Just One More Fight

by Craig Martelle

  He needed to go to the bank, see how much money was there. Usually, his purse was deposited within two days following the fight. He didn’t know what was good or not. He didn’t know how much the promoters skimmed. He wasn’t allowed to ask such questions. He only knew that he was paid more than the loser, or in the case of his last couple fights, more than the loser’s family.

  Fighters usually didn’t have their own families, only siblings and parents. Who wanted to hitch their wagon to someone who, if they survived their work day, was going to return home beaten and dripping ichor? The money sounded good, but it wasn’t that good. And the real world was different. The fighter in the ring was idealized, a gladiator, a warrior. The creature that crawled from the case, looked like everyone else, except for being battered and scarred. In the Insectoid society, being scarred showed weakness, not strength or the will and determination of a survivor.

  Aletha. Chitters.

  What did it mean? He needed to see his promoter and make sure he updated his will. He didn’t care about his siblings. They could find their own way. If they counted on his money, then they were going to get a big surprise whenever he fought that last fight, looking up at the victor from the bloody mess of his own dying body.

  How could he designate Aletha? He didn’t know her Insectoid name. She wouldn’t tell him as she didn’t want to incur the wrath of the promoters. He didn’t care. If he died, he’d make the estate find her, even if they spent all his money doing it. Insectoid law was very clear on that point, and it was the one area where fighters were most protected. If the wealth they earned with their body was stolen by the promoters, then they’d lose the volunteers who entered the ring. It was far more lucrative to let the fighters have their wealth in order to encourage the next generation and the next.

  And they held camps, to bring out the biggest and the strongest, neither of which Aspen had been. But he was the most determined. Who else would spend so much time walking around when his new carapace was still healing? It hurt, but failure hurt more. He had to find Aletha and he had to be ready for the next fight. He needed to see her again, get one more clue.

  Using the community center by the hospital, he made his appointments for the next day and returned home.

  He found he had company who’d let themselves in and were waiting. It was his promoter and her bodyguard. He longed for his human face so he could show her his best sneer. As it was he clicked his antennae in dismay at her presence and how she’d made herself at home. He no longer lived on the Dhanesh compound where she enjoyed the full authority that came with being the daughter of the great fighter himself.

  She bade him to sit, but she’d taken the only recliner in the room. What an ass. So he stood, baring his carapace before her, the titanium glistening in her multi-faceted Insectoid eyes. The bodyguard, a large brute with intelligence too low to be a fighter stepped toward Aspen, but she held up her hand. She knew that she had nothing to fear from him. She owned him and all those like him who passed through her father’s camp.

  If they wanted to fight, they needed her.

  She needed them, too, but she made sure there was an endless stream of potential victims. She was the promoter, and there was only one Bodhana.

  She looked up at him from her seat.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked as she gently sawed her mid legs. The sound touched him, pulled at his heart. He softened his demeanor, removing the sneer from the construct of the human face that he carried in his mind. He replaced it with a tentative smile, as he answered her coldly.

  “Fine,” is all to which he would commit. As he was a master at the punch and counterpunch, she was deadly in verbal duels. He didn’t dare try to cross swords with her there. It would confirm what she probably already thought regarding his lack of intelligence.

  “I’ve talked with the doctor, you know. Why did you go to the library? And to see my father?”

  He took a deep breath, not surprised that he’d been followed or reported on in some way. He wondered if it was the young couple he passed or the others he chased from the cemetery with his abrasive sawing.

  “I wondered about something I’d heard. There was a song called “Dark Side of the Moon.” I wanted to listen to it, after having been there. I couldn’t do anything else, so I wanted to listen to that, which I didn’t find, but discovered some other composers, from our own people, then I had to try my hand. No one saw me fail more often than your father. I thought I would give him one more show, so he could laugh from wherever he is.” Aspen shifted uncomfortably, happy with his smooth delivery, hoping she didn’t see through the lie.

  “I wondered,” she started softly. “I wondered why you would look for your Aletha when you could have died. Maybe you should have died up there. Maybe next time you will, if your broken body gives up before you catch your dream.” She stood, tantalizing close before she put an arm in front of her as the shells of their third segments threatened to touch. His secondary mind was screaming at him, telling him to run. He pushed the voice down and smoothly stepped backward and turned, giving Bodhana space to get past. He grunted from the pain of twisting his segments.

  “And I’d like to change my will. Everything to Aletha,” he said as if it were an afterthought.

  “I expected. I’ll take care of it. You’ll get your updated documents tomorrow. Also, I wouldn’t go back to the library, if I were you. I think you’ll find that you’re not welcome there. But you are always welcome at the monument. It’s where all fighters should go,” she added cryptically as she casually strolled through his front door, followed closely by her man-mountain bodyguard.

  Aspen stood there, long after she was gone, afraid to move and generate another wave of pain. He shifted his feet as he turned around, trying not to twist. He found his chair and sat. The view through the window showed the shaggy trees at the edge of the swamp. Many considered this to be prime real estate. He didn’t. It was a place to sleep and eat. Nothing more. His favorite place was outside the stadium in a human Chicago, the place where he’d met Aletha the first time.

  He closed his eyes and let himself drift back to that time. He was already well on his way up the ranks when he finished a bout without being injured. He had stayed in the VR case and had taken the time to explore. She seemed to be waiting for him outside the stadium. There hadn’t been many people in the seats. He remembered their eager faces as he pummeled his opponent unconscious. Aspen saw them all and none of them had the hazel eyes of the raving beauty before him. Plain, but beautiful. He was taken as never before, but when she started talking, her words touched his soul. She had no problem telling him her view of fighting. But then she talked about everything else. He listened as never before.

  They sat in the diner next door until dawn.

  And that was that. He sought her after every fight, even the last when his life blood poured from him. Moon dust mixed with his blood to patch his torn flesh.

  Why?

  What made life worth living, he thought to himself. My Aletha. I would die for you.

  Chapter 6

  The Fury

  The doctor had been right. He healed more quickly this time than last. In two weeks, he was ready to start working up for his next bout. He was happy to hear that he’d assume the persona of his human, but there was a catch. He’d be in space and he was going to fight a creature similar to the one he’d just been.

  Fear gripped him. A human’s soft body couldn’t stand up to the punishment that the brutish creature could inflict. Then he discovered that he’d be armed while the great creature would not. In space where low gravity would limit the creature’s overwhelming strength. He chased the fear away when he saw the weapons he would be able to use. A metal claw and a shortsword to extend his reach. As he lay in his case, he drifted away, became his human. He smiled to himself, feeling his cheeks pull the sides of his mouth up. He hefted his weapons and slashed the air.

  He drew figure eights around himself, increasing speed until
the sword whistled. He reveled in the sound, although his human ears weren’t as sensitive as the antennae on his Insectoid body. He jumped and dodged. He was in the training room, back in Chicago. He felt at home. He asked the system to deliver a practice dummy, which it did. The creation materialized near him, presenting a rough caricature of the beast he’d fight. It slashed its mock claws haphazardly as he danced around it. He tapped the mock-up repeatedly with his sword, learning to wield it as an extension of his own body.

  When he’d had enough, he attacked with the full power of his being, slicing off the arms, shredding the torso and with a final flourish, cutting the head off. He saluted his former training partner and let the weapons drop to the floor, knowing that they would reappear next time he trained, and every time after that until his replicant showed up in space, opposite the creature who was doing the same thing as him, training to kill an opponent who he’d never seen in action. The fighters never watched the fight of anyone who would be their opponent. They had to learn on the fly.

  It made it that much more difficult for the fighters and that much more exciting for the spectators. The bouts lasted longer, too, which was why the restriction had been put in place by mutual agreement of all promoters.

  His opponent wouldn’t know that Aspen had fought as one of the creatures. He hoped that anyway.

  Six weeks of intense training and Aspen had never felt stronger. He also practiced his sawing every day. He thought he was getting better, but judging by how the people avoided him, he was still making more noise than music. He stayed away from the library, too. As much because Bodhana told him as he didn’t think there was anything left for him to find. So he went to the cemetery daily where he practiced his music at the foot of Dhanesh’s monument.

  He strolled the old road and the trail to the new road. He realized that someone had been using it. The sheen that tires polish on concrete. Who was using this road and why? He wanted to follow it, but it continued beyond the horizon. He didn’t have the time or energy. His workouts were taking all that he had.

  Maybe after this fight, he’d have the time.

  It had only been two months since his last bout when he received the call that they were ready. He reported to the community center where the cases were available for his use, as well as the use of other Insectoids, doing various things throughout the VR universe.

  Once in the case, Aspen calmed himself through his half-trained meditation techniques. The human body was his to control. It responded instantly to his desires, sometimes before he could think. They were one. The weapons felt as natural as his human hands, which made him laugh. He had Insectoid arms, but the human’s body seemed more natural to him. Aspen had never fought in his own body. Not even against a schoolyard bully.

  He knew what he was capable of as an Insectoid, climbing vertical walls, running at incredible speeds, shredding everyday objects with his mandibles, but he also knew what the human could do. He reveled in the feel of this body, smiling often, cheering to himself.

  He was in the darkness, his weapons already gripped tightly in his human hands. As usual, he didn’t know how his replicant got there, but he was where he needed to be when he needed to be there. Aspen looked around as the lights slowly came up. He was on a space station of some sort, in a boxy area contained within a metal pipe framework over which something stretched, whether it was a carbon-fiber sheet, metal, plastic polymer, or painted glass, it didn’t matter. He expected he couldn’t break it even with the most rigorous effort. He wouldn’t try. That’s not why he was there. People started appearing sitting on the piping around the ring, filling every empty space. Humans, creatures, and even some Insectoids. They showed up on occasion when someone important wanted to watch a bout, but were inexperienced with the VR case. That usually meant someone very wealthy who never bothered with the virtual universe.

  He scanned the crowd, not seeing Aletha as usual, but feeling like she was there. She watched all his fights. He closed his eyes and composed himself as he turned and looked for his opponent.

  The shaggy beast stood opposite, not far away. He could smell its musk as it shook its hide, loosening its muscles. It slashed, not as part of a show like his last opponent, but preparing to fight, visualizing its attacks and defenses. He watched dispassionately as he did the same. He sliced, slashed and blocked, then counterattacked in rhythm with the beast’s movements. They watched each other as they moved closer.

  He never wondered why there was no official start to a bout. The fighters instinctively knew when to advance. The creature threw caution to the wind and rushed headlong at Aspen. He made his human body jump straight up, misjudging how little gravity there was. The creature did the same, flying beneath the human and crashing bodily into the spectators. Aspen ran into people protecting themselves from his jump, pushing him back down toward the floor of the ring. Those against the wall did the same to the creature, but two of the spectators lie crumpled, injured from the impact.

  Aspen risked a look, happy that no one above him had been injured. Why would he care about something like that? His secondary mind screamed at him to focus. He was falling, helplessly, agonizingly slowly as the creature was able to touch the floor after its rebound. It pushed off toward Aspen.

  He knew that holding the point downward for the creature to impale itself wouldn’t work, because he had no leverage. He started twirling, hoping to turn himself into a buzz saw, but he only completed one revolution before the creature rammed him.

  His spin was enough to slash savagely across the beast’s great head. He’d been swinging for the neck but misjudged the speed in the low gravity. He kicked off the creature as the blade bit deeply into the thing’s snout. It tried to grab him with its claws, digging deeply into both his legs, but failing to get a grip. Aspen kicked viciously to get away from the deadly claws.

  He careened sideways, a scream escaping his lips as his legs burned from the fire of the injury. He slammed into more people and he grabbed an arm to keep them from pushing him back into the fray. It spun him around to slam face first into more people next to him. The arm pulled away as his claw weapon inadvertently raked it. The spectator instantly winked out of existence as the injury sparked panic.

  He let himself drop to the floor. There were handholds that he hadn’t seen during the time he was preparing, during his posturing. Maybe he was a showman, despite his hatred of the type. He saw them now and he wasn’t dead yet. He could use that to his advantage.

  Blood ran from the ruins of the creature’s nose. The upper jaw was cracked and part of it protruded from one lip. Aspen was safe from being bitten, but the danger was the claws and his soft human flesh. The creature drifted downwards, touching the floor on the other side of the arena, but not far away. It carefully stepped toward him, maintaining a wide stance to keep its balance, keep its leverage so the next attack would be the last as it shredded the soft human and finished the fight.

  Aspen started moving perpendicular to the creature, within two steps, he hopped, turning himself sideways, using the spectators as his floor as he ran in the circle of the arena, against the wall of spectators while the creature and its deadly claws stayed in the middle, turning to keep Aspen to its front.

  Blood ran from Aspen’s legs, showering the spectators as he ungraciously used them as his stepping stones to build up momentum. He could feel himself weakening from the loss of blood so he launched his body toward the creature, but not close enough that its claws could reach. Aspen hooked his claw weapon into one of the footholds and pulled himself back toward the creature, racing around the outstretched claw as he buried his sword deep within the creature’s body. The beast roared, but lost control of its arms as the sword clove its heart in two. Its mouth continued to work, broken jaw and all as it gagged its last few breaths.

  It seemed like it was trying to tell Aspen something, but he couldn’t understand. The VR case wasn’t translating it for him.

  The spark of life disappeared and the creatu
re’s eyes grayed, its body and blood floating to the deck. There was little cheering and no chanting of Aspen’s name. He looked at the crowd, not seeing anyone who didn’t have blood on them. Most of it was his. He dropped his weapons and put pressure on his leg wounds.

  Out of nowhere, Aletha appeared next to him, but as the rules dictated, she couldn’t help him. He started to fade. “More,” he gasped, his human voice rasping in his throat. He must have been screaming at some point. It hurt to talk.

  She reached out a hand to cup his face. Hazel eyes filled with sadness peered at him, the blond curls drifted in the low gravity. A forced smile was the last thing he saw as he drifted into darkness, wondering if this was it.

  Chapter 7

  Recovering More Information

  He awoke in little pain, tired beyond tired. He was on the gurney, in the emergency room as usual. The doctor looked at him as only an Insectoid could, multi-faceted eyes reflecting everything in the room while each set of arms were crossed across the appropriate segment. She had the look of a dismayed parent.

  Aspen nodded, happy that the nurse wasn’t there to annoy him. He was hooked to more equipment than usual and that made him wonder. A quick check confirmed that he had all his original parts, at least the ones he started the last fight with. His titanium carapace was intact. It was the space between the segments, the softer cartilage where the bandages were. He was wrapped between the first and second, second and third, and third and fourth segments. The fifth one was completely intact. He would have guessed that the entire fifth segment would have been removed as part of the creature’s attack on his human legs. His Insectoid legs appeared to be free of bandages, too.

  He tipped his head at the doctor, gesturing at how long it would be before he could leave.