by Chad Leito
As he put in the information, Baggs was beaming. He had never had thirty thousand CreditCoins before.
After the forms were filed, Jodi walked Baggs down the long hallway towards the elevator. Before Baggs got on, he checked his account balance by pressing his thumbprint to the vending machine. The thirty thousand CreditCoins were there, just as promised.
Filming the commercial was strange. Baggs was taken into a well-lit room and asked to sit on a chair, scowl at the camera, and say disjointed lines like, “I wanted to kill him,” and, “I completely lost it.” They wanted his voice to sound gravely and menacing. Baggs did whatever he was told to do. The potential humiliation was outweighed by all of the CreditCoins they were giving to his family to do the commercial.
Thirty thousand! I can’t believe it!
He learned that his voice would be played over footage of him beating up the police officer in the next commercial. He didn’t like that portrayal of himself, but he needed the money.
After shooting the commercial, Baggs was led down the elevator to an underground facility where company helicopters were kept. Tartuga had given Jodi instructions to make sure that Baggs got into company helicopter number nine. Once inside, the doors would lock and Baggs would be unable to get out until he landed at an undisclosed location. They wouldn’t tell Baggs where he was going. He guessed Turner’s home, or some facility owned by Turner.
The helicopter was black and impeccably clean, with windows tinted so dark that you couldn’t see inside. The entire machine was as long as a limousine. As it sat in the garage, it was on wheels, and the blades were concealed in a hidden compartment that would come out automatically when the machine was ready for take off. There was no pilot—a computer operated the copter without human assistance.
“Good luck,” Jodi said to Baggs, and opened the door for him.
Baggs thought it was a funny choice of words, considering what he had learned about how little luck influenced who won or lost the deadly competition he was about to be involved in. “Thanks,” Baggs said, and got in.
4
When Baggs looked back into his bloody past, with all the bones he broke, the lips he busted, the black eyes he created, and the brains he made bleed, it was hard to believe that he had escaped it all. He thought, in a perfect world, guys like me would be behind bars. But he wasn’t behind bars; the world wasn’t perfect. Up until he signed up for Outlive, he had lived a happy life with Tessa, and then with Tessa, Olive and Maggie. While he was reading Harry Potter to Maggie and Olive, a man he had killed was rotting in a shallow roadside grave.
He supposed it all started when he was fifteen. He wouldn’t have gotten the gang’s attention had it not been for the fight with Baldy. Or, more specifically, he wouldn’t have gotten their attention had it not been for what happened at the end of the fight with Baldy.
Fifteen year old Baggs still worked at the same grocery store he worked at as a nine year old—Lucky’s. The store didn’t last long after that, but soon he would find a new way to make money.
Money from piano would come much later—in his twenties. As a teenager, it was just a hobby for Baggs. His buddy Brian, who lived down the hall from his parents, owned a keyboard. Baggs was just playing for fun at the time, but everyone could tell he had talent. Back then, though, he wasn’t looking for another job. Working at the grocery store earned him enough CreditCoins to buy the things he needed.
His parents demanded that Baggs contribute a certain amount of CreditCoins each month to help pay for bills and food. If Baggs made money beyond that amount, he could do with it what he pleased. Most months, Baggs made a couple hundred CreditCoins over what his parents asked for. When he got older and got into financial trouble, he thought, why didn’t I save more of that?
He spent most of the excess capital on alcohol. There were laws in London prohibiting minors from purchasing alcohol, but the laws weren’t strongly enforced. Essentially, if you went into a bar and appeared to be eighteen, they would serve you. Baggs more than met this criterion. He looked like he was in his mid twenties as a fifteen year old. He already had a thick, black beard at that time that ran up his cheeks and halfway down the front of his neck. His eyes were about level with the tops of most mens’ heads. At fifteen he had hands big enough that people stared at them when they were rested atop a table.
Fifteen-year-old Baggs loved to get drunk in bars. He didn’t have anything better to do, and he loved the atmosphere. People cursed, smoked, and were generally less tightly wound than they usually were. To young James Baggers, this attitude was freeing, as was getting drunk. Saving all his CreditCoins didn’t even cross his mind—no one expected the economy to go sour like it did.
On weekends, Baggs and some of his buddies—all older males who also worked at Lucky’s—went to a bar called The Barbed Wire to blow whatever money they didn’t need to buy the necessities for living. Baggs only drank whiskey. “More drunk per CreditCoin,” he would say. And that was his goal—to get drunk.
He liked to look at the girls, and as he got drunk, his stolen glances at their bodies became less covert. That’s what made Baldy want to fight him—Baggs was staring at his girlfriend. He was looking at her breasts, specifically. Even in his thirties, he could still remember what they looked like that night as they pressed against her white blouse. The top three buttons were undone, and he could see freckled cleavage and a pink bra. He couldn’t remember her name, or what her face looked like, but he remembered her breasts.
Baldy was the nickname of a regular at The Barbed Wire. Baggs didn’t know his real name, but everyone called him Baldy so that was functionally his name in that environment. Upon seeing the man, the reason for his nickname was obvious—he was as bald as a pool ball. Baldy was tall—not as tall as Baggs, but taller than most people—and at thirty years old he had a thick, sunburned neck, a belly that protruded in his tucked-in shirt, and a black metal spike pierced through the cartilage in his left ear. Baldy liked fighting; he usually got into a few fights a month, and it was easy to push him towards violence. Baldy got a rush from standing opposite someone who was trying to hurt him.
The night that Baldy fought Baggs, the gang members were sitting at a booth near the back. Baggs didn’t notice them. He didn’t even know such criminals existed until after they approached him later.
The Barbed Wire smelled of beer. Through the years of drinks being poured night after night, the aroma seeped into the wood. It smelled of cigarettes, too. At one in the morning on a Friday night, fifteen year old Baggs was slumped on a bar stool, smoking a cigarette and thoroughly drunk. Ashes had fallen in his beard, but he was too drunk to notice. He had to be at work at six in the morning, but right then he didn’t care. He was staring at Baldy’s girlfriend’s breasts.
Looking back on it, he supposed that he had forgotten where he was, in his drunken stupor. He forgot that people could see him. He was making no effort to hide his gaze.
The rock music played loud from the band on the stage in the corner, and Baggs took another sip of his whiskey. Even over the loud drum and guitars, Baggs heard Baldy’s voice from right behind him: “What the hell are you doing?”
Baggs turned around, slowly. The image of Baldy floated in front of his drunken eyes. He had seen Baldy around, but never spoken to him. People on barstools surrounding Baggs turned to see who Baldy was going to beat up this time.
“I asked you a question, dumb ass. What are you doing?”
“Me?” Baggs asked stupidly. “Drinking.” He held up his glass of whiskey and smiled.
At this time, the bar grew quiet. The band was in between songs.
“What are you looking at?” Baldy asked.
Baggs looked down at his drink. “Whiskey.” He said.
Baldy breathed threw his nose like a bull. “Don’t play smart with me. What were you looking at?”
Baggs knew that he had been caught staring at the woman’s breasts, but didn’t want to admit it. It was embarrassing. And, he h
oped that if he just denied it that Baldy would leave him alone. That night, Baggs had never been in a fight before; he did not yet know how much he liked violence.
“’Been lookin’ at a lot of things,” Baggs said. “The chairs, the bar, the lights, the band.”
“You’ve been undressing my girl with your pervert eyes! You were looking at her tits. I saw you!”
Baggs shrugged. “That was one of the things I was looking at.”
Baldy’s face grew red. Baggs didn’t feel any anxiety upon looking at the man, and that enraged Baldy. He wanted to be feared. Baldy’s hand swiped at the shot-glass and it tumbled out of Baggs’s hand to the floor, where it shattered. A puddle of whiskey formed around it.
The bar suddenly grew even quieter. All the patrons knew to watch out if Baldy got mad. Glasses stopped tinkling against the bar. People stopped talking. The band stopped adjusting their instruments.
“Hey!” Baggs cried, looking down at his spilled drink. “That drink was nine CreditCoins!”
Baggs still had no intention of fighting at that point, but Baldy wasn’t done trying to provoke him. Baldy was in the mood to punch someone, and he wanted that someone to try to punch back. He took the cigarette out of Baggs’s hand and threw it into the puddle of whiskey on the ground.
“What the hell?” Baggs asked. “Get away from my stuff! Those are expensive!”
The woman working at the bar didn’t stop Baldy. Like the rest of the crowd, she stood there, watching the show. She didn’t want to become the object of Baldy’s anger.
“Maybe that’ll teach you for looking at my girl,” Baldy said. He reached for Baggs’s pack of cigarettes on the bar. Baggs grabbed Baldy’s wrist. He wasn’t going to let Baldy ruin his whole pack. There was a moment where they stared at each other—Baggs’s green eyes looking upon Baldy’s blue ones. Baldy didn’t know that Baggs was fifteen. After the fight, this would be another source of embarrassment for him. If he had known that Baggs was fifteen, he never would have started anything. When a man like Baldy fights a teenager, he can only lose. If he wins, it’s because the other person was much younger. But if he loses, it’s quite embarrassing.
With his free hand, Baldy reached up and grabbed Baggs by the bottom of his jaw. He spoke slowly, breathing out hot beer breath. “Give me your cigarettes and I walk away. You owe them to me. That’s the price for staring at my girl.”
For Baggs, this ultimatum was unacceptable. He would not be able to buy any more cigarettes that weekend if he also wanted to drink the next night—which he did. So, he uttered the words that he knew would lead to a fight. “Screw you.” He then pushed Baldy roughly in the chest. Baldy took a step back and sneered at the big teenager.
Baggs slipped off his stool and stood at his full height. For a moment, he thought that he saw fear in Baldy’s eyes. He thought that his height surprised the man.
But it didn’t intimidate Baldy enough to stop the fight. He took a fighter’s stance, balling his hands into fists. Baggs did the same, and then took two steps forward. As he did so, something remarkable happened—he didn’t feel as drunk anymore. With the approaching threat of a physical altercation, his mind became sharper. The ground no longer wobbled so much beneath his feet. His senses were attuned to things around him. He could hear the heavy breaths come in and out of Baldy’s nose. He could see a jagged scar underneath his eye. And, most importantly, he noticed Baldy’s weight shift before he began to punch.
Baldy’s right hand came flying at Baggs’s face, and hit him square in the jaw. The collision was painful, but Baggs had seen the punch coming, and so he had rolled with it, lessening the force of impact. Scattered voices cheered from around the bar at the start of a fight. A fight was a lot more entertaining than watching the band—especially when Baldy was involved. Baldy was known for being creative during fights.
Baldy punched again, but Baggs was able to sidestep. Baldy went forward a few paces so that he wouldn’t fall with the momentum of his punch, and then caught onto the edge of the bar so that he wouldn’t slip on the whiskey on the floor.
Baldy turned around and looked at Baggs. They were a few paces apart.
Baggs felt blood beating in his ears. His cheek was growing hot where he had been punched. His jaw was clenched. His hands were curled into fists the size of softballs. He was getting mad.
Baldy’s next move took Baggs by surprise. He grabbed a barstool, and threw it at Baggs with a swift rotation of his torso. The barstool soared through the air at an alarming speed towards Baggs’s face, but he was able to deflect the object with his huge hands.
Before he could look back, Baldy was there. He hit Baggs in the stomach, knocking him breathless, and then brought a fist up into Baggs’s face. Baggs lifted his arms to blindly defend himself, and just by luck, the next two punches were averted.
The people watching at that time must have thought that Baggs was in trouble, but it was just the opposite. Baggs had a mental switch—just like everyone—that told his body to dump adrenaline into his bloodstream and go crazy with frantic effort for a few short moments. The phenomenon is seen a lot in life or death situations; a one hundred pound woman lifting a car off her child, a man jumping horizontally over twenty feet from one rooftop to another to escape a burning building. Everyone has an arcane switch that, if turned on, makes them as strong as if they were having a grand mal seizure, but only for a moment; the thing with Baggs was that his switch was easier to turn on than other people’s.
In Baggs’s mind, time slowed. He saw blood pulsing through a vein atop Baldy’s head. He heard his skin make friction against his shirt as he shifted his stance. Baldy got in another blow on the back of his forearms, and Baggs saw his skin ripple out from the point of impact. It didn’t hurt.
Baggs looked at Baldy. He could tell from the man’s smug expression that he thought he was winning. Baggs felt like killing him.
Baldy reared back and swung wildly again. Instead of blocking the punch with the back of his forearms, Baggs put his palm up and caught the blow in his left palm. Then, he smiled. He leaned forward and before Baldy could react, he headbutted the smaller man in between the eyes. While Baldy was still dazed, Baggs threw his first punch. It was all he would need.
When Baggs threw the punch, he was still in a state of heightened sensitivity. He felt his legs, abdomen, and back tighten like springs as he cocked his hand back for the blow. This will kill him, he thought, sensing his own strength. I’m going to kill him with a single punch. I feel like I could break his skull. Baggs didn’t care. It turned out, he didn’t kill Baldy with that punch, but he felt like he could have.
A cascade of huge muscles contracted over his body, he twisted and uncoiled, feeling rage like a hurricane screaming inside his head. His fist made contact with the tip of the man’s zygomatic bone, which stuck out on his cheek, and Baggs felt it break beneath the immense pressure. Baldy’s face crumpled to a grotesque, bleeding form, and he went instantly unconscious.
But Baggs wasn’t done. Baldy slumped over and Baggs grabbed the limp body by the front of the shirt and launched him over the bar where he fell to the floor below. The bartender stepped out of the way. Baldy could have fallen and broken his neck. But Baggs didn’t care.
When it was over, he became aware of the terrible silence. Eyes were on him from all around the bar, including the eyes of Baldy’s girlfriend. Baggs had heard of her reputation. She liked tough guys. By the way she was eying him, she liked him too. She didn’t know that Baggs was fifteen.
Suddenly, Baggs felt incredibly tired. Even though the fight had only lasted seconds, he had put as much energy into it as he would have if he had run a marathon and then competed in a weight lifting competition. His arms felt like they weighed one hundred pounds each, and they hung limp beside him.
The eyes upon him were unnerving.
What the hell just happened to me? He wondered. He felt like he had just been possessed by a demon. He felt like something else had taken over, and that
during the fight he had had no control over himself.
It had felt good. He had felt powerful.
But now, it was over and he needed to rest. He had the bartender pull up his tab and he placed his thumbprint on electronic pad, paying for his bill and tipping generously. He grabbed his pack of cigarettes and began walking out. Everyone was still watching him. The band still had not resumed playing. From behind the bar, Baldy was moaning. He would be alright. His broken face would take months to heal, but he didn’t die from the fight that night, and in a few months he was as good as new, except a bit uglier. He never talked to Baggs again.
No one moved as Baggs walked towards the exit. He put a cigarette in his mouth and was almost at the door when he realized he didn’t have any matches. He turned to one of the men sitting at a table. There were a box of matches with the name of the bar sitting in a bowl beside the man.
“Will you hand me a couple packs of matches?” Baggs said.
The man reached for them, and held out a few for Baggs. Baggs noticed his hands were shaking.
“Gracious,” Baggs said. He took the matches and walked outside. No one began talking until he had left the building.
The gang took note of him; they decided that they would approach him with a proposition the next time they saw him.
5
Baggs was slumped into a leather seat as the blades above whirred in a circular motion, sending the helicopter through the air.
He still did not know where it was taking him. There were eight days before the next episode of Outlive. Am I going straight to the Colosseum? Turner’s house? Somewhere else—maybe some training facility?
The cabin on the inside of the helicopter was expensively decorated. The seats were black leather—impeccably cleaned and shining. Leather bench seats lined the four walls of the cabin. Upon inspection, Baggs found that one of the seats folded out to make a bed. Pillows and blankets were neatly stored in a compartment that lined the ceiling. There were seatbelts, but Baggs did not wear one. If this thing crashes, I’ll die with or without a safety belt. By looking out one of the square windows he could see the clear blue sky. Far below, little houses were diminished to the size of gnats by the perspective of such an altitude. There was a mini-fridge under one of the fold-away seat cushions; inside Baggs found beer, wine, sandwiches wrapped in cellophane, fruit, protein drinks, and bottles of water. Baggs took a bottle of water and passed on the other accommodations; he was still full from lunch. The floor was carpeted with grey mats, which Baggs was thankful for beneath his aching, shoeless feet. The ceiling was roughly six feet three inches above the floor; Baggs only had to stoop slightly to stand up. There were buttons for the thermostat against one of the walls, and Baggs kept the cabin at sixty-eight degrees as he cruised above the earth, piloted by a computer. The seat vibrated with the work of the engine.
