“Well done,” Charlie told him without taking his eyes off the book. “Now you can rest... until the end of your shift. I can see you’re tired, after all. Choose any sofa.”
Hagen didn’t object to this suggestion of his boss one bit—it sounded extremely appealing. He reached the nearest sofa and fell onto it. Then he grabbed his lunch bag and polished everything off in a minute.
The system finally gave him the satisfying message that he’d consumed enough calories to restructure his body.
Before falling asleep, Hagen opened his stat window and invested a point into Stamina. If he’d have to fight again that night, he’d be a little more resistant to injuries. Strength needed a point, too—he’d have to punch as hard as he could and try to knock out his opponent. The only kind of victory considered legit in the wooden ring was making your opponent completely unable to fight, and that couldn’t be helped.
He used two more points to level up his Agility and Luck.
Hagen decided to keep his two remaining points until the end of the cooldown of Tactical Pause. Whatever Demetrious might have told him, the ability to stop time (even if he didn’t actually stop it) was too alluring to ignore.
Mike tried to level up this new ability but the system rejected his attempt.
You can level the Tactical Pause ability up to 2 only if your Perception characteristic is 10 or more.
The second level stretched the ability’s time to two seconds and a half, with one tenth of a second gained with every new level of the skill. Each level required Perception to go up by 10 points. That would be impossible to achieve in just a single year of the license’s validity.
Those Martian programmers had thought about everything.
Hagen leveled the Close Distance Combo up to 3, noting that every level gave him a new move or a new attack he could use as part of the combination. The ability could be upped to a maximum of five levels.
Then Mike upped his Arm Blocking skill to Level 3, his Kick to 6, and used the remaining ability point for Downward Jump Punch. He’d have to keep Blinky Palermo surprised by his range of skills to get out of the damn prison, especially given that he’d started to get used to it. Mike found that most uncanny.
The interface alarm clock woke him up a few hours later, just at the end of his shift. He felt rested, chipper, and totally ravenous. His HP bar was almost full, just a few percent short of a hundred. His neck hurt, but less so. That was good, too—he wouldn’t have to visit Doctor Borkowski now.
Charlie Evans had already gone, leaving his book behind. Hagen couldn’t resist his curiosity and took a look at the cover. He wasn’t surprised to see one of St. Ian’s brochures distributed by Jim.
The inmates started to assemble the ring at the center of the workshop. Hagen had already come to terms with the idea there’d be a fight that night, but they searched him and sent him away with all the other inmates. He barely managed to ask General what the matter was.
“Spoiling for a fight, kid?” General laughed. “A new batch of prisoners arrived, so we’ll try them out in the ring tonight. You’re already on the List, so take it easy. Things are going to get hot for you pretty soon. Enjoy your free time—as if anything could be free inside a prison, ha ha.”
* * *
HAGEN HEADED straight to the canteen for his dinner. He no longer felt hungry, and the system didn’t complain about the lack of calories anymore. But that was a small consolation. If he did a proper workout in the yard, he’d burn a lot of calories, and have no access to nutrients that could compensate for their loss. What would happen then?
Mike decided to proceed carefully and build up the effort slowly. He ran a lap in the prison yard, then another. The system didn’t object. Then he started to train in his regular mode—inasmuch as it was possible without access to weightlifting machines. He did squats, push-ups, and stretching, trying to recollect every exercise he knew. He didn’t even look at the weightlifting machines, let alone approach them, although he’d heard a few aggressive invitations to “come over and give it a try.”
He ignored every provocation and spent a long time shadowboxing.
The workout did him a world of good. Even the pain in his shoulder went away to be replaced by a pleasant kind of tiredness. Hagen left the prison yard paying no attention to the representatives of both gangs promising him that “the shadow would fight back” in the wooden ring. He went up to his cell and took April’s booklet off the shelf. He couldn’t remember the number of her mobile phone, but there was contact information for her Krav Maga courses printed on the booklet.
Prior to getting locked up, Hagen had signed a bunch of papers, including the “Telephone Privilege” agreement. He would thus get the right to call ten people whose names he’d write down in the agreement from time to time. He’d have to apply for each call in writing and specify the purpose of the conversation. He’d instantly lose the privilege for any unauthorized use of the telephone, of course. He hadn’t paid much attention to that paper, having been in a state of shock; all he’d mournfully reflected on was that he couldn’t think of ten people who’d play an important enough part in his life for him to want to call them. Even the gangsters had more friends and relatives than he did.
Nevertheless, he applied for a phone call to April Connell on the very first day. He’d specified the purpose of the call as “private conversation,” but he’d had no idea of what he could possibly tell her. He’d wanted to call her for days, but his initial period behind bars had turned out so eventful it made him forget all about it.
He decided the time was right for him to use his privilege. The telephone booths were right next to the recreation room, but one had to get permission from the guard before making a call.
It was evening, and a lot of inmates had lined up in front of the booths. Hagen felt like he was in a queue for a merry-go-round in an amusement park on a public holiday.
“What a babe,” one of the inmates said. “Can I ride her for a while?”
Hagen turned around. The guy was of average height, very thin, his face skewed to the right, which made him look like a Labrador Retriever looking out of a moving car’s window. The resemblance was amplified by how he stuck the tip of his tongue out as he looked at April’s photograph.
Trevor Leaf
Age: 26
Level: 5
HP: 12,000
Battles/victories: 121/12
Weight: 191 lbs
Height: 5’ 5”
Current status: Inmate
Reputation: Indifference (8/10)
Resistance to your Charisma: low (6/10)
Mike didn’t deign to answer, but Trevor continued,
“Too stingy, are you? Eh? What can you say, then? A stingy bastard, aren’t you?”
Hagen didn’t understand what Trevor might have wanted from him. He didn’t need to be a psychologist to realize that the other man had been scared and still tried to provoke him.
“Beat it while you’re still alive, you miserable shit,” said Hagen curtly.
The system confirmed verbal damage but did not count it as a victory. Trevor must have been too worthless an opponent.
“Oh, so you’re a rude one, eh?” said a pouting Trevor. “I guess I’ll have to steal her from you, then.”
What had happened next reminded Hagen one of those all-too-familiar scenes from his childhood. Trevor snatched the booklet away from him and ran off, laughing idiotically. There was so much fear and despair written all over his face Mike couldn’t understand why he’d do it in the first place.
Hagen dashed after Trevor without giving any thought to the absurdity of the other man’s actions or the fact that there might be something other but utter stupidity behind them.
Trevor took a turn toward one of the corridors open to the inmates during the daytime. That particular one connected the prison block with the library.
Trevor slowed down, as if tired of running, letting Hagen catch up with him. Then he turned around. There w
as something sharp and shiny in his hand. The corridor was dark, but Mike could still see it was a glass shard with paper and a piece of cloth wrapped around it.
Trevor kept on trembling, looking terrified. “Back off! I don’t want to kill you!”
“As if you could,” Hagen said.
He followed April’s instructions to the point, taking a step sideways to evade a possible attack, but it never came. Twisting Trevor’s weak arm didn’t take more than a second. The man howled in pain and crouched from the submission hold. The shard fell out of his hand and broke.
“Let me go, let me go,” Trevor kept whining.
Hagen grabbed the booklet from the other hand of the hapless robber. The system ignored his victory again.
“Dem? What’s the matter? Why has there been no ‘victory in a fair fight’ this time? Do I have to knock him out?”
“It wasn’t a fight, buddy. The opponent didn’t intend to battle you.”
“They made me do it! I didn’t want to!” Trevor confirmed Dem’s words as he started picking up pieces of broken glass.
Hagen could see a bunch of people approach him from both sides of the corridor. All of them wore their prison uniform tops tied around their belt in the Sureños Familia style.
Trevor’s purpose was to lure him into a trap, away from the guards.
Hagen had nowhere to run. He folded the booklet and put it in his pocket.
One of the gangsters kicked Trevor. “If you can’t cut someone, don’t try it, moron.”
The guy bowed guiltily, snorted in the snot that had been dangling from his nose and ran off, his hand full of broken glass.
The four gangsters gathered around Hagen. Each of them would be a serious opponent even on his own.
The one who’d acted like the leader of the group was nicknamed Caesar.
Ricardo “Caesar” Alvarez
Age: 33
Level: 14
HP: 34,000
Battles/victories: 393/302
Weight: 242 lbs
Height: 5’ 8”
Current status: Sureños Familia gang member
Reputation: Scorn (8/10)
Resistance to your Charisma: high (4/10)
The rest of them were Level 13 or higher as well. Only one of them was afraid of Hagen, judging by his low resistance to Mike’s charisma. There would always be someone scared in any company. The likes of them should be ignored—once a scared person realizes they have nothing to fear in a fight, they’ll stay well away from the action.
Hagen vaguely remembered having seen this guy in the wooden ring the previous evening. That particular gang member had been well aware of what Hagen was capable of and tried to keep his distance, doing his best to suppress signs of panic.
Mike grinned. The guy was afraid, even though there were four of them against one of him.
Just like the time when he’d had to face St. Ian’s overzealous devotees, he realized it would make no sense to ask them what they wanted. Any question would be interpreted as a sign of weakness in such a situation.
He calmly let Ricardo approach, staring him straight in the eye and caring little for the anger he saw there.
“Lorenzo sends his regards,” said Ricardo.
“Give my regards to him as well.”
“He’s in solitary confinement, so we’ll give you something else as well.”
Hagen knew this would be followed by an attack, and even managed to put up a block, but he hadn’t yet been aware of the fact that no one fights fair in prison. He felt a sharp pain flare up in his left side, which spread all over his body in a split second.
Damage received: 3,000
Hagen feared it might have been a shiv, but the damage was low enough. Just a punch in the liver, then, followed by a punch in each kidney.
Damage received: 2,300
Damage received: 2,400
He’d lost half his HP after just three attacks. These people knew how to do damage with precision and in the shortest possible amount of time.
There was no space to turn around in the corridor and reach the gangsters on the sides, so Hagen’s only quarry could be the leader. He focused his efforts on him.
First Hagen went for his favorite combo, but only one punch of his four connected—the final hook.
Damage dealt: 19,000 points (Punch)
The block has been overridden.
Someone tried to grab Hagen by the arms from behind and immobilize him. Yet he slipped out the way he would slip out of strangleholds in the ring and carried on pummeling Ricardo.
Damage dealt: 4,000 (Kick)
In the meantime, the other gangsters kept on punching him. Hagen bit back the old familiar pain that would make his eyes water, focusing on finishing off Ricardo.
The other man looked worse for the wear, throwing a few punches way off the mark. Hagen evaded and punched the gangster in the stomach, nearly falling into a crouch.
Ricardo doubled over and howled, his voice amplified by the corridor echoes.
He fell to the floor.
Congratulations! You’ve defeated an opponent in a fair fight!
XP points received: 3 (three times the experience for your first victory over an opponent of a higher level).
XP points received on the current level (8): 8/8
You’ve received a new level!
Current level: 9
XP points received on the current level (9): 1/9
Characteristic points available: 1
Skill points available: 1
Hagen collapsed right after Ricardo. He was lying in fetal position, protecting his head with his arms as he was showered with kicks. The pillar of light that always appeared at the most inopportune moment engulfed him, but Hagen didn’t care much for the ecstasy it brought. He felt like he was dying.
As the pillar of light blinked out, the glow at the end of the corridor started to fade as well.
That must have been the end. That’s where they’d kill him.
* * *
PETER HAGEN was sitting at the bar at Chuck’s, going through his third pint and his third bowl of peanuts. All his thoughts were about his nephew. Quite a few days had gone by, and he still hadn’t managed to visit him in prison.
“The thing is, Mikey has been a... well, a nobody all his life,” Peter told Chuck Morrison. “Then he transformed completely once he started to fight in the ring.”
Chuck listened the way only good bartenders do, making the client feel that the establishment’s only purpose was for him to let his grief out at the bar.
“It was indeed a miraculous transformation,” Chuck agreed.
“Exactly. It was just like a miracle. But now... I’m afraid of going there and see him falling to pieces again. He might put on a brave face but he’d been a weakling all his life. I don’t believe he can make it through prison.”
Chuck stroked his mustache, then said loudly to emphasize the seriousness of his words,
“In that case, there’s all the more reason for you to visit him. The boy could do with some support.”
Peter sighed. “I know. But there’s a certain person I have unfinished business with in this town. There’s this cop called Riggs who’d promised me to find something that could help Mikey. He finally called today to arrange a meeting.”
“He’s an ex-cop,” Chuck said. “He often comes here with Howell. The other joint with the strippers, I mean.”
“Hold on a second. Is that the same Howell who’d gotten Mike jailed? Yeah. I remember seeing him in court. So, Riggs is his buddy, then?”
“Right on.”
“What would he want with me?” Peter Hagen rose from the bar. “If I’d known this before, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time. I’d better go and see Mikey.”
“I’d linger a while if I were you.”
At that moment, Riggs turned up at the bar. He ordered a pint of lager and some well-done wings, then took Peter to one of the tables.
“Look, Peter, you’ve been in th
e army, so I’ll just give it to you straight, no frills.”
Riggs fell silent waiting for the waiter to place the beer and the bucket of wings on the table. Peter Hagen stayed silent too, although he’d hated this cop’s mannerism. They all loved to make pauses for emphasis.
Riggs didn’t hurry to speak, trying Peter’s patience. He took a sip of beer, bit on a chicken wing and started chewing.
Peter rose from the table and started walking away.
“Hey, come back,” Riggs said, laughing. “I know you’re a tough guy. What if I told you I had a CCTV footage that makes it clear your nephew didn’t attack but rather tried to defend himself?”
“You want to sell it to me?” Peter frowned, clenching his fists. “I should let you know right away that I have no money.”
“Hell no, what are you talking about?” Riggs banged his fist on the table. “I’d like to get Mikey out of the slammer and make a few quick bucks on the side.”
“A few quick bucks?”
“You got it. I’ll split it fifty-fifty with Mikey.”
Riggs took his time sipping his beer, than grabbed a handful of peanuts. He didn’t eat them, though—he just smelled them and licked off the salt.
“I can’t eat them anymore. All those damn ailments. And I really used to love peanuts...”
“You know where you can stick your peanuts?” Peter snapped, losing his patience. “Give up your copper pauses already. They don’t affect me!”
“Oh, but they do,” Riggs grinned. “Look at you, all worked up already. OK, so this is the plan. We make sure Goretsky’s case doesn’t hold water anymore and scare that girl Alexa Hepworth a little. We’ll ask her for an out-of court settlement in exchange for not accusing them of tampering with the evidence.”
“A settlement? Do you mean blackmail?”
“Nope. We won’t get as greedy as blackmailers usually do, and ask her for sixty grand—thirty for me, and thirty for Mike. Trust me: I know where blackmailers always screw up. It’s easier for the victim to call the cops than to settle. A small settlement, on the other hand, is much more convenient than a public scandal.”
Level Up- The Knockout Page 35
