“Sabrina. She’s my next-youngest sister. She’s a fan, too. But not as big a fan as me.”
Kira signed, “All my best,” returned the album, and leaned across the aisle with her elbows on her knees. It was time for an adult to take control of the situation. Kira made her voice serious without being harsh. “Look, you understand why we’re here, don’t you?”
The girl’s expression became sober, and she nodded.
“All right. Here’s what I know: Only one of us is going to walk off the field, and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it’s me.”
The girl started to smile again, then suppressed it. Kira’s eyebrow rose.
The girl looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking how cool it is to get to see what you do in the waiting room. Everybody says you’re great at it, but you never get to see this part on the shows.”
Kira scrubbed her hands across her face. Somehow, she had to convince this impervious innocent how high the stakes really were. The girl apparently believed this was like a serial vid, where they’d all be back for the next episode, no matter what. What was her name? She’d read it in her public profile on the ride to the arena. She just needed to remember. Kira closed her eyes and cleared her mind. Finally, it came.
“Lotila.”
The girl turned and smiled, basking in Kira’s attention.
“Explain to me why you’re here. Why didn’t you accept the arbitration ruling?”
Lotila looked at the floor. “I can’t. If I accept the judgment, I won’t have any money, and I won’t be able to make my payments, and then I’ll be a debt slave. Forever and ever.”
A giant hand squeezed Kira’s heart. “You signed a lifetime services contract?”
The girl nodded.
“Why did you do that?”
“We all did. Daddy and Sabrina and me. Mama got really sick and couldn’t work, and I couldn’t find any work and Sabrina couldn’t find anything and, even though Daddy was working, it wasn’t enough. We had to eat. We had to keep the apartment. Then we saw this vid ad about how we could get lots of money if we just promised to pay it back, and if we didn’t, then they would get work for us, and it sounded pretty good at the time, so we did it. We all did it, and we figured when Mama died, her insurance policy would cover it all, right? And then when she died, the company said we hadn’t paid like we were supposed to, but we did; we just sent it to the wrong place, and it took Daddy a while to figure it out, and by the time it got straightened out, they said the policy was canceled, and we took it to the arbitrator, and they said the company was right and there wasn’t going to be any money.”
The torrent of words ended, and a torrent of tears began.
Oh holy hell.
Lotila had watched her mother die, slowly. Had she stayed at the hospital room, pretending to read a book, but really praying for a miracle, hoping it was all a dream, or begging for anything that would let her feel her mother’s hug again? She’d stared into the same financial abyss Kira had and made the same bad decision—betting her freedom on finding enough money to pay it all off.
Kira took the whimpering girl’s hand. “Listen. In a few minutes, they’re going to call us. When they do, I’m going to the field and I want you to go out that door right there and go home. When you get home, let me know, and I swear to you, I will do everything in my power to make sure they can’t foreclose on you.”
Lotila looked up, eyes swollen. “Can you pay my debt?”
Kira bit her lip. “How much is it?”
Lotila squirmed for a few seconds, and then said, “Seventy thousand unis.”
Kira almost groaned out loud. That was more than her entire cash reserve and her next two months of salary, combined.
Regret settled like a rock below Kira’s sternum. “No. I can’t. The truth is, I’m carrying a lot more debt than that, and if I don’t make my payments . . .” She trailed off.
“But, Kira, if you can’t help yourself, how can you help me?”
Kira sagged in her chair. “I don’t know. But there has to be a way for you. There just has to.” Less than ten minutes remained on the clock.
What happened if neither representative showed up? What if they walked out the door together? The answer, from Kira’s first month of training, floated up in her mind like letters rising through mist: “In the event neither duelist appears on the field at the appointed time, the decision of the arbitration panel stands.” Of course it did.
“Kira, I’m sorry, but I have to try. I have to do this. I’m going to be really sorry if I kill you, but if I don’t, then what happens to my sister? It has to be me or her, because the policy was for Sabrina and me. Mama said she wouldn’t sign her insurance over to no man, not even Daddy—”
It was a straw, and Kira grasped at it. “What does your father say about all this?”
Lotila drew herself up. “Daddy said no. He said I couldn’t do it. But I know my rights. I’m over eighteen and he can’t stop me. Like it says, ‘Everybody gets their shot.’”
Kira’s long-simmering hatred for the anonymous copywriter who created the Association’s slogan rose to full boil. If they ever met in person, the bastard would die the most painful death Kira could devise.
“What’s your father doing now?”
“He’s my second.”
Kira’s breath stopped in her throat. If someone handed her a script saying the villain would shoot a child while the child’s widowed father watched, she would have rolled her eyes at the overkill. And yet, here she was.
Lotila’s voice continued. “. . . said if he can’t stop me, he’d help me do the best I could. I’m going to the field for me, Sabrina, and Daddy.”
Kira clasped Lotila’s hand. “Listen to me, Lotila. Listen. It’s already too late. If you go out on the field, you are going to die because I am going to kill you. If you die, TKC won’t pay. Do you understand?”
Lotila looked stricken. “Kira, don’t you understand? I have to try. I may not have much of a chance, but I have to try. If we don’t get the money, then they’ll foreclose on all of us, and the social people will come and take Lucas and Delilah, and then we won’t be a family anymore and—” She burst into tears again.
Kira released Lotila’s hands and flopped back into her chair. There was no way to change Lotila’s mind. If, when Kira’s parents were dying, she’d thought a duel might save them, or even help them escape financial ruin, she would have taken the match in an instant, and she would have been impossible to deter.
Kira closed her eyes. The sobbing girl seated across from her would go to the field. Once she got there, Kira would kill her. This would be another performance of “Death’s Angel on the Dueling Field.” It wasn’t her; it was her character. The script, written by others, dictated the character’s choices.
Kira thought through her scene analysis.
What was Death’s Angel literally trying to do? Win a duel.
What action was she going to perform? Teach someone a lesson. She’d show Lotila and everyone else that the dueling field was no place for the innocent or the unwary. This was a life-and-death matter that couldn’t be trivialized.
It’s as if—
The question blew Kira out of the exercise. There was no getting around the real answer:
It’s as if I’m doing the shittiest and most evil thing I’ve ever done in my life.
Even if she survived, Lotila’s defeat would consign her father to foreclosure, leaving her younger siblings with nothing but extended family or foster care. Not to mention foreclosure for Lotila’s next-youngest sister.
If Kira wasn’t damned already, she would be when this was over.
She waited until the receptionist was preoccupied with something on her desk, and then bent down close to Lotila. “Are you a good shot?” She pulled back to gauge the look on the girl’s face.
“Pretty good. I’ve been practicing.”
Kira clenched and unclenched her jaw, and then leaned close
again. There was no way to know how sensitive the devices monitoring the waiting rooms were. Kira brought her voice to the lowest possible whisper, directly into Lotila’s ear. “If I miss when I fire at you, then turn sideways, do you think you could hit me in the leg when you shoot? Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Again, she pulled back to gauge the girl’s reaction. Lotila’s eyes got big, and she started to speak, but Kira raised a finger to her lips. Kira checked the receptionist again, and then spoke directly into Lotila’s ear. “Listen, fixing a duel is a crime. I could not only lose my job, we could both go to jail, and then we’d both default on our contracts. Don’t say anything about this to anyone—not your father, not your sisters, not your brother, not anyone. If you ever say anything, I will call you a liar to your face. Do you understand me?”
For the first time, Lotila looked frightened. But she nodded.
“TKC Insurance versus Lotila Sims.”
Kira’s throat went dry.
Lotila looked at the receptionist and then at Kira.
“Will the duelists please enter the changing rooms? The clock is running.”
Lotila slowly gathered her things and slid out of her chair. Kira remained rooted to her seat as the girl walked to the receptionist, presented her thumbprint, and took the left door. When she disappeared into the changing room, Kira stared straight ahead and attempted a cleansing breath. A small piece of paper, some sort of card, lay on Lotila’s chair. Something Lotila had dropped. Kira picked it up.
“Ms. Clark?” The receptionist sounded puzzled.
Kira came to her feet and stuck the card in her pocket. “Coming.”
Reality hit Kira as soon as the changing room door shut behind her. She had just agreed to fix a match, the unforgivable sin of the dueling field. The recording devices probably heard it all, and her counter-party was a kid who could barely tell the difference between vid and real life. She shuddered at the tension in her chest. It was going to take more than a good self-hug to clear this mess. She paced the room instead.
There was no way in hell this could work. Even if Lotila didn’t botch her shot, it would be far more suspicious than her loss to Hernandez. That meant Jenkins and the sharks would come after them. Kira might hold up under another onslaught from Jenkins, but Lotila would crack. She and Lotila would both go to jail, TKC would sue the family to recover the dueling payout, and they’d all meet to get their binders installed together, just before the auction. Fuck.
Clothes stuck to her clammy skin, like a net wrapping tight, and the smell venting up from under her blouse got worse. She peeled off the jacket and tossed it in the personal effects bin along with her hat. She flopped into the chair and undid her top blouse button to take pressure off her throat.
None of it helped.
She was going to jail. She was going to be Bound. Her whole career would be summed up with “cowardly cheater.” She thrashed from head to toe, like a fish fighting a hooked line. There had to be some way to get out of this, a clue or an opening somewhere. What was the thing Lotila dropped in the waiting room? She rolled her body enough to pull the card from her pants pocket, and found herself staring straight at the exit door.
She could take it. If she quit, the discussion in the waiting room became meaningless. She’d have a month or so when she could talk to the press freely before the bank foreclosed. She could tell people she refused to kill Lotila and go out on a noble note instead of a craven one. Maybe her sacrifice and honor would move some rich person to pay off her contract. She sniffed and shook her head. Shit like that only happened on vid, and even then, only in the sappy ones they showed at Christmastime.
If she was going to do this, she had to accept that slavery lay on the other side of the exit door. Delayed perhaps by public support and some good personal appearance fees, but inevitable in the end. Still, what other future did she have? Could she really stay alive long enough for Diana’s plan to work? Better to take this route and hope the Auction Gods smiled on her sacrifice with the reward of a decent buyer.
She stood and faced the door. The clamminess was gone, and a cool breeze from the air conditioner played across her face. A line floated up in her mind, and she spoke it. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done . . .”
She reached for the door, but the card popped out of her hand and fluttered to the floor. It was about the same size, shape, and weight as a playing card, with rounded corners and a light laminate finish. She picked it up. An ID number topped two columns of figures labeled “Time” and “Accuracy” that ran the length of the card. It was a range record from a quick-draw training gallery, intended to record and commemorate the visit. The times were as fast or faster than Kira’s best sessions, with accuracy good enough to assure a hit, and often a kill.
An entirely new line of thought snapped into place.
Everything Lotila had done and said was intended to elicit sympathy and throw Kira off balance. It all came straight out of Kira’s profile and public records. Anyone could see her parents were dead and she had no siblings. It was a short step from knowing that to a guess she’d be unusually sympathetic to the claims of family. The existence of Kira’s lifetime services contract, though not the exact amount of her loan, was a matter of public record, as were her parents’ deaths when Kira was nineteen—the same age claimed by Lotila.
Lotila had put on a helluva performance, playing the hapless innocent to the hilt, and Kira had fallen for it like a damn trainee.
She shoved the card back into her pocket and peeled off the rest of her street outfit, slamming the items into the personal effects bin. She yanked on the uniform pants and tunic, pulling the belt almost too tight. She stretched, trying without success to ease the tension in her shoulders.
Who’d put Lotila up to this, and what were they getting out of it? Had they planned the same stunt with Tom, or did they have a different story lined up for him? They’d probably set up something for every gunfighter eligible for the match. It wasn’t that hard to figure out who you might be facing if you knew the Guild’s rest period rules and kept an eye on the schedule.
Still, they must have anticipated they couldn’t convince her to throw the fight.
Diana’s warning played in Kira’s head. “Never forget they’re shooting at you, too.”
Of course. Despite her innocent exterior, the card showed Lotila was a damned good duelist. And then there was the way she’d picked up her bag in the waiting room—a smooth, practiced motion that betrayed training of some sort.
Even if they couldn’t convince Kira to throw the fight, they could hope to confuse her, slow her down, and make her reluctant to pull the trigger. Then darling little Lotila—who’d probably been drilling like crazy in a simulator ever since the case started—would be waiting as soon as the Wall came down, ready to pop off a shot as dangerous as the one Hernandez had used to sever Kira’s artery.
Kira stopped to compose herself before she stepped into the scanner. None of this should show in her face or her posture. They needed to think she was still struggling with Lotila’s situation, that she’d hesitate, and that she’d be slow.
Kira loosened her jaw and widened her eyes before checking her look in the mirror. A little slackness around the shoulders rounded out the presentation, making her look far more conflicted than she felt.
Now, for the right sign to give Diana. One she’d never used before: Left hand, thumb and forefinger in a circle, tilted out and the rest of the fingers pointing straight; move from arm beside the body to crossing the abdomen at waist level. That was it.
She stepped into the scanner and then onto the field. Diana approached, and Kira flashed her hand sign: I’m being played.
Diana signaled back. Field OK. Citizen second.
Kira responded: Follow me.
Diana’s head dipped just enough to show agreement. She would support whatever impression Kira tried to create.
While the judge droned through the rules, Kira obs
erved Lotila’s second. He was a big man, well-muscled but beginning to go soft in middle age. He wore the same shabby and out-of-date clothes as the girl, the sort of thing you’d find at a thrift shop. Or a costume store. He might be her father, but he also might not be. Kira caught his eye and showed him her best imitation of pity.
Kira and Diana worked through the routine of putting on and testing the equipment with their usual efficiency, while the girl and her second displayed a convincing simulation of ineptitude. They fumbled with the belt so badly their ward had to do it for them.
The thing with the belt was a good bit. With a little less insight, and without the lucky break of finding the card, their act might have put Kira even further off her guard. The Wall went up, and Kira let her display of sympathy and uncertainty drop. Her calm, cold center took over, and it no longer mattered if it showed. They marched to the start point and turned back-to-back. Under her breath, Kira recited: “Make the box, make the turn, make the shot.” In her mind, the girl Lotila disappeared and a range target took her place.
Kira marched straight down the strikeline with the lead ward’s count, entered the kill box, turned, and drew. The Wall was up. She settled into a perfect shooting stance with a relaxed grip on the pistol, her eyes scanning the field, and the gun’s safety off. When the Wall came down, Kira’s hands brought the weapon into perfect alignment. A smooth trigger pull, a flash, and the recoil passed through Kira’s forearms.
Lotila was still trying to pull her pistol from its holster.
The girl’s mouth formed an O before she crumpled to the pseudograss. Kira’s body was suddenly full of water, and her arms couldn’t support the weight of the pistol. Had it all been real? Every bit of it? The lifetime services contract, the younger sister, everything? Even the father? Something settled on Kira’s throat, making it impossible to breathe. Oh God. The father.
The big man ran across the field, but not as fast as the EMT. The two men knelt beside the fallen figure. There was some activity Kira couldn’t make out, and then the second EMT arrived. Had she waved him off? No. He hadn’t checked with her. There was only one shot. Lotila had not even cleared her holster, much less fired. Kira’s stomach churned. An EMT stood and unfurled a body bag. The father wailed, filling the dueling space with the sound of his grief.
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