by Chad Leito
Caballas shut the door behind Baggs and walked around him. Though her muscles were taught and she had almost no body fat, her fake breasts were perky and filled out her top in an unnatural way. “Hmmm. What should I do with you? Where should I start?”
“Could I get some shoes or slippers or something? My feet are killing…”
“Yes. In the closet—that door in the back—there are some slippers. But for good heavens, don’t put them on until after you’ve bathed! God! You stink. Usually we have contestants bathe after their haircuts, but you’re just going to have to take two baths. No way around it. Hold on.” She walked over to some cabinets in the wall and began to open and close them until she found what she was looking for—a black trash bag. She handed it to Baggs. “Take a bath, and put your clothes in there.”
“My clothes?”
“Yes. Must I repeat everything? Your clothes. Underwear and all. You’ll find some other things to wear in the closet—surely there will be items that fit you,” she said, looking him head to toe. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes. I shouldn’t have to clarify some things, but I will—shampoo all your body hair, head to toe. Use hot water—you really stink. If it isn’t painful, it isn’t hot enough. There is a washcloth with bristles—you’ve probably never seen one before—it will exfoliate you. Put soap in it and scrub hard, got it? You may want to wash once and then empty the water and wash again. God, you smell terrible.” With those words, she walked out, leaving Baggs standing there, holding the trash bag.
When the door was shut, he took off his clothes and put them in the trash bag, just as she had advised. He didn’t want to throw the shirt away—it was sentimental for him because Tessa had given it to him—but he did anyway. He kissed it before putting it in the trash bag.
Naked, he approached the bathtub. He turned on the hot water and was surprised to find that there was no lag between turning it on and the water warming up; it came out steaming. He turned on the cold water until the faucet-water was a comfortable temperature and then got in. He didn’t wait for the water to fill the enormous tub; he thought that would be wasteful. He splashed the water over his body, found a bottle of shampoo, and then lathered up every inch of himself. He was hairy all over, and so in order to abide by Caballas’s terms, he had to cover himself with shampoo. He then rinsed, drained the water, filled it up, and repeated the process.
When he was rinsed again, he felt remarkable clean and refreshed. He supposed that this was a result of such expensive soap. He stood, drained the water, and dried himself off with one of the plush towels. He used his fingers to brush his bangs to the side so that the hairs did not impede his vision and stepped out.
Now that he was clean, he walked over to the closet and looked in. The closet was carpeted, which was good for his aching feet. He walked inside. There were racks of shoes, sandals, heels, and clothing racks as well. There were also shelves. He found new XL underwear—they were boxer shorts with the Emperor’s face on them—on one of the shelves. He also put on a pair of white socks that he found. His clothing choices were limited, and he ended up wearing a pink Polo shirt and chino pants. Just for fun, he belted the pants and put on a pair of boat shoes. He walked over to one of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors and thought that Tessa would laugh if she saw him wearing these clothes. He didn’t look bad. In these clothes, people wouldn’t think that he was homeless at all. They wouldn’t think that he was rich, either, though. He looked down at his broken hand, and then at the unkempt mop of black hair atop his head.
Caballas knocked and then entered. “Much better,” she said. “Now, to work on that hair.”
“Do you have to cut my hair?”
“It was in the contract you signed.”
Baggs nodded and walked over to the barber chair. He didn’t know that getting groomed was in his contract. He was so happy to see that Tessa would be getting so much money that he hadn’t bothered to read it in Tartuga’s office. He wondered what else he had unknowingly agreed to.
He watched in the mirror as Caballas used clippers to trim his head. Inches of hair were removed from his chin and from the top of his head until all the lengths were neat and uniform.
“I think I’ll leave a little bit of beard,” Caballas told him. “It makes you look kind of wild.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“And the color isn’t too bad if it’s cut properly. Hmmmm. Your eyebrows look terrible. They have got to be trimmed.”
Baggs looked at his eyebrows. They were bushy and long; he had never even considered grooming them before. She leaned the chair back until Baggs was facing the ceiling. Then, she began applying hot wax around his eyebrows with some kind of utensil.
“So, does the betting change the competition?” he asked.
“Don’t talk while I’m doing this,” she said. “But it doesn’t really change the competition for you. There are financial benefits to your owners. The bookies like to pay off the owners who draw in the most money as a reward.”
Baggs grunted.
Caballas pressed paper to the areas where she had just spread hot wax. “This is going to hurt,” she said.
Baggs grunted again.
With a quick snap of her wrist, Caballas pulled the paper off of Baggs’s face. The sensation stung, but didn’t hurt too much. The paper was covered in long, thick hair.
She waxed the rest of his eyebrows, and then took scissors and cut them short. After that, Caballas shaved Baggs’s neck and cheeks so that his beard was sharply outlined. She sat him up and he examined himself in the mirror.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I don’t look like myself,” he said. He had always been used to seeing himself with a shaggy haircut and beard.
“Good,” she responded. “Now take another bath to get all the loose hair out and I’ll be back.”
He did so, only washing his body once this time, and then redressed in the Polo shirt and chino pants. When she returned, she thoroughly took his measurements, left again, and then returned with a tuxedo.
“Why do I have to look so nice?” Baggs asked.
Caballas sighed impatiently. “It’s a nice dinner. The owners and celebrities don’t want the ambiance killed by a bunch of stinking, underdressed homeless people.”
“Oh,” Baggs said. He wished that instead of paying for a personal stylist and putting him in a tuxedo, they would have given the capital it cost to do those things to Tessa.
Caballas helped Baggs get into the tuxedo, because he had never been in one before. She then styled his hair with shaping cream that smelled like mint, and rubbed moisturizer into his face. Baggs stared at himself for a long time in the mirror.
“Do you like how you look?” Caballas asked.
“Like I said, I just can’t believe it. I look like a new person.” He wished that Tessa could see him. He hadn’t even looked so nice on their wedding day. If he were dressed like this when he tried to take the cake out of the Thurman’s garbage bin, they would have given him no trouble.
Caballas was smiling at him. “You look very handsome. C’mon, we’ve got to go. Dinner will start soon.” She grabbed him by the shirtsleeve and led him out the door.
6
“Wait, I forgot something,” Caballas said. She slipped back inside the room, leaving Baggs standing unattended in the hallway. The area was spacious, with numbered doors lining the walls on either side; all the doors looked like the one Baggs had just come out of.
As he was waiting for Caballas to return, one of the doors opposite him opened, and two men walked out. One was dressed in a white shirt with embroidered roses stitched all over it. He had a tasteful beard and no eyebrows. Baggs assumed that he was a stylist, like Caballas. Following the stylist out the door was a man dressed almost exactly like Baggs, wearing a black tuxedo. He was short and gaunt with skin the color of cinnamon. His hair was black and gelled up into messy spikes. Baggs guessed that the other man had also just received a haircut.
He’s
a competitor, Baggs thought. I may have to kill him in the Colosseum if I want to live.
Baggs caught eyes with the other man in the tuxedo, and they nodded at each other. Judging by the other man’s solemn eyes as he looked at Baggs, Baggs thought that they were thinking the same thing. He watched as the two men walked down the long hall and noticed that the other competitor was wearing something metal around his neck.
The door behind him opened and Caballas walked out, carrying small items in her hands. “I can’t believe I almost forgot,” she said, and then exhaled roughly out of her strange nose. “I could have gotten fired for that. Or at least severely punished.”
She took a small pin and attached it to the breast of Baggs’s jacket.
“What’s this for?” Baggs asked.
“To signify which team you’re on.”
The pin was gold and shiny; it was shaped to look like a faceless man punching the air.
“Oh, Boxers,” Baggs said.
Caballas didn’t respond. She straightened out the other object in her hands and Baggs looked at it. She was holding what appeared to be a metallic caterpillar, as thick as a human thumb and two feet long. Small metallic legs moved back and forth on the bottom side, and the object twisted and turned in Caballas’s hands.
“Bend down,” she said.
“What is that?”
“Bend down.”
Baggs obeyed and she put the device around his neck. The robot wrapped one and a half times around Baggs’s neck. Caballas removed her hands and watched for a moment. The cold metal squirmed and readjusted on Baggs’s neck until it found a suitable position, and then it was still. Having the animated necklace on was unnerving, and it was too tight for comfort.
“What is this thing?” Baggs asked again.
“It’s a security measure. It’s called a Choke.”
“It chokes people?”
“It can. It can also electrocute people, cut their heads off, and inject them with sedative. There will be guards watching on hidden cameras during dinner. If any of the competitors try something funny, the guards will administer the appropriate punishment. They usually don’t kill people, they just sedate them. Owners get upset when their contestants are killed.”
Baggs ran his finger over the ridges on the Choke that was wrapped around his neck. “I guess that wearing one of these was in my contract.”
“It was. You should read documents more carefully before signing them. This way, please.” She walked down the hallway, following the route that Baggs had seen his competitor take. He watched her fake muscles move as she strode a few paces in front of him.
After an elevator ride and two more hallways, Caballas came to a halt in front of a big wooden door. It said “BOXERS” on it. “Well, this is where I let you go. Good luck, James.”
Baggs realized that he had never told her to call him Baggs. “You too,” he said.
She smiled with her horse teeth and then opened the door. He stepped in and she shut it behind him.
Baggs was standing in a room, facing a round dinner table. There was a white tablecloth over the table, and covered dishes in the center. Each chair had a golden plate, golden silverware, a folded napkin, a wine glass, and a water glass in front of it. There was one unclaimed chair, and the rest had people sitting in them. They all had Chokes on and Boxer pins. Baggs assessed them.
Besides Baggs, the Boxers had two males and four females. Baggs was the seventh member of the team. The faces of the other contestants stared at him. No one spoke for a moment.
These are the people who I will enter the Colosseum with. If I want to live, I will have to learn to work with these people.
Baggs did not speak. He walked around the table until he reached the unclaimed seat. He pulled out the plush chair and sat down.
“You’re big,” said one of the females across from him. She had pink hair that was shaved in the back; her bangs were parted and ran down to her jaw.
Baggs nodded. He picked up the water pitcher and poured some into his glass. Baggs sipped on his water. Everyone was looking at him, but no one spoke for a moment. He wondered if they somehow associated him with Regina Eldridge’s death. He wondered if they all knew each other already.
“Can you talk?” Asked the pink haired girl in a rude tone.
Baggs looked at her. She was intense. Her blue eyes didn’t flinch under his glare. She had an enormous nose and a protruding forehead. Her ears each had over eight piercings in them. She wasn’t classically attractive, but in her own fierce way she was pretty. “Yeah. I can talk. Can we eat?”
“No, a lady came in earlier and told us to wait,” the pink haired woman said. She was young—maybe twenty-two.
“I thought we were supposed to eat in a cage,” Baggs said, looking around.
The pink haired girl nodded. “This room is an elevator. When the time comes, we’ll be elevated into a cage so that all the rich snobs can watch us eat.”
Baggs smiled. He liked this pink haired girl.
“I’m Spinks,” she said.
Baggs had the feeling that he had heard that name before, but couldn’t remember from where. “Is that a nickname or your real name?” he asked.
“Nickname,” she answered.
“I’m Baggs.”
“Is that your nickname or your real name?”
“Nickname,” he said.
She nodded, leaned back, and folded her arms. No one spoke for a second. Baggs looked at everyone’s faces. All his teammates were on edge—tense. Baggs was edgy, also. They were all in a completely novel situation; how are you supposed to act when you meet people that you’re going to enter a death arena with?
Baggs recognized one of the faces at the table—she was pseudo famous—Hailey Vixen. Hailey Vixen had bright red lipstick on with her golden hair pinned atop her head. She was short—five foot two inches. Her dress was more revealing than the dresses the other females were wearing. It showed a lot of her porcelain skin and clung tightly in the other areas.
Hailey Vixen had been in the newspaper two weeks ago; it had somehow come out that she had been having sex with Bob Winters, a councilman. She was a prostitute. Bob Winters was a family man with two kids and a wife. Hailey had been charged with prostitution when the scandal went public, and was given the option of either a death sentence or competing in Outlive. For celebrities who commit crimes, the choice to compete in Outlive was common. Celebrities competing helped the ratings.
Bob Winters was not punished.
Baggs sipped on his water some more and examined the rest of his teammates, taking note of their age and apparent physical condition. Only one of his teammates appeared older than fifty—the man sitting beside him. It was odd to have such a young team. Baggs supposed that it wouldn’t be so young, though, if Regina Eldridge hadn’t been killed and replaced.
Several conversations began to form around the table. Baggs looked at the man to his right. He had gray, slicked back hair, and wore glasses. Sitting down next to Baggs, the top of his head came to Baggs’s shoulder. He appeared to be in the worst shape out of all the contestants. He smelled like cigarette smoke. “They let you smoke in here?” Baggs asked him.
“Huh?”
“You smell like smoke. Have you been smoking?”
The graying man nodded.
“How did you get to smoke?”
“I just asked my stylist and she brought me some cigarettes.”
“Damn,” Baggs said. “I should have thought of that. I’ve been jonesing for a cigarette all day.”
“You’re Baggs, right?” the graying man asked.
“Yeah.”
“My name is Larry Wight. Nice to meet you.”
They shook hands; Baggs was surprised at how big Larry’s hands were for his size. Larry was fleshy all over—not very toned at all.
“This thing on my neck is driving me nuts,” Larry said, pointing at his Choke.
“Yeah, me too,” Baggs said. “Every so often the metal prongs s
hift a little bit. It gives me the creeps. Makes me feel like I’ve got an animal on me.”
Larry’s eyes grew wider. “Yeah, man. I think they want you to feel that way. It’s psychological. They probably program it so that it wiggles every few minutes, just to remind you that you’re in their control.”
Baggs thought that the device just needed to shift to reposition itself sometimes, but he didn’t feel like arguing. He nodded.
“It’s so strange the way our society is set up. It’s odd to think how little would have to change for it to be us controlling everything and the rich guys to be sitting somewhere with threatening robots around their necks.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it,” Larry said. “Everything is on computers now, right? Everything is stored electronically. A hundred years ago, there was actually physical money that backed everything—everything was represented with dollars. If you wanted to take someone’s money, you had to break into a bank, or their house, or something like that. Now, that’s not the case. Do you know anything about computer science?”
“Not really.”
“Well, I won’t bore you with a ton of details. But basically everything is coded with the digits ‘one’ and ‘zero.’ There are billions of these things inside of each computer, and they can code for, like, anything. This Choke, for example—every one of its leg movements is just a bunch of code. All you’d have to do is know the right passwords and the right combinations of ‘ones’ and ‘zeros’ and you could make the thing release. Likewise, all you’d have to do to become mega rich is just make a few ‘ones’ and ‘zeros’ change places inside of the banking software. It’d be so easy! Well, in practice, it’s not that easy. I guess what I mean is that in the system we have, everything is so pliable, metaphorically speaking. Let me give you an example. Lot’s of rich people have K9s, right?”
