”
“I hate it.”
“Me too,” I confessed.
“Then why do you do it?”
“Same reason crickets do. To survive.”
She covered her mouth with a handkerchief. “Is that why so many people are taken with cricket fighting?”
“What do you think?”
“I think people like to see others suffer,” she answered, though I couldn’t see her expression.
“I’ve heard your brother is the best fighter around.”
“He has cause.”
“He likes to see others suffer?” I asked.
“Suffering can become an addiction.”
“Only to those who don’t know any other way.”
“Do you know any other way?”
I shook my head. “I’m looking.”
The lobby was full of people with suitcases, checking in for a weekend of revelry. We had to walk through a scanner that zapped any bed bugs on our clothes and was embarrassed when they found over thirty on me. Prostitutes hung around the bars and martinis were being doled out quicker than canned food at a shelter.
“Does the champ like Tolstoy’s writing?” I asked, curious about his name.
“I don’t like Simone de Beauvoir, but I have her name.”
“It’s your given name?”
She nodded. “I misunderstood Anna Karenina the first time I read it. It was a comedy, not a drama like I’d initially assumed. Once I got the joke—all the characters were selfish, suffering-addicted, idiots—I realized it was brilliant. Everyone in the book was intentionally a farce.”
The champ had a penthouse suite and it was almost as massive as Larry’s apartment. The paint was fresh, there were maids who regularly cleaned the rooms, and there was no rank odor in the air. The first thing I heard upon entering were the crickets. Hundreds of them in a clashing choir, chirping love songs in an attempt to silence their rivals. His sister led me into the living room where Tolstoy was talking with a fat black cricket. I assumed that was Zhou, the prize winner. The room itself had brown walls and brown furniture. There were also huge piles of junk-food wrappers in the corners.
“It makes me sad,” he said, petting Zhou. “He only has a few more weeks.”
Zhou was huge and I realized that even prepared, I would have had no chance against his prize specimen.
“The best crickets come from the Shandong Province,” he continued. “But this boy was raised right here in Gamble Town.”
“Hello,” I said.
“Where do I know you from?” Tolstoy inquired.
“I don’t think we know each other.”
He put Zhou back in his cage. “Why are you working for that lout?”
“You mean Dan?” He nodded. “I have no choice.”
“Do you owe him a debt?”
“No.”
“He’s set you up against me at the end of the week. I’ve seen your three fights. You’re in no condition to be fighting, unless you’re the best faker I’ve ever met and you’re pulling a scam. Even if you were, I’d still crush you.”
“I used to fight a long time ago.”
“I know,” he said. “You use older techniques based on older interfaces. But there’s no way you’ll be ready for me in a week.”
“We’ll find out.”
“Don’t kid yourself. One more dive and you’re going to get wired permanently.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. He was stating the obvious, but why? He was an 18-or 19-year-old teenager, just a kid who barely knew the ways of the world. Was he gloating, trying to scare me away, or just showing off his superiority?
“You’ll be the fifth he’s done this to,” Tolstoy continued. “He makes just enough to keep him going until the next sucker.”
“Unless you’re willing to let me make some phone calls, I don’t have a choice.”
“Who would you call?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He held out his hand and in it was his phone.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Make your calls.”
“What’s the catch?”
“There is no catch.”
“Are you setting me up?”
“For what?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, confused by his generosity.
“Make your calls.”
I took the phone, stared at him, then a
t Beauvoir. Tolstoy was tending to his crickets again while Beauvoir watched me with concerned eyes.
I tried to access my account’s phone list on a centralized computer, but the authentication wouldn’t go through. I didn’t remember my passwords because everything was hooked into my own phone which was long gone. I tried typing in numbers I’d memorized, called an old friend, Stan, who had often called me when he was having financial woes. “Stan, I’m in a lot of trouble.”
“Nick, I’d love to talk right now, but I’m in trouble with my girlfriend.”
“I thought you were married.”
“Exactly. Can we talk later?” Before I could reply, he hung up. I tried calling back but his phone was set to off.
I called four other friends and all of them were too busy for me with my friend Dominique being the biggest disappointment as he’d told me so many times, “You can always call me for anything.”
“You having trouble there?” Tolstoy asked.
Who else could I call? No other numbers came to mind. Except one.
Rebecca Lian with her 7s and 2s.
“Nick!” she exclaimed on the phone screen once the call patched through. “You finally got my messages.”
“What messages?”
“I tried calling after I saw the explosion on the news, but your phone kept on going to voicemail.”
The worry on her face surprised me. “I-I need help,” I said, desperate.
“Of course. What do you need?”
It took me a second to register her affirmative response. “I-I don’t have anything. I’m stuck in this place called Gamble Town.”
“I have you on the GPS. Just stay put.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m in Shanghai so I should be able to get there in an hour or two. Can I call you at this number?” I looked up at Tolstoy to confirm and he gave me the number of the hotel instead. She told me she’d be here soon.
I gave Tolstoy his phone back.
“Thank you,” I told him, sincerely meaning it.
He put his hands through his hair and the way it flowed off his fingers, I could have sworn it was real. “I know what it’s like to be enslaved. We’re all slaves in one way or another.”
There was a loud banging on the door. “Open the door!” I heard Dan shout. “Open the door right now! I want to see my investment!”
The guards answered and when the three of us went to meet him, Dan seemed surprised.
“What’s going on, man?” he demanded of me.
“I’m leaving,” I told him.
“What about our agreement?”
“The agreement is off.”
“You cheating sonuvabitch! What about the money I wasted on you? I’ll take this to the board! I’ll have you arrested and sent to debtors prison!”
Tolstoy was about to say something to the guards, but I put my hand on his forearm.
“We fight for it,” I said. “Your cricket against mine. If I lose, I’ll come back. But if I win, you go away. Tolstoy, could I borrow one of your crickets?”
He seemed amused. “Of course.”
Dan looked irritated as he fiddled with his fingers. His eyes kept on darting back and forth between the guards and me. He finally blew up. “We had an agreement! You can’t take that back!”
“He just challenged you,” Tolstoy said. “Either accept or get out of here before I have you thrown out.”
Dan’s eyes constricted. He was calculating in his head if he could do it.
“You’re going to regret this.” He sat down, taking out one of his crickets.
Tolstoy gave me one of his better fighters after jacking me into the interlink. The cricket was easy to control, being in top shape and brimming with hormones. He was ready to take on any combatant and attracted female crickets everywhere he went. I could smell the lust and envied him for being everything I was not. I shook my head, telling myself, I can’t afford to get distracted by jealousy for a cricket. I had to block out all thoughts—fear, longing, the desire for the things I didn’t have. Blank it out. There is no future or past. Only death for the weak.
Filters were essential for mental survival, swaths and gauges that acted as memory swipes for distractions and irrelevancies. Everything became irrelevant in death. Beauvoir put her hand on my shoulder, easing my shaking. My mind was getting dizzy and I knew this would be a fight of endurance. I reminded myself that Dan didn’t have the stomach to handle this too long. If I could just outlast him, even in my condition, I knew it would screw up his brain enough for him to have to surrender. Talent could sway things, but Dan was no pilot. I’d lived through too much to surrender here. When he plugged in, I saw his cricket and realized it was the one I’d used earlier. He was no match for Tolstoy’s cricket. My own was ready to attack, annoyed by the presence of this outsider who’d encroached upon his harem. Still, even with the physical advantage, my mental links felt shredded. The leaps and attacks were making my head feel scrambled. I was nauseous and my intestines were unraveling so they could crawl their way up my esophagus. Who is this stranger? How dare he try to take part of what I’ve fought so hard to earn? I leapt out but something held me back, an electric current making my membrane twitch. Something was commanding me to refrain. Six legs to march, hind legs to thrust. Everything smelled, especially this cricket that was trying to ram me. I knew he was hungry and didn’t have the will to fight. But Dan was driving him. I finally felt the grip on my muscles loosen as the sync went into place and charged the other, kicking him with a thrust to his torso. That knocked him back and I bit into his antennae to try to rip it off. He smelled of fear and death. I reveled in the miasma of violence that we both were waddling in. I tore the antennae off and bit into his face, ripping off the mask. He made a sharp shriek, tried to withdraw. I lunged onto his back and attacked his shell. Right when I was about to split his back apart, water doused my head. I blinked and was human again, only everything seemed globular and nebulous. Next to me was Beauvoir. I could smell every part of her and it aroused me. I grabbed her and bit into her neck, wanted to rip her clothes off and take her. My hands searched her body in maddening lust and I tore off the top of her dress. Her breasts felt like plums for me to squeeze and I bit into her chest, wanting to merge myself into her. “Don’t hurt him! He’s still synced!” someone sang. Was it her? Did she sing? But her voice was shrill. I could wing her a song, reverberate along my wings.
I couldn’t control my breathing, I wanted to ravish and consume her. She did not flinch, but clutched me tight, arms around me. There was a sharp pinch on my neck. The dizziness became circular before dancing away. I saw that blood looked a hundred times more crimson against her white skin. The intense smells dampened.
“Are you back with us? Nick. Are you back with us?”
I stared up at Beauvoir who was half-naked and looked more beautiful than any woman I’d ever seen. “I-I think so.”
I remembered the fight, remembered the crickets. Tolstoy was holding a syringe. They must have given me some kind of stimulant to break the sync. I looked over at Dan. Dan was on the ground in a seizure, his pupils where his lids were. Vomit and spittle were ramming their way out of the corner of his mouth. He was shaking in uneven tremors, his body a discombobulated mess.
“Get him out of here,” Tolstoy ordered one of the guards.
I wondered how much of Dan’s memory would survive. They dragged him out and even though I was disgusted by the way he’d treated me, I hoped he’d recover.
I looked back at Beauvoir. “I-I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “You were crazy to fight him in your condition.”
I averted my eyes. “Probably.”
“What if you hadn’t been able to break the sync?” Tolstoy asked.
It all came back to me in one swoop. “I would rather have died as a cricket than go back to being his slave.”
“As a cricket, you would have been my slave.”
I hadn’t thought of that and he saw
the acknowledgement in my face which caused him to laugh. His phone rang and he talked quickly before hanging up. He looked to Beauvoir. “I have to go. Will you be okay?”
“Of course,” she replied.
Tolstoy put on his coat and as he was about to leave, asked, “Do you know a Larry Chao?”
“Larry Chao is dead,” I answered.
He smiled a sad simper. “So I’ve been told.” He raised up his cricket. “Say goodbye to our wandering stranger. This’ll be the last time you see him.”
Zhou chirped an indifferent farewell. He had more important things on his mind.
X.
I could barely stand and Beauvoir, who’d changed her clothes, led me to the sofa. “Do you need anything?”
“Don’t ask me that,” I said.
“Why not?”
“You don’t want to hear my answer,” I said, and felt stupid. I was still raging with hormones and even though I knew I was under the influence of the cricket sync, I wanted her more than I’d wanted anyone. The way she moved, her effeminate steps, the rosiness in her cheeks. My thoughts shamed me, especially as she had been so generous and kind. It’s the cricket in you, Nick, the cricket.
“I’ve seen others who’ve suffered worse syncing issues than you,” she said.
“I’m still sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she answered with a pleasant smile.
It took all my discipline not to reach out and grab her and tear off her clothes again. Instead, I tried to focus on the victory. It wasn’t much of a victory, but I’d survived. Dan is gone. You will be able to go back home. But my mind couldn’t stay anchored as lust was swelling through me and my pants felt uncomfortably taut.
“Do you want one of these?” she asked, holding up a pill.
“What is it?”
“It’ll help you sleep until your friend comes. You need some rest or your brain will stay a mess.”
She gave it to me along with a cup of water. I swallowed the pill. She placed her hand on my cheek. “I didn’t mean to question your sanity back there. You were very brave.”
“No. You’re right. I was crazy and stupid. I didn’t need to fight him.”
Bald New World Page 13
