by R J Johnson
I have two other books for you to check out if you like. Following this is the first chapter of my other series about a Martian private detective. It’s called Change in Management and I’d love if you’d check those books out too. If you liked The Twelve Stones, I think you’ll really enjoy reading the adventure of Jim Meade and his friends.
I highly encourage you to click the links and check it out, or just keep reading for a sample. I’d really appreciate it if you did.
Thank you again for reading and purchasing my novel. Readers like you are why I write, so thank you for helping me create these worlds. I couldn’t…wouldn’t do it without you.
All the best to you and yours,
RJ Johnson
July 30, 2013
Change in Management
Chapter One
The curly haired brunette woman pushed her way through the crowd of people standing in the doorway of the crowded arena. The sounds of a thousand different men and women all blended together into a dull roar that she could hear two blocks away. Inside, the place stank of stale beer, body odor and a combination of other more unpleasant smells. But that didn’t stop the miners (commonly known around New Plymouth as Moles) from packing inside the arena every night to watch the Zero-G fights.
The most popular sport on Mars, Zero-G fights had sprung up after the local warlords learned there were better ways to use the Higgs generators other than keeping humanity’s footing while reaching out to the stars. The warlords set up the popular no-holds-barred style of fighting after figuring out that the people loved watching their favorites battle it out in high gravity environments.
Higgs generators worked by affecting the local Higgs field (responsible for giving every particle in the universe its mass, and thus, the properties of gravity) within its range. Five concentric circles were placed within a ring with each of the smaller circles containing a patch of either high or low gravity depending on what round it was.
Gravity within the fighting circle varied from Zero-G all the way up to five times what someone would feel back on Earth. Fighters often used the gravity wells during their fights to make spectacular leaps and moves they wouldn’t normally be able to do while fighting each other in everyday gravity. During rounds with high gravity within the circles, they were often used as traps to pin opponents. Once a fighter found himself within a five plus G area in the fighting circle, it was nigh impossible for them to escape.
The Zero-G leagues were not for the faint of heart. The fights were brutal, hard and messy, with no rules and no set style of fighting. Everyone was welcome, and the pools of blood, teeth, sweat and tears on the canvas floor of the ring were testament to the fact that there was no shortage of men or women on Mars looking to prove how tough they were. Those who weren’t in peak physical condition and excellent fighters often did not survive to see their next match.
Emeline Hunan pushed her way through the crowd and looked down into the packed arena below. There, two fighters were warily circling each other during the last round of their fight. All five concentric circles inside the ring were alternating between flashing projections of Zero-G and Five-G gravity wells. The pair below had been fighting for the last fifteen minutes, and their faces demonstrated the results of the brutal punishment they had been dishing out to each other.
She watched as the fighter in blue trunks retreated away from his opponent weaving his way through the gravity circles, adopting a defensive posture. She watched from a distance, knowing it was all over for the man in red shorts. The man in blue was forcing the fighter in red to follow the pattern of flashing 5-G circles.
Suddenly, the man in blue trunks stepped back into a Zero-G circle just as it flashed from 5G to Zero. He jumped impossibly high, nearly all the way up to the top of the arena. Placing his feet on the top of the cage twenty feet above his opponent, he pushed, dive bombing his opponent.
Caught unaware, the fighter in red was pushed hard into a 5G ring. The man’s body instantly bent in half, breaking the man’s back the second he crossed the threshold of the Higgs circle. The sound of breaking bones filled the arena as the crowd roared its approval for the Blue fighter’s daring maneuvers.
And just like that, the fight was over. The man in red couldn’t possibly recover from the grievous bodily injury he just suffered and the refs agreed with Emeline’s assessment. A horn sounded and the crowd exploded once again, some in protest, some in jubilation and the bookies hanging around the rail began paying off the various bets made on the match.
“Who’d you have sweetheart?” the voice had a rough, thick accent direct from the Homeworld. Emeline turned to look for the source and saw a squat, hairy man who had suddenly appeared next to her with his posse. They were slurping their beers and admiring her lithe dancer’s body.
Emeline ignored them and checked her ArmBar. A message had appeared from him.
WHERE ARE YOU?
Emeline closed the ArmBar and began moving towards the back of the arena. She was stopped before she could make her way past the mole who was still trying to chat her up, despite her obvious disinclination to engage with him. He caught her arm before she could get away.
“That’s rude don’t you think?” the mole said sniffing. His friend scratched the acne on his face and giggled, “Just trying to get to know a lady.”
Emeline turned and shook her head, “In what world do you imagine I’d ever want to talk to you?”
“I got credits!” the badly pockmarked man bragged. He opened his ArmBar display and showed her the credit balance he held. The balance did show a fairly impressive amount for a mole, but he wasn’t heading for retirement on New Luna anytime soon. “I took my man in blue for the win at 5 and a half to one and the bloke paid off nicely,” he elbowed Emeline and let his hands lightly pass over her ass. “I’m willing to pay even nicer for you.”
Emeline flashed her prettiest smile at the disgusting man propositioning her, “How much you thinking?”
The mole’s greedy eyes opened wide and looked her up and down taking in every inch of her body. From her long curly brown hair, hazel, almond shaped eyes and toned light brown skin, Emeline knew she was a beautiful woman and so she was more than a little curious to see how much she’d go for on the open market.
“Two hundred,” The mole said, licking his lips.
Emeline was insulted. If she was going to prostitute herself, she wanted to at least be a high class prostitute.
His face fell at her reaction, “Three hundred?”
She ran her finger down his scarred cheek, “I think I may be a bit too expensive for you.”
“Four?” the mole asked hesitant.
Emeline smiled, and suddenly she grabbed the Mole’s crotch and squeezed the man’s grapes for all they were worth (which in her mind wasn’t a whole lot). She pushed and yanked, flipping the man end over end using his crotch as leverage, spilling him onto the sticky arena floor. His friends exploded in laughter, as the miner howled in pain.
“You bitch!” he cried out. “You…”
“Careful there,” she said, turning to walk away, “I don’t think your baby bells can afford another insult.”
The mole’s friends were still laughing as they reached down to pick up their fallen comrade. He pushed their help away.
Emeline made her way through the crowd and approached a private door at the back of the arena. A Coalition MP looked down at her through his visor and she showed him her ArmBar. He scanned it, and saw she was on the list and had a pass. He stepped aside to let her through.
The locker room was much quieter than the cacophony of noise in the arena. She moved through the dark hallway where most of the lights were flickering or burned out. She paused at the doorway to a dressing room and saw the man she was looking for.
Jim Meade sat on the side of the medical bay bed wrapping his right hand with sports tape. He ran his fingers through and made sure it was wrapped tight enough to keep his joints from moving around too much. His boxing sh
orts were yellow with black stripes on either side – to Emeline he looked strange without his black hat and dark red-brown duster jacket, but she didn’t mind the view of his of his six pack abs and tight, lean muscles.
Satisfied with the wrap job on his right hand, he grabbed the roll of tape sitting on the table and began to wrap his left hand when he looked up to see Emeline in the doorway.
“Did you get it?” he asked Emeline without preamble.
“I got it,” she said, entering the room. “I still think it’s the most damn foolish thing you’ve ever done.”
“Like I’m short on any of those?” Meade said, his eyes crinkling in a smile.
She snorted, “Still number one so far as I’m concerned. While breaking into a Warlord’s private stash is stupid…”
“Hey, you enjoyed drinking O’Donnell’s whiskey just as much as I did,” he reminded her with a wry grin.
She ignored him and jumped up on the counter across from him.
“You don’t think all this is a bad idea?”
“Em, a win here on borrowed credit, I’ll finally have the kind of money to retire on New Luna with enough left over to buy out your debt to the Coalition,” he said smiling. “But none of that will happen if you didn’t get the money.”
“I got the money,” Emeline repeated crossly as she opened her ArmBar. She wirelessly connected to Meade’s ArmBar and transferred the money over to him. “What if you don’t win?”
He chuckled, “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He looked back down to keep taping his left hand. Emeline jumped down and got in his face, snapping her fingers to get his attention back.
“Hey, seriously...” Emeline said concerned, “What if you don’t win?”
He shrugged, “Not a problem I’m particularly concerned about at the moment.”
“You might need to start worrying about that in the next twenty minutes. It’d be smart if you had yourself a few alternative plans for retirement, say, for like, a real job.”
He ignored the dig, looking at the poor job he had done wrapping his left hand and began unwrapping the sports tape. Emeline took his hand.
“Here, let me get that,” she said and began to rewrap the tape around his hand.
“What’re the odds on me?” he asked.
“I didn’t check.”
“Em…”
“I didn’t check!”
He sighed and looked at her. Emeline was trying to protect his feelings and that meant the odds had to be worse than he imagined. The people who calculated them had a lot of computer power and statistics behind them that made their predictions very reliable. He caught her eyes finally and she sighed.
“You’re sitting nearly fifty to one.”
He whistled, that would mean a lot more money than he originally thought if he won the match. He was surprised (and a bit insulted) that the odds were as long as they were – he might not be one of the biggest names in the Zero-G fights, but he had definitely been able to hold his own while fighting his way up the ranks to get this match. His strategy was a good one and a great deal of other, more experienced fighters had been unable to adapt to his style in time before they found themselves on their back with the ref finishing his count.
But tonight’s match was different. He was fighting someone who had made a real name for himself in the Martian Zero-G fights. Kevin Chau was ranked as one of the best in the league and Meade was only supposed to be filler – a piece of meat for the soon-to-be-champ to get some exercise with before the big championship bout later this week. As one of the premiere fighters in the Zero-G league, Chau had built a brutal reputation for himself over the last year and a half. Meade always knew that his fight wouldn’t be easy, but fifty to one was an impressive set of odds to beat.
“That’s not so bad.”
“I’m pretty sure fifty to one is only if you survive the match,” Emeline said, her signature gallows humor on display.
“Trying to cheer me up won’t make me reconsider Em. I’m telling you, I studied his tapes. I know what I’m looking for.”
He hopped up off the Medbay bed and shadowboxed a few moments, “No one in the arena will see it coming, I promise.”
“Pretty confident for a dead man walking.”
The voice came from the doorway, Meade and Emeline spun around to see a tall man wearing a fashionable pinstripe suit and slicked back hair. A pencil thin beard followed the outline of his jaw and was neatly trimmed to a point under his chin.
“Palmetto,” Meade said sarcastically, “I didn’t know you were a fight fan.”
“More than just a fan Mr. Meade,” Palmetto said lazily as he entered his dressing room, “I have quite a nice stake in your opponent.”
Meade chuckled, “Well, everyone makes bad investments on occasion.”
Palmetto locked his eyes on Emeline, staring at her, “I’d like if we could speak alone.”
Emeline glanced at him and Meade waved her off, “It’s all right. Em here was just leaving to place a bet.”
She looked at him and he nodded, silently telling her that it would be fine. She chewed the bottom of her lip and left the room, though it was clear she didn’t like leaving him alone with the dangerous Warlord of E-Block.
Palmetto turned and closed the door behind her. He grabbed a metal folding chair and dragged it across the cold tile, the sound scratching Meade’s nerves.
“So, Mr. Meade…”
“Palmetto if you got something you wanna say, get to it. They’re expecting me out there.”
“They will wait,” Palmetto unfolded the chair and sat down in front of Meade, crossing his legs and picked a piece of lint off his trousers. “I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You don’t even know what I have to say,” Palmetto replied, somewhat amused.
“Maybe,” he said, inspecting the wrap job Emeline had done on his left hand, she did good work. “But I already know how this goes. You offer me money to do something I’m not interested in doing and I say no. You’ll up your offer, and I’ll refuse again. You’ll threaten me, I laugh. You offer me more money than I’ve ever seen in my life, but I’ll still say no.” He stood and approached the Warlord, placing his face inches away from the man who terrified so many on his Block. “So let me save us some time. I will never work for you or your blood money.”
“Mr. Meade, be reasonable!” Palmetto said, chuckling at Meade’s outburst, “You’re a Runabout. You can’t make any money in the Coalition mines without a SecureCard installed on your ArmBar and it’s not like you’ve got any opportunities with the Consortium forthcoming. The very best you can hope for is some lucky million to one hit at the casino or forever used as ring fodder for fighters who long ago passed you in skill and opportunity. You have no hope of making a living on this planet if you don’t play ball with someone, whether it be with the Coalition, Consortium or me.”
He plucked another imaginary piece of fluff off his suit, “Besides, after tonight, you’ll need one of us,” Palmetto said, staring at Meade with his piercing blue eyes. “Because believe me, you’ll wish you had.”
Meade shook his head and moved to the doorway, “Go to hell Palmetto. I’m not your errand boy.”
Palmetto rose and put his hand on Meade’s bare chest stopping him from leaving the dressing room.
“You will come work for me eventually Meade. One way or the other, I will have you on a leash.”
“Not today,” he pushed past the warlord in charge of his local block and moved down the hallway towards the arena.
The dull roar he could hear in the locker room began to grow louder the closer he approached the doorway to the arena. He was stopped by a man wearing a headset.
“You ready?” the man in the headset asked him.
“About as much as I’ll ever be.” Meade replied. The nervous energy he had so far contained was now bubbling below the surface somewhere between excitement and drop dead fear. Too late to back out no
w, he thought.
The sound of heavy rock music filled the arena and the announcer’s voice boomed through the arena telling the fans Meade’s weight, height and relevant statistics. While his chances didn’t look good to the odds makers, Meade had racked up a fairly impressive streak of recent wins in the undercards. His strategy was simple: Watch as much tape as he could find of his opponents and make one less mistake than they did.
Tonight’s bout was to settle who would face the current ZFC Champ, Titus Greene. Meade had earned his spot at this level, but no one expected him to beat Kevin Chau and move on to the championship bout. Chau was a beast who had been responsible for the deaths of the last two men he faced on his path to the champ.
While preparing for this match, Meade had studied hours upon hours of film of Chau’s fighting techniques and after his careful research believed he found a weakness that he could exploit. Course, that all depended on whether or not he survived the first few rounds, which wasn’t always guaranteed in a fight with Chau.
The crowd roared at the announcement of Meade’s name - some in approval, but most booing. He stepped through the doors and walked through the gauntlet that led to the ring. The crowd, expressing their displeasure with the no name on the fight card and showered him with beer cups, both full and not – some of those cups were filled with liquids other than beer, though Meade did his best to avoid thinking what those mysterious liquids might be.
The walk to the ring was a short one. There, an official opened the door to the cage that the ZFC fighters fought in and let Meade through. He raised his fists in victory, hoping to elicit something of a positive reaction from the crowd.
“Tonight’s bout is scheduled for five rounds with the winner facing the Martian Heavyweight Champion Titus Greene for the ZFC Championship.”
