Corporate Gunslinger

by Doug Engstrom

  At first, she couldn’t make out any individual words in the random shouting, but when they got about halfway to the entrance, the sound coalesced into a call and response. Some people left of the sidewalk shouted, “Death’s!” provoking the ragged response of “Angel!” from the right. After a couple repetitions, the crowd found its rhythm and the words picked up volume and punch: “Death’s!” “Angel!” “DEATH’S!” “ANGEL!” “DEATH’S!” “ANGEL!” The pace accelerated as she got closer to the door, reaching a crescendo as she climbed the steps.

  They might be bloodthirsty, but they were her fans, and she owed them something.

  Security opened the arena doors, but she stopped at the top stair, stepped off the direct path, and executed a slow pivot that ended with her facing the gathering.

  Hand signal to Diana: Pass me.

  Diana went on by, and whatever she said to the security guards, it kept the detail standing at the door rather than hustling the two of them through the entrance.

  Death’s Angel stood straight and cold, her arms extended just enough to spread her cloak, using its crimson lining to accentuate both her shape and her outfit. The chanting died away to a murmur.

  After a dramatic pause, she bowed from the waist, drawing the cloak around her. She held that position until the crowd became quiet, or at least as close to quiet as a group this large could get. Then, with a gradual, deliberate motion she came upright, releasing the cloak into a fortuitous gust that made it billow freely at her back. The crowd roared. She raised her fist, provoking a fresh outburst of cheering, and then lowered her arm, turned on the ball of her foot, and entered the arena.

  The security team closed the arena doors behind her and watched as she and Diana passed through the entrance check. Kira went through first, and Diana put Kira’s bag through next. When the staff finished searching her bag, Kira stuffed her cloak inside it. The costume was for the crowd and cameras, not Niles. She secured the bag to her person with the shoulder strap and stood by a window to watch as the mass of fans milled around and arena guards prodded them to disperse.

  “Remember, ’slinger—thou art mortal.” Diana had bent down to whisper in her ear.

  Kira sighed and made a sad smile. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to get too full of myself like I did with Hernandez.” Kira’s hand strayed toward her inner thigh. Did that wound really hurt, or was she imagining it? “I learned my lesson on that one.” She pointed toward the thinning crowd outside. “Let me enjoy this a little bit. That’s the best audience I’ve ever had.”

  Diana responded with a smile and a squeeze to Kira’s shoulder. “There’s a bigger one waiting when you win.”

  “Thanks.” Kira lowered her eyes. “I’ll get to the waiting room in a minute.”

  Diana let her arm fall from Kira’s shoulder. “See you on the other side.” Her own gear bag in hand, Diana trooped down the hallway, heading for the second’s entrance to Dueling Field Six.

  Kira stood before the waiting room door, eyes closed, centering herself. Slow breaths in, slower breaths out. Let all the obligations fall away—to Diana, to the fans, to TKC, even to herself. Relaxed body, quiet mind.

  “Afraid to go in?” The loud, mocking voice behind her belonged to Niles. She turned to face him. For the occasion of the biggest duel in the past two years, he wore a plain black T-shirt and jeans, along with his porkpie hat. The strap to his gear bag crossed his chest like a bandolier.

  Kira arranged her coldest possible smile. “Just wondering if you’d show or not.”

  Niles laughed. “As if I’d pass on the chance to see you again.”

  “We didn’t really say goodbye, did we? You running down the hall, me with the gun and all that.”

  He hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. “You know, I’m really going to have to reconsider the head shot. It’d be a shame to wreck such a pretty face.”

  She ignored him and pointed to the waiting room doors. “Shall we go in together?”

  They drew the double doors open with slow, even pulls that matched one other. Perfectly.

  Inside, Niles made an elaborate show of letting her go to the reception desk first. She made a show of accepting it as her due. The receptionist, unimpressed by either display, checked them in with indifferent efficiency.

  They took up positions on their respective chairs. Kira kept her posture fluid, catlike, and focused. Niles slouched into his seat as if he were back in high school and waiting for study hall to be over.

  He spent a few seconds looking around the room and finally focused on her. “So, are y’all having your period?”

  Kira raised an eyebrow. “Can I ask why you want to know?”

  “It just always seemed unfair to me. I mean, if you’re already bleeding when you take the bullet, you’re at a disadvantage, right? There should be a rule that spots you some extra time on the fall or something. Then there’s the whole irritability thing. I mean, hell, when you’re all hormonal like that, it’s hard to tell if you’ll shoot me at the judge’s table or burst into tears when we get to the start point.”

  She made a face, as if she smelled something bad. “You’ve had ten days to get ready and that’s the best you can do? Some pathetic line about my period?”

  “Ah, so you’re playing that one close to your chest.” His gaze ran up and down her body like a physical intrusion. “And a rather lovely chest, even better than I remember. Did you have some work done? Or are you aging well?”

  She cocked her head. “So tell me, Niles. Does this actually work? Are there women who find this attractive?”

  He frowned. “I don’t know, really. I think my attraction is something more, I dunno, primal. Like, pheromones or something.” He leaned forward, bringing himself closer to her. “You’re feeling it, too, aren’t you?” He looked over his shoulder at the receptionist. “I bet she’d be willing to look the other way if we wanted to slip into one of the changing rooms, for, you know, long enough.”

  Kira burst out laughing.

  Niles didn’t budge. “I don’t want you to die unfulfilled or anything.”

  Kira stifled her laughter long enough to get some words out. “Niles, if I’m . . .” She looked at his crotch with obvious amusement. “. . . unfulfilled, it’s got nothing to do with you.”

  A grin spread across his face. “Oh, I get it. This is some of that acting stuff, isn’t it? You’re trying to, like, crush my ego and get me to fold up and quit, just like most of your other opponents. It was really expensive to learn that, wasn’t it?”

  Kira smiled, though it was more like baring her teeth. “How could I scare you off, Niles? You haven’t missed a match in over a year. Oh, except for that one time with the Special Forces guy. Stomach flu, wasn’t it? Kirk Davis subbed for you and got drilled in the head. Am I remembering that right?”

  Niles shifted.

  Got him.

  He looked at his hands. “Well, not everybody can draw a match with a little girl.”

  A knot formed in Kira’s stomach. Maybe it wouldn’t show on her face.

  He pressed the attack. “Is that what you’re up to? Proving you can beat a real opponent?”

  She gave him the look she normally reserved for the most naive assertions of the unbloodied. “It’s about the money, Niles. The only thing I want to prove is that my work is worth the payout.” She checked the clock. Time to play her final card. “So tell me something. Is your father watching today? Or do you have to be a multimillionaire before he cares if you live or die?”

  Niles’s jaw tightened and his nostrils flared, but he didn’t speak. Kira kept her gaze steady, as if she expected an answer.

  The receptionist preempted his response. “TKC Insurance versus United Reinsurance.”

  Chapter 35

  The ward’s voice comes from Kira’s right. “Ms. Reynolds, Ms. Clark. The judge has reviewed the video and ruled that although Mr. LeBlanc’s second did reach toward him, there was no contact and therefore no foul.”

 
Diana’s face is unchanged, but her right hand becomes a fist. “Very well. Thank you.” She gives the ward a curt nod, as if dismissing him, and turns back to Kira. “Not what we wanted, but it will be OK.”

  Weight settles on Kira’s shoulders, and pain flares in her abdomen. She steals a glance across the field at Niles. He struggles and shifts, trying to rise. Is he buoyed by the news or arching his back in agony? She leans down to get her head closer to the ground.

  White mist rolls in from the edge of the combat area, and Kira’s visible world shrinks until it’s a circle containing nothing but her feet.

  Her will collapses in the face of her body’s failure, like an earthen dam giving way before a flood. Her consciousness, and maybe her life, drains away uncontrolled. She will either outlast Niles or she won’t, and there’s nothing she can do about it.

  If she’d made any one of a thousand different choices, she wouldn’t be in this position. She could have followed Diana’s advice and not gone after this match. She could have taken the door instead of killing Lotila; she could have accepted the job in Minneapolis instead of becoming a gunfighter. She could have declined when TKC offered the bonus to sign up for training, or she could have refused to take on the debt in the first place, or at least stopped racking up new debt after she got her BA, or maybe not gone to college at all . . .

  But could she have really made any of those other choices? Each decision seemed like the best one at the time, but they all brought her to where she was now: standing on the pseudograss with her life bleeding away and eleven deaths on her conscience, with nothing to show for her time on Earth except a trail of wreckage running through other people’s lives.

  Diana says something. It’s so distant Kira can’t make out the words, and it doesn’t matter.

  If these are her last moments, she’s not going to spend them on the dueling field. She closes her eyes and reaches back in memory. She’s just graduated from high school, and she’s trying to choose between one of four colleges and an apprenticeship at the Regulus Theater, guessing at the future that lies behind each choice. The crowd attending her graduation party fills the first floor and spills out onto the deck and backyard—visiting cousins, her aunt Abigail, some neighbors, and her parent’s colleagues from the university, all augmented by a steady stream of Kira’s friends. Good smells from the barbecue fill the air, and in the midst of it all, there’s a place for her.

  Kira breathes.

  Acknowledgments

  There is only one name on the cover of this book, but many people stand behind it.

  To begin at the beginning, I’ve enjoyed constant support from my wife, my friend, and my partner in all things, Catherine Engstrom. She encouraged me to turn a vignette about a near-future gunfighter into a novel, edited every page of every version, and saved me from several serious errors along the way.

  I also owe a huge debt to the members of the Paradise ICON Writer’s Workshop and the Dire Turtles Writer’s Group, who offered editorial feedback and support over several years as this manuscript took shape. A special shout-out to Catherine Schaff-Stump, who organizes Paradise ICON and always insists it’s no big deal. (It absolutely is a big deal.)

  I would be remiss not to mention the beta readers who helped shape the story with critiques and advice: Chris Bauer, Sue Burns, Rachael K. Jones, Ransom Noble, Catherine Schaff-Stump, Emma Smailes, and Miranda Suri.

  I benefited from the generosity of Michelle Hauck and Amy Trueblood, who organized the Sun vs Snow contest, and the tremendous help with my query materials I received from Michael Mammay, my mentor for the event.

  You wouldn’t be reading this book without the efforts of my agent, Danielle Burby, who has been the best partner and guide to the world of publishing a new author could ask for, as well as a source of excellent editorial guidance.

  And finally, special thanks to David Pomerico at Harper Voyager, whose editorial vision shaped the book, and Yeon Kim for the amazing cover, Ryan Shepherd and Kayleigh Webb for their enthusiastic support, and all the other folks at Harper Voyager who made this book a reality.

  These are the people who helped create the book you are reading today, along with many others who offered advice and encouragement at difficult moments. I’m grateful to every one of them.

  About the Author

  DOUG ENGSTROM has been a farmer’s son, a US Air Force officer, a technical writer, a computer support specialist, and a business analyst. He is a writer of speculative fiction and lives near Des Moines, Iowa, with his wife, Catherine Engstrom.

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  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  corporate gunslinger. Copyright © 2020 by Doug Engstrom. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Harper Voyager and design are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers LLC.

  first edition

  Cover design by Yeon Kim

  Cover images © Amesto/Shutterstock; © D.V.V/Shutterstock

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  Digital Edition JUNE 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-289770-1

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-289768-8

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