by J Bennett
I carefully think through his words. It’s a rudimentary plan at best, and it assumes Mermaid will relax her guard, which is a long shot. Still, it’s more than I had before.
“Why are you helping me?” I ask him.
Gold smiles, the movement pulling his swollen face tight. “I owe you one, remember? And I want her to lose.” He gazes at Mermaid, who has taken up a bo staff and practices in the middle of the ring. She twirls, her body moving effortlessly, then brings the staff down hard onto the mat.
Thwack! My ribs quiver.
“She’s a climber,” Gold says. “She’ll steal lens time from the rest of us and try to spin off her own show out of this job.”
He grimaces, probably resentful that she’s copying what I can only assume is his own playbook.
A door within the warehouse opens, and a man walks into the room. A few competitors glance his way and then go back to their food, convos, and meds. Only Mermaid seems intrigued by the new individual. She smiles at him and executes a swift roll on the floor, swinging the staff as she leaps to her feet.
The man is my mysterious next door neighbor, Leo. He wears a fitted red t-shirt and jeans. An enhanced pair of Goggs sit on his forehead. Confused, I pon why he’s wearing the illegal tech publicly and why he’s even here in the middle of our tryouts. Did Gerald invite him over to watch?
“Look alive,” Gold whispers under his breath. “That’s one of the producers.”
“What?” I squawk.
“It’s gotta be. Look at his Goggs.”
Sequoia nods at Gold’s comment. “That extra tech lets him control the cam drones.”
Leo glances our way. His eyes meet mine, but his face doesn’t offer even a flicker of recognition. Then again, why would he look surprised to see me? He’s been sitting behind a bank of holo-screens for the past week, watching me fumble my interview questions, slog through the obstacle course, and fight my way past two opponents.
And he made all those things happen. It was his mind behind that last, weird interview question. He’s the one who threw us all into this dangerous ring so that we could bleed for a bored audience.
Whatever simmering attraction I’ve been holding in reserve for him curdles. He’s just a cog in the semi-reality machine. No, not just a cog — a producer! A person whose sole job is to find our weaknesses and exploit them, to create chaos for ratings.
I break eye contact, trying to hide the rush of disappointment I feel. I can’t let Leo see my growing disgust; I must be strong and composed.
Our short break is up. The Professor comes out of the same inner door, brushing crumbs off his lab coat. Matthew has told me that Gerald loves crustless grilled cheese sandwiches. Leo slips his Goggs back on, and the panel on his Band lights up. The cam drones shiver to life, pulling out of their lazy automated drifts. They encircle The Professor.
“We have reached the third and final round, my little elements,” our vil says once the cam drones are in place. Two point toward him, but the third starts to fly around the room to capture our reactions.
The Professor is solemn as he speaks. No wild gestures accompany his words. “The life of a henchman is a dangerous one, as you have learned. The heroes will seek to break your bones. They will not use only their fists, but also their weapons. And so you must be ready. Ready to bleed, ready to fight back. In this round, you will be allowed a bo staff.” He pauses for dramatic effect.
“Hits to the face and head are allowed.”
I suck in a heavy breath. We all knew the bo staffs were coming, but I’d at least hoped head shots would be off limits.
“This round will include just two fights. Only our undefeated champions will battle.”
Mermaid zeroes in on me, offering a small smile as she grips her bo staff. I tear my gaze from her and look at Leo. This brutality is his decision. I’m sure these new rules will get viewers buzzing. They might also result in my bones being turned into splinters.
“Let us place the elements in the beaker and light the fire one last time,” The Professor says, and raises his arms dramatically.
The holo-screen brightens to life and two images appear.
I can’t breathe. I want to triple vomit. Somehow my legs move, propelling me over the tape and into the circle. After a long pause, Sequoia — face red, eyes wide with panic — joins me in the ring.
Chapter 14
There's something tragic and beautiful about being a henchman. You’re destined to lose, but you must always act like you believe you can win.
Tickles the Elf, The Henchman’s Survival Guide
I stare across the ring at my friend and wait for the sound of the gunshot.
I should have seen this coming.
I should have noticed how the cam drones drifted overhead unobtrusively when Sequoia and I carefully let our walls down at the end of the obstacle course, or while we schemed quietly together today.
The more obvious angle would have been pitting the two berserkers against each other and me against Mermaid, but this is far better. More personal.
I want to puke a little. Actually, make that a lot. My lungs seem to have shrunk to half their size and somehow picked up a coat of concrete.
I grip the bo staff awkwardly. My hands feel like they’re coated in grease. The staff is large, unwieldy. I’ve never practiced with weaps. I know that Sequoia has, though.
The sharp crack of the gunshot feels like it goes right through me. I spare one look behind my shoulder at Leo. He’s slipped his Goggs over his eyes, and his arms are crossed over his chest as he mutters instructions that the cam drones follow. I realize my mistake. If I want Leo to see my disgust, I have to show it to the cam drones.
Sequoia takes a wary step forward but then seems unsure.
This will be difficult for him, fighting me. The only person who’s been nice to him since he arrived in town. I need to use this to my advantage. If I go at him hard and get in a head shot, I can bring him down and secure my spot.
You need this, I remind myself. If I don’t win this match, my job prospects are over. I’ll have to drop out of school. Without a degree, I’ll be trapped in Biggie LC forever. Or worse — I might have to slink back to Quincy. I suddenly imagine a new container sitting snuggly between my Mom’s and Alby’s. I’d probably try to paint it some nice, bright color in a futile attempt at grit. My bed wouldn’t fit within its narrow walls, so I’d have to sleep on a thin pad, shivering in the winter, sweating in the long, dust-choked summers. I could scrabble together a few Loons and buy a used pair of Goggs and join Alby in his game, Tears of Doom. The days would slip away from us as we battled together, my real life fading until it became a sad dream forced upon me whenever the game’s mandatory rest-period shutdowns kicked in.
I swallow thickly, shoving my worst fears to the back of my mind. I move forward. Sequoia steps back. I jab the staff into his ribcage, expecting him to block. He doesn’t, and I feel the impact as the weapon hits the solid mass of his body. Sequoia doubles over with a groan.
With one perfect shot to the head I can win. Right here. Right now.
My brain screams. So does my heart.
I swing my bo staff and give him a solid whack in the shins. He yelps and hops backwards.
“Come on!” I growl at him. I swing again. This time Sequoia steps back, out of the line of my arc. Damn, he’s fast. I swing again and again, pushing him around the ring. I manage to make contact, this time hammering the stick against his meaty shoulder.
“Fight me,” I tell him, and I try to make him understand. I may need this win to secure my future, but I know Sequoia needs this to save himself right now in the present. Something tells me that there’s nothing waiting for him in Chicago except for disappointment and resentment. Our souls are both on the line, and I can’t use our friendship to steal a victory from him. Betrayal gets ratings, but it also rots the soul. Some prices are too high.
Sequoia swings back at me. The movement is slow. I easily duck beneath his staff, sl
ide, and tangle my feet in his. That big body crashes into the mat. I’m quickly on top of him.
“Fight!” I bark at him as my knuckles pummel his chest. If I’m going to win, it will be a fair victory. I get in three good strikes, and then my fist is engulfed in a huge palm. He pulls me down toward him.
“I can’t,” he whispers. Those soft blue eyes are sad and uncertain behind his mask.
I punch him again with my free hand, though this one is a softy. “I don’t want your pity,” I growl at him, while a cam drone swings around us in a tight circle. “Give me what you’ve got.”
“I… I…”
I rip my fist from his grasp and deliver a punch to his jaw. This is not a softy. My knuckles explode with pain, and crimson blood wells from a cut in his lip. In the next second, I’m airborne. I hit the mat and scramble to my feet. Did I land outside the line? I don’t have time to check. A raging, red-headed rhinoceros is charging at me. I’ve lost my staff, but Sequoia still has his, and he knows how to use it.
I hear the whistle of the weap as it comes down at me. I roll away, jump to my feet, and look around desperately for my own staff. But then Sequoia is on me again. I duck one swing, only to feel his staff crack against my spine. I stumble as pain ripples through me, all the way to my fingertips.
Sequoia can pound me into a pulp with that thing. He has such a long reach with it that I can’t even get close to him. As I pull myself upright, I hear a soft whump. Sequoia’s staff lands on the mat. He faces me, arms up.
Good instincts, I think with a measure of pride. No one wants to watch him hammer me with a staff. The viewers will want a fight. A true grapple.
I shake out the pain radiating down my body. Time to give the viewers what they want. I’m hopelessly outmatched, but I fight with a fury. Sequoia may be my opponent in the ring, but in my mind, I strike out at Leo, at The Professor, at this whole vacuous Fame Game. But mostly, I fight against myself. I’m the one who signed up for this, who tried to turn myself into the kind of person I most despise in the world. I’m the one who would do it all over again, too, because without dollars I’ll be nothing but a dust-covered subsister for the rest of my life.
My limbs pummel against Sequoia with a desperate energy. I lash out with a kick and meet only air. I swing, and Sequoia grabs my arm, changes my trajectory, and flips me. I slam hard into the mat. Then his huge, solid arms are around my head, pressing on my carotid artery. I jab back with my palm, catching him in the groin.
Unlike Anthony, who merely says “ouch” when I hammer a crotch shot, Sequoia cries out. His arms loosen. I twist and deliver a hard elbow into his side. When he doubles over, I get in another punch to the face.
He lifts his head, and the sight is unnerving. His face is red, pained… and angry. Blood trickles from his nose. I block two fast punches, each one drumming into my forearms like hammer strikes. I’m close to the edge of the mat. I have to twist around to stay in the ring, but then I make the mistake of lowering my left arm. A huge hand clamps around my neck. I kick at Sequoia, rake his arms with my nails, but there’s nothing I can do to stop the fist that comes at me or the blackness that follows.
Chapter 15
The rumors that I have herpes are utterly false and personally hurtful. They're being spread by an unhappy female acquaintance.
Candor, member of the Dragon Riders, Interview with Reena Masterson
When I wake up, I don’t know where I am. Not in bed. Why am I lying on the ground?
Then I remember. Sort of. Sequoia. That huge fist.
But Sequoia is gone. Someone else is leaning over me. Someone with a ridiculous tiger claw tatted down one arm.
“Well, you should have ducked that last punch,” a voice says behind Tiger Claw. My friend, Gold, has a sympathetic look on his face. Then I remember that he is not my friend. Gold is nobody’s friend.
Things are happening. An arm lifts me into a sitting position. Pain begins to pound inside of me, but I can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from. The lights are so bright, like someone is pointing the sun right into my retinas.
Tiger Claw asks me questions. Who is the president? What is my favorite Stream? What’s the last thing I remember? I try to answer. Sage Anders is our president, but really it might as well be all the Captains of Industry in her cabinet. My fav Stream is just a live feed from the New York City Aquarium showing brilliantly colored fish dashing around their tank.
What was the third question? Tiger Claw repeats it. Oh, right. Last thing I remember is a fist. A big, freckled fist.
And then I’m in a car. I blink, and I’m at the local med clinic. Small electrodes pulse on my temples, and the medical assistant on my Band — a cute little chipmunk in a lab coat — is carefully explaining what I need to know about concussions and brain wave treatment. The words he says scroll slowly above his face.
All I can think is that my brain must be really scrambled if they got me into treatment so fast. It usually takes hours for a med bay to open up. You have to wait weeks for minor surgeries. Dr. Acorn chatters on while a human assistant injects something into the puffy pillow of pain that used to be my face.
After more injections, wound cleaning, and a few stitches – I can’t keep track of the human or robo assistants – I’m finally left alone. My brain is still woozy.
I know things have gone wrong. I was supposed to do something, win something, but I didn’t. Disappointment sits on me like a dark cloud, so I retreat, lying back and letting sleep take me.
A voice wakes me some time later. I expect it to belong to one of the care robos, but it’s Gold. His face looks better. He got some treatment and found the time to reapply golden paint on his lips and in a thin band across his forehead.
“Ta, Wholesome, how you doing?” he asks. He seems uncomfortable here in the med clinic. I don’t blame him. I glance at my Band. I’ve been out for three hours.
“Mild concussion, two cracked ribs, and multiple contusions,” I say. The fact that I can remember my own medical status is a good sign. My brain doesn’t feel quite so fried. “You?”
“Ah,” he waves away my concern. “Nothing I can’t handle. LGO.”
Life goes on. Indeed. “It’s over then?” I ask.
“It’s over.”
“Mermaid won, didn’t she?”
“Mermaid?” Concern flickers in his eyes, but then he realizes what I’m saying and smiles. “Her official henchman name is Arsenic, now. Yes. It was a brutal match against that behemoth. They beat the hell out of each other. I thought he had her, but that girl does not go down easy. She knocked him out with his own bo staff. A truly iconic moment.” He kisses his fingertips in appreciation. “Going to be a helluva ep, especially with you and your lumbering friend crying all over each other during your fight.”
“How is he?”
“You barely scratched him.”
“You know what I mean.”
Gold shrugs. “Stormed out of the warehouse after you were taken away. Probably to weep softly in a grove somewhere. He’s going to be a terrbs berserker.”
“But he made it? He was chosen?”
Gold nods. “Nitrogen is part of the team.”
“Good for him,” I say, and I think I mean it.
A thought hits me, and I reach up to touch my face with careful fingertips. My mask is still in place. That’s right. The nurses and robos never remove them unless absolutely necessary.
Gold leans against the door, his usual confident smile firmly in place. My mind is slow, but eventually I realize what that breezy expression means.
“You got the third spot,” I say.
“As if it was ever in doubt,” Gold responds. “They needed a minority anyway.”
“Technically white people are minorities now,” I remind him.
“You know what I mean. Want to guess my henchman name?”
My throat feels tight. Whatever last bit of hope I was clinging to now crumbles away. “You’re all named after elements just as his origina
l henchmen were,” I say softly. I let out a soft chuckle that spikes pain through my taped ribs. “Which means you got the name I’ve been calling you anyway. Gold. That’s the name you’ve been playing for all along.”
Gold laughs. “I usually get what I want. Speaking of which, Arsenic is also in here somewhere. I’m going to visit her next. What do you think — can I pull off a love angle with her?”
“A few hours ago you were giving me tips on how to crush her,” I remind him.
“Situations change.”
I nod. Gold will do well in his role. I push myself up into a sitting position. This is a mistake. My ribs remind me again of the beatings I took. I breathe through the pain and pin Gold with my gaze.
“Help Seq… uh, Nitrogen. You understand how the Fame Game works,” I tell him. “Give him cues when he needs it. Banter with him. Get him some ep time.”
Gold folds his arms across his chest and purses golden lips. “And why would I do that? I’ve got my hands full trying to forge a romance with a professional backstabber.”
“Because Nitrogen isn’t a threat to you. He’s not gaming for a spinoff. He’s loyal and trusting. That makes for a good ally.”
Gold lightly taps his lip, thinking over my suggestion. His nose is raw and swollen, and I can see dark bruising around one eye beneath his mask.
“And because you still owe me,” I add. “Giving me tips on beating Arsenic doesn’t count because I didn’t end up fighting her.”
“I’ll consider it,” Gold finally says. He strolls to my bed, and with a gallant gesture takes my hand and places a light kiss upon it. “You look terrbs, like you’ve spent two weeks in Z Town,” he says as he straightens up. “The cam drones are outside. They’ll want a loser clip of you dragging your sorry ass out of here. Don’t let them have it.”
