by Mike Brooks
“I’m calling in my squads,” Gao replied, not looking at her. “Come on, you son of a dog, answer me!”
“No!” Song snapped. “That’s is unacceptable; we need to—”
“Shut up, girl, and get back to minding your gaming tables,” Gao snorted. “The game has changed, so now we play things my way. If she thinks we’re after her blood, she’ll call in on the shipment, and then we’re all fucked. We have to get to her before she thinks to do that.” He turned away from her, pressing the commpiece farther into his ear. “Wei, get your boys ready. Chief Han’s on the run with a man and a woman wearing cop uniforms.
“Kill them all.”
BYCATCH
Lukas Ivanovic was smaller than Apirana, but not by much. Drift watched him bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and swinging his arms back and forth across his hairy chest. The big fighter was apparently in his late thirties, and his face certainly bore testament to the fact that he’d spent much of his adult life involved in violent pursuits, with a nose that was bent right over on one side and two cauliflower ears, not to mention a few choice scars. Drift couldn’t work out if Ivanovic had never had the money to have the damage repaired, or simply couldn’t be bothered. Perhaps there wasn’t much point while you were still fighting, Drift mused: Wait until you retired, then get everything fixed up at once.
“Go get him, big man,” he told Apirana quietly as the ringside official checked the Māori’s mouthguard and gloves. It was meaningless noise, of course, but both of them were used to playing a character to work a scam. It was just that this was someone else’s scam.
“You got it, bro,” Big A replied with a grin, then imperiously waved aside the official and faced the cage. Drift stepped back as well and watched as the big Māori dropped into a crouch and began bellowing his war chant.
He stuck his hand into his pocket as Apirana began slapping his arms and felt the reassuring presence of the credit chip Serenity Chen had begrudgingly handed over a few minutes previously. Apirana had checked it in his pad, and the money was good: seventeen thousand stars, just as promised. What with the money from their original win betting on Apirana, and the big score his crew was hopefully securing from Chief Han any moment now, it was enough to bring them over the half a million mark despite the various bribes and expenses they’d had to lay out to make this venture work.
Assuming, of course, that Jenna, Muradov, and the Changs weren’t having any troubles with what was admittedly a somewhat thrown-together plan. It all relied on Han being taken in for a minute or so, and Jia or Kuai being able to tell one end of a Taser from the other. Drift thought that both those things were likely, but knew all too well that there were never any certainties in life.
He had to believe that they could pull it off. The alternatives if they couldn’t were so dire that they didn’t bear thinking about until there was no other option.
Of course, he reflected, if it did work out, this was an object lesson for all of them. This was a hugely ambitious job, but it came with a big reward. His crew was capable of pulling off some truly remarkable feats when they stretched themselves: It was just a shame that the motivation for such things normally had to be the threat of imminent death. Perhaps if they could get that level of motivation in normal circumstances then they might have a better chance of turning a profit out of the galaxy. . . .
Apirana stormed up the steps into the cage and bellowed something in Māori at Ivanovic. The other fighter stared him down, but Drift could tell that Ivanovic wasn’t quite as calm as he’d like to make out. Was he even in on the result? He had to be, Drift assumed: Chen was unlikely to chance zir arm twice, and there was no guarantee that Ivanovic would even go for a submission in the first round otherwise. Perhaps Apirana’s pre-match routine hadn’t reassured Ivanovic that his opponent was going to go along with the plan?
You just do your job, and A will do his. And then we can get out of here and leave Serenity Chen and this stupid building behind us.
Apirana finished his routine, to the cheers of some of the crowd (and the jeers of several more, who apparently hadn’t forgiven him for despatching Kuang Daniu so quickly), and walked over to his starting position against one side of the cage. Drift made his way around so he was standing behind the big man on the other side of the cage and hopped up onto the lip that the ring boys and girls walked around.
“Ugly bastard, isn’t he?” he said conversationally as the ring announcer began his introductions and a camera drone buzzed down into the ring to focus on the man’s face.
“Gotta say, bro, I kinda wish that one of these was real,” Apirana replied quietly. “Woulda been nice to test myself, know what I mean? Only if it made sense to, though. I ain’t gonna jump ship and sign up to a fight gym somewhere now, try to make a new career out of it.”
“Glad to hear it,” Drift told him. The ring announcer screamed something virtually incomprehensible and gestured at Apirana, who responded by walking forward and throwing up his right hand, thumb, and little finger extended. The crowd responded again: something of a mixed reaction, certainly, but definitely a reaction.
“Five minutes, big man,” Drift told Apirana as the Māori retreated back towards him while the announcer shifted to introducing Ivanovic. “Five minutes or less, and we’re walking out of here.”
“So long as he don’t try some sort of leg lock on my bad ankle,” Apirana muttered back. “Otherwise I might be hopping.”
Drift grimaced. “Yeah, well, hopefully not. Okay, uh . . . good luck?” He hopped down as the announcer pointed at the referee and then made a beeline for the cage door. Apirana bounced a couple of times, the huge muscles of his calves flexing as he did so, then the referee made a chopping motion with his hand to indicate the start of the bout. Apirana advanced towards his opponent.
The crowd made some noises of discontent almost immediately. Perhaps, Drift thought, they’d been hoping to see another raging charge and another opponent demolished almost immediately. If so, they were in for a disappointment: Apirana fired off a couple of loose jabs, range finders that fell short, then began circling. Ivanovic didn’t seem to be in any hurry to close the distance either, as he tried a kick to Apirana’s left leg that the Māori almost casually stepped back from.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Drift muttered as the two behemoths circled cautiously. “Just get on with it, will you?” He glanced up at the fight clock and was startled to see that only ten seconds had passed. It already felt like half a minute had ticked by.
The people in the other corner were shouting something. Drift looked over at them for a moment, then decided he should probably join in just to keep up appearances. He cast his mind back to the dim days long ago where he’d briefly trained for this sort of thing at high school back on Soldevalle.
“One, two! One, two!”
Apirana jabbed with his left fist, then lunged forward with his right. Ivanovic blocked the shot with his left hand, but it made an ugly smacking sound, and he retreated a few steps to the cage wall before making his way in again.
“Good!” Drift shouted insincerely. Seriously, why was Ivanovic making such a meal of this? Get in there, go in low, get the big guy off his feet, and do some sort of armlock or choke hold or something. Job done, everyone would be happy except anyone who’d bet on Apirana, and to be honest, if they bet on an unknown fighter with one win to his name in this crooked town, more fool them.
He glanced over at Chen. The events manager was seated at ringside with a look of stony calm on zir face, but seemed to feel Drift’s gaze and looked back at him. One eyebrow raised in query, and Drift returned his eyes to the ring, where nothing seemed to have happened since he’d last been watching. Damn it, they can’t hold us responsible if Ivanovic just stands there all round.
He looked up at the fight clock again, big red numbers counting down on a four-sided screen suspended far above the ring . . . and frowned as something caught his eye, high up in the crowd on the far side
of the arena. He closed his natural left one and kicked up the zoom on his right.
Black uniforms: the local security force. There was a group of them, two standing silhouetted against the light from the entrance and exit, two more now making their way down the steps that led between the rows of seats. They were a way off yet, but seemed to be heading for the ringside area.
His heart suddenly racing, Drift brought his mechanical eye back into line with his left one and looked around. There, there, and there as well. . . . Suddenly, the Two Trees Arena was crawling with cops.
“A!” he shouted in alarm, without thinking, and looked back at the cage. Apirana must have heard something in his voice, some indication that things weren’t right, because the big man’s head jerked towards him. His inattention only lasted for a split second, but it was long enough for Lukas Ivanovic to make his move.
The other fighter lunged forward, a far cry from his previous plodding inactivity, and lashed out with a thunderous right hook that caught Apirana on the jaw. Blindsided and off-balance, the Māori began to stumble sideways as his legs abruptly failed to follow instructions.
Ivanovic followed him, reaching out his hands to grab Apirana and, presumably, throw him to the mat where he could end the fight according to Chen’s wishes.
What actually happened was that he collided with a suddenly rallying Apirana who thrust one arm between the other fighter’s legs and hoisted him clear off the ground with a combination of leverage and sheer brute strength, held him almost horizontal for a second, then jumped forward to slam Ivanovic to the mat and land clean on top of him in the same motion.
The crowd leapt to their feet almost as one, and a massive cheer erupted in praise of what they’d just seen.
Serenity Chen leapt to zir feet as well and opened zir mouth to yell something, then apparently thought better of it and glared murderously at Drift instead.
Drift felt sick. He could hear Apirana bellowing, and realised as one of the Māori’s fists rose and then descended again that the unexpected blow to the head had hurt Apirana just enough for his self-control to snap. Drift had been on the wrong end of one of Apirana’s murderous rages once, and he would have undoubtedly been throttled to death if Jenna hadn’t intervened. Lukas Ivanovic was much bigger and stronger than Drift, and a trained fighter to boot: Drift simply had to hope that he could weather this storm and then maybe pull something out of the bag to get a win and stop him and Apirana from being gunned down by Triax thugs the moment they stepped outside the Two Trees.
Wait. The security officers . . .
Drift remembered what had sparked his initial shout and looked around himself again, just in time to see two black-clad figures push their way through protesting officials and grab Serenity Chen by zir arms. The events manager’s face was apoplectic for a moment as ze felt hands on zir, but then zir expression shifted into sudden uncertainty as ze saw the uniforms.
The crowd was shouting louder and differently now, as the disturbance at ringside became more and more widespread. Officers were everywhere, arresting officials wherever they found them. A woman with dark hair cut into short bangs and wearing a suit—presumably a detective—was showing the timekeeper and ring announcer her badge and saying something urgently. Moments later the klaxon sounded, way before the end of the round was due, and the ring announcer raised his microphone. This time he didn’t draw out his words, and Drift’s translation protocol on his comm was able to make sense of them as they boomed out across the arena:
“Ladies and gentlemen, we . . . The Two Trees Arena regrets to announce that this event is suspended . . .”
The detective snatched the microphone from him and spoke through a squeal of feedback.
“This event is suspended due to allegations of match-fixing. Please vacate the building.”
Drift stared around him in horror, then realised that the referee in the cage was trying to pull Apirana off Ivanovic. He wasn’t having much luck.
“Shit.” Drift hopped up and pulled himself directly over the cage into the ring, then lunged for Apirana and heaved on the big man’s arm. “Madre de Dios, A! It’s over! It’s over!”
For a long moment or two it was like trying to shift a truck all by himself. Then Apirana stopped resisting and allowed himself to be hauled backwards. Drift ended up in a sitting position, with the big man half-sprawled next to him.
“Ah, shit,” Apirana said softly, looking over at Ivanovic. The other fighter was moving, Drift was relieved to see, but his already-battered face had taken a severe pounding in the last few seconds: He had a long cut on his forehead that was leaking blood, a couple of new welts, and one eye that was already swelling up. Ivanovic’s team were making their way into the cage in a more traditional manner than Drift had, flooding in through the door and surrounding their fallen man while casting several dark looks in Apirana’s direction.
The referee appeared in front of them, yelling in Mandarin.
“Oh, shut it,” Drift snapped at him, gesturing at the chaos outside the cage. “Haven’t you got bigger things to worry about?”
The referee looked around uncertainly, perhaps only just now realising exactly what was taking place. Drift couldn’t really blame him. Being in the cage with these two beasts would mean having to concentrate hard on what was going on simply to not get squashed, let alone try to officiate. If the ref had been busy trying to pull Apirana away when the klaxon went off, then he might not have heard the stuttering announcement over the public-address system afterwards.
“Okay,” Drift said into Apirana’s ear as officers started to make their way towards the cage door. “Well, none of this has gone to plan, but they can’t really doubt that you were trying to win that one, right? I mean, look at the other guy. So we’re just a fighter and his agent, trying to make a name for you. It’s the guys throwing fights who’d be in trouble, not the ones winning them. . . .”
“Ah, shit,” Apirana muttered, now sounding less sorrowful and rather more agitated. “Bro, we might be in trouble after all.”
The detective was approaching them with two officers in tow. She looked down at them, then motioned them to get up.
“My name is Detective Li of the Zhuchengshi Security Forces,” she said. Drift noticed that she frowned in Apirana’s direction for a long moment before continuing. “You are both being detained for questioning in relation to allegations of match-fixing.”
WHAT A LOVELY DAY
One of New Samara’s seasonal deluges had just passed, and the bruise-coloured clouds were receding into the northern sky, leaving Rassvet relatively unobscured once more. The star’s heat was already beginning to evaporate off some of the standing water, and the moist air seemed to stick in Tamara Rourke’s throat a little when she inhaled.
She looked around, a little startled, when a bird started calling somewhere to her left. Roman snorted in mild amusement.
“It’s a recording.”
“Really?” Rourke looked at him curiously. “Why is it playing?”
“They tried to bring some native species here when the planet was first settled, apparently,” Roman told her, shifting his shoulder as though trying to get his slimline parachute to settle better. They were standing outside the staff entrance of the Grand House, waiting for Sergei Orlov, and for Boris to bring an aircar round. “It didn’t work in most cases: not enough of an ecosystem. But the government still thought people might feel more at home if they had some familiar noises, so there are speakers in the city that play birdsong at dawn and dusk, and every now and then after a storm.” He gestured with one hand in the direction the whistles had come from. “We get a mistle thrush.”
“Huh. Every day is a school day.” There were some planets where an almost Earth-like ecosystem had been achieved, Rourke knew: Franklin Major and Minor in Jenna’s home system were two, and she knew there were a couple of planets in the galaxy where a breathable atmosphere had been used not to grow crops but to make giant game parks for the super rich
to go hunting. However, in general, humanity had viewed that it was better to only take what they needed from Earth, which tended to boil down to a lot of plant seeds and some bees.
“So what’s today’s trip?” Rourke asked, changing the subject.
“Today the boss goes to see one of his new developments on the east side of town and puts the fear of God into the contractors who are behind schedule,” Roman said dryly. “One does not simply tell Mr. Orlov that his new two-hundred-bedroom luxury hotel and leisure complex has encountered ‘unexpected delays.’ ”
“I bet one doesn’t,” Rourke muttered. “I assume that no, ah, examples will be made there and then?”
“Good God, no,” Roman replied, looking momentarily appalled. “No, I’ll be doing that later. Grab the assistant foreman on his way home, and bang!” He punched one hand into the other. “Good-bye, kneecaps.”
He held Rourke’s gaze for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Ha! Your face!”
Rourke eyed him steadily. “And here was me thinking that it was Larysa with the lousy sense of humour.”
“Oh, it is.” Roman chuckled. “But you shouldn’t take things so seriously. That kind of thug work . . . that’s not usually necessary anymore. Anyone who does business with Mr. Orlov knows what could happen if they displease him, so it rarely has to actually happen at all.”
Rourke thought back to her abduction from Medusa II. “I might disagree with that assessment.”
Roman shifted uncomfortably, and Rourke got the impression that he had at least briefly forgotten exactly how she’d come to be standing with him. “Yeah, well. ‘Rarely’ isn’t the same thing as ‘never.’ ” He looked up, apparently grateful for the distraction, as the familiar whine of an aircar became audible. “Ah, here comes our ride.”
The limo glided to a halt in front of them, and Boris threw the vehicle into neutral, then wound the window down and looked over the top of his glare shades at them both. “Afternoon, folks. Are you going my way?”
